That Wild Cowboy

CHAPTER TWO

VICTORIA RUBBED HER full stomach and wished she’d resisted temptation with those incredible biscuits. She was not a leggy blonde, after all. More like a petite and too-curvy brunette. And she had a job to do.

She also had another temptation to resist.

Him.

He smelled like freshly mowed hay. With his hair still damp and his five-o’clock shadow long past that hour, he looked as dangerous and bad as his reputation had implied. But he also looked a little tired and worn down.

Long night with the blonde?

Squaring her shoulders, she took in a breath and got back to business. After all, she was burning daylight just sitting here chewing the fat with this overblown cowboy.

“Okay, my producer, Samuel Murray, is a whiz at doing reality television. He has several Emmys to prove it.”

Clint nodded, leaned forward. “I got trophies for days, darlin’. And my time is valuable, so why should I sign up to have you and that fancy camera poking around in my life?”

How to explain this to a man who obviously thought he was so above being a reality?

“Well, you’ll get instant exposure. You’ll become famous all over again. You can revive your—”

Clint got up, stomped around the flagstone patio floor. “My what? Rodeo career? That’s been over for a long time. My songwriting? That’s more of a hobby, according to what I read in the papers and heard on the evening news.” He lifted his hand toward the vast acreage behind the yard. “This is it for me right now. Just a boring cattle rancher.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear and read,” Victoria replied, surprising herself and him. Why should she care how he felt or what he thought? “And the viewers love anyone who is living large.” She indicated the house with a glance back at it. “And it certainly seems as if you’re doing just that.”

Once again turning the tables on her, he asked, “And what do you believe? What have you read or heard about me? How am I living large?”

Should she be honest and let him know upfront that she despised everything he stood for? That beginning with high school and ending with a called-off wedding and later, one long kiss from him, she’d dated one too many cowboys and she’d rather be in a relationship with a CPA or a grocery store manager than someone like him? That she thought he was one walking hot mess and a complete fake?

“No need to answer that,” Clint replied, his hands tucked into the pockets of his nicely worn jeans. “I can see it in your eyes. You don’t like me and you don’t want to be here, but hey, you have a job to do, like everyone else, right?”

Victoria didn’t try to deny his spot-on observation. “Right. If we can work together, we both win. I get a nice promotion and you get the exposure you need to put your name back out there, so to speak.”

Clint lowered his head and gave her a lopsided grin. “Meaning, I can either make the best of this offer or I can show myself in a bad light and make things worse all the way around.”

She’d thought the same thing, driving out here. If he acted the way the world thought he acted, he wouldn’t win over any new fans. Or they’d love him and watch him out of a morbid fascination with celebrities doing stupid things. Watch him to make themselves feel better, if nothing else. Why the world got such a perverse pleasure out of watching others have public meltdowns was beyond her. Victoria valued her own privacy, which made her job tough sometimes. Filming someone in a bad light had not been her dream after college. But a girl had to earn a paycheck. She’d get through this. Right now she needed Clint Griffin to help her.

“I won’t lie to you,” she said, hoping to convince him. “This could work in your favor or it could go very bad. But I think people will be fascinated by your lifestyle, no matter how we slant it.”

“Oh, yeah.” He turned to grab his coffee then stared out over the sunshine playing across the pasture. “Everybody wants a piece of Clint Griffin. Why is it that people like to watch other people suffer?”

Wondering how much he was truly suffering, Victoria watched him, saw the pulse throbbing against the muscles of his jawline. Hadn’t she just thought the same thing—why people liked to watch others suffering and behaving badly?

She ignored the little twinge of guilt nudging at her brain and launched back into trying to persuade him to cooperate.

“I think people like reality television because they get to be voyeurs on what should be very private lives and they see that celebrities are humans, too.”

He turned to look at her, his eyes smoky and shuttered. “They like to watch people hurting and trying to hide that hurt. They like to see someone who’s been given everything fail at it anyway. That’s why they watch.”

