A SEAL’s Desire Page 17

  “No more betting.” But Greg looked thoughtful. “We need to go there. Tonight.”

  “We’ll have to work fast—and be very quiet.”

  “No one sleeps in that room?”

  She shook her head. “We had the hotel remove the beds and put in extra tables to work at. We’ll have to make sure no one else is pulling an all-nighter, though.”

  “Everyone should be asleep by one-thirty or so,” Greg said. He passed her a set of keys. “Those are for the trucks. You slip out first. I’ll follow. If Byron wakes up, I’ll keep him from calling Clem while you high-tail it to town.”

  “Got it.”

  In the end, it was simple to slip out. Greg had alerted the men on patrol so they wouldn’t be startled by them driving away. They waited until it was clear Byron was fast asleep, crept past him and through the kitchen, then hurried to the truck parked farthest away. Renata knew no one in the bunkhouse would be able to hear the engine starting. She only hoped Byron didn’t wake up until they were back again.

  When they reached town, the room Renata led Greg to was dark. She used the card key to open the motel room door carefully.

  “No lights,” she warned and moved to check that all the curtains were tightly closed, so the blue screens wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention outside.

  Greg bolted the door behind him. “Where do we start?”

  “Here. Clem will have uploaded everything to the main system for the crew to work on.” She sat in front of one of the laptops and began to type. “Here’s the last episode.” She hit a few more keys, scanned a file directory and nodded. “I bet this is Avery’s footage.” She pointed to a file, and Greg laughed at the name. “Yeah, I bet you’re right.”

  Greg was no slouch once Renata showed him how to call up the video footage and run through it at high speed, looking for something interesting to happen. As the hours ticked past, they worked furiously, saying little except to point out what they found. Once they’d pulled together the most interesting bits, Renata took over and edited it into complete file. Greg pitched in on the narrations, his warm, low voice making him perfect for the job. Near dawn they made their way back to Base Camp.

  “Do you think this will work?” Renata asked as they pulled in. Base Camp was still quiet. Greg had dimmed the truck’s lights as they edged down the lane and rolled it silently to a stop in its normal parking place. Now all they had to do was sneak inside without waking Byron.

  “God, I hope so,” Greg said. He lifted her hand and kissed it. “You’re a hell of a woman, Renata.”

  “You’re a hell of a man.”

  Chapter Fifteen

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  It was hard to keep it a secret that they were up to something. Byron had woken up just as Greg and Renata were sliding into their sleeping bags. Renata covered up the disturbance by getting up again and going to use the washroom. Byron had rolled over and fallen back to sleep until it was really time to get up.

  Greg knew the sleepless night would catch up to them at some point, but he was buzzing with adrenaline and couldn’t wait to show everyone else what they’d found. He and Renata got up with the others, did their chores and ate breakfast as if nothing was different, but as soon as the meal was over, Greg strode to the front of the room.

  “Don’t tell me you two are pregnant already!” Curtis called out.

  “No,” Greg said. “Not yet. But we have something we’d like to show everyone if you don’t mind.”

  Boone sighed. “Is it going to take long?”

  “You got somewhere to be?”

  “We need to talk about Avery.”

  The door opened as he said this, and Avery, who so far had remained absent, slunk in, looking miserable. Her hair hung limp around her shoulders. It looked as if she’d done up her gown wrong. Her arms were empty, something Boone took in immediately, and Greg thought Walker did, as well.

  “I don’t have the fan,” Avery said stubbornly, heading off Boone’s question.

  “Then I don’t know what we can do,” Boone began.

  “Before this goes any further,” Greg said loudly, “you need to let us show you something.”

  “Greg—”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” Greg met Boone’s gaze and held it. Maybe he wasn’t one of the original four men who’d founded Base Camp, but that didn’t mean Boone shouldn’t trust him as much as he trusted Clay, Jericho or Walker.

