Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

My eyes started to his, and we both stared at each other for a drawn out moment. Heat filled my cheeks. Did that mean I’d been so obnoxious I’d been impossible to forget?

He cleared his throat and looked away. “What are you doing here?”

“Rachael Hamilton invited me.”

He glanced behind him. I followed his gaze to find Rachael Hamilton watching us with open curiosity. She quickly ducked behind her wine glass, which did exactly nothing to hide her.

When Mike turned back to me, his eyes glinted, hardness shining beneath the soft gold sparks. “How’d you meet Rachael?”

I pushed my hair back self-consciously. “I ran into her at the draft.”

“What were you doing at the Draft?”

I stared at him. “Watching. Why? What do you think I was doing there?”

For the first time since I’d met him, a hint of embarrassment heightened his color. “I thought—maybe—you wanted to talk about Kilkarten.”

I lifted my chin, feeling my cheeks warm to match his color. “Why? Do you want to talk about Kilkarten?”

For a long moment, we just stared at each other, and my heart rate increased. Then he finally stepped back. “Come on in.”

Okay. I was going to act all collected. Cool. Like Indiana Jones, minus the fedora.

I failed after two seconds. “If you want to talk about Kilkarten—”

“I don’t.” He interrupted me almost before I finished the last syllable, with so much force I drew back. “I don’t talk about Kilkarten.”

Chapter Four

I swallowed and nodded as he turned his back and walked deeper into the apartment. I felt strange and intensely curious. What did that mean? Not “I don’t want to talk to you about Kilkarten” but a straight out “I don’t talk about Kilkarten.”

Or maybe I read too much into things.

I stepped clear of the entrance and stopped, stunned at the apartment, a massive open space with bright wooden floors and a glass wall overlooking Central Park. Laughter and steam and spices filled a copper and chrome kitchen at one end, while two dozen famous faces ranged throughout the room.

I looked for Rachael, but she was over in the kitchen, clearly giving very pointed directions to a set of two defensive tackles twice her size. They seemed to be concerning tableware.

“Let me guess,” someone said behind me. “Friend of Rachael’s.”

Linebacker Abe Krasner grinned at me from beneath a halo of dusky brown curls and held out a beer. I was very good; I didn’t gape or pinch myself or anything, even though the last time I’d seen him he’d been preventing a game-losing touchdown.

“Yeah.” I took the bottle and tried not to sound too star struck. “I am. Sort of. I’m Natalie.”

“Abe,” he said, in case I lived under a rock. “Are you the archaeologist?”

Archaeology small talk for the win. I smiled brightly, back on firm ground. “That’s me.”

Abe’s easy going manner put me at ease within minutes, and he introduced me to several other players. Within another twenty, Rachael appeared, a tall, quiet woman at her side who she introduced as Alexa. Alexa was the grad student from Chicago, and I probably could have talked to her all night. We did talk for a full hour before dinner was ready. I didn’t often run into people who not only cared about my research, but understood it. When I had to explain archaeology or Iron Age history to people that didn’t study it, I felt like I was translating everything into another language, one neither me nor my listener understood very well.

Of course, it went both ways. Once I asked one of my earth science friends to describe what she did, and she basically told me I would never understand.

When Ryan hollered from the kitchen, everyone fell in like a well-ordered troop. Mike tried to seat me far down the table, but Rachael out-maneuvered him and we found ourselves directly across from each other. Abe dropped in on one side and lowered his voice. “Ryan’s nickname is the General, but I always thought Rachael would be called the Commander.”

I laughed too loudly, and clapped a hand to my mouth. Mike eyed me warily, and then shook his head and turned to smile at some tiny, beautiful brunette beside him.

Despite Rachael machinations, Mike and I didn’t talk directly to each other until the very end of dinner. Instead, everyone else spoke, mostly about their plans before training camp started up at the end of July. “Bri wants to go to Paris,” wide-receiver Malcolm Lindsey said, referencing his absent fiancée. He sent a look at Rachael. “Somehow that got in her head.”

“Wow, what a great idea,” Rachael said with patent transparency. She turned to Ryan Carter. “Interestingly enough, there’s a book fair in Milan that work’s sending me to in July.”