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AMANDA WRIGHT was living a dream

New shoes Expensive outfit—also new Press pass around her neck allowing entry into a professional baseball players’ locker rooes of undress

It was the perfect female fantasy come to life

Or it should have been

But right now, Amanda felt as if she were about to walk into the lions’ den and those lions—aka ballplayers—were going to eat her alive

Her high heels clicked on the concrete floor of the tunnel leading to the Los Angeles Rays’ locker room, her toes pinched and her ht of the after-ga back, wishing like hell she could tap her heels together and transport herself back to Dallas, Texas

Dallas, the place where she’d had a position reporting high school sports for one of the daily newspapers It didn’t e and leaned dangerously close to boring She’d had job security And her parents and her sister She’d had her co White Rock Lake—she really loved that view

Nerves flooded her syste people pass What would she do if she went into that locker room and made a fool of herself? What would happen if she didn’t impress her editor with her first column? Or didn’t attract readers?

What had she been thinking? She must have been insane to leave her comfortable life behind And for what? A sports column with her name attached? Didn’t seem like such a sweet deal at this moment

She took a deep breath A dreaot space in the paper no matter what, just as she had back ho time Twice a week she had her very own feature in the sports section And this wasn’t high school baseball This was the majors An opportunity she’d fantasized about for years

But, of course, the job had come with extreme pressure There was one tiny condition she hadn’t shared with her family because they’d only worry iven her a short tione Seemed her predecessor had left and taken many of his fans with him When she’d asked Kevin how short, he’d simply said, “Short”

The ringing of her cell phone offered a welcomed excuse to continue to stall She shoved a ard strand of long, auburn hair behind her ear and reached inside her purse, a petite Louis Vuitton bag her sister, Kelli, had given her to celebrate the new job

The minute Ah the line, a lightning rod of reprimand “I knew it”