The Bachelor's Dare

“I got an ace,” Millie crowed when Mark got to her. “Lester, what’d you get?”

He flashed a two of diamonds. Millie’s face fell. “I can’t sleep with another man. It would be—”

“There’s always the chairs,” Mark said as he took his own card from the deck. He looked at it, put it in his back pocket, then laid the rest of the deck back on the table. “Now, let’s divvy up the beds.”

Millie immediately claimed a captain’s chair, bemoaning that she would have to sleep without Lester. Adele Williams had a king of hearts, but gave it back. “It’s after eleven. I can’t lose my job over this thing, not if I don’t know for sure I’ll win. I better get to work.” She grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

Eighteen people left for Claire to beat now. The loss of one person did nothing to open up space and air in the RV, but it was a beginning. Maybe after a night of sleeping on the floor, others would leave, too. The doctor had already been paged twice and looked anxious. He’d clearly thought the competition would be easy and quick. The three stay-at-home moms had shared a cell phone to call home and check on their kids. One looked ready to leave. Her little Jimmy had fallen off the swing set and scraped his knee. Claire could hear her debating whether to stay.

“Claire, what have you got?” Mark’s voice drew her back to the card.

“A jack.”

“You get next pick. There’s space with Milo, the security guard, on the queen bed in back. Or a space beside Tawny, the other makeup girl, on the sofa bed. Or…” he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a queen. “Or a space beside me in the double bed over the cab.”

She wondered if Mark had cheated, purposely taking a higher card than her own so he could end up in bed with her. Nah. That was a crazy thought. She and Mark barely tolerated each other. They only bordered on being friends because they’d grown up together, which meant they had skinned knees and mud pies in common, not desire. They might joke about an attraction, but there was nothing between them to worry about.

Still, she wasn’t going to tinker with that by sharing a bed with him. She was through making stupid mistakes because a sexy smile overrode her better sense. Claire crossed the room and handed her jack to Lester.

“Thank you, missy.” He clutched the card in his gnarled, wrinkled hand. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Lester, choose the chair beside me,” Millie cried.

He ignored his wife. “I think I’ll take some space in that bed right there.” Lester pointed to the sofa bed.

“I am not sleeping with an old man!” Tawny got to her feet.

Millie bustled over and switched her card with the girl’s, before she could protest. “Then you sleep up front, dear, in the chair, and I’ll keep my Lester company.”

Lester let out a heavy sigh.

By the time the rest of the beds had been accounted for, Claire realized Mark hadn’t used his queen after all. He’d just tucked it back into the deck and moved on to the next person. She didn’t ponder his reasoning. Better to leave it alone.

After lunch, Claire settled into the recliner, cracked open her journal and began to write.

Only fifteen people left. The doctor’s gone, and so is one of the elderly couples, who opted to drive to Florida. The third mom left, to give little Jimmy a dose of TLC. If this keeps up, I’ll win in no time. Danny, though, is glued to the chair and the TV. Millie, Lester, Art and Gracie are playing the world’s longest card game. Tawny started a miniriot when she polished her nails and the fumes became toxic. The security guard, Milo, is snoring on the couch. Renee and John are reading, the others are talking quietly. Roger and Jessica are on the other end of the couch, looking quite unhappy for newlyweds. And Mark…

Claire stopped writing and closed the book. Mark… Well, he wasn’t acting like the Mark she knew. He’d been a peacemaker, stepping in when tempers started to flare, proposing ideas to settle everything from bathroom time to washing dishes. He was diplomatic and charming enough that everyone listened. If she hadn’t known him and his reputation for breaking hearts already, Claire would have probably found that…attractive. Either way, a relationship didn’t figure into her future, so she dropped the thought of Mark like a hot coal.

It was after ten now in California. Claire dug her cell phone out of her suitcase and headed into the only private place within the RV—the bathroom. The reception was terrible, even with her antenna up, so she climbed inside the corner shower and stretched it toward the skylight. Marginally better.

The call took several seconds to connect. Finally, a ring. Then another. By the fourth ring, Claire was worried. Finally, on the fifth, a gravelly voice picked up. “Hello?”

“Dad? You okay?”

“Yeah, I was just wrestling with the nurse.”

