Too Close To Call

2

THE FIRST PERSON Jordan met in L.A. was Jeffrey’s friend and former co-worker, Rob Emery. Nice guy. A whole lot nicer than Jeffrey seemed, in fact.

Jeffrey had explained the impersonation to Rob, and Rob had offered to help in any way he could.

They’d stayed up all night reviewing the basic makeup of Argonaut Studios and the delivery of a presentation for the television series Jeffrey had planned.

Jordan didn’t get any sleep, but by morning he was armed with sketches, descriptions of scenes, outlines of the series characters and pictures of Arctic Luck for the location—all in living color. Rob, now a documentary filmmaker, definitely seemed to know what he was doing, and Jordan felt confident he could describe Jeffrey’s television series proposal to the Board members.

In fact, he thought it would be a very funny show. Stereotypical Alaska stuff, of course, but exactly what residents of the lower forty-eight would expect in a comedy series from the north.

The grizzly bear sequence in episode two was preposterous. The bears were still in their dens at Easter, and no one could get that close without having their head taken off. But, if the audience was willing to suspend their disbelief, he could see the humor.

He straightened the stack of packages that were ready to be handed out to the Board members. Jeffrey’s efficient secretary, Bonnie Greenbough, had copied and stapled them together over the past hour.

She seemed delighted to have Jeffrey back. She’d probably be even more delighted when the real Jeffrey arrived and didn’t brush off her friendly overtures with excuses about being busy. She seemed like a perfectly nice woman, and Jordan felt guilty avoiding conversations with her.

But he had to keep his head down and his mouth shut, and try not to make any mistakes. There were more people on one floor of the Argonaut office building than in the entire town of Alpine—and they all seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Unlike Jordan, who could barely find the rest room.

He was tiptoeing through a minefield.

His office door opened, and he glanced up, hoping it was Bonnie.

It wasn’t.

A drop-dead gorgeous, nattily dressed, perfectly made-up woman strolled through the doorway and snapped the door shut behind her, pausing to lean against it. “Well, well, well,” she drawled. “The prodigal returns.”

Jordan pushed back in his chair and watched the woman saunter across the large office. “Ashley Baines. In the flesh.”

Jeffrey had mentioned her several times.

And Rob had mentioned her too, while pointing out her picture in the company’s annual report.

Evidently, the “iron maiden” was Jeffrey’s competition for this promotion. Both men had spoken of her with a mixture of awe and fear.

Jordan didn’t think she looked all that scary as she folded herself into one of the guest chairs. She arched a perfect brow over glowing blue eyes and gave him a quick, dispassionate once-over.

Scary, no.

Challenging, definitely.

Her crisp, burgundy jacket and the narrow, matching skirt told him she meant business. But her blond braid was like a flash of sunshine in the dark, ostentatious office, and her trim body was the stuff of Jordan’s favorite fantasies.

“When did you hit town?” She crossed one leg over the other, showing off tanned, toned calves that held Jordan’s attention a little too long.

Maybe that was what scared Jeffrey and Rob so bad. The woman was sexy enough to be lethal.

Good thing Jordan was brave. Good thing he’d taken self-defense training. In fact, he’d be prepared to wrestle her on the carpet if push came to shove.

He’d be prepared to wrestle her at length.

Naked, if necessary.

He dragged his gaze back to her face. “Got in last night,” he answered her question.

She zeroed in on the pile of presentations sitting on the wide desk in front of them. Her eyebrows twitched with interest.

He reached out and flipped the papers facedown.

“Scared?” she asked.

He cocked his head to one side. “Of you?”

She laughed at the tone of incredulity, and the sound trickled through him like clear stream water. That laugh sure didn’t mesh with the personality Jeffrey had described.

“Of my series,” she said.

“We’re ready to give you a run for your money.” He patted the pile of upside-down papers, considering the merits of locking them in one of the desk drawers until the meeting. Who knew how far she’d go if she happened to stroll into his office and find it empty?

“Can’t wait to see it,” she said. “But I came to tell you that if you have any tweaking to do, you’ve caught a break.”

“A break?” he asked.

“The meeting’s been put off until Friday.”

Jordan rocked forward in his chair. Friday? He didn’t have until Friday. He’d signed up for one day in L.A., not five days in L.A. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Stroke of a pen by the chairman of the board’s secretary.” She looked smug, and a little self-satisfied. She’d obviously been pivotal in postponing the meeting. But, why? What did she have to gain?

She couldn’t know his secret already. Could she?

He gazed into her clear blue eyes for signs that he was caught.

