Fielder's Choice Read online



  Books by Pamela Aares

  The Tavonesi Series:

  Love Bats Last (Book #1, Alex and Jackie)

  Thrown By Love (Book #2, Chloe and Scotty)

  Fielder's Choice (Book #3, Alana and Matt)

  Love on the Line (Book #4, Cara and Ryan)

  Aim For Love (Book #5, Sabrina and Kaz)

  Also available:

  Jane Austen and the Archangel

  FIELDER’S CHOICE

  Book Three in the Tavonesi Series

  Alana and Matt

  © 2014 Pamela Aares

  [email protected]

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  In FIELDER'S CHOICE, All-Star shortstop Matt Darrington has more than a problem. His wife died, and now he’s juggling a too-smart-for-her-britches six-year-old and the grueling pace of professional baseball. Worse, his daughter is mom shopping. When they explore a local ranch, she decides the beautiful, free-spirited tour guide is premium mom material. Matt thinks the sexy guide looks like Grade-A trouble.

  Alana Tavonesi loves her cosmopolitan life in Paris. But when she inherits the renowned Tavonesi Olive Ranch, she has to return to California and face obligations she never wanted. Selling the place is her first instinct, but life at the ranch begins to crack her open, exposing the dreams hidden inside her heart.

  On a lark she leads a ranch tour, where she meets Matt Darrington. His physical power and a captivating sensual appeal fire her in a way no man ever has, but he has a kid—and being a stepmom is a responsibility Alana will never be ready for. Still... she can’t keep her mind or her hands off him.

  When Matt’s daughter goes missing from a kid’s camp at the ranch, Alana organizes the search effort, knowing from experience the areas a bright child would be drawn to explore. As she and Matt work together to search for the little girl, Alana discovers that father and daughter have won her heart. Yet it may be too late for love…

  For my brother Skip

  who has a true heart.

  And for readers everywhere

  who love captivating stories.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Other Books by Pamela

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  She left me what?” Alana Tavonesi couldn’t believe what her parents’ attorney was telling her. The news of her grandmother’s death the previous week had come as a shock, but this... this was way beyond shocking. Surely, she’d misheard him. She’d spent the night café-hopping along the boulevards of Paris, topped with dancing until dawn at Batofar on the Seine, so she wasn’t in prime listening condition. She glanced at the clock—three o’clock already. She held back a groan.

  “The ranch,” he repeated in that flat, all-business tone of his. “It’s yours. I’ll be faxing over the paperwork shortly from here in the New York office. You can overnight it back to me.”

  Her mind reeled as she clutched the phone and sat up in bed. For the past several days she had both mourned and celebrated her grandmother's long and fascinating life. But she couldn’t believe Nana would leave her very dear ranch to her. Out of all the Tavonesi grandchildren, she was surely the worst to bequeath the California ranch to. A degree in art history wasn’t exactly useful for managing a world-class olive ranch, certainly not for handling the award-winning vineyard that Nana had painstakingly developed in the hills west of the main house.

  “You’re sure?”

  He sighed. “I’m sure. The property includes...”

  Alana listened as he listed the rest of her inheritance. Forty thousand olive trees. The sprawling mansion and ornate pavilions. And the greenhouses and the frantoio, and, oh yes, the art collection. At least that part she was interested in. She’d stopped him from listing the entire inventory, though. He’d probably have told her how many tractors or plows—or whatever one uses on an olive ranch—she now owned.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, not knowing what in the world she would do with all that now that she lived in Paris. “I’ll watch for the documents. Thanks.” She hung up the phone with a click, wishing she’d never answered.

  She tripped over her heeled sandals as she made her way to the window and threw open the heavy drapes. Sunlight blazed in, and she squinted at the painful brightness. Paris was already living up to its reputation as the City of Light, but it was the adventure and excitement of the city’s nightlife that called to her.

  With phenomenal clubs to satisfy every taste imaginable, Paris knew how to party. And she wanted to party. Wanted to laugh. Wanted to feel.

  She wanted...

  Well, sometimes she didn’t know what she wanted. She was only twenty-three.

  She peered down at the bustling sidewalks filled with tourists and working folk, people busy with the activities of their day-to-day lives. Paris was fun, but as she watched the teeming crowds, the unsettling feeling in her chest made it impossible to deny that she was still searching.

  She pulled the drapes back into place, shutting out the sun.

  The attorney’s words reverberated through her as she fumbled to her kitchen to boil water for coffee. A good strong cup might snap her back to reality. She spilled some of the grounds and wiped them up with her palm. The aroma, rich and heady, met her nose, and she remembered that her first cup of coffee had been with Nana, on the ranch. She couldn’t help but think about her now. Until the attorney had called, Alana had thought she’d been the one person in her life who’d understood her. Now she wasn’t so sure Nana had known much about her at all, about what moved her. About what she loved. And as much as she wanted it to be a mistake, the attorney had been very clear: the Tavonesi Ranch was hers.

  The hot coffee burned her tongue. She set the cup onto her table and took a deep breath. Patience had never been one of her virtues.

  She waited a moment and then took a cautious sip, fighting back the hollow, bottomless feeling that wrenched her stomach. Even surrounded by the clamor of the city, by the voices of passersby in front of her apartment, by the whizzing and honking of cars along the boulevard, she’d never felt more alone.