He cast a quick glance around and spotted the hallway that led to the parking area in back. “Outside?”
She folded her arms across her chest and tipped her head to the side. “Sure. Go on out back. I’ll be right there.”
“Thanks.” He got right up and headed for the back door, not even pausing to collect his jacket and hat. It wasn’t that cold out, and he could get them later.
“What’s going on?” Bee asked as he strode past her station.
Brenna answered for him. “Travis and I need to talk.”
Somebody giggled.
Somebody else said, “Oh, I’ll just bet you do.”
Travis kept walking. It was okay with him if everyone at the beauty shop assumed he was finally making a move on Brenna—because he was.
Just not exactly in the way that they thought.
Outside, he looked for a secluded spot and settled on the three-walled nook where Bee stored her Dumpster. It didn’t smell too bad, and the walls would give them privacy.
He heard the back door open again and stuck his head out to watch Brenna emerge. “Psst.”
She spotted him and laughed. “Travis, what is this?”
He waved her forward. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”
For that he got an eye roll, but she did hustle on over to the enclosure. “All right, I’m here. Now what is it?”
He had no idea where to even start. “I...I have a proposal.”
Her eyelashes swept down and then back up again. “Excuse me?”
“This... What I’m about to say. I need your solemn word you won’t tell a soul about any of it, or I’ll get sued for breach of contract. Understand?”
“Not really.” She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “But okay. I’m game. I won’t tell a soul. You have my sworn word on that.” She hooked her pinkie at him. He gave it a blank look. “Pinkie promise, Trav. You know that is the most solemn of promises and can never be broken.”
“What are we, twelve?”
She made a little snorting sound. “Oh, come on.”
He gave in and hooked his pinkie with hers. “Satisfied?”
“Are you? Because that is the question.” She laughed, a sweet, musical sound, and tightened her pinkie against his briefly before letting go.
“As long as you promise me.”
“Travis. I promise. I will tell no one, no matter what happens. Now what is going on?”
“How’d you like to be on The Great Roundup?”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “What? How? You’re making no sense.”
“Just listen, okay? Just give me a chance. I...well, I really thought I had it, you know? I thought I was on the show. But it turns out they want a young couple. A young, engaged couple. And the casting director sort of asked me if there was anyone special back home and I sort of said yes. And then, all of a sudden, they tell me there’s one final audition, that it will be at the Ace and I should bring my fiancée.”
Brenna’s eyes were wide as dinner plates. “You told them you were engaged?”
“No, I didn’t tell them that. They assumed it. And now I need a fake fiancée, okay? I need someone who doesn’t mind putting herself out there, if you know what I mean. Someone who’s not going to be afraid to speak up and hold her head high when the cameras are rolling. Someone good-looking who’s familiar with ranch work, who can ride a horse and handle a rifle.”
Brenna grinned then. “So you think I’m good-looking, huh?”
“Brenna, you’re gorgeous.”
“Travis.” She looked like she was having a really good time. “Say that again.”
Why not? It was only the truth. “Brenna, you are superfine.”
And she threw back her red head and let her laughter chime out. He stood there and watched her and thought how he’d known her since she was knee-high to a gnat. And that she was perfect, just what he needed to make Giselle happy—and earn him his spot on The Great Roundup.
But then she stopped laughing. She lowered her head and she regarded him steadily. “So say that it worked—say I go to the Ace with you tomorrow night and we convince them that we’re together, that we’re going to get married. Then what?”
“Then you belong to them for the next eight to ten weeks. First while they run checks on you and make sure you’re healthy, mentally stable and have never murdered anyone or anything.”
“You’re not serious.”
“As a rattler on a hot rock. And as soon as all that’s over, we start filming. That’s happening at some so far undisclosed Montana location. We’re there until they’re through filming.”
“But what if I get eliminated? Then can I come home?”
He shook his head. “Everyone stays. So they can bring you back on camera if they want to, and also because if you come home early, everyone who knows you will know you’ve been eliminated. They want to keep the suspense going as to who the big winner is until the final show airs. Also, when the filming’s over and you come home, you and I would still be pretending to be engaged.”
“Until?”
“The episodes where we’ve each been eliminated have aired—or the final episode, where one of us wins. The show airs once a week, August through December. Bottom line, you could be my fake fiancée straight through till Christmas.”
She leaned against the wall next to the Dumpster and wrapped her arms around herself. “Wow. I...don’t know what to say.”
He resisted the burning need to promise her that they would win and that she was going to love it. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
She slanted him a glance. “I’d have to check with Bee, see if she’d hold my station for two months.”
He refused to consider that Bee might say anything but yes. “I get that, sure.”
“And then there’s the money. I heard the winner gets a million dollars.”
“Actually, once you get on the show, there’s a graduated fee scale. The million is the top prize, but everybody gets something.”
She leaned toward him a little, definitely interested. “Graduated how?”
“The first one eliminated gets twenty-five hundred. The longer you stay in the game, the more you get. For instance, if you last through the sixth show, you get ten thousand. And if you’re the last to go before the winner, you get a hundred K.”
She actually chuckled. “Good to know. So, Travis, if we’re in this together, I say we split everything fifty-fifty.”
He’d figured on giving her something, but he’d been kind of hoping she’d settle for much less. After all, he had big plans for his new house, for the ranch. He cleared his throat. “Would you take twenty percent?”
“Travis,” she chided.
“Thirty?” he asked hopefully.
“Look at it this way. If they like me and want me on the show, you double your chances to win. Not to mention, the longer we both stay on, the more we both make.” She spoke way too patiently. He found himself wistfully recalling the little girl she’d once been, the little girl who’d considered him her own personal hero and would have done anything he asked her to do, instantly, without question. Where had that little girl gone?
“True,