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Evan, who happened to glance their way as Northern Light gave another thwarted lunge. The gleaming black tail spiked and they could all hear the horse’s breath streaming from his nostrils.
Janet drew in a hissing breath. “Ee-uu-ww. Is he going to, uh—?”
Leandra frowned, putting her finger to her lips, silently hushing her. The answer to her production assistant’s half-formed question was clear in the satisfied actions of the men as Northern Light’s interest subsided in the mare still standing safely some distance away.
Howard, her father’s oldest ranch hand, took away the collection tube carrying Northern Light’s soon-to-be-pricey contribution to the breeding process. Leandra knew this particular specimen would only be used for analyzing. Leandra’s father led Northern Light back into the shadowy interior of the barn, where he’d be closed in his stall with fresh feed and water until his next encounter with the A.V.
Evan’s presence wasn’t ordinarily required at such proceedings, but since he and Axel were co-owners of the stallion, he had a vested interest. As he headed toward them, his gait was loose-hipped and easy and in Leandra’s mind, she envisioned the slo-mo and music that could accompany the movement once they put the piece together.
Eye candy, exactly as Marian had said. Oh, yes. Definitely eye candy.
“You realize that Northern Light was distracted by all of you over here.” Evan directed his irritation straight at Leandra. “What took most of the day should have been accomplished in a third of the time. It’s a wonder that Jefferson allowed you to even tape here today.”
“I guess that’s one of the perks about being the boss’s only daughter.” Her voice was as cool as his. She didn’t appreciate the lecture, particularly when she was very much aware of the delay they’d caused.
Evan’s lips thinned. He glanced at the camera. “I suppose you’re still filming.”
“That was the agreement, remember?” Despite that very fact, Leandra stepped closer to Evan. “Our crew follows your daily activities for a month and a half. How else can our viewers expect to walk in your shoes?”
“With boots,” he drawled. “And I remember the agreement. Doesn’t mean I have to love it. Definitely doesn’t mean I appreciate extending that inconvenience to my clients. And daddy of yours or not, Jefferson Clay is one of my best clients. We’re planning to breed one of his mares to Northern Light, and I’d still like him to stay one of my best clients even after you’ve taken your sweet tush off onto your next escapade.”
“Cut,” Leandra told Ted, barely managing to get the word through her clenched teeth. “Janet, you and Ted go over to the lab where Howard’s working and catch what you can. There’s quite a bit of science involved in this. You never know what might come in useful.” She could feel her phone vibrating silently at her hip, where it was clipped to her pocket, but ignored it. She didn’t have to guess hard to figure it was Marian. “Then we’ll take a stroll through the horse barn and call it a day.”
The idea of ending shooting even an hour early clearly appealed to Janet. Leandra knew she and Paul Haas, the other crew member, were planning to drive down to Cheyenne for the weekend. Both in their midtwenties, they figured their free time would be a little more lively there than it would be if they remained in town. Ted, however, was staying put. He had a wife and a toddler back home in L.A. and, though he hadn’t said anything specific, Leandra had the impression that things weren’t entirely smooth between the couple. They’d all be back in Weaver on Sunday, though, in time to watch the show on television.
When Ted and the camera were no longer there as silent witnesses, Evan leaned his elbows on the metal rail between them. “You showing off that you’re the boss, Leandra?”
“When it comes to this, that’s exactly what I am.”
“As long as Marian lets you be.”
She stiffened, ignoring the jab. “Regardless, I don’t need you taking me to task in front of my people just because you occasionally find this situation a little less than comfortable.”
“Occasionally?” His eyebrows lifted. “Have you ever had a camera following you around all damn day? You don’t know what it’s like. You only know what it’s like from behind the lens.”
The fact that he was right didn’t help her beleaguered conscience any. Nor did the phone cease vibrating. She snatched it off her belt, flipping it open. “Yes?”
There was a brief pause, then a short, masculine laugh. “Judging by your voice, I can tell you’re happy to hear from me.”
It wasn’t Marian at all. “Jake.” Leandra greeted her ex-husband. Evan’s shadowy jaw cocked and he turned, stepping away from the rail. “I thought you were Marian calling. What’s wrong?”
“Who said anything had to be wrong?”
“You don’t usually call me when I’m on location.” Her ex-husband called about once a month, insisting on checking up on her. He’d been doing it for as long as they’d been apart. At first, it had been simply painful. Then, it had been…simply simple. That was Jake.
They might not have made it as a couple—particularly after Emi—but that didn’t mean that they didn’t care about each other.
“As it happens, I was calling to see how Ev was doing.”
