Asking For It

by Alyssa Kress

  He looked amazed. "And what do you call this?!"

  "An inconvenience."

  "What?!"

  With a sigh, Kate took a step back. She gave him a scrutinizing look, starting with the pained curl of eyebrow over his black eye and traveling down past the too-big T-shirt to the Ferragamo loafers they'd been able to salvage the night before.

  His appearance should have been pitiable, but instead the man looked...dangerous. Not like an ax murderer dangerous, but there was a subtle, perhaps personal, menace.

  That menace challenged Kate. She refused to buckle under it.

  "No, Mr. Blaine," she told him. "It doesn't appear to me that you're in medical distress." She paused, looking innocent. "In fact, last night you made sure to demonstrate to me you were in top physical form."

  His face reddened. "I never said I was having medical distress, but that doesn't make the situation any less urgent."

  "It doesn't?" Obviously, the man had never experienced a true medical emergency.

  "Listen." His one-eyed gaze went steely. "I run a company with a budget of a hundred million dollars a year. Perhaps never having dealt with that much money, you can't imagine the responsibility that comes with it. I have to get to L.A. before everything starts to fall apart."

  "Because you aren't there."

  "That's right." He continued the steely look.

  Kate had thought of this problem. She didn't want anybody hurt — anybody besides Griffith Blaine, that was. "Correct me if I'm wrong," she said to him now. "But in your company with its multi-million dollar budget, you must employ people, manager sort of people. People who do the actual, day-to-day business?" She cocked her head.

  His skin reddened again, conceding the point, even as he claimed, "I'm crucial."

  Smiling, Kate shook her head. "This isn't an emergency and you can't use my phone."

  "You — " His jaw flexed. "I'm using it. Where is the damn thing?"

  "I've got ten teenagers waiting for me on the front quad. If I don't get out there soon they'll find some kind of trouble. Have a nice day, Mr. Blaine."

  "The f — You can't keep me here, Darby."

  "Who said anything about keeping you?" Kate shot him another innocent expression. Ah, but this was the beauty of her plan. She wasn't keeping him against his will. She simply wasn't easing his departure. "You're free to leave any time you want."

  He gave her a disbelieving look.

  Kate pointed toward the north. "The path down the mountain is at the edge of camp that way. It's five miles to the bottom. Bert Lebow has a cabin there but he doesn't have a telephone, I'm afraid. Nor a car. If you want any of those, it's an easy ten-mile hike across the plateau to Sagebrush Valley City. I believe there's a pay phone at the mini-mart there."

  Griffith's face was growing very red, but Kate had to hand it to him. He didn't explode. He just stood there glaring at her with his one functioning eye. "Why?" he demanded. "Why are you doing this to me?"

  Kate shifted her gaze. She doubted there was any point trying to explain. Mr. Blaine would never agree with her that her campers were more important than his big, fancy company.

  He made a sound of disgust. "It's because of last night, isn't it? Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't intend to flash you. All I was trying to do was keep you from falling over. Is that a crime?"

  "Oh, boy." Kate was amazed. "I'm supposed to be thanking you?" But an uncomfortable doubt slipped into her mind. Surely it wasn't that brief encounter with Griffith's naked body that was inspiring her present course of action? No. She hadn't cared about that. She only cared that his problems weren't as severe as her campers.'

  He uttered a low expletive. "Look, I'll make one call and get someone to pick me up from here. You'll never have to see my offensive self again."

  Kate looked away, not wanting him to know how tempting it was. But she couldn't let down her campers. They needed Griffith's over-eighteen-years-of-age warm body on the property. At least, they needed it there until she could find somebody to replace him.

  "No," she said.

  Griffith took in a deep breath, and let it out with an explosive, "Fine!" He took a step back. "Just fine. I don't need your stupid telephone anyway."

  He didn't? For an instant Kate worried. Did he intend to try climbing down the hill by himself? He might even make it, despite the multiplicity of cut-offs and intersecting fire roads. "Good," she replied, acting like she'd have no problem if he did leave and hike all the way to Sagebrush Valley City. "That's fine, then."

