Lyric and Lingerie

Chapter 1

Thirty minutes ago, life as Dr. Lyric Wright knew it had come to a screeching halt. Which was saying something, since her idea of life in the fast lane was pretty much limited to a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a cold Shiner Bock, and an extra-large telescope.

Despite the fact that she’d been required by the SETI Institute to not only read, but memorize, several sections of the US Disaster Preparedness Plan, she hadn’t been prepared. Not for this.

Not at SETI’s satellite-launch party, when she’d been doing her level best to keep seventy-year-old Dr. Danzinger’s age-spotted hands off her ass and his myopic-but-hungry eyes somewhere north of her cleavage.

Not when she’d gotten the phone call telling her that her father was dying.

And not now, as she stood in the security line at the Honolulu airport, waiting her turn at legalized groping while other passengers took surreptitious—and not so surreptitious—glances at that very same cleavage.

Not that she blamed them. Her slinky black dress and mile-high heels weren’t exactly typical travel apparel. Then again, an emergency trip to the mainland had been the last thing on her mind when she’d hatched the plan to channel her inner sex goddess at the fundraiser in the first place. It had all been part of the scheme her twin sister had come up with after one tequila shot too many, a scheme devised to make her ex-fiancé come crawling back after dumping Lyric for Mistress Kailana, the Hula-Dancing Astrologer.

Just the thought of the woman had Lyric rolling her eyes. She could understand the hula part—who couldn’t? But what kind of scientist actually fell for an astrologer? Especially when that scientist was one of the top astronomers in the world?

It was enough to make her scream—or it would be if she didn’t have much more dire problems at the moment. And if it wouldn’t have amused, or terrified, the gawking, chattering crowd of tourists and TSA workers currently congregated at Security Checkpoint Number Two. Not a single one looked as desperate and undignified as she felt. Then again, none of them were flying to the mainland in a glorified handkerchief.

As she tugged up the bodice of the skintight, strapless dress—something she’d been doing about every twenty seconds since she’d put the damn thing on—a Honolulu TSA officer wielded a security wand like a matronly fairy godmother trying to turn Lyric from a slutty version of Cinderella back into a baggy-T-shirt-wearing scientist.

If only she’d had some pixie dust, she could have skipped the whole airport experience altogether and flown home under her own power. Or better yet, a Star Trek teleporter—faster, cleaner, and no cavity searches.

As the wand swiped across her breasts, the thing suddenly went crazy—the red lights blinking like she’d won her way out of Contestants’ Row on The Price is Right.

“Any metal in that dress?” the round-faced Hawaiian woman asked as she tried really hard not to look down the front of Lyric’s dress. In all fairness, Lyric’s double Ds made that a real challenge. Or so Dr. Danzinger had told her.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m wearing a corset under this dress.” One made of so many metal stays and steel rods that she felt like her breasts were in maximum security lockdown. Not that she was going to tell that to the TSA agent. She feared the mere mention of rods of steel could land her behind bars of iron. The last thing she needed was to be accused of plotting to blow up the Honolulu airport with her lingerie.

Time ticked away as the woman slid her hands down Lyric’s sternum, following the lines of the corset. Lyric would have glanced at her watch, but it was waiting patiently in a bowl on the end of the baggage-scan belt, along with her teeny-tiny purse. Leaning closer—careful not to knock the shorter woman in the head with one of her boobs—she continued, “I know this is your job, but I’ve had a family emergency and I really need to get on the American flight to Dallas.”

The TSA agent eyed Lyric’s strapless cocktail dress. “Uh-huh.”

“No, really.” Lyric swallowed convulsively and forced out the words she had spent the last half hour trying desperately to forget. “My father just had a heart attack. I left a work benefit and came straight here. I need to get home. The flight leaves in just a few minutes.”

The woman didn’t respond, which only made Lyric feel more desperate and more vulnerable. She hated both feelings almost as much as she despised the way her voice had shaken when she’d spoken, so she shoved her fear for her father deep down inside herself. Held her head high. Threw her shoulders back. And did her best to ignore the fact that one of her boobs had just attempted a jailbreak.

