Page 18 of Rescued Heart

“Gum popping aside, she didn’t have the right priorities going on in life for him.” Eddie grabbed his own mitt and jogged out onto the field. “Jacob, you go to second. Will you’re at center.”

However, Jacob didn’t move. He only pointed, open-mouthed, at a woman wearing sunglasses and a strapless green dress, walking toward the dugout or bleachers—he couldn’t tell which exactly—in heels taller than their catcher’s helmet.

That was not Scout’s grandmother, Naomi.

“Whoa,” came Trenton’s breathy voice. “Now that’s one hot?—”

“Tank! Don’t you dare finish that statement, and run to left field.” Eddie lifted his sunglasses.

It was her. The woman he’d prayed for God to heal.

Scarlette came and tugged on Eddie’s elbow. “Coach, I thought you said you didn’t have a new girlfriend.”

“I don’t.” Answering was quicker than saying it wasn’t any of her business.

Scarlette sank her hand onto her hip. “Then how come Bia Pearl was in your arms on the internet and now she’s at our practice?”

Eddie swallowed.

Bianca slid her sunglasses on top of her head. Her hair shined under the sunlight like it was in a shampoo commercial. Her dress fit a little too perfectly, and her legs seemed a mile long in those heels that managed to walk over the gravel parking lot.

And somehow, he’d liked the floor-length red dress from the other night better. But that was hardly important.

He checked over his shoulder at his boys in the outfield. All gaped at Bianca.

Forget chaos. Practice had just gotten a lot more hazardous.

FIVE

Sometimes, as an actress, Bianca wished the spotlight could be turned off. Instead, she put a smile on her face and flipped her hair over her shoulder. All eyes on the field were fixed on her, except those of the man who had saved her life. The man she needed to help her again.

After the last take, Leo had rubbed his chin, considering Grace’s idea. “I like it. I believe the producers will too. Make this happen between you and the firefighter hero, and your contract is still safe. Once the media grows tired of you two, you’ll move on to Carter before the movie hits.”

Move on. As if a fake relationship right after another fake relationship could be considered normal. It really shouldn’t be. Not that she’d had better luck with her actual relationships.

She put more swing into her hips, just as she would do when playing her current lead character on screen.

This was a performance. Like too many things in her life. The more that people saw them together, the quicker the media would catch wind of their supposedly blossoming relationship, and the more the movie’s future audience would grow.

Her left heel wedged in the gravel, and her ankle twisted. She caught herself on the side of the dugout.

A snicker came from two of the boys on the field, and Eddie sent them a glare. Then he turned to Bianca. “You okay?”

Bianca pressed her lips together and said the first thing that popped into her mind. “You’re around. Of course I’ll be fine.”

The cheesy compliment tasted like vinegar on her tongue, but she kept her smile.

Eddie tilted his head at her as another man walked out of the dugout and cleared his throat.

The man with his young-looking face half hidden with a baseball cap, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with a faded emblem, seemed vaguely familiar, but outside of the movie crew, she hadn’t met many people in Last Chance County.

He stepped closer to Eddie. “She’s the one who arrived at the station earlier.”

That’s where she’d met him. He must be one of Eddie’s firefighter friends.

Bianca opened the gate and entered the field near the dugout. “Eddie Rice, you’re one tough firefighter to find. And apparently, besides being a hero, you’re also a baseball coach.” Wait. Her stomach flipped. “Which one is your kid? Or is your wife bringing him or her to practice?”

Why had she and Grace assumed he was single?

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