Sophie shook her head, and Lyle walked away. Zeke was about to sit back down when that strange popping and crackling noise sounded again, this time from above him.
Afterward, he was never able to pinpoint exactly what led him to act. The odd noises were certainly part of it, but in the end, he finally attributed it to instinct and his experience as a firefighter. Zeke was already moving, rushing toward Sophie even as an explosion from the loft rocked the building.
As if it were happening in slow motion, Zeke could see the staircase starting to break apart with Sophie under it—but because he was already in motion, Zeke managed to shove her out of the way of the worst of the falling debris with a half tackle, half grab around her waist.
They came stumbling out of the alcove and into the middle of what had—moments ago—been a movie filming location. Now it was the site of several people stumbling dazedly around as chunks of flaming wood tried to catch and create a larger fire. Without waiting to see if she was okay, Zeke scooped the actress up in his arms and raced out the exit.
Right in full view of the waiting photographers.
Chapter Four
Apparently, when the building exploded, the perimeter barriers meant nothing to news reporters and photographers.
After one wide-eyed glance into flashing light bulbs, Sophie turned her face into the pretty cowboy’s neck. Only then did she realizes she had wrapped her arms around him at some point and was clinging to him as if for life.
“Get me out of here,” she muttered into his shoulder. “Please.”
The photographers had gotten too close because the security guards took the disruption in the restaurant as an opportunity to abandon their posts. Sophie was going to have to have a talk with the security company.
She felt rather than saw the cowboy—she really was going to have to learn his name after this—glance around, as if getting his bearings. Then he struck out straight through the crowd of photographers, elbowing them out of his way.
They crowded around him, pressing against Sophie and yelling questions at her.
Rather than taking the standard Hollywood tack of covering his face and ducking through the crowd, this cowboy stopped dead in his tracks.
“Every last one of you needs to take three giant goddamned steps back.” His voice boomed from his chest, startling Sophie so badly she jumped and was afraid he might drop her, but his arm stayed steady and he held her as gently as if she were something delicate. Breakable. Precious.
Apparently, his bellow startled the reporters, too, because although they did not take three giant steps backward, they did freeze just long enough for him to break free of their little cluster.
Without hesitating, he strode away from them.
“Anyone comes up alongside us on the left, you just go ahead and kick the shit out of them,” he suggested, surprising a laugh out of her. She raised her head long enough to glance up at him and discovered he was grinning a lopsided smile.
Seconds later, he slid up beside a slightly battered pickup truck. He opened the door without having to stop and unlock it—one of the benefits of a small town, maybe?—allowing him to slide Sophie in past the steering wheel and into the passenger side of the long bench seat. Swinging in beside her, he started the truck, put it into gear, and swung out onto the street.
Sophie glanced into the side view mirror just long enough to get a glimpse of the reporters running after the truck and snapping photos.
“Some of them are bound to follow us,” she said.
The slight grin that had been covering his face for a while now broke into open laughter. “Sweetheart, there ain’t a soul alive knows the back roads around Necessity better than I do. If anyone tries to follow us, we’ll lose them.”
Sophie hesitated but finally spoke. “You know, they could probably track down who you are from your license plate registration if they really want to.”
He nodded. “Doesn’t matter. They won’t be able to get onto the ranch.”
A ranch. She glanced down at the old-fashioned dress she’d been wearing to film.
At least I’m dressed for it.
They drove in silence for the few minutes required to drive all the way out of town—less than a mile. Before they got to the interstate, several miles out of town, Sophie asked, “What’s your name? I don’t want to have to call you hey you! for the rest of the week.”
He perked up at that, and she wondered why.
But he didn’t answer immediately, either.
“Unless, of course, you don’t want me to call you your name at any point.”
A deep red blush flashed across his face, and Sophie fought down a grin.
He’s shy.
Although she sometimes had fans get tongue-tied around her, she found it especially charming in this gorgeous cowboy who’d jumped in to save her.
Oh, he’s absolutely precious.
“Zeke,” he finally managed to force out. “Zeke MacAllan.”
“Nice to meet you, Zeke.” She stuck out her hand to shake his and laughed merrily when his attempt to reciprocate caused the truck to swerve.
“So, Zeke,” she said, watching the way her use of his name made that blush surge forward before receding again, “where are you taking me?”
He actually almost stuttered for a moment before he managed to say, “I have a cabin out on a ranch. Everyone in town knows where I live, but it’s on private land—reporters shouldn’t be able to bother you there.”
The longer he talked, the less anxious he seemed. Sophie was glad—she wanted to be able to actually speak to him, especially if she was going to be hiding out in his cabin for some unspecified amount of time.
And yet, she couldn’t seem to stop teasing him, either.
“You’re whisking me away to an undisclosed location? The reporters should love that.”
He whipped around to look at her, his eyes huge, then dragged his attention back to the road. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Maybe we should go somewhere else. Is there someone you want to call? Where would you like to go?”
