by Cora Seton
When he tore open the paper, satisfaction filled him.
The kind of book that showed she’d been listening and understood where his interests lay.
“The Wilson Guide to Regenerative Grazing?” Boone said, reading over his shoulder. “Hey, let me see that. I’ve heard about this guy.”
He reached for the book just as Curtis leaned in from the other side. “Doesn’t he have a podcast about restoring native ecology through managed grazing? He’s got this idea that you can use cattle to restore ranch land the way we’re using bison—” He reached out, too.
Anders had to tug the book away from both of them. “Mine,” he declared loudly. “Thank you,” he mouthed to Eve. She grinned back as Boone and Curtis both craned their necks to get a better look as he opened it.
“Books,” Clem said derisively behind them.
“I like books,” Riley declared loudly. “Look, I got one, too!” she cried as she finished opening one of her gifts from Boone.
“What’d I tell you?” Boone said to Anders.
Huh. Maybe he should have gotten Eve a book, too, Anders thought as she began to unwrap her gift from him.
But when she held up the video camera with shining eyes, he knew he’d done right.
“I love it,” she told him. “Anders, how did you know that’s what I wanted?”
He shrugged, but when he met Renata’s gaze across the room where she was lingering behind the camera crews, he nodded in acknowledgement of her help.
At the same time, he noticed how Renata was holding back while Clem was front and center, running the show, and it occurred to him she’d been doing that a lot lately. His chest tightened with worry. If Fulsom booted Renata and left Clem in charge, things would go to hell in a handbasket around here quickly.
Renata had helped him. He needed to do something to help her in return. He’d start by getting word out to everyone else that they needed to give Renata something extra to work with.
“I don’t understand why you all don’t live in the manor,” Eve said to Savannah later that morning as they sat at breakfast. Jericho’s wife was getting close to her due date and moved clumsily but glowed with happiness. Jericho was a doting father-to-be, touching Savannah often, especially her belly. Eve envied them their clear satisfaction with their situation. Would she ever get a chance to be a couple like that? Or would she spend her life alone in her parents’ backyard?
She’d gotten a text from Melissa earlier. She was still looking into Anders’s mysterious lack of a past and doing her best to gather more information about Hansen Oil that might come in handy when Eve exposed it on air. She’d asked Eve if it was all right to spend Christmas with Harry Enright, her cowboy beau.
Eve was glad she wasn’t spending the holiday alone.
She couldn’t believe Anders had given her a professional-style video camera, one that would make creating a presentation for New Year’s Eve that much easier. She still needed footage to create her tell-all film, and now she wouldn’t have to borrow Avery’s equipment to get it.
She’d decided the best way to get her point across at the New Year’s bash was to make the world’s shortest documentary film. An exposé about Hansen Oil that featured the images she’d stolen from AltaVista but also included interesting footage from Base Camp to put things in perspective. She’d told Avery and Renata she was working on a practice video to explain why she wanted footage of the solar panels and energy grid running the community. “I’m making an introduction to Base Camp video,” she’d said. “We can put it up on the website when I’m done.”
Renata and Avery had bought her cover story.
How would they feel when they learned they were wrong?
Thank goodness Anders hadn’t pried when he caught her at it yesterday. Eve had a feeling going home after New Year’s was going to be worse than coming home from Africa in a stretcher had been. There was nothing else for it, though.
“We can’t live in the manor. It’s part of the deal we made with Fulsom when he set up the show,” Savannah said. “At first he wanted to shut down the manor altogether. The compromise is that we live down here and use it only for business purposes as long as the television show is running.”
Eve glanced at Anders and found him watching her. He raised his glass to her, and Savannah remarked, lowering her voice, “Everyone’s curious. Are you into Anders or not?”
Eve looked down at the plate of goodies she held. Kai had served up a buffet of yummy Christmas food he’d somehow produced from his limited resources. The man was a god in the kitchen.
“I’m into him, but…” she hedged.
“But you know he’s got to marry in less than a month, and you’re not sure you’re down for that.”
“Exactly. I mean, it’s tempting, but…” She let the end of the sentence hang since she couldn’t say what was really on her mind. One way or another, this time next week she’d have done her part to expose Hansen Oil and would know what Anders—and everyone else—thought of that.
“It’s hard having a deadline.” Savannah eyed her husband, and Eve remembered that the two of them had gone through some rough moments before they decided to throw in their lots together. “But all of us have been through it in one way or another. You don’t need to be embarrassed or try to pretend it isn’t happening.”
Eve hadn’t thought about it like that. “Thanks. That helps.”
“It isn’t fair to rush you, but you need to make up your mind pretty soon. If you aren’t staying, Anders needs time to prepare himself to be with someone else.”
She meant the backup bride. Eve bristled just thinking about Jane. The thought of Anders marrying her. Sleeping with her—
Eve shut her eyes. She wanted to be the one sharing his bed.
She glanced his way.
Saw him watching her.
Her pulse kicked up. She knew he wanted her, too.
Could they slip away?
There was no way he could know Eve was thinking about making love to him, but somehow Anders did know it.