Ev was twenty feet away from her now, joined by her father, who’d ambled out of the barn a few moments earlier. “Why? He’s a big boy.”
“Yeah, but he hates attention. You know that.”
“Then he shouldn’t have agreed to the shoot. I still don’t know why he did. I know he regrets it. It would have been a heck of a lot easier if you’d agreed to do this, Jake. I would never have had to come to Weaver. You didn’t even tell me your good excuse,” she reminded him. “Just that you had a reason.”
“I did. Do. So, put the man on the phone, would you? I need to talk to him.”
“Oh, so that’s why you called my phone,” she teased wryly as she crouched down and slipped through the horizontal space between the wide-set metal rails. “Not to talk to me after all, but to your good buddy.”
“At least from him I might get the straight scoop on how you’re really doing.” There was no joking in Jake’s voice.
Leandra stopped next to Evan and extended the tiny phone. “Here, spy man. Your accomplice wants to talk to you.” She jiggled the phone. “Jake.”
Evan took the phone. “Yo.”
Leandra grimaced and turned away.
Her father caught her gaze, his dark blue eyes unreadable. “You still talk to Jake?”
She shrugged and he fell into step with her as she walked away from Evan, heading toward the big, state-of-the-art barn. She didn’t really want to hear whatever report he might be giving Jake.
The fact that there might be any reporting at all annoyed her right down to her bones. She was having lustful thoughts about Evan and he was merely keeping tabs on her for Jake.
“Don’t worry, Dad. We’re not getting back together or anything.” There was too much water under that bridge. And Leandra wasn’t up to emotional entanglements, anyway.
“Jake was—is a good enough guy.” Jefferson’s low voice was wry. “Maybe not good enough for my girl, but—”
She tucked her hand under her father’s arm. At six-plus feet, he still towered over her. And though his blond hair had a good portion of silver now, it was still thick and often longer than his wife’s shoulder-length hair.
“Nobody would be good enough to suit you, Dad.”
“Me?” His lips quirked. “It’s your mother who’s the hard one to please.” He nodded his head toward the slender, dark-haired woman who was striding toward them. “Tell her, Em,” he said when she reached them.
“Tell her what?”
Leandra suffered a head-to-toe examination from her mother’s all-seeing brown eyes. She was ten years younger than Jefferson, and more than once had been mistaken for Leandra’s sister, rather than her mother. “He’s claiming that instead of him, it’s you who thinks no man is good enough for me.”
Emily smiled. “Well, we both know what a tale your father can spin. So, how much longer are you going to be following poor Evan around? You know we’re all going into town tonight to meet at Colbys, right?”
“Sarah told me.”
“I really wish you could stay out here with us.” Emily closed her arm around Leandra’s shoulder. “I know it’s not too practical during the week because of the drive, but what about the weekends?”
A part of Leandra wanted nothing more than to escape to the sanctuary of her childhood home. To sink into the comfort and care of parents whose love was a constant in her life. A bigger part of her resisted those very same things for fear that she’d never make her own way. “I’ll still be working on the weekends,” she told them truthfully. “We just won’t be actively following Evan.”
“Working on the weekends.” Emily sniffed wryly. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“Because you grew up on Squire’s ranch,” Jefferson drawled. “And there ain’t no time off on a ranch.”
Emily tilted her head up, looking at her husband. “Oh, and you’re so different from your father, are you?”
Jefferson closed his hand around his wife’s hand. “Hell, yes. I’m nothing like Squire Clay.”
Leandra snorted softly. Her mother laughed and her father smiled before dropping a kiss onto his wife’s forehead.
There was no way that Leandra could ignore the contentment radiating from her parents. It blossomed around her as surely as the sun rose and set. “I’ve got to round up my crew and get them back to town,” she told them. “So I’ll see you later at Colbys.”
“Even if you’re not staying with us, I’m glad you’re here.” Emily kissed Leandra’s cheek. “It’s been so long since you were home.”
Not since Emi.
Leandra kept her smile in place, but it suddenly took an effort. And she knew that her parents were aware of that fact, which made the effort even harder. “I know. So…later.” She hurried away from them, retracing her steps back to the small arena.
Evan, though, was nowhere to be seen.
Paul and Janet were busy loading up the rental van with equipment. “Looking for this?” Janet handed over Leandra’s clipboard.
She hadn’t been, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need the jumble of schedules and notes and other assorted items that were clipped together on the large brown clipboard. “Where’s Evan?”
“He left a few minutes ago.”
For some reason, the news startled Leandra. “When?” She hadn’t noticed his pickup truck driving away from the ranch, but then she’d been on the opposite side of the barn, facing away from the road.
