Chapter Thirteen
On Wednesday night, Whitney agreed to go bowling with Josh. She’d never bowled a day in her life, but she was game to try anything new—as long as it involved Josh. Especially sex, but he was still in the courtship phase—or so he’d told her after the festival Saturday night, when they’d been making out in his pickup, and she would have gladly lifted her short skirt for him right on the bench.
God, he was frustrating—and she’d never wanted a man more. He’d wooed her with carnival food, then cruelly ignored her true desires, even when she worked her best kissing techniques on him.
No man had ever said no to her before Josh, and she was starting to feel the tiniest crack of insecurity—which she immediately pushed aside.
At the bowling alley on Sixth and Clara, she was rather shocked to find out you still had to rent shoes.
“I’ll go buy my own,” she told him, wincing.
Josh just laughed. “They spray ’em, don’t worry.”
She grimaced and held the shoes gingerly while she followed him toward their lane. While she was putting them on, she heard the first feminine, “Yoo-hoo, Josh!” and sighed, thinking that this fame had better sell a lot of necklaces and shoulder bags. It was even starting to get on her nerves.
Or maybe she was just jealous and wanted Josh all to herself.
“Josh, you naughty boy,” the woman said, her voice sounding titillated and amused.
Curious in spite of herself, Whitney straightened to see a middle-aged black woman, her motherly smile directed at Josh. She wore a bowling shirt touting the Halftime Sports Bar, and there were several women in the next lane that matched her, including identical expressions of glee.
Josh looked bemused as he turned to Whitney. “Whitney Winslow, this is Gloria Valik, Monica’s aunt and Nate’s secretary. She’s going to tell me how I’ve become naughty and not just famous.”
Gloria put her hands on her hips. “Fame brings out the worst in reporters, that’s true. So you haven’t seen the National Intruder today?”
“Not my usual paper,” he said dryly.
“You’re featured, but you might not like it.”
She went to her lane, leaving Whitney and Josh to exchange uneasy glances. Gloria returned and laid out the paper on their table. Whitney couldn’t help her intake of breath. The picture was a night scene, very grainy and almost out of focus, but she could see the naked backside of a dark-haired man jumping out of a hotel fountain. The headline read: COWBOY ARTIST HAS RACY PAST.
“They can’t get away with lying about you like this,” Whitney said briskly. “I’ll talk to my lawyer.”
“No point, because it’s not a lie.”
She almost gaped at Josh, and he gave her a shrug, his expression amused and resigned at the same time.
“It was on a snowboarding trip in Sun Valley. We got a little drunk and dared each other to run through the snow from the hot tub to the fountain and back. Some of the girls we were with took photos. Guess one of them needed a little cash.”
“Are there more to be sold—speaking as your agent?” Whitney asked with exasperation.
“Only more of those. I can’t remember another trip where things got so out of hand.”
Gloria glanced at Whitney. “The operative words being that he can’t remember.”
Whitney sighed. “Okay, you were young and stupid. Guess there’s no harm done. There’s far worse you could have done to harm your reputation.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “Now that’s an understanding girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” she echoed, feeling the faintest bit uneasy but dismissing it. “I wouldn’t call me that since you keep telling me we haven’t had our big date yet. And now you’ve proven you can’t keep your clothes on.”
Gloria gave Josh’s shoulder a little push. “Not sure you’re boyfriend material after that, Josh Thalberg. You better watch yourself.” And she sauntered off to join the rest of her team, who all had a good laugh at whatever she said.
Whitney shrugged out from under his arm, then looked up at the electronic scoreboard. “Do you know how to set this thing?”
He studied her almost warily, and Whitney was satisfied. No point in being predictable. He was just explaining the way to score in bowling, when they heard a man’s voice say, “I bet you think that photo is funny.”
They turned around, and Whitney’s cheerfulness took a hit. Frowning at them was Sylvester Galimi, owner of the True Grits Diner and last winter’s leader of the opposition to Leather and Lace on the grounds of “pornography.” The man was in his sixties, with curly gray hair, and glasses perched on a prominent nose. Instead of his usual tasteful suit, he, too, was wearing a bowling shirt, this one advertising his diner.
Josh smiled. “Hi, Sylvester. Is your team winning?”
Sylvester’s sister, the mayor of Valentine Valley, in her matching bowling shirt with her white hair styled short, gave them an apologetic and pained smile. “Really, Sylvester, is this necessary?”
He shrugged her off. “I told you she and her store would be a bad influence.”
“I haven’t even opened it yet,” Whitney pointed out.
“And yet already people associated with you have appeared nude—nude!—in a national newspaper.”
“Not sure you can call the Intruder a newspaper, Sylvester,” Josh said, “but let me point out that this photo is five years old. I was reckless and drunk without Whitney’s help.”
