She did her thing, educating America on the beauties of their surroundings and assuring them that they could also enjoy such an adventure. She loved the idea of the show to begin with, and was even more enthused when Warren worked her idea into the show. They were now doing more than just hunting for treasures like gold or jewels. She had a chance to show people the other treasures, the national parks, the out of the way lakes, the adventures.
She had assured Warren they would attract more viewers by catering to all types. She had been right. Their biggest demographic happened to be people who liked the adventure aspect, the get in a kayak and battle the pacific, or the hike up a mountain to find a rare flower, and yes, even the times when they went to gem parks and dug for gems. She had fan mail from women who loved the show because they thought it was about female empowerment. She never saw it that way; maybe because she had never been told a woman couldn’t do such a thing.
She received fan mail from men who liked the adventures and often wanted to ask if she would be willing to come to their neck of the Capri Montgomery
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woods and explore one of their favorite extreme adventures. Sometimes she would ask Warren about the idea. In fact, they were talking about shooting a show in Colorado next season. At least the Colorado shoot was tentative. They were going to follow a town famous snowboarder around, explore the sites, and have fun in the snow. She didn’t know the first thing about snowboarding, skiing or anything else dealing with winter sports…but she knew she liked watching some of the other people do back flips mid air. Curiosity had her pushing hard for this shoot. She just hated that they would have to wait so long to shoot it.
Once she got the final go ahead she would be sure to start contacting their die-hard viewer and set things in motion.
Right now all she could do was think. Her mind was running a mile a minute, even if her body was refusing to go with it.
The knock on her door lulled her out of her thought filled realm.
“Go away,” she mumbled. She didn’t want to move out of the bed. She just wanted to lie there.
“London, it’s Gavin.”
The sound of his voice perked up her senses. She pulled the cloth covered band from her hair, letting wet strands fall to her back.
She made sure the robe she was wearing was tightly closed before quickly moving across the floor to open the door.
“Gavin, what a surprise. To what do I owe this honor?” The McGregor Affair
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His eyes roved over her body from head to toe and back up. A slow smile tugged at his lips. “A thank you present,” he brandished a small bag, dangling it from his index finger.
“For what?” She found herself reaching out to take the bag.
“This,” he pointed to the bandages she had applied to his arm.
She laughed. “Wow. If fixing you up earns me gifts then I should make sure I do it more often. Come on in.” She moved out of his way so he could enter.
“Did you just get out the shower?” He gestured to the open bottle of oil.
She nodded a silent yes. So what if she had been out for nearly fifteen minutes…"just” meant different things to different people. She pulled a tiny box out of the bag and took the ribbon off before removing the top. What she saw surprised her.
“Gavin,” she gasped. “It’s beautiful.” She looked at the silver and sapphire pendant, pulling it from the box and holding it up to her neck as she looked into the mirror. The pendant was attached to a silver chain just long enough to make the rounded treasure fall nearly between her breasts.
“Let me,” he mumbled as he took the chain from her fingers and fastened the clasp at the base of her neck. His fingers brushed over her skin, warm, calloused fingers elicited a subtle moan—one she hoped had remained inward and hadn’t managed to find its way out from the hollows of her throat.
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“It’s amazing. You really shouldn’t have.”
“And why not?”
“I didn’t help you so that you would buy me a gift.”
“I wanted to get it for you.”
She traced the pendant with her fingers. “The Celtic symbol for female empowerment, mixed with one of my favorite stones,” she smiled, looking at the tribute to her Irish heritage. “How did you know?”
He grinned. “I wish I could say I was physic,” he licked his lips and heat pooled between her legs. What she wouldn’t give to be the one licking those lips. “But when I first met you, you were bent down in the trenches and you had on that snug fitting blue tank top that had risen just enough to show a hint of skin. I saw the tattoo,” he traced his fingers over the symbol. “If you liked it enough to ink your body with it I figured you’d like it enough to wear it around your neck.” She blushed. She was sure she was blushing because she hadn’t known she had been showing any skin then. Not many people knew about that tattoo. She had two of them actually. It wasn’t that she had a love of inking her body. In a way it was her tribute to her heritage. She never went overboard. Both tattoos were in areas where most people would never see them. She had the triquetra on her low back, just above her behind, and right below that, very hidden from prying eyes unless she was naked, was the word goddess written in Egyptian Arabic characters. She had chosen the word because her mother had always The McGregor Affair
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told her she was an Egyptian goddess in the flesh. She knew it was her mother’s way of explaining her insane love of all things ancient Egyptian, while trying to empower her to believe in her beauty and her strength. The two tattoos meant a great deal to her. She had kept them small, unobtrusive, simple.
“I guess that explains the symbol, but how did you know about the stone?”
“I caught up on a few of the old shows.” She looked at him, wondering if a few of the shows was all he had caught up on, or if he had gone back and watched all of them.
