Hot Target

She’d like to think she’d grown since then, that she was older, more capable of retaining her own identity with a man like Luke than she had been before. That—if Luke wasn’t a client and off-limits—she could be with him without losing her identity. Part of her was tempted to find out. Another wanted to leave the past in the past.

“Can I cut in?”

The male voice that lifted above the jazz tune came with both relief and trepidation, as Chris turned his attention on Luke. Immediately, Chris’s eyes lit up, and he reached in his pocket, withdrew a card. “We should talk.” He beamed. “Katie and I go way back.”

Luke ignored the card. “Tonight is for the kids, man,” Luke said, disapproval on his face. “No business.” He slid his arms around Katie, turned her in to the mix of the dancing couples.

“Thank you,” Katie said, her gaze flickering to those sparkling gray eyes and quickly away. It would be so easy to get lost in his stare. “I can’t stand that man.”

“Good,” Luke said, his legs brushing hers, his body warm and inviting. “Because neither can I. He can’t seem to get the idea that I’m not interested.”

“Wait,” Katie said, her fingers digging into his jacket. “How long has he been pursuing you? Since before the letters started?”

He paused a minute and then spun her around. “You think Chris is writing the letters?” he asked in disbelief.

The soft, gentle rhythm of their bodies moving together fogged Katie’s brain for a second, the sway of his hips against hers making it hard to think. “Maybe,” she said, gently clearing her throat. “What if he wants to destroy your career so he can recreate it? We both know he’s willing to do whatever’s necessary to get ahead. He’s that type. It has to be considered.” Just as Olivia was possibly looking to create juicy gossip that made her, and her job, necessary, as well. Or Olivia might simply want Luke period. Katie could see her as an obsessive stalker, but she didn’t say that for fear Luke would accuse her of sounding jealous. She wasn’t jealous, because really, truthfully, there was something not right about that girl that reached beyond her silicone double-D breasts and too-perfect body. Both Chris and Olivia were going on the list of people Katie had begun compiling for Donna to investigate.

A flash of a camera, and Katie and Luke were once again being photographed. Luke grimaced at the camera holder. “I know that guy,” he said. “He’s with some low-life gossip magazine.” He maneuvered her farther onto the crowded dance floor. “No matter how grand the cause, the wolves and cameras are out in full force. It can’t just be about the kids.”

“You didn’t seem to mind the cameras and the spotlight earlier,” she said skeptically. “You worked the room like you owned it up on that stage.”

“Every minute I’m in front of the cameras is like tying a string to a tooth and slamming a door,” he said. “Painful.”

“Yet you play pro ball. In front of thousands. On national television…you’re always in the spotlight.”

“I love baseball,” he said. “And the spotlight is a part of competing on a professional level. But I’m a country boy at heart. I like quiet. I like privacy. Until all that crap with my manager, you never saw me in the papers. I spend my time off away from the limelight. The cameras, the fancy parties—I don’t want anything to do with them unless I have to.” His hand slid more intimately around her back, her stomach fluttering with reaction. He tilted his head, studied her. “You seem surprised.”

Maybe she was. She didn’t know what to expect from Luke. Ron had said Luke was a good ol’ boy. A private, nice, down-to-earth guy. Then, Ron had introduced her to a big, egomaniac jerk. Which one was accurate? Which was a show?

“You’re emcee tonight,” she said, trying to find an answer to that question. “That hardly seems like avoiding the limelight.”

His expression darkened, the flutter of overhead lights casting his face in shadows. “For one reason and one reason only,” he said. “And that reason is Elvin Rogers. A kid that had one last wish—to meet me.”

Katie stopped dancing, her heart in her chest. “Did you? Meet him?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I met him. I was with him the day he died.”

Respect for Luke she hadn’t thought possible the night before expanded inside her. “Oh, Luke. I’m so sorry.” She’d told herself she’d put the past behind her before meeting Luke, but then she’d judged him by his career, which was wrong. That didn’t mean he was some crown prince, but it meant, from now on, he deserved to be judged for who he was, not for her expectations of who he was.