She stood there calmly chatting to Savannah, glancing his way now and then, but he knew in the privacy of her own mind, she was weighing her options. Deciding whether or not to be with him.
Which was playing havoc with his libido. God knew he wanted to be with her. No question about it, as far as he was concerned. If they were on the same page, it was up to him to make it happen.
Anders set his plate and drink down on a side table and began to make his way around the clusters of people.
“Hey, Anders. Merry Christmas.” Clay stepped into his path and shook his hand. “Good luck with the marriage thing. You making any progress?”
He would be if Clay would get out of his way.
Anders forced himself to shake his friend’s hand. “Working on it.”
He stepped past Clay to be confronted by Jericho. “Way to go, man. I’ve seen the way Eve’s looking at you. There’ll be another wedding soon, huh?”
“Maybe.” Anders pushed past him, too.
“Why are you over here? You should be with Eve,” Sam chided him when he nearly bumped into her.
“Trying,” he managed to say and kept going.
By the time he reached Eve, she’d gone back to the buffet with Savannah, and he was beginning to think he’d read far too much into the few glances she’d sent his way. Maybe he had an overactive imagination. Maybe she’d turn him down if he made his desires known.
“Hey,” he said, grabbing a new plate and filling it, although he had already eaten enough.
“Hey, yourself. Thanks again for the video camera.” She smiled up at him.
“Thanks for the book.”
“You don’t think it’s boring?”
“Not at all. Look, do you want to get out of here? Go somewhere we can talk?” He wanted to do far more than talk, but—
“Sounds good.” She set her plate down on the table with a thump.
Anders grabbed her hand and led her quic
kly into the kitchen, where they could slip out the back door. As soon as they were on the manor’s generous back porch, Anders wrapped an arm around her, backed her against the outside wall of the manor and claimed the kiss he’d been wanting all day.
“Let’s go,” he said. “To my house.” He didn’t want to stop kissing her long enough to walk there, but there was nothing for it. He kept an arm around her waist as they stumbled down the path to Base Camp, laughing like teenagers, veering across to his tiny house, which looked completed on the outside but inside still had a ways to go.
When they made it through the door, Anders picked Eve up, sat her down on the wooden kitchen countertop Curtis had installed only days ago, cupped her face and kissed her again. Her gown hiked up around her knees as she kicked off her boots and wrapped her legs around his waist. The pressure of her against his groin nearly undid him right then.
He unbuttoned her jacket with fingers that felt far too big, shucked it off her, did the same with his own and wrapped his arms around her, needing her to be as close as possible.
“Eve,” he growled against her neck. He fumbled at the back of her gown. How could he get her out of it?
“That’ll take too long,” she told him. She took his hands in hers, slid them into the bodice of her gown and let out a ragged breath when he palmed her breasts.
Anders knew exactly how she felt. They were soft but heavy in his hands. He wanted to see them—kiss them.
Eve wriggled against him, and he dropped one hand to the waistband of his jeans, freeing the button and unzipping them. This was going fast, and he wasn’t sure if she’d regret it later, but for now Eve seemed as eager as he was to get as close as they possibly could. In another minute he’d be inside her—
“There you are!” Clem exclaimed, sticking his head in the doorway of the tiny house. “We’ve got a mock-up of the current episode ready to play—”
“Out!” Anders threw one of Eve’s boots at him. It bounced off the door as Clem quickly shut it.
Clem called from outside. “You’ve got three minutes to get to the bunkhouse, or I’m coming in with cameras!”
“Shit.”
Anders pulled back, tugged his pants up, zipped his fly and ran a hand through his hair as Eve jumped down from the counter, reached inside her bodice to set her breasts back to rights inside her corset and smoothed down her gown.
“Eve—”
“He’s going to come in again,” she hissed. “This isn’t going to happen.”
He tangled a hand in her hair, tilted her head back and claimed her mouth with his. “I want it to happen,” he said when they broke apart again.
“I want that, too.”
“You do?”
“Wasn’t I making that clear?” She sent him a lopsided grin.
“I guess I need to be told explicitly,” he joked and held out his hand. She took it.
“If we’re ever alone, I’ll make things very explicit.”
When they reached the door, he tugged her close again. He hated to let Clem ruin this.
“I’ll make sure we get the chance. Soon.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Outside, Clem trailed them back to the manor, speculating loudly on what they might have been doing when he interrupted them. Anders simmered as his descriptions got more and more lewd.
Until a well-aimed snowball thrown by Eve shut Clem up again.
“Brace yourself,” Nora said to Eve as they all settled down to watch the latest Base Camp episode. “This is never pleasant.”
“She’s right,” Avery said ruefully. “They manage to film the worst things.”
“You learn not to let it get to you,” Anders told her. He’d pulled two chairs together and kept an arm around her as Boone and Clem fiddled with equipment at the head of the room and the show appeared on a large screen hung against one wall.
The episode opened with the familiar theme song and introduction but soon changed to footage showing a number of the Base Camp men wrestling the huge Christmas tree up the hill and into the manor. Interspersed with the footage of the women decorating the manor for the holiday, there were lots of snippets showing people finding gifts for their secret Santa victims—and trying to guess who had drawn whom for the gift exchange.
