Lawson Family Small-Town Romance Series Bundle

“Hey ump! What’s the score?”
Jamie turned to see a skinny boy with carrot-top hair, probably eleven or twelve. Since the players were changing sides, he pulled the scorecard from his pocket and gave the kid the score.
He couldn’t help looking at the woman who sat just behind the boy. He’d noticed her earlier—yellow sundress and shoulder-length brown hair that wouldn’t stay in the clip on her head—but now he could swear she was checking him out.
It was hard to tell with the sunglasses she wore.
Nah.
He turned his attention back to the game. He’d done this umpire thing a long time and it was almost automatic to him; besides, this was just a small-town tournament (not that it didn’t get heated now and then).
The next batter up took his warm-up swings.
Jamie snuck another peek at the woman in the yellow dress, trying to figure out who she was with. Husband? Boyfriend? Maybe she was dating one of the players?
Concentrate, he told himself. You get paid to make the calls, not gawk at the fans.
He was doing a better job of ignoring the woman when a dog started barking. It was close—right next to the fence. Jamie heard its owner talking, trying to get the dog to quiet. But still the dog reacted to every crack of the bat or smack of the ball into the catcher’s hand.
Jamie was good at shutting out distractions, but the yellow-dress woman had thrown him off. He glanced at the dog, and found it was next to her. An older man on the other side of yellow-dress-woman was wrestling with the dog, and she was saying something that sounded like Quit heckling the umpire!
She looked up and met his eyes. Her sunglasses were perched on her head, and her eyes were wide and muddy-water green. “Sorry!” she called.
He pointed good-naturedly at the dog. “Tell him I make the calls around here.”
Some of the spectators chuckled.
“I’ll see if I can reason with him.” She had a smile that made him want to smile back. So he did.

**************************

Kira Walker studied the umpire as he took his place behind the batter. He had a nice smile and his eyes were a startling tawny gold/brown color with attractive crinkles on the outer corners. He easily stood six-three or -four. The red polo shirt stretched across his shoulders, and she could swear she’d glimpsed a tattoo high on his left arm. With his uniform-gray pants and that funny ball-pouch on his right hip, he looked… solid.
She liked solid in a man.
His hands were big, but oddly graceful. If the ball was short, he pointed down, then held his finger up. If it was long, he tapped his right hand against his left chest as if touching his heart. The strikes were the best, though. He bent at the knee and jabbed his finger to his right, his voice booming “heeer-ike” as if he especially relished that part of his job.
He was clean-shaven with a faint five-o’clock shadow that matched his dark hair. He wore a ball cap but no sunglasses—the better to see the pitches with, no doubt.
Many in the crowd obviously knew him, and now and then he would respond to someone’s good-natured heckling. She was impressed that he’d given the red-headed kid a respectful answer.
What would it be like to have those eyes looking at her like she was a buffet and he was starving… to have those big hands roam her body…
Whoa! Am I actually thinking about a roll in the hay?!
Well, why not? Since the divorce two years ago, she’d been overly careful when it came to the opposite sex. And she liked how she felt when he looked at her. She wasn’t old and she wasn’t dead. Didn’t she deserve to have a bit of fun?
“That umpire.” Kira leaned toward her sister and spoke under her breath. “I sure am enjoying watching him. Almost more than the game.”
Libby glanced at Kira; it took her a moment to catch her drift. “Seriously?”
Kira nodded.
Libby looked closer at the umpire. “That’s the chiropractor from Kennison,” she said. “Jamie something.”
Jamie. Kira turned the name over in her mind, thinking that it was somehow appropriate for the man.
“I think he’s single,” Libby said, waggling her eyebrows.
“I’m feeling brave,” Kira said. “Maybe I’d talk to him if I knew he was single.”
Libby looked thoughtful. “I know exactly who to ask to find out. I’ll be right back.”
“Umm, wait…”
Her sister was gone. Chewing on a nail, Kira tried to concentrate on the game.
The game. Not the umpire.
Her eyes kept returning to Jamie.
“Jamie Lawson is most definitely single,” Libby confirmed as she thumped down on the bleachers beside Kira. “And uninvolved at the moment. In other words, fair game.”
Now that he was attainable (in theory), Kira was filled with doubt; so far, the umpire had been surrounded by people every minute. How would she find a way to get him alone? “I don’t know, Libby…”
“You’re only here for the summer,” Libby said.
“In other words, if I embarrass myself, I don’t have to see him again.” Kira chuckled.
Libby didn’t laugh; instead, she looked thoughtful. “They also said he’s really nice.”
Kira didn’t dare ask who they were, but her inner diva’s voice whispered: oh he’s nice all right.
“I double-dare you,” Libby said.
“Oh no!” Kira said. “That hasn’t worked since we were teenagers.”
“Come on, Kira,” Libby said. “It’s been a long time. What’s the harm in asking?”
Kira knew her sister well enough to know that she wouldn’t let it rest until Kira made some sort of move on that poor man.
And she needed to shake things up. Shake herself up. Spending the summer in small-town Minnesota had sounded like a good way to re-focus her life, but in truth, it had left her restless. Maybe a diversion with Sexy Umpire Man was just what she needed…