by Cora Seton
“That’s ridiculous,” Harris said. “She’s my wife.”
“Are you willing to take all of us down with you?” Boone asked. “Because that’s what it means if you balk at this. Base Camp will be history. All of our plans will be for nothing. My wife will lose the home she loves, the home she fought for. We’ll all lose everything we fought for.” Boone rubbed his jaw again. “Harris, if you and Samantha are meant to be together, you’ll be together. You’ll wed again on August twentieth with all of our blessings. You owe Samantha a chance to get to know the man she was intended for. You owe it to Curtis to give him the chance to prove to her that he’s the man for her. Time will tell how this really should sort out. Meanwhile, you need to abide by your contract to Renata and Fulsom—and all of us. That’s what being a part of this group means.”
“What about me?” Samantha asked when he finally took a breath. “Doesn’t anybody care what I want?”
“Of course we do.” Boone softened. “You’ve got to understand; being part of Base Camp isn’t like regular life. It’s more like serving in the military, where you’ve given over part of your independence in order to belong to a group that has a higher purpose. Harris and Curtis both knew that when they signed up. I explained it to you, too, when you expressed your interest in being the backup bride. You said you understood that. Here’s your chance to show me you do.”
Samantha bit back the words that she’d intended to say, because what Boone said was right. She had told him she understood what being part of Base Camp would be like. She’d been wrong, but that wasn’t Boone’s fault. Belonging to a tight-knit group like the one here, and being part of a grander vision, was what had attracted her in the first place. She turned to Harris. “What do you want to do?”
Harris hesitated a long time, and she could almost see the thoughts churning inside his mind. “Like all the other men here, I made a promise to help make this a better world for everyone. I believe in what we’re trying to do here. Not all this—” he gestured to the film crew “—but what’s outside. The tiny houses, the green energy we’re tapping. Sharing our resources. Living small on the land. But then I made a promise to you, too—that we’d be together forever. I married you in good faith, and I meant everything I said.” His gaze bore into hers, and Samantha knew what he was asking, knew what he wanted her to understand. He wanted to be with her, she didn’t doubt that for a moment, but he also wanted to carry through on the promises he’d made to these men. He wanted to keep his word, even if the promises he’d made were turning out to contradict each other. She wouldn’t respect him if he was any other way.
That didn’t make this any easier.
“I guess… I guess I can abide by what Boone has said,” she began uncertainly. “But I need to be clear.” She turned to Curtis. “My heart is engaged. I said my wedding vows and I meant them. I’ll do what I have to, because I understand how much Base Camp means to you, and I want it to mean that much to me. I’ll gladly work on the houses and on running the bed-and-breakfast. I’ll take the time to get to know you, but it would be unfair to pretend that Harris doesn’t already have my heart.”
Curtis took a step closer to her. “Harris picked you up at the airport, he swept you off your feet, he took you to a chapel and married you. That doesn’t mean either one of you knows the first thing about each other. As far as I’m concerned, he and I are starting off on even ground. If you’re asking me to take your wedding into consideration, I’m not going to do that, because that would be losing before I even began to fight. And I’m going to fight for you, Samantha. You were supposed to be my bride, and I deserve a chance.”
Uneasiness filled her at his words. He was right; she didn’t know much about Harris, but every instinct told her he was the one for her. She had ached for him to make love to her earlier. If he had been willing, she would have been, too. She didn’t think she could backtrack from that enough to give Curtis a fair shake, but she would abide by the rules of this game, even if she didn’t like them.
“I’ve agreed to do what you’re asking,” she said. “I’ll do my best to be fair. That’s all I can say.”
Harris reached for her, but Curtis lunged forward and knocked his hand away. “You don’t get to touch her. Those are the rules. You heard Renata.”
“For God’s sake, I just married her.”
“Curtis, back off,” Boone said. “All right, you two. One last kiss. Then everything starts over.”
