“Time?”
“Yeah, time to knock off chasin’ women. And it hasn’t been that tough, you know? I guess I’ve already had all the meaningless sex I’ll ever need.”
She almost laughed, but it really wasn’t funny. He might be drunk, but she knew he was telling her something he wouldn’t tell just anyone. He trusted her, and she treasured that trust. She cleared her throat. “Well, then. Good to know.”
“An’ I only said all that to tell you...” The sentence wandered off, unfinished.
“To tell me what?”
“Well, Bren, you said we should and then you said we shouldn’t. An’ I want you so bad I jus’ want to give in, figure out some excuse to hold you and kiss you and not to stop there. I want to be with you when it’s jus’ you and me, alone, with nobody lookin’. Because it wouldn’ be meaningless with you, Bren. With you, I know, it would be real.”
Tears burned her eyes at such beautiful words.
But he wasn’t finished. “Too bad there is no excuse, an’ I need to remember that. We got a plan, and gettin’ naked together ain’t part of it. An’ that’s why I, well, I jus’ wanna say, you were right the second time. We shouldn’t.”
His rough, warm hand touched her face, the lightest breath of a caress and then gone. She wanted to lift up, follow that touch, wanted him to keep touching her, wanted him to never, ever stop.
“It would be wrong,” he whispered, “to go gettin’ really intimate, you an’ me. Reality TV is as unreal as it gets and you ’n’ me need to keep our heads about us. I know that. I get that. But that doesn’ mean I’m not crazy for you, Bren.”
“I’m...”
“Yeah?”
...crazy for you, too. She longed to say it. Because she was. Really, truly long-gone crazy.
Seriously, who did she think she was kidding for all these years? She’d fallen for him when she was six years old. And all her later declarations to the contrary, she’d never stopped yearning to have him for her own. She could lie to herself all she wanted.
But lies wouldn’t change the truth of the matter. She’d tried being with other guys. First with Davey Hart, her steady guy in high school. Davey had been her first, and she’d sworn she would love him forever. They broke up when he went off to college in Texas. It just hadn’t been that hard to see him go.
And then there was Alan Schultz. She and Alan had even lived together in Missoula, while she went to cosmetology school. But when he ended it, she’d had to face the fact that she’d never really loved him.
Since then, there’d been no one. Why bother? Without the right person to do it with, she didn’t care all that much about sex.
“Bren?”
“What?”
“You didn’ finish. You said, ‘I’m...’ an’ then you stopped.”
“Go to sleep, Trav.”
“Bren...”
“Go to sleep.”
He loomed above her for a second more. Then, with a cheerful, “Okay,” he flopped back to his own bedroll. He let out a groan and asked woozily, “How come the tent is spinnin’?”
“Close your eyes.”
“Ugh. No. Bad idea.”
Was he going to be sick? Dear Lord, she hoped not.
But then he whispered, “’Night, Bren.” And he instantly started snoring.
She hiked up on an elbow and bent over him. “Trav?”
He just went on snoring, dead to the world.
So she dropped back to her side of the tent, closed her eyes and tried not to think about what had just happened.
Like a brand.
All these years she’d gotten along fine, she and her well-accustomed, comfortable denial. She’d told herself she was over him—that really, there was nothing to get over. It was a childhood crush, no big deal. He was an honorary big brother to her, a family friend with a strong protective streak when it came to her.
They understood each other, she and Travis. And what they understood was that nothing was ever going to happen between them. He couldn’t be tamed. And neither could she.
They probably should have thought twice before faking an engagement to get on The Great Roundup. They probably should have considered that if there was any spark between them, pretending to be lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other was no way to avoid starting a fire.
Now they were into it and into it deep. With a little help from his good friend Jack Daniel’s, he’d admitted far too much tonight—and she had loved every slurred word of his beautiful, ridiculous declaration.
She’d loved it because she loved him.
“I love him.” She mouthed the words into the darkness, careful not to give them sound, though the man snoring at her side probably wouldn’t notice if she shouted them at the top of her lungs.
I love Travis Dalton. It was real and it was true, and there was no use continuing to deny it.
Did she think she could tame him?
Highly unlikely.
Was she going to get her poor heart broken?
Oh, it was very possible.
But did she want to take this fake love affair all the way to the end anyway, no matter how it all turned out?
Oh, yes, she did. If she ever hoped to have a chance with him, this was it, now, here at High Lonesome Guest Ranch on The Great Roundup.
And they didn’t call her the bold, chance-taking, troublemaking O’Reilly for nothing.
She loved Travis Dalton.
She wanted Travis Dalton.
And one way or another, for however long it lasted, she was bound to have him.
Chapter Nine
Brenna planned to make her move the next day—and no, she didn’t know exactly what that move would be. But she expected at least to have a real talk with him when they were alone in their tent at the end of the day.
Travis looked green when they got up at dawn. He’d done it to himself by answering what all the guys were jokingly calling “the whiskey challenge.” Still, she felt sorry for him.
