Beauty and the Brain by Alice Duncan

as if she were
of no more worth than a spent rifle cartridge and set out to ask
somebody else his question, her temper blew up like a firecracker.
She took a furious leap at his back and grabbed his arm, succeeding
in swinging him around to face her because he was so startled he
had no time to brace himself.
    “You will not ask Martin!” she hollered,
sticking her face right up next to his, a feat that compelled her
to stand on her tiptoes. “I’m the organizer of this match and I’ll tell you where to go!” She’d like to tell him where to
go.
    He scowled down at her; then his gaze slid
sideways until his eyes were staring at her hand gripping his arm.
“There’s no call for violence, Miss Fitzpatrick.”
    “Like hell!”
    Never, in all of the years she’d been
working as a model, in vaudeville, and on the Broadway stage, had
Brenda succumbed to the urge to use the foul language she heard
every day and speak the word hell aloud. She thought it all the
time, just as she silently swore like a sailor when annoyed, but
she never, ever, allowed her knowledge of profanity to taint the
air around her.
    She didn’t care that she’d done so now. In
fact, she was only vaguely aware of having uttered the word. She
was too angry
    “I’m not getting violent, damn you. I’m
telling you how things are. Now, if you’re going to play this game,
I’ll tell you which team to join because it’s my call.”
    His lips thinned. His black eyebrows drew
down into fierce V over his nose, and those two deep creases
appeared between his eyes. Brenda experienced a sudden and violent
urge to kiss him silly. Good Lord, she was losing her mind
    “Very well,” he said, although his lips
didn’t move a millimeter. He must really be furious. She told
herself she was glad. “I’ll go over and sit with Jerry’s team.”
    “Good.” She gave a sharp nod, turned on her
heel, and flounced back to home plate.
    Her own position in this game was nebulous.
She’d organized the teams and kidded everyone into, joining one or
the other of them. Then she’d joked around some more until she’d
succeeded, in making them accept each other as fellow human beings
instead of white men and red men. By this time, she’d succeeded so
well that they were actually being friendly with each other, but
she’d decided not to play today.
    She enjoyed baseball but figured her talents
as mediator would be more appropriate for this first game on the
set of Indian Love Song . She hoped there would be many more
games, because sports always seemed to ease the tensions that
abounded during the production of a motion picture.
    At the moment, she was acting as manager for
both teams, as well as umpire, so she took up her position behind
the plate and squinted off into the trees, slamming her fist into
her mitt and wishing she were shinning it against Colin’s head, and
hoping the guys would find the ball soon so they could get back to
playing. Her heart was thumping like an itchy dog’s hind leg, her
skin felt flushed and prickly with rage, and she wanted to rush
back to Colin Peters, hit him several times, and then throw herself
into his arms. Damn him.
    “We found it!” The victorious cry came from
Martin, who crashed out of the trees and into the lodge yard, the
baseball held aloft as he spoke. “Got there just in time to save it
from being grabbed by a bear cub.”
    “A bear cub? Are you serious?” Thank God for
Martin and his bear cubs. Brenda was pretty sure nothing less could
have distracted her from the villainous and entirely too appealing
Colin.
    Behind her, Colin said, “It’s unwise to get
between a cub and its mother, because female bears can be ferocious
in the protection of their young.”
    Martin laughed. “We didn’t really meet a
bear cub, but it makes for a good story. We actually found the ball
under a pile of pine needles and being scolded by a squirrel.
There’s a lot to this nature stuff, isn’t there?”
    Brenda laughed, glad no