Page 37 of Stealing Kisses

Davis half-jumped on Teddy’s back. “Teddy Gwenn, folks… Right here in River City,” he hollered with a victorious yell.

Within seconds, a swarm of people surrounded Teddy. He smiled at each one of them, agreed to sign autographs and take pictures, and strove to ignore the dread that had filled his gut like a lead weight.

He looked for Baylin where she’d been sitting, but he didn’t find her. The bleacher sat empty.

Baylin was gone.

15

No one goes straight to happiness

after a breakup.

Estelle

“Baylin?” Teddy called out.

“Miss O’Casey?” from another voice she didn’t recognize.

“Are you in there?” from yet another.

She ignored the shouting and the begging and the caterwauling on her front porch.

“It’s our fault,” a fourth male voice whined. “We forced him to hang out with us.”

“He’s Teddy Gwenn,” a pathetic human crowed.

As if I care.

But she did, if for no other reason than to get the infantile mob off her property.

And because Teddy had hurt her.

She’d let herself fall under his larger-than-life spell…let herself believe in love and romance and happy endings.

He’d made a laughingstock of her, and it hurt.

But no one could be as huge an idiot as each of the morons at her door.

It swung open, and Baylin glared daggers at the grown men acting like children in the throes of temper tantrums.

They fell silent, shuffling to attention.

“Are y’all drunk?” she demanded.

“No!” Daniel Davis answered. “We took Teddy to Scooter’s for a beer, but that’s it. One round. I promise.”

“One beer required—” Her words hung in the air as she looked over her shoulder at the grandfather clock in the entry. “…five hours to drink?”

“Only one beer, but many,manybaseball stories. The old-timers joined in, sharing tales of when the 1962 Wolf Pack won the Oklahoma State Championship?—”

“And when the 1980 team—” someone else piped in.

“I don’t need a play-by-play.” Baylin interrupted.

“Please don’t be mad at him,” a powerful voice intoned before Max Davenport stepped into the light. “He didn’t have much of an option; there’s no gracious way to bow out in that situation.”

“Of all the people,” Baylin said, shaking her head. “Does Janie Lyn know you’re out here acting like a fool?”

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