Walk of Shame (5 page)

"I think I was too busy listening
to the bagpipes and your accent to care."

He laughed. "I'm glad you
liked what you heard."

"Are you from Scotland,
originally?"

"Yes. My father moved to
Scotland when he was twenty, met my mother, and married her. My siblings and I
were all born over there, but we all have US citizenship through our father. I
came over here after earning my degree."

"Why?"

"I was studying geology, and
my father's family is from Colorado. The university in
Boulder has an excellent graduate geology program."

"I bet they do. So is that
what you do for a living, work with rocks?"

"Mountains, actually. I work
to compare and contrast mountains in different ranges, of different heights, at
different latitudes and longitudes. I also work a bit with volcanoes."

"Do you do that through
university programs?"

"Yes. I've worked with a
couple of different universities over the years. I have my doctorate, and
sometimes teach summer programs or run field studies."

Oooh, Dr. Scottie McHottie.
Sexy.
"Do you ever think of doing that work back in the
highlands?"

"I have. I went back for a
year to work through the University at St. Andrews. That's where I began my
studies."

"You don't stay on staff for
very long?"

"I go where the
opportunities are, and I like the variety. Someday, I'd like to study the Alps
and the Himalayas."

"I could get onboard with
setting up camp in other countries for awhile."

"That's good to hear. Have
you ever been out of the United States?"

"Yes, I went to Spain in
high school. Other than that I stuck my toe in Canada to see Niagara Falls, and
I island hopped in the Caribbean on a cruise."

"You travel all the time. You
must have a list of places you'd like to visit."

"Scotland is actually at the
top. I've been infatuated with the country for years. And then, I'd like to
cruise around the Mediterranean Sea. And, I'd like to take a cruise down to
Antarctica, one that stops and lets you get off and walk around. I just want to
be able to say that I've been there."

"We could make a
globe-trotting pair, you and I."

"Sounds wonderful to
me," I said, and meant it.

Troy stepped in Liam's line of
sight and touched his watch, time to go.

Phillip was up next. He was lean
and hot. And in our conversation, he told me he could cook.

"Can I have that pink flower
back?" I asked.

He gave me a strange look.
"Sure."

I unpinned it, swapped it out for
a red one, and pinned it on.

He laughed loud enough to draw a
few looks from the other guys. "Is this an upgrade, or a downgrade?"
he asked.

I just winked at him, "I
look forward to cooking with you."

James, Mitch, and Tyler all took
their turns on the couch with me. I was halfway through with this portion of
the night before I had to call a halt to the production.

One of the other guys was just
about to approach when I held up my hands to form a letter T, "Time out."

Troy stepped away from the rest
of the crew. "What do you need, Princess?"

"Princess needs a potty
break. The last time I went, the sun was still out." Thank God, the guys
were indulging me with their laughter tonight. Not that I thought it really
mattered, my bladder was past the point of embarrassment.

At some point, I'd slipped off
the shoes and curled my legs up onto the couch as I had turned my body to the
side, to face the men I had been talking to. It took me a moment to fumble with
the extra length of the dress and setting the shoes upright without reaching
down and making a small scene of it. It was enough to make me consider running
across the room barefoot, despite the cameras.

Troy closed his eyes and resisted
the urge to shake his head as the others looked on and wondered what the hell I
was doing.

"It's going to be a long
season on this show if I can't keep you in your shoes," Troy said.

That gave me the okay to just go
ahead and reach down to lift the dress out of my way, so I could see the things
to slip them back on. "Well then, it's going to be a long season," I
said as I stood and dropped the bottom of the dress to let it flare out as I moved
across my stage.

I left the room, attended to my
business, and returned a few moments later.

"Do you need anything else
before we start again?" Troy asked.

"I'm starving."
Nervousness had prevented me from eating much of anything all day. Now that I was
relaxed, and the day had extended past its normal length, my stomach was
talking to me.

"Let's get a quick snack
into you, then after all this is done we can get you a plate. Follow me."

I went outside with him and
spotted a third of the men out there with food and beer. "Are you kidding
me? No wonder you guys are out here half the time!"

"They didn't tell us about
it, either. Some of the guys still don't know it's here because they haven't
come out yet," the purple-shirted, smelly good guy said.

I put a few bite-sized morsels on
the plate and grabbed a can of soda.

"You don't want a
beer?" the guy with the nametag 'Darren' asked.

"No, thanks. It's late. I'm
opting for caffeine to keep me going."

Troy tapped his watch and I ate
my food and drank some soda. I ditched the plate and followed the walking
watchman back inside. He held his arm out for me to take and steady myself up
the stairs but then didn't move along with me.

"What?" I asked.

He held his other hand out.
"The soda. We can't have the brand name on camera and it doesn't have a
cap like the bottle of water."

I rolled my eyes and chugged some
more before I handed it over. I walked up the stairs, ditched the shoes, hiked
up the dress, and got comfy again.

Hair, Makeup, and Wardrobe came
up the steps to primp me again. Wardrobe arranged the fabric because it seemed
that I had it bunching in places when I had sat. The makeup artist focused on
revitalizing my lipstick. And the hair guy stuck two more pins in my head. I
could only hope they'd be around at the end of the night to deconstruct their
creation, because I'd never get it all undone in a way they'd see as proper.

"Ready?" Troy asked
when the primpers had finished.

"Yep, I'm good."

Ardent was up next. He'd taken
the Hopi headdress off and I could see he was another one that had wavy black
hair, and his chocolate brown eyes seemed to swim in wisdom.

"What do you do for a
living?" I asked, getting right down to it.

"I'm an archaeologist."

"You have my
attention," I said with a surprised smile.

"I don't do dinosaurs,"
he warned.

"Even better."

