Outback Hearts (Beyond Reality Book 1) Read online

  At first the room was pretty empty. There were a few people milling around. Once the room started filling up he could pretty much guess which women were the contestants and which were a part of the crew. There were redheads, blondes, brunettes, and even one woman with long, straight black hair. Alex relaxed a bit. Thank God, they were all good looking! He watched as Eddie got up on stage and started introducing the women one by one.

  “Katie from New York City, Brandi from Phoenix, Kimmie from San Diego, Ashley from Toledo, Cindee from Albany, Lori from Colorado Springs, KiKi from Miami, Courtnee from Pensacola….”

  The women all lined up on the stage. Alex chuckled as it reminded him of the “Miss America” pageant he’d been forced to watch when he was younger.

  “Candi from Greensboro, Jennie from Billings, Missy from Los Angeles, Sammi from Albuquerque…”

  Alex sat forward in his chair and leaned in closer to the screen. That last woman…Sammi…she didn’t look like the other contestants. For one, he hadn’t noticed her earlier when he’d been watching everyone mingle. He wondered where she’d been. She was also dressed much differently than everyone else. She had on a pair of jeans. They weren’t torn or ratty, but looked well-worn and comfortable…something she certainly didn’t look like. If Alex wasn’t mistaken, it looked like she was blushing. It was hard to tell from the little screen he was looking at and the distance the camera was from her, but it was definitely surprising. The producer was continuing the introductions…

  “Wendi from Las Vegas, Nikki from Seattle, Amy from El Paso, and last but not least Kathi from Knoxville. Remember these faces, everyone, these are our new contestants for our show called “Love in the Outback.”

  Alex groaned. Man, that name sucks. Hopefully he could talk to them and get them to change it. Alex watched the women walk off the stage. His eyes kept going to the woman in the jeans. He bet she felt self-conscious and out of place. He couldn’t remember her name, but because of her differences she’d caught his eye. It was definitely going to be an interesting few weeks.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Sam went downstairs with her two bags to gather before meeting their transportation. The other women slowly started entering the ballroom they were to wait in. Most were dragging their bags and they all had at least two full sized suitcases, plus numerous other small handbags.

  I hope we do end up camping, Sam thought to herself viciously, it would serve them right if they had to haul their bags all over the Outback.

  Eddie came into the room and gleefully announced, “Okay, everyone, our transportation is here, but there’s room for only one bag for each of you, plus one carry on. You’ll need to go through your belongings and make sure you only bring the essentials that can fit into one suitcase. You have ten minutes before we’ll be leaving.”

  The look on everyone’s face was priceless. Panic, sheer terror, moved through the women like a stadium full of fans doing the wave. Sam watched as the women flung their bags down and started throwing their clothes out and around them, searching for what they thought they had to have.

  “Should I bring my silk camisole?” Candi asked no one and everyone as she shuffled through her clothes.

  “I have to bring my hair dryer and curling iron,” Wendi shrieked as she tried to stuff more and more of her belongings into one suitcase that was already full to the brim.

  “This isn’t fair!” wailed Kimmie. “Why didn’t they tell us this last night?”

  Sam was leaning against the wall, enjoying the discomfort of everyone when Missy looked up and noticed that she wasn’t unpacking.

  “What’s wrong with you, Miss Bitch?” she asked nastily, getting the attention of most of the other women in the room. “You only brought one suitcase to begin with? What, can’t you afford designer clothes? Probably not since you wore those horrible jeans last night and have them on again today. Are we going to have to look at you in the same clothes every day until you’re kicked off? Hopefully you brought clean underwear!”

  With that, she started to laugh hysterically at her own joke. Her laugh was loud and braying. Sam looked around and saw most of the other girls were either laughing outright or at least smirking as they continued to rifle through their own belongings. Sam finally answered Missy.

  “I figured since we were going to the Outback we’d probably not have the opportunity to wear much Gucci or Prada, but if we do, I’m sure you’ll point out my deficiencies.” Somehow Sam made it sound offhand and flippant, when inside she was hoping the first person would be kicked off before the bus left, and that it’d be Missy.

