No. No, I’m not that far gone yet.
I sometimes longed to go back to the ranch where I had grown up, where I could use the land to look after my needs amply even in a lean year. But what about my dreams? Going back meant giving them up.
Not yet. I just need to hold out until I get a lucky break, I thought as I pulled on my shorts and went to sit in front of my computer with the fan blasting. I was still hoping that somehow, my perseverance would pay off, but I was running out of time and options. And living like this was miserable.
I spent a little time going over the news online as I cooled off. There was some business conference this weekend that a local businesswoman had made a splash at—some kind of speech about the glass ceiling and sexism in the advertising industry. Not exactly my speed, but the cute, auburn-haired woman who had given the speech caught my eye.
Damn. This is probably inappropriate as all hell, but she is really my type. Smart is sexy.
And so were those curves, even in her subdued suit.
I was just starting to get into the article to learn more about her when my phone buzzed. I pulled it off its charger beside my computer, checking it.
My eyes widened. It was my agent. The guy usually only checked in with new leads in the morning; the only time he called me this late was when he had a callback or some other kind of urgent good news.
Heart pounding, I accepted the call.
“Calvin!” He sounded excited.
“Hey, Marty. What’s up?” Maybe the guys from today’s bit part had called back after all.
“I’ve got kind of a unique one for you, my guy,” he said in his broad Jersey accent. “The best part is, you get to use some of your outside-acting experience on this one.”
I lifted an eyebrow, interested. “Okay, you’ve hooked me. Now spill.”
“Ha! Thought that would get your attention.” He chuckled and I heard him rifling through some papers. “This one is special. And it pays very, very well.”
I got up to get a glass of ice water while processing this. “What’s the catch?”
“The catch is you have to deal with the client’s…eccentricities.” Faint scraping noises: he was scratching his beard in this heat. I could hear the wheeze and rattle of his air conditioner in the background. “You’ll be performing for an audience of one. And part of the result is, you won’t be able to add the job to your filmography.”
I sat back, a little concerned. “This isn’t another one of those casting-couch deals, is it? Because I already told you, I don’t go in for that.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, and that’s one of the reasons why you’re hurting for work, kid. But I still can’t say I blame ya.” Scratch, scratch, scratch. “Anyway, no, it’s not like that. It’s a private performance for a wealthy eccentric. The idea is, you stay in character whenever you interact with her. If you make it the whole way without revealing yourself, there’s a bonus in it for you.”
“How big of a bonus?” And what did this have to do with my non-acting skills?
“Fifteen thousand. More if the client comes up with more for you to do.”
“And the base pay?”
My heart was pounding in my throat. The things I could do with that money…
“Twenty thousand.”
“Advance?” It was too much to hope for in the face of all this—but so was the rest of this situation.
“Five thousand instant-transferred to you if you sign tonight.”
Holy crap. I could be eating steak tonight instead of back-of-pantry garbage. The total could hold me over for most of the rest of the year.
“How long does the job last, and where would I be going?”
“Two weeks, give or take. It’s a place southwest of Austin. And here’s the part you’ll love. It’s on a ranch, and you’re playing the role of a guy who has lived there his whole life and now runs things. That’s pretty much all there is to it.”
Now I got why he was excited. He had definitely used my ranch experience as a selling point to draw in the client. And that was pretty rare. But was it nailed down?
“How do I audition for something like that?” I asked.
“That’s the absolute best part of all of this, kid. I already showed the guy your clips, and he’s satisfied. If you want the job, it’s yours.”
I froze, mind racing. “I…see.”
For a moment, I felt dizzy with excitement. But then I felt my natural wariness kick in, despite my desperation. I had learned one rule in the entertainment industry: if something seemed too good to be true, it was probably something I didn’t want to get involved in.
Okay, so what’s the catch? There was something about all of this that seemed a little off. It was an awful lot of money for a two-week acting job I could have done in my sleep—with only one member in my audience.
And what was the point behind this exercise, anyway? Did this person that I was supposed to act for have trouble with normal interactions? Was this some rich-person thing? Would they secretly know the whole time that I wasn’t who I said I was, or would they be completely in the dark? What kind of release forms was I going to be signing to get this job?
“What about the legal stuff?” I said.
“I’ll send the papers over with your advance, kid. I’ve got a bike courier on the way.” He sounded so confident that it pissed me off. He had my number, questions or not, and he damn well knew it.
“You already got them to cut a check?” How desperate were these people to fill this role fast? And if they were desperate, why? Was it just to please some picky eccentric with a pile of cash?
Maybe I don’t care too much, under the circumstances. I can’t really afford to care. I was smiling now, an awful lot more than I normally did, especially when talking about work. It was a good sign. It had to be.
I wasn’t a reckless guy, but right then—desperate, hungry, and tired of the whole mess—I looked at the breathing room that stack of money would buy me, and I made the leap.
“Okay,” I said. “How soon do I start?”
