Читать книгу That Wild Cowboy - Lenora Worth, Rachel Hauck - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

VICTORIA APPROACHED Samuel Murray’s office with trepidation mixed with a little self-serving hope. She didn’t want to disappoint her boss, but part of her wished Clint Griffin would turn down any and all offers. That way she wouldn’t have to ever be near the man again. Why on earth had she thought this would be a good idea?

He gave her the jitters. Victoria was usually cool and laid-back about things but after spending an hour or so with him, she needed a bubble bath and a pint of Blue Bell Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream.

How was she going to explain to the show’s producer/director and all-around boss that she’d failed in her scouting mission? Samuel had hired her right out of film school as a junior shooter and transcriber, but after watching her follow the head camera operator around, he’d promoted her because he liked her confidence and her bold way of bringing out the “real” in reality stars. Victoria worked with her subjects until they felt uninhibited enough to be honest, even with a roving camera following them around. What if she couldn’t do that with Clint? What if he messed with her head and made a fool of her? Or worse, what if he became too real, too in-her-face? What if Clint became much more than she’d ever bargained for?

And why was she suddenly so worried about this? She always did heavy research on her subjects, always had an action plan to get the drama going. But this time, with this man, she was too close, her old scars still too raw to heal.

“You’re behind the camera,” she reminded herself as she pulled into the parking garage of the downtown Dallas building where the TRN network offices were housed. That meant she had to be the one in control of the situation. “And you need your job.”

Unlike Clint Griffin, Victoria didn’t have land and oil and cattle and a reputation to keep her going. She had to live on cold hard cash.

Her parents had worked hard but had very little to show for it. Money had always been a bone of contention between her mother and father and in the end, not having any had done them in. They’d divorced when she was in high school. That had left Victoria torn between the two of them and confused about how to control her life. She’d been making her own decisions since then, but she’d never told Samuel that she’d honed her negotiation skills and her ability to soothe everyone from dealing with her parents.

She didn’t envy Clint Griffin his status in life, but she’d had some very bad experiences with men like him. Pampered, rich, good-looking and as deadly as a rattlesnake in a henhouse. She still had post-traumatic dating stress from her high school days and a typical Texas-type cowboy football player who had turned out to be the player of the year, girlfriend-wise. She’d been number three or four, maybe.

But high school is over, she reminded herself. And you’re not sixteen anymore. More like pushing thirty and mature beyond her years. Realistic. After high school, she’d dated for a while and finally found another cowboy to love. But that hadn’t worked out, either. He’d called off the wedding minutes before the ceremony because he couldn’t handle the concept that she might have a career. And she couldn’t handle his demand that she give it all up for him.

So when a very drunk Clint Griffin had planted that big, long kiss on her a few weeks after she’d been jilted, she’d needed it like she needed a snakebite. But that hadn’t stopped her from enjoying his kiss. Too much.

She didn’t have the California-dreaming, making-movies career she’d hoped for, but she was free and clear and she was still good at making her own decisions. Victoria prided herself on being realistic. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job. She couldn’t let the prospective subject get to her.

After hitting the elevator button to the tenth floor, Victoria hopped in and savored the quietness inside the cocoon of the cool, mirrored box. The dinging machine’s familiar cadence calmed her heated nerves. Still steaming from the warm summer day and the never-ending metro-area traffic between Dallas and Fort Worth, she rushed out of the elevator and buzzed past Samuel’s open office door then hurried to her own overflowing cubbyhole corner office. At least she had a halfway good view of the Reunion Tower. Halfway, but not all the way. Not yet. She’d go in and talk to Samuel later. Right now she just needed a minute—

“I know you’re in there, V.C.,” a booming voice called down the hall. “I want a report, a good report, on your scouting trip out to the Sunset Star Ranch.”

And now that he’d shouted that out like a hawker at a Rangers baseball game, everyone within a six-block radius also knew she’d been out in the country with a rascal of a cowboy.

Grimacing around the doorway at Samuel’s grandmotherly assistant, Angela, who was better known as Doberman since she was like a guard dog, Victoria shouted, “On my way.” Looking around for her own assistant, Nancy, she almost called out for help but held her tongue.

