"And you have all the names straight?"
"Yes, Liam. Though given your height, red hair, and the fact that you showed up the first night in a kilt and played the bagpipes for me, I've known who you were all along without fail."
"But you're admittedly horrible with names. You might have remembered I was the Scot, and associated everything I did with 'the Scot', but that doesn't mean you remembered my name or what I did."
"I never thought of you as 'the Scot'."
One red eyebrow raised in question.
"I have more flair than that." I rolled my eyes and gave in. "I thought of you as 'Scottie McHottie'. And then as I was learning to associate each profession to the man who did it, I started thinking of you as my 'Mountain Man'. There, are you happy?"
He grinned. "Very. And now that you have all these wonderful associations, what else have you learned about me."
I met his eyes again, trying to judge whether he was testing me for his own amusement, or if he genuinely needed to know that my interest in keeping him around was sincere. "You walk, speak, and move with a quiet authority. You don't seem to take the reins of control, but yet people look at you for your opinion and approval of the plan. So, to me, it seems as if you're always a co-leader of the pack. You noticed that Phillip was always the one cooking, so you've decided to step in occasionally to give him a break from that self-imposed duty. You try to keep the balance in the group going. That's what I've noticed."
"I don't think I'm trying to be a peace-keeper," he said quietly with his lopsided grin.
"No, I don't think so, either. I think that's the manner you exude, and everyone else feeds off it. They respect you, and you respect each of them, in turn."
"Are you as well versed in everyone else?" he quietly asked.
"No, just the ones who dazzle me. I look harder at those ones, trying to figure out if it's just one impressive aspect blinding me, or if he's the whole package I've been looking for."
"I hate cats," he said solemnly.
"I love dogs."
"My mother insists I visit her twice a year."
"I'm not afraid to fly."
"I get so wrapped up in my work sometimes that I spend hours staring at rock samples under the microscope."
"I get so wrapped up in my latest novel that I stay up and write all night then crash the next day."
"I have a lot of safety gear that I have to travel with."
"When I'm getting ready for a convention or book signing, sometimes the living room is filled with boxes of books and handouts and other paraphernalia."
"My job can get dangerous. I have scars from a mountain lion attack."
"Hence your hatred of cats."
"Would you slap me away if I kissed you right now?"
"No. Actually, I'd be offended if you didn't at least try."
He reached out, grabbed me by the hips, pulled me up against him, and kissed me with such intensity that I moaned into his mouth. He'd always held himself so aloof, but every once in a while you'd get a glimpse of what lay under that exterior layer. And as my hand went to his muscled arm, and his hand moved to thread through my hair, I realized he was just as yummy and dreamy as I imagined him to be under the calm facade. If I had any complaint about him at this point, it was that he was just so... massive. I was five foot three and slender. He was six foot four, and was comprised of hard muscle.
He was like having my own personal Himalayan Mountain to climb.
We did eventually pull away from each other. And we did get the conversation around to our childhoods. When he finally left me at the end of our date, I was swoony and smitten.
Dinner was a little awkward after spending so much time with the individuals. Now I just felt like they were all staring at me. They had all nine of us at one long table, inside the main dining room of the interior. We were surrounded by windows and I tried to contribute to their chatter and blatantly watch the sunset as the main course was served. It got a bit better after that, as people focused on their meal and less on me.
It's as though they were all waiting for me to give them each some sort of public acknowledgement of the time we'd spent together. But, I wasn't about to rub one guy's face in another guy's successful date. I ended up thanking them all for spending the time with me and giving me the opportunity to get to know them more. I told them that I thoroughly enjoyed my day and that they'd given me a lot to reflect on and think about.
I also thought, judging by some of the looks that were flying around the room, that they'd all gotten their first real taste of sharing a girlfriend. I had to wonder if anyone was going to get up and walk away over the harshness of the reality of watching some other man kiss your girl, and then not do anything about it.
"So who's going to be my new brother-in-law?"
I rolled my eyes as I filled the back of the seashell Jared had given me last week with rubber cement. "It's two a.m. where you are. You have finals in the morning. Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
Chloe snorted. "Sleep is for the weak. I should be cramming."
"So cram."
"No, I need a study break. Tell me about the group date."
I put the applicator brush back in the jar and screwed on the lid. "What do you want to hear?"
"I want to know who the frontrunner is!"
I turned away from the counter and walked over to flop on the couch. "You have no idea how impossible a question that is to answer. What am I supposed to base that on? Just today? Overall? Conversations? What? There's too many of them, good ones, for me to answer that."
"Ok, who's not going to be my brother-in-law?"
"The other guys really seem to like Mitch. And I keep thinking that if they think he's an okay guy, I should get to know him more."
"Yeah, I get that. They aren't going to want to hang around a total jerk."
"So... I was trying to make sure I got them talking about what it was like for them growing up, what their family life is like now that they're travelling around."
"Sounds like a good plan. What happened?"
