A Bravo Homecoming. Christine Rimmer

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СКАЧАТЬ noon, he took her to some prissy, ferny downtown lunch place. And he ordered her a salad and an iced tea with lemon. She wanted to kill him. She truly did. Just snap his tiny twig of a neck between her two big hands.

      But then she reminded herself that she was going to do this. She was sticking out this ridiculous crash course in being a suitable pretend fiancée for Aleta Bravo’s precious prodigal son. She needed this, and she knew it. She wanted a chance at a new life.

      And if being waxed and peeled and plucked and starved half to death, if having to shop all day and all night until she finally managed to find something simple and bright in a natural fabric—if getting trained in how to sip tea and sit down at a table with rich people…

      If all that had to be done for her to get a fresh start, well, fine. She would do it. She would not give up.

      She was made of tougher stuff than that.

      So she ate her salad, slowly. Calmly. In small bites, chewing with her mouth shut. She sipped her iced tea.

      And then they shopped some more.

      It didn’t get easier.

      In the end, after hours and hours of lurking twenty feet away, watching her subtly out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan came to her rescue. He started choosing things for her to try on.

      Loaded down with shopping bags, they got back to the hotel at six-thirty. Sam now had five new dresses, six pairs of incredibly expensive shoes, four sweaters, three shirts, two pairs of designer jeans…and more. Much more.

      Jonathan had chosen everything. His taste was just disgustingly great. Even with her chopped-off hair and no makeup and her face still red from yesterday’s peel—she wasn’t getting the hair or the makeup until near the end of her training, he had told her—she could see the difference the right clothes made.

      At the hotel, he ordered quail for dinner—two of them each. Two tiny plump birds with a side of slivered carrots, which were drizzled in some heavenly sauce. She wanted to fall on those dinky birds and shove them, whole, into her wide-open mouth. She wanted to devour them, itty-bitty bones and all.

      But she waited, hands and napkin in her lap, for his instructions.

      He surprised her. “One eats quail with one’s hands,” Jonathan said. “Some foods are simply too small, or too bony, to be eaten any other way. In fact, the bones themselves are quite delicate and flavorful. Eat them, too, if you wish. But please, crunch in a quiet manner. And eat slowly, as always, savoring the tastes and textures, avoiding any unfortunate displays of grease or bits of meat on the lips and chin.”

      Then, as she chewed the heavenly little things with her mouth closed and tried not to listen to her stomach rumbling, he told her that there would be more shopping. And she would get better at it.

      She didn’t tell him he was frickin’ crazy, but she thought it.

      After the meal, there were more lessons. In polite conversation. In how to sit in a chair properly, for cripes’ sake.

      By the time she finally had her bedtime snack—an actual glass of milk and one slice of lightly buttered toast—she only longed to escape to her own room.

      Alone, she took a shower and brushed her teeth, greased up her hands and feet and put on the booties and the gloves. She climbed into bed and started to reach for the Miss Manners book.

      But then she just couldn’t. It was bad enough listening to Jonathan all day. She didn’t need more of the same in her nighttime reading.

      She tossed the book to the nightstand.

      It was a big book and it slid off and hit the plush bedroom carpet with a definite smack. She didn’t even bother to get out of bed and pick it up. Instead she grabbed the TV remote and pointed it at the television—but no. Forget TV. Forget everything.

      She threw the remote down to the carpet, too. And she gathered her knees up with her greased, white-gloved hands and she put her head down on them.

      And for the first time in eleven years, since way back when that rotten jerk Zachary Gunn broke her heart and she swore off men forever, she burst into tears.

      She was so miserable right then that she didn’t even have enough pride left to stop being a baby and suck it up. Great, fat, sloppy tears poured down her face and she let them.

      Her nose ran. She didn’t care. She let it happen, only controlling the flood in the sense that she tried her damnedest not to make a single sound. She gulped back her sobs because apparently she did have some pride left after all.

      And she didn’t want Jonathan to know how frickin’ stupid and awkward and foolish she felt. She could do a man’s job in a man’s world—and do it better than most guys. She’d reached the top of the food chain on an offshore rig at an age when most men would have been proud to simply be holding their own as roughnecks. But when it came to being a woman, well, that was turning out to be a whole lot harder than it looked.

      She cried and cried, really letting go, feeling very, very sorry for herself, biting her lip to keep from snorting and sniffling.

      And then her cell rang.

      She decided not to answer it. She kept on crying. In three rings, the call went to voicemail and again she was alone with her tears and her misery.

      Then the room phone rang. She tried to wait it out, but the minute it stopped ringing, it only started again.

      And she knew that if she didn’t pick it up, Jonathan would be tapping on her door, asking her what was the matter, hadn’t she noticed her phone was ringing?

      Oh, she could just hear him now. When one’s phone rings, Samantha, it is customary to answer it.

      If she let it get to that, she would have to reply and he would hear her clogged, teary voice and know that he had gotten to her, big-time.

      No way was she letting him know that. She’d held her own against some burly, badass roughnecks in her time. How could she let bird-boned, big-haired Jonathan get the better of her?

      She grabbed the phone. “What?” she demanded in a soggy, broken whisper.

      “Sam?” It was Travis. “Sam, what’s going on? You didn’t answer your cell. And I called the room twice.”

      “Yeah, I noticed.” A sob got away from her, followed by a watery hiccup.

      “Sam, are you all right?”

      She clutched the phone harder, feeling ridiculous and needy and weak and hopeless and sad. “I’m, uh…” She put her hand over the phone, swiped at her eyes and then groped for a tissue with her white-gloved hand.

      “Sam, talk to me. Please. What’s the matter with you?” He sounded so worried, so…scared even. For her.

      He was worried for her.

      That meant a lot.

      And then he said, “Sam, I’m coming over there. I’m coming over there now.”

      “No!” The word escaped her trembling mouth on a sob. “You can’t. Uh-uh.” СКАЧАТЬ