"Why didn't you tell me?" Joe Cooper demanded.
"Don't yell at your mother." A sad, bemused smile curved Elaine Cooper's lips as she looked at her firstborn. She knew he only meant well. "Sets a bad example for your son."
Joe lowered his voice, exasperation echoing in every syllable. "Jesse's upstairs, trying to figure out how to be a rock star so he can impress some girl in his class. I am not yelling and don't try to change the subject. You should have told me the county was asking you for back taxes on the ranch."
He wouldn't have known now, if he hadn't stumbled across the letter in the den while looking for an old photo album. The bill had been for the astronomical sum of three hundred and forty-five thousand dollars, payable in a month's time. Or else.
Elaine shook her head. After all this time, he still didn't understand how mothers worked. "And what, casually toss it on top of all the trouble you were having? Your wife was dying, you were going bankrupt and trying to hold civilized life as you knew it together for Jesse's sake. Did you expect me to pick up the phone and say, 'Hello, son. How are you and, oh, yes, by the way, can you spare a truckload of cash because some idiot realized they'd been taxing my land at the wrong rate and now if I don't pay them, I'm going to lose the old homestead?'"
"Something like that." He dragged a hand through his deep brown hair and looked at his mother. "So what are you going to do?"
Elaine sighed. "I don't know. Going to bed with the county assessor doesn't seem to be the way to go. He's gay." She saw the incredulous look come shooting across her son's face. "I'm kidding. Not about the county assessor being gay. He is." She glanced at an oil painting of her late husband hanging over the living room fireplace. Lord, but she did miss him. He would have known what to do, no matter what. "Wouldn't want to add insult to injury."
Humor had always been his mother's way of dealing with things. It used to be his, as well, but he had long since lost the ability to laugh over things. Life had gotten much too serious for him in the past year.
"I'm assuming you haven't called the guys about this, either."
She looked at him sharply. "No, and I'm not going to. And neither are you," she warned. "There's nothing Max, Sean and Ryan can do, anyway. The back taxes come to almost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
Why was she being so stubborn about this? "There's money being held in trust for each of them. Almost a half a million each according to the terms of Dad's will," he reminded her. He'd already gotten his share, but Sandra's medical bills had cleaned him out. But there was more than enough still waiting for his brothers. "If any one of them had access to their resources "
"Exactly," his mother cut in. "Their resources, not mine. Four hundred thousand dollars for each of them same as you." A small woman, she straightened and squared her shoulders. "I couldn't ask them for it. Besides, they won't even get it until after they're married and from what I know of my sons, even with that incentive dangling in front of them, none of them is anywhere close to tying the knot. I can't expect them to grab some woman off the street and run off to get married because I need money."
Joe fixed her with a look. "You've always been there for us."
Elaine waved away his protest. "Sticking Band-Aids on scraped knees doesn't quite come with a price tag of four hundred thousand dollars each for services rendered."
"You did a hell of a lot more than that and you know it." She was the glue that had held the family together through the lean years, the one who had instilled such a strong sense of family within him. She couldn't expect him to just back away from that now.
"I'm sure June Cleaver wouldn't have expected Wally and the Beaver to fork over a couple hundred thousand each, either." Elaine smiled fondly. "More than likely, they'd throw together a lemonade stand. If you wanted to go sell lemonade on my behalf, I wouldn't stand in your way."
"What I want to do is save the ranch. For all of us." But mostly for her. This was her home, he thought. The only home she'd ever known since she'd come to the Virginia horse ranch as a new bride.
Elaine sighed, looking out the bay window that faced the back of her property. The view stretched out forever, taking in the stables, the lush grass, the corral where she and her husband and then her sons had trained the horses. How much longer was she going to be able to see it? How much longer was this going to be hers? She didn't want to think about that.
"So do I, dear, so do I. But right now, I am fresh out of ideas. The tooth fairy doesn't leave that kind of money under the pillow when she makes her rounds, and I certainly can't get a loan from the bank."
And it went without saying that he wasn't exactly a candidate for floating one, either. At least, not for the kind of money it would take to placate the county tax assessor.
There was a little more than five hundred dollars in his bank account. What the stock market hadn't eroded from his holdings, Sandra's medical bills had eaten up. They had exceeded by far anything that their health insurance was contracted to pay out. That was why he and Jesse had to come back to the ranch to stay after her death. He'd sold everything to get out of debt and had nowhere else to turn.
His mother had welcomed them both with open arms, telling him that this was their home and always would be.
Apparently, "always" was going to have a finite duration if the county had its way.
Joe frowned. He felt like someone caught up in an old fashioned melodrama. He needed to save the old homestead from being sold right out from under them.
That the responsibility wasn't solely his had never crossed his mind. He was the oldest; it was his job to look out for his mother and her interests. At bottom, that was what he was about making sure those he loved were cared for, were all right.
Right now, he wasn't doing his job very well. He'd spent months helplessly watching his wife deteriorate without being able to do anything to change that. Impotently watched as bills ate his money, money that had been earmarked for Jesse's college education, for a better life for his son.
He hadn't been able to help Sandra, hadn't been able to keep his inheritance from eroding, but there damn well had to be something he could do here.
He tried to think of options and found himself facing nothing but a brick wall. But people scaled walls. He used to as a kid. "There's got to be a way to raise money."
Elaine nodded. She placed her hand on his arm, trying to mutely tell him it was all right, that this was her fight, not his.
"Maybe there is."
They both turned to see that Jesse was standing in the doorway, his worn sneakers planted on the highly polished wooden floor. His son was clutching a newspaper in his hand.
"Don't you know any better than to come sneaking up on your dad and grandmother?" Joe asked.
"I wasn't sneaking," the eight-year-old said defensively. "You were talking loud."
Elaine gave Joe a look that all but audibly declared, "See?"
Joe beckoned his son over to the sofa. "How could you hear me over that guitar you've been torturing?"
Jesse ignored his father's question. Instead, he held up the newspaper he'd brought down. There'd been an ad for a video game he wanted in it, but what he'd heard had made him forget about something so selfish. "I can earn the money for you, Grandma."
Elaine hugged the boy to her. "I'm afraid I can't wait for you to become a rock star, honey."
Jesse gave her a look that said he knew that. "No, but I can go on TV and win the contest."
"What contest?" Joe wanted to know.
"The Journey. They're coming here and looking for people." Jesse held up the front page of the section he was holding. "It says right here they're looking for outdoor types." He grinned at his grandmother, looking exactly like his father had at his age, Elaine thought. Jesse pounded his chest with a small fist. "I'm an outdoor type. I can win the contest and give the money to you. You'll be rich."