Chapter 3
Ruth
Two nights after my mom’s congratulatory phone call, my phone woke me out of a sound sleep at three in the morning. I sat up straight, startled, and clawed for my phone, knocking it clean off of my nightstand. “Shoot!”
I managed to grab it by the third ring, though it had skidded partway under the bed, and I nearly overbalanced onto the floor in my lunge for it. Klutzy from sleep, I banged my head on the edge of the nightstand on my way up. “Ow. Hello?”
Gregory’s voice was grave, sending a jolt of adrenaline through me that woke me instantly. “Please get dressed and meet me downstairs. We have a security issue.”
He’s here? That meant that something had happened that was bad enough that Carl, the night guy at my building, had called Gregory at his house.
Cold with sudden worry, I said, “I’ll be right down,” and then hung up.
I had no idea what to expect. I almost brought my own firearm, which I had gotten a license for at Gregory’s insistence. But then, thinking twice about it, I left it be. If both Carl and Gregory were on the scene, anything that they couldn’t handle…I sure wouldn’t be able to.
Instead, I put my business face on, a not-quite smile that screamed that I was totally unflappable. Inside, my stomach kept clenching and unclenching, like I had eaten something nasty.
Downstairs in the security office, which stood guard between the entrance and the elevators, I could see Gregory standing over someone, while shorter, leaner Carl talked with four police officers. The number worried me just as much as Gregory’s presence.
I didn’t see the last man, the one crammed into a chair between Gregory and the cops, until I reached the glass front entrance to the office. I stopped in my tracks, frowning as I stared in at him: a tallish, out-of-shape man with a pasty face, scraggly beard and a wild, desperate look on his face. I knew at once, even with four cops, Carl and even Gregory, that I did not wan
t to be in the same room with that man.
The man caught sight of me and went rigid as he turned around, then started fighting to get up, and I saw that he was handcuffed to the chair. It squeaked across the floor slightly, and then the cops closed around him and hid him from sight.
Gregory came out frowning and led me to the far side of the elevators. We stood in the air-conditioned space as he turned to speak to me.
“I apologize for not anticipating this,” he said in a calm, low voice that was completely at odds with the tense set of his shoulders.
“What happened?” I glanced around the corner, watching the strange man fight the cops and Carl while handcuffed to a chair. “Is he on drugs?”
“He’ll certainly be tested for them. He appears to be… unbalanced in some way.”
As if on cue, the man started yelling, his voice cracking like an angry young boy’s as he struggled with the police. Then he started babbling, his words hard to untangle thanks to his screeching tone and blubbering. “You can’t…she’s a woman…you’re men…don’t side with her…” He started sobbing, like a kid caught stealing instead of a grown-ass man who had come here to kill me.
I shuddered and turned back to Gregory. “Okay. Let’s start with the basics. Tell me what you’ve found out so far.”
“He was found loitering at the entrance to the underground garage in an attempt to follow a tenant’s car in. Carl confronted him. The man refused to identify himself and started pushing his way inside. Carl managed to pin him down and get him handcuffed, and then called me after subduing him. He also disarmed him.” Gregory stared at me pointedly with his hard blue-gray eyes until what he was saying finally sank in with me, and then nodded once when he saw me pale.
“What did he have on him?” I asked.
“A snub-nosed .38 concealed in his jacket.”
“Oh, God.” My heart pounded in my throat, and my head whirled so hard that I had to lean against the wall.
I had expected a knife or a tire iron or something. Instead this weak, unbalanced man had come hiding behind an actual gun.
“I’m so glad Carl didn’t get hurt,” I said.
“Carl is a professional,” Gregory said coolly. “I’m more concerned about the potential impact on you. This is no longer a matter of remote threats by internet tough guys, Ruth. They have incited one irrational man with a thirst for blood. There will be others.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “It’s…gone beyond acceptable risk,” I agreed.
I was used to minor inconveniences, and a degree of danger. I was a billionaire, after all. People wanted a cut of my money. Felt they deserved it somehow. That’s why Gregory was a part of my life. But this was on a different level.
That…monster…brought a gun to my house. And why? Because he hates women that much? I started to shake. Because he wants to scare us into silence that much?
At the thought of this cretin coming to kill me for speaking out for women, I felt an enormous surge of rage and fear that eclipsed everything I had felt so far. But mostly, I felt…violated. Vulnerable. The floor lurched under me—and then steadied as a huge hand settled on my shoulder.
“Take it easy.” Gregory’s raspy voice took on a kinder note. “We handled it. The guy’s contained. He’s going to jail, where he belongs.”
The growl came back to his voice at the end of his sentence, and I nodded again, furiously.
“It’s not safe for you here, not right now,” he advised in a gentler tone. “The whole incident needs to be reported to the board.”
“I understand.” My voice sounded thick. “I guess I’ll be checking into a hotel for the night.”
“Use cash,” he warned. “These types have a lot of computer guys. They might track the use of a card.”
Gregory insisted on driving me to the hotel himself, and I held in my tears. I was furious, the kind of furious that threatened to make me cry and embarrass myself. It was all so damned absurd.