Madam TSA continued her very close inspection of the skintight black Lycra. It was like she was searching for a hidden compartment full of dynamite. Lyric could have told her that was a ridiculous idea—it wasn’t as if she could squeeze one more thing into this dress. But the woman must have finally figured that out, because she gave up on Lyric’s boobs and moved lower—to hover over her hips. With the amount of concentration she poured into the job, Lyric could only presume the agent was evaluating the prospect that Lyric had bathed in lighter fluid before she’d struggled into her Semtex-coated Spanx. Little did the woman know, Lyric wasn’t wearing Spanx—or any other underwear—flammable or otherwise. Panty lines were so Mistress Kailana.

Still, as the ridiculous examination continued—the woman starting all the way back at her head and slowly working her way down again—Lyric had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing out that the only weapon at her disposal was her rapier wit—something that was entirely too sharp to bring out at a TSA checkpoint.

Behind her, two other agents strip-searched Lyric’s red-soled, leopard-print shoes, in the event she’d somehow managed to hide C-4 in the pencil-thin heels. She could have told them the only thing lethal about those shoes were the brutally high arches and the pinky-toe-squishing insteps, but somehow she didn’t think the agents would appreciate her sense of humor. As they dipped a small cloth in some clear liquid and ran it around the shoes, she shook her head. If she actually were a terrorist, would she pick the most expensive shoes she’d ever worn to blow up the world? Not even close.

Besides, if her mother had been here to see the molestation of the Loubies she’d sent Lyric as a why-don’t-you-ever-dress-up-to-impress-your-boyfriend present, the TSA would have needed riot gear. Lyric sucked in a deep breath at the thought. And at the sudden understanding that her mother would go ballistic when she heard that Rob the Knob was history. Lyric didn’t even want to think what would happen—to any of them—if Daddy wasn’t there to talk Mother off the ledge.

With one final sweep of the cloth, the shoes were given a clean bill of health.

After feeling Lyric up—which, sadly, was the most action she’d had since Rob’s stars had aligned with Mistress Kailana’s—the agent finally decided that Lyric wasn’t about to explode.

Slipping her feet back into the pinky-toe-squeezing, blister-inducing torture devices, Lyric hobbled gingerly toward her gate, just as the booming voice overhead said, “Final boarding call for American flight 7149, nonstop Honolulu to Dallas.”

She hobbled faster. The fifteen minutes security had spent frisking these ridiculous shoes—and her—was going to end up costing her the chance to say good-bye to her father.

Desperate now as she watched the gate agent close the door that led to the tarmac, Lyric kicked off her shoes, grabbed them on the fly, and ran flat-out for the gate. Reaching it just as the attendant finished locking the door, she brandished her boarding pass like a dagger to his chest. “Wait! That’s my flight.”

“It’s too late. The plane’s leaving.”

“You don’t understand. I have to be on that plane.”

The man shook his head. “You don’t understand. The door is already closed. You’ll have to wait for the next flight.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs as the panic she’d held at bay for the last hour refused to stay vanquished one second longer. “My father is dying. There is no next flight for me.”

His face softened, and he sighed. He didn’t reach for the door, didn’t offer to stop the plane, but she knew she almost had him. Clearing her throat in an effort to get rid of the frog that had taken up residence there the moment she’d heard the fear in her mother’s voice, she leaned forward, catching his eyes with her own. “Sir, do you have children?”

His cheeks flushed, but he didn’t look away. “Yes. I have two.”

“And how would you feel if they didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to you because they were two minutes too late for the last flight out?”

For long seconds, he didn’t say anything. But then he reached behind him and opened the door. “You’d better run. And if anyone asks, tell them Bobby let you through.” She glanced down at his nametag. It read Jack, but who was she to argue?

Lyric raced out the door, her hands clutching her breasts to keep them from giving her a black eye—or worse, knocking her out cold. She got to the plane just as the ground crew was starting to roll the staircase away from the plane door.

“Stop.” It was an order, not a request, as she bounded up the stairs two at a time. On a leap that was part ballet and part grand mal seizure, she hurtled across the three-foot space between the stairs and the still open plane door.

The ominous sound of fabric ripping tore through the air at the same time her toes caught on the bottom edge of the doorframe. She had one brief moment to regret the impulse that had made her think she could give her ballet-dancing twin sister a run for her money—right before she face-planted on the shiniest penny loafers she had ever seen.

As she lay there contemplating what she could do for an encore, a breeze wafted over her bare ass and she looked back to see six inches of her dress hanging off the storage cupboard next to the door. Since the dress hadn’t had six inches of fabric to begin with, this was particularly concerning.

Not only had she swan dived into airline infamy, but her dress had ripped to kingdom come. Definitely not her best day.

