The Cowboy And The Calendar Girl. Nancy Martin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Bert,” she returned, automatically brushing the straight blond tendrils behind her ears. “But thanks for noticing.”

      “I notice more than you think.” Bert put one elbow on his desk and leaned toward her. “Like how you’ve been feeling lately.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “You know what I mean.”

      Carly turned away from her partner, lest he see her reaction. Better to keep this relationship with Bert strictly professional, she thought. After their mercifully short affair three years ago, Carly decided to keep her feelings to herself to insure Twilight Calendars continued to run successfully. Back then business had been far more important to Carly than a love life. But Bert had apparently picked up on her current state of mind.

      It must have become obvious that Carly had recently begun to feel—well, jaded. Cynical. The calendar business could have that effect on a girl A few years of looking at every man in terms of how he’d photograph without his clothes on under some good studio lighting has turned me into just another L.A. vulture.

      She crushed out her cigarette with a vengeance in the cut-crystal ashtray on Bert’s desk.

      Looking at the mess she’d made in his ashtray, Bert said, “I think this cowboy thing has really affected you, Carly. You truly want to get this guy’s shirt off, don’t you?”

      “Oh, that’s not it at all!” Carly turned to the huge office window. Keeping her back to Bert, she frowned at the hazy panorama of Los Angeles. But she didn’t really look at the familiar cityscape that stretched as far as the eye could see before disappearing into the smoggy horizon. Instead, Carly looked into her own heart for the first time in years.

      “I’ve been doing this too long,” she said aloud—before she could catch herself.

      “What do you mean by that?” Bert sounded truly surprised.

      Although she hadn’t meant to reveal her innermost thoughts, Carly found herself confiding in Bert Detwiler of all people—her partner and former lover, who paid more attention to the care of his cashmere sweaters than the women in his life. But these days Bert was all Carly had

      Without turning around, Carly shook her head. “I’ve been obsessed with appearances, Bert. It’s part of our job, of course—taking pictures that will titillate men and women everywhere—but, well, I’ve let it take over my personal life, too. The people I photograph are completely empty. Now they’re the ones I socialize with, too. And they’re not real.”

      “Oh, don’t give me that beautiful-people-have-no-soul garbage again, Carly! We have rich social lives. Why, you’re always running to some gallery opening or movie premiere or dinner with the gang—”

      “And my biological clock is running, too.”

      “Good heavens.” Bert clapped a hand over his heart as if to calm its lurching. “I never expected you to want a family. What an extraordinary idea.”

      Carly spun around and found Bert looking amused. “All right, all right,” she said wryly, indicating her spike heels, black stockings and black minidress. “So I’m not exactly an earth mother,” Carly said. “But I see my sisters building wonderful lives with men who are interesting and talented, and what do I have to show for all my thirty-two years? Six shiny calendars featuring completely mindless guys who’ve smeared their pectorals with petroleum jelly!”

      “You think this cowboy person has a soul?” Bert tapped the photo on his desk.

      “At least he looks like he puts in an honest day’s work that doesn’t require false eyelashes and a chin tuck every five years the way most of our male models—”

      “What is this?” Bert demanded with a laugh. “A midlife crisis?”

      “I don’t know what it is! I just looked at these pictures and saw a real person for the first time in ages.”

      “Okay, okay!” Bert used both hands to shove the rest of the jumbled photographs across the desk to her. “Take your camera and go to North Whatsit—”

      “South Dakota.”

      “Whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively. “If you really want to get a taste of a real man, forget the studio shots for once! Just remember...we need another bestseller this year, Carly.”

      “I’ll remember,” she said with a soft smile for her partner.

      Bert’s perfect grin twinkled again. “And one more thing. The front of the horse is the part that bites, and the back of the horse is the part that kicks.”

      “Bert—”

      “I know,” he said, nobly holding up one hand to prevent her from saying something that might embarrass them both. “Sometimes I’m a jerk, but once in a while I’m wonderful, right?”

      Carly laughed. “See you next week.”

      

      Heading for the airport two hours later, Carly felt extraordinarily free. Suddenly she couldn’t get to South Dakota fast enough.

      Things were going to change!

      One photograph had done it. Just one of the thousand amateurish pictures sent by fans of Twilight Calendars for the annual talent search. One Becky Fowler had submitted the winning photo—a picture of her own brother, a rancher with amazingly deep blue eyes, an awe-inspiring profile and—oh, well, she might as well admit it—gorgeous shoulders.

      And ever since she’d laid eyes on that picture, Carly hadn’t been able to think straight. All she wanted was to meet the man in the photo.

      He looked like the kind of guy a girl could kiss until his cows came home.

      He was magnificent. One photograph had captured this exquisite example of the male animal.

      And his name was Hank, the letter said. Hank Fowler.

      Hank. Perfect. Ever since seeing his picture, Carly had felt drawn to Hank Fowler as if by an unbelievably powerful magnet. Secretly she had started keeping his photo in her briefcase. At night she even put the picture on her nightstand. It was as if Hank called to some basic female instinct in Carly. And like a hormone-demented salmon swimming for the pool in which it was spawned, Carly suddenly knew she had to single-mindedly propel herself to the place where the handsome Hank Fowler lived and breathed.

      And she didn’t even know the guy.

      But she wanted to meet him. A real man. Nothing artificial, nothing dishonest. The genuine article.

      

      The plane deposited Carly in Sioux Falls. There she was informed that renting a car was her only choice for transportation, so she plunked down her gold credit card and acquired a four-by-four Jeep.

      “I don’t think you’ll run into any snow,” said the rental clerk. “It’s pretty late for weather like that, but you never know.”

      “It’s summer,” Carly protested.

      “You’re in South Dakota now, honey. СКАЧАТЬ