Bobby: Red, Hot & Blue, Book 6 Read online

  Christ, they wouldn’t broadcast that on television, would they? Then again, this show was for one of those hundred cable stations Bobby rarely had time to watch, so who the hell knew what they could show.

  Just great. His cock, flying out to millions of paying subscribers. Not to mention that Christy had stood there ogling him in his underwear for God only knew how long. He didn’t know which bothered him more, the strangers who would watch the show seeing him, or Christy.

  Why didn’t there seem to be any male producers on this crew? There were only females. A male would never have snuck in and filmed another man waking up in his underwear. They would have known better. Things happened to a man in the morning. Things he had no control over. Did Christy realize that? Or did she just think he sported a hard-on all the time?

  He couldn’t think about it anymore or his brain would explode. Bobby shook his head and cast his line out into the lake, determined to ignore the annoying woman and her cameraman if it killed him.

  Jared stood beside him, yawning and casting his own line. “You ready to tell me what’s wrong yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right.” Jared yawned again.

  Bobby took the time to finally look at him. “You look like crap. Did you sleep at all?”

  “Nope.”

  He let out a loud breath. “You know if you were up all night with one of the horses you could have just called and canceled.”

  Jared got an evil grin on his face. “Oh, a little filly kept me up all night, but it wasn’t one of my horses.”

  Bobby shook his head, even more pissed off now. Jared was managing to get himself laid practically every night, and Bobby was destined to live like a monk for the five or so remaining weeks of filming because of his two shadows back there. Didn’t that just figure.

  Between Jared’s exhaustion and Bobby’s anger, there was pretty much silence for most of the morning. Good, he couldn’t think of better revenge on Miss Nosy than a few boring hours on tape of two men fishing.

  The only problem was it gave Bobby too much time to think. He began to think back to the last time he’d enjoyed the pleasure of a woman, and he was having trouble remembering. Between trying to set a good example when it came to females for Mikey and working crazy hours for the sheriff’s department, his social life was pretty much out to pasture.

  Now with the camera up his butt—literally, this morning—there was no hope to rectify the situation anytime soon. No frigging way was he letting the cameras catch him even talking to a woman so they could broadcast it all over television.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized he was afraid to even handle things himself in that department. He couldn’t even risk jerking off. She probably had the bathroom and his bedroom bugged with microphones or hidden cameras. In fact, the minute he got home, he was going to check. That thought made him even angrier.

  These were sad times indeed when a man couldn’t even jerk off in private. He shook his head, cast his line and settled in for the long haul.

  A few hours later, Bobby glanced at his watch and reeled in his line.

  “Time for work.” He slapped Jared on the back and turned to pack up his stuff.

  Jared, half-asleep on his feet, jumped. “Already? But I was having so much fun.” He reeled in his line too.

  “What’re you doing for the rest of the day?” Bobby asked his sarcastic friend.

  “I’m thinking I need to inventory the hay bales.”

  Bobby laughed at what he knew was Jared’s code for hiding in the hay room to take a nap. He glanced up and saw Christy already on her cell phone. “I’m thinking my jailor is already on the phone to yours and you better run and hide quick before the camera finds you.”

  Jared squinted in Christy’s direction in the morning sunlight. “Hmm. Good thing I know a short cut.”

  Bobby smiled. “Good thing. See ya later.”

  “Yup. Have fun at work.” Jared grinned and took off.

  Watching him sprint for his truck like a racehorse out of the starting gate, Bobby wondered why he couldn’t treat this whole thing like one big game the way Jared did. Then again, Jared always viewed life as a game. He guessed it was hard not to when your life and livelihood revolved around watching horses fuck all day at the breeding farm.

  “Where to now?” Christy interrupted his thought.

