Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats)

by Jeanette Murray

  But Michael already knew the answer as she stood up there in her simple denim shorts, plain white shirt and five dollar flip-flops and reached for the mic with shaking hands.

  Shaking hands? That was not what he expected. This chick exuded confidence and seemed to love being the center of attention.

  Adrenaline, maybe. He knew guys who got the shakes from it before each game and went on to play their hearts out.

  She took the mic and stood there, looking a little shell-shocked while the bombshell redhead got down off the bar.

  “Hey, are you Michael Lambert?” someone by his shoulder asked.

  Turning, Michael gave a short nod to the woman beside him and kept watching.

  “Can I have your autograph?” The woman started digging in her purse, stuffing what looked like her entire arm down there to rattle around looking for something for him to sign. “I… Let’s see here, I… oh. How about you just sign my arm?” She pulled out a pen and gestured to her forearm.

  He’d learned early on that was a danger zone he didn’t step foot in, no matter what patch of skin he was offered. “Sorry, that’s not something I— Oh God,” he moaned as he recognized the first strains of Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.”

  Kat looked thoughtful for a moment, then picked up on the tune. Without a second thought, Michael walked up to the spot at the bar Kat left open and sat down, elbows on the bar, not sure whether he wanted to order a whisky and give in to the madness or grab one of her ankles and yank her over his shoulder and make a break for it.

  The order-a-whisky side gave in when the bartender Kat had apparently made BFFs with plopped one down in front of him like a mind reader, alongside a bottle of beer.

  “You look like you might need this,” she said, not at all sympathetic, then clapped her hands and hollered out a cheer for her new friend.

  Kat started off lip syncing to the words and just walking back and forth, smiling a little, waving when someone cheered extra loud. But by the first chorus, she was really into it, thrusting her arms in the air, head tipped back as she mouthed the drawn-out, “Ooooohhhh! Oooooohhh, trouble trouble trouble.”

  By the second chorus, she’d worked in some sort of shuffle-step that people on the floor were copying. He saw phones out, knew they were recording her, and felt his back teeth grind together hard enough to make his dentist cry.

  The only thing saving the show was the fact that, for all her innate sexiness, none of her moves were overtly sexual or seductive. She could have been any female of any age up there, just moving to the music without thinking twice about the audience. Just a woman in her bedroom with her earbuds in, the volume up too loud and tuning out the world. And that, in and of itself, was seductive. Add in her long legs, showcased in some shorts that were only short thanks to her proportions, and the way her lips moved as she mouthed the words…

  He shifted on the bench, aware he was actually getting hard while watching her. Which wasn’t his fault, he reasoned. Hot woman plus atmosphere plus dance show equaled sexy thoughts. Right?

  Right.

  “She’s a natural!” the dark-haired bartender yelled at him, grinning as she clapped for Kat.

  She was, and apparently loved it. Was it the attention or the thrill of being up on the bar dancing freely that gave her that gorgeous glow in her eyes?

  The song ended, and she paused with both hands up in a Ta-da! gesture. Several lights went off from cell phones.

  Michael only prayed they had no clue who she was or that, thanks to the dark interior of the bar, the picture quality would be crap.

  Sorry, Sawyer. But you coulda warned me…

  “That. Was. Awesome!” Kat hopped up and down beside Michael as they left the bar and walked toward the parking lot. Too much energy to walk, apparently. “What a rush! I mean, hitting the court is a sort of rush, but I never really think about people watching because, you know, they’re so far back. Blurs, really. But in there, they were just… here.” She held up a hand in Michael’s face, getting his attention, earning a scowl. “You know?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said in a clipped tone. “Because that’s not something I would do.”

  “What bull crap,” she said as he walked up to a Mustang. “Seriously? Cliché, what?”

  “Classic,” he corrected, opening the door for her.

  She stared at the car for a moment, then the space she was about to sit in. “Let me get this straight. You clear, what, six foot five?”

  “Six six,” he said through his teeth.