  Eddie came back into the room in exactly ten minutes and started trying to herd everyone out of the room. It looked like a disaster area. There were clothes everywhere. Some of the women were still trying to close their suitcases, which were bulging at the seams with way too many clothes. The random TV employees had to help zip up and close suitcases before they were herded out to a large bus. Sam chuckled. She knew many of the other women were hoping they’d be brought to the place they’d be staying in stretch limousines. Or maybe like the other reality show that was set in the Outback, they’d be skydiving to their destination. But a bus…how plain, how…normal!

  Sam overheard the women speculating the night before about what the house they’d be living in would look like. In most of the other reality shows she’d seen, the house was beautiful. There were always tons of bedrooms that looked like they were sets for a magazine. There were usually fish tanks and a professional chef-kitchen as well. Sam hoped they wouldn’t all be in the same room. She could barely tolerate most of the women for the time the introductions took place last night, there was no way she’d be able to handle living with all of them 24/7!

  With their bags stowed under the bus, everyone took their seats. Sam always liked to sit in the front of a bus. She could see where they were going and ever since she’d seen the movie Speed she imagined that if the driver was ever killed or injured, she could heroically take over and save the day. Silly, but she was a romantic at heart. She’d watched that movie a hundred times. When Keanu and Sandra had slid out of the bus together, lain in the dirt and stared into each other’s eyes…whew…that was her favorite part.

  Sam looked at the driver. She couldn’t really tell what he looked like. What was obvious was that he wasn’t Keanu Reeves. She huffed a laugh at herself under her breath. As if a movie star would be driving a bus in the middle of Australia.

  When the signal was given by a woman standing outside, the bus driver started up the bus and drove off. The producer wasn’t onboard with them, but there was a woman with a camera. The show had started.

  * * *

  Sam was dozing off when she heard “Hey, Sammi.”

  She looked over to her left and one of the women…Lori from Colorado Springs, Sam thought, was talking to her.

  “Hey, Sammi, where do you think we’re going? When do you think we’ll get to meet the guy?” At least one of the women was being friendly. Sam was starting to think she’d be a total outcast.

  “Um, I’m not sure. I think these shows are all about making us try to guess stuff. As for when we’ll meet the guy, we’ll probably meet him before we know we’re meeting him. These reality shows love to give the guy a sneak peak of his pickings.” Sam laughed at herself and then couldn’t stop herself from saying next, “Do we know that we’re competing for a man? Maybe it’s a woman.”

  Lori looked horrified, obviously that possibility hadn’t occurred to her.

  “I’m just kidding, Lori. I’m sure it’ll be a guy.” Sam had to remind herself to try to rein in her sarcasm. Not everyone appreciated it, and she didn’t think the other women would be like Beth and Christina and join in.

  Lori looked relieved that Sam thought they’d be meeting a guy after all and nodded her head, then said, “You’re probably right about when we get to meet him. I’d better make sure I look all right then, never know when he’ll pop in.”

  Lori pr
oceeded to take out a small pocket mirror and repair her already perfect makeup. At least she was semi-friendly, Sam thought to herself, even if a little self-absorbed.

  Alex tried to control his smirk. Driving the bus wasn’t hard. Not that he’d ever done it before, but he was given a short and fast lesson the night before. He was to drive the women to their lodging. He was able to watch all the women climb on the bus and overhear their conversations. Most were complaining about the fact they had to leave some of their shoes and fancy clothes behind. Others were complaining about having to travel by bus. He knew they expected something fancier. Some of the women didn’t say anything as they climbed on board.

  Once again he noticed that the woman called Sammi stood out like a beacon of light in the darkness. She wasn’t wearing designer clothes and he didn’t think she was even wearing makeup. She certainly wasn’t model beautiful, now that he could see her close up, but she was easy on his eyes. She didn’t flaunt her body as some of the other women did. In fact, it was hard to tell what she looked like under the baggy T-shirt she was wearing.