Elaine could only laugh. It served to keep back the tears. "I already am rich. I've got a big, strong, handsome grandson who wants to take care of me."
"Let me see that." Joe took the paper from his son and began to scan the article.
Elaine looked up sharply. She knew what a private person her oldest son was. She also knew all about reality shows. This would be tantamount to living in a fishbowl. "Joe, you're not thinking "
"Yes," he told her, "I am." He turned the paper around so that she could see the title of the article: Winner to Get a Million Dollars. "That should take care of all your problems," he pointed out. "And there'd be more than enough left over to stake me to a new life."
"You going to try out for the contest, Dad?" Jesse wanted to know.
"No," Joe said. "I'm going to win the contest."
"Looks like every man and woman in Virginia came to try out for this show," Joe Cooper commented as he got out of the car.
Elaine slid into the driver's seat, taking his place behind the wheel. "Joe, why don't you forget about this and just come home?"
"Because I want to keep coming home and it won't be home if I don't win this." He looked across the street at the ever growing crowd in front the Body Beautiful Fitness Center. This was where the producers of The Journey, the newest reality program to catch the country's attention by storm, were looking for contestants.
The irony of the situation made him smile. He had to be the only one in the country who had never watched a reality show. Even his mother was a faithful viewer of one of them. And now here he was literally betting the farm, or in this case ranch, that he could come up a winner on this one.
According to the article he'd read, twenty contestants were to be chosen. It looked as though several thousand had shown up.
It was going to be a long afternoon.
Joe leaned over and kissed his mother's cheek through the open window. "I'll give you a call when it's over." He winked. "You can pick up the pieces."
Knowing she couldn't talk her oldest son out of something after he'd made up his mind, Elaine wished him luck and then drove off.
Joe braced himself. It looked as if he was going to have a long wait ahead of him. Taking out the portable mp3 player Sandra had given him the last Christmas they'd had together, he attached the small headphones then placed them on his ears. He slid the almost flat player into the back pocket of his jeans.
When he'd gotten the gift, he'd laughed and said it was just something else he wasn't going to use. But now that Sandra was gone, he played the memory stick full of tunes she'd selected for him often. It made him feel closer to her.
Crossing the street, he approached the end of the ever growing line. Another would-be applicant came up from the rear at the same time he did. Since the laws of physics hadn't been amended and two objects weren't capable of taking up the same space at the same time, Joe found himself colliding with a very soft, yet at the same time firm, surface.
An athletic-looking young woman with short, curly black hair and eyes the color of a rich chocolate sundae recovered herself in time to keep from ignobly meeting the pavement. The earphones were still on his head. The woman was saying something to him, and her lips were definitely not in sync with what Toby Keith was singing about into his ear.
Joe slid the headphones off, leaving them hanging around his neck. He flashed an apologetic grin. "Hey, sorry."
Neither the grin nor the abbreviated apology appeared to do it for her. The woman looked summarily annoyed. "Look, mister, if you haven't learned how to walk and pay attention to where you're going at the same time, maybe you shouldn't be trying out for the show."
Her eyes widened as she heard the tune he was listening to emanating from the headphones around his neck. She didn't recognize the song, but was apparently familiar enough with the mode of music to allow a smirk to cross her generous mouth.
The chocolate eyes rose to meet his face. "Country and western well, maybe that explains it."
He wasn't a big fan of country and western music that had been Sandra's thing. But he didn't care for the woman's superior attitude. Normally polite to a fault, he felt annoyance taking hold of his tongue. "And what's your excuse?"
The mark of a fighter about her, he watched the woman's chest swell indignantly. He had to admit, despite the confrontational situation, it was a rather attractive sight. It surprised him to feel something stirring inside. "Inside" had been dead for a very long time.
The woman looked ready to tangle with him right then and there. Her chin shot up as several people around them began to pay attention to the exchange. "What?"
"You walked into me just as much as I walked into you," Joe pointed out.
She found his voice annoyingly low and controlled. It only made her more irritated. "Look, cowboy "
"Is there a problem here?"
A burly-looking man wearing a short-sleeve shirt and short, stubby tie that definitely looked out of place with his bulging muscles and size-eighteen neck seemed to materialize out of the crowd. His manner labeled him as being with the producers and the talent scouts. His job was security or, more to the point, to keep the peace.
Joe became aware of another man standing behind the first, holding a camera, apparently filming the potential contestants standing out in eighty-seven degree weather. Obviously the powers that be were anticipating short tempers and shorter fuses.
The woman tossed her head, her dark curls bouncing. Her firm breasts seemed to rise up a notch. "No problem. Nothing I can't handle."
The man turned his attention to Joe. Joe inclined his head toward the woman. "What she said."
With a huff that was meant to be taken as a warning, the man withdrew, taking the cameraman with him. The latter drifted over to another section of the endless line.
Joe reined in his temper, regaining control over it. He wasn't out to make enemies, just to get this over with. Leaving bad feelings to fester was only going to make things worse.
"Joe Cooper," he said, putting out his hand.
Surprised, the woman with the picture-perfect, taut body looked at him a second before finally placing her own hand in his.
"Theresa Knight." Her eyes locked with his. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being challenged on a very basic, earthly level. Theresa was nothing if not the picture of confidence. "And I'm going to win this thing."
A beat passed. He realized that he was still holding her hand. Joe opened his fingers, letting go. "First you have to qualify," he told her quietly.
"That's already a given." Theresa shifted slightly, aware that his eyes were washing over her. Was that judgment she saw? It wouldn't be the first time, but she always reacted as if it were. "What? You think I'm too small to go white-water rafting and rock climbing? You think just because you're a guy and bigger than I am that for some reason "
"No."
He cut short whatever tirade was in the making. He hadn't come out here to argue with anyone. He hadn't even come out here to compete against anyone. He'd just come out here because his mother needed the money and this was the only thing he could do in short order. That he had to win was not a question. It was a statement.
With that, he turned and faced forward. Picking up the headphones, he slipped them back on his ears and drowned out everything else that was going on around him.
Including the rather stunning woman fuming at his back.
Standing out in the hot sun for the past three hours had come close to draining him. Joe suspected that was exactly the intent of the reality program's talent scouts. It served as the first round for weeding out the lesser contestants, separating the starstruck from the serious.
The next few rounds, he had a feeling, were going to be far more grueling.
By the time he got into the shade of the building, he felt as if he'd lost five pounds of water weight. He and the others who were admitted at this point were all given bottled water to quench their thirst. He drank his sparingly. His whole life had been about pacing himself and this was no different.
