her body by sweat, her rubbery legs stretched out on the floor, while she chugged the second bottle of water since she’d arrived. She nearly choked as she tried to swallow and catch her breath at the same time.
She wasn’t sure sprints on the treadmill, pounding the heavy bag, and practicing tae kwon do moves had done anything to fill the void Leland’s absence had opened up, but they’d sure worked the tension out of her body. Mostly because her muscles were too exhausted to tense up.
“You’re here early.”
Dawn started as Vicky’s slightly nasal voice came from behind her. The other woman walked around the bench and stood close enough that Dawn had to tilt back her head to look her in the eyes. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Vicky scanned down Dawn’s perspiring body with a look of distaste. “I hope you’re going to clean up before your first client arrives.”
Dawn knew she shouldn’t poke a rattlesnake with a sharp stick but Vicky pissed her off. Dawn had never been anything other than professional at the gym. “Actually, I thought it might inspire my clients to work harder if they saw how much their trainer sweats.”
“At least don’t get in the pool without showering.”
Dawn had considered a relaxing float in the pool, but when she’d looked at the glassy expanse of blue, all she could see was the powerful ripple of Leland’s shoulder muscles as he stretched out his arms to pull himself swiftly through the water. “No worries. Swimming wasn’t on my agenda this morning.”
“So did your client find his cell phone?”
It turned out her muscles weren’t too exhausted to tense up after all. She pushed up from the floor to stand, deciding that Vicky had too much of a psychological advantage towering over her like that. “Yeah. It was in his car. It had fallen down between the seat and the center console. He had the darned thing on mute so he couldn’t call it.”
“You’d think he would have looked in his car first.”
“You’d think.” Dawn shrugged and swiped her sweat towel over her face. “I’m going to shower so I can look good for my first client.”
Vicky didn’t acknowledge the dig. “I hear you got pretty chummy with him.”
“Who? You mean Lee Wellmont?” All her stress-busting exercise had been for nothing. Now every nerve in her body was on screaming red alert. She had no idea where Vicky was going with this. “There’s no rule against hanging out with clients.”
“No, but I hear you were pretty hot and heavy at Carmella’s.”
“Hot and heavy?” They’d barely spent any time there. “We just had dinner.” Actually, only antipasto.
“Hey, I don’t blame you. He’s a long, tall drink of water.” Vicky was trying the girlfriends-exchanging-confidences-about-men tack now. Except they weren’t girlfriends. “I’d be interested in getting hot and heavy with him too, if I wasn’t in love with Ray.”
A sense of unease nagged at the back of Dawn’s mind. “It didn’t work out any way.”
“Yeah? Men are shits. Except Ray.” Vicky flicked at the air with her fingers and Dawn couldn’t stop herself from staring at the glittering leopard-spotted manicure. A tremor of fear ran through her.
“So are you still going to train him?” Vicky asked. “Or should I assign him someone new? Chad has some openings.”
“It, um, wasn’t exactly amicable, so I don’t think he’s coming back to the gym.”
“Shit! That’s why I don’t like trainers and clients socializing.”
Dawn gave Vicky an apologetic grimace. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.” She decided to go with Vicky’s pretense that they were friends and gave her a knife-edged smile. “Do me a favor . . . don’t give him a refund if he asks. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Sure thing, hon.” Of course that would suit Vicky’s profit-driven little soul. “It sucks that you got burned.”
More than she had any idea of. “You said it. Men are shits.”
The other woman turned and swayed away on her silver heels. Vicky would have reprimanded anyone else who dared walk on the gym’s pristine wood floor in stilettos, but the owner’s wife had special privileges.
Dawn slumped onto the cushioned weight bench, elbows braced on her knees. She mentally reviewed her date with Leland at Carmella’s. There’d been a hell of a lot of sexual tension and she’d fed him one bite of antipasto from her fingers, but no one could call that hot and heavy.
Cold shivers walked down her spine as she realized that there must be a security camera somewhere in the gym’s basement. That’s how