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sneaked out through the garage entrance to avoid further contact with either Woody or Tiffany, Taylor began to wonder just what in the devil had happened in the past eight hours, ever since the moment she had first laid eyes on Holden Masters. Because, whatever it was, she had a feeling her life would never be the same.

4
    MASTERS MISSING, RUMORS RATTLE
OWNERS
byline Rich “The Nose” Newsome
    Holden Masters, injured in a single car accident nearly a month ago, is still listed among the missing on the roster of Philadelphia’s favorite NFL team as preseason training camp sets to open next month.
    Masters, we all know, became a free agent at the end of last season, but will a reputed bidding war continue when our local hero is nowhere to be found, his physical condition, or lack of it, still a mystery to team owner Phil Gibbons and the rest of the NFL?
    And where is Sidney Feldon, Masters’s suddenly shy agent? Is this all a ploy to up the ante? Or has Masters’s career been put in jeopardy by an injury he’s doing his best to hide? So what’s the story, Masters? You “Holden” out on us?
    “D ID YOU HEAR all of that, Sid?” Holden asked, pacing the living room as he shouted into the speakerphoneat Sidney Feldon, who was several thousand miles away in Maui. “Fun’s fun and all that, but Newsome is getting mean. I don’t like doing this to my team, or to my fans. I want to call it off, now.”
    Sid’s voice boomed into the room, along with the sound of some Hawaiian chant playing along in the background. “Holden, Holden, Holden, you’re overreacting. Trust me on this. Everything’s fine. I talked to Phil yesterday and assured him you’re only taking a well-deserved vacation. Oh, and did I mention that the latest offer has a hell of a bonus that kicks in if you take the team to another Super Bowl in the next three years? So—it’s been a while since Taylor started working on you. How is the shoulder anyway?”
    Holden smiled across the room at Taylor, who had been working at the table, doing a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. “Why don’t you ask my slave driver, Sid?”
    “Taylor? You there, honey?” Sid asked, and Taylor grimaced toward the phone.
    “I don’t like talking into those speakerphones. It’s like talking into an echo chamber,” she complained to Holden quietly, then shrugged as Sid called out her name again. “Hi, Sid—I’m here. What do you want to know?”
    “It’s been over three weeks since the accident, Taylor, honey. How much can I hope to know? If he’s behaving, I suppose. That’s the most important. Didyou have to threaten him with your black belt in karate? And how the shoulder is, of course.”
    Taylor smiled at Holden, who immediately began advancing on her, making puckering motions with his mouth, then pretending to defend himself from imminent attack. If nothing else, they had, over the past ten days, come to understand each other a little, relax a little in each other’s presence, had even begun to joke with one another. It was a nice relationship—when she wasn’t dreaming about him, when she wasn’t touching him, having his body under her hands, having to concentrate on keeping her professional detachment in light of her growing personal attachment.
    “Of course he’s behaving himself. And it hasn’t been that long since I started working with him, Sid, so don’t expect miracles. He’s being religious about his exercises, of course,” she responded, now glaring at Holden in mock anger as he began pantomiming holding an invisible woman in his arms and kissing her madly.
    “Now cut that out!” she growled quietly, hoping Sid couldn’t hear, then went on more loudly. “His bruises are about gone. I’ve worked a lot of the kinks out of his shoulder, and we’re into strengthening the muscles now. Oh—and I think I want to renegotiate our little contract. Or haven’t you heard about Woody and Tiffany? I want to put in for combat pay.”
    “Don’t