by Em Ashcroft
“With the babies?”
“Oh yeah.” Brooke nestled her son against her breasts. “The idea is for us to have a gourmet meal and spend some time together. A sitter is taking care of the babies while we eat.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Brooke paused at the door to give Rachel a one-armed hug. “It is.”
Both knew she wasn’t just talking about the meal.
Chapter Three
CJ looked up from his laptop as Sam came through the door of the house they shared. “Rachel’s back, ain’t she?”
Sam grunted.
CJ narrowed his eyes. “You’re not thinking of starting it up again, are you?”
“It’s already started.”
“Fuck.” His eyes smarting from hours of concentrating on figures, CJ pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a headache coming. He felt it at the base of his skull, lurking, ready to pounce. “You fucked her?”
Sam snorted. “Don’t be so fucking crude. No, I didn’t even kiss her. But I wanted her then, and I want her now.”
CJ leaned back. “Then take her.”
Sam shrugged and crossed the kitchen to the coffee machine, pouring himself a mug. He tilted the jug at CJ, who grimaced and shook his head.
“It’s been sitting there all afternoon.”
Sam took a healthy gulp of his coffee. “It’s had time to mature, then.” He lowered the mug and met CJ’s gaze, his own a sea of guileless blue. “How about you?”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded irritably. “I’m the one who stayed here to go over the feed numbers.”
“Only because you couldn’t stand to meet Rachel again.”
He snorted in derision. “She was fun. That was all. We did the right thing, bro. She was a guest. Untouchable.”
Even though he’d wanted her badly and had to fight to keep his hands off her, he stayed true to the tenets he and Sam lived by. No fucking the guests. It just got too complicated. A cool attitude worked best. “She isn’t a guest now. She’s here to work.”
“Even more reason to leave her alone.” CJ pressed Save and leaned back, folding his arms. Enough with the fucking feed numbers shit. He hadn’t done much, anyhow. Too busy thinking about his breed partner and how he was getting along with the guests. He’d even wandered outside to see how they were doing with the huts—his private name for the guest cabins. They had been huts once, when the ranch was a working ranch, one of the biggest in all Texas, but the quasi-Western-style cabins, laid in neat rows, had replaced them ten years ago. Since then they’d worked hard and made this vacation ranch as successful as ever.
Even then, CJ sometimes wondered what they were doing here, giving city folk a taste of ranch life. He regarded them as cynically as he did everything else, but he realized they had rights, too. One of them being to get value for money, something he did his best to deliver.
“We’re closed,” Sam said now. “We can do as we please. We don’t have any paying guests right now. They’re coming to do the shoot here, but Rachel works for them, not us.”
“Doesn’t mean we should, though, does it?” CJ met his breed partner’s steady gaze. With eyes like those, the first shape-shifting tigers scanned the horizon and liked what they saw. Sam had such a far-seeing gaze he could probably see clear to Mexico. That meant sometimes he didn’t see what lay right under his nose. “You can do whatever you want, and so will I.”
Sam met his gaze, his blue eyes wary. “I want to do this together.”
CJ tightened his lips. “Why?”
“Because she’s special. Because I still want her after a year. You know that’s not normal for me.” He sighed and put his empty mug on the counter. “Did you know I haven’t fucked a woman for a year?”
“How about a man?” CJ would be really interested to know that. He’d never been sure all Sam’s interests were centered on the other sex. They might be breed partners and share a house and business, but it was a big house and a big business. They weren’t as close as other breed partners, and they were comfortable that way. CJ had always thought that, when they found a breedmate and decided to make a family, they’d do it separately, kind of like shift work. As long as they came inside the woman’s body in swift succession, they should do the job. What he’d wondered was, would they both fall in love with her?
Maybe with Rachel, they would. CJ found her cute and innocent, but not stupid-innocent. More unawoken. Not usually his type, but that didn’t stop him wanting her.
