The audience roared with laughter.
Daniel nodded in agreement. He understood being the best. At a signal from the director, he wrapped up this week’s interview. “Thank you, Miss Courtland.” He turned to the camera. “We’ll take a commercial break, and when we come back—weather and traffic.” The camera went dark and Daniel stood.
Greer stood with him. “Is it true you and your friend Logan Pierce have a bet on who is going to win the Sweepstakes Trophy?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed. A little friendly competition never hurts anyone. You compete with all the other floats.”
“I compete with myself. I have seven designs in the parade this year.”
Was that disappointing? It almost felt like she was cheating on him before the first date. Because if he had anything to say about it, there would be a date.
“I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had to share a woman before. It feels like you’re cheating on me.”
She burst into laughter. “Are you serious?”
“I am. I thought I was your one and only.”
“No.” She shook her head. “My babies have to eat.”
The audience roared with laughter. Daniel waved at them. “You have children.” She was married! Darn. He hadn’t seen that coming.
“Yes.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“I’m a little confused here.”
“No, my children are the four-legged kind. Though one of them has only three legs. I designed a float for the Humane Society a couple of years ago and couldn’t resist adopting them.”
Suddenly he realized she was teasing him. “I’m a dog person.”
“I have two dogs and a cat. I’m always looking to add to the family.”
His mother would love her. She was smart, beautiful and kind.
“Do you cook?”
She frowned. “What does that have to do with float design?”
“Just some personal information.”
“I like to cook, but I don’t always have time.”
He knew that feeling. If not for his parents occasionally stocking his freezer, he’d have been eating takeout every night of the week. Now in their second careers, his parents owned a restaurant, so the food was always good.
“Well, thank you for coming today. I think the audience loved it,” he said. “I look forward to seeing you next week and hearing your report.”
“I’ll be here.”
He walked her off the set just as the camera came live again, but it was pointed at Jennifer, the meteorologist. He didn’t have to be back to his desk for another four minutes, and for some reason, he wanted to spend those minutes just watching Greer Courtland walk down the hall.
He waved, and an intern came to escort her out.
Once she was out of sight, he turned back to his desk to get ready for his next segment. But her sexy scent remained in his head for the rest of his day. As did the sound of her husky laughter.
* * *
As Greer drove back to her office, she couldn’t keep her mind off her handsome host. Daniel Torres was not what she’d expected.
She hadn’t wanted to go on his show, but her parents had appointed her. She had been so nervous she feared she’d stutter her way through the segment. She didn’t want to embarrass her family, but that sexy hunk of man threw her for a bit of a loop. Never a fan of the unexpected, she almost turned into a puddle of silence when she’d laid eyes on him in person.
As she walked into her office, her sister Rachel peeked in at her and grinned. “We watched the show. You did great. Mom was really impressed.”
Greer shrugged. “I tried.”
“Is he as handsome in person as he is on the screen?”
“You mean Daniel Torres?” She fanned her face. “Oh yes, he is.” She had to admit she liked what she’d seen. “He certainly seemed interested in his float.” Though she was a little confused by this competition with his friend. Not that she wasn’t a competitive person. She’d had to be at Cal Poly. But this contest had so many random factors. What would happen if neither one took the Sweepstakes Trophy? Or if each won a trophy in a different category? The logistics made her head spin. She was always good about designing floats that could take different trophies. She liked to win, and trophies equaled money in the bank. The float business might have been about making pretty things, but she had to make pretty things that won the shinies.
“Interested in his float? I think he was more interested in you,” Rachel said with a sly smile.
A girl could hope. “Don’t be absurd. You read the tabloids. That man goes through starlets like they’re candy.”
“I don’t know. If he was in love with any of the starlets, don’t you think he’d have gotten married by now?”
“Look at George Clooney. He played the field for decades. Daniel Torres has twenty years to go before he finds his forever wife.”
Rachel laughed. “You don’t have a romantic bone in your body.”
Greer shook her head. “I save all my romance for my floats.”
“Yes, and I’m sure they keep you very warm at night.”
“Scooter, Pip and Roscoe are very good at keeping my feet warm at night.” She didn’t need a man. In fact, she didn’t think she wanted one on a permanent basis.
“By the way, Chelsea wants you to come over to the warehouse,” Rachel told her. “She’s testing the hydraulics on Daniel’s float.”
“I’m on my way.”
* * *
The warehouse, where the floats were built before being moved to the parking lot of the Rose Bowl for final prep the week before the parade, was a block away from Greer’s office in an industrial park. Her sister Chelsea stood next to Daniel’s float, a clipboard in hand.
The design presented some height challenges. Floats had to fit underneath the seventeen-foot-high Sierra Madre/I-210 freeway overpass. Anything higher than that had to be lowered by hydraulics in mere seconds. Daniel’s final design featured several monarch butterflies flying high off into the sky.
“Good, you’re here,” Chelsea said.