"Mitch took me jet-skiing. And yes, I wanted to go jet skiing and I had a good time. But one of the other guys that I'd already talked in-depth to last week could have taken me. Instead, Mitch chose that time slot and now it's one more chance he had for us to get to know each other and he didn't take it."
"What about the other one you never talk about?"
"We actually got to talk today. He turned his back on the cameras and distracted himself with watching dolphins, but I finally found out what he does for a living. And he told me he has a kid."
"So you think he's camera shy?"
"I don't know, but if he is, then he can't hang for another couple months. He isn't going to be able to keep flying under their radar."
"So you'd kick him out for being shy?"
"It'd be a mercy killing."
"What about the limo driver? He's never been red, never been pink, but did all that sneaking over."
"They figured out he was disappearing, so he backed off."
"Smart. He doesn't want them knowing they could sneak over too."
"Yeah. He stepped up his game today. He might just climb his way out of the friend-zone."
"Did he kiss you?"
"No. But open flirting and backrubs involving sun block were had."
"Nice."
"Yeah."
"What about the archaeologist? I'm telling you, I like him."
"You had a five-minute conversation over the phone with him. You only like him because you're trying to live vicariously and he's the only one you've had contact with."
"Whatever. How'd it go?"
"Him, and the one that somehow figured out my favorite drink, have one-on-ones later this week."
"Oh, nice... So, okay, the one that cooks, how about him?"
"In the group, he takes a back seat and lets the others have at me. But when we're alone, he's a big flirt. I really like him."
"He's the old one, right?"
<
br /> "He's not old... he's middle-aged."
"He's mom and dad's age!"
"He is not! Mom and Dad are old enough to be his parents."
"Sure, if she was twelve and Dad fourteen when they had him."
"Whatever. He's hot and intelligent, and the maturity is a turn on with him."
"But has he kissed you?"
"Yes, twice."
"Tell me, tell me, tell me!" she squealed.
"The first time, he snuck me off away from all the other guys, after the last elimination."
"Where?" she asked, still trying to contain her enthusiasm.
"Around the corner of the house, in the shadows, against the wall."
"Oh my God, you like walls."
I smiled to myself. "I do like a good wall."
"So then what happened?"
"He took me back to the group."
"Damn, just when I thought he had something."
"He does have something."
"What about the guy who smells good all the time?"
"That damn cologne fogs up my brain cells! And his eyes, they catch mine and they simmer. I love the idea of his job and the pilot's license is hot, too."
"But those are all superficial things."
"Exactly. I don't know if there's anything more to it than that. And I can't figure it out because I only get him in small doses, after he's showered."
"Why didn't you talk to him after he swam in the ocean?"
"I didn't get to pick when his turn would happen."
"What about the night at the pool, did he smell as good then?"
"Yes! He wasn't wet when I got there and he only got in the pool long enough to sit on the bench and talk to me."
"Well, you're going to have to figure out a time when he's all sweaty and stinky and then talk to him."
"Yeah, let me get right on that."
"All right, now tell me about the mountain man."
"I'm sooo keeping him around."
"What, why? He didn't even get pink last week."
"He just sort of snuck up on me. I mean, yeah, he's a big huge hunk of eye candy, and the brogue in his voice is nice. But he turned on the heat today and I'm just smitten. Maybe he just needed a week to get his bearings, or maybe he's just waiting until the other guys aren't around. Whatever it is, it's very, very good."
"So he kissed you today."
"Oh man, did he ever!"
"What about the Army guy?"
"Mike. It's going slow and steady. He'd already done the whole boat thing with me on his one-on-one, so he took me below deck for a private lunch to make today different."
"That's good."
"Yeah, and at the end of the time-slot, he did the sweetest thing ever."
"What's that?"
"He kissed me on the forehead."
"And this impresses you?"
"It was sweet."
"All right, all right. Swamp boy."
"He's awesome."
"That's the southern accent talking."
"No, it's not. He figured that by the time he had his turn, I'd done every activity there was, and had been staring at water all day, he had us do something totally different."
"What?"
"Roll over and watch the clouds."
"You're joking with me now, right?"
"No. I like the ones that put their own spin on things. It makes me feel like they aren't just along for the free ride. And I also found out he has a dog."
"Cool. Did you tell him about Goldie?"
"No. I wanted to, but I'm still trying to figure out who she favors."
"So who does she favor?"
"I can't tell yet. Most of them play with her. They throw tennis balls and Frisbees all around for her. That dog is having the time of her life. Troy says she comes in at night, all worn out and dragging and flops on the corner of her bed and is asleep half a minute later."
"You need more one-on-ones with these guys, the waiting is killing me."
"I stole one."
"Stole one what?"
"A one-on-one. I figured if Trevor and Phillip could steal time with me, I could steal time with one of them."
"There's the girl I know. Who'd you steal?"
"Jared, the night of the elimination."
"How'd it go?"
