Ridin' Solo (Sisters From Hell Book 1) by Marika Ray (the two towers ebook txt) 📗

Suddenly the friendly game turned not so friendly to me. How dare he look at my partner like that? If he was here to flirt with the opposing team, I’d show him real quick we weren’t on board with that. I stepped into the batter’s box, narrowed my eyes, and crouched low. The first pitch out, I knew it would be a good one. I swung and hit a line drive to the left field.

“Run, Oakley!” I yelled, seeing her foot still on the first base bag and watching my ball bounce in the outfield. I’d almost made it to first by the time she took off for second base.

She somehow made it there safe yet again. She did a little jig on top of the base which made my lips twitch. She also caught the eye of Nathan-the-pitcher-with-a-death-wish. I ran a hand over my face and adjusted my ball cap. Stay focused on the game, Wyatt. You can’t murder the pitcher.

“Get ready to run again, Oakley!” I shouted over to her.

She quit dancing and gave me a dirty look. “Quit telling me what to do, Wyatt.”

Nathan snorted. One look from me and he shut his fucking mouth real quick and got busy serving up the next pitch. Up at bat was a new deputy of ours, looking far too young to be law enforcement. Were we giving badges to teenagers now? Dude could hit though, swinging on the first pitch again and sending it high into the outfield.

“Run!” I shouted as I ran to second.

Oakley was faster off the base this time, but she still was pretty fucking slow. The ball looked like it could be a home run, and Sheriff Locke was jumping along the sideline waving us all the way in. By the time I hit second, I could see that if she didn’t kick it up a notch, we wouldn’t all make it home in time if the young deputy hadn’t hit it out of the park.

I was so close to Oakley on our way to third base, I gave her back a shove. To which she yelled over her shoulder in that husky voice that was now out of breath, “Fall in line, Lieutenant!”

“I’ll fall in line when you run faster, Captain.”

She growled, but picked up the pace to a full-out sprint. I sprinted after her, hearing the crowd cheering and knowing we’d have to beat the ball back to home base. The rest of our team was out of the dugout and screaming at us. I didn’t want to waste a second swiveling my head to see where the ball was at.

Right after Oakley stepped on home base, I stepped on it too, hot on her heels. I heard the ball thwack into the catcher’s mitt, then felt the sting as he slapped it against my leg.

“Safe!” the umpire shouted. “Both of them!”

I didn’t get a chance to celebrate as Oakley came to a direct stop on the other side of the bag, a move I wasn’t expecting. Because who the fuck does that? My chest hit her back at full speed and we both went down in a tangle of limbs. I tried to grab her and twist, my intent being to take the brunt of the fall, but we only made half the turn, both of our sides hitting the dirt hard.

My brain didn’t register the fall. I only cared about one thing. I scrambled upright to hold Oakley’s face in my hands, leaning over her and not feeling a damn thing except panic.

“You okay?” I asked three times while she blinked up at me. Teammates came over one by one to peer down at us. The asshat pitcher came over too, clearly not caring for the longevity of his pitching career if he laid a single finger on Oakley.

Her hand came up from her side in slow motion and hovered in the air. Oh shit, she must have hit her head hard. She wasn’t talking, just lying there with her arm in the air. Then her palm landed on my forehead and she gave me a hefty shove, my hands sliding off her face as I fell back on my ass.

“Get off me, Smith,” she said on a wheeze.

Our team cheered and helped her up. She brushed dirt off her butt and, for the life of me, I couldn’t look away.

“You okay there, Wyatt?” Sheriff Locke asked me, his bushy eyebrows drawn together.

I blinked and focused back on the game, not on how adorable Oakley looked with a streak of dirt across her cheek. “Yeah, I’m fine, Sheriff. Just giving myself a minute. Think the fall knocked the wind out of me.”

“Mhm.” Another deputy named Johnson didn’t look convinced. He had a twinkle in his eye and he kept looking from me to Oakley. “Is that how you flirt with women, Smith? You tackle ’em?”

I got to my feet and laughed good-naturedly with the team. “Don’t knock it till you try it. Works like a charm. Watch.”

I hollered over to Oakley who was on her way back to the dugout with Betty mothering her. “Hey, Waldo! Want to get a drink later?”

Her face scrunched up like she smelled a skunk. “Go fuck yourself, Smith,” she hollered back, making the rest of the team hoot and holler.

“Crash and burn, dude,” Johnson said, slapping me on the back.

I let them have their fun, thinking Oakley would never give me the time of day. Little did they know I already knew what she tasted like and how she made little moans in the back of her throat when I kissed her. But Sheriff Locke was standing right there. I couldn’t have the team insinuating she and I had a thing going on. Oakley would kill me, so I’d be the butt of their joke to protect her.

We ended up winning the first game of the season because of the runs Oakley and I scored.