Asking For It (9 page)

Snarling, she reached across to close the passenger side door, set her pedal to the metal, and roared away, spraying Griffith with road gravel.

Spitting sand, he turned around to find a tall, thin boy watching. Griffith straightened, gave a brush to his T-shirt, and endeavored to look dignified. "Having a good time?" he asked. "Enjoying the show?"

The boy continued to look at Griffith. His hair was very dark, and long enough to brush his shoulders. His clothes hung long and loose, as if they'd been handed down from an older, larger relative. His eyes, nearly dark enough to be black, glittered with a sardonic amusement far beyond what a child should own.

"You want to leave?" the boy asked.

Griffith blinked and paused. "You know the way?" Hell, it hadn't occurred to him to query any of the
campers
.

Looking even more amused, the boy inclined his head.

Hopeful as he was, Griffith held onto enough common sense to question this. "It's not an easy trail down."

"I know." The kid grinned. "But this is my fourth year here. Up and down. That's seven times so far. I can show you the way."

Griffith squinted. It was possible.

"I've
done
it," the boy went on, evidently smelling suspicion. "My first year I ran away. Got as far as Bert's place, too, before they found me."

Bert's place, Griffith recalled Kate telling him, was at the bottom of the hill. He regarded the child with renewed interest. "Well, then," he said, and started to smile. This could work. This could work nicely.

"I heard you offer Bill five hundred dollars," the boy said.

Griffith's smile faltered.

"I want a thousand," the boy declared.

"A thousand!" The kid was a total operator.

"You won't be able to find anyone else who'll take you," the boy pointed out, with an accuracy Griffith grimly acknowledged.

"You're just a kid." Griffith knew he was fighting a losing battle. "What, eleven years old?"

"Fourteen," the boy said, his smile freezing.

"Okay, fourteen." Going on forty. "Sorry. Still. What the hell do you need a thousand dollars for?"

The fourteen-year-old camper lifted his shoulder, his expression eerily hardened. "What do
you
need it for? Do we have a deal, or don't we?"

Griffith actually hesitated. Arnie had said some of the kids were
connected
. He didn't want to imagine what this fourteen-year-old might intend to do with a thousand dollars.

On the other hand, this might be his only chance.

"Fine," he told the kid. "A thousand dollars for taking me down the hill. We have a deal."

The smile on the boy's face widened. For a minute his pleased triumph made him look like an actual child. "Great. Tell you what. I'll take half now, half when we're at the bottom of the hill."

Griffith laughed. "I don't have any money now."

The boy's smile started to fade. "You don't?"

"Of course not. But as soon as I get to Sagebrush Valley City and my people come to pick me up, I can hand you the cash. How's that?"

The kid shook his head, his smile twisting into a smirk. "No way."

"Come on. You can trust me."

The boy gave Griffith a look that said he had to be kidding.

"All right, I'll make it five thousand, how's that?" It would be worth many times that for Griffith to make it out of there.

The boy started to back away, his smirk even more pronounced. "Five C's up front or no deal."

"Oh, come on. I'm good for it. I'm worth —
millions
."

The kid laughed.

He didn't believe Griffith, and Griffith, in his borrowed clothes and unshaved beard, had no idea how to prove himself.

"Ten thousand," he said, which was no doubt the least convincing thing he could have uttered.

The boy laughed even harder and ran away.

He'd have lunch, Griffith thought, and start over. Not having eaten since Tuesday, he couldn't think straight. In fact, his stomach was starting to hurt more than any of his bruises.

Campers were filing into the dining hall for the noon meal when he reached the main doors. He rubbed his belly in an attempt to quell the rude rumblings and followed everybody else inside.

He saw Kate at once, standing at the head of a table and shouting directions at somebody who was trying to sit down on the bench seat. He swiftly looked away. Getting into it again with her was not on his agenda.

Looking at her, just thinking about her, filled him with too much anger to deal with — and a thoroughly disgruntling hint of shame.

Griffith chose a seat at the very end of the table headed by José. The teenager gave him a pained look, but didn't say anything. Griffith started salivating when a platter of roast beef began making its way down the table. Yes, he definitely needed to eat.

The roast beef, which smelled more heavenly than anything Griffith had ever smelled, was just being handed to him by a rather stout boy when it was snatched up and lifted away.

"What?" Griffith's exclamation was outraged, but that was nothing compared to the jolt he got when he looked up to face the culprit. Kate was smirking down at him.

"Mr. Blaine," she purred. "I don't believe you're registered here as a camper."

"No," Griffith told her, silky smooth. "I don't believe I am, which makes it something of a mystery what I'm still doing here."

She ignored that jibe. Of course she did. Still holding the platter of aromatic roast beef, she said, "If you aren't a camper, then I'm afraid you'll have to pay for any meals you consume here."

At the end of the table, Griffith could hear José make a choking sound. Griffith kept his eyes on Kate. He'd been right to guess she had a stubborn streak. It seemed she had a suicidal bent as well. He was hungry enough to wrestle the devil himself for that roast beef.

"You know damn well I don't have any money."

Her smile widened. "Yes, I know. So I decided I'd let you work for your food."

Again, there was a choking sound from the head of the table. José was evidently enjoying the whole thing. Griffith, meanwhile, repressed his desire to jump off the bench and attack the female who was holding his roast beef. She was going beyond the bounds, way beyond them, so far beyond that he found himself getting interested. This was more than feminine pique. Just what was she up to?

Griffith crossed his arms over his chest to keep them from strangling her and asked, "What kind of work?"

Kate twisted so that the platter of meat was a few inches further away from Griffith. "It so happens I'm short one counselor."

Griffith stared at her.
That's
what this was all about? She needed some minimum-wage camp counselor? When he had a multi-million dollar business languishing back in L.A.? "You've got to be kidding."

