Bachelor on Mars Read online

  Her tone held so much blind faith, Jack turned to gape at her. “Who are you?” he asked, because why was she even in the lab? None of the other contestants were.

  “She’s Margo Wilson,” Lynette said, the words rushed, like it was important.

  Goldie harrumphed at that.

  Something weird was going on but Jack didn’t have time to focus on it. “Whatever. All of you be quiet.”

  He finished a longer message and put everyone he could think of on the distribution list, and pressed send.

  Then he tried to come up with a plan, but no brilliant ideas came to mind. The best he came up with was the obvious need to get everyone away from any means of transportation since the Russians seemed to be blowing them up. Besides, pulling them into one location was like his own version of circling the wagons. “I’ve done what I can. Now, we need to move everyone off the rocket.”

  “That’s not possible,” Lynette said. “The contestants can’t cohabitate in the same building as the Bachelor.”

  Jack wondered how his reality and the one the TV people lived in could be so different.

  “Listen, we’re in the middle of a crisis. We need to pull in food from the outside huts and stack it here. If they trap us in this building, then we’ll need to have supplies to sustain us until a rescue ship arrives.” If they sent a rescue ship. Which they might not. The shuttle coming in a few days was worth a lot of money. Would they risk it to save a few lives? That shuttle was his resupply company’s only rocket.

  He couldn’t think like that. In fact, he wouldn’t. The death of hope led men to be sloppy.

  “We’re living on the rocket,” Goldie said. “Everything we have is out there.”

  “The first thing they’ll do when they focus on this station is take that rocket out. Or at least, that’s what I would do if I was on the other side, so we have to get ready for that. They don’t know it has no fuel in it.” Man, that chapped him. “What on Earth were you thinking?”

  “We were thinking we had a major last-minute addition to our weight requirements.” Lynette gave Goldie a significant look.

  “I had no idea,” Goldie whispered.

  Lynette shook her head, as if she were waking up from a nightmare. “Never mind. The contestants are not allowed to see the Bachelor when we aren’t filming. That’s an unbreakable rule.”

  “Lady, in case you haven’t gotten the memo, we’ve got a situation here,” Jack said, understanding for the first time exactly how horrible this was going to be for him. It was like these people were from another planet.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It occurred to Margo, as she watched Lynette and Jack Boyle arguing about the Bachelor being in contact with the contestants, that she was both horrified by how rude he was and completely impressed by his ability to hold firm in the face of Lynette’s arguments. She leaned against the console as she watched them, resting first one foot, then the other. The two of them weren’t backing down and no one seemed to be budging anytime soon. She imagined them both still standing in the same position ten years from now, only their skeletons remaining.

  Soon growing bored of their argument, Margo carefully eased into the chair before the console, hoping not to rip the gold dress that was a smidge too tight. She really should work out more. Or maybe stop eating chocolate. And the wine could probably go too. But then she thought screw that and took off a shoe to knead her right foot, which hurt a little more than the left.

  Boyle’s face had turned a vibrant shade of red. “I’m in charge of this station, and I’m telling you all to move your things in here and get ready to hunker down.”

  Behind him, Russ slowly drifted backwards toward the door, one step, then another, then he stepped sideways and was gone. Margo grinned.

  Letting her gaze drift to the console, she admired the sleek, modern lines of it. The designer had obviously been going for the standard TV starship command center look, with a bunch of buttons and small screens surrounding two much larger ones. Her gaze drifted to one of them and she noticed an error box.

  ERROR NO SATELLITE CONNECTION—NO MESSAGES WERE SENT

  Uh oh. “Um, Jack,” she said.

  “You don’t seem to be understanding the seriousness of this situation,” Boyle growled to Lynette, ignoring Margo.

  “I’ll tell you what I think of your situation—”

  “Guys,” Margo yelled, clapping her hands once.

  Lynette jumped and Boyle’s laser focus swung to her.

  She pointed to the console. “Your message failed.”

