Shooting for the Stars (20 page)

“Let him go,” the bartender said, coming to stand behind Stella. “I know he deserves a good beating, but the law won’t see it that way.”

Oh, great
. Stella’s mind churned with worry. Not only had she just humiliated herself in front of Bear, but if he didn’t chill out, he could end up in the back of a police cruiser. “Let’s just go,” she said quietly, putting one hand on Bear’s back.

But the veins were standing out on his neck, and Stella endured a long, tense moment when she had no idea which way this would go. Bear let go of Mash suddenly, and the guy toppled backward, crashing into the wall and bouncing off his chair before ending up on the floor.

“Whoops!” the bartender said cheerfully. “All right. Everybody head out now.”

“Come on,” Stella whispered to Bear, who was still red-faced and breathing hard. She grabbed his hand and gave it a tug.

Bear removed his hand from Stella’s, turned his back on her and stalked toward the door.

Oh, boy
. It was not going to be a fun little car ride back to the hotel.

The bartender reached past Mash — who was still seated on the floor and rubbing the back of his head — to fetch Stella’s jacket.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No problem. Glad to see you don’t need a ride home anymore.”

“Right. Thanks.” A taxi sounded pretty good right now, actually. Stella slipped her coat on while she walked out of the bar. Just outside, she found the big ugly van that Bear had rented for hauling people and equipment around Idaho.

She opened the passenger door, climbed in and shut it behind her. Bear gripped the steering wheel as if he might break it off. “Um, thank you for picking me up.”

Without a word, he pulled away from the curb. They drove in silence for a couple of minutes. Stella wasn’t a fan of this cold act Bear was trying out, but she knew better than to poke the angry beast. The angry… Bear. This silly little analogy caused an inappropriate giggle to bubble from her throat before she could choke it back.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Bear growled.

But this was one of those better-laugh-or-else-you’ll-cry situations. She’d had to ask Bear, of all people, for a rescue. And then he’d walked in to see her splayed across the
lap
of one of those idiots, her ass in the air, flailing like Olive Oyl in a Popeye cartoon.
 

It didn’t get much more ridiculous than that. Her stomach began to shake.

Abruptly, the van pulled over. “Nothing that happened in there is fucking funny,” Bear hissed. “I’m not a fan of finding you overpowered by a couple of tools.”

Stella felt her temper flare. It was high school all over again — with Bear trying to play protector, when she really only wanted his love. “You can’t be serious. I wasn’t in any real danger of being hurt.”
Just embarrassed
.

His jaw got even tighter. “How do you figure? I know you’re strong, but it was two against one—”

“In a crowded room, with the bartender watching me. I’d already had a conversation with him about needing to lose those two. You just walked in at the wrong moment. It looked worse than it was.”

“The
wrong moment?
” he repeated incredulously. “Fuck. I can’t even
show
them exactly how wrong it was, because getting stuck in Idaho an extra day will fuck up the schedule and torpedo the fucking
budget
.” He slapped the dashboard with two hands.

“Well, I wouldn’t have called you if I knew it would endanger your precious
budget
,” Stella snapped.

Bear took a deep breath through his nose. “That is not how I meant it.”

“That’s what you said.” She was not willing to drop it. Bear had originally described this film as a labor of love. But now he’d transformed into the grumpy CEO. She was willing to call him on it, even if nobody else would.

With a sigh, Bear pulled away from the curb again. “I shouldn’t have put it like that, Stella. I’m just stressed out."
 

Stella collapsed back against her seat. It was hard to stay mad at Bear when he sounded so defeated. And it was hard to stay mad at him when they were alone together. The dashboard lights revealed only a cursory outline of his rugged face and broad shoulders. But she’d been conditioned since the beginning of time to appreciate those. She didn’t need light to see how perfect he was. The only flaw was the way his shoulders were tensed with the weight of worry upon them.

“We’re heading to Alaska tomorrow,” Bear continued, “and that’s the trickiest shoot. It all adds up to a lot of details to take care of, you know?”

“Who takes care of
you
, Bear?” she whispered.

He just shook his head.

