He wasn’t even sure he could say that word aloud.
An open bottle of beer was waiting for him on the coffee table in the living room. Sandy was sitting with her feet curled up underneath her on one end of the comfortable couch. He tightened the belt on the pink bathrobe and sat down next to her.
“The pink goes nicely with the beard,” she said. “So tell me, McCade, what have you been up to? Cavorting through rain forests, hmm? Come on, spill.”
But he shook his head as he took a long pull from the bottle of beer. “You first.”
She turned toward him, her arm up along the back of the couch. “I have just won the most amazing contract.” Her eyes sparkled. “You know who Simon Harcourt is?”
McCade studied his beer thoughtfully, frowning slightly. Finally he shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Locally, he’s really hot stuff,” Sandy said. “Self-made billionaire, supporter of the arts and the environment. He headed an education task force a few years ago that really shook up the system, he started an AIDS awareness program….” She shook her head in awe and respect. “Anyway, to make a long story short, he’s running for governor, and I’ve just clinched a deal with his people. I’m going to be making all of his campaign commercials—right now they want five—along with two docu-bios, a ten-minute and a thirty-minute.”
McCade grinned back at her. “That’s great, Sand. What’s your role? Producer? Director?”
“Both. In fact, I may even do some of the camera work myself.”
“I’m between jobs, if you need an extra hand.”
Sandy stared at him incredulously. “Are you kidding?” But then she shook her head. “I couldn’t even pay you one quarter of what you usually get.”
He shrugged. “Pay me union scale. It sounds like fun, and—”
She launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck in a friendly hug. Still holding the bottle of beer, McCade wrapped his arms around her, closing his eyes and breathing in the clean scent of her hair. Damn, she was so soft, so warm and sweet. Why had he waited so long to realize that everything he’d ever wanted was right here?
She pulled back slightly to grin at him. “You’re hired,” she said, then frowned. “It’s going to take three or four weeks to get all the footage I’ll need.”
“I’m not planning on going anywhere.” He gazed into her eyes. God, couldn’t she feel his heart pounding? He swallowed. He had to say it. “Look, Sand—”
“There’s more I have to tell you.” She pulled free from his arms and settled back into the couch. She smiled at him, a bewitching mixture of amusement and self-consciousness. “McCade, I’m in love.”
McCade stared at her. “Love?”
Sandy nodded, her eyes filled with happiness. “I’ve finally met the man of my dreams,” she said. “Last week. His name’s James Vandenberg. James Austin Vandenberg the Fourth, can you believe it? He’s Harcourt’s right-hand man. He’s got a law degree from Harvard, he’s smart and nice and tall, almost as tall as you are. He’s outrageously handsome, with this wavy, black hair and brown eyes you could die for. He’s single, straight, thirty-three years old, and currently unattached….”
Sandy’s words washed over McCade as he continued to stare at her. She was in love. With someone else. He felt sick to his stomach, sick clear through to his soul. His disappointment was laced with a white-hot anger. Dammit, why hadn’t he come out here a week ago? Why hadn’t he figured out how he’d felt months ago when he was last visiting? He was angry, hurt, and shocked—shocked that the incredible McCade luck had finally seemed to run out. He carefully put the bottle of beer down on the table, amazed that his hand wasn’t shaking uncontrollably.
“Is he here?” he asked suddenly, interrupting her.
“What?”
“Is he here, now?”
Understanding made her cheeks flush. “No!”
“Why not?”
“I just met the man last week—”
“If it’s really love, Sandy, why are you waiting?”
Sandy pulled her eyes away from McCade’s piercing gaze, sat up, slumped back down again, then laughed, a short, nonhumorous-sounding burst of air. She shook her head slightly, pushing her hair away from her face. “If you must know the truth, James doesn’t even know I exist, all right? Happy, McCade?”
No. No, he wasn’t happy. But why not? Why wasn’t he feeling relieved? Sandy wasn’t actually involved with this man yet—this smart, nice lawyer with the long, old-money-sounding name. This man was probably a perfect match for her, and no doubt was easier to get along with, easier to live with than McCade would ever be.
“Enough about me and James,” she said. “Tell me about the rain forests—”
“Kirk, can I tell you tomorrow?” McCade asked. “I, um…I’ve got to crash, like, right now. I just, you know, hit the exhaustion wall and…”
Sandy’s eyes widened with surprise. “Yeah, sure.” She looked at him closely. “Are you really all right, McCade? You look a little pale.”
