by Peggy Jaeger
“Why Nikko had to drag us all the way out here is beyond comprehension.” Jade reclined in a chair, eyes closed as one of her assistants rubbed lotion on her face.
Both judges were garbed in what Stacy termed cowboy dress, complete with boots, a bolero for Dan and a frilly, flirty skirt for Jade. Twin Stetsons sat on a tabletop, ready to be donned before filming.
“You both okay with your scripts?” she asked.
Dan nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. She’d expected nothing less. The man’s behavior since arriving had proven he was a total professional. Always letter-perfect, on time, and in a good mood, ready to give a bravura performance.
Jade, on the other hand, was still proving to be a nightmare.
Carrie had cornered Stacy before leaving from the ranch and told her Jade had made a hasty retreat from judges’ table once filming had been done the night before and raced back to her room. When Carrie had caught up with her to discuss today’s shooting schedule—through the door of her room—Jade had told her to go away and let her be. She was tired and needed her sleep.
Carrie had acquiesced, but as she was turning to go she heard the distinctive sound of glass banging against something metal. This morning, she’d run back to the room once Jade had left it and found two empty wine bottles in the bathroom trash bin.
Stacy glanced over at the now-upright woman in the chair and noted the puffiness around her beautifully made-up eyes. The skin on her neck was slightly sallow and Stacy feared her face was probably the same color under the heavy foundation.
Stacy knew how she’d handle this potentially disastrous situation, but she couldn’t do what she wanted. Nikko was, as he’d repeatedly mentioned, in charge. It was up to him to decide what to do about the worrisome judge.
“I’ll call when they’re ready for you,” Stacy told them.
The interior of the coach had been a pleasant and cooling break. The moment she stepped back outside the heat slapped her in the face and she immediately began to sweat.
Back under the canopy, at least, she was out of direct sunlight.
“Get the judges cued,” Nikko said. He wasn’t looking at her, but she got the distinct impression he was addressing her, so she beeped Carrie on the walkie-talkie. They could hear Jade’s shrill and complaining voice the moment she stepped from the coach. One of her assistants held an oversized umbrella over her body so not one speck of sunlight filtered through, the other carried an opened bottle of water with a straw floating in it.
Nikko’s sigh was deep, loud, and annoyed.
“What are the chances we’ll get this in one take?” he asked.
No one replied.
Four takes later, the intro was done.
Jade repeatedly flubbed her lines, then, due to her sweating, had needed her makeup reapplied after each stop.
“If we get out of here before we all fry to death, we’ll be lucky,” Nikko said. “Okay. Start the tastings.”
Since the challenge had been to prepare breakfast using the rudimentary utensils over an open fire, and in under forty-five minutes, the chefs were limited in the flavor profiles they routinely used and had to settle for cooking the best-tasting dish they could without an array of spices and herbs. This challenge was designed to show how good their food could taste under substandard conditions.
Stacy thought the challenge was brilliant. These were world-class chefs, spoiled by having the finest of everything at their fingertips. How would the best-of-the-best rise to such an elementary task?
The smell of eggs and bacon filled the air, tinged with the subtle aromas of flour and sugar. Half the chefs had created egg dishes, the other opting for pancakes, or as Clay Burbank smilingly called his, “floured orgasms.”
Once the tasting was completed, done without a flub or flutter from Jade, the judges were excused back to their comfortably cool coach and the chefs, as a unit, all began to unbutton their uniform jackets and slip out of them.
“I’m sweating like a friggin’ farm animal,” Dorinda said with a laugh. “I need water to drink and a pool to dive into.”
Stacy surrounded them and their individual producers, handing out bottled water and commenting on the meals they’d made.
“I think the kid took this one, hands down,” Clay said, tipping his bottle at Riley MacNeill. “Whatever the hell he made smelled like heaven in a skillet.”
Stacy glanced over at the youngest chef and, as she had before, saw him straightening up his workstation. She walked over to him.
“You don’t have to do that.” She handed him a water bottle. “Get your coat off and get cooled down. You must be dying in this heat.”
He opened the bottle, took a long draught, and then spilled the remainder over his head. “Thanks,” he said, shaking his head like a wet dog.
Stacy’s laugh was quick and easy. He was such a kid.
“We should be leaving in a few minutes,” she said to the group. “When we get back, you all can get started on tonight’s challenge for dinner. You’ll have three hours to prep.”
“Hey, when are we gonna get a break, Stacy?” Lou Jiordino called out. “Two days. Four challenges. All these friggin’ filmed interviews. Usually on a competition show we get a day in between, at least.”
“Lou, you knew the schedule before you signed on,” she said. “This production isn’t like the others you’ve done. It’s set up differently.”
“Truth,” the chef said, crossing his arms petulantly in front of him. “Other shows we get treated like pros. So far on this one, Stamp has been treating us like indentured servants.”
From the corner of her eye Stacy saw Nikko, who’d been making his way toward his motor coach, turn and level the group with a stare even she could see from this distance was irritated. Before she could think of what to say, he started marching toward them.
Instinctively, her gaze shot to his injured leg, searching it for any signs that walking was causing him pain or discomfort.
