Lured In (30 page)

She tucked the straps of her bag high on her shoulder, then set in to help offload the rest of the bags and equipment. Once everything was stacked on the dock, the pilot didn't hang around, just locked up the hold, climbed back inside the cockpit, and waved as Kevin untied the plane and shoved it away from the dock.

It took a bit of juggling, but once some of the gear had been stowed on Finn's boat and everyone was loaded down with the rest of the bags, Liam headed up the dock, leading them all toward the lodge. Kevin walked next to him, followed by Finn and Chuck, which left Hope to bring up the rear with Ronan.

“Here.” Shifting the bags he already had, he reached for one of hers, but Hope shook her head.

“It's okay,” she said. “I got it. Thanks.”

The bags were freakin' heavy, but she needed Ronan and everyone else at the Buoys to believe she was fully capable, and even though carrying bags had absolutely nothing to do with how well she did her job, it was the principle of the matter.

So onward she trudged, and even though the rest of them were already well ahead, Ronan stayed with her, walking in silence, and looking very much like he'd rather be getting his chest waxed. It couldn't have been more than a couple hundred meters from the dock to the stairs, but it felt like miles, especially with neither of them saying anything.

Come on, Hope. You've read everything there is to read on this place, you know its specs, you know its history, you even know how many fish they caught last season. Say something! Anything. Talk about the weather, for God's sake.

“Did you know Texas horned toads can shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes?”

Ronan had thought he was prepared for this. He'd looked Hope and Kevin up online, had researched the previous productions they'd worked on and even read a back issue of
West Coast Film
magazine that sang Hope's praises as one of the most organized and bright up-and-comers the industry had seen in a while. Hell, he'd even called Chuck, who'd filmed at the Buoys last summer, to get his thoughts, and while Chuck hadn't worked with Hope before, he claimed Kevin was one of the best in the business.

Yeah, well, that best in the business just stumbled off the plane gripping a full barf bag and reeking of mouthwash. Ronan wasn't prepared fozr that. He wasn't prepared for how much equipment and stuff they brought with them. He wasn't prepared for Hope to be prettier in person than in her pictures, he wasn't prepared for her voice to be even softer than he remembered from that damn conference call with Luka, and he sure as hell wasn't prepared for the first thing out of her mouth to be about blood-squirting toads.

He still couldn't believe she'd said it. Worse, he couldn't believe that he'd answered the way he did.

“Nope, didn't know that,” he said. “Did you know there's a town in Newfoundland called Dildo?”

Of all the things he could have said, of all the information he had stored in his almost-thirty-five-year-old brain,
that
was the best he could come up with? He'd have been better off keeping his big pie-hole shut, as Liam and Finn had begged him to.

He didn't have time to say anything else, thank God, because Liam met them at the door, helped stack their bags near the stairwell, then led them into the Buoys' pub, where Jessie was handing out tall glasses of Guinness.

Ro ducked behind the bar and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, then perched on one of the stools as Hope and Kevin introduced themselves to Kate and Jessie.

Once everyone had a glass, Liam made a quick toast and pointed toward the tables, indicating they should all sit, get comfortable. Chuck and Kevin didn't hesitate, but Hope raised her hand, took a long pull on her beer, then licked the foam from her lip, and nodded.

“Wow, that's good.” She still didn't sit down; instead, she dropped her huge tote bag onto the nearest chair with a thunk, then pressed her glass against her chest and glanced at everyone in turn—everyone except him. “I just want you to make sure you're all still okay with this. I know it's been a hard go with some of the changes we made to the original agreement you guys signed, and—”

“Cha.”
Finn's snort got cut short when Jessie elbowed him.

The light mist from outside clung to Hope's long blond hair like tiny diamonds, hanging on even as she shook her head.

“No, that's okay, Jessie, he's right. Luka told you it'd be the same crew as you had last summer, and then a couple weeks later Ashley and Ryan both left.”