Sam shook his head. “Tried men. Didn’t really get along with it. Never really enjoyed it like I enjoy being with a woman.” He tilted his head. “So how about it? Do you want to go after her together? Or are you just not comfortable sharing a bed with a man?”
CJ snorted. “Like I’d care about that.” Except he did, but he danced around that information. That made him different from other shape-shifters, but he’d grown up apart from shape-shifter society, among mortals.
With Rachel, it would be different. CJ didn’t need Sam to tell him that. “She’s a potential breedmate.”
“Like most human women. What difference does that make?”
He shrugged. “None to me, but I wondered how you felt about it. In any case she wanted us last year, but that don’t mean she wants us now.”
Sam chuckled. “Well, I don’t know if she wants you, but she sure as hell wants me. Not that she’d admit it. I gotta make the first move.”
“Which you intend to do.”
“You bet your life I do.” Sam gave a gleaming, predatory grin.
CJ scraped back his chair and got up, leaving his laptop on the kitchen table. “Go to it, then. I got no objection.”
“What if she wants you too?”
He didn’t answer, but Sam’s laughter followed him all the way down the hall. He’d walked away, but that action didn’t stop him thinking about it. This time, could he do it? They’d tried sharing a bed before, but the experiment had been a disaster. Would he make a fool of himself again?
He gave a self-derisory laugh. He hadn’t won Rachel yet.
* * * *
The hotel had put two air-conditioned minibuses at the magazine’s disposal while they commuted between the hotel and the ranch. The vacation ranch lay about ten miles from the hotel. They’d be travelling there every day since the cabins were closed and the two private houses not available for guests. Besides, since one of the models had reacted to her hotel accommodation with a sniff and “It will have to do, I guess,” she would most certainly not be happy with the cabins.
The day after their arrival, the group gathered in the lobby, together with the two models engaged for the shoot, Bianca and Susie. Mason drew Rachel aside.
“There’s a glitch.” He glanced at the taller of the two models. Known by most of the world as simply Bianca, the Italian model was notorious for her constant demands and temperamental behavior.
“Bianca’s PA was delayed.” He rubbed his forehead. “No, you deserve the truth. She left her at the airport. A story will probably break in the next day or two. There was a scene, and the woman threw Bianca’s hat at her and stormed off.”
“I see.”
“I need you to step up, Rachel. You speak Italian, don’t you? Can you act as Bianca’s assistant for a week? There’ll be a fat bonus in it for you. You know what this shoot means to the magazine.”
Rachel’s heart sank.
So Bianca could insult, belittle, and throw things at Rachel for the next week. The request put Rachel in a difficult place. She had every right to refuse, but if she did, and the shoot failed, she’d be the scapegoat, however unfair that was. They’d be looking for somebody to blame. Not Mason, but the rest of the team. Nobody disliked Rachel—at least if they did she wasn’t aware of it—but with the magazine only just getting back on its feet, everybody would have to work together to make the revamped publication work. The rest of the team would be relieved to find someone to blame.
If this shoot were a suc
cess, she’d claim every bit of it. “If I do, you owe me more than money.”
Mason nodded. “Fair enough. We need Bianca now. We’ll try to get her shots done and send her on her way. I’ll pass the news on to Gary.”
“Who are the male models?”
Mason grinned. “They’re behind you.”
Rachel glanced around and froze. Standing chatting to Susie were the two men who had rarely left her thoughts since she’d met them last year. Sam and CJ Goldclaw. “Cowboys?”
She hadn’t seen CJ until now. He was as ruggedly handsome as she recalled, the breadth of his shoulders proclaiming his active lifestyle as much as his worn jeans and rakishly tilted Stetson. Her heart skipped a beat, and she gasped to regain her breath. That was before he turned his head and met her gaze.
His eyes, dark beneath the hat in the shadow cast by the sun, gleamed. She recalled their shade, a tawny color, not as dark as they seemed, but the shade made them look mysterious. The expression on his face didn’t falter, but an arc of awareness stretched between them.
