Free Killer Calories by G.A. McKevett Page A

chaparral-covered hills to the shining sea.
    “Maybe it’s time to start back,” she said gently.
    “Yes,” he replied. “ Gotta keep moving. No matter ij what...”

    Dion’s stimulating company had kept her mind off her (I lit! body—well, most parts of her body—until they returned. But once they jogged into the central area of the club, Savannah began to feel her fatigue and soreness with a vengeance.
    “What’s next?” she asked him, trying not to sound as though she were on her last leg, even if it was about to buckle beneath her.
    “Massage,” he replied, pointing to a small white cottage, situated in a copse of olive trees beyond the pool house.
    “Don’t toy with me,” she said. “Really?”
    “Absolutely. Not every moment here at Royal Palms is spent working out, you know.”
    “Thank God!”
    A good massage... or even a mediocre one... was her favorite thing—next to chocolate, of course.
    “Josef’s pretty good,” he told her. “And he’ll even give you breakfast first.”
    “Breakfast, too! What more could a woman want?”
    As soon as she spoke the words, she took a last quick look up and down the wonder that was Dion Zeller, former disco king and now exercise coach. Maybe there were a few more things a woman could wish for.
    But one appetite at a time. And right now, what she really wanted was some breakfast and to be rubbed the right way.

    “ T his is breakfast?” She held the tiny cup of green juice up to her nose, took a sniff, and nearly gagged.
    “Drink it. It’s wheat grass. It’s good for you.” Josef Orlet , masseur and green-gunk drink enforcer, towered over her. What he lacked in good looks and charm, he made up in sheer size and presence. His voice was a nasal monotone that grated on her nerves almost as much as his equally dull personality.
    At the peak of her karate training, she might have considered taking him on. But, exhausted from the morning run and weak from caffeine withdrawal, she decided it would be easier just to drink the damned stuff and have it over with.
    Maybe not.
    The moment the liquid hit her tongue, her throat closed and refused to let it pass.
    Josef watched her with narrowed eyes, a scowl on his pockmarked face. “Swallow,” he said.
    She shook her head vigorously and looked around for a sink or waste can to spit it into. But the tiny “nutrition station,’ as they call it, had no such receptacle. They had probably learned from experience to remove such temptations from their nauseous guests.
    “I said, ‘Swallow.’ ” He reached out and pinched her nose, holding it tightly and restricting her breathing.
    As an older sister, she had used the technique herself many times on her younger siblings who had refused to take their medicine. How humiliating to be on the receiving end of such treatment at the ripe old age of forty-something.
    He had a firm grip on her nose, and eventually she had to breathe, so...
    “ Aaauuggh ! That tastes like shit!” she said, shuddering and shaking her head.
    “It cleans the toxins out of your blood.”
    “So does a good temper tantrum, and that’s what I’m going to throw if you ever grab my nose like that again, buddy,” she said, shoving her face into his—or at least, as close as she could, considering that he was nearly a foot taller.
    He laughed at her, but it wasn’t a particularly mirthful sound with any warmth in it.
    No doubt about it. Josef was more than a masseur around here; he was the bouncer, the obligatory establishment goon. And she got the distinct impression that he enjoyed his work.
    “Now you get your massage,” he said, nodding toward the open door and the small room with its sheet-draped table. “I’ll tub those toxins out of your muscles, so that you can do more exercise this afternoon.”
    “Geez,” she muttered, dragging her tired body into the appointed room. “You guys are really hung up on this ‘toxin’ thing. What’s wrong with a little sludge in the system to