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  “Is that what Jordan Duquette used to do?”

  She lifted her eyes. “He always denied it, but there was no other way the Herald-Star could have found us at some of the places we went to. Sometimes the photographers would beat us to the location.”

  “I would never use you to sell records, Miranda.”

  “How do you know about Jordan? Bernie?”

  Lucas gripped the knees of his white cotton pajama pants. He thought carefully about his next words before he spoke them. “Bernard certainly gave us a full dossier on you. But prior to our meeting in Conwy, my publicist did an Internet search and a background check on you.”

  He braced himself for her reaction. The morning sunlight illuminated the annoyance and frustration that took turns shaping her features, but she said nothing.

  “Please, don’t be insulted,” he said. He set his elbows on the table and balanced his chin upon his thumbs. “I wanted to know more about you, of course, but I also had to consider the well-being of the residents of Conwy. I couldn’t very well invite you to my home if you turned out to be a serial killer out on parole.”

  “I still might become a homicidal maniac.” She nodded toward the Herald-Star that had come tucked under their breakfast tray. “I know where I’d start.”

  He reached around a carafe of pomegranate juice and a platter of Belgian waffles to take one of her hands. “Background searches are a necessary part of my personal relationships. I’ve had death threats from everyone from radical religious groups, irate husbands whose wives played a particular Karmic Echo song too much, and women convinced that they’re my secret lover or long-lost wife or daughter.”

  “How can you really trust anyone?”

  He held her gaze, and yet again the beauty of her clear, bright eyes threatened to overwhelm him. “I’ve found that a look in the eyes tells quite a bit about a person’s true character.”

  Miranda agreed. Lucas’s deep, ink-blue gaze held nothing back. She wallowed in its warmth. Even if she refused to believe the honesty and love she saw in them, she couldn’t deny their existence.

  “You may as well know that I plan to hire a bodyguard for you,” he said.

  “I don’t need a bodyguard. Are you serious?”

  “That room service waiter last night could have gone for my throat with a steak knife because of his wife’s interest in me just as easily as he’d asked for an autograph,” Lucas explained. “We can’t be too careful, particularly given the e-mails I’ve received in the past two days.”

  “What did they say?”

  “The basic ‘I hate you and want you dead for being with Miranda Penney instead of me’ sort of missives from the deluded and jealous segment of Karmic Echo’s fan base,” Lucas said. “It will pass.”

  “I guess most of your fans would rather see you with a nice blonde with blue eyes,” Miranda supposed.

  “My true fans want only for me to be happy,” Lucas assured her. “I can do without the ones who think I shouldn’t be with a black woman.”

  She picked at a slice of cantaloupe on her plate. “I’ve gotten e-mails, too,” she confessed quietly. “At work. My Herald-Star e-mail address runs at the bottom of all my stories, so readers can write me to tell me how wrong I am about a team or an athlete. Since I came back from Wales, I’ve gotten hundreds of e-mails, most of them from your fans. Some of them think I’ve stolen you away from them, others think you’re too good for me, others think that you’ll get sick of me and move on soon.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think that it’s hard to think with you sitting there, looking like a Greek god come to life.”

  “I leave for Australia in eleven days,” he began. “I’ll be there until the end of the month, and I would love it if you joined me there for Christmas. But before we go one minute further, I need to know something, Miranda.” Holding her hand over the small table, he stood and urged her to his side of it. He sat her on his right knee and locked his arms around her. “I don’t want this to end.”

  “What to end?”

  “This.” He kissed her bare upper arm. “I want to know that I can go on the road and that it will always lead back to you. Or that you can come to me. I want to make a serious go of this. Do you?”

  She opened her mouth to scream that she wanted nothing more than a serious go, but she caught herself. He would be in Boston for eleven more days. If they were as good as the past two days had been, then she could easily contemplate something more permanent. The logical part of her liked that plan, but the wounded, irrational part of her dealt reason upon reason to get out while she had only pleasant memories.