She took a quick breath when she saw none.
“Something wrong, Jiordino? Something you need clarified?”
Stacy had to admit, the director certainly had a way of changing the atmosphere in a room. Or in this case, a canyon.
“Not wrong, Nikko, no. Not at all.” The chef’s smile looked perfunctory and forced. “Just wondering when we’re gonna get a little downtime, you know? The trip out here from the East Coast was long, and then we started up right away with filming. I’m still a little...you know, jet-lagged.”
It was petty how happy she felt not to be on the receiving end of Nikko’s displeasure for once, when he answered the chef in a voice that sounded like ice cracking on such a blistering day.
“Got somewhere you need to be, Jiordino, other than here, honoring your contract? Competing for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
“No, man, it’s just…” Face already red from the heat, Jiordino’s cheeks turned the color of overripe tomatoes.
Nikko’s gaze raked the group from one end to the other. “Anyone else feeling tired? Jet-lagged? Unable or unwilling to fulfill their contract obligations?”
Many of the gathered chefs drank from water bottles, looked around at their surroundings, down at the ground—anywhere but at Nikko.
Their silence echoed.
“I didn’t think so.” Addressing Lou again, Nikko said, “You can sleep in the bus back to the ranch if you’re so tired, Jiordino.”
With that he turned, stopped, and winced. For a short second his color paled and he bit down on his bottom lip so hard, Stacy was surprised he didn’t draw blood. Then, he took a quick breath and stalked away from them.
She didn’t think anyone else had seen the subtle jerky movement, since the chefs were all doing their best to avoid looking at Nikko, but she couldn’t be sure.
The urge to run after him was strong. But she
realized it was the worst thing she could possibly do. Nikko was already mad at Jiordino’s flippant complaint. Add the pain in his leg on top of that and it was a sure bet if she so much as asked him a question he’d eviscerate her with a response. It was best to just let him be.
Stacy tossed her contacts out the minute she’d got back to her room, rinsed her face and eyes with an ice-cold washcloth and then stuck on her glasses, thankful her eyes now had relief from the dry, hot air out on the location shoot.
The moment they all returned to the ranch, the chefs ran to the kitchen in order to prep for their challenge, while Stacy was immediately run ragged with production problems.
Nikko, occupied in the command center filming and directing the prepping, told her to take care of the problems herself when she approached him with them.
Surprised and pleased were too tame for how she’d felt at his words. Finally, he was allowing her to help him, to trust in her abilities. Finally, he was letting her do the job she’d been hired for; the one she was so good at. Finally, he was coming to see how valuable she could be.
In the next breath, when he’d said, “Try not to screw anything up,” Stacy had to bite back a laugh.
So much for an ego boost.
The problems got solved without issue. The moment she entered the truck again, Nikko’s eyes lit on her and one eyebrow inched its way up his forehead.
Without even thinking, she gave him a thumbs-up. When he simply nodded and then turned back to the monitors, she took her usual seat two rows behind the console monitors.
The past two days had given her a fairly good idea of how he liked to run one of his productions and now that she had a good bead on how to act around him, what to say, and how to conduct herself so that he’d at least let her do her job, Stacy started to relax and allowed herself a few moments to observe Nikko work.
And watching Nikko Stamp work was to observe a master at his craft.
His eyes seemed to be on every monitor at once. Clipped, concise, succinct commands flew from him, his head and hands in constant motion. He stood, his thick thighs leveraged against the console, leaning in for, Stacy knew, support.
No one who’d spoken to her in all the days of production had commented on his—what was so obvious to her—leg pain. No one except Melora.
Even if the girl hadn’t clued Stacy into the ongoing problems her father was experiencing from the accident, Stacy was an astute enough observer she would have realized he was in tortuous pain before long.
With an unconscious graze of her fingers, she traced a trail along her sleeve, up her arm from wrist to elbow. The tiny breaks and bumps her fingertips stroked were a constant reminder of what she’d suffered through during her youth and the way she’d dealt with her own pain.
An oath split the air in the truck.
Stacy shook out of her thoughts to discover one of the chefs bleeding on screen.
“Get the nurse in there right now,” Nikko barked to the room. “Keep filming. No one stops.”
The chef’s personal producer popped up on the monitor, wrapped a towel around the man’s hand, and pulled the chef from camera range.
Before she could be told to, Stacy bolted from her chair and ran to the set. Accidents were common in any professional kitchen, with chefs used to working with cutlery and machinery made to slice and dice. Add in the added stress of working under a time clock and the chance for something to go wrong rose exponentially. A registered nurse was part of the production crew, present at all times on set just in case an injury occurred. Most were easily handled and fixed. There were times, though, when a trip to a local emergency room was warranted.
The moment Stacy saw the injured chef up close, she knew this was one of those times.
“My hands were wet and the fucking knife just slipped,” chef Angel Ortego said.
Talia Davids, the fortyish traveling nurse Stacy’d met the first day of production, was supporting Angel’s hand above his head and pressing down so hard her own hand was beginning to shake.
