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"Work your magic then, April. The guy is a big deal, and the way he disappeared after that injury had all the tabloids churning. Combining the house with his sudden discovery in this small town—and having it on our network—that will be huge."
I needed to talk him out of this, figure out how to convince him it was a bad idea. My brain clicked and whirred, but nothing came to me. Still, I had to try. "No, I don't think—"
"Make it happen, April. Your job depends on it." With that friendly sign off, Rob hung up.
"Shit," I whispered, staring at my phone. There was no way Callan would agree. And now my uncle had put me in an impossible situation. I knew how much Callan valued his newfound privacy. How could I even ask him to sacrifice it just to save my job? "Shit," I said again, stuffing my phone into my pocket. What the hell was I going to do now?
I wandered back into the living room, guilt circling me, threatening to pounce on me, hold me down. I already knew what Callan would say. There was no point even asking him.
"Hey," he said as I drew closer to the couch where he still sat reading. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah," I said. "Work stuff."
"You hungry?" he asked, pushing off the throw to stand. He drew himself to his full height and then stretched, pushing his arms far over his head, causing his long-sleeved T-shirt to lift slightly at the waist. My eyes dropped to the tanned firm skin exposed there before sliding back up to his face.
"Yeah," I said.
"I'll make something. Do you like shrimp?"
I nodded, feeling like every word out of his mouth was designed to emphasize how perfect he was, how precious this thing I’d found with him was—how much I’d do to keep it.
The rest of the evening was like that—Callan being amazing, and me worrying that I was carrying the grenade that would blow everything we had into pieces. The question was, should I pull the pin?
* * *
The Wentworth Cottage was adorable. It might as well have been made out of gingerbread, or maybe featured in a fairy tale. It had little red and white awnings over the big front windows, a shingled roof that curved at the edges, and a white picket fence strung with a garland. The couple who lived there were equally adorable, and they greeted me and the camera crew eagerly at the front door.
Mr. Wentworth was an unassuming little man, balding with glasses and wearing a green cardigan sweater with a large candy cane stitched across the left side. "I wore my favorite holiday sweater for this," he said, taking my hand and smiling broadly.
To me, this indicated that this man had more than one hideous sweater to choose from for occasions like this one, and a small giggle escaped my lips. "It's perfect."
"The other ones were probably too raunchy for this crowd," Mrs. Wentworth chimed in, her grey helmet of curls not moving as she tittered behind her hand at her statement. Now my mind was turning over ideas, trying to figure out how a holiday sweater might be raunchy.
"This one is merely phallic," Mr. Wentworth pointed out, raising his hand to make sure I saw the long shaft of the candy cane.
"Right," I said, wishing I didn't blush quite so easily. Was this little old couple actually talking about how a candy cane looked like a penis? I had to be reading too much into things, I decided. "Well, it's nice to see you again. Thanks for allowing us to film today."
I had met the Wentworths when I’d first arrived and had done my initial home visits, and all had seemed perfectly normal then—no references to penises or candy canes. I had been a little distracted then, of course, but I reassured myself knowing all was in order. "We'll do the filming just as we did the walkthrough before," I told them. "So feel free to stay close, or you can head off and ignore us until we're done."
"Want to run to the pantry for a quickie, Mabel?" Mr. Wentworth asked his wife, his face splitting into a lascivious grin.
"Frances, we have a house full of people." She swatted his shoulder.
"The risk of getting caught just makes you hot and you know it." He threw an arm over her shoulder, pulling her into his side, and then I swallowed my surprise as his hand dropped low and gave Mrs. Wentworth's breast a hearty squeeze. A loud sudden cough erupted over my shoulder, and I turned to see one of the cameramen doubled over. Clearly he'd heard and seen this, and was trying to get control of himself.
"Ah, okay then," I said, dropping my gaze down to my clipboard as I tried to avoid making any more statements that might give Mr. Wentworth a chance to say inappropriate things. Where was this coming from?
"We'll start in the living room by the tree," I said, mostly for the cameramen, who immediately swept past me to set up. I followed them, not wanting to get in the way, but continued reading aloud. "And then into the kitchen, followed by the sunroom at the back of the house, and finally the guest room."
"Um." A loud noise of concern came from Sean, one of the cameramen. "Was this here when you did your walkthrough?"
I looked up from my clipboard to see what Sean was looking at, just as the Wentworths trundled past me.
"The bolt is off the threads," Mr. Wentworth said. "And it's just plain stuck. I was up on the ladder all morning trying to get that down for you, but finally, I just plum gave up."
"I hung the garland on it though," Mrs. Wentworth said. "To make it blend in better to the theme."
I gazed at the contraption hanging in the center of the room, draped with a Christmassy garland. There was no way this had been here before. No level of distraction would have caused me to miss the leather and wood contraption swinging from the ceiling. The Wentworths were standing next to it, regarding it the way you might look at a cake that didn't turn out quite right, but which you would still be offering your guests.