She almost felt bad about worrying him. He was clearly a sweet guy, and everything he had done so far had been kind. “No,” she assured him. “I think the idea of some time completely free of reporters sounds lovely. Even if it’s only for an afternoon.”
Zeke breathed a sigh of relief, and Sophie promised herself to quit teasing the poor man.
Truthfully, a respite from all the media attention she had been getting seemed like an excellent plan. Filming would almost certainly be put on hold while they scouted a new location—or at the very least, they would need to move on to different scenes. She hadn’t even looked at the schedule lately. She knew that they had plans to spend several weeks in this town—what was it called? Something about … wants? desires? needs?
Necessity. That was it.
They were supposed to be in Necessity for at least two weeks, and with Milo, that meant more like a month. The place had no decent hotels, and the cast and crew had taken over some chain motel near the freeway. The staff had signed nondisclosure agreements, but she didn’t think they would hold up.
Maybe something like this would be a better idea. Hide out somewhere really secluded. Somewhere no one could actually get to.
Within moments, they turned onto an unpaved road, jouncing along for a mile or so before pulling up in front of a gate. Zeke hopped out of the truck, leaving it running, and got out to unlock the gate and swing it open.
By the time the truck had bounced across the cattle guard and Zeke had gotten out again to close the gate behind them, Sophie had come up with a plan.
If she had her way, Zeke MacAllan was about to go on a date.
A very public date.
Chapter Five
Star-struck. That was the word for it.
Or maybe just complete stupidity.
Zeke knew he wasn’t the most talkative guy around. But he wasn’t some c
allow kid, either, unable to come up with the most basic level of polite conversation.
Until he ended up in a pickup truck with Sophie Daniels.
Then I turn into a babbling idiot.
One who insists on calling the movie star I just met by her full name, even in my mind.
Somehow, calling her Sophie seemed too familiar.
Zeke decided to try “Ms. Daniels,” instead.
Luckily, Ms. Daniels didn’t seem to mind his idiocy—though she had insisted on “Sophie.” She’d laughed, but not in a cruel way, and he found himself as enchanted by her voice in person as he’d been in the movie theater.
And now, she was wandering around his new home running her fingers lightly over everything as she examined it. For the first time, he tried to see Necessity through the eyes of people who hadn’t lived here their whole lives. One day ago, he’d loved the tiny cabin, with its history—it had been on the land for over a hundred years. Now as he looked around, all he could see was how worn the place was. His work boots sitting on the porch just outside the door where his mother had always insisted he leave them seemed tacky instead of practical. When he opened the screen door for Sophie Daniels and ushered her in, the first thing he saw was his dirty coffee cup sitting on the table from this morning, still full from when Colton had shown up to talk him into going to the film set. Even the table it rested on was used and battered, furniture that had been inside this house for decades, probably.
But Ms. Daniels—Sophie—simply said, “Wow,” and made a circuit of the room, as if she were riding fences to see what needed fixing and what could be left alone.
Zeke shook his head. What an odd image for him to have of her—she wouldn’t be assessing his home for repairs, for crying out loud.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, finally remembering the rules of politeness that his mother and grandmother had worked so hard to drill into him. “I have coffee or iced tea. It’s sweet. The tea, I mean.”
She glanced up from where she was running her hand back and forth across his grandmother’s quilt Zeke kept tossed over the back of the couch—mostly because it covered up the parts of the sofa that were getting a little threadbare. “Yes, please,” she said. “I don’t often have anything with real sugar in it. But I’ve heard all my life about Southerners and their ‘sweet tea’.”
Zeke managed to contain his snort as he moved toward the tiny kitchen. As he put ice in glasses and poured the tea over it, he called out into the other room, “Where are you from originally?”
“I grew up in the Pacific Northwest—Oregon, mostly, but Washington State, too.”
Zeke strolled back out of the kitchen and handed her one of the glasses with a grin. “Well, if you’re going to spend much time in Texas, one thing you need to know is that we don’t exactly consider ourselves Southerners.”
Her startled blink reminded him of one of the calves he’d had to bring in recently to have its leg checked. It had given him that same surprised look when he’d cut it off from the rest of the herd and forced it into a trailer.
I probably shouldn’t mention that resemblance out loud. She probably wouldn’t want to be compared to a baby cow.
This bizarre encounter was making his head spin—making him think in ways he usually wouldn’t.
Well, okay—to be entirely honest, he was thinking exactly the same way he always did. He usually was better at remembering not to say it out loud, however. He’d had to stop himself at least three times since he met Sophie Daniels in person.
“So what do you consider yourselves?” Sophie asked.
It took him a second to drag his mind back to the conversation they were having. Oh, right. Texans as Southerners. “We like to think of ourselves as a breed apart. If you have to call us anything other than Texan, Southwesterner will do.”