As the oldest in the family, he'd been born older than the others. More serious than the others. It was his job to set an example, his job to shoulder responsibilities and if, at times, he grew damn weary of his "job," at other times he realized just how lucky he was to have a family that looked to him for support, that offered support to him those few times he found himself in need. He thought of his mother, trying to ease his burden by keeping the news about the ranch's reassessment to herself.
There was no way he was going to allow the ranch to be taken from her, he thought.
Joe took in his surroundings. The woman who he'd collided with was still there. By her bearing and manner, he'd already figured out that it would take a lot more than just discomfort to make Theresa Knight voluntarily drop out the way about a hundred or so would-be contestants had before they ever reached the physical fitness center's red double doors. There was a determination about the woman he recognized. It was the same look he'd seen in his own mirror.
Once inside the building, they were herded into a large communal room, a hundred candidates at a time, to await the first of several interviews with the talent scouts, followed by a battery of endurance tests to see if they had the stamina for the contest.
As he found himself being shuffled from one place to another en masse, he began to understand what cattle went through as they were being herded. He was glad the ranch he'd grown up on raised racehorses.
Not for much longer, he thought ruefully as he staked out a place for himself and sank down to the floor. Not if he couldn't win this.
Taking another swig from the water bottle he was holding, Joe looked around, trying to get a feel for what was ahead for him. The article Jesse had found had summoned one and all to an old-fashioned test of "grit." "Grit" didn't begin to describe the kinds of things he was going to be up against. The only other clue was that they wanted contestants who could hold their own outdoors. And he could do that.
"Scoping out the competition, cowboy?"
He didn't have to turn around to know that the question came from the woman who was already critical of his choice of music.
"Just getting the lay of the land." Since she had initiated the conversation, he decided to try to satisfy his own curiosity. "You have any idea what they expect us to actually do in this contest? Exactly what are we up against?"
"Each other." For a moment, she looked as if she was going to leave it at that. And then, thinking better of her quip, she added, "I heard there're going to be twenty people, broken up into teams of five. You work with your team and against it."
That sounded like a direct contradiction. "What does that mean?"
She wondered if this man had any true idea of what he was getting himself into. Most of the people trying out today didn't. But then, they didn't have her advantage. Theresa sat down next to him. "It means, cowboy, that only one person, not a team, gets the prize money. You work with your team to beat out the other three teams, then you work for yourself to beat out the other four people in your group, some of whom, if you're lucky, have already been disqualified by that time."
He'd never subscribed to the every-man-for-himself theory of operation. "Not exactly the great American way, is it?"
Just how innocent was this guy? He wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in her old neighborhood. Fairness was seen as a weakness, not a plus. Still, she had to admit that on him, it seemed a little sexy.
But if he was a stickler for being fair, Theresa judged she was going to be able to beat him easily. It was almost a shame, given that he was one of the better-looking specimens of manhood she'd seen here so far. "Sure it is. It's looking out for number one."
Joe frowned. "That wasn't the principle on which this country was built."
Unable to contain herself any longer, she stared at him. "Where did they find you?"
"They didn't. I found them. Or Jesse did." And if it wasn't that he was convinced that there was no other way to save the ranch, he would have been out of here like a shot. Hell, he would have never been in here to begin with.
"Jessie," Theresa echoed. "That your significant other?"
"In a manner of speaking." At least, there was no one else who figured more significantly into his life than Jesse. "Jesse's my eight-year-old son."
Was he kidding? What cave had this man come out of? "'Significant other' means mate, cowboy, not kid."
Pausing, Theresa gave the man beside her a long once-over, taking in the fact that even though the man sounded like a throwback to another era, maybe even another planet, he was damn good-looking in a very rugged sort of way. She wondered if he knew what to do with those muscles of his.
And if there was anyone to appreciate them.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she decided. "Is there a Mrs. Cowboy waiting somewhere around here?"
Even after all these months, it was still hard not to think of Sandra in the picture. He could feel the ache forming in his chest even before he said, "I'm a widower."
The way he said it, he hadn't been one all that long. Theresa felt a little uncomfortable that she'd intruded. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stir up any bad memories."
"You didn't. All my memories of Sandra are good ones. Except for the end," he added quietly.
Restless, he looked around. At the other end of the large room, people were trickling out through a door one person at a time. Probably to be interviewed. At this rate, he was going to be here until after the county seized his mother's ranch.
He looked back toward Theresa. "So you don't know what kind of things they're going to have us doing?"
She shrugged, her shoulders moving the straps of her white tank top. She moved them back into place. "Hiking, fishing, climbing, things like that. Audiences like to see people sweat."
He really didn't care for that part of it. For being on display. But his back was to the wall. "Is the whole thing going to be televised?"
"The best parts. Ratings." She paused, studying him. She knew a little something about the kinds of people who turned out for these things. And he didn't fit the category. "Why are you doing this? You don't seem like the type. I mean, you look rugged and all, but you look more like the forest ranger type."
He didn't see the contradiction. "Isn't that what you just said they were looking for?"
"Forest ranger," she elaborated, "as in working somewhere with a lot of trees and not that many people."
Joe shrugged, not wanting to get into his real reasons. "I want the prize money."
She laughed shortly. "Don't we all?"
Joe crossed his arms before him, taking measure of the woman. She was wearing a white tank top, hiking boots and denim shorts. Her body was taut and sinewy. She was right about him. He generally kept to himself. Questions about other people rarely occurred to him, but they were occurring now, about this feisty, sensual woman. "What would you do with it if you won?"
Theresa's answer was honest. "I've got a personal-training business that could use a jump-start."
"Is that what you are, a personal trainer?" She certainly had the body to advertise her techniques.
Because she'd grown up the hard way, with failure grasping to pull her down at every turn, she was immediately defensive. "Why? Don't I look it?"
He held up his hand. "Every inch. But your short fuse could use some work," he added.
So the quiet cowboy thing was just an act. She'd met guys like him before. "And you'd be just the guy to help me work it, right?"
"No," he said. His answer caught her off guard. "But you might do well to know that not everything someone says is a challenge."
"Cooper, Knight, Jones, Conrad, Swartz." The names were announced over the loud speaker.
Their discussion tabled, Theresa rose to her feet quickly, ready to head out. "Looks like we get to hang out a little longer. Until you wash out," she added with a grin.
Joe said nothing as he followed her toward the man standing in the doorway with a clipboard in his hand. He saw no point in declaring that he had no intentions of washing out. Actions, he felt, always spoke louder than words.
"You made it!" Jesse squealed when he returned with his grandmother later that evening to pick up his father.
Joe lowered himself into the passenger seat, waving his mother back when she began to vacate the driver's side. "You drive. I'm too tired. If I drive, we'll wind up in an accident. I don't have enough energy to lift my foot from the gas to the brake."