“I must be fighting off a bug or something,” he lied lamely.
She just looked at him, her beautiful face serious, her eyes sober. “Clint,” she said finally, “you’d tell me if you had a real problem, wouldn’t you?”
He glanced at her. “Of course. You’re my best friend,” he said simply. “But really, I’m just…tired.”
She smiled at him, and McCade made himself smile back, trying to hide the way his heart had fractured into a million pieces.
TWO
M
C
C
ADE HAD PLANNED
to shave his beard when he hit Phoenix. But as he looked into the bathroom mirror in the morning, he couldn’t bear the thought of exposing his face—and the expression of utter woe he knew was on it—to the eyes of everyone around him.
Sandy had set an alarm clock that woke him up at ten. It gave him enough time to shower and grab something to eat before the preproduction meeting she had scheduled in her office at eleven-thirty.
As McCade pulled on his slightly stiff jeans he mentally shook his head, amazed at himself. Why wasn’t he already long gone?
All morning long he’d been vacillating between his choices. He could (A) hop on his bike and ride out of town as quickly as he rode in. Except he had promised Sandy he’d do that camera work for her. Of course, he hadn’t known when he’d made that promise that she had the hots for some other man….
So he could always (B) stay in town and totally sabotage her attempts to catch this lawyer guy’s eye, then sweep her off her feet while she was on the rebound. Or he could (C) act the part of the good old best friend and help her out.
He could help her get noticed by a nice, wealthy man who would be able to give her the kind of life she had always wanted—the upper-class, country-club kind of life. The kind of life McCade could never give her, no matter how much money he had in the bank.
Sure, he could buy his way into a country club, God forbid he should ever even
want
to. And therein lay the problem. Sandy had always wanted the culture, the refinement, the
recognition
that came with wealth. McCade didn’t. He could afford the finest wine any vineyard in the world could offer, but frankly, he didn’t like the stuff. He’d drink beer or water, thanks a lot.
What it all boiled down to was, McCade was content to be McCade. He had a job he liked, comfortable clothes he liked to wear, and the fact that he had close to a half a million dollars in his bank account wasn’t going to change anything except maybe the brand of beer he bought and the places he visited on vacation. Sure, he liked to live comfortably without the threat of eviction hanging over his head the way it once had. Sure, he liked to have money to spend on movies and music and whatever whim came floating in on the wind. But he saw no need to wear his wealth like a badge, hell, he flat out didn’t want to. And last time he checked, black leather jackets weren’t welcome at the local country club.
But that was the life Sandy wanted.
In the kitchen, McCade’s boots and jacket were still damp. He pulled the boots on anyway and took his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket.
The hot Arizona wind dried his long hair as he slowly rode his Harley down Indian School Road east toward Scottsdale, toward Forty-fourth Street, where Sandy’s video production house was. It was April in Phoenix, and the roads and sidewalks were sizzling with heat. It had to be damn near ninety degrees in the shade. And it wasn’t even summer yet.
As McCade pulled into the parking lot of Video Enterprises, Inc., he came to a nondecision of sorts. He had to wait and see exactly what this James Austin Whoziwhatsis the Fourteenth was like before he gave him the thumbs-up or-down. Besides, if he was going to bolt, he had to think up a good explanation to give Sandy. By now she was probably counting on his camera work for her campaign project.
He opened the front doors of the office building and stepped into the air-conditioned darkness of the lobby. As he took the elevator up to the second floor, he took off his sunglasses, hanging them casually by one earpiece over the neck of his black T-shirt.
The elevator door opened and McCade stared directly at his reflection in the big mirror that hung on the wall. He almost didn’t recognize himself. His long hair and beard, combined with his imposing height and muscles, made him look like a bouncer at a biker bar, or a patron who would probably need to be bounced.
McCade walked down the hall to the main conference room—the briefing room, he liked to call it. It was a large airy room with big windows that looked out over the desert-landscaped front yard of the building. A big oval table sat in the middle of a soothing, earth-toned carpet, surrounded by more than a dozen comfortable chairs.
“Can I help you?” Sandy’s assistant, Frank Williamson, intercepted McCade almost before he was in the room.
