LITMIR.BIZ

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      At the crest of the hill, the trees gave ground and there it was: Castle Carlyle, a Gothic monstrosity of gray stone, a Norman conqueror’s wet dream of turrets and towers looming proudly against the night sky.

      Roderick opened the massive front door for her. Roderick was tall and gaunt and always wore a black suit with a starched white shirt and a bow tie. He’d run the castle since before her father had bought the estate from an eccentric Dutch-born millionaire twenty years back. L.T. liked to joke that Roderick came with the castle.

      “Ms. B.J. Lovely to see you,” Roderick said with a faint, slightly pained smile. He wasn’t very good at smiling. Loyalty and efficiency were his best qualities.

      “Roderick,” she said with a nod, as he relieved her of her bag and briefcase. “The oak room?” she asked. Roderick inclined his silver-gray head. She told him, “I’ll see myself in.”

      “As you wish.”

      Her heels echoing on the polished stone floor, B.J. proceeded beneath the series of arches down the length of the cavernous entry hall, past a dizzying array of animal heads mounted along the walls. For about a decade, back when B.J. was growing up, L.T. had amused himself hunting big game all over the world. Being neither a modest nor a subtle man, L.T. proudly displayed every trophy he took—whether it was a handsome buck with a giant rack, or one of an endless string of gorgeous girlfriends known in the press as his Alpha Girls.

      The oak room, named for the dark, heavily carved woodwork that adorned every wall, branched off toward the end of the entrance hall. The room boasted a long bar at one end, also ornately carved. L.T., wearing his favorite maroon satin smoking jacket over black slacks, sat in a leather wing chair near the bar, a Scotch at his elbow and one of his trademark Cuban cigars wedged between the fingers of his big, blunt-fingered right hand.

      His current Alpha Girl, Jessica, had found a perch on the arm of his chair. Jessica was, as usual, looking stunning. Tonight she wore red velvet, her plunging neckline ending just below the diamond sparkling in her navel. As B.J. entered, Jessica threw back her slim golden neck and trilled out a breathless laugh.

      L.T. and his Alpha Girl weren’t alone. On a brocade sofa across a Moorish-style coffee table from the pair sat the one person B.J. did not want to see.

      Buck Bravo, in the flesh.

      Two

      Jessica spotted B.J. first.

      “B.J.,” said the Alpha Girl breathlessly—Jessica did just about everything breathlessly. “How are you?”

      “About time,” said L.T., and puffed on his cigar. He tipped his steel-gray head in Buck’s direction. “As I recall, you two have met.”

      B.J. resisted the urge to say something scathing. L.T. knew very well that she and Buck had once been in love. He also knew that it had ended badly and that Buck was not, by any stretch of an active imagination, B.J.’s favorite person.

      Yes, okay. She’d had sex with the man last month. Or nearly two months ago, actually. Sometimes even a smart woman makes mistakes, especially when there are too many Manhattans involved. But no way would L.T. know that. Buck could be ten kinds of unmitigated SOB, but he wasn’t the type to go blabbing about subjects that were nobody’s business.

      “Hello, Buck,” she said and tried not to sneer.

      “B.J.” He looked at her through those sexy dark eyes of his and, in spite of her determination to remain unaffected, she felt the familiar thrill go pulsing through her.

      Dumb. Stupid. Never again.

      She ordered her mind off steamy images of her and Buck—in his bed, minus their clothes—and turned to her father. “I thought you ordered me up here to discuss my Christmas cover feature.”

      L.T. blew out a thick cloud of cigar smoke. “That is exactly what I did.”

      B.J. sent a sideways glance at the handsome hunk of aggravating temptation sprawled on the crimson sofa—and then spoke to L.T. again. “Buck has a story?”

      “Not a story,” said her father, gesturing grandly with his double corona. “The story.”

      Her pulse picked up—this time for purely professional reasons. Buck, after all, was your quintessential Alpha male. He was not only a gold miner, a cow-puncher, a wildcatter and a bull rider. He also just happened to be a top-notch journalist and a bestselling author. Black Gold, his gritty exposé of life—and death—on a Texas oil rig, had hit the bookstores in June and quickly climbed all the major lists.

      If Buck had a story for her…

      Oh, yeah. Just his name on the byline would be a coup. She should have thought of him. And she probably would have—if they didn’t have a serious past. If she hadn’t been so busy ignoring his phone calls. If she didn’t just happen to be pregnant with his baby…

      She made herself look directly at him. “Okay. I’m listening.”

      Buck smiled that charming, infuriating, warm, slow smile of his. The one that had made her fall in love with him in the first place, back in that fateful February, when they were both slaving away in the boiler room of Alpha’s circulation department. Back then, B.J., fresh out of Brandeis, was in the early stages of learning her father’s company from the ground up. Buck? Straight off a West Texas oil rig, still shaking the red dust off his boots, getting his start in the big city, determined to be a writer, though he had no formal education beyond a high-school diploma.

      “Well?” she prompted, when Buck gave her nothing except that killer smile.

      Her father chuckled. “Patience, B.J. How about a drink?”

      “I’ll pass.”

      L.T. stubbed out his hundred-dollar cigar in the brass dish beside his glass of Scotch. Then he stood and held out his hand to Jessica. With a glowing smile, she took it. He kissed her slim fingers. “Then let’s sit down to dinner, shall we?” He gestured at the round table across the room. It was set for four, with a white cloth, gleaming crystal and china rimmed in gold. “Nothing like a good meal to get the creative juices flowing.”

      What a night. Face-to-face with Buck again. And now she’d be expected to eat. Her father loved nothing so much as a nice, big slab of rare red meat. Ugh. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to…freshen up a little.”

      In the lavish black-marble half bath across the main hall, B.J. washed her hands and fluffed her hair and dreaded going back out there and dealing with Buck. But it had to be done and somehow, she would manage it. She would be pleasant. And professional. She’d get the damn story and—at work, at least—things would be fine until the next crisis came along.

      She joined the others in the oak room, sliding into the chair between Buck and L.T. with a determined smile on her face. Roderick came in and opened the wine. Colette, one of the maids, appeared and began serving the meal.

      B.J. faked drinking her wine. She even managed to get a little food down. On the polite conversation front, she nodded and made interested noises and spoke when spoken to. And she scrupulously avoided looking directly at Buck. No point in going there, nosiree.

      Colette had served the main course—rare venison, wilted greens and whipped sweet potatoes—when L.T. finally got down to business.

      “Arnie called me this morning and told me the problem. The solution came to me instantly, as it so often does. I thought, Buck Bravo. And immediately after, Of course. Who else? So I gave Buck a call. And wouldn’t you know? Buck was amenable and told me he could make himself available.

      “The December cover feature—” L.T. raised his glass of cabernet high and then paused to knock back a mouthful “—will be Buck.”

      B.J., who had her own wineglass near her lips at that moment, set it down without even pretending to drink from it. “Buck’s the story?”

      Her father laughed.

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