Kitabı oku: «One Night Scandal»

One

Hannah Ryder scavenged her last scrap of patience as the film director she despised zoomed in on her for a close-up shot. The bright lights were making her sweat right through the thick layers of makeup. Itchy, dry hay poked her bare skin. She lay smothered in the stuff on the floor of an old barn temporarily transformed into a movie set. The scene called for her character to fall through the loft in the middle of hooking up with a cowboy; thankfully, the stunt had been pulled off by someone else paid to do that sort of thing.

Now, Hannah had to perform the sequence following the fall after her cowboy lover had abandoned her. Her face was covered in cosmetics to look like blood and bruises. All of which was fine, if she hadn’t been in her third hour of shooting reaction shots while drowning in hay that made her eyes water and her skin burn. Her makeup had to be retouched every twenty minutes to keep it from sliding off, and the flesh-toned bodysuit she wore under the hay didn’t protect her in the least. Horses flanked her on either side, their impatient hooves providing a frame for the scene, according to the sadist in charge. What if one of the animals decided he was tired of a sneezing woman writhing on the floor of his barn?

Twice she was sure a spider or some other creepy-crawly had skittered up her bare leg, and a cramp knotted her calf.

She would have walked off the production days ago if she hadn’t wrangled a part in this film for a very specific reason. She needed evidence of the director’s sexual harassment of women on the set to help avenge what he’d done to Hannah’s younger sister a year ago.

The incident had transformed nineteen-year-old Hope from a bright-eyed aspiring writer, with a coveted job as script reader and assistant to director Antonio Ventura, into a quiet shell of her former self. Hope now worked in retail, content to unlock dressing rooms for customers since it was a job that surrounded her with women. Hope didn’t write anymore, and she showed no desire to leave the house for any reason but work. She startled at noises and cried when she thought Hannah couldn’t hear.

The change broke Hannah’s heart, and months of therapy hadn’t seemed to help her sister. Hope refused to file charges, insisting she’d destroyed evidence after the fact because of conflicted feelings, and she didn’t want to bring a case she couldn’t prove. When months of gentle encouragement and outright coercing had proven ineffective, Hannah had taken a new approach. She’d spend time on one of the bastard’s sets to see for herself if he was victimizing other females.

So far all she’d learned was that every single person who worked on his film Winning the West thought he was a tyrant and a megalomaniac. But she had no evidence that he was locking vulnerable women in closets to forcibly grope them the way he’d done to Hope.

Just the thought of it steeled Hannah to withstand the cramp throbbing in her calf for another minute while the camera closed in on her tears. She’d been Hope’s guardian ever since her sister had moved to Los Angeles to be with Hannah. Their parents had never been much help since their high-powered attorney father had walked out on their mother long ago—taking his family fortune with him. As for their mom, she’d done her best to raise Hope and Hannah, but she’d made no secret of the fact that she was “done” once Hope had turned eighteen.

Hannah would never be “done.” And she would fight for her sister even if Hope refused to fight for herself.

A horse snorted and tossed his head, a hoof momentarily pinning Hannah’s hair to the floor before shifting away again. She couldn’t smother her gasp, ruining the take.

But before the director could explode in rage, a tall, broad-shouldered cowboy stepped into view, casting a long shadow onto the floor where Hannah lay.

“Ventura, I need to take my horses,” the man demanded, his tone uncompromising as he confronted the despot in charge of the shoot. “Now.”

A murmur of collective surprise—quickly stifled—stirred the production team ringing the small barn.

Hannah stretched quietly in the sea of hay, wanting a better look at the cowboy whose arrival had diverted the director’s ire away from her. The newcomer blocked the lights, providing a welcome moment of coolness for her itchy skin.

She craned her neck to see around a horse’s knee.

And got an eyeful of feminine fantasy material in denim and worn boots. The hard-muscled cowboy stood a head taller than the director, his biceps straining the fabric of a gray cotton T-shirt as he reached to stroke a hand over a horse’s nose.