  Yup, he couldn’t even think the word fuck and she was there. Forget about actually trying to find a woman to do it with. Nope, not with her around. He looked his nemesis up and down. It was going to be a hot, humid day, and he could tell this girl, most likely born and bred in air-conditioning, was already feeling the heat. She’d tied the bottom of her shirt around her ribcage, exposing a good amount of stomach between the shirt and her low-rise shorts.

  Bobby frowned at himself for even looking.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was wrong. Dead wrong and I will never enter your bedroom again without permission. So can you stop frowning at me so we can move on? If not, the remainder of this shoot is going to be a long five weeks.”

  She stood directly in front of him, hands fisted on those nicely rounded hips. He raised his eyes from her curves, skimming as quickly as he could past the good amount of cleavage exposed by the low neckline of the shirt. He tried to concentrate on her face as she glared up at him with her piercing green eyes.

  He nodded once. “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “I accept your apology. Now I’ve got to get home, change and get to work.” He started for the car when he heard tiny footsteps running to catch up. He paused and gave her time to run around in front of him again.

  “Wait. You promised we could ride with you.”

  She was worried he’d back out of their deal. He could see it on her face.

  “Come on then. I said you could ride with me, I didn’t say you could make me late for work.” He continued walking toward the car and smiled at the sounds of the harried scuffle to break down the equipment behind him. He’d forgive her, and he’d follow through good to his word and let them ride with him, but he’d be damned if he’d make it easy for them.

  Christy sat in the corner of the sheriff’s office and watched Bobby. It was a lot like watching paint dry. Sure, he was gorgeous. Even observing him doing nothing could be a mouthwatering experience, but it lost some charm knowing that if something, anything, didn’t happen soon her job was toast.

  He leaned way back in his chair, booted feet up on his desk, as he read the local newspaper. And that was all, for the past hour and a half. Pigeon Hollow was not a hotbed of crime, to say the least. Maybe she could ask him for the help-wanted section. She had a feeling if things didn’t pick up soon, she’d need it.

  Christy glanced at Fletch. He shrugged at her and then continued to work on his crossword puzzle, the video camera back on the tripod for the second time that day.

  She sighed, not for the first time during this eternal sit-around-and-wait game she was playing. It was almost as if…no, he wouldn’t…would he?

  “Did you somehow arrange for there to be no calls today?” She stood, hands on her hips, and accused him.

  Bobby lowered the paper slowly and raised a brow. “Would I do that?”

  His tone made her think he might just do exactly that. Her mouth fell open.

  “Bobby.” She dropped back down into her chair and buried her face in her hands. Breathing heavily, she tried to calm her panic. She was so screwed.

  “What’s her problem?” Bobby asked Fletch.

  “She’s probably going to lose her job because she gave you that Cole Ryan tape, that’s all.”

  Christy winced at hearing that. Fletch was trying to help, but she didn’t want Bobby to know that little piece of information. She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced up.

  Bobby had crossed the room and was standing next to her. “That true?”

  He was so tall and strong and stern looking, he’d be frightening if she wasn’t already
in lust with him.

  She shrugged. What could she say? “If I don’t come up with something entertaining to replace it, yeah.”

  “I didn’t re-route the calls. It’s just a slow day.” Shaking his head, he looked concerned. He squatted down and took one of her hands in both of his. Her heart knocked against her ribcage. “But even so, this is Pigeon Hollow. Not much goes on here.”

  “I know.” Trying not to pass out from even that small physical contact, she nodded. Why did she suddenly not care if she lost a thousand jobs, as long as he kept touching her?

  His head dropped briefly and she stared at his crown of dark waves. He looked back up to capture her in that entrancing blue gaze. “If it really means your job, I’ll give you back the tape.”

  Her lips trembled. He was too good to be true. Hot and nice. Guys like this only existed in romance novels. Definitely not in real life. At least not in her real life.

  Christy shook her head in answer to his magnanimous offer. “No. Ryan may be a public figure, but I won’t expose your nephew like that. Your family deserves some privacy. It’ll be all right.”

