by Dani April
Outside in the courtyard, Rebecca got a good look around. Last night in the dark, she had seen nothing. Now in the clear air of morning, she could form an idea of how immense this place was. The courtyard was massive, nearly a hundred yards wide. The stones that formed its floor were cracked with age. She wondered if each of them were originals that had been imported or if some artificially aged stonework had been added for effect.
There did not appear to be too much maintenance of the castle either, which was odd considering Peter undoubtedly had the money to afford it. Weeds were already starting to grow up through the cracks in the stonework. Overhead one of the wooden rafters that supported the ceiling was slanted as if it was about to fall at any moment. She supposed it was all for effect, but everything she was learning about this man just put him more in the oddball category.
Loosening one of her cameras, she backed up in the courtyard and began snapping still photos. The shadows cast by the sun still low in the sky added to the eerie effect of this place. The photos would be great for capturing it, and the weird setting of Peter’s home would definitely play a part in the story about him. In the back of her mind, she was already starting to form how she wanted her story on him to be told. It would be an eccentric billionaire story.
She remembered last night after they had arrived he told her a story of a knight fighting on top of one of those overhead walls. She would have to type that into her word processor as soon as she got back to her room and brought out her laptop. The strange way his voice escalated when he told the story was almost like he had been there to witness the fight. As she recalled, the knight had been fighting over the love of a woman, or perhaps more accurately, the desire to bed the woman. Maybe Peter was not only eccentric but romantic, too.
As she stood in the middle of the courtyard, she took in the stillness and quiet all around her. Craning her neck, she looked straight above her into the sky and thought that it had never looked bluer. She didn’t know whether to feel “weirded out” by this ancient transported ruin or whether to allow herself to enjoy the solitude it afforded. The rest of the week would determine how she would present that in her news piece. Right now she felt really at peace with the world, and confident about finishing her job. It was as if the aphrodisiac from the crazy dream she’d had last night was still working in her system. But of course that had only been a wild dream induced by her travel-weary brain.
Walking under the big wooden door that always seemed to be raised for visitors, she began walking down that long flight of steps leading down the bluff onto the desert floor beneath. The stairway was as winding as the hallways of the interior were. Last night she remembered how tired this climb had made her. Going down them wasn’t too bad, but she would have to ask Peter tonight if there was an easier way to get up to the castle. This was quite a climb.
Off in the distance, maybe a mile or two, she noticed some strange craters in the desert. The landscape out there looked like the surface of the moon, only with the sun shining brightly on top of it. She was starting to ponder if she could walk out that far and inspect those craters, maybe snap some pictures of them and try getting an idea what they were, and she was also debating about stopping midway down the flight of stairs and shooting her first video from this vantage.
A man rounded the corner of the stairwell. Rebecca crashed directly into his chest because she was not watching where she was going. The last thing she ever expected to run into out here was another person. She fell directly on her butt and let out a startled cry. The man, still on his feet, loomed above her.
“Sorry about that,” he told her and was quick to reach down a helping hand to lift her back to her feet. “Are you okay? Hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“I’m fine.” Rebecca got back onto her feet and looked up at the man. Did this creepy haunted castle scene just draw the hottest men in the West or what? This guy was tall and muscular with a handsome and honest face. And, oh yes, the first thing she noticed about him was that he was not wearing a shirt. He had abs to die for.
“You must be Rebecca Everheart.”
“I’m afraid you’ve got the advantage on me.”
“Sorry.” He reached out his hand. “You can call me Tex. I work out here for Peter.”
“Yes, Peter mentioned something about having a couple full-time employees out here at the castle.”
“I would be one of them.”
“Actually, I’m glad I ran into you. I was hoping to find you guys today and ask you a few questions, if you have a minute?”
“Sure! Anything for you, Rebecca. Peter already gave us the lowdown on you and wants us to help you out in any way possible. He also told us you were pretty.” He winked at her. His face took on the look of a rascal when he did so, but it accentuated his handsome features. “But he didn’t tell us you were downright beautiful.”
“Flattery is certainly appreciated, and so is your time. I’ve come up with a dozen questions to ask just by walking through the courtyard and down these rickety old steps.”
“I’d be the one to ask on those things. I do most of the groundskeeping work around this place.”
Rebecca reached out a hand and gripped the stone wall. A few stones tumbled onto the step at her feet. She cocked her head at Tex. She didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to insult his work, but the grounds work around here left a lot to be desired.
“I know the place needs a little work on it.” He laughed, seeming the type to not take life very seriously. “But hey, it’s almost a thousand years old.”
“I’m not blaming you. I’m just a reporter making observations.”
He laughed again and put his arm around her waist. He had such an easy air about him she hardly even noticed. “Come on,” he said. “Let me give you the grand tour.”
