by Laura Drewry
He didn’t have that look in any of the pictures of him by himself, just the ones with his brothers. Clearly, they were his weakness, and if his roar was any indication, he wasn’t going to let anyone do anything to exploit them or their business, which was exactly what he thought Luka and the network were trying to do.
Sitting there in Luka’s office, Hope had actually smoothed her finger over Ronan’s face in the photo, as if that would soothe him, as if he could somehow feel her touch and know they were in safe hands. Maybe not overly experienced hands, but safe ones nonetheless.
Hope blinked the memory away and sighed.
“Yeah, well, spirit animal or not, you weren’t there for the whole conversation, so you don’t know how hard Luka had to work to keep the O’Donnells on board with this.”
Kevin snorted. “Gimme a break. Luka could sell salt to a slug.”
“Usually, yeah, and by the end of that call, she’d made it sound like we’re going to be the best thing to happen to this fishing lodge since the invention of the spinning reel, but we still need to convince them that they did the right thing.”
“We will.”
“Really?” Hope scoffed. “Because we’re about five minutes from deplaning, Kevin, and so help me God, if you so much as dry-heave on their dock…”
“Trust me, I got nothin’ left to heave.”
He had better be right on that, because she’d beat out eight other people for this field-producer job with Hooked and she couldn’t have Kevin or anyone else screw it up for her.
The plane skimmed down over the water, its floats bouncing and wobbling a little before the pilot evened them out and pointed the plane toward the Buoys fishing lodge. Kevin took another quick sip of the water, then rubbed a fresh wipe over his face.
Hope pulled an small plastic container out of her bag and used it to catch the cracker crumbs as she brushed them off his knee. He sat there staring at her, wide-eyed, like she was some kind of nutter.
“Seriously, is there anything you don’t have in that bag?”
“I like to be prepared.” She pointed at his used wipes, then at the container,and waited for him to drop them in with the crumbs. “And you’re welcome. Let’s just hope they chalk up how pale you are to the fact that you’re a ginger.”
While Kevin worked on making himself presentable, Hope pressed her forehead against her tiny window, watching their new part-time home get closer and closer. She’d studied all the still pictures and video they had on file and committed the specs to memory, but seeing the Buoys now, without guests crowding the dock or wandering around outside, she finally saw it through Ronan’s eyes. The Buoys was more than just a fishing lodge; it was the O’Donnells’ home.
Tucked back into Strip Cove, an almost perfectly crescent-shaped beach on the southeast side of Welch Island, the Buoys consisted of a simple three-level timber-frame main building and three small log cabins that sat along the north edge of the cove. From what Hope could see, the grounds looked to be well kept, with low-lying shrubs lining the gravel path that started at the end of the dock and wrapped around the whole cove to the front doors of the cabins.
Brilliant bursts of red and purple flowers streamed over the sides of hanging baskets on each porch and buckets along the staircases. Each cabin’s door was painted a different color—green, white, and orange—and two flagpoles stood at the halfway point around the cove, one bearing the maple leaf and the other bearing the flag of Ireland.
The entire place was surrounded by towering old-growth cedars and pines that, if what Hope read was true, were home to more wildlife than she even wanted to think about. Technically, Welch Island wasn’t an island at all but a peninsula, and it was that narrow strip of land on its northeast side connecting it to the mainland that made it so easy for bears and other creatures to wander in and around at will.
“Did you know a quarter of all North American grizzly bears live here in B.C.?” Hope didn’t look at Kevin for his reaction, but instead kept her forehead pressed against the cool glass and tried not to think about how many grizzlies and black bears were probably wandering around the perimeter of the lodge right at that moment. “And did you know they can eat up to ninety pounds of food in a single day?”
As Kevin grunted behind her, the three O’Donnells came out the front door of the lodge and started toward the dock, but before she could get a close look at any of them, the pilot turned the plane sharply to the right so Hope’s window faced out to the open ocean.
“I hope you’re—” Turning back to Kevin, she stopped and blinked hard. If she hadn’t seen the transformation with her own eyes she never would have believed it, but sure enough, Kevin had somehow managed to get back to his normal shade of pale and was looking almost human again. “…ready.”
“Right as rain,” he said, casually as can be, as if he hadn’t spent most of the last hour sick as a dog. “No sweat.”
Amazing.
Hope gathered up what was left of her tissues, wipes, and crackers and dropped them back into her bag just as the plane’s float nudged the dock. Chuck blinked awake, stretched, then unbuckled and shifted to the edge of his seat, waiting for the pilot to open the door. Neither Chuck nor Kevin appeared to be the least bit nervous about this job, which was just as well, because Hope was nervous enough for all of them. In fact, if she didn’t get her stomach to stop twisting like that, she was going to be the one throwing up on the dock in a minute.
Kevin and Chuck had both done jobs like this before and had experience and knowledge to pull from. But Hooked was Hope’s first big job, her first solo project as field producer, and the first time she really and truly needed to have her shit together. And she thought she had it together, she really did, thought everything was sunshine and rainbows, right up until the moment she saw the O’Donnells walking toward the dock.