Everyone screamed and hollered around here for one reason or another, but one thing she’d learned after working for Samuel for three years—she couldn’t show any fear or he’d devour her with scorn and disdain. Samuel didn’t accept failure. But he might accept an almost contract from Clint Griffin.

Samuel pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Take a load off, V.C.”

Victoria stared down at the stack of old newspapers in the once-yellow chair then lifted them to the edge of the big, cluttered desk, careful not to disturb the multitude of books, magazines, DVDs and contract files that lay scattered like longhorn bones across the surface.

“So?” her pseudo-jolly boss asked, his bifocals perched across his bald head with a forgotten crookedness. What was left of his hair always stayed caught back in a grayish-white ponytail. He looked like a cross between George Carlin and Steven Tyler. “What’s the word from the Sunset Star?”

Victoria settled in the chair and gave him her best I’ve-got-this look. “We’re close, Samuel. Very close.”

He squinted, pursed his lips. “Very close doesn’t sound like definite.”

“He’s thinking about it but he haggled with me about the contract. He wants more money.”

“How much?”

Samuel always got right to the point.

“Double what we offered.”

“Double?” Samuel’s frown lifted his glasses and settled them back against his slick-as-glass head. “Double? Does he think we’re the Mavericks or something? We’re not in Hollywood and we don’t have basketball-player money. We work on a budget around here.”

“Well, that budget had better have room for Clint Griffin’s asking price or we won’t be featuring him on our show. He’s interested but only if we pay his price and only if we highlight his favorite charitable organization.”

Samuel sat back on his squeaky, scratched, walnut-bottomed chair and stared over at her with a perplexed glare, then let out a grunt that brought his bifocals straight down on his nose. “Charities? We’ve never done nonprofit work. We need drama and conflict and action. People behaving badly. Ain’t any ratings in do-gooder stuff.”

Victoria nodded, considered her options. “I told him I’d talk to you and then we can both talk to him. At first, he wasn’t interested but I tried to explain the advantages of signing on with us.”

Samuel’s frown lifted then shifted into a thoughtful sideways glance. “Such as exposure on one of the highest rating shows on cable? Such as endorsements that will make him blush with pride? Such as—”

“I mentioned some of the perks,” she said, wishing again Samuel hadn’t sent her to do this work. Where were all the big shots and lawyers when a girl needed them? “I also pointed out that he’d appreciate the money, of course.”

“You mean he badly needs the money.”

“I was trying to be delicate since that is only a rumor and hasn’t been confirmed. He denied that the ranch is in trouble. I think most of his trouble might be personal.”

Samuel snorted at that. “You don’t have a delicate cell in that pretty head, V.C. But you’re perfect to persuade Cowboy Clint that he needs to be a part of our team.”

“So you sent me because I’m female, Samuel? Isn’t that against company policy...being sexist and all?”

“I didn’t mention anything about that,” Samuel said, looking as innocent as a kitten. “I sent you to just get a feel, to see the lay of the land. This man makes the supermarket tabloids on a weekly basis. Now he’s playing all high and mighty?”

Victoria pushed at her ponytail. “I got a feeling that Clint Griffin doesn’t give a flip about any reality show and I saw the lay of the land, and frankly, the Sunset Star seems to be thriving. I think the man just likes to make a commotion. I’m beginning to wonder if all those rumors aren’t the truth after all. He’s certainly full of himself.”

“There is always truth in rumors,” Samuel said, repeating his favorite saying. “You need to go back out there. Something isn’t connecting here. He’s hot right now because he’s a headline maker. He’d be stupid to turn down this offer.”

“He’s not stupid,” Victoria said, remembering Clint’s words to her. “He’s smarter than he lets on, I think.”

Samuel grabbed a pen and rolled it through his fingers. “I’d say. He played you, V.C. Which is why you need to get right back on that horse and convince him to take the deal before he asks for even more money.”

“I can’t, not until you tell me yes or no on the asking price. And I mean his asking price, not what our team has offered. I know we can afford that, at least.”

Samuel squinted, looked down through his bifocals. “Now we bring in the lawyers and his manager,” he replied, a dark gleam in his brown eyes. “You gave him a nibble. I’d bet my mother’s Texas Ware splatter bowl, he’s talking to his people right now.”

