The Prairie Project

By Kara Abbington

How can she concentrate on the project when hunky Dr. Perfect has seduction in mind?

Catherine Fuller, amateur costumer, didn’t expect to be picked as the resident blogger of the Prairie Project, a living history entertainment experiment.  Despite her doubts that she can cut it as a prairie settler, she heads out to the wilds and discovers that writing about Jeremy Kessler, their deliciously sexy doctor, is far more enticing than chronicling the daily living.  She begins to fall for him…and has to face a painful memory from her past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kara Abbington
• Release date: Jul 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536512342

Book preview

The Prairie Project

By

Kara Abbington

*****

Copyright © 2016 Kara Abbington

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design by SelfPubBookCovers.com/FrinaArt

This is a work of fiction.  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

2008:

It was raining the day that Catherine got the news.  She would wonder much later if the storm that had swept the area was an omen of sorts.

Rain streaked the windows of her sister Deb’s family room.  Occasionally, thunder rattled the panes.  Deb and her husband Tim lived in an old farmhouse that they’d been restoring for years.  It wasn’t in the country anymore and hadn’t been for many years, subdivisions growing up around it in steady degrees.  The city was taking over what had once been rich farmland.

The house was wonderfully homey, with handmade quilts to wrap up in when the air was chilly and the clean smells of lemon and pine mingling with the scents of good cooking.  There was always something yummy in Deb’s kitchen, whether it was the fresh jam and baked goods she made as gifts or some new recipe for dinner.  Deb was a born homemaker.  It was clearly her calling in life.

Catherine, however, was not a homemaker.  She preferred frozen dinners and takeout, took all of her laundry to the drycleaner, and had hired a maid service so she didn’t have to worry about the boring task of cleaning anything.  All of those craft things and home things Deb loved absolutely bored her to tears.

Except one: sewing.

While Deb quilted, Catherine made fabulous costumes.  Fabulous was Deb’s word, not Catherine’s.  Catherine loved the challenge of turning a blah piece of fabric into something unique and pretty.  Or as screen-accurate as possible given whatever her current level of skill was.

She sighed and turned her attention to the reason she was over at Deb and Tim’s on a rainy Wednesday evening when she should be at home going to bed early for her early shift at work the next day.

Deb was standing in the middle of the floor in her Civil War era chemise, corset, and petticoats, her hands on her hips.  I’m telling you, Catherine, I need a new chemise and corset to go under my ball gown.

You don’t need a new corset.  She did, though.  With the amount of reenacting Deb and Tim did every summer, and sometimes in the winter if it was unseasonably warm, Catherine sometimes thought she made more costumes for those two than for herself.  She had yet to finish that bustle gown she’d been working on for months now because Deb had needed a new day dress.  Where’s Tim?

Tim could be counted on nixing the new corset because he needed a few new shirts.  At least his shirts were quick to make up in comparison to the corset.  Deb’s corsets always needed a ton of tweaks.  Catherine couldn’t just use the tried and true pattern.  She had to re-fit it every single time.

Deb swayed her hips, making her petticoats swish.  Talking to someone on the phone.  He opened the mail, grabbed for the phone, and went into his home office.

What was in the mail?

She shrugged.  I don’t know.  The corset, Catherine?

The chemise I can do.  Your corset is only a year old.

I know.  It’s a whole year old.  Look at it.  It’s falling apart.

Catherine sighed and stepped to her to study the corset.  Most people aren’t this hard on their corsets, Deb.  What the hell are you doing to get it in this condition so fast?

"Um...wearing it nearly every day during reenactment season.  Then we have all of those indoor and charity events we do the rest of the year.  Just be glad I don’t do the Revolutionary War reenacting, too."

Deb and Tim had met at Deb’s single foray into that era.  She’d good-naturedly gone to an event with Catherine merely because Catherine hadn’t been old enough to drive at that point.  She’d worn the ill-fitting dress Catherine had made her and done her best to be an awesome big sister.  Catherine had good memories of that day.  She’d just learned how to sew and those dresses she’d made for the two of them had been her pride and joy.

Tim had started talking to Deb over the punchbowl and Deb’s days as a single woman had been numbered.  He’d quickly lost interest in the Revolutionary War and the two had discovered a mutual love for all things Civil War.

Catherine hoped she’d be so lucky as to find a man who looked at her the way Tim looked at Deb.

