It was the first rehearsal that Mac had made it to in almost three weeks.

To be honest, I was surprised he was there at all. He could be seen walking through the casino with the baby and she had already charmed the staff and quite a few of the regulars who came to hit the tables and slots. But Mac had a lot on his plate. He was getting married in just over a week, and both he and the new mama were eating up life as parents.

It was so cute, it was almost sickening.

And I’d let him know that, too. Often.

As he came into the practice area, I paused in the middle of shuffling my cards and eyed him. “You’ve got baby puke on your shoulder.”

He swore and looked down—then he shot me a dirty look.

“Hey, you showed up at dinner wearing it like it was diamonds the other day,” I said, shrugging. “You aren’t ever going to live that down.”

“Just you wait, Sly,” he said. “One of these days…”

The words trailed off there and he hopped up onto the stage, looking around. “Where’s Lev?”

“Late.” I rolled my eyes. “I might as well be a one-man show the way you two are treating things lately.” Then, because LeVan had warned me he’d probably be late, I added, “He told me last night. He had to go in to get fitted for the tux he’s having made. He’s getting a new one for the wedding.”

LeVan was getting married a month after Mac and Angel. Mac had up and proposed to Angel the day Colleen was born, that night after we’d all left to go home.

None of us was surprised to see the rock on her finger, or that they were making quick work of the wedding. Personally, if I didn’t hear the word wedding again for the rest of my life, I’d be happy.

“Speaking of monkey suits…the tux I own, is that good enough for whatever you and Angel are putting together?” I asked. “It’s all black.”

“Like you’d do anything fancy. I’ll ask Angel. She’s told me she’s keeping it simple, but what’s simple for a man probably isn’t simple for a woman.”

Our eyes met and we both grinned.

“LeVan says he would’ve been happy grabbing the nearest Elvis to perform the wedding,” I said.

“So I heard. Thea would probably scalp him. She’s waited too long to be with him—they deserve a nice, fancy wedding.” He grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler we kept on the stage and twisted the top off as he spoke. “Maybe for our fifth, me and Angel can do something big and fancy.”

“Already making plans five years down the road. Man.” I grimaced. Then, casually, I shot a look around the room. The assistants weren’t there yet. Since it was just me—or since I’d thought it would be just me, I’d planned on using the time in here to sketch out ideas for a new illusion. It was always time to plan for something new in this business. The audience was easily bored and the job of entertainment constantly evolved. “Listen, I’ve wanted to ask you about this before. But the time hasn’t been right.”

“Yeah?” Mac cocked a thick black brow at me. “Since when has timing ever concerned you? Unless the stage is involved, timing doesn’t much enter your brain.”

I flipped him off. Closing the distance between us, I met his gaze. “It’s about Emmy.”

“Man…” Mac closed his eyes. “I told you not to go messing with her.”

“I’m not,” I said defensively. I hadn’t even seen her. Mac kept nagging me to come up and visit, but even the thought of seeing the baby made me break out into a cold sweat. How in the hell was I supposed to tell my best friend that babies scared me shitless? Don’t. You don’t. And stop thinking about babies, dumbass. Emmy. I’d think about Emmy and that weird fucking phone call. “It’s…hell. Does she have a crazy ex-boyfriend or something?”

Mac’s face went blank. Completely blank.

“Shit. She does, doesn’t she?” Turning away, I moved over to the water cooler and grabbed a bottle. The idea that she might have some crazy bastard bothering her got to me more than I liked. If it were any woman, it would bother me, but this had my guts twisting up into knots.

“It’s not a boyfriend…or an ex.”

Turning back to Mac, I tossed the water bottle from one hand to the other as I replayed the bits and pieces of the phone call I’d heard back through my mind. “Well, that’s kind of weird because I came outside and heard her talking to this guy on the phone and he seemed pretty convinced he was something to her. And the crazy clung to him like stink sticks to a skunk.”

“Your redneck is showing,” Mac said dryly. “And that wasn’t a boyfriend. It’s some crazy bastard who stalked her back in Branson and burned her house down—while she was inside it.”

The words hit me like a two-fisted punch.

Not much surprised me.

Even less completely knocked me off-guard.

But those words somehow grabbed me by the throat and squeezed the very air from my lungs. Something crumpled and wet rushed over my hand. Dazed, I looked down and saw that I’d crushed the water bottle I’d been holding.

“He tried to kill her?”

