A Family Under The Stars. Christy Jeffries

issue will completely tank.”

      Child care issues? So the woman had kids, but no wedding ring? Not that it was any of Alex’s business, he told himself as he rocked back on his heels. He didn’t mind making small talk with the customers, but he rarely found himself curious about anything beyond their skill level and whether he’d need to keep them from getting killed while participating in an extreme sport they shouldn’t be doing in the first place. It was only the unusualness of the situation that had him wondering why a lady as beautiful as Charlotte Folsom was single. In his experience, it usually meant that the woman was too much of a pain for any man to deal with.

      Again, not his business. What was his business was Russell’s Sports and how to turn a better profit this year. Thanks to Commodore’s refusal to book a corporate retreat last year and some bad online reviews of his grandfather’s customer service, the company’s savings account was at an all-time low.

      Last week, his father had mentioned something about a San Francisco–based magazine booking them for some sort of photo shoot. Having no interest in any publication that didn’t contain ads for Bass Pro Shops or Cabela’s, Alex had just chalked the whole thing up to some travel article that might garner them some free publicity. Suddenly, this was sounding like more than he’d bargained for.

      “Wait, back up.” He ran a hand over his face, his palm scratching against the dark-brown stubble on his chin. “What’s the point of going through all the effort of staging a photo shoot if the model is the only person who showed up?”

      Miss Folsom slid her oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses off and Alex found himself looking into eyes that weren’t quite purple, but weren’t quite blue. “I’m not the model. The food is the model.”

      “What food?” Alex looked back at his grandfather, shrugged as if to say, not my problem, then turned and walked over to the Jeep, presumably to grab more gear out of the back.

      “Mr. Russell, I work for Fine Tastes. It’s one of the top cooking and home entertainment magazines in the industry. I thought our producer had explained that we’re doing a feature article on glamping and resourcing foods indigenous to the wilderness areas in order to create gourmet al fresco meals.”

      “What the hell is glamping?” Commodore called out from behind the tailgate before Alex could ask what al fresco meant.

      “It’s glamorous camping,” she said, then beamed a wide smile at his grandfather. “I know it’s an oxymoron, but it’s all the rage right now with urban families.”

      “Sounds moronic, all right,” Commodore said, carrying over a bright orange bag then rubbing his lips together. It was tough to tell with the bobbing toothpick, but it almost seemed as though the old guy wasn’t quite frowning. Maybe that lip balm contained some magical ingredient that cured personality disorders.

      The woman laughed, a throaty sound that was both way too feminine and way more genuine than he’d expected, and Alex stared at his grandfather, trying to determine what it was this particular lady had done to make the cantankerous Commodore Russell fall so completely under her spell.

      He tried to stop his judgmental thoughts, reminding himself that not every woman from an overpopulated metropolis was his mother. Nor did many women take the time to pick a few fallen pine needles off his grandfather’s flannel shirt as the man passed by.

      Alex asked, “So, what exactly is the goal for this two-day excursion if you don’t have your crew to help with the article?”

      Because he was only supposed to be here as a guide. He certainly wasn’t going to glamp it up with her or otherwise assist in—what did she call it? Resourcing indigenous foods? Sure, she seemed sweet enough toward Com, but Alex could already see her as the type to start ordering him around, treating him as some sort of low-level assistant who was there to do the job of her entire crew.

      “Frankly,” she said, turning that wide smile on him, “since time and weather are already a potential issue, I don’t see the need to make this a two-day excursion. We can just make a few stops along the river and stage a couple of scenes for the pictures. Then, if you don’t mind me conducting an informal interview of sorts, I can pick your brain and get a good enough idea of what the experience would be like so I can convey that to our readers.”

      Alex looked up at the gray sky again. “Honestly, I don’t even know if we have one day. What does your old knee say, Com?”

      His grandfather reached down to pat his arthritic leg, which was usually a better weather forecaster than most barometer stations. “Should hold off until tonight.”

      “You sure?” Alex asked, noticing the subtle wobble of the toothpick.

      “Sure as death and taxes.”

      “When was the last time you paid taxes?” Alex mumbled under his breath. It was now a running joke among family and friends that Commodore Russell wasn’t always on the most hospitable terms with his neighbors or the IRS, which was why Alex and his dad kept the old man away from the financial side of the business, as well as many of the customers. Of course, that running joke was also the reason why they really couldn’t afford to cancel this trip. The beginning of the season was right around the corner and Russell’s Sports needed all the positive publicity it could get.

      “If I’m wrong, then you get a lil’ wet,” Com said, a firm challenge in the man’s clear green eyes. It was no secret that Alex inherited his tan coloring and his competitive athletic spirit from the paternal side of the family. As well as his dry lips, apparently. He pulled out his plain store-bought lip balm and swiped it on, wishing the familiar gesture would sooth his apprehension, as well.

      “Please, Mr. Russell,” Miss Folsom said, her eyes taking on a darker, more serious hue. “Just for a couple of hours. I know it’ll be more of a challenge for you than for me, but I have a friend watching my daughters back in town. I had to pull them out of school and make all kinds of alternate travel arrangements so I could make this article work. Plus, I told them Mommy was going to bring them back a wilderness treasure and I would hate to disappoint them.”

      He had no clue what a wilderness treasure was, but Alex was a sucker for a challenge. And for kids. It was why he volunteered as a coach for almost every recreational league in town and ran a youth day camp during the summers. He was also a team player when it came to the family business and didn’t want to let his dad down.

      So, against his better judgment, he decided not to disappoint anyone. “Let’s get the rest of your gear. I’ll explain the basics to you while we load up.”

      * * *

      They were only two miles downriver and Charlotte wished she hadn’t convinced herself, let alone her stoic rafting guide, that this was a good idea. What Charlotte hadn’t told the Russell men was that she desperately needed this article to help launch her career to the next level by—hopefully—winning a shot as a permanent contributor for a nationally syndicated cooking show. Sure, doing freelance writing for Fine Tastes had been a blessing after Mitchell had gone to prison, leaving her to raise their two daughters alone. But after some of the webisodes on her personal blog started gaining upward of 400,000 hits per day, her editor and several local news channels back in San Francisco were now referring to her as a younger, fresher Martha Stewart, and if Charlotte could turn her home and lifestyle brand into a success, then she’d finally be able to prove to her parents and her ex-husband that she was more than something to be paraded about at cocktail parties and charity events.

      “Let’s pull out here,” Alex Russell finally said from his higher perch on the raft behind her.

      Thank God. Charlotte had been under the impression that she was in decent shape since she did Pilates regularly and ran for thirty minutes on her home treadmill every day. But her upper arms felt like they were on fire after only an hour of paddling.

      The boat was too big for just the two of them, but they needed the extra supplies she’d already packed to make the photos look more legitimate. Initially, she’d thought it would be easier and quicker to just take off in the inflatable raft with the well-muscled