Samantha swallowed hard and licked her lips. Without wasting another second, Harris tugged her close and kissed her, hard, a kiss that went on and on until Boone cleared his throat.
“That’ll do,” he said.
Samantha pulled away from Harris reluctantly. She wanted him more than ever, and the thought of living at Base Camp and not being with him filled her with impatience. Curtis’s face looked like thunder, and Boone stepped in again.
“For all intents and purposes the two of you have just met,” he said to Sam and Harris. “I know it’s difficult, but it’s what you have to do. Let’s go out there and show Renata we’re not even remotely ready to shut this all down. Harris, you first.”
And that was that. Her marriage was over just as quickly as it had begun. Samantha felt numb as she filed out with the rest of them and faced Renata. She looked for Daisy, but the dog kept close by Curtis’s side.
“Samantha, Harris,” Renata said. “Get back in the truck, and pretend you’ve just driven up. Harris, you’ve picked up Samantha from the airport, because Curtis was too hung over to get up and do it himself. There are sparks of interest between you and Samantha. That’s obvious to anybody who’s looking at you. But Samantha is here to marry Curtis in forty days. You know you have to step back and let this happen, but you don’t want to. You’re in turmoil. Curtis, you are here to greet your bride, you’re sheepish that you slept in and you are unsure you even want to marry her. But now that you’ve seen her, you know that she’s the girl for you. We’ll roll cameras and see what happens. You both know the rules.”
Samantha swallowed hard, and turned back to the truck.
“Wait. Hold on,” Renata said suddenly. “For crying out loud, she can’t be wearing that wedding gown. She has to change.”
The whole crowd waited for Samantha as she fumbled with her suitcase in the back of the rental truck, pulled out an outfit, headed back into the bunkhouse bathroom and changed, her hands shaking all the while. She didn’t want to do this. She wanted her fairy tale to continue. Why did Renata—and Curtis—need to ruin it all?
She told herself this was only temporary. It was acting, as if she was in a play. She could stand forty days of anything—hadn’t she stood twenty-seven years on a bus?
But she’d been so close to what she wanted. It hurt so bad to have it ripped away again. When she was back in her plain navy skirt and white shirt, she looked as blank and plain as she felt. The fairy tale was over. She was Samantha Smith again—not Samantha Wentworth.
When she returned, Harris silently held the truck’s door open for her. “Come on, Daisy,” he called, but Daisy, standing next to Curtis, didn’t move.
Curtis reached down absently to pat her head. She licked his hand and sat down.
“Daisy,” Harris tried again.
“Think she wants to stay with me.”
Sam, hearing the challenge in Curtis’s voice, shut her eyes. “Daisy,” she called.
The dog didn’t move.
“Forget the dog,” Renata said. “Move it; we don’t have all day.”
Harris closed Sam’s door, went around the truck, got in on his side and shut his door, too.
“Here. I guess you’d better hold on to these for safe keeping.” Sam reluctantly slid off the two rings he’d put on her finger only hours before. She knew she was losing far more than a couple of pieces of jewelry, and she blinked against the tears stinging her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I can say.” He took the rings she held out to him, slid h
is own wedding ring off his finger and put all of them into his shirt pocket before taking her hand and squeezing it. “No matter what they say, no matter what they do, no matter what we have to do over the next forty days, we’re married. I believe that. Nothing can change it.”
“I’ll spend the next forty days learning everything that I can about you and about Base Camp,” Samantha promised. “I’ll become the best wife I can be for you, because this is where we’re going to spend our future, and I need to know everything about it. It’s going to be hard,” she added. “Hard not to touch you.”
He squeezed her hand again. “I know. Real hard. Let’s get started, so we can get to the end of it.”
She nodded. “I’m ready.” She wasn’t, though. She wasn’t ready for any of this. She’d wanted to be by Harris’s side. She’d pictured the two of them living in a tent together until their tiny house was ready for them. Pictured them moving in and creating a life.
