Beth Cornelison – Colton's Ranch Refuge (страница 3)

“OMG! You’re Violet Chastain!” the girl gushed. “I love your movies!”

“Smooth, Piper,” the boy said. “Try not to drool on her.”

Derek thumped his younger brother lightly on the shoulder, then introduced the kids to Violet and the rest of the assembled movie crew.

“Nice to meet you, Sawyer, Piper.” Violet and the other crew members shook their hands.

“You’re back early,” Derek called to the man who’d been driving the SUV.

The brawny man bringing up the rear met her gaze, and an unexpected tremor stirred deep inside her. Whether her gut reaction was good or bad, Violet couldn’t say. Derek Colton’s brother could have been responding to a casting call for a nightclub bouncer … if the producers were looking for someone who oozed sex appeal along with his intimidating glower. He stalked toward the assembled group with his stubbled jaw set, his broad shoulders squared and his sexy lips pulled in a taut frown.

Violet tore her gaze away from the brooding man and gave herself a mental shake. Why was she noticing the guy’s lips? She never paid attention to a man’s mouth unless he was playing opposite her in a scene and she was expected to kiss him. The odds that she’d ever kiss this scowling linebacker were so slim as to be laughable.

As the dangerously good-looking Colton brother approached like a brewing tempest, Violet had to call on all her cool reserves, the practiced composure she drew from when facing a horde of merciless paparazzi, to not take a step back when he stormed up.

“We decided to skip lunch,” he told his brother, then sent a suspicious look around the group. “What’s going on?”

“Gunnar, this is Mac Gremble, the director of Wrongfully Accused, the movie that’s filming in the area. They’re scouting the ranch to use in a few scenes.”

Mac shook the bouncer wannabe’s hand. Then Derek turned to her.

“And I guess I don’t have to tell you who this is.”

The older Colton brother’s hazel gaze slid to her. “Only because Piper just told me.” Though he offered his hand in greeting, he didn’t smile, and Violet’s mouth dried when his large fingers swallowed hers in a tight grip.

She forced a polite smile. “Not a fan of the movies … Gunnar, is it?”

“I just don’t follow Hollywood hype.” He dropped her hand and shoved his fingers in the pockets of his jeans. “That and I’ve been out of the country until about six months ago.”

“Oh?” Violet tipped her head. “Where? Europe? Japan?”

His gaze narrowed. “Afghanistan.” His tone was grave and held a note of challenge, as if he dared her to comment on his military status. Though startled by his gruff attitude, she opened her mouth to thank him for his service to the country but didn’t get the chance before he aimed a thumb at her bus. “That your behemoth?”

Violet cut a quick glance to Mac and Dr. Colton, uncertain what to make of Gunnar’s rudeness. “It’s my dressing room when we’re on location and my—”

“Well, your dressing room is blocking the road to my cabin. You’ll have to move it.”

Violet took umbrage with his hostile tone and straightened her spine, lifted her chin. She refused to let him bully her without cause.

“Gunnar,” Derek growled. “What’s your problem?”

“No, no.” Violet raised a hand to intercede. “He’s right. My bus is blocking the driveway, and I’d be happy to have my driver move it.”

Gunnar arched a dark eyebrow, his scowl fixed on her. “Good.” He pivoted to walk away.

“If—”

He stopped and faced her, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

Nervous energy pumped through her, the kind of jitters she used to get before taking the stage or filming a difficult scene. Pressing a hand to the flutter in her belly, she met Gunnar’s gaze with dredged up courage. “If you’ll ask me.” She paused to swallow. “Nicely.”

Big brother Colton blinked his surprise and cocked his head as if uncertain he’d heard her correctly.

Gunnar’s siblings chuckled, and Mac shifted his feet uneasily, probably worried about PR or something that Violet no longer cared about. Why should she care what the public thought of her if they gave so little disregard to her feelings, her needs? The speculation and insinuations that filled the media coverage after Adam’s death still stung, and the invasion of her privacy while she was grieving infuriated her.

After glaring at her for a moment, Gunnar turned to Derek and huffed an impatient sigh. “When I got home in May, all I asked was that I be given privacy and quiet. Is it so much to ask that my home be a refuge while I decompress from the crap I had to deal with in Afghanistan?”

