Perfect Pitch Read Online Free PDF

game over. Especially not when we’re beating New York. Can I get you anything? Something to eat? A drink?” Anna gestured with the silver can in her own hand.  
    A beer would hit the spot. Sam could taste its hoppy bitterness against the back of her throat, cold and satisfying after the jangle of nerves from singing. From DJ
    But there was no way she could drink in public. Especially not when this was a command performance of the Summer Queen. Judith Burroughs would have her strapped into a straitjacket, if Sam was ever caught cavorting in public. That’s what the Fair called it. Cavorting covered a wide range of evils—a solitary beer, a public argument, any behavior that compromised the public image of the Summer Queen.  
    Sam couldn’t imagine what Judith would call a steamy shower with the sexiest man Sam had ever met. Not when that shower led to—
    “Trey!” Anna called. “Get Miss Samantha a Coca-Cola, please.”
    Sam snapped back to the present conversation, shocked that she’d let her mind wander so far afield. Hoping she hadn’t betrayed her mental ramblings, she said to Anna, “Thank you. That would be perfect.” She was spared meaningless small talk by one of the men calling to Anna, summoning her to a sheaf of papers and a long list of names.
    A boy brought her a plastic cup filled with ice, along with a familiar red can. His gold-shot hair was a little long, and he still had the slight body of a child, but she would have recognized that steady cobalt gaze anywhere. “Trey?” she asked. “Is DJ Thomas your daddy?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said, nodding solemnly.
    Sam’s smile didn’t falter. She had mastered keeping up a facade. But a piece of her heart withered to dust as she took the cup from the serious child. He was what? Nine years old? Maybe ten?  
    DJ Thomas had obviously given his heart to another woman long ago. Sam’s online searches hadn’t mentioned a son. They must have missed a wife, too.  
    She forced herself to keep her tone light, even as disappointment painted the back of her throat with a metallic tang. “Trey? That makes you Daniel Thomas the Third?”
    “Yes, ma’am. But I like to be called Daniel. No one here remembers that.”
    She managed not to laugh at the rue that steeped the boy’s voice. “Daniel,” she said firmly. “I think I can keep that in mind. Will you sit beside me, Daniel, and watch the game?”
    “Yes ma’am,” he said for the third time, as sober as if she’d just appointed him a judge.
    She patted the seat beside her, and the child flopped into place. As the fourth inning got under way, Sam asked him what he thought of the New York player coming up to the plate. Without hesitating, the boy rattled off a string of statistics—the player’s batting average at home and away, his consistency against right-handed pitching compared to left. “He’ll strike out, though,” Daniel said with utter confidence. “He can’t pass up the fastball low and away.”
    And, sure enough, the batter struck out swinging.
    Daniel took a moment to scribble something in a spiral-bound notebook. Sam peered over his shoulder and asked, “You’re keeping score?”
    He nodded. “Dad and I go over every game together.”
    What about your mother? Sam wanted to ask. She bit her tongue, though. There was no point in asking questions about DJ’s wife.
    The game spun out, inning after inning. The Rockets scored another run at the bottom of the fifth, but New York knocked in three in a bruising sixth inning.  
    Anna circled back a few times, making sure that Sam’s glass was full, asking if she needed anything, but the other woman was clearly pre-occupied with the game and the endless paperwork spread on the table in the corner. The front office might be trying to make nice with Sam, might be treating her to the game of her life, but that didn’t mean Anna could stop her own hard work.
    In the middle of the seventh inning, everyone stood for Take Me Out to