“I suppose so,” she conceded. “It’s a sad fact, but today’s reality television makes for great entertainment. And I do believe you’d make a great subject for our show.”

“In spite of your better judgment?”

“Yes.” Victoria believed in being honest. But she couldn’t help but notice the shard of hurt moving through his eyes. “You’d be compensated for your time, of course.”

“At what price?”

The look he gave her told her he wasn’t talking about money. Did this shiny, bright good ol’ boy have a conscience?

“You’ve heard the offer already but you could probably name your price.”

He stared at her then named a figure. She tried not to flinch. No surprise that he was holding out for more. “I’ll talk to Samuel. But I think we can come to an agreement. I can’t speak for the network and the army of lawyers we have, but I can report back and have someone call you or meet with you and your handlers.”

He laughed, shook his head then offered her a hand. “No dice, darlin’. I don’t have a lot of handlers these days except for my manager, who also acts as my agent. But I’ve already informed him and your army of lawyers, as you called them, that I’m really not interested in your show.”

“What?” Victoria didn’t know how to respond. She would have bet a week’s pay that this ham of a man would have jumped at the chance to preen around on a hit television show.

But he didn’t seem the least bit interested or impressed. He actually looked aggravated.

Victoria’s head started spinning with ways to sway him. Should she stroke his big ego and make him see what he’d be missing—a captive audience, loyal female followers and his name back in the bright lights?

She couldn’t go back to Samuel without at least a promise that Clint Griffin was interested. “Look, you’d be in the spotlight again. You could write your own ticket, sing some of your songs. All we want to do is follow you around on a daily basis and see how the great Clint Griffin lives his life. And you’d make a hefty salary doing it. What’s not to like about this?”

“You said it yourself,” he replied, obviously done with this conversation. “People like to get inside other people’s private affairs and...I might be dumb but I’m not stupid. I’ve been on the wrong side of a camera before—both the tabloid kind and the jailhouse kind. That’s a can of worms I don’t intend to open.” His chuckle cut through the air. “Heck, if I want attention I’ll just get into another brawl. That always gets me airtime.”

Victoria could tell she was losing him. “But I thought you’d jump at this chance. The pay is more than fair.”

He whirled and she watched, fascinated as his expression changed from soft and full of a grin, to hard and full of anger. Her heart actually skipped a couple of thumps and beats. Even if she didn’t like him, she could see the star potential all over his good-looking face.

“I’m not worried about the pay, darlin’. I know everyone and his brother thinks this ranch is about to bite the dust, but this isn’t some I’m-desperate-and-I-have-to-save-the-ranch type story. The Sunset Star will always be solid. My daddy made sure of that. It’s just that—” He stopped, stared at her, shook his head, stomped her toward the open doors into the house. “It’s just that I need to take care of a few things before I settle down and get back to keeping this place the way my daddy expected it to be kept. And I don’t need some reality show to help me do that.”

“But—”

He held her by the arm and marched her and her equipment toward the front of the house. “But even though you’re as cute as a newborn lamb and you seem like a good person, I’m not ready to take on the world in such an intimate way.”

Victoria’s panic tipped the scale when he opened the front door. “What if you just give me a week? One week to follow you around. Just me. No crew? I’ll edit the footage and let you have the final say.”

“No.”

“What if I double the offer?”

He stopped, one hand on the open door and one hand on her elbow. “Can you do that or are you just messing with me?”

“I can do that,” she said, praying Samuel would do that. “We really want you for this show.”

Clint glared down at her, his nostrils flaring in the same way as the black stallion in his favorite piece of artwork. “I don’t know. Maybe Clint Griffin is worth even more than that. You must want me pretty bad if you’re willing to give me millions of dollars just so you can follow me around.”

She blushed at the heated way he’d said that. But she was willing to play along. “I do. I mean, we do. I can’t go back without a yes from you. I might get fired.”

“And that’d be so horrible?”

“Yes. I’m a single, working girl. I have bills to pay. I have a life, too.”

