Bravo Unwrapped by Christine Rimmer Page B

to shoot a Christmas feature. For Halloween and pumpkin-carving, her presence was not required.
    B.J. didn’t need to be there, either. Except that her only job for the next two weeks was to be where Buck wanted her, when he wanted her there. Buck wanted her on the back porch carving pumpkins—and so, here she was.
    How could this have happened?
    The night before, when she’d agreed to his terms,she hadn’t truly realized the extent to which he would get to run her life. Oh, she could so easily become bitter….
    Then again, B.J. thought, as she bravely dug her bare hand into the seedy, slimy center of her second pumpkin of the afternoon, the situation could be worse. With five people slaving away at the task, it would only take a couple of hours.
    And Buck looked so happy. He reminisced as he hacked away at one hapless jack-o’-lantern after another. It was, “Remember the year we…” and “I’ll never forget that time when…”
    B.J. found herself watching him, feeling something that could only be called fondness. And then he would look up and meet her eyes. They would share a smile….
    Okay, all right. This was risky behavior. He could get the wrong idea altogether.
    But then she would picture him—a wild teenager, naked in the Pizza Parlor, drunk as the proverbial skunk. And she’d wonder why he’d never told her about that when they were lovers, wonder why he’d never told her what a wild kid he’d been….
    And then Glory would catch her eye and give her the smile of a true co-conspirator. B.J. would grin back, warm all over with that new sensation of woman-to-woman bondy-ness.
    It was nice. A good time.
    Well, except for Bowie. The guy had a terminal case of the sulks. And he didn’t seem to care much for Glory and B.J. sharing looks. The first time they grinned at each other, he scowled—B.J. saw him do it out of the corner of her eye. The second time, he grunted. A disgusted sound.
    The third time, Bowie threw down his carving knife—splat—into a mound of fresh-scooped pumpkin guts. “Okay, Glory. What the hell’s going on? You won’t give me the time of day, but all of a sudden you and Buck’s girl are best friends?”
    â€œWhat?” Glory stabbed her knife into the side of her pumpkin. It quivered there and then went still. “Now, you don’t want me to have any friends? ”
    â€œAhem,” B.J. ventured gingerly, thinking she really ought to clarify. “I am not Buck’s girl.”
    â€œShe might be, soon, though,” Buck put in, teasingly.
    B.J. opened her mouth to set Buck straight, but before she could get the words out, Bowie started shouting. “Stay out of this, Miss New York Frickin’ City. It’s got nothin’ to do with you.”
    â€œHey!” cried Chastity.
    â€œBowie.” Buck wasn’t teasing now. “Cut that out.”
    Glory waded in, brown eyes blazing. “Yeah. You leave her alone, you big jerk.”
    Bowie lunged to his feet and loomed over Glory. “Oh, so now I’m a jerk, am I?”
    â€œYeah. Yeah, you are. A big, mean, sulky, blabber-mouthed, unemployed jerk.”
    â€œWhy, you little—”
    â€œBowie!” Buck and Chastity shouted in unison.
    That shut Bowie up—for a second or two, during which he fisted his hands at his sides, stepped back and then forward, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. At last he spoke again, more quietly this time. “I did the right thing. You know I did.”
    â€œWrong,” cried Glory. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
    â€œEverybody was going to know eventually, anyway.”
    â€œThat’s no excuse and you know it’s not.”
    â€œWhy won’t you just—?”
    She waved him off with a pumpkin-gooey hand. “Leave me alone. I mean it. I’m through with you.”
    â€œBut you