“A few minutes ago. We’re still finished, right?”
“Right.” Leandra realized she was looking in the direction of the road, as if she would be able to see Evan’s departure. They probably wouldn’t see each other until Sunday, when the show aired and the crew threw a promotional event in town to play up Evan’s debut. The thought nagged at her, and she deliberately looked down at her clipboard. She was there to work and that was all. Work was good. Work was safe.
And amid her work was a big pink note, taped on top of her collection of pages. Call Marian.
She automatically reached for her cell phone.
Which she’d given to Evan.
“Don’t suppose he gave you my cell phone before he left?”
Janet shook her head. “Nope. Sorry.”
Well, if for no other reason than to retrieve her cell phone, Leandra would be seeing Evan before Sunday, after all.
“Guess you’d better lend me yours, then,” she told her assistant.
The young woman handed it over and Leandra dialed Marian’s phone number.
Even the prospect of talking to her half-sane boss again wasn’t enough to dull Leandra’s sudden burst of cheerfulness.
She wouldn’t be waiting until Sunday, after all.
Chapter Three
“Does your daddy know you still play pool?”
Bent over her borrowed pool cue and the side of one of the pool tables situated inside Colbys Bar & Grill, Leandra’s stroke hesitated. When had Evan arrived at the bar? She angled her chin, looking beside her. “Does your daddy know you’ve taken up drinking beer?”
The corner of Evan’s lips twitched. “I’d have to say he did since he’s the one who bought it.” His fingers were looped around the slender neck of the bottle and he tilted the bottom of it, gesturing. “He’s at the bar over there.”
Leandra followed the gesturing beer bottle. Sure enough, Drew Taggart was standing at the bar.
From Leandra’s vantage point, it looked as if the only thing that had changed about Evan’s father were the strands of silver threading through his black hair. He was talking with one of her uncles. Tristan Clay was as golden blond as he’d ever been, and standing there, the two men—one dark haired and one light—made a striking image.
“I thought you were going to Braden this evening.” She distinctly remembered him saying as much that afternoon.
“Plans change.” He shifted beside her.
“You said your parents have been to Florida?” She focused again on lining up her shot, instead of on his well-worn jeans.
“Got back yesterday.”
The cue ball struck the racked balls with a satisfying thwack, scattering them nicely. “Were they gone long?”
“Two weeks.” Evan set his bottle on the wide ledge of the pool table and pulled a stick from the selection hanging on the wall rack. Colbys might serve the best steak in town, but it was still a bar, complete with jukebox, wood floors, a very long, gleaming wood bar and a half-dozen pool tables. “They came back early. Because of the show being on television.” His voice sounded disgruntled.
“I’ll have to catch up with them and say hello,” Leandra murmured, stepping around the table and lining up her next shot. She hoped Evan didn’t get any grumpier about the shoot. She truly didn’t like the idea of making someone miserable just so she could achieve her own goals. “Where’s your sister been staying while they were gone?”
“Tris and Hope’s. Though she’s eighteen now. She could have stayed by herself at the house. Jake doesn’t know anything about Ed-wa-ahrd.”
Her shot went wide, the ball banking uselessly off the side cushion. She straightened, propping the end of the stick on the toe of her tennis shoe. “What did you do? Ask him about it when he called?”
“Yes.”
An invisible band seemed to tighten around her skull. “I told you it didn’t concern Jake. It doesn’t concern you, for that matter.”
“Sounding a little defensive there, Leandra.” Evan leaned over and sank two balls in the corner pocket.
So much for her sympathy. She had an intense urge to smack him over the shoulders with her own pool cue. “And you are sounding pretty interfering there, Evan. What does it matter, anyway? Why do you care?”
He was studying the table, his head slowly tilting to one side, then the other. “Jake’s one of my best friends.”
“So out of loyalty to him you figure he needs to know about Eduard?”
He leaned over again, his movements with the pool cue infuriatingly confident. “Does he?”
Despite her intense concentration on them, the infernal balls didn’t have the sense to thwart his rapid shots. They went sailing exactly where he wanted. At the rate he was going, he’d have the table cleared in minutes. “I’ve already said there’s nothing for him to know. Why are you making a deal about this?”
“You’re the one being closemouthed.” Only the eight ball remained. He lined it up. A second later, it rolled neatly into the pocket. Looking smugly superior, he straightened.
“Bet you can’t do that a second time.”
His lips quirked, amused. “Bet I can. Don’t forget, sport, I’ve been hanging out here at Colbys since before you moved away.”
