by Peggy Jaeger
With a quick glance in the full-length cheval mirror, Stacy grabbed her e-notebook, her cell phone, and the room key Amos had given her, and set off to find the man she’d be working under for the next two months.
* * * *
The sound of shouting met her ears a full twenty feet before she got to the front door of the cabin.
Although cabin was a totally inaccurate word for the sprawling two-level structure. Her overactive imagination had conjured a small, single-leveled log home complete with a porch and maybe even a rocking chair, gingham curtains on a lone window, and smoke spewing out of the chimney from a cast-iron woodstove. This was Montana, after all, not Manhattan.
Her imagination did a 180 as she walked up the front steps to land on a porch—yeah, she got that one right—but in every other way she was way off base. The cabin was...well, a house. Not made of logs, but solid, firm brick, the porch wrapping around three sides. Two stories high, it looked like it belonged back in a New England town, not in the center of a cattle ranch. The front door was solid oak, the windows wide and curtained, although not in the red gingham she’d pictured.
The yelling was louder at the front door. Two distinct voices. A man, who sounded just like Dominick Stamp, and a female, younger and shrill. Obviously, the moody teenaged daughter. Stacy cringed at the anger in the young voice, recognizing the tone. She’d sounded much the same way during her teen years.
Should she knock and interrupt the fight, or leave?
The choice was made for her when the door flew open and a blast of cold, air-conditioned air from its interior blew out at her.
The girl was looking over her shoulder and not where she was heading.
Which was right into Stacy.
She avoided getting trampled by quickly shifting to one side.
The girl stopped short, her hand still on the doorknob.
“Oh!”
“Sorry,” Stacy said, giving her an embarrassed grin. “I was just about to knock.”
“Who are you?”
Suspicion curled around the girl’s heavily made-up and lined eyes, her crimson lips pressing into a tight line as she flicked her gaze up and down Stacy.
Not a happy camper, Beau had said. Stacy could add another description based solely on the way the girl was staring at her right now and from the expression in her eyes: Pain. Deep, internal pain.
Been there. Felt that.
Stacy took a small breath and said, “I’m Stacy Peters, the new executive producer. I’m supposed to meet Mr. Stamp to go over a few things. If this is a bad time, I can come back.”
“No, it’s a perfect time, because you can, like, deal with him now instead of me.” The girl cocked her thumb over her shoulder and added, “He’s in his ogre’s lair.”
She didn’t wait for a reply, simply shot past Stacy and jogged down the walkway.
Just as she disappeared around a corner, Stamp roared, “Melora? Where are you?”
This time, Stacy took a deeper, fuller breath and told herself to be calm.
She came into the house, shutting the door gently behind her. It wasn’t difficult to locate Stamp. She just followed his booming voice.
“You get in here, young lady, right now. We’re not done.”
He was sitting behind a massive desk, foraging through several papers on top of it. Stacy took a moment before announcing herself to study the man.
Even from a seated position, his torso overshadowed the top of the desk, a testament to his height. He must have been raking his hands through the sides of his thick hair, because the ends were stuck at odd angles, proving the man hadn’t seen a barber in some time. The deep corrugations bracketing the corners of his mouth told Stacy a few things. One, he was angry— but she knew that from the sound of his voice. Two, he was tired. Seriously sleep-deprived tired. Like a man who hadn’t known the benefits of a relaxing slumber in quite some time. And three, as she’d seen in his daughter, he was filled with pain. His type, though, clearly signaled a physical kind.
“Dammit, Melora, get in—”
When his gaze connected with hers, Stacy had to remind herself to take a breath. Before, his eyes had been hidden behind his sunglasses. Nothing barred them from her now and when they settled on her, widening right before narrowing, Stacy was reminded of the color of her father’s favorite cognac: Rich, bright sepia with tiny flecks of amber shooting out from where they surrounded the pupils, filled eyes tilted upward at the corners.
“What are you doing here? Where’s my daughter?” He looked over Stacy’s shoulder. “Melora!”
“She said she was going for a walk.” Stacy braced herself and, unbidden, moved into the room, directly into his line of sight. “And we agreed I’d come and meet with you privately—”
“I never agreed. I believe I told you I didn’t need or want you here.”
Stacy nodded. “Yes. You did.”
“So why are you still here?” He glanced down at his papers again, dismissing her.
Stacy longed to tell this annoying, arrogant man the real reason she was going to tolerate him for the next few months, but knew the benefit of keeping her mouth shut. Instead, she pointed to the chair in front of the desk, said, “May I?” and held her breath.
He lifted his head and, with what looked like a great deal of unwillingness, swiped a hand in the air.
When she was settled, notebook on her lap, her hands folded over it, she looked across the span of the desk at him.
“Thank you.”
She was surprised when a deep sigh burst from him.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, gruffly, his gaze moving to hers again. “Just say what you need to say. I’ve got a shitload of work to do before filming starts and this is wasting what little free time I have.” He leaned back in the chair, his hand dropping to his thigh, where he gripped it with his fingers.