“Then film your own self.”

“I can’t do that. I was sent out here to film you, to get you to become a part of our highly successful television series. You’d be a ratings bonanza.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard all that.” He leaned close, so close she could smell the scents of pine and cedar. “And yes, I would.” He let her go, leaving a warm imprint on her arm to tease at her and tickle her awareness. This was so not going her way.

Victoria gave up and took in a breath. She’d failed and now she had to tell Samuel. He would not be pleased. She started down the steps with the feeling that she was walking to her own execution.

“Hey,” Clint called. “C’mere a minute.”

Victoria whirled so fast, she almost dropped her camera. “Yes?”

“Would this contract include anything I wanted in there? Would I have a say over what goes in and what stays out?”

She swallowed and tried not to get too eager. “Uh, sure. We can put whatever you want into your contract—within reason, of course.”

He leaned against a massive column and crossed his arms over his chest, giving Victoria a nice view of his healthy biceps. “Come to think of it, I do have a nonprofit organization I could promote on air to get some exposure. That might be good. And I could certainly put the money into a trust for my niece. I’ll have to consider that possibility, too.”

Victoria was all for good deeds, but good deeds didn’t always make for good ratings. He couldn’t go all noble on her now. She needed bad—the bad-boy side of him. Or did she really? “Charities? You? On air?”

“Yes, charities, me. On air. I might be a player, sweetheart, but believe it or not, I’m also a human being.”

“Really now?”

“Really. Yes. I tell you what, you come back with a contract I can live with and I just might sign on the dotted line.” His grin stretched with all the confidence of a big lion getting ready to roar. “And I just might give you a little bit of what you want, too.”

Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “Oh, yeah, and what’s that?”

He moved like that roaring lion down the steps and got to within an inch of her nose. “My bad side,” he said, his eyes glistening with what looked like a dare.

“You’re on.” She backed up, glad she could find her next breath. She would not let this womanizer do a number on her head. She had to work with him, but she didn’t have to fawn all over him. Or put up with him fawning all over her.

Clint laughed and shook her hand. “We’ll see, sweetheart.”

Victoria knew that might be as good as she could get today. She’d be back all right. And she’d have a strong contract in hand and a couple of lawyers with her to seal the deal.

She might be dumb herself, but she wasn’t stupid either. She had to get Clint Griffin to star in Cowboys, Cadillacs and Cattle Drives or she might be out of a job.

She didn’t want her last memory of working on the show to be Clint Griffin turning her down. And honestly, she didn’t want things to end here. The man had somehow managed to intrigue her in spite of his wild reputation and in spite of how he’d treated her during their one brief encounter. But she was interested in him on a strictly professional level.

Victoria wanted to see what was behind that wild facade.

And she wanted to get to know Clint a little better in the process, too.

Temptation, she told herself. Too much temptation.

But this was a challenge she couldn’t resist.

Clint seemed to see the conflict in her soul.

“Whaddaya say, darlin’? Ready to rodeo?”

“I’ll get back to you within twenty-four hours,” she replied.

He tipped his hand to his forehead and gave her a two-finger salute. “I’ll be right here doing Lord knows what,” he called. “Think about that while you’re negotiating on my behalf.”

Victoria hurried to her Jeep and tried to drown out the roar in her head with some very loud rock music, but she heard his satisfied chuckle all the way back to the studio.

CHAPTER THREE

VICTORIA APPROACHED Samuel Murray’s office with trepidation mixed with a little self-serving hope. She didn’t want to disappoint her boss, but part of her wished Clint Griffin would turn down any and all offers. That way she wouldn’t have to ever be near the man again. Why on earth had she thought this would be a good idea?

He gave her the jitters. Victoria was usually cool and laid-back about things but after spending an hour or so with him, she needed a bubble bath and a pint of Blue Bell Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream.

