Self-proclaimed “bird nerd” Sophie Castle has been given the opportunity of a lifetime: her own documentary about her fine-feathered friends. But her cameraman, Rigg Greensman, is unmotivated … and drop dead gorgeous. Can they work together to convince the public to love birds—without falling in love themselves?
BookShots Flames
Original romances presented by James Patterson
Novels you can devour in a few hours
Impossible to stop listening
Release date:
September 6, 2016
Publisher:
Little, Brown and Company
Print pages:
144
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When I get off the plane in Sharm el-Sheikh, I feel like I’ve been sitting for hours in a trash compactor. The man beside me smelled strongly of garlic and fried food.
My mother says that flying used to be romantic. Not anymore. When I catch my reflection in an airport window, I see that over nineteen hours of air travel isn’t exactly a beauty treatment. Not that I care too much about that. I am a scientist, an ornithologist, a bird nerd. I am here for the adventure of a lifetime, and I can turn this exhaustion into exhilaration. All it takes is a little resolve.
I remove my itinerary from the lower side pocket of my safari vest. I have two more copies of the schedule in my luggage. I printed out three just in case something happened to one—or two—of them. The sheet of paper clearly indicates that a driver is supposed to be here to pick me up.
I go off to find my Patagonia at the luggage carousel. It’s a new bag my mother gave me for this trip, a lime-green water-resistant rolling duffle. My mother wanted to buy me a Tumi, but I lobbied for the Patagonia. What self-respecting outdoorswoman would pick a Tumi over a Patagonia? My mother calls it my Patagucci, because it’s expensive for what it is. She knows about these things. She’s been in retail since my father died when I was four.
I am thrown by my missing driver. There’s no sign saying SOPHIE CASTLE anywhere to be found. Here I am in Egypt—my first time out of the United States. I could call Corey West, my producer at the Discovery Channel, or better yet, my friend Halley (named for the comet) who works with him and was the force behind getting me this gig. But no. I’m a big girl. I can figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel without calling Los Angeles.
The driver should have been here to pick up two of us: me and my cameraman, Rigg Greensman. He came to the Discovery Channel from When Sharks Attack, which aired on Nat Geo Wild, and he is supposed to be one of the best cameramen in the field. Halley says I was lucky to get him. I’m sure she’s right, but it’s a little hard to believe when he’s not here. I googled him before I left the United States and printed out all the information I could find, including his picture. When I showed it to my mother, she said, “He’s too handsome for his own good.” I don’t understand that expression since he probably benefits from those looks, while any girl in his general vicinity is likely to be struck down by them. Anyone but me. I don’t pick up the shiny pebbles on the beach. I take the ones that are weirdly colored or oddly shaped. In a choice between Shrek and Prince Charming, I’d choose Shrek. Rigg, with his sun-kissed curls and cleft chin, looks too much like a drawing of a prince.
Finally, I go outside and grab a taxi. The cabbie doesn’t speak much English, and all I know how to say in Arabic is As-Salaam-alaikum. This driver could take me anywhere. I’m at his mercy. I take my compass out of the left upper pocket of my safari vest. At least we are going in the right direction: south. If we were going north, we’d be heading toward Israel. Because I don’t know how long the journey is supposed to be, I can’t relax. The time ticks by and we get farther and farther from the bright lights of Sharm el-Sheikh. The only thing that comforts me is that I am hardly the type of woman who gets kidnapped into white slavery. I cut my long hair infrequently and when I do, I cut it with nail scissors. I don’t have a unibrow, but fifteen minutes with a pair of tweezers would not go amiss. My teeth are straight, thanks to my mother who has made every sacrifice to make sure I’ve had the best of everything, including braces. My breasts aren’t much to speak of, not that anyone’s been speaking much of them lately. My eyes are a greenish-brown. When you take all the features separately, each is attractive enough, but with the way I manage them—or fail to manage them—they don’t cause men to trail after me like lovesick puppies. Not that I’d want them to.
After almost an hour, dusk has turned to darkness and we pull into the gravel parking lot of the Pigeon House. The stucco exterior makes the building look like a sand dune and I feel a little like Lawrence of Arabia. I pay the driver in Egyptian pounds, glad that I had the foresight to get them, and walk inside, dragging my bag behind me.
Chapter 2
When I find my driver and cameraman, they are sitting at a plastic table in the bar at the back of the Pigeon House. I don’t know whether I am relieved or furious.
“You were supposed to wait for me,” I say, stabbing at my itinerary.
“And hello to you, too,” Rigg says. He stands and sticks out his hand. It isn’t until I reach out my own hand that I realize my fingernails are dirty. I pull it back. Rigg probably thinks I’m snubbing him. “Have a seat. This is our driver and translator, Ahmed,” Rigg says. In his buttery leather jacket, Rigg looks much as I expected he would. His Ray-Bans hold his floppy hair off his forehead like a woman’s headband.
“Hello, Ahmed. Didn’t you read the itinerary?” I sit down in the kind of plastic chair you can pick up at Walmart, three for ten dollars.
Ahmed looks at me blankly. He obviously doesn’t understand the word itinerary so I take it out and wave it in his face.
“Put that thing away, will you?” Rigg says. His tone makes me feel like a guy who has just opened his raincoat and flashed his junk.
I sit down and look at the menu. It’s in both English and Arabic. Turns out that the Middle East is a vegetarian’s paradise. I don’t eat birds, of course. After I stopped eating them, it was only a short jump to not eating anything sentient. I order falafel.
When the food comes, I tuck in. I haven’t had anything to eat for five hours. I focus on the food and block out everything else. That is, until I feel Rigg staring at me. I pause to look up.
“Haven’t you ever seen a girl eat before?” I ask, wiping some tahini off my chin with a paper napkin.
“Not quite like that,” he says.
“The girls you date probably don’t eat,” I say.
“I don’t know why you would say that,” he says.
“Just a hunch.” I look toward the bar and beckon over our translator.
“What do you need?” Ahmed asks. He has very short cropped hair, bronze skin, and green eyes. He couldn’t be much older than twenty.
“I’d like a beer,” I say.
He calls out to a blond girl behind the bar. “Katya, this lady would like a beer,” he says in English.
“I could have done that,” I say.
“But I’m your translator.” He smiles. His two front teeth overlap just enough to be appealing.
I take a breath and look at Rigg. “Tell me a little about yourself,” I say.
“What do you want to know?” He leans back on the two rear legs of his chair and I’m tempted to tell him he’ll break his neck if he doesn’t come back down to earth.
“What got you interested in birds?” I ask.
“I’m not interested in birds,” he says.
He’s been put on this bird project. He could at least pretend to be interested in birds.
“Oh,” I say.
“I’ve spent the last few years working on When Sharks Attack,” he says.
“So how’d you end up here?”
“Just a little careless mistake.” He is wobbling on that chair now. “My assistant lost his little finger.”
“Lost it?”
“Well, a shark ate it. We were trying to get an impossible shot,” he says.
“I suppose it could have been worse,” I say. “It could have been his whole hand or his thumb, which is much more useful than a little finger.” I shovel up some hummus with a piece of pita and take a bite. “So, this is basically a demotion for you.”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” he says without conviction.
“Well, who knows? You could end up liking birds.”
His expression says that I shouldn’t count on it, but he gives me a crooked smile.
I wipe my plate clean with a piece of bread.
“They won’t even have to wash that,” Rigg says.
“I hope they do.” I get up and stand for a moment with my hands on my hips. “I’m going to bed and I suggest you do the same. Early day tomorrow. And just in case you haven’t read the itinerary, . . .
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