Elaine looked concerned as she watched her son strap in. "Joe, what did they have you doing?"
"Everything," he groaned.
Joe leaned back against the seat, trying to absorb the comfort. On the verge of collapsing, it was still hard for his body to relax. He felt as if he'd been folded, spindled and mutilated.
"We were competing for most of the day. Running, swimming, weight training you name it, we did it. Over and over again. Did it until we dropped and they made their choices."
Jesse grabbed the back of his father's seat. "But you didn't drop, did you, Dad?"
Joe exhaled deeply. "No, but I sure wanted to."
Jesse was fairly bouncing in his seat. "And you won, right, Dad?"
"Not yet," Joe reminded him. "But I'm one of the twenty who can."
It had been round after round of disqualifications all day long. There were times when he thought he wasn't going to make it, but somehow he always managed to qualify. In the end, there were just twenty of them left. Five women and fifteen men. It didn't surprise him that Theresa with her can-do/go-to-hell attitude had wound up being one of the final contestants. What did surprise him was that a part of him had been rooting her on.
The next week was going to be really interesting, he decided.
The competition was to last as long as it took one of them to reach destination's end, the center of a ghost town accessible only over rough terrain. By the producers' estimates, The Journey would most likely take at least the next week. And every step of the way was going to be immortalized on tape. The footage would then be edited and ultimately shown over five weeks, one hour a week.
They had all been required to bring in signed statements from their doctors, testifying that they were in good health and could withstand a rigorous regimen. They were required to sign pledges of secrecy, saying that they would not disclose to anyone which of them had not made it to journey's end until after the final show was broadcast. They would have no contact with friends or family while filming the show either, which Joe knew would be the hardest part for him.
Joe packed a suitcase, and his doubts, two days after he'd tried out for the program and got on a plane bound for California, along with the other nineteen contestants. They were taken out on the town for one last night in "civilization," told to "eat, drink and be merry," because on the morn, all bets were off.
Being "merry" included capping the evening off with dancing. He'd meant to only be an observer, but no one was allowed to stand on the sidelines, so he asked Theresa for a dance. It was the end of the evening, and the dance was a slow one. He was surprised by how easily she fit into his arms.
She seemed to read his mind. "Don't get too close to anyone," she advised.
"I'm game. Why?"
She looked up at him. "Because you might have to double-cross them in the end."
She was putting him on notice, he thought. Amused, he smiled at her. "I'll keep that in mind."
Theresa lay her head against his shoulder. A ripple went through him as he felt her breath slowly penetrate through his shirt and warm his skin.
At the crack of dawn, they were all driven to the Colorado River, which boasted rapids the caliber the producers were looking for.
"Okay, let's go over the rules," Benjamin Reed, the head producer, announced. At five-four he looked like a modern-day Napoleon as he moved amid the contestants, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression intense. "You and your team are to cross the rapids, climb up the side of Mt. Evans, hike through the forest and reach Cimarron, a ghost town located smack in the middle of nowhere.
"The journey is roughly and I do mean roughly two hundred fifty miles of utterly inhospitable terrain." His intense blue eyes took in every face around him one at a time. "You can only accept help from your team, no one else. Something goes wrong and one of the camera personnel or health facilitators are called into action, you're disqualified.
"You lose your rations, your tent, you're out unless one of your team members steps in and shares theirs with you. As you approach the end of the journey, I want you all to start thinking for yourselves about yourselves. Any friendships you've formed are only going to work against you as you reach the ghost town. First one into the town's square wins." He paused dramatically as he looked at each one of them again. "And there's only going to be one winner. Understood?"
A smattering of low voices gave him the answer he expected.
Joe looked at Theresa. She, along with three other men, a salesman, a premed student and an unemployed engineer, made up his team. "Doesn't exactly breed brotherly love, does he?"
Theresa looked at him with a shake of her head. Still the innocent. How could a grown man not know any better? Still, in an odd way, there was something gallant about that. She shut the thought away. "That's not the object of the game, now is it?"
It seemed more like cutthroat competition than a game to him, Joe thought, but he kept his opinion to himself.
Reed continued talking. The roar of the rapids in the distance seemed to underscore his words. "Okay, that said, if you get into trouble, signal." It was an order, not a suggestion. "We're not looking to have anyone get hurt or killed here. It's a friendly game," he reminded them. "You've got cameras in your gear, cameras trained on you at all times no matter where you go. We'll be there faster than your next thought if something goes wrong."
"Those cameras on us, um, does that include, um, nature breaks?" one of the women asked nervously.
Reed grinned. "You can turn the camera off then. But only then." He addressed the rest of them. "Now I want you to go out there and remember, have fun."
"Is that before or after we beat out everyone?" Theresa wanted to know.
Reed made eye contact with her. Joe watched the exchange and wondered if the two had known each other before The Journey's talent scouts had descended on the city. There seemed to be something familiar passing between them.
"Before if you want," Reed answered. "Definitely after."
The four teams moved to the side, getting out of the camera crew's way as the latter group set up for the initial shot. In the background, a helicopter crew was ready to take off to capture the aerial shots.
Joe was aware of Theresa standing next to him. She seemed so charged with energy, if she were a firecracker, he was positive she'd already be shooting out beams of lights from her fingertips.
The thought that had occurred to him last night on the dance floor made a reappearance. She was a stunningly beautiful woman. But he reminded himself that he was a man whose soul had been burned away, so whether or not she was beautiful was supposed to hold very little meaning for him.
Still, she was easy on the eyes.
"Okay, we've divided you into teams, trying to balance out all four groups." Rafts were being set up on the ground in front of each set of five. "Good luck," Reed told them. "And may the best man or woman win."
Raising the starter pistol over his head, he squeezed the trigger. The sound was absorbed by the roar of the distant rapids.
Five teams grabbed hold of their rafts and ran for the river amid shouts of "Geronimo" and similar cries to battle.
The Journey had begun.
When measured in miles, the section of the river that comprised the rapids seemed almost negligible.
When calculated in breath-stealing seconds and heart-stopping tosses and turns, it seemed endless. All that was missing was a whirlpool.
During this leg of The Journey, it felt to Joe as if time had stopped and eternity beckoned.
Not today. He did his best to keep the latter at bay.
Every single muscle in Joe's body felt as if it had come alive, straining to the limit as he paddled hard in order to keep the raft he and the other four people were on from capsizing.
Joe absolutely refused to be part of the first team to be disqualified in total.
He'd navigated rapids only twice before in his life. Once with his father and brothers, Max, Sean and Ryan, and once with Sandra on their first married vacation. Either his memory had gone sentimental, or it had just gone, he thought, because neither time had felt as if it were a life-and-death struggle against foaming water and rock formations that seemed to appear out of nowhere, ready to do their damnedest to tip the raft over, or worse, disable it.