She nodded, her dark brown eyes searching his face for something. If he had known what it was she was looking for, he would’ve done his very best to give it to her right then and there—he might as well have been watching her on a movie screen, the way she filled up everything he could see at the moment.
He blinked, trying to shake himself out of what felt like it might be some sort of impending trance.
“Is there anyone you need to call?” he asked. “My cell phone’s still in the truck, but it doesn’t always get reception out here, anyway.” He gestured to an end table with an old-fashioned landline on it. “Maybe you can call someone and find out what the plan is for the rest of the day?”
At that, Sophie Daniels began worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth—almost as if she were nervous.
And there he was, using her full name every time he thought of her.
Her mouth firmed up as if she were coming to some kind of decision. Reaching her hand out as if to touch him, but never quite making contact, she ushered him toward the living room.
“Do you mind if we talk for a minute?”
“That would be fine,” he said bemusedly.
She led him around to the front of the sofa, where she took a seat. He followed her lead, then sat there, waiting for her to speak. “Was there something you wanted to say to me?” he finally asked when he could no longer stand her silence.
“Yes, actually.” She chewed on her lip a bit longer. “You’ve already been so kind to me, and so helpful. I hate to ask for more.”
“But?”
“But I have another favor to ask.”
Chapter Six
“You did what?” Sophie’s publicist, Eileen, practically barked at her over the phone line.
“I asked him to join me at that benefit ball in Dallas tonight.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Sure I can,” Sophie said, working to sound reasonable. “You’re the one who said I needed something to take the attention of my breakup with Niall. This will be perfect.”
“Sophie. Honey. Sweetheart. Darling. You cannot take some hick off a farm and toss him into the spotlight. He will end up doing something horrendous, and it will all be worse than it was before. Trust me.”
“It’s not like that.” She glanced around to make sure Zeke was still out on the front porch, talking to someone else on his cell phone. “He is not a hick. Or any other terrible thing you want to call him.”
Eileen’s hoarse laughter grated in Sophie’s ear. “Have you seen the pictures yet? They are all over the Internet, and he looks like the terrified newbie he is.”
Dammit. Sophie had half expected the pictures to go out immediately, but she had hoped for a little more time to prep Zeke for what to expect. Well, they had the rest of the afternoon—assuming she didn’t have to go back in and try to film after that on-set debacle this morning.
“I’m taking him with me tonight, and that’s final.”
Eileen sighed. “Fine. It’s your funeral. You remember how dating someone outside the industry turned out for Julia Ro—”
“I’m not her,” and Sophie interrupted. “And it’s not even a real date. I explained that. He’s clear on it.”
“Are you clear about it?”
“Yes.” Her response was brusque—she didn’t want to examine her answer to that question too closely. “I’ll check in with you tonight. Send me anything important in the meantime.”
“You’re the boss,” Eileen said as she hung up.
But they both knew she didn’t mean it.
* * *
“So we’re definitely not filming again today?” she asked Milo’s assistant, Penny.
“Nope. We have to move up our timeline on some of the paperwork for the new filming site, but we should be able to do the rest of the downtown scenes tomorrow,” Penny replied. “You’re free until tomorrow morning.”
Perfect.
As she waited for Zeke to finish his conversation outside, Sophie finally took a sip of the sweet tea that Zeke had brought her. Making a face, she stared down into it. How could anyone drink anythin
g with that much sugar in it? It was terrible.
Setting the glass on the end table, she gazed around the small living room, continuing the examination she’d begun earlier—though this time without quite so much touching. She hadn’t been able to verbalize it earlier, but something about this Texas cabin made her think of her grandmother’s home in Oregon.
On the surface, the two homes had very little in common. Different materials, different types of wood had been used in their construction and their flooring. The decorations were very different. Her grandmother had been prone to doilies and delicate antiques. Although there were clearly some antiques in here, as well, they were heavy, built to withstand a tougher life and the rougher touch of a cowboy.
Something about that thought made her shiver as she glanced back out the door, taking in everything she could about Zeke. She already knew that he was much stronger than even his tall, broad-shouldered physique would suggest. He had picked her up and carried her at a full clip out of that restaurant without getting even the slightest bit winded. Sophie knew some so-called action stars who would’ve been able to manage it.
“No,” she suddenly heard him say. “It’s not a date. I’m only going so I can help her out of a … situation.”
She forced her attention back onto the house, worried that he might find her staring at him.
No, the house reminded her of her grandmother’s home because of how it felt.
Peaceful.
Like the sort of place you might come home to when it was time to rest.
Even the view out the large glass window, so very different from the forests of the northwest she’d grown up with, reminded her somehow of her childhood. Standing, she moved across the room and rested the tips of her fingernails lightly against the glass. She stared out across the view. It seemed to go on forever—open fields of grass just beginning to turn golden in the early September afternoon. Giant, round bales of hay dotted those fields.
Saving Necessity (Necessity, Texas) Page 2
