Page 8 of Forbidden Love

“You have a chance to talk to her about our ideas?” Sam asked.

I thought back to the way she looked in that dress and the way her eyes flashed as she talked to me. “She’s skeptical about working together.”

Mac frowned as he turned to face us. “Why?”

“She wants to help female athletes.”

“We want to help athletes. I don’t think gender matters,” Sam said.

“She said boys’ sports tend to have more support and funding from the schools.”

Sam frowned. “That’s unfortunate.”

I hadn’t thought about the fact that Mac and Sam might be amenable to her suggestion because they had daughters.

“She mentioned female players not having a place to sit at softball games, having to share bleachers with the fans.”

“She wants to provide dugouts? That’s an expensive proposition. I was thinking more along the idea of providing gear like she is for the skiing and snowboarding.”

Mac turned his attention to the grill, turning the hamburger patties. “We work in construction. We could provide the lumber and labor.”

“You’re seriously considering this? I thought this was more of a raise-money-and-hand-it-out-to-the-most-deserving-team kind of thing,” I said, resting my elbows on my thighs, dangling the bottle between my legs.

Sam mulled over his words. “It makes sense. We can get wholesale prices on the lumber and provide free labor.”

I thought about what it would mean to build dugouts for Kylie’s project. She’d raise the money, and we’d provide the lumber and labor. I couldn’t help but wonder if she would help too. She was sexy in that dress, but there was something about seeing her in a tank top and cutoff jeans with a tool belt that got me going. I wanted to dirty her up.

“I kind of love the idea,” Sam said to Mac.

I leaned back in my chair. “Should we build dugouts only or expand it to include sports equipment?”

Mac placed the patties onto a platter. “I have to say, I love the idea of it just being dugouts. We could expand to something else later. And we don’t have to say it’s just for female teams. We open it up to anyone who needs them. It protects the athletes from sun and rain and provides a team atmosphere. The coach is able to address the team without the distraction of parents and siblings on the bench.”

“You’re really on board with this?” I asked them.

“Kylie wants to build dugouts; we have the labor and supplies she needs. It’s the perfect partnership,” Mac said to us.

“It sounds like her fundraiser was successful. She’d handle that part, and we’d do the construction,” Sam added.

I mulled over what they were saying in my head. It was a natural partnership. There was no way she could turn us down.

“Someone has to do the work. Why not us?” Mac, ever the reasonable one, said.

“I like it,” Sam added as Maggie raced across the lawn and landed on his lap. “What do you say, Maggie-girl? You want to help us build dugouts?”

Her nose wrinkled. “What are dugouts?”

We all exchanged a look.

Sam ruffled her hair. “I think it’s time for your baseball education to begin.”

We’d grown up playing Wiffle ball in the backyard. There was always a game in progress, the bases leaving permanent bare spots in the yard. My dad hated that balls and bats were always strewn across the yard. But we wanted to pick up where we left off every time we headed outside. It was a never-ending baseball game, but my mom liked to say it was a never-ending fight because we fought about strike zones and outs.

When Maggie noticed me, she scrambled off Sam’s lap and moved over to me. I lifted her in my arms, loving the tickle of her hair against my cheek, the warmth of her body against mine, and the way she looked up at me with her big blue eyes.

She loved having uncles, and we teased her by pretending to fight over her. She was surrounded by love. I pulled up a picture of a dugout on my phone. “See, the players sit inside this in between plays.”

“It’s like a house,” Maggie said, getting excited.

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