Chapter 1

"Here we go," she thought, biting the inside of her lip.

Blythe Fisk adjusted her heavy-duty sports bra one last time, and tried not to wince at lime-green locker doors slamming as other players finished dressing. In groups of two and three the veterans were leading the way out to the softball field for fall practice, talking boisterously with their comrades from prior seasons.

She closed the door on her own locker quietly and spun the combination to secure it. The eyes of the younger girls trailing behind were darting back and forth, making cautious connections. Blythe had been doing that in classes and hallways all day as everyone eyed the big new girl on the first day of school.

She slid her right hand into her battered old glove, finding reassurance in the supple leather enveloping her long fingers with its familiar grip. She squared her shoulders and joined the procession to the field.

She found herself walking alongside a pretty Hispanic girl. Her shoulder-length black hair was done up in a ponytail that was sticking through the hole in the back of a battered looking baseball cap. It wasn't a high school team hat like the veterans wore; it had a logo on it that looked like a lion. Her oval shaped eyes gave her an inviting glance, so she decided she might as well start with her.

"Hi, I'm Blythe," she said. Her voice and the sound of their metal spikes on the cement floor echoed off the tiled walls of the showers as they passed by.

"Sammy," she replied with a friendly smile, looking up at the tall girl. Sammy guessed she must be close to six feet, even taller than her friend and occasional lover, Collette Simpson. "Blythe, as in Blythe Fisk?"

"Uh, yeah?"

Sammy stuck out her hand and chuckled at her surprised expression. "Coach told me about you. She said you were an all-state pitcher in Georgia last year?"

Blythe looked around quickly. "Oh God ... does the whole team know?" she asked. "I don't want people to think I want any special treatment."

Sammy made a calming gesture. "No, I don't think so; she told me about you when she called to ask me to turn out for the team. I didn't play last year; she wanted to convince me that we'd have a good team this year."

"Why didn't you play last year?" Blythe asked, partly to deflect the conversation away from her so-called past glories.

Sammy shrugged. "I wanted to get out of my tomboy image I guess. And I kind of got into boys," she said with a grin.

Their first few steps as they exited the building were in the shade of the three story gymnasium, which towered over the rest of the single story buildings on campus. Then they were squinting into the sun that was already low in the sky of the fall afternoon.

A stream of male ballplayers was emerging from a door on the opposite end of the gym, heading for an adjacent, larger field. A half-dozen cheerleaders in full uniform formed a gauntlet for the players to pass through, shaking their pompoms and kicking their legs in the air. No cheerleaders greeted the girl's team.

Blythe's gaze lingered before she turned back to Sammy and nodded. Sammy resisted the temptation to tease her about the seemingly longing look at the guys.

"Anyway, my boyfriend's on the school's baseball team over there, and my best friend graduated last year. So I figured if I was going to be on my own a lot in baseball season anyway, I might as well play myself."

"Have you played softball before?"

"No, but I've played on boys baseball teams. The ball's bigger, right?" she said insouciantly.

"Yeah; you might need a bigger mitt, actually," she said, eyeing Sammy's glove. It was as well worn has her own, but had a smaller baseball-sized pocket.

"But the distance from the mound to home plate's the same in high school girl's softball as it is in Little League baseball."

"Forty-six feet."

"Yup."

"That seems fair," said Sammy.

"What position do you play?"

"Put me in coach!" Sammy sang.

"Center field?"

"Right."

"Cool. I could never run fast enough to play the outfield."

Sammy waggled her eyebrows as she looked from her chest to eyes and back again. "Boobs too big?" she asked.

Blythe gasped. She glared, even as a feeling of relief and acceptance came over her. Sammy had made her feel something other than 'I'm the new girl' for the first time all day, and it felt good.

Before she could come up with a retort, someone from the boy's team filing past called Sammy's name. Two of the guys had broken through the cheerleaders to head towards them, and Sammy waved with a big grin.

Their feet kicked up the bright orange leaves of fall that littered their path and often clogged the school building's gutters. Blythe thought they looked cute and self-assured - the kind of guys that normally didn't pay much attention to her.

"Is one of them your boyfriend?" she asked. She was surprised when Sammy's dusky complexion darkened from a blush. Why would saying which guy was her boyfriend cause that?

"Uh, the one on the right, the shorter one? That's my boyfriend, Dave."

Blythe waited, but she didn't offer any more information before the boys arrived. Her nerves amped up a little more when she saw that the un-named guy on the left was several inches taller than she was.

Several of the passing girls called greetings to the boys, including a couple wolf whistles that had Sammy shaking her head.

"Hey," Dave greeted Sammy, while giving Blythe a quick lopsided smile. "Ready for your first practice?"

"Like riding a bike. Guys, this is Blythe, she just moved here from Georgia. Blythe, this is my boyfriend Dave Simpson, and this is Bobby Taylor. They are on the South Carolina high school state champion baseball team; the envy of every guy, and the dream of every girl in school."

"Geez, knock it off, Sammy," Bobby protested.

