A Man of His Word Read online

  The statuesque woman shuffled backward, her eye already glued to the view finder. “Katie! Get the fish-eye lens! No, no, the EF 15! Dammit, where’s my tripod?”

  “I’ve got it!” Zack yelled.

  Whipping out the telescoping legs, he set the tripod up for her while Katie passed her the wide-angle lens. Within mere seconds, Tish had the camera stabilized and trained on the shimmering rainbow.

  Only then did Sydney notice Henry Three Pines standing apart from all the bustle, his gaze trained on the distant arc of color. A faint memory of ancient lore pinged in Sydney’s mind, something about the spirits residing half the year in Hopi villages, then using rainbows as a bridge when they returned to their underground dwelling places for the rest of the year.

  “Albert,” she murmured. “Give me a hand mike and get ready for a take.”

  She approached slowly, respectfully. She wouldn’t intrude if Henry wanted solitude, nor would she violate his religious beliefs by capturing his image on video. But if he wished to share the legend, she wanted it on tape.

  “Will you speak to me of rainbows?” she asked softly.

  He smiled, his face folding into a thousand tiny lines. “Yes, Squirrel, I will speak to you of rainbows.”

  She held her breath, mesmerized by his voice, by his tales of the spirits, of the elemental fusing of earth and sky. Her own spirits soared with the beauty of the moment.

  The rainbow dissolved ten minutes later, leaving Sydney filled with the satisfaction of a good take. What started out as a dreary morning had just yielded an unexpected bonus. Now if only Reece Henderson would give them the okay to trek down into the canyon….

  He did. Grudgingly. “Just keep the phone with you at all times.”

  “I will.”

  “Let me know when you leave the area.”

  She had to strain to hear him. The signal kept cutting in and out. She’d better get Zack to dig out the extra battery pack.

  “And watch out for snakes.”

  “Trust me, I’ll definitely do that!”

  On fire with anticipation, she snapped the cell phone shut, helped her crew load their essential supplies into backpacks and fell in line behind Henry as he picked his way down into the canyon.

  The sun came out before they were halfway down. By the time they reached the canyon floor and the banks of the Chalo River, the mists had burned away, and the heat rose in shimmering waves from the limestone.

  Throughout the descent, Sydney had the eerie sensation of climbing down to an ocean bottom. Her lively imagination couldn’t help likening the experience to what the Israelites must have felt when Moses parted the Red Sea and led them into its cavernous depths.

  After ten years underwater, the dark canyon walls gave off a dank smell. Silvery gray lichenlike plant forms made its sandstone slopes treacherous. The cottonwoods that had grown along the riverbank before the dam’s construction still remained, their branches stripped of all green.

  And it was quiet, unearthly still, without any birds or scurrying desert creatures or even the rustle of wind through the leaves. In fact, there were no leaves or greenery of any kind below the canyon rim. The trees had drowned long ago. Now, their blackened trunks and naked limbs were starkly silhouetted against the sky. The only sound that disturbed the stillness was the river’s murmur.

  Sweating and red-faced, the crew regrouped at the riverbank. Tugging off his Australian bush cap, Albert waved it in front of his face to stir some air.

  “How far to the cave?” he asked.

  “Half a mile as the crow flies. A mile as the river flows.”

  The portly soundman gulped and beat the air with his hat.

  “You okay?” Sydney asked quietly, concerned by the red flush heating his face.

  “Yeah. Just a little out of shape.”

  “We’ll rest here for a while.”

  “No, let’s go on.”

  A professional down to the tips of his designer, ostrich-skin boots, Albert would keel over in a dead faint before he caused a schedule slip. That was one of the reasons Sydney had hired him for this project, and one of the reasons she watched him closely as Henry led them along the riverbed for another mile.

  The narrow gorge gradually widened. The river also widened and became more shallow, bordered by a wide ledge of sandstone. Finally the small party stood below the cave that housed the cliff dwellings. Necks craned, they stared up at the wet, glistening ruins. Tish was the first one to break the silence.

  “The Anasazi must have been part monkey to climb up and down these cliffs every day.”