Stacy ignored the jibe. “Yes, well, that’s one of things I wanted to talk to you about. Time management.”
Before she could say another word, he righted himself again and glared at her. “Excuse me?”
With just those two words Stacy knew immediately why the other producers had quit before production ever got underway. A lesser-willed person would never stand a chance against Dominick Stamp’s forceful, intimidating personality. She could imagine grown men shaking when he settled that dark-eyed, frosted, and piercing stare on them.
Good thing she wasn’t weak-willed and was used to dealing with tyrants and egotistical television personalities.
She clasped her fingers a little more tightly. “It’s my job to see that you have everything you need—including enough time—for the show to run to your specifications.”
“My specifications?”
“Yes. As I said before, this show is yours. You’re in charge. Of everything.”
“Everything, is it?” His sonorous chortle echoed in the room. “That’s a new one.”
“Everything. Budget, timetables, chef challenges, all decisions that need to be made. The bottom line. I’ve worked on and produced enough shows—”
“How many?”
Confused, she asked, “How many what? Shows have I worked on?”
“Yes. You don’t look old enough to have worked on, much less produced, anything.”
Okay, so it was obvious he’d never read the bio Teddy Davis assured her he’d sent before she arrived. She didn’t like tooting her own horn, never had, but had to in order to get this odious man to see her as worthy.
“Three, to date. I was the executive producer of Cooking with Kandy for five seasons. When Kandy ended I produced the Dolly Cardson show, Hello Dolly. When that finished production, Teddy Davis brought me in to executive produce Bake Off after initial production began and the show started having…problems.”
Stamp continued to stare across his desk at her, his exp
ression contemplative.
“I finished with Bake Off last month. It did well in the ratings too.”
Well? Hell, the ratings for the final two episodes had been through the roof, but she didn’t say that.
“You actually worked with Dolly Cardson and lived to tell about it?” he asked after a moment. “Without any battle scars?”
A free and easy smile broke from her at his choice of words and she giggled. His face went expressionless, a fact she didn’t miss.
“They’re well hidden,” she told him, shaking her head, her face becoming a mask of professionalism once again.
He stayed silent, his gaze trained on her.
“Look, Mr. Stamp. I’m not a green kid, looking to make my bones in the business. I’m twenty-nine and have been working steadily for EBS without a break since I graduated from college at twenty-one. Yes, I worked for my cousin in the beginning, but if you know anything about Kandy’s program you know what a high-stress, fast-paced show it was. I know what I’m doing. Now, may I finish?”
Wordlessly, he nodded.
She took a calming breath. “There is only one person who should ultimately be responsible for making all the necessary decisions when it comes to a show, and it’s not the executive producer. It’s the technical director. You, in other words. Not me. My job is to make your job as easy and as worry-free as possible.”
Stacy knew she had his attention when his eyebrows rose. Before he could ask the question she knew was coming, she beat him to it.
“And in order to do that I need to know what you want.”
“What I…want?”
The heat in his eyes had her squirming just a tiny bit in her chair.
“Yes.” She swallowed. “Like I said, my job is to make sure your job is worry-free, so I need to know details, like what food to go with what challenge? What times do you want to film? When do you want the sets prepped? The food ready? The chefs primed to go? All those things are important factors to time perfectly and any one of them can go off the rails for any reason, preventing you from proceeding. It’s my job to see that the trains stay on the proverbial tracks. So, yes, what you want is important for me to know to ensure that everything happens the way you want it to.”
Stacy stopped and took a breath. He’d interrupted her so many times before, she’d wanted to get everything out before giving him the chance to do so once again. She knew she sounded breathless and maybe a little nervous to boot, but at least she had his attention.
“Did Davis tell you how different this competition is from all the others on the network? I can assure you, you’ve never worked on a show like this one before, no matter how many credits you have,” he said after silently staring at her for a few seconds.
“He didn’t personally, but he gave me the show bible, which I read twice, so I could get up to speed. The concept is intriguing.”
“Intriguing? That’s an interesting word choice.”
Why did he have to make everything she said sound as if she was foolish or immature? Well, two could play at this semantics game.
“How would you describe it?”
He leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his desk. “I guess intriguing is as good a word as any,” he said after considering.
It was Stacy’s turn to nod. “As I understand the format, there’s an afternoon of prep once the challenge is given to the chefs, then the cook-off. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then the meal is served to the judges and the ranch employees? The cowboys?”
“Right. The cowboys cast votes, secretly, while the judges mull over the food, which we film. No winner is announced until the final challenge is complete. The chef with the highest number of votes, plus the numerical scores assigned by the judges after each challenge, will be declared the champion.”
