Page 2 of Dirty Dancer

A grin worked its way over my face. When I glanced at Rome, he nodded.

“Closer,” he said. “Stop thinking.”

He wasn’t wrong, but… “Easier said than done.”

“Yes. But you can do it.” His absolute faith wrapped around me.

I drank in the certainty in his voice and his eyes. Head tilted back, I took a deep breath. Rolling down, I landed on the net. For now it served as my “floor.”

Rolling my head from side to side, I shook out my arms. Stop thinking.

“Will you start the music?”

Just do it.

Head up.

Music filtered through the speakers. It was the opening number for a solo I hadn’t performed in over two years. It harkened back to a time when all I had was the music, the flight, and when we could see each other, Lainey.

I had so much more now.

Stop thinking.

The second refrain began and I caught the silk…

CHAPTER 1

TODAY

EMERSYN

My right arm trembled faintly as I adjusted my stance. The warmth of Liam at my back with his hands on my hips shifted my position a bit more, then he flattened a hand between my shoulder blades.

“You’re out of practice,” he said, though there was no recrimination in his voice. The noise suppressing headphones muffled his voice, but I could still hear him. “Kel was worried that too many weeks without practice would throw off your aim.”

It wasn’t an unfair assessment. Shooting, it turned out, was like any other skill. I needed to practice it regularly to keep my muscles in shape and the skill itself honed. To my own surprise, I’d turned out to not be a bad shot. While it wasn’t my favorite task, my skill made the boys feel better.

There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for them.

“Easy,” Liam continued, the pressure forcing my shoulders back. It wasn’t quite a relaxed position, but it eased some of the strain on my right arm. With his left hand on my hip andhis right hand on my back, he braced me. “Now, sight, relax, breathe, squeeze the trigger on the exhale.”

I knewhowto do it. Kellan had taken it as a personal challenge to prepare me to defend myself using three different types of guns. I favored the smaller one that was easier on my hand, but I could fire both Kel’s and Liam’s guns nearly as well as my smaller caliber preferred weapon.

Breath control was as much a part of dance as the muscle discipline, so I slowed my breathing down as I sighted the target at the end of the gallery. The targets were different, depending on the shooting range we used. This one had people shaped targets, with the rings spreading out from right over the heart.

Liam and Kel both insisted body shots were good, but go for the head if you wanted to make sure they didn’t come back. Think of targets like zombies, Kel had suggested once and at my wrinkled nose, he’dlaughed.

I hated zombies or zombie movies. So imagining them was not really conducive to my peace of mind, but it worked real well to shoot them and make them go away. One more deep breath and on the exhale, I squeezed the trigger.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

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