  Jordan had never made her feel the way Lucas did. Lucas made her feel as though he were the luckiest man alive, all because she was with him. Just sitting on his lap stirred hot and reaching sensations that made her willing to agree to anything. Lucas, quite simply, was an easy man to love.

  And there lay the problem.

  “I have a job, Lucas,” she said, glad that her hair hid her face from him. “I start a ten-day work week tonight. I’m on high school wrestling. I don’t think I’ll have much time to spend with you before you leave for Australia. Maybe…maybe it would just be best if we…”

  He brushed her hair from her face. “If we what?”

  The words sat in her head, waiting to be spoken, but she couldn’t make her mouth say them. Lucas stole them, and they sounded even worse from him than she imagined they would have tasted in her own mouth. “If we didn’t see each other again?”

  “No!” She almost screamed, twisting to face him directly. “No,” she repeated calmly. “I don’t know what I want. I wasn’t expecting you to bring this up.”

  “I suppose I should have left well enough alone, then.”

  She cupped his face with her right hand. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to me while you’re here, that’s all.”

  “Is that what you think you are to me? An obligation?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I don’t know what I mean about any of this.”

  “Have you ever dated anyone like me before?” he asked.

  “You’re my first musician,” she answered, deliberately misunderstanding him.

  “That’s not what I meant. Have you ever dated anyone outside your race?”

  “Of course. My job makes it easy. Sports is like an international dating pool.”

  “So my race isn’t an obstacle to you?”

  “No. I hope mine isn’t the only reason you’re attracted to me. Interracial pairings seem to be fashionable among the rich and famous these days. I’m just a regular person, Lucas. I don’t want to be some sort of accessory.”

  “Don’t be scared, Miranda.” His understanding, strength and warmth as he returned her embrace helped ease her niggling doubts and distrust. “Perhaps I’ve made a wrong assumption or two about us,” he said into her hair.

  “You haven’t.” She drew away and touched his lips with a fingertip. “You’re right. Bernie and Calista were right, too. I’m scared out of my head about what’s happening between us, Lucas. I felt something, too, on the night of the crush. When I opened my eyes and saw you, I was sure that I’d died and was looking into the face of one of God’s highest angels.” She caressed the side of his face, seeing him as she had at their first meeting. “I didn’t feel pain, or hear the noise of the crowd. I didn’t even remember how I’d gotten there. I just wanted to spend the rest of time right there, in your arms, looking into your eyes.”

  “We belong together, Miranda,” he said before catching her mouth in a kiss that made them forget about breakfast, crazed fans and what the next eleven days would hold. The present was all that mattered, and how quickly they could bare themselves physically as they had emotionally. Lucas made love to her right there on the plush, triple-padded carpeting, this time verbally proclaiming his love for her as eloquently as he had shown her through touch. While Miranda wouldn’t say
the words aloud, her kisses, caresses and responses left no doubt in Lucas’s mind that she shared his feelings.

  “Can we make this work?” he asked her soon after their interlude. He had drawn a crystal dish of sliced tropical fruit to the floor, and he fed her chilled slices of sweet blood oranges there on the carpet.

  “I suppose so,” Miranda said, unsure if the decision had been made by her head, her heart or her hormones, or all three acting in concert against her better judgment.

  * * *

  Lucas opened the door to the Walker S. Hill Athletic Building, and then followed Miranda inside. He took a deep breath, and chuckled as he exhaled. “All school gymnasiums smell the same,” he said. “Like feet and floor polish.”

  “If I could bottle it, I’d wear it as cologne,” Miranda said. “I’d call it Eau de Past Glory. Some of my best high school memories took place on the basketball courts.”

  “My road crew likes a good pick-up game of basketball,” Lucas said. He glanced at the trophy cases and championship banners lining the walls of the lobby as he followed Miranda deeper into the building. “I’ve got a pretty fair jump shot, for a bloke who grew up on football—sorry, soccer—and rugby.”

  Miranda gave him an indulgent smile. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Lucas stopped her. He took her by her waist and pulled her against him. “Are you challenging me to a game of one on one?”