  “Six six. Good. I’m six foot myself. Fine, just short of six,” she added when he lowered his eyebrows. “Picky. And yet you buy this tuna can you call a car. Ever heard of leg room?”

  “Ever heard of not biting the hand that gives you a free ride back home?”

  “Ever heard of comfort over style?” she retorted, then squatted down to slide in the car. As her long legs pulled in one after the other, he found he couldn’t quite stop imagining how soft the skin of those silky limbs would feel under his hand. How many miles he would have to explore if he circled one delicate ankle with his hand, then ran his palm up slowly, inch by inch.

  Kat snorted, and he blinked before looking up at her face.

  “Done examining my legs, Doctor?”

  What I wouldn’t give to kiss that smirk right off your smart mouth.

  That way lay madness. So instead, he leaned in close. It took some effort, given how low the Mustang rode and how high up he started, but he considered the wary look in her eyes a victory. She should be wary. Of him, of her precarious situation with Sawyer, of the potential outcome of tonight’s stunt…

  Mostly of him, really.

  Wariness would be prudent on both sides of the fence.

  “Just keep yourself from causing a spectacle in the car between here and home.”

  “I didn’t—” she started, but he shut the door and walked around the hood to the driver side. As he reached his corner of the hood, the horn blared, jolting him back a step. The wench was grinning at him from the interior, her hand firmly on the steering wheel.

  “You need a lesson in lightening up,” Kat declared as he got in the car and shot her one deadly glare. Clearly, his deadly glare needed some freshening up.

  “You need a lesson in calming down.” Pulling out of the parking lot, he gave her one quick glance in the fading lights before they hit the open road. “What’s up with the attitude? Don’t you care at all about your career?”

  She was quiet for a long time. Long enough he’d figured she wouldn’t answer the question when she actually spoke.

  “Maybe this is how I care.”

  It was spoken quietly, but he heard it clear enough. “Sawyer warned you—”

  “Sawyer likes a paycheck.” Rolling her shoulders—he could only tell thanks to the proximity of their bodies in his tight interior—she waited a beat. “I’m bringing in a paycheck. That should be enough for him.”

  “He’s looking out for you as an athlete.” Even as it came out of his mouth, he knew it sounded stuffy. Stuffy wasn’t his style, honestly. He loved having fun, but he also never even danced close to the line of trouble with the team or his career. His idea of fun was, admittedly, more juvenile than would cause problems for the Bobcats or his agent. How many marshmallows could he stuff in his mouth and still say “Chubby Bunny” or going with buddies to three movies in a row and eating enough popcorn to make their stomachs rebel.

  Okay, when he thought it through, it might sound sad to someone accustomed to more mature entertainment. But that was their problem, not his.

  “He’s looking out for Kat, age twenty-six,” she argued back. “Which is great for twenty-six-year-old Kat. How about thirty-six-year-old Kat? Forty? Fifty? He’s not a money manager. He’s an agent for athletes. What happens when I’m not an athlete?”

  Michael shrugged. How the hell would he know what professional tennis players did after they were put out to pasture?

  “I was
quiet for years. I avoided stuff that looked fun because it might cause problems, maybe, potentially. And then I got hammered over something that wasn’t even my fault. Tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.” She waved a hand across the center console with a swift chopping motion. “Done avoiding ‘maybe’ and ‘potentially.’ If something looks fun, and I like it, I’m doing it. I’m not mincing words. And if the tour doesn’t like it, if sponsors don’t care for it… that’s their problem, not mine.” He heard a smug smile in her tone when she added, “John McEnroe is now my spirit animal.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, earning him a throaty chuckle from Kat in the dark.

  Chapter 4

  Kat woke the next morning to a ringing in her ears. When she moaned and rolled over to wiggle her earlobe, she realized it wasn’t her ear that was ringing but her phone. With a sleepy, half-formed, “Hello?” she answered the phone.

  “Wanna explain why I’m fielding calls asking if you’ve taken up stripping in the off-season?” Sawyer’s voice asked mildly.

