It was a step more than she could accept. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Scared?”
She made a rough, scoffing sound. “Of you? Not in the least.”
He didn’t believe her. She was scared—that tonight would turn out like that night seven weeks ago. He put up both hands, palms out. “Hands off. I swear it.”
“Oh, terrific. Like your word means a thing to me.”
He took a step back, a gesture of good faith. “I said hands off. And I meant what I said.”
She peered at him, narrow-eyed and wary. Then, at last, she gave in. “Okay,” she said grimly. “Tell me all about it—about why you manipulated things so I ended up here with you in this dinky, bend-in-the-road, blink-your-eyes-and-you-miss-it hometown of yours. Tell me about it and then you can leave.”
“It’s so damn simple.”
“Good to know, Buck.”
“I want another chance with you.”
To that, she said, in a tone as flat as it was final, “No way.”
He gave her a pained smile. “Well. That was simple and direct.”
“That’s right. And now that we understand each other, will you please write the damn article yourself and let me go back to New York?”
Not on your life. “Here’s the deal…”
“No deal.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Will wonders never cease? The man admits I’m right.”
“The more you interrupt, the longer I’ll be standing here in your room.”
“Excellent point. Consider my lip officially zipped.”
“Yeah, but for how long?” He waited, figuring she’d just have to come back with some smart remark. She only looked at him, widening her eyes. When several seconds went by and her mouth remained shut, he said, “You’re listening?”
She nodded, keeping her lips pressed tightly together.
“All right. If I can’t have another chance with you, at least I want some time with you. I realize it’s probably hopeless. I can be a real SOB and I know that I can.” She was smirking. He instructed patiently, “Don’t give me that look.” She batted her eyelashes and shook her head. He grunted. “And then, beyond me, there’s you.”
“Um?”
“Not exactly the soul of submissive femininity, now are you?”
She bounced her head from side-to-side, a movement that clearly communicated, No, I’m not, and I’m proud of it.
He laid out his terms. “Two weeks, that’s what I want. Two weeks, you and me, here in my hometown. Two weeks, where you’re not avoiding me—meaning that when I want you with me, you’re there. When I say we’re going somewhere, you go. Two weeks to find out if there could be any hope for us, together. Two weeks to see if there could be an ‘us.’ You give me that, those two measly weeks, and I’ll write the damn article. You’ll not only get my story, you’ll get my name on the byline.” By then, her face was beet-red—from holding in a raft of objections, he had no doubt. “You may speak,” he said.
“Two weeks?” The words exploded from that tempting mouth of hers. “You don’t need two weeks….”
“Not for the article, maybe. But for you and me, definitely. For you and me, I probably need a decade, at least. But I figure two weeks is all I’m likely to get.”
That sexy mouth pinched up again. “What do I have to do? Put it on a billboard in Times Square, take out an ad in the Village Voice? How can I get it through to you? There is no you and me. There hasn’t been for years. You really need to accept that, Buck.”
“And I will. In two weeks. If things don’t improve between us, I’ll give it up. You’ll finally be rid of me. Once and for all.”
She shook her head as she sank to the edge of the bed again. “This is mad, bad and crazy. You have to know that.”
“Two weeks. And I write the article.”
“I have to work, you know? I can’t just—”
“Two weeks.”
Something happened in her eyes. Something…accepting. Or at least, acquiescing. His hopes soared. She said, “I’ll speak with your agent tomorrow.”
Bingo. He had her. “Fair enough.”
And then she said, “No sex. That would have to be understood.”
Scratch the bingo. And so much for his hopes soaring. Now, if he was hoping for anything, it was only that he hadn’t heard her right. “Why do we have to make a deal about sex? Can’t you just say no on a per-incident basis? Are you that afraid that you might end up in bed with me?”
“Well, to that I would have to say, yes.”
“So why is it a problem, then?”
“Take my word. It just is.”
“Let’s look at it logically.”
“Logically? Are you kidding?”
“You want it. I want it. We’re both free to want it. From each other. What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything—and this is not a point up for discussion. This is, quite simply, a deal-breaker. No sex. And no tricks involving sex, or the deal is off.”
“Tricks?” He put on his most reproachful expression. “B.J. You wound me. Deeply.”
“Hah. I get at least eight hours a night in my own room—alone. Understand me? Yes, I agree to be with you, right here in Podunk, U.S.A. But not for twenty-four hours a day. I’m not…sleeping in your room or anything. Are we clear?”
“Sleeping in my room. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“No tricks. I mean it, Buck. Or the deal is off.”
Now he was the one turning to look out the French doors. The damn moon looked back him, giving him nothing—just like the infuriating woman sitting behind him, straight-backed, on the bed.
Look at it this way, he thought.
He’d come this far. Yeah, he wanted her in his bed, where he was more than reasonably certain she’d always belonged. But then again…
She was giving him the two weeks. During that time, she would go with him wherever he decided to take her. She would be with him whenever he wanted her to be—except in bed.
It wasn’t perfect. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
And who was to say she wouldn’t change her mind on the issue of sex? Some rules, after all, begged to be broken.