The office door opened, Tim running out, grabbing Deb, and twirling her around.  He was laughing and grinning.  We’re in, baby!  We’re all in!

What are you talking about, Deb asked.

The Prairie Project!  Approved!  He set Deb down and reached for Catherine next, slinging her over his shoulder and twirling her around like he had when she was only fifteen.

I’m going to puke, Catherine moaned.  Tim had the boniest shoulders.  Surprising for a man who lifted and toted heavy things when setting up the camp at events.

He set her down and gave her a noisy kiss on the forehead.  We have you to thank for this, Catherine.  I just got off the phone with Dwayne Mathers himself.  Dwayne!  He told me to call him Dwayne.

She shoved him back.  What do you mean, me to thank for this?

He pointed a finger at her.  Not only did you see the ad for the project and encourage us to apply, you sent in that proposal.

Proposal?  She shook her head.  She remembered giving Deb the information, thinking the project sounded like something right up their alley, but she didn’t remember sending in any....

Wait a minute.

Now she did remember some bullshit thing she’d put on her own application, an application she’d only sent in because Deb had nagged her about it.  She’d suggested she be a part of the project as a sort of ‘civilian blogger’, a participant who got down into the dirt of things with the costumed participants and really gave a written account of the days and nights.  Or some such thing.  Now that she thought about it, she recalled practically writing an essay on the subject, babbling on for pages like she used to do for essay tests in college.  She used to be pretty good at bullshitting her way through essay tests....

They accepted us as a family.  He straightened and looked around the room.  Deb, darling, go change into something modern.  We’re ordering pizza.

Why pizza?  Deb started undoing one petticoat.  There’s soup and fresh bread in the kitchen.

Because we won’t get to have pizza out on the prairie.

It did make sense. 

Deb rolled her eyes.  We’ll have pizza if I make it, she muttered.  ‘They can’t know what we’re eating at all times."

He looked at her.  Just go change while I order.

Fine.  Get the cheesy bread and marinara sauce.

I always do.

Catherine couldn’t believe they’d been picked.  Why?  Why them?  There had to have been hundreds of other reenactors and people suggesting blogs.  What had made them pick them?  I don’t get it, she said after Tim had finished ordering.  It was going to take Deb awhile to change clothes.

What’s to get?  He went into the kitchen and she followed. Watching him get out a Pampered Chef large pizza stone and preheat the oven.  We were picked.  Who cares why?  Just wait until my students hear about this.

Tim taught history classes at the local community college and from what Catherine had heard, he was well-liked, a favorite among the kids.  Perhaps it was his habit of dressing up in clothes from some of the periods for his lectures?

Seriously, Catherine, thank you.

Sure, yeah, you’re welcome, but why are you acting like it’s all due to me?  I mean, I just told them you guys camp during the summer.

You what, came Deb’s voice from the doorway.

Catherine turned to find her sister in an embroidered and beaded caftan that had so many beads on it that it seemed to shimmer in the light.  You changed quickly.

"You told them we camp?"  A bemused expression was on her face.

What?  She went to the silverware drawer and got out silverware while Tim reached for plates.  They both dropped their items on the table without a care where any of it really went.  You do camp.

Reenacting is hardly camping.

Deb had been arguing that with her for years.  I’m sure you both corrected me on your own applications, but really, it is camping.  You can dress it up in old time clothes and play battles, but it’s camping under it all.  You sleep in a tent under the stars, you cook over an open fire, and you get bit by tons of bugs.  Last time I checked, that was called camping.

And you put on funny clothes and call it costuming.  Most people call that Halloween.  Deb rearranged the silverware and plates like she always did.

Ouch.

You attack my hobby, I attack yours.  A grin tugged Deb’s lips.  I can’t call it camping, sis.  It hardly sounds romantic to tell people that my husband courted me while camping.  It’s much more romantic to say that he courted me at many reenactment events over a summer.

"Courting?  Are you actually using that word?  She giggled.  Courting."

Don’t laugh too hard, Tim warned her with a quirk of a dark brow.  One of these days, some man will turn his attention to you and you will be properly courted yourself.  It’s inevitable.

Catherine snorted.  Tim had no idea what he was talking about.  

Chapter Two

Six weeks later, Catherine Fuller was already neck deep in the beginning stages of the Prairie Project and wondering just what she’d gotten herself into.