  “Let me see.” He stomped over and let out a curse.

  She waved a hand at the screen like a game show hostess showing a prize, wondering just how bad things really were. Her brother would show up in three days on the shuttle. They had more than enough food to last them until then. When Hank landed, they could simply climb into his rocket and return to Earth.

  “Out of my chair,” Jack ordered.

  She put on her shoe and stood, appalled at how rude he was. His mother should be ashamed for raising him like this. Although maybe that was the issue. Perhaps he’d been raised in a pack of wolves.

  It was not hot. At all.

  Her feet protested, screaming at her. She thought she heard them saying Jack Boyle is a jerk. Devastation at the loss of her daydream washed over her. He was still hot and still a genius, but he wouldn’t do as dream fodder. It annoyed her that he’d ruined it.

  He plunked down and scrambled across the keyboard, punching the keys, muttering under his breath. Finally, he leaned back in her chair. “They’ve cut our coms. We’re well and truly fucked.” He pointed his finger at Lynette. “Move everyone and everything you brought into the main room. I want it done on the double.”

  For a second, it appeared Lynette was going to argue again, then she changed her mind. “Go pack your stuff, Margo, including your cot. I’ll get the other girls moving.”

  Margo didn’t need to be told twice. All she wanted was to change into a pair of jeans and get out of these shoes. No emergency should be met in a floor-length gown.

  From the side door, she hustled down the temporary hallway from the ship to main building, taking off her heels so she could move fast. When she reached the room she shared with the contestants, she had her dress off and real clothes on in a heartbeat. Then she shoved all her personal things in her bag, put on her hiking boots, and collapsed her camp cot. She gathered up everything right as all the rest of the women entered. She zigged around them, trying to slip out as the last person came in.

  Misty held out her arm across the doorway, barring Margo’s escape. “What the hell was that, Margo?”

  “We’re being filmed, Misty, so watch your tone,” she whispered, not wanting to get the other girl in trouble or have either of them featured on TV sniping at each other. She’d watched all of twenty minutes of another of Hank’s shows and the whole time, women seemed to be fighting over just about anything and everything. It had been beyond painful and she didn’t want to turn into a highlight.

  “I don’t give a shit if we’re being filmed,” Misty snarled, rising up to her full height, which was taller than Margo’s 5’9”.

  “Misty, don’t.” Amanda tried to pull her arm off the doorframe. “Chad picked Margo. It’s not her fault.”

  “Come off it, Amanda. You know she was supposed to be voted off. She wasn’t even trying.” Amanda gave her a head-to-toe appraisal. “I mean, she doesn’t even know how to put on strip lashes. I saw Tiffany teaching her.”

  “Well, they’re really tricky,” Margo defended herself, but she was supposed to go home. “I tried my best on this show.”

  “Did you see her when we were cooking? Cuddling up to Chad, fluttering her eyelashes,” Misty said, stepping closer, giving a series of exaggerated blinks that looked ridiculous. Then she raised both fisted hands, like she was going to fight.

  Oh my God, someone is going to fight me. Like they were on some talk show that revealed who the Baby Daddy
was. Margo tried to close her mouth, which had fallen open.

  Amanda pulled on Misty’s arm again. “She won fair and square, Misty.”

  Margo woke up out of her shock. “I wasn’t cuddling up. But even if I was, that’s the point, isn’t it? To get Chad to like me?”

  “She’s right. That’s what we’re here for. I told you, Margo’s the stealth contestant and she stealthed you, Misty,” Claire said from across the room, a bit of satisfaction in her tone, because Misty wasn’t popular with the other women.

  The other contestants had stopped packing and stared at Margo, considering her like this was a real possibility.

  Margo wanted to explain to them that she was just here to test her rover, but they were being filmed. And Lynette would be pissed if she ruined the fight scene.

  And then, like a ton of bricks, it hit her. This whole Russian attack could be some elaborate scheme to put them under more pressure so Hank would get good film clips. “We need to go. Boyle said we had to be moved as fast as possible.” She zigged quickly to the right and got around Misty before she could put her arm up to block her again.