“It’s hard to say what he wanted to do,” Mac replied, shrugging. “She’s told Angel and me what happened. The cops were contacted, but they weren’t able to find him. He’s a person of interest, but they can’t even arrest him because there’s no concrete evidence. The fire marshal says the fire started because of a gas leak and she went to light a candle in her bedroom—Emmy even admits to lighting the candle.” He shrugged, a grim look on his face. “If she’d been in any other room, she tells me she wouldn’t have had a chance. As it was, the blast threw her onto the balcony and knocked her out.”

Ugly images flashed through my mind, put there by the words he’d used. I felt a little sick and I’d probably feel sicker later when I let myself really think about what he was saying, but for. “You knew she had some crazy son of a bitch hassling her.”

Mac inclined his head. “Yeah. For a while.” He drank the bottle of water, draining it in a few seconds, then tossing the bottle into the recycling bin next to the cooler. “Angel told me she was having a stalker problem before she came out here. Once she got here, she told us all of it. I’ve had security on watch since then.”

“Hold up.” I lifted a hand. “You’ve got our security watching out for some crazy bastard but you didn’t feel the need to tell LeVan or me about any of this?”

“It’s her business, Sly,” Mac said quietly.

“And now it’s ours,” I snapped back. “You wouldn’t have involved security that we pay for if there wasn’t some chance he’d come looking for her here. Shit, Mac. What do we do if he decides to set the hotel on fire?”

“That’s why I told security,” he replied flatly. “What the hell do you want me to do? Tell that girl she can’t stay because you’re more worried about the fucking hotel?”

“I…” Snapping my jaw shut, I glared at him. I didn’t want to tell him that, and I didn’t want him telling her that. She needed a place to be and the hotel had some stellar security. I know—I’d helped design some of it. I’d been breaking into places off and on since I was eleven years old. It was how I’d fed myself once that old son of a bitch kicked it. But… “Fuck you, Mac. This is something that concerns LeVan and me, too, whether you like it or not.”

His eyes narrowed. But to my surprise, he inclined his head. “Okay. Maybe you have a point.”

“Maybe?” I snorted. Turning my back, I went to take a step and water squelched under my shoes. Swearing, I looked down at the puddle, then eyed the splashes on my shirt and jeans. I finished draining the bottle and tossed it in the direction Mac’s had gone as I headed over to grab a towel to mop up the mess.

“I want to know what’s going on with this…stalker.”

“Sly…”

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll start hounding her. I assume you’d rather I didn’t do that.” I shot him a dark look. After all, he’d made it clear he didn’t want my dirty hands around her.

* * *

As foul as my mood was, I had no business doing anything but finding a woman or finding a fight that night. Sex, lately, wasn’t doing it and it wasn’t as easy to hound either Mac or LeVan into a fight these days. I could probably talk one of the security guys who’d been around a while into a one-on-one under the guise that I was trying to keep my self-defense skills up, but if we went at it any longer than a few minutes, they’d know it was pure aggression that drove me, nothing else.

I’d rather that secret not be let out.

But I wasn’t out looking for a lay or a fight.

After my show, I retreated to my room, broke open a bottle of scotch, and sat behind my computer.

Mac had given me a name.

Emmy herself had told me where she was from.

It made it almost easy to track her down and find out about the fire.

The first thing I found out, of course, was that her real name wasn’t Emmy, but Emerald. Emerald Sky Montrose. It amused me for some reason and I found myself smiling as I lifted the bottle of Glenfiddich to my lips. Emerald Sky—Emmy—had performed at one of the live dinner shows in Branson. That husky voice of hers, apparently, had been an audience favorite until she’d quit rather unexpectedly well over two months ago.

The article in the newspaper I found speculated it had something to do with the fire that had destroyed the custom-built house she’d owned. Pictures of the house before were enough to make me wince in sympathy once I saw the after photos, published side by side in the article that detailed the fire.

Not that there was a lot in the article—just more speculation.

Someone had dug up the reports she’d made to the cops about having a stalker.

He wasn’t named.

She wouldn’t talk to the press.

A few people speculated she was an attention whore and that maybe she’d caused the gas leak on her own.

Others were convinced she did have a crazy stalker.

One thing that was definitely missing from the entire mess, though: hard-core information on the man who had called her.

I guess if I wanted that, I’d have to talk to Emmy.

Why in the hell did the thought of doing that excite me so much?

* * *

The problem with talking to Miss Emerald Sky Montrose was that she rarely left the penthouse suite she shared with Angel and Mac.

When she did, she was usually pushing a glossy stroller that was bedecked with pink and white clothes, and I had no doubt there would be a baby inside that cute little stroller.