She stared back, poker-faced, not giving a thing away.

Jordan had never been any good at mind games. He much preferred the straight-ahead approach. Like a wrestling match on the floor of the office—winner got the promotion.

He wondered if she’d go for it.

“Friday at ten,” said Ashley.

“I have an appointment on Friday.” In Alpine, Alaska. Running his company. Wally had only convinced him to do this much because he was the closest thing Jordan had to family.

“So, cancel,” she said.

“It’s not that simple.”

The storm was forecast to last most of the week, so there was no hope of Jeffrey making it back to save the day.

Forget the possibility that Jordan would be caught before Friday, his employees back home were depending on him. The airline wasn’t going to run itself.

She smirked, and shrugged her slim shoulders. “Then don’t show. I don’t mind.”

Then she nodded at the stack of papers, leaning slightly forward in her chair. “I hear yours is set in Alaska.”

“Arctic Luck,” said Jordan, then immediately wondered if he’d made a mistake. Jeffrey had distinctly told him not to share any information with Ashley.

“What’s the title?” she asked.

“What’s yours?” he returned, not about to get caught out a second time.

She smiled, revealing straight, white teeth and giving those blue eyes a luminescent glow. A shiver of attraction shot to life inside him. He quickly quelled it. That was the last thing he needed.

“Kissed In California,” she replied.

His gaze subconsciously shifted to her full lips. But he quickly blinked his way back to her eyes. Bottomless. Amazingly beautiful.

His brain might know she was off limits, but his libido appreciated what his libido appreciated. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it.

“Cute title,” he said into the silence.

“It’s a cute concept.”

“Going to tell me about it?” he asked.

“Not on your life.”

“Spoilsport.”

“You expect me to make this easy for you?”

“Definitely not.”

“Good.” She paused. “I’d hate for you to be disappointed.”

It was his turn to grin. “I’m not so far.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“It means I can’t wait to see what your medical series is all about.”

“Detective series,” she corrected.

Jordan’s grin widened.

“Don’t get all smug on me. I gave you that one.”

And she had. He had no doubt.

This was a woman completely in control, completely sure about what she wanted, where she was going and what she was doing.

Jeffrey had her all wrong. She wasn’t dangerous. She was intriguing. Sharp and prickly, but definitely intriguing.

“Stop that,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Stop what?”

“Does the bedroom eyes thing actually work in New York?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

A challenge glittered in the depths of her irises. “Don’t mess with me.”

That challenge called to him. It made him envy Jeffrey for getting to work with her all the time. Okay, so Jeffrey got to work against her all the time. But it was probably still stimulating as all get out.

She sighed in exasperation and threw up her hands. “What now?”

“You’re not what I expected.”

“What are you talking about?”

Oops. “I mean, this isn’t what I expected.”

She sat back. “You thought I’d just roll over and play dead as soon as I heard you were showing up?”

Jordan didn’t chance answering this time.

She shook her head. “Not on your life, Jeffrey. You just hang on to your New York hat, because I am going to blow you so far out of the East River.”

Jordan couldn’t help the grin that crept out.

She straightened, and her skirt hiked up showing off an inch of shapely thigh. Her full lips were pursed. And those crystal blue eyes pinned him with a challenge worthy of a wild lynx.

Too bad all that pent-up intensity and emotion was working against him instead of for him. If he ever had a choice, he’d want her on his team. She could probably survive quite nicely in the Alaskan bush.

“Exactly how are you planning to blow me out of the East River?” he asked, wondering if he could fake her into divulging a little more information. Though, if he was honest, he wasn’t doing it so much for Jeffrey’s sake at this point, as he was trying to best her for the gratification of his own ego.

“With skill and talent,” she responded smoothly. “And hard work.”

“You don’t think I’m willing to work hard?”

“I want it more than you do.”

“Maybe.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked momentarily confused.

Oops. Not a Jeffrey answer. “I mean, I’m sure you think you want it more than I do. But, you know me, Ashley—”

“That’s right. I do. And I’m not going to let you undermine me this time.” She pinned him with a knowing look.

This time? Jordan needed to talk to Jeffrey.

“Then you know I never back away from a fight,” he said. That seemed like a safe assumption about Jeffrey. And, it was true enough for Jordan, too.

“Back away?” she scoffed. “I’m sure you’ll do your usual end run.”

Jordan wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. It made Jeffrey, him, sound rather conniving. He was definitely going to find out what Jeffrey had done to this woman.

“I promise you.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “Whatever’s happened between us in the past, this time you’ll see me coming.”

