Christine Rimmer - The Maverick Fakes A Bride!

Never mind. Not going to happen, Brenna reminded herself for the ten thousandth time. And no matter what people in town might say, she was not and never had been in love with the man.

Right now, today, she was simply appreciating the view, which was spectacular.

Beside her, Dovey Jukes actually let out a moan and made a big show of fanning herself. “Is it just me, or is it really hot in here?”

“This is his, er, what did you call it now, Melba?” Bee asked old Melba Strickland, who’d come out from under the dryer to watch the local heartthrob ride by.

“It’s his package,” replied Melba.

Dovey snickered.

Bee let out her trademark smoke-and-whiskey laugh. “Not that kind of package.” She gave Dovey a playful slap on the arm.

“It’s reality television slang,” Melba clarified. “Tessa told me all about it.” Melba’s granddaughter lived in Los Angeles now. Tessa Strickland Drake had a high-powered job in advertising and understood how things worked in the entertainment industry. “A package is an audition application and video.”

“Audition for what?” one of the other girls asked.

“A brand-new reality show.” Melba was in the know. “It’s going to get made at a secret location right here in Montana this summer, and it will be called The Great Roundup. From what I heard, it’s going to be like Survivor, but with cowboys—you know, roping and branding, bringing in the strays, everyone sharing their life stories around the campfire, sleeping out under the stars, answering challenge after challenge, trying not to get eliminated. The winner will earn himself a million-dollar prize.”

Brenna, who’d never met a challenge she couldn’t rise to, clutched the round thermal brush in her hand a little tighter and tried to ignore the tug of longing in her heart. After all, she’d been raised on the family ranch and could rope and ride with the best of them. She couldn’t help but imagine herself on this new cowboy reality show.

True, lately, she’d been putting in some serious effort to quell her wild and crazy side, to settle down a little, you might say.

But a reality show? She could enjoy the excitement while accomplishing a valid goal of winning those big bucks. A few months ago, Bee had started dating a handsome sixtyish widower from Kalispell. Now that things had gotten serious, she’d been talking about selling the shop and retiring so she and her new man could travel. Brenna would love to step up as owner when Bee left.

But that would cost money she didn’t have. If she won a million dollars on a reality show, however, she could buy the shop and still have plenty of money to spare.

And then again, no. Trying out for a reality show was a crazy idea, and Brenna was keeping a lid on her wild side, she truly was. The Great Roundup was not for her.

She asked wistfully, “You think Travis has a chance to be on the show?”

“Are you kidding?” Bee let out a teasing growl. “Those Hollywood people would be crazy not to choose him. And if the one doing the choosing is female, all that man has to do is give her a smile.”

Every woman at that window enthusiastically agreed.

First week of May, a studio soundstage,

Los Angeles, California

Travis Dalton hooked his booted foot across his knee and relaxed in the interview chair.

It was happening. Really happening. His video had wowed them. And his application? He’d broken all the rules with it, just like that book he’d bought—Be a Reality Star—had instructed. He’d used red ink, added lots of silly Western doodles and filled it chock-full of colorful stories of his life on the family ranch.

He’d knocked them clean out of their boots, if he did say so himself. And now here he was in Hollywood auditioning for The Great Roundup.

“Tell us about growing up on a ranch,” said the casting director, whose name was Giselle. Giselle dressed like a fashion model. She had a way of making a guy feel like she could see inside his head. Sharp. That was the word for Giselle. Sharp—and interested. Her calculating eyes watched him so closely.

Which was fine. Good. He wanted her looking at him with interest. He wanted to make the cut, get on The Great Roundup and win himself a million bucks.

Travis gave a slow grin in the general direction of one of the cameras that recorded every move he made. “I grew up on my family’s ranch in northwestern Montana.” He was careful to include Giselle’s question in his answer, in case they ended up using this interview in the show. Then they could cut Giselle’s voice out and what he said would still make perfect sense. “My dad put me on a horse for the first time at the age of five. Sometimes it feels like I was born in the saddle.”

Giselle and her assistant nodded their approval as he went on—about the horses he’d trained and the ones that had thrown him. About the local rodeos where he’d been bucked off more than one bad-tempered bull—and made it all the way to eight full seconds on a few. He thought it was going pretty well, that he was charming them, winning them over, showing them he wasn’t shy, that an audience would love him.

“Can you take off your shirt for us, Travis?”

He’d assumed that would be coming. Rising, Travis unbuttoned and shrugged out of his shirt. At first, he kept it all business, no funny stuff. They needed to get a good look at the body that ranching had built and he kept in shape. He figured they wouldn’t be disappointed.

But they wanted to see a little personality, too, so when Giselle instructed, “Turn around slowly,” he held out his arms, bending his elbows and bringing them down, giving them the cowboy version of a bodybuilder’s flex. As he turned, he grabbed his hat off the back of his chair and plunked it on his head, aiming his chin to the side, giving them a profile shot, and then going all the way with a slow grin and a wink over his shoulder.

The casting assistant, Roxanne, stifled a giggle as she grinned right back.

“Go ahead and sit back down,” Giselle said. She wasn’t flirty like Roxanne, but in her sharp-edged way she seemed happy with how the interview was shaking out.

Travis took off his hat again. He bent to get his shirt.

“Leave it,” said Giselle.

He gave her a slight nod and no smile as he settled back into the chair. Because this was serious business. To him—and to her.

“Now we want to know about that hometown of yours.” Giselle almost smiled then, though really it was more of a smirk. “We’ve been hearing some pretty crazy things about Rust Creek Falls.”

Was he ready for that one? You bet he was. His town had been making news the past few years. First came the flood. He explained about the Fourth of July rains that wouldn’t stop and all the ways the people of Rust Creek Falls had pulled together to come back from the worst disaster in a century. He spoke of rebuilding after the waters receded, of the national attention and the sudden influx of young women who had come to town to find themselves a cowboy.

When Giselle asked if any of those women had found him, he answered in a lazy drawl, “To tell you the truth, I met a lot of pretty women after the great flood.” He put his right hand on his chest. “Each one of them holds a special place in my heart.”

Roxanne had to stifle another giggle.

Giselle sent her a cool look. Roxanne’s smile vanished as if it had never been. “Tell us more,” said Giselle.

And he told them about a certain Fourth of July wedding almost two years ago now, a wedding in Rust Creek Falls Park. A local eccentric by the name of Homer Gilmore had spiked the wedding punch with his special recipe moonshine—purported to make people do things they would never do ordinarily.