The exchange couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds. To anyone watching, it must appear that CJ was scanning the people gathered in front of his house, but to her… He looked at her alone, singled her out, and took her apart.
She closed her eyes in a slow blink, and when she opened them, CJ was looking somewhere else. The jolt had moved her into a new place, one she’d never visited before, not in this way. She’d lost her path, didn’t know where to go.
Giving herself a mental shake, she regained her equilibrium and fixed her professional smile back on her face when she turned back to Mason. “Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh.” Mason fixed his attention on Rachel. Handsome though he was, he didn’t have the same effect on her as CJ did. Just as well because she could never work with that awareness zinging between them. “I want to persuade them to shape-shift for some of the pictures. The original idea was to have luxury clothes on the models and cowboys in their working gear. I want more than that. I want the tigers.”
Rachel sucked in a breath. “They won’t do it.”
“We’ll see.” He glanced up, squinting. “I never realized how useful cowboy hats were before. I’m going to get one. They’re essential in this weather.” He wore soft cotton pants and an open-necked denim shirt that was already starting to wilt in the heat of the day. “Any chance we can get indoors?”
Rachel wore one of her briefest sundresses, but the heat was getting to her. She was smothered with the highest factor sunblock she could find, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t be enough to stop her tanning. The models carried golf umbrellas, but she suspected that might be one of her jobs in the near future.
Bianca slanted a calculating stare at Mason. “If we don’t get somewhere with air conditioning, I’m getting back in the car.” The implicit threat was clear.
Rachel jumped into action. “I’ll find somewhere.”
“Five minutes,” Bianca said, tight-lipped. The sun would compromise her pale beauty, but she was well covered, what with the golf umbrella and what looked to Rachel like a silk onesie. Not a bead of sweat marked the flimsy pink fabric, although liquid was trickling down Rachel’s back. “You should cover up,” Bianca told her kindly. “The sun is a killer.”
Rachel refrained from telling her that everybody needed some sunshine for the vitamin D. Bianca probably took all her vitamins in pill form. Besides, the model wouldn’t appreciate her talking back.
Bianca’s request meant she had to talk to the guys. She couldn’t approach CJ, not after that brief, but sizzling, exchange of glances, so she tried Sam. She’d always found him easy to talk to until his attraction overwhelmed every other sense she had. Firmly suppressing her feelings, she smiled brightly up at him. “Is there a place we can go out of the sun? The models have to stay pale.”
“Sure.” Sam took his time looking her over. “We’ve kept the lodge open.”
The lodge was the long cabin in the middle of the cabin complex where the guests ate, listened to talks and lectures, and congregated in the evenings. She remembered it fondly from last year, spending some happy hours there after a day on the ranch. “Thanks.”
Sam tipped his hat, cowboy-style. “Only glad to help, ma’am.”
He was so fucking “cowboy” that Rachel was convinced he was trying to get a rise out of her. Tilting her chin in the air, she kept her smile, said “Thanks,” and turned back to Bianca, who was waiting in foot-tapping impatience.
Bianca picked her way along the path as if it was a rough trail instead of smooth. When Rachel opened the lodge door, cool air swept over her like stepping into a shower of breezes. The model swept past her and stood, hands on hips, staring around her.
“I guess this will do for now. I need my people. They know I can’t survive without my water and snacks.”
The snacks were a particular brand of rice crisps and the water had to be a specific temperature. While Rachel knew that from the model’s profile, she hadn’t had to attend to the matter personally before. Now she did. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found the small refrigerator was stocked with the water Bianca preferred, and the brand of rice snacks she insisted on were set close by.
Bianca took the water and stared at the top. Rachel unscrewed it for her. The model ignored the snacks, so Rachel took the package back. The refrigerator was marked with a label bearing the legend, “Bianca,” which she prayed was enough to keep everybody else’s hands off it.
