Loving Necessity: The Complete Necessity, Texas Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  Of course, that would be easier if the director—Milo Migliore—weren’t such an unmitigated ass. They had done the first part of the filming in Dallas, and other than the heat (what kind of hell stayed almost 100 degrees well into September?), it had gone fairly well. Milo was a bit too convinced of his own artistic superiority, though, especially given the fact that this movie wasn’t likely to end up winning any awards. Sophie hoped Milo would be satisfied with one or two takes of each scene, though.

  Sometimes, though, she wished she could have retakes of the scenes in her own life. Honestly, that would be more useful at the moment than any second or third takes for this movie.

  Of course, most of her life would end up on the cutting room floor, if that were the case. Especially her latest, overly publicized breakup with British rock star Niall Adamson.

  Speaking of unmitigated asses.

  What on Earth ever compelled me to think I should date a musician?

  Heaving a sigh, she moved toward the door of the Podunk restaurant that Milo had decided had “the right atmosphere.” Sophie would’ve preferred it to have just the right lighting, or enough space for all the equipment, or any number of other elements that made the filming easier—but that wasn’t her call.

  It’s really time for me to direct my own film.

  Or maybe produce.

  Brushing aside the vague sense of dissatisfaction she seemed to carry with her everywhere these days, she reached out her hand to open the door—only to be beaten to it by a man standing behind her.

  She jumped and squeaked in surprise. She wasn’t used to losing track of her surroundings that much. For all she knew, he could’ve been a member of the paparazzi—not that they were likely to get past the security perimeter, even on a small, public set like this.

  But when she turned around, she came face-to-face with what looked like a real, live, authentic cowboy. Two of them, in fact. The one holding the door open wore a straw cowboy hat, and he was actually tipping it forward just a bit with his other hand. Startled, she swept her glance over him. Plaid shirt, worn blue jeans, dusty brown cowboy boots.

  When she looked at his face again, she found him grinning at her, a bright sparkle in his light blue eyes.

  He is pretty enough to be one of my costars.

  Blinking herself out of her surprise, she said, “Thanks,” and swept inside.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the cowboy finish tipping his hat as he said, “Ma’am.”

  Ma’am? When did I become old enough to be a ma’am?

  She realized as she moved toward the rest of the crew that she had completely ignored the beautiful cowboy’s friend.

  Well, chalk up another point toward being a snobby bitch.

  Niall’s parting words still shook her, though she didn’t like to think of that horrible, public scene.

  At that moment, Milo finished his conference with the director of photography, who hurried off to see the lighting guys. Milo turned, catching sight of her, and then the cowboys behind her.

  Here we go.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, his anger thickening his accent as he waved his arms around. “You are not allowed in here. You must go.”

  Sophie strolled over to one of the restaurant’s booths and sat down to watch the show.

  The other cowboy—the one who had not opened the door for her—responded by waving the pass he wore on a lanyard around his neck. “Fire Marshal,” he answered laconically before jerking his thumb toward his friend. “Assistant Fire Marshal. Required to be here by city ordinance.”

  City ordinance? More like wide-spot-in-the-road ordinance.

  Milo huffed, but he relented, waving one arm imperiously toward some tables and chairs that had been shoved out of the way. “You stay out of the way.”

  The two cowboys strolled over and took seats, watching with avid interest.

  Sophie moved out of the way and flipped through her script, rehearsing her lines silently while Milo got the first scene of the morning with her costar, Lyle Dunbar.

  But for the first time in ages, she couldn’t concentrate on memorizing what she needed to say in the next scene. She could feel the cowboy’s gaze on her—and despite her usual experience with fans who stared too much, it wasn’t in some creepy way.

  Every time she glanced up at him, he was watching her.

  In all fairness, so was his friend. But his friend’s stare didn’t send a frisson of excitement sliding down her spine.

  Given her track record, of course, it was probably for the best that she had decided not to date again for a good long while after Niall.

  Anyway, she reminded herself, it didn’t matter how pretty he was. She had no intention of ever going out with someone as woefully unworldly as that beautiful cowboy must be.

  No, their lives were worlds apart—and they would stay that way, too.

  Chapter Three

  “Whoa,” Colton breathed. “Never in a million years would I have thought Sophie Daniels could be as pretty in real life as she is in the movies.”

  Zeke gave his friend a puzzled glanced. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “They can do all kinds of things with computers these days, you know.”

  Zeke snorted and shook his head, uncertain if his friend was entirely serious—or where to start discussing all the problems with Colton’s ideas about women in the movies if he was. Instead, he turned back to watch the filming. Zeke wasn’t surprised that the leading lady was stunning—though the ugly brown dress she wore looked like some Hollywood type’s idea of frontier clothing. No, what he hadn’t expected was to find the process of filmmaking so fascinating. He had to admit, though, he couldn’t see why the director had chosen to film the same scene five times. As far as Zeke could tell, any of the takes would’ve been fine to use in the movie.

  Guess that’s why I’m a ranch hand and he’s a big-time director.

