Page 74 of Angel In Armani

“Yes. He’s going to make an appointment to come see me.”

“He won’t?—”

Lucas held up a hand. “By which I mean I’m going to leave all my details with your mom and get her to make the appointment. And if she doesn’t do it first thing Monday then one of the assistants at my office will call her. I know guys make terrible patients. I’ve been doing this awhile.”

She suddenly felt a couple of inches taller, like something had been weighing her down and had suddenly tumbled free. Lucas was going to see her dad. He’d figure out what was wrong and then he’d fix it and everything would be back on track. She beamed at him over the salsa. “You are so getting lucky later on, Angelo.”

Sunday morning brought with it a few pale rays of sunshine, the first faint hint that spring might be coming at some point. Sara stared out the window, contemplating how to fill up her day. Lucas had headed back to Manhattan to check in on patients and repack his bags. They were flying back to Orlando in the early evening, which meant Sara had to go and collect the helo and get organized, too—but there was plenty of time for that. She’d done her laundry and cleaned the tiny apartment yesterday when she’d been waiting for Lucas.

She looked at Dougal. Maybe she’d take him out. The weather had been too awful for taking him on long walks lately; besides which, she’d been spending too much time away from him. He liked staying with her folks but she knew he was a handful for her mom to walk on her own. He behaved for her dad and didn’t try to warn off all the men he encountered, but her dad’s leg didn’t let him take a Lab for several-mile walks right now.

So a hike with Dougal it was.

It was a plan. Quality dog bonding time then a stroll past her favorite bakery for a doughnut or something before she came back to pack. As good a way to spend a Sunday as any if she couldn’t spend it with Lucas.

But as she opened her closet to find her coat, her cell started to ring. The generic ringtone rather than one she’d assigned to anybody.

She picked it up but didn’t recognize the number. “Sara Charles.”

“Hey, Sara, it’s Maggie. Maggie Jameson.”

“Maggie? Hi. Did you need the helo?” She couldn’t think of another reason why Maggie would be calling her on a Sunday—and there was that pesky clause in her contract with the Saints that said she was essentially on call twenty-four seven.

Maggie laughed. “No. To be honest, I was hoping you’d be home. I’m at Deacon and Alex had to go back to Manhattan and I’ve had all the paperwork I can stand for one week. I thought you might want to come over and hang out. I was going to go hit some balls in the batting cages. I can teach you how to swing a bat. Give you some extra baseball cred points.”

“I have zero baseball cred points,” Sara said. “And terrible hand-eye coordination.”

“Rubbish. You fly a helicopter. You’ve got to have good reflexes. You just need practice. And this way, you’ll be able to play when we have a staff game.”

“Do I have to?” It popped out before she could stop herself.

Maggie laughed again. “No. But give it a shot. Maybe you’ll like it. C’mon, Sara. My dad’s away and there’s nobody here for me to play with. You could bring your dog. It’s actually a decent day and he can run around.”

“Are dogs allowed?”

“Not normally and definitely not in the stadium,” Maggie said. “But the batting cages are in the training complex. You’ve seen it. There’s not much there that can be ruined by a dog peeing on it.”

Hanging out with Maggie did sound like more fun than walking alone. And with the team in Florida, there weren’t likely to be many men for Dougal to object to. It was hard to find new places for him to explore that met that criterion.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. But I’m not lying about the hand-eye coordination thing.”

“I’ll make sure I find you a helmet,” Maggie said. “And if you’re really bad then we’ll try pitching. Failing that, I have some of Shonda’s cookies and plenty of soda and stuff in my office. We can eat sugar and veg out before the guys get back and raid my stash.”

Cookies—particularly Shonda’s, which were so good they were probably illegal—sounded better than trying to hit a baseball. But Sara wasn’t going to give up without even trying.

If she was still as terrible as she remembered being in school then she would have proved it to Maggie in private rather than humiliating herself in public at a staff game. Plus she could get Maggie to vouch for her complete lack of sporting ability and get her out of having to play. “Twenty minutes,” she repeated and hung up.

As Sara followed Maggie toward the row of batting cages, juggling a bat and a glove in one hand and Dougal’s leash in the other, she started to have second thoughts about the sanity of this particular idea.

Maggie was carrying a bat and a glove, not to mention two helmets, a large tote bag, and a bucket of balls—which should have required an extra hand or two but she obviously had the knack of toting baseball gear around. Despite all of that she managed to gesture toward the cages as they approached. There hadn’t been snow for a few days now, and the grass surrounding them actually looked green in the weak sun.

“Good, yes?” Maggie said.

Dougal certainly agreed with her. He strained at the end of his leash, sniffing rapturously in the direction of the grass. Though maybe it was the faint smell of hot dogs and spilled beer that had him so excited.

It was an odd combination but one that she was getting used to the more time she spent at Deacon. Combined with the cool air, it was strangely pleasant.

When they reached the cages, Maggie piled everything on a row of painted wooden benches placed off to one side. Hands free, she bent down to pet Dougal and he rolled over to let her rub his belly, panting happily. Maggie bent closer. “Who’s a good dog? Dougal? Are you a good dog?”

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