Claire laughed. “Who won?”

“I think I did, but she’s already challenged me to a re-match.” He paused to cough. The racking sounds were surely painful for him, but they also stabbed at Claire’s chest, too. She wished to God she had a better plan. “Sorry, honey.”

“You taking care of yourself?”

“As best I can.” Another series of coughs hit him, this one blessedly shorter. “I wish I could see you.”

Claire leaned her head against the cool tile wall of the shower. “Me, too, Dad.”

David Sawyer was still just a voice to her. She had yet to hug her father, see how tall he was compared to her, see if his pinky finger had that same odd crook hers did. She’d only found her father four months ago, and already the demon called cancer was stealing him away.

He started coughing again and one of his visiting nurses, Jeannie, took the phone. “Hi, Claire.” Over the last few weeks, these women, who maintained the physical link Claire didn’t have, had become close friends, a tangible rope between herself and the father she was still getting to know.

“How is he?”

She heard Jeannie cup her hand over the phone. “As well as can be expected. The doctor said…” she hesitated, clearly wishing she could deliver this news in person, in one of those quiet rooms where relatives could grieve in privacy. “The surgery didn’t quite get it all. He’ll be starting chemotherapy in two weeks, as soon as he’s recovered from the surgery. He can’t go anywhere until it’s done, but he should be feeling better soon.”

The chemo, Claire knew, was no guarantee of anything. From the way her father sounded, it might not be the final cure he needed. “I’ll be there soon.”

If she didn’t have possession of the RV by the time her father started chemo, she’d just grab a plane and figure out the rest of her life later. Her move, her new start—all of it would have to wait.

“They got most of it with the surgery and radiation, you know. It’s still at stage two. With chemo—”

Claire’s sigh finished the sentence. “I know.”

“We’re taking good care of him,” Jeannie said. “He’s not in a hospital, he’s home. There’s a lot of good news.”

“I know. I appreciate all you’re doing.” In the background, Claire heard her father’s coughs abate.

Weaker now, he came back on the phone. “Guess that’s my cue to hang up. Talking wears me out.”

Claire’s hand gripped the phone tighter, as if she could hold him through the wireless connection. God, how she wanted to be there, to help him through this. “I know, Dad. Just take care of yourself. I’ll be there soon.”

“Are we…” he paused between words, searching for breath, “still going to…take that…vacation?”

Claire bit her lip. “Absolutely, Dad.” She closed her eyes and hung on to the phone long after they’d said goodbye. A tear slipped down her face. Then another, until the stress and worry released itself in a sob. She who never cried, who could wither a cocky man with a glance, who had been the last to leave the beauty shop when the tornado five years ago came roaring through—she who had never cried as much in her life as she had in the last four months.

“Claire? You okay?” Mark had come into the bathroom and she hadn’t even noticed. She must have forgotten to lock the door. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer, and I heard you—”

She swiped away her tears and turned to face him, all Claire again. Well, herself taken down a notch. No matter how hard she tried lately, the spirited person she normally was had taken a back seat to someone a little more subdued, worried and unsure of her decisions.

“I’m fine. Just checking out the view from the skylight.” She glanced up and saw plain, white mall ceiling. Twin recessed lights glared back at her. “Yep. It’s a great view.”

“You look upset. Is something wrong?”

“Nope. Not a thing.” She tucked her phone into the back pocket of her jeans and stepped out of the shower.

He stopped her before she passed him. A zing of heat went up her arm when he touched her. Must be her frazzled nerves. “Wait, don’t go out there yet.”

“Why not?”

“The TV crew is here. As soon as they showed up, three other people quit. Those two other moms took off—good thing, too, because their cell phone has been ringing nonstop with babysitters and husbands at work calling—then Milo left, saying he couldn’t get a decent nap with all the commotion. So now we’re down to twelve.”

Eleven people to go before she had the RV. Some of them, like Millie, looked like they had every intention of spending weeks here. Claire Richards did not have weeks. She needed to win and get on the road to California, before she chickened out and ended up stuck at Flo’s for the rest of her life. She needed this change, needed to embark on her own life, not the one she’d been suckered into by a guy who talked a good game.

