by EMILIE ROSE
Cindy tracked his stare and her mouth gaped open. “Is that? Holy hell... She looks different, but I’d swear that’s Delainey Clarke.”
“It’s her,” he answered, swigging his beer, irritated all over again that she’d shown up. Why couldn’t she find a nice rock to hibernate under for the duration of her stay in Homer?
“Damn, she looks good,” Cindy said with open envy. “Didn’t she run off to Hollywood? I bet she’s had work done. Is that a new nose? And new boobs? She must have a sugar daddy back in Tinseltown. No one looks that good naturally.”
“I prefer a more natural look,” he said, throwing Cindy a bone. Cindy smiled, appreciating the sentiment, but her gaze remained centered on Delainey as she navigated the small bar. Delainey stood out like a sore thumb among the hardworking, humble people in the bar, and she knew it based on her tentative expression as she made her way to a small table to sit alone. He looked away, hoping she got the point and left soon. “She’s as fake as a stuffed jackalope.”
“Yeah, but she looks pretty damn good. I don’t think I’d mind having a little touch-up now and then.” Cindy sighed and returned to Trace with renewed interest. “So, you were saying about liking natural girls?” she teased and he chuckled.
“If I were good company at the moment, I’d definitely be game to spend some time with you, but I’m not exactly fit for human companionship.”
“You always say that,” she retorted with a sly grin. “But I seem to remember the key to turning that mood around.”
He cast Cindy an appreciative glance but kept his mouth zipped. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep his stare from tracking to Delainey sitting off by herself. He wanted to ignore her, but his eyes didn’t seem to be having the same conversation with his brain. Cindy caught his stare and called his bluff. “Natural, my ass. You can’t keep your eyes off her,” she said.
“It’s not that,” he said, stiffening at the idea of anyone thinking he was regarding Delainey in a sexual manner. He couldn’t imagine a less likely bed partner. “She’s here on business, not pleasure, and even if she were, I wouldn’t be interested.”
“Let’s say I believe you about not being interested—which I don’t—but what kind of business?” Cindy asked, curious.
“The Hollywood variety,” Trace answered vaguely. He wasn’t ready to announce to the world his part in Delainey’s little project. It was embarrassing—and annoying. “She won’t be in town for long.”
“Hollywood? Oh! That’s so exciting. Do you think some big celebrities will be in town? I’ve always wanted to meet Pierce Brosnan. He’s delicious.” Trace paused to regard Cindy with mild annoyance and she said, “Wait a minute...didn’t you and Delainey have a thing back in the day?” Cindy asked, then snapped her fingers before he could confirm or deny. “Yes, that’s right. You and Delainey were high school sweethearts. God, how’d I forget that? She’s been gone awhile now. You still have a thing for her?”
“God, no.” He made a grimace and sucked back his beer. One thing he’d forgotten about Cindy was that she was a terrible gossip. “There’s nothing between me and Delainey, and there never will be again. As soon as she’s out of Alaska, the better off I’ll feel.”
“Ouch. Touchy.” Cindy tipped her beer back, then added with open disbelief, “Well, whatever you say. Something tells me you and me hooking up tonight isn’t going to happen. Seems you’ve got someone else on your mind.” She cast a purposeful glance Delainey’s way and Trace wanted to growl his protests, but Cindy had already hopped from her stool and set her sights on someone else for the night. No hard feelings on her part, but she wasn’t about to waste time on a guy who wasn’t going to warm her up later that night. Trace could respect that and he half wished he’d taken her up on the offer. Hell, he’d enjoy the look on Delainey’s face as he walked by, snuggled up to Cindy, maybe with a hand resting possessively on Cindy’s behind for good measure. Would Delainey even care? What did he care if she did?
He finished his beer, irritated with himself and the dumb questions. He signaled for a fresh beer and realized someone else had taken up the stool beside him. His senses went crazy and he knew without turning that Delainey had plopped herself next to him as if they were buds. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, point-blank. “Dealing with you once a day is plenty. This is my private time.”