  Sydney had researched the ancient peoples thoroughly as part of her prep work for the shoot. “They used wooden ladders that they could pull up if attacked,” she explained. “Or they climbed down from the canyon rim using those hand-and footholds carved into the rock.”

  Tilting her head back, the camera operator squinted at the shallow holes carved in the cliff face. A moment later she shook her head.

  “You know how much I like working with you, Syd. I didn’t object when you decked me out in netting and walked me into that room full of buzzing bees. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t object. And that time in Peru, when we had to dodge llama doo-doo all during the long climb up to Machu Picchu, did I complain?”

  “Yes. Loudly.”

  “Only when the llama behind me took a nip at my tush,” she protested. “But there’s no way I’m crawling up that rock wall with all my equipment slung over my back.”

  “Not to worry,” Sydney assured her. “Henry’s grandsons will deliver the ropes and pulleys and aluminum ladders we had shipped in later this afternoon. Until they get here, we’ll concentrate on exteriors.”

  She turned a smile at her father’s friend.

  “And Henry has agreed to tell us of the Ancient Ones who lived here. We’ll use his voice for part of the back story narration. So let’s get to it, troops. Time and sunlight wait for no man…or woman for that matter.”

  Within minutes the various members of her crew were hard at it. Sydney, whose background and training had her fingers itching for a camera, forced herself to oversee, to direct, to suggest.

  This was the work she loved, and she got into it heart and soul. She thought nothing of squatting in the mud of the riverbank with Tish to study camera angles, climbing halfway up a tree to help Katie hang a mike, or sitting cross-legged beside Henry while an intense, earphoned Albert recorded the old man’s tales.

  Totally absorbed, Sydney spent the rest of the morning engaged in the craft of weaving dreams into reality. Just past noon the sound of a helicopter shattered the canyon’s quiet and brought first Jamie Chavez, then a coldly furious Reece down on her.

  Chapter 6

  T he helo came swooping up the canyon from the south.

  Sydney heard it first through earphones. She’d borrowed a set from Albert to listen to the replay of Henry Three Pines’ description of the Basket Makers, the earliest of the Ancient Ones to inhabit the canyon. Frowning, she hunched her shoulders and tried to tune out the muffled whump-whump-whump.

  She couldn’t, however, ignore the sudden gust of wind that stirred every piece of paper in the small camp, including her script, the video footage sheets and the loose-leaf pages of notes she’d made of the day’s shoot. With a gasp of dismay, she tore off the earphones and lunged for the scattering papers. She managed to catch a handful or two, but the rest swirled and twirled and danced on the now-vicious downdraft. Shouting at Zack and Katie to help, she snatched them out of the air.

  Consequently she greeted the pilot who climbed out of the maroon-and-silver helo with something less than civility.

  “Thanks a lot! You almost sent my cue sheets and shoot notes flying to the four corners of the canyon.”

  Jamie blinked, thrown off stride for all of three or four seconds before his charm kicked into gear.

  “Sorry ’bout that, Syd.”

  She planted both hands on her hips, glaring. The roguish grin that had
melted her knees ten years ago now had zero effect on her. Less than zero.

  “What do you want, Chavez?”

  “It’s not what I want.”

  His voice dropped, hinted at an intimacy that didn’t exist. Never really existed, she knew with the unerring accuracy of twenty-twenty hindsight.

  “It’s what you want, Syd.”

  She wasn’t in the mood for suggestive innuendoes. “In case I didn’t make myself clear last night, I’m not interested in picking up where I left off ten years ago. I came back to Chalo Canyon to make a movie. Only to make a movie.”

  For Pete’s sake, how many times did she have to repeat herself? She didn’t need this distraction, and she certainly didn’t need any more after-hours visits from Sebastian Chavez.

  “I’m in the middle of a shoot here, Jamie, which you’ve just totally disrupted. Why don’t you climb back into your little toy and take off?”

