Copyright © 2010, Sonja Foust
Published by Whiskey Creek Press LLC

Reviews For SHOOTING STARS by Sonja Foust

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Prologue

“Like, Fame is cool and stuff, but sometimes it totally sucks,” Sunny Jean expostulated to her gaggle of followers.
Jocelyn York shook her head and snapped another photo. She wouldn’t get much for these. Everyone had pictures of Sunny Jean walking from her favorite club to her Lexus, tossing her golden weave over her shoulder. Jocelyn had to get something new. She circled around the crowd to get a better shot through the windshield of the Lexus.
Sunny Jean slid into the long bench seat in the back an instant before her two bouncy friends. That instant was what Jocelyn had been hoping for. She clicked away like crazy until the driver honked and she jumped out of the way to let him by. She’d seen paparazzi run over before and didn’t care to have it happen to her.
As the crowd dispersed, Jocelyn moved away and leaned against the outer brick wall of the trendy new Hollywood club, Fame. She punched the back button on her camera until her display showed the picture she was looking for. Sunny Jean’s weave fell forward, but you could see about half of her face. Jocelyn squinted at the small screen. It was hard to see, but the blush had faded from Sunny Jean’s cheeks. Her wide blue eyes looked straight into the camera and an expression of despair turned down the corners of her lips.
Jocelyn squelched the pang of sympathy for Sunny Jean and told herself this picture would sell great. Mara would be stoked. Everyone knew the starlet was in a downward spiral. She’d just announced she was headed to rehab. Jocelyn snorted. Apparently she’d needed one last night on the town to tide her over. She could see the headlines now. The public loved nothing more than to watch their one-time heroes fail.
She packed up her camera and started her walk home. She’d email the pictures off to Mara (highlighting the special one, of course), take a quick nap and a shower, and in a few hours she’d be on a plane to Jackson Hole. Well, okay, Jackson Hole via Salt Lake City. But still. The two-leg flight would be worth it to get far, far away from Hollywood.
She almost envied Sunny Jean. She’d have an excuse to spend some time in a cushy celebrity rehab center for weeks, maybe months. Jocelyn only had a week and a half, but it was better than nothing.
Jocelyn pushed open the gate to the outside courtyard of her apartment building and climbed the steps to the second floor. She tossed her keys on the table and opened her laptop. As always, her fingers tingled with excitement. She couldn’t wait to get these shots off to Mara. She hooked her camera up and opened a blank email message. When her cell phone rang, she pressed the silent button. A minute later, it rang again. She swore and looked at the caller ID.
She sighed and flipped open the phone. “Adam.”
“ Carrots!”
Jocelyn gritted her teeth and tugged at her short red pony tail. “I’m kind of busy, Adam. What do you want?”
“ What, I can’t just call to say hi?”
“ You usually don’t,” she said. “You’re visiting Mom and Dad this weekend, aren’t you?” The short pause was all the answer she needed. “No, Adam, I am not going with you. I’ll be on vacation, away from you and them and everything. Deal with them yourselves.”
“ Damn.” Adam sighed. “Without you there, I’m the only one they can pick on about career choice.”
Jocelyn leaned back in her chair, Mara and the photos temporarily forgotten. “Come on, Adam, you know they don’t mean to pick on us. They just want what’s best for us.”
“ You’re too nice to them. If they really wanted you to be happy, they’d support you in your career decision.”
“ I don’t support me in my career decision.”
“ Well…true,” Adam admitted. “But if it makes any difference, I do.”
Jocelyn smiled. Her brother had his moments, even if he was a pain in the butt most of the time.
“ So when do you leave for the big trip?” he asked.
She checked her watch and swore. “Really soon, Adam, and I have a lot to do between now and six a.m. Hey, why are you up calling me at this hour anyway?”
“ It’s five a.m. already here, Carrots. We Wall Street types get up early.”
“ Ugh, I forgot. Well, go be monetarily successful and yet emotionally depthless, then. I have to finish packing and get to the airport.”
“ Yeah, thanks. Later, Carrots.”
“’ Bye.”