There was footage of Clem arriving at Base Camp, looking around, being introduced to its inhabitants. A line or two from a speech he’d given and reactions from all the men and women Eve had come to know over the last few days. It looked like Clem had been a thorn in everyone’s side since the moment he arrived.
“You need to marry—spectacularly,” he announced onscreen to Anders. Beside Eve, Anders shifted in his seat, and she had to concentrate not to do the same.
The scene changed to footage of Riley and Samantha interacting with guests at the manor.
“One more night, and we’re off until after New Year’s,” Riley said onscreen.
“I’m ready for a break,” Samantha agreed.
The scene shifted again, this time to Clem approaching the bunkhouse on a snowy night and shouldering open the door. A woman’s yelp split the air—her yelp, Eve realized—that had been the night she arrived and pretended to faint in Anders’s arms. The show cut to a break—just dead space in the mock-up that would be filled by commercials when the episode aired.
“You okay so far?” Anders asked.
“Yeah.” But from here on in she’d be part of the story, and she wished she could leave now, before she had to see the rest of it.
“It gets easier,” Anders said grimly.
“Are you sure?”
When the show came back on, she braced herself, and it was even worse than she’d thought. She’d been a mess when she’d reached Base Camp—dirty, disheveled, soaked and shivering. It was amazing Anders had looked twice at her. She looked silly in the gown she’d borrowed from Avery that first night, which was far too short, and more than once the camera caught her looking furtively around. Looking guilty, she thought.
Her story about her ex-boyfriend seemed lame, and she realized that the slightest bit of fact-checking on the part of the crew would have exposed it as fake. But just when Eve was in despair at the way she was coming off, things changed. The focus shifted to Anders, and Anders seemed… smitten with her. Almost from the start.
Eve wasn’t sure if that was worse or better, given what was to come. Even more disturbing was the fact that Clem seemed to have caught footage of several situations when she hadn’t been aware he was near. One time he’d filmed her helping Avery with the animals. Another time she’d been working with Renata editing film at the manor when she’d been sure they’d were alone.
She wasn’t the only one murmuring about what was onscreen. Interspersed with the footage of her and Anders was plenty more of the rest of the inhabitants. “How’d you get that?” Riley burst out at one point after a scene that showed her singing as she painted. Clearly, she’d thought she was alone.
Clem shrugged, his smug grin firmly in place.
Worry twisted in Eve’s gut. He was obviously intent on making trouble. It wouldn’t be hard to mess things up for her.
Her worst fears were realized when the scene changed and showed the Night Sky Bonfire. She was fine with footage of her looking through the telescopes and skating with Anders. She was even fine when hoots and whistles broke out when she and Anders kissed onscreen.
Please, please, please don’t show it, she implored the screen, and of course there was no footage of Clem confronting her at the bonfire, making all his insinuations about Anders, but there was footage of her sitting on a log talking to Melissa.
Thank goodness there wasn’t any audio of her conversation with Melissa. At least not at first. As the scene progressed, however, the cameraman seemed to get closer and closer, and Eve’s breath caught. What had Clem overheard? She’d have to warn Melissa to stay away from now on.
“Have a good time,” Melissa said onscreen, got up and moved away.
“Who’s that?” Anders asked.
“Just someone I met there,” Eve lied and sighed with relief when Anders seemed to accept that. Onscreen, Anders sat down beside her on the log, handed her a cup of hot chocolate, and she remembered how their conversation had gone that night. Surely Clem hadn’t recorded that.
“Thanks. What a night, huh?” she said on the show. A young man walked by in a down jacket and shorts.
“I’ve been people watching,” Anders said. “There are definitely some characters out.”
“You got that right. Anders Olsen is your real name, right?”
Oh no, Eve thought. Of all the things for Clem to put in the show. The question seemed to come out of left field, and onscreen Anders choked on his drink, coughed and spluttered. “What kind of question is that? Is Eve Wright your real name?”
Eve cringed as everyone in the room turned to look at her and Anders. Now they’d all be searching for information about her on the internet. Beside her, Anders stared straight ahead.
“Eve Olsen,” she said onscreen. “Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”
Eve cringed all over again as more than one person chuckled. Some of the tension in the room evaporated. Her quick response had saved the day again.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Angus yelled in the overblown Scottish accent he used when he was joking around. Eve relaxed a little.
“Eve Olsen,” Anders repeated onscreen. “Yeah. It does have a ring. But—”
“I didn’t mean you have to marry me. Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” Eve said. “Now you think I’m some desperate celebrity chaser, and I’m not. I swear. I just—it just popped into my head—”
She sounded deranged, Eve thought, sinking lower in her chair, but to her surprise Anders took her hand and squeezed it.
Onscreen he said, “I didn’t think you were proposing. You just caught me off guard. I always thought I would be the one to pop the question.”
“Stop quibbling, you blethering idiot, and marry the girl,” Angus shouted. The room erupted in laughter.
“You will be! I mean, I want it to be you. I mean, I don’t want—” Eve said onscreen. She covered her face with her hands. “I’m just going to curl up on the ground and die,” she said on the show. “Me and my big mouth.”