  Misty lunged but was no match in her heels to Margo’s hiking boots even with Margo being weighted down with all her gear. Margo broke into a run, her anger giving her speed.

  Returning to the main building, Russ pointed to the living room. “Set up your bed in there. Lynette is putting together a new filming schedule.”

  “New schedule?” she asked, all her suspicions gaining strength. “Aren’t we in the middle of a crisis? Or is this some sort of setup to put us under more stress?” She studied Russ’ face, trying to see if he gave anything away.

  Russ shrugged, but pursed his lips as if he was considering it. “If it’s a set up, they haven’t told me.”

  Margo believed him. Russ just wasn’t equipped to lie.

  “Which has happened before, now that I think about it.”

  “Wait, they do things without letting the staff know?” She had a hard time believing that.

  “It makes things more authentic if whatever happens comes as a surprise for us too. That way we can’t telegraph to the contestants what is going on. We had a contestant that was an actor hired to create major drama on My Girlfriend 4 and I never knew a thing until she was voted off.”

  Well, if this was some sort of elaborate set up and she didn’t get to test her rover, Hank was a dead man walking. Margo stalked into the living room, so mad, she took the little alcove that was clearly the best spot in the room. Until she tested her rover, she wasn’t participating in this bullshit and she’d tell Lynette that, too. Because it was only Boyle’s word that his rover had been blown up. And who would blow up a rover here on Mars? No one, that’s who. It didn’t even make sense. The Russians had most of a planet to set up shop.

  Some of the girls streamed in while she silently fumed, her mind going back and forth over what one minute was the most outlandish conclusion she’d ever come to (after all, this was Jack Boyle she was talking about here—was he capable of an elaborate falsehood?) and her brother’s well known deviousness.

  It occurred to her that she should just find Boyle and ask. He wasn’t an actor. He wouldn’t be able to lie under her scrutiny. She marched to the lab, ready to do battle.

  He still fiddled with the console, trying to get his communications up and running, testing wires to see if one had come unplugged.

  “Boyle,” she said, taking her no-nonsense tone she used with errant undergrads. “I want to know exactly what you saw out there.”

  “Who are you?” Jack asked again, not even bothering to turn her direction.

  What did he mean, who was she? She was Margaret Carson.

  No, actually she wasn’t. She was Margo Wilson, who would never challenge Jack Boyle. She would probably hide from this man, totally intimidated. Well screw it, she wasn’t going to be Margo until she had some answers. “You just met me,” she said, feeling her temper expand a little more. Because they had stood here an hour ago and Lynette had introduced them.

  He looked up. “Oh, right, the one who lied about her name.” He returned to his computer fiddling.

  “I didn’t lie. I never told you my name. That was Lynette. And anyway, you weren’t supposed to know that it’s fake.” She didn’t let him pull her off course. She was here for a reason.

  “You aren’t a very good actor.”

  She threw her hands up in the face of this unexpected confrontation. “No. I’m not. I don’t want to be an actor.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have come on this show.”

  A growl of frustration filled her chest. “No, I shouldn’t have,” she agreed, wondering if violence was the answer here. Perhaps it was, because, for the first time in her life, she wanted to hit someone. Jack Boyle, specifically. “What I need to know is what you saw out there.”

  That got his attention. “Why?”

  “Humor me.”

  He pointed to his console. “I’m in the middle of something important.”

  When he started to turn away again, she grabbed his arm.

  And something odd happened. A small shiver went through her. Because his bicep was rock hard, like he lifted weights, and his body was so warm, she wanted to press into him. She’d been terribly cold since she got here.

  She snatched her hand away. “Just tell me what you saw.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think this might be a set up. An elaborate ploy for TV ratings.”

  “My rover was blown to smithereens.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Damn straight I saw it.”

