“Jeesh!”

“I think I’ve had it. I’m so tired some days I can’t stay awake.”

“Oh, Frannie. Does Keith know how much you need him at home?”

Mary Fran laughed. “The man knows. Trust me.” She got quiet. “I think he’s having an affair.”

“What?” Lucy sat up straight. “I’m going to kill him!”

Fran yawned. “Maybe I’m just imagining it, but when he’s not on the road he can’t wait to get out of the house, and it’s such chaos all the time that I can’t blame him. I just wonder if he’s running to someone else- someone who doesn’t have kid snot on the front of her blouse.”

“Oh, Fran.” Lucy stroked her sister’s sassy little haircut. “Talk to Keith. Confront him.”

Mary Fran leaned against her sister and shook her head. “I’d rather just hang out with you and enjoy the single Miami girl lifestyle.”

Lucy chuckled. “Yes, just day after day of nothing but sex, clubbing, sex, sex, sex.”

Mary Fran turned her sleepy gaze to Lucy. “It might be for the best. Sex is what got me in this mess to begin with.”

“But it’s such a good mess.” Lucy kissed her sister’s cheek, seeing once again why people used to say Mary Fran was a miniature version of herself. Her sister was two years older, five inches shorter, and God knew how many pounds lighter, but with the same color hair and eyes and light pink complexion. Her petite cuteness didn’t bother Lucy as much as it used to, and seeing her wrung out like this broke Lucy’s heart.

“Anyway,” she said with a sigh, “I only have a one-bedroom and we’d end up killing each other over bathroom countertop space.”

Mary Fran had no comeback for that, because she’d fallen asleep.

Theo took a seat at the conference table and smiled at Tyson on his right, then Lola on his left. Palm Club staff meetings were always painful, but today’s promised to be agonizing, because they were going to discuss the Lucy Cunningham project and Lola DiPaolo was already sneering at him.

Their boss, Ramona Cortez, regaled them with end-of-year sales figures and assigned trainers for several new clients, then gestured toward Theo. “Get us up to speed on how your fifteen minutes of fame is going.”

He felt the heat of Lola’s mascara-laden evil eye just before she said, “Fifteen minutes that’s gonna drag on for a whole frickin‘ year.”

Theo laughed along with every other trainer in the room, including his best friend, Tyson Williams, a bald and baby-faced former University of Florida running back who showed a bit of wear and tear that morning. Theo wondered which of Tyson’s favorite clubs had kept him from his beauty sleep.

“We’re doing great so far. We’re in here every weekday morning at five, so give her a little encouragement if you see her. She’s going to need all the support she can get.”

“And what are you gonna need at the end of this year? An updated resume?”

Theo grinned at the remark from one of the trainers across the table and waited till the laughter subsided. “Miss Cunningham and I will get the job done,” he said.

“Too bad the cameras weren’t here the day she upchucked her M amp;M’s,” Lola said with a laugh.

“No such thing as too many documentaries on how to perform the modified Heimlich maneuver,” Tyson added.

“It was Milk Duds,” Theo said.

Ramona jumped in. “We’re already getting an amazing amount of press with this project. It’s possible some of you will be approached by the media for comment in the coming months, so please clear it with me first before you’re interviewed.” She smiled at Theo. “This campaign is costing a bundle up front, but we’re going to reap the benefits for years to come.”

Lola frowned and shook her head. “Have you ever had a client drop a hundred pounds in a year? I mean, get real, Theo!”

“No, I haven’t.” It was the truth. He’d never tried something this ambitious, with this kind of timetable or public exposure. Of course, he’d cared for obese patients as a med student and helped some clients make dramatic changes in their lives, but lately it had been one nearly-perfect-on-the-outside Palm Club client after the next.

Frankly, it was getting old.

“Remember my client who lost sixty pounds?” Lola charged on with her story, oblivious to the fact that no one remembered any such client. “Well, I heard she left her husband for the China Wok delivery boy.”

Theo wasn’t sure what point Lola was attempting to make, as usual.

Tyson turned to Theo. “Looks like she’s sticking with it. You doing six days?”

Lucy was sticking with it, and though her first weigh-in was still a few days away, he could see the change in her. Her aerobic capacity was up. Her upper-body strength had already improved. She’d obviously lost weight. She was handling the nutrition plan well and had been sticking with daily journaling, short-term goal setting, and counseling. He’d done a boatload of research on cardio training and muscle toning for women, along with the newest motivation strategies. He’d picked the brains of a couple of his friends now in sports medicine. He’d even taped a few episodes of Dr. Phil.

“We’re doing five days on, one light day, and one rest day. She has access to me round the clock.”

“Oooh. Every girl’s dream,” Lola cooed.

Tyson stared at Theo, his head cocked to the side, his dark eyes quite wide. “One hundred pounds, though, man. I still say better you than me.”

Ramona closed the meeting, sending the trainers out into the gym, but stopped Theo at the door.

“Got a minute?”

He leaned on the table edge and crossed his arms over his chest. “Absolutely.”

Ramona smiled at him. “You know, you’re the best trainer I have and the only one I could have trusted with this. I wanted to tell you I appreciate how hard you’re working.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Look, Theo. I realize you’ve got your sights set higher than the Palm Club. I knew that when I hired you three years ago.” Ramona’s warm brown eyes crinkled with her smile. “You’re going to handle Lucy and all the media attention beautifully. And I know that when it’s over and you’ve got your money, you’ll leave here and finish med school. How close am I to being right?”

Theo let go with a laugh. Ramona was so easy to work for that he sometimes found himself thinking of her as more a friend than a boss. But at her core, she was a shrewd businesswoman. When she held out that one-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus as bait, she knew he’d bite, and she even knew why.

“If they let me back in, yes.”

“They’ll let you in.”

Theo shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I love what I do here, Ramona.”

“And your clients love that you do it.” She let loose with a wide grin and patted his shoulder. “When the agency suggested the idea, I knew it had to be you. All I ask is that you let Lucy Cunningham down easy when she falls in love with you.”

Theo was used to this kind of teasing. He had an undeserved rep for being a player, and nobody but Tyson knew that he rarely dated. Between raising Buddy, working two jobs, Special Olympics coaching, and studying his ass off for the reentry exam, there wasn’t time for women, especially another one who’d break his heart. He hoped someday that might change, but that day seemed a ways off.

“And a year is a very long time for a lonely woman to be in close proximity to Theo-dorable.”

He shrugged and decided to play along. “I can’t help it that I’m devastatingly handsome and perfect in every way.”

Ramona chuckled, headed for the door, then turned back toward him. “To your clients, that’s exactly what you are.” Theo tried to cut her off, but she held up her hand. “Do you know you’ve got a waiting list of females a mile long? Have you noticed that out of your forty active clients there is only one man, and he’s in love with you, too?”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Lucy is our meal ticket. The world will watch her go from frumpy to fabulous in your care and we’ll be the hottest fitness franchise in the state-hotter even than Goldstein’s Gym, and you know how long I’ve wanted to bury that sleazy bastard.”