The man’s features remained in shadow, thanks to the set of his dark Stetson, but the sharp edge of his jaw and the hint of dark hair curling along the collar of his shirt were enough to make any woman long to see more. For now, Hannah settled on taking in the rest of him, from where his shirt tapered along his back, from his formidable shoulders down to his lean hips.

“You are ruining my shot,” Antonio Ventura snapped at the cowboy, his dark eyes narrowing. “Now, thanks to you, I’ll need the animals even longer.”

The fury brewing under the quiet words made the sweat on Hannah’s back turn cold and clammy, worry chilling her.

“Whether you need them or not isn’t my concern.” The cowboy took the reins of the one closest to him. “They’re not professional actors, and they’re done for today.”

Hannah would have admired anyone unafraid to stand up to a bully like Ventura. But she took a special brand of pleasure in seeing this big, strong guy put the smarmy brute in his place.

“As you can see—” Ventura enunciated each word as if the cowboy was a simpleton “—they are hardly being asked to act. They’re standing in the middle of a barn, just the same as they will be when you take them with you. I suggest you consult your boss before you make a choice that will cost you your job.”

The dirtbag. How unfair to threaten the man’s livelihood. Hannah was already mentally composing a letter to the ranch owner in the cowboy’s defense.

“My choice is made.” The sexy stranger gathered the other horse’s reins in the opposite hand. “And since we’re making suggestions, I’m going to advise you to take better care of your actors.” The man’s gaze fell to where Hannah sprawled in the hay. “Do you need a hand, miss?”

His eyes were blue. Clear sky blue.

Wide-open spaces, Wyoming blue.

Hannah wanted to fall right into them.

Except, she realized, she couldn’t afford to thumb her nose at Antonio Ventura before she’d gathered evidence of his criminal behavior. With more than a little regret, she shook her head, a stray piece of hay poking the back of her neck as she moved.

“No. Thank you.” She risked a small smile at the horseman, hoping the director was too busy seething to notice.

When she gave her boss a quick glance, he seemed to be pounding out digits on his cell phone as he paced away from the camera equipment.

“You’re going to regret this show of stupidity,” Ventura threatened between clenched teeth.

Around him, the production team buzzed with new life, sensing they were done shooting for the day as the cowboy guided the animals out of the wide barn door. The night air rushed in.

Hannah watched his retreat, her breath stuck in her chest as she followed his long-legged stride, an easy swagger that made her wish she would have accepted his hand when he’d offered it. What might it have been like to touch him? To keep that blue gaze trained on her a little longer?

Behind her, the wardrobe stylist cleared her throat. “Um... Hannah?”

Swiveling away from the enticing view, Hannah glanced up to find the young woman holding a robe in her hands.

“Sorry. I must have gotten distracted.” She grinned conspiratorially as a production assistant shut off the hottest of the set lights nearby. Hannah didn’t want anyone to see how stressed this shoot was making her. Her muscles were cramped from the strain and tension of working with her sister’s molester as much as from holding the twisted pose for hours.

“Didn’t we all?” the stylist, Callie, agreed. Her high, dark ponytail swung in front of her narrow shoulders as she leaned down to wrap the cover-up around Hannah, shielding her in the flesh-tone bodysuit. “I think I forgot to breathe just now.”

The woman’s vanilla fragrance settled around Hannah as surely as the silk dressing robe. Hannah’s itchiness eased immediately from the fresh air, the cooler temperature without the set lights and being free of the hay.

She was stepping into the leather slides that Callie had brought out for her when, from the other side of a rolling cart stuffed full of electronics, a series of shouted curse words blistered her ears. Callie flinched and Hannah’s eye started to twitch while they listened to the director yell at whoever was on the other end of the call.

Hannah needed to get away from here. Three hours of dealing with that man was more than she could take. She had a private cabin on-site at the Creek Spill Ranch, close to where filming took place each day. No need to stay here and listen to Ventura’s tirade when her accommodations were within walking distance.

