That Wild Cowboy

Clint seemed to see the conflict in her soul.

“Whaddaya say, darlin’? Ready to rodeo?”

“I’ll get back to you within twenty-four hours,” she replied.

He tipped his hand to his forehead and gave her a two-finger salute. “I’ll be right here doing Lord knows what,” he called. “Think about that while you’re negotiating on my behalf.”

Victoria hurried to her Jeep and tried to drown out the roar in her head with some very loud rock music, but she heard his satisfied chuckle all the way back to the studio.

CHAPTER THREE

VICTORIA APPROACHED Samuel Murray’s office with trepidation mixed with a little self-serving hope. She didn’t want to disappoint her boss, but part of her wished Clint Griffin would turn down any and all offers. That way she wouldn’t have to ever be near the man again. Why on earth had she thought this would be a good idea?

He gave her the jitters. Victoria was usually cool and laid-back about things but after spending an hour or so with him, she needed a bubble bath and a pint of Blue Bell Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream.

How was she going to explain to the show’s producer/director and all-around boss that she’d failed in her scouting mission? Samuel had hired her right out of film school as a junior shooter and transcriber, but after watching her follow the head camera operator around, he’d promoted her because he liked her confidence and her bold way of bringing out the “real” in reality stars. Victoria worked with her subjects until they felt uninhibited enough to be honest, even with a roving camera following them around. What if she couldn’t do that with Clint? What if he messed with her head and made a fool of her? Or worse, what if he became too real, too in-her-face? What if Clint became much more than she’d ever bargained for?

And why was she suddenly so worried about this? She always did heavy research on her subjects, always had an action plan to get the drama going. But this time, with this man, she was too close, her old scars still too raw to heal.

“You’re behind the camera,” she reminded herself as she pulled into the parking garage of the downtown Dallas building where the TRN network offices were housed. That meant she had to be the one in control of the situation. “And you need your job.”

Unlike Clint Griffin, Victoria didn’t have land and oil and cattle and a reputation to keep her going. She had to live on cold hard cash.

Her parents had worked hard but had very little to show for it. Money had always been a bone of contention between her mother and father and in the end, not having any had done them in. They’d divorced when she was in high school. That had left Victoria torn between the two of them and confused about how to control her life. She’d been making her own decisions since then, but she’d never told Samuel that she’d honed her negotiation skills and her ability to soothe everyone from dealing with her parents.

She didn’t envy Clint Griffin his status in life, but she’d had some very bad experiences with men like him. Pampered, rich, good-looking and as deadly as a rattlesnake in a henhouse. She still had post-traumatic dating stress from her high school days and a typical Texas-type cowboy football player who had turned out to be the player of the year, girlfriend-wise. She’d been number three or four, maybe.

But high school is over, she reminded herself. And you’re not sixteen anymore. More like pushing thirty and mature beyond her years. Realistic. After high school, she’d dated for a while and finally found another cowboy to love. But that hadn’t worked out, either. He’d called off the wedding minutes before the ceremony because he couldn’t handle the concept that she might have a career. And she couldn’t handle his demand that she give it all up for him.

So when a very drunk Clint Griffin had planted that big, long kiss on her a few weeks after she’d been jilted, she’d needed it like she needed a snakebite. But that hadn’t stopped her from enjoying his kiss. Too much.

She didn’t have the California-dreaming, making-movies career she’d hoped for, but she was free and clear and she was still good at making her own decisions. Victoria prided herself on being realistic. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job. She couldn’t let the prospective subject get to her.

After hitting the elevator button to the tenth floor, Victoria hopped in and savored the quietness inside the cocoon of the cool, mirrored box. The dinging machine’s familiar cadence calmed her heated nerves. Still steaming from the warm summer day and the never-ending metro-area traffic between Dallas and Fort Worth, she rushed out of the elevator and buzzed past Samuel’s open office door then hurried to her own overflowing cubbyhole corner office. At least she had a halfway good view of the Reunion Tower. Halfway, but not all the way. Not yet. She’d go in and talk to Samuel later. Right now she just needed a minute—

“I know you’re in there, V.C.,” a booming voice called down the hall. “I want a report, a good report, on your scouting trip out to the Sunset Star Ranch.”

And now that he’d shouted that out like a hawker at a Rangers baseball game, everyone within a six-block radius also knew she’d been out in the country with a rascal of a cowboy.

Grimacing around the doorway at Samuel’s grandmotherly assistant, Angela, who was better known as Doberman since she was like a guard dog, Victoria shouted, “On my way.” Looking around for her own assistant, Nancy, she almost called out for help but held her tongue.

