Walk of Shame (24 page)

And off came my shorts.

I'd like to say I felt a little
ashamed to be wrapped around Liam, wearing nothing but my underwear. But, quite
frankly, the bra and panties covered just as much as some of the bikinis
production had me wearing.

He lifted me up slightly and bent
to tongue the top of my cleavage as a finger stretched to brush over a nipple
through my bra.

It felt deliciously naughty, what
we were doing out there. And the thought that any of the other guys could sneak
over and catch us only added to the feeling. I started panting. Then I moaned,
gripped his hair, and redirected his mouth back to mine.

He chuckled and moved one hand
against my back, pressing my chest into his, and the other hand moved to cup my
rear end.

I vaguely began to wonder if it
even mattered to me which one of the guys was out here. But then Liam began to
whisper in my ear with his thickened accent and I realized that it did matter
to me that it was him.

Though, if it had been Jared's
accent I would have probably melted like butter and started stripping myself of
the underwear...

Whoa.

I put my hands on Liam's
shoulders and pushed myself away from him, breathing so heavy it was
ridiculous. "I can't do this."

He nodded along with his own deep
breaths. "I know."

I moved to the bench built into
the other side of the hot tub.

He chuckled. "You don't have
to move over there."

I gave him a frustrated sigh.
"Oh, yes, I do."

He laughed.

We spent the next hour talking
and laughing about everything from the antics of the other guys up at the
house, to the camera guy who fell backwards into the pool because he didn't
look behind him.

 "And we don't think Goldie likes
being with Troy too much," he went on to say.

"Why not?" I asked,
trying not to sound too concerned.

"She spends more time over
here and over at the main house than she does at Troy's trailer."

"Is there a theory as to why?"

"We think maybe she's trying
to attach herself to one of us, to claim a new owner."

"Ah, which explains why she
almost seems to belong to everyone."

"Right, and because she
shares her affection with everyone, she's been given free reign. Nobody seems
to turn her away."

"Poor dog, I hope she
adjusts when half the people leave after the season is done."

"Half of us up at the house
are willing to take her with us when this is over."

My mouth dropped open. "You
can't just take the dog."

"We wouldn't just take her,
but she's an active dog. She needs to be with one of us where she'll have
plenty of chances to run. She's not a housedog. She's in her glory running
around the estate at will. Troy can't take her back home and keep her locked up
in a house."

"Maybe he has a yard."

He shook his head. "Not big
enough. She needs freedom. And she's obedient as hell. You whistle and she
comes running, whether you whistled for her or not. That's a dog you can take
up into the mountains and be confident that she'll come back down them with
you."

My smile was smug. I always knew
I had an excellent dog, but it was sure nice to hear someone else praise her,
too. "So who all wants to take her with them at the end of this?"

"Me, Mike, and Jared."

"Hmm."
Liam and Mike, sure. But Goldie wouldn't step foot in muddy water. It freaked
her out ever since she went bounding through puddles near a creek bed and three
frogs jumped out from under the murky surface and scared the hell out of her.
And was it telling that I was disappointed that Phillip wasn't openly willing
to take her?

I snuck up onto the rooftop the
next morning to play with Mike. One of us had the brainy idea to do sunrise
yoga on the rooftop patio. The only problem was that the military man had never
done yoga in his life. I'd started off trying hard not to laugh at him, but it
didn't work for long. Then he brought up more daring poses on his phone and
challenged me to do them. You know, it's hard to hold a pose while giggling so
hard you end up snorting. My hip hit the indoor/outdoor carpeting and my foot
bounced off the wall when I crashed onto my side.

"Are you okay?" he
asked.

"I don't think I was made to
stand on my head."

"If that half-wall didn't
run around the edge, you would've fallen off the building."

I didn't know why, but that set
off another bout of giggles. "You do it."

He looked at the screen of his
phone again. He put it down and did a handstand before lowering himself down to
stand on his head.

"Show off."

He laughed and almost lost his
balance.

Barking, off in the distance.
Something had set Goldie off and I stood to look and find out if I could see
what was going on.

Mike broke the handstand and came
to stand beside me. "Sounds like it's coming from the main gate."

"Yeah, it does."

Her barking changed to yelping
and I almost took off for her right then and there. But then she started
letting out a high-pitched whine in between enthusiastic barks.
Daddy!

I let out a squeal. Mike turned
towards me in question. And I put my fingers to my mouth and let out the
loudest whistle I could muster.

Goldie came running up the path,
barking like a crazed dog. I called out to her and waved. She spotted me and
started whining and scratching at the nearest door to the house. Dad and a
camera crew made their way up the path at a slower pace.

The sound guy opened the door
when he got there and Goldie made a beeline up the flights of stairs to me. By
the time Dad had made his way up to the roof, he was panting and sweating.

I flew to him and hugged him.
"What are you doing here?"