“Yo, Frank,” McCade said, and behind his glasses, the younger man’s eyes widened in surprise.
“McCade, my God, this may come as a shock to you, but you’re covered with hair.”
McCade grinned. “It’s the new me. Whaddaya think?”
Frank crossed his arms and studied McCade. “I think for a guy who usually has chicks fainting in the street, you look like hell,” he finally said. “What’s up? Was your last gig on a desert island?”
McCade crossed his own arms. “Frank. When someone says ‘what do you think?’ they don’t
really
want to know what you think. Ever hear of something called ‘tact?’”
“Tact is for little old ladies who’ve just had their hair done,” Frank told him. “Not for a guy like you who could stand in as a body double for Arnold Schwarzenegger”—he lowered his voice—“you know, the boss hasn’t gone out on a single date since you were here last.”
Both men turned and looked across the room, to where Sandy was standing by the windows, talking to a man who had to be James.
McCade’s heart sank as he took in the expensive cut and fabric of the man’s obviously hand-tailored suit. It sank even further as he studied the way James filled his suit. He was a tall man, just a little bit shorter than McCade’s own six feet three inches, and he was built like McCade—strong, broad shoulders, narrow waist, slim hips. James turned slightly, and McCade caught a glimpse of the man’s face. His features were chiseled and handsome, his nose long and aristocratic. His chin was strong and his lips almost too femininely shaped. Almost, but not quite.
Damn. With his wavy black hair cut conservatively short and his dark eyes, this guy’s picture should have been in the dictionary under
dreamboat.
“How you can keep a relationship platonic with someone like the boss is one of the last great mysteries of the world, McCade.” Frank glanced down at his clipboard, then up at the clock. “Grab a seat, pal, we’re gonna get started.”
McCade crossed to the conference table and slid into the chair immediately to the left of the seat at the head of the table, where he knew Sandy would sit.
He watched her talk to James. Her shoulders were tense, and her body was tight. She didn’t seem to be able to look the man directly in the eye. Boy, she was nervous. Her hands fluttered about, then grabbed onto the files she was holding as if they were a lifeline.
As McCade watched she glanced at her watch and said something to James with a weak smile. It was an approximation of her usual five-hundred-watt grin. McCade shook his head. Unless she relaxed, this guy was only going to see a high-strung, stressed-out, rough imitation of Sandy. And with her hair wrapped tight in a bun, wearing that much-too-conservative navy jacket and skirt, she wasn’t winning any points appearance-wise either. It’s not that she wasn’t pretty, he quickly corrected himself. She was. She just wasn’t as earthshakingly beautiful as he knew she could be.
She spotted him sitting at the table, and her smile instantly turned warmer.
“Gee, and I went to all that trouble to find a new razor to leave out on the sink for you this morning,” she said in a low voice as she sat down next to him.
McCade fingered his beard. “I’m thinking about growing it really long.” He smiled. “You know, like the guys in ZZ Top?”
But her attention was instantly gone as James sat down on her immediate right, directly across the table from McCade.
Hell, the man was even better looking close up. As McCade looked at James the dark-haired man met his gaze. For a brief instant McCade could see a flash of disapproval, or maybe it was disdain in the man’s dark eyes, accompanied by a heaping serving of mistrust.
It was a look that was unmistakable, and it said loud and clear that James didn’t trust anyone who looked the way McCade did.
Small-minded, thought McCade.
James Vandenberg IV was clearly no different from those high-school kids who had snubbed Sandy and McCade all those years ago because of the way they looked, because they couldn’t afford designer jeans and expensive clothes.
Didn’t Sandy see that? But then it occurred to him—despite the rotten treatment they’d received, Sandy had always secretly yearned for acceptance from the elite cliques in school. By winning James’s attention and heart, she’d be achieving what she’d always wanted.
She’d been waiting for a guy like James for all of her life.
The wave of jealousy that hit McCade nearly took his breath away.
He grabbed onto the copies of the shooting schedule that Sandy had just passed around.
McCade did his best to ignore James as he studied the information silently. Sandy had booked him as her floating camera, her creative lens for every single event. Carrying a handheld, he wouldn’t be tied down to any one location; he could take reaction shots, or shoot from interesting angles. It was his favorite job on a project like this, and she knew it. It was obvious that she cared about him—just not in the right way.
