His head lowered. His lips touched hers.
Touched them again.
When he went down for the third time, he knew he was making a mistake.
Still, he didn’t break away. He held her, pulling her close. Kissed her as though she was...his.
With a muffled...something...she pulled away from him. Gently, was how it seemed to him, and walked to her car, stumbling twice along the way.
He watched her get in. Start the ignition. Put the car in gear and back up enough to get her car on course to head up to the T in the road. He watched her turn right, and watched as her taillights disappeared in the direction of the cabin at the end of the road.
He stood there and watched the night pass, too. For more than an hour.
He didn’t know what else to do.
He couldn’t go back to the life he’d had planned when he’d left his house. Couldn’t marry Jolene when he’d uncontrollably kissed another woman.
Could he?
Had the kiss been an aberration? A result of the panic he’d felt the other morning? Some kind of residual reaching out to the person who’d befriended him in his time of need?
Was he losing his mind?
He didn’t have to love the woman he married—in fact, he was determined not to do so—but he needed to at least feel compelled to kiss her, didn’t he?
Jolene had been to his home three times and he hadn’t kissed her good-night, much less kissed her good-night like that.
He couldn’t go back.
And he couldn’t go forward, either. He needed to get married.
And the woman he’d just kissed—like that—could absolutely not be his wife.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NATASHA TALKED TO Angela before bed. She wanted to have her mind fully focused on what mattered most—Family Secrets—and sleep well. It didn’t happen that way. She didn’t sleep well at all.
But when she stepped out of her SUV at the makeshift studio the next morning, in the jeans and wedge shoes she’d be wearing to work that day, she was fully on task. She had a signed contract connecting her to Spencer Longfellow for the next four years. Family Secrets needed him. Her job was to make it work.
Which meant making sure he was comfortable. At ease.
He was her cohost. Someone she was scripted to flirt with on air. Any thoughts of that off-air kiss were to be quashed. They led nowhere good.
She’d see him for their scheduled lighting check that afternoon. She might or might not see him when she took Justin through his rehearsal—depending on whether or not he sent the kids with Betsy, or someone else, again.
Beyond that, she couldn’t worry.
The week’s category was breakfast—ranch style. Betsy was providing the eggs, and Natasha passed her and Bryant as they filled the pantry with freshly gathered eggs from two large baskets.
She nodded, smiled, but didn’t stop. Her crew had already arrived and were slowly gearing up for the busy day of lighting and test runs that happened before every show. Natasha would be wearing a tight red dress with Western embellishment—along with her white cowboy boots—the next day, and the lighting had to be adjusted accordingly.
Angela dropped Spencer’s matching shirt on Natasha’s desk just before eight that morning. They spent the next hour walking around the barn space, making plans for the remodel that would begin shortly after that first segment finished. She and Angela were going to be on the road for much of the six weeks after that, auditioning contestants, and now, scouting for other locations.
Filled with adrenaline, sizzling with energy, Natasha did what she did best—produce.
They needed the Longfellow Ranch business tied up before they left.
She needed to make certain that the intern she’d hired to watch Lily would continue to do so.
“I want to adjust our schedule just a bit,” she told Angela as they met back at her office for a quick arugula salad. “Give me three days home a week. There’s just too much going on with all of the changes, and we need to be on top of things in the office.”
The need had occurred to her the night before. Thinking about Lily solidified the plan.
She couldn’t let go of her home base. Family Secrets and the Palm Desert studio were her home. While the travel station moved in and power shifts happened, she had to be present to maintain control of her part of their world.
Angela nodded. Chewed. Made notes. She didn’t comment. Didn’t seem to notice anything different about her.
Natasha loved her for it.
* * *
THE SECOND THE kids were on the school bus Friday morning, Spencer headed over to the studio. He had to see Natasha. To apologize. And...he didn’t know what.
Ask for his signature back? With the Williamson threat pending, he absolutely could not turn his back on a lucrative venture that in no way threatened the ranch, or his and his kids’ life there. A venture that not only ensured that they could continue living the way they were but also gave his new beef venture national exposure. Free advertising for four years.
When he saw her SUV out in front of the barn-turned-studio, he still hadn’t figured out his approach. But it didn’t matter. She was busy, he was told, when he asked one of her crew members if he could see her.
She was busy when he checked back later that morning, as well. And again shortly after lunch. Apparently the woman was getting a heck of a lot more work done than he was that day.
It occurred to him to wonder if she’d told everyone that she didn’t want to see him. She might have. He wasn’t sure he’d blame her.
Yet it wasn’t Natasha’s way—to put things off. To run and hide.
He showed up for his two-thirty lighting check right on time. Didn’t bother to go early. And didn’t have a speech prepared, either. After stewing for the first half of the day, he’d calmed down a bit. Natasha was carrying on business as usual.
He could do that, too. Piece of cake.