She looked as if she was trying to be brave, but there was something fragile about her put-on confidence that he couldn’t help notice. It didn’t lessen his animosity, but it did pique his curiosity. By all accounts she’d accomplished her goal. She’d managed to maneuver him into agreeing to something he had no interest in doing, but the expression on her face was anything but triumphant. “Is this your victory celebration?” he asked sourly as he tipped his beer. “Come to rub it in my face?”
“Get over yourself, Trace. I didn’t know you’d be here. I just needed something to wind down. Jet lag is killing me but...I couldn’t sleep.”
“Hotel bed not as soft as yours at home?”
“I’m not staying in a hotel. I’m staying at my father’s place,” she answered quietly, lifting her chin as she shrugged. “All the hotels were booked.”
Oh, that was sweet justice, he thought. “Guess you forgot about moose season,” he said, openly enjoying her unfortunate circumstance. “That sucks. You and your old man were never on good terms. How’s that going for you?”
“It’s ungentlemanlike to gloat,” she said, looking away. “It’s going as well as you can expect.”
At that he did chuckle and earned a black look, but he didn’t care. Served her right. She couldn’t come around disrupting people’s lives without consequence. “Well, at least your old man cares enough for you to give you a place to bed down. If it were me, you’d be sleeping in a snowbank.”
“Do you have to be so mean?” she asked, her eyes suddenly glittering. “Are you going to be this nasty and cruel the entire time I’m here?”
“I’m not the one who started this,” he reminded her. “I don’t recall being nice and civil as one of the stipulations of your little deal. Or was that in the fine print?”
Delainey grabbed her beer and swiveled off the chair, but as she started to stalk away, she seemed to think better of it and stopped to say, “We broke up eight years ago, Trace. Don’t you think it’s time to let it go? Grow up, for Christ’s sake. So, I managed to talk you into taking a job that will benefit you in the long run as well as do something great for that little department you work for. Sue me. But just remember, as you’re sitting there throwing stones at my expense, you weren’t completely innocent. You had a choice, too. Don’t make me the bad guy just because I took the choice that was right for me.”
Trace watched her melt into the crowd, and he was tempted to run after her if only to tell her she was full of crap. She was wrong, he told himself. And plainly she’d rewritten history to suit her purposes.
What the hell was she talking about? Choices? The only choice she’d given him was whether or not to keep the CD collection they’d amassed together.
She hadn’t been interested in choices; her mind had been made up and he’d been left behind.
Screw this.
He flicked a few bucks onto the bar and left in disgust.
And he was supposed to work with her every day of production until they wrapped?
God help him. He might just pitch her over a cliff if given the opportunity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DELAINEY OPENED HER EYES after a fitful night’s rest on an old lumpy mattress that had definitely seen better days and wondered what she’d done to deserve such adversity in her life. Milky morning light filtered in through the thick window covering, and she rubbed the grit from her eyeballs. Today, she would fax the signed contract paperwork to the network and then she’d start the process of getting her skeleton crew up h
ere to start shooting. The hardest part would be finding a hotel for them to hole up in for the duration of the shoot. Her mind was already picking at the challenges ahead, even sluggish as she was without her morning espresso to jolt herself alert.
She knew her father was likely long gone, having woken up at the crack of dawn to take the boat out, so at least she would be spared the awkward and uncomfortable recap of last night’s reunion. But she could do nothing about the memory.
“There she is,” Brenda had announced, smiling as Delainey had opened the front door and walked in. Delainey had forced a tight smile when Brenda added, “I was going to tell you that moose season is upon us and every hotel would be filled to capacity with tourists, but you ran out of here so quickly I didn’t get the chance. But we knew you’d figure it out soon enough when you couldn’t find a room.”
“Yes, well, here I am,” Delainey said, her cheeks burning. Her father sat in his recliner, wordlessly watching her with a hard expression, and Delainey had fought the urge to say something terribly immature. “Is the room still available?” she managed to ask with some semblance of civility.
