Blurred Lines (Love Unexpectedly #1)(76)

Damn.

He sat and allowed himself to fully satisfy his curiosity, taking her in now that he could see her face-to-face.

The Yankees cap still shielded the top part of her face, but he could clearly make out a pointed chin, small nose, and those big, gorgeous brown eyes. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t wearing a speck of makeup, which allowed a light dusting of freckles to display loud and proud over her nose and the tops of her cheekbones.

Cute. Definitely cute.

And already, she was refocused on the game.

Cole’s eyes narrowed slightly as he realized that he’d been the only one doing any staring. Her attention had returned to the field, almost before he’d sat down.

What was this bullshit?

The lack of female appreciation was unusual enough—and uncomfortable enough—to make him slightly peevish. So instead of doing the decent thing and letting her watch the Yankees’ starter reclaim his spot on the mound, he talked to her.

At her, really. She still wasn’t looking his way. Not even to check him out.

“First game?” he asked.

Brown eyes flicked to him, barely. “What?”

“First baseball game?”

That got her attention. For the first time, she seemed to really look at him. Her eyes drifted over him slowly before returning to his gaze, her tone just slightly annoyed. “No. Not my first game.”

“Ah,” he said, already mentally maneuvering a backpedal. “Bad assumption by me. You were just so into the game…. ”

“So you figured I must be trying to figure out how it all worked?” she asked. “That I must be trying to understand why some of the field is green and some is brown, and whatever could those white squares on the dirt be, and why-oh-why are those men running toward the white squares, but only sometimes…”

“All right,” Cole said with a laugh. “I’m an ass. You know baseball.”

Her smile was quick and easy, and he was relieved to see that she wasn’t one of those snippy, hold-it-against-him-forever types. “I know baseball.”

Is that what’s in your notebook? Baseball stuff?

She took a huge bite of her hot dog, completely unabashedly, and Cole hid a smile, pretending instead to be fixated on the game.

Hell. When had he ever had to pretend to be fixated on the Yankees?

“You were partially right,” she admitted, after swallowing.

He glanced at her. “Oh yeah?”

She grinned. “This is my first Yankees game.”

“I knew it,” he said, matching her grin full-on. “I knew there was something virgin about you. But tell me, how can a baseball fan like you never have made it to Yankee Stadium until now?”

“Well…” she licked a spot of mustard off her finger, but not in the slow, deliberate way that most women he knew would have done it. “It’s a long way from Chicago…. ”

Cole tore his eyes away from the way her lips were closing around her thumb, sucking off that mustard. “You’re from Chicago?”

“From there, yes,” she said. “But let’s just say that as of two weeks ago, I’ll be spending a lot more time here than at Wrigley.”

“Ah. You’re new to New York.”

“Quite.”

“How do you like it?”

She hesitated. “It’s…intense.”

“Meaning…we New Yorkers are scary as hell?”

She smiled. “Well, it’s not as hostile as I’d been warned, but yeah. We Chicagoans are a bit more openly friendly than you New Yorkers.”

“I’m friendly,” he countered.

Tiny Brunette laughed. “No. You’re just incredibly charming. And a smidgen good-looking.”

He gave her his best bedroom look. “Am I?”

She smiled. “You know you are.”

Their eyes held for a moment, and Cole was startled to realize that this was the most relaxed—the most him—he’d felt around a woman in…hell…he didn’t know how long.

Mostly he was used to throwing out a couple of witty lines, a few slow smiles, and watching women counter with moves of their own.

There were no moves with this woman. She merely was.

Cole realized he didn’t even know her name.

“So tell me, as a Chicago baseball fan, are you Team Cubs fan or Team White Sox, Ms…. ”

“Pope,” she said. “Penelope Pope. And both.”

Cole’s subconscious realized that Penelope Pope was somehow exactly what this woman’s name should be. Perky and alliterative. His consciousness, however, latched on to another fact. “Both?”

It was not a typical answer. Most people had one baseball team, even if you were from a city with two teams, as Penelope was.

She shrugged. “Baseball’s not about who wins. It’s not even about who’s playing. It’s about the game. The consistent flow of it, the smack of the ball against the glove when you’re lucky enough to be sitting along one of the base lines, instead of stuck up here in this stuffy box—”

He stared at her. The words so closely echoed his own thoughts from just moments before that he wanted to kiss her.

She might just be his dream woman.

“That explains the hot dog,” he said.