How was she going to explain to the show’s producer/director and all-around boss that she’d failed in her scouting mission? Samuel had hired her right out of film school as a junior shooter and transcriber, but after watching her follow the head camera operator around, he’d promoted her because he liked her confidence and her bold way of bringing out the “real” in reality stars. Victoria worked with her subjects until they felt uninhibited enough to be honest, even with a roving camera following them around. What if she couldn’t do that with Clint? What if he messed with her head and made a fool of her? Or worse, what if he became too real, too in-her-face? What if Clint became much more than she’d ever bargained for?

And why was she suddenly so worried about this? She always did heavy research on her subjects, always had an action plan to get the drama going. But this time, with this man, she was too close, her old scars still too raw to heal.

“You’re behind the camera,” she reminded herself as she pulled into the parking garage of the downtown Dallas building where the TRN network offices were housed. That meant she had to be the one in control of the situation. “And you need your job.”

Unlike Clint Griffin, Victoria didn’t have land and oil and cattle and a reputation to keep her going. She had to live on cold hard cash.

Her parents had worked hard but had very little to show for it. Money had always been a bone of contention between her mother and father and in the end, not having any had done them in. They’d divorced when she was in high school. That had left Victoria torn between the two of them and confused about how to control her life. She’d been making her own decisions since then, but she’d never told Samuel that she’d honed her negotiation skills and her ability to soothe everyone from dealing with her parents.

She didn’t envy Clint Griffin his status in life, but she’d had some very bad experiences with men like him. Pampered, rich, good-looking and as deadly as a rattlesnake in a henhouse. She still had post-traumatic dating stress from her high school days and a typical Texas-type cowboy football player who had turned out to be the player of the year, girlfriend-wise. She’d been number three or four, maybe.

But high school is over, she reminded herself. And you’re not sixteen anymore. More like pushing thirty and mature beyond her years. Realistic. After high school, she’d dated for a while and finally found another cowboy to love. But that hadn’t worked out, either. He’d called off the wedding minutes before the ceremony because he couldn’t handle the concept that she might have a career. And she couldn’t handle his demand that she give it all up for him.

So when a very drunk Clint Griffin had planted that big, long kiss on her a few weeks after she’d been jilted, she’d needed it like she needed a snakebite. But that hadn’t stopped her from enjoying his kiss. Too much.

She didn’t have the California-dreaming, making-movies career she’d hoped for, but she was free and clear and she was still good at making her own decisions. Victoria prided herself on being realistic. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job. She couldn’t let the prospective subject get to her.

After hitting the elevator button to the tenth floor, Victoria hopped in and savored the quietness inside the cocoon of the cool, mirrored box. The dinging machine’s familiar cadence calmed her heated nerves. Still steaming from the warm summer day and the never-ending metro-area traffic between Dallas and Fort Worth, she rushed out of the elevator and buzzed past Samuel’s open office door then hurried to her own overflowing cubbyhole corner office. At least she had a halfway good view of the Reunion Tower. Halfway, but not all the way. Not yet. She’d go in and talk to Samuel later. Right now she just needed a minute—

“I know you’re in there, V.C.,” a booming voice called down the hall. “I want a report, a good report, on your scouting trip out to the Sunset Star Ranch.”

And now that he’d shouted that out like a hawker at a Rangers baseball game, everyone within a six-block radius also knew she’d been out in the country with a rascal of a cowboy.

Grimacing around the doorway at Samuel’s grandmotherly assistant, Angela, who was better known as Doberman since she was like a guard dog, Victoria shouted, “On my way.” Looking around for her own assistant, Nancy, she almost called out for help but held her tongue.

Everyone screamed and hollered around here for one reason or another, but one thing she’d learned after working for Samuel for three years—she couldn’t show any fear or he’d devour her with scorn and disdain. Samuel didn’t accept failure. But he might accept an almost contract from Clint Griffin.

Samuel pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Take a load off, V.C.”

Victoria stared down at the stack of old newspapers in the once-yellow chair then lifted them to the edge of the big, cluttered desk, careful not to disturb the multitude of books, magazines, DVDs and contract files that lay scattered like longhorn bones across the surface.

