by Maria Geraci
All he wanted was to go back to his regularly scheduled life. Up at five, he’d do a few chores around the ranch, shower and shave, then take the hourlong commute into Dallas. He’d spend the morning in meetings, grab lunch with a client, then it was back at his desk until six. At home, his mother usually had dinner waiting. After that, he’d read a book or play a game of Scrabble with Mom and Becks. If it was Friday night, then he’d head into Baylee Flats for a beer and a game of pool with some of his old high school buddies. It was a simple but busy life. And he liked it that way. If he found the right woman to share it with, great. But he wasn’t holding his breath.
The door to his office busted open. Becks walked in and flopped down in the chair across from his desk. His secretary, Stella, who’d been his father’s secretary before that and had worked for the company for over thirty years, hustled in behind his little sister, looking unusually frazzled. Stella pushed an errant lock of hair back into her otherwise neat, blonde bun. “I’m sorry, Sam, but she insisted on barging in before I could call you.” Stella gave Becks the same look of maternal disgust she used to give Sam whenever he’d pulled a similar stunt on his dad.
Becks responded with what Sam had long ago termed teenage girl face. “Before she could warn you, you mean.” His little sister was eighteen going on twenty-five. At five-ten, she was taller than their mother and too damn pretty for Sam’s mental health.
“I just saw you this morning at breakfast. What’s so important that you had to come into downtown Dallas in the middle of the day?” he demanded. “Don’t you have a summer job?”
“Four in the afternoon isn’t the middle of the day. And you know perfectly well that I have a job lifeguarding. But I’m off today. And we have urgent business to discuss. Tonight might be too late.”
He looked to Stella for help, but she just shrugged. “I can hold your calls for thirty minutes, but there’s a situation happening in the lobby.”
This got Sam’s full attention. “What kind of situation?”
“The place is crawling with journalists, or at least that’s what they call themselves. They all want to interview you. And not about the state of the oil and gas industry,” she added dryly.
It was that show again. What on earth had possessed him to go on it? Oh yeah. The answer was sitting across the desk from him, looking like she was bursting to tell him something. Whatever new scheme Becks had up her sleeve, Sam wasn’t buying it. Nope. Not today. Not ever again.
“Just do the best you can,” he told Stella, who immediately shot him an “easy for you to say” look. Were things really that bad out there? He looked at the phone on his desk and grimaced. Every line flashed red. He made a mental note to send Stella flowers. Or better yet, a gift certificate for a massage.
Becks waited until Stella had gone back to her office to ask, “What’s up with her?”
“The same thing that’s up with me. Why didn’t you tell me going on that show meant I was going to be hounded by the press?”
Her green eyes lit up. “Isn’t is awesome?”
He glared at her.
“Okay,” she said, trying to sound meek, “so maybe things are a little out of control. But I swear, it’s usually not like this. Sam! You’re famous now.”
“So what do I have to do to become unfamous? Is there really a mob down in the lobby or did Stella exaggerate?”
“Don’t worry. Your fifteen minutes will be up soon.”
“How soon?”
“When the season is over?”
“That’s not for another five weeks.”
“You could always go into hiding,” she joked.
“I have a business to run, remember?”
“Yeah, but you’re always saying that the business can run itself. Besides, it’s the ranch you really care about.”
He stilled. “What makes you say that?”
“Because it’s true. The only reason you work in the business is because Poppy wanted you to and you could never say no to him.” Poppy was the affectionate nickname Becks used to call their grandfather. Sam, on the other hand, had always called Cyrus Byrd “sir.”
He wished he could tell her that she was wrong, that he didn’t give a rat’s ass what Cyrus Byrd had wanted, but as usual, his little sister had an uncanny way of seeing things for what they were. Had he really just thought that Becks was eighteen going on twenty-five? More like going on forty.
“So what’s this important business we have to discuss?” he asked, knowing he sounded testy.
Becks opened her backpack and dumped the contents onto his desk. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of letters spilled out.
“Please tell me this is the response to all the colleges you applied to.”
“Ha ha. It’s the response you got from your television interviews.”
“What do you mean?” He picked up a letter. It was addressed to him via the Good Morning, USA show.
“After you appeared on that morning talk show, all these women flooded the network phones asking for your email address, but they wouldn’t give it out,” explained Becks. “So I guess some of them wrote letters instead and sent them to the network, who then forwarded them on to the house. The postman delivered these to the ranch this morning just after you left.”
“This has got to be like two hundred letters. What am I supposed to with all this?”
“Two hundred and fourteen,” Becks clarified. “Don’t look at me like that. If you hadn’t been all charmy-charm on national TV, you wouldn’t have inspired all this devotion.” She deepened her voice to imitate him. “I want to feel the zing.”
“So now this is my fault.”
“All this time I thought you were just a player. I had no idea my big brother was a romantic in disguise,” she teased.
“A what?”
“All that stuff you said on TV. Where did it come from?”
“It’s called heat stroke. Do you know how hot it was inside that mansion?”