“Callie, I think I’m going to call it a night and head back to my room,” she said softly, tying the belt on her robe. It was blousy and pretty enough to pass for a caftan. “I can take off my own makeup.”

“I don’t blame you,” the stylist muttered under her breath, her gaze moving furtively toward their boss. He looked ready to pop the vein in his temple, his face contorting as he shouted about ineptitude in his staff and incompetence in the production company. “Take some makeup wipes,” Callie said, passing a small plastic packet before gesturing to Hannah’s face. “You don’t want anyone to think you’ve just been in a horrible accident.”

Hannah was already peeling out a damp cloth from the pack. “You’re a lifesaver.” Retrieving her purse from behind one of the barn columns, she headed for the door, leather shoes slapping the bottoms of her sockless feet. “Thanks, Callie. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Part of her wondered if she should stick around a little longer while Ventura was all worked up and angry in case the bad mood brought his criminal tendencies out. But she was physically exhausted, her spirit weary after the trying day. She needed to de-stress tonight. Conserve some energy for tomorrow.

She’d take a soak in the tub. Maybe try some yoga. The porch of her tiny, secluded cabin had a beautiful view during the day. And at night, she could see stars for miles. But as she hurried across the ranch to indulge herself in some much needed downtime, an image of her sister’s tearful face returned to chastise her.

Back home, Hope wouldn’t be de-stressing tonight. And she sure as hell wasn’t taking any feminine joy from admiring the way a brash cowboy looked in jeans.

Priorities quickly realigning, Hannah double-timed her steps toward the cabin. She’d shower, change and sneak back over to the barn to see what else Antonio the Ass got up to tonight. Because nothing would give her more pleasure than putting him behind bars.

Not even a diversion with the sexy horseman who’d rescued her from the shoot today.

* * *

Brock McNeill couldn’t get the actress out of his mind.

Two hours after he’d removed his quarter horses from the set of the idiot director who was making life at the Creek Spill Ranch a living hell, Brock was more than a little preoccupied by thoughts of the curvy blonde covered in hay. There was something about her that appealed to him—something far more intriguing than her looks, although she was easy enough on the eyes even with the heavy blue and purple makeup meant to look like bruising.

Now, riding back through a rocky ravine to his place after a late consultation with the vet, he found his thoughts on the woman instead of on his sick filly. As the head of the quarter horse breeding and development program at the Creek Spill Ranch, Brock realized his focus needed to be on his portion of the family business now more than ever. The film shoot required it. But the timing couldn’t be worse.

Because the McNeills were bracing for a scandal. A blackmailer had promised to reveal his stepmother’s secrets to the world two days from now. The whole Wyoming branch of the family was on high alert, waiting for the other shoe to drop because they’d decided not to meet the blackmailer’s demands.

To make matters worse, Brock’s stepmother was still recovering from a suspicious hiking accident that had put her in a coma right around the time the blackmailer had first surfaced. It was a mess.

Brock needed to protect his family. As the youngest of his brothers, born after the twins Carson and Cody, Brock had always been the odd-man out. It had been easy to fly under the radar in a big family, but the time had come to step up and prove himself now that his brothers needed to focus on their own relationships. Plus, his half sisters were particularly vulnerable because the blackmailer was hinting that their mother’s marriage to Donovan McNeill was invalid. Brock needed to be there for his father, his stepmother and his half sisters.

So it was flat-out wrong for him to spend his mental energy thinking about the hay-strewn beauty on the floor of his barn. Dating an actress would only draw more attention to his family when they needed to lay low. It was bad enough his sister Scarlett had been in the tabloids recently for dating one of the film’s lead actors. Besides, thinking about the woman so much was crazy, considering he’d watched her work for only half an hour or so. He’d shown up at the shoot because the ranch hands tasked with bringing the horses back hadn’t returned. Brock didn’t appreciate having his generosity with his animals taken advantage of, so he’d gone to set Antonio Ventura straight for himself. And gotten distracted by the woman crying tears that looked all too real.