Decompress? Violet found his choice of words intriguing. If Gunnar was still wound tight because of his war experiences, no wonder he was acting like such an ogre.

“No, it’s not,” Derek returned, his expression calm.

“Yet you’ve invited a horde of strangers to bring their cameras and lights and dressing rooms—” he cut a meaningful glance at Violet “—onto the ranch for who knows how long. Hardly my idea of rest or privacy, Derek.”

“Which is why I’ve told Mr. Gremble that your cabin and the woods around it are off-limits. Any filming they do will be in and around the main house.” When Piper drew an excited breath, her eyes widening, Derek aimed a finger at her. “You have to promise to stay out of their way and respect the confidentiality agreement. You can’t tell anyone they are filming here. We don’t want the media or rubberneckers milling around here.”

“I can’t even tell my friends?” Piper asked, aghast. “But—”

“Not even your friends,” Derek said.

“Especially not your friends,” Sawyer added. “Talk about gossip central. TMZ has nothing on Tiffany and Amber.”

Piper glared at Sawyer. “Shut up, twerp.”

“You shut up, Amazon.”

Groaning, Derek scrubbed both hands over his face.

Gunnar grabbed Sawyer by the back of the coat and pulled him away from Piper. “Both of you give it a rest. Why do you have to antagonize each other all the time? Sheesh.”

Violet flashed a lopsided grin. “So … is this what I have to look forward to?”

“I promise you they’re not always this bad,” Derek said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean them.” Violet waved her hands in denial. “I meant when my boys get older.”

“You have kids?” Gunnar asked in a tone that said he found it difficult to believe.

Violet faced him again, bemused by his attitude. “Eighteen-month-old twins. They’re with their nanny … in my dressing room.”

She shot him a look that dared him to comment on that fact.

Gunnar sent her an annoyed look. “Your kids are here?”

“Yes. In the bus, napping.”

“With a nanny.”

“Yeaaahhh,” she said drawing out the word, warily. “Where else would they be while I’m working?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe with their father? Or don’t you Hollywood types believe in raising your own children?” Gunnar crossed his arms over his chest and sent her a condescending look she itched to slap off his smug face.

Violet gaped at him, too stunned to answer right away. The reference to Adam landed a punch in her stomach and sucked the air from her lungs.

“Um, Gunnar … helloooo?” Piper said. “Sawyer and I have a nanny.”

He shot his sister a quelling look. “That’s different.”

“How?” Piper returned.

“It just is.”

Mac stepped into the breach, shouldering in between her and the loutish Colton. “Look, pal, I don’t know what your beef is, but if you—”

Violet grabbed Mac’s sleeve, and shaking herself from her momentary daze, she shoved her director out of the way. Planting herself toe-to-toe with Gunnar, she met his gaze with a steely glare. Even standing as tall as she could, he dwarfed her by over a foot, but she refused to let his size or his gruff manner intimidate her. “My husband is dead, you oaf! Not that you’d know that since you don’t keep up with ‘Hollywood hype.’“

She poked him in his broad, rock-hard chest. “And while I’m on location, I keep my children near me, in my dressing room, because there is nothing, nothing more important to me than my boys. I want to be a part of their lives and involved in raising them as much as possible with my filming schedule.” Fisting her hands at her sides, she raised up on her toes and stuck her face as close to his as she could. “Or don’t you military types believe in women having a career and earning an income to feed her family?”

Around them no one moved, and the only sounds Violet could hear were the pounding pulse in her ears and her own angry breaths sawing from her lungs. Gunnar’s hazel eyes bore into hers, unflinching, piercing, until her belly quivered with that disturbing energy again.

Finally he unfolded his arms and clapped slowly, mockingly. “Bravo, Ms. Chastain. You are very convincing as the offended and protective young mother. Oscar-worthy performance, for sure.”

Violet knocked his hands out of the way and crowded so close to him that her body bumped his muscled torso and sparks skittered through her veins. “You’re an ass, Gunnar Colton.”

He simply lifted a corner of his mouth in an aggravating grin and said in a cloyingly sweet tone, “Thanks, Tinkerbell. Now would you pretty please move your oversize dressing room from my driveway, so I can get to my cabin?”

Tinkerbell?

Violet held her ground, chewing the inside of her cheek and deciding her best response. This close to him, his body heat and pine scent surrounded her, teasing her senses, her ability to think going haywire.