Once they’d bagged three outs, she switched her glove for a bat and faced down Del on the mound.

He winked at her. She snarled back. Then swung hard at thin air as she mistimed the ball. He tried to fool her with a pitch that hung low and outside, but she held her ground. She caught the third with enough meat on the bat for a solid base hit. When she held up at first, she tossed her batting helmet aside.

“Del called Mal in to balance things out for you.”

“What?” Beside the bag, Parker straightened out of her waiting crouch. “Are you kidding me? Like some sort of pity date?”

“That, and Mal’s good at the game. I thought you’d want to know”

“Damn right.” Parker sent a scorching look toward the mound as Del wound up for the pitch. “He’s so going to pay.”

By the fourth inning Del had them five to three. He’d been right about Malcolm, Laurel had to admit. Serious skills. He held second now on a strong leadoff double, and the strikeout behind him brought Del to the plate. Cheers and calls went up from team-mates and the audience that had gathered. Laurel watched Del set, and Jack shake off the first suggestion from the twelve-year-old catcher.

He went with a fastball. Or she thought it was, as it looked fast to her. It looked even faster when Del’s bat smacked it and the ball winged into the air. In her direction.

“Shit. Oh, shit.”

She heard someone yelling—maybe it was her—as she raced back to meet the path of the ball, but her heart pounded so hard in her ears she couldn’t tell.

She lifted her glove and prayed.

When the ball slapped into it, no one was more surprised than she was. She shot up ball and glove to acknowledge the cheers from the crowd. And saw Mal had already tagged up and was charging third. She threw the ball to Emma’s waving hands. Her throw, while hard and fairly true, hit Emma’s glove one wild slide too late.

Jubilation to disgust, she thought, in less than five seconds.

Baseball sucked.

“Good catch, Laurel.”

“Don’t patronize me, Jack,” she muttered when they got out of the inning with Mal stranded on third.

“Who’s patronizing? Del creamed that ball. If you hadn’t caught it, we’d be behind a couple more runs. We held them off.” He gave her a brotherly punch on the shoulder.

“It was a good catch.” She nodded in satisfaction. Maybe baseball didn’t suck after all.

It sucked again when they lost seven to four, but she had the satisfaction of knowing her fielding hadn’t been crap.

“You did good out there.” Del tossed her a canned soft drink. “Two singles and an RBI. Plus you robbed me of a potential two-run homer.”