“House hasn’t changed,” her father answered gruffly.
“A simple yes would suffice,” she mumbled, moving past him and pulling her luggage behind her.
“Seems to me that you’re hell-bent on changing who you are and where you came from,” he remarked, and Brenda shushed him.
“Now, Harlan, give the girl a chance to get settled. Can’t you tell she’s nearly dead on her feet?” Brenda shook her head, chuckling at her husband’s gruff attitude, and Delainey thought the woman was insane for finding anything about Harlan Clarke appealing. He was mean, ill-tempered and rude on his best days. Was it any wonder her mother had been miserable? “Don’t pay him no mind. He’s happy to have you home for a few days.”
Delainey held back a snort while Harlan shot his wife a dark look. Yeah, right. He was clicking his heels with joy. “I’ll do my best to find suitable accommodations as soon as possible,” she said, finished with the conversation. “Good night.”
Unfortunately, the walls were incredibly thin and Delainey caught their conversation even as she closed the door behind her.
“Now, why’d you go and say something like that, you old poop? That wasn’t nice at all.” Brenda had admonished her husband with open disapproval. “She’s never going to come around again if you don’t start being nicer.”
“I don’t care what she does,” Harlan said, and the recliner squeaked as if he were adjusting his position. “And that woman ain’t my daughter. I don’t recognize that woman at all. She’s a stranger.”
“Something tells me that she was a stranger before she got all fancied up. You two have a lot to talk about.”
“Like hell we do.”
“Oh, Harlan. Now you’re just being stubborn. You need your children right now.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Brenda. Leave it be.”
Delainey frowned. What was Brenda talking about? Was her father sick? Delainey sat on the bed, extreme fatigue pulling at her. Wouldn’t Thad have called her if their father were sick? Of course he would’ve. Perhaps Brenda had a penchant for the dramatic and there was nothing truly wrong with the old goat. An odd pang of worry pierced Delainey’s chest, even as she tried to dispel it with reason and logic. Everything was fine and she was exhausted. Delainey fell back on the bed and closed her eyes, so tired that she thought she could sleep the minute her eyelids fluttered shut.
But that’s not what happened. In fact, she’d been so tired, she actually couldn’t sleep. Nervous energy kept her from finding sleep, and before she knew it she was heading to the Rusty Anchor for a nightcap.
And that had turned out equally fabulous, she wanted to groan as she rolled to her side and put her face into the pillow. She’d known that Trace wasn’t going to be warm and welcoming, but she hadn’t expected him to be so damn mean. Had she really messed him up so badly that now he hated women? Or maybe it was just her?
Delainey rose from the bed on stiff limbs and made her way to the bathroom to shower. The questions in her head had no answers; there was no point in spending so much time wondering about the whys and what-fors. Trace hated her and he was going to make the next few weeks as miserable as humanly possible. Deal with it and move on. She’d handled difficult people before without breaking a sweat. She would just have to treat Trace as she would a hostile, pain-in-the-ass star—smile and nod, then at the end of the day, enjoy a really big glass of wine.
Delainey drew a deep breath, moderately comforted by her plan. But even as she armed herself with the details, her insides trembled and she felt a little sick to her stomach. She didn’t want Trace to hate her. Truthfully, sometimes private memories of Trace and his love were the ones that insulated her against the worst moments in her career. She knew he didn’t love her any more, but there was a time...a sudden lump rose in her throat. Ugh. Why was she doing this to herself? Masochistic, that’s what this was. What good would come of wallowing in the past?
Move on, Delainey—there’s work to be done.
* * *
“TRACE, I KNOW YOU weren’t keen to do this project, but once you get started, I think you’ll enjoy—”
“Peter, don’t try and sell me on this project. It’s a waste of your breath and my time. You and I both know why I’m doing this, and it’s pretty much extortion no matter how you try and pretty it up.”