  "Fine, yes. It's all peachy keen," he snapped at her, then curved his lips into an evil smile. "You're going to be sorry you crossed me, Ms. Darby."

  "Am I?" Thinking of her waiting fourteen-year-olds, Kate started toward the door and the front quad.

  "You'll see." He didn't try to block her way this time, just let his voice follow her. "You are going to regret you didn't treat me like a king."

  Kate couldn't help smiling as she went out the door. His threat was the classic taunt of a bully who knew he'd been outmaneuvered.

  He wasn't going to try going down the hill.

  ~~~

  The sun was hot and high in the sky, but Griffith had yet to find a way out of Camp Wild Hills. With his stomach rumbling — it had been a day and a half since he'd last eaten — he limped toward the dining hall, hoping his guess was right and it was lunchtime.

  After Kate's refusal to let him use her damn satellite phone, Griffith had stomped off in the direction she'd pointed, toward the head of the trail that led down the hill.

  She thought she could stop him? She thought she was in charge here? Ha.

  Proving the opposite, he'd actually managed to find the trail. Flushed with that victory, Griffith had stood at the edge of the dirt-packed firebreak and looked into the wall of chaparral through which the steep trail turned and twisted.

  Go on. Hike. But Griffith only stood there, his flush of triumph fading. He'd spent a lot of time studying maps of the area. This trail was not one simple, solitary track, but crisscrossed by fire roads, some of which had to be crossed, some of which had to be used. Even with a decent sense of direction, an unfamiliar hiker could easily get lost.

  Swallowing, Griffith stood there and started to feel dizzy just thinking about it. A disorienting vertigo crept up his throat as he imagined how the unfamiliar landmarks would blur and start spinning.

  Nauseous now, he whirled to face the other direction. To his infinite relief, he could see the roof tile of the main camp building. He'd be able to find his way back.

  Because, much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't going down that trail.

  At least, not alone.

  Griffith gritted his teeth. He was getting out of there, however. He was getting back to L.A., where he could strangle Simon Grolier, secure his loan for the Wildwood Project, and see about taking away Kate's water.

  On his way back to camp, a flicker of something sour seeped through Griffith. Guilt? No. Couldn't be. Although maybe he did have to admit his own hypocrisy. Here he was furious with Kate for making his return home difficult, when what he intended to do once he got there was thoroughly shaft her.

  Griffith snorted. So, what? She didn't know what he planned to do. There was no excuse for her behavior. None at all.

  As the morning wore on, Griffith developed even less sympathy for Kate's plight as one tack after another failed to win him his goal.

  He cornered each of the teenage counselors. To a man, they refused to show him the way down the hill.

  "Hey, bud, I can't leave my kids," the one named José told Griffith, laughing.

  "The kids can come with us," Griffith argued, desperate. Both Bill and Tony had already refused him.

  José shook his head. "Taking a ten-mile hike up and down the hill is not on the schedule for today."

  "Then leave the kids here." It was all Griffith could do not to scream. Didn't any of these people get it? "I'll pay you, of course. Enough to make up for it if you lose your job �
� more than you could make this entire summer."

  José's expression went very strange, almost...pitying. "No, thanks," he said.

  It was obvious Kate had brainwashed the poor fools.

  Next Griffith tried getting a ride from the cook. A round, Mexican woman, she was just maneuvering herself into her Ford Escort when Griffith happened to come around the back of the building.

  His one open eye lit up. A ride!

  "Senora, senora!" he called, waving his arms.

  Her round face turned, and at sight of him, her expression went alarmed. "No, no!" A jabber of excited Spanish followed, none of which Griffith could understand. She waved her arms at him, waving him off.

  Griffith cheerfully ignored the warning. "You gotta take me with you," he told her, and pulled open the passenger side door. "I'm a prisoner here. Prisonero." He had no idea what the word was in Spanish. "Peligro," he said instead.