SEE HIM COMING?

What did he mean, see him coming? L.A. studio executives, Jeffrey Bradshaw in particular, were not known for their frontal attacks. Nobody got ahead in this business by giving the competition a chance to mount a defense.

Ashley shut her office door and leaned hard against it, closing her eyes.

What was the matter with her? She’d started off planning to pump Jeffrey for information, but ended up practically throwing down the gauntlet. Talk about an ill-advised frontal attack. Jeffrey knew more about her plans than she’d ever intended to divulge.

But—she took a deep breath—she hadn’t come away completely empty-handed.

She crossed to her desk, adjusted the opaque blinds to block the midday sun from streaming through the picture windows and clicked on her Internet link.

Arctic Luck, Alaska.

“You’re slipping, Jeffrey,” she muttered to herself.

What was in Arctic Luck, and why would it make a funny television series?

After fifteen minutes of surfing, Ashley had her answer, at least to one of her questions.

Nothing was in Arctic Luck. Nothing at all.

Well, according to the National Forest Service, it had ten unserviced campsites and several miles of grizzly-infested hiking trails. You could catch pike and Arctic grayling in the local lakes—when they weren’t frozen solid. And, one of the citizens had made the Anchorage Daily News two years ago when his dog team chased off a bull moose during a dogsled race.

As to how Jeffrey planned to make that funny and marketable to a broad demographic, she had absolutely no idea.

Her odd couple/sexy/mismatched buddies/action/fish out-of-water/detective series had to be better than husky dogs and moose. After all, how could a person possibly make a moose sexy?

Not even Jeffrey. Who, well, speaking of sexy…

Ashley closed her eyes again.

Something had happened to Jeffrey while he was away in New York. He suddenly oozed sex appeal. He looked like he’d spent the entire year at the gym and in a tanning booth. She sure didn’t remember that rugged, outdoorsy, hardened appearance from last year.

It was distracting. She didn’t want to be thinking about his broad shoulders and bulging biceps while she was plotting ways to undermine his bid for the vice presidency. She wanted to focus on his weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

She sat up straight, shaking the mental image, forcing herself to catalogue everything she knew that might be valuable. The series was set in Arctic Luck. It might be a drama, but was probably a comedy, or a combination of both. He hadn’t given her the title. But, she’d given him hers.

Damn.

There was nothing in Arctic Luck except wilderness, fish and moose. How was that interesting? How was that funny? He’d hidden his proposal from her, which meant there was something on the front page.

The page.

His proposal was on pages, not on a computer, not in sound bites, not in video clips. He was giving a paper presentation.

There it was. His weakness and her opportunity. If she went flat out—a bells and whistles, high-tech, multimedia extravaganza—she’d win.

Ashley picked up the phone and punched in Rachel’s number.

Rachel picked it up on the second ring.

“Did you get Sean Connery?” asked Ashley without preamble.

“No, but I got Greg Duncan for the clips. He’s almost as good. Did you pump Jeffrey?”

“I tried.” With very limited success. The main thing she’d found out was that there was suddenly something weird about Jeffrey—in an intriguing sexy way. But she wasn’t about to share that with Rachel.

“What did he tell you?”

“The location. It’s Arctic Luck, Alaska.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s ’cause you’re not a bull moose.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Little backwater, hole-in-the-wall, near as I can tell. I don’t know what Jeffrey’s thinking. But, get this, it looks like his presentation is on paper.”

“Completely?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Maybe they’re not as progressive in New York.”

“Suits me just fine. Can we film tonight?”

“Got a skeleton crew meeting us at the beach at seven.”

ASHLEY AND RACHEL had spent the entire evening filming the first of the new clips. And now Ashley had to stay late that night to layer them into the proposal. That left them with three days before the meeting.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning. If she worked really fast, she might have time to catch a couple of hours sleep before starting work. She’d let some other things slip yesterday in order to get the filming done, and she’d have to take care of them tomorrow, or rather, later this morning.

She double-clicked the button on the computer in the Argonaut Studios audiovisual computer lab. She was linking still photos, sound bites, video clips and text files into a smooth presentation.

The room held high-end computers with top of the line monitors, specifically designed for video and animation. Argonaut provided them in a central facility for the use of all employees, though the film and photography staff had dibs on them during the day.

The door opened and Ashley turned to see who had joined her. Though official office hours were eight to five, the television industry was a hotbed of last-minute deadlines and emerging crises. No matter what time it was, day or night, there were always a few people working in the main office building.

Her eyes focused on Jeffrey, as he let the door close behind him.

