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“She’s upset.” Jessica, distressed, stated the obvious. Both men turned to look at her. “Well, she is,” Jessica insisted in that breathy way of hers. “I’m sorry, Buck. But, you know, I don’t think she likes you.”
“No kidding?”
“And I don’t get it. Why would you want to make her write the story? You’re the one who writes.” Jessica’s smooth brow furrowed as if great thoughts troubled her. “Aren’t you?”
L.T. chuckled and puffed on his cigar and, for once, didn’t comment.
That left Buck to make a noncommittal noise in his throat and take a sip of the excellent brandy and wonder if he was biting off a big wad more than he would ever be able to chew.
Maybe so.
Should he back down, agree to head home to California with only a photographer for company? Write the damn story and turn it in and forget it—forget B.J.?
Hell. Probably.
But then there she came, tap-tap-tapping back to the table in her skinny little skirt and dangerous black shoes, shoulders back and head high. She looked sexy as all get-out—and also ready to start spitting nails.
Buck still wanted her. He wanted her bad. The past year or so he’d come to grips with the fact that maybe he always would.
Back down? Not this time. This time he was taking it all the way. And if she wanted her damn cover story, she could come and get it—his way.
“Are you all right, B.J.?” Jessica asked, doe eyes wider than ever.
B.J. slid into her seat again. “I have been better,” she informed L.T.’s girlfriend with a stately nod of her shining blond head. “Thank you for asking.” She turned on L.T. again, eyes stormy, mouth set. “In case you might have forgotten, I have a department to run. I can’t just go traipsing off to the wilds of California. And really. Where is the sense in this? That Buck’s got the byline is half of the story.” She threw up both hands. “Oh, this is all just too, too insane. He’s going to do a much better job of writing the damn thing than I ever could. That’s what he does—write.”
L.T. waved a hand, dismissing her objections.
“Don’t worry about the features department. Giles can handle things for a week or two. And the piece shouldn’t be a memoir. It needs an objective eye.”
B.J. looked at her father as if she’d like nothing better than to grab his cigar from between his fingers and put it out in his face. “Excuse me. An objective eye?”
Her father faced her right down. “That’s what I said.”
“Oh, please. It’s better with Buck’s name on the byline, don’t try to kid me it’s not.”
L.T. nodded. Regally. “Unfortunately, he’s not offering his name on the byline. And we have to work with what we can get.”
She whipped around to glare at Buck again. “Come on. Write it yourself.”
He only shook his head.
“You…” Evil epithets lurked right behind those lips he couldn’t wait to kiss again.
But she held them in. She sat back in her chair, regrouping. Buck could practically see her quick mind working. Cornered but still swinging, she tried again. “I can’t see any reason to pay you, if you’re not doing the writing.”
“Fine. Leave my agent out of it.”
“We will. And I’ll get someone else to write the piece. Someone really good. Mike Gallato should be available, now the Wise Brothers thing fell through. I can call him right now and we can—”
“No,” said L.T. “You’re going to write it. And you’ll do a fine job. It’ll be good for you. You need to get out in the field now and then, anyway.”
“Listen very carefully,” B.J. said in a voice that could have flash-frozen the testicles off a bull. “I’m not going to do this.” Her eyes were wild, her mouth a thin line. Two bright spots of color rode high on her cheekbones. Other than that, her face was much too pale.
Buck frowned. Had Jessica been right?
Was she sick?
He wanted to ask her for himself if she was okay. But he didn’t. B.J. absolutely refused to show weakness, anytime or anywhere. If he asked, he’d get nothing but a snarled denial. No point in going there.
She said, tightly, “Buck. Listen. I assure you. If you don’t want to write this yourself, it’s going to be no problem finding someone else, someone really…top-notch. Someone much better than I would be.”
Again, for a split second, he wavered. But not long enough that she could see it in his eyes. He was going for it. Going the whole way. And, whether she liked it or not, she was going with him.
True, at the moment, she was madder than a peeled rattler at him for roping her into this. But she’d get over it. He’d have as long as he could keep her in California to make her admit that the two of them were far from over. A big job, admittedly. But Buck Bravo was accustomed to life-and-death challenges.
“No,” Buck said. “I want you, B.J. You come with me to California and write the story. Or the whole thing is off.”
L.T. sipped his brandy and waved his cigar. “Sorry, B.J. But it looks like the decision’s been made for us.”
Three
Trapped and fully aware of the fact, B.J. stewed all the way home in the back of her father’s big, black limousine.
Looks like the decision’s been made for us, L.T. had said.
“Us,” B.J. muttered under her breath as the car hummed across the Henry Hudson Bridge. Us? She should have ripped that prize rhino head off the far wall when her father said that, just got up and ripped it off the wall and stabbed him to the heart with that big, fat horn.
For the first time, as she rode through the nighttime streets of uptown Manhattan, she actually considered quitting Alpha.
But the magazine—and her dream of running the whole enterprise someday—had been her life. She simply wasn’t ready to walk away from it.
Not yet.
Not ever.