Chapter 2

Before she could figure out how to regain her feet—God knew regaining her dignity was not an option—clapping rang out above her. Praying for the universe to swallow her whole, Lyric looked up and saw two members of the crew staring at her with a mixture of horror and awe.

Clearly the universe was too busy to bother with her measly problems.

The male flight attendant was the first to regain his voice. “I give it a seven and a half.” He turned to the pilot. “What does the Russian judge say?”

The man turned sparkling blue eyes on her and said in a West Texas drawl that reminded her too much of her father’s, “A five if she’s sober and a ten if she’s drunk.”

Lyric clambered to her feet. The pilot’s eyes grew wide, and she was sure she heard him whisper to the flight attendant, “I change my vote to an eleven,” right before he turned and dived into the cockpit.

“Nice shoes, Wonder Woman. Is there a dress to go with them?” With a roll of his eyes, the flight attendant turned and yanked open the drawer beside him. “This calls for duct tape.” He eyed her. “Lots and lots of duct tape.” His drawn out s’s were as snotty as the look on his face.

When she didn’t immediately move—the last few minutes of her life gave a whole new meaning to shock and awe—he threw up his well-manicured hands. “Honey, I don’t know what you’re waiting for? If you’re trying to impress me, you’re one Y chromosome short of a love connection. Although, that corset is impressive. Is that Agent Provocateur?”

Lyric glanced down, then jumped back and threw her hands up to cover herself. Nice to know he’d noticed the corset and not the bare breasts hanging out the top of it.

What the hell was she supposed to do now? Three degrees in astrophysics had never prepared her for a situation like this. Was there even a protocol for how to react after flashing the flight crew?

A part of her—the logical scientist part—was screaming at her to shove her tits back in her corset, but at the same time her ass was hanging out mooning the world. She wasn’t sure which was the priority. Thank God she’d sprung for the full Brazilian bikini wax. For seconds that seemed like hours, she couldn’t do anything but stare at him with her best deer-in-the-headlights impression—mouth open and eyes wide.

“Well?” he prompted again, professionally arched eyebrows bouncing off his hairline. “Let’s get this show on the road. I have to finish preflight.” He looked her up and down. “And you need to stow your um … belongings.”

Fifteen minutes later, Lyric finally limped down the aisle to her seat, looking like a candidate for the Home Depot version of Project Runway, her not-so-lucky-Loubies still clutched in one hand and her purse in the other. Who knew? She could have saved the two hundred dollars she’d spent on the corset and bought a roll of duct tape instead. Thanks to Tre, the flight attendant with delusions of couture, she was now the proud wearer of a one-shouldered tube dress in duct tape silver. Or as Tre had called it, Luminous Steel.

He’d thought her problems were solved, but Lyric wasn’t so sure. Tre had pulled the tape so tightly that she now had a uniboob of epic proportions, plus he’d taken a full inch off the hips she’d already gone two weeks without carbs to get.

Still, while she was grateful for Tre’s fast thinking, she had a feeling sitting was going to be a problem. God knew walking was. Maybe she could just lean against the seat and hope for the best. Seat belts were highly overrated.

As she worked her way down the aisle, her mincing steps moving her a whole two inches at a time, she drew an awful lot of attention. She tried not to make eye contact, but then again, so did everybody else. Except for an old guy in a garish Hawaiian shirt that she couldn’t help but envy. Not in a million years would she have ever guessed she’d be lusting over neon frangipani.

For a second, she thought longingly of the emergency fifty she’d tucked in the top of her corset before this whole nightmare of an evening had started. She’d offer it to him in exchange for the shirt, but God only knew where the money was now or what she could use to access it. Federal regulations had made even nail clippers illegal, and it was going to take the Jaws of Life to cut her free from this getup. She didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to do if she had to use the bathroom halfway between Honolulu and the mainland.

The old woman caught Lyric staring at her husband and glared daggers at her. Clearly, the look of longing on her face was more obvious than she’d been aware of. As the woman elbowed her husband in the side, Lyric considered explaining her desire was for the shirt not the man. But after a second, she decided that would only make her sound like an even bigger lunatic than she already looked, and to be honest, she was afraid one more incident would have Tre tossing her ass back onto the tarmac.

She settled for smiling brightly at the woman, whose glare only intensified. Giving up, Lyric jerked her gaze up and away from the unhappy couple, then immediately regretted it. With the cabin lights on full blast and the darkness outside, the windows were perfect mirrors—and she couldn’t help but catch sight of her reflection in the one closest to her.