She raised her eyebrows. "Do you want to eat?"

He met her eyes. Clear green, decisive eyes. She was short a counselor, probably
had
to have that extra counselor. And then he'd shown up like the early answer to a Christmas prayer. "No wonder you didn't call an ambulance for me," he said, musing.

She had the grace to blush. "So, do we have a deal?"

Griffith sighed. "For how long?"

She gave him a cool look. "Until the Wednesday after next, the twenty-fifth."

Griffith gawked. That was two weeks! The woman
had
to be kidding. He couldn't be gone that long. He had to make phone calls, resurrect the possibility of that big loan...get the engineers started on their final plans for the water's new channel.

And Kate Darby thought he should agree to play camp counselor for two weeks, all for the benefit of a few rag-tag kids?

Arms still crossed, stomach protesting, Griffith tapped the fingers of one hand on his upper arm. She was being outrageous. She had no right to ask him to put his life on hold for that long.

But on the other hand, right or wrong, she
could
. Griffith's every attempt at escape had been foiled. Indeed, she'd twisted him handily into her grasp ever since he'd stumbled into her dining hall. Her needed camp counselor.

In an odd way, Griffith had to admire the woman. She was doing whatever was necessary to keep the place running. If that meant entrapping a passing abducted businessman, so be it.

He couldn't have done a better job himself.

Not to mention, he could smell that roast beef.

"Do I really have a choice?" he asked dryly.

"You could always starve." She gave him a sweet smile.

Griffith almost laughed. Oh, she
was
good. "Give me that roast beef." As he beckoned, his stomach rejoiced. "You just hired yourself one bad-ass camp counselor."

She kept the plate out of his reach, frowning. "That kind of language isn't allowed."

Now Griffith did laugh. Without agreeing to the rule, he beckoned again. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and Kate had just turned herself from a chooser into a beggar. "Give the food here, Kate." He shot her a look that, judging by the expression on her face, she understood quite well.

Griffith smiled.

The balance of power had just shifted.

CHAPTER SIX

"Clever," Arnie told Kate.

He'd caught Kate's little interaction with Griffith at the beginning of lunch. Kate had known he would. Seemingly oblivious, Arnie saw everything. Now with a smug grin, he lumbered to a seat beside Kate on the long table bench, just as sherbet was being passed out for dessert.

"Very clever," he commended.

Kate blinked. She wasn't sure if she
had
been clever, or remarkably stupid. Yes, she had a counselor now, she didn't have to send any kids home, but she also had that man underfoot...bothering her.

"I'm not gonna ask for specifics." Arnie reached for a bowl of orange sherbet. "But I take it Griffith Blaine is now our third adult counselor?"

Kate rubbed her fingers over the stem of her dessert spoon. "He agreed to take the job, yes." But she couldn't say she'd liked the smile he'd given her on his acceptance of employment. Sinister would be putting it mildly.

Arnie barked a laugh. "Good work, sister."

Had it been? Kate bit her lower lip and looked over the hall of talking, eating boys. Griffith's one eye was watching her. There was a knowing smirk on his lips.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun." Arnie dug into his sherbet. "Yep. Very entertaining."

Kate shot him a glance. "Oh, yes, very entertaining...if we don't get sued, or put in jail."

Arnie laughed again. He did not appear to suffer from fear of bankruptcy or incarceration. Of course,
he
hadn't refused to let Griffith use his telephone.
He
hadn't refused to feed Griffith unless he'd taken the job.

"I doubt that'll happen." Arnie stuck his spoon in the sherbet again. "But I think...things could get mighty interesting around here."

Kate kept frowning at Griffith, who was still smirking. "Interesting?"

Arnie inclined his head.

It took Kate a minute, a long, bewildered minute, before she got it. Then she grinned. "Oh. Ha! You aren't imagining I could be
attracted
to that man."

Arnie simply smiled.

A rude noise came out of Kate's mouth. "Right. Of all men in the world, I'd be attracted to one who reminds me of Eric?"

Arnie's eyebrows jumped. "He does?" Licking the sherbet off his spoon, Arnie turned briefly toward José's table, then shook his head. "Nah, I don't see it. Griffith Blaine doesn't look like a two-bit embezzler."

"Eric wasn't two-bit," Kate reminded her friend. "It was over a hundred grand he ripped off his Harley dealership." Yes, and he'd involved her barely eighteen-year-old younger brother in the process.

Or perhaps it was more accurate to say
she'd
involved her brother. She'd been the one who thought to ask her handsome, attentive boyfriend if he'd be willing to give her brother a job. Her brother, who she'd admitted was an utter screw-up. In effect, she'd told a busy embezzler that her vulnerable younger brother was available as an accomplice. And she'd done so believing she was being constructive. Helpful.

She'd been as horrified and shocked as her honest, hard-working parents when, six months later, their little Johnny got caught in the big arrest. They were still absorbing the shock of that when Johnny tried to escape from a sheriff's bus. He was shot in the back and killed.

Now Arnie was watching Kate, his gaze shrewd. "You're still blaming yourself for that whole fiasco, aren't you?"

Kate lifted a shoulder. Who else was she to blame? She'd practically handed her brother to Eric on a silver platter. She'd been blind, under the spell of 'romance.' Since Eric, eleven years ago, she hadn't come close to falling under that spell again.

Her life had shifted onto an altogether different track. After the disaster, she'd reeled back to ponder what could possibly make her feel better about her part in the tragedy. Eventually she'd hit on the idea for this camp. Renouncing the luxury of graduate school, she'd jumped right in to the 'business' world, learning on the job how to write grants, find funding, and eventually create the kind of place that could help boys like Johnny, boys who for some reason had difficulty viewing themselves as achievers. She wanted them all to be able to imagine their true potential.