Page 134 of Checkmate (Checkmate 8)

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36 Hours Later

“Hello there.” Blonde hair, blue eyes, dimples, and a wide smile, this chick with the long torso and nice tits gives me her PR smile as I stop at the gym desk. “I’m Kit, and I can help get you signed up.”

“Hey.” I give her my most charming smile and bask in the way her eyes flicker down to my chest. This place, the Rollin On Gym, is large, but not the state-of-the-art kind you see in big cities that cater for the corporate folks that want to work out at eleven at night. The equipment they own is high-quality and not worn away, but the building is a shed, long, but not wide. “My name is Oliver Dunne, and I’m hoping I’ve come to the right place.”

“You wanna fight? Lift? Yoga? We’ve got it all, so how about you fill this out.” She sets a clipboard in front of me and plops a pen down that saysMontgomery Lawon the side. “Give me some details, and I can help get you sorted.”

“Perfect.” I fill out my details, but I use the name I’ve known for the last fifteen years, and not the name I was born with. That name would send up too many red flags, and I can’t risk any of those in here.

“You’re twenty…” Kit leans forward to read upside-down. “Twenty-five?”

“Thereabouts.” I nod, smile, and continue writing. “I’m new to town, and this place is known all over the country. When my company transferred me over here, I can’t say I was too sad when I realizedwhosetown I would be in.”

“Oh,” she waves me off and accepts the clipboard back after I sign. “Town belongs to all of us. Except the Turners. They don’t own shit. We just let them stay here.”

I know she’s joking, and strangely, I knowwhoshe’s joking about, but seeing as it’s an inside joke between her and the police chief, I smile and pretend that I think she’s funny. “Kincaids are known all over the country, Miss. People talk about you guys in every gym I walk into.”

“They talk of my husband, or my brother,” she insists with a kind smile. “The guys earned that reputation, they worked hard for it, but around here, we just call them stupid and tell them to sit down, lest they get big heads.”

“Keeping them humble.” I laugh. “Every man needs a woman like that in their lives. It’s how we stay on track.”

“Can’t say that’s a lie,” she agrees with a smirk. “Oh.” She reads my form and frowns. “You’re staying at the hotel?”

“Only for a couple weeks until my company gets my house sorted out. They said there’d be one when I arrived, but I dunno. Someone forgot to file paperwork somewhere. I’m not sad, though. Have you been to that hotel? It’s lush.”

She laughs. “I have, once or twice when my husband has formal functions. It sure is nice. We tend to cookout every weekend; you’re going to want a home-cooked meal at some point while staying at the hotel.”

“Oh, no–”

“Open invitation.” She grins. “When you train here, you become family. Soon you’ll be asking to drop in at the estate. Or better yet, you’ll just turn up. Everyone does.” She lets her eyes scan my form, and when she gets to the ‘Interests’ part, nods. “You know weights, but you want to learn to fight.”

“Yes, ma’am. Not pro stuff, just for fitness.”

“Okay. I can hook you up.”

“You do PT, or just group classes?”

“We do both.” She writes something on the form for her own records, tosses it onto a pile of others in a tray, then comes back to me. “Which are you most interested in?”

I shrug. “Both, though I suspect private training is expensive as hell, so maybe I’ll go to classes mostly, and save up for a PT a month.”

She gives a soft laugh and leans against the desk. “You’re a fan? Which one do you want?”

I frown. “Which one what?”

“Of our fighters. If you only get one PT a month, which one are you gunning for?”

“Oh, I dunno.” I arch my neck when the sounds of sparring around the corner stop, only to be followed by a floor-shaking boom and a body hitting the canvas. “Um… maybe whoever won that bout.”

She laughs and follows my gaze, but though we can’t see anything because of a dividing wall keeping reception separate from the rest, she smiles wider, as though she knows people by the sound of their bare feet touching the mats. “Actually, that’s a good choice. The guys are busy this month training up the guy that lost that sparring session, so maybe we should just catapult you to the top for today and let you train.”

“Yeah?”

I run images through my mind. Aiden Kincaid. Bobby Kincaid – the world champion. Jon Hart, perhaps, or even Jack Reilly.

I’ve researched this place so much that my eyes want to bleed. But never in a million years did I expect it all to be this easy.

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