by Cora Seton
“Oh, that’s right.” She beat him to the punch. “You had a backup bride, didn’t you? Avery.”
“Avery isn’t a backup bride.” He caught two of the crew exchanging smiles. Elizabeth really knew how to keep them happy, didn’t she?
She lifted an eyebrow. “Which makes you an oath-breaker, doesn’t it? Aren’t you afraid the ghosts of the past are going to hunt you down and find you?”
Hell. Walker rode out the shiver that traced down his spine, determined Elizabeth not see she was getting to him. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this full-frontal attack. He prided himself on not being superstitious, but plenty of things had happened in his life, both here in Montana and overseas during his missions, that he couldn’t explain. Growing up on the reservation you knew damn well the past could affect the present.
He wanted to say he wasn’t responsible for what his father had done, but they were all responsible for each other, weren’t they? The debts of the parents were passed down to their children—the evidence of that was all around them in the way the world was warming up, the way the poorest nations were paying for the sins of the richest.
“You don’t want me.” He cursed the upbringing that wouldn’t let him destroy her on national television, despite the fact she seemed ready to destroy him.
She laughed. “Is that what this is about? You don’t want to trade Avery’s idolizing worship for my knowledge of exactly who you are? Should I spell out the past to her? Tell her everything?” She emphasized those last words, sending him another message, and he realized this was the reason for the whole stunt. She wanted him to know she wouldn’t hold back from saying things in front of the cameras. From airing their families’ dirty laundry in front of millions of viewers. He could live with that.
Could Sue?
Walker swallowed. Sue had dealt with so much already.
“Come on, Elizabeth. Avery doesn’t idolize me.” Elizabeth was pissing him off. She didn’t get to come here and cut Avery down. He didn’t like the way she was threatening him, either. Threatening Sue, actually. Walker knew Avery—she was compassionate enough to forgive anything. It was Sue who’d be devastated by what Elizabeth might say.
“But she idealizes you, doesn’t she? Avery idealizes everyone.”
So Elizabeth had watched the show. Was she jealous of Avery? Walker couldn’t make that fit with the girl he’d grown up with.
“You want to give up your career and come live here—at Base Camp?” he returned. None of this made sense.
“Why not? You’re fighting climate change, too, in your way. Lord knows there are wildfires in Montana.”
True enough, but who would pay her to study them here?
“Why come so early this morning?”
She shrugged out of the light jacket she was wearing and tossed it through the open window of her truck onto the front seat. “Warm today, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer that.
“I’m here to help with your chores,” she said in answer to his previous question. “That’s what a good wife does, right?”
Now she was goading him.
“Why do you want to be my wife, Elizabeth?” He wasn’t going anywhere until he had an answer.
Elizabeth surveyed him, then looked past his shoulder to the crew fanned around them. Grinned suddenly in a way that took him totally aback, so that when she crossed the space between them, went up on tiptoe, cupped his chin in one slim hand and kissed him on the cheek, he didn’t react until she was gone again, heading for the pastures.
“Because I’ve been lying my whole life, Walker.” She raised her voice so it would be clear to the viewers when this exchange was included in the next episode. “I’ve been in love with you since I knew what love was. Now let’s see those famous bison of yours.”
Walker stayed where he was, stunned. The crew dithered around him, unsure which of them to follow and film.
In love with him?
Like hell.
His attention was caught by the flash of more headlights. A truck he didn’t recognize swept into the turnout where the others had parked, caught them all in its beams, paused, reversed with a squeal of tires and high-tailed it out of there. Elizabeth, already some yards away, stopped to look, too, and stayed where she was long past when the vehicle had disappeared again, as if bracing herself for its return.
“Do you know who that was?” he challenged her.
She shook her head quickly. “No idea. Do people do that? Try to get a look at this place? Fans of the show or whatever?”
“It hasn’t happened before.” Not since Deader Than Ever had picketed them and their fans had thronged the place.
She shrugged. “I’m going to see those bison.”
He watched her stride away, thoughts churning in his mind. She was lying. She’d never loved him.
She needed something else from him. Publicity, maybe? Did she want to advance her career by being on TV? Or did she harbor a grudge for the wrong his father had done to her parents? Had she come to wreak some twisted vengeance of her own?
He turned to stalk back to the bunkhouse.
And came face to face with Avery.
Happy face!
Avery could hear her acting coach’s voice as clearly as if she was eight years old again, standing in the mirrored studio at Ms. Samuelson’s acting academy.
I don’t care if your dog died. When you step onstage, you play your part. You think Broadway stars sulk in their changing rooms if they have a hard day? They’re professionals. They show up. They leave themselves at the door. They never let the company down!
Ms. Samuelson’s directives had served her well many times during her life when she couldn’t afford to let anyone see her true feelings, but Avery had never needed to call on them as much as she did right now. Funny how everyone always told her she wore her heart on her sleeve.
They didn’t know her heart. Not really.
And Walker wasn’t going to know it now.
Elizabeth hadn’t come here on a whim. She loved him.
Had loved him all her life.
“Avery.”