One look had her longing for the good ole days of corsets and Dr. Danzinger’s drool, when the only thing she’d had to worry about was looking like a slutty version of Cinderella. Right now she looked more like a walking advertisement for BDSM. She could see the YouTube video caption now: Bondage on a Budget. She winced. Make that a really low budget.

Her mother was going to be mortified. In her mother’s mind, this debacle just might trump her father’s heart attack. Livinia Angleton Wright was equal parts Jackie O and Hitler, and she’d drilled four things into each of her four daughter’s heads: a lady always looks her best, smiles in the face of adversity, never raises her voice, and supports her husband—well, partner. Since the family was fifty percent sure that Lyric’s cousin Sue was a lesbian, Mother was attempting forward thinking. Unfortunately, her mindset started in the 1950s, so she had a lot of ground to cover before normal was within reach.

Lyric finally made it to her seat—in the last row of first class. The window seat, and half of her aisle seat, was occupied by an open newspaper and the man who was holding it. His long legs were spread wide like he had some really big business that didn’t allow for his knees to touch and made it necessary for him to take up the entire row. She couldn’t see his face, but his enormous hands and extra-large shoulders were visible even around the newspaper.

Dear God, she was riding back to the mainland with the Hulk. She leaned forward a little, trying to decide if the green tint on his skin was real or just a trick of the bad lighting. Thank God, no green, but she did notice a titanium knee brace wrapped around his right knee that would have done Iron Man proud. Even if he wasn’t the Hulk, this man was massive. Lucky for her, the duct tape had shaved off those extra inches.

“Excuse me,” she told him, inching her way out of the aisle and into her row of seats. He scooted over—or at least as over as he was able to—with a flick of the newspaper, but didn’t lower it by so much as an inch. Which was fine with her. No one needed to see what was going to happen in the next sixty seconds.

Taking a deep breath, she bent her knees and attempted to lower her butt gently onto the seat cushion. If she was careful, she could perch on the edge and then slide slowly back against the seat and all would be good.

It was working, too. A couple more inches and she’d have it—then it would be smooth flying all the way to Texas. To her daddy.

The thought of him lying pale and sick in a hospital bed shattered the final remnants of her concentration, and she lost her balance, falling the last few inches into the seat. The subsequent screech of ripping duct tape—which sounded an awful lot like a double-bean-burrito-initiated attack of gastritis—echoed through the plane. Faces turned to gawk at her. Beside her, the newspaper twitched as its owner tried to shrink his extra-large body back against the window.

Hands raised like a traffic cop, she leaned into the aisle so that everyone could see her face. “It was the duct tape, I swear,” she said loudly enough for all of first class to hear. It might have just been her, but it seemed like the entire section breathed a sigh of relief.

Sensing movement beside her, she turned back around just in time to see the newspaper fly back into place so that all she saw were a few strands of shaggy blonde hair. Seriously? She didn’t know what was up with her antisocial seatmate, but it was starting to get on her nerves. While she wasn’t up for conversation, having access to her armrest would have been nice.

She had just buckled up when Tre’s voice came over the plane’s loudspeaker. “Folks, please fasten your seat belts. It’s past time to get the show on the road. We apologize for the delay, but our last passenger blew in with a severe wardrobe malfunction. Bad news is it put us a little behind, but the good news is we found another use for duct tape.”

Lyric decided Tre was like Splenda, all sweet and nice in the beginning, but the bitter aftertaste lingered for hours.

She slunk down even lower in her seat. As the engines fired up, she pulled out her cell and dashed off a quick message to Harmony, letting her twin know when her plane was landing—and asking if she could bring a dress, a pair of scissors, and some acetone to the airport. Harmony wouldn’t think twice about it. After all, it wasn’t the first time her twin had had to bail Lyric out of trouble—and, unfortunately, probably wouldn’t be the last; however, it might be the one that appealed to her most, considering Harmony’s secret desire to open the world’s first drive-thru dominatrix dungeon and bakery. Opening a place where she could lash someone with a cat-o’-nine-tails while they were enjoying one of her homemade éclairs had always been a dream of hers. She’d been kidding, of course. Lyric was almost fifty percent sure she had been kidding.

Seconds later, the plane taxied down the runway and then they were in the air. Lyric closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but now that she was sitting still, all she could see was her father’s face.