Except that as soon as he saw the auburn-haired TV star he wanted to get closer to her...
The temptation didn’t last long. Seconds, maybe. He was a grown man with requisite self-control. He did not like being attracted to his new business partner.
“Hi.” She came toward him with her game face on. “A couple of my guys told me you were asking for me earlier. Sorry, things have been crazy here this morning. A cable broke, the router was down...” She paused. “Anyway, I gave instructions to everyone that anytime you ask for me, I am to be found immediately.”
He nodded, relaxing in spite of the tension between them. She hadn’t been avoiding him. They could work with the rest of it.
Clearly she was as motivated to do so as he was.
They were momentarily alone—heading toward their dressing rooms to change into the next day’s wardrobe.
“About last night...” He had to get it out, set things straight. Offer assurances. Reinstate boundaries...
The look she gave him appeared in no way pained, but her slight frown said she was confused. “Last...” Then her brow cleared. “Oh, the kiss, you mean.” She chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Spencer. It happens.”
What did that mean? “It happens?”
But why should he think it wouldn’t? Not with him, of course. However...she was a television personality. And a rich and beautiful woman. A stolen kiss was clearly no big deal to her.
“It goes with the territory,” she was saying. “We’re flirting on air, convincing our viewers there’s chemistry between us. We’re human. It’s natural that we’d be compelled to test the truth of our make-believe world...”
Now, that made sense. Good sense. He liked it. A lot.
He explained, “It’s just...it doesn’t happen all the time in my world, and...”
“I know.�
�� She leaned in like she was sharing a secret with him. “Mine, either,” she said. “Not personally. But I know the score. And with cohosts, testing the waters is a natural step in the process. You see what it’s like and you move on. Takes the mystery out of it. It’s all just settling in to play the part.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She squeezed his hand. “For what it’s worth...it was a relatively painless growing pain.”
His kiss had been a growing pain.
A painless one.
It happened to everyone. Meant nothing.
Which meant Jolene—or someone—was still on. He hadn’t checked the online dating site in a few days. He’d best get to it.
He was really glad he and Natasha had had the conversation.
* * *
BETSY BROUGHT THE kids in later that afternoon, after school. Spencer had told Natasha that he and Bryant would be out on the ranch, tending to some cattle that had been trapped by a fallen telephone pole with live wire attached. The rotted pole had given way just before lunch, and a cowhand had noticed that there was a problem when it had shown up on one of the monitors in the bunkhouse. A couple of his full-timers were out there already, corralling the cattle into a makeshift pen.
Even ranching had moved into the technological world, Spencer had informed her. He had cameras all over his property.
“When do I get to go on stage?” Justin asked, all puffed up and walking with exaggerated swagger in his new cowboy boots. Justin’s old pairs were all scuffed up, and Spencer had insisted on purchasing him a new pair—which he hadn’t been allowed to wear outside. At all.
“In just a couple of minutes,” Natasha said, grinning to herself. Betsy had left, and Natasha was waiting for Angela before she got to work with Justin. The little boy knew what to do. Natasha’s concern was keeping his brain occupied enough to allow him to focus.
Tabitha tugged on the edge of her shirt. “Guess what, Natasha? An old lady likes us!”
“It’s a secret, Tabby.” Justin’s tone had just the right amount of exasperation.
“Not from Natasha. She’s our friend.”
“She said it’s a secret from everryyybooddyy.”
“Daddy says it’s against the law to tell kids to keep secrets from their moms and dads.”
“Natasha isn’t our mom.”
“But since we don’t have one, she could be our...stepmom.”
Natasha’s heart was leaping and bounding right along with her stomach as she stood there, a mere witness now to the face-off between brother and sister.
“An old lady likes us!”
As much as she was interested in, and taking in, the rest of the debate between the kids, she couldn’t let go of that first line.
“An old lady likes us!”
According to Spencer, Claire Williamson was back in Washington, DC. Having agreed to wait to hear from Spencer.
But what if she’d lied? She was a lobbyist. In a family of lobbyists. Used to convincing others to think what she wanted them to think...
“What’s a stepmom?” Justin asked.
“I dunno. Amanda has a new one.”
Natasha could only assume that Amanda was a girl at school.
“Natasha?” Both kids were looking at her now. “What’s a stepmom?” The question came from Tabitha. The little girl’s hair was falling out of a ponytail that was no longer in the center of her head, if it ever had been.
Presuming that Tabitha liked it that way, she left it alone. But, as had happened pretty much every time she’d seen the little girl—other than after she’d been with Lori and Diane, their hair and makeup crew—Natasha itched to take a brush to the long brown locks.
“When a dad marries after he has children, the woman he marries becomes a mom to his children.” She pulled words out of the air, praying that Spencer wouldn’t be angry with her.
“What does the step part mean?” the little girl asked.