The skeleton of the float looked eerie without any of the flowers that would be added the final week before the parade. It was all welded steel and covered in chicken wire and plastic.
Other similarly staged floats surrounded Daniel’s. A welder sat on the chassis of the adjacent one, his welder spitting fire.
“I enjoyed the show this morning,” Chelsea said.
“I wanted Mom and Dad to send you.” Greer thought Chelsea was the most beautiful of all of them. She was tall and willowy with a dancer’s grace, though at the moment she just looked tired. Her long hair had been pulled into a scrunchie, but half of it was out and floated around her head like a halo.
“I’m too busy.” Chelsea handled quality control. Her job was to make sure everything worked right and looked right, down to the smallest detail. “You’re in the consulting phase now and can be spared.”
“All I have left is to start gluing on flowers.” And other organic material. Though flowers were the main starting point for any float, many areas were covered in seeds and grasses to add texture to the overall design.
“I was checking the hydraulics,” Chelsea continued, “and I wanted you to watch.” She waved at a man half-hidden in a well in the chassis. He waved back, and slowly the butterflies on the rear of the float began to descend.
Before she could comment, Greer’s phone rang. “Hello?”
“Miss Greer Courtland? My name is Logan Pierce.”
“Excuse me,” Greer said, having a hard time hearing over the noise of the welder. She stepped toward the back door open to the parking lot.
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��This is Logan Pierce,” he repeated. “I saw you on Daniel’s show this morning. I was wondering if we could meet.”
“Why?” His own float was being built by another company.
“I’ve never had a woman ask me why I wanted to take her out to dinner.”
“I’m asking.” She tried to keep the suspicion out of her voice.
“I watched your interview with Daniel, and you were pretty funny. I want to get to know you.”
She paused. “How did you get my phone number?” She never gave it to people she didn’t know.
“My connections are staggering,” he responded with a wry chuckle.
“Really. How did you get my number?”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “I have a personal assistant who would make the CIA, FBI and NSA weep with envy.”
“I see.” Should she meet with him? She was deeply curious about the rivalry between the two men, and Daniel’s answers this morning hadn’t satisfied her curiosity. Maybe Logan’s would. “I thought you were in New York.”
“I’m visiting family for Thanksgiving. My parents still live in Santa Monica.”
Meeting him wouldn’t hurt, she supposed. “Where do you want to meet?”
“How about dinner at Craig’s? I’ll pick you up, say around 6:30.”
He sounded pleasant enough, but since he was based in New York, she didn’t know anything about Logan Pierce.
“No. I’ll meet you there.” She wasn’t about to put herself in a spot she couldn’t get out of.
“I’ll send a car for you.”
“I’ll drive myself.” She didn’t want to be dependent on this man when she didn’t know him from Adam. If she wanted to leave, she wanted to be able to do so on her terms.
He laughed, a rich, vibrant sound. “Seven, then, at Craig’s.”
“Okay,” she said before she ended the call. Craig’s! That was pretty classy. Celebrities were routinely spotted there, she thought as she turned to find Chelsea watching her. “You’ll never guess who that was.”
“Daniel Torres asking you out to dinner.”
“Close. His friend and float competitor, Logan Pierce.”
Chelsea’s eyebrows rose. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I’m meeting him at Craig’s tonight.”
Chelsea’s eyes went wide. “That’s the new in place.”
“You watch too much TMZ.”
Chelsea punched Greer on the arm. “This is so exciting. You’d better bring home a doggie bag. For me, not the dog.”
She laughed. “I’ll try to remember.”
After giving her approval on the hydraulics, Greer headed back to her office, till her father stopped her in the hallway.
“Meeting.” Roman Courtland was a man of few words.
She followed him into his large corner office overlooking the industrial park. Every available inch of wall space was covered with photos of the award-winning floats by Courtland Floats Designs, along with family photos.
Her mother stood at the window, a bottle of water in one hand. Tall and slim, Virginia Courtland wore a cream-colored pantsuit with a colorful Hermes scarf about her neck. She’d styled her black hair into a sleek French roll that emphasized her sharply defined cheekbones. She’d been born in Los Angeles after her parents had migrated from Bermuda nearly sixty years ago. Virginia’s father had been an actor with minor parts in nearly a hundred films. He’d made a good living but never attained a higher status than character actor.
Greer’s father, Roman, was of medium height with a thick head of curly black hair threaded with gray. He wore jeans and a black sweater with the sleeves pushed up. Like Virginia, he was LA-born, but his family had been in Los Angeles since the early 1800s. His ancestors had managed to escape from slavery in Georgia and thought to make a place for themselves in Spanish-held California. His two-times great-grandfather had been Native American, and the Nez Perce heritage showed in his slightly hooked nose and wide-spaced eyes.
