by Meg Benjamin
“Is it much farther? My feet hurt.”
Her shoulders immediately returned to full clench. “It should be on the next street.”
She heard the music before she saw the Blarney Stone. In the back of her mind, she’d been expecting shamrocks and Celtic music. Instead, she heard the stark opening guitar chords of “Purple Haze.”
The corners of her mouth edged up. “This must be the place.”
“I don’t…” Ronnie began, but then they were inside.
The building seemed to be divided into two sections, connected by a short, narrow passage. The larger room had a bar across one side with wooden booths tucked across the other and tables scattered in between. The music came from an old-style jukebox in the corner. Monica could have sworn it was pulsing in time to Jimi Hendrix.
The other side of the building looked like a dining room—wooden tables and chairs, with a kitchen pass-through window at the far end. There were two or three groups at the tables, mostly older people, finishing up dinner.
The bar, on the other hand, was packed with raucous types, talking, laughing, and shouting. The clash-ping of pinball machines echoed from the far side, while Jimi Hendrix wailed away.
Ronnie turned automatically toward the dining room, but Monica took hold of her arm, pulling her into the bar.
“I don’t think…” she began again.
“Don’t think,” Monica told her flatly. “Just find a seat.”
“Ronnie, hey Ronnie, over here!” Brendan waved wildly from a table at the side.
Monica put her hand on Ronnie’s elbow, pushing her gently but firmly through the crowd. If she had to be Ronnie’s paid companion for a couple of days, at least she was going to enjoy herself!
Chapter Eight
Paul watched Monica steer Ronnie through the bar crowd. Neither of them was exactly dressed for the mountains at night, given they still wore what they’d worn on the flight from L.A. Ronnie had on a short skirt and one of those clingy tops the bachelorettes always seemed to favor. She also still wore those killer sandals that made it hard for her to walk.
It occurred to him that being able to run was a good thing in the mountains, given the number of situations—everything from bears to rock slides—where you might want to move fast.
Monica still wore the jeans and dark blue blouse. The curve of her breasts that showed faintly through the fabric seemed designed to fit in his hands. His palms itched briefly.
Not that he was going to make any moves. Right. And you probably believe that too.
Brendan moved over quickly to pull up a chair for Ronnie. Billy Joe, on the other side of the table and out-maneuvered for once, jumped to his feet and moved around to plop down beside her. Monica stood staring at the chairs, trying to figure out where she was going to sit, assuming she didn’t sit on Billy Joe’s lap.
Paul reached over to the next table. “You using this?” he said, jerking the chair away from the table before they could say one way or another.
Monica dropped down beside him with a grateful smile, her dimple showing again. “Where’s Faisal?” she asked.
“Last time I saw him he was headed for the bar down the street. Why? You need him?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I’m just still in Associate Producer mode, I guess, trying to keep track of everybody.”
“Well, stop it.” He slid an arm surreptitiously across the back of her chair, one hand casually resting against her shoulder. “Time for rest and relaxation.”
The waitress stepped up to their table, pulling a pencil out of her topknot. “What’ll you have?”
“Hamburger and fries and a margarita on the rocks,” Monica rattled off. “Ronnie?”
Ronnie stared at the waitress, chewing her lower lip. “Salad I guess. Chef salad?” She gave the waitress one of those dazzling smiles she seemed to hold in reserve for anyone who might think she was an idiot.
“Sure.” The waitress scribbled something on her pad. “What do you want to drink?”
“Oh.” Ronnie looked perplexed.
Paul closed his eyes. Why, why, why hadn’t he gotten a table separate from Brendan’s?
“Coke, Sprite, iced tea?” the waitress suggested. “Beer, wine, martinis?”
“Do you have chocolate martinis?”
The waitress shrugged. “Sure. Coming right up.”
Paul had a feeling even if the place hadn’t had chocolate martinis before, they’d have one now. He only hoped the bartender was a creative man.
Monica smiled around the table, one of her Associate Producer expressions. “So, how are the rooms? Everything okay?”
