“How do you know? I saw you in action when you played at the Academy, and a couple times at Yale—and since at softball games.” With the faintest of frowns she studied his profile as they walked. “I may not consider baseball my religion like some people, but I get the game.You knew what you were doing.”

“Sure. And I was pretty good. Pretty good isn’t good enough. Maybe I could’ve been if I’d put everything into it. I talked to some scouts from the Yankees’ farm team.”

“Get out.” She shoved his arm. “Seriously? I never knew that. The Yankees scouted you? Why didn’t I know that?”

“I never told anybody. I had to decide. I could either be a really good lawyer or a decent ballplayer.”

She remembered watching him play since ... always, she realized. Without much effort, she pulled out a mental picture of him as a boy playing Little League.

God, he was cute.

“You loved baseball.”

“I still do. I just realized I didn’t love it enough to give it everything I had, and to give up everything else for it. So I wasn’t good enough.”

She understood that, yes, understood that very well. She wondered if she could’ve made the same sensible, rational choice to give up something she loved and wanted.

“Do you ever regret it?”

“Every summer. For about five minutes.” He draped an arm over her shoulders. “But you know, when I’m old and sitting on the rocker on the front porch, I get to tell my great-grandchildren how back in the day, the Yankees scouted me.”

She couldn’t quite build that image in her mind, but the idea of it made her smile. “They won’t believe you.”

“Sure they will. They’ll love me. And my pocketful of candy. What about you? One regret.”

“I probably have a lot more of them than you.”

“Why?”

“Because you—and Parker—always seem to know what direction you need and want to take. So let’s see.” She crunched into the sugar cone as she considered. “Okay. Sometimes I wonder how it would’ve been if I’d gone to France, stayed there. Run my own exclusive patisserie—while having many passionate affairs.”

“Naturally.”

“I’d design and bake for royalty and stars, and run my staff like dogs. Allez, allez! Imbeciles! Merde!”

He laughed at her broad, undeniably Gallic gestures, and dodged her cone.

“I’d be a terror, and a genius, world-renowned, jetting off to exciting places to make birthday cakes for little princesses.”

“You’d hate that. Except for the cursing in French.”

More than full, she tossed what was left of her cone in the trash. “Probably, but it’s something I think about sometimes. Still, I’d be doing what I’m doing now at the core of it. I didn’t have to choose.”