Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats #6)(8)

“Tell you what,” she began, then paused when another woman dressed similarly to Sissy walked out from the back through the double swinging doors. This woman, however, was a tanned blonde with a super-high ponytail that made Kat think of a cheerleader on top of the pyramid. “Hey, Diane.”

“Hey, Siss.” She picked up a carton of something and walked back through the doors.

“Diane? So much for nicknames.”

“That is her nickname. You know, ’cause she’s the all-American sweetheart. The John Mellencamp song?” When Kat shook her head in confusion, Sissy sang, “Little ditty, ’bout Jack and Diane…”

“Oh!” Kat snickered. “I follow you. So her real name isn’t Diane.”

“Now you’ve got it. Hey.” She stood up straight. “Do you ever work when you’re not, you know, wearing a tiny skirt and swinging a racket, whacking some balls?”

“If you’re asking if I have a second job besides playing, then not right now, though I have before.” And probably would have to again if things didn’t change.

“So you’ve got nothing going on. Come back and help us stack boxes.”

“Why?” Kat asked warily.

“Because I won’t charge you for the beer,” Sissy said. “And because it’ll waste time while we wait for it to actually get busy.”

Kat considered her options—going to the back and stacking boxes with two potential new friends, or heading to the sterile apartment with a babysitter living next door.

“Just how heavy are the boxes?”





Chapter 3





After three hours of prodding the front desk and messaging every Uber driver on duty, Michael finally managed to figure out where Kat had gone. And God, was he furious.

He walked through the doors of Sin’s Inn, took a deep breath, then surged forward through the crowd. And by “surged,” it was more like a slow waddle. People were everywhere, standing in groups and clumps here and there, creating a maze of ever-changing pathways to walk through. Each time he thought he saw an opening, it changed on him.

It was like taking on the Patriots’ defense, only you couldn’t hit anyone.

Never fun.

He kept his eyes peeled for Kat or anyone who looked remotely like Kat, but couldn’t see her on the dance floor… or what he knew they called a dance floor. It was just an open area that people had started using for dancing when the place first opened. That was the beauty—or the horror—of Sin’s Inn. There were almost no rules, minus those that would get the place shut down.

He hadn’t been here in years. Naturally, Kat would find this place on her first freaking night in town.

He caught sight of someone that might have been Kat from behind, sitting on the bar, and fought his way over toward them. Finally. A break. Kat perched on the lip of the wooden bar, her feet firmly on the barstool below where her ass should have been.

No… her ass should have been home. In her apartment. Alone.

“Kat,” he growled, reaching out to grab her hand as she gestured midsentence. Her eyes widened, and then she smiled at him.

That smile punched him through the gut. It wasn’t the impersonal smile you gave a stranger, or the loopy, slightly off-centered smile you’d hand out when you were drunk. It was genuine and real. She was happy. And damn beautiful with it.

“Hey, Manny,” she said, tugging on his hand as it held firm to hers. “Come meet my friends. This is Davis, and this here is Stanley. They were giving me the scoop on the Santa Fe scene.”

Michael gave each guy, who was practically salivating at Kat’s feet, a brief nod. “Nice to meet you. Kat, we need to—”

“Oh! And here.” She leaned back almost as if doing a back bend—God, she was flexible—and tapped a woman on the shoulder, who was a few feet away behind the bar. Her wingspan was incredible. “Sissy, come over and meet my manny.”

My manny. Though he knew she didn’t mean it that way, it sounded almost like an endearment. Far from it, in reality.

“Hey, Manny.” The woman he presumed was called Sissy—though everyone knew the servers used nicknames at Sin’s Inn—shot him a smile as she uncapped two long necks and slid them down the bar toward other waiting patrons.

“It’s Michael,” he corrected before thinking.

“I call him Manny,” Kat started, but one of the two guys she’d introduced to him before broke in.

“Hey, aren’t you Michael Lambert?”

Aw, hell. “Uh, yeah. That’s me. Kat, seriously, we should go.”

“As in Bobcats Michael Lambert? The guy who snaps the ball into Trey Owens’s waiting hands? Dude, Davis.” The other, who was clearly Stanley, elbowed his friend. “We’re hanging with a Bobcat.”

Dude. Really? He shot Kat a glare that said I blame you for all this.

Her return smile sweetly replied, That’s fine.

“A Bobcat, huh?” Sissy walked up and put a hand on Kat’s shoulder as if they were best friends for two decades. “So we’ve got an NFL guy and a pro tennis player. It’s practically Sports Center up in here.”

“Pro tennis?” Stanley asked, giving Kat his attention again.

Davis just stared at her legs. The *.