  "Peligro!" Unfortunately, the daft woman seemed to think Griffith was the danger. She hit him with her purse, an assault Griffith could have withstood blissfully given the benefit of getting to Sagebrush Valley City, but when she saw the purse wasn't having its desired effect, she whipped out of it a huge can of pepper spray. "Véte!" she said.

  Griffith didn't have to know Spanish to understand that one. Out on the asphalt drive, he held up his hands. "Nice, cook," he murmured. "Nice one."

  Snarling, she reached across to close the passenger side door, set her pedal to the metal, and roared away, spraying Griffith with road gravel.

  Spitting sand, he turned around to find a tall, thin boy watching. Griffith straightened, gave a brush to his T-shirt, and endeavored to look dignified. "Having a good time?" he asked. "Enjoying the show?"

  The boy continued to look at Griffith. His hair was very dark, and long enough to brush his shoulders. His clothes hung long and loose, as if they'd been handed down from an older, larger relative. His eyes, nearly dark enough to be black, glittered with a sardonic amusement far beyond what a child should own.

  "You want to leave?" the boy asked.

  Griffith blinked and paused. "You know the way?" Hell, it hadn't occurred to him to query any of the campers.

  Looking even more amused, the boy inclined his head.

  Hopeful as he was, Griffith held onto enough common sense to question this. "It's not an easy trail down."

  "I know." The kid grinned. "But this is my fourth year here. Up and down. That's seven times so far. I can show you the way."

  Griffith squinted. It was possible.

  "I've done it," the boy went on, evidently smelling suspicion. "My first year I ran away. Got as far as Bert's place, too, before they found me."

  Bert's place, Griffith recalled Kate telling him, was at the bottom of the hill. He regarded the child with renewed interest. "Well, then," he said, and started to smile. This could work. This could work nicely.

  "I heard you offer Bill five hundred dollars," the boy said.

  Griffith's smile faltered.

  "I want a thousand," the boy declared.

  "A thousand!" The kid was a total operator.

  "You won't be able to find anyone else who'll take you," the boy pointed out, with an accuracy Griffith grimly acknowledged.

  "You're just a kid." Griffith knew he was fighting a losing battle. "What, eleven years old?"

  "Fourteen," the boy said, his smile freezing.

  "Okay, fourteen." Going on forty. "Sorry. Still. What the hell do you need a thousand dollars for?"

  The fourteen-year-old camper lifted his shoulder, his expression eerily hardened. "What do you need it for? Do we have a deal, or don't we?"

  Griffith actually hesitated. Arnie had said some of the kids were connected. He didn't want to imagine what this fourteen-year-old might intend to do with a thousand dollars.

  On the other hand, this might be his only chance.

  "Fine," he told the kid. "A thousand dollars for taking me down the hill. We have a deal."

  The smile on the boy's face widened. For a minute his pleased triumph made him look like an actual child. "Great. Tell you what. I'll take half now, half when we're at the bottom of the hill."

  Griffith laughed. "I don't have any money now."

  The boy's smile started to fade. "You don't?"

  "Of course not. But as soon as I get to Sagebrush Valley City and my people come to pick me up, I can hand you the cash. How's that?"

  The kid shook his head, his smile twisting into a smirk. "No way."

  "Come on. You can trust me."

  The boy gave Griffith a look that said he had to be kidding.

  "All right, I'll make it five thousand, how's that?" It would be worth many times that for Griffith to make it out of there.

  The boy started to back away, his smirk even more pronounced. "Five C's up front or no deal."

  "Oh, come on. I'm good for it. I'm worth — millions."

  The kid laughed.

  He didn't believe Griffith, and Griffith, in his borrowed clothes and unshaved beard, had no idea how to prove himself.

  "Ten thousand," he said, which was no doubt the least convincing thing he could have uttered.

  The boy laughed even harder and ran away.

  He'd have lunch, Griffith thought, and start over. Not having eaten since Tuesday, he couldn't think straight. In fact, his stomach was starting to hurt more than any of his bruises.

  Campers were filing into the dining hall for the noon meal when he reached the main doors. He rubbed his belly in an attempt to quell the rude rumblings and followed everybody else inside.

  He saw Kate at once, standing at the head of a table and shouting directions at somebody who was trying to sit down on the bench seat. He swiftly looked away. Getting into it again with her was not on his agenda.