He faced her. “All right. Two weeks. No sex. My byline.”
She sat up even straighter and muttered curtly, “Agreed.”
Seven
After making her deal with Buck and finally ushering him out through the French doors to his own side of the balcony, B.J. grabbed her robe and headed down the hall to her bathroom.
A box of drug-store bath beads waited on the white wicker stand next to the tub. Just what she needed. Calgon, take me away. Please.
She sprinkled the beads liberally into the tub, turned on the water, locked the door, got undressed and sank gratefully into the hot, slippery, foaming bath.
It was fabulous. She soaked for an hour, her head pillowed on a towel, staring at the white beadboard ceiling, wondering what she’d gotten herself into, back there in her room, with Buck.
Okay, he’d slipped under her defenses by apologizing like that. She hadn’t realized how much it would mean to her, that he could say flat out, “I’m sorry,” that he could stand there and take it while she told him exactly what she thought of what he’d done six years ago.
It meant a lot. It kind of…cleared away the old garbage between them. At least, to a point, it did—and no, that didn’t mean she planned to try again with him. She did not.
Just because Buck was a better man than she’d thought he was didn’t make her a better woman. She had to remember Wyatt the weasel—and the others before him. She was the Manhattan man-eater, after all. Genetically unsuited for the male/female relationship game.
Which was why she’d insisted on the lovemaking clause. When Buck put his hands on her, her brain had the most alarming tendency to leak out her ears. There could be no brain leaks. Oh, no. With Buck, she needed all her wits about her all of the time.
They’d get through the two weeks, maybe even get to…understand each other a little better. And when they returned to Manhattan, they’d be going their separate ways.
Pretty much.
Except for the baby.
The baby. A second, more important reason—beyond the feature article she needed—for her to reconcile herself to fourteen days in the piney woods with Buck.
She hadn’t forgotten what he’d told her at dinner: that bit about being a Bravo and a Bravo always doing the right thing…
Message received. It was looking far too likely that, where the baby was concerned, she would have to come to some kind of working relationship with him. Maybe in the next two weeks, she’d get a clearer idea of the best way to do that. Maybe they would grow…closer. In a purely friendly kind of way.
“Hah.” The mocking sound escaped her at the very thought of being “purely friendly” with Buck. “So never going to happen,” she announced to the beadboard above, and then she slid down in the tub until the water closed over her head.
She came up a moment later, blinking and sputtering, a taunting voice in the back of her mind whispering wickedly, You’ll never keep your hands off that man for two whole weeks and you know damn well that you won’t.
Bright and early the next morning, as she sprinted over the rag rugs in her bare feet and a silk sleep shirt, racing to make it to the facilities before she horked up what was left of last night’s steak dinner, B.J. discovered the worst thing about having her bathroom down the hall: the distance from the toilet.
She did make it, though. Barely.
One morning down. Thirteen to go. Oh, the joy.
B.J. brushed her teeth, pulled herself together and went on downstairs.
The dining room was done up in classic B & B Victorian: dark wood floor and paneling, cabbage-rose wallpaper above the plate rails. On one wall loomed a heavily carved mirrored sideboard. There were four small tables, all decked out in varying china patterns with depression-glass accessories. A larger table, set in the same charming mish-mash of styles as the others, waited by the room’s bow window. B.J., Buck and Lupe took that one.
Chastity did the cooking and Glory served. The girl bustled around, setting out the muffin basket and pouring coffee from a silver pot, her shining brown hair tied back, a blue bib apron over her jeans and light sweater. B.J. had to make an effort not to stare at her. This Glory seemed like a completely different person from the bug-eyed, screaming, wild-woman of the day before.
“Coffee?” Glory bent close and asked the question in B.J.’s ear.
She almost said decaf. But right then just the smell of the stuff made B.J.’s stomach lurch. “Ah…no, thanks.” B.J. craned back to meet Glory’s warm brown eyes. Glory smiled. She had dimples: a pair of cute little dents to either side of her plump mouth. “Do you have apple juice?”
“Comin’ right up.”
The girl hustled away and B.J. stared after her, still marveling at the difference: Glory Dellazola, then and now. She turned back to the table—and there was Buck. Watching her. B.J. gave him a shrug and a smile and he smiled back and…
Well, other than that irritating shiver of excitement that danced along the surface of her skin, it was okay. Nice. Cordial. They’d be best friends in no time.
Yeah, right.
Since there were no other guests, Chastity and Glory joined them at the table by the window.
Bowie came in late. He’d shaved his scruffy beard and combed his long, thick blond hair. He seemed kind of sweet, really. Big, handsome in a raw-boned sort of way—and embarrassed.
“Sorry about yesterday,” he muttered, when Buck formally introduced him to B.J.
“No problem,” B.J. told him. What else was there to say?
Bowie took the empty seat next to Glory—for about half a second. His rear end hit the chair and Glory leapt to her feet.
“I’ll get you a plate,” she said, looking everywhere but at Bowie. Then she took off.
When she returned, she shoved a full plate under his nose, picked up her own plate—and relocated to the other side of the table. Bowie glared at her across the needlepoint tablecloth and depression-glass condiment bowls.
