High-Stakes Playboy (13 page)

“What does that mean exactly?”

“He’s lost his marbles. Gonna get grounded for good any day now. Why else do you think Steve hired him? He’s trying to save the guy’s wings, but it looks like a lost cause to me.”

That
was why Prescott had offered Archer this job? Did Archer know that?

“The way I hear it, when Archer goes back to his unit in a few weeks, the flight surgeon’s gonna take his wings away so fast his head spins.”

“Wait. What?” she blurted.

“He’s home on leave for sixty days of R and R to get himself together before he goes up in front of a psychological review board. He’s going back to face the board in a few weeks.”

And Archer hadn’t seen fit to share this little detail with her? Stunned, she rode the rest of the way back to the hotel in silence, letting the banter of the other guys roll off her, mostly unheard.

She tuned back in, though, when the conversation devolved into war stories featuring Steve Prescott. She gathered soon enough that he’d been a Marine’s Marine before he’d been sent away to do some embassy job and his military career had ended abruptly under mysterious circumstances. The guys in the Jeep agreed that he should have stayed in combat theaters and not gotten tangled up in politics that ruined his career. They also agreed that they were glad to be working for him and his brother, Jackson Prescott, now.

Whoa.
“Jackson Prescott, the movie star? Star of this movie? He’s Steve’s brother?” she demanded.

The men laughed heartily at her shock. Although now that she thought about it, the stunt coordinator did look quite a bit like the actor-turned-producer Jackson Prescott.

She hadn’t met Jackson in person, but she’d seen him at a distance around the set. No wonder Steve Prescott was being so grouchy about the accidents around the filming. This was a family thing, and he was taking it personally. She could relate. If anyone had tried to mess with her sister, she would’ve leaped to Mina’s defense.

The Jeep pulled up in front of the motel and she reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride, guys.”

“Take my advice, Marley,” Gordon said soberly. “Stay the hell away from Archer. He’s trouble. Bastard like that is no good for you.” The guys in the backseat nodded in agreement. What on earth did they all know about Archer that she didn’t?

“I’ll take that under advisement,” she murmured.

She climbed out of the vehicle glumly. Why hadn’t he been honest about the fact that he was leaving in a few weeks? It had been pretty crappy of him to lead her on, to make her think they could have a real relationship when, all along, he was about to ship back out to the end of the earth.

He’d kept his and Steve’s suspicions from her and acted like he was falling for her when, in fact, he thought she was running around sabotaging the movie. He’d deceived her right from the very start.

She waited all afternoon in her room for Archer to show up so she could confront him about his future plans and about his dishonesty with her. Had anything he’d said to her been true at all? Or had it all been lies? Humiliation at the things she’d let him do to her roiled through her, slimy and sickening. God. To think she’d been so close to having sex with him.

She got in the shower and scoured her skin vigorously with a loofah sponge, but nothing would get rid of the filthy feeling clinging to her body. The longer she stood under the steaming water, the angrier she got. He’d taken gross advantage of her. He knew she didn’t have much experience with men, but he’d romanced her and swept her off her feet, anyway, knowing full well he was going to love her and leave her. What. A. Jerk.

She’d been blind. A total fool to fall for his line. At least she had the consolation of knowing it had been a freaking slick line. But still. She could kick herself for believing anything he said. Her first instinct had been correct not to believe that a guy like him could fall for a girl like her.

Frantically, she scrubbed at her face, removing any lingering remnants of the makeup she’d been naively plastering on...as if anything she could do would make her genuinely attractive to a man like Archer. God, what a colossal fool she’d been.

Restless, she paced around her room. Although the movement eased the terrible tension across the back of her neck, no answers were forthcoming about what to do about Archer.

Should she break things off now and cut her emotional losses, or was she an idiot to walk away from a guy who was ready, willing and able to have a hot, utterly meaningless fling with her? Was this all her fault for expecting too much from him? Maybe she should start with a nice, simple, throwaway relationship like he could give her before she went looking for true love forever.

