The Bachelor's Dare

She stalked out of the bathroom, leaving Mark Dole with his jaw on the floor.

Chapter Three

Mark gave Claire two minutes, then he emerged from the bathroom and ducked into the bedroom, grabbing his laptop. If anyone had noticed they’d been in there at the same time, they didn’t say a word. They were too immersed in their chance at fifteen minutes of fame. Or in the case of Ten-Spot News, more like fifteen seconds.

It was like a scene out of some cheap detective story. The bright light, the nosy journalist, the mike in someone’s face. And the crowd in the motor home was eating it up. Mark had had his moment years ago and hated every second of it. The last thing he wanted was a repeat. His fame was on hiatus—indefinitely—thank you very much.

He set up his laptop on the kitchen table and pushed the power button. He’d work and avoid the television cameras. First, he jotted off a quick e-mail to send with his wireless modem.

Luke,

We’re down to twelve already, so I might be home sooner than you think. We’ve got two old couples (and one of the women, Millie, might commit murder by knitting needle to win), a pair of newlyweds and some people we knew in high school. It’s been…interesting so far. Actually, very interesting.

He didn’t say anything about Claire. Mark wasn’t quite sure how he felt about her being here, but knew mentioning her to Luke would send him running over to see for himself. Instead, Mark added something about the Nova, then hit Send and switched to the file for the software manual he was working on.

If he could get the manual e-mailed out in the next couple days, he’d be one paycheck closer to his goal of helping Luke reestablish the business. Once he won the RV, he’d be able to sell it for enough to get their company off to a new start. Then he and Luke could get back to business in California and Mark would finally feel as if he had earned the partnership his brother had given him years ago. He’d never quite felt he’d deserved it and now, maybe, he could repay Luke for all that his brother had given him.

But it wasn’t easy to work, not with the distraction of the TV crew. Renee was their current victim. “So, Miss Angelo, why do you want to win the RV?” The reporter leaned in with a smile.

“I want to win it for my grandpa, so he can retire and drive around the country.” She looked sincere, but Mark remembered her mentioning a retiring grandma to Nancy.

The reporter asked her a few more questions about “Grandpa.” Renee put on a woeful face, perhaps hoping to win pity from the viewing audience. Then he moved on to the others, asking them where they were from and why they wanted to win. Everyone repeated their reasons from this morning, some embellishing a bit to make a more dramatic case. Claire stood to one side, with the others who’d already been interviewed. Not even she’d managed to successfully dodge her shot at Hollywood.

Her face was still soft, tinged with sadness, her gaze on some faraway spot. He wondered where her thoughts had gone and what could possibly be so bad in Claire’s life that she’d stand in the shower of a motor home and cry. The Claire he knew was stoic, optimistic. Never had he seen her upset or hurt, even when she’d fallen from the top of the monkey bars in third grade and skinned up her knees.

As a child, she’d been the Margaret to his Dennis the Menace. But as adults—

The very things that had driven him crazy were beginning to spark his interest. No, not just spark. Inflame.

He was still watching Claire when ten thousand watts, or maybe a hundred thousand, were thrust in his eyes. “James Kent.” The reporter put out a hand and shook Mark’s. “And you are?”

“Mark Dole.”

The reporter, a slim young man with a slight tic in his left eye, flipped back a couple pages in his pad, to a series of notes about each of the contestants. “We got the list of contestants earlier from Nancy and did a little research,” James explained, clearly eager to impress everyone with his journalistic skills. “Okay, you ready?”

“I’m working here.” Mark gestured to the laptop.

“This will only take a second, I promise. Okay?”

Mark nodded, glancing at the pad uneasily again, then the light’s full power hit his eyes, nearly blinding him.

“Mr. Dole, you’ve got quite the reputation in this town,” James said into the mike, his voice now suddenly deep and serious, as if he’d hit puberty in the last five seconds. “Two-time all-star champ in both baseball and football, first place in the state track meet in your senior year, homecoming king in junior and senior year, voted most popular in your class.”

“That was years ago,” said Mark. The silent audience on the RV watched the exchange.

James consulted his pad again. “When you were ten, you rescued some boy caught on the ice, saved his—”

“Which has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but it does. You’re a hero, Mark Dole. Complete with the key to the city of Lawford to go with it.” James slid the fuzzy black microphone under Mark’s chin.

Heat rose up his neck, so thick it threatened to strangle him. “I’m not a hero. Just an ordinary guy.”

“No.” James let out a slight chuckle. “You’re a story, my friend. Now, tell me about—”

“Find another story,” Mark growled. He batted the mike away, got to his feet and stalked to the front of the RV.

Escape was impossible. Forty-five feet wasn’t enough distance between him and the camera. Four million feet wouldn’t have been enough, either. James followed doggedly behind, as if Mark held the secret to where Jimmy Hoffa was buried. Of all the questions in the world, Kent had to ask that one.