  Shit. Mild Sawyer was not a good thing. Mild Sawyer meant he had worked his way past pissed and moved straight into I’m going to annihilate everything you love with a surgeon’s precision to make you pay for your misdeeds. Mild Sawyer was basically a cartoon villain.

  “That’s an easy one to refute,” she said, striving for a calm that hovered just out of reach. She sat up and ran a hand over her hair, which did nothing for the bedhead frizzies that popped up all over. “Tell them that’s impossible because I get severe vertigo riding the slowest kiddie carousel at the supermarket. I’d vomit spinning around a pole. Nobody’s going to pay to see that.”

  “Katrina.” His voice was deadly calm.

  “Okay, Sawyer, but seriously…” Before she could finish that thought, her eye caught sight of the clock. “Sawyer! It’s six in the freaking morning here!”

  “Whoops.” His voice held zero regret.

  Biting back a scathing retort, she went on. “Seriously, this one wasn’t my fault.” Kat swung her legs off the bed and stretched her back out. Every single one of her joints popped… or that’s how it felt, at least. “I went out for a few drinks—totally legal, not at all scandalous or odd. I ended up being picked, at random I must add, to be a part of a lip-sync battle. I didn’t volunteer. I thought resisting would cause a bigger scene.”

  Not entirely true. She had actually wanted to do it… but had originally lacked the courage. Sometimes she just needed a boost to get into something.

  “You’re dancing on a bar,” he pointed out easily, as if he’d told her the weather called for a light jacket.

  Watch yourself, girl.

  “That’s where battle was taking place. Two seconds before I got up there, there was some business dude standing where I was, doing the exact same thing I did. It’s completely normal, totally allowed. And that guy rocked a Britney Spears song. But does anyone mention that?”

  “No, because the business dude is not a professional athlete,” he answered her as obediently as if she were a kindergarten teacher asking what letter followed G. “Which means nobody gives a flying fig what Businessman Benjamin was doing. They care what Kat Kelly, the supposed professional tennis player was doing on top of the bar, shaking her ass and tits for everyone to ogle at.”

  “My ass and… oh!” She growled and sat straight up, ignoring the twinge in her lower back. “Whoever said that is a total liar. It wasn’t even sexy! I was just lip-syncing to Taylor Swift. Taylor. Swift,” she enunciated. Everyone knew you didn’t shake your ass to Taylor Swift. You put on Beyoncé for that nonsense.

  “They brought up the sex tape. Again. Because that’s what happens when shit like this gets noticed.”

  She should be used to that by now. The reminder that someone had filmed one of the most private, intimate moments in a person’s life and spread it around the Internet like glitter at a craft fair. And like glitter, the herpes of the crafting world, this sex tape would never fully go away.

  It shouldn’t cause such a clench in her gut.

  But it did.

  Fucking Igor.

  “This is insane,” was all she could manage.

  “What’s insane is that I thought for five minutes this plan might work. That you could realize just how far you’d pushed sponsors and even the tennis bigwigs, and how close they are to cutting your strings. You think they’ll be happy to have you on the Davis Cup team if they can’t trust you?”

  She grimaced, but that was partially due to the elbow she pulled across her chest in another stretch. “They’ll love the publicity from someone whose name isn’t Serena or Anna. Brings recognition to the sport.”

  “So that’s what this is all about?” Sawyer asked sarcastically. “You consider yourself some sort of women’s tennis ambassador, out there spreading the good word of the sport to all who will listen?”

  “I consider myself an individual with free will,” she snapped back. “Sawyer, I’m here, I’m not running away, I’m not purposefully causing trouble. If trouble finds me, that’s not my fault.”

  “When a client says that trouble keeps finding them, I find myself repeating that tired cliché of ‘What’s the common denominator?’”

  Kat rolled her eyes and padded to the bathroom, cell phone still in hand. “I’ll behave Sawyer, I promise.”

  “I’d have an easier time believing that if you weren’t speaking like a robot.”

  “I’ll stay close to Michael,” she added. Because while she had no problems having fun, she also knew she didn’t want to just light a stick of dynamite on her last few years of play before walking away. “Does that help?”

