Suddenly a Bride by Kasey Michaels Page B

ones with those adorable blond curls sticking out from under their caps. I’m so sorry. I thought they were girls.” Annie pulled a comical face. “I was told there were a couple of girls on the team. Not that I don’t love curls, and I would hate to see them cut off. It’s bad enough their soft baby skin doesn’t stay that way. Todd’s got knees like sandpaper. He’s also got his hair shaved down to just about nothing for the summer, but that was his father’s idea. I think it’s great that your husband is letting you keep their curls this long. They grow up too fast as it is.”
    “I’m a widow,” Elizabeth said, as if that excused the curls, which was ridiculous. The curls were probably ridiculous. Why hadn’t she realized that? But they were babies, her babies. And now they were growing up so fast. “They need haircuts, don’t they?”
    Annie put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “Sweetie, you do what you want to do, and don’t listen to anyone else. They’re your kids. But, yeah, I’d say get them haircuts. Kids can be cruel.”
    “They never told me about any problems in school,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But you’re right. My husband would have made sure the curls were gone by the time they were three or four. It’s just so difficult sometimes…letting them— Ohmigod! ”
    As she and Annie had been talking, Elizabeth was also watching the practice on the field. Will was throwing balls high into the air, and the fielders—they were called fielders—were running in to catch them. Trying to catch them. Watching the balls bounce and then chasing them.
    It had been Danny’s turn, and he’d run in from left field just as the other players had done, opened his mouth wide just as the other players had done and held out his huge glove, just as the other players had done.
    Except instead of catching the ball, or wildly swinging at the ball with his glove or watching the ball bounce and then chasing it…Danny had just stood there, and let the ball hit him on the top of his head. He immediately clapped both hands to his head and fell to the dirt, yelling, “Ow-ow-OW!”
    “Steady, girl,” Annie said, swiftly grabbing Elizabeth’s arm as she half rose out of her chair. “The coaches will handle it. The last thing the kid needs is Mommy running out onto the field.”
    “But he’s hurt.”
    “It’s a rubber ball. Sort of. He’ll be fine. Besides,” Annie said as Elizabeth sat down once more, “he’s got all those curls to act as a cushion. There, see, he’s up and going back to the base to try again.”
    “They should have been girls,” Elizabeth lamented. “I’d know what to do with girls. But I’m an only child. I don’t have a brother—or even any male cousins. I’m flying blind here, Annie. That was okay when they were younger. But now…?”
    “Now you follow your instincts.”
    “Really? My instinct was for me to go running down there onto the field, remember?”
    “Right. You figure out what your instincts tell you, and then you do the opposite.”
    Elizabeth laughed and then pointed to the field. “Look, he caught it this time! Yea, Danny! ”
    Her son heard her and looked up the hill and then smiled and waved.
    “Okay, I feel better now. Anything else I should know?”
    Annie shook her head. “No, now it’s my turn. How well do you know our hunky coach?”
    “Will?” Elizabeth didn’t know how to answer that. “Uh…I only met him yesterday. Why?”
    Annie leaned closer to her and spoke quietly. “Word is he’s quite a hit with the ladies, as my mother used to say. Handsome, rich—all that good stuff. But also the love them and leave them type.”
    “Really,” Elizabeth said just as quietly, and a quick vision of Kay Quinlan popped into her mind.
    “I’m just saying, you know? He’s not here because he loves coaching kids or anything. He’s here because otherwise he’d be in the lockup for talking back to some judge. He might be looking around, thinking