  “All right. Fine. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Boone lifted his hands like he couldn’t be held responsible for anything that happened around here anymore.

  Renata took that as her cue to set up the laptop and screen they normally used to watch the show’s episodes.

  “What’s going on?” Clem called from the back of the room as the crew tromped in and set up to film them. “I need something good for the show, and you’re planning to sit around and watch TV?”

  “This will be good,” Greg promised him. Clem’s brows lowered, but Renata hit a few keys on the laptop, and the movie they’d made together began.

  It began much like an episode of Base Camp with the regular intro, but they’d sped it up so much that it flashed by in only a matter of seconds. Greg caught one or two smiles around the room before everyone became serious again. Good, that had cut the tension a little. Avery slouched into the chair closest to the door and clasped her hands in her lap. Her face was drawn, and Greg doubted she’d gotten much sleep last night, either.

  “Once upon a time there was a community called Base Camp,” Greg intoned on screen. He and Renata had decided to launch right into the theme they wanted to focus on: that Base Camp was a success as a sustainable community and that everyone involved had worked hard to make it that way. Instead of the tense, malicious and outrageous footage Clem had concentrated on these past few weeks, the scenes they’d chosen for the first part of their show illustrated how tirelessly everyone was working around the community. There were images of Boone, Samantha and the rest of the gardening crew working hard in the greenhouses to replace the food they lost during the theft. Scenes of Addison and Kai working morning, noon and night to provide delicious meals for everyone else, even when their supplies had been diminished. Footage of the women running the bed-and-breakfast at the Manor, trying to make people’s vacations effortless and fun. Walker and Avery horsing around near the bison out in the pastures, their love for the animals and each other plain for all to see.

  Greg glanced Avery’s way and found she had her face in her hands. Walker, across the room, sat as stoically as ever.

  The footage changed, and now they saw Clem climbing up a ladder behind the bunkhouse, his face coming closer and closer to the screen as he ascended it. It was easy to see when he noticed he was being filmed—and just as easy to see he had climbed the ladder to install his own camera there. He shook his head and sneered. “So you’re not the goody-goody you claim to be, are you, Renata?” he asked the camera.

  It had been a surprise to find out Clem thought the earliest set of surveillance cameras had been Renata’s—and had left them there on purpose. “They’re not mine,” Renata said. “None of the cameras we took down were mine.”

  “Whose were they?” Angus asked.

  “Hold on—you’ll see,” Greg said.

  The scene changed. A new theme song boomed out of the speakers, and Avery straightened in her seat, her mouth dropping open.

  “Where’d you—” She closed her mouth with a snap. Greg knew why; she’d figured it out. The folder of Avery’s material they’d found on Clem’s computer had contained a lot of different footage but also several full episodes of a show she’d created herself along the way.

  She must’ve had some grand plan about when she would air it. They were ruining that plan, but there wasn’t anything for it. Avery twisted her hands in her lap, biting her lip. Greg pitied her, but airing this footage was the only way he knew how to help. He wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought to air it herself.

  The che
erful theme ended with Avery bursting into the frame yelling, “Stealing from SEALs!” Those same words popped on screen over her head in a cheesy ’80s title font.

  Everyone in the room glanced around and straightened in their chairs. They hadn’t expected this. Greg savored their surprise. This was only the start.

  Avery’s show was far more jumpy than Base Camp usually was. It reminded him of the kind of thing you found on channels aimed at young people. The camera angles constantly changed. The action was nonstop. He wondered how she’d done it, because Avery herself was always the star of the film. There she was stealing Boone’s jacket, stealing Clay’s shoes, stealing Kai’s book. That time she ran right up to the camera and waved the book around with a triumphant grin before disappearing again. Finally, the camera stayed still. Avery popped up again. “Hi, I’m Avery Lightfoot, and I live with ten Navy SEALs. You would think Navy SEALs would be a sneaky bunch, but what I’ve discovered is that none of them are as sneaky as I am. In fact, I found there’s nothing as fun as stealing from SEALs!” The title appeared in all its cheesy ’80s-style glory again.