His concentration so intent on the struggle, Joe was hardly aware that there were three other rafts around theirs in close proximity. For that matter, he was hardly aware of the people on his own raft.
Except for the woman.
The muscle formations on Theresa's arms were prominent, fairly bulging as she fought with the river to hang on to her paddle.
Water kept crashing over them.
Her body glistened beneath the hot sun as the rapids waged a battle not only for control of the paddles, the raft and the people in it, but also to displace them within the raft with its own volume. All of them were drenched in a matter of seconds after they encountered the first set of rapids.
She looked good wet.
The thought burrowed its way into his head in between the strategies that were ricocheting through his brain. Strategies and random thoughts of not just failure but the dangers of miscalculation. It wouldn't do to get too confident. The river could knock that confidence right out of you with a well-aimed wave.
Joe wrapped his fingers more tightly around the paddle. They already hurt beyond aching.
His concentration was shattered as he thought he heard a scream above the roar of the rapids. His head jerked around toward the sound in pure reflex.
Theresa looked as if she was suspended in midair.
In less than a heartbeat, her body would be over the side of the black rubber raft. Despite all the safeguards and precautions taken, she could be lost or killed in a matter of moments.
Joe didn't think, he reacted. Hooking his arm around her waist the second he saw her leave her seat, he dragged Theresa back down.
For one horrible moment, she thought it was all over. She envisioned herself going down beneath the rapids, being pushed under by the swirling waters.
And then suddenly, she was being pulled back down.
She landed hard in the very space she'd vacated a second ago.
His arm still wrapped around her waist, Joe could feel how fast she was breathing. So fast he couldn't even begin to count the breaths.
His own breathing wasn't exactly moderate to mild, he thought. Adrenaline was doing double time through his veins.
Theresa turned her head and looked at him, horror and shock plastered on her face, along with the ends of her curls. He couldn't quite fathom the look in her eyes, but there wasn't time to ponder it.
All he knew was that it reached out to him where he lived. Something akin to an electrical shock had passed between them.
And was still passing.
"Breathe slower," he ordered, "or you'll hyperventilate." The next second, he released her as the river became treacherous again.
Her paddle gone, Theresa used her hands to try to move the raft along. The action, he knew, was futile, but there seemed no sense in pointing it out. All his attention was diverted to keeping them from capsizing.
And then, as suddenly as the river had transformed into the spin cycle mode, it became calm. So calm that it seemed as if the whole section behind them was nothing but a mass hallucination.
They were to continue paddling until they reached the next checkpoint.
"Anyone know if there're any more rapids up ahead?" The question was nervously posed by Jason, the pre-med student and easily the smallest of them.
David, the real estate salesman, nodded. His short blond hair already beginning to dry as he blew out a long breath.
"I think there's another section up ahead a few miles." He glanced at Joe, then at Theresa. "Nice catch."
Ed, the unemployed engineer, carefully avoided looking at Theresa as he said to Joe, "You were supposed to let her go overboard. That's how the game is played."
They'd been assured that someone from the film crew would rescue any contestants who went into the river. Joe, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. And when it came to a human life, he wasn't about to hang back and play the odds.
"That's not how I play the game," Joe said firmly. He turned his mind toward business. "We lose anything?"
"A paddle," Theresa said ruefully. "Mine."
"Anything else?" Joe asked.
"A tent," Jason called out, taking a quick inventory of the items that were clustered together in the center of the raft.
"Hey, weren't those things supposed to be tied down?" Ed wanted to know.
"Yeah, well, so were we," Theresa pointed out. "And my strap broke."
Silently, she upbraided herself for having somehow miscalculated and taken the wrong seat. But she'd gotten turned around when the raft was being lowered into the river by the crew.
"Whose tent?" David asked.
Since she no longer had a paddle, Theresa checked the remaining tents to see what names were on them. She raised her eyes to look at Joe.
"Joe's."
They knew the rules. If a tent was lost, the person who it belonged to was disqualified unless someone on his team chose to share theirs with them. It was a way of winnowing down the contestants.
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sounds of the river. And the echo of more rapids directly up ahead in the distance.
Damn, Joe thought, for him the contest was over before it had hardly begun. What the hell was he going to do now?
Theresa looked at the other men in the raft. All three suddenly became taken with their paddles and the water, avoiding eye contact. She knew what she was supposed to do. But then, so had Joe and he'd chosen not to follow instructions.
Maybe she'd need him along the trail, she decided, trying to justify her next move. Knowing she was going to have to eventually.
"You can share mine," she told him.
He didn't seem to hear her. The offer had been made quietly and the river had stolen her words from her, swallowing them up whole as the volume went up around them.
Theresa put her hand on top of his.
The contact surprised him. That same sort of sizzling current passed through him. He looked up, stopping midstroke.
"You can share my tent," she said, raising her voice to be heard as she enunciated each syllable.
He smiled his thanks as relief washed over him. The next moment, the river came alive again. They were headed for another set of rapids.
"Hold on," he ordered. "Here we go again!"
Theresa braced herself. For more reasons than one.
There were two more sets of rapids before the river finally turned peaceful.
By the time they reached the designated area where all the teams were to set up camp, it was late afternoon and, to a man and/or woman, the contestants were all completely exhausted.
They were also more than an entire team shy.
Joe watched as two other teams dragged their rafts out of the water, parking them beside theirs on the riverbank. He and his team had been the first to make it to land, managing to arrive a little more than ten minutes ahead of the next team. That meant that tomorrow, they got that much of a start on the others.
Of the fifteen people in the game besides his own team, he saw only nine.
He turned toward Theresa, curious. "Where's the fourth raft?"
Theresa shook her head. "I'll go and find out," she volunteered.
Hands shoved into her back pockets, she headed over to Reed. The producer was sitting in a director's chair, watching over the proceedings like Nero presiding over his less than pleased subjects. He took to the role like a duck to water.
Joe dropped on the grass a few feet away from their raft, too tired at the moment to move or to even think about eating. A quick scan of the inside of the raft told him that it looked as if none of their packs had gone overboard.
Which was damn lucky, he thought. Grateful or not, he sincerely doubted that Theresa would have gone so far as to share her food with him.
Thinking about it, even her sharing her tent seemed like a stretch. He'd seen the look in her eyes the afternoon they'd been told that they had made the cut. Triumph instead of pleasure. As if she'd expected it.
The woman was aggressive and she wanted to win. At all costs. Which was why her sharing the tent with him was strange. All she had to do was say nothing and he would have been disqualified.
But maybe, he argued, she would have felt just too guilty, since he had saved her.