The Prairie Project was one of those half-baked reality series proposals that no one truly thought would get off the ground.  Backed by eccentric multi-millionaire Duane Mathers, the show proposed taking approximately forty people and placing them out in the middle of nowhere to live like people did in the nineteenth century.  Think ‘Laura Ingalls Wilder’.  Think wagon trains.

Think it’s a rip-off of the PBS specials from, like, a decade or so ago, Catherine thought, her fingers tapping on the table.  She didn’t think she was the only person who was going to be thinking that.

Duane’s assistant, a perpetually exasperated blonde whose name Catherine still wasn’t certain of, was apologetic on that matter when Catherine had voiced that thought the previous night.  Yes, she’d agreed, Duane had been inspired by PBS, but then he was inspired by other things too.  The woman had muttered something about another media project along the same lines and dropped the subject, congratulating Catherine on being picked and moving on to Deb and Tim.

On one hand, it was like the PBS specials.  There’d be some drama and a period of adjusting.  On the other hand, it wasn’t.  Catherine had perused what information they’d been given thus far and, for the most part, those involved were committed to being as true to the historical era as possible.  It was to be far more of a living history project than a reality television travesty.

At least that was what Dwayne Mathers maintained. 

This is so not what I thought I was signing up for when I signed the papers.

Actually, she couldn’t say that Dwayne Mathers had done a bait and switch on her because it had been Catherine’s own misunderstanding of what she was signing.  Even with the explanation from the lawyer Tim had hired, she hadn’t understood that she wasn’t going to be an impartial blogger, the one who got to keep her air conditioning, deodorant, and pizza.  No, she was a full participant.  In costume.

Okay, so the costume part didn’t completely suck.  This would be good for her from an amateur costuming standpoint.  It’d help her to branch out and she needed that.  This would throw her into the deep end.  Sort of.

But that whole living in a cabin with the bugs and spiders thing was freaking her out.

I’m not a camping girl, she said.

Neither am I, a Southern feminine drawl answered back as a pretty blond woman dropped into the chair beside her without asking.  Hi, I’m Maggie.  She proffered a hand and when Catherine shook it, she continued.  You’re Catherine, right?  We hadn’t had a chance to meet yet and I saw you here and thought we ought to.  Our resident blogger.  Wow.  What a gig!

It is.  I guess.  Though how I’m supposed to blog without electricity and a computer I don’t know. 

Pen and paper, my newfound friend.  Pen and paper.

I just wish I knew where to even begin.

At the beginning I suppose.

If I start there, I have to disclose that every time I’ve gone camping I’ve come home sick.  Not just any sick either, but the kind where I’ve needed three rounds of antibiotics to get over it.  It’s not a case of if I get sick.  It’s a when.  I will absolutely come down with the plague.

Then our gorgeous doctor will nurse you back to health.  Have you met him yet?  That man is sex on two legs.

The door to the small diner opened and, as if on cue, Doctor Jeremy Kessler stepped inside.

He made her think of all the stereotypes of the rough and tough hero, cowboys, and, oddly, James Bond.  Not necessarily a bad thing.  His eyes were a startlingly clear green and he had shaggily cut dark blond hair that fell across his forehead and into his eyes, the combination of the hair and the mischievous gleam in those orbs giving him the air of a naughty little boy.  How strangely appealing in a responsible citizen of the community.

He swaggered when he walked, a sauntering, arrogant stride that made her heartbeat thud hard in her chest.  She looked at him and listened to that slow teasing voice and knew that these next months are going to be very interesting.  Catherine very much doubted that the time would be boring.  He didn’t seem the type of man to not have a trick or two up his sleeve for alleviating boredom and she was more than a little intrigued.

Maggie nudged her hard in the side with an elbow.  Catch you later.  Looks like Dr. Delicious is heading this way.  Kiss and tell, pretty please?  Maggie got up and left the diner.

Jeremy came towards her table, chose one not too far from hers, and ordered coffee.

Catherine pretended to be working, typing the same sentence in different variations over and over.  Maggie was right.  Jeremy Kessler was sexy as hell.

*****

When his cousin Keira had called, bemoaning what she considered to be the stupidest of her boss Duane’s latest ideas, Jeremy had immediately gotten the idea that she hadn’t called to simply complain.  Oh no, there had to be something she was going to ask him as a favor.  He was correct on that count.