Bianca prowled around the space and eventually chose a hard, wooden chair on which to park her pert backside. She sat elegantly, her head turned to one side, toward the door. Rachel decided not to kowtow more than she had to and took a seat at the other side of the table, watching the rest of the team as they came in. Most of the reactions were the same as she’d undergone, with the heavy sigh of relief.
The label seemed to be enough to keep everybody away from the small refrigerator. Most helped themselves from the water cooler, and a few found cans of soda in another refrigerator. Nobody asked if it was okay to take them. That was the way these shoots often went—the bill would include everything they took, so they moved in, took the place over, and then moved out, leaving the cleanup to somebody else.
Mason walked into the center of the room and waited. It didn’t take long before everyone was sitting at the tables. Except for Sam and CJ. Sam stood by the closed door, one booted foot against the wall, and CJ tucked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans.
“These are the owners of the ranch, Sam and CJ Goldclaw,” Mason said. “You’ll meet the other two owners later.”
“Three,” CJ said.
Mason raised a brow.
“They’re married. Their wife is an equal partner.”
“I see. That would be Brooke Parker?”
“Brooke Parker-Goldclaw,” CJ growled.
“Yeah, sorry.” Mason didn’t sound sorry. Three alphas in one room were two too many. Mason continued smoothly, introducing the crew to CJ and Sam—the photographer and his assistant, the models and their assistants, and himself. “Rachel is my PA, but since Bianca’s assistant isn’t available, Rachel will work for her until the rest of her team arrive.”
Sam raised a hand. “Her team?”
“My makeup artist, my stylist, my dresser, and my personal maid,” Bianca said smoothly. “Any objections?”
Sam didn’t seem in the least disconcerted. “Yeah. This is a working ranch, and it always comes first. You never forget that, or we’ll have to put a stop to the shoot. You respect what we’re going to tell you about safety measures, where you can and can’t go, and how to behave around the animals.”
Rachel’d had this talk before, and she sat back. Mason waved for Sam to continue, so he did.
He fluidly explained about the animals, the stables, and the corral. “Some of the hands are vacationing, but we have enough to take care of the livestock. Not enough to keep watch over you all. The other places
we don’t allow entrance are the private houses. You saw them as you came in. If we find anybody breaking those rules or entering the houses without being invited, this sideshow is at an end.”
The two large houses were the biggest on this part of the ranch, modern, the other, the original ranch house.
“The cabins look quaint,” Kevin, the photographer’s assistant, said.
CJ answered. “Most are being refurbished, ready for the next season.” He glanced at Rachel then back at Mason. “A couple are finished if you want to shoot in there.”
“Thanks,” Mason said gruffly.
Watching the three men, all leaders, was a great spectator sport.
Bianca sighed restlessly. “How long do you plan to keep us here?”
“You’re contracted for a week,” Mason said, “But we’ll try to get the job done as fast as we can so you can get back to the heat of New York.”
“Actually, I have an assignment in the Bahamas,” Bianca said. “Fake fur.”
That sounded typical for the fashion industry. Contrasts were in right now, and fur in the Bahamas would remind readers of tropical heat while showing them the fashions in the stores. Not that Rachel would be going anywhere near that.
Mason nodded, and a smile ghosted his mouth. “In that case we’ll do a few tweaks, if Susie doesn’t object, and try to get your shots done first.”
Susie was the junior of the two models, but that was relative. Where Susie was up-and-coming, Bianca was a firm favorite, with a public profile that saw her in the media at least once a week. Susie nodded. “That works for me.”
At least they could get rid of the Italian model earlier. Mason glanced at Rachel. He’d done it for her. She smiled her thanks.
* * * *
After a day of Bianca’s demands, Rachel wanted to kill her. She’d never thought of herself as a murderous type, but the mental vision of putting her hands around that slender throat and yelling, “Shut up, shut up!” as she squeezed gave her the support she needed to get through the day.