“She didn’t give me a chance. The second she spotted me, she stopped singing and begged me not to tell you. It’s hard to fathom a voice like that coming from someone so young.”

Jack didn’t get it. “Why is she trying to hide it from me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she explained her reasons to Dean.”

“Ask him for me, will you?”

“Do your own dirty work.”

“You know he won’t talk to me,” he said. “Hell, we built that damn porch without exchanging more than twenty sentences.”

“My BlackBerry’s in the kitchen. E-mail him when you go in.”

He dropped his foot from the fence. “This just gets more and more pathetic, doesn’t it?”

“You’re trying, Jack. That’s what matters.”

He wanted more than that. He wanted more from Dean. More from Riley. More from April. He wanted what she used to give him so freely, and he brushed the backs of his knuckles over her soft cheek. “April…”

She shook her head and walked away.

Dean didn’t see the e-mail about Riley’s singing until later that day, and it took him a moment to realize it came from Jack instead of April. He read it quickly, then punched in his reply.

Figure it out for yourself.

As he headed outside, he thought about Blue, something he’d been doing with increasing frequency. So many women believed they had to perform like porn stars to turn him on, and it all got so phony. But Blue didn’t seem to watch a lot of porn. She was clumsy, earthy, impulsive, exhilarating, and always herself—as unpredictable in bed as she was out of it. But he didn’t trust her, and he sure as hell couldn’t depend on her.

The ladder rested against the side of the porch. His shoulder didn’t protest as he moved it to check the roof. With training camp only a month away, he’d never had anything more than a short-term affair in mind. A good thing, because Blue was fundamentally a loner. He was supposed to take her horseback riding next week, but who could predict if she’d still be around? One night he’d go over that balcony and find her gone.

As he clipped on his tool belt and climbed the ladder, he knew one thing. She might be giving him her body, but she was withholding everything else, and he didn’t like it.

Two nights later, Jack came upon April dancing barefoot at the edge of the pond, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Only the rustle of reeds and rasp of crickets accompanied her. Her arms rippled in the air, her hair flew in golden filaments around her head, and her hips, those seductive hips, beat out a sexual telegram…Give it to me, babee…Give it to me, babee…