She put up a hand to stop Walker from advancing. If he touched her after Elizabeth had kissed him, it would cheapen everything they’d had so far. Maybe that was unfair. Maybe Walker wasn’t to blame for Elizabeth’s actions.
But he hadn’t stopped her.
“I’m going to make this right,” he said.
“How?”
He set his jaw and shook his head. “Trust me.”
Trust him? Did he have any idea what he was asking of her?
He held out his hand. “Let’s do our chores.”
Avery let out a sound that was half laugh, half gasp of disbelief. Chores? With him—and Elizabeth? She’d heard what the other woman said. Elizabeth was here to be his wife, starting today.
“Are you sending her home?” she managed to ask, proud of the way her voice remained steady.
Walker hesitated, and Avery knew she’d lost him.
Elizabeth had some kind of hold over him. A promise. And the one thing Avery knew was how highly Walker valued his honor. It was why he hadn’t led her on. “When I’m free,” he told her once when he’d leaned in to kiss her, then drawn back before their mouths touched. At the time, she’d thought he was as frustrated by the waiting as she was.
But maybe she’d been reading too much into all that.
“I’ll sort it out. I promise.”
She didn’t want to hear about promises. “I… can’t do this.” She turned on her heel and headed to the bunkhouse, bracing for him to come after her. Praying he would, even if the cameras followed him.
He didn’t.
Avery checked over her shoulder despite telling herself not to, but the only ones behind her were crew members.
Walker was giving her up without a fight.
She swerved around the bunkhouse and scrubbed the tears from her face with her sleeve as she stumbled along. How could she have been so
fooled by him? She covered her face with her hands as shame heated her cheeks. He’d never made her any promises, had he? Not until yesterday. It was all looks and little courtesies and dry jokes that only they shared. She’d read love into his tenderness with her, desire into the time they’d spent doing chores. It could just as easily have been the kind of attention a bored man gave to the nearest woman when his real love was miles away.
If that were true, though, why would he say he was going to propose to her today?
She dried her cheeks again and marched on as it grew light. What did it matter? Today had arrived, and he hadn’t proposed.
The truth was, Elizabeth had something she didn’t have. Walker’s ties to his grandmother and the Crow clan meant everything to him. His mother had never figured in his life. His grandparents in town had done their best but had little to offer him compared to the rich community he experienced on the reservation. Over time, the Crow side of his family had claimed his heart.
Elizabeth was part of that.
When her phone buzzed, Avery took the call without thinking and winced when she realized it was her mother. She was feeling far too raw to deal with her mom’s happy chatter, but it was too late now.
“How’s my favorite daughter?” Diana Lightfoot asked.
“I’m your only daughter,” Avery said tiredly.
“You’re still my favorite! Has Walker proposed yet, or is he waiting a couple of days to build tension?”
“He hasn’t proposed,” Avery said flatly.
“He will,” Diana trilled. “I can’t wait for your wedding. It’s going to be so romantic, I just know it. You are cute as a bug, and he’s so handsome!”
Nothing about this was romantic, but she couldn’t say that to her mother. Her parents’ story was all rainbows and sunshine, love at first sight and happily ever after. They called each other darling and honey bunch, tucked love notes into lunch bags and between the pages of books each other was reading, held hands when they walked and smiled when they met up again after the shortest separation.
Once she’d thought she’d have a love like that.
“What about your work? Have you convinced Fulsom to back your project?”
“Not likely.” Avery nearly snorted. Fulsom had plenty of money to throw behind Renata and Eve’s documentary ideas, but when she’d gathered her courage and called him directly to see if he was interested in funding the romantic comedy she was writing, she hadn’t made it past his secretary. She’d let the other women know she was done with going along to get along. She’d be focusing on her own work from here on in, no matter how hard it might be to get anywhere with it. Since then, she’d found it hard to focus.
“You’ve given everything back you stole, right, honey? You know that worried me. I don’t want the others to dislike you.”
“I gave everything back.” Avery counted to ten. God knew she wouldn’t do anything to be disliked. Harmony and friendship, love and cuddles, that’s what the Lightfoots were all about.
“Everything will work out. It always does. Oh, here comes your father with the biggest bunch of flowers you ever saw! We’re heading out for our morning walk. Call you later, honey!”
Avery pocketed the phone with a sigh. Everything might work out for her parents, but they seemed to have cornered all the luck in the family.
Nothing ever worked out for her.
By lunchtime, she was barely holding on to her sanity, wondering what Walker and Elizabeth had been getting up to all this time. When she arrived at the bunkhouse for the meal, she found they’d beaten her there and were sitting on logs near the empty fire pit, balancing their plates on their laps. Elizabeth was watchful. Both of them silent. Avery slipped past them, entered the bunkhouse and got in line for food.
“When’s that woman going to leave?” Hope asked her. She and her husband, Curtis, were in line ahead of Avery, and Curtis was already being served by Kai and Addison. Hope was tall and dark-haired, but Curtis was even taller, a big, burly man who worked on the houses with Clay and the rest of the building crew and carved wonderful things out of wood. Their dog, Daisy, waited patiently by the door.
Avery picked up a plate and moved along behind Hope. “I don’t know.” She didn’t want to talk about it, either.