Victoria wondered about that. Did he really want this kind of exposure? Or did he need it in spite of how he felt about doing a reality show? She figured Clint Griffin had already forgotten about the whole thing, including meeting her and having her camera in his face.

* * *

HE KEPT REMEMBERING her face. It had been two days since Clint had met Victoria Calhoun but he hadn’t heard a word back from her about the so-called deal she wanted to offer him with Cowboys, Cadillacs and Cattle Drives. He’d talked to his accountant, his manager and even the family minister, but he still hadn’t decided about taking on this new venture. His accountant’s eyes had lit up at the dollars signs mentioned. His manager’s eyes had lit up at the possibility of asking for even more dollars. Greedy, both of them. The minister—probably sent by Clint’s mother to check on him concerning other areas of his life—had lit up with the possibility of more funding for some of the church mission work.

Everyone wanted something from Clint. Either to take over his soul or save his soul.

And all he wanted was one day of peace and quiet. Just one. He’d had the house to himself all week but he’d had more people dropping by than ever. He needed to get out of the state of Texas, just to rest.

Or to be restless and reckless.

But it’d be worth taking this deal to have a little fun on the side with that perky but slightly buttoned-up camera operator and production-assistant-story-time-girl-Friday named Victoria.

He’d have to make up his mind soon. Clint knew offers such as this one came and went by the dozen. But an interesting working woman? Well, he hadn’t been around many of those lately. It’d be worth his trouble to have some good times with her. That and the nice salary he’d get for agreeing to this.

He could secure a good future for his only niece, fifteen-year-old Trish, or Tater, as he always called her. His little sweet Tater.

Still, taking on Victoria Calhoun would mean having to deal with one more female in his already full-of-females life. And he hadn’t exactly asked how anyone else around here would feel about constant cameras in their lives.

Clint listened to the sound of girly laughter out by the pool, his eyes closed, his mind in turmoil while he sat in the shade of the big, open patio, watching the steaks sizzle on the grill. With a cowboy hat covering his face to shade him from the bright glare of the afternoon sun, he listened to the women gathered for a quick swim before dinner.

“Well, he said he’d take me to the party.”

That would be Tater. The young, confused, teenage one.

“But did he ask you to the party? Because you wanting him to take you and him asking, that’s a whole different thing.”

That would be Susan. Or Susie. The bossy older one.

“Take, ask, what does it matter? I want to go with him but he treats it all like a joke.”

“It is a joke. Men like to treat us that way.”

“You two need to quit worrying about boyfriends and get outta that water and help me finish dinner.”

And that would be Denise. Denny—the nickname she hated. The divorced, even older one.

Man, he loved his sisters and his niece but sometimes they got on his last nerve. Favorite, Forceful and Formidable. That’s how he labeled them in the pecking order, youngest to oldest.

“Can’t a man get some shut-eye around here without all this squawking?”

“And you, Mister Moody. You need to turn those steaks ’cause your mama is on her way over right now.”

Clint opened one eye and squinted up at the one he liked to call Denny just to irritate her. Tater technically belonged to Denny, but everyone around here was trying to advise his niece on how to get a date for the summer party coming up in a few weeks. “Mama? You invited Mama for a cookout?”

“She does live right over there—sometimes,” Denise said, one hand on her hip while she pointed toward the white farmhouse near the big pond at the south end of the yard. When he’d built this house, their stubborn mother had insisted on staying on out there. “And she does come for dinner at least once or twice a week.”

“And she doesn’t like to see her grown son lying around like a lazy donkey,” Clint added, groaning his way out of the big lounge chair. “I sure enjoyed having the house to myself this week. Y’all need to take Mama to visit Aunt Margaret in Galveston more often.”

Denise gave him an impish smile. “I might consider that since I’m mighty tired of finding feminine clothes scattered all over this house each time I come back home. Not a good role-model-type thing for your niece.”

“I don’t mind the parties,” Tater said on an exclamation-point holler. “I’m old enough to handle things like that if y’all would just quit trying to ruin my life.”