“He needs to get to an ER,” Talia said. “The finger is hanging—literally hanging—by a thread of tendon. We need to get him to an OR ASAP so he doesn’t loose it. As it is, he’s pouring blood so fast I’m afraid he’s gonna go out on me.”
Stacy knew the nearest hospital was twenty miles away. Transporting him in a truck, no matter how fast it went, wasn’t going to get him there in time.
In a moment of stark decisiveness, she made an executive decision, knowing she’d have to deal with Nikko’s wrath about it. She’d worry about that later, because right now they didn’t have any time to waste.
She called up to the main house, asked to speak with Amos Dixon, and was given the approval to use the ranch helicopter she’d seen her first night.
Less than a minute later Beau came barreling into the building.
“Daddy’s pilot, Kent Wickers, is getting the chopper all set, Stacy. I’ll take y’all over to the hanger in my jeep. It’ll be faster.”
Stacy, a profusely bleeding and increasingly paling Angel, Talia, and Angel’s producer, Juan, all sprinted from the building.
Less than five minutes later, Beau drove Stacy away from the helicopter and watched as it lifted and left the property.
“They’ll be there in no time,” Beau told her when he brought her back to the production truck. “Quick thinkin’ to use the chopper.”
Stacy nodded. “I’m just glad it was available. Thank your father for me again and have him send me an itemized bill for the gas and the pilot’s time. I’ll make sure he gets reimbursed from the network.”
Beau flipped a hand carelessly. “Don’t worry about that. Daddy said he was happy it got some use instead of rusting away in the barn.” He moved a little closer to her, bent his head, and lowered his voice. “Listen, do you have a minute? I’d like to get your opinion on something.”
She couldn’t help being captivated as this big, confident, cocky man suddenly became nervous and awkward, almost like a teenage boy asking out a girl for the first time. His cheeks had turned a charming shade of embarrassed pink and he tucked a corner of his mouth between his teeth.
She had million things running in her head production-wise, but she put them all to the side, nodded, and said, “Shoot.”
“Well, see”—he cupped the back of his neck—“since you’re a girl, and a city girl at that, you know about…girl things. What they like and such, so I thought I’d get your opinion.” His bashful grin was adorable.
“On what?”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small box. Stacy instantly knew what it held.
He popped the top open and she looked down at a beautifully cut, round diamond, the ring band a shiny gold. “Is it too big?” Beau asked. “Too small? Not—I don’t know—sparkly enough? I’ve never bought a ring before. Do you think she’ll like it?”
Stacy couldn’t help the wide smile that broke out on her face. “Well, as a girl, and a city girl, I can tell you it’s perfect. It’s not only big enough and sparkly enough”—he grinned down at her—“but I think she’s gonna love it as much as she loves you.”
“Yeah?”
Stacy reached out a hand and squeezed his arm. “Yeah.”
His entire face relaxed.
“She’s a lucky girl,” Stacy told him.
In the next instant, he grabbed her in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground. Stacy yelped, then laughed along with him.
“I’m the lucky one,” he said, gently placing her back down. “Thanks. I’m heading into town right now to ask her.”
Her heart skipped a beat at how happy he looked. She squeezed his upper arm again and said, “Go get ’er, cowboy.”
Beau tipped his Stetson, said, “Yes, ma’am,” and then jumped back into his jeep.
* * * *
He knew the se
cond she came back. Not because of any extrasensory perception he’d developed, but because he’d been watching for her.
A niggle of anxiety sliced through him when he heard the whirr of the helicopter. Had she gone with them? She hadn’t radioed in either way, so he wasn’t sure.
Nikko rubbed a hand down his aching thigh.
From the corner of his eye he’d watched Beau Dixon drop her off and breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t gone to the hospital with the others. Then, instead of leaving, Beau kept her a few minutes in conversation.
When he’d pulled the box from his pocket and then shown it to Stacy, for a brief moment Nikko panicked.
Jesus, was the cowboy asking her to marry him?
The panic gave way to an insane moment when intense jealousy galloped within him.
When it became obvious Beau wasn’t proposing, just showing her the ring, Nikko took a deep, relieved breath.
“They’ve got ten minutes left to prep,” Todd said from next to him. “Then an hour before they need to serve.”
“Enough time for a few sound-bite interviews,” he said.
Nikko turned his head. Stacy immediately snapped to attention without him even saying her name.
“Do you want me to set them up?” she asked.
“No. Let one of the producers handle it. I need to know about Ortego when we’re finished here so I can update the others.”
With a nod, Stacy rose and started speaking into her communication device.
When Nikko called time a few minutes later, the chefs had finished their prep work.
Stacy stopped speaking just as Nikko stepped out of the truck.
“I have an update on Angel,” she told him.
“Save it until we get on set. You can tell everyone at once.”
The walk to the kitchen building was a mere hundred feet, but to Nikko it felt as if he were crossing the length of five football fields. His leg was screaming and he knew he needed to rest it. His usual brisk walking pace had dropped dramatically in the past few days and he was worried the crew had noticed. They all moved like lightning, used to a fast-paced production.
As they silently crossed to the building, Stacy kept her pace even with his. Todd preceded them to the set, opened the door, and stepped back to allow them entry.
