One of the Boys (New Jersey)

by Janet Dailey

  A muscle played along the edge of his strong jaw. "I should have known this was all tied up with Ruby." He released a heavy breath that held anger and impatience. "You're jealous of her."

  "You're mistaken," she denied calmly while a hot pain twisted her stomach. "I'm not interested in anything she has."

  "And you think she has me?" he mocked, the corners of his mouth deepening in derision.

  "Haven't you heard?" Pet cast him a false look of surprise. "It's common knowledge."

  "And you believe it." Dane challenged with a hard glance.

  "Do you deny it?" she countered.

  "I didn't think I had to." On that half-savage note, he pressed his foot on the accelerator to send the Jaguar shooting past the slower car in front of them. It was an awesome display of power and agility that Pet found somehow characteristic of him.

  "I'm sure you didn't. There are probably plenty of women who would be glad to go to bed with you without caring who else you might be sleeping with, but I'm not one of them," Pet stated when the burst of speed was over.

  "And what was last night? A momentary lapse of moral principles?" Dane mocked derisively.

  "I didn't go to bed with you." It was a moot point but the only defense she had.

  "No, but you were damned well willing!" he reminded her brutally. "Or are you forgetting that you were undressing me!"

  Her cheeks flamed with the memory of it. "I'm trying very hard to forget that."

  But Dane didn't pay attention to her tightly worded reply. "In another fifteen minutes the boys would have walked in on something much more intimate than a simple embrace."

  "That's something we'll never know, because they didn't walk in fifteen minutes later," she retorted, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.

  "Are you going to deny—" he began angrily.

  "Physically…sexually, you excite me, so I'm not going to deny your ability to make me feel aroused," she interrupted, since he wouldn't believe her if she tried. "But I don't wish to pursue an involvement with you. Their arrival was a mixed blessing. It saved me from making a stupid mistake."

  There were two long beats of tense silence, then Dane prompted, "And? If it was a mixed blessing, there must be something you regret."

  "There are two things. One, that it happened in the first place, and second, that they had to see me with you at all." She stared out the window, sitting rigidly in the seat. "I've worked so hard to get them to accept me as an equal. Now," she laughed bitterly, "I can just imagine what some of them are thinking. That I thought they weren't good enough, so I went after the boss."

  Just as quickly as the bitter anger had surfaced, it vanished on a sigh. Pet brushed a limp hand over her face. "I should have had my head examined for going to that party with you last night. I was crazy to let myself in for all this grief."

  "If you're so concerned about their opinion, you should have yelled ‘Rape!’ last night," he taunted.

  "I wish I'd thought of it," she lied. "I would have."

  When they reached the turn to the center, Dane took the corner fast, the low-slung sports car hugging the curb as it whipped around it with a squeal of tires. He braked abruptly near a side entrance where men were entering and exiting to get all the gear loaded.

  As Pet reached for the door handle, Dane said, "You can tell the boys I'm docking your pay for being late this morning. I know you won't want them to think I'm showing you any favoritism." There was a sarcastic curve to his cruelly thin mouth.

  "Thanks." She matched his tone as she climbed out of the car and slammed the door.

  She had one foot on the curb when he leaned across the seat to add, "By the way, I haven't slept with Ruby since a green-eyed blonde invited me into her room to tuck her in. So you might give me credit for some degree of constancy," he accused harshly, and gunned the motor before accelerating away.

  Momentarily stunned, Pet couldn't persuade her legs to move. She stared after the fast-moving car and its driver. What exactly had he said? She knew the words, but what did they mean? No, no, she admonished herself, don't get your hopes up. Don't be a fool. You were right—it's just a physical thing, and the last complication you need in your life is an involvement with your boss.

  Heads turned when she entered the building. Self-conscious, she paused, aware of the hushing of voices. Squaring her shoulders, she walked briskly forward to the partially dismantled studio camera at the number-two position.

  "We wondered if you were going to show up for work this morning." Charlie said what was on everyone's mind, but with a teasing gentleness.

  "Why not?" Pet shrugged, and hopped onto the platform. "I'm a working girl."

