Free Keeper of the Heart by Johanna Lindsey

her hand, and dragged her off. Of course he wouldn’t do that. He was a visitor from another planet. Visitors, most of them, tended to do things in a civilized fashion. What a waste of time!
    Time she didn’t have. But she couldn’t be
too
easy. She didn’t want to scare him off. He had to want her enough to ask her father for her, but she didn’t know if he wanted her at all yet.
Entice him, Shani. Make him come to you. If he loses interest,
then
you can be aggressive.
    Slowly this time, as if reluctantly, she looked away, back to the two warriors straining in the arena. She watched Caris’s warrior being shoved over his line and heard her friend sigh.
    “He loses and I win.” Caris was just short of chuckling now. “I think I’ll go over and introduce myself and offer a little sympathy.”
    “Go ahead. I’ll wait for you here.”
    “She has the right idea,” Martha said as soon as Caris hurried off. “What are
you
waiting for?”
    Shanelle glanced again toward the black-haired visitor, then looked quickly away. He was still staring at her. But his expression was unchanged. He hadn’t even smiled at her yet.
    “I’m waiting for him to come to me.”
    “We’re not playing games here, kiddo,” Martha said, adding a big dose of exasperation to her tone. “You want him, go get him.”
    “Damn it, Martha, it’s not that easy. And let
me
handle this, will you?”
    Determinedly she watched the next match, all of it, without once glancing toward the visitor. The seven-footer won again, easily. He really was mammoth and would likely last a good long while, possibly the rest of the day.
    Why
hadn’t he come over yet? Visitors weren’t typically shy or hesitant. Maybe he didn’t want her. Maybe he only found her curious, looking like a Sha-Ka’ani female but dressed like a visitor— except for the cloak she was wearing. Was it the damn cloak? Did he think it made her unavailable? He could at least ask!
    She gave him another quick glance. The moment she did, he entered the arena. Shanelle’s eyes flared wide. Her gasp brought Corth to her side.
    “What is wrong?”
    “Nothing, Corth.”
    “I’d better get a better answer than that,” Martha’s voice warned.
    “He’s entered the competition.”
    “Well, that ought to be interesting.
Now
can I have a look?”
    “Not yet.”
    “I’d be getting suspicious, Shani, if I weren’t monitoring you.”
    “Be quiet, Martha.”
    Shanelle couldn’t believe he was doing this. The warrior had at least four inches on him and a great deal more weight. But the visitor clasped hands with him, took up the correct stance, and then looked again at Shanelle. In that moment she knew why he was in there. He
did
want her. She had been watching the contestants, but he wanted her eyes on him, so he became a contestant. What a sweet, jealous thing to do—and so foolish. He couldn’t possibly win. But she’d take a leaf from Caris’s book and give him a dose of sympathy when he lost.
    Only he didn’t lose right away. The pushing and straining began and it was magnificent to watch. Muscles appeared and bulged prominently on the visitor that Shanelle wouldn’t have imagined he could possess. Her breathing quickened. She found herself straining right along with him, and suddenly she wanted him to win so bad she could taste it, because here was a visitor her father could approve of. That had been one of her main stumbling blocks, that her father wouldn’t accept a visitor, any visitor, but he could certainly accept one who could defeat a warrior.
    Her eyes were on his face now, willing him to do it, and it was in the exact moment when his eyes came to Shanelle to assure himself she was watching that he gathered the last effort to win. He did it. The mighty warrior stumbled back over his line, their hands separated, and the visitor stood victorious and stared right at Shanelle.
    She didn’t jump up and down squealing like Caris had done, but that was what she felt was