LITMIR.BIZ

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mean an hour, at least, of sitting across from him, counting his eyelashes, thinking stupid thoughts like how no other man smelled like him, or laughed like him, or looked at her in such a dangerously delicious kind of way.

      She was in trouble here.

      No doubt about it.

      Then again, there was the interview. She should concentrate on that. The sooner she got the material she needed, the sooner she could get back into her Manolos and away from Buck and New Bethlehem Flat. “I’ll bring my tape recorder.”

      “One hour. No excuses.”

      She turned and left him without actually saying yes, though both of them knew she’d be ready. On time.

      In her room, using the push-button phone, B.J. called Giles, who was still at his desk, bless his ambitious little heart, though it was well after seven at night in New York.

      He listened patiently to her long list of notes and suggestions, then told her that everything was going fine. “Not a crisis in sight.”

      “That’s not normal.”

      He laughed. She pictured him tossing those thick blond locks of his and felt homesick—for the city, for her office, for her own world where she could so easily avoid dealing with Buck.

      “B.J.,” Giles chided. “You worry too much.”

      “Call me. The minute there’s any kind of problem, any time you need advice…”

      “I will, I will.”

      “Use this number.” She rattled it off. “Cell phones don’t work here. And forget the Internet. It’s not happening, either.”

      “Okay, okay.”

      “If I’m out of the room, you can leave a message. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

      “Makes sense to me. And I mean it. There is zero to worry about.”

      The call was over too quickly, leaving her standing in her cozy little room at the Sierra Star B & B, staring out the window at the rough, silvered reflection of the moon on the river, wondering what she was doing there—and silently vowing to pull the damn article together fast and get the hell out of New Bethlehem Flat.

      Five

      Buck took B.J. to the Nugget Steakhouse—on Main Street, wouldn’t you know? The Nugget had a main dining room and another room next door, which contained one of the town’s two bars.

      A stocky waitress in jeans and a polo shirt greeted Buck by name. He gave her that grin that bowled all the women over. “Nadine. How you been?”

      “Can’t complain.” Nadine led them to a booth. “What can I get you to drink?” She handed them each a menu.

      Buck ordered a whisky and soda. B.J. asked for water. The waitress hurried off through the door to the bar.

      B.J. opened her menu. “What’s good?”

      “How would I know? I haven’t eaten here in over a decade.”

      The menu was big enough that, held upright, it blocked him from her view. Which was fine. After all, every time she looked at him, she only wanted to look some more.

      He said, “You probably can’t go wrong with the filet.”

      She grunted in answer, staring blankly at the menu, wondering why she’d bothered to ask for his recommendation. It wasn’t as if she would be eating or anything.

      Morning sickness. Who ever thought of calling it that? Probably some idiot with a disgustingly positive attitude. For B.J., the problem went on all day and all night. If it kept up, she’d be the skinniest pregnant lady in Manhattan. She might die of starvation, and her poor unborn baby with her.

      And she just knew he was waiting over there across the table for the moment when she had to stop hiding behind the menu and look at him again.

      Might as well get it over with. She shut the menu, set it aside and went ahead and met his eyes.

      Wouldn’t you know? Compelling as ever.

      She glanced away. For something to do as she tried not to look at him, she studied the decor.

      The place was aggressively rustic, a virtual sea of knotty pine. Knotty pine crawled up the walls and spread across the ceiling. Their booth and the tables grouped in the center of the room were all made of knotty pine. The ladder-back chairs? Yet more knotty pine. Even the wagon-wheel chandeliers overhead were knotty pine, stained dark enough that it was hard to make out the knots. But B.J. wasn’t fooled.

      She knew knotty pine when she saw it—and she didn’t care for it in the least. B.J. had history with knotty pine, history that involved a dead animal, a rifle and a hunting lodge in Idaho.

      In October, the year she turned twelve, L.T. had taken her to Idaho to hunt elk. B.J. had always loathed hunting. She didn’t want to watch her dinner die, she truly didn’t.

      But she’d learned to shoot and how to handle herself in the woods just to prove to L.T. that she could. That trip, she’d actually shot an elk. A gorgeous big bull with a massive rack. It was one of those things that just happened. She had the rifle and she knew how to use it and she knew what L.T. expected of her.

      In the sub-freezing pre-dawn, she’d crouched behind a big, gray rock and waited there for hours, being quiet and tough and self-reliant, the way L.T. expected her to be. She had it all figured out in her twelve-year-old mind. No elk was even going to come near her, so she wouldn’t have to actually shoot anything.

      Wrong.

      The animal appeared out of nowhere. All at once it was just standing there in the early-morning gloom, looking off toward the snow-capped mountains to the east and the bright rim of light where the sluggish sun was slowly rising. Soundlessly, she shouldered her rifle, got the creature in her sights—and pulled the trigger. A perfect, clean shot. The bull dropped dead where it stood, forelegs crumpling, big brown eyes going glassy, making no sound but a loud thump as it hit the ground.

      B.J. emerged from behind her rock and stood over it, still not believing that she’d actually killed the poor thing.

      The knotty pine had come into play that night. Their hunting lodge was paneled, like the Nugget Steakhouse, all in pine. L.T. and the other men stayed up late, drinking and laughing and loudly discussing how “little B.J.” had got her elk. Little B.J., who had gone to bed early, lay awake in the open sleeping loft upstairs, counting the knots in the paneling, thinking that she really hadn’t meant to shoot that bull, and wishing the men would just shut up about it.

      “You’re too quiet,” Buck said.

      She blinked and focused on him. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

      “About?”

      Nadine reappeared, saving B.J. the trouble of coming up with an answer. The waitress set their drinks in front of them, along with a bread basket, bread plates and their flatware rolled in white cloth napkins. “You two ready to order?”

      “I am,” said B.J. She rattled off what she wanted and Buck did the same. Nadine scribbled it all down and hustled off again.

      “So,” said Buck.

      “What?”

      “What was on your mind, just then?”

      “When?”

      He gave her a look—kind of weary and put-upon.

      Oh, what the hell? “I was just thinking that I hate knotty pine. Knotty pine is depressing. Every damn knot is like a big, sad, reproachful brown eye—an eye that watches your every move.”

      “Never thought of it that way.”

      “This is probably not a good place to be on medication.”

      “I kind of like it myself.”

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