“Who would even do this?” I asked.
“I’ve got some theories to chase. This guy’s obviously one of the less emotionally self-regulated versions of an internet hermit. No tan, uses the usual slang.” He smirked, his broad, square-jawed face twisting slightly with wry amusement. “Called me weak and dickless for doing my job.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said.
His response was a hoarse laugh—but then he sobered. “My point is, guys like that don’t get out from in front of their keyboards unless motivated by someone else. He might have been stirred up by the crowd online, or someone could have specifically wound him up.”
“Who would do such a thing, though?” I said. “It’s not like these guys have a leader.”
“No, but think about it. You have a whole bunch of weak-willed, volatile, potentially violent guys who hate women. If someone with a personal grudge or goal decides to stir them up, it really doesn’t take much. They’ve already been responsible for multiple mass shootings over pretty much nothing, remember.”
I went quiet, lost in thought. Who would stir them up against me? I didn’t have any exes I hadn’t parted with amicably—and there were all of two of them—so I didn’t think it was that. I hadn’t had to fire anyone lately, either. So what is it?
“You definitely have a point, Gregory,” I said finally. “I’ll wait and see what you and the guys find.”
That ranch out in the middle of nowhere has never seemed more inviting, I thought then. At least there I could have a shotgun handy and nobody would think twice about it.
Once we arrived at the hotel, Gregory carried my bag into the lobby and had to be argued out of getting a room so he could stay nearby. He had a family at home. I would be all right by myself as long as I stayed in my room, didn’t use their internet, and kept my locations turned off.
Finally he conceded this and left after checking my room. I settled in awkwardly, taking another shower and then cranking up the air-conditioning. I was high above the ground floor now, far away from where any lunatic with a gun would be walking in. Far away from anywhere they would think to go.
If there was a “they” at all, and not just one lone gunman pushed to action by a bunch of keyboard warriors.
Either way, it’s better safe than sorry. I’m sure that Gregory and his team will find out who this guy is and what’s going on.
But what was I going to do in the meantime? Hide out in the hotel and never go outside? That couldn’t last.
Maybe it would be smarter for me to get out of town and work remotely. It seemed a little cowardly, almost like running away, but finding out that the man who had tried to break into my home tonight had brought a gun really bothered me. I couldn’t just ignore Gregory’s warnings, either. The guy could easily be just a foretaste of things to come.
I didn’t sleep much that night. It was too late to bother anyone with the night’s craziness, especially since it had ended peacefully. No point in disrupting Mom or Dad’s sleep only to worry them over something that had already been resolved. And I wasn’t sure that their comforting me was worth the guilt.
The next morning, it took me longer than normal to get pulled together enough to be seen at work. That strange man hadn’t even gotten in the same room with me, but he had still taken a toll. I hated him for that.
I still managed to get in on time, yawning between swallows of my triple mocha. But the moment I arrived, I knew that everyone in the office already knew about what had happened. It wasn’t just all the concerned looks I got walking in the door. It was the sight of Mildred Mathers, the board’s usual representative, already sitting in my office waiting for me.
Uh-oh. She does not look happy.
She was a small, birdlike woman with a cap of silver hair and a tiny bow of a mouth that she painted dark maroon to match her prim little suit. She used an old doctor’s bag as her briefcase, every inch of leather, hinge, and bit of stitching fully restored. I glanced at it as I walked in.
She saw me coming and stood, ev
en as Bella, my assistant, was stepping forward to greet me.
“The board’s already met,” Bella warned, and I nodded slowly, almost feeling like I was in trouble for something.
But that was absurd. This was backlash from a bunch of manbabies who didn’t like a woman to have any success. It couldn’t reflect on us long-term. This wasn’t my fault. But would I have to change my plans because of it?
I thanked Bella then walked into my office, shutting the door behind me.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said, addressing Mildred in the most cordial tone I could muster. “Thank you for your patience. I had some difficulty this morning.”
“So I can imagine,” Mildred replied, her small, black eyes fixed on my face. “It’s not a problem, but you do have us concerned, Ruth. Are you well enough to have a meeting about this? Your security head has already made himself available.”
“Of course. I’ll have someone cover the phone while Bella takes notes for us.” I moved over to the small conference table that took up half my office space and sat in one of its chairs instead of going to my desk. “What is the general consensus?”
“We want you to go out of town for a while,” she said simply.
I wasn’t all that surprised, to tell the truth. But my heart still sank a little.
Ten minutes later, Gregory and Bella had joined us in my office, and the four of us sat at the conference table, discussing the situation while Bella typed away at her laptop.
“The suspect’s name is Edgar Mark Grace, a self-described anti-feminist. Unemployed, lives locally with his mother. The pistol is hers. Apparently she gave him the combination to the gun safe in case of emergencies, and he decided to go and do this.” Gregory sounded tired and even more disgusted than last night. He had probably gotten even less sleep than I had, despite my sending him home.
Taming The Cowboy (She's in Charge Book 4) Page 2