Jocelyn flipped her phone closed and set it on the table. She stared at the camera next to her laptop for a long moment. She’d all but decided not to take the camera with her. After all, this was supposed to be a vacation. But talking with Adam… She could easily imagine the disappointment in her father’s face back at Christmas when he’d asked her to show him some of her recent photography and all she’d had was celebrities. Wyoming was picturesque. Maybe she could get some nice shots while she was there. Maybe she could enter a real photography contest with some of them. Maybe sell a print or two.
An hour later, Jocelyn stood in the doorway with her suitcase and carry-on in hand and stared at the camera case on the table. Finally, she rolled her eyes at herself and slung the camera over her shoulder.
“ I’m sure I’ll regret this,” she muttered as she locked the door behind her.

Chapter 1

Three days into her trip, Jocelyn still didn’t regret a single moment. She’d been skiing at Jackson Hole Resort, sight-seeing, bar-hopping, and, oh yeah, relaxing for a few hours a day.
Today, she set her camera bag in the passenger seat of her rental car and headed up Teton Pass to remedy the fact that she hadn’t taken a single picture since her arrival. She relaxed back into her seat, warm in the six layers of shirts under her thick down coat, as the car growled up the mountain.
She pulled over to stop and take some pictures, stepping as gently as possible through the foot of soft, new snow that had fallen the night before. The clouds hung low and she couldn’t get much of a view down into the valley. Oh well, there would still be time. She hooked her camera strap around her neck and climbed back into the car. She took a quick glance through the pictures she’d taken on the LCD screen. Not too bad, but not good either. She sighed and let the camera hang around her neck again. Maybe she’d better stick to human subjects.
The shadow of a bird passed over Jocelyn’s windshield and she suddenly felt uneasy. She reached for her seatbelt. Before she could grab it, a wall of snow barreled down the side of the mountain, over the road, and slammed into her car. She didn’t even have time to scream as her car slid and then the passenger side slammed hard into a tree.
In moments, the snow had stopped moving around her, and she sat petrified in her buried car.
Avalanche.
“ Oh God, oh God.”
She shook now, but she fumbled for her phone and managed to dial 911.
“ What is the nature of your emergency?”
“ Oh thank God,” Jocelyn breathed. “I didn’t know if my phone would work up here. I’m stuck in my car under a whole bunch of snow. I think it was an avalanche.”
“ Okay, what’s your name?”
“ Jocelyn York.”
“ Jocelyn, I need you to stay calm for me, okay? Where are you?”
Jocelyn took a deep breath. She’d been driving up the pass but hadn’t been paying attention to signs or mile markers. The scenic pull-off…did it have a name?
“ I don’t know!” Jocelyn wailed to the dispatcher. “Teton Pass somewhere. Just look for the avalanche!”
“ All right, ma’am, we’re sending someone to you now. Are you injured?”
Jocelyn looked down at herself. She appeared to be all in one piece but, come to think of it, her head throbbed.
“ I think I hit my head on the window, but I’m all right.”
“ Okay, can you stay on the line with me until someone gets there?”
“ Yes, I—” But a horrible creak made her stop short. “Oh God, I think the car just moved.”
“ Jocelyn, can you see any light?”
“ No,” said Jocelyn, and her voice caught. “Just snow everywhere.”
The car creaked again and this time moved enough that Jocelyn felt the shift.
“ The car is moving! I have to get out of here.”
While the dispatcher tried to keep her calm, she reached for the golf umbrella in the back seat. She’d bought it the other day. It had a big Wyoming logo on one side. Not that she’d ever need it in Hollywood, but her parents lived in Seattle. Now she decided she’d keep it in her car back home, though, for just such an emergency. She almost laughed at the thought of being buried in snow in Hollywood, but the car shifted again and she whimpered instead.
She rolled down her window just a crack, but it was enough to send a cold clump of snow down the front of her shirt. She shrieked and dropped the phone. The dispatcher squawked her name from the discarded phone, but Jocelyn didn’t want to risk shifting her weight to grab it, or moving the arm protecting the camera that still hung around her neck. She zipped the camera in under her coat, and then jammed the golf umbrella through the crack in the window, aiming for what she hoped was up.
She could have cried for joy when she brushed the new batch of powdery snow out of her face and saw blue sky.
“ I can get out!” She picked up the phone again and yelled at the dispatcher. “I see light!”