She’d only been performing, of course. He understood that. But the tears had gone right through him, the pain in her eyes so damn convincing it had been tough to look away. What made a woman choose a job so emotionally demanding? Because—performing or not—tears like that didn’t manufacture themselves. They came from somewhere deep. Seeing her like that had felt oddly intimate.

Maybe that’s all it was. He’d caught a stranger in a moment that felt intensely private. Except then she’d smiled at him. The smallest twitch of her lips when their eyes met, and there’d been...

Heat.

He would swear from the look in her eyes that he hadn’t been the only one feeling a connection.

Brock decided to circle back to the remote barn Ventura had been shooting in earlier, wanting to see for himself that the guy had released the actress from work. Because while Brock had succeeded in freeing his horses from the director’s overheated set, he hadn’t gotten the satisfaction of witnessing the blonde walk away from the grueling job. He’d rather lift bales of hay all day than spend an hour sitting in the stuff half-naked the way she had. Especially the old, super-dry variety the director had spread all over the floor. Brock guessed a bed of nails would be more comfortable.

Reining in his horse as he reached the old, small barn that had outlived its usefulness on the ranch, Brock could see filming must have stopped since the lights were dim. A damn good thing, since he would be well within his rights as a partial owner of the McNeill lands to shut down filming if the company violated safety protocols, a clause his brother Carson had the sense to put into the contract with the production company. And working in a wood barn with hot lights and overheated straw that could catch fire veered into dangerous terrain.

The doors were open, though, inviting bears and other foragers inside. Someone must have forgotten to close up for the night. Swinging down from the mare, he patted her neck before dropping the reins and stepping through the open wood doors.

A dark shadow emerged from behind a support post.

A curvy shadow.

Brock recognized the shape of her instantly. No mean feat considering she’d been mostly covered in straw the last time he’d seen her. Apparently, his imagination had done a highly accurate job of filling in the blanks where her body was concerned.

She was dressed in dark leggings and a dark T-shirt. Her platinum hair was tucked under a ball cap with the logo of a West Coast football team. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup, he could see her features better now. The long lashes over her eyes. A few freckles on her nose. Then the stubborn tilt to her chin as she spotted him just inside the barn entrance.

“I sure hope you’re off the clock at this hour.” Brock summoned a smile, not wanting to startle her when she was alone. “I came back to make sure your director knew enough to call it a day.”

She shuffled from one tennis shoe to the other. Was she uneasy?

He took a side step to lean against the barn door, giving her plenty of space to walk out if she chose.

She folded her arms across her chest and stood her ground instead.

“So did I,” she claimed, although something vaguely defensive about the way she said it made him wonder if that was true. “I walked off the set right after you did, but the director was in such a snit, I returned because I wanted to make sure he wasn’t—” She took a deep breath and let it back out as if she was forcing herself to relax. “Taking advantage of people with no seniority.”

Her careful phrasing seemed...off. She was hiding something, and it didn’t take a genius to see she was uncomfortable. Maybe he’d been mistaken about the attraction before. Maybe it had been all one-sided.

“That would make him even more of an ass than I already took him for,” Brock said, preparing to leave, in case he was responsible for her feeling uneasy. Straightening from the doorframe, he was about to wish her a good-night when her laugh caught him off guard.

A genuine laugh. Surprise music to his ears.

Some of his tension eased as hers seemed to.

“He is. Most definitely.” She took a step closer to him, a smile lighting up her whole face, transforming her from pretty to breathtaking. “I’m Hannah Ryder, by the way.”

She extended her hand. Anticipation flared at the thought of touching her.

“Brock. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He closed his fingers around hers and squeezed.

His hand lingered for a moment longer than necessary. Just enough to see her notice. Her pupils widened a fraction. She sucked in a quick breath.