And because she wasn’t ready to walk out, she was off to California at ten tomorrow morning.
Off to California, with Buck…
Not twelve hours later, B.J., Buck and Lupe Martinez—sleek and exotic as always in her trademark black—took off from Teterboro for Reno.
B.J. kept to herself during the plane ride. She sat at the opposite end of the cabin from Buck and Lupe, put on a pair of headphones and tried to zone out with the help of her trusty iPod. She did her best not to seethe—not too much, anyway. She composed a long series of e-mails to Giles on her laptop, instructions on how to handle the various challenges he’d be facing while she was away, notes on priorities, on whom to deal with immediately and whom he could safely ignore for a while. Between e-mails, she shut her eyes, leaned back and concentrated on letting go of her anger and frustration. Anger meant tension and tension seemed to trigger unpleasant activity in her pregnancy-sensitized stomach.
She did understand that she would have to work through her rage and get past it; it would be pretty difficult to get Buck’s story if she refused to talk to him. Besides, who was she kidding? In the next few months she’d be talking to him, anyway—about his upcoming fatherhood.
Though she’d never given a thought to having kids before, now that B.J. found herself pregnant, she’d discovered she actually wanted the baby.
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t so hot at the male/female relationship thing. She’d accepted the fact that she would probably never marry. This could very well be her one chance to have a baby and she was grabbing it—even though it was bound to wreak serious havoc on her career.
She’d manage, somehow. She had an embarrassingly large trust fund, courtesy of L.T., so money would be no problem. She’d hire nannies. The best that her nice, fat fortune could buy.
And since Buck was the dad, she probably would have to deal with him. How much would depend on how large a part he intended to play in her baby’s life.
And no, she wasn’t telling him the big news yet. No way. She needed to get through this trip with him, get the damn feature written. Until that was done, she refused to complicate the situation with him any further.
In Reno, a rental SUV awaited them. They piled their bags and all of Lupe’s equipment in the back and climbed in. Buck took the wheel and Lupe jumped right in behind him, leaving the front passenger seat for B.J.—if she wanted it. She didn’t. However, she did need to practice being civil to Buck.
So she hopped in front and sent Buck a quick, bland smile. There. Civil. Sort of. And that was certainly enough cordiality for now. He started up the car and she aimed her gaze straight ahead.
The ride to Buck’s hometown took over an hour. B.J. watched the impressive scenery roll past. Especially after they left Nevada’s high desert behind, it was gorgeous out there. The bare hills and scrubby trees gave way to tall evergreens and sharp, dramatic stone peaks. Overhead, the sky was a pale wash of clear blue. No snow, except higher up than the road ever took them, on the topmost peaks. They wound down the mountains, into the green, shady depths of canyons and then back up to sub-alpine heights, where the trees grew farther apart, white-barked and twisted-looking, and the gray ground lay littered with silvery rock.
Lupe kept up a steady stream of chatter from the back seat—about the “crystalline” quality of the light, about how she wouldn’t mind pulling an Ansel Adams and doing her own series on the Sierras in dramatic black and white.
Buck answered Lupe’s occasional questions, but other than that, he didn’t say much. B.J. kept quiet, as well. She avoided turning Buck’s way. She might be slowly allowing herself to adjust to the reality of this situation, to accept the fact that she was headed for New Bethlehem Flat whether she liked the idea or not. But she still wasn’t quite ready yet to have anything resembling an actual conversation with him.
They reached Buck’s hometown at a little after four in the afternoon. B.J. got a quick view of a picturesque mountain village as they rounded a curve. And then they were winding their way down into a valley—or really, maybe more like a big canyon. The highway became Main Street, which consisted of a strip of pavement lined with cute old-fashioned buildings, some of clapboard, some of brick, each with a jut of porch providing cover for the rustic wooden sidewalks.
Buck turned right on Commerce Lane. They rattled over a single-lane bridge and there, on the west side of the street, sat a rambling canary-yellow wooden building with a sharply pitched tin roof. The front yard had a slate walk leading up to a wide, welcoming porch—a porch complete with oh-so-inviting white wicker furniture. There was even a white picket fence. The large sign hanging from the porch eaves read Sierra Star Bed & Breakfast in old-timey script, the letters twined with painted ivy.
Buck swung in and parked at the curb as the front door of the house opened. A tall, slim middle-aged woman with short brown hair emerged. She wore a green corduroy skirt, a cable-knit sweater and practical flat shoes. Strictly L.L. Bean, B.J. thought: no frills, all function.
B.J. recognized the woman from pictures Buck had shown her way back when: Chastity Bravo, mother of Buck and his three younger brothers, Brett, Brand and Bowie. B.J. turned and looked straight at the man in the driver’s seat for the first time that day. “Your mother…”
He gave her a nod and she had the strangest urge to smile at him—an urge she quickly quelled. He was getting no smiles from her. Not now. Maybe not ever.
By then, Buck’s mother had reached the low white gate that opened onto the narrow cracked sidewalk. She hovered there, her hands on the pickets, waiting for them to emerge from the car.
