Bravo Unwrapped

Buck nodded. “B.J. and I were heading out, anyway.”

Lupe cast a nervous glance at the still-sobbing Glory. “I’m going with you—wait. I want to grab a camera…”

B.J. spoke up before Buck could argue. “Good idea.” She beamed Lupe a big smile—and sent a defiant look in Buck’s direction. “We’ll be out on the porch.” Lupe took off up the stairs and B.J. followed Buck out.

“You can’t avoid me forever,” Buck warned, as they waited on the steps for Lupe to join them.

“Probably not.” B.J. wrapped her jacket tighter against the late-afternoon chill. “But I’m giving it my best shot.”

“We have to talk.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“If you’d taken just one of my damn calls—”

She waved a hand. “I know, I know. Maybe you wouldn’t have found it necessary to manipulate me into coming here.”

“I didn’t manipulate you.”

“Hah.”

“I had a story you wanted. To get it, you paid the price I set.”

“As I said, you manipulated me into coming here.”

“You could have turned down the story…” He sent her one of those looks—intimate, dangerous. “Or maybe not. Maybe you couldn’t turn it down. After all, anything for Alpha, right?”

As if she’d deny it. “That’s right. Anything. Even a week in the sticks with you.”

“A week?” His breath plumed on the air. “I don’t know. This job is likely to take a lot more than a week….”

More than a week? To cover her dismay, she stuck her hands in her pockets and laid on the sarcasm. “Now you’ve really got me scared.”

He moved in closer—too close, really. But she had her pride. Damned if he’d make her step back. He asked, “Did you notice?”

“What?”

“You’re actually talking to me.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

He loomed closer still, close enough that she could feel his breath across her cheek, marvel at the thickness of his lashes over those damn night-dark eyes of his. “You’re not scaring me off.” He spoke the threat tenderly. “Not this time.”

She held her ground. “Watch me.”

“I am. I do.”

The door behind them opened and Lupe appeared, a black pea coat flung over her black jeans and short-sleeved black sweater. Her bangles jingled as she held up a Nikon. “Ready.”

B.J., deeply grateful for the photographer’s timely appearance, flashed her a blinding smile.

Buck muttered, “Fine. Let’s go.” He led the way across the bridge to Main Street.

As they strolled along the town’s major street, Buck played tour guide. He pointed out landmarks: the post office, the school on a rise one street over, the hardware emporium, the town hall, the firehouse. Three gift stores, a beauty shop, two restaurants. He showed them the bars, of which there were also two—one on either side of the street. And the Catholic church on the hill behind the school. Lupe got several shots of the white clapboard building sporting one central spire and nestled so prettily in a copse of autumn-orange maple trees. There was also a Methodist church, Buck told them, farther up Commerce Lane from Chastity’s B & B.

Everybody seemed to know him. It was “Buck, how you been?” and “Buck, nice to have you home again,” and “Great to see you back in town.” Some had even read his book.

One grizzle-haired old fellow perched on a bench outside the grocery store asked him when he was going to write a book about “the Flat,” as the locals called it. “Now, there’s a book that needs writin’.” The old character winked at B.J.

“One of these days, Tony,” Buck promised.

“You be sure to come and talk to me before you put down a single word,” Tony warned, turning his bald head this way and that, hamming it up for the camera as Lupe snapped shot after shot. “I got all the best stories—and I can tell you where all the bodies are buried…if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his bushy white eyebrows.

“Tony, you know you’re the first one I’ll come see.”

The old guy nodded, looking gratified. “I’ll hold you to it, see if I don’t.” He winked again at B.J.—and then at Lupe, too. “I like a pretty woman. Which one of these is yours?”

Buck sent B.J. a far too intimate look. She pretended not to notice.

“Well?” prompted old Tony with a chuckle.

Lupe blew a midnight strand of hair out of her eye and brought her camera into position again. “Leave me out of it. I’m just here to take the pictures.”

“Ah,” said Tony, turning to size B.J. up. “You, then.”

“No. I’m not his—and he’s not mine.”

“You sound real definite about that,” said Tony. “Maybe too definite. So definite I’m wondering who you’re tryin’ to convince.” Tony did some more chuckling.

Buck stepped in and made the introductions. “Tony Dellazola, this is B. J. Carlyle and Lupe Martinez.”

“Well, I am pleased to meet you both—so Buck. Tell me. You still livin’ in New York City?”

“That’s right.”

“Never been there, never will. It’s not healthy, folks livin’ all on top of each other that way. Like rats in a maze. They start chewin’ off their own tails.”

“Hey.” B.J. couldn’t let that remark pass. “I’m a New Yorker. You couldn’t pay me enough to live anywhere else.”

“And I like a good-lookin’ woman who knows her own mind,” declared old Tony. He pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket, stuck it between his yellowed teeth, leaned back on the bench and asked Lupe, “What d’you need all those pictures for?”

Lupe kept shooting and let Buck answer for her. “We’re here to do an article for Alpha magazine.”

Tony snapped to attention. “What’s that? I’m gonna have my picture in Alpha magazine?”

“Could be.”

Tony thought it over. “Well. I suppose that’s okay with me. Alpha’s a fine magazine. Classy, you know? And those Alpha Girls…each one prettier’n the last, all of ’em wearing a nice, big friendly smile—and not a whole lot more.” He gave yet another cackling chuckle and then grew serious again. “You’ll send me a free copy so I’ll know I was in there?”