Overnight Sensation (8 page)

“Don’t worry,” he said, smiling in a way that set Ivy’s teeth on edge. “If you’re too squeamish to do the love scenes, we can always bring in a body double.”

As if on cue, Denise, the makeup artist, stepped onto the set and handed Eric a cool drink. She pointedly ignored Ivy. Eric accepted the glass, then deliberately ran his gaze over the other woman’s body with a practiced eye.

“Now that I think of it,” he said musingly, “you and Denise have similar body types. In fact, without seeing your faces, a person could easily mistake one for the other. And I know for a fact that Denise has some…experience with love scenes.” Then, smiling broadly, he tipped his glass at Ivy in a mock toast, before he turned and walked away, a bewildered and red-faced Denise close behind him.

Ivy narrowed her eyes at his retreating back. She couldn’t say if he and the other woman were sleeping together, and she didn’t particularly care. Denise was welcome to him. But Ivy did wonder if his threat had any substance. Finn wouldn’t really consider substituting a body double for the love scenes, would he? There were actors who flatly refused to do nude scenes, forcing a director to either dispense with the nudity or bring in a body double. But she wasn’t one of those actors. She was experienced, a professional. She just had to put her personal feelings aside and get on with it.

“Hey. You sure you’re okay?”

Glancing up, she saw Garrett standing over the bed holding her dressing robe. He watched her in a way that made her feel as vulnerable and helpless as a kitten. His entire stance was protective, as if he was her very own bodyguard and heaven help anyone who tried to mess with her.

“Yes,” she said, summoning a smile. “I’m fine.” She took the robe from him and drew it on, careful to keep the sheet in place until she’d secured the sash. “So I guess you’ll be going into the jungle with Finn and the crew, huh?”

“Actually, I’m going to hang around here for a couple of days,” he responded. “Finn and I already went over the scenes with the drug cartel, and he doesn’t need me on location for those shoots.” He smiled wryly. “The terrain is pretty rough. I’d just slow them down.”

Somehow, Ivy doubted it. Even with his bad leg, she was pretty sure there wasn’t much he couldn’t do. The guy oozed capability.

Finn called his name, and Ivy observed Garrett as he consulted a map with the director. She couldn’t help but admire Garrett’s physical grace. He stood with his head slightly bent, one thumb hooked in the front pocket of his pants as he nodded at something Finn said. His black hair fell back from his square forehead in loose waves. He wore a faded T-shirt that was frayed at the hem and a pair of jeans that hugged his trim backside and emphasized the length of his legs. The strong muscles of his back and shoulders were evident through the thin material of the shirt, and again Ivy wondered what it would be like to run her hands over all that firmness.

Eric Terrell, still clad in his bathrobe, moved to stand on Finn’s other side. His handsome face had graced the cover of countless magazines; his name was synonymous with sex appeal. Yet when compared with Garrett Stokes, he was like a green recruit. Garrett was the real deal, and he looked every inch of it.

Dark. Dangerous. Compelling. And sexy as hell.

Ivy climbed off the bed, still watching the two men, and suddenly, she knew what she had to do. In order to portray her character realistically, she had to learn everything she could about Helena Vanderveer, especially what had happened between her and Garrett. She had the script to go by, but it was too superficial for her to gain an in-depth understanding of Helena’s character. She wanted to get into the missionary’s head, discover what it was that had compelled the woman to sleep with Garrett Stokes after knowing him for so short a time.

What had made Helena risk her life for a man who, despite their intimacies, was a virtual stranger? Although really, looking at the guy, Ivy had a pretty good idea what had driven Helena to act as she had. Garrett Stokes was the embodiment of everything sexy and masculine. He was a true-life hero, a guy who would risk everything for what he believed in. A woman would have to be crazy to let a man like him go.

While Ivy would have preferred to talk to Helena Vanderveer herself about her experiences, that was clearly out of the question. But asking Garrett Stokes to give her details wasn’t. And not just for pointers. For the whole shebang.