“That’s harsh, Trace.” Peter glowered but didn’t deny it. “You’ve got no head for administration, son. Times are tough. Call it what you will, but if an outside entity such as Hollywood comes waving dollar bills under our nose, by damn we’re going to do what we can to make it happen. You think I like cutting programs? Well, I don’t. But when I see a relatively easy way to make the budget expand rather than constrict, I take it.”
“Yeah, well, I was strong-armed into taking this gig, and I don’t feel right about it.”
“You have the right to your feelings,” Peter said. “Even if they’re wrong.”
Trace did a double take. “What do you mean by that?”
Peter sighed. “You’re a good man and an even better tracker, but you’re stubborn as the day is long and sometimes when you dig your heels in about something you’re as immobile as an ass pulling against the lead. Why don’t you tell me what your beef is with that pretty producer? She seems real nice.”
He snorted. “Delainey Clarke is like the first freeze across the water. It might look solid but it’s deceiving, and if you trust it with your weight, you’re liable to crash through the thin surface and drown. She’s not trustworthy and she’s not a nice person. Don’t let her pretty face trick you.”
“You two have history?”
Trace didn’t want to admit it, but he figured if Cindy Sutton remembered his past with Delainey, chances were someone else was going to remember, too, so it was best to just let it out. “Yeah, we’ve got history. Plenty of it. We were together. I even asked her to marry me—eight years ago before she took off for California and left her boot prints on the backs of every single person in this town she stepped on to get out.”
“Guess that was before my time here,” Peter said. “Eight years is a long time. Maybe she’s changed. Seems harsh to hold her to decisions she made when she was practically a kid.”
“She wasn’t a kid when she split.”
“You forget, anyone ten years or more younger than me I consider a kid. That includes you.”
“Trust me when I say that Delainey Clarke hasn’t changed. She’s just as manipulative and cutthroat as she was when she left. Take my advice and steer clear.”
“Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think you could be a little nicer to the lady. I don’t know your history, but you’re going to be working with her. Don’t you think things will go a lot more smo
othly if you’re not constantly sniping at one another?”
“Hey, nowhere in the contract did it state I had to be nice.”
“No, but I expected more from you,” Peter said, surprising Trace. Peter was, generally speaking, pretty easygoing, but he was taking a firm line on this issue. Somehow Trace’s attitude toward Delainey struck against some inner chivalrous code that Trace never knew Peter adhered to. “And frankly, your behavior doesn’t reflect well on the department. I’m not saying you have to be buddies, but you need to be professional. That’s all I’m asking.”
“You’re serious about this?”
“Why would I joke about something so important?”
Trace realized Peter truly wasn’t joking, and he shook his head at the ridiculousness of the situation. He was being ordered to be nice to the woman who’d trashed his heart at the worst possible time in his life, and yet he was the one being difficult. Hell’s bells... But what could he do? Peter was his boss, and for whatever reasons Peter wasn’t letting up the pressure. Trace threw his hands up. “Fine, I’ll be civil and professional. Should I put that in writing?” he asked caustically.
“No, your word should do. She’ll be here today to debrief us on the shooting schedule. You’ll get to put your acting skills to the test. I’d better see a reformed man.”
“I’m not an actor,” he growled.
“Well, you’d better learn a few tricks, because otherwise...”
“Yeah? You gonna fire me?”
“Don’t make me go there. I want to think positive. You start thinking of the Junior Search and Rescue program if nothing else works. I know how you love those kids and the program. If nothing else matters to you but that...then know that the success of this project is resting on your ability to play nice.”
Great. Thanks for setting me up for failure.
Time to practice that fake smile.
And with impeccable timing, just as Trace was exaggerating his “nice” face, Delainey walked in looking like a winter Barbie doll with her Ugg boots, skinny jeans, sweater and scarf wound around her neck, and Trace couldn’t help but stare just a little because the woman knew how to turn heads. Too skinny. Too fake. Too Hollywood.