Everyone screamed and hollered around here for one reason or another, but one thing she’d learned after working for Samuel for three years—she couldn’t show any fear or he’d devour her with scorn and disdain. Samuel didn’t accept failure. But he might accept an almost contract from Clint Griffin.

Samuel pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Take a load off, V.C.”

Victoria stared down at the stack of old newspapers in the once-yellow chair then lifted them to the edge of the big, cluttered desk, careful not to disturb the multitude of books, magazines, DVDs and contract files that lay scattered like longhorn bones across the surface.

“So?” her pseudo-jolly boss asked, his bifocals perched across his bald head with a forgotten crookedness. What was left of his hair always stayed caught back in a grayish-white ponytail. He looked like a cross between George Carlin and Steven Tyler. “What’s the word from the Sunset Star?”

Victoria settled in the chair and gave him her best I’ve-got-this look. “We’re close, Samuel. Very close.”

He squinted, pursed his lips. “Very close doesn’t sound like definite.”

“He’s thinking about it but he haggled with me about the contract. He wants more money.”

“How much?”

Samuel always got right to the point.

“Double what we offered.”

“Double?” Samuel’s frown lifted his glasses and settled them back against his slick-as-glass head. “Double? Does he think we’re the Mavericks or something? We’re not in Hollywood and we don’t have basketball-player money. We work on a budget around here.”

“Well, that budget had better have room for Clint Griffin’s asking price or we won’t be featuring him on our show. He’s interested but only if we pay his price and only if we highlight his favorite charitable organization.”

Samuel sat back on his squeaky, scratched, walnut-bottomed chair and stared over at her with a perplexed glare, then let out a grunt that brought his bifocals straight down on his nose. “Charities? We’ve never done nonprofit work. We need drama and conflict and action. People behaving badly. Ain’t any ratings in do-gooder stuff.”

Victoria nodded, considered her options. “I told him I’d talk to you and then we can both talk to him. At first, he wasn’t interested but I tried to explain the advantages of signing on with us.”

Samuel’s frown lifted then shifted into a thoughtful sideways glance. “Such as exposure on one of the highest rating shows on cable? Such as endorsements that will make him blush with pride? Such as—”

“I mentioned some of the perks,” she said, wishing again Samuel hadn’t sent her to do this work. Where were all the big shots and lawyers when a girl needed them? “I also pointed out that he’d appreciate the money, of course.”

“You mean he badly needs the money.”

“I was trying to be delicate since that is only a rumor and hasn’t been confirmed. He denied that the ranch is in trouble. I think most of his trouble might be personal.”

Samuel snorted at that. “You don’t have a delicate cell in that pretty head, V.C. But you’re perfect to persuade Cowboy Clint that he needs to be a part of our team.”

“So you sent me because I’m female, Samuel? Isn’t that against company policy...being sexist and all?”

“I didn’t mention anything about that,” Samuel said, looking as innocent as a kitten. “I sent you to just get a feel, to see the lay of the land. This man makes the supermarket tabloids on a weekly basis. Now he’s playing all high and mighty?”

Victoria pushed at her ponytail. “I got a feeling that Clint Griffin doesn’t give a flip about any reality show and I saw the lay of the land, and frankly, the Sunset Star seems to be thriving. I think the man just likes to make a commotion. I’m beginning to wonder if all those rumors aren’t the truth after all. He’s certainly full of himself.”

“There is always truth in rumors,” Samuel said, repeating his favorite saying. “You need to go back out there. Something isn’t connecting here. He’s hot right now because he’s a headline maker. He’d be stupid to turn down this offer.”

“He’s not stupid,” Victoria said, remembering Clint’s words to her. “He’s smarter than he lets on, I think.”

Samuel grabbed a pen and rolled it through his fingers. “I’d say. He played you, V.C. Which is why you need to get right back on that horse and convince him to take the deal before he asks for even more money.”

“I can’t, not until you tell me yes or no on the asking price. And I mean his asking price, not what our team has offered. I know we can afford that, at least.”

Samuel squinted, looked down through his bifocals. “Now we bring in the lawyers and his manager,” he replied, a dark gleam in his brown eyes. “You gave him a nibble. I’d bet my mother’s Texas Ware splatter bowl, he’s talking to his people right now.”

Victoria wondered about that. Did he really want this kind of exposure? Or did he need it in spite of how he felt about doing a reality show? She figured Clint Griffin had already forgotten about the whole thing, including meeting her and having her camera in his face.

* * *