  “See that you do,” was all the agent said before hanging up.

  Kat stared at herself in the mirror, lopsided, bedhead ponytail and all, and sighed. She needed to work out. Needed the burn. Needed the release.

  Needed to wake her new, hot manny up, she realized with a wicked grin. Because she had marching orders.

  “I’m coming!” Michael yelled as he pulled on mesh shorts one step at a time on his way to the door. It was the ass-crack of dawn, for Chrissake. Since the security desk hadn’t called up with a visitor, it had to be someone who lived in the building. And he was going to murder them.

  Wrenching the door open, he growled, “What the fu-fudge do you want?” He amended his original word selection when he caught sight of Kat, instead of a practical joker teammate, standing on his doorstep. “Do you have any clue what time it is?”

  “Nineish,” she chirped. “East Coast, anyway.”

  “News flash, we’re on Mountain.” He scratched at his belly, leaning in the doorway to bar her entrance. “Problem with the apartment? You just have to call down to the concierge desk, and they’ll help you out.”

  “No problem.” She patted his stomach as she aimed for the tiny spot between his torso and the door. Somehow she managed to thread the needle and land in his apartment. Magic. “I need to work out.”

  “Cool story.” He waited for more, but she was too busy checking out his apartment. A mirror image of hers, probably, and nearly as impersonal. Same rented furniture, same generic-style artwork hung on the walls. He’d never considered redecorating or moving to one of the unfurnished apartments to have his own things. No point. There were better ways to spend his time and money.

  While she evaluated his apartment, he evaluated her in return. Today’s outfit brought an entirely different kind of short-shorts… spandex, in electric blue. She’d paired them with a sports bra in the same hue and an unzipped gray moisture-wicking hoodie. Those unbelievably long legs of hers were capped off with a pair of well-broken-in running shoes, and her hair was in some complicated braid-bun at the top of her head.

  She looked delicious. The growling in his gut was for more than just breakfast. His morning wood, which had begun to fade at the shock of the pounding door, woke back up at the sight before him.

  Get it under control, Lambert. Get her out befor
e you do something stupid.

  “Going on a run?”

  She turned toward him with a duh look on her face. “What gave it away, the running shoes or the running outfit?”

  “Natural intuition.”

  “Cool party trick. Now go get dressed.”

  His sleep-heavy mind took a moment to process that. “Nope, definitely not.”

  She cocked her head to one side and studied him for a minute. Then she sighed, as if she’d come to some uncomfortable realization. “Look, Sawyer chewed my ass this morning. I’m supposed to stick with you.”

  “I doubt he meant you had to stick with me this early,” Michael grumbled and started for the kitchen. If he was doing this, he was doing it with caffeine, by God.

  “We all know what he meant. I need to work out. Need,” she emphasized when he just reached for the drawer containing his one-serving coffee pods that his teammate Josiah claimed were ruining the planet one plastic pod at a time. Michael didn’t give a shit… the thing made a decent cup of coffee.

  “Need,” he muttered, selecting one that had hazelnut flavoring.

  “As in, I’ll be crawling up a wall without it. And I’m not talking some bullcrap thirty-minute workout I can do from a phone app. I need heavy weights. I need machines. I need the smell of sweat and disinfectant.”

  “You are a very odd creature,” Michael decided, shutting his coffee machine’s lid and punching the button to brew. “Most people wake up this way. Caffeine in a cup.”

  Not at all offended, Kat waved that away. “I figure you know where to go.”

  “There’s a workout room on the second floor. Which you would have known if you would have just called the front desk,” he finished on a growl.

  “Let me guess, a few treadmills, a couple of hand weights, a half-deflated workout ball.”

  It was better than that, given the clientele the apartment building catered to, but Michael had to concede if he wanted to work out and he had the time, he preferred the Bobcats’ facility. The place downstairs was good for cardio, but he liked the camaraderie of the team weight room. Plus more heavy equipment than an apartment complex could provide.