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“Ahem,” Trish cut in. “I’d love to stick around, but duty calls.” A smile frozen on her lips, she said how nice it had been to meet Jack and how wonderful it was that he’d come here all the way from Vancouver to get this important story. Turning to leave, she locked eyes with Sally and mouthed the words I told you so.
As Trish’s SUV vanished in the dust, Jack went to the rail and looked out over the valley. “Beautiful place. Is it always this hot?”
“Not always. And see, that’s part of…”
“So, you said something about plans?”
Sally flinched. She wasn’t used to conversation without eye contact, she wasn’t used to being interrupted and she wasn’t used to being addressed in such a curt manner. “Would you excuse me for just a minute?”
Cracker Jack Gold deigned to glance over his shoulder. “Sure.”
Despite her growing frustration with his attitude, Sally’s gaze was glued to his cute backside as she picked up her cellphone and requested a thermos of lemonade from the dairy kitchen. Her guest looked as though he could use a cold drink. Actually, he looked as though he could use a hot one, to thaw him out.
They sat down together, and she marveled as he pulled a pen and a coil-bound steno pad from inside his snug-fitting jacket. How did he have room in there for such things? He clicked the pen into action and treated her to another frigid smile.
“I thought for sure you’d want to see the barn,” she said. “There’s the dairy bar, too. I thought we might go there at some point. I’ve got some photos to show you. Um, if you’re interested, that is. And then, Tilly—she’s our cook—is making dinner for us tonight. We’re having Peach Paradise for dessert.”
Jack hesitated and Sally figured she’d scored a hit with something in there. But he said, “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure that seeing the barn will help the story, and I’ve already seen the dairy bar. As for dinner, I’ve got a long drive back to Vancouver.”
“Oh.” Disappointment settled in the pit of her stomach like a stone in mud. Trish was right. Her story wasn’t important to this jerk. So why had he come all this way?
His pen was poised, apparently ready to scribble. “What’s your position with Darville Dairy?”
What? He was kidding, right? “Do you mean to tell me that you don’t know what I do here?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard. “Ah, no. Not really.”
That was odd. The news release she’d issued had given her full name and job title. Surely he’d read it. “I’m in charge of marketing and communications.”
Head down, Jerk, er Jack, scribbled away. “Mmm. Sounds like a big job.” He managed to sound polite and patronizing all at once.
“It is a big job. Darville Dairy is the biggest producer of dairy products in central British Columbia.”
Surprised, Jack stopped writing and looked up sharply. “Really? I thought it was just a local operation.”
The release also had contained a brief profile of the company and its Web site address. Hotshot investigative reporter Cracker Jack Gold had all of this information right at his fingertips. Annoyed, Sally asked a fair question. “Tell me something. Did you do any research for this assignment?”
“Research?”
“Yes, you know. Background research? About me, about my family’s business?”
He stiffened. “Actually, I thought an interview would suffice.”
“Is that so? Well then, you must think I have nothing but time.” Now he looked guilty. Good!
“I don’t think that at all.”
“Because if you had gone to the trouble of doing a little research, you wouldn’t be wasting our two precious hours on preliminary questions.”
The faintest of smiles flitted across his pouty, pretty-boy mouth, and Sally felt a slow burn coming on. Did he find this funny? Was it some sort of joke to him?
He started to respond, but she’d heard enough. “It may interest you to know, Jack Gold, that there’s more to this story than just ice cream. For your information, this town really took off a few years ago. People moved here for the first time in decades. Lots of companies came here. The Gap and Starbucks and…and…others, too. The point is, Peachtown started to change….”
Those GQ lips parted again, and Sally snapped. “I’ll thank you not to speak!”
He pretended to zipper his mouth shut.
“Then the drought came and all our orchards dried up, and our farmers started hauling in water by the truckload, and the tourists stopped coming because it’s too darned hot, and the chain stores high-tailed it right out of here, and now Peach Paradise may just be the only thing that will save our town!” Sally drew a deep breath and collapsed against the back of her chair. Whew, that felt good!
For the first time, Mister Hotshot Reporter actually looked interested. “Save your town?”
“Yes, save our town.” Sally leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. “Jack Gold, you’re a poor excuse for a Gobey winner.”
A monstrous grin lit up his whole gorgeous face, eyes and all. “You know about that?”
Wow, what an ego!