She called his phone and got kicked over to voice mail. “Hey, Archer. It’s me. We need to talk.”

She waited for
hours
for him to call back. But her email and phone remained stubbornly silent. He didn’t want to talk? Okay, fine. She wasn’t going to beg. If he wanted to see her, he could damn well call her back. But it was hard to keep putting down her phone every single time she picked it up. Finally, in desperation, she headed down to the motel bar for happy hour.

Tyrone and a few of the other makeup artists waved her over to their table, and she joined them gratefully. She didn’t need a drunken Gordon hitting on her and making a scene.

Tyrone shook his head when she sat down beside him. “I hate to say it, but I may have been wrong. That flyboy’s trouble,” he said direly. “I’ve been hearing the crew talk. They’re saying he’s lost the handle. Honey, I don’t care how pretty he is. He’s not worth getting hurt over.”

She clenched her jaw on a terse reply. They meant well. And it was sweet of them to worry about her. Archer could hurt her, all right. But not in his helicopter, as it turned out. He had the power to hurt her a lot more deeply than merely physically injuring her.

“Earth to Marley, come in,” Tyrone said in her ear.

Crap. Everyone at the table was staring at her. The last thing she wanted to do was pour out her heart to this gossipmongering bunch. Frantically weighing what she could say to distract them and get them off her case, she said lightly, “Sorry. I was just thinking about how great an ass Archer has.”

The makeup artists hooted, and sure enough, the conversation turned to how hunkalicious he and his ass were. Before long, a consensus emerged that even if he was crazy, he might still be worth having gnarly sex with. Marley had to admit, their narcissistic logic made a certain sense. Grab some pleasure and run.

But the worried look lurking in Tyrone’s eyes every time he glanced over at her didn’t go away. She squeezed his hand both in thanks and reassurance. He was a good friend. But now that she knew the score on him, she wouldn’t let Archer break her heart.

She hoped.

She passed most of the evening in the bar with the makeup artists, and Archer never showed. What the hell was going on with him?

She briefly considered asking Steve Prescott if he knew where Archer was, but she dared not draw any more of his boss’s attention to her that was absolutely necessary. She might have cleared up the mystery of her sister’s rap sheet, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was off the hook as a suspect for the accidents around the set.

She had an early showtime in the morning and crawled into bed, angry and upset. What was she supposed to do now? Should she walk away from Archer? From this whole disastrous movie adventure? Go back home to Chicago with her tail between her legs and try to pick up some work there?

She woke up no closer to any answers than she had been before she fell asleep.

Two things became clear to her with the bright light of a new day. One: a long-term relationship—make that a real relationship of any kind—was off the table with Archer. No way could she be with a man who was dishonest with her. Two: she still wanted to sleep with him. She just needed to have sex and get it out of the way once and for all so she could get on with her life.

And who better to have cheap sex with than a gigolo-wannabe who was going to leave and go halfway around the world in a few weeks, never to see her again? It was actually kind of perfect as long as she didn’t mind using him as coldly as he’d been planning to use her. For once, she should be more like Mina. Take what she wanted and run.

A plan. She needed a plan. There had to be a way to get him in the sack...and then kick him out of it after she got what she wanted.

A big storm was forecast to roll in overnight, and the remaining action sequences to be shot would require airplanes and helicopters. Bad weather meant no flying, and no flying meant no outdoor filming. Adrian pulled the actors into a soundstage to work on indoor shots, but only a handful of camera operators were required for that. The rest of the cinematographers and stunt crew were given the next three days off to wait out the storm.

Marley’s motel-room walls closed in on her as the skies grew gray and heavy enough to match her mood. She would go nuts if she had to spend all weekend staring at her walls and watching bad reruns on television, or worse, hanging out in the bar with the crew while Archer assiduously avoided her. She had still not seen more than brief flashes of him in the distance since yesterday’s revelations.

What. Ever.