“Your disgraceful foolishness would have stayed hidden if she hadn’t talked you into posing for that Aspen boutique.”
Whitney opened her mouth, but when Josh touched her arm, she stayed silent.
“No one had to talk me into anything,” Josh said with patience. “And if I’d had any idea how far this would spread, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But it’s done now, and hopefully this”—he jabbed a finger at the paper—“is the last of it.”
Sylvester gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes, and his voice became pleading. “Josh, don’t you see she’s trying to get you to make a name for yourself the same way she did?”
Whitney gave an involuntary flinch, but she couldn’t be surprised that he’d finally Googled her name. She bet he was kicking himself over not discovering her Whitney Wild persona when they faced off in front of the town council. And now Josh would know, but she didn’t regret that either. He should know everything about her if they were going to keep seeing each other.
“Make his name the same way I did?” Whitney said. “Sylvester, even you have to agree that jumping into a fountain is a pretty tame stunt. I certainly have him beat.”
Sylvester briefly put a hand to his eyes. “It’s not a competition. I just want what’s best for Valentine. Leather and Lace is just encouraging the wrong element.”
“You mean women?” Whitney said coolly. “Uppity women who should only wear what their men tell them to?”
“Okay,” Mayor Galimi said heartily. “You’re up, Sylvester, and if you cause me to lose this match, you’ll regret it.”
“Go on, Sylvester,” Josh said, still smiling, though he spoke between clenched teeth. “Try to remember that everyone has stuff in their past they regret—you’re just lucky to be too old to be Googled. But I bet my grandma might know a thing or two.”
His face reddening, Sylvester marched to the next lane, where he hefted his bowling ball and tossed it down the lane without lining it up. His entire team groaned, some flinging up their hands.
Mayor Galimi, still by their lane, shook her head, then gave Whitney a conspiratorial smile. “Love your new fall line.”
Whitney’s tension eased. “Thanks.” When they were alone, she said to Josh, “I should probably explain Sylvester’s reference to my past.”
Josh sat on the edge of the table and took both her hands. “You don’t need to. I hope you don’t mind, but after you talked so much about the price of fame, I searched for you myself.”
She squeezed his hands. “Of course I don’t mind. I’m surprised no one dug deeply last winter.” But part of her wished he’d brought it up right away. She was surprised by the touch of hurt, especially about her past. She’d thought herself beyond that—why was he able to make her feel things she’d thought herself beyond feeling?
“You were very young,” he began.
“Stop, Josh, I wasn’t sixteen. My bad behavior started at twenty-two, when I graduated summa cum laude from college and my father still wouldn’t allow me to work for the company.”
He winced. “We shouldn’t have this conversation here. Let’s go talk privately.”
She looked around the bowling alley, at the people all having fun cheering for or against each other. “No, really, it’s okay. I’ve long since come to terms with it. The Winslow women always go into the charity arm of W.E. Of course I didn’t know that until my father told me point-blank when I was a teenager.”
“It’s a hard thing to hear that your work isn’t wanted,” he murmured, pulling her closer to rub her arms gently.
“That’s how my father is, no-nonsense, when he isn’t detached. Of course, I should have had no problem understanding how things were. I thought I could be so gifted and brilliant that he’d have to change his mind, but I was wrong. So… I went a little wild. Whitney Wild, if you didn’t catch that cute nickname.”
He gave a faint smile. “I caught it.”
“That’s what someone wrote in front of my building last week, ‘Go Back to SF, Whitney Wild.’ A command and a jab at my past all in one.”
“You didn’t tell me they’d mentioned your past.”
She shrugged. “I’m sure all the photos online showed you my entire year of partying and men and spending sprees.”
“What was your parents’ reaction?”
“You’re far too perceptive,” she said ruefully. “I not only thought ‘I’ll show them,’ but I wanted their attention. I wanted them to know they couldn’t take me for granted anymore. Attention was something my parents weren’t good at giving.”
“Which is why you went to boarding school.”
“Bingo,” she said, pointing at him. “But to my surprise, they really didn’t care about how I acted out, like… they’d expected it or something. After all, the kids of their rich friends did the same thing. All right, I didn’t get into drugs or commit crimes, but still…”
“You could have gotten into serious trouble. Or one of the men you dated—”
“No, don’t go there. I was very careful with men, and only chose the ones I could control. And I made them glad I chose them.”
She heard the faint bitterness in her voice, and this time, Josh said nothing. She was relieved because she didn’t want to explain about her men or her motives.
“And then came the underwear shot—I’m sure you saw it,” she added with amusement.
“Well, yes…”
She thought he looked a little embarrassed, but she didn’t call him on it. She could have kissed him then, even though all around them, people shouted or groaned as they sent their balls down the lane, and pins smacked each other as they scattered.