“When you were hunting for gems in that South Carolina town you mentioned your love of Sapphires. You didn’t find one on your dig.”
No, she hadn’t. She had also been told she wouldn’t, but she had hoped. She did find one topaz stone. It was small, but she had been allowed to keep it. She took it down to the local jewelry maker and they shot a segment with her turning that stone into a pretty pair of earrings—earrings she sent to her mother as a gift. She rarely kept anything she found on her digs. She always sent gifts to her mother and father, but mostly her mother. She knew she would love the little treasures and would always find some place to wear them or display them.
“Thank you,” she turned and hugged him. She felt his arms wrap around her body, holding her tight. That one act, the one touch, Capri Montgomery
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made her want to press her body closer to him, and so she did. She knew this wasn’t a good idea, felt it in her bones. She was trying to stay professional, keep him at arms length because they were now coworkers and she had once before learned the disadvantages to dating somebody she worked with, but this, this touch of his body to hers was so compelling, so captivating, that she pushed aside her reservations and just allowed the moment to take over. She allowed herself to draw closer to him, to press her face against his chest and close her eyes—letting the fantasies run amuck in her head. He couldn’t know what she felt. He couldn’t know what she was thinking. At least that’s what she told herself. And as long as he didn’t know, then she was safe.
She could desire him from a far, but that was all—she couldn’t let it go deeper than that. She wouldn’t let it go deeper than that.
He groaned. “London, if you don’t stop pressing yourself against me like that I’m not going to leave this room without getting inside you.”
She froze, both aroused and embarrassed by his words. She hadn’t realized she was pressing herself against him. Mentally she had wanted to get closer to him, so
perhaps her thoughts were making her body unconsciously burst into action.
She unwrapped her arms from around him and pulled back.
“Sorry,” she smiled. “It was unintentional I assure you.”
“I doubt that.”
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He was confident—too confident, and too dangerous to her resistance to getting involved with a coworker. She should have asked him to leave, instead she found herself offering him a chair in the small room. She had to admit this resort wasn’t the most horrible place she had ever stayed, but it wasn’t exactly what came to mind when Warren told them they would be staying at a resort on the island of Kauai. Her room was small, which wasn’t a problem. She had a bed, a table to work at, and a television—though she didn’t have time to watch it, the bathroom had a shower and tub combination. She had hoped for a kitchen so she would be able to have a home cooked meal, or at least a microwave. By the time they finished shooting daily she was too exhausted to go out to a nice restaurant. And if she had to eat one more value meal from McDonald’s she was going to scream. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the chicken fingers and fries; it was just that she was sick of eating it, day after day. She had managed to get a few nice salads from a local market, but that, too, got old. What she wouldn’t give for some homemade roasted garlic and cheese bread, a little pasta and broccoli covered with a homemade white cream sauce.
“So,” she sat in the chair across from Gavin. “Where did you find the energy to go shopping after today’s shoot? If you’re on something I’m tempted to ask you to share,” she laughed.
“I’m used to long days packed with action.”
“The adventure tours,” she nodded. She imagined his regular job was a lot like what her job used to be—well, maybe not. He led Capri Montgomery
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adventure tours while she caught snakes. She loved wrangling. Most times they were able to catch and return, which basically meant they could take it back to wherever it escaped from without having to kill it.
Pythons were her favorite to wrangle because to her they seemed the less hostile. She was well aware of how dangerous pythons were. It was just that she hadn’t had horrible experiences with them, not like the ones she had with boas. Boas, now those she could do without. She was sure they were born to squeeze the life out of anything in sight.
“You’re tired,” he admitted. “Maybe I should let you get some rest.”
“No. it’s okay. I’m not going to sleep anytime soon. You might as well stay.”
“You need to be refreshed for tomorrow’s shoot.” She did need that. There was only so much makeup could cover.
“Another day,” she mumbled. “Tomorrow we’re going to be hiking to a waterfall—I’m actually looking forward to that, even though I’m sure I’ll be twice as sore as I am now.” Normally she handled the climbs and hikes just fine, but she’d been going non stop the past week. They were in Hawaii for at least another two weeks shooting since the death of one of their crew had thrown them behind. She trembled just thinking about losing one of the members.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just thinking about Grant Yeager. He was such a nice guy.”
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“The dead guy,” his tone was without emotion. She wondered if death was a natural staple in his life. Even if she hadn’t known Grant it would have bothered her…at least she thought it would have.
“He’s the reason you’re here,” she nodded. “I still don’t get how he drowned. I mean it’s not like we had a water shoot location coming up so soon—and definitely not near the beach. What was he doing scoping out the area?”
“Future location, maybe?”
“No. We should have been out of here last week. After Hawaii we’re back on the mainland—Florida Keys and Yellowstone,” she smiled. She couldn’t wait to get to the Keys. She had never been there, not really. She had gone on a cruise once and it had a brief port of call there, but she hadn’t managed to get off the ship. She had eaten some very bad seafood on board and it knocked her out for three days of the seven day cruise. That bout of food poisoning had nearly made her miss her hike to the Mayan ruins in Belize.