Sleeping with Harris tonight.
Now all of that would have to wait. Could she last for forty days?
She was about to find out.
Chapter Five
‡
As Harris climbed out of the truck again a minute later, opened Sam’s door and helped her out, he knew everything had changed. As much as he and Samantha assured each other they could get through the next forty days, he knew that would be more difficult than Samantha realized. For one thing, she would have to get used to all the different personalities of the people already at Base Camp. She would become part of the tensions and conflicts that could crop up at any time when you had a number of adults living in the same place. For another, Curtis would do his best to showcase each and every one of Harris’s faults. And God knew Harris had plenty of those. He had a tendency to hold back and stay separate in group situations, while Curtis’s jovial, larger-than-life personality made him welcome wherever he went.
Harris told himself he would have to change. He would have to put himself out there so Samantha knew he really wanted her. He would have to take part in group activities, linger around the campfires at night and volunteer to help out when the women had guests at their B&B.
As they stepped in front of the cameras, he saw a grin playing around Renata’s mouth, and realized that far from being angry, she was enjoying all of this. And why not? Controversy was what made the show interesting to its viewers. Two men vying over one woman would make for great television. Didn’t Renata know that they were all human beings, and they all had feelings that would suffer in the process? If so, she didn’t seem to care.
As for the viewers, they were another loose cannon in the situation. Renata and her people loved the concept of interactive television. They constantly updated the website with information, quizzes and games. She would definitely exploit this competition between him and Curtis. In fact, she would play that for all it was worth. He needed to warn Samantha that the director would make this even more difficult than it needed to be. She would probably set up situations that threw them together in awkward pairings. She would do whatever it took to shake up the bad blood between him and Curtis, and to give Samantha all the opportunity she needed to change her mind and fall for the other man.
With the cameras rolling, Boone strode forward again, and Harris was struck at how comfortable they’d all become with being filmed. Boone was as confident as any television show actor when he raised a hand and called out, “Welcome, Samantha.”
Samantha moved to greet him as if she were in a dream, and they shook hands. “Hello,” she said awkwardly. “Thanks for having me.”
“Not at all, thank you for joining us. We’re always looking for a few good men and women to build our community. We hope you’ll soon feel like you’re one of us.”
Samantha looked as if she didn’t believe that were likely, but Boone was already turning to Harris. “Thanks for picking Samantha up, Harris. I appreciate you running out to the airport early, when the rest of us were still sleeping.”
“My pleasure,” Harris said. When Renata smiled and nodded in approval, he cursed himself for not finding a way out of this.
“Curtis? Curtis,” Boone called heartily. “Come look who’s here. It’s your bride.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Harris saw Samantha frown. It was all too clear to him, and anyone else watching, she wasn’t happy to see her supposed intended. Renata was certainly getting what she wanted here. Curtis strode up, Daisy trotting by his side, but he didn’t just greet Samantha, he pulled her into a bear hug, one arm around her waist, one hand cradling the nape of her neck, as if he meant to kiss her.
Harris couldn’t help himself; he surged forward, pushed between them and shoved Curtis away. “You’re not allowed to touch her,” he said. “The next time you do, my fist is going to have a talk with your face.” He turned to Renata. “That’s right, isn’t it? Those are the rules you laid out.”
“Cut, cut! For God’s sake, you can’t talk to me like I’m on screen,” Renata said. “I can’t be the one to explain why the two of you aren’t going to touch her. So we’re going to use what we filmed right up until the moment you started talking, Harris. We’ll cut the rest of it out, and you two are going to confront each other. Harris, you’re going to admit that you’ve fallen for Samantha, and you want her for your own. Curtis, you’re going to be upset, but you’re not going to fight him. The two of you are going to talk it out until you come to an understanding. Boone, maybe you’ll step in and help sort it out. Maybe some of the rest of you will step in and help, too. The end result is that both of you men will agree to the rules. And you, too, Samantha.”
