“Is that a stray cat?” she asked him, looking worried.
“It’s a stray something.”
“Oh, the poor thing.” She kneeled next to the cat and stroked it. “Poor homeless thing. What are you going to do about him?”
Rafe had planned on going back into his house and shutting the door but found he couldn’t do that with her watching him. “Are you my new neighbor?”
“Oh!” She smiled and offered him a hand. “Yes, I’m Irena Dotriana, part-time interior designer, part-time mom.”
“Part-time mom?”
“I share my kids with my ex-husband.” She shot him a smile. “So…do you have an ex-wife?”
He laughed. “No.”
“A not-so ex-wife?”
“Nope.”
Her smile widened just a little. “Well, then. Need a designer?”
“I just might.” They chatted for a few more minutes, with Rafe promising to contact her soon for “designing” purposes, and when she left, the cat was still there.
“What’s this?” Stone came through the house, rubbing a towel over his wet head, not bothering to dry off the rest of him so that he left a trail of wet footprints.
Rafe groaned. “You won’t be doing that once I get my carpeting in.”
“Yes, Mom.” Stone eyed the cat. “That’s the ugliest cat ever.”
Rafe took another look at the feline, who sat as if it were royalty, while its fur stuck up in some places and was matted in others. “Go get me a can of tuna.”
“If you feed it, you’ll never get rid of it.”
“His ribs are sticking out. If I feed it, I think he’ll go away.”
Twenty minutes later they were in the backyard again, with the cat at Rafe’s feet.
“Told you not to feed it,” Stone said, eyes closed, face tilted up to the sun.
Rafe glanced at the cat, whose eyes were slits. “He’s just going to take a nap. He’ll leave after that. You know how cats are.”
Stone shook his head. “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Maybe, but Rafe had never been anyone’s sucker. Or so he told himself, all the way up until the next morning, when the cat still hadn’t left.
But Rafe had to. At dawn, he kicked the cat out to the front porch and drove his Jeep a couple of hours to the designated meeting spot for the day’s photo shoot.
Joshua Tree National Park was one of his favorite spots to photograph. Something about the stark, barren landscape drew him, made him itch for his camera. He parked near the other cars already there.
Sitting in a chair beneath an umbrella, getting her hair worked on and her face done, was his model for the day. A miracle. She still wore her own clothes, or what he assumed were her own clothes-jeans and a zippered, hooded blue sweatshirt.
She looked like Amber.
Her eyes were closed, her face in a relaxed expression, but her body sat tensely in the chair and her hands were fisted on the armrests.
Not Amber.
Ignoring both Emma and the odd and inexplicable tug on his gut at the sight of her, he turned his back on the scene and studied the land. He’d been out here many, many times, the most recent being two weeks ago when he’d come to hunt down the specific spot for this shot.
Joshua Tree National Park was a strange and beautiful place. They were only a couple of hours east of Los Angeles, and yet they might as well have been on another planet. Instead of concrete, glass and brick as far as the eye could see, wide open, high desert prevailed, outlined with sharp, rocky mountains. He couldn’t wait to shoot it, to capture the vast open space, the wild, eerie cactuslike Joshua trees.
People said Los Angeles was sex personified. But to Rafe, this place, with the wild primroses and sunflowers peeking out of the rock formations or springing from the base of the ghostly Joshua trees, with the violent, unpredictable weather and the biggest sky he’d ever seen, beat out Los Angeles for sexy any day.
From where he stood, he could see the exact place he wanted to set up. It appeared to be a large rock formation, jagged and pointing to the sky. It was only about two hundred yards away, and from his last visit, he knew it wasn’t a tough climb by any means. In fact he knew which trail would take them nearly to the top. He figured he could get his model up there, standing on the point of an outcropping with the open space sprawling behind and below her, so that she would appear to be on the very edge of the earth.
Perfect.
And when he finished with the shoot, he could say he was a third done with this, his last job.
Even more perfect.
“FINISHED,” JEN SAID.
Emma opened her eyes. “Thanks.” She reached for her bag, wanting to write down all the script changes that had come to her while she’d been sitting there. She had no idea how Amber handled all the idle time. It would drive her crazy.
When she’d finished, she looked up and started to smile at Jen, but caught sight of herself in the mirror. “Oh my God.”
Jen smiled. “You look terrific, don’t you think? Hot and sexy, but innocent somehow, too. You’ve got such great hair, Amber.”
Amber sure did. Emma’s wasn’t quite as thick and pampered, but apparently Jen hadn’t noticed.
Which made her feel like a big jerk. “Thanks.” She took one last look at the artfully messy hair, her huge eyes and lightly glossed lips. She couldn’t decide if she looked like she’d just gotten into bed, or out of it. “Um…what comes now?”
“You put on your outfit.”
Terrific.
“I left it in the changing area.” Jen pointed to another makeshift bamboo-and-sheet dressing area. “You know…don’t take this the wrong way…but you’re really easy to work with lately.”
She said this with such surprise, Emma nearly grimaced. Amber had gotten herself quite the reputation. “Thanks.” She glanced over at the hanging sheets, wondering what would be waiting for her this time, wondering if she’d have any free minutes between now and camera time to work on the laptop in her bag; she needed to fix a scene she was worried about. She looked around, then felt someone staring at her. Craning her neck, her eyes collided with Rafe’s.
His gaze was dark, inscrutable. He gave nothing away, this man, at least nothing that he didn’t want to give away.
Was he thinking about the kiss? Because she was. Why had he wrangled one from her when Amber would know they didn’t normally do such a thing?
Because he knew she wasn’t Amber?
Her pulse skipped a beat at that, but he revealed nothing as he looked at her. He appeared the same as he had in Kauai-full of carefully restrained energy. He wore faded Levi’s, the fibers white in all the stress points, of which there were many, and a cream cable-knit sweater shoved up at the elbows. He looked lean and rugged and more than slightly annoyed. Her pulse tripped again.
She wished she’d told Amber no. If she’d refused, she’d be hard at work right this very moment, lost in a script she controlled instead of wondering what was going to happen.
He gestured ahead of him, where she could see a dusty trail leading off to what looked like a daunting mountain. Everyone around her-Stone, Jen and two lighting techs-started off, carrying whatever it was they would need.
Emma felt her mouth drop open a little. They were…taking a hike?
Rafe let out a grim smile. “You’re going to want to change now-there’ll be no privacy at the top.”
The top. She craned her neck to even see the top. The mountain looked gigantic, dark red and extremely… sharp. Good God. She swallowed hard. Hiking wasn’t her thing. Anything aerobic wasn’t her thing. Give her a nice,