“ Okay, if you can, you need to get out quickly,” said the dispatcher.
“ Right.”
Jocelyn pocketed the phone and rolled down the window little by little, trying not to mind the cold clumps of snow falling on her. As she rolled down the window, she beat at the snow with the umbrella until she’d made a hole just big enough to haul herself out. It wasn’t an easy process to climb out of a snowed-in car with a big camera under her coat, but with some grunting and muscle, she made it.
Once back on relatively solid ground again, she grabbed the cell phone out of her pocket.
“ Are you still with me, Jocelyn?”
“ Yeah, I’m out,” she said, panting.
“ Do you think you can get to some level ground from where you are? The rescuers are on the ground, but they need to be able to see you.”
Jocelyn looked up the steep hill to where she assumed the road was and groaned. She considered telling the dispatcher to stuff it, but then she heard voices.
“ They’re coming, I hear them,” Jocelyn told her hurriedly. “’Bye, gotta go.”
She flipped the phone closed and yelled.
Her rescuers found her easily enough once she started using her lungs. Yelling had never been a problem, which was a good thing in her vocation. They hauled her up the hill and hiked her to an open spot down the road.
“ Are we going to walk all the way back?” she asked the older one with the beer gut.
He grinned at her, but through his dark sunglasses, she couldn’t tell if he was laughing at her or trying to be encouraging.
“ Nope, we’re catching a ride,” he said.
Before she had time to ask any more questions, a helicopter zoomed around the mountain and maneuvered into a hover right over them. The first rescuer grabbed hold of a harness hanging off the helicopter, hooked himself in, and zipped on up.
“ Do I have to do that?” yelled Jocelyn over the noise of the rotor.
Beer Gut Guy grinned at her again and nodded. This time, she was pretty sure he was laughing at her.
The harness dropped down again and Beer Gut Guy hooked himself in, and then opened his arms.
You’ve got to be kidding. Jocelyn rolled her eyes and grabbed hold. The guy smelled like beer and bacon, and she tried not to imagine what his breakfast, not to mention his apartment, must have looked like.
Thankfully, the pilot was a different matter altogether. Jocelyn hadn’t even caught her breath from the ride up when the sight of him knocked her breath out again. Hunter Stone. She’d recognize him anywhere. Sure, he’d been out of the public eye for close to five years, but you didn’t forget a face like Hunter Stone’s.
Last time she’d seen Hunter Stone, he’d been schmoozing a crowd with his wife at some big movie premiere for his newest action flick. They worshipped him, and why wouldn’t they? He was everything people wanted in a public figure: handsome, talented, funny, charming, nice wife. They ate him alive. But that had been before the accident.
She realized Hunter was glaring at her…or was that a leer? It had been so long since anyone had leered at her, she couldn’t quite tell. Still, it gave her a shiver that wasn’t related to the snow melting down the front of her shirt.
With a start, she realized her camera had probably gotten wet, and she unzipped her jacket and pulled it out. Beer Gut Guy made her sit and strapped her in, but she was too busy checking her camera over to notice. It looked okay, but maybe she should test it… She snapped a few furtive shots of Hunter Stone, just to test. With the flash turned off and the rotor making so much noise, she doubted he even noticed. She snapped a few more. He turned and smiled at her for one beautiful moment, and she couldn’t resist taking another photo. Just as quickly, he turned away, and didn’t look back at her again for the rest of the trip.
Maybe he’d turned over a new leaf—that’s why he’d smiled at her. Maybe she’d be the one to break the news, along with the photographs: Hunter Stone found in Wyoming, plans to make a Hollywood comeback. What a career boost that would be. Hell, what a bank account boost that would be. She was giddy just thinking about it, or maybe that was still giddiness from Hunter Stone’s delicious profile.
When they landed, be still her beating heart, Hunter Stone unbuckled his seatbelt and came straight for her. He unbuckled her too and helped her down, then led her away from the helicopter pad toward what looked like a barn. Hunter Stone had her by the arm. She wasn’t one for getting star-struck, mostly because she saw Hollywood A-listers every day, but she’d admired Hunter since the beginning of his career, and she allowed herself a fan girl moment.
“ You all right, ma’am?” drawled Hunter in his sexy Texas accent.
