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“I call it like I see it.”
“So, do I. I don’t know where this hunt is going to take us or how either of us is going to feel when we get back from it. But we owe my father this. We owe the people who made the show what it is. I know you don’t like me. I know you don’t want to work with me, but can you do this, not for me or for anyone else, but for Dad. He wanted this and we can give it to him. Will you do that for him?” Jason asked.
It was as much of an olive branch as I was ever going to get from the man and I knew it. He was trying. He didn’t like me, he had made that abundantly clear, but he loved his father as much as I did. He just assumed that I wanted to keep doing the show and in order to do that I needed to find a way to work with him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was looking for a way out.
Jason had been through a lot in the last couple of days and I just couldn’t tell him that it didn’t matter to me what Kevin wanted me to do with the show, I was done. But I could honor the man’s wishes and do what he asked. I loved going on scavenger hunt and if he had created one more for me to do, then I would do it.
I would go into this knowing it was the last one that I would ever do. It would be a fond way to say goodbye to Kevin and to find a way to figure out how Jason could go on doing the show without me. If he needed to do this in order to keep his job, I would do that for him and all the other employees. But once we got back, once we had fulfilled our final obligation to Kevin, I would be out. It was the last gift I would give to Kevin and to his crew.
“Yes.” I replied.
“Yes? You’ll do it for him?” Jason asked.
“Is it so hard to believe that I might actually agree with you? I loved your father too. He was my mentor. Everything that I’ve done, everything that I will ever do, the person that I am is all because of him. So yes, I will do this for him, I will do this because I need to, but don’t ask anything more of me. We don’t get along, we never have. That isn’t going to change with some trip to say goodbye to your father.”
“You don’t know that. You already have agreed with me more in this one conversation than you ever did in all the years we’ve worked together. I would say that’s progress.”
“I agreed with you once.”
“More than you ever have,” Jason said with a smile.
I couldn’t help but smile back, the first genuine smile I had in days. He was trying to be nice and find a way for us to work together. If I didn’t know him better, I would have thought he was flirting with me. But the man didn’t know how to flirt and he certainly never would do it towards me.
It didn’t help that when he smiled his blue eyes lit up and it showed that he had a small dimple along his left cheek. He had always been a good-looking man but he looked even sexier standing there in front of me. His arms were at his side and bulged a little on the suit jacket. I had never thought of Jason as muscular but after seeing him up close in the suit I certainly did.
I quickly thought of anything other than how good Jason looked and tried to get on the matter at hand. I would be spending as much as two months with the man, it wouldn’t help if I lusting after someone I could never have.
“Let’s see if we can keep the streak alive while we try and figure out the clue,” I said.
“You haven’t already?”
“I might have taken it from Travis as you walked out the door, but I haven’t even had a chance to read it, much less solve it. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
Jason glared down at me and tilted his head as if he was waiting for me to open up the first clue. I rolled my eyes at him again and pulled out the envelope. It was white and looked like any other normal letter that someone would send but it still made my heart catch to see my name in Kevin’s familiar handwriting.
“Are you ready? Once we open this, there’s no turning back. Are we really doing this?” I asked Jason as I held open the envelope.
His answer was to take the envelope out of my hand and tear it open. He took the paper out and read it. I thought about taking the paper from him or even looking over his shoulder and reading it that way. But I didn’t want to cause any more problems between us by taking it from him nor did I want to be close enough to him that I could read over his shoulder. So I waited, something I wasn’t normally good with doing.
When he was done, he had a confused look as he handed the paper to me.
“That bad?” I asked.
“Read for yourself,” he said and handed me the paper.
Chapter 6
Jason
“You have lawyers, people who could help you get out of this. You don’t have to go. I will help you. We can figure this out,” my mother said.
She had come over to my place after the funeral, having heard what was in the will and as I suspected she wasn’t happy about it. She hadn’t wanted to go to the funeral and I hadn’t pushed the issue. Considering how much she didn’t like Sunshine and how little contact she had with my father after the divorce, it was probably for the best.
“This is so like your father to think that, what, he can have the last laugh? He knows you don’t like doing these things. It isn’t what you’re good at and he, nor anyone, should ever make you do this. I’m sure any lawyer or really anyone with any sense would see how ridiculous this is and throw it right out. You’ve worked hard your entire adult life; you shouldn’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Certainly not Natalie Campbell.”
I smiled to myself as I put my toiletries in my bag. My mother might be upset for me and this adventure that I had to go on but the real reason she was mad was that Natalie would get equal shares in my father’s company. My mother couldn’t object to Sunshine getting it. As her current wife, as my mother liked to call her, she was entitled to her part, but Mom certainly didn’t think that Natalie did and she didn’t like that she was considered equal to me.
“We could do that, if you want,” I said to placate my mother. “But it would take years. During that time, I would either have to find a way to work with Natalie or production would be shut down. I don’t want to risk the possibility of people being out of a job because of me. It’s actually quicker and more efficient for me to just go on this trip and see where it goes. I think it will be good for the show.”