“I’d appreciate that.” She walked on down the steps with him, all the time aware of his naked chest, but strangely comfortable with the arm around the small of her back. She really was feeling good today. Normally she would be intimidated by meeting a guy this good-looking and feel awkward at the touch. But not on this day. Today she had newfound confidence. Perhaps it was the desert air.
“Tell me, what are those strange craters out there in the desert? Are they natural formations or was this spot barraged by a meteor shower?” She laughed at her own joke.
“I guess Peter really does keep his flamboyant ways a secret from the public. Even from a shrewd reporter like yourself.”
“Why? What are they?”
“Nuclear blast craters.”
“What? For real?”
“We’re on land formerly owned by the US Government. It was a part of the Nevada Test Range. After the cold war was over, Peter convinced some bureaucrat in Washington to sell him some of the land. I guess he figured the low level radioactivity would keep unwanted visitors away.”
“Is it even safe to be here?”
“I’ve lived here for a couple years now and haven’t grown two heads yet.”
The mysteries surrounding Peter von North grew stranger and stranger. Rebecca was determined to get to the bottom of what made the man so odd and reclusive—even if it killed her.
* * * *
Out in the desert proper, Rebecca was able to shoot her first serious video. She shot the bluff with the castle built on top from about a half mile away. Tex was at her side the whole time. She liked his presence. He was easygoing and carefree, and provided a nice respite from the often-heavy atmosphere of the castle. His body was also amazing, and she had to concentrate on not looking at the bulge in his tight-fitting jeans.
“Maybe it’s the radiation in the air,” she told him. “But when I’m out here, I don’t feel like I’m in the real world anymore. I feel like I’ve entered a fairy tale. I keep expecting to see an army of dwarfs and elves come charging up out of those craters at any moment.”
“Here I’d heard you were supposed to be a serious-minded business reporter for some financial news network, Rebecca.�
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“I am supposed to be just that.” She laughed at herself and sighed at the same time. “I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to fit all these impressions of the place into the story. They really don’t fit with the type of news I ought to be reporting on, but if I leave them out, I won’t be doing the story justice.”
“I hope you’ll like it here, Rebecca.”
She squinted against the sun and cast a sidelong glance at him. What an odd comment. She really had no response to that, but maybe he just wanted her to like the place so that she would give his boss a favorable interview.
“How long have you worked for Peter?” she asked him.
“About two years now.”
“How is he to work for?”
Tex thought about this for a long moment. He looked out to the tumbleweeds. The desert wind blew his slightly too long hair across his brow. “He’s a good man.” He seemed to be telling her the truth when he finally responded, but she wondered about the pause.
“What’s your background, Tex?”
“My background happens to be in Texas, if you can imagine that.” He laughed. His laughter was infectious, and she couldn’t keep a smile back from her face. “Mostly I just bummed around a lot. I wasn’t up to much until I met Peter. I worked on some ranches, rode horses, and drove a few cars. Nothing much. No family and no place to call home.”
“Do you work for a contractor or directly for Peter?”
“Direct for Peter. Peter wouldn’t trust a third party getting involved.”
“How did you first meet Peter?”
Again he stared longingly across the field of tumbleweeds. Again the wind blew his bushy hair across his handsome brow. Rebecca wondered what he saw out there and what thoughts were flowing through his mind. “I have a hard time remembering the first time I met Peter,” he told her. “Now that I am with him, it seems like he’s been there my entire life.”
Rebecca shot some more landscape of the bluff with the castle. As she was squinting through the view scope of her camera, she became aware of Tex watching her. He was standing just behind her and was eyeing every sway of her body. She could just catch him out of the corner of her eye. The attention was a little unnerving, but she had to admit she liked it since it was coming from such an attractive man.
“I meant what I said before.” His voice interrupted her as she was scaling the lens down the bluff all the way from the peak of the tallest tower.
“What’s that?” she asked him as she continued shooting.
“About you being beautiful. Peter may have initially picked you for your physical beauty, but you have an inner beauty as well. I think that’s the final reason he chose you.”
She started to turn to him. “Tex, what do you think…”
She was cut off short as two other men came walking into earshot. Out here, every time she saw another human being, it was reason to stop what she was doing. It was a reality check that told her yes people still lived in this world, and yes, she was still a part of the so-called real world, even out here.
“You guys come to meet Rebecca?” Tex yelled at them as they kicked tumbleweeds out of their way and picked a path across the desert floor.
“Miss Everheart!” The younger of the two called to her and ran up. “I’ve watched you on the TV. I am really happy to meet you in person.”
Tex introduced him. “This young guy here is Ramos.”
“Later if you have time…” Ramos stuttered, “may I get your autograph, please?”
Rebecca smiled and shook his hand. He was younger than she was. Probably in his early twenties, with the most beautiful olive skin color she had ever seen. She sized him up quickly with her reporter’s eye, dark eyes, short dark hair, and a lean body. Ramos wasn’t wearing a shirt either, and though he was not as muscular as Tex, Rebecca found his physique to be tight and downright delightful.