He backed her against the wall of the building and she leaned on it and looked up at him.
“ Fine, thank you.” Fine, thank you? Brilliant. Terribly witty. He’ll be asking me to be his biographer in no time.
He gave her his trademark action hero lopsided grin and the dimple in his left cheek winked. Her knees wobbled. He leaned down toward her and traced his finger from her collarbone down, down between her breasts. Her breath caught and she put her hands back against the wall to keep from melting into a heap on the ground. His finger traced lower and lower and finally came to rest on her camera.
“ You a tourist, honey?”
Jocelyn’s mouth had gone completely dry, but she managed a half-shrug, half-nod.
“ Sort of, huh? That’s an awful fancy camera for a tourist.”
Damn her pride, but she didn’t want him to think she was an amateur.
“ I’m a photographer,” she announced, her voice just a little breathy.
“ Well, now, that’s real nice, honey. But I think you already figured out who I am—” She nodded. “—and you probably know that I really like my privacy.”
Alarm bells finally went off in Jocelyn’s head and she shook off the star-struck fog. He wasn’t going to let her keep the pictures. But damn if she wasn’t going to take them anyway. In a split second, she’d made her decision. She kicked him hard in the shin and ran like hell…after she stopped just long enough to call “sorry” over her shoulder.
“ Luke, Parker, would you mind stopping that hellcat?” Hunter Stone drawled behind her, apparently in very little pain. She should have kicked harder.
Jocelyn could make time, though, and she’d give a chase to his two goons if they wanted one. Unfortunately, she underestimated how fast Beer Gut Guy could run, and it wasn’t long before she had one goon on each arm, hauling her back to face Hunter Stone.
The dimple was gone, along with the humor. This was a glare, definitely not a leer.
“ Give me the camera.”
Jocelyn shook her head and put her arms over the camera protectively. He took one step toward her, and she forced herself not to flinch, but then he stopped and sighed.
“ Fine.” The drawl came back and his face relaxed. “If you won’t let me keep the camera, then I’ll keep you.”
Jocelyn’s stomach flip-flopped.
“ What do you mean?” she asked.
“ Well one thing it doesn’t mean is I’m inviting you to stay as my guest,” he said and winked. “Let’s just say you’ll be obliged to stay.”
“ You’re kidnapping me?” she asked incredulously. “You can’t kidnap me. This is not the Wild West.”
One side of his mouth turned up in a smile that was becoming more malevolent than handsome to Jocelyn.
“ I dunno, we’re a pretty far piece from New York City as far as east and Wild West goes. And that right there’s Sheriff Luke Dean,” he said, indicating Beer Gut Guy, who gallantly tipped his cowboy hat and then spat in the snow, “and I’m pretty sure he’ll see things my way.”
Sheriff Beer Gut shot her a grin.
“ You’re bluffing,” said Jocelyn, more to convince herself than anyone else.
“ Maybe I am,” Hunter said, rocking back on his heels. “Or maybe I know he can arrest you for trespassing on my land and get your camera from you anyway, should you decide to decline my hospitality.”
“ I never trespassed!” she protested.
Hunter made a show of taking a look around. “This is my land,” he said, “and right now I’m not sure I’m too fond of the idea of you being on it.”
“ You brought me here!”
Hunter shrugged. “Suit yourself. Sheriff Dean, you got handcuffs in that fancy police SUV of yours?”
Now that was a leer. Jocelyn put on an offended expression, but her stomach dropped at the thought of what Hunter Stone could do with her and a pair of handcuffs. She swallowed hard.
She had to think. She could not give up these pictures. They could change her career. They could be worth enough to let her end her career and be a real photographer. And even though she wasn’t convinced that Hunter Stone, the mysterious goon number two Parker, and Sheriff Beer Gut could really get the camera away from her legally, she had no doubt Hunter had power enough to intimidate her out of it. She’d heard of stars’ lackeys threatening photographers’ families for nothing less than a few innocent (or more usually not so innocent) photos. It didn’t matter that Hunter Stone didn’t seem like the type to have lackeys. The truth was, you never could tell.
She lifted her chin. “Fine then. I’m staying.”