GARRETT LAY IN A ROPE hammock beside the casita he’d claimed as his own, enjoying the darkness and listening to the night bugs in the trees. He cradled a cold beer in one hand and idly pushed the hammock into a gentle swing with one bare foot on the ground. In his other hand, he held a photo. He’d pulled it out of his wallet hours ago, and despite the fact the sun had set and he could no longer see the image, he hadn’t put the photo away. He smoothed his thumb across the snapshot, feeling the familiar creases from where it had been folded and tucked into his wallet so many times.

It was a picture of Ivy, taken several years earlier. If he closed his eyes, he could see the image in his mind. A younger Ivy, laughing into the camera, a hand lifted to capture the errant corkscrew of hair that had blown across her cheek. She was at the beach, and he could just make out the sweep of ocean in the blurred background. The shot wasn’t a posed one, like the promotional photos she’d done for the release of her films. It wasn’t a paparazzo photo, either, taken without her consent or knowledge. It was a joyful candid, captured by someone she’d trusted. Garrett didn’t know for certain, but he suspected her brother, Devon, had snapped it.

Garrett had carried the photo with him since shortly after Devon James had died. Once the doctors had declared him dead, Ivy had briefly been allowed back into the small hospital room. Garrett knew she had no memory of the soldier who’d occupied the narrow hospital bed next to her brother’s, and why would she? The curtain between the beds had been open enough for her to see him, but his head had been bandaged and his face swollen and discolored to the point where his own mother would have had difficulty recognizing him.

Through a medicated haze, he’d watched her weep before carefully placing the photo on the blanket that covered Devon. Garrett must have made a sound, because for one instant, she’d looked over at him. In that split second, his entire world had shifted.

Her departure had caused a rush of air to billow over the bed, and the photograph had fluttered from its resting place and drifted to the floor beneath Garrett’s bed. Several days had passed before he’d been able to get a janitor to retrieve it for him. His promise to Devon aside, he’d had some half-baked fantasy that he’d find her and make her smile again, the way she did in the photo. After a while, the photo had become his motivation, the reason he’d endured the months of torturous rehabilitation necessary to his recovery.

It was stupid, he knew, but sometimes that photo had been the one thing that kept him going. He had told himself that once he was fully recovered, he’d look her up. He’d make sure she was doing okay, just as he’d promised her brother. Although Garrett had indeed followed her career, he’d never gotten up the courage to contact her. He’d told himself she was doing just fine, that she didn’t need anyone watching over her. But he’d watched over her just the same, albeit from a distance. Their relationship probably never would have amounted to anything more than a distant infatuation. But the day Finn had approached him about making a movie had changed that.

Even then, he hadn’t set out to bring Ivy on board the project. But when he’d read the script and realized Finn had taken artistic license in portraying Helena Vanderveer as young and beautiful, he knew he wanted Ivy to have the role. He’d wanted—no, he’d needed—to know how she’d been since he’d first seen in her in that hospital room.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Ivy James in the flesh. She had completely blown him away. As soon as he’d laid eyes on her, he’d known his attraction to her was more than just physical. Something in her eyes called to him. He’d never considered himself a romantic. He was a realist. He’d had absolutely no belief in love at first sight.

Until he had seen Ivy James.

Images of her swam behind his closed eyes. Slim. Pale.

Naked.

He groaned and took a hefty swig of his beer. Not following her into her room the night she’d kissed him had required every ounce of self-restraint he had. Even now, he could feel the softness of her lips, the heat in her skin that the pool water hadn’t managed to chill. She’d warmed up fast once he’d started kissing her back. He’d wanted to devour her.

The way he’d devoured her with his eyes during today’s shoot. He’d watched, mesmerized, as she’d shyly removed her clothing for the first love scene. He hadn’t been the only one on that set who’d sucked in his breath when her blouse had drifted to the dirt floor. Just about every guy in the room, excluding Finn, had let out a sigh of appreciation. She’d been luminous, and Garrett thought he’d never seen anything as erotic as her slender back, curving into the gentle swell of her hips. Her breasts were lush, with rosy nipples that practically begged to be touched.