Billy Joe grimaced. “Damn place is full of flowers. Reminds me of my grandmother’s house.”
“Mine too,” Brendan said cheerfully. Apparently, he didn’t find being reminded of his grandmother all that bad.
“Well, it’s only for a day or two,” Monica soothed. “I’m sure they’ll have something better for you at Elkhorn Run.”
Paul wasn’t all that sure himself, given Fairstein’s general cheapness, but he suddenly felt another of those strange protective urges that Monica seemed to inspire. He shrugged. “We’ve got a comfortable room. If we have to hang out somewhere until the show gets going, it might as well be here. Seems like a nice town.”
Billy Joe muttered something less than complimentary, but Paul decided to ignore him. When somebody took the inevitable swing at the asshole, he’d rather it was Brendan.
The waitress returned with their drinks, including a slightly dubious-looking chocolate martini for Ronnie. Paul opened his Fat Tire and leaned back again in his chair. Somebody had switched the music to seventies-era Bruce Springsteen, adding to his growing conviction that Salt Box was a Colorado version of Brigadoon.
Monica watched Ronnie sip her chocolate martini, her eyes narrowed.
“Relax,” Paul muttered. “She’s over twenty-one.”
“Yeah,” she muttered back, “but I’m guessing she’s never tasted a chocolate martini before. Hell, she may not have tasted hard liquor before. I should have ordered her a glass of chardonnay.”
“I repeat, she’s over twenty-one.” Paul stroked his fingers along the side of her arm, feeling the silken softness of her skin. “You’re not responsible for her anyway. You’re the associate producer, not a chaperone.”
“You know that and I know that. But I’m not sure Fairstein Productions knows that.” Her breathing seemed to have speeded up slightly. She glanced up at him through her lashes. “Screw it. I’m not going to be the one who keeps track of her.”
“There you go.” Paul grinned, cupping his hand around her shoulder again.
“I will, however, be the one holding her head up if she ends up barfing her dinner tonight.” Her voice sounded slightly breathy.
“Probably more information than I wanted right now.” He pushed his chair back from the table, reaching toward her. “Come on.”
She blinked. “Where are we going?”
“Over there.” He pointed to a dance floor the size of a yoga mat. Several couples were already swaying to something that sounded suspiciously like Phil Collins.
“I don’t…”
Before she could finish her objection, he pulled her to her feet, then into his arms, guiding her around the floor to a small, unfilled space on the other side.
“Take five,” he murmured against her ear. “Don’t think about Fairstein or Ronnie or the guys or anything else job-related. Just relax.”
She felt as good in his arms as he’d thought she would, soft and female, lush curves pressed against him, her scent a heady combination of something faintly floral with a mild tang of sweat. Real.
He blinked. Odd thing to be impressed with. Didn’t everybody smell real? Now that he thought about it he wasn’t sure. It had been a while since he’d had anyone he could describe as real in his arms. He steered her by a couple so tightly wrapped around each other they were hardly moving, feeling her breasts pressed warm against his
chest.
Her hand slid slowly to the middle of his back, touching him lightly as she swayed against his body. Her other hand drifted against the back of his neck, her fingers sliding delicately across his skin.
He felt a sudden jolt of heat spearing down from his stomach to his groin, turning his loins to granite. Whoa. He didn’t usually get this hard this fast.
He glanced down at Monica again. Her butterscotch hair floated around her face, her dark eyes studying him warily, flecks of gold burning in the dimness of the room. Her abdomen pressed against him, her softness against his aching arousal. She dropped her hand to his shoulder again.
All right. Time to walk it back a pace here. Jumping her on the dance floor wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. Plus she didn’t look like she thought it was a good idea herself. The music came to a close and he moved her back toward the table. “Food’s here.”
“Right.” She stepped away from him quickly, as if she’d realized just what had started to happen between them—or what could have happened in a few more minutes.