  “Sure.” Unruffled, he torqued his grin up another notch. “Do you want me to leave before or after I unload your crates of equipment?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She suspected Sebastian had no idea Jamie had taken it upon himself to haul in her equipment, and wouldn’t like it when he found out about it. Tough! Father and son could work that one out between them. Right now, all she cared about was getting up to the ruins.

  “After,” she conceded.

  “I thought so.”

  Eager to climb up to the cave, the entire crew pitched in to help Jamie unload two folding aluminum ladders and a large crate containing pulleys and winches. Stripped down to her sleeveless orange tank top and jeans, Sydney helped Zack muscle one ladder into position while Tish and Albert unfolded the other.

  They were just about to attack the crates when Reece appeared. He strode along the wide sandstone ledge that formed the river’s bank with a sure-footed agility that made a mockery of the far-slower pace Sydney and her crew had managed earlier.

  Watching him approach, she felt her heart give a little bump against her ribs. To hell with engineering and building dams. Reece Henderson belonged in Hollywood. That rawhide-smooth voice of his, alone, would earn him a fortune. Paired with his broad shoulders and that lean-hipped, long-legged, outta-my-way stride, he was every woman’s fantasy come to life.

  Giving in to an impulse that was as natural to her as breathing, Sydney snatched up one of the video cams. She had no idea what she’d do with this footage, but it was too darned good to miss. Framing the man against the red sandstone cliffs, she zoomed in. Only then did she catch the tight-lipped expression on her subject’s face.

  Oh-oh. Evidently this wasn’t a social visit. Sighing, she lowered the camera.

  He joined their little group a moment later. The look he zinged from Jamie to her and back again set Sydney’s teeth on edge. She would eat dirt before she defended herself against the scorn on Reece’s face, or protest yet again that she had no interest in Jamie Chavez.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour,” he said tightly. “Where the hell’s your phone?”

  Bristling, Sydney whipped it out of her pants pocket. “Right here.”

  Too late she remembered the weak battery. She’d gotten so caught up in the trek down the canyon that she’d forgotten to change it. Biting back a groan, she glanced down at the instrument. Sure enough, the liquid crystal display showed a blank face.

  “The battery’s dead.” Feeling like ten kinds of a fool, she handed it to Zack with quiet instructions to dig out the spare battery.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Reece, bracing herself for the broadside she expected him to deliver. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

  “Do that,” he snapped.

  She ground her teeth, mentally counting to ten. “Why were you trying to contact me?”

  “To verify the report I got of a helo touching down close to the ruins.” His icy blue eyes sliced to Jamie, then back to Sydney. “I thought I’d made myself clear that all incursions into the restricted area behind the dam had to be coordinated with me.”

  She wasn’t taking the fall for Jamie Chavez. Not this time.

  “You did,” she replied coolly. “Very clear.”

  With a careless shrug, Jamie stepped into the breach. “I thought I’d just help Syd out by delivering her gear. She didn’t know I was coming.”

  “Neither did your father,” Reece said shortly.

  Jamie stiffened. “You called him?”

  “He called me.”

  From the tight angle to Jamie’s jaw, Sydney knew she’d guessed right. Obviously he hadn’t told his father about his little excursion to the canyon.

  Or his wife, she’d bet.

  Her mouth twisted. How in the world had she been so blind ten years ago? How had she let herself fall for a handsome face and a flashing smile, and never spared a thought to the person behind them? She owed Sebastian for opening her eyes. She really did. She’d try to remember that the next time he came down on her with both boots, she thought sardonically.

  “Sorry, Henderson,” Jamie said with a stiff edge to his voice. “I’m used to doing things my way around here.”

  “Not this time, Chavez. No more flights into the canyon without my approval.”

  Jamie’s mouth set, and for a moment Sydney wondered if he’d grown enough backbone in the past ten years to challenge the flat order or the man who gave it.

  Evidently not. He caved. Ungraciously.

  “Yeah, well, I’ll give you a call next time I decide to fly in and check on Syd.”

  “See that you do.”

  Without her quite knowing how or when it happened, the ground had shifted. The air between the two men took on a charged sensation. Reece made no overt move toward her, as he had at the café the other night, but Jamie seemed to take his challenge personally.