And now…yeah…now it was cloudy with a good chance of vomit.
“Go ahead,” she said when Chuck tried to wave her out first. “I just have to…”
She didn’t finish, but that didn’t matter because Chuck didn’t wait; he was already out the door, followed immediately by Kevin. It gave her only a few extra seconds, but it was enough for one final deep breath before she climbed out of the plane into the soft misty rain.
The pilot had already opened the back and was pulling out the gear when Chuck started the introductions, pointing to each person as he spoke.
“Kevin Lennox, Hope Seaver, this here’s Finn, that’s Liam, and the one taking the bags there is Ronan.”
Hope shook Finn’s and Liam’s hands, smiling all the while as she focused on maintaining slow, easy breaths. And then she turned to greet Ronan. From the photos in the Hooked files, she’d catalogued every detail about him—about all of them—so deep in her brain that she could have described him perfectly even with her eyes closed.
From the green of his eyes, to the single freckle in the middle of his left cheek, to the three lines creasing across his forehead. From the way he wore his thick brown hair just short enough that he probably didn’t have to brush it, to the way he stood a good inch or so taller than both of his brothers, to the way he always wore his watch on his right wrist. And, yeah, okay, she’d noticed the way his shoulders and biceps stretched the fabric of his T-shirts. Just like they were doing now. Whatever. The point was, none of this was new to her; she knew all of it and more.
And yet not a single one of those details, nor any of the others she’d stored up, prepared her for the real Ronan O’Donnell—for the way his eyes weren’t just green, but a soft mossy color that looked at her not with blatant anger, as she’d expected, but with uncertainty and what seemed to be a bit of surprise. Or for the way his strong handshake somehow infused a little strength into her too, and for how much actual space he took up.
Sure, she could have chalked up the crowding to the number of people on the dock just then, or the fact that the low-lying clouds made the whole cove feel socked in, but the fact was, Ronan James O�
�Donnell had a physical presence that was a little intimidating, a little daunting. Or at least it was right up until he spoke.
“Hope.” Ronan nodded slightly as he released her hand. “Good to meet you.”
In contrast to the great thundering way he’d yelled during that phone call in Luka’s office, his voice was unexpectedly deep and warm, which helped to calm the turmoil in her stomach; but at the same time, it sent crazy flutterings racing through her blood until she shivered them out as goosebumps.
Nerves, that’s all it was, but she couldn’t let him know that. Instead, she needed to act as though everything were fine, as though she had this under control and the O’Donnells had absolutely nothing to worry about.
Nothing except for the fact she’d never been the one in charge before, she’d never done this on her own, and one wrong move would no doubt bring the whole show to a screeching halt, putting herself, Kevin, and Chuck out of work.
But other than that—yeah, no worries.
“Thanks,” she said, with what she hoped looked like a bright, confident smile. “Good to meet you too.”
She tucked the straps of her bag high on her shoulder, then set in to help offload the rest of the bags and equipment. Once everything was stacked on the dock, the pilot didn’t hang around, just locked up the hold, climbed back inside the cockpit, and waved as Kevin untied the plane and shoved it away from the dock.
It took a bit of juggling, but once some of the gear had been stowed on Finn’s boat and everyone was loaded down with the rest of the bags, Liam headed up the dock, leading them all toward the lodge. Kevin walked next to him, followed by Finn and Chuck, which left Hope to bring up the rear with Ronan.
“Here.” Shifting the bags he already had, he reached for one of hers, but Hope shook her head.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I got it. Thanks.”
The bags were freakin’ heavy, but she needed Ronan and everyone else at the Buoys to believe she was fully capable, and even though carrying bags had absolutely nothing to do with how well she did her job, it was the principle of the matter.
So onward she trudged, and even though the rest of them were already well ahead, Ronan stayed with her, walking in silence, and looking very much like he’d rather be getting his chest waxed. It couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred meters from the dock to the stairs, but it felt like miles, especially with neither of them saying anything.
Come on, Hope. You’ve read everything there is to read on this place, you know its specs, you know its history, you even know how many fish they caught last season. Say something! Anything. Talk about the weather, for God’s sake.
“Did you know Texas horned toads can shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes?”
—
Ronan had thought he was prepared for this. He’d looked Hope and Kevin up online, had researched the previous productions they’d worked on and even read a back issue of West Coast Film magazine that sang Hope’s praises as one of the most organized and bright up-and-comers the industry had seen in a while. Hell, he’d even called Chuck, who’d filmed at the Buoys last summer, to get his thoughts, and while Chuck hadn’t worked with Hope before, he claimed Kevin was one of the best in the business.
Yeah, well, that best in the business just stumbled off the plane gripping a full barf bag and reeking of mouthwash. Ronan wasn’t prepared fozr that. He wasn’t prepared for how much equipment and stuff they brought with them. He wasn’t prepared for Hope to be prettier in person than in her pictures, he wasn’t prepared for her voice to be even softer than he remembered from that damn conference call with Luka, and he sure as hell wasn’t prepared for the first thing out of her mouth to be about blood-squirting toads.