“Of course I know about it. I did my homework.” Sally went into her cottage and fetched the file she’d been building for over a month. On return, she spread it open on the patio table, plopped down and began to read aloud from the first document. “Jack Langley Gold, nickname Cracker Jack. Senior business reporter, Vancouver Satellite. Thirty-four years old. Honors graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Journalism and MBA programs. Twice nominated for the Gobey Award…”
He arched his brows and tapped the table top. “Three times, actually.”
“Whatever. Father a general in the Canadian army. Mother an antiques dealer. Born in Vancouver, but lived all over Canada and in Paris, France, for a year while father stationed there on special assignment.” She glared at him over the document. “Shall I go on?”
“By all means.”
She set the paper aside and picked up the clipping from the June 3rd issue of the Satellite. “Satellite’s golden boy brings home the Gobey…”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough!” Laughing, Jack leaned forward and peered at the file. “What else have you got in there?”
“Never you mind.” Sally slapped it shut. “The point is…”
“I get the point.” He dropped his chin and looked at her thoughtfully. It registered in Sally’s heat-addled brain that he was more than pleasantly good-looking—he was flat-out gorgeous. Too bad she was throwing him out in a few minutes. It would have been nice to keep him around for a while, just to look at.
“Okay,” he began carefully. “I can explain. Normally, I would do background research on a story. I didn’t in this case because, well, because I don’t usually get assignments like this one.”
Sally frowned. “I don’t understand. What do you mean by ‘like this one’?”
“I mean, I usually get, you know, bigger, ah, I mean weightier assignments. See, after I won the Gobey, I got a little big for my britches.” He chuckled as if that weren’t really true, but for the sake of argument Sally should accept it as truth. “I acted badly, I guess, and my editor decided to bring me down a notch.”
What? Had he just said what she thought he’d said? “Do you mean to tell me that I’m your punishment? For acting like a jerk?”
Hotshot’s smarmy grin collapsed and he sat bolt upright. “Ah no, that’s not what I meant at all.”
“It’s what you said!”
“I know, but it’s not what I meant. Not at all. Listen, I—”
In a flash, Sally was on her feet. She didn’t need the Vancouver Satellite. She didn’t need Jack Gold. And she most certainly didn’t need to be Jack Gold’s two-hour penalty. Hands on hips, she stared him down. “Hit the road, Jack.”
There was a rustling in the trees behind them and Andy Farnham, Tilly’s kitchen helper, appeared with a thermos in hand. “Here’s your lemonade, Sally.”
“We won’t be needing, it, Andy. Take it back, please.”
His bewildered eyes darted from Sally to Jack and back again. “Uh, sure.” He turned and headed back up the trail.
“Stay right there,” Jack said to Sally, then he sprang to his feet and sprinted for his car.
Despite her fury, Sally’s heart sank when he jumped into the flashy thing and pulled away, spitting dust and gravel. Disgusted with herself, she watched the car roar down the driveway and disappear. Terrific. Now there would be no story.
A few minutes later, though, the Mustang reappeared. Jack parked it in the same spot as before, emerged into the blazing sunlight and strolled purposefully toward her. He had a wilted pink tea rose in hand.
“Sally Darville?” He handed her the flower.
“Um, yes?”
“Let’s start fresh here. How do you do? I’m Jack Gold from the Vancouver Satellite. I’m a rotten reporter and a poor excuse for a Gobey winner.” He grinned.
Okay, so there was hope for the jerk. Some. “Agreed.”
“I apologize for my utter lack of professionalism, Sally. How can I make it up to you?” He took her right hand in both of his and idly caressed her palm with one thumb. An innocent gesture, sure, but she couldn’t believe how sensual it felt.
“You can start by taking this assignment seriously.”
He nodded. “Done.”
“That includes doing all the things I planned for us.”
He wasn’t so fast off the mark this time. “Ah, okay, done.”
“Starting with dinner tonight.”
“Dinner? Okay, sure. What time?”
Sally hesitated. Her parents were away until tomorrow afternoon. She had planned to take Jack up to the main house for a light supper with Tilly and Andy. But if the warm human being she’d just glimpsed inside him was real, it might be fun to bring the food down to the cottage and spend some time alone with him. “Seven o’clock. Here. At my place. I mean, um, here.”
From his expression, she gathered Jack was calculating the time it would take to eat, wrap up the assignment and get back on the road. It would be well after midnight before he reached Vancouver. “You could stay overnight,” she quickly suggested. “The Chelsea Country Inn is just down the road.”