Gratified that he hadn’t been wrong about their first meeting—that there was something hot lurking just beneath the surface between them—he released her hand. He hadn’t mentioned his last name, preferring to avoid the inevitable interest in his well-known, wealthy family. Brock had been down that road before, not realizing a woman he’d cared about had been after him only for the connections. The McNeill lifestyle. Or, more accurately, other McNeills’ lifestyle. Brock preferred hard work to jet-setting, no matter that his hotel magnate grandfather owned five-star resorts all over the world.

Hannah Ryder toyed with the long sleeve of her dark T-shirt, pulling it over one hand, but not before he spotted a silver ring in the shape of an eternity knot. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you earlier, but your entrance was very well timed.”

There was a slight husky quality to her voice that made the sound as warm and inviting as a whiskey shot. She was about a head shorter than him, maybe a little more. Dressed all in black with her hair tucked under the cap, she looked like she was trying to avoid recognition. Maybe movie people dressed that way all the time when they were off duty. She seemed about as far from his idea of a diva as possible.

“I regret that I didn’t intervene sooner, before my horse’s hoof landed on your hair.” He couldn’t act fast enough after that, knowing the animals were too restless to be trusted standing so close to her head. “You barely even winced.”

She shrugged, shaking her head. “But it was enough to ruin another shot. Whenever I let my guard down even a little bit, then it’s my fault the whole crew gets stuck on the set for an extra hour.”

“Is it always like this?” He realized her eyes were gray under the shadow of her cap’s brim.

She smelled good, too. Like soap and wildflowers. He caught the hint of fragrance as she played with the shirtsleeve, the fabric rubbing against her skin.

“Not at all. My job is usually pretty fun, but this film is making me see how much the director has to do with setting a production’s tone.”

Brock wanted to ask her more, but he guessed she must be tired after her long day.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I thought you were fantastic today.” He wasn’t overstating it, or flattering her. She was good. “In fact, it was because I was so caught up in watching your performance that I didn’t interrupt filming sooner.”

She laughed again, the sound another surprise shot of pure adrenaline.

“So I have no one to blame but myself for my hair getting stepped on? Are you saying that if I’d been a worse actress, you would have come to the rescue sooner?” Her gray eyes twinkled with mischief.

Teasing. Flirtation.

It wasn’t a game Brock had played often. Or well. But he damned well recognized it.

He let the new flames crackle through him, stunned that a total stranger could stir that level of heat. What was it about her? Hell, what was it about him that he was letting it draw him in?

“I’m saying, Hannah Ryder, that you’re not an easy woman to look away from.”

He heard the tone of his voice; it was all wrong for the moment. It brought the teasing and flirtation to a halt. The air around them changed. Got warmer.

He saw the confusion in her gaze. The surprise. A whole host of emotions flickered through her expression that he couldn’t identify.

But there was one that he knew. Because he felt it, too.

Desire.

It pulsed in the charged air like a heartbeat. For a moment, he thought she might take a step toward him. Until, outside the barn, his horse whinnied softly. Breaking the moment and the connection.

“I’d better go.” She tucked her chin into her chest and stalked past him. Out of the barn and into the night.

Brock watched her leave, knowing he shouldn’t follow. She’d made her decision. He respected that. He needed to check in with his family anyhow, see if their investigator had any updates on the blackmailer.

Taking a deep, cooling breath to ward off the lingering hunger for Hannah, he took his time stepping outside. Only to glimpse her outline in the moonlight.

With her back to him, he could see clearly the image that she’d pulled up on her phone.

A map of the ranch.

Walking directions back to her cabin.

Brock closed his eyes for a long moment, knowing he couldn’t let her make the long trek in the dark by herself. He would give his own sisters a hard time about navigating those woods on foot alone at night, and they’d been raised here, fully aware of what to look out for. How much did a West Coast visitor understand about the potential dangers of the Wyoming land?

Steeling himself against the inevitable draw of the woman, Brock stepped closer to make an offer that was going to be hell on his restraint.

“How about I give you a ride home?”