He honestly didn’t understand how the camera and lighting guys managed to concentrate on their jobs when such scenes unfolded in front of them. He’d had to swallow the hard knot of jealousy that had formed in his throat when she’d slid beneath the sheet to join Eric on the narrow bed.

He took another swig of beer, recalling the moment Eric’s hand had closed over Ivy’s breast. He’d been halfway across the set before one of the assistant directors had caught his arm to hold him back. He’d regained his self-control—but barely.

When he’d told Finn he wanted Ivy James to play the part of Helena, he’d known that some scenes would require her to get up close and personal with Eric Terrell. He just hadn’t thought his own reaction would be so visceral. He’d wanted to annihilate the actor, drag him out of the bed and pummel his perfect, smug face until it was nothing but a bloody mess.

Disgusted with himself and how close he’d come to losing control, he drained the rest of the beer in one long swallow, then curled an arm behind his head and looked toward the hacienda. From his vantage point on the hammock, he could see the window of Ivy’s room on the second floor. He’d chosen the room for her because of its location. Not only did it have a nice view of the mountains, but it also faced his cottage. Her lights had been out for about ten minutes.

He was idly conjuring up sultry images of her silken limbs entwined with the bedclothes—entwined aroundhim—when a twig snapped somewhere in the darkness. It wasn’t much of a sound, but his senses went on alert. He continued to gently push the hammock with one foot, while his eyes sought the shadows just beyond the perimeter of the cottage.

He stopped breathing.

He watched, intrigued, as Ivy James materialized from the gloom and crept toward the screened door of thecasita. The hammock was a good twenty feet from the cabin, strung between two lush breadnut trees. In the unrelenting darkness, she didn’t see him. She raised a hand to knock on the door, then hesitated, apparently having second thoughts. Her hand fisted, then fell to her side. She was going to leave.

Garrett cleared his throat.

“Oh!” Startled, she whirled in his direction, her hand flying to her throat as her eyes searched the darkness. “Garrett?”

He refolded the snapshot, tucked it back into his wallet, then swung his other leg to the ground. Standing to ease the stiffness in his bad leg, he pushed the wallet into the back pocket of his jeans. “Yeah, it’s me.” He walked toward her. “What are you doing out here?”

As he moved closer, the pale blur of her face shifted into focus. Her eyes were pools of black. She wore some kind of little dress that left her arms and legs bare, and her thick hair was pulled into a ponytail.

“I—I wanted to talk to you.”

Interesting.

“Oh, yeah? What about?”

She glanced uneasily toward the dense woods behind him and hugged her arms around her middle. “Do we have to stand out here, in the dark? Could we go inside and maybe turn on a light?”

He shrugged, his mind furiously working through all the reasons she might be there. At his door. After dark.

“Sure.”

Reaching over, he opened the screen door. It groaned on its ancient hinges. As she brushed past him, he caught the scent of something heady. Jasmine, maybe.

He followed her into the cabin and took down a kerosene lantern from a hook. Ivy stepped out of his way and waited quietly while he set the lantern on a nearby table, adjusted the wick, then lit it with a long match that he drew from a tin box. The bright flame created a warm glow, chasing away the shadows that surrounded them and casting golden light across her features.

He could see Ivy’s sleeveless dress was pale green, cinched at the waist with a narrow belt. It looked like some retro style from the 1950s. It should have made her resemble Beaver Cleaver’s mother, but Garrett found the dress incredibly alluring simply because Ivy was the one wearing it. The top several buttons were undone, revealing the smooth skin beneath and her fragile collarbone.

He wanted badly to touch her.

Instead, he pushed aside a wooden bowl filled with fresh limes, shoved the lantern to the center of the rough-hewn table, perched one hip on the edge and waited.

Clearly uncomfortable, Ivy stood in the center of the room and gazed around, her eyes moving over everything except him. She took in the gnarled, wooden shelves against one wall that housed his small collection of books, his clothing and his toiletries. She barely glanced at the Coleman cooler under the window, where he stored his beer and bottled water, but her eyes absorbed every detail of his bed.