Rory laughed. “Not so easy to be the life of the party when you’ve got to get up at dawn.”
“How are things going on your end?”
“It’s been a long week.” Rory rubbed his stiff neck.
“So modeling’s not all bright lights and pretty girls?”
“It’s hard work. I’m already tired of people telling me what to do.”
Griff chuckled. “Getting a chance to see how the other half lives, huh?”
“Can’t say I like it a whole lot.” Rory stopped at the corner of Broadway and Forty-ninth and waited for the light to change. He’d learned early on that these New York City drivers would just as soon run someone over as stop to avoid him. “You heard from Mom? I called last night, but she was asleep. Avery says she’s holding her own, but the treatment’s tough on her.”
“Avery said it’s worse than chemo.”
As long as the treatment didn’t kill her, but killed the cancer.
“Keep me posted.”
He ended the call. People rushed past him. Everyone here lived in such a hurry. No wonder Elizabeth fit right in. The woman was a whirlwind. Would she act like that in everything she did—that is, if she ever loosened up? If she focused that energy on a man, she could burn him to cinders in the bed. Rory smiled. What a way to go.
Someone bumped into him, mumbled a quick apology and scooted off. This walk wasn’t accomplishing what he’d hoped. Instead of releasing his pent-up energy, being out on the streets had spiked his blood pressure.
He missed the quiet at home. When he hiked in the mountains, he could think. The solitude cleared his head. Whenever he took a walk here, he returned to the hotel with a headache.
He’d hoped the streets might be quiet this early in the morning, but no such luck. Neon lights flashed. Horns honked constantly. People hurried by. He glanced upward, hoping a glimpse of the sky would calm his nerves. Instead, the Times Square billboard caught his gaze. He froze.
No. It couldn’t be.
Lizzie never mentioned anything about a billboard. He stared. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t deny the reality slapping him in the face.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE HE WAS, big as the Rocky Mountains, wearing nothing but the blasted fancy designer jeans and his cowboy hat, his arms crossed over his chest for all the world to see. The words Devlin jeans, strong enough for a real man ran along the bottom of the billboard.
He scoffed. Leave it to Lizzie to come up with that slogan. As if any real man would wear these jeans….
And how in the heck did she get the blasted billboard done so fast?
He’d thought the photo shoot had been embarrassing. Seeing himself staring down from a billboard sent him skyrocketing to new heights of humiliation. How would he ever handle television commercials airing on stations in his neck of the woods? At least no one he knew would see this.
Think about the money and Mom. That would get him through.
“Is that you up there?”
He turned to find a twentysomething brunette, her hair pulled into a ponytail and a Texas Rangers baseball hat perched on her head, ping-ponging between him and the billboard.
“It is,” her friend, dressed in jeans and an I love NY T-shirt, said. “He’s wearing the same jeans, and look, he’s got the same poker hand belt buckle.”
“Yup, it’s me.” Unfortunately.
“Are you famous?”
“No.” Please, Lord, let this be the extent of my fame. Don’t even give me fifteen minutes. That’s way too much.
“I bet you’ll be famous soon,” I Love NY said, her eyes glued on him as if he were the only stallion in the pasture.
Some men would think this scenario was a dream come true. “That’s kind of you to say so,” he mumbled.
I Love NY dug through her purse. A second later she handed him a Starbucks receipt and a pen. “Can I have your autograph?”
He almost asked her if she was kidding, before the manners his mother had drilled into his thick skull kicked in. “I’d be happy to. What’s your name?”
“Lindsay.”
He wrote “To Lindsay, thanks for being my first fan,” and signed his name. This autograph stuff wasn’t so bad. He might even grow to like it. “You ladies from New York?”
“We’re here on a girls’ vacation. We’re from Texas.”
“I should’ve guessed that.” He pointed to the baseball cap.
The other woman handed him a scrap of paper. “My name’s Judy.”
He stood there trying to figure out something clever to write. Signing autographs was harder than a person would think unless he simply scrawled his name, or wrote something generic. He thought doing that was kind of a raw deal. Everybody liked to feel special. He finally settled on “Judy, enjoyed meeting you in NYC” and signed his name.
When he looked up from the scrap of paper, a crowd of women had gathered and started tossing questions at him.
“Are you married?”
“No.” Someone else shoved paper and pen into his hand. “Who should I make—”
“Seeing anyone?”
An image of Lizzie flashed before his eyes. How insane was that? The last thing he needed was a relationship with another city woman. “Not right now.”
He scrawled his name on the paper and held it out. To heck with making them feel special. He just wanted to get out of here. This many women, all focused on him, couldn’t be good. One woman was unpredictable—a gaggle of them downright scary.
“Do you have any pictures?”
“Not right—”
“Do you live in New York?”
These women could teach police interrogation classes.
“I live in Colorado.”
“Here’s my business card,” a tall blonde dressed in black pants and a blouse said. “Call me. We can go out to dinner.”
“Would you like me to show you around the city? Here’s my business card.”
Wonderful, he could start a collection. He managed to toss a smile in the general direction from which the card came.
The circle around him grew tighter. He backed up, bumped into a woman and mumbled a quick apology. A tall redhead leaned toward him. “You and I could have a lot of fun. Let’s get out of here.”
He considered telling her he was gay, just to get rid of her. But with the way his luck was going, she’d club him over the head and kidnap him to prove he wasn’t, that he just hadn’t met the right woman.
Before he could answer, the ladies all started talking at once, creating quite a noise. To the general crowd he blurted out, “Excuse me, I’ve got to go.”
But when he stepped forward to leave, the circle didn’t budge, and someone grabbed his arm. Fear shot through him. The women had him so surrounded that if he pulled away, he’d knock half of them down.
He turned to the heavyset woman at his elbow and smiled. “Would you mind letting go of my arm? I’m thinking I might need it later today.”