And she needed to see her father, to spend time with him one-on-one and begin to recapture the years they’d lost. The doubts returned again to plague her mind. Could she make a new start? Did she really have it in her to chuck it all for something essentially unknown?

Either way, without the RV, making all of that happen would be near impossible. There weren’t many options.

“You might want to put on your game face before you go out there,” Mark was saying. “The reporter wants to interview everyone, find out why they’re here, what their strategy is.”

For the briefest second, she was tempted to lean against Mark, pour her troubles into his hands. To rely on someone else for once. Claire had been on her own for so long. The burden of being strong was suddenly too heavy.

He was so close. Inches from her.

Granted, it wasn’t his fault. This wasn’t exactly the bathroom at the Taj Mahal. It was only slightly bigger than the bathroom in the two-bedroom ranch where she’d grown up. But never in that bathroom, or in any other, had she been more aware of the rise and fall of a man’s chest. She shook herself back to reality. This was Mark.

“…and I’ll warn you, they’re looking for dirt,” he said. “Ups the ratings, you know.”

Claire gestured toward the shower. “I just came from there. No dirt on me.” She tried to work up a laugh, but it fell flat.

Something dark and fierce simmered in his gaze, but his voice was all light and teasing, the same Mark she’d known all her life. “Doesn’t look like you got all the important parts,” he said. He ran a finger over the curve of her shoulder and she felt the heat ratchet up ten degrees. She’d never reacted like that to Mark before. Then again, the last time they’d “played” together, they’d both been nine. “You really should get naked to take a shower properly, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.” She needed some air. It wasn’t his finger teasing along the edge of her tank that had her forgetting her name and where she was and what day it was. “Well, I better get back out there.” But she didn’t move.

Mark’s face, so familiar, yet so different now that he had the angular lines and dusting of stubble of a grown man, was a breath away. “Any time you need someone to scrub your back or want to scrub mine,” he smiled and some of the heat left his gaze as he kidded with her, “I have this spot right here…” he pointed to a place on his back, “that I can’t reach by myself. If you’d care to help, the shower looks big enough for two.”

Whoa. This was going into territory where Claire refused to journey. This was Mark, she reminded herself again. She knew, from all the years she’d lived around the corner from him, that he had as much interest in monogamy as a goldfish. She was twenty-eight and no longer interested in serial dating. Besides, she wasn’t Mark’s type—she wasn’t young or buxom.

If he was making a pass at her, he had one of only two reasons in mind. He was hard up, or he was using this as some kind of strategy to win the RV. He’d weave his spell and convince her to get off. She wasn’t giving up her dream to some guy with a soft touch and a good smile. She’d done that once before, for Travis. And had ended up stuck with a lease and a pile of bills while he pursued his dreams. Never again. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

She started to brush past him. “Claire—”

Claire wheeled around. “I know you, Mark. I know your pattern. A night in your bed, maybe three. The sex would be oh-so-good.” She ran a finger up his chest, her mouth exaggerating the O’s in her words. “We’d be peeling ourselves off the ceiling after we were done. And then, when you realized I actually had a brain above my breasts, you’d walk away. No,” she put a finger to her chin. “You’d run. And I’d have wasted a few days of my life with a guy who can’t see past my lingerie. I’ve been there, done that and have no intentions of being that stupid again, with you or any other man. So let me put you out of your misery and save us all grief down the road.” She pulled the tank to the right, exposing the thin strap of her bra. “This set’s blue, fringed with lace. The one I’ll wear tomorrow is black. Then maybe I’ll wear the red, or the indigo. Happy?” She slipped the shirt back. “Now, let’s get back to the competition.”

She stalked out of the bathroom, leaving Mark Dole with his jaw on the floor.

Chapter Three

Mark gave Claire two minutes, then he emerged from the bathroom and ducked into the bedroom, grabbing his laptop. If anyone had noticed they’d been in there at the same time, they didn’t say a word. They were too immersed in their chance at fifteen minutes of fame. Or in the case of Ten-Spot News, more like fifteen seconds.

It was like a scene out of some cheap detective story. The bright light, the nosy journalist, the mike in someone’s face. And the crowd in the motor home was eating it up. Mark had had his moment years ago and hated every second of it. The last thing he wanted was a repeat. His fame was on hiatus—indefinitely—thank you very much.