The next guy she met actually frightened her. He was a huge, muscle-bound, strong man, with a black beard and black hair flowing down to nearly his waist. He towered above both her and the other two men. He was at least wearing a shirt. A tight-fitting, sleeveless T-shirt that put his arm and chest muscles on display. The muscles set off a gold medallion hung around his neck. A gold earring hanging from his left ear made Rebecca think of a pirate. He just grunted a greeting at her, but didn’t bother to speak or to shake hands. Cold detachment characterized this guy.
“That brute over there is Ian,” Tex told her. “He is a friend of Peter’s who has come to stay out here with us for a while. He’s the strong silent type.”
“I can see that,” Rebecca muttered under her breath. She thought he probably had the strength to lift up a small car in those arms of his.
“And now you’ve met everybody.”
“You guys both work as groundskeepers?” she asked the two men standing with her. Ian had already wandered over to her opposite side.
“I just run errands into the city for Peter,” Ramos said. “Tex keeps the grounds up. If I was in charge of the maintenance work, this place would look a whole lot better.” Tex gave his buddy a playful swat on the shoulder to chastise him for the comment.
Suddenly Rebecca realized she was standing in the center of these men. They were all staring at her. She was pretty sure that was lust she saw in the eyes of Tex and Ramos. What she saw in the strange black eyes of Ian, she could not really calculate.
She cleared her throat and moved over to the side, nearly tripping over some tumbleweed in the process. This was an awkward moment. Partly because the men were all complete strangers, partly because she was going to be stranded out in the desert with them for the next week, but mostly because she felt an inexplicable attraction to all of them as well, and it troubled her. Back in the city, these were not the type of men she would have flirted with. However, out here she felt drawn to them like a magnet, and she knew she would have to fight that feeling before it got her in all sorts of trouble.
“So I guess you guys all know Peter pretty well then?” She asked them the inane question in an attempt to break the tension. They were all still staring at her, and she only wished that she didn’t want to return their lust-filled stares so badly. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the sand beneath her shoes.
“I guess we know Peter as well as anybody can,” Tex answered.
“You will get to know him better than we do,” Ramos assured her. She supposed he meant because she was about to do the round of interviews with him.
“Tell me, do you know what business was so important that he had to be away from home all day?”
Now all three men looked at each other. A hidden message seemed to pass between each of them.
“Peter is never here in the daytime,” Tex explained.
“Why is that? Does he keep an office somewhere?”
“No, he doesn’t have an office anywhere. He just doesn’t make it around the grounds in the day.”
“But at night he’s everywhere,” Ramos put in.
“Peter’s more of a night person,” Tex said.
Rebecca realized there was some secret behind their words. She just didn’t have any clue yet as to what that might be.
Chapter Five
As soon as Rebecca got back to her room, she opened up her laptop and clicked on the word processor, and also brought up a web browser. She had a lot of observations to record and some more research to do. She frowned at the small screen resting on the tabletop before her and began typing furiously.
My host is proving to be more unusual than I had first thought. I knew I was coming out here to spend a week with an eccentric billionaire, but there’s something just too out of sorts about this place even for a recluse like Peter von North. Something altogether different is going on out here, and I intend to prove to myself just how good a reporter I am by finding out what it is.
I just did some checking via the Internet on the story Tex told me today about Peter buying the property from the government. Apparently Tex got it w
rong. While the government did sell some land that once belonged to the Nevada test site, that was over twenty years ago, right after the Cold War ended. Peter wouldn’t have been ten years old back then, and I don’t think even a genius like Peter was doing land deals with the government when he was in grade school.
However, there’s no doubting that this property is on or at least very near land that once was used to test nuclear bombs. Those craters out in the desert prove as much. This opens a whole new interesting facet to the story I was sent out here to do. I got some great video today of the castle and the weird landscape that surrounds it.
Yet my initial enthusiasm for the story is starting to wane. After nearly twenty-four hours spent out in this fantastic place, I am not feeling like myself. This afternoon I almost feel hungover, like the morning after one of those wild sorority parties back in college. Only thing is, I didn’t have anything to drink last night. I just had that weird dream.
Today I met three men who live out here and work for Peter. I felt a strange sexual attraction to all of them. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Their bodies all looked so beautiful out there in the bright sunlight. I could hardly keep my eyes off their crotches. In my mind, I began picturing what they would look like naked. I fantasized about their cocks, and about touching them, and being touched by them.
I think I am going crazy. When I got back to my room, I thought I had a fever. Am I getting sick?
Then there is Peter himself. He is the most handsome, powerful, confident man I have ever met. Strange that I would feel that way about him when I know what a loony tune he is. I have never been attracted to the weird genius type before. Then again I have never been attracted to the rugged working man type the three guys out in the desert represent.