  She stared at his sensuous mouth as she said, “Is that really how you want to spend your last night in Boston?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Miranda lifted her face to taste the word on his lips. She stopped and abruptly drew away from him when a scream began to echo through the otherwise empty corridor.

  “Oh my God, it’s Lucas Fletcher!”

  The scream could have been adolescent or adult, male or female—Miranda couldn’t tell. Regardless, it triggered a rush of bodies through the double doors leading to the gym floor. Miranda let the wave of people carry her away from Lucas, and she watched as a familiar scene once more repeated itself before her.

  Until tonight, she had gone on her stories, unnoticed and unrecognized until she had to gather post-match quotes. She had written and filed her stories via e-mail from Lucas’s penthouse or her apartment—when she and Lucas could sneak past his fans.

  Being in public with Lucas was a lot different than being in public with Jordan, Miranda had realized in the past week and a half. Sports fans recognized Jordan, and all but the most overexcited baseball fanatics had typically kept a respectful distance, happy with just a nod and a whisper in Jordan’s direction, or a quick handshake and a compliment on his latest game performance.

  Everyone recognized Lucas. Even the fifty-year-old wrestling coaches had shamelessly crowded around him, clamoring for autographs the moment Lucas entered the gymnasium. The grandfatherly J.D. Campbell, Haverford High’s varsity coach, had asked for an autograph supposedly for his wife…Jerome David.

  Lucas was patient and oddly beautiful in his humility at being asked for his name on the strips and scraps of paper waved at him. He treated each person as though he or she were a friendly neighbor. Miranda recalled how Jordan would inflate like an African puff frog when someone, especially an attractive woman, asked for his autograph. He would strut around for hours afterward, referring back to the incident as if he had just bestowed the Holy Grail upon a tortured and desperate soul.

  Miranda cringed when she thought of how Jordan had always expected her to stand in the shadows of his limelight when fans approached him. He’d once left her sitting alone at the end of a bar for two hours while he regaled a half-dozen Boston University coeds with his on-field exploits, and then had yelled at her in the parking lot for talking baseball for ten minutes with a man old enough to be her father. Back then, she had confused his possessiveness with genuine affection. With Lucas standing amidst a sea of adoring fans, his eyes searching her out and softening each time he found her, Miranda now knew what true affection was.

  One of the boys slated to wrestle in the match Miranda had been sent to cover seemed to speak without breathing as he told Lucas all about his own musical pursuits, and then brought up Karmic Echo’s ill-fated opening night show in Boston.

  “Me and the guys from my band, Black-Eyed Dog, camped out to get tickets,” the young grappler said, his dropped r’s and ing’s revealing his South Boston roots. “My brother saw you in Boston in October and he said the show was wicked good. The cancellation was a pisser, but the makeup show was too good, dude.”

  “Speaking of performances,” Lucas said as he furiously scribbled his name on the back of a sweatshirt worn by a quivering young girl, “I hope to see some good wrestling here tonight. I’m told you’re quite talented.”

  The boy’s blush of excitement swallowed his ruddy freckles as he passed a hand over the scruff of his fiery buzz cut. “Are you shi—” He caught himself. “Messin’ with me? You heard about me?”

  “You’re Thomas Winsor, aren’t you?” Lucas said.

  The kid put his hands on his head in disbelief. “What, are you psychic?”

  Lucas gazed at Miranda. “See that woman over there by the water fountain? The woman in the white shirt and jeans?”

  “The hottie?” the wrestler said casually.

  Lucas fought back a laugh. “Yes. The hottie. Her name is Miranda Penney, and she’s here to report on your match.”

  “From the Herald-Star? That’s Miranda Penney?” The champion wrestler’s words trailed after him as he zipped over to Miranda. Three of his teammates joined him, and a sea of maroon and gold warm-up suits soon surrounded Miranda.

  “I read your column every day,” a larger teen said.

  “I don’t have a column.” Miranda scarcely heard her own voice over the hard pounding of her heart.