Whatever the reason, he was glad that he still managed to remain in the contest without having to sacrifice any of his principles.
Propping himself up on his elbows, he contemplated getting up again. The food wasn't going to just pop into his mouth.
Maybe just a couple of more minutes to pull himself together. He noticed that no one else appeared to be doing much moving, either. The all too real life-and-death struggle with the river had taken a great deal out of all of them.
The next thing he was aware of was Theresa depositing herself on the grass beside him. Her leg brushed against his and if he wasn't so damn tired, he would have sworn that another shock wave of electricity had accompanied the fleeting contact.
It looked as if the river had taken more out of him than he'd thought. Otherwise, why was he feeling things now, in the middle of what was supposed to be a life-and-death contest?
"The last team won't be coming," Theresa informed him. There was that triumphant look again, he thought. She reminded him of a warrior queen he'd seen in a docudrama on one of the public TV stations. Magnificent in her confidence. That was the word for her, he decided. Magnificent. "Their raft turned over. They had to be rescued." She wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her head on her knees. "So did Holden."
Something strong and urgent stirred inside him. Joe banked down the urge to run the back of his hand along her cheek. Instead, he focused on what she was saying.
"Holden?"
"The guy in that team," she pointed out several people close by. Grouped and immobile around their raft, by his count there were only four people on the grass. Which meant that one of their number had dropped out. "He didn't have anyone on his raft willing to catch him."
It struck him as odd to have two such accidents occur at the same time. Especially with the safety precautions they'd taken. Everyone had strapped in the second they were in the raft.
"Wasn't he strapped in?"
"Yeah, but his belt broke." She raised her eyes to his. "Just like mine."
Was she insinuating something? "Think it was done on purpose?"
She shrugged carelessly, even though she knew the answer to that. "Who knows? The producers like to throw curves at people."
His eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"
She looked at him sharply, but there was no accusation in his eyes, only the vague question shimmering between them. She told herself she was being too paranoid.
Theresa allowed herself a small smile. The man was easy to smile at. "Don't you watch reality programs?"
He shook his head. "Never touch the stuff."
It was an odd admission for a man embroiled in the middle of the newest reality show slated to hit the airwaves. "What do you watch?"
"Police dramas. An occasional comedy when I think it might be funny instead of dumb." He paused, then admitted, "Saturday morning cartoons with my son. You?"
"I don't watch much TV except for a couple of the reality programs," she added quickly. "I'm usually at the gym, teaching a class or making up a workout for a client."
He'd seen her in the gym when they were being tested. She was a thing of beauty. Her body moved like poetry. It took effort to remind himself that he was a prose kind of person. "What do you do for fun?"
He was sitting way too close. And she was thinking things that were completely out of line for what she needed to do. Twilight was stirring things up too much, she decided. Making her feel strangely vulnerable. That had never happened before, not even once.
Theresa deliberately scooted back on the bank.
"Sleep," she finally said. "I'm usually dead tired by the end of the day."
He thought of his life ever since he'd returned to the ranch with Jesse. Filled end to end with either work or his son. That didn't leave much time for him. "I know exactly what you mean."
The air seemed to stand still between them. Urges began to move through her. This wasn't the time and it certainly wasn't the place. At best, they were misguided. She'd been vulnerable back there and Joe had rescued her. What she was feeling now was strictly a knee-jerk reaction to the situation.
Problem was, it wasn't just her knee that was involved.
The problem got worse.
Maybe volunteering to share a tent with Joe hadn't been such a good idea, Theresa thought. The tent was small, the space crammed. It was filled with arms and legs and a hell of a lot of tension that seemed to be left over from their life-and-death struggle on the river earlier.
She could tell by his breathing that he was awake. "Joe?"
"Yeah?"
His voice was low, sexy in the dark. "You're not asleep, are you?"
She heard the soft laugh. "Doesn't look like it."
"Why did you rescue me today?" Turning, she propped herself up on her elbow. His face was mostly in shadow. She could just about make it out. "Don't you want the money?"
"Yes, but I'm not about to sacrifice who I am to get it. Besides, you could have gotten hurt."
His words, his concern, thrilled her. She didn't want them to. She wasn't here for that. "They had rescue teams standing by."
He'd never been one of those people who could just stand by and let things happen without trying to do something about it. "By the time one of them reached you, a lot of things could have happened."
She smiled to herself as she shook her head. "Have you always been this decent?"
She saw him shrug. "It's a congenital thing."
Desire flared up another notch. She needed to diffuse it a little. "Don't take this the wrong way."
He braced himself for some flippant assessment of his code of ethics. "Okay."
Instead of words, he found her leaning into him. Felt her breath along his face. Her lips softly pressing against his.
The graveyard that had been his soul suddenly experienced life. Vividly. He felt something warm unfurling inside his belly. Long, golden fingers of light reached out, probing through all the darken corners of his being.
"I don't think it's possible to take that the wrong way," he murmured when she finally moved back.
She smiled. "I just wanted to say thank-you."
With that, she lay down again and turned her back to him.
It took a long time for his pulse to settle. Even longer for the rest of his body to catch up. He was going to feel like hell in the morning. Maybe that was even her intent, he thought, recalling what she'd said to him on the dance floor.
He didn't know. All he knew was that for now, he felt pretty damn good.
His body was still humming the next day. Whether it was because of his tent companion or the challenge that he knew lay ahead of him, Joe wasn't certain.
For the sake of argument, he was willing to assign equal blame.
Joe forced himself to focus. The next leg of their journey took them to Mt. Evans. And then up Mt. Evans. As far as mountains went, it wasn't one to top any lists as to degree of difficulty or height or danger.
That didn't negate the fact that it was still a mountain and they still had to scale up the side of it with harnesses, winches and ropes. And their fingertips.
Rock climbing was the next challenge to be faced.
He secretly blessed his father. While other men golfed, his father sought relaxation in pitting himself against nature like a modern-day Kit Carson. Camping, rock climbing, white-water rafting, trailblazing, hunting all of this had been second nature to his father. And he had passed on his survival traits to his sons. Except maybe to Max, he thought. Max was far more comfortable in a boardroom than the wild.
For safety reasons, each team had an experienced rock climber at its head, hired by the studio. The threat of injuries and law suits was a very real concern on the part of the producers, even though the audiences who ultimately watched the contest would never be privy to that part of the show.
Joe followed Frank Jessop, his team leader, up the side of Mt. Evans. Theresa elected to take her place behind Joe.
"You've been lucky for me," she told him when he gave her a quizzical look as she began to hook up her harness to his.
To her surprise, he placed his hand in the way, preventing her from making the connection. "I was going to say you might do better at the end of the line."
