AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He frowned, looking disappointed in her. “I just meant if you had somewhere flat to lie down, I could give you a full back rub. It’s hard to do this standing up.”
A full back rub. He’d been intending only to help, not to seduce? He hadn’t been affected by the close proximity of their bodies? She wasn’t sure she believed him. Oh, yes, he looked both reproachful and saddened. But thiswasMick, after all.
He turned and walked to the door, his shoulders slightly slumped, his head shaking back and forth in an almost imperceptible motion. Caro bit her lip, feeling like a total heel. Mick wasn’t some horny college guy on the make. He was a grown man who’d kept his hands off her and given her plenty of space since she’d been living in his house. He hadn’t made one inappropriate suggestion, dropped one naughty little word—which had really begun to tick her off for some totally twisted reason.
He’d been nothing but considerate and concerned the few times she’d interacted with him this week. And she’d practically gone and accused him of being a lech.
“Mick, wait,” she said as he reached for the door handle.
He paused and slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder. He met her stare through partly lowered lashes. That was when she noticed the grin. A purely evil, “gotcha” grin that told her she hadn’t imagined a thing.
The wolf had meant exactly what she’dthoughthe’d meant.
Her jaw dropped. But before she could say a single word, he walked out the door.
All Caroline could do was shake her head in disbelief. Then she started to laugh in the empty trailer. Finally, she muttered, “Damn, you aregood.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JACEY TURNER HAD been on the set ofKilling Time in a Small Townfor less than a week but it seemed like ten. Though young, she already had a lot of experience as a TV camera operator, and she’d worked on a lot of shows. It wasn’t hard to sum up how this experience was going to go down. In a freakin’ ball of flames.
The director was a butt-wipe. The celebrity host was an arrogant S.O.B. who looked at her like she was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his Andre Benninis. Derryville was a pit. And the cast was a bunch of greedy morons who didn’t know which they wanted more—their fifteen minutes of fame or the million bucks that went to the winner.
But hell, she was a studio ho. She went where they sent her. Since she was lead on the camera crew—her first shot at lead—she knew she had to keep her mouth shut and her lens cap off.
The only decent one on the scene was the one she usually hated the most—the pencil-pushing, budget-conscious assistant producer. Yeah, this always perfectly dressed woman had first looked at Jacey’s black hair, black clothes, piercings and heavy makeup with a cautious glance, but she’d at least been cordial.
And she’d totally backed Jacey up on this latest idea.
“Does the camera really add ten pounds?” This came from a busty redhead riding across from Jacey in the stretch limo. The redhead was perky and as chirpy as a squirrel, obviously hoping the hot-looking fireman dude sitting next to her would reply that she had nothing to worry about.
She did. Those curves would turn to fat in five years. Push out a puppy or two and it’d be less than that. Just to be a bitch, Jacey said, “Twenty, at least.”
Redhead shot her a glare, which was the first time she’d looked her way since the sixteen contestants had boarded the two limos back in Chicago. The rest of the time she’d just been chattering a mile a minute, making inane observations and giving Jacey a headache.
Red sat up straighter so her tight white dress didn’t show that slight little roll around her middle. “Really?”
“You don’t have anything to worry about.”
Fireman dude to the rescue.So, he was a gentleman. She made a mental note.
“Will the cameras really be watching our every move?”
Jacey turned toward the worried-looking young woman on the other side of the fireman. The girl had mousy brown hair and kept her hands clasped in her lap. Pressing the zoom button on the tiny camera hidden in the lapel of her black overcoat, Jacey winked. “Not when we’re in the bathroom, I hope.”
Mousy brown went ten shades paler and her mouth fell open in dismay. Redhead sniffed, too refined to evergoto the bathroom, she imagined, much less talk about it. Another mental note: Redhead wanted to look good all the time and Mousy Brown would die before embarrassing herself on camera.
All this was coming in handy, as she’d known it would when she’d pitched the idea of posing as a contestant for the ride from Chicago to the inn. What better way to get to know the real personalities of their contestants than by going undercover as one of them? She had a firsthand glimpse as early alliances were formed, personalities tested, strengths and weaknesses displayed.
The director, being a butt-wipe, had shot her down. So Jacey had gone straight to the producer. Luckily, Caro had some concept of creative thinking and had told her to go for it.
She’d been at the Chicago hotel first thing this morning, wired up with a minicam. The other car was wired, as well. She didn’t feel bad about it. Everyone on this crazy show had given permission to be filmed anytime, anywhere once they arrived. And Jacey considered the limo to be part of that arrival.
“I bet I know who the killer is already,” Redhead said.
Ginger.That was her name. Like the pouty-mouthed actress on that old show,Gilligan’s Island, which Jacey sometimes watched onNick at Night. She assumed that show had inspired some more recent ones. Dump off a bunch of these idiots on a desert island and