  Since Sammi and Lori were sitting in the seats closest to the driver, Alex could overhear their conversation easily. He almost broke his cover when he heard Sammi’s comment about him maybe being a woman. He changed his laugh to a cough at the last second. He wasn’t above using sarcasm on occasion and it was refreshing to hear someone being real. Sammi did have the producers pegged, though. She’d obviously seen enough reality shows to know some of the tricks. But he thought that even she’d be surprised to learn that he was the “guy” they would meet later that night. He wondered if any of the other women had any idea about what was in store for them. He’d bet Sammi had some ideas.

  They’d been on the bus for a couple of hours when he pulled up to a desolate area that had been scoped out in advance. Alex heard one of the women say, “Oh no, please tell me they aren’t going to dump us here in the middle of nowhere!” Eddie, who’d been following the bus in an air conditioned limo, climbed aboard the bus and announced that each woman was going to do an introductory video for the bachelor. The order in which the videos were taped was the order the bachelor was going to watch them.

  Before he could continue, Jennie called out, “I want to be first!” And just like that pandemonium erupted.

  There were shouts of, “No fair!” and, “I want to be last” and, “That’s dumb!” Finally Eddie quieted everyone down and explained that the order the bachelor would watch the videos would be determined by the women themselves. They had to work together and come up with a way to figure out who would speak first, second, and so forth. They had twenty minutes to work it out.

  Sam heard Eddie chuckling as he left the bus. It was obvious the producer was loving the angst he was causing and was already imaging how it would play off on television.

  Missy immediately stood up and said, “Okay, everyone, we need someone in charge and I think I’m the best person.” Sam rolled her eyes as Missy continued. “So I want everyone who wants to be first to go to the front of the bus. Everyone that wants to be last, go to the back of the bus. If someone doesn’t care, go to the middle of the bus.”

  Sam thought it was actually a good way to at least start the process. After all, they only had twenty minutes to decide. Sam went to the middle of the bus. She honestly didn’t care. She didn’t think the guy would even notice her with all the other women. There were two women who came to the middle of the bus with her. Amy and Nikki also claimed they didn’t care where they went in the video introductions. There were eight women who wanted to be first and another five who wanted to be last. They figured they’d have the best chance to be remembered by the bachelor.

  The bickering continued. Sam sat in the middle and halfway listened to both sides of the bus. She glanced up at one point and found the driver intently staring into the mirror over his head. Sam chuckled to herself. Must be quite a sight to see all these beauties with their claws out. It seemed as if the back of the bus had figured out their order, but the front was still pretty heated about whether Missy or Jennie were going to be first. Eddie came back on board and told everyone to get off and to line up in the order of who was going where. Sam, Amy, and Nikki didn’t know where they were going, so they just got in the middle of each group and figured it was good enough. Missy finally got her way and stood at the front of the line with a smirk. The producer told them they were going to get back on the bus and do the videos one at a time with the camera operator.

  Sam waited patiently for her turn. She squatted down in the shade of the bus and closed her eyes. It was a bit warm outside—a lot warm if you listened to the other women—but it was very peaceful, which was something Sam wasn’t used to. Finally it was Sam’s turn. She’d heard all about the things the other women said in their video. They’d bragged about how they knew they were going to catch the guy’s attention with their videos. Sam still had no idea what she was going to say. She’d thought about it the entire time she was waiting for her turn, but still hadn’t thought of anything witty or eye-catching. As she stepped on the bus she saw the bus driver slumped in his seat with his hat pulled down over his eyes. It looked like he was sleeping soundly. Those other videos must not have been that exciting. Sam chuckled.

  Sam sat down on the seat as the camerawoman settled across from her. “I’m not really sure where to start,” Sam said to the camerawoman, whose name she finally learned was Kina.

  “Just introduce yourself and tell the bachelor what makes you special,” Kina responded. Sam took a deep breath and when she saw the red light on the camera started.