“Here,” Curtis said, handing his wife a full plate and taking the empty one she held.
“Walker’s going to get rid of her, right? He wants to marry you.”
Avery could only shrug. When Curtis’s plate was full, he guided his wife outside. Daisy followed.
“I’ll save you a spot,” Hope called back at her.
Avery envied the couple their happiness. Curtis was always like that: solicitous of Hope’s comfort and safety. Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, he’d grown even more careful around her, ready to guide her past the smallest obstacle in her path. They were always cuddling and kissing.
It was infuriating.
“Hi,” she said to Kai and Addison when it was her turn.
“Salad today and Potatoes Montana.”
Potatoes Montana was one of Kai’s signature dishes, and Avery knew it contained bison meat, something she didn’t allow herself to think too deeply about. She carried her plate outside, took a seat near Curtis and Hope and tried not to look at Walker and Elizabeth across the way.
“Hey, have you guys seen this video?” Hope said suddenly, her exclamation cutting through the rest of the conversations. “Looks like Star News started a new daily segment about us. It’s supposed to showcase the ways in which viewers are changing their lives since watching Base Camp. That’s what the tagline says, anyway. I get a notification when people talk about Base Camp online,” she explained, taking in the confused expressions around the room.
“That’s interesting.” Riley perked up and reached for the phone, but Hope held on to it.
“Wait, Star News?” Boone asked. Avery understood his question. Star News didn’t generally talk about subjects like sustainability—unless it was to downplay the need for it.
“Yes, Star News.” Hope made a face. “I can only imagine what they have to say. I’ll play the clip.” She tapped the screen and held up the phone again. Even with the volume all the way up it was hard to hear, and everyone leaned in to try to make it out.
“It’s a reporter on the street,” Hope said. “She’s interviewing people.”
“Base Camp? It hasn’t changed my life any,” a man said on-screen. “I’m not interested in some hippie commune.”
All around her, Avery heard her companions huff out exasperated breaths. One thing she’d learned this past year was that Navy SEALs don’t care to be compared to hippies.
“My life has been changed by Base Camp. Now I gas up my Humvee every week and drive extra, just to show them!” another man said. “I don’t need anyone telling me I’m ruining the environment.”
Avery exchanged an alarmed glance with Savannah. Could their show really make people want to pollute more?
“I’ve started using reusable shopping bags,” a woman said brightly. “I think we can all do our part to make this a better world.”
“Base Camp? Never heard of it,” another woman said.
“It’s the one where everyone gets married,” a younger voice piped up. The woman’s daughter, maybe? Avery couldn’t make out the images on the little screen.
“I think those people need to get off their asses and see how the real world lives,” another voice said. “All I hear about is climate change. What about jobs? What about crime? When we figure them out, then we can figure out this climate thing.”
“And there you have it,” a cheerful announcer’s voice finished the clip. “Base Camp. Seems to me it’s not changing much of anything.”
Hope lowered her phone and slipped it into the pocket of her green gown, exchanging a look with her husband.
A babble of voices welled up around Avery, none of them happy.
“They cherry-picked those comments,” Clay said angrily.
>
“They weren’t interviewing anyone in California, that’s for sure,” Savannah said.
“I never watch them anyway,” Addison said.
“Why the hell are they running that segment?” Boone said. “Our show doesn’t air on their channel.” He caught sight of Walker, sitting by Elizabeth. “Why aren’t you pissed?” he demanded.
“Told you ages ago. People don’t change,” Walker said. Beside him, Elizabeth nodded grimly.
“Walker’s right,” she said. “People don’t want to hear about climate change. And other people don’t want them to be told. It’s against their interests.”
“People change all the time,” Curtis said to Walker. “If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any progress at all in the world, and there’s plenty of progress.”
“There’s plenty of money ready to stop it, too,” Elizabeth countered. “You can’t just be passionate; you have to be smart. This isn’t a fight you can win in one television season. It might not be a fight you can win at all.”
Her cynical statement left a stunned silence in its wake. After a moment, Walker got to his feet. Avery found herself holding her breath. Surely he couldn’t believe that. Surely he’d say something—
But he didn’t say a word. Instead he walked carefully to the bunkhouse with his dishes and came out again a moment later, empty-handed, to walk toward the barns.
“Guess lunchtime is over,” Elizabeth said dryly and followed suit.
Avery ducked her head to avoid everyone’s curious looks and moved her food around her plate with her fork until people turned to their neighbors and continued the conversation in smaller groups.
“That’s a pretty nihilistic outlook Elizabeth has.” Savannah leaned close to Avery. “I can’t see Walker being attracted to a woman who thinks that way. It’s not like him at all.”
“It’s exactly like him,” Jericho countered. “You’ve seen Walker only around Avery.” He cut off and cleared his throat. “I mean… he’s always been pessimistic as hell. He didn’t join Base Camp thinking we’d change the world, you know. He just needed something to do until it all crashes and burns.”
“Nothing’s going to crash and burn. Jericho, don’t say that! That’s awful!” Savannah took Jacob from his arms and held her baby close, kissing his cheek as if to protect him from such a future. “Everything is going to be fine,” she crooned to him.