When she was six and he’d taken her to the roof of the courthouse to see her first solar eclipse.

When she was twelve and they’d built their own telescope from scratch.

When she was eighteen and had burrowed into his arms for comfort after Heath Montgomery, the boy she’d had a crush on since she was ten, broke her heart into a million pieces.

When her mother had called with the bad news, she’d told Lyric to get home to San Angelo as quickly as possible, but when you were an astrophysicist for SETI, quick was relative. And how ridiculous was it that it took her two minutes to launch something halfway to the moon but nine hours to go a measly five thousand miles here on earth? Was it any wonder she always had her head in the clouds? Life on earth was a million times messier.

Her whole life was about predictable outcomes, and people were decidedly unpredictable. Take Rob the Knob and the new love of his life. He’d come home two weeks ago, telling her that he was moving out because Mercury was in retrograde. He’d found his soul mate in an astrologer and part-time hula dancer, and the time was finally right for him to follow his stars. She wasn’t sure what it said about her—or their relationship—that her first thought hadn’t been murder or anger or even sorrow. She’d simply wondered how someone could read Mercury in retrograde while wearing a coconut bra and a grass skirt.

Mercury in retrograde—what the hell did that even mean anyway? And why was it permission for Rob the Knob to dump her two years into what she’d thought would be the last romantic relationship of her life?

A lone tear trickled down her cheek, but she wiped it away impatiently. Her daddy was going to be fine—he had to be fine—because who else was going to calm her mother down when she found out that Robert Carrington III had dumped her daughter for a cheesy hula dancer? God knew there wasn’t enough Valium in the world—or in her mother’s private “vitamin” stash—to do the job.

Knowing she was going to go nuts if she had to sit here for the next eight hours thinking about her father’s heart attack and her ex-fiancé’s duplicity, Lyric reached for the in-flight magazine. But when the first article was on how some scientists now considered astrology a new branch of science, she slammed the thing back into the seat pocket in front of her. Clearly the writer’s stars were also retrograding. Apparently it was contagious, like yawning or Ebola.

Tre chose that moment to flounce down the aisle. He stopped at her seat, held a blanket out to her. “Here’s your cape, Wonder Woman. I thought you might be cold.” He glanced down at the shoes and purse she’d crammed into the seat pocket in front of her. “You need to stow those under the seat in front of you. In case of turbulence, the last thing Wonder Woman needs is a stiletto in the eye.”

“I couldn’t bend that far. The dress is too tight.”

“Whining is so unbecoming. Don’t you know we girls have been suffering for fashion for centuries?” But he reached forward and pulled the shoes out. “We’ll just store these overhead. No bending necessary.”

He flicked the blanket open, stood back debating his options, and then slid a corner into her cleavage like a huge napkin before tucking the rest around her. “Can I get you anything else?”

Lyric swallowed the lump in her throat, absurdly grateful for the fact that she’d somehow ended up on a plane with a flight attendant who was kind and benevolent in his own bitchy way.

“A glass of water would be nice.”

He patted her shoulder. “Oh, honey, you’ve earned a lot more than a little H two uh-oh. I’ll be right back.”

Beside her, the newspaper was shaking. She hoped it was laughter and not a seizure, but from this angle she couldn’t be sure. What was with this guy anyway? He made the Unabomber seem chatty.

Tre came back brandishing an entire basket of liquor bottles in one hand and a glass of ice in the other. “I didn’t think one would be enough. What would you like?”

Lyric eyed the display, thought of the long flight in front of her, and said, “Yes, please,” as she scooped the entire basket right out of his hand. “And a glass of cranberry juice when you get a chance.”

“Great idea. Give your liver a vitamin infusion before hitting the hard stuff … like breaking the fall from a ten-story building with a pillow. Just for fun, I’ll bring you some tomato juice too. I’d hate to have to slap your forehead later because you coulda had a V8.” He glanced at the newspaper. “Can I get you anything, big guy?”

The newspaper didn’t so much as quiver, but a muffled, “No, I’m good,” did float over the top of it.

“He’s famous,” Tre mouthed. He leaned down and whispered next to her ear, “Who knew a newspaper was so versatile? Reading material and shield from the hordes of comatose passengers who are even now leaping over the seats to get to him, pen in hand for autographs. It’s a good thing you’re duct-taped into that dress, Wonder Woman, otherwise you might jump him too.”