He meditated on that for a moment, and she could tell that he’d rather have hot coals poked in his eyes. But that was just too bad. By coming here he’d given her hope, then tried to snatch it back. If she was his punishment for being a tool, he deserved her.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stay over one night,” he conceded. “I could use a shower and a good meal.”
“Good! I’ll see you at seven, then.”
The moment he was gone, Sally did a little victory dance on the patio, then called Trish and told her what had just happened.
“Well, good for you, Sal. It looks like you’ll be getting your story.”
“And then some! Oh, and Trish? One more thing.”
“Go ahead. Rub it in.”
Sally laughed. “I told you so!”
3
WHEN HAD IT HAPPENED?
As he cruised along county road nineteen, scanning right and left for the Chelsea Country Inn, Jack wondered what Sally had meant by “just down the road.” He should have asked, of course. To the folks around here, everything was just down some road, or around some corner, when in fact it was a zillion miles away and cleverly hidden to boot.
More importantly, he wondered when, precisely, he had stopped being a caring, conscientious storyteller and become a jaded journalist. Everything they were saying about him at the Satellite was true. He was a snob. An egomaniac. A jerk.
As a novice reporter he’d treated every one of his assignments as a learning experience. Every story had given him valuable insight into people—the way they thought, the emotions they felt, the rationales they concocted for the sometimes inexplicable choices they made. Obviously, somewhere along the way he’d stopped learning and had started to assign values to his stories. This one a four, that one a seven. This one an important stepping stone in his career, that one just a waste of his precious time.
All seasoned reporters did the same. Jack knew that. But had he become so jaded that he’d actually forgotten how important a story was to the people involved in it?
Sally Darville was right. It wouldn’t have hurt him one bit to do some basic research for this assignment. He also should have done a few quick interviews with the folks in line at the dairy bar this afternoon. He should have gotten a head start on things. Dammit, he should have taken ownership of the assignment.
Sally didn’t think her story was a four. She thought it was a ten, and she was entitled to think that.
Man, she’d straightened him out in a hurry! A month of relentless ribbing from his colleagues hadn’t so much as dented his obviously gargantuan ego. But she’d put him smartly back in his place in less than ten minutes.
She wanted to save her town. How noble. How…decent.
She was a ten. If, Jack supposed, you went for that fresh-faced, blond-haired, milkmaid kind of look. Which he did, apparently. Even so, she was nothing like the women he dated in Vancouver. Any one of them, especially Liz Montaine, would eat her for breakfast.
He chuckled to himself. Then again, maybe not.
Crazily, he wondered how Sally would taste first thing in the morning. Sweet, like ice cream. Sweet Sally. Yeah.
Whoa there, buddy, he warned himself as the Mustang cleared a blind corner and the inn came into view. Don’t be thinking sweet Sally. Don’t be thinking Sally anything. Do your job, do it right, and get the hell out of here.
The Chelsea Country Inn turned out to be a tall yellow Victorian nestled in a grove of Ponderosa pines. Gingerbread trim and baskets of parched flowers adorned its wide wraparound porch, and the sun glinted off the stained glass transoms above its many narrow windows.
Jack parked in the otherwise empty gravel lot and let himself in through the open front door. Immediately to the right of the foyer was a small room that must have been a receiving parlor at one time. It had an old potbellied stove, a couple of fussy, overstuffed chairs and an ornate table that obviously served as the registration desk. What it didn’t have was a registration clerk.
“Anybody here?” he called out. When silence answered, he ventured a few steps down the hall and peered into a huge country kitchen. Someone had to be home. There was an array of chopped fruit on top of the room’s long worktable, along with an open carton of cream. He called out again. Still no response. As he was turning to leave, a big, brassy redhead burst through a door to his right. Seeing Jack, she let out a scream.
“Gracious living, boy!” Eyes bulging, she covered her heart with one plump, bejeweled hand and gulped for air. “You scared the daylights outta poor old Martha!”
Jack apologized for snooping. “I’m looking for a room for the night.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to see about that.”
While he wondered what exactly there was to see about—this was an inn, wasn’t it?—she twisted her generous mouth into a grimace and ruminated.
“It’s just for one night,” he assured her.
“Percy!” she hollered in the general direction of the backyard. “Get your butt in here. We got a guest, maybe.”