Roman looked tired. These last few weeks before the parade were the most intense and stressful. All the labor of the last ten months culminated in round-the-clock shifts as floats were checked for any last-minute issues before heading to the staging tent set up on the Rose Bowl parking lot. There, hundreds of volunteers needed to finish the floral decoration on time.
Greer grabbed a bottle of water from the undercounter fridge behind her father’s desk and sat down on the sofa. “I think this morning’s interview went well.”
Her mother nodded as she took a seat in one of the chairs. “He seemed to ask you a lot of personal questions.”
“He made me a little uncomfortable.”
“You handled yourself well,” her father said as he sat in the other chair and crossed one leg over the other.
“Rose Queen training,” Greer answered. She took a sip of water.
“I wish he’d allowed you to talk more about the float.”
“They want me to come back on a weekly basis now that it’s coming down to the wire,” Greer said. “They want to do some on-site filming, too. Dad, what were you thinking?’”
Roman gave her an innocent look. “What do you think I’m thinking?”
“Why did you take on a celebrity client? Not that he’s been a problem, but now I have to budget a morning to do an interview when I should be overseeing the final decorating.”
“You work too hard,” he said. “In the last four years, two other companies have popped into the float business. If we want to stay ahead of the game, we need to put ourselves out there. And you are the perfect person to do that. You’ve got the degree in structural engineering. Not to put down your sisters, but they chose more nonscience degrees.”
“Smooth, Dad, smooth.”
Chelsea had a degree in Elizabethan literature, and Rachel had a degree in finance.
“Don’t get us wrong,” her mother interjected, obviously in agreement with her husband. “You all bring something to the table, but you ensure the structural integrity of every float. Without you, the floats might collapse in the middle of the parade. Do not make me remind you of the great float debacle in 2001, which forced your dad to go out on his own.”
Greer simply grinned at her mother. “I get it.” She slanted a glance at her father. “You told your boss that the float wouldn’t work and you were right.” The float fell apart a half hour into the two-and-a-half-hour parade and had to be pulled out of line and pushed back to the staging area.
“It was a beautiful day,” Roman said with a wide grin.
And being the only African American family in the float business had brought its own level of notice, letting others know what one family could achieve when they worked together.
“I still think the interview went well,” Greer said. “Next time I’ll be better prepared and won’t let him drag me off topic.”
“You were pretty amusing off topic,” Virginia said with a chuckle.
“The wave has gone viral,” Roman said.
“We need to take you off social media,” Greer retorted. She took another sip of her water. “Dad, did Logan Pierce approach you about designing his float?”
“No,” Roman said. “He went with Associated Float Design. Why?”
“He called me and wants to meet for dinner tonight.”
“Are you going?” Virginia asked.
“Sure. Why not? Maybe I’ll get some answers to this rivalry he and Daniel Torres have going.” She stood and yawned. Maybe she shouldn’t have accepted Logan’s dinner invitation. She needed sleep more than good food.
* * *
At exactly seven o’clock, Greer pulled to a stop in front of Craig’s. The valet opened the door to her Toyota 4Runner and held a hand out for her. She accepted the help. He handed her a ticket and took her keys.
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She’d dressed carefully for her meeting with Logan. After going through her closet, she’d chosen a pearl-gray silk sheath with a matching jacket trimmed in black satin ribbon. She wore a silver locket that looked perfect with her gray and stylish silver earrings. Black stilettos and a clutch purse completed her look. She’d smoothed her hair back from her face and kept her makeup at a minimum.
She glanced around as she entered the restaurant. She’d never been to Craig’s before. The facade only hinted at the elegance inside. She stepped into the warmth and was immediately greeted by the hostess. “I’m meeting—”
“Mr. Pierce is waiting for you, Miss Courtland,” the hostess said smoothly. “If you’ll follow me.”
Craig’s had an elegant feel to it. The walls were dark wainscoting with brick above it. Art hung at intervals on the wall. Brick pillars supported the ceiling. The hostess led Greer to a prominently placed booth. Logan Pierce slid out and stood, a smile spread across his face. He was a muscular man a few inches taller than Greer. She didn’t know if his carefully brushed and arranged blond hair was natural or bleached, but he looked good. Sparkling blue eyes met hers and he grinned, showing perfect teeth of a dazzling white.
He held out his hand. “Thank you for coming, Miss Courtland. May I call you Greer?”
She slid into the booth and he sat across from her. “Please, if I can call you Logan.”
Logan nodded. The hostess walked away, and a few seconds later, a member of the waitstaff approached. Mona, as she introduced herself, placed glasses of water in front of them and then asked for their drink order.
“Merlot, please,” Greer said.
The woman listed the different brands, and Greer chose one. She didn’t recognize the label but knew it would be excellent. Craig’s would offer nothing less. Logan ordered bourbon on the rocks.
“Thank you for coming,” Logan said.
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you want to have dinner with me?”
He looked taken aback for a second but recovered neatly. “I thought you might be hungry.”
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