When she’d read the show bible the night before, Stacy had seen immediately how such a format could be a ratings powerhouse. Without declaring a winner or voting off a chef after each challenge, and the audience never knowing anything other than the judges’ musings on the meals, the viewers would want to watch each episode until the finale to see if their favorite chef walked away with the prize.
“It’s a great premise,” she told him. “Did you come up with it?”
For a split second she thought he looked embarrassed at the question. “It’s been something I’ve been mulling around for a while,” he told her, casting his eyes back down at the papers on his desk.
When he didn’t elaborate, she didn’t push. Keeping it professional with this man, she knew, was the key to keeping the peace—on set and with her.
“So, again,” she said, opening her e-notebook. “Tell me what you need me to do before filming starts.”
* * * *
Stacy tossed her room key on the dresser and let the yawn that had been threatening to break free for an hour, go.
After her meeting with Stamp, she’d come back to the main house, where she was met by the Dixons, who’d just finished dinner. Amos had introduced her to the rest of his family, asking if she was hungry—she wasn’t—and then she’d asked for directions to the crew quarters. She needed to meet with them, introduce herself, and get the schedule for the next few days done.
Since the ranch was a working one, the property was littered with bunkhouses for the cowboys and ranch hands who helped keep it productive to live in. One such cabin, she was told, housed the technical crew and the rest of the individual producers who’d be personally assigned to the chefs.
Stacy found her way to the single-story building, the sound of raised voices and free laughter drawing her.
The front door was ajar, so she slipped in and got her first view of the people she’d be, for the most part, in charge of.
Her lips split into a huge grin when she recognized several crew members she’d worked with on other shows, one who spotted her and came rushing forward.
Stacy laughed as she was lifted in the air and spun around before being gently settled back on her feet.
“I heard you got here safe and sound,” Peter Luccassi told her, pulling her into a side hug and guiding her into the house. “Long-ass trip from New York, isn’t it?”
She grinned up at the man in charge of the sound and recording crew. “I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore, Toto,” she said back.
“Not even close, kiddo. Hey, look who I found,” he announced as he brought her into the fold. They were immediately engulfed by the crew. Stacy greeted some old friends and was introduced to several new faces, all of whom welcomed her with open arms.
After working on such diverse reality shows, Stacy knew the benefits of having good relationships with the staff, who would do the daily scut work necessary to keep the show moving. A happy crew, her cousin Kandy had told her more times than she could remember, was a productive and hardworking crew. Treat them fairly and with respect, and they’d do anything for you. When she’d worked on Hello Dolly, the main reason she’d been able to turn the show around to the ratings hit it became was because she’d demonstrated to the crew how much they were valued. Something Dolly Cardson had never even thought to show them.
Two hours later Stacy was finally allowed to plead exhaustion and escape to her rooms.
Forgoing a shower, she quickly washed and then rubbed lotion all over her face and body. After changing into her usual sleepwear T-shirt she opened the doors to the veranda and then climbed into bed. She snuggled under the down comforter, loving the cool, crisp air that filtered in from the land surrounding the ranch.
Her mind played over her meeting with her new director. Dominick Stamp, she’d discovered, was a minutia man, and one used to calling the shots, doing everything that needed to be done, and arranging for everything that needed arranging.
Control freak danced through her head numerous times when she’d questioned him abo
ut something an executive producer should have been responsible for, only to find out he’d already done what needed doing.
There were still a great many details and tasks that needed to be seen to before filming ever started, though, and she was going to make sure they were fulfilled. And to Dominick Stamp’s specifications.
The analog clock sitting on the bedside table told her it was way past time for bed. Her body was still on East Coast time and screaming for her to get some sleep.
Tomorrow was going to be a time crunch, with the chefs all arriving on the same flight, needing to be picked up and then apprised of what was in store for them for the next few weeks.
Stacy’d told Stamp she’d go to the airport and round them up. His face had registered surprise, but after a moment he’d nodded.
Score one point, she’d thought at the time.
Stamp’s reputation for being a perfectionist didn’t intimidate Stacy in the least. Perfection, she’d often joked, was cousin Kandy’s middle name and Stacy knew the value of paying attention to details. It wasn’t going to be an easy job to wrestle some of that perfectionistic control away from Stamp and allow her to deal with the aspects of the show that were her job. He was famous—or was it infamous?—for dressing down staff in front of the entire production team and he wasn’t discriminatory in who he screamed at. Everyone from the food-service delivery person to the directors of the various technical teams had been shown his wrath.
Some of the crew she’d just met alerted her to a few tense situations Stamp had already created with his outbursts and they hadn’t even begun filming yet.
Stacy knew the job ahead of her was going to be arduous. Before allowing her mind to finally succumb to exhaustion, she said a silent prayer, invoking her grandmother’s name and asking the woman to help keep her focused and calm during the show’s production.
Chapter Three
Stacy woke just as dawn broke through the open veranda doors. Although the time she’d slept wasn’t long, the quality of the sleep had been restorative and she woke fresh and charged for the day.
