athletes as baseball players.” From the way the last two words dripped off her tongue, it was clear she considered his profession on par with used car salesmen and politicians. “More so, if you asked me. You don’t see us sitting on the bench, spitting tobacco. And the guys I work with throw around hundred-pound ballerinas, not a five ounce sphere.”
“Easy, Duchess.” He held up a palm. “I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
“You don’t have to try.” She tossed her ponytail. “You just do.”
“Like Yoda?”
“Minus the green skin and the pointy ears, obviously.”
“So you think dancers are better athletes than ballplayers?”
“Not better.” Wrinkles creased her forehead like she was deep in thought, searching for the right word to bridge the gap between her occupation and his. “Different. But we earn our living with our bodies, just like you do.”
“Finally.” He flashed another mega-watt smile, with as little effect as the last one. Damn. He hadn’t struck out this many times in a row since he’d faced Johan Santana at Shea his rookie season. “Something we have in common.”
“I seriously doubt there’s anything else.”
“Do you?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s just say I’m not interested in finding out.” She slowed, then stopped pedaling.
“That’s disappointing.”
“I guess you’ll have to learn to live with disappointment.”
She eased herself off the bike and made her way over to the free weights. He shrugged off her pissy attitude, knowing from personal experience she was covering for something. Like the fear of losing a lifetime of hard work.
Besides, it was just as well. If their conversation had gone on any longer, he might have let slip just how well acquainted he was with disappointment.
“What the hell?”
He stumbled as the treadmill came to a stop. Sara stood next to the machine, her finger still on the e-stop button. “I warned you.”
“I was barely moving.”
“You were practically running.” She handed him a towel. “It’s time for your session. Wipe off your machine and let’s get going. You’re in my army now, hotshot.”
Great. Not even noon and he’d already managed to piss off two women. With a groan, he balled up the towel, tossed it into a nearby hamper and followed Sara.
It was gonna be a fan-freaking-tabulous day.
* * *
WHAT WAS IT about Jace Monroe that brought out her inner diva?
Noelle flopped onto her bed, if you could call gingerly lowering herself so as to avoid jolting her bum-knee flopping. She really should take a shower, but she didn’t have the energy after her workout. Half an hour on a stupid stationary bike, and she felt as spent as if she’d danced Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Plus, she was supposed to Skype with Holly in—she glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand—ten minutes.
Fuming, she ran a brush through her hair in a futile attempt to look presentable and pulled her laptop out from under the bed. Why did she let him get to her? She’d dealt with plenty of macho morons who saw ballet as some sort of sissy thing. One fairly innocuous comment from Jace, and she’d flown off the handle.
The guy must think she was a lunatic. Not that she cared what he thought. Not one bit.
Now she just had to convince her brain, which seemed to be fixated on him. And her heart, which beat a little faster every time he looked at her with that maddeningly sexy, Patrick-Swayze-in-Dirty-Dancing smile.
She shrugged it off and booted up the computer. Nothing like a little time with her sister and niece to get her mind off bedroom eyes, sun-kissed skin and sculpted muscles, three things she didn’t need occupying valuable brain space. No, what she needed now was to be totally focused on her rehabilitation. Without that, her chances of dancing professionally again were next to nil.
She’d just logged onto Skype when an alert flashed showing an incoming call. She clicked on “answer with video,” and a live feed of Holly popped up, a squirming, curly-haired toddler in her arms.
“Hey, Hols.” Noelle settled in on the bed, adjusting the laptop across her knees so her own face showed in a box on the corner of the screen. “How’s my baby girl?”
“Fast.” Holly untangled a chubby fist from her hair and handed her daughter a ring of plastic keys, which she immediately began chewing on. “And sneaky. I’m exhausted. It’s like she started walking and hasn’t stopped. Yesterday, I turned my back for a second and she figured out how to open the sliding glass door. She was halfway to the lake before I caught her.”
Noelle’s gaze drifted to her brace then back to the computer. “Maybe she can give me a few pointers.”
“Rehab not going well?” Holly asked, bouncing the toddler on her own perfectly healthy knee.
“Rehab’s rehab. Two hours a day of torture to move an inch forward.” Noelle ran a hand through her still sweat-dampened hair. “I just want to be back on stage, as soon as possible.”
“Have the doctors given you any idea when that might be?”
“No.” What she didn’t want to admit—to Holly or herself—was that the question wasn’t so much when as it was if. “They’re telling me to take it one day at a time. Easy for them to say. It’s not their life on hold.”
“You’re more than your career, Noe.”
“I know.” And she did. Really. For her, ballet wasn’t about the bright lights, the elaborate costumes or the thundering applause. It was about the dancing, pure and simple. Something she’d done each day, every day since she was just a few years older than her niece. And if she didn’t have that...
She pasted on a smile. Things were treading dangerously close to The Turning Point territory. Accentuate the positive, her mother always said. “I’m off the crutches.”
“That’s a good sign, right?”
“So they say. I’m putting weight on it. Even rode the stationary bike today.” She conveniently left out the fact that she’d practically passed out afterward.
“If anyone can come back from this, you can,” Holly insisted. “I’ve never known anyone as fearless as you, especially when it comes to your dancing. Remember how you convinced Mom and Dad to let you take the subway into New York for lessons? Alone? At thirteen?”
“It helped that I was the baby. By the time I was a teenager, you, Gabe and Ivy had already broken them down.”
“Down.” A tiny toddler voice echoed through the computer’s tinny speakers. “Down.”
“Nick,” Holly called, struggling to hold on to her fidgety daughter. “Can you come and
