Bravo Unwrapped

by Christine Rimmer

  In the lavish black-marble half bath across the main hall, B.J. washed her hands and fluffed her hair and dreaded going back out there and dealing with Buck. But it had to be done and somehow, she would manage it. She would be pleasant. And professional. She’d get the damn story and—at work, at least—things would be fine until the next crisis came along.

  She joined the others in the oak room, sliding into the chair between Buck and L.T. with a determined smile on her face. Roderick came in and opened the wine. Colette, one of the maids, appeared and began serving the meal.

  B.J. faked drinking her wine. She even managed to get a little food down. On the polite conversation front, she nodded and made interested noises and spoke when spoken to. And she scrupulously avoided looking directly at Buck. No point in going there, nosiree.

  Colette had served the main course—rare venison, wilted greens and whipped sweet potatoes—when L.T. finally got down to business.

  “Arnie called me this morning and told me the problem. The solution came to me instantly, as it so often does. I thought, Buck Bravo. And immediately after, Of course. Who else? So I gave Buck a call. And wouldn’t you know? Buck was amenable and told me he could make himself available.

  “The December cover feature—” L.T. raised his glass of cabernet high and then paused to knock back a mouthful “—will be Buck.”

  B.J., who had her own wineglass near her lips at that moment, set it down without even pretending to drink from it. “Buck’s the story?”

  Her father laughed. “Yes, indeed. Buck Bravo. His life, his past, how he got where he is now.”

  B.J. turned her full glass by the stem and admitted, “All right. It’s good….”

  “Good?” crowed her father. “It’s a damn sight better than good. It’s perfect. Ideal. Terrific. Better than terrific.”

  Buck cut in. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far…”

  “I would,” L.T. insisted. “Any story the competition would do murder to get is, unequivocally, better than terrific. Right, B.J.?”

  “Right,” B.J. gave out grudgingly. Buck was, in all honesty, the man of the hour. There was talk that he’d get a Pulitzer nomination for Black Gold. The tabloids couldn’t get enough of him. To read what they wrote about him, you’d think every unattached woman in America longed only to claim him for her own.

  Every woman except B.J. She didn’t long to claim him. She only longed for him to go away.

  And as soon as they got the details ironed out here, he would go away. He’d go off and write his story and leave her alone to come to grips with the fact that she was going to have his baby.

  Argh.

  Colette cleared off the plates and began serving brandy, dessert and coffee. L.T. lit up another corona and continued to rave—about how Buck’s hometown, a tiny mountain hamlet in the mountains of California, was named New Bethlehem Flat. “Bethlehem. Could it get any better? And the Bravo family history? Pure gold—scratch that. Platinum. Platinum all the way…”

  Buck’s father, the notorious Blake Bravo, the “bad seed” of the Los Angeles Bravos, had faked his own death at the age of twenty-six. Once everyone believed the evil Blake dead, he went on to kidnap his own brother’s baby son for a king’s ransom in diamonds and to litter the American landscape with illegitimate children—Buck and his three brothers among them. Blake had died for real a few years ago and the whole story had at last come out. A day late and a few dollars short, as they say. Because Blake Bravo had managed to live on for thirty years after everyone believed him dead. He’d gone to his grave without answering for a single one of his many crimes.

  L.T. announced, “So it’s ‘Buck Bravo: Unwrapped.’

  Could there be a better holiday cover story?” B.J. silently agreed that there couldn’t.

  And it was about time she got past her personal issues with Buck and took control of this discussion. “All right, L.T. I’m convinced. It’s a great story and we’ll go with it.”

  “Great? It’s—”

  “I know, I know. It’s better than great.” She turned her head in Buck’s direction and looked at him without actually meeting his eyes. “I’ll settle the details with your agent tomorrow, and you’ll get going on it right away.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I’ll need you to pull it together in two weeks, if you can manage that. There is some leeway—just not much.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m thinking I can get Lupe to go with you to California for the pictures.” Lupe Martinez was their top contributing photographer. “Is there snow in the Sierras yet?” she pondered aloud. “There had better be. This is the Christmas feature, after all.”

  Buck let out a low chuckle, one that sizzled annoyingly along every one of her nerve endings. “I’ll see what I can do about the weather.”

  “Thank you.” B.J. realized it was time to be gracious—and grateful. “I’m…so pleased about this, I truly am.”

  “Glad to help out.”

  “I know you’ll write us a terrific Christmas feature. I can’t wait to read it.”

  “But I’m not writing it.”

  B.J. opened her mouth to lay on more compliments—and snapped it shut without speaking. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, I’m not writing it. You are. You’re going with me. And you’re right. We should leave tomorrow. I’m guessing L.T. will provide one of his jets.”

  “Happy to help out.” Her father beamed, an over-bearing Santa in a smoking jacket. “No problem. The jet is yours.”

  Stunned and appalled at the mere idea of being thrown into constant contact with Buck for days running, B.J. gaped. Openly. Her head swiveled from her father to Buck and back to her father again—and she saw the truth right there in L.T.’s pewter-gray eyes. He had known this was coming. How could he do this to her—and not even give her a heads-up in advance?

  A thousand volts of pure fury blazed through her. She was certain her hair must be standing on end. Her stomach clenched tight—and then rolled. She looked down at her coffee, at the creamy chocolate dessert with its topping of fresh whipped cream. The few bites of food she’d eaten lurched upward toward her throat.

  She gulped—hard. “Excuse me,” she said quietly—and then she shoved back her chair and dashed for the bathroom.

  “Is she sick or something?” asked the doe-eyed Jessica as B.J. raced toward the door to the entrance hall, pointed heels tap-tap-tapping.

  “Yeah. Sick of me,” Buck replied with a grim smile. Things weren’t going exactly as he’d hoped. Uh-uh. Not as he’d hoped—but pretty much as he’d expected.

  “Maybe it was the venison,” said L.T. philosophically. He shrugged and blew a few smoke rings. “Seemed fine to me, though.”

  “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 may
be 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.