It was possible, he supposed, that Cassidy was considering some out-of-town jock for the position, but a quick scan of the room showed only familiar faces, all corporate bigwigs.

“Let’s get out of here,” Cole said to Lincoln, downing the rest of his beer in three gulps.

“You don’t want to wait for Cassidy?”

“Nah, I’ll catch him tomorrow.”

Before Cole turned to leave, he couldn’t resist one last look in the direction where his Tiny Brunette had been sitting.

He paused when he saw that she’d returned and, incredibly, the woman had just become more appealing.

Her face was turned to the side slightly, her notebook now on the open seat to her right instead of her lap, and she wrote furiously with her right hand, while her left hand held…

A hot dog.

Be still my heart.

Apparently, Miss Glued-to-the-Game had managed to tear herself away long enough to get a good old-fashioned hot dog. Mustard only, from the looks of it. Personally Cole would have added some ketchup, but still…a woman who’d so unabashedly eat a hot dog?

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.”