When they did, Chastity smiled, a slow, warm smile—a smile a lot like Buck’s, though not nearly so dangerous. “Welcome to the Sierra Star,” she said in a voice as calm and friendly as her smile. “Good to have you home, Buck.”
“Hey, Ma.” Buck strode around the front of the SUV and fell in behind B.J. and Lupe. When he cleared the gate, he grabbed his mother in his big arms and hugged her, hard. “Good to be home,” he said, lifting her right off the walk and rocking back and forth.
She let out a cry of surprise. “Buck, you put me down this instant!”
Now, there was a weird moment: watching Buck hugging his mother. Yes, B.J. had seen the pictures. She’d known that a mother—and those three brothers—existed. But still…
Odd. Very odd.
Maybe it was just that she was used to a certain idea of him, as a guy all on his own, unattached in every way that mattered.
Once the hugging was over with and he’d set his mother back on the ground, Buck threw an arm around her and they started up the walk together. By then, Lupe had already mounted the steps and stood waiting by the front door.
B.J. hung back, pondering the whole Buck-has-a-mother thing—until he sent her a glance over his shoulder. “B.J. You coming?” She shook herself and followed them to the front door.
Inside, the foyer boasted a pressed-tin ceiling and classic beadboard paneling painted a nice, fresh-looking white. Cheerful rag rugs covered the scuffed hardwood floors. The drawing room off the entrance contained lots of chintz and plaid furniture, an excess of fat pillows and mismatched antiques.
The effect was far from luxurious. Still, B.J. found it kind of comforting. Homey and welcoming. Already the sun had fallen behind the mountains, leaving it kind of gray outside and dim within, but Chastity had turned the lamps on and a cheery fire burned in the stone fireplace.
Buck made the introductions.
“B.J. How nice to finally meet you,” Chastity said, leaving B.J. to wonder just how much Buck’s mother knew about their disaster of a love affair six years before.
“Uh. Great to meet you, too.” She forced a friendly smile. “We should bring in our things….”
So they all headed back outside again. B.J. and Chastity each grabbed a couple of suitcases and trudged back to the house, leaving Buck and Lupe behind to sort out the rest.
“This way…” Chastity led B.J. upstairs to her room, which contained a queen-sized bed, nightstand and dresser and had enough room for a small sitting area. A tall armoire hid the TV. Not far from the head of the bed, French doors led out to a balcony and a gorgeous view: the rushing river behind the house and the evergreen-clad mountains rising skyward to the west.
B.J.—work, as always, foremost in her mind—cast a doubtful glance at the spindly-legged desk in the corner. “Internet access?” she asked hopefully. She didn’t see anything resembling a data port. Maybe wireless?
“Not in the room,” Chastity confessed. “But if you want to use my computer, you’re welcome to. I have the Internet. Don’t do much with it, I admit. I don’t have time to sit around and wait for those pages to come on the screen. Takes forever and a day—I’m a busy woman, you know.” She added the last briskly, with pride.
B.J. got the picture. Not pretty. “You mean you have…dial-up?” She tried not to shudder. Chastity looked at her vacantly. B.J. tried again. “You dial in to hook up?”
“Yes, I think that’s it.”
So much for zipping off her long, helpful e-mails to Giles. She’d call him. Later.
An ugly thought occurred to her. “What about cell phones? Do they work around here?”
“Now and then.” The twin lines between Chastity’s brows—lines that cried out for a little Botox—deepened even further. “Well, the truth is, not that often. The canyon walls block the signals.” She gestured toward the window and the rim of tree-covered mountains across the river. “People around here who just have to have cell phones take them up there. Reception’s pretty good once you get out of the canyon.”
B.J. considered the concept: climb a mountain, make a call. “You know what? Maybe not.”
Chastity shrugged. “But we do have regular phones.” She pointed at the land line on the dinky desk. It was big and bone-colored, an early push-button model. “They work just fine.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage.”
“Come on, then. I’ll show you your bathroom.”
The bath was down the hall. But at least it was all hers—Chastity told her so. B.J. reminded herself to be grateful for small favors. It had a sink, a toilet and a claw-footed tub with a tall, added-on shower head and a flowered curtain that could be drawn all the way around.
And most important, she wouldn’t have to share it with Lupe—or worse, with Buck.
Buck and the photographer came up with the second load of suitcases and equipment. Chastity showed them their rooms. Buck got one next to B.J.’s. Now, why wasn’t she surprised?
“Make yourself comfortable,” Buck suggested, dark eyes much too knowing. “And then I’ll show you around town.”
“Wonderful,” said B.J., meaning it wasn’t, but what could she do? “Give me ten minutes.”
He cast a doubtful glance at her open-toed leopard print Manolos. “Got any decent walking shoes?”
“I can walk anywhere in these,” she replied, just to be difficult. Then she relented. “Okay, okay. I’ll change into something more clunky and hideous.”
“Do that.”
He went into his room. She stared at the door he’d shut behind him and thought a series of evil thoughts. Eventually, when glaring at his door failed to make it burst into flames, she gave up and went into her own room.
First things first: time to unpack.