The Great Roundup didn’t call a day off just because most of the men were hungover. They began the next major challenge right after breakfast.
The task? To cut and bale hay in a series of far pastures. Actually, haying involved more than just cutting and baling. There was also tedding—spreading the hay out in the field to dry. And windrowing—raking the spread hay into rows to ready it for baling.
They got to use machinery for this three-day process, taking turns on the tractors provided. All that first day Brenna worried that Travis might just keel over—or worse, roll a tractor and end up injured or dead. But somehow, he made it through and even managed to hold up his end.
And when they crawled into their bags that night, he was sound asleep before she could even think of how to begin to tell him that she’d changed her mind again about the two of them becoming lovers.
The haying challenge continued for two more days after that. An elimination followed. Dean Fogarth, who had somehow managed never once to get behind the wheel of a tractor during any part of the hay-making process, said goodbye that time. Travis won that challenge and claimed his immunity bracelet.
And that night, when Brenna got him alone, he was his old self again. They joked together and talked a little of what the next challenge might be.
But when she tried to bring up the two of them and how she’d like to take this fake relationship to a whole new level, he looked straight in her eyes and said, “I think we settled that, didn’t we, Bren? I think we decided we shouldn’t go there.”
And what could she say to that?
She let it go that night.
And the next, and the next after that.
The challenges continued, one after another. They worked long days, driving cattle to higher pas
tures in the pouring rain. They slept out in the open two nights on the way up there, taking turns watching the herd, huddled under tarps against the downpour.
The sun came out when they reached their destination. Everyone cheered, including the crew, who’d struggled constantly to keep the cameras and sound equipment dry. Jasper announced the next challenge—to choose a partner and build a makeshift shelter out of what they could scavenge on the land.
Brenna and Travis got right to work. She sent him looking for a long, sturdy pole branch and prop sticks while she scouted locations. At the edge of the wide, rolling meadow, a trail wound up into the trees. She followed that trail until she came out on a rocky promontory jutting over a flat space. There, in the shelter of the cliff, she and Trav built a leaf hut lean-to, which she’d learned to make back in her 4-H days. The spot had good drainage, so they stayed reasonably dry that night.
The wind came up and the temperature dropped, so they stripped to their driest layer of T-shirts and underwear, zipped their bags together and slept all wrapped around each other. Brenna grinned to herself as she cuddled in close to him. She smelled like a lathered horse and her hair had bits of dirt and leaves in it. That night, having sex with him was the last thing on her mind. She felt only gratitude for the warmth of him all around her, for the strength in the arms that held her so close.
Brenna took the win on the shelter challenge—for choosing the best spot and knowing how to build the hut. After she’d put on her immunity bracelet, yet another contestant, a woman that time, went back to the lodge for good.
Jasper assigned two mini challenges that day. And the next morning, they headed down the mountain to their little tent village, which kept getting smaller after each elimination.
The days seemed to bleed together, one into the other. They mended fences, burned weeds in ditches, went hunting for stray livestock and answered the endless mini challenges, from starting fires without matches to chopping wood, target shooting and doing laundry in the creek. Everyone complained that the mini challenge prizes had gotten chintzier. They were a camp pillow or an extra fry pan for cooking. By then, everyone longed for a night at the lodge. Too bad that lately the only way to get that was to get eliminated.
Brenna worked up her nerve and tried again to talk to Trav about the two of them. She got nowhere. Trav reminded her gently to focus on the win.
She decided that maybe he was right. Maybe, if she was going to make a play for him, she just ought to wait till filming was over and they were back home. Back home, at least he wouldn’t be able to tell her she needed to keep her focus on the game.
By the last week of June, half the contestants had been sent to the lodge to stay. Bren and Trav, Roberta and Steve, Seth and Leah, Fred and the twins, Wally and Summer Knight remained in the game. Travis said they were all living proof that alliances made the difference. Everyone still in the running had someone they could count on.
“Except Wally and Summer,” Brenna reminded him.
“Yeah, well, Wally gets along with everyone and Summer’s good at the game.”
Oh, yes, she was. Summer had the skill set to avoid elimination in a challenge. And she caused plenty of conflict, which didn’t make her any friends but sure made for interesting TV.
The next day Seth Stone tumbled down a ravine and broke his leg, a messy compound fracture. They sent a helicopter for him from the hospital in Kalispell. The med techs took a stretcher down into the narrow canyon. They stabilized the injured leg and strapped him in for the ride up the steep bank to level ground. Travis, Fred, Joey and Rob helped to carry him up out of the ravine.
As they got ready to load him into the helicopter, Leah hovered close to him, clutching his hand. “I want to go with you.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Stick with it, sweetheart. Win it for both of us. I know it’s what you want.”
Leah’s tears spilled over. “Seth, what I want is you. I love you so.”
“I love you, too, honey. Always have, always will.”
“You, um...you sure? Because lately, I...”
He searched her face. “What?”
She hesitated, but then he kissed the back of her hand and she busted to it. “Well, I wonder if maybe you’re a little bit sorry that you married me, if maybe you have regrets that you were never really...free.”