  "But what are you working at?" Lon taunted.

  She guessed that his sarcasm came from bitter resentment and jealousy that Dane had succeeded where he had failed. She understood the fragility of his male ego, but that didn't prevent her from defending herself.

  "I know how it looked last night." There was a hint of pink in her cheeks, but she didn't hang her head. "I don't blame any of you for what you thought. I'm just as susceptible to a good line as the next person. You're going to believe what you want to regardless of what I say, so let's just drop the subject."

  "Pet's right," Andy agreed. "We've got a lot of work to do."

  By the middle of the afternoon all the equipment had been packed and loaded up, and after a stop at the hotel to pick up their luggage, the production crew went out for the next location. The majority of the technicians and equipment would head for Atlantic City. Pet was among the group destined for Batsto; the outdoor segments were to be taped there.

  Riding in the passenger seat of Charlie's snub-nosed van, Pet incuriously watched the Sunday traffic on the Garden State Parkway. Rick Benton, one of the soundmen, and Ted, a lighting technician, were sitting on the black fur cot at the back, part of the skeleton crew that would be needed.

  "Don't forget to watch for my exit," Charlie reminded her, not for the first time. "We'll probably get lost before we get there."

  "I doubt it," Pet offered dryly.

  "I'd like to know whose harebrained idea this was," he muttered. "Location shots in New Jersey of all places!"

  "New Jersey is more than a corridor you have to pass through between New York and Pennsylvania." Her state pride insisted that she couldn't let that remark go unchallenged. "I know that's all most people see as they zoom through on their way someplace else. No one wants to believe we have swamp, marshes, miles of beach, farms, forests and lakes. If they can't see it from the highway, it isn't there."

  "This must have been your idea, then," Charlie declared with a laughing glance.

  "Why do you think it's called the Garden State?" she retorted, ignoring his remark.

  "Because it has 'gardens' of concrete," he joked. "That's all I've ever seen. Hey!" He smiled broadly. "I just thought of something. Ruby Gale is the lily of the Garden State. That's a pretty good slogan, isn't it? Why don't you mention that to Dane?"

  "Why me?" Pet stiffened because she knew precisely why. Charlie believed she was on very friendly terms with Dane. She could have been, but she wasn't going to go into a long, detailed explanation of why she wasn't anymore. “It was your idea. You tell him."

  "He'd be more apt to listen to you, wouldn't he?" Charlie probed for information.

  "I seriously doubt it," she replied with assumed indifference.

  At that moment a midnight-blue Jaguar swept past them. Her heart did a somersault at the sight of the familiar car. It was highly unlikely that there would be two identical cars on the road. When she saw Ruby Gale's red head in the passenger seat, she knew she hadn't made a mistake about the car's owner.

  "That was Ruby Gale, wasn't it?" Charlie frowned.

  "Yes, with Dane," she added briskly, and sent him a cool look. "Do you still think he would listen to me?"

  Charlie took one look at her strained face and let the conversation die a natural death. Confusion tore at Pet. Dane had indicated t
hat his interest in Ruby Gale had waned since meeting her. But Ruby had been riding with him. Was it because of the television special—purely business? Or, because Pet herself had turned him down, had Dane turned to Ruby again?

  Why were the answers so important? Her heart was becoming involved, that was why, a little voice warned. Pet sighed dejectedly and gazed out the window. The Jaguar was far out of sight.

  Located on the fringes of Wharton State Forest, Batsto Village was a restored Revolutionary War town. Growing up around an early bog-iron furnace, it was a major supplier of munitions to the colonists. There were tours of old houses, coach rides and demonstrations of an operating water-powered sawmill. Weekend fare also included craft displays and flea markets. The picturesque colonial town sat on the bank of the Batsto River with shaded streets and the verdant backdrop of the forest.

  There was no work to be done on their arrival. All the location shots would, be set up the following morning, which left Pet and the small crew free to wander through the village on the late and lazy summer afternoon.