The project needed a doctor, Keira said, and needed one most desperately.  Three had backed out already.  Could he help out?  It wasn’t like he didn’t spend most of his year in the middle of nowhere anyway.  What difference would it make as to the location?  They’d pay him whatever he asked.

Jeremy Kessler sipped from his coffee mug, wincing a little as he found it still technically too hot to drink comfortably.  The difference was all the world.  He had a good schedule built up and considered himself lucky it had worked out as it had.

He spent half a year in central Illinois with his partners in a private practice and the other half year in various third world countries as sometimes the only trained medical doctor in hundreds of miles.  Jeremy loved his work and taking months away from his time there and the regular practice both just didn’t sit right with him.  Even if it was for Duane Mathers.

In the end, though, he’d caved in to Keira’s pleas.

Jeremy liked to think he was immune to those hysterical breakdowns she had as Duane’s plans appeared to be blowing up, but he knew he truly wasn’t.  He loved his cousin too much to sit back and watch as Duane’s plans once more worked her into an ulcer-giving state.

So, here he was, sitting in a fly by-night-truck stop diner beside a rundown motel in a town that boasted perhaps 500 people on a good day and waiting for this farce to begin in earnest.

Over in the corner, was the resident writer.  He’d never heard of her and Keira had mentioned the woman wasn’t a published writer yet.  Dwayne had grand plans for whatever journal pages the woman turned in.  There was going to be a blog and, if he had his way, a big book that had the journal in its entirety plus a behind -the-scenes look at the Prairie Project.  There were plans to include bio pages for everyone involved and summaries of the ‘storylines’ that developed as the ‘cast’ tried to live their lives in the past.

Jeremy smiled crookedly.

He could get used to a looker like Catherine living a mile or two from his door.  Dark curled hair, a face that looked so very innocent and expressive eyes.  Her mouth begged for kisses.

Jeremy’s smile deepened and he hurriedly took a sip of the hot coffee in an effort to quell the urge to laugh.  He’d been reading too many historical romances on his downtime.  The prose was wearing off onto him.  Next thing he knew, he’d be thinking of her as saucy and voluptuous of bosom, which she was.

He watched Maggie Willow talk with Catherine.  He’d yet to form an opinion on Mrs. Willow, though she seemed to be of the friendly flirtatious type whose flirtations were largely harmless.  Her husband, on the other hand, tended to frown a lot and act like Maggie was an imposition.  Jeremy didn’t care too much for Scott Willow.  The younger man had a lot of growing up to do.

Maggie glanced his way with a mischievous grin.

Whatever she said had Catherine looking over at him. Her lips parted in something close to a smile.

Maggie stood and sauntered away.  Catherine typed on the laptop in front of her. 

The urge to needle her swept over him and he stood, carrying his coffee and the morning paper over to her table.  You’re Catherine, right?  He could almost see what she was writing.

She angled the computer away from him.  What is it with this town?  No one wants to let me work?  Every time I start, someone wants to talk.  First it was the locals, then Maggie, and now you.  The words were grouchy.  The tone was faintly playful.  He wanted to pursue that.

Nice to know you’re a friendly little gal.  He sat without being asked, deliberately deepening the Alabaman accent he’d acquired during medical school, scraping the chair across from her along the floor.  She winced a little, shutting the lid of the computer.  Jeremy thought he detected a bit of a flush to her pale cheeks.  It became her nicely.

I’m hardly little, thank you.

You’re right, he agreed.  I’d say you’re big in all the right places.

For a second, he thought she was going to reach across and slap him, her eyes narrowing and lips parting, but then she laughed, rolling her eyes.  What a way to begin a conversation, commenting on my anatomy.

A pretty figure deserves to be noticed.  But that’s not really why I stopped by.  He took a sip of coffee.

Catherine slid the laptop to one side, and rested her elbows on the table and hands flat on the surface.  "Why did you stop by, cowboy?  She licked her lips, the light of enjoyment in her eyes.  Hmm?  Wanting to maneuver yourself some female companionship for the next few months?  That the idea?"

Feisty was the correct word for her, he decided.  He copied her pose, leaning across the table.  Aw sweetheart, you’ve discovered my heinous plan.  I just met you and I already lust after your luscious form.  Jeremy cocked a brow at her, letting a smirk turn his lips.

Do you tease all the women you’ve just met?

Only the pretty ones.

"Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Mr. Kessler.  It certainly won’t