"Oh, sorry; that's what I hear about Dave, not you, Bobby," she said, ruffling Dave's hair. "I mean really, cheerleaders - for a practice?"

Dave looked uncomfortable for a moment but then smiled. "I didn't invite them, they just showed up," he said mildly. "And its Bobby they're after."

"Welcome, Blythe," Bobby said, ignoring Dave while shaking her hand.

"Thanks," she managed to squeak out.

"You look familiar," he said, studying her face.

"I'll say," Dave added. Sammy raised her eyebrows sardonically at her boyfriend, but he was oblivious.

"You guys just have a thing for tall blondes," Sammy said. She may have been teasing the boys, but it was Blythe that blushed.

"Oh! And, uh, short brunettes," Dave interjected as he 'got it.' Sammy shook her head and swatted his arm.

"Nice save, Dave. Ignore these trouble-makers," Bobby advised Blythe. "No, I'm serious; I think we've already met."

Blythe noticed that Sammy seemed to perk up when he said that.

"Uh oh," said Sammy. "Haven't you already met your best friend, your first..."

"Cut it out," Bobby interrupted her.

"W-well, I'm from Atlanta," Blythe said, smiling shyly at him and displaying some cute dimples that not a lot of people got to see.

He snapped his fingers. "Summer baseball camp," he said with a grin. "My dad sent me to one in Atlanta a few years ago."

The dimples vanished. "Yeah, that could be."

"Yeah, it was a great camp. But when he tried to sign me up for it the next year he couldn't find any information for it."

"It was discontinued. I'd better get going. It was nice to meet you."

Dave watched her go with eyebrows raised at her sudden departure. "What was that about?"

Sammy shrugged. "I don't know anything about her yet, just that she's from Atlanta, she's supposed to be a stud pitcher, and cute guys make her nervous. She's probably just being shy on her first day at a new school. You remember what that's like, right Bobby?"

"The way she looked though, it was like..."

"Like what?" Dave asked.

"Go catch up with her, Sammy," said Bobby quietly.

She smiled, not for the first time touched by Bobby's protective instincts for others, even for people he hardly knew. She remembered how he'd decked three bullies protecting their friend Morton, barely five minutes after meeting him.

"Yes sir!" she said with a salute their former-Marine father would have been proud of. She turned to Dave. "Guess we can't hang out together today," she said with a pout.

"Fall practice is only two weeks long, Sammy, geez," he said with a chuckle.

"I'll miss you anyway. And you're going driving later?" He nodded. She gave him a quick kiss and jogged after Blythe.

Dave grinned at Bobby. "Did that new girl remind you of anyone?"

Bobby shrugged. "Physically? I suppose she looks a little like your sister."

"A 'little'?" Dave countered.

"Okay, a lot. Personality-wise? Not hardly."

"Yeah; but then, who is?" Dave chuckled.

"Collette's one of a kind," Bobby said of his girlfriend, as they turned to jog after their teammates.

As the familiar rhythms of practice began, in the back of his mind was how Blythe's face had closed down at the mention of the Atlanta baseball camp. Rational or not, he felt regret for somehow causing her pain.

"Hey, wait up!" Sammy called to Blythe, falling in alongside. "You want to throw together?" She hadn't been to a softball practice before, but expected it to begin with the players pairing off to play catch and warm up their arms.

"I should probably find a catcher to throw with."

"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense," Sammy replied, keeping her tone casual.

When they reached the field the coach had them sit on the bleachers, the grooved aluminum surface momentarily cold until warmed by their butts.

She gave her best rousing season opening speech that the new girls listened to attentively; the veterans, patiently. It included welcoming the newcomers trying out for the team, and Sammy and Blythe were among those that had to stand up and introduce themselves.

The season wasn't until spring quarter. But as the coach explained, she held preliminary tryouts and practices at the beginning of the school year to assess the players, and to put together individual training plans for them to follow during the year. Following those plans, she emphasized, would be a significant factor in making the team in the spring.

Once that speech was over with, Sammy grabbed a softball out of the team ball bag, a cloud of last season's dust erupting from inside along with the ball. She began gripping and stretching her fingers around it, adjusting to the size. Fortunately, though she wasn't a tall girl, she had long enough fingers that she wouldn't have to come up with a completely new grip.

She asked one of the veteran players to throw with her, a girl named Bonnie she'd met in class before. She was startled by the disdain of the rejection, including being dismissed as a "rookie breeder."

The veteran's eyes narrowed dangerously when Sammy grinned briefly to show she wasn't intimidated. She shrugged her shoulders and turned to pair up with another of the new girls.

They took to the field to start throwing, one line of players standing on the 3rd base line, another starting on the line extending out from 1st to 2nd base. Sammy casually maneuvered to be standing next to Blythe as the lines formed up.

Every five minutes or so the coaches had the line in the field take a step back to lengthen their throws and stretch them out. It was impressive to see the big blonde lefty begin tossing the ball so hard but so effortlessly underhanded. Sammy worked on her speed at finding her overhand throwing grip on the larger ball.