Read Online Her Red-Carpet Romance by Marie Ferrarella - Free Book Online Page B

tolerable.
    Halfway down the ramp that had been placed beside the plane’s open door, Lukkas turned toward her. “Watch your step,” he warned. “The sun can be a little blinding out here until you get used to it.”
    She had a habit of dashing up and down the stairs without bothering to even marginally hold on to any banister or railing. But because Lukkas had specifically cautioned her, she thought it best to slip her hand over the railing and slide her palm down along the bar as she descended. She didn’t want him to think that she was ignoring his advice.
    Besides, it never hurt anything to be careful—just in case.
    There was a silver-green, fully loaded Toyota waiting for them. It was parked well inside the gates. The plane hadn’t landed far from it.
    â€œWelcome back, Mr. Spader,” the man standing beside the vehicle called out to Lukkas the second they were within hearing range. Of average height and build, looking to be around forty or so, with a thick, black head of hair, the man opened the rear door behind the driver’s side, then waited until they reached the vehicle.
    â€œThanks for coming to pick us up, Juan,” Lukkas said to the driver. Then he nodded in her direction. “This is Hanna. She’ll be taking Janice’s place.”
    The man he had called Juan nodded at her politely, then flashed an easy smile. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, Hanna,” he told her. “Janice found a way to be everywhere at once.”
    No pressure here
, Yohanna thought. She forced a smile to her lips in response. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
    Lukkas spared her a look before he gestured for her to get into the vehicle first. “You’ll have to do better than that to stay on the team,” he informed her. “I can’t have you just trying, I need you
doing
.” He pointedly emphasized the word.
    Really no pressure here
, Yohanna thought, feeling a little uneasy—but just for a moment. The thing about pressure was that feeling it made her more determined than ever to succeed. She had decided a long time ago to be one of those people who had made up her mind to rise to the occasion rather than to fold under the specter of insurmountable obstacles or to listen to someone when they said something couldn’t be done.
    She was, at bottom, a doer. It wasn’t in her nature not to give something her absolute all.
    â€œDon’t worry about me. With all due respect to Janice, I’ll do whatever you need done,” she replied with quiet determination. “And I’ll do it fast.”
    Listening—even though he looked to be elsewhere—Lukkas inclined his head, as if conducting a conversation with himself.
    â€œWe’ll see,” he said, and then repeated even more softly, “We’ll see.”
    Yohanna squared her shoulders.
We sure will
, she silently promised.
    * * *
    â€œDid you do this?” she asked Lukkas, wonder clearly shimmering in her voice as, twenty minutes later, she stared at the town coming into view.
    At first glance, it was as if all three of them—Lukkas, Juan and she—had crossed some sort of a time-travel portal, one that separated the present from the long-ago past.
    Sitting inside a brand-new state-of-the-art vehicle, she found herself looking out at a town that for all the world appeared to have literally been lifted from the late 1800s. Here and there were horses tied to hitching posts outside weathered wooden buildings, the tallest of which was, very obviously, the town saloon. The streets were paved not with asphalt or cement but dirt—hard, sunbaked, parched, cracked dirt.
    Rolling down the window on her side, Yohanna leaned out to get a better view. Everything that she would have imagined to have existed in a slightly romanticized version of the Old West seemed to be right here. She began taking inventory.
    There was a newspaper office, a