Becks smiled knowingly. “I’ll tell you where it came from. It was your subconscious clawing its way to the surface and demanding to be heard. The reason you haven’t found The One is because deep down inside, your soul is yearning for its perfect mate. You said it yourself. You want someone to spend the rest of your life with. A marriage that will last until death do us part and even after that. Bro, do you know how deep that is?”
He groaned. “Please tell me you don’t plan to be a psych major.”
Becks ignored the dig. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to read all these. Mom and I have already vetted them for you.”
“You opened my letters?”
“Believe me, we’ve done you a big favor. There’s some scary stuff in there. At least half these women want to have your baby and the other half want … well, I’d say, but you’re my brother and it’s just gross. But guess what? We found you the perfect girl!”
“I thought Hannah was supposed to be the perfect girl. Remember her? Single Gal? Didn’t give me a rose?”
“Obviously we were mistaken. No worries, though. This,” she said, handing Sam a badly crinkled sheet of paper, “is your perfect match. Annie from Florida. She’s awesome.”
“What? Did you feed this to the dog or something?”
“It came that way. Here’s what I think happened. I think she wrote it, then changed her mind and tossed it. Then changed her mind again and mailed it.”
“If you say so.” Sam skimmed the top of the letter. “Florida, huh? We live in Texas, remember? Now scat back home. I’ve got work to catch up on. So unless you’re here to tell me you’ve been admitted to Harvard, I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Not Harvard,” Becks said. “I didn’t apply there. But I’ve gotten into Georgia Tech. And Tulane.”
Finally. Here was some news worth listening to. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? You’re not messing with me, are you?”
“Nope. But we’re not talking about me; we’re talking about you. Read Annie’s letter. Pretty please. If
you read it, then we’ll talk about Georgia Tech and Tulane.” She propped her sneakered feet up next to his computer.
“Get your feet off my desk.”
She kept her feet exactly where they were. “You do want me to go to college, right? Sam, you have to read the letter. She’s breaking up with her boyfriend because of you.”
He grudgingly read the letter. “She sounds unhinged. It’s not my responsibility that she’s breaking up with her boyfriend.”
Becks jumped from her chair and came over to his side of the desk. “She’s not unhinged. May I?” she asked, but she was already typing away on his computer keyboard. She clicked on the website to a used car dealership. “Here’s where she works. Esposito’s Used Automotive. She’s the finance person. See, here’s her picture.” Becks pointed to a photo of a woman in her late twenties. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Freckles. Big smile.
“You’ve stalked her?”
“It’s not stalking if it’s public information. Like she says in her letter, she’s perfectly normal, plus her favorite TV show was The Office. Just like you. And she’s smart! She does the New York Times crossword puzzle. And she knows who Lemony Snicket is. Remember when you used to read those books to me? She’s funny, Sam. Read her letter again. Please.”
If he didn’t do it, Becks would just keep hounding him until he did, so he picked up the paper and read it once more. Let’s face it, people who do the daily crossword in pencil aren’t taking any real risks, you know? He fought back a smile. Yeah, it was a good letter. “Not my type.”
“You won’t know whether or not she’s your type unless you meet her in person,” Becks said. “Chemistry is everything.”
“Is Mom putting you up to this?”
“No, but Mom loves her letter too. You know, you’re not getting any younger. And if I do go away to college, not that I’m saying I’m going to college, but if I do, it will be just you and Mom. All alone in that big house. Don’t you want to have kids? Your biological clock is ticking.”
“I’m a guy. That’s not how it works.”
“Sure, you’re decent-looking now, but what happens when your hairline starts receding or you get a dad bod?”
“I’m the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I’m pretty sure nothing else matters.”
Becks flopped back in her chair. “Have you always been so cynical?”
“Let’s talk about Georgia Tech. It’s a great school. So is Tulane.”
“I couldn’t think of going to either place without a school visit,” she said.
“Not a problem. Stella can make all the arrangements—flights, hotels, whatever.”
“I guess I could get Mom to go with me.”
“Now you’re talking,” Sam said cautiously. Somehow, this seemed too easy.
“On one condition.” Her green eyes went steely. “I’ll go to the college visits if you go to Old Explorer’s Bay to meet Annie.”
And there it was.
“Who’s Annie?” Sam asked, playing dumb.
“You know perfectly well who Annie is,” she shot back.
“Yeah. Not happening.”
“But you have to meet her. Even if it’s just to talk her out of breaking up with her boyfriend. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you?”
“My conscience and I sleep like a baby every night. This Abby person isn’t my problem.”
“It’s Annie, not Abby,” she said.
“There is absolutely no way I’m going to Florida to meet some crazy woman who’s written a letter to a complete stranger.”
Before Becks could lob back a response, they were interrupted by a rap on the door. Stella marched into the office and slapped a sheet of paper on top of the letters strewn over his desk. “Here you go, Lover Boy. These are the names of some PR companies you might think of hiring to handle that mess down in the lobby. Maybe they can field your calls. By the way, I’m taking an extra-long lunch tomorrow. And I’m charging it to the company account.”
