Irresistibly Yours (Oxford #1)(4)

He had to talk to this woman, risk of rejection be damned.

Cole was beside her before he’d even fully committed to the decision to move, ignoring Lincoln’s snicker behind him.

Up close, she was even smaller than he expected. Narrow shoulders, no chest to speak of, skinny little arms.

He had yet to see her face full on, thanks to the cap pulled low on her forehead, and suddenly he wasn’t sure what he was more desperate to see, her face or her notebook.

He cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Not exactly his best opener, but it sufficed to get her attention.

Tiny Brunette’s pen stopped its furious scribbling, and her jaw paused in its steady chewing of the hot dog.

Slowly her face lifted to his and Cole had the strangest sensation of the breath catching in his chest as he waited to finally meet this woman’s eyes.

And, wow. What a pair of eyes they were.

If the rest of her was tiny, her eyes were enormous by comparison. Huge and dark brown and friendly.

Damn she was cute.

Not gorgeous. Not beautiful. But she had the girl-next-door, wanna-grab-a-pitcher? kind of appeal.

She also wasn’t Cole’s type. At all. He liked ’em blond and leggy and seductive.

Still, that damn notebook…

“Cole Sharpe,” he said, sticking out a hand.

Her eyes widened just slightly, and for a second he thought maybe she’d recognized his name, but then she smiled and it was pure friendly curiosity.

“Hi!” Her voice matched the rest of her. Girlish and guileless.

Cole found himself oddly enchanted. She was so…different.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing with his chin toward the seat beside her.

“Of course!”

Cole started to reach for her notebook under the guise of making room for himself, but she pulled it onto her lap before he could touch it.

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 peeved. 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, her tone just slightly annoyed. “No. Not my first game.”

“Ah,” he said, already mentally maneuvering into a backpedal. “Bad assumption of 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 unabashed at her bulging cheeks, 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 come a baseball fan like you never 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 closed 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?”