  Okay, so Jack Boyle wasn’t involved. But what if he was just as big of a patsy as all of them were? “What if the show blew up your rover for the ratings boost?”

  For a moment, his mouth compressed and a storm gathered in his eyes. The air tightened with the force of his building wrath. Then he shook his head. “First, the other ship wasn’t anything I’d seen before. No way Carson has access to something I haven’t at least heard about. And second, if Hank Carson blew up my million dollar rover for a stunt for his show, I will personally cut his liver out of his body.”

  “Yikes,” she said, wondering if he really would do that. The steel in his gaze said he might. Boyle was tough as hell and ready for a fight, that much was for sure. She found that oddly reassuring. In a crisis, it was good to have a warrior on hand. “You’re sure it was a foreign ship?”

  “Matte black, conical. And my rover took a direct hit that didn’t even destroy the rocks around it. One minute I had a rover, the next I had a pile of dust. No way the show had anything to do with that.”

  “They might have set explosives,” she said, trying to think it through.

  “And leave me out there without enough oxygen to make it back? You really think your boyfriend would do that?”

  “What boyfriend?” She hadn’t dated anyone in years. Men were too big of a distraction.

  “Carson.”

  Eww. She was insulted he thought she’d fall in love with someone so flighty, let alone that that someone was her own flesh and blood.

  But would her brother have done it? She shook her head, discarding the whole conspiracy theory. “No, you’re right. Even for Hank that’s over the top,” she agreed. Besides, his attorneys wouldn’t let him risk someone’s life. She was pretty sure. Unless they’d had Boyle sign a release?

  Still, she wasn’t completely convinced. Her brother was pretty focused when it came to getting high ratings, and he had said he was going to win an Emmy with this. “Still, you didn’t die, did you?” He’d made it inside with just enough oxygen to spare.

  “What?” Jack asked.

  “Margo, what are you doing in here?” Lynette snapped from behind her, making Margo jump. “The cast is in the living room.”

  She returned to character and tried to smile and be sweet. The real Margo would apologize, so she did. “Sorry, Lynette.” Being Margo was so hard. She couldn’t wait t
o get back to Margaret. “Only three days until Hank gets here,” she said out loud, relieved for once that her brother would arrive soon.

  “Carson is going to fly right into a trap if we don’t find some way to warn him,” Jack growled, focused again on his console.

  “What?” Margo was confused. “What trap?”

  “If they destroyed my rover, they’ll destroy his rocket.”

  “They aren’t going to destroy his ship,” Margo informed him.

  “Yes they are.”

  She shook her head. “If they were, they’d have blown it already.”

  He stood up, right into her personal space. “I’m telling you, they are going to disable all vehicles like they did to Haxley.”

  He made her so mad, with his commanding, bossy tone, she wanted him to be wrong, just on principal. She stepped into his space. “Last I looked, it was still in one piece.”

  From outside a massive snap sounded, knocking everyone off their feet, sending Margo stumbling into Boyle. He pin-wheeled his arms trying to keep them both standing, but gravity got the better of him and he hit the floor. Unable to catch her balance, she landed on top of him.

  He let out a loud, “Oof.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, her body draped across his.

  He was a lot more in shape than she expected, even with the earlier preview of his bicep. The lean muscle was hard beneath her. She blinked at his nearness and the fact that she didn’t hate him after all. In fact, she might want him. Sexually. Because her libido, which she’d thought had packed up and headed for Siberia a long time ago, suddenly sat up and purred yummy.

  For a moment, their gazes caught and she thought he’s going to kiss me!

  Then an alarm started blaring.

  He reversed their positions easily, rolling her to the floor and got to his feet. Offering her a hand, he pulled her to standing with ease, then steadied her as she tried to stiffen her jellied limbs. Wow. She felt like she’d been hit by an anvil. Who knew grumpy old Jack Boyle could light her fire?

  With sigh that told her he was too busy to help her stand any longer, he plunked her in the chair, then fiddled with the screens until he shut off the alarm and brought up a camera view of the outside.