  “Hi. My name is Sammi and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’m not sure what I’m really supposed to say here, it’s like a blind date…really blind on my part since I have no idea who you are.” Sammi shifted uncomfortably in her seat and cleared her throat as she continued.

  “I’m not sure what you’d want to know about me. I’m thirty-three years old and I rent a small house in the Four Hills area of Albuquerque…oh…I forgot…you probably don’t know where that is. It’s on the east side of the city near the Interstate. Um, I love animals, especially dogs…in fact, I have three…two basset hounds and a bloodhound. They’re all rescues, I got the bassets from Arizona Basset Hound Rescue and their names are Blue and Albert, and the bloodhound I got from the local shelter and his name is Duke…um…I’m not sure what else interesting there is about me…I’m not allowed to talk about what I do for a living, so um…”

  Sam looked around the bus for some inspiration as to what she should say next. Of course, all she saw was the bus seats and the driver, who looked like he was snoring in the front seat.

  “Um…so I like to sit in the front seat of the bus…I usually won’t ever sit further back than the second seat and it’s all because of the movie Speed. It had Sandra Bullock in it…anyway, so in the movie, Sandra’s character saved the day when she took over driving the bus when the driver was wounded. I’ve always thought that would be something I could do, so just in case, I sit near the front so I can take over…”

  Sam paused, then looked at Kina and asked, “Can I say cut?”

  Kina looked up from the viewfinder, cut the camera and said, “What’s up?”

  “Okay, I know this is supposed to be reality TV and be live and all of that, but that story just made me sound like the biggest dork in the world…can we please rewind it and let me say something else? I’d just die if the guy heard that.”

  Kina chuckled and said, “Sure, some of the others wanted to re-do their bits too, not a big deal.”

  Sam sighed with relief and said more to herself than to Kina, “Okay, now I just have to figure out what I do want to say.”

  Kina lifted the camera back up and the red light came back on. Show time.

  “Okay, so you know where I live and that I live with three fur kids…I guess one question that sometimes gets asked in awkward moments when people don’t know what to say to someone is ‘what would you do if yo
u won the lottery?’ Let’s see…I’d most likely quit my job, I’d tell you what I do, but then the producer would have to kill me.” Sam chuckled at herself and then continued, “But I’d want to do something. There’s no way I could just sit at home every day. I’d go stir crazy. I would probably donate money or put money in a trust of some sort for some of the rescue groups that help animals and dogs. There are so many unwanted dogs and the rescue groups do so much with so little. It’d be nice to be able to spread that wealth around a bit and be able to help more animals.” Sam laughed. “I probably sound like a do-gooder, but it’s not my fault…you try thinking of something interesting to tell someone you’ve never met! I hope you have a good time with this show, and that you meet someone you could consider spending the rest of your life with. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

  Sam looked into the camera expectantly. Kina turned it off and lowered the large lens. “All done?” she asked.

  “Yup, I suppose that’s as good as it’s going to be,” Sam responded, blushing. “Just promise you’ll edit that stupid story out before it gets shown on National TV!” Kina laughed, as Sam wanted her to, and she got up and stepped off the bus. After she left, Kina met Alex’s eyes, which were now open and looking in the mirror over the driver’s seat again.

  “That was interesting,” Kina told him. “Much different than the other ones.”

  Alex agreed, Sammi not only looked different, but she was a breath of fresh air. Most of the other women talked about how they liked to shop and where they liked to eat, and all of the important people they knew. Some almost stripped off their tops and showed their cleavage throughout the video. And that story about the bus…Alex knew Sammi would be mortified to know that he was the “guy” and that he’d heard that story. He’d already heard a short version of it when she was talking to Lori in the front seat, but hearing it again made her seem a bit more “human” and down to earth. Everyone had fantasies and in a small way Sammi was ready to fulfill hers. Alex sighed…not too many more of these videos to sit through and they’d be on their way.