“That wasn't the big issue.” Arms crossed, Jessie looked down at the floor for a second, then shrugged. “We agreed to have
Hooked
film here because we thought it was going to be the same fishing show it always was. But then you guys went and changed the whole format without consulting us and expected us to just roll over and let people we'd never met come poking into our private lives. That's what pissed us off.”

“Yeah.” Hope's pale blue gaze skittered Ronan's way over the rim of her glass before she blinked back to Jessie. “I understand that.”

Shit
. It wasn't that he'd expected Hope to forget about that conference call, he'd just wished it hadn't come up in conversation in the first ten minutes.

“And again,” she said, “I'm sorry about that, but like Luka said, we're not going to have our cameras in your faces twenty-four-seven, and we're not going to do anything you guys aren't completely comfortable with.”

Ronan stifled a grunt behind his mug. He might not have been in the best frame of mind during that conference call, but he remembered exactly who had said what. After he'd made it clear what the network could do to themselves, Luka backed up a bit and tried to explain how the new format would work, how they'd all be part of the show now, both at the lodge and on the boats, that the cameras would roll for large portions of Monday to Thursday, and that the focus would be on the family, not just on the fishing. And when Jessie tried to tell her that the whole lot of them were too boring to base a TV show on, Luka went on and on about how they had story producers who would dig up ideas in the everyday running of the lodge and build weekly episodes out of those.

But it was Hope who'd assured them that their comfort was paramount to the show working. It was Hope who said the crew wouldn't film anything Ro and the rest of them weren't comfortable with, and it was Hope who said the crew would never do anything to infringe on anyone's privacy. If it hadn't been for those assurances, none of them would even be sitting there.

So as far as Ronan was concerned, Luka could piss off. Hope was the one who'd won the O'Donnells over and she was the only one they were going to trust.

“The network is like any other business,” she said. “It's out to make money, and the suits think that focusing more on you guys as a family rather than just on fishing is going to be a big moneymaker—not just for us but for you as well. And in the end, that's what we all want, right?”

As Ronan watched, both of his brothers shrugged—reluctantly, sure, but they still shrugged, which was as good as agreeing with her. What the hell? What they should have done was said no, that in the end all they wanted was to get back to the old days, back to when the Buoys didn't have to compete with bigger and fancier lodges up and down the coast. That they wanted to be able to run the business quietly, just them, without any cameras or hoopla or any of that other bullshit.

But they couldn't say that because the reality of it was that they needed the publicity
Hooked
could give them, so like it or not, the days of running the Buoys quietly were a thing of the past, at least for the foreseeable future.

There couldn't have been more than a few seconds of silence after Hope spoke, but it was long enough to be uncomfortable, and the last time that happened—less than fifteen minutes ago—Ronan's brain had taken a sharp left into Moronville, and he wasn't about to let that happen again.

“Okay,” he said, pushing up off his stool. “It's done, we've all got work to do, and we've only got a little over a week till the start of the season so let's get down to it.”

“Right.” With a short nod, Jessie downed the rest of her beer and set the glass down on the bar with a light thump. “Kate and I'll show you guys to your rooms downstairs, and then once you're settled we can take you around, so you can get a feel for the place.”

Chuck and Kevin pushed back from the table, and together with Hope they followed Jessie and Kate out of the pub and toward the pile of bags. And while Liam and Finn stayed right where they were, perched on their stools, Ro lifted a tray off the bar and started collecting the glasses.

“Jesus, Ro, what the fuck did you say to her?” Liam asked, keeping his voice down.

“What? Nothing.”

“Bullshit. She could hardly look at you the whole time she was standing there.” He tipped his head toward the spot Hope had been standing a minute before, as if Ro hadn't noticed.

Oh, he'd noticed.

She didn't seem to have any trouble looking at anyone else, didn't seem the least bit unsure of herself as she spoke, but in that second or two when she glanced his way, she seemed to be nothing but a ball of nerves. And could he blame her?

Shit, harassment suits got filed for less than what he'd said to her outside.