He expected her to take immediate offense at the suggestion. She didn't disappoint him.
"Why?" she demanded, bristling.
Joe knew that the notion that there was a physical difference between men and women as far as strength was concerned was distasteful to her, but it was true. Even though she might have been in better physical condition than the other members of their team, when it came to raw body strength, he had a feeling she'd come in last.
It wasn't so much a matter of protecting her, he silently argued, as it was in keeping anyone from getting hurt.
"Because if there's a problem with any of the climbers, I don't think you have the body strength to help pull them back up." He didn't think, he knew, but to phrase it that way would only get him drawn into verbal combat. And they were wasting time. "That would make you a liability."
Her eyes narrowed at what she felt was an insult. "I can pull my own weight," she snapped.
He thought of the weight she'd pressed at the gym. It had been impressive. "I don't doubt it. But you can't pull David's, Ed's and Jason's." And if she was ahead of them, that was exactly what she might have to do. "One wrong move on your part, or theirs, and it's like a domino effect."
Her hands were on her hips, her whole body challenging him. She'd spent years fighting her way up and she resented even a hint of the years that had gone before, when people tried to keep her down. When they didn't see her, but where she lived. She hated sweeping generalities. "Well, aren't you the expert."
His smile was slow, easy, and she found it completely unsettling even though she was angry. "As a matter of fact, I am."
Theresa stewed a minute. Damn him, he was right and she knew it.
Muttering under her breath, she turned on her heel and went to the back of the line.
They lost two from their team.
By the time they reached the top of the mountain, David, the real estate salesman, had missed his footing during the climb, panicked, missed it again and wound up spraining his ankle. Jason, their pre-med student, tended to it before announcing that he was dropping out from the race, as well.
"It's too risky," he told Joe when the latter asked him why. "I've got my whole life ahead of me with a great future. I want to be a surgeon and who knows what could happen on this so-called journey? David sprained his ankle. I could break the bones in my hand." Jason held up his right one to emphasize his point. "And then where would I be?" He rose to his feet. He was going to accompany David when the man was airlifted back to a hospital. "It's just not worth it to me."
"And then there were three," Theresa pronounced as she watched Jason hurry off beside David's stretcher as two paramedics carried him to the helicopter.
"Nine," Joe corrected, nodding at the other teams that were still in on the race. "From the looks of it, they've had people dropping out, too."
It had taken them four hours to climb to the top of Mt. Evans, with several rest stops worked into the test. His entire body ached from head to foot. But sitting at the top of the mountain, as Joe looked out on the panoramic view, it almost seemed the incredible effort it had taken to get there was well worth it.
Theresa came up behind him. "Breathtaking, isn't it?"
He looked at her over his shoulder. The same words could be applied to her, he thought. The wind that was a permanent resident up there was playing with the ends of her hair, teasing him. Making him want to run his hand through it.
"You might say that."
She felt his eyes on her. Was he flirting with her? No, Joe Cooper wasn't the kind of man who flirted. He was meat and potatoes, Mom and apple pie. And all the things she'd aspired to when she was growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in L.A. Looking for that chance to break out. To be someone else.
And not die as a statistic, the way so many of her friends and family had.
Joe roused himself before he let his mind get carried away. "What's for dinner?"
"I don't know about you, but all I've got left are power bars." Squatting down beside her backpack, she opened it and rummaged around in it. "I've got my choice of melted " she held up one " or not melted." She held up a second bar.
That pretty much mirrored what he had in his own pack. They were going to have to find their own supplies tomorrow. "Take the melted. It'll save you the trouble of having to chew."
"Always looking out for me, aren't you?" Theresa laughed. And then the laughter died when she looked into his eyes. Again, she felt something stirring.
"You want to get a head start getting through the woods?" Ed asked, coming up behind them. "We lost some time on the climb because of David. I thought we'd get it back if we went as far as we could through the forest before nightfall."
Taking out one of the granola bars, she closed her backpack. "Okay with me."
Joe nodded. They'd come in first during the run over the rapids and had gotten a head start climbing, but as Ed had just pointed out, that had been lost when David had gotten injured. "Let's go."
"Just let me make a pit stop," Theresa requested.
Not waiting for an answer, she hurried off with her backpack to one of the three portable toilets that had been brought out for them. There was no cover up here and everyone had an inalienable right to relieve themselves when nature called without the benefit of an audience. It was part of the contract they signed.
The moment she got into the portable toilet and closed the door, Theresa slipped her Palm Pilot out of her pack and turned it on.
The device was also a two-way communicator and the person on the other end listened intently as she began to speak in a low voice.
Theresa looked beautiful by the firelight. They'd been on the trail for two days now and with each evening, Joe was increasingly more grateful that the engineer was still part of their team.
Otherwise, he would be sitting out here alone with Theresa and that might not be a good thing. He wasn't sure that the knowledge that he might be captured on film at an inopportune moment would stop him from ultimately giving in to the desires that were growing inside him like weeds after a spring rain.
Especially when moonlight wove itself through her hair and slid invitingly along her skin.
But with Ed sitting across from them, finishing up the last of the rabbit he'd caught for them after turning a stick into a hunting spear, Joe felt relatively safe.
Until he heard the shriek pierce the air.
Sitting crossed-legged beside him on the ground, Theresa tensed, her eyes wide as she scanned the immediate area. She seemed to instinctively lean into him.
"What was that?"
Joe listened intently. The shriek came again. Closer this time. A chill went over him as he recognized the sound. "Mountain lion."
Ed jumped to his feet, petrified. "Here?"
Close, Joe thought. Very close. On his feet, Joe felt adrenaline surge through him. Again. "This is their terrain, we're the trespassers."
"I don't find that very comforting." Theresa was standing so close to him, she edged out his shadow. "You didn't happen to whittle a gun and bullets while you were making that spear, did you?"
He shook his head, his eyes trying to penetrate the dark. Looking for the mountain lion. "Sorry."
The spear used to secure their dinner had been turned into a spit. The rabbit had been mounted on it over the small fire and roasted. Grabbing it now, Theresa shoved the spear at him. "But you can still get him with this, right?"
Taking it from her, Joe shook his head doubtfully. "It'd be like using a toothpick on a wild dog."
"Well, do something," Ed pleaded. "Where the hell is Security?"
He didn't know. Joe was acutely aware that they were all alone. "Maybe they're watching on their monitors."
"Getting mauled to death is not supposed to be part of the entertainment." Ed's words ended in almost a sob.
And then suddenly, the mountain lion was there, standing just on the perimeter of the campsite.
Panicked, Ed bolted. The cat looked as if it was about to give chase. Ed didn't stand a chance.
