school football, baseball and basketball. Can you guess at how many things hit the floor? They’re always tossing something, bouncing something or knocking over something with some kind of ball.”
“You’re too good. My mother would have made us clean it up,” Reed said.
“Oh, I do. Then I clean it up much better after they’re finished.” She turned toward Chef Marty. “Is it still a go for the show?”
“Absolutely. It looks like we are going to make grilled ham and cheese using flour tortillas. Then we are going to make salsa.”
“I think Reed can handle that,” Callie said.
While the TV crew took a break outside, Callie found a mop and bucket in the walk-in pantry and mopped the area. Then she dried it with more paper towels.
“I can’t thank you enough, Callie.”
She jumped at the low but familiar voice. Puffs of air teased her neck as he whispered close to her ear. Turning, she noticed that Reed had changed into black jeans that clung perfectly in all the right places, along with a long-sleeved white shirt covered with either embroidery or sewed-on patches of products and companies that sponsored him.
He had changed his boots from brown to black—alligator, maybe, or some kind of snake.
Not that she’d noticed.
“Oh, uh...you’re welcome,” she said, managing to look away from Reed. “Well, I’d better get back to work.”
“I’ll take you out for your kindness, Callie. I won’t forget.” Reed turned, probably knowing she’d protest. “Let’s get this show back to the kitchen and get cooking.”
She couldn’t help it. She had to watch him walk—crutch—away.
Callie had to get away from Reed, the scent of chili and the young kid with the e-cigarette that smelled like bubble gum.
She couldn’t wait to return to the pounds of paper that divulged the financial secrets of the Beaumonts and get everything entered on her spreadsheet.
* * *
CALLIE SURE WAS a good sport, Reed thought. Whatever Luke was paying her, it wasn’t enough. She was even cleaning up chili explosions. It didn’t go unnoticed that the rest of the people in the kitchen hadn’t lifted a finger to help, except for the young dude with the sunglasses who’d kept handing Callie paper towels. His name was Arnold and, as it turned out, he was the director of the show.
Reed, who had been feeling every ache and pain lately that came from riding bulls, really felt like an elder statesman of the bull-riding world when he realized he had saddles older than Arnie.
“Let’s get going, ladies and gentlemen,” Reed said. “My knee and lack of intact ligaments are killing me.”
Arnie blew a whistle, which made them all flinch. No one was talking, so the loud sound made it all the more bizarre. “Let’s move it, people. Our bull-riding star is faltering.”
“Not faltering, Arnie. Just aching,” Reed clarified. “If I faltered, I could never ride.”
Maybe he should just get the darn surgery and get rid of the crutches and stop wasting time.
So far, in his career, he’d managed to escape surgery. Oh, he’d had broken bones that had needed to be set and shoulders that had needed to be jammed back to where they belonged and petty stuff like that, but he’d never had real hospital surgery.
The saying went, “When you’re a bull rider, it’s when—and not if—you’ll get hurt.” He’d had his share of problems, but a lot of riders had had it a lot worse.
Chef Marty now had him grating Colby cheese.
“Do you have cilantro?” asked the chef.
“I’ll look in Inez’s garden,” Reed said.
“Can’t you send your secretary out there to get the stuff?” asked Arnie.
Reed raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Callie is not my secretary—she’s an administrative assistant and a very successful businesswoman, and I think she’s done enough to help us out here. I’ll get the cilantro, and Chef Marty can keep chopping.”
“No!” whined Arnie. “You have to do the chopping, bull rider dude.”
“Reed.”
Arnie looked around. “What’s that?”
“That’s my name,” Reed said. ”I am not a dude. Well, I am a dude, but that’s not my name.”
“Oh. Yeah. I know, dude... I mean Reed. My secretary, uh...um—my administrative assistant—” He snapped his fingers. “Louella. Louella will get it.”
Callie must have heard her name earlier because she walked into the kitchen with a handful of cilantro.
“I thought it would speed things up if I got the cilantro,” she whispered to Reed as she handed the greenery to the chef.
“That means I owe you two nights out,” Reed said.
Callie motioned with her head for him to follow her, and she picked a quiet spot away from the TV people. “That means that when everyone leaves, I can have some quiet time to work.”
Reed raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to go out with me? How about tonight?”
“Reed, thanks for asking, but I don’t have time. Tonight I have to go to my brothers’ baseball game, and I have some housework to do. Besides, I have other clients to handle other than the Beaumonts. So, no. I can’t go out with you. Thank you, anyway.”
“I’ll take you to your brothers’ game.” Callie was just about to say no when Reed added, “They’re open to the public, right?”
“You know they are.”
“Meet you there.”
“But you can’t drive, Reed.”
“Oh. That’s right.” He rubbed his chin. “If it’s not too much trouble, would you pick me up?”
“You’re... You...you are incorrigible!” She stared at him without blinking. “And this will not, I repeat not, be a date.”
Her constant rejection would have made any other man give up on her, but there was a reason for it, and he didn’t think that it all had to do with him.
When the occasion presented itself, he was going to find out what had made her so vehemently against dating him.
While the others were huddled around a monitor of some sort, Reed went into the study to retrieve his wallet. At the same time, Callie’s cell phone, which she’d left on Big Dan’s desk, rang and she hurried to answer it.
“Hi, Mom. I was just going to call you. How are you feeling?...Uh-huh. Feeling well enough to go to the twins’ baseball game?” She paused. “Okay, great!