  Boone sat back in his chair. Riley was smiling. Greg held his breath, knowing what was coming.

  The footage went back to its jumpy, crazy, zany style. Avery stealing food from the kitchen just seconds before Kai walked in. Avery stealing clothes from the wash line when Riley turned her back. Avery pilfering silverware out of Maud and James Russell’s kitchen. Greg hoped she’d returned that.

  There was a scene he loved, in which Addison asked Avery to steal Kai’s cookbook so she could make a copy of it, explaining what a tragedy it would be if the original was ever lost or damaged. That explained the footage of Avery sneaking into the kitchen and pilfering it late at night. She explained to the camera that she had spent five hours scanning it page by page before slipping it back into the kitchen the next morning.

  Last, but not least, came the theft of Walker’s fan. The room quieted again as the familiar footage rolled by. Avery sneaking into the room, checking to make sure no one was around, unzipping Walker’s bag and pulling out the beautiful old fan.

  What Clem’s footage hadn’t shown was Avery sitting on the floor, touching the fan reverently, cradling it as if it were a newborn baby for a moment, lost in thought, obviously thinking about a future with Walker. Then came the footage that had made Greg’s heart twist in his chest. Avery unzipping the bag again and slipping the fan reverently back inside, making sure everything was in its rightful place before she darted out of the room again.

  “But—” Savannah began and then subsided as the show continued. Renata had spliced this next footage into Avery’s film. They’d found it among Clem’s footage, as if he couldn’t resist filming himself pulling off such an evil stunt. It began where Avery’s did but from a slightly different angle, showing Avery sneaking in and rummaging in Walker’s bag. It filmed her cradling the fan, then putting it back and leaving—but then it showed Clem himself sneaking into the bunkhouse after Avery had gone, opening the bag and pulling the fan out again. Silence reigned as he zipped the bag closed, put it back into place and left, the fan in his arms.

  When a sob sounded, Greg turned to Avery, but it was Riley who was crying. She wasn’t the only one. Savannah was wiping her eyes, and Addison was fishing in her pockets for tissue. Walker stood slowly, turned to Avery and held out his hand, his face a mask of anguished regret.

  She stood, too, and warded him off.

  “No.” Her voice cracked on the word. “Don’t say a thing. Not one single thing. I waited eight months for you, eight months while one after another of my friends married your friends, with no indication that you would ever ask me to be your wife. I waited. I was patient because you said there was something you needed to do. But you never did it. Stealing from SEALs was a game, something to pass the time. Something to make me feel like I wasn’t a complete chump. Because that’s what I feel like. I feel like an idiot for ever believing in you. And now I feel like an idiot for ever believing in any of this. You all talk about community, you talk about knowing each other, working together, living together, how special that is. But when a stranger made it look like I did something wrong, you didn’t even give me a chance to explain. You know what I think? None of you have ever seen me. None of you know me. Certainly not you,” she flung at Walker. “Well, I’m done. I don’t want your forgiveness. I don’t want your friendship. And I don’t want your love. I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”

  Avery turned on her heel and walked out the door.

  Greg didn’t think he’d ever spent a more excruciating week than the one that had just passed. The temperature outside had dipped, and winter was back with a vengeance. More snow had fallen. The unrelenting gray sky was making him restless, but there was no way to accomplish anything much outside. He wanted to make improvements to all his energy systems, but all he could do was think and plan rather than getting anything done.

  He’d finished his model of Base Camp, but when he sat down to look it over and try to think of ways to improve upon it, all he could see was Avery’s face when Walker had reached for her.

  Renata seemed just as dismayed their plan hadn’t worked. Clem was furious with them, and he’d had the motel reprogram the card keys for the workroom so that Renata no longer had access to it. He kept a crew following her every minute of the day, which meant all the time they had together was filmed.

