“I’ll pay you. Beth gets five an hour, but I can up the ante.”

“I don’t want your money, Zoe.”

“That’s so sweet.” She smiled, took his hand and squeezed. “Really, so sweet of you. If you could come down about eight thirty.”

“I never said—”

“You can help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I’ll make some brownies, if I have time. I’d better call Stan back before he pulls out what’s left of his hair.” She picked up the phone, beamed at Coop. “Now I owe you two.”

“Yeah, right.” He hurried out before she could find some way to owe him three.

Chapter 5

For the next couple of hours, Coop immersed himself in “All in the Game,” his weekly syndicated column. The kid had given him the hook, he thought. The first visit to a ball game, the passing on of tradition, and the bond that was forged over the cheers, the crack of the bat, the peanut shells.

It was a good piece, Coop decided, and wrote easily. He supposed since he owed the idea to Keenan the least he could do was hang around downstairs and eat brownies while the kid slept.

He wandered back down just as Zoe came through the kitchen door.

She hadn’t been sure he’d come. She knew she’d hustled him, and after she’d finished being amused by it, she felt guilty. But here he was, right on time, standing at the foot of the steps.

“I pushed you into a corner. . . .” she began.

“Yeah, you did.” She looked so somber, he had to smile. “You’ve got a real talent for it.”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled back at him. “Sometimes being pushy is the only way to get things done, but I always feel bad about it after. I did bake brownies.”

“I could smell them all the way upstairs.” When she didn’t move, he tilted his head. Funny, though she was wearing that sexy waitress rig again, she didn’t seem so outrageous. Except for that bow tie, he thought. Something about that black tie around that slim white throat shot straight to his libido.

“You going to let me in, or do you want me to stand out here?”

“I have this guilt thing,” she explained, “whenever I have to ask anyone for a favor. And it was so sweet of you to take Keenan to the game, especially when . . .”

“When I’d been asking you out?”

She shrugged her shoulders again, let them fall. He was looking at her that way again, and something in her body was reacting helplessly. Better, she thought, to set the rules quickly. “I don’t go out with men. I should have told you straight out.”

He had to force himself not to lift a hand to that neat little bow and tug. “At all?”

“It’s just easier not to. They’re not interested in Keenan, or they pretend they are so they can talk me into bed.” When he rocked back on his heels and cleared his throat, she laughed. “What they don’t know is that they’re clear as cellophane. You see, Keenan and I are a team. As a sportswriter, you should know what that means.”