“Who is it? The Rock?” She would have eased up and peeked over the paper, but in this dress, easing was anything but easy.

The paper rattled angrily, and Tre’s eyes widened. “I don’t think he’s a WWF fan. I’ll get that cranberry juice now.”

Traitor.

Lyric watched him hightail it down the aisle. Oh sure, he had no problem flouncing down here and riling up Mr. Uncongeniality, but the second things got a little tense, he left her to deal with the fallout. This was all she needed … a narcissistic, Rock-hating seatmate with a bionic knee and possession of HER armrest. She opened a bottle of vodka. To hell with the cranberry juice. She couldn’t wait that long.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him lower the paper about halfway. She couldn’t see much from this vantage point, and after Tre’s latest stunt, she didn’t want to be too obvious. Famous people didn’t like being gawked at—or so she’d heard. Under the guise of turning on her overhead light, she elbowed her way onto the armrest and tried to peek around the paper. It moved to block her view. This guy was cagey, but curiosity had been her guiding star—take that, Rob; she had stars too—for as long as she could remember. Since subterfuge wasn’t her strong suit, she shoved the basket his way. “There’s enough for two.”

He snorted. “It looks like there’s enough there for half the plane.”

Lyric froze, vodka bottle halfway to her lips. She knew that voice. And not from a Hollywood movie or TV show.

No, she knew it because it was the last thing she’d heard before her heart had shattered like Humpty Dumpty—into so many pieces it could never be put back together again.

Heath Montgomery was sitting next to her.

Heath Montgomery, who with a flap and a fold had the newspaper tucked into the seat pocket in front of him.

Heath Ian Montgomery, who was grinning at her like a fool.

First Rob, and then Daddy, and now this? Of all the airplanes in all the cities in all the world, what were the odds that the man who’d stolen her heart and her virginity—and then promptly forgotten she was alive—would be sitting next to her on the most poignant plane ride of her life? Like twenty-seven times ten to the ninth power. Maybe even thirty-one times ten to the—

She cut herself off. The actual odds so weren’t the point. The point was, Heath was here. Goddammit.

If she actually believed in fate, she might think that Mistress Kailana had given up on reading the stars and was now hurling them directly at her.

“Hello, Lyric,” Heath said as he reached into the basket for a bottle of Scotch. “Long time no see.”

Chapter 3

The look of horror on Lyric’s face was all Wile E. Coyote right before the Road Runner blew him up. She yanked the basket away so fast it was amazing the force of it didn’t send her tumbling into the aisle. Which was something Heath would pay to see—with as tight as that duct tape was wrapped around her, he figured she’d end up flailing around on her back, her mighty fine legs waving in the air. Like a turtle that had been turned over. Or a Victoria’s Secret model whose eighty-pound wings had sent her toppling off the runway.

He’d seen both and had to admit, he much preferred the angel. Though Lyric and her—he glanced down at the long, tanned expanse of leg she was currently showing—mighty fine gams looked like they would put on a spectacle even Victoria’s Secret couldn’t match.

Then again, she kind of already had. It was funny, but he remembered her as skinny and nerdy with baggy clothes and no fashion sense. The fashion sense hadn’t changed, but everything else had filled out in the last twelve years, which the duct-tape mummy dress made abundantly clear.

Leave it to Lyric to make an entrance like that. Hollywood couldn’t think this shit up, and neither could any normal person. Trouble not only found her, it tackled her and hung on for dear life. Some people were naturally clumsy, but Lyric had taken that to a whole new level. If there was a way to fall in it, spill it, slip on it, or drop it, she’d find a way … or a way would find her.

On one occasion, in elementary school, when his fifth- and her fourth-grade classes had taken a joint field trip to the Archway cookie company, an entire vat of gingersnap cookie dough had managed to fall on her head. No one else had gotten so much as a molecule on them, but Lyric had been covered. Then in middle school, there’d been the petting zoo incident—a goat had eaten her dress while she was still wearing it.

He glanced over—now that he thought about it, her life seemed to be a series of wardrobe mishaps. Lucky him, today’s involved skintight duct tape.

It had taken every ounce of concentration he had not to lower the newspaper when she’d sat down and her dress had ripped so loudly. Only the fact that the guy one row up was wearing a Fort Worth Wranglers jersey—with Heath’s number on it, in fact—had kept that paper in place. After the news he’d gotten from his PT today, the last thing he wanted was to smile and sign autograph books—or, more likely, breasts, as “Sign My Tits” had become his unfortunate trademark and his fans’ battle cry after he’d spent a particularly long night at a gentlemen’s club his rookie year. The next day ESPN had dubbed him “the Deuce,” and he’d been signing chests ever since. Even after ten years in the NFL and two Super Bowl rings, he hadn’t been able to shake the name.

