TRACE KNEW HE WAS being difficult. A part of him was appalled at how easily she’d gotten under his skin, but logic played no part in how he reacted when she was around. The adult side of his brain told him to cooperate, to get it over with so he could move on with his life and try to forget it ever happened. The more efficiently they were able to finish the project, the more quickly she could leave. The childish and immature part of his brain—quite possibly the area that was still holding on to the pain and the anger—wanted to make her job as difficult as possible.
“Why did you change your hair?” he asked. “You don’t look right as a blonde.”
“We’re not talking about personal things, remember?” she reminded him coldly. “Besides, not that it’s any of your business, but I happen to prefer my hair blond.”
“You looked fine the way you were. Did somebody in L.A. tell you to change it?”
She looked exasperated. “No more than ten seconds ago you were saying keep the personal stuff out of the conversation, and now here you are asking personal questions. Make up your mind. You want to know why I changed my hair? I’ll tell you. Because I was tired of looking like the drab little mouse. Mice get eaten in Los Angeles. I wanted to fit in, and I knew I couldn’t do that looking the way that I did.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re not meant to fit into a place where you have to change who you are as a person?”
Her fingers curled around her pen, and he wondered if she might snap it in two. Knowing he’d gotten under her skin gave him a perverse pleasure. Maybe if he antagonized her enough she’d determine the project wasn’t worth her time and leave. “I’m not going to discuss my personal life with you. Let’s get back to the interview, please.”
“So what’s so great about Los Angeles? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”
“Everything and more.”
Hell, he hadn’t expected her answer to hurt. He supposed he wanted her to admit regret for leaving behind everything she’d ever known, but more important for leaving him behind. God, when did he become such a sap? He shifted in his chair, fighting with himself. Finally, he said, “Search and Rescue got the call from a hysterical father saying his daughter had been lost while camping. We didn’t know at the time that it was from Governor Errington. It wasn’t until we were suited up and hitting the trail that we got additional information that we were looking for the governor’s daughter. Not that it would’ve mattered. When we found out the little girl, Clarissa, was lost in the woods, we would’ve put all resources toward finding her, no matter who her father was.”
Momentarily startled but obviously relieved that he had returned to the interview, it took only a second for Delainey to catch up. “How long did it take you to find her?”
“Too long. She’d left the trail and tried to double back, but she got turned around and it was several hours before we were able to find her. Another hour and she would’ve died from hypothermia.” Trace didn’t like to think about how closely they’d come to losing the little girl. It reminded him too much of his sister Simone. He stretched his legs beneath the table and looked away. “We were lucky. The little girl was lucky.”
“Forgive me for paying you a compliment, but I don’t think luck had anything to do with it,” Delainey said quietly. “There’s a reason you’re the best. If you couldn’t find that little girl, no one could.”
Her praise shouldn’t have meant anything to him, but her confidence in his abilities wormed their way into a private place, one that he kept guarded fiercely, and he found himself yearning for more. There’d been a time when Delainey’s opinion had meant everything to him. At one time he believed Delainey was his other half. Of course she’d proved him to be a fool. “I was just doing my job. I’m uncomfortable with the accolades.”
“Why?” she asked, perplexed. “There’s nothing wrong with accepting well-earned praise.”
“As quickly as someone will praise you for doing a good job, the same person will ride you into the ground for failing. I’m not always able to bring everyone back.”
“Are you talking about Simone?” she asked tentatively.
“Among others,” he admitted. “Two years ago, a Carolina man, Stuart Dillinger, went hiking up the ridge and didn’t bring the proper gear. The snow disoriented Dillinger, and before he knew it he didn’t have a clue where he was. No compass, not enough water and not nearly enough cold-weather gear. Fresh snow had erased his tracks, another storm was barreling down and we were running out of time. By the time we did find him, it was too late. He froze to death.”
“No one expects you to be a superhero. Sorry to say this, but you and I both know that anyone who doesn’t have proper respect for the Alaskan wilderness will pay for it. It’s like the people who die on Mount Everest because they didn’t prepare properly. It’s unfortunate but in a way they were asking for it.”
“Try telling that to their families. Dillinger was a father, a brother and a husband. Now he’s resting six feet under in a North Carolina graveyard.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with you. You’re the best tracker there is. Maybe it was just his time to go.”
“You know I don’t believe in that shit,” he said sharply, uncomfortable with how easily the words came out of his mouth. He despised talking about his feelings, much less his failures, and yet somehow Delainey had managed to pull the words right out of his mouth. He stood abruptly. “I have to go. We can finish this at another time. I have another appointment,” he lied, needing to get some air.
“Well, when do you want to finish, because I have to get the script ready. Can we finish tonight?”
He frowned. “What do you mean tonight?”
“I could bring the tape recorder and meet you at your place?”
“Hell, no. I don’t want you in my house.”
She drew back, stung. “That was rude and mean. Do you think I relish the idea of spending gobs of alone time with you? Get over yourself, Trace. This is a job that you agreed to do.”
Could he handle her in his home? What had almost become their home? The idea made him instantly sick to his stomach and apprehensive and yet strangely curious. “Fine. We’ll finish the interview at seven o’clock.”
“Perfect.” She clicked off the recorder. “Thank you for your cooperation, Trace.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll give you a half an hour. If you don’t get what you need by then, you’re out of luck.”
He didn’t wait for her to negotiate, because he knew she would try. He couldn’t get away fast enough; if he weren’t careful, Delainey would find a way to make him dance to her tune no matter the cost.
* * *
DELAINEY KNEW SHE OUGHT to shelve any feelings Trace had awoken to the far reaches of her mind, but he’d always had a way of getting under her skin. He hated her hair color. She touched the strands and winced at the fairly brittle feel of her bleached tresses. It was a brutal process to strip out the natural light brown to create the platinum she sported now, and she was well overdue for a deep-conditioning treatment. But with her precarious finances she hadn’t been able to see clear to pay the exorbitant amount that a treatment would require.
“Pooh on you, Trace Sinclair,” she muttered as she gathered her documents, reminding herself that Trace’s opinion didn’t matter in the big scheme of things. In the land of fake smiles and plastic bodies, Delainey had stuck out like a country bumpkin before her makeover, and it had been painfully obvious that in order to make deals, you had to turn heads.
“Oh, honey, what is happening here?” Rafe Solange, the premier hairstylist in Beverly Hills, had exclaimed, lifting one limp mouse-brown lock in distaste. One look at her new zip code and she knew a trim was in order, so she’d gone straight to the top even though she couldn’t actually afford it yet. He tsked as if surveying a hot mess and wondering where to start. “Oh, baby child, this has got to go. We’re talking strip, color and style, and I’m talking tout suite.”
“Is it that bad?” she’d asked with embarrassment. In Alaska no one had put much store in fancy hairstyles because half the time, your hair was tucked up into a knitted hat to stay warm. She cringed when he simply stared, placing one hand on his hip with flamboyant flair, and she had her answer. “Okay, do whatever you need to do.”
“Thank you, baby Jesus! We’re going to make you shine, girl. Los Angeles isn’t going to know what hit it.”
And Rafe had transformed her from a mouse to a lion, and the transformation had given her the shot of confidence she’d been lacking from the moment she’d stepped off the plane, scared and nervous about her big, life-changing decision to leave Alaska to pursue her dream.
And she was never going back to who she was—and that included her mouse-brown hair.
“So you can just suck it, Trace Sinclair,” Delainey said, bracing herself against the chill as she hurried to her car. She may have left a mouse, but she’d returned a lion, and she wasn’t going to take any crap from anyone. “Not even you, you big, judgmental jerk.”