“Aw, sweetheart. Come here.”
She bent closer and he asked, “What about you? Are you sad you never got your chance to be free?”
Leah gasped. “Of course not. You’ve always been the only guy for me.”
“And you’re the only girl for me. Honey, how could I be sorry? I’ve loved you since you were eight years old.”
“Oh, Seth.” She sniffed back tears. “Say it one more time.”
“I love you, Leah Stone. There’s no one else for me.”
“Seth.” She bent even closer and pressed her eager lips to his.
The cameras captured all of it. And Leah and Seth could not have cared less that the cameras were rolling and everyone was watching. They had eyes only for each other.
After the med techs loaded the injured man onto the helicopter and took him away, Leah stood in the middle of the cleared space, looking up, watching the chopper vanish into the clear afternoon sky.
Brenna went to her. “Leah...”
With a cry, Leah grabbed on and hugged Brenna close. “He does love me,” she whispered prayerfully. “He truly does.”
“No doubt about it.”
“I want to be with him. I need to be with him. I can’t concentrate on winning when my husband needs me. I...I have to leave the show.”
Brenna took both her hands. “Go talk to Roger. See what he says.” Their body mics and the ever-present cameras had recorded every word. Brenna had a feeling that Roger, Anthony and the rest of them were loving the drama.
And that Real Deal Entertainment would let Leah go.
An hour later, after a final OTF in the middle of the cleared space where the helicopter had landed, a wrangler took Leah to the lodge to gather her and Seth’s belongings. Brenna and Travis took down her tent for her. Gerry would drive her to the hospital in Kalispell.
* * *
The next morning Jasper gathered the remaining nine of them together for a one-day challenge.
They all got to show off their roping skills with a series of roping tricks, starting with the basics: coiling, building a loop, refining the loop and coils, swinging and catching. First, they roped a dummy. And by the end of the day, they each had to rope and tie a calf. The top ropers in the group—Trav, Steve, Wally and Fred—blew the rest of them away. But no one was a complete greenhorn at the job. Bren thought she was good enough to avoid elimination.
That night at the canteen, Trav won the roping challenge and claimed his immunity bracelet. Joey Franklin packed up and followed a wrangler to the lodge.
Now they were eight.
And the next day, everything changed. They met at the canteen for the morning’s challenge and Jasper announced that they would be sent out in teams of two, each team to accomplish a different goal.
“And we want to switch things up a little,” Jasper said with a wink. “This time, we’ll be choosing your partners for you.” He paired Brenna with Steve. Roberta got Fred Franklin. Old Wally and Rob Franklin were together.
And Travis got partnered with Summer.
Brenna told herself she would work hard with Steve and keep her mind off her own pointless jealousy. She wasn’t even going to consider what Summer might get up to, given a whole day alone with Trav.
Yeah, Trav had refused to take what he and Brenna shared to the next level. But that didn’t mean he would say yes to Summer. Bren and Trav had a strong alliance, she told herself. No way would he let Summer mess with that.
*
* *
Brenna and Steve’s challenge was to clean out one of the barns.
They got to work shoveling manure and clearing out moldy hay. They gathered rusty, abandoned tools into the empty crates someone had conveniently left piled against a back wall.
At noon, they stopped work for sandwiches provided by hospitality services—everyone but Travis and Summer. Wherever they were and whatever they were doing, apparently they couldn’t afford to stop and return to the canteen for food.
At one, Steve and Brenna went back to the barn. The chuck wagon bell rang at a little after two. They were in pretty good shape in the barn, with most of the job done, so they both answered the mini challenge.
As did everyone else—except Summer and Travis, who were still off who knew where doing God knew what. The mini challenge was to make a pot of campfire coffee.
Steve came up beside Brenna, and as if he read her mind, he said, “They’re probably too far out to ride in for a mini challenge.”
Roberta leaned close. “Nothing to worry about, Bren.”
Brenna put on a big smile. “Do I look worried?”
Steve and Roberta agreed that she didn’t.
The coffee challenge went fast. Wally won, as he tended to do anytime campfire cookery was involved. Jasper said they could all have a ten-minute coffee break. “And what d’ you know, folks? The coffee’s fresh made.” They each had a cup and then went back to work.
At the end of the day, when the rest of them were already gathered at the canteen, Summer and Travis finally rode in. Their clothes were wet and splattered with mud. Summer was laughing, flashing her dimples at Trav.
A two-man camera team and an assistant director trailed after them. Film of their day’s work would have been transmitted back to camp for the judges to view. The highlights would probably end up on the show.
Anthony signaled the newcomers to join the rest of them. Trav and Summer dismounted, and a couple of wranglers took the horses away.
Summer laughed again and wrapped both hands around Travis’s arm. “Whoa, what a day, huh?”
Brenna knew her role too well by now. For the sake of the game and her part in the story, she really ought to do something—something lighthearted and cute, if possible. She ought to run to Travis, grab him away from Summer and kiss him senseless, maybe.
The Maverick Fakes a Bride! Page 13