But once he’d realized it was Lyric next to him, talking to her became so much more important than hiding his anonymity. After all, the two of them had been driving each other crazy since kindergarten. Though, if he counted that unfortunate finger painting episode, it might have started as early as the Mother’s Day Out program at the First Baptist Church of San Angelo.

“Come on, Lyric,” he coaxed as he made another reach for one of the small bottles of Scotch. “You know you don’t like Johnnie Walker. You’re more a Mike’s Hard Lemonade girl.” If he remembered correctly, JW was more her twin, Harmony’s, drink. Back in the day the three of them had spent more than one night in high school getting drunk and talking about how they were going to take on the world. Right up until he’d slept with Harmony, and she’d ripped his heart out of his chest.

Lyric’s big, round blue eyes—which he’d noticed weren’t close to being the curviest thing about her—turned glacial. “Scotch isn’t the only thing on this plane I don’t like, but it looks like I’ll have to adapt.”

He was baffled by her hostility, especially considering they’d once been really good friends. But from the day Harmony had dumped him, Lyric had treated him like he had a social disease. He’d understood at the time—or at least, he’d told himself he had. Everyone knew girls stuck together over things like that. But twelve years was a long time to hold a grudge when he hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

She turned her back on him—or tried to, anyway. That duct-taped dress of hers made it almost impossible for her to move. Which was good for him, since it gave him a chance to grab for the Johnnie Walker. Painkillers be damned. If he was going to deal with her anger-management issues, he needed a drink.

He’d obviously underestimated Lyric’s scorn for him, however, because she jerked the basket away so fast that a bottle of Jim Beam shot out and beaned the guy across the aisle right in the temple. The bottle bounced off the guy’s head, hit his knee, and tumbled to the floor.

The three of them turned as one to watch as it rolled down the aisle into coach.

After it disappeared, Lyric’s latest victim turned in their direction. With a sinking heart, Heath watched as his eyes widened with recognition. “Hey, aren’t you—” The guy didn’t bother finishing the sentence. Instead, he leaped the three feet across the aisle. “I’m a huge fan.”

With a long, put-upon sigh, Heath sat forward and accepted his fate. This was exactly what he’d been dreading all along, though he’d been certain the first shot would have come from Wranglers Jersey in front of him—hence the newspaper camouflage. Pulling a napkin out of the basket, he grabbed a pen out of his pocket and scrawled his signature across the American Airlines logo. Then he handed it to the guy with a smile that was more fake than their flight attendant’s tan. Under the circumstances, it was the best he could do. Fame came at a price, and that one bottle of Jim Beam was going to end up costing him eight hours of peace and quiet.

“I’m sorry. Can we talk later? Right now I’m catching up with an old friend.”

At the “old friend,” Lyric’s eyes cut over to him.

The guy took the napkin, wiped his hands with it, and tossed it on the floor behind him. “Dr. Wright, I saw your last video podcast on the Crab Nebula—it was amazing.” There was so much reverence in the guy’s voice, he might have been talking to Jesus or Joe Namath.

Lyric straightened her shoulders, smoothed her hair down, and when she smiled, there was nothing fake about it. “Thanks. Next week, I’m doing quasar output and the effects on dark matter.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God. I can’t wait!” His eyes practically glowed with the fervor of the zealot.

All around them, heads were turning to check out the commotion. Terrified of Wranglers Jersey one row ahead, Heath tried to slink down to hide behind the chair in front of him. But at six foot five and two forty, wiggle room didn’t exist. Add in the broken knee and the reading light shining down like a spotlight, and he might as well have been the featured performer at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Lyric was oblivious to his discomfort. She and Science Geek had moved on to a spirited discussion about the upcoming (and obviously very exciting) Firefly cast reunion scheduled for the next San Diego Comic-Con.

Science Geek got so enthusiastic that his jacket fell open, revealing a T-shirt that read, “Beam Me Up, Scottie. There’s no intelligent life down here.”

Heath barely resisted commenting that she’d already Jim Beamed him upside the head, but he doubted they’d get it. With all the science speak flying around, however, he was considering Jim Beaming himself—right between the eyes.