He took a minute to catch his
breath before answering. "What do you think? I'm here to check these guys
out." He knelt and started petting and rubbing Goldie, who'd started
whining all over again.

I was so relieved, I was
thrilled. I gave him a huge smile and a happy sigh. "Thank you."

"You sounded like you could
use a little help when we talked the last time."

"You just instantly made me
feel better about this whole thing."

"How?"

"Because you're Daddy. You
make everything okay."

He was struck speechless.

"You'll help me pull the
weeds out, so I won't mess this up."

"Oh, kid. Don't put that
kind of pressure on me. This is your decision, your blame to hold if it doesn't
work out."

I shook my head. "Nope. If I
end up alone after this, after you and I have both narrowed it down, then none
of them were meant to be."

He rolled his eyes and looked at
Mike. He gestured from Mike to me, "This is what you want to live with for
the rest of your life?"

"That's what I'm trying to
figure out, sir," Mike answered, extending his hand to Dad.

Dad accepted and returned the
handshake.

"Mike, my father Nathaniel.
Dad, this is Mike," I said.

"Which one are you?"
Dad asked, though Mike was wearing shorts and Dad had certainly figured out
which one he was.

"National Park
Service."

Dad smiled big. "The one
who'll only kiss her on the forehead? Good man." He turned to me,
"This one, I like."

I was shocked. "I didn't
tell you about that."

He shrugged. "Your sister
likes to talk on speakerphone, and I can hear you two talking through the
office wall."

"Oh, my God! Wait, what else
have you heard through that wall?"

He leveled a look at me.
"Plenty, over the years."

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
Were you still home last night when I was talking to her?"

"No. She said she was going
to call you after she got home from dropping me at the airport. Why?"

"No reason."

"So," he said before
clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "When do I get to meet the
rest of these guys?"

"You can go downstairs and
meet them all as they wake up and make their way down to the kitchen to find
food."

He nodded. "All right, I'll
head down now. You should go back to your cottage though. I want to meet them
without you, see what I can get out of them."

I sighed before nodding in
agreement. "Okay. I'll see you this afternoon." I gave him another
hug and let Mike walk me down to the door.

"He seems cool," Mike
whispered as we said goodbye.

"He is," I answered
with a smile.

"You're a Daddy's
girl."

"Yep, and proud of it."

He chuckled. "Should I go
warn the guys?"

"No. Let them suffer,"
I said with a wink.

"You got it," he said,
and kissed my forehead before turning away to go back upstairs.

I shook my
head and assumed he was about to go back up to Dad and further his good
impression.

'I like Phillip,' Dad's text
read.

I rolled my eyes before replying.
'You can't marry me off to him just because he fed you breakfast.'

'It's a hell of a breakfast.'

'You do understand that if I
marry him, he'll be making breakfast for me, not you.'

'He can cook for me when you come
visit.'

I snorted and went back to
banking blog entries for the show's website.

Some time passed before my phone
buzzed again. 'Drake seems like a good catch.'

'He's on his way out the door.'

'Why?'

'No spark, no chemistry.'

'Good. You're not a city girl.'

'But you knew this before you
said he was a good catch.'

'He is a good catch, just not for
you.'

'Dad, ugh, omg.'

'You know you love me.'

I ignored that and went back to
work.

'Liam is too damned much man for
you,' he wrote a bit later.

I smirked. 'Maybe that's what I
like about him.'

'He'll squish you.'

'Ah, but it would be a hell of a
way to go.'

'But, daughter dear, if he hurts
you, he's too big for me to kill.'

'So, you'll hire a hit man.'

'Oh, great. Now there's yet
another thing for me to have to save up for.'

I laughed aloud and turned my
focus back onto the draft.

'Stephen's not for you.'

'Why?'

'There's no challenge with him.'

'Wouldn't that be a good thing?
And make for an easy transition?'

'You've never done easy in your
life. You need challenges. You thrive on challenges. The two of you would mesh
too well together and end up more friends than anything else. I don't see a
spark of electricity between the two of you anywhere.'

I let that thought roll around in
my head for a moment. He had a point, even in the few weeks we'd been getting
to know each other. There'd been an attraction at the start, but as I'd gotten
to know some of the others, the spark of interest had begun to fizzle out for
me.

'But, Daddy,' I typed, 'have you
smelled him?'

'No, I haven't smelled him.'

'You should, he smells really
yummy.'

'I have no desire to sniff a
yummy man, thank you.'

I giggled and moved on to writing
drafts for articles on the activities I'd done with the guys that week.

'Jared is... interesting.'

'Yes, he is,' I answered.

'He deals with things that
slither.'

I sighed. 'Yeah.'

'You don't like things that
slither.'

'I know.'

'Swamp, mud, mosquitoes, things
that don't smell yummy.'

'You said I needed a challenge.'

'Kid, there's challenge, and then
there's challenge.'

'I get it, you don't like him.'

