shaking with suppressed laughter.
Argh! Delainey wished she had a real appointment to dash off to. That might lift her spirits at least a little bit, but as it was, her calendar was depressingly free of appointments. No one was interested in taking a meeting with Delainey Clarke.
Not even the public access channels.
When she’d first arrived in California, she’d been hungry for a new life. Everything had been new and exciting, and she’d been eager to learn the rules of Hollywood’s brutal social game. But the bloom had certainly worn off the rose at this point. You’re just depressed over Vertical Blind, she told herself, trying to prop up her ego and heal her bruised feelings. This is the nature of the business that you love.
Did she love it? Not at the moment.
Delainey detoured to her favorite coffee shop, and even though she knew she shouldn’t spend the money on such a frivolous purchase, she really didn’t think she could face the rest of the day without something sugary and caffeinated.
She needed a hit. God, please. She’d come too far to fail now. She’d do anything to succeed. Just send me something I can work with...
* * *
TRACE SINCLAIR FOUGHT the urge to bat the microphone out of his face as he cast the reporter at the other end a dark look. “I’ve already given a statement,” he said curtly, pushing his way past the throng of reporters all clamoring for an exclusive that he’d already said repeatedly he wasn’t going to give. Damn nuisances. He was just doing his job. Why didn’t they pester someone who was interested in flapping their jaws about themselves?
“Is it true you’re the best tracker in the state of Alaska?”
“How did you know where to find Clarissa Errington?”
“Were the conditions a hindrance to your tracking skills?”
“How close to death was the governor’s daughter when you rescued her from the mountain?”
“Please, Mr. Sinclair, don’t you know you’re a hero? Wouldn’t you like to tell your side of the story?”
“No.”
“Mr. Sinclair!”
Trace climbed into his truck and gladly put the horde behind him, finally able to breathe. But before he could fully relax, his cell phone rang. He peered at the evil piece of technology that he abhorred and restrained himself from chucking it into a snowbank when he saw his boss’s number pop up on the screen. He bit back a muttered curse and answered the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Would it kill you to grant an interview or two? It’s really good publicity for the Search and Rescue program, and we could use a little good press, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s not my job to pander to the press. It’s my job to find people. End of story. I don’t remember reading anything in my job description that said one word about granting interviews that no one’s going to care about when the next big story hits.”
“No one cares about lost tourists—but everyone cares about a lost thirteen-year-old girl who just happens to be the governor’s daughter. It might not be your thing, but it’s big news, and you will give the press a story.”
“If I said ‘bite me,’ would you fire me?” he asked.
“No, because that’s exactly what you’d want me to do so you could get out of talking to the press. C’mon, Trace...take one for the team. We need this.”
Trace swore and shook his head, knowing Peter would badger him almost as incessantly as the press, and frankly, it would be harder to avoid his boss than the reporters. “One interview,” he said. “And I mean—one.”
“I guess if that’s all I can get out of you,” grumbled Peter, adding a sharp, “But it’d better be a good interview. Plug the program several times and make sure you mention how you couldn’t have found the girl without your support crew.”
“Yeah, sure,” Trace said. “Gotta go. Set up the interview and let me know when and where. I’ll show up with bells on.”
“Sure you will,” Peter said, not believing him for a second. “If you don’t show up...”
“I will,” he assured Peter, sighing. “I promise.”
“Good.” Peter clicked off and Trace tossed his phone onto the seat, freshly irritated. He didn’t understand what the big fascination was with him doing his job. Nobody got this fired up about the mailman delivering the mail. Why should anyone care about what he did? In a perfect world, everyone minded their own damn business and left each other alone.
He hated reporters.
He hated the limelight.
And he most definitely hated toeing the line for someone else’s agenda.
The only thing that made this situation tolerable was the fact that Clarissa Errington hadn’t been frozen solid by the time he’d found her.
He swallowed the sour lump in his throat. Clarissa had cried with relief when she’d seen him appear from the dense forest, his orange vest blazoned with Search and Rescue in bold black lettering, and she had stumbled into his arms, terrified and sobbing, so cold she could barely hold on to him.
It wasn’t that he was flippant about saving a child’s life; it was that he simply didn’t want accolades for doing his job. He wasn’t a hero, and he hated when anyone used that term to describe him.
He was no hero. He was just a guy trying to make a living doing the only thing he’d ever been good at.
What was so interesting about that?
He needed a beer. Maybe two or three. Was it considered bad form to show up to an interview drunk? Celebrities did it, so why couldn’t he? That ought to quash any more of that hero talk that kept getting tossed around.
Peter would likely blow his top if he walked in three sheets to the wind, and Trace didn’t want an earful from Peter’s wife, Cindy, who’d blame him for causing Peter’s blood pressure to skyrocket.
Nope, he realized. Stone-cold sober was the only way available to him.
Just get it over with and be done with it, he told himself.
Twenty minutes of his life and then he could put the nuisance behind him. After that, everything could return to normal and the rest of the world would find something else to chew on while he went back to doing his job—quietly and without microphones being shoved in his face.
CHAPTER TWO
DELAINEY SETTLED INTO her leather-backed chair, ready to throw everything she had into this pitch meeting, having spent a week brainstorming for the most interesting and stellar idea for a new show in the hopes that the gods of television were smiling down on her and would grant her a boon.
Her nerves buzzed from too much caffeine, but she was operating on too little sleep and couldn’t chance that she