That threw him off, and she allowed herself a small gloat. His eyebrows lowered and he glowered at her.
“ Maybe she’s bluffing,” piped up Sheriff Dean. Jocelyn could hear the playful mocking in his voice and suddenly liked him a whole lot better.
“ If you’re bluffing, you better back down now, honey, because I’m calling it. The house is that way. Keep up or I’ll leave you out here in the snow and come back in the morning to pry your camera out of your cold, dead fingers.”

* * * *

By the time she, Hunter Stone, and Parker made it back to the house, Jocelyn ached all over. Her head throbbed and a goose egg had formed where she’d smacked the window with her face, and her toes were frozen from walking through what had to have been miles of snow-covered wasteland.
She was almost too tired to admire the mansion. Almost. Even though he’d taken her in through the back entrance, she could tell the whole thing was on a grander scale than she’d imagined when they’d started walking toward the “house.” She sat in the kitchen that was bigger than her entire apartment and let Beth the housekeeper fuss over her.
“ Sit right there by the fireplace and get warm while I make up a bed for you,” she instructed.
Had Hunter told the housekeeper about the situation?
“ Oh, no, I’m not staying,” Jocelyn replied, testing.
Beth laughed. She was a rare person, like Jocelyn’s mother, who could be jolly and stern all at once.
“ I won’t hear of you going back out there tonight, not after the day you’ve had and not with more snow coming down.”
So he’d told her something anyway. Poor old housekeeper probably thought Hunter was just her rescuer—which was somewhat true. But how could you admire a rescuer who was also your kidnapper?
At least it didn’t sound like he was planning to lock her in the shed. That was something.
Jocelyn wasn’t sure if she’d dozed by the fireplace or if Beth was just the fastest bed-maker in the history of the world, but it wasn’t long before she was back in the kitchen, pressing a mug of something hot and steaming into her hands.
“ Thank you.”
Beth bestowed a motherly smile on her. “Poor thing. You must be exhausted. I can take you upstairs if you want.”
Jocelyn shook her head. She wasn’t quite ready to sleep. Not with thoughts of Hunter and handcuffs still running through her head. But it wasn’t really Hunter that made her legs weak, was it? It was the characters Hunter played: action heroes, suave adventurers, and rescuers. Why’d she have to pick the one mountain in the world where Hunter Stone was a volunteer in the search and rescue department? Of all the crappy luck.
“ Hunter’s been doing this for years, but he’s never rescued someone as pretty as you,” Beth commented and winked.
Jocelyn blushed and mumbled a thank you.
Beth turned to the sink and washed dishes while she talked. “So where are you from and what do you do?”
Jocelyn just managed to suppress a groan. “I’m a photographer. From California.” Maybe if she was vague enough…
Beth’s sponge slipped out of her hand and landed with a plop in the soapy water. “Hollywood?” she asked after a bit of a pause.
Jocelyn sighed. This just kept getting better and better. “I’m a paparazzo,” she spit out.
She sat in uncomfortable silence and waited for Beth to throw her back out in the snow. When she looked over at the sink, Beth’s shoulders were shaking. Had she made the woman cry? Oh, what a day.
“ I’ll just go upstairs…” Jocelyn muttered, standing.
Beth waved her back down and turned to face her. There were tears running down her cheeks, but her eyes laughed and Jocelyn had the sneaking suspicion that she hid a smile under her suds-covered hand. Well, at least she wasn’t crying. Jocelyn huffed and plopped back down in her seat.
“ I’m glad someone’s amused about it,” she grumbled.
“ I’m sorry, sweetie,” Beth said, panting. She wiped the suds and tears with a towel and then took a seat across from Jocelyn at the table. “It’s just that I’ve never seen him so worked up over anyone and you turn out to be paparazzi. This is going to be really interesting.”
Jocelyn felt her face heat again. “‘Worked up’ is a nice way of describing rude and domineering.”
Beth chuckled and patted Jocelyn’s hand. “He’s a hard nut to crack, but he’s worth it. Give him a chance.”
“ A chance? I’m his prisoner! He doesn’t get a chance.”
“ Sweetheart, I’d drive you back to your hotel myself if I thought you really wanted to go, but something’s keeping you here.” Beth lifted an eyebrow and dared Jocelyn to correct her.
