She swallowed hard.
It was none other than Gunner King, looking like a movie star on vacation, beard stubble on his strong, handsome jaw.
The dog barked and ran off into the woods with a crash.
“Who are you?” Gunner asked. He put his hands on his hips.
Krista opened her mouth, ready to let the speech flow. She’d certainly rehearsed it enough over the last couple of days.
But somehow, the words wouldn’t come. At first, she wasn’t sure why. And then she realized, almost in an instant, what it was that stopped her from saying her speech.
Gunner King was too…everything.
For starters, he was too gorgeous. Even wearing his baggy jeans with holes in the knees and the plain white tee, he looked like a Greek God come to life. His arms and shoulders were chiseled as if from stone, and she could see the telltale tribal tattoos he’d made famous, visible on each arm.
His eyes were super intelligent, piercing and without an ounce of madness in them. The moment he looked at her, she knew he was far from crazy.
In fact, his eyes were so beautiful and penetrating that Krista completely lost her nerve.
Gunner’s presence, as a whole, was unlike anything Krista had ever experienced.
She’d met other famous people while living in Vegas, and she’d met other fighters as well. But nobody had ever affected her this way. She literally felt as though she’d turned into a child again.
This man was not going to be talked into returning to Vegas by some twenty-something girl who’d been in the fighting business all of a month. He was going to laugh at her, and then he was going to promptly kick her off his property.
“What are you,” he said, “a journalist?”
For some inexplicable reason, she jumped at the chance to be something—
anything—other than what she was. “Yes,” she said. “I’m a journalist.”
A journalist had a right to ask questions, she thought. A journalist wasn’t nearly as much of an enemy as a woman who worked for the company he hated.
He shook his head. “You people just don’t quit, do you?” He turned to walk away. “Look, get in your car and go home. I’m not interested.”
“I only wanted—“
He turned back to her again, and those infinitely piercing eyes silenced her abruptly. “I know what you want,” he said. “And I told you, I’m not interested.”
Krista saw that her chance was evaporating far more rapidly than she ever would have thought possible. Her thoughts were racing, and she felt tongue tied, incapable of stringing together a sentence.
She could only marvel at the incredibly grace in his movements, the way his muscles worked beneath his t-shirt.
Stop looking at his chest and his biceps, she reprimanded herself. But then she looked at his eyes and it was even worse. There was nowhere safe to look at all.
She realized that she needed to say something to stop him from going back inside his cabin and she needed to do it quick. Somehow, she had to make him see that she wasn’t like all the other people bothering him—she wasn’t a threat.
“I’m not really a journalist,” she said.
This seemed to halt him momentarily. He was watching her again. “What do you mean?” His eyes narrowed and he searched her face warily.
“I mean, I want to be a journalist. I’m a journalism student, and I wanted to do a story about you.”
“How did you find me?”
“It’s a small town,” she said. “Word was bound to get out eventually.”
She expected him to deny it, to tell her that he’d been careful not to go into town, but he didn’t. Instead, his shoulders seemed to sag a little and his expression changed from mistrust to bewilderment.
“What do I need to do, move to Antarctica to get away from you people?”
“I’m not one of those people, Gunner—“
“You don’t know me,” he growled. “Don’t say my name like we’ve been friends for years.”
She licked her lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across that way. I’m just incredibly nervous. I almost got attacked by a wild dog a minute ago.”
Gunner’s lips twitched as if about to form a full-fledged smile. “You mean Doogie?”
“I don’t know the dog’s name, but he was growling and baring his teeth at me.”
“Doogie was just giving you a hard time.”
“Is that your dog?”
“He lives at a nearby farm. But he likes me. I guess he doesn’t like you too much, though. Can’t say I blame him.”
“Did you train him to hate journalists?”
“No, but it’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that in case any other stalkers come up here looking for me.”
“I’m not a stalker. I’m just a student who thought maybe you’d want to talk.”
“Well, I don’t.” He sighed, and his tone softened a little. “Can you get out of here okay? Your car’s pretty big and tough to maneuver.”
She looked back at the Yukon and pictured herself trying to turn it around in the small clearing in front of the house. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay,” Gunner said. “Go slow and be careful getting off the mountain.” He started to walk away again.
As he was leaving, when his back was to her, she made one last attempt.
“Gunner,” she called out.
He stopped walking but didn’t turn to face her. “Yeah?”
“I happen to agree with your choice.”
He didn’t move for a long, long moment. His heavily muscled back was still, and she could almost feel him taking in her words.
Krista held her breath. She knew that if she failed today, there was a very good chance that she wouldn’t have a job when she got back to Las Vegas. Drew Ellis himself had made it quite clear that the newly created Fighter Relations position wasn’t worth much to the UFF if she couldn’t even open up the lines of communication with their most important fighter.
Slowly, Gunner turned around. “Say that again,” he told her. “Tell me what you mean.”
“I agree with your choice. I think it’s courageous, what you’ve done—walking away from this fight.”
“Are you bullshitting me?” he asked,