“You have a good life,” Susie said with her infamousness sarcastic tone of voice. “Enjoy being young and carefree. Adulthood isn’t all that fun.”

Denny shook her head at her younger sister. “You know, you need a better attitude.”

“You don’t know what I need,” Susie retorted before she went back to scrolling on her phone.

Clint held up both hands, palms out. “I have no idea what any of you are talking about.”

“Right.” Denise turned and flipped the steaks herself, as was her nature with all things.

Control. Everyone around here wanted control but they were all out to control. Especially him.

Clint put his hat back on his head and sat back down in his chair, wondering when exactly he’d lost control of his own life. Maybe taking on this crazy reality show would serve them all right. At least then he could call the shots himself.

* * *

TWO WHOLE DAYS and Samuel was on Victoria to go back out to the Sunset Star Ranch. Okay, so she was accustomed to using a handheld camera to get a few shots when she went out on a scouting assignment, and she was used to going on these missions by herself since she’d been more than a production assistant from day one. Samuel depended on her spot-on opinions of people and he also appreciated that she stayed in shape for the physical part of her job, which sometimes entailed lugging cameras of all sizes that often weighed up to twenty-five pounds, or running around with hair and makeup, or soothing an angry castmate, or maybe, just maybe, getting a good scene without anyone having a real meltdown.

But mostly Samuel depended on her to ease a subject into becoming a reality star. One small camera, no pressure and nothing on the air without a consent release. That was part of what her job required and most days, this was the best part of that job. Discovering someone who’d make a great star always got her excited. Looking into someone else’s life and seeing the reflection of her own pain in their eyes always made her thankful for what she had and how far she’d come. Her job allowed her to create stories out of reality and in the process, she’d seen some amazing changes in people who started out all broken and messed up and ended up whole and confident again.

But for some reason, coming to talk to Clint Griffin again made her break out in hives. She didn’t think she could fix him without destroying part of herself.

“Get over yourself,” she whispered as she parked her tiny car and started the long hike up to those big double doors. She’d just reached the top step when the front door burst open and a young girl ran out, tears streaming down her face.

The girl glared at Victoria then stomped into a twirl and glared up at the house. “I hate this place.”

Victoria wasn’t sure what to say, but when she heard someone calling out, she stood perfectly still and went into unobtrusive camera-person mode. This was getting interesting.

“Tater, come back here.”

She sure knew that voice. Surely he wasn’t messing with high-schoolers now.

The girl let out a groan. “And don’t call me Tater!”

Then another voice shrilled right behind Clint, obviously addressing that heated retort. “Tell her to get back in here and finish helping me set the table.”

The woman whirled past Victoria in a huff of elegance. She had streaked brown hair and long legs and a dressed-to-impress attitude in a white blouse dripping with gold and pearl necklaces and a tight beige skirt that shouted Neiman Marcus. So he also dated lookers who knew which hot brands to wear.

By the time Clint himself had made it to the open door, Victoria was boiling over with questions and doubts, followed by a good dose of anger. She couldn’t work with this man.

Clint stared down at the driveway, where the two other women were arguing, and then turned to stare at her. His mouth went slack when he realized one of these things was not like the others. “Victoria?”

She nodded but remained still and calm, her leather tote and one camera slung over her shoulder. Let him explain his way out of this one.

Before he could make the attempt, two other women—one pretty but stern and definitely more controlled in jeans and a blue cashmere sweater over a sleeveless cotton top, and the other smiling and shaking her beautiful chin-length silver bob—virtually shoved Clint out of the way and completely ignored Victoria.

Clint put his hands on his hips and listened to the chattering, shouting, finger-pointing group of women standing in his driveway. Then he turned to Victoria with a shrug. “I can explain.”

“Yeah, right,” she retorted. “Do you have a harem in there, cowboy?”

“I only wish,” he replied. “You want reality. Well, c’mon then.” He took her by the arm and dragged her down the steps and pushed her right in the middle of the squawking women. But his next words caused Victoria to almost drop her tiny not-even-turned-on video recorder.

“Victoria Calhoun, I’d like you to meet my mother, my two aggravating sisters and my hopping-mad niece. This is my reality.”