Josh controlled himself because he was experiencing the rare feeling of wanting to punch someone. He hated that Whitney had been neglected and ignored by her oblivious parents, that she’d wanted desperately to be a part of the family business—a part of the family—and no one had cared. He couldn’t imagine his family not supporting him in anything he wanted to do.
Of course, maybe now his family was being too polite, now that his fame in leather tooling was threatening to take over his life.
“The papparazzi called me Whitney Wild, and the name just stuck. And when I stupidly got out of the limousine and exposed too much, well, it made me famous—but I bet not to hardworking cowboys like you.”
“I don’t exactly make time to read that gossip stuff,” he admitted.
“You have your own life, and don’t need to know every salacious detail of others’. But I can’t regret the publicity. That’s when the company contacted me about naming an exclusive underwear line ‘Whitney.’ I almost didn’t do it—and I certainly refused to model for it—but I couldn’t help being intrigued since I’d been a business major. And, of course, I was still trying to get my family’s attention,” she added, smiling. “So I said yes. As long as I received stock in the company itself. It went well, and eventually I was managing the small company for the owner. I bought him out and changed the name to Leather and Lace.”
“And you succeeded.”
“I became the businesswoman I’d always meant to be. My parents treated my store as if it were just another rebellion I’d grow out of. Although it may have started as a rebellion, it became anything but, to me. Now I’m dedicated to watching it grow in the US, and to expand it into international markets.”
She’d said that the first night she’d returned, but now it made even more of an impact. She had the world to conquer—why would she care about a small-time cowboy? Cowboy artist, he amended to himself with faint sarcasm.
“You must be proud of yourself,” he said, cupping her cheek briefly.
She smiled at him. “I am. And I’m proud of the journey, too. Yeah, sometimes I wish Whitney Wild would fade away, but how can I regret what she led to?”
He thought of “Whitney Wild,” remembered how uncomfortably aroused he’d been by every picture, the sly, sexy way she had of playing up to the cameras, the way the men on her arm had worshipped her with their eyes, showed their possession of her. Their brief possession. None of them had held the wild young woman, and from everything she’d told him, no man had held her affection since.
But he didn’t want to be one of the men she eventually left behind. Somehow, he would find a way to make her see that she could change her life once again, and it could be better than she’d ever imagined.
“Hey, you two haven’t even set up the scoreboard,” Will Sweet called as he approached them, followed by Dom Shaw.
Whitney whispered, “Do you and your friends do everything together?”
Smiling, Josh turned his head but didn’t let go of Whitney’s hand as he spoke to Will. “Some things are more important than bowling.”
“Like that new article,” Dom said. He picked the paper up from the table.
Will grinned. “Man, I think I’m famous.”
Whitney leaned over Will’s arm to scrutinize the tabloid again. “You? All I see is Josh’s moon over the fountain.”
“I’m still in the fountain. See that light-haired guy? That’s me.”
He spoke a little louder than was necessary, and Josh saw more than one woman turn his way.
“Are you actually bragging about being publicly nude in a freezing hotel fountain?” called Carmen Suarez from the lane on their other side.
“I got nothin’ to hide,” Will said, genially spreading his arms wide.
“I gotta see this.”
Carmen and her other girlfriend came over to see the paper, and Will and Dom met them halfway.
“I’ve met her before, haven’t I?” Whitney asked in a low voice.
“She’s a manager at the Hotel Colorado. Remember, I was meeting a fan in the lobby?”
“Right.”
Josh couldn’t quite hear what Will and Carmen said over the sound of the balls rolling and striking the pins, but he could see Will pointing to his hair, then to the picture.
Whitney leaned on the table next to Josh. “Was that really him in the fountain with you?”
“It was,” Josh answered, smiling.
“Who led who into trouble?”
Josh put his arm around her waist. “Which answer would get me your attention?”
“The truth, of course.”
“Then sadly, it was me who drank too much and dared him. When he did it, I had to do it, too…”
“All for the amusement of your various girlfriends?”
“Our apparently greedy girlfriends,” he said, glancing at Will and the paper again.
She turned serious. “Will this hurt you somehow?”
“Naw, why should it?”
“I’d hate to think this all came out because I dared you to pose for Geneva Iacuzzi.”
“I’ll never regret giving us something in common.”
She laughed and kissed him lightly. “So back to bowling. What do I need to know?”
For the next couple hours, he taught her how to bowl, putting up with Will and his outrageous play for women. Chris, Nate, and Adam eventually showed up, and at one point, someone went to take a picture of the whole group. Josh couldn’t help noticing that Whitney ducked out of the photo, but he didn’t say anything about it. He couldn’t decide if she didn’t want any more publicity—or didn’t want to be seen having small-town fun.