Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats) Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 asshole.
    “How come we’ve never heard of you?”
    “I’m an up-and-comer,” she replied with a sunny smile. “But you’ll know me eventually. Kat Kelly.”
    “Why does that name sound familiar?” Stanley muttered.
    “What are you doing in Santa Fe?” Davis asked.
    “Taking in the sights,” Kat simply said, shrugging as if that explained why she was sitting on top of the bar at the Sin’s Inn in Santa Fe. “Out having some fun while I can.”
    “You’ve had your fun,” Michael started, but the music cut out and everyone became quiet.
    “Okay, ladies and gents, another hour has passed. You know what that means!”
    Michael whirled around, trying to find the source of the voice. But as it was coming over the PA system, it could have been from anywhere. And by the way people jumped up and down, waving their hands and cheering loudly, he knew whatever was coming wasn’t something he