By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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      “She was a stray that I rescued from a village in the mountains. I guess you could say we adopted each other.”

      “Do you keep her in your housing unit?”

      “She won’t come inside, but when I’m on base she’ll sleep outside my door. When I’m in the field, I leave her with the K-9 unit. She gets along with the other dogs, and the handlers have been teaching her how to track.”

      The mention of his housing unit reminded her of the small gift he had left in her duffel bag. “By the way, thank you for the licorice. I feel guilty that you gave it to me.”

      “Don’t.” He rubbed a hand over his flat stomach. “I try to avoid sweets, but I can’t resist licorice drops. It’s better if you take them. Besides, my mother will send another jar in her next care package.”

      They had reached his housing unit, and Kate welcomed the warmth of the interior after the chill of the night air. As Chase dialed an outside line, she stood in the middle of the room and looked around. Although she had already been inside his unit once, everything looked different at night. A desk lamp cast a warm glow, making the room seem almost cozy.

      While Chase was concentrating on the phone, she took a covert peek into his bedroom. Disappointingly, his bed was neatly made and there was nothing to indicate that he had slept there at all. She would have enjoyed seeing rumpled blankets or clothes on the floor—anything to indicate the guy wasn’t completely perfect.

      “Something interesting in there?” Chase asked, catching her.

      Kate flushed. “I was, uh, just checking out your bed.”

      His eyes grew hot, and Kate’s body responded instantly. Her breathing quickened and her imagination surged with images of the two of them, naked and entwined in his sheets. She would have sworn those same images were swirling through his head, too, but then he thrust the phone receiver at her, breaking whatever spell she had been under.

      “Make your call,” he growled, and spun away.

      Keeping a wary eye on him, Kate quickly dialed Tenley’s number, frustrated when the call went to voicemail.

      “Tenley, it’s Katie. I told you that I’d be calling. Why aren’t you there?” She lowered her voice. “I don’t want you to worry about anything, okay? Russell will drive you to the airport tonight, and I’ll be right here waiting for you when you arrive. Okay, I’ll try to call you later.”

      She hung up the phone and stood for a moment, chewing the edge of her finger. Where was Tenley and why wasn’t she answering the phone? She briefly considered calling Russell to ask him to check on her sister, and just as quickly discarded the idea. She’d asked both the housekeeper and Russell to keep an eye on Tenley and she trusted they would. There was a reasonable explanation for why her sister wasn’t answering the phone. She was not going to freak out, especially not when there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

      She blew out a hard breath. “She’s not home.”

      “Jeez, what a surprise,” Chase said drily. Seeing Kate’s annoyed expression, he spread his hands. “What? She’s not exactly Miss Responsible. If she was, you wouldn’t be here.”

      “What is that supposed to mean?”

      Chase gave her a tolerant look. “C’mon, Kate, don’t play coy with me. We both know that the only reason you’re here is to try and save your sister’s career.”

      Kate desperately wanted to tell him he was wrong and that Tenley was coming over for all the right reasons. But seeing the truth in Chase’s eyes took the fight out of her. Plunking herself down on the nearby chair, she dropped her head into her hands.

      “You’re right,” she admitted in a weary voice. “I’m not even sure she’ll come. I should have stayed behind and flown here with her, but she actually seemed excited about the prospect of coming.” Raising her head, she looked helplessly at Chase. “What if she doesn’t get on that plane? I mean, I can’t make her. I just thought if I came first and assured her that it wasn’t nearly as scary as everyone made her believe, then she wouldn’t be so reluctant.”

      To her surprise, Chase dropped to his haunches in front of her, putting him at eye-level with her. He placed a hand on either side of her seat, effectively trapping her.

      “I think what you’re doing is completely harebrained,” he said, but his sympathetic smile took most of the sting out of his words. “But I also think Tenley Miles is very lucky to have you on her side. I don’t see any other publicists over here doing this for their clients.”

      Kate gave him a rueful smile. “That’s just because they’re not related.”

      “The bottom line is, if she isn’t willing to do what it takes to fix the mess she made, then that’s her problem, not yours. At some point, Kate, you need to let her take responsibility for her own life.”

      Kate stared at him, knowing he was right. “That sounds easy in theory, but you don’t know Tenley. She’s just a kid. She couldn’t find her own way across the street without someone to help her. The music industry would eat her alive. She needs me.”

      Chase pushed to his feet and stood looking down at her, and Kate could almost read his mind. He thought she was nuts.

      “Look,” she reasoned, “maybe I am a little overprotective, but trust me when I say you would feel the same way if you met her. She brings out the protective instinct in everyone.” Kate gave a soft laugh. “Even you wouldn’t be immune.”

      “It is hard for me to imagine that someone who’s been in the public spotlight since she was young could have any vulnerability left,” Chase said wryly.

      Kate looked down at her hands. “Maybe that’s what makes her so vulnerable.”

      “You were pretty young when your mother died,” he said quietly. “It couldn’t have been easy for you, either. What I don’t get is why I didn’t know that the famous country singer, Willa Dean, had another daughter. Hell, I’m not sure anybody knows.”

      Kate shrugged. “My mother was still in high school when she became pregnant with me. She and my dad tried to make a go of it, but she had her heart set on becoming a superstar, and he just wanted to be a car mechanic. They were only kids.”

      “So what happened?”

      “They split up before I was a year old. I traveled with my mother and her band for the first six years of my life, until I started elementary school. Then I went to live with my dad and his new wife.”

      “That’s rough,” Chase said. “Were you happy with your father?”

      Kate sighed, remembering. “I wasn’t unhappy. But he and his wife had a new baby and hardly any money. Things were tough for a couple of years and I always had the sense that I was a burden. But then my mother started selling albums and she began to send some money to my father for my upkeep. That helped.”

      “Did you ever go back and live with her?”

      Kate didn’t look at him. “No,” she said quietly. “My mother rose to the top of the billboard charts very quickly, and she didn’t have time for a kid.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Even СКАЧАТЬ