“Yeah, what about that?” Justin, his little hands in his pockets, asked. He was no longer looking at Natasha, more interested, apparently, in the divot he was digging in the dirty floor with the shiny toe of his new boot.
“The step means the children were there before the mom.” She was sweating. More nervous than she’d been before her first television appearance.
Which was absolutely nuts.
Taking Tabitha’s hand, she knelt down in front of the little girl. “Tell me about the old lady who likes you,” she said, hoping that she had the proper combination of happy interest and compelling adult in her tone.
“She comed to see us at school today,” Tabitha said, glancing up as a camera rolled past. And then following its journey toward the stage. They’d been working on the lens...
“Who was she?”
“I dunno.” Tabitha shrugged. Reached for Natasha’s hair and started running her fingers through it. She’d worn it down all day.
“Where did you see her?”
Justin jumped toward them with both feet. Kicking up a cloud of dust. “She seed us,” he said. “She called our names out.”
“And waved,” Tabitha inserted.
“Where?”
“When we got on the bus,” Justin said, jumping again.
Natasha wanted to stop him. To brush off the dust. But she had to find out everything she could about this woman while she was still fresh in the kids’ minds.
“How did you know she liked you?”
“She smiled,” Tabitha said. “She was dressed up like church and was pretty, and she smiled.”
“Yeah, and Tabby says that’s when you know someone likes you,” Justin added, giving his sister a not-so-common admiring glance. He punctuated his words with individual nods.
“But she didn’t come toward you or call you over to her?”
“Nope.” Justin spoke. Tabitha shook her head.
“She just called your names.”
“Yep.” Justin spoke. Tabitha nodded.
“You two know that no matter how much people like you or if they know your names or even your daddy’s name, you never go off with them, right?”
Justin rolled his eyes. “Stranger danger,” Tabitha said. “And Daddy would take away everything we ever liked forever,” she added dramatically. Justin nodded.
Natasha had to talk to Spencer.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SPENCER WAS ON the side-by-side, dragging the dead pole, secured by rope, behind him, when his cell phone rang. He had kids. He always checked.
Natasha. Work. It could wait.
Justin had had a practice scheduled that afternoon.
“Longfellow,” he said into the phone.
“I think Claire Williamson is still in town.”
Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw Bryant on an identical side-by-side, back and to the left of him. He was seeing Spencer out to the road, where he’d leave the pole to be picked up, and then Bryant was heading back to help the guys herd the cattle to another field.
Not now. He didn’t need Claire Williamson in his vocabulary that day.
As soon as he rid himself of the telephone pole, Spencer was going straight back to the compound. He had calls to make.
Not because of the pole, or the wire. But because while he’d been out on the property, Spencer had checked on a small orange grove his father had planted. It didn’t amount to much. A couple of hundred trees. Didn’t make enough money for him to consider it a viable part of the business. But it had been his father’s.
And he’d seen larvae on several leaves from the light brown apple moth—a nonnative invasive pest from Australia that had migrated to Hawaii and most recently to California. The bug was said to cost the state potentially millions in lost produce and controlling expense
s and could affect not only fruit and produce but also many of the other trees on his property. He had to get it off his land.
“You still there?” Natasha’s voice was soft. Calling to him in a way that made him want to answer, in spite of the fact that he didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
“Yeah. What makes you think Claire’s here?”
He was no happier when he heard a replay of the twins’ conversation regarding the “old lady” who liked them.
“She didn’t approach them,” Natasha was quick to add. “Or attempt to get them to come to her...”
“They know better than that.” He hoped. If they didn’t, they would before either of them stepped foot outside the house again.
Too bad he couldn’t put Daisy Wolf on the woman’s scent. Send her to school with the kids.
“Tabitha told me that you’d take away everything they ever liked forever if they did,” Natasha said with a soft chuckle. Like the moment could use some levity.
And he realized she was right. It could. Claire hadn’t specifically promised to go home. He’d just assumed she would. She was a busy woman. Not one you’d think would have the time to hang around a small southeastern California town.
“What are you going to do?” Natasha asked. “Call her?”
“No. She didn’t do anything illegal. I still want to avoid the fight if I can. I’m going to do what I said I was going to do.” He was making it up as he went, but liked the soundness of the plan as it unfolded between them. “I’m going to think about it. And call her cell when I’m ready to speak with her again.”
“I wouldn’t wait too long.” As he’d come to expect, her advice was reasonable.
“I don’t intend to.”
“I’ll be done at the studio by seven. We can talk more then if you’d like.”
Afraid he’d like it too much, he wouldn’t have accepted the invitation if he could have. But... “Jolene’s coming for dinner,” he told her.
He’d invited her over as soon as he’d left the studio that afternoon. If the kiss between him and Natasha had just been a work-related growing pain, then there was no reason to diverge from his original plan.
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