  Pet would have been content to stroll along the streets and browse through the curio tables, but typically the men were soon bored with such passive entertainment. Someone produced a Frisbee, and before Pet knew what was happening she was engaged in a lively game of catch in a park square. It was boisterous fun, leaping high to catch the soaring disk and trying difficult catches behind the back or under the leg. It was exactly the kind of distraction her tense nerves needed.

  The Frisbee came sailing in her direction, but just as she got set to catch it, the wind caught it to change its trajectory. The disk drifted backward, and Pet realized at the last minute that it was going to be high and to her right. She turned to make a diving leap for it and rammed right into a solid object.

  Her not inconsiderable height and weight staggered Dane backward, but She managed to keep them both upright. Pet wasn't sure if it was the impact or the shock of finding herself in his arms that stole the breath from her lungs. She stayed there, unable to breathe for several seconds while her fingers were spread across his chest and her head was thrown back as she stared into' his vitally male face.

  Her hair had long ago escaped the confining knot of the scarf and was a windblown mass of wheat gold. Dane's hands were on her waist, holding her hips against the disturbing support of his. Desire flamed rawly through her when his gaze drifted down to linger on her mouth.

  Her lips parted, wanting his kiss, inviting it, and there was an answering tightness in the grip of his hands to let her know the message had been received and understood. There was even a faint movement of his dark head in her direction.

  "You really should watch where you're going," a musically female voice chided.

  Pet's startled green eyes clashed with a pair of vivid blue ones that studied her with a calculating coldness. The sight of Ruby Gale standing near Dane brought her quickly to her senses. She pushed out of his hold, nervously brushing her palms over the terrycloth material of her shorts, the blue jeans abandoned earlier in the day in favor of something cooler.

  "Excuse me," she apologized to Dane on a breathless note.

  "No harm done," he assured her as a mocking grimness tautened his expression.

  "Hey, Pet! Are you going to get the Frisbee or not?" Charlie shouted from across the way.

  Glancing around, Pet saw that it had landed a few feet behind Dane. Before she could retrieve it, Dane was there bending, over to pick it up. His gaze raked her as he straightened. She was conscious of the perspiration shining wetly on the skin of her neck, beads gathering in the hollows of her collar bone to start a trickle running down between her breasts. The thin cotton knit of her tank top was clinging to her damp skin. Dane made her aware of just how revealing it was before he returned the Frisbee.

  "Thank you," she murmured awkwardly, and turned away. He couldn't know how much he had contributed to the color in her hotly flushed cheeks.

  Taking a few quick steps, she sailed the Frisbee back to Charlie with a flick of her wrist. But it took a nosedive short of its target, and a shirtless Charlie came trotting forward to retrieve it.

  "You're welcome to join us if you like, Miss Gale," Charlie invited, puffing slightly behind his wide grin.

  "No, thank you." The redhead refused with a laughing recoil at the thought. She sent a coy glance at Dane and slipped a hand under his arm. "Dane would hate it if I looked as hot and disheveled as she does," she declared with a pointed glance at Pet.

  Pet had been conscious of her appearance before, but that remark made her doubly uncomfortable. Which was just what the star wanted. Ruby looked as if she had just stepped out of an advertisement for sports clothes in her snow-white skirt and candy-pink blouse.

  Rather than stay where the contrast in their appearance was so marked, Pet decided to switch with one of the others. "Let me have the shady side for a while, Rick." If she looked hot and disheveled, there wasn't any point in quitting. Besides, she didn't want to give Ruby Gale the satisfaction of knowing she made her feel self-conscious and unattractive.

  After she had traded places with the soundman, she saw Dane and Ruby strolling away arm in arm. It hurt, because she wanted to be the one walking with Dane. If she had stayed in bed, it was entirely possible she could have been. She shook her head to rid it of that tantalizing thought.

  MONDAY MORNING MEANT a return to the work schedule, rising early to get the equipment ready and the outdoor shots set up. The weather cooperated with a clear sunny day, a warm temperature and little breeze to mess the star's coiffure.