Paul dropped back into his chair, pulling his beer close again, along with the basket of fish and chips the waitress had dropped off. Across from him, Monica took another sip of her margarita, studying the people on the far side of the room as if she were cataloging them for future reference.
Maybe if they didn’t look at each other they could pretend it had just been a dance.
Brendan and Billy Joe were both digging into their burgers as if they hadn’t had a meal in several days, which was, of course, close to the truth.
Ronnie stared at him. Paul blinked. What had he done now? And then her lips slid into one of those miraculous grins of hers, her eyes sparkling as if they shared some kind of secret.
What the hell kind of secret did he share with Ronnie?
Beside him, Monica reached for her margarita again. “Good food.”
Ronnie glanced at Monica and grinned again, her eyebrows raising.
Well, crap. It looked like Ronnie had decided to do some matchmaking.
Monica couldn’t decide whether she should keep track of Ronnie’s alcohol consumption or not. On the one hand it sort of went against her stated goal of getting out of the taking-care-of-Ronnie business. On the other, she had the feeling Ronnie hadn’t really done a lot of drinking before.
She’d looked thoughtful as she’d finished her chocolate martini, like she was trying to put the whole experience into perspective. Her eyes also looked a little glazed, which was more worrisome.
Billy Joe was predictably trying to order her more martinis. Brendan was even more predictable, suggesting iced tea. Ronnie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want iced tea. This is a bar. You don’t drink iced tea in a bar.”
Monica took a deep breath and ignored all the voices telling her to butt out. “Ronnie, how about some white wine? Maybe some chardonnay?”
“Do you think that would go with my salad?” Ronnie gave the enormous bowl in front of her a doubtful look.
“Sure. Either that or beer—both of them would work.”
“I don’t like beer.” Ronnie’s forehead furrowed. “Is chardonnay all puckery?”
“Puckery?”
“You know, like sour? I don’t like sour stuff.”
“Try the white zinfandel, then,” Paul suggested. “It’ll be sweet.”
He didn’t look at Monica, but then he hadn’t so much as glanced at her since they’d come back to the table. Which, given what had seemed to happen while they were dancing, was probably a good thing. She still sensed a lingering tingle around her breasts, the remnant of a feeling she was pretty sure wasn’t a good idea. Paul Dewitt might not actually be one of Ronnie’s bachelors, but he was close enough to be off limits.
Ronnie looked as if she were deciding someone’s fate in the arena. “All right, then,” she said finally. “I’ll do it.”
When she saw the size of the wine glass, Monica was slightly sorry she hadn’t gone along with the iced tea. Oh well, maybe it would keep Ronnie occupied for a while. She turned back to her own burger.
Paul still hadn’t looked at her. He also hadn’t said anything to her since they’d gotten back to the table. Maybe she’d imagined that sudden little burst of heat there at the end of the dance that had set her nerve endings dancing. Worse, maybe she’d felt something he hadn’t.
She blew out a quick breath, dragging a French fry through a small pool of ketchup. Probably best to ignore that heat even if it did exist. She didn’t need the added complication of an attraction to one of Ronnie’s bachelors, even if Paul wasn’t exactly in the same category as the others.
“This tastes good,” Ronnie chirped from the other side of the table as she put down her wine glass. She gave Paul another sunny smile. “Thank you for suggesting it.”
The jukebox swung into a slow dance and more couples packed the tiny dance floor. Billy Joe glanced at Ronnie, then elevated an eyebrow in a low-grade lady killer expression. On Ronnie’s other side Brendan’s jaw firmed.
Monica closed her eyes. All she wanted to do was eat her burger and sip her margarita. She really didn’t want to start breaking up fights over Ronnie.
“Can I have this dance, ma’am?”
Monica’s eyes popped open. The man standing in front of Ronnie looked like a local—tall, lean, wearing jeans and a faded plaid shirt. If she’d been casting somebody for Salt of the Earth, he’d have been in the top five.
Ronnie blinked, then glanced at Monica. “Okay?” she mouthed.