  He watched her for a second, as if sizing her up. Nodding once, he squeezed her hand. His form of a thank you, she supposed. It was more than enough.

  And then, thank God, the phone rang.

  “Let’s see what I’ve got for you.” He winked and strode to the phone on his desk. After a few minutes of cryptic one-sided conversation and her nearly swooning over the fact he’d winked at her, he hung up and looked in their direction. “Is a swarm of bees settling in the rectory entertaining enough for you?”

  She smiled. “It’ll do.”

  “Good. Get your stuff together. I have to call the bee wrangler, then we can go.” Bobby began flipping through the ring of business cards on his desk. Apparently, he’d had to call the bee wrangler before because his number was in the Rolodex. Once she got over that surreal realization, she started to plan shots and voice-overs in her head.

  “You getting this?” she hissed to Fletch.

  “Yup.”

  Small town law enforcement—wrangling bees rather than criminals. Good television indeed. This day was beginning to look up after all.

  “Narrate for the camera, Bobby. Tell the viewer what’s happening.” Christy sat in the back seat behind Fletch and instructed him as he drove.

  Resisting the urge to groan—he so hated talking to the camera lens as if it were a person—he began to explain the situation.

  “The pastor’s wife called the sheriff’s office with an SOS regarding a bee swarm in the rectory. Apparently they’re not sure if the pastor is allergic to bee stings or not. Understandably, she was in quite a panic. I instructed them to remain outside until both myself and the local bee wrangler could arrive and assess the situation.” He kept his eyes on the road in front of the car and pretended he was delivering a report to the sheriff, not the damned camera aimed at his face. It made things a little easier.

  On the phone call, the pastor’s wife had asked him to hurry. The moment Bobby pulled his patrol car up to the scene, Fletch and his video camera in the front passenger seat still rolling, he knew why. The pastor, dressed in nothing but a towel, was with his wife outside on the front lawn. The pastor looked so scared he would have been shaking in his boots had he been wearing any.

  Bobby stopped the car, grabbed his hat from the dash and got out. The couple came immediately toward him, until they saw the camera, then they stopped dead. Nothing he could do about the TV crew attached to him, so Bobby strode to meet the pastor and his wife where they’d stopped halfway across the yard.

  The camera was soon forgotten as they relayed what had happened. From what Bobby could glean from the old couple’s animated ramblings, the bees must have settled in the attic. But being that the rectory was an old building, a good number of them had traveled down the walls and out a crack into the bathroom where the pastor had been getting out of the shower, hence the towel. Bobby had to give Christy credit, she wasn’t laughing at the old man in his tiny towel, but he could tell she was struggling.

  “Pastor, why don’t you go into a neighbor’s house for a bit? Until we get the bees cleared out.”

  “But…” the old man glanced down at himself, “…I need at least my pants.”

  Bobby sighed. The man was right. It was bad enough he’d be on television in his towel, he shouldn’t have to be in his neighbor’s house in it too. “I’ll go in and get you something to wear.”

  He headed across the lawn and up onto the front porch. The pastor’s wife was still calling out instructions to him as he was opening the door, something about where the pastor’s pants may be located within the house. He tried his best to listen, even as he saw Christy covering her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing.

  Bobby finally gave up waiting for the eternal instructions to be completed and promised the woman he would find her husband’s pants, the ones that fit, not the ones that didn’t, and let the door slam shut behind him. He’d been inside the rectory before. How hard could finding the man’s clothes be?

  He dodged a bunch of confused bees that had separated from the swarm and were stuck in the main part of the house, then located not only the pants, but also a shirt and slippers for the pastor. By the time Bobby arrived outside, he found the wrangler he’d called had just pulled his truck up to the curb.

  The guy was old as dirt, but he knew his bees. Harry came to the rescue every time Bobby had called him, which was surprisingly often. Old-time beekeepers like him made their living selling honey and catching the occasional errant swarm, but Bobby suspected it was the thrill of the hunt and capture that he liked the best. He lived and breathed beekeeping. Bobby knew enough not to ask any questions or they would talk his ear off telling bee tales.