He still couldn’t believe she’d said it. Worse, he couldn’t believe that he’d answered the way he did.
“Nope, didn’t know that,” he said. “Did you know there’s a town in Newfoundland called Dildo?”
Of all the things he could have said, of all the information he had stored in his almost-thirty-five-year-old brain, that was the best he could come up with? He’d have been better off keeping his big pie-hole shut, as Liam and Finn had begged him to.
He didn’t have time to say anything else, thank God, because Liam met them at the door, helped stack their bags near the stairwell, then led them into the Buoys’ pub, where Jessie was handing out tall glasses of Guinness.
Ro ducked behind the bar and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, then perched on one of the stools as Hope and Kevin introduced themselves to Kate and Jessie.
Once everyone had a glass, Liam made a quick toast and pointed toward the tables, indicating they should all sit, get comfortable. Chuck and Kevin didn’t hesitate, but Hope raised her hand, took a long pull on her beer, then licked the foam from her lip, and nodded.
“Wow, that’s good.” She still didn’t sit down; instead, she dropped her huge tote bag onto the nearest chair with a thunk, then pressed her glass against her chest and glanced at everyone in turn—everyone except him. “I just want you to make sure you’re all still okay with this. I know it’s been a hard go with some of the changes we made to the original agreement you guys signed, and—”
“Cha.” Finn’s snort got cut short when Jessie elbowed him.
The light mist from outside clung to Hope’s long blond hair like tiny diamonds, hanging on even as she shook her head.
“No, that’s okay, Jessie, he’s right. Luka told you it’d be the same crew as you had last summer, and then a couple weeks later Ashley and Ryan both left.”
“That wasn’t the big issue.” Arms crossed, Jessie looked down at the floor for a second, then shrugged. “We agreed to have Hooked film here because we thought it was going to be the same fishing show it always was. But then you guys went and changed the whole format without consulting us and expected us to just roll over and let people we’d never met come poking into our private lives. That’s what pissed us off.”
“Yeah.” Hope’s pale blue gaze skittered Ronan’s way over the rim of her glass before she blinked back to Jessie. “I understand that.”
Shit. It wasn’t that he’d expected Hope to forget about that conference call, he’d just wished it hadn’t come up in conversation in the first ten minutes.
“And again,” she said, “I’m sorry about that, but like Luka said, we’re not going to have our cameras in your faces twenty-four-seven, and we’re not going to do anything you guys aren’t completely comfortable with.”
Ronan stifled a grunt behind his mug. He might not have been in the best frame of mind during that conference call, but he remembered exactly who had said what. After he’d made it clear what the network could do to themselves, Luka backed up a bit and tried to explain how the new format would work, how they’d all be part of the show now, both at the lodge and on the boats, that the cameras would roll for large portions of Monday to Thursday, and that the focus would be on the family, not just on the fishing. And when Jessie tried to tell her that the whole lot of them were too boring to base a TV show on, Luka went on and on about how they had story producers who would dig up ideas in the everyday running of the lodge and build weekly episodes out of those.
But it was Hope who’d assured them that their comfort was paramount to the show working. It was Hope who said the crew wouldn’t film anything Ro and the rest of them weren’t comfortable with, and it was Hope who said the crew would never do anything to infringe on anyone’s privacy. If it hadn’t been for those assurances, none of them would even be sitting there.
So as far as Ronan was concerned, Luka could piss off. Hope was the one who’d won the O’Donnells over and she was the only one they were going to trust.
“The network is like any other business,” she said. “It’s out to make money, and the suits think that focusing more on you guys as a family rather than just on fishing is going to be a big moneymaker—not just for us but for you as well. And in the end, that’s what we all want, right?”
But they couldn’t say that because the reality of it was that they needed the publicity Hooked could give them, so like it or not, the days of running the Buoys quietly were a thing of the past, at least for the foreseeable future.
There couldn’t have been more than a few seconds of silence after Hope spoke, but it was long enough to be uncomfortable, and the last time that happened—less than fifteen minutes ago—Ronan’s brain had taken a sharp left into Moronville, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again.
“Okay,” he said, pushing up off his stool. “It’s done, we’ve all got work to do, and we’ve only got a little over a week till the start of the season so let’s get down to it.”
“Right.” With a short nod, Jessie downed the rest of her beer and set the glass down on the bar with a light thump. “Kate and I’ll show you guys to your rooms downstairs, and then once you’re settled we can take you around, so you can get a feel for the place.”
Chuck and Kevin pushed back from the table, and together with Hope they followed Jessie and Kate out of the pub and toward the pile of bags. And while Liam and Finn stayed right where they were, perched on their stools, Ro lifted a tray off the bar and started collecting the glasses.
“Jesus, Ro, what the fuck did you say to her?” Liam asked, keeping his voice down.
“What? Nothing.”
“Bullshit. She could hardly look at you the whole time she was standing there.” He tipped his head toward the spot Hope had been standing a minute before, as if Ro hadn’t noticed.