  All in all, it was turning out to be a pretty good way to spend his day off, despite his initial reservations.

  Colton leaned in to whisper to Zeke. “I’m going to run across the street to Maryann’s and get me a Dr. Pepper. You want one?”

  “Sure.” Zeke didn’t take his eyes off Sophie Daniels when he answered, and Colton snickered.

  “Okay. I’ll be back in a minute. You’re the acting Fire Marshal while I’m gone.”

  Zeke waved him off with a nod, certain that nothing would happen in the five minutes the actual Fire Marshal was gone. Anyway, Zeke was a volunteer fireman for the only fire brigade in the county—the same qualifications Colton had before taking up his new position and going off to Austin for two weeks for some kind of specialized training. Surely Zeke could handle anything that might come up.

  The director called out something about coming back in five and setting up the next shot in the upstairs loft. Zeke was beginning to figure out some of the film crew’s lingo, but pretty much everything he knew about making movies came from...well, movies and television—and didn’t entirely match what he was seeing now.

  For one thing, the time it took to shoot one scene astounded him—especially since it apparently had to be done over and over again.

  Sophie and the actor she was playing opposite in this role—Zeke couldn’t remember his name, but had seen the man in several movies—moved over to stand under the open stairway leading up to the loft. Normally, Zeke would’ve taken out his cell phone at that point and either texted or maybe taken a picture, depending on how intrusive he was feeling.

  However, the guard who had allowed them inside the film crew’s perimeter had impressed upon them the prohibition against taking photographs of any of the film or crew, and then made them sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement.

  The whole thing seemed like a giant joke, really. Not that Zeke didn’t understand the need for privacy, of course. God knew he wouldn’t want anyone following him around with a camera 24/7. But it also seemed like maybe that was something these folks should’ve considered when th
ey decided to become movie stars.

  Anyway, it all added up to Zeke having little to do other than watch everyone around him. And listen, too—Sophie and her costar were speaking quietly, but the odd acoustics of the room meant that their quiet voices under the staircase bounced right back over to Zeke.

  “Adamson leaving you alone these days?” Sophie’s costar asked her. She nodded and murmured something affirmative, and he leaned in and leered at her. “Good. Do you think he would take me next?”

  Sophie burst out laughing, and Zeke was torn between his surprise at the revelation that the other actor was gay and at how delighted that laugh sounded. He would not have said that her on-screen laughter sounded artificial—not until he heard a genuine laugh from her.

  “I wish he would,” Sophie said. “Maybe that would take the tabloid pressure off me.”

  An odd, creaking sound caught Zeke’s attention, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was coming from, and within seconds, it had disappeared, so Zeke went back to his shameless eavesdropping.

  “So, what you think?” The actor—Lyle Dunbar, Zeke suddenly remembered—struck an exaggerated pose. “Do you think Adamson will have me?”

  “Maybe. But believe me, you don’t want him.” She looked thoughtful for a minute, as if she were about to tell him some secret, but then stopped. Zeke had to wonder if any of what he had read about the rock star’s abusive behavior had been true. Not that he knew much about the situation—just what he had seen on Internet headlines. Suddenly he felt guilty for listening to their conversation. It was rude, and his grandmother would have whooped him good for it.

  But as Zeke began to stand up, planning to move to another part of the restaurant, Lyle said to Sophie, “I’m going to go grab a bottle of water. Want one?”

  Sophie shook her head, and Lyle walked away. Zeke was about to sit back down when that strange popping and crackling noise sounded again, this time from above him.

  Afterward, he was never able to pinpoint exactly what led him to act. The odd noises were certainly part of it, but in the end, he finally attributed it to instinct and his experience as a firefighter. Zeke was already moving, rushing toward Sophie even as an explosion from the loft rocked the building.

  As if it were happening in slow motion, Zeke could see the staircase starting to break apart with Sophie under it—but because he was already in motion, Zeke managed to shove her out of the way of the worst of the falling debris with a half tackle, half grab around her waist.

  They came stumbling out of the alcove and into the middle of what had—moments ago—been a movie filming location. Now it was the site of several people stumbling dazedly around as chunks of flaming wood tried to catch and create a larger fire. Without waiting to see if she was okay, Zeke scooped the actress up in his arms and raced out the exit.

  Right in full view of the waiting photographers.

  Chapter Four

  Apparently, when the building exploded, the perimeter barriers meant nothing to news reporters and photographers.

  After one wide-eyed glance into flashing light bulbs, Sophie turned her face into the pretty cowboy’s neck. Only then did she realizes she had wrapped her arms around him at some point and was clinging to him as if for life.

  “Get me out of here,” she muttered into his shoulder. “Please.”

  The photographers had gotten too close because the security guards took the disruption in the restaurant as an opportunity to abandon their posts. Sophie was going to have to have a talk with the security company.

  She felt rather than saw the cowboy—she really was going to have to learn his name after this—glance around, as if getting his bearings. Then he struck out straight through the crowd of photographers, elbowing them out of his way.

