He could hear footsteps running away from them now, down the path. He bent for the flashlights, handing her one. “Wait here.”

Their surprise guest was quick, but he was quicker, and just around the next turn he overcame . . .

Tia.

His crazy fan whirled to face him, breathing like a lunatic, her hair falling into her flushed face. Wearing his away jersey, which fell to her knees, she carried both a flashlight and an autograph book, with a small camera strapped around her neck, lens open.

“Hi. I wasn’t stalking you, I swear,” she said quickly. “I was just watching you on the field, which is totally allowed because it’s like six hundred million yards away, so you can’t get mad. Please don’t get mad.”

“But I wasn’t on the field, Tia. I was up here.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that. Well, sort of I didn’t. Okay, I knew, but I just wanted to look at you, that’s all, honest to God.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’m your biggest fan, Pace. You know that. No one’s a bigger fan than me.”

“Tia—”

“So dammit, you should be kissing me, not her. You should be getting me out of your system!”

“Tia, listen to me. You could go to jail.” He didn’t want her to, but the last time she’d been hauled down to the station, they’d found a huge Swiss Army knife in her purse, a fact that had made him more than a little uncomfortable given her habit of showing up wherever he was. “Remember what the police said would happen if they found out you’d ignored their warnings?”

“I’m not going to tell them. And . . . and you wouldn’t, right? Because I’m yours, Pace. Forever yours.”

“Tia—” He stared regretfully, slipping his hand into his pocket for his cell phone. He felt like a jerk, but there was something seriously off about her, and he had Holly with him—

“If you would only try me, you’d like me,” she whispered, also reaching into her purse. “I swear. I’ll do anything you want, anything—”

“Problem?” Holly asked, coming around the corner.

Pace reached for her hand and tried to pull her to his side, but she resisted, instead turning to Tia. “Hi there,” she said to his crazy stalker. “Tia, right?”

Tia blinked, and a huge tear rolled down her cheek as she kept her hand in her purse. “He’s mine. You can’t have him.”

“Have him? Pace isn’t a piece of property, Tia.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. And stalking is a crime.”

Tia clutched her heart. “I’m not stalking him. I love him.”

“But if you get caught here, they’ll likely take you to jail. And then Pace will get more bad press. If you love him like you say, you don’t want that.”