“So?” her pseudo-jolly boss asked, his bifocals perched across his bald head with a forgotten crookedness. What was left of his hair always stayed caught back in a grayish-white ponytail. He looked like a cross between George Carlin and Steven Tyler. “What’s the word from the Sunset Star?”

Victoria settled in the chair and gave him her best I’ve-got-this look. “We’re close, Samuel. Very close.”

He squinted, pursed his lips. “Very close doesn’t sound like definite.”

“He’s thinking about it but he haggled with me about the contract. He wants more money.”

“How much?”

Samuel always got right to the point.

“Double what we offered.”

“Double?” Samuel’s frown lifted his glasses and settled them back against his slick-as-glass head. “Double? Does he think we’re the Mavericks or something? We’re not in Hollywood and we don’t have basketball-player money. We work on a budget around here.”

“Well, that budget had better have room for Clint Griffin’s asking price or we won’t be featuring him on our show. He’s interested but only if we pay his price and only if we highlight his favorite charitable organization.”

Samuel sat back on his squeaky, scratched, walnut-bottomed chair and stared over at her with a perplexed glare, then let out a grunt that brought his bifocals straight down on his nose. “Charities? We’ve never done nonprofit work. We need drama and conflict and action. People behaving badly. Ain’t any ratings in do-gooder stuff.”

Victoria nodded, considered her options. “I told him I’d talk to you and then we can both talk to him. At first, he wasn’t interested but I tried to explain the advantages of signing on with us.”

Samuel’s frown lifted then shifted into a thoughtful sideways glance. “Such as exposure on one of the highest rating shows on cable? Such as endorsements that will make him blush with pride? Such as—”

“I mentioned some of the perks,” she said, wishing again Samuel hadn’t sent her to do this work. Where were all the big shots and lawyers when a girl needed them? “I also pointed out that he’d appreciate the money, of course.”

“You mean he badly needs the money.”

“I was trying to be delicate since that is only a rumor and hasn’t been confirmed. He denied that the ranch is in trouble. I think most of his trouble might be personal.”

Samuel snorted at that. “You don’t have a delicate cell in that pretty head, V.C. But you’re perfect to persuade Cowboy Clint that he needs to be a part of our team.”

“So you sent me because I’m female, Samuel? Isn’t that against company policy...being sexist and all?”

“I didn’t mention anything about that,” Samuel said, looking as innocent as a kitten. “I sent you to just get a feel, to see the lay of the land. This man makes the supermarket tabloids on a weekly basis. Now he’s playing all high and mighty?”

Victoria pushed at her ponytail. “I got a feeling that Clint Griffin doesn’t give a flip about any reality show and I saw the lay of the land, and frankly, the Sunset Star seems to be thriving. I think the man just likes to make a commotion. I’m beginning to wonder if all those rumors aren’t the truth after all. He’s certainly full of himself.”

“There is always truth in rumors,” Samuel said, repeating his favorite saying. “You need to go back out there. Something isn’t connecting here. He’s hot right now because he’s a headline maker. He’d be stupid to turn down this offer.”

“He’s not stupid,” Victoria said, remembering Clint’s words to her. “He’s smarter than he lets on, I think.”

Samuel grabbed a pen and rolled it through his fingers. “I’d say. He played you, V.C. Which is why you need to get right back on that horse and convince him to take the deal before he asks for even more money.”

“I can’t, not until you tell me yes or no on the asking price. And I mean his asking price, not what our team has offered. I know we can afford that, at least.”

Samuel squinted, looked down through his bifocals. “Now we bring in the lawyers and his manager,” he replied, a dark gleam in his brown eyes. “You gave him a nibble. I’d bet my mother’s Texas Ware splatter bowl, he’s talking to his people right now.”

Victoria wondered about that. Did he really want this kind of exposure? Or did he need it in spite of how he felt about doing a reality show? She figured Clint Griffin had already forgotten about the whole thing, including meeting her and having her camera in his face.