"So freaking good! We cuddled, kissed, and stargazed on the roof of the main house. We talked so much, and that's put the relationship with him farther ahead than all the others."
"And I assume there was kissing with him today?"
"There's this heat between us. His lips touch mine and all I want to do are naughty things." I got up off the couch and picked up the seashell, going upstairs to my bedroom.
"Naughty, really? You're the only one I know who talks like that."
"Occupational hazard. I've written too many romance novels."
"Well, say it plain."
"He makes me want to spread my legs for him, is that plain enough for you?"
"Yes, it is. Thank you," she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
I pressed the back of the seashell to the center of my headboard and held it there, allowing the rubber cement time to attach.
"Sounds like Jared is your favorite," Chloe said.
"If today has taught me anything, it's that my opinions of them can change with one simple interaction. Stephen is slipping and Liam is skyrocketing. Who knows what I'll be thinking by the end of the week."
"How am I supposed to put these guys on my chart?"
"Give up on the chart for now. I can't put them in an ordered ranking. There're too many. Maybe once the group shrinks a bit."
"You didn't deny that Jared is your favorite."
I sat back and stared up at my handiwork. "I just rubber cemented the seashell he gave me to my headboard. I think it's safe to say that he's probably at the top, for the moment. But we're only a week and a half in. Give me some time to figure them out."
Wednesday
Morning number three of the week rolled around and I went out to the track for a run. Goldie saw me treading by and joined me, falling into step with me as we'd done a thousand times before coming here.
"Poor girl, how do either of us have the energy left for this?" I asked. "We live pretty active lives, but this mess is physically exhausting and mentally brutal. I swear, girl, if I weren't spending so much time on camera in my bikini, I'd quit the formal exercise until this is over."
She didn't weigh in with her opinion.
The track was situated halfway down the hill and I was too low for the guys to see me if they were on the first couple of floors, but someone was on the rooftop terrace, looking down right now. I couldn't tell who it was from the distance, with the sun behind him. But somebody had just found out that I sometimes run in the early morning.
I finished my self-inflicted minimum number of laps and jogged up to the house. I was headed inside when something sitting on the patio table caught my attention.
Goldie had followed me around as I went to retrieve what was laying there. She must have thought I was going to strip off shoes and stuff to go swimming. But apparently, I wasn't moving fast enough for her and she barked.
I glanced down, saw her paw the ground impatiently and look at the pool before looking at me again and barking. "No," I told her and looked back at the magazines I'd just picked up.
Field magazines about swamp areas and marshlands. I knew Jared had said he'd get me some magazines that, should I end up with him, I might be able to submit some articles for, but I thought he'd been joking.
Goldie barked again and I didn't even look down at her. "No."
She growled, barked, and the next thing I knew paws hit me in the side and I went flying. I let out an outraged scream just before we hit the water.
I resurfaced and started yelling, "You're a bad girl! A very, very bad, bad girl!"
Goldie whined, but kept swimming.
"Get out of the pool! Now!"
People descended from three dir
ections as I swam for the edge and Goldie headed for the steps, growling. Liam got to me first, reached down, and pulled me straight up out of the water and stood me beside him.
I looked around the assembling group of cameramen, producers, landscapers, and suitors. But I didn't focus on them. I was looking for my dog. My eyes finally landed on her and my finger shot out, pointing at the corner made by the outdoor fridge set against the house. "Go lay down, right this minute!"
Goldie tried hiding behind Jared's legs.
"Right now!"
She hung her head, moved over to the corner, and settled herself.
"Are you okay?" Troy asked.
"Yes. I'm wet, but I'm fine," I answered.
"You're dripping blood on the cement," Liam said.
One of the producers called into his hand radio for a medic.
I looked down and saw the blood, but didn't see where it was coming from.
Liam moved behind me and knelt. "It's the back of your thigh. You're all scraped up."
"Look over here," Troy said as he moved toward, and pointed to, a spot on the rounded cement edge of the pool. "Looks like you hit here and scraped skin off." He moved closer to see the damage to me.
"Don't touch it," I told Troy as his hand moved toward me. "If you touch it, I'll feel it and then it'll hurt. Right now, it's numb."
He nodded. "We'll wait for the medic. For now, tell me what happened."
"Goldie wanted to go swimming, and I told her no. So she knocked me in, thinking if I was swimming, then she could go swimming." Goldie knew she wasn't allowed in unless I threw a ball or stick into the water, or if I was already swimming. When we were at campgrounds, if I was going to use the pool and they didn't allow pets, I just left her inside the fifth wheel and she had no choice but to stay out.
"I just want to be clear, no one touched you?" Troy asked.
I shook my head. "Just the dog."
"All right," Troy said as he looked around. "Let the medic up here, but everyone else, scatter. She doesn't need an audience, go. I've got this."
People started to move away and go back to the things they were doing before they'd heard the scream and come running. All except Liam and Jared.
Walk of Shame Page 15