  Which meant Greg was frustrated as hell.

  Renata would let him steal a kiss or two if the crews were around, but that was it, and their presence made her snappish. She had a very different personality when she was being the show’s director than she did when they were alone, and it was clear she was back to trying to figure out how to wrest her job away from Clem. He wondered how hard it had been to put on that mask every day of the more than ten years she’d worked for Fulsom. Had it ever felt like second nature, or had it always been a strain?

  Her bets with Clem were piling up, too, the sums they wrangled over getting larger and larger. Clem kept losing. Kept bitching about the money he had to pay out but kept coming back for more.

  Greg had the feeling everyone was watching Avery and Walker, although they were all trying to be inconspicuous while doing it. Avery kept close to Eve, apparently the only person she trusted at this point, although Greg thought that was unfair. He and Renata had cleared her name, after all.

  As far as he could see, Walker spent all his time lurking in the barns and outbuildings or riding out among the bison herd. Under duress, Clem had returned the fan, claiming that a crew member had found it. Walker had simply taken it and turned his back on Clem. Since then, he’d ignored the director completely. Greg had caught him arguing with his grandmother, Sue, once, but as soon as Sue had spotted him, she’d gotten in her car and driven away.

  He’d approached Walker to ask him what was going on, but Walker had turned on his heel and stalked off. Greg hadn’t bothered to follow.

  He caught up with Harris one morning at the makeshift forge the man had set up recently behind the barn. Harris planned to make a more permanent structure in the spring, but like everyone else, he’d gotten too restless to wait. He’d been working with Roy Egan, who’d been a blacksmith all his life, and had taken Harris on as an apprentice some months ago, but Harris wanted his own forge to practice in while he was home.

  “I’m not here for any good reason,” Greg told him when he approached.

  Harris lowered the hammer he’d been wielding and plunged the metal he’d been working into a barrel of cold water. It hissed and steamed. “I think everyone’s got spring fever.”

  “You got that right. A few months early by the look of things.” He squinted at the lowering skies. There’d be more snow soon if he wasn’t mistaken. “Maybe we need another trip to DelMonaco’s.”

  “Something like that.”

  Greg followed Harris’s gaze and spotted Avery leaning against the rail fence that enclosed the biso
n pasture. “I’m kind of surprised she didn’t leave the show.”

  Harris thought about that. “She’s not a quitter.” He nodded in a different direction, and Greg saw Walker riding in on his horse. He slowed for a moment when he spotted Avery, then kept going toward the stable. “She was here at the ranch before Walker.”

  “I guess so. I hope she makes it up with Riley, Savannah and Nora. Those four used to be inseparable.” He remembered when he’d first arrived at Base Camp. How all the new men had viewed the four women living at the manor with interest until Boone, Clay, Jericho and Walker had made their intentions known. In the early days, Avery and her friends had done everything together, fierce in their intentions to have their arts-driven lives, even as Fulsom kept making rules that made it impossible for them to stick to their guns.

  “Remember how they had everything set up in the beginning?” he asked. “They all spent so much time painting and playing piano, writing and stuff. They hardly do any of that anymore.”

  “Savannah plays for us sometimes,” Harris said. “I think Riley still paints now and then, and isn’t Nora working with Walker’s grandma on that curriculum stuff?” He shrugged. “Avery was making Stealing from SEALs.”

  “I don’t think an hour here and there was what they had in mind,” Greg said.

  “They’re running the B and B,” Harris pointed out, “but I take your point. Base Camp has changed because of the show. Which will be over soon.”

  “Will we survive it, though?”

  “Hope so.”

  “I’m going to go talk to her,” Greg decided.

  “Avery?” Harris paused. “Want me to come, too?”

  “Maybe she’d think we were ganging up on her.”

  Harris nodded and went back to work. Greg checked to make sure Walker wasn’t in sight and trudged through the snow to the pasture fence.