  “I have your picture on my wall,” a man-sized sophomore said, grinning through a mouthful of clear braces. “It was in the paper.”

  “I got mine outta the Herald-Star, too,” stated another boy, who bore such a strong resemblance to Jordan that Miranda’s stomach jumped a little. “You’re much prettier in person, ma’am.”

  Ma’am? Miranda thought, horrified. I’m not old enough to be a ma’am.

  Miranda was ready to climb the water fountain to get away from her hormonally-challenged audience when a gaggle of petite young girls descended upon her en masse. The multicolored jewels of their eyes, bright with the shine of having first met Lucas, pinned her in place.

  “Oh my God, you are so pretty!” one of the girls gushed. “I seen you in the papers and I was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so pretty! She’s like, ten times prettier’n Penelope Cruz and Jennifer Lopez put together.’”

  “Lucas is a wicked good kisser, I bet,” another girl said, the words ‘paypuhs,’ ‘wicket’ and ‘kissuh’ striking Lucas’s funny bone.

  “No comment,” Miranda said, glaring at him. Lucas’s crowd had thinned while the one around her steadily deepened. He gave her an unassuming smile that made the overlapping chatter bearable.

  Almost.

  “Are you gonna marry Lucas Fletcher?” a gum-popping, Meg-in-training asked.

  “If he won’t, I will,” said a suave senior who sidled up close to Miranda.

  “Miss Penney?” Lucas called. “Will you be entertaining your fans much longer?”

  The group of high schoolers, the girls in particular, pushed in closer to Miranda. “Can I have your autograph?” they each asked.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Miranda asked, dumbfounded.

  A wave of high-pitched “Please’s” pierced Miranda’s eardrums. She scrawled her name beneath Lucas’s on the papers forced on her. She silently thanked God when the wrestlers were called into the gymnasium, and the students tore themselves away from her.

  Lucas went to her and threaded his fingers through hers. “I shouldn’t have forced you to drag me along tonight. I didn’t mean to interfere with your job.”

  “My work doesn’t
start until those kids hit the mat. I’m worried that you’ll be bored. Although with you in the bleachers, those boys are going to wrestle their unitards off.”

  Lucas cringed. “There’s a graphic I could do without.”

  “How did you know that the red-headed kid was Thomas Winsor?”

  “You told me about him this afternoon, when you were trying to talk me out of coming to this meet with you. You said that Winsor was an honor student, that he played in a band called Black-Eyed Dog and that he was having an undefeated season.” Lucas gave her a playful shove. “I listen, Miranda.”

  Hiding a delighted smile, she said, “C’mon,” and took his hand to lead him to the gym doors. “We won’t get seats if we don’t get in there.”

  He opened the door for her. “Is high school wrestling so very popular?”

  “Only since you got here,” Miranda said, entering the gym. “Look.” She gave a subtle nod toward the bleachers, which seemed to writhe with overexcited wrestling fans clutching cell phones to their ears. “Even the teachers are calling their friends and family to tell them that Lucas Fletcher is at a Haverford-Parkington wrestling meet.”

  “Perhaps I should leave,” Lucas said. “I don’t want to steal the attention from the athletes who came here to wrestle tonight.”

  Miranda pulled him along to a bench on the gym floor. “You being here is the best thing that could happen to both of these teams. I just hope that when Meg’s photo rats show up, they have as much respect for these kids as you do.”

  * * *

  Miranda was glad that the walls of Hodge’s office were glass as she approached. He hadn’t told her why he’d summoned her to his office, but she saw a moment or two in advance that Meg and Rex had something to do with it, since they, too, were waiting in Hodge’s office.

  “You wanted to see me?” Miranda said to Hodge as she closed the door behind her. She cast a guarded eye at Meg, who stood behind Rex’s chair like a demonic First Lady and looked as out of place in Hodge’s distinctively masculine office as a pickle in a pumpkin patch. Meg’s alien presence raised the fine hairs on the back of Miranda’s neck. “You know, Hodge, if you’re busy, I can come back later.”