He took a deep breath and read that the first shoot was scheduled for Saturday night. It was an election fund-raiser, a dinner dance up at the Pointe, one of Phoenix’s poshest resorts. Harcourt would be making a speech that Sandy wanted taped for soundbite pirating.
“If there are any questions or problems during the shoots, and both Frank and I are unavailable,” Sandy was saying, “Mr. Vandenberg is the man to talk to.”
“James,” he corrected her with a charming smile. But he glanced toward McCade with a look that seemed to say,
Mister
Vandenberg to anyone who looks like
you.
“Okay, we’re set, then,” Sandy said, ending the meeting. “See you all on Saturday.”
Sandy sat for a moment as the room cleared, organizing her files before putting them back in her briefcase. McCade still sat on her left, obviously not going anywhere. With his hair parted in the middle and hanging down around his shoulders, and his thick, curly beard, he looked faintly biblical, as if he were one of the Apostles in the painting of the Last Supper. Except for the miniature dragon tattooed on his right biceps, she thought with a smile. Somehow she doubted that any of Jesus’s twelve had had a tattoo.
“Okay, I think I’ve got everything I need,” James interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll see you Saturday evening. The schedule says you’ll be setting up at five?”
“We’ll be there.” Sandy smiled back at him.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” James reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a small envelope. “Mr. Harcourt asked me to give you comp tickets for the dinner dance that follows Saturday’s speech.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Sandy bit her lip. “I’m not really—”
“She’ll take ’em, thanks.” McCade snatched the envelope deftly from James’s hand and tucked the tickets inside her briefcase.
“McCade is an old high-school friend of mine,” Sandy told James. “
And
he happens to be the best cameraman both in and outside of Hollywood. We’re lucky to have him working with us on this project.”
McCade could see James reappraising him as they shook hands.
“Nice to meet you.” James’s dark eyes were much warmer than they’d been when he’d examined McCade across the table during the meeting.
The man had a ton and a half of charisma and charm. And he could turn it off and on like a faucet.
“See you both on Saturday.” With another quick smile at Sandy, he was gone.
Sandy met McCade’s gaze and smiled wryly. “Ouch,” she said. “I’m in pain.”
McCade was too.
“So whaddaya think?” she asked, closing the conference-room door to ensure their privacy.
He sat on the edge of the table, crossing his arms in front of him. “He seems kind of…” Phony? Plastic? Serious? Un-fun? All of those words seemed appropriate, but he didn’t dare utter a single one aloud. Instead he shrugged.
Sandy laughed, crossing her own arms. “McCade, you have such a gift with words.”
“I’m into the visual. Give me a break.”
“Did you think…” she started to say, then hesitated. “Do you think he even knows I exist?”
McCade looked down at the floor, then glanced back up at her. “Honestly?”
“No, lie to me, McCade,” she said tartly. “Of
course
honestly, you idiot—”
“If you want him to notice you, you’re going to have to work a little harder.”
“I guess I should just forget it—”
“Will you please stop selling yourself short?”
Sandy took two big steps backward, startled by his anger and the sheer volume of his voice.
“You’re a gorgeous, intelligent, funny, sexy, damned
incredibly
desirable woman,” McCade fumed, “and a jerk like James Vandenberg should thank his lucky stars that you’d even give him the time of day. If you want him—Do you want him?”
Sandy closed her mouth and nodded.
“Fine,” McCade said grimly. “You’ll get him. Starting Saturday, he’s going to notice you, big time.”
Grabbing her arm, he pulled her toward the door. She barely had time to snatch her briefcase from the conference-room table before he was yanking her down the hallway toward the elevators.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’re taking the afternoon off.”
“I can’t just—”
“Yes,” McCade said firmly. “You can.”
Sandy sat looking in the mirror as McCade’s friend Tony attacked her hair with a pair of scissors. “But I don’t
want
a perm,” she said belligerently. “I had one once, remember, McCade? I looked like I stuck my finger in a socket. It was frizz city for
months.
”
“Did
I
give you that perm, babycakes?” Tony asked. The snipping sounds of his scissors stopped as he met her eyes in the mirror. He was a huge bear of a man, almost as wide around as he was tall. He wore a pale green surgical scrub shirt over baggy white pants and sandals.