  They crowded around him, pressing against Sophie and yelling questions at her.

  Rather than taking the standard Hollywood tack of covering his face and ducking through the crowd, this cowboy stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Every last one of you needs to take three giant goddamned steps back.” His voice boomed from his chest, startling Sophie so badly she jumped and was afraid he might drop her, but his arm stayed steady and he held her as gently as if she were something delicate. Breakable. Precious.

  Apparently, his bellow startled the reporters, too, because although they did not take three giant steps backward, they did freeze just long enough for him to break free of their little cluster.

  Without hesitating, he strode away from them.

  “Anyone comes up alongside us on the left, you just go ahead and kick the shit out of them,” he suggested, surprising a laugh out of her. She raised her head long enough to glance up at him and discovered he was grinning a lopsided smile.

  Seconds later, he slid up beside a slightly battered pickup truck. He opened the door without having to stop and unlock it—one of the benefits of a small town, maybe?—allowing him to slide Sophie in past the steering wheel and into the passenger side of the long bench seat. Swinging in beside her, he started the truck, put it into gear, and swung out onto the street.

  Sophie glanced into the side view mirror just long enough to get a glimpse of the reporters running after the truck and snapping photos.

  “Some of them are bound to follow us,” she said.

  The slight grin that had been covering his face for a while now broke into open laughter. “Sweetheart, there ain’t a soul alive knows the back roads around Necessity better than I do. If anyone tries to follow us, we’ll lose them.”

  Sophie hesitated but finally spoke. “You know, they could probably track down who you are from your license plate registration if they really want to.”

  He nodded. “Doesn’t matter. They won’t be able to get onto the ranch.”

  A ranch. She glanced down at the old-fashioned dress she’d been wearing to film.

  At least I’m dressed for it.

  They drove in silence for the few minutes required to drive all the way out of town—less than a mile. Before they got to the interstate, several miles out of town, Sophie asked, “What’s your name? I don’t want to have to call you hey you! for the rest of the week.”

  He perked up at that, and she wondered why.

  But he didn’t answer immediately, either.

  “Unless, of course, you don’t want me to call you your name at any point.”

  A deep red blush flashed across his face, and Sophie fought down a grin.

  He’s shy.

  Although she sometimes had fans get tongue-tied around her, she found it especially charming in this gorgeous cowboy who’d jumped in to save her.

  Oh, he’s absolutely precious.

  “Zeke,” he finally managed to force out. “Zeke MacAllan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Zeke.” She stuck out her hand to shake his and laughed merrily when his attempt to reciprocate caused the truck to swerve.

  “So, Zeke,” she said, watching the way her use of his name made that blush surge forward before receding again, “where are you taking me?”

  He actually almost stuttered for a moment before he managed to say, “I have a cabin out on a ranch. Everyone in town knows where I live, but it’s on private land—reporters shouldn’t be able to bother you there.”

  The longer he talked, the less anxious he seemed. Sophie was glad—she wanted to be able to actually speak to him, especially if she was going to be hiding out in his cabin for some unspecified amount of time.

  And yet, she couldn’t seem to stop teasing him, either.

  “You’re whisking me away to an undisclosed location? The reporters should love that.”

  He whipped around to look at her, his eyes huge, then dragged his attention back to the road. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Maybe we should go somewhere else. Is there someone you want to call? Where would you like to go?”

  She almost felt bad about worrying him. He was clearly a sweet guy, and everything he had done so far had been kind. “No,” she assured him. �
��I think the idea of some time completely free of reporters sounds lovely. Even if it’s only for an afternoon.”

  Zeke breathed a sigh of relief, and Sophie promised herself to quit teasing the poor man.

  Truthfully, a respite from all the media attention she had been getting seemed like an excellent plan. Filming would almost certainly be put on hold while they scouted a new location—or at the very least, they would need to move on to different scenes. She hadn’t even looked at the schedule lately. She knew that they had plans to spend several weeks in this town—what was it called? Something about ... wants? desires? needs?

  Necessity. That was it.

  They were supposed to be in Necessity for at least two weeks, and with Milo, that meant more like a month. The place had no decent hotels, and the cast and crew had taken over some chain motel near the freeway. The staff had signed nondisclosure agreements, but she didn’t think they would hold up.

  Maybe something like this would be a better idea. Hide out somewhere really secluded. Somewhere no one could actually get to.

  Within moments, they turned onto an unpaved road, jouncing along for a mile or so before pulling up in front of a gate. Zeke hopped out of the truck, leaving it running, and got out to unlock the gate and swing it open.

  By the time the truck had bounced across the cattle guard and Zeke had gotten out again to close the gate behind them, Sophie had come up with a plan.

  If she had her way, Zeke MacAllan was about to go on a date.

  A very public date.

  Chapter Five

  Star-struck. That was the word for it.

  Or maybe just complete stupidity.

  Zeke knew he wasn’t the most talkative guy around. But he wasn’t some callow kid, either, unable to come up with the most basic level of polite conversation.