Big Leagues by Jen Estes Read Free Book Online Page B

possibilities that window presented
flooded into her mind.
    No more guessing if the sluggers have started
batting practice, wondering if the team is sporting their alternate
uniforms, questioning if the seats are filling up or debating if
we’re looking at a rain delay.
    She watched the grounds crew tending to an
extensive irrigation system in the outfield.
    I guess that last one probably won’t be an
issue.
    “Boy you don’t waste any time, do
ya?”
    Cat shot up three inches and spun around at the
sound of the voice booming behind her. A tall man with thick
glasses framing a set of glowering brown eyes stood in the doorway.
He crossed his skinny arms and gaped at her. She squinted through
the faint daylight in the office and attempted to place his
familiar face.
    “Dustin Carlyle. Junior reporter.” He laced the junior with thick contempt, as though Cat had just carved
the word into the rusty blade of a dagger and shoved it between his
shoulder blades. His snotty tone triggered memories of their first
meeting.
    She cleared her throat. “Y-yeah. I believe
we’ve met before.”
    He ignored her. “If you’re wondering why
there’s no welcome wagon waiting for you, the reason would be
because everyone’s at Brad Derhoff’s wake.”
    Her mouth formed a silent “oh.” She should have
known there weren’t many reasons for an entire office to be empty
at four o’clock in the afternoon on a gameday. That the reason
might be Brad’s wake hadn’t even occurred to her. Suddenly she felt
very much like the vulture Dustin was implying she was. Cat knew
nothing about the deceased reporter, other than the impressive
credentials listed in the team’s media guide. She’d met Brad
Derhoff only once at the beginning of the season and he’d treated
her, along with the rest of the minor league staff, with the same
condescension affected by every other visitor from the Las Vegas
team. Cat had excused his superior attitude since, given his status
with the team, he was indeed superior .
    “He’s a real reporter,” she’d prattled to
Tamela after Brad turned up his nose at their break room coffee pot
and requested that she fetch him a caramel macchiato.
    Tamela was unimpressed by anyone from the
parent club, unless his signature appeared on her weekly paycheck.
“So are you.”
    No. I’m just taking a break from slinging hot
dogs.
    Back then, Cat couldn’t have fathomed that the
ace reporter might have been dealing with his own inadequacies too;
that was shockingly clear now. Her eyes registered their concern
for the sneering coworker in her new office.
    “Uh, I’m sorry for your loss. Were you and Brad
close?”
    Dustin raised an eyebrow. “Close? Well, let’s
see, Derhoff and I have been a team since the franchise formed.
Worked together every day, side by side. I saw him as my mentor,
and he was grooming me to one day fill his shoes as senior
reporter. Guess he overlooked a minor league reporter with a
whopping eight months of tenure. You never know. Since apparently
Erich König likes to promote from below—er, I mean, within —maybe they’ll ask me to be general manager
instead.”
    Cat clenched her jaw upon hearing his
insinuation. She got the message. Dustin was the veteran pitcher
and she was a rookie slugger crowding his plate.
    Or what he thought was his plate. His
territorial reaction was understandable. While it wasn’t
unprecedented for a minor leaguer to whirl through the farm system
and be called up to the big leagues in his first season, the
called-upon was usually a player, never a sportswriter. Cat would
be the first to admit that Brad’s junior reporter would have been
the logical choice for a midseason replacement.
    But was he?
    As her blood heated, she recalled the exact
details of the encounter with Dustin Carlyle at the beginning of
the season. The Chips’ third baseman was rehabbing an injury in
Porterville. Cat had been looking to snag a quote from the two-time
All-Star, when a