Tying the Knot
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Brenda Novak
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Chapter One
“You want me to do what?” Grady Amos had been leaning toward the woman he’d just met—Winnie...something. He couldn’t remember her last name. But he liked her. She was attractive in a polished, fashionable way, wearing a long straight skirt and a sleeveless blouse—obviously designer clothes that fit her trim figure to perfection—with her blond hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail at her nape. A woman in high heels who smelled like the perfume counter at Macy’s wasn’t something he ran into very often in the small Gold Country town in Northern California where he’d been raised. Folks were pretty casual in Whiskey Creek. So when he’d walked into Sexy Sadie’s to relax after a long day at work, she’d stood out—enough that he’d veered over to the bar to claim the empty seat next to her.
But what she’d just said had him scooting back by a foot at least.
“You’d make a great contestant on the dating show I’m producing,” she repeated.
He made a face to show he wasn’t excited by that idea. She’d said she was in town for two days visiting a friend on her way to Los Angeles. She was coming through after spending the weekend in Lake Tahoe at her parents’ cabin. But she was obviously recruiting along the way. She was probably always recruiting. She seemed ambitious, the type to take her work very seriously.
“You’re making a reality TV show?” he said. She’d told him she was a producer, but she hadn’t gotten specific until she’d learned that he was unattached. When she’d started to probe to find out his status, he’d assumed she was asking because she was interested in him the same way he was interested in her, so that was part of his disappointment.
She looked a bit crestfallen herself. Most people probably showed a great deal more interest when she mentioned what she did for a living. “We’re in our third season. You’ve never seen Tying the Knot?”
“I’m afraid not.” He’d never been interested in reality TV...other than Survivor. He made an exception for that show because it was freaking amazing. And maybe Naked and Afraid. He considered the dating ones—The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and all the others—to be for women.
She adjusted the straw on the Moscow mule he’d bought her. “You should give it a try, see what you think.”
He doubted it would be anything he’d enjoy, but he liked talking to her and was hoping to get her to go out with him even if it meant he had to drive six or seven hours to LA. “What’s the show about, exactly?”
“It’s a study of first impressions—whether human beings can choose a mate based on looks and instant chemistry, or if they need time to get to know each other in order to have a successful relationship.”
“Oh, it’s like that show my sister-in-law was talking about the other night.” He cast about in his mind for the name. “What’s it called? The one where they meet at their own wedding?”
“Married at First Sight? Not really,” she said with a shake of her head. “On my show, you’d get to choose your bride.”
He finished his beer and signaled for the bartender to bring him another. “How does it work?”
“Our contestants take a battery of personality tests. Then they’re sent on three dates, each with a different woman—” she selected a peanut out of the bowl in front of them “—all of whom have been vetted and handpicked by psychologists as being compatible. And then they get to choose one of the three.”
“To continue dating?”
“To marry.”
Of course. He knew there’d be a catch. The show had to have a shocking premise. That was what gave it word of mouth, made it worth tuning in. “Sounds like whoever does this is asking for trouble.”
Her eyes widened at his response. “Not really. If the marriage doesn’t work out, they can always have it annulled,” she said as if it was no big deal. “It’s not that different from dating in the real world. There are connections and breakups. Some relationships work and others don’t.”
If it was that similar to real life, they wouldn’t be making a show out of it. But he didn’t say so. “The women don’t get to choose?” He grinned. “Isn’t that a little misogynistic?”
She arched her eyebrows. “The men chose in season one, the women chose in season two.”
So it was the men’s turn...
He rubbed the beard growth on his chin. He wanted to find a good woman with whom he could start a family. He’d wanted that for a long time. And yet, here he was staring down his fortieth birthday and he hadn’t yet found love.
He was beginning to worry he’d be single for the rest of his life, which was why, for a brief moment, a small part of him was tempted to try something this unconventional. At least it would put him in close proximity to Winnie, whom he considered the real prize. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone. But with all the posturing and deceit on those matchmaking sites, online dating was already out of his comfort zone. Why would he take an even bigger risk? “Meeting someone on the internet is about as wild as I get.”
“You’ve tried that, then?”
“I have, here and there.” He’d pulled down his profile probably four years ago, after one of the women he’d met began to stalk him, so it’d been some time.
She popped another peanut into her mouth. “And how has that worked out for you?”
