A Bravo Homecoming

She stepped back into the room and did what he told her to. And then she leaned her forehead against that door and thought about what a good friend Travis had been to her over the years.

At the end of the first year of their friendship, just before she turned nineteen, he’d helped her get her start in the oil business. He’d spoken up for her when she tried for her first job as a roustabout on a land rig. They didn’t want to hire her because she was a woman and what woman could hold up under the grueling physical labor that would be required of her?

Thanks to Travis, she got that job, as what they called a “worm,” the lowest of the low in the rig pecking order. She got that job and she kept up with the men. She did it all. She hauled pipe and dug trenches, cleaned up mud and oil and whatever else got all over the equipment. She cleaned threads, scraped and painted the various rig components. She worked her ass off and she never shirked.

That first job was where she’d met a certain roughneck, Zachary Gunn. She’d fallen in love with Zach—fallen in love for the first and only time in her life. And when Zach turned out to be a rotten, no-good bigmouth jerk who told everyone what he’d done with her and that she’d been really bad at it, Travis was there.

Travis beat the ever-lovin’ you-know-what out of that sorry SOB. And then kicked him off the rig.

As a rule, Sam fought her own battles. But that one time, it meant more than she could ever say to know that Travis Bravo had her back.

“Time to get started,” said Jonathan. “Tell me you’re ready.”

Sam straightened her spine and turned to face her coach. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Chapter Three

That first day was really bad.

Before they did anything, Jonathan took a bunch of pictures of her from different angles, pictures of her standing, pictures of her sitting. Pictures from the front, the back, the side. Full-length pictures and also close-up ones.

She knew what those pictures were: the “before” pictures. She knew they were awful.

And she sincerely hoped that the “afters,” days from now, would be a whole lot better.

Once Jonathan decided he had enough ugly shots of her, he had her sign a paper giving him permission to use the pictures on his website. And then he took her to the hotel spa.

It was a nice place. Sam loved that it was simple, not froufrou or frilly in the least. It was soothing just to be there.

Until the torture started.

Jonathan said her skin needed all the help it could get. There was deep-tissue cleaning and a chemical peel. There was hot mud wrapped all around her in steaming wet towels. There was waxing—of her legs and under her arms. The bikini wax was the worst.

She’d rather take a bath in drilling mud than get that done again.

Jonathan laughed when she told him that. “You’ll get waxed, darling. And regularly. A woman should be sleek. Smooth. Excess body hair is not the least bit feminine.”

She grunted. “Gee, Jonathan. Thanks a bunch for sharing.”

There was massage. That wasn’t so bad.

But after that, there was the manicure and the pedicure. Those went on forever and involved soaking and exfoliating and scrubbing at every callous and rough spot, of which there were many.

Hours later, when they were finished with her for the day, her face was lobster-red from the peel and they’d given her booties and white gloves. She had to slather on this gooey ointment before bed nightly, they had told her at the spa, both on her hands and her feet, and then wear the gloves and booties to bed every night for the whole week.

She was starving by the time she got back to the suite. She wanted a burger and fries and a strawberry shake. Or at least a big slab of meatloaf and a mountain of mashed potatoes with a healthy side of mushy canned green beans. On the rig, the kitchen was open round-the-clock and you could get yourself a huge pile of hot food—heavy on the starches and fats and red meat—any time you got the least bit hungry.

Not here, though. Jonathan ordered room service for them.

When it came, she wanted to break down and cry. All day being waxed and plucked and pummeled in the spa. And for dinner, she got an itsy-bitsy mound of barely cooked broccoli, three tiny red potatoes. And grilled salmon.

Actually, it was delicious. But it wasn’t enough to keep a fly alive.

She begged for more. Jonathan refused to let her even have one more dinky red potato. He said she wasn’t getting enough exercise to eat the way she was apparently accustomed to eating.

It was too much. She yelled at him. “Jonathan, I would be frickin’ happy to exercise. I’ll go down to the gym right this minute and bench-press my butt off if you will only swear on your life that there’ll be a blood-rare T-bone and a baked potato slathered in butter and sour cream waiting for me when I get back up here to this frickin’ tasteful, so-classy suite.”

He only shook his head. He was a slave driver, that Jonathan.

After the piddly-ass meal, they had grammar lessons. He made her take a vow that she would never use the word frickin’ again in this lifetime. And then he tutored her on how to eat at a table set with endless pieces of unrecognizable silverware.

It was actually pretty simple, once he explained that you started with the outermost fork or knife or spoon and worked your way in. And if in doubt, you waited to pick up the next tong or cracker or pointy lobster-picking thing until you were able to subtly observe what your host or hostess did with it.

“Subt-ly,” Jonathan repeated, making a big deal of both syllables. “And by ‘subtly,’ I mean a sideways glance in the direction of the hostess in question. No open-mouthed ogling. One must learn, darling, to accomplish one’s goal in such a way as not to telegraph one’s ignorance to the table at large.”

“Gotcha,” she answered, feeling vaguely resentful. Yeah, okay. She did have a lot to learn, but she’d never been the kind to stare with her mouth open.

He sighed in a way that indicated she caused him endless emotional pain. “Gotcha. Another word you would do well to remove from your vocabulary.”

“Jonathan, you keep on like this, I won’t have any frick—er, darn words left.”

“But, darling, you will learn new ones. I will see to that—and as concerns your elbows…”

“Yeah, what about ’em?” She pushed back her sleeve. “They’ve been creamed and scrubbed and buffed just about down to the bone.”

“Yes, they do look much better.”

“Thanks, but that’s not what I was getting at.”

“It doesn’t matter what you’re getting at. You’re the student. You’re here to watch, listen and learn. And as to elbows, they are under no circumstances to be allowed on the surface of the table while one is still indulging in the meal. Understood?”

“Yeah, I knew that.” Not that she’d ever cared all that much where she put her elbows while she was eating. But still. Everybody knew they weren’t supposed to be on the table, even if most people didn’t give a damn either way.

“However.” There was a definite gleam in Jonathan’s beady little eyes. “After the meal, while one lingers, chatting, enjoying the heady conversation that so often swirls around the table when one is in good company…then, and only then, is it considered acceptable to delicately brace one, or even both elbows on the tablecloth.”

She couldn’t help grinning. “Delicately, huh?”

“Yes, well. We’ll have to work on that.”

After the lessons on which piece of silverware to use when, they moved on to her clothing. He said they would try some preliminary shopping tomorrow. He wanted her to think about what colors would work on her—bright, vivid jewel colors, he said. “And some neutrals. But. No. Gray. Ever.” He made each word a sentence. And then he elaborated. “Gray does nothing for your coloring, Samantha. Less than nothing. Gray makes you look embalmed.”

“Gee. Good to know.”

“Sarcasm is not appreciated.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Jonathan—if you will.”

There was more lecturing on the subject of natural fibers. She would wear cotton, silk, linen and wool. And only cotton, silk, linen and wool. “And no frills. We’ll go for simplicity with you. And some drama. But nothing fluffy or ruffled. Nothing too…precious. Because, darling, you are not the precious type.”