Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats) Read Online Free Page B

all. Give it another two hours, and this place will be standing room only.”
    Kat glanced around once more, taking in the two gentlemen she’d guess were in their seventies playing a game of checkers at a table close to the door. They were the only other patrons. “Uh, yeah. Okay.”
    The bartender laughed again and held out a hand. Her fingernails were painted midnight black. “I’m Sissy.”
    “Sissy?” Kat asked dubiously, then mentally smacked herself. Rude. “That’s… a cool name.”
    Sissy raised a brow to call her on the bullshit. “Childhood nickname, can’t seem to shake it. We all use nicknames around here, so I kept that one. Real name’s Stacy, though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that to any other customers. We usually try to keep a bit of a barrier there.”
    “Sure.” This was definitely a little odd but whatever. She had nowhere else to be. “I’m Kat. Also a nickname, but that’s obvious.”
    “Unless your parents had a feline fetish, that’s a pretty easy bet.” Sissy grinned and propped her elbows on the bar. “What do you do for a living, Kat?”
    “Normally, I’m a tennis player. Currently on a break,” she added, tilting the nearly empty bottle of beer. “Just taking in the sights somewhere else.”
    “Tennis. Like, professional? Wimbledon and the US Open and all that?” Sissy’s eyes went wide. “The one where you play in the tiny skirts, right? Tell me I’m right.”
    “You’d be right.” The tiny skirt didn’t bother Kat anymore, but she preferred playing in shorts when she could get away with it.
    Sissy’s smile grew more calculating. “I have to admit, I don’t follow the sport, so I don’t know you. I hope that’s not going to offend you any.”
    “Not a bit.” If not being recognized would piss her off, Kat would never have a happy day. “You a native to the area?” Sissy nodded. “What should I see while I’m here?”
    “Tell you what,” she began, then paused when another woman dressed similarly to Sissy walked out from the back through the double swinging doors. This woman, however, was a tanned blonde with a super-high ponytail that made Kat think of a cheerleader on top of the pyramid. “Hey, Diane.”
    “Hey, Siss.” She picked up a carton of something and walked back through the doors.
    “Diane? So much for nicknames.”
    “That is her nickname. You know, ’cause she’s the all-American sweetheart. The John Mellencamp song?” When Kat shook her head in confusion, Sissy sang, “Little ditty, ’bout Jack and Diane…”
    “Oh!” Kat snickered. “I follow you. So her real name isn’t Diane.”
    “Now you’ve got it. Hey.” She stood up straight. “Do you ever work when you’re not, you know, wearing a tiny skirt and swinging a racket, whacking some balls?”
    “If you’re asking if I have a second job besides playing, then not right now, though I have before.” And probably would have to again if things didn’t change.
    “So you’ve got nothing going on. Come back and help us stack boxes.”
    “Why?” Kat asked warily.
    “Because I won’t charge you for the beer,” Sissy said. “And because it’ll waste time while we wait for it to actually get busy.”
    Kat considered her options—going to the back and stacking boxes with two potential new friends, or heading to the sterile apartment with a babysitter living next door.
    “Just how heavy are the boxes?”

Chapter 3
    A fter three hours of prodding the front desk and messaging every Uber driver on duty, Michael finally managed to figure out where Kat had gone. And God, was he furious.
    He walked through the doors of Sin’s Inn, took a deep breath, then surged forward through the crowd. And by “surged,” it was more like a slow waddle. People were everywhere, standing in groups and clumps here and there, creating a maze of ever-changing pathways to walk through. Each time he thought he saw an opening, it changed on him.
    It was like taking on the