“Maybe you don’t have to go it alone all the time. I know I tried to apply for the position once. But my application was rejected.”

Bear stared through the windshield, jaw tight. “That is not what happened.”

“The hell it isn’t,” Stella whispered. That was as far as she was willing to push, though. If she threw herself at his feet, proclaiming her everlasting love, it would only make the next decade of their friendship even
more
awkward.

The rest of the short trip happened in silence. Soon enough, Bear pulled into the hotel’s circular drive and stopped the van in front of the door.

Stella turned to face him. “You didn’t have to drop me at the door, Bear. I know you’re not a taxi service.”

He gave her a wry half-smile.

“Okay, tonight you were kind of my taxi service. But I really appreciate it.”
Grovel, grovel
. Stella wondered how long he’d stay mad at her.

“You’re welcome, Stell,” he said gruffly. “I’m dropping you here because I park the van beside a wall, and it’s a tight fit on the passenger side.”

“Oh,” she said, stupidly. “Goodnight.”

Nineteen

B
EAR
EASED
THE
VAN
into the unholy spot where the hotel had asked him to park it. He shut her down, but did not get out right away. Instead, he listened to the tick of the cooling engine and the distant howl of coyotes.
 

If he thought he’d been stressed out three hours ago, it was nothing compared to seeing Stella
physically restrained
by two drunk idiots. The sight of their hands holding her down made him almost physically ill.
 

Hell. His blood pressure might never return to normal. If something happened to Stella while she was working on his film? He would never get over it. And Stella? She’d
laughed
. Even after everything that had happened to her brother, she still had the Lazarus deathwish.

He got out of the van and checked the locks. Though he kept the cameras in his hotel room, there was other equipment in the van. Life felt like a string of liabilities. Guard the cameras. Monitor Hank’s attitude. Watch the weather. Look out for Stella. Bear’s lower back was tight and painful. He hadn’t really felt relaxed since he and Hank had started shooting four months ago.

Bear used his key card to enter the hotel’s back door. It was late now, after one a.m., but when he got to his room, he was still feeling too strung out to sleep. He poured himself a little glass of cognac and picked up a snowboarding magazine. But the cheap hotel bed wasn’t helping his stiff back.

Fidgety, he slipped his shoes onto bare feet, grabbed his key card and wandered into the quiet hallway. Each time he’d used the back door, he’d smelled chlorine. A few turns later and he found what he was looking for. A placard reading HOT TUB was affixed to a door. Bear reached for the knob, hoping this was at least a nice enough hotel to supply towels by the hot tub because he hadn’t brought one.

He hadn’t packed a bathing suit, either.

To his surprise, the little hot tub area was outdoors on a patio surrounded by a very high wooden fence. Also surprising? He wasn’t the only one here.

“Hello,” a bikini-clad Stella greeted him from the tub. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Hi,” he said after a beat.

He must have done a poor job of keeping his features blank because Stella’s face fell. “Don’t ever play poker,” she said, crossing her arms.

“I’m not bad at poker,” he argued automatically. Life would be easier, actually, if card games were still the only conflict between them.

“Uh huh,” she said, unconvinced. “Well, are you just going to stand there all night, or get in?”

He looked down at himself, taking stock. “I’m not exactly dressed for it. I just wondered what was out here.”

Stella opened her arms wide. “It’s the nicest spot in the hotel. I’ve been in here every night.”

It’s a good thing I didn’t know that
, Bear told himself. But now he was caught between getting in with Stella or hightailing it out of there.

“In or out?” she said, raising an eyebrow. She’d read him like a book, of course. Stella always could. “You could at least pretend I’m not the last person you hoped to find here.”

“Stella.” He toed off his shoes. “It’s not like that.” Self-conscious now, Bear removed both the shirts he was wearing. He unzipped his jeans and removed them.

“Nice tights,” Stella teased, eyeing his long underwear.
 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure they’d look better on you than me.” Filming in the snow all day, a guy got cold. He peeled this last layer down over his quads, stepping out of them. Naked, he turned to catch Stella watching him, a guilty look on her face.