Moving quickly, Joe placed himself between the fleeing man and the wild animal, shoving Theresa behind him. Lifting his hands over his head as high as he could and using the spear as an extension, unearthly, guttural noises rose from deep within his gut. It almost sounded inhuman.
After a moment's hesitation, the mountain lion turned and ran in the opposite direction. Away from Joe and Theresa. Away from the campsite and Ed, who had disappeared.
Theresa realized that she had been holding her breath, afraid to exhale. She exhaled now, then sucked in more air, struggling to keep from throwing up.
And then she turned toward Joe and did some yelling of her own. "Are you out of your mind?" He could have been killed, getting in front of the mountain lion like that.
He knew it had to seem crazy to her. Joe tossed down the spear. "No, actually, I'm not. That's what you're supposed to do when you come face-to-face with a mountain lion. If you run, he'll only come after you and he's a hell of a lot faster than anything human. He would have made a late-night snack out of Ed."
"Speaking of Ed, where is he?" There was no sign of the engineer. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, but got no answer.
"He's probably still running," Joe guessed. "Lucky thing they put those tracking bracelets on us." He looked down at the one a member of the crew had snapped on his wrist at the start of the contest.
She'd forgotten about that. The encounter with the mountain lion had made her forget about everything. Except what a brave man Joe was. "I guess they'll find him."
Joe thought of a potential problem. "If they know enough to look for him."
"They'll know," she replied. "With all those cameras trained on us, they're bound to know our every move."
Even as her words died away, one of the film crew came out of the darkness and walked into the campsite.
"We've got Ed on our radar," he assured them. "Don't figure he's going to want to get back to the game, though."
The crew member was right. Ed was the next one to drop out.
By the time the last leg of the journey was in play, there were only five of them left.
And then four.
And then three.
Until finally, it was just Joe and Theresa.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, from the moment he'd first seen her, Joe had known it would come down to this. He'd felt it in his bones. The woman was too stubborn to drop out and he was too determined.
A line about the immovable object meeting the irresistible force went through his head.
The night before the end of the journey, after religiously checking every conceivable hiding place for cameras, Joe and Theresa turned in. When she zipped up the tent's front flaps, he looked at her quizzically. She'd never done that before.
"Privacy," she explained.
The word hummed between them as she began to unbutton her shirt.
Joe felt his heart come to life. Turning, he shut off the lantern. Eliminating their shadows on the tent.
"Privacy," he echoed, reaching for her. He undid the rest of the buttons.
They made love. Slowly. With feeling. It was as inevitable as the tide. The life-and-death encounters they'd experienced over these past few days had packed a lifetime into them. It had made Joe aware that life moved forward. And so did he.
Morning came creeping in softly. When he reached for Theresa, he found her space empty. She was gone. So was her gear.
He bolted upright, upbraiding himself for his own stupidity. He'd let his guard down.
"Damn."
He told himself that it was to be expected. The woman was out to win.
But what Theresa had on him in time, he could make up for with speed. It took him less than five minutes to get dressed and hit the trail. He figured that his best bet was to track her.
Because time was of the essence, he left his backpack behind, needing to travel as light as possible. He took only a knife and a rope, plus his canteen. The ghost town and journey's end was not that far away.
He heard Theresa before he ever saw her.
"Help me. Please help me."
The cry seemed to be coming out of the very ground.
And then he saw it. A hole about three feet in diameter, partially hidden in the earth. He would have missed it if it wasn't for her cries.
Coming closer, Joe realized that the hole was actually what was left of a well. It was obvious that in her hurry to reach the center of the ghost town, Theresa hadn't seen the hole until it was too late.
Joe knelt down over the opening. Theresa was some ten feet below him. And apparently angrier than a hornet.
He couldn't help grinning. Any anger he might have felt over betrayal faded. What goes around comes around, his mother always liked to say. Nice to know it was true.
"Hello, Theresa, fancy running into you here."
"Oh Joe, thank God you found me." She was leaning against the wall as if her legs couldn't fully support her. "Get me out of here!"
He made no move to rescue her. In his estimation, she deserved to stew a little. Especially after last night. He'd thought it had meant something to her. The way it had to him. She'd gotten his guard completely down. Had that been her intent from the start?
"If I do that, what's to stop you from finding a way to trick me out of the prize?"
"I can't. I twisted my ankle, just like David. Joe, please, get me out! There're snakes down here!"
He paused a moment longer. There'd never really been any question that he was going to get her out.
"Hang on." Uncoiling the rope, he dropped the end down to her, then, braced, she took hold and began to climb.
Grabbing her by the arm, he managed to pull her out the rest of the way.
The second Theresa was out of the hole, she scrambled to her feet and began to run. Stunned, he sprang up and gave chase. "You said you sprained your ankle."
"I lied!" she tossed over her shoulder.
She reached the square a little more than two steps ahead of him.
And won the contest.
The center of the ghost town immediately filled with people. The producers were all there, as was the camera crew.
Choice words ran through Joe's head as he watched Benjamin Reed hand a symbolic check for the prize money to Theresa. But there was nothing he could do about it. Like the good sport he'd always been, he came up and congratulated her.
"Not the way I would have run it," he admitted. "But congratulations on winning the race."
His mouth fell open as she handed the check to him. "Take it," she prompted. "It's yours." She smiled warmly at him. "Good guys don't always finish last, cowboy. Sometimes they finish first."
The producer made no effort to take the oversized check from him.
Joe shook his head. He looked from the six zeroes to Theresa. "I don't understand."
She grinned, although she hesitated for a moment, not sure how he was going to react to the news. "I'm a ringer. The producers paid me to stir things up and make sure everyone was being tested to the limit." She took a breath. "You didn't have any limits. You threw us all a curve." And then she added something personal. "You're the first honest man I've ever met, cowboy. And the best," she added more quietly.
Gratitude had him catching her up in his arms and kissing her. And then gratitude slipped away, to be replaced by something deeper and more lasting.
He was going to be able to save his mother's ranch. And he'd discovered that he still wanted to stay in the game, to live life. Because of Theresa.
"Want to throw them another curve?" he asked when he finally drew his head back and looked at her.
Her heart was hammering hard enough to imitate a drumroll. She was afraid to guess what was on his mind. "Such as?"
He'd learned a great deal about her in the past five days. Things that told him he wanted this woman at his side for the rest of their lives. Last night in her tent had been the clincher.
He knew he was putting himself out on a limb, but just like the contest he'd just won, some things were worth taking risks for. "Will you marry me?"
"Will I?" she cried. She couldn't say any more. Her mouth was otherwise occupied. For some time to come.
And the cameras just kept rolling, recording it all for the pleasure of their audience.
The End