  There was no need for headsets or lights. The smaller and lighter-weight hand-held camera took the place of the fixed studio models, although it meant a helper was needed to carry the recorder. Someone was walking through Ruby's positions so it could be decided where the shiny reflectors would be needed to alleviate facial shadows.

  Dane had already explained the setup to Pet in crisp, strictly businesslike tones. She was strapping on the battery packs that powered the camera and the shoulder pad to cushion its weight. The equipment had all been tested to make sure it was working properly. Now they were waiting for Ruby Gale to emerge from her private motor home/dressing room. Pet cast another glance in its direction, acutely aware that Dane was with the red-haired entertainer.

  When they came out together, she quickly veiled her glance. But she noticed his arm affectionately around the woman's shoulders, the warmth and charm in his look, and the easy way he responded to Ruby's provocative glances. He was going over the particular sequence of this taping and reiterating the effect he planned to achieve.

  Pet hoisted the camera onto her shoulder and adjusted it to a relatively comfortable position. While Dane walked Ruby to her starting point, Pet began lining up her opening frame. Her long hair was swept on top of her head, secured on the sides with combs and on top with a leather hair poke. With it loose there was too much risk of catching a strand on a part of the camera or between the pad and her shoulder, which often resulted in a sudden and painful yank on her scalp when she moved or altered position.

  Dane's gaze made an absent inspection of her hairstyle as he approached her, but it was the only recognition of her sex that he made. His rugged features were impassive, all his attention focused on the business at hand. The fluttering of her pulse revealed that she had not achieved his objectivity.

  "Ready, Wallis?" His gaze centered on her for a piercing second, long enough to see her positive nod. When he turned away, virile charm leaped from the smile he gave Ruby. "We can begin whenever you say, Ruby."

  If he had wanted to make clear the difference in his attitude toward the two women, he had succeeded. Pet felt almost chilled by his callous lack of interest. Instead of being enchanted by the warmth Dane had shown the star, Ruby Gale appeared anything but pleased.

  "What's she doing here?" she demanded, and pointed a scarlet fingernail at Pet.

  "She's operating the camera, of course," Dane smiled.

 
"How can I possibly flirt with the camera the way you want when I'm looking at her?" Ruby protested with an angry gesture of her hands.

  "Flirt with the lens, my love, and think of the male audience that will ultimately be watching you," he replied easily, using that smile again.

  But Ruby wasn't to be persuaded. "That's impossible! I want a man on that camera. Get rid of her!" She flung an impatient hand in Pet's direction. "I want her off the set."

  "Darling, you aren't being reasonable." Dane moved toward the star.

  "Do you want to know how unreasonable I can be?" the redhead flashed, exhibiting the temper Pet had heard so much about. "Either she goes or I do. Take your pick, Dane. You can't have us both."

  There was silence all around. The ultimatum seemed to have a dual meaning. Pet was well aware which one would go even before she heard the low chuckle from Dane.

  "Darling, I'm not arguing with you," he insisted calmly, amused by her outburst. "There isn't any need to make an issue of it. If you're more comfortable with someone else operating the camera, then I'll simply replace Miss Wallis. As lovely as you are when you're angry, I would rather you conserved all that volatile energy for your performance."

  Ruby Gale was instantly and provocatively contrite. "Darling, I'm sorry for making a horrible scene. Will you forgive me?"

  "Naturally I forgive you." He bent to brush a kiss across, her cheek and turned to dismiss Pet. "Sutton will handle the camera today, Miss Wallis. We won't need you."

  "Certainly." Her voice was barely above a whisper as she acknowledged his order.

  As she shifted the camera off her shoulder to set it on the ground, Charlie moved over to help her. His eyebrows were raised in a sympathetic look. She managed a grim smile and a supposedly uncaring shrug, then began unstrapping the bulky packs from around her waist.

  "It will take us a few minutes, I'm afraid, to switch the equipment," Dane explained to Ruby. "Why don't you relax and have another cup of coffee while you're waiting? There's no need for you to stand around."

  "Are you sure you don't mind, Dane, about using a cameraman?" the redhead persisted. "I'd hate to think I was interfering in your job."