Page 14 of Double Play

Her heart soared. Was he finally asking her out? “Scoop. Yes, Iknowit.”

When he didn’t say anything more, her heart dropped right down to her shoes again.. All he’d done wasmentionthe ice cream shop. He hadn’t actuallyinvitedher. Just like when he’d called to talk about the fundraiser and never asked her to be his date. Jim could be very confusing. “Whataboutit?”

“Well.” He seemed to take a deep breath. “Would you like some ice cream? It would be my honor to escort you to Scoop and treat you to an ice creamsundae.”

Yes! An actual invitation to a do something together. Finally! A date! Inside, she gave a silent hallelujah and a victory dance. Outside, she pulled a worried face. “I don’t know, I should probably call Trevor and gethisokay.”

When his eyes widened, she laughed and nudged his arm with her elbow. “Justkidding.”

He gave her a look full of comic reproach. “You’re a lot meaner thanyoulook.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Suddenly filled with happy anticipation, she threaded her arm through his. “I would love to have ice cream with you, JimLieberman.”

He grinned back at her and pressed his elbow into his side, so her hand fit snugly against his solid warmth. They continued down the street. As they passed Colonel Kilby, Nina glanced up at the bronze soldier and offered him a silent “thankyou.”

6

Jim Lieberman camefrom a family of worriers. It was an ancestral trait, really, probably dating back centuries. His father used to say, “Worry is the secret to a long life. Miserable,butlong.”

Jim had generally followed in the anxiety-ridden family footsteps. But at some point, he’d started to question the dogma that had been handed down from his Latvian ancestors. Did worry really change anything? What if it was a fake out, a way tothinkyou were taking precautions when really all you were doing was spinning your wheels about something that might not everhappen?

This was one of the reasons he loved baseball so much, and why he’d left college to pursue it. When someone hit a fast grounder to short, you had to react instantly. It required muscle memory, quick reflexes, and a non-distracted mind. It didn’t help to stand thereworryingabout whether or not a ball would come. Awareness, alertness, sure, those made sense. Obsessive worry, not so much. If you worried too much, you overcompensated. You made errors. You overthought the throw to first and hit the first-base umpire in the kneecap. That sort ofthing.

Right now, walking with Nina Stark through the moonlit streets of downtown Kilby, he told himself the same thing. Stop worrying. Stop overthinking. He had his dream girl’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. She was smiling, and he was pretty sure it was at him—although it could also have been at the statue in the townsquare.

“About Trevor—” hebegan.

“Do we have to talk about my brother?” Nina screwed up her face in that ultra-cute way of hers. She had a million adorable expressions, and he’d mentally catalogued all of them. “I’d rather talk about almost anything else. Like frontal lobe degeneration or serotonin reuptake inhibitors.” She glanced at him shyly from under hereyelashes.

You could have knocked him over with a feather. What sort of weird college flashback was this? “Really? Why thosethings?”

“Well, I know that you’re taking a break from getting your degree in neuroscience, but I read up on it a little. Just to see what it was, you know. So we could carry on a conversation about it without you having to explaineverything.”

Warmth flooded his heart. What a sweetheart Nina was, the most endearing, enchanting darling in the world. He’d never met anyone like her before. “That’s really sweet of you,” he managed. “I barely remember all that stuff. I’ll be in trouble if I ever go back toschool.”

“I’ll help,” she said eagerly. “I can quiz you. I was homeschooled until my last year in high school, you know. By an Israeli bodyguard. She was super-strict.”

An Israeli bodyguard. Lieberman swallowed and nervously glanced around the streets. What were the chances that Trevor had stationed this bodyguard somewhere in Kilby to keep an eye on Nina? Knowing Trevor,prettygood.

Nina was still talking about her strange education. “I’m really good at literature and international geopolitics, but know nothing about anthropology or math. I’ve been trying to fill inthegaps.”

“Why were youhomeschooled?”

“Because Trevor was worried that the criminals my father was involved with would come after me.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if hiding from a gang was just a regular occurrence. “They never did, though. Deborah never got to show off her amazing assassinskills.”

He gulped.Assassin?“You’re still here, so Trevor did somethingright.”

He pressed her hand tighter against his side. She was so blond and delicate, he sometimes forgot that she’d grown up in a tough neighborhood in Detroit. Not only that, but she had a violent incident in her past. The whole team had been buzzing about it when Trevor and Nina’s storycameout.

Her father, a pharmacist, had gotten caught up in a drug ring. One night when she was twelve, she’d witnessed her father in a confrontation with one of the gang members. She’d swung a baseball bat at the man and left him with brain damage. To protect her, Trevor had shouldered the blame and gone to juvie forthedeed.

Just recently, Nina had come forward and set the record straight to clear Trevor’s reputation. It was just one more reason that Jim admired her. She was only twenty-two, but she’d lived through some terrible experiences and shown so muchcourage.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about Trevor.” She made another of her cute little faces. “Anyway, he’s in San Diego living his dream. He should worry about that, notanythingelse.”

The topic of dreams made him curious. “What about you? What about your dreams?” They’d reached Scoop, a pretty little ice cream shop with a yellow awning adorned with cheerful cutouts of ice cream cones. He opened the door and usheredherin.

“Well, I’m the queen of random jobs. I used to be a dog-groomer in Tucson, and that was pretty fun. I was an ace at clipping dog-nails. I also worked at a paintball range, a Chuck E. Cheese, and a farmer’s market selling honey. Now I’ve transferred my experience selling sweet things to Catfish Stadium. Did you know I got a job as a vendor selling cotton candy during the games?” She offered him a saucy smile as she passed throughthedoor.

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