“How’s it going?” he asked, in a gravelly voice.

“Fine.” She quickly minimized the screen before he could get close enough to see the details.

“A few last-minute adjustments?” he asked, strolling across the dimly lit room.

“A few,” she admitted, although it was far more than a few, and she wouldn’t consider it last-minute until Thursday night.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Just keeping up with the Joneses.” He took the computer directly across from her, swiveling the chair to face her. He could have picked any of the other four workstations in the room. The ones farther away from her—out of spying and distracting distance.

“I hear you’re setting a high standard.” He slid a disk into the drive and began punching keys. “Thanks to you, I’m not getting any sleep tonight.”

“Where did you hear that?”

Had he been spying on her? Asking around? Bribing employees? She wouldn’t put it past him.

“A gentleman never tells.” Jeffrey turned his attention to the computer screen, and she thought she caught a hint of a smile. “We happened to be having dinner on the deck at the Breakwater.”

“You just happened to be overlooking my shoot?” Ashley didn’t believe it for a second. They must have followed her there. The Breakwater deck would have given them a perfect view of last night’s filming.

“You were spying on me,” she accused.

Jeffrey glanced up. “What do I look like? James Bond?”

No. Actually, he looked more like Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans. With shorter hair and darker eyes. And maybe his chin was stronger, too. Funny, she didn’t remember Jeffrey ever looking so rawly sensual.

Wait a minute. Her mind was wandering. What were they talking about?

Spying. Right. She’d lost it there for a moment. Must be sleep deprivation.

She realized his gaze was gaining intensity, and she shifted in her chair. “If you weren’t spying on me, what were you doing at the Breakwater?”

“Rob said they had good steaks.”

“Since when did you start eating steaks?”

“My third birthday.”

“Cute.” Maybe that’s what bulked up his muscles. Jeffrey had taken to eating red meat over the past year.

He hit a couple of keys on his computer, and a series of colors reflected off the planes and angles of his face.

“You have video clips?” So much for scooping the competition.

“These are stock tourist clips of Alaska. Rob’s working with the actors.”

Her surprise must have shown on her face.

“You thought I’d just throw in the towel?” he asked softly with a slight shake of his head. “I’ve got a lot at stake here.”

So did she. In fact, so much was at risk here, that even having this conversation was a mistake. She couldn’t afford to inadvertently give him any more ammunition against her. She turned her attention to the big monitor in front of her, and enlarged her presentation.

She opened up one of the text files which contained a synopsis on the series idea and started proofreading.

She could hear the clicking of the computer keys as Jeffrey began working.

The overall storyline synopsis looked good, so she moved on to the episode specific stories.

They’d only come up with two episodes so far. They needed at least six.

While she proofread the text in front of her, she let her mind wander to other story ideas.

Before she realized it, she’d stopped reading. As the story ideas rambled through her brain, her action hero sprinted down the beach and suddenly turned into Jeffrey. That made no sense, since Jeffrey was neither old and jaded nor was he gay.

Still, her mind insisted on picturing him tanned and toned against the white sand…with her…in her smallest bikini. She felt the waves tickle her feet and imagined his warm hands on her skin, pausing on the curve of her hip, toying with the ties on her bathing suit.

A shiver of arousal ran through her.

Then the daydream changed. They were in a big bed. White, gauzy curtains billowed in the ocean breeze through an open window.

She could hear the gulls calling, and the waves crashing. She was in his arms, and it was morning, so they must have made love.

But, darn it, she couldn’t remember making love. She stared down at his dark head against the crisp, white pillowcase. She wanted him to wake up so they could make love again.

“Ashley?” His voice was husky against her ear, the soft puff of air erotically tickling her sensitive skin.

He was awake. She turned her head and smiled into his dark, sexy eyes. They were going to make love again, and this time she was going to savor every second.

“You want me to take you home?” he asked.

Home? She shook her head. No way. Not before they made love again.

She tipped her chin, hoping he’d reach out with those big, strong hands and stroke her face.

“Coffee?” he asked. “Or maybe breakfast? It’s nearly six.”

“Are those my only choices?” she mumbled in the sexiest voice she could muster.

“What other choices do you want?” There was a hint of laughter in his tone.

Ashley was about to tell him in bald terms just exactly what choice she was looking for.

But, suddenly, the hotel room vanished, replaced by a computer screen. Jeffrey wasn’t in her arms in a fantasy bedroom on the oceanfront. He was leaning over her in the Argonaut computer lab.

Icy mortification washed through her. He was waking her up from a catnap and she was about to proposition him.