She grabbed her fork and ate, head down, never once looking up to meet Bowie’s angry eyes.
“Well,” said Chastity, far too brightly, in a transparent attempt to take the focus off Bowie and his pregnant girlfriend. “What’s up for today?”
Buck sipped his coffee. “For starters, I thought we’d have another look around town.”
B.J. saw her chance and went for it. “Oh. Well, since you’re writing the article yourself now, you won’t need me for that. I think I’ll just—”
“B.J.” Buck set down his cup. “We’ll need you.”
They didn’t. No way they needed her. Buck could take Lupe and wander up and down Main Street, soaking up the atmosphere of the old hometown without B.J. along. And B.J. could do…other things. “But really, I—”
“You’re going.” He gave her a piercing look. It had Remember the deal we made written all over it.
She considered saying something snide.
But they had made a deal. She picked up her apple juice and toasted him with it.
B.J. called Buck’s agent before they left. The agent, who said she’d already heard from Buck, named a figure. A very reasonable one. B.J. agreed to it. The agent said goodbye.
B.J. stood there with the phone in her hand. Whatever happened to the fine art of negotiation? Hours of it would have been nice. She could have told Buck, Sorry. No can do. Business, you understand….
But no. The deal was a wrap. Time to head on downstairs for a morning of looking at clapboard tin-roofed buildings and waving at people Buck had known as a child.
Wait. What about L.T.? True, she remained thoroughly annoyed with him. If she never spoke to him again it would be much too soon.
And yet…L.T. should know about the contract. He could call the business office and get things rolling—okay, it was a weak excuse to stall a little longer. But at that moment, she’d take what she could get. She dialed the Castle.
Roderick answered. He asked her to please wait. A moment later, L.T. came on the line.
“What’s up?” her father growled into her ear.
“Good morning to you, too. Buck’s decided to write the piece for us.”
“Excellent.”
She couldn’t resist. “We now have a memoir. No more objective eye. Aren’t you upset?”
“Screw that. His name on the byline’s better.”
“Exactly.” She told him what they were paying and asked him to put the contract through.
“No problem. How’d you do it?”
She hadn’t, of course. Buck had. But no way she’d tell L.T. that. “You don’t want to know—and I’ll be here for two weeks.”
“What the hell? You don’t need to be there at all, now you’re not doing the writing. I’ll send the jet for you. Get back here and get back to work.”
“Ah. So you need me.” She would have felt warm and fuzzy all over—if such a thing were possible in connection with L.T.
He didn’t admit he needed her—he never did. “You’re damn well not needed there, now, are you?”
“No. But to get Buck to do the writing, I had to promise him I would stay here for two weeks while he steeps himself in all things ‘hometown.’”
There was a silence on the line. She could hear her father’s big brain working. Eventually, he said, “He’s still got a thing for you, hasn’t he?” Before she could come up with a suitably vague answer, he went right on. “I suspected as much—you sleeping with him again?”
“This is so not a convo we need to have.” There was a knock at the door. “Look. Gotta go now.”
“B.J., you have a real good time,” her father said.
“I don’t think I like your tone,” she replied, and hung up, thus, for once, getting the last word on L.T. She was smiling in enjoyment of the hi
storic moment as she strode to the door.
It was Buck. Big surprise. He had one muscular arm braced on the door frame, and he lounged there, watching her through those smoldering, sexy dark eyes. Lupe stood in the hallway behind him, wearing her pea coat, a camera swinging from each shoulder.
“Ready?” Buck asked.
“Oh, I suppose.”
B.J. grabbed her jacket and they were off to see New Bethlehem Flat. Again.
It was a gorgeous fall day out, brisk and cool, not a cloud in the pale-blue sky.
Buck took them west on Main, past the grocery store where the ancient Tony Dellazola already manned his post on the bench outside. The old guy, deep in conversation with another character about his age, spared them a wave as they went by. They turned left at yet another gift store, wandered through a parking area, passed between the gas station and a pizza parlor, and crossed another bridge.
Once they reached the other side, Buck had more landmarks to point out: the clinic where his brother, Brett, worked; yet another white clapboard house with a tin roof—and a shingle out front that read Cook and Bravo, Attorneys at Law.
“Brand’s office,” Buck said. “He works with Ma’s brother, my uncle Clovis.”
There were county offices—the Flat, as it turned out, was the county seat—and a cute little courthouse with a miniature gold dome. Lupe snapped away and B.J. said nothing as she pondered the usual: Was there a point to this, and what she was doing here?
They met more of the locals, including a trio of sweet-faced elderly ladies: Sidney Potter, Margaret Rose and Velma Wiggins. The three, red-nosed in quilted parkas, chided Buck for not coming home to see his dear mother often enough, and then invited him to a pancake breakfast in the town hall before church tomorrow, which was Sunday.
Buck said he’d be there, shooting B.J. a look that said she’d be there, too.
The joy, truly, was never-ending.
About eleven-thirty, they headed back to the B & B—at last. They found Chastity in the drawing room, taping paper decorations to the front windows: black cats, witches’ hats and dentally challenged jack-o’-lanterns.
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