“Is it really that bad?” asked Sam, even though he already knew the answer to that.
Becks and Stella exchanged a look. “Oh yeah,” Becks said, showing no sign of remorse. Considering this was mostly her fault, the least she could do was act sorry. “I could barely get in the elevator.”
“I called security, and they’re handling the situation in the lobby, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be waiting for you when you walk out the door to go home,” said Stella.
“You’ll have to sneak out the back of the building,” Becks said gleefully. “It’s what all the rock stars do.”
He glanced at the list on his desk. PR wasn’t his forte. “Have Glenda look at that,” he said, referring to Glenda Johnson, the company’s VP of operations. “She’ll know who to hire.”
Stella nodded, relieved. “Meanwhile, what are you going to do about all those people out there?”
“I think he needs to get far away,” said Becks. She gave Stella the crinkled letter. “Read this and tell me she isn’t perfect for him.”
“What’s this?” Stella asked suspiciously.
“Her name is Annie Esposito. She saw Sam on the morning show and wrote to him. I think he needs to meet her in person. She lives in some small town in Florida called Old Explorer’s Bay.”
Stella’s eyes narrowed. “You mean she’s another one of those deranged groupies who’s been tying up the phone lines?”
“Just read it,” Becks pleaded.
“She won’t stop until you read it, so you might as well get it over with,” he said.
Stella pulled on the reading glasses she kept on a chain around her neck and perused the letter. As she read, her expression began to soften. She glanced up to meet Sam’s gaze. “She does the New York Times crossword puzzle?”
“And her favorite show is The Office,” Becks added triumphantly.
Sam loosened his tie.
“Oh my … she’s going to break up with her boyfriend? Sam,” Stella said, flinging the letter under his nose, “Becks is right. You have to meet this girl.”
Becks smiled in satisfaction. “Told you so.”
Sam shook his head. “Et tu, Stella?”
“The way I see it, you’re partly responsible for this mess. No one forced you to go on that show. And now this poor girl, who sounds perfectly wonderful by the way, is going to break up with her boyfriend on account of you. Are you going to just sit back and let her do it?”
“Yep. He is,” said Becks.
There was a knock on the office door. Hank, one of the security guards for the building, came in looking grim. “Sorry to bust in like this, Mr. DeLuca, but no one answered the phone. I’m going to need some extra help down there. Some lady who said she worked for that show you were on insisted on getting on the elevator without an appointment.”
“Where is she?” asked Stella.
“I have no idea. I got Mickey looking for her, but he’s threatening to quit if we don’t hire another guard.”
Stella turned to Sam. Gone was the snarky anger from earlier. All he could read in her expression now was concern. “I think you should go home for the rest of the day. Glenda can cover anything that comes up, and we can call a temp agency to send us more help. And you might need to hire some security for the ranch. Just in case.”
He nodded wearily. Was there no getting away from that show?
Suddenly getting out of town for a few days didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He could kill two birds with one stone. He could get out of Dallas and away from the media circus and Becks would be one step closer to going to college next year. As an added bonus, he could even get in some fishing. “Where’s the nearest major airport to this Old Explorer’s Bay?” he asked Becks.
“Jacksonville. It’s about an hour drive.” His baby sister’s voice hitched with excitement. “So you’ll do it? You’ll go meet Annie?”
“I’ll go, but only because it sounds like she’s in the middle of nowhere and maybe by the time I get back, the media will have found some other chump to hound.”
Becks squealed, then ran over to hug him.
“On one condition,” he said, pulling away so she could see his face and know that he meant business. “I’ll go if you promise to make those college campus trips.”
“Yes, yes, I promise!” If Becks could have high-fived herself, she would have.
“Don’t get your hopes up. When I see this Annie, it’s not going to be fireworks and butterflies. For either of us. It’s only to advise her not to break up with her boyfriend because of anything I said on TV. And that’s it.”
“Got it,” she said. Her expression, however, was anything but resigned. “You won’t regret it, Sam.”
8
Sam had barely stepped out of the plane and he was already regretting it. It had been too much to hope that the rabid media attention would go away simply by heading to Florida. Or that last night’s episode of Single Gal would have put the focus on one of the other bachelors. Three women on the flight had asked to take a picture with him, causing the rest of the people on the plane to whip out their own phones to google who the heck he was. He’d underestimated the show’s fanatical base. By the time they landed in Jacksonville, a small entourage was waiting to bombard him with questions and snap pictures.
He did his best to fend them off, rented a car, then drove south on I-95 to now find himself in a town that made even Baylee Flats look cosmopolitan. According to the travel app on his phone, there were only two hotels in Old Explorer’s Bay, and one was strictly cash only. No, thanks.
The other hotel, The Conquistador Inn, founded in 1935, was located near the Intracoastal Waterway and claimed to be the town’s first “modern-day” hotel. Luckily, it looked as if the place had been updated sometime in the current century. It wasn’t fancy, but it was clean, and they required a credit card and another form of ID to register.
Annie wasn’t kidding when she’d written that the locals were obsessed with the city’s heritage. The clerk, a guy named Rudy who looked old enough to have been on staff since the hotel’s opening, handed him a brochure with a timeline of the town’s major historical events along with his room key.
He gave Sam’s registration card a thorough look-over. “Missouri plates, huh?”
“It’s a rental car,” Sam explained.
“We don’t get many tourists from Missouri here.”
“I’m not—yeah, Missouri. Great state.” Because sometimes it was just easier to go along with it.
“How long do you plan to stay?”
“A few days. How’s the fishing around here?”
The old guy reached under the counter to produce a stack of business cards, rifled through them, then slid one toward Sam. “If you want to do any deep-sea fishing, give Paul a ring. He’ll set you up.”
Sam glanced at the card. “Esposito Deep Sea Tours. Any relation to the car dealership?”
“Why? You looking to buy a car?” Rudy craned his head to take a look through the glass doors at Sam’s rental. “That one looks pretty new to me, but to each his own. Paul’s uncle, Frank Sr., owns the car dealership, but he’s been stepping away from the business for a while. I hear he’s gonna let the son and the daughter take it over.” He lowered his voice. “The daughter had herself a fancy boyfriend who moved to Paris. Or was it Madrid?” He rubbed his chin like somehow that would help him find the answer.