She thumbed through the newspaper to see if there was anything local she could do to keep her from going stir-crazy, and she spied an advertisement that made her stop and read it through again. “Great cabin in the mountains, perfect getaway from it all. For rent by the day or the week.” On impulse, she picked up the phone and dialed the number.

An elderly man answered the call. The cabin was available for the next three days, and in a few minutes, she’d given the man her credit card number and gotten directions to the cabin. He made some mention of the cabin being above the snow line, but thankfully there wasn’t any snow in the forecast. Just rain, and lots of it.

She signed out one of the common-use cars that had been made available to the crew, threw an overnight bag in the backseat and headed up into the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

The drive was gorgeous. Towering pine trees crowded the road, their tops appearing to scratch the belly of the sky. The stress of the past few days fell away from her the farther she got from the movie set. This had been a great idea. Her soul expanded in relief with every mile and every magnificent pine tree she passed.

The cabin turned out to be a one-story log-and-stone affair. Classic Craftsman bungalow architecture. Neat and well kept, the key was exactly where the owner had said she would find it. She let herself in and shivered in the chill. She turned on the furnace and, after exploring both bedrooms and choosing the larger, front-facing room for herself, made her way back to the main living area.

Firewood and kindling were neatly stacked beside the fireplace, and a box of long matches stood on the mantel. Smiling, she knelt and built a fire her Girl Scout troop leader would be proud of. Soon, a blaze crackled cheerfully on the hearth. The silence of the place was so deep it soaked into her bones. She idly wished Archer were here. He could use a dose of the peace of this place. And then she remembered that he was a lying bastard and that she was furious at him.

The light coming in the windows dimmed a little. Or maybe that was just the storm rolling in from the coast and catching up with her.

The cabin’s owner had said there were plenty of staple foods in the cupboards, and he had not been lying. She’d picked up a few perishables on her way up here—milk, bread, eggs, fruit and salad makings—and she stowed those in the fridge. Opening a can of chili, she poured it into a pot to heat, then popped some ready-made biscuits into the oven.

After the bracing meal, she settled down in a big armchair in front of the fire with her journal, which she had sadly neglected the past few days. The combination of full belly and soothing heat from the fire must have knocked her out because she jolted awake some time later. It was dark outside but oddly bright light came in through the big picture window. She got up and stared in shock at the thick blanket of white covering the ground. And more snow was falling in big, fat flakes that settled softly to earth.

It was only October, for crying out loud! Since when did it snow this early, especially in California, land of eternal sunshine? Apparently since she’d ventured above the freaking snow line. The little car she’d driven up here already looked like nothing more than a vaguely car-shaped mound of white. At least six inches of snow covered it.

She reached for the light switch beside the door and flipped it on.
Nothing.
She flipped the switch a few more times, which, if she stopped to think about it, was rather dumb. If it didn’t work the first time, there was no reason for it to work the third time. She moved over to the kitchen and noticed the digital clock on the stove had gone dark.

Damn.
The power was out? In a snowstorm?
Uh-oh.

At least the fire was still going and the main room held leftover warmth from the furnace earlier. She stoked up the fire with plenty of wood as, over the next few hours, the snow piled up outside until it was a good twelve inches deep. The cabin cooled somewhat, but the stone walls and roaring fire held back the worst of the cold outside.

She jolted when a loud ringing noise exploded from the direction of the kitchen. An old-fashioned landline telephone jangled away. Must be the cabin’s owner checking in on her. What a sweet old guy.

She picked up the phone cheerfully. “Hello, this is Marley Stringer.”

“Where the hell are you?” Archer’s voice demanded.

He sounded way too calm. The kind of calm that meant he was really mad. Trepidation zinged through her. “How did you get this number?”

“You listed it on the checkout paperwork for the car you borrowed. Where are you? The mother of all rainstorms has cut loose and you need to stay off the roads.”

She laughed. “I doubt I’ll get on a road anytime soon. I think I’m pretty well snowed in.”

“Snow? Where
are
you?”