He set up his laptop on the kitchen table and pushed the power button. He’d work and avoid the television cameras. First, he jotted off a quick e-mail to send with his wireless modem.

Luke,

We’re down to twelve already, so I might be home sooner than you think. We’ve got two old couples (and one of the women, Millie, might commit murder by knitting needle to win), a pair of newlyweds and some people we knew in high school. It’s been…interesting so far. Actually, very interesting.

He didn’t say anything about Claire. Mark wasn’t quite sure how he felt about her being here, but knew mentioning her to Luke would send him running over to see for himself. Instead, Mark added something about the Nova, then hit Send and switched to the file for the software manual he was working on.

If he could get the manual e-mailed out in the next couple days, he’d be one paycheck closer to his goal of helping Luke reestablish the business. Once he won the RV, he’d be able to sell it for enough to get their company off to a new start. Then he and Luke could get back to business in California and Mark would finally feel as if he had earned the partnership his brother had given him years ago. He’d never quite felt he’d deserved it and now, maybe, he could repay Luke for all that his brother had given him.

But it wasn’t easy to work, not with the distraction of the TV crew. Renee was their current victim. “So, Miss Angelo, why do you want to win the RV?” The reporter leaned in with a smile.

“I want to win it for my grandpa, so he can retire and drive around the country.” She looked sincere, but Mark remembered her mentioning a retiring grandma to Nancy.

The reporter asked her a few more questions about “Grandpa.” Renee put on a woeful face, perhaps hoping to win pity from the viewing audience. Then he moved on to the others, asking them where they were from and why they wanted to win. Everyone repeated their reasons from this morning, some embellishing a bit to make a more dramatic case. Claire stood to one side, with the others who’d already been interviewed. Not even she’d managed to successfully dodge her shot at Hollywood.

Her face was still soft, tinged with sadness, her gaze on some faraway spot. He wondered where her thoughts had gone and what could possibly be so bad in Claire’s life that she’d stand in the shower of a motor home and cry. The Claire he knew was stoic, optimistic. Never had he seen her upset or hurt, even when she’d fallen from the top of the monkey bars in third grade and skinned up her knees.

As a child, she’d been the Margaret to his Dennis the Menace. But as adults—

The very things that had driven him crazy were beginning to spark his interest. No, not just spark. Inflame.

He was still watching Claire when ten thousand watts, or maybe a hundred thousand, were thrust in his eyes. “James Kent.” The reporter put out a hand and shook Mark’s. “And you are?”

“Mark Dole.”

The reporter, a slim young man with a slight tic in his left eye, flipped back a couple pages in his pad, to a series of notes about each of the contestants. “We got the list of contestants earlier from Nancy and did a little research,” James explained, clearly eager to impress everyone with his journalistic skills. “Okay, you ready?”

“I’m working here.” Mark gestured to the laptop.

“This will only take a second, I promise. Okay?”

Mark nodded, glancing at the pad uneasily again, then the light’s full power hit his eyes, nearly blinding him.

“Mr. Dole, you’ve got quite the reputation in this town,” James said into the mike, his voice now suddenly deep and serious, as if he’d hit puberty in the last five seconds. “Two-time all-star champ in both baseball and football, first place in the state track meet in your senior year, homecoming king in junior and senior year, voted most popular in your class.”

“That was years ago,” said Mark. The silent audience on the RV watched the exchange.

James consulted his pad again. “When you were ten, you rescued some boy caught on the ice, saved his—”

“Which has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but it does. You’re a hero, Mark Dole. Complete with the key to the city of Lawford to go with it.” James slid the fuzzy black microphone under Mark’s chin.

Heat rose up his neck, so thick it threatened to strangle him. “I’m not a hero. Just an ordinary guy.”

“No.” James let out a slight chuckle. “You’re a story, my friend. Now, tell me about—”

“Find another story,” Mark growled. He batted the mike away, got to his feet and stalked to the front of the RV.

Escape was impossible. Forty-five feet wasn’t enough distance between him and the camera. Four million feet wouldn’t have been enough, either. James followed doggedly behind, as if Mark held the secret to where Jimmy Hoffa was buried. Of all the questions in the world, Kent had to ask that one.

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