“Is it really that bad?” asked Sam, even though he already knew the answer to that.
Becks and Stella exchanged a look. “Oh yeah,” Becks said, showing no sign of remorse. Considering this was mostly her fault, the least she could do was act sorry. “I could barely get in the elevator.”
“I called security, and they’re handling the situation in the lobby, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be waiting for you when you walk out the door to go home,” said Stella.
“You’ll have to sneak out the back of the building,” Becks said gleefully. “It’s what all the rock stars do.”
He glanced at the list on his desk. PR wasn’t his forte. “Have Glenda look at that,” he said, referring to Glenda Johnson, the company’s VP of operations. “She’ll know who to hire.”
Stella nodded, relieved. “Meanwhile, what are you going to do about all those people out there?”
“I think he needs to get far away,” said Becks. She gave Stella the crinkled letter. “Read this and tell me she isn’t perfect for him.”
“What’s this?” Stella asked suspiciously.
“Her name is Annie Esposito. She saw Sam on the morning show and wrote to him. I think he needs to meet her in person. She lives in some small town in Florida called Old Explorer’s Bay.”
Stella’s eyes narrowed. “You mean she’s another one of those deranged groupies who’s been tying up the phone lines?”
“Just read it,” Becks pleaded.
“She won’t stop until you read it, so you might as well get it over with,” he said.
Stella pulled on the reading glasses she kept on a chain around her neck and perused the letter. As she read, her expression began to soften. She glanced up to meet Sam’s gaze. “She does the New York Times crossword puzzle?”
“And her favorite show is The Office,” Becks added triumphantly.
Sam loosened his tie.
“Oh my … she’s going to break up with her boyfriend? Sam,” Stella said, flinging the letter under his nose, “Becks is right. You have to meet this girl.”
Becks smiled in satisfaction. “Told you so.”
Sam shook his head. “Et tu, Stella?”
“The way I see it, you’re partly responsible for this mess. No one forced you to go on that show. And now this poor girl, who sounds perfectly wonderful by the way, is going to break up with her boyfriend on account of you. Are you going to just sit back and let her do it?”
“Yep. He is,” said Becks.
There was a knock on the office door. Hank, one of the security guards for the building, came in looking grim. “Sorry to bust in like this, Mr. DeLuca, but no one answered the phone. I’m going to need some extra help down there. Some lady who said she worked for that show you were on insisted on getting on the elevator without an appointment.”
“Where is she?” asked Stella.
“I have no idea. I got Mickey looking for her, but he’s threatening to quit if we don’t hire another guard.”
Stella turned to Sam. Gone was the snarky anger from earlier. All he could read in her expression now was concern. “I think you should go home for the rest of the day. Glenda can cover anything that comes up, and we can call a temp agency to send us more help. And you might need to hire some security for the ranch. Just in case.”
He nodded wearily. Was there no getting away from that show?
Suddenly getting out of town for a few days didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He could kill two birds with one stone. He could get out of Dallas and away from the media circus and Becks would be one step closer to going to college next year. As an added bonus, he could even get in some fishing. “Where’s the nearest major airport to this Old Explorer’s Bay?” he asked Becks.
“Jacksonville. It’s about an hour drive.” His baby sister’s voice hitched with excitement. “So you’ll do it? You’ll go meet Annie?”
“I’ll go, but only because it sounds like she’s in the middle of nowhere and maybe by the time I get back, the media w
ill have found some other chump to hound.”
Becks squealed, then ran over to hug him.
“On one condition,” he said, pulling away so she could see his face and know that he meant business. “I’ll go if you promise to make those college campus trips.”
“Yes, yes, I promise!” If Becks could have high-fived herself, she would have.
“Don’t get your hopes up. When I see this Annie, it’s not going to be fireworks and butterflies. For either of us. It’s only to advise her not to break up with her boyfriend because of anything I said on TV. And that’s it.”
“Got it,” she said. Her expression, however, was anything but resigned. “You won’t regret it, Sam.”
8
Sam had barely stepped out of the plane and he was already regretting it. It had been too much to hope that the rabid media attention would go away simply by heading to Florida. Or that last night’s episode of Single Gal would have put the focus on one of the other bachelors. Three women on the flight had asked to take a picture with him, causing the rest of the people on the plane to whip out their own phones to google who the heck he was. He’d underestimated the show’s fanatical base. By the time they landed in Jacksonville, a small entourage was waiting to bombard him with questions and snap pictures.
He did his best to fend them off, rented a car, then drove south on I-95 to now find himself in a town that made even Baylee Flats look cosmopolitan. According to the travel app on his phone, there were only two hotels in Old Explorer’s Bay, and one was strictly cash only. No, thanks.
The other hotel, The Conquistador Inn, founded in 1935, was located near the Intracoastal Waterway and claimed to be the town’s first “modern-day” hotel. Luckily, it looked as if the place had been updated sometime in the current century. It wasn’t fancy, but it was clean, and they required a credit card and another form of ID to register.