Only she couldn’t. She could hear the truth in Beth’s words and it burned her. She lifted her chin.
“ I want my pictures and I don’t want to be harassed about them,” she said.
Beth shrugged. “If you need a reason, I suppose that’s as good as any.”
Jocelyn sighed, giving up for the moment on reasoning with the woman. “Thank you for the drink, Beth. I’m very tired. Will you show me where I’m staying, please?”
Beth nodded and started up a small staircase at the back of the kitchen. The stairs ended up in an upstairs hallway, and Beth continued up another set of spiral stairs to another small hallway with one door off to the side. Beth led her in to a room decorated with heavy wood furniture and a lot of detailed quilts in pinks and blues. If Jocelyn hadn’t been so put out, she might have admired it.
“ Pajamas on the bed, toiletries in the bathroom,” said Beth. “Hunter will send someone to your hotel tomorrow to pick up the rest of your things. Just holler if you need anything else.”
Jocelyn thanked Beth and shut the door when she left. She took her camera from around her neck for the first time since she’d crawled out of her abandoned rental car. She felt the urge to hide it, but where? Finally, she put it in the bedside table drawer, called it good, and fell into bed.

* * * *

Hunter paced back and forth in his room. He wasn’t a pacer by nature, but that fancy Hollywood photographer had him all riled up. Her room was as far from his as it could possibly be, but he didn’t even want to think about her being under the same roof.
Still, he had to admit she’d given him a nice reaction in his lower regions. Anyone would have been attracted to the pretty little redhead with a pert nose and a dazzling smile. Damn it, she probably used all that cuteness to get in good with people and then spread their photos all over the world.
Not that he hadn’t posed for a few cameras in his day. In fact, were he to be honest, he’d admit to himself that he’d enjoyed the attention for a while. Until Lina… No, if he thought about that, he’d just get all riled up, and he was already aggravated enough.
A knock sounded at the open door of his room and he spun around.
“ What?”
“ Down, tiger,” Beth said and laughed.
He sighed. “Sorry.”
“ I just came to see if you need anything else before I head out,” she said, still smiling that I-know-something smile she was so good at.
“ No.” When she didn’t leave, he continued. “Can I do something for you?”
Her smile never broke. “Just wanted to let you know that I set up Jocelyn upstairs. I gave her some of your pajamas.”
She was trying to get a rise out of him, and it wasn’t going to work.
“ Thank you, Beth,” he said through his teeth.
“ You might ought to check on her before you go to bed and see if she needs anything else. She looked pretty beat up.”
“ She’s fine,” he growled.
What was wrong with him? He’d never growled at Beth before. She didn’t seem to mind though.
“ Mind your manners, Hunter,” she reprimanded gently. “The poor thing might be concussed or something. You never know.”
“ She’s fine,” he repeated, more gently this time.
“ Suit yourself,” said Beth, the I-know-something smile back in place. “See you in the morning.”
“ Goodnight.”
She shut the door behind her and he listened to her footfalls down the stairs before he started his pacing again.
He had to think. He had to find a way to get that camera away from the paparazzo. He wasn’t sure if she’d figured out that he had been bluffing about Dean being able to get the camera from her, but it wouldn’t take her long to figure it out if she hadn’t. The sooner he could get that camera away from her and her out from under his roof, the better.
When had he gotten so uptight about a few pictures? He sighed. But he couldn’t stomach the thought of people finding him here, flocking around like hopeful buzzards, waiting for him to mess up so they could take a picture of it. He’d had quite enough of that for one lifetime, thank you.
He almost laughed aloud at the thought that he’d been toying with the idea lately of making a few low-key appearances. What had he been thinking? His career was over, by his own choice. To pick it back up again meant no privacy, no place to get away from anything. Jocelyn’s relatively innocent pictures had gotten him so riled up, how would he ever deal with the real thing? Maybe it was best that she had shown up just now. He’d needed a reality check.
He still had to get those pictures away from her. He imagined money was the motivating factor. It always was. So he’d just pay her off, get her camera, and she’d be free to go. She’d probably even be glad in the long run. Who wouldn’t be glad to have a nice wad of cash?