I didn’t want to see the baby.

It had been hard enough to pretending babies didn’t freak me the hell out when I’d seen Colleen at the hospital, but trying to hold it together in the real world? Everybody was nervous in the hospital, especially around new babies. It had been easy to avoid holding her there.

So small, so frail—

“Stop it, man.” Those were memories I’d thought I exorcised years ago. Lately, though, they’d been coming back in full force, like the birth of Angel’s baby had brought them back from the dead.

I’d have to fight harder to bury them again. That was all. It was a mind over matter thing.

I knew all about that.

But in order for the mind to win over matter, I needed to avoid excess exposure to the thing that tormented me and in this case, it was Mac and Angel’s little girl with her plump cheeks and rosebud mouth and big eyes. Babies…I couldn’t stand being around babies.

From the railing where I stood at the top level overlooking the atrium, I looked down where I could see the cotton-candy stripes of Emmy’s hair as she pushed the baby stroller through the main lobby. They were heading out for a walk.

They did it every day about this time. My past had taught me that having a predictable routine was the best way for someone to inadvertently become an easy target or get themselves killed.

Whether the walk was for the baby’s benefit or for hers, I didn’t know. But it was the only time of day I’d been able to pin her down at the same time. Yet the thought of approaching her while she was with the baby made my stomach turn.

“You want to talk to her or not?” I muttered,

“Talking to yourself there, son?” A familiar voice came from behind me.

I didn’t turn. LeVan joined me at the railing and braced his elbows on it, echoing my posture. “Seen you here several times this week. Making sure we’re keeping up a good crowd or what?” the other man asked.

“Yeah, I’m really worried about that, what with the sellouts we’re not having,” I said sarcastically.

LeVan snorted. “You don’t know what it’s like to not worry about something. But since the sellouts have you feeling nice and secure about our popularity, what is it that has you…hmm…could it be Miss Naked Yoga down there?”

“She’s got a name,” I pointed out, irritated and unconsciously echoing Mac’s words from weeks ago.

LeVan chuckled. “I think you’re the one who tagged her with that moniker, my friend. And I think you just answered my question, too. Mac sees you eyeballing her, the two of you might have some words.”

“I’m not eyeballing her. I need to talk to her.”

“So go talk to her,” LeVan said. “She’s not in any hurry and that woman? She stands out in a crowd.”

She did at that. She needed to learn how to blend better if she didn’t want this stalker character picking her out so easy.

LeVan looked at me expectantly and I shot him a frown. “I’d rather have the talk in private.”

“Then join her on her walk.”

“That’s still not private,” I pointed out. Without any conscious thought, my gaze slid to the stroller and I immediately jerked my head in another direction.

“I don’t think the baby is old enough to take notes.”

“You should’ve gone into stand-up comedy, you’re so fucking funny,” I snapped, slanting a dark look at him. “Will you let it go? I’ll talk to her when I’m good and ready.”

“And instead, you’ll just stand around and stare at her.” LeVan rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s not creepy at all.”

Frowning, I resisted the urge to look back down into the lobby because…shit, he was right.

“Has Mac told you about her…problem?” I asked.

LeVan cocked his head to the side. His pale, golden eyes met mine and he replied, “Some of it, yes. I think he’s doing the right thing so if you’re planning on throwing a fit about it, you’re outnumbered.”

“Fuck you,” I said, irritated. “Why would I throw a fit about making sure a woman has protection from a nutjob? Am I really that much of a dick?”

Then, because I suspected I knew the answer, I shoved away from the railing. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear the answer.”

I didn’t make it five steps before LeVan caught up with me. “Hey, man, wait up…damn it, Sly!”

I shrugged his hand off, but he didn’t let that stop him, slipping in front of me with ridiculous ease. I would’ve shoved past him but we had people around us—hotel guests, people who put money in our pockets, and employees, the people who helped take care of those guests. I stood there, simmering, as LeVan leaned in, voice low, “Look, I didn’t mean that. You’re not a dick. An asshole sometimes, but not a dick. Hell, out of all of us, you’re the most protective when it comes to women, so I don’t even know why I said that anyway. I’m sorry.”

“You said it because I’m a dick,” I said stiffly. “Look, I need to…”

He clapped a hand on my shoulder, the closest he’d come to hugging me, because he knew I didn’t like physical contact. “Come on, man…”

“It’s okay, Lev. Just let it go.”

Forcing a smile, I cut around him.

This time, he let me go.