  “Hey, Harry.”

  “Bobby.” The old man shook Bobby’s hand. “What’s going on here?”

  “From what I can tell, the swarm is in the attic. Looks like they went in the vent. But there’s a set of those pull-down stairs, so you have access from the second floor.” Bobby laid out the situation for the wrangler. He’d been on enough swarm calls that he knew what Harry needed as far as information.

  “Good. Sounds like an easy one. Maybe I’ll let the kid handle it solo.” Harry tilted his head to indicate the kid.

  For the first time, Bobby noticed a slick young guy, wearing not nearly enough clothing, chatting up Christy off camera. He frowned. “Who’s that? You usually either work alone or bring one of the other guys from the Backyard Beekeepers Association with you.”

  Harry pulled his navy ball cap lower over his brow. “My apprentice. I’m getting too old to be crawling in attics and climbing up on roofs, Bobby. ’Bout time I started training someone to do the dirty work for me.”

  Bobby continued to watch Christy and the dirt bag—uh, apprentice wrangler—talking. “Think you better get him moving, Harry. The pastor and his wife are real anxious to get back into the house.”

  Brow raised, Harry glanced at Christy, his apprentice and then back to Bobby. He laughed. “Gotcha.”

  Damn old man was too observant for his liking. So Bobby didn’t like some strange guy bothering Christy. She was his responsibility for the moment and he didn’t know this kid from Adam. It was no big deal.

  With a scowl, Bobby watched tank-top boy grab the equipment and follow Harry into the house. Serve him right if he got stung, wearing those clothes to wrangle a swarm.

  He was still steaming when Christy came up to stand beside him. Fletch had been a brave city boy and followed the wranglers in. “What was the shop vacuum for?”

  Oh, cutoff-shorts boy hadn’t explained that to her? “They try to get the queen and the majority of the bees into a box, but they vacuum up the rest.”

  She turned to stare at him. “No.”

  Bobby had to laugh at her reaction. “Yup.”

  “And they don’t mind?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Don’t seem to. ’Cours
e, I’m not there when they get them out of the vacuum, so I don’t really know.”

  She shook her head and stared at the house. “Wow.”

  Since she was so impressed with the bees, he wished he’d listened closer to all of Harry’s lectures so he could dazzle her with more of his bee knowledge. But he’d gone through his entire bee repertoire with the vacuum question.

  It wasn’t very long at all before Harry and his assistant came out, carrying the closed cardboard box and the vacuum. Bobby noticed a few raised, red welts on tank-top boy’s exposed arms and smiled to himself. The satisfaction was short lived, however, when Christy ran over to bee boy and started interviewing him.

  By the time Bobby strode over to join them, bee boy was saying to both the camera and Christy, “They’ll pretty much follow the queen anywhere.”

  Christy got an evil look on her face. “Oh, so they’re all males then.”

  Was she flirting with this kid?

  Boy toy laughed. “You’d think so, but no. All the worker bees are females. They’re the ones who rear the young, gather the pollen and defend the hive. You really learn to respect females when you understand the workings in a hive.”

  He ran a hand through his long locks of blond hair. The bastard was definitely flirting with Christy—and men should have short hair, in Bobby’s opinion.

  The kid was still talking. Why was he still talking? They should be done by now. “Actually, there are a low percentage of males in a swarm. They’re called drones. Their only function is to impregnate a new virgin queen.”

  Oh, ho. And now he’d found a way to bring up the subject of sex. That figured.

  Bobby watched Christy raise an amused and flirtatious brow. “So they are like studs then.”

  He watched bee boy smile at his producer, eating up the attention. “Yup, but it’s not as satisfying as it sounds. You see, the minute they um…mate with the queen, it rips their uh…man parts off. Then they die.”