LITMIR.BIZ

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      Chapter 1

      At 1:55 a.m., Amanda Nelson finished her last dance. After stopping in the dressing room to pull jeans and a T-shirt over her hot pink bra and Brazilian thong and to replace six-inch heels with flip-flops, she was out the back door by 2:01, keys in hand, way past ready to go home.

      There were still customers in the club, finishing one last drink, some of them trying to buy companionship for the rest of the night from the girls willing to be bought. Those who weren’t willing were still in the dressing room, unwinding, taking off stage makeup, making plans to go out and party. Amanda was the only one in the shadowy parking lot behind the club. That fact creeped her out and made her walk a little faster, clench the keys a little tighter. She had strong lungs and stronger legs, as well as a container of pepper spray in her purse, but she didn’t want to be forced into a test of her ability to defend herself.

      She was only a few yards from her car when a shadow separated from the darkness and moved toward her. Her heart jumped and her throat tightened in the instant before she recognized him.

      Rick Calloway, part-time bartender, full-time hunk. He’d been at Almost Heaven only a few weeks, and that was all the girls knew about him. Well, that, plus the fact that he was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome.

      But Amanda wasn’t just one of the girls. She knew Rick was six years older than her, that he came from the small Georgia town of Copper Lake, that the crook in his nose was the result of a high-school brawl, that he had two brothers, Robbie and Russ. She also knew that he hadn’t recognized her or her name, and for that she was grateful. Growing up in Copper Lake was an experience she preferred to leave in the past.

      “Hey, Amanda. Sorry if I startled you.”

      “You didn’t,” she lied. She used the remote to unlock her car, the headlights automatically flashing, illuminating him for a few seconds. He wore jeans, faded and snug, and an emerald-green polo shirt, also snug. His dark hair curled over his collar, and his olive-toned skin was stubbled with beard along his jaw. His eyes were surprisingly blue, like Robbie’s, and his voice sounded enough like Robbie’s had fifteen years ago that she would need more than a few words to tell them apart.

      In his two weeks at the club, he hadn’t spoken to her more than a few times, and then only to steer her toward a customer who was dropping big bucks. She’d spoken to him only to thank him with a share of her tip. She never got cozy with the guys at work, neither the managers nor the employees nor the customers. She particularly didn’t want to get cozy with Robbie Calloway’s brother.

      After tossing her gym bag into the backseat, she turned to face him. “Is there something I can do for you?”

      “Yeah.” He shifted awkwardly. In all the times she’d seen him, awkward hadn’t been his style. “I have a friend who, uh, wants to learn to dance. I was wondering if—” he shrugged “—if you’d teach her.”

      Amanda had always been a dancer. Her earliest memories were of twirling around the living room, alone or in her father’s arms, while her mother watched with an indulgent smile. Then the accident had happened and her father never twirled her nor her mother indulged her again.

      She’d never had a lesson. She didn’t bother with routines, didn’t care about choreography. Moving to music came naturally to her. What little training she’d gotten had been on the job: watching the other dancers at that first club, getting a feel for what the customers liked and making it her own.

      “There are classes she can take,” she said at last.

      “She’s a little shy.”

      “She can buy a videotape.”

      “She does better with hands-on instruction.”

      “Does she want to do this as a job or just for you?”

      With the only light coming from the nearest streetlamp, it was impossible to say for sure, but his cheeks seemed darker. His voice was definitely a shade hoarser. “Uh, both, I think.”

      Stripping could certainly bring a shy woman out of her shell. Not that Amanda knew from experience. She’d never had a shy bone in her body, her father used to say. She’d always been brash and bold, going after what she wanted. She still pursued her goals, but the brashness and boldness had worn off after twelve years on the club circuit.

      “I’d pay for your time, of course,” Rick said.

      She smiled thinly. Money—the magic word. Every exotic dancer she knew was in it for the money. It was a job that always outdid minimum wage and, if a girl was lucky and stayed in good shape, sometimes paid extraordinarily well. The trick was to put some of the good money away to help out through the not-so-good times.

      That was a lesson Amanda had learned early on. She’d paid for her car with her savings, bought a house and put herself through college. When her thirty-first birthday rolled around

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