Idiot
.

“Come on, Finn.” Liam sighed. “Let's get back upstairs before our paintbrushes harden.”

“Yeah, okay.”

After chugging the rest of their beers, they added their glasses to the tray and started toward the lobby, with Finn calling back a final shot: “Don't be a dick, Ro!”

“I'm not!” Too late; Finn and Liam were already gone, leaving Ro on his own with the dishes.

Unlike his brothers, Ronan didn't mind being on kitchen duty; in fact, he kind of liked it. Okay, he didn't like doing the dishes, but liked to cook, and he'd only get to do it for a couple more days until their chef, Olivia, returned. So with his fresh-caught halibut cleaned and waiting in the fridge, he finished up the dishes, flung the towel over his shoulder, and headed back into the pub to find the brandy for dessert.

“Oh!” Hope came through the door from the lobby just as he came in from the kitchen, making them both stop abruptly. “Sorry, I, uh—”

She still wouldn't look at him. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Her gaze twitched from his forehead to his chin to his throat and back to his forehead, but she never looked directly at him. And what did he do? He just stood there like a stupid lump, blocking her way and listening to her stammer.

“I just…uh…I came to…to…I left my bag.”

It took another second but she lifted her chin a little and finally—
finally
—looked at him. He knew he wasn't the easiest person in the world to like, and most of the time he couldn't have cared less, but this time…
what
? Why should he care how she looked at him, or if she looked at him at all? He shouldn't. He didn't.

Yes, he did. What the hell?

Don't be a dick, Ro
.

Right. No being a dick and no talking about dildos. How difficult could that be?

“Your bag? Yeah, it's, uh, right here, I'll just…” He blinked hard, turned, and reached for the bag, but lifting it took a hell of a lot more effort than he expected, and he nearly dropped the damn thing. “Jesus, what the hell d'you have in this thing?”

“I like to be prepared.” She took the bag and swung it up on her shoulder like it was nothing, even though Ronan fully expected it to knock her over. “Thanks.”

She'd already turned around and was halfway through the lobby before Ronan's brain kicked in and sent him after her.

“Wait!” Shit, he hadn't meant to yell so loud. He stopped a good five or six feet away from her, waited for her to turn, then wound the dish towel around his hands. “Sorry. Listen, I, uh…I'm sorry for what I said before. I don't know where that came from.”

Tucking her long blond hair behind her ear, Hope looked down at the floor and…
Oh, thank God
…smiled. Wasn't anything huge— hell, it barely tipped up the corners of her mouth—but it was something. And when she lifted her eyes back to his…well, holy flying shit, Batman, that soft, barely-there smile brought out all kinds of stupid in him.

He couldn't decide if he should step closer to her or back the hell up. Should he tell her that the second she looked up at him, every thought drained from his brain—every thought except for how much he liked it when she looked at him—or should he just keep his mouth shut and focus more on tamping down the fire that suddenly flamed in his veins?

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

In all the times he's apologized in his life, he hadn't had a woman smile at him—at least not until he'd repeated it half a dozen times. And even then those smiles always seemed to be saying something like “Whatever, asshole.” But Hope's, small as it was, seemed real. Still nervous, but real. Genuine.

And cute as hell.

“That's okay,” she said finally. “I could tell you a thing or two about a town in Saskatchewan.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but he didn't. Instead, he dragged his gaze away from hers so he could think clearly again, then cleared his throat.

“And, uh, about that conference call. That was…the whole day, I mean…yeah, it wasn't good. There was a bunch of shi—stuff—that got me all riled up before I even looped into that call, but still…I shouldn't have said it.”

When he finally looked at her again, he was shocked to see she was still smiling. And that made him smile. Shit, he might even have blushed a little.

“So, yeah,” he muttered. “Sorry about that too.”

“All right then.” Hope's voice was soft and low as she nodded slowly. “So does that mean we won't have to bleep out too many f-bombs when we send the tapes to editing?”