"I study ancient people,
their way of life."

"So you excavate sites of
homes and towns?"

"Exactly."

"I bet a lot of people think
that's not as cool as dinosaurs."

He smiled. "I'm interested
in what you think."

"I think a person who claims
to love learning about other cultures would be a liar if they didn't find
unearthing the history of past versions of daily life interesting."

He nodded. "What makes you
so drawn to other cultures?"

"The United States isn't
very old. We don't have a culture that has been practiced and honed for a
thousand years, before being bred into us. I'm a European mutt with a little
Native American thrown in for flavor. I don't have a cultural base to call my
own. I feel like I'm missing roots."

"Is that why you travel and
roam the country in a fifth wheel?"

My eyes darted to his. The
question had gotten my attention. "It may just be."

I'd have gotten a flower for him,
but there was no way I'd forget my opinion about the Hopi man who'd made me
think a bit deeper about my life.

Patrick was up next. A little
shy, but cute. Way too conscience of the cameras, though. I couldn't tell if he
was trying to stay away from them, or figure out how to get them on him more,
without doing something idiotic to draw them in.

Stephan stepped up to the plate.
"May I?" he asked and gestured to the couch.

"Absolutely."

Oh my God, his eyes are so
intense.
Maybe it was just the yummy smell of his cologne clogging my
brain. But the mix of the two had me about ready to forget the rest of the room
and start sighing.

"I read 'writer and
novelist' in your bio," he said with a smile. "What genre?"

I almost giggled. The man made me
feel like I was in middle school again, all hormones and no sense. I ended up
smiling, and after a long pause spent trying to get my head on straight, I
answered, "Contemporary fiction."

"That could be almost
anything."

It took me another second, but I
found finally found my tongue. "I like to write whatever plot comes to me.
So I jump around subgenres. The books I have traditionally published are all
mysteries, that's what my current contract is for, as well. Other novels I
write, that don't fit into that mold, I have published independently."

His gaze turned shrewder.
"You don't like to be boxed into a corner, do you?"

I flushed a little. "No, I
don't. I can't even be boxed into a home or apartment. I don't control my
imagination. When a story hits me and won't let go, it becomes this two or
three week marathon of outlining and getting the plot points down on paper so
that I can clear my head and think of something else. Sometimes, the plot
morphs into a mystery and I can then write up the draft, make revisions, and
send it in. Otherwise, I can't let a perfectly good outline sit there and do
nothing. Eventually I go ahead and write the story. And once it's done, I have
to do something with it, so I self-publish it."

"I like that. You don't fall
into the trap of working at someone else's mercy."

"Well, no. I guess I don't.
I mean, I have to fulfill my contract... But I already had outlines of two
other mysteries done before I accepted, so I knew I had time to conjure more
ideas, if the mystery well dried up for me."

"I like your style."

"I've been lucky. So, what
is it that you do?"

"It's going to sound
boring."

"You travel the country as
part of your job. It can't be that boring."

"I'm a photographer for a
curriculum company."

"Curriculum as in text
books?"

"Yes. I take the pictures
and write up captions, or take video clips and record voiced captions."

"For what subjects?"

He shrugged. "It depends on
the projects they have going on. History, geography, science, they send me a
list of locations or topics and I go and get the pictures and footage. The
company is in the process of coming up with in-depth, computer-based courses.
So they're looking for more and more video clips."

"What have you been working
on lately?"

"They sent me a text book
and a box of materials. They want me complete some science experiments while
filming them. But I've also been trying to film some national parks stuff for a
little pet project I've been working on."

"Is it just for high school-level?"

"No, I've worked on stuff
from elementary school on up through doctorate level courses. Many times I'm
working on a project for high school or college and they pull a picture from
here or there to put in the elementary-level texts that just touch upon the
in-depth stuff I'm working on."

"That sounds like a job that
you can't get bored with."

"It is that. I like that one
project is different from the next. One month I'm filming on a wildlife
preserve, waiting for a buffalo stampede, and the next I'm filming people in
period costume, recreating revolutionary war life at Valley Forge. Next, I'm at
the Smithsonian Zoo, filming and taking pictures of an artist drawing the
animals for an Art course. And then I'm in the Rockies, working on two
projects. One was to film mountain goats jumping from ledge to ledge, and the
second to take pictures of a list of mountain formations."

"I love that. It sounds like
you don't much like to be boxed in, either, unless the box keeps
changing."

He laughed. "I could have
done without the beekeeper assignment. And I about messed my pants on the stampeding
buffalo assignment. But it's an interesting job."

I smiled back at him. It was
definitely not something I would have pegged him as having.

"Troy's tapping his watch at
me," Stephan said.

"Ignore him. Can I have my
pink flower back?"

His intense eyes took on a
sparkle. "No."

I laughed. "Okay, your
choice. You can go, then. Troy's waiting."

His eyes shifted to the flowers
on the table and back to me. "Were you going to give me a better
color?"

I shrugged. "Which color
would you like?"

"Do the colors mean
anything?"

"To me they do."

"You didn't give everyone
flowers."

"Not everyone has made a
remarkable impression on me yet."

"And you were going to take
my pink one away."

"Because my opinion had
changed, so I was going to give you a different color. But that's okay, go
ahead and keep the pink one."

He smiled. "I'm a little
nervous about the flowers now."

I chuckled at him.

Troy cleared his throat.

Stephan sighed and excused
himself.

T. J. was up next, and then
Darren found his nerve to come forward. They were both perfectly good men. I
just wasn't sure either one struck a chord with me.

I smiled as the dude with the
hot, buttery voice came up the stairs. The hip-waders were still cracking me
up. He gestured at the couch, "Would you mind?"

I gestured right back, "By
all means."