  Sydney had the oddest sensation, as if she was an old soup bone tossed down between two sleek, well-fed hounds. Neither one really wanted her, but neither was about to allow the other too near.

  “You boys work this out between you,” she said with a snap. “I’ve got work to do.”

  Jamie left in a whirl of rotor blades and a flash of sunlight on maroon and silver a few minutes later. If not for the downdraft produced by the helo, Sydney wouldn’t have noticed his departure. She was on her knees, helping Zack and the others unpack the crate she’d had shipped in from L.A. Henry Three Pines sat in the shade of the canyon wall, conversing comfortably with Reece and drawing deep, satisfied drags on the cheroot the engineer had produced from his shirt pocket.

  Zack had just pried open the lid of the first crate when the flush on Albert’s face snagged Sydney’s attention. She sat back on her heels, instantly contrite. He wasn’t used to this blazing Arizona heat. If she’d been thinking of anything except getting up to the ruins, she would’ve seen how it affected him.

  “Why don’t you and Katie pack it in for the day?” she suggested casually. “We’ve got enough sound takes of the river and the canyon. No sense you two sitting around here just waiting for the wind to pick up. Leave me a recorder and a mike just in case, then take the Blazer back to town.”

  “Well…” Albert mopped his brow, reluctant but obviously considering the offer.

  Sydney threw a look over her shoulder. “Maybe Reece will walk you out of the canyon. He knows the way. Hang loose, I’ll ask him.”

  When she put the question to him, the engineer nodded his assent. “Sure.”

  He speared a look at the tangle of ropes and blocks in the scattered crates, started to say something, then rolled his shoulders in a quick shrug.

  “Tell your man…Al, is it?”

  “Albert.”

  “Tell Albert to gather his gear,” he said curtly, still obviously less than pleased with her and her dead battery. “I want to get back to the dam.”

  “Yes, sir!” She flipped him the Hollywood version of a military salute and marched away with a stiff-kneed goose step.

  Reece leaned against t
he cliff face, trying to hold on to his anger. He wanted to hold on to it. He’d been stewing ever since the call from Sebastian, and come to a near boil when he’d spotted Jamie Chavez laying his particular brand of charm on a sweat-streaked, tumble-haired, thoroughly seductive Sydney.

  Calling himself a fool for almost believing her when she’d protested that she had no interest in Chavez, Jr., he’d wanted to let rip. Only the rigid self-control his brothers had delighted in putting to the test so many times over the years kept his anger tightly leashed.

  He had to admit, though, that Sydney didn’t seem particularly concerned whether Chavez stayed or left once he unloaded his cargo. She showed far more interest in the crates than in their deliverer, and didn’t appear at all distressed by Reece’s dictum barring Chavez from any further unauthorized intrusions into the restricted area behind the dam.

  Was that part of her game? Was she still playing hard to get? Or did she really not care about Chavez?

  The fact that Reece couldn’t make up his mind one way or the other annoyed the hell out of him. He tended to see things in black and white. He admitted it. He preferred to keep business and personal matters neat, well-defined, precisely aligned.

  Which was why the engineer in him shuddered as he watched Sydney and the green-haired kid pull a tangle of ropes and pulleys out of the crate and dump them carelessly on the ground.

  “Funny,” the kid—Zack—commented. “This contraption didn’t look, you know, so complicated when the guy in L.A. demonstrated it.” Huffing, he lifted a clanking block and pulley. “Or so heavy.”

  “Does it come with instructions?”

  “I dunno.”

  Sydney bent over, delving into the crate for a set of instructions. In the process, she gave Reece a view of a slender, rounded backside that dried the saliva in his mouth and throat. A moment later she sat back down on her heels, dangling a length of rope in one hand. Frustration pulled her lips into a pout as she eyed the tangle of blocks and pulleys.

  “I can take a camera apart and clean it faster than a Marine can field strip his M-16, but this stuff…”

  She glanced from the ropes to Reece, calculating, debating. He saw what was coming and steeled himself against the reluctant appeal.