Science Geek’s gaze locked on to Lyric’s cleavage. “That dress. Is that the new light-refracting material they were talking about on the SETI website?”

He reached out and ran a fingertip along the top edge of her dress, lingering for a second in the shallow between her breasts.

Heath couldn’t take it anymore. Shooting Science Geek an I’m-going-to-beat-the-shit-out-of-you glare, he yanked the blanket out of Lyric’s cleavage and tucked it under her chin and around her shoulders. It might have been twelve years and she might hate him, but he still thought of her as the little girl who had brought him a Hostess CupCake with a candle on it for his tenth birthday. She’d been the only one to remember that birthday and the ones that came after it. Heath would be damned if some Klingon tried to handle her quasars … not on his watch.

She turned to him, bemused, but must have decided he wanted an introduction, because she suddenly said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce you to my seatmate. This is Heath Montgomery.” Unfortunately, she used her professional lecturer tone and her voice echoed through the dark cavern of the plane.

The second his name dropped from her lips, the seat in front of him rattled like an F5 tornado. Wranglers Jersey’s head popped up, and then it was on. Heath dove for the newspaper, but he wasn’t fast enough on the draw, and the guy’s eyes widened as their gazes connected.

“Holy shit.” His voice echoed down the aisle. “Ho-ly shit. You’re Heath fucking Montgomery. Man, you were great in the Super Bowl last year.”

Before Heath could answer, someone else stuck their head past the curtain that separated first class from coach. “Montgomery. Dude, how’s the knee? That was a brutal hit.”

From there, it was only a few seconds before he had a fan club of five or six men gathered in the aisle around them, all vying for his attention. On the plus side, Science Geek had been trampled in the rush, which meant Lyric’s body was safe. Too bad he couldn’t say the same about his own, but he was familiar with taking one for the team.

Wranglers Jersey yelled to his girlfriend, “Tiffany, get up here. You’ve got to meet the Deuce.” He turned back to Heath. “She’s almost as big a fan as I am. In fact, we met at LSU in the kinesiology building, right in front of the life-size portrait they have of you holding the Heisman. It was fate.”

The next thing Heath knew, a tiny brunette popped over the top of the seat, Sharpie in hand. Before he could so much as say hello, she’d ripped open her shirt and shoved her perfect but obviously fake C cups in his face. They were pretty, but he had to admit, he preferred Lyric’s real double Ds—even encased in duct tape.

“Sign my chest,” she demanded. “Honey, take a picture and I’ll get it inked for your birthday.”

Wranglers Jersey whipped out his cell phone before wiping a tear from his eye. “Baby, I love you.” But then he glanced around and realized all the men in the general vicinity were now staring at his girlfriend’s chest. Reaching over the seat, he grabbed for the blanket Heath had just wrapped around Lyric. “Can I borrow this?”

Heath’s hand shot out, knocked Wranglers Jersey’s hand away. “Dude, show some respect. Don’t touch her.”

Guarding Lyric’s cleavage was turning into a full-time job.

The guy blanched, held up both his hands in a sign of surrender. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to disrespect your girl.”

You would think after ten years as a pro quarterback, he would be used to the crazies, but the truth was, they still threw him for a loop. He heard a snort come from Lyric’s general direction, and worried she was upset. But when he glanced at her, she was laughing her ass off—enjoying the hell out of his discomfort. Just like a woman.

Trapped now—as much by the crush of expectations as by the small crowd that had gathered around him—he gingerly reached for the Sharpie and started to sign right below the woman’s chin.

Lyric stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “No, no, no. You don’t want to sign there. The bones are much too close to the surface and it will hurt when she gets it tattooed. Plus, she might not want it showing at her next job interview.” She repositioned his hand directly over the fullest part of the woman’s breast. “Sign here, where it’s fleshier. But be careful of the aureoles. She might want to breast-feed someday.”

Gritting his teeth, he quickly scrawled his name across her chest, avoiding the nipples as Lyric had suggested. This wasn’t the first rack he’d signed in his career, but it was by far the most uncomfortable. Something about Lyric watching and offering suggestions threw him off his game.

Once he’d given one autograph, it was open season. People handed him napkins, scraps of paper, T-shirts, even a diaper bag. He was on signature number eight when the flight attendant stomped down the aisle and muscled his way through the crowd. Hands on hips and one eyebrow raised, he glared down at Lyric. “What. Did. You. Do?”