“His name is Noah. And Yeti’s a dog, not a wolf.”
Victoria’s voice was softer when she spoke again, but infinitely more deadly. “I can tell that you care about him, you know. It’s obvious when you watch the video. The way you looked at him. The way he looked at you.”
“Noah and I are simply business associates,” I reassured her. “The only reason we’re even working together is because it was your idea to make authentic Colorado adventure content.”
“Mmm-hmm. If you say so, Samantha. But just in case saving your own ass isn’t enough motivation, let me be clear. Ifyou fail to deliver, Noah’s little Adventure Center goes bye-bye forever.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A threat? No, Samantha. It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”
The osprey’s dark eyes flashed in my memory, followed by the image of Noah’s face when he’d talked about his parents building the center from nothing.
“I expect you to get back on message starting tomorrow. No more wildlife rescues, no more local festival coverage, unless it somehow involves booking a deluxe spa package at my resort. I want authentic local content, but I want luxurious authentic.”
“Luxurious authentic?” Was that even a thing?
“Aspirational authentic,” said Victoria. “Expensiveauthentic.”
“Yes, Ms. Sterling.”
“You’ll send Marcus all drafts of your posts before they go live going forward.”
“But …”
“No more surprises.” The line went dead before I could respond.
I tossed my phone aside and stared at the paused video of the osprey rescue on my laptop, the freeze-frame capturing the exact moment Noah and I locked eyes after the osprey was safe.
“Grab-ass?” I watched the video again. Clearly, no asses were being grabbed.Where did Victoria even come up with that nonsense?But there was something in the look in both of our eyes. Relief. Accomplishment. A connection that no filter or caption could ever reproduce.
My laptop pinged with another notification. Parker was calling.
With a sigh, I accepted. His face appeared on the screen, hair sticking up like he’d been pulling at it for days.
“Finally!” He looked both frantic and exhilarated. “Have you seen what’s happening? The osprey video is blowing up! It’s getting picked up everywhere. News outlets, conservation groups, even National Geographic just shared it!”
“Victoria’s furious,” I said, cutting his enthusiasm off at the knees.
“She is?” Parker scrunched up his face. “But Sam, this is huge. The numbers are off the charts. And people are feeling things. Like genuine things. Like you’re actually making a difference kinds of things. Isn’t that pretty amazing?”
I glanced back at the video. “Yeah. It is. It’s just too bad the person paying my bills doesn’t think so.”
“So what’s the plan then?” asked Parker. “How are we spinning this?”
I flopped back on the bed, my mind spinning instead.
“Victoria wants me to bury this, to return to posting filtered photos of infinity pools and champagne flutes against mountain backdrops.”
The safe, sterile version of Colorado that would drive people to book rooms at LuxeLife. But there was another Colorado. The one with huckleberry muffins and fiddle music and people who rescued ospreys without thinking of how it would play on social media. The one where every vendor knew every other vendor by name, and Girl Scouts built wheelchair ramps so everyone could enjoy the view.
“Sam?” Parker’s voice pulled me back to reality.
Victoria’s warning played back in my head.If you fail to deliver, Noah’s little Adventure Center goes bye-bye forever.
“Sam? What do you want to do?” Parker asked again.
I thought long and hard. It was decision time. Keep playing grab-ass, as Victoria put it, with a sexy mountain man who made me feel like I was alive, or do the job I was hired to do,saving Noah’s job as well as my own. In the end, there was really only one choice to make.