She still might have to wait to see the Keys because right now Warren and Jerry were still hashing out which location should be shot first. She gathered that Warren was still trying to work out the permits in one location or the other.
The good thing about their shooting schedule is that they were always at least two shows ahead. When they were on the short list two shows ahead meant they wrapped work before the show really got going, but now that they had a full season, for the first time since they Capri Montgomery
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started shooting, a few shows ahead just gave a little lead way in case something went wrong. If she got sick they at least knew they had two to three shows ready to air without worrying about having to cut the season short. Of course that didn’t mean Warren was ever happy if they fell behind schedule. Yeager’s death definitely made them fall behind schedule.
“Did you know him well?”
“No. he was only with us about four months. He always talked to me. Some days we would sit and have lunch, other days he would disappear for the lunch hour and nobody knew where he went.”
“Unusual?”
“No. A couple of the other guys do it too. As long as everybody makes it back in time to shoot nobody really cares. I just really liked talking to him. He was in the Marines, you know?”
“You liked him.”
“Not like that,” she felt the need to say that swiftly. The guy was nice, cute—very cute actually. He had pale blue eyes, blondish brown hair, a very nice, muscular build—a little bigger than she normally went for. She wasn’t a super small female, but having a three hundred pound muscled man on top of her wasn’t her idea of fun. If he suffered a heart attack or something while they were in bed he would surely crush her. No; she wanted a man she would have no trouble pushing off her in the event he died while having sex with her.
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She nearly laughed at her own thoughts. Why was she even considering those possibilities? She hadn’t been the least bit attracted to him on that level. She was intrigued—yes, that was the right word. She was intrigued by his history. He looked so young, but he had told her he had been in the Marines for twelve years before he retired for something less mobile. He honestly didn’t look like he was more than two, maybe three years out of high school. Although she should have known not to judge a book by its cover. People did that to her all the time and she was far older than they gave her credit for.
“Did anybody else know he was a Marine?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I don’t think he really talked about it with the others. In fact I’m not really sure he talked with the others at all.” Come to think of it, she had never seen him talking to the others. When he first arrived he had spent maybe one lunch with them, but he quickly distanced himself from them and took up with her. Now that was odd. Unless he had a crush on her, which she didn’t think he had.
“Maybe you mentioned it.”
“No. Get real.” She laughed. “You’ve been here long enough to realize the others and I don’t talk a lot. They don’t really like me.” Granted he hadn’t been with them for months on end, but he was sharp, she could tell that much from the few minutes she had allowed herself to spend with him. He had to notice the distance on set. If they weren’t filming, then generally speaking she wasn’t included in the group.
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He sat forward. His posture told her he wanted to know more.
She didn’t mind talking. The one thing she missed about Grant’s presence was the fact that she had somebody to talk with, somebody on her side.
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“I’m sure you’ve noticed,” she brushed two fingers up and down her forearm. “Some of the guys don’t like that I have as much say in the show as I do, and that’s not just because I’m a woman.” Jerry, their not-so-fabulous director, happened to be very tight with the camera crew; he was also sleeping with Michelle, the makeup artist, and pretty much had control over everybody else. “He tried to force a shoot on me once. I said no. Warren backed me up, and well…let’s just say a few expletives and one racial slur came out of his mouth. He apologized to prevent being fired.”
“Did you complain?”
“I didn’t have to. He did it in front of Warren. That’s a fool thing to do—upset the guy who signs your paycheck. Anyway, I have a feeling if we weren’t so tight on schedule, and Jerry wasn’t as good as he is with filming, then he probably would have been out on his behind.” In fact she was sure of it. Warren had offered to fire him once the season was over if she wanted him too. She just couldn’t bring herself, in this economy, to be the reason anybody lost their job—no matter how much of a jerk she thought that person was.
“You said something earlier, something I’ve been wondering about.”
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“What’s that?”
“You said the crew gets injured doing something stupid, what did you mean?”
She laughed hard. “Oh, God, I could tell you some stories, Gavin.” She could tell him a lot of stories. There was that time when Michelle found herself fascinated with a white rabbit and decided they should chase after it like they were some modern day version of Alice in Wonderland. That girl didn’t have an ounce of sense; London was nearly sure of that. Unfortunately, Jerry, her shag partner, demanded Jack get the rabbit on camera. She could only imagine Jerry was thinking with his other head, the one he really shouldn’t have been thinking with when it came to business. When Jack returned he was completely muddy and his pants were torn. He had been complaining about his leg so once they cleaned off the mud she had a chance to get a look at the scratches. They weren’t deep, but she had patched him up anyway. Jerry proceeded to yell about the potential damage to a seventy-five thousand dollar piece of equipment. Clearly he had forgotten that he was the one who sent Jack out into the woods in the first place.
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