Run for Covers

“Did your mother ever tell you what started all the trouble between our families?”

Tori stifled a grin. She’d wanted to talk about what had led their grandfather to disown his eldest daughter and start a family rift, but she hadn’t expected Laura to take the bait so quickly. “Not really. As the official nosy one in my family, I’ve tried picking her brain, but she just doesn’t like to talk about what happened.”

And she wasn’t the only one. To Tori’s knowledge her grandfather had never uttered one syllable about his eldest daughter, either, so the only thing she’d ever heard came by way of her sister, mostly gossip about how Laura’s mother had run off with a hippie to live in a commune.

“How about you?” she asked. “What has your mother said?”

Laura perused a framed newspaper article on the wall, an early twentieth-century announcement from Tori’s own paper about an upcoming slate of Christmas festivities. “Not much. She wanted to be an artist and open an artist retreat with my dad. The senator didn’t approve and gave her a choice—my dad and her art, or her family.”

“And she made her choice.”

“She did.”

“Two points for your mother for following her dreams.” Tori could understand the need to break free. It seemed to be sort of a knee-jerk thing in her family. With the kind of pressure on everyone around the senator, one either complied or rebelled. While she’d been accused of a lot of things in her life, total compliance had never been one of them.

“So is she happy with her choice?” Tori asked.

“My mom and dad are the happiest couple I know.”

“Which explains where your romantic streak comes from?”

Laura glanced over her shoulder. “I suppose. But following her dreams didn’t come without a price.”

There was subtext in that statement. Given what Tori remembered of their Westfalls years and how the Granger family had been ostracized by most of the town, she guessed that price had trickled down to Laura. “Your mom gets credit in my book. It must have taken guts to turn her back on everything.”

Tori hadn’t even managed to break away for college.

“My mom’s got guts in spades, Tori. No doubt there.”

“She must have, to give up her place in society.”

“I don’t think society was ever an issue. She’s your typical artist, indifferent to social standing and all that. I think giving up her family was an issue, though.”

“Really?” This was news. Tori always had the impression that everyone was content with the distance between the two families. At least, that was the way things seemed in the family mansion.

Laura turned back around and met Tori’s gaze evenly. “Something she said once has always stuck with me, and after talking with you this morning, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“What’d she say?”

“That sometimes when someone dies, the people left behind are so hurt it’s easier to drift apart rather than face the pain of their loss.”

“Was she talking about our grandmother?”

Laura nodded.

“She died in that car accident when my mother was only six. I don’t think she remembers much about her.”

In fact, the only things Tori had ever heard about their grandmother had painted a picture of the perfect political wife and devoted parent whose tragic death had hit her family hard.

“What makes you think your mother had an issue with giving up her family?” Tori asked, curious.

“I was hoping you’d let me show you something.”

“Laura, I’m here to cover the bedding consultant and her Naughty Nuptials. Remember?”

“Then let’s go for broke.” Laura reached for the radio affixed to her belt. “Come in, picture taker.”

A few moments passed with the crackle of static between them before a male voice shot back, “Got a copy, bedding consultant. Go ahead.”

“I need a ten-four.”

“I’m soaking up the rays at your pool, babe.”

Tori recognized Tyler Tripp’s voice and listened to Laura sweet-talk him into leaving the pool to meet them in his room.

“Just wait,” she said to Tori. “I promise what I have to show you will be worth the trip.”

They caught up with Tyler on the third floor. He indeed had come straight from the pool, with his surfer shorts and wet hair. Laura gave him a big hug and said, “I so appreciate this. I know I promised you a whole day off.”

He flashed them a tolerant smile, his gaze raking lazily over Tori. “No rest for the wicked, babe. That’s the nature of the game. Tori knows.”

“Indeed.” She raked an equally lazy gaze over Tyler.

Now here was a man who knew how to enjoy his life. Tanned. Buff. Gorgeous long hair she could wrap herself in. He was enjoying himself out at the pool on a sunny Sunday rather than holing up inside to work. His dark gaze spelled trouble, and the silver studs adorning his eyebrow and ears made her wonder if he had piercings in places she couldn’t see without a research expedition into his surfer shorts.

His artistic mind had earned him the respect of the journalism community, and if he’d ever shown up on the doorstep of the family mansion, Rutger, her grandfather’s butler, would have slammed shut the door and called security.

He was exactly the type of man Tori normally found herself attracted to—even better, because of their common interest in journalism—only this man didn’t ignite even the teensiest spark.

No, everything she might have felt for this absolutely scrumptious man, she felt for the totally uptight and unsuitable assistant GM who wanted nothing to do with her.

Damn that chemistry, anyway. Maybe she should lay off Adam and reconcile herself to observing the magic instead of living it and writing a factual account of the Naughty Nuptials. Why should she care if the man chose to shrivel up inside that gorgeous body of his and ignore everything around him?

“Tyler’s been pulling together his footage of the grand opening events,” Laura said. “I want him to show you something we came across the other night.”

Tori followed her into a spacious suite that cornered the building on the third floor, a guest room comfortably furnished with living, dining and small kitchen areas sans the romance-themed grandeur of her own Wedding Knight Suite. Which just went to show that Laura had been serious about making her staff take good care of their local reporter. On the journalism food chain, Tori Ford was plankton compared to Tyler Tripp.

“So how’s it going?” she asked him.

“It’s going. I made a deal with myself to come back here every night and not sleep until I’ve transferred the day’s footage. So far I’m on top of it.”

“Good for you. My editor extended my daily deadline, but I’m still scrambling to write my article and post it on time.”

“Nice spread today.” Tyler moved into the office area that had been set up as a mini production studio, and Tori smiled. Considering the source, his words were high praise indeed. Now if she could just convince her managing editor…

“It won’t be too difficult to find, will it?” Laura asked.

Tyler slung a pool towel over the back of a recliner. “No problem. We’ll view it on my computer.”