Of course, people like her tended to get all swole up if you suggested they might value money over career, so he’d have to tread carefully, try to get her to understand that he was helping her. Hey, she could buy better camera equipment with all that money, right?
So he’d have to schmooze her a little. Damn it. Well, there was no getting around it. He marched himself down the hall and up the spiral staircase before he had a chance to tuck tail and run, then banged hard on Jocelyn’s door.
No answer. Well, fine, if she didn’t want to talk to him, then she could just stay in there forever.
But something Beth said niggled at him. She could be lying concussed and unconscious in there. He knocked again, louder. Still no answer. Well, fine then. She was forcing his hand. He was going to have to put on the hero hat. He turned the knob but it wouldn’t give. Little brat had locked him out in his own house.
He braced his shoulder against the door and then slammed hard into it, wincing when the lock gave and the door flew open, sending splinters of doorframe onto the floor.
“ What the hell?” she screamed and sat straight up in bed.
He was damn sure she looked better in his pajamas than he ever would. He shook the thought away. “Sorry. How many fingers am I holding up?”
“ How many fingers am I holding up?” she returned, with an unladylike hand gesture.
He frowned. “Don’t have a conniption. I’m trying to figure out if you’re concussed.”
She looked panicked for a split second. “Shouldn’t you have figured that out before I went to sleep?”
Hunter approached her bed, trying to convince himself he was in full Search and Rescue mode and that heading toward her bed had nothing to do with wanting to tumble her in it. He put his hands on her face and maneuvered her to check out the goose egg on her forehead.
“ Hey!” she protested.
“ That’s a myth, by the by,” he said, but didn’t let go of her.
“ What’s a myth?”
“ That you’re not supposed to sleep after a concussion. Some old fool made it up.”
She snorted. “Good to know. I’ll remember that next time I’m concussed. Snooze at will.”
He let go of her face and sat on the edge of the bed. “You had any nausea?”
“ Not until just now,” she said in a deadpanned tone.
“ I’m trying to help,” he said, temper flaring. “But if you’re going to have a hissy fit, and you don’t much mind if your brain swells up and you kick the bucket while you’re sleeping, then I’ll leave you be.”
She glared, but didn’t tell him to get out again, so he continued.
“ Any memory loss?”
“ No.”
“ Any perseverating?”
“ What the hell is perseverating?”
“ Repeating the same thing over and over.”
“ What the hell is perseverating?” One corner of her mouth quirked up.
“ Funny,” he said, grunting to keep himself from kissing the smirk right off her face.
“ So did I pass, doc? You going to give me my clean bill of health and get out so I can go back to sleep?”
Hunter remembered why he’d come up here in the first place and just managed to stop himself from letting loose with a few choice curse words.
“ Actually,” he gritted his teeth, “I wanted to ask you if you would join me for dinner tomorrow night.”
Jocelyn paused. “Is confusion a symptom of a concussion?”
“ You fixing to answer my question any time soon?”
She shrugged. “I’m your prisoner, so I guess that means I do whatever you want.” She promptly blushed.
Hunter tamped down thoughts of all the things he really wanted her to do, and he got the distinct feeling something similar was going through her mind. At least he wasn’t the only one dealing with wild lust.
“ Fine. Seven?”
“ I’ll be here,” she promised. “Or. Um. In the dining room. Since the bedroom isn’t really a good place to… ” She winced. “Tomorrow. Seven. Good.”
He grinned, suddenly realizing the ball really was in his court again. “Great.”
He lifted a hand to brush his thumb carefully across her bruise. It sure was a good bump.
“ You look like you been rode hard and put up wet. Best get some rest now.”
“ You are a fantastic ass, do you know that?”
“ So I’ve been told.” He laughed.
Lord help him, he wished he could kiss the line between her eyebrows, and maybe that frowning mouth too. Instead, he tossed one more movie star grin at her before he bolted, and slammed the cattywhompus door behind him the best he could. He flew back down the stairs like the dogs were after him and into his room and shut that door too. The more obstacles between them the better—and the sooner she was out the better. He ought to have asked her to breakfast instead.
He sighed, turned off the light, and climbed into bed for the nightly ritual of trying to fall asleep. Tonight was going to be a long one, he could tell.

CLOSE WINDOW