Without comment, he grabbed a towel off the stack, dropped it beside the tub and climbed in.
 
Now he was covered, at least. He moved a few inches so that one of the jets went to work on his achy back. It felt great, actually.
Right
. This was the reason he’d come looking for the hot tub in the first place.

“The heat is nice, don’t you think?” Stella asked. “I feel a little banged up from today’s shoot.”

Bear opened his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Stella let out a little snort of laughter. “Yes, Dad. But a girl can’t bomb through those saplings without taking a beating.”

He didn’t argue. What Bear felt toward Stella wasn’t very fatherly, either. And if he’d looked uncomfortable to find her here, it was only because he was forced to remember the last time they’d sat in a hot tub together in Tahoe. Sitting in hot, churning water with Stella again was like inviting the elephant into the room and asking him to sit on your lap.

Bear needed a fresh topic of conversation. His gaze traveled around the small patio. Tacked to the wooden fence was a sign that read: Maximum Occupancy 8. Eight people in here? Impossible.
Two
felt awfully goddamned intimate. That could be the Stella effect, though.

He pointed up at the sign. “That would be a tight fit.”

Stella pushed curling tendrils of hair from her face. “I suppose it depends on what they were doing.” She gave him a naughty smile, and Bear felt it low in his groin.
Damn
. With the water swirling everywhere around his bare skin, that smile of hers had twice its usual potency.

“Why did you go off with those guys tonight?” he heard himself ask.

Stella tipped her head back to rest against the lip of the tub. “I was just bored, that’s all. There was the possibility that the bar might be fun, you know? It was for a little while. I beat a college kid at darts.”

“Win any money off him?” Bear smiled at the image of Stella hustling a tourist.

“It was just a friendly game, or he would have been in trouble.” Under the water, Stella moved her feet to rest on top of his. It was a perfectly chaste gesture, but it sent an electrical charge up and down his spine. The warm, frothing water grazed him
everywhere
. Fighting his body’s reaction pointless — he was just going to have to sit here in this decadent place feeling turned-on and tempted. There were worse problems. In fact, lounging horny in a hot tub with a beautiful woman was more fun than he’d had in days.

“I knew they were tools, you know,” Stella continued. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know.” He tipped his head back too. It was a good night for stargazing. He didn’t know the constellations very well, except for the one or two top-sellers. Orion wasn’t visible tonight and that meant spring was coming. In a couple of months, all the snow would melt. His film would be finished shooting whether he was ready or not. Maybe then he could stop being such a stress case.

“What do you see up there?” Stella asked.

He chuckled, the question reminding him of something funny. “Stella, when you were little, you told me that your name meant ‘star.’ And you were
so
proud of that.”

She groaned. “How old do I have to be before you and Hank stop reminding me of all the stupid shit I said when I was five?”

“I dunno, buddy. You were a pretty cute kid.” She had been, too. Bear had a very visual memory, so he was able to picture Stella at every age. He could see her in a dress on the first day of kindergarten, clutching Hank’s hand. (The hand-clutching had lasted one day. After which, if he remembered correctly, she’d practically run the elementary school.) He could picture her snowboarding behind them both a few years later. He could see the shine of the braces on her teeth in middle school.

It was such a rare thing to really grow up with someone. No wonder he had an unrealistic attachment to her. They’d been breathing the same air for so long. He didn’t know how to unhook his consciousness from hers. And he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to.

But appreciating Stella’s company and deserving her love weren’t the same thing. He’d played this little game more than he cared to admit. The game of:
What Would I Have to Do to Deserve Her?
And he always tried to see it in Hank’s eyes. Or her parents’. They might like him as a companion and a neighbor. But as the life partner of their baby girl? Who would want a washed-up athlete turned wannabe filmmaker?

If he was truly successful as a filmmaker, perhaps that would be enough. But the gulf between Still-Lives-With-His-Father and industry domination was as vast as Arapaho Basin.

Funny. When they were little, Stella occasionally made him pretend to marry her. She’d hold a messy bouquet of wildflowers in her hand, and wear one of her father’s handkerchiefs over her face. Stella’s mother had thought it was hysterical.