Page 20 of Fastlander Fighter

This was awesome. She leaned closer to him, and he slid his arm around her shoulders and leaned down to hear her better. “Why did you pretend you didn’t know Naomi?” she whispered as low as she could.

“Because she wrecked your marriage. Fuck that skank. She should feel forgettable. That’s devastating to girls like her.”

The laugh escaped her now. Oh goodness, it felt so good to have someone have her back in one of these situations!

She wasn’t alone. She watched Captain shift his weight back and forth like he was nervous for Ruger as her son stepped up to the plate.

She respected him. He hadn’t reacted to Ryan’s attitude. He’d gone up to him almost immediately and shook his hand and introduced himself.

That was good-man stuff right there.

“Okay, let’s go Ruger!” she cheered as he stepped up to the plate.

He took a practice swing, and it was pretty wobbly.

“It’s okay,” Captain said, seemingly to himself. “That can be fixed.”

He swung on the first toss from the other team’s coach, but the pitch was way high.

Ryan was yelling about him picking better pitches, but Captain stood still beside her, chewing the corner of his thumbnail. He’d pulled his baseball cap lower over his glowing eyes, and his focus was on Ruger. “He’s good,” he murmured.

Ruger swung at the second pitch, and missed.

Ryan seemed embarrassed in front of his friends, and explained that now Ruger would hit off a tee because he didn’t know how to choose good pitches.

Ruger twisted around and looked at his dad, and the smile didn’t exist on his face anymore. He looked…upset.

The coach moved him out of the way to place a tee on home plate, and Ruger’s somber gaze drifted to Captain.

“I bet you’re fast,” Captain said in that deep, booming, confident voice that settled things inside of Sloane. She’d been about to pop off at Ryan, but Captain was taking the sting away. She could tell he was. She could see it in the softening expression on her son’s face.

“Hit, and run like your shoes are on fire,” Captain said, and nodded to him like you’ve got this.

Sloane couldn’t look at Captain anymore. She couldn’t. Something she didn’t understand was filling up her chest. Her eyes were burning, and the look on Ruger’s face as he nodded back at Captain was choking her up.

Ruger slammed the ball off the tee and took off.

Captain stepped forward, his eyes on the boy as he bolted for first. The dugout seemed to be in his way because Captain turned and told her, “I’m going to watch him over by first.”

“Okay,” she whispered as he turned and strode past the dugout to go stand at the fence line near first base.

Oh, her heart as Ruger jumped up and down on the base and talked to Captain. There was no first-base coach, only a third, so Captain got his focus wrangled and told him when to run, and Ruger was off to second base like a shot the second the next kiddo hit the ball.

Captain ended up staying there and telling that kiddo when to run. Ruger’s third-base coach ran over while they were setting up a tee for the fourth hitter and said something to Captain, and then all of a sudden Captain was a first-base coach.

He was good! Once Ruger slid onto home plate, she struggled to take her attention off Captain.

He was wearing a dark blue baseball cap, a solid gray T-shirt that clung to his muscular chest and arms, and jeans over work boots. He looked like a giant bodybuilder out there, but he had an easy smile for the kids and was a natural at telling them when to run and explaining what to do between hits.

He played baseball. She remembered now. He’d played football, and baseball too.

He caught her staring and grinned. With a gasp, Sloane looked down at a little pile of sunflower seeds on the concrete by the bleachers.

Be. Cool.

When she looked back up at him, he waved. He was wearing a knowing grin that brought heat to her cheeks. She waved back and then buried her face in her hands to cover her laugh, and then did her best to pay attention to the rest of the game.

That man had no idea how sexy he was. Likely every mom in the bleachers was drooling over him just like Sloane was. She did not blame them one bit. She was also fangirling. Did he just put his baseball cap on backward? Good gah, that man had grown up right.

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