  Looking at her, just thinking about her, filled him with too much anger to deal with — and a thoroughly disgruntling hint of shame.

  Griffith chose a seat at the very end of the table headed by José. The teenager gave him a pained look, but didn't say anything. Griffith started salivating when a platter of roast beef began making its way down the table. Yes, he definitely needed to eat.

  The roast beef, which smelled more heavenly than anything Griffith had ever smelled, was just being handed to him by a rather stout boy when it was snatched up and lifted away.

  "What?" Griffith's exclamation was outraged, but that was nothing compared to the jolt he got when he looked up to face the culprit. Kate was smirking down at him.

  "Mr. Blaine," she purred. "I don't believe you're registered here as a camper."

  "No," Griffith told her, silky smooth. "I don't believe I am, which makes it something of a mystery what I'm still doing here."

  She ignored that jibe. Of course she did. Still holding the platter of aromatic roast beef, she said, "If you aren't a camper, then I'm afraid you'll have to pay for any meals you consume here."

  At the end of the table, Griffith could hear José make a choking sound. Griffith kept his eyes on Kate. He'd been right to guess she had a stubborn streak. It seemed she had a suicidal bent as well. He was hungry enough to wrestle the devil himself for that roast beef.

  "You know damn well I don't have any money."

  Her smile widened. "Yes, I know. So I decided I'd let you work for your food."

  Again, there was a choking sound from the head of the table. José was evidently enjoying the whole thing. Griffith, meanwhile, repressed his desire to jump off the bench and attack the female who was holding his roast beef. She was going beyond the bounds, way beyond them, so far beyond that he found himself getting interested. This was more than feminine pique. Just what was she up to?

  Griffith crossed his arms over his chest to keep them from strangling her and asked, "What kind of work?"

  Kate twisted so that the platter of meat was a few inches further away from Griffith. "It so happens I'm short one counselor."

  Griffith stared at her. That's what this was all about? She needed some mi
nimum-wage camp counselor? When he had a multi-million dollar business languishing back in L.A.? "You've got to be kidding."

  She raised her eyebrows. "Do you want to eat?"

  He met her eyes. Clear green, decisive eyes. She was short a counselor, probably had to have that extra counselor. And then he'd shown up like the early answer to a Christmas prayer. "No wonder you didn't call an ambulance for me," he said, musing.

  She had the grace to blush. "So, do we have a deal?"

  Griffith sighed. "For how long?"

  She gave him a cool look. "Until the Wednesday after next, the twenty-fifth."

  Griffith gawked. That was two weeks! The woman had to be kidding. He couldn't be gone that long. He had to make phone calls, resurrect the possibility of that big loan...get the engineers started on their final plans for the water's new channel.

  And Kate Darby thought he should agree to play camp counselor for two weeks, all for the benefit of a few rag-tag kids?

  Arms still crossed, stomach protesting, Griffith tapped the fingers of one hand on his upper arm. She was being outrageous. She had no right to ask him to put his life on hold for that long.

  But on the other hand, right or wrong, she could. Griffith's every attempt at escape had been foiled. Indeed, she'd twisted him handily into her grasp ever since he'd stumbled into her dining hall. Her needed camp counselor.

  In an odd way, Griffith had to admire the woman. She was doing whatever was necessary to keep the place running. If that meant entrapping a passing abducted businessman, so be it.

  He couldn't have done a better job himself.

  Not to mention, he could smell that roast beef.

  "Do I really have a choice?" he asked dryly.

  "You could always starve." She gave him a sweet smile.

  Griffith almost laughed. Oh, she was good. "Give me that roast beef." As he beckoned, his stomach rejoiced. "You just hired yourself one bad-ass camp counselor."

  She kept the plate out of his reach, frowning. "That kind of language isn't allowed."

  Now Griffith did laugh. Without agreeing to the rule, he beckoned again. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and Kate had just turned herself from a chooser into a beggar. "Give the food here, Kate." He shot her a look that, judging by the expression on her face, she understood quite well.