Okay? Geez, since when had she become Ronnie’s caretaker? Probably since she’d let Ronnie take over her life. She nodded quickly. “Sure.”
Ronnie awarded the new guy with one of her smiles and gave him her hand. Billy Joe and Brendan were wearing the same expression for once—general annoyance.
“So what are we supposed to do?” Billy Joe snarled once Ronnie was on the dance floor with her new partner. “Just sit here?”
“You could always ask someone to dance with you,” Monica said through her teeth. Then she watched Billy Joe’s expression morph from annoyed to appalled.
“Not me for Pete’s sake,” she snapped. “The room’s full of girls. Go.”
He gave her one more sardonic smile and then headed for the bar. Brendan stayed glued to his seat.
“It doesn’t seem right,” he muttered.
“What doesn’t?”
“We’re here for Ronnie. We shouldn’t be out dancing with other women. That’s not right.” He scowled at her, increasing his resemblance to a cranky five-year-old.
“Brendan,” she said gently, “there are no cameras here. This isn’t part of the show. You can do what you want. Have a nice evening.”
Brendan gave her a searching look, then turned to Paul. “You understand what I’m saying, right?”
“Yeah, I do. But Monica’s right about this. Take the evening off. Enjoy yourself. When we get to Elkhorn Run, you can go back to chasing Ronnie.”
“You too,” Brendan said, his brow furrowing.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re chasing her too. I mean, you’re one of her bachelors.”
Paul stared down at the remains of his fish and chips. “Yeah, me too. That’s right.”
Brendan still looked vaguely confused. Monica managed to paste on a bright smile. “Go on, Brendan. Go talk to the people at the bar. Try a couple of dances. Relax.”
Brendan glanced back and forth between them again, then shrugged. “Okay. You should dance too.”
“We will,” Monica said quickly. “Later. I’m still eating.”
She watched him saunter toward the dance floor where Ronnie was doing the two-step.
Paul slumped back in his seat, sighing. “Does it occur to you that this has been a particularly lightning-struck show so far? You lose a bachelor. You get stuck with me. We all end up in Salt Box. Do you find yourself wincing as you wait for another shoe to drop?”
“I wouldn’t describe it as ‘stuck w
ith you,’” she said briskly. “So far today you’re the only thing that’s kept me sane.” She felt her cheeks heat up. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to see her blush in the darkness.
His grin was slightly crooked, although still gorgeous as hell. “Glad to oblige, ma’am.”
She leaned back in her chair again, telling her hormones to knock it off. They were skating much too close to thin ice. “Lot of people in here. More than I expected at a ski resort.”
He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s the summer high season for tourists. They’ve got lots of outdoor stuff to do and good scenery. Even in the summer, Colorado still draws them in.”
“Did you do this when you were growing up here?”
One of his eyebrows arched up. “What? Dance?”
She shook her head. “No, I mean the outdoor stuff—camping and fishing and skiing. All of that.”
He shrugged. “I fished with my dad. My family camped. I was in the ski club in high school. It’s hard to be a couch potato around here.”
“Are you going to call them?”
“My folks?” His expression became flat. “No. They’d want me to come down and visit, and I can’t. Plus I don’t particularly want them to know I’m one of Ronnie’s entourage. Although they’ll probably find that out when the show starts broadcasting next week. I can’t imagine my sister will let that get by without telling them.”
Monica felt a little like wincing. After all, she’d gotten him into this. “Will they be upset?”
His lips curved into a slightly sour smile. “On the contrary. My mom might be ecstatic. She’s been trying to get me hooked up with somebody for a couple of years now.”
Crap. “She’ll think it’s real?”
He shrugged. “She might hope it was. And I’m not sure I’ll have the heart to tell her the truth, or tell her all of it—that I’m just sort of window dressing. So she may be hurt when I’m eliminated.”
Monica stared back at the dancers again, feeling her shoulders clench. “I guess some people do believe the whole matchmaking thing. I mean, I think Ronnie does. I might have once upon a time. When I first starting working for Fairstein.”