Harris fumed as Renata moved around putting all of them in their places again. Then she made a motion to the cameramen, who had kept filming. “Okay, we’re all set up. Keep going.”
There was an awkward pause during which Samantha stood to one side, and the two men faced off as if Harris had just pushed Curtis. Harris contemplated decking Curtis, but then they’d have to do another take.
“What the fuck?” Curtis said.
“I don’t want you to touch her,” Harris said. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more wooden while being filmed.
“Why the fuck not?” Curtis demanded. “She’s my bride.”
“Because I want to marry her. You didn’t even bother to get up and go to the airport to pick her up. Samantha and I spent the morning together. We got to know each other. I’m the man for her.” He wouldn’t be taking home an Oscar for his performance anytime soon, Harris thought.
“To hell with that,” Curtis said. “If you spent time with her, you took advantage of a situation, and that’s not right. Samantha came here to marry me, and I intend to see it through.”
Boone stepped in, just as Renata had suggested. “Neither one of you knows Samantha, and Samantha hasn’t had the time to get to know either one of you, either. There’s an obvious solution for this.”
Both men faced him. “Yeah?” Curtis asked. “What’s that?”
“We give Samantha time enough to get to know both of you. During that time, neither one of you gets to put the moves on her. No kissing, no touching, no nothing.”
“For how long?” Harris found himself asking, as if he didn’t already know, as if he wasn’t playing a game. It disturbed him how easily he could fall in with this, even though the whole thing made him furious. Still, what were his options? If he didn’t follow the rules, he could ruin things not just for himself, but for everyone.
“Someone has to marry in forty days, so we’ll give it one month. Thirty days from now, Samantha will announce on the show who she’s going to marry. Until then, nobody touches, nobody kisses. Your courtship will have to take place with words and actions, not physical displays of affection. It’s a civilized way to figure this out, and I expect all of you to abide by it. Do you understand me?” He included Samantha in his question.
Samantha nodded. Harris waited for Curtis to react, but the other man only said, “I still say she’s sup
posed to be my wife. I don’t see why I should have to agree to this.”
“Samantha and I already have a connection,” Harris countered. “I think you should find a different bride.”
“I’ve already told you both how it’s going to be,” Boone said. “Do we have an understanding or not? Shake on it.”
The last thing Harris wanted to do was shake Curtis’s hand, but he was all too aware of the cameras filming everything. Reluctantly, he reached out. Curtis grasped his palm, and shook, trying to crush Harris’s hand in his. But Harris was strong enough to withstand that kind of attack. He gripped Curtis’s hand with equal pressure and shook back.
“Enough.” Boone sighed. “Samantha, I’m glad you’re here. You’re a brave woman for coming and agreeing to marry somebody so quickly, so the least we can do is to give you the time to get to know both Curtis and Harris and see which man suits you best before you make up your mind. For now, I’ll hand you over to the other women. They can show you around and get you settled in your tent. Riley, you and the others can give her a tour of the manor, too, and make sure she has everything she needs. We’ll all meet again at dinnertime. Until then, you two men should get back to work. We’ve got houses to build, including the tiny house that Samantha will live in when she’s chosen her man and married him.”
The women closed ranks around Samantha, and the last Harris saw of her they were heading toward the women’s side of the camp. He knew he would see her in a matter of hours, but Harris couldn’t help feel he was already beginning to lose her. He knew Curtis could be a very stubborn man. Plus, the others in the community liked him. He was fun to be around. A joiner. Samantha was such a sunny, happy person. Wasn’t it likely in the end she would be drawn to a man more like her?
Maybe. But Harris wasn’t ready to call it quits.
He’d fallen in love with his wife in the few short hours they’d spent together.
It didn’t matter if it made sense, it didn’t matter if there hadn’t been enough time for him to get to know her, it didn’t matter that it was the most unreasonable thing he had ever done in his life. It was true. And nothing was going to change that.