Susan Andersen - Just For Kicks

Treena’s smile turned into a full-fledged grin. “She has so lost the power to bug me.”

“You’ve definitely decided this will be your last year, then?”

“Yeah. You know it’s time for me. I’m getting too old for this and it’s just plain getting tougher physically. Jax and I have been talking over some of my options.”

“I’ll wager you have quite a few, too,” Carly agreed. “And I’m happy for you, toots. For myself, though, I’m going to miss working with you. What’s it been, a decade we’ve been dancing together?”

“Yes, can you believe it?” Propping her heel on the countertop, Treena bent over her straight leg, stretching out her hamstrings. Slowly straightening, she gave a nod to the bouquet on the counter between their stations. “So who do you think the flowers are from?”

“You got me.” She paused in tucking her hair beneath the turban portion of the headpiece to look at her friend. “I might check with the hotel florist tomorrow to see if anyone remembers anything. Because I honestly don’t have a clue.”

“Hey, maybe it was Wolfgang.”

Carly choked, then laughed so hard tears began to leak over her bottom lashes. “Oh, shit, if you made me ruin my makeup you’re a dead woman.” She grabbed a handful of tissues and gently pressed them beneath her eyes to catch the overflow before it could smear her mascara. Once she was certain the damage was contained, she turned to her friend. “Do you honestly see Mr. Grim and Grimmer sending flowers to someone he’s not sharing the sheets with?”

“Well…no.”

“Me, neither. Hell, I can’t even see him loosening up enough to do the hootchie-kootch.”

And if sometimes she jerked awake from a dream of him hanging over her in a red-hot naked lather…?

Well, that would just remain her guilty little secret.

WOLF WOKE UP THE following morning to Niklaus playing music at top volume. The discordant notes and screeching guitar licks found a corresponding pulse in his left temple, which began pounding in tune with the inharmonic sounds wailing out of the living room speakers. With a groan he rolled to the side of the bed, where he sat with his elbows dug into his knees and his aching head propped in his hands.

God, he felt awful. Burning his candle at both ends didn’t even begin to cover it. He’d been running his ass off the past seventy-two hours, working his shift by night and squiring his folks and Niklaus around Vegas and its environs by day. He’d eaten rich foods he was no longer accustomed to and worked like a dog to live up to his mother’s expectations.

Which had meant talking. Smiling. Being frigging pleasant.

What he’d netted from so much unaccustomed sociability was a dangerously volatile temper. Generally a well-managed animal, it was suddenly hurling itself at its cage doors, slavering and snarling for release. Having to listen to crap music at high decibels on too little sleep verged perilously close to the key that beast was searching for.

But even if he believed in the self-indulgence of losing his temper, this wouldn’t be the time for it, since it would be the height of unfairness to take it out on Niklaus. The kid was having a rough-enough time as it was. Wolf remembered too well what it was like being ordered to pack up your belongings just when you finally got yourself settled in, only to have to start the whole lousy process all over again somewhere else.

And that was on top of the guilt he felt at leaving Niklaus to fend for himself last night.

After seeing his folks off at the airport for their flight back to Bolivia, Wolf had fully intended to take the teen home, order whatever pizza Niklaus wanted and ease him into his new situation. Instead, they’d arrived home to a message on the answering machine from the Avventurato Surveillance team’s number-one man, Dan McAster. “Emergency’s come up in the casino,” Dan’s voice had snapped out in its usual gruff-spoken way. “I need you here, ASAP.”

So he’d had to leave Niklaus alone in a strange condo in a strange city practically the minute the teen’s grandmother—the only person to provide Niklaus with a modicum of security—had left town. As if the kid hadn’t already had enough to contend with moving in with an uncle he barely knew.

All the same—Wolf dug his fingertips into his pounding temple—that music had to go before his head exploded.

Climbing to his feet, he reached for the shirt he’d draped over the desk chair last night and pulled it on. Not bothering to button it, he grabbed a pair of khaki shorts out of a drawer and yanked them up his legs, zipping the fly as he walked into the living room.

He strode straight over to the stereo and cranked down the volume.

Niklaus, slumped on his tailbone on the couch, glowered at him, and Wolf jerked his head at the wall connecting his unit to Carly’s. “Show a little consideration, Nik. We’ve got a neighbor.”

To his surprise, the boy’s expression lit up. “I know, I saw her out on the balcony last night. She is hot! And she’s got like a hundred dogs and cats. How totally great is that?”

The mention of Carly’s animals made Wolf want to furrow his brow and curl his lip back from his teeth. He managed a noncommittal expression, however, because he didn’t want to ruin the first sign of pleasure he’d seen on the kid’s face since Niklaus had learned his grandparents were dumping him in Las Vegas.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Great. Totally.” My ass.

God, she made him nuts. He’d cooled his heels in Surveillance last night for a good hour after the la Stravaganza show was over, waiting for her to show up. But had she? Hell, no. She’d blown off the one simple request he’d made of her, and he was still steamed about waiting for her to make an appearance when he should have been back home with Niklaus.

He was hardly blown away by surprise. But he was plenty steamed.

What did surprise him was how close he still felt to losing the tight rein he had on his temper. The need to be nice these past few days must have taken even more of a toll on him than he’d realized. All the same, he had to put it behind him. Get his head screwed on straight.

Niklaus suddenly surged to his feet. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

“Okay, good. I’ll take one when you’re done, then we’ll go grab some breakfast and visit a couple of schools to see if we can find one that fits.”

The boy scowled at him. “I don’t suppose any of the schools in this town has a decent soccer team?”

His tone was pure teenage, don’t-give-a-shit boredom, but Wolf took one look at his nephew’s stiff posture and intense gaze and realized the answer mattered a great deal to him.

“I don’t know, but I’ll see what I can find out. Your grandmother mentioned you’ve got a real talent for the sport.”

Niklaus shrugged and slouched off toward the bathroom.

Wolf was on the phone trying to get sports information from the nearest school when hysterical barking broke out next door. It continued unabated throughout the remainder of his conversation, and his temper was straining at its leash by the time he finally slammed the phone down. “Son of a bitch!”

He looked down the hallway toward the bathroom, but the shower continued to pound unabated. With an abrupt, decisive nod, he snatched up the incident report that he’d brought home from work and strode over to pull his door open with a force that damn near removed it from its hinges.

A UPS driver who was turning away from Carly’s door jumped, and Wolf wiped the scowl from his face as he approached her.

“Is that for Carly Jacobsen?” he asked, nodding at the package in the woman’s hands.

The brown-uniformed woman glanced down at the name on the label, then nodded.