He gave her a dirty look. “It hasn’t, but there’s no guarantee this would, either.” There had to be a lot of heartache involved in something like this. Embarrassment, too, since so much of what happened would be made public. He wasn’t one to seek the limelight, even if he could leave Whiskey Creek for as long as it would take to shoot the various episodes...which he couldn’t. “Would my odds be any better going onto a reality TV show?” he challenged.
“Maybe. We have three couples from seasons one and two who are still married,” she said proudly. “I plan to incorporate them—in a small way—in this year’s show.”
He straightened. “Three out of how many?”
“Eight.”
Nearly 50 percent wasn’t bad. “I’m shocked to hear the success ratio is that high.”
“We do a lot of testing before we even get started,” she said with a measure of satisfaction. “We want people to be happy.”
He began to peel the label on his locally brewed IPA. “How do you find your contestants?”
“People apply online. We’ve nearly finished casting this season. I just need one more guy. Actually, I need two guys. There’s one person I’d like to replace.” She grimaced. “I’m not totally sure about him.”
“What do I have that he doesn’t?” Grady asked.
“You’re not vying for attention, not already applying for every other show on TV or looking for a way to break into showbiz. That alone will give you more sincerity, make you more convincing and appealing in general.”
He’d suspected reality shows weren’t actually “real.” They were well-choreographed, and this proved it. But he supposed that was the only way they’d ever work, so he couldn’t get too upset about it. Most people understood they weren’t completely unscripted. “I doubt I’ll be any good on TV. I’ve never been on before. And there has to be drama, or it’ll be boring. You won’t get much drama out of me.”
“Trust me, the situation brings its own drama,” she said with an appealing laugh. “I don’t need you or any other contestant to be difficult. The odds are already stacked against us—against the survival of long-term relationships in general—and yet that’s exactly what we’re striving for. Our viewers are rooting for our contestants to fall in love.”
“I think I’m too private of a person.”
“You’d be well compensated.”
“I have a job,” he pointed out. She’d asked him what he did when he sat down, so she already knew that.
She took another sip of her drink. “You said you work at an auto body shop?”
Clearly, she wasn’t dazzled by his vocation, but he made a good living. Money wasn’t one of his problems. “I don’t just work there, I own it,” he clarified. He wanted to impress her, or he would’ve added that he didn’t own Amos Auto Body entirely on his own. He and his four brothers were partners, but they’d grown the business a great deal since they’d taken over from their father. They had three locations now—the original shop here in Whiskey Creek and two others, one run by his second oldest brother in Reno, Nevada, and the other by his younger brother, the baby of the family, in Silver Springs, California, which wasn’t too far from Los Angeles.
“But this could make you a star,” she said as if it was the ultimate enticement.
He didn’t want to be a star. He just wanted to find a good woman. “There’s no way I could take that much time away from my business even if I wanted to.”
He assumed she’d let it go at that, but she didn’t. “If you’re the boss, don’t you have employees who can take care of things while you’re gone?”
Since Aaron and Mack had moved away, he, Dylan and Rod had taken on a couple of guys to fill their slots, plus one more to give them some breathing room. Dylan and Rod had families and couldn’t work the kind of hours they’d put in before. But he was still there all day, every day. Although they split the money evenly, it made sense that he should carry more of the load since he didn’t have quite so many demands on his time. “I have a few.”
“Then do something unexpected, something wild.” She lowered her voice. “It could change your life.”
“We’ll see.” It was hard to turn down such a beautiful, earnest face. But he simply wasn’t the type to go after something like this. She’d said that three of the couples who’d been on the show were still together, but that didn’t mean they’d withstand the test of time. This was only the third season!
Maybe once they’d passed their tenth anniversary, he’d believe they had a fighting chance.
“Don’t you want to get married?” she pressed.
He craved the committed and hectic but happy lives his brothers were living. But he doubted this was the way to get it. “I’d like to find someone,” he admitted. “But it would need to be the right woman, and I can’t imagine meeting my wife in such a way.”
“Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” she said. “Best-case scenario, you find the woman of your dreams. Worst case, you come back here and do what you’ve always done.”
When she put it that way, staying in Whiskey Creek didn’t sound all that appealing. Just lonely.
But a reality TV show? No way. “I’ll think about it.”
She checked her phone, seemed startled by the time and slid off her stool. “I’ve got a conference call. But here’s my card.” She winked as he accepted it, and her smile hit him right in the gut. “Give me a call if you change your mind.”
He slid the card in his pocket as she walked out. He wanted to give her a call, but it wasn’t because he wished to be on her TV show.