'I like him just fine. Hell, I'd
go hang out with him. But I'm not you. I don't know if you'd want to go hang in
the swamp for weeks on end.'

'Point taken.' I put the phone
back down and went back to work.

Time started to pass, morning
melded into afternoon, and I'd heard nothing more from Dad. I kept glancing at
the corner of my computer screen, looking at the time, wondering what was going
on over at the other house.

Another hour passed, and then
another.

My phone finally buzzed and I
picked it up to read a text from Troy, 'Get over to the main house, now.'

I saved my work, closed the
laptop, and took off at a jog, not knowing what to expect when I got there.

Most of the guys were by the pool
when I came up the path. Jared pointed up, "They're on the roof."

"What happened?" I
asked.

"Don't know. More camera and
production people went running up there a little bit ago and we were asked to
stay down here." Liam answered.

I took a head count, Mike and
Trevor weren't there. I went inside and up the stairs.

I had to push my way through the
group of production people lined up in a semi-circle around the small group in
the center of all the camera angles.

Dad looked up at me from looming
over Trevor. "I don't know your depth of feelings for this one, but this
is no longer the place for him to stay."

I nodded my head, accepting his
words as fact. I looked down at Trevor, "Let's go talk."

Mike took two steps closer before
Trevor could move, "You done swinging? Because if not, you aren't going
anywhere."

"I'll stay with the two of
them," Troy told Mike.

I gestured at Trevor to follow
me.

Trevor, Troy, Dad, and two camera
crews followed in my wake, down the stairs and along the path to my patio area.
I waved Dad and Troy into two chairs off to the side. I directed Trevor to sit
in one seat at the small table as I sat in the other.

"Okay, spill. What's your
deal? I'm tired of guessing and waiting to hear about it."

Trevor let out a long, tired
sigh. "I have PTSD."

"Has it been
diagnosed?" I asked.

Another sigh, "Yes."

I let out a frustrated sigh of my
own. "What in hell were you thinking in coming here?"

"I was thinking I could come
here, win you affections, and move my life on to happier things."

I just stared at him for a
moment.

"It's not like I was waiting
for you to become my salvation," he muttered.

"Uh, you kinda were. And you
did it under the worst possible circumstances. You invited all kinds of stress
into your life with this show."

"But the show was how to get
you."

"But the stressors make you
too much of a bear to keep letting it slide. Dad's right, this is no longer a
place for you to be. PTSD isn't something to play around with. You're going to
end up hurting someone or yourself."

He started to say something and
then stopped himself.

"You don't have to leave
while everyone watches. You can hang out until they all go to bed, then go over
and pack your things."

He looked at me as though I'd
betrayed him, then got up and dove into the pool without saying a word. He
started doing laps.

Troy and Dad nodded to each other
and stood. Dad took Trevor's seat and Troy drug one of the other chairs over
and sat down.

"All the guys started
telling me about the stuff that Trevor sometimes does," Dad said.
"And the more the guys laid out what they'd seen for me, the more and more
it sounded like what your uncle Rick went through after Vietnam."

"I remember the stories
Grandma used to tell about how he acted when he first came home," I
answered.

"We didn't know he'd been
diagnosed with anything, or we wouldn't have let him come on the show,"
Troy said.

"Which is exactly why he
never said anything," I said.

"And now that he has?"
Dad asked.

"Believe it or not, one of
the reasons why we continued to let him stay was not only to let Emma make her
own decision, but also to let our resident therapist observe him on the
cameras. She was trying to gather clips and enough observational notes to
confront him about seeking help. And then we would have set him up with good
quality help so he could get the treatment he needs," Troy said.

"Except he's already been
diagnosed and then hid it. So, what now?" I asked.

"The network has employed
Trevor for over three years now, without incident. He's considered to be one of
our own. It's possible that he was doing so well that he'd been released from
care, but this show has triggered a setback. Or, maybe merely getting him out
of this particular situation will settle it back down. Either way, the PTSD
came about from defending our country, and the network respects that. We'll see
that he is re-evaluated, and that he is getting the best help possible. We'll also
make sure whomever was working with him before is informed of the impact the
show has had on his recovery," Troy said.

"Who did he take a swing
at?" I asked.

"Mike," Troy answered.

"What triggered that?"
I asked.

 "He overheard Mike telling
me about some of the things he'd been doing," Dad said. "Mike
actually voiced a concern that it could be post-traumatic stress. As soon as
the words left Mike's mouth, Trevor came barreling in with arms swinging. Mike
blocked the blows and a camera crew put down their equipment to stop Trevor
before Mike decided to beat the shit out of him. "

I smiled, I knew this had more to
do with the Trevor situation, but the fact that Dad was of the opinion that
Mike could take him was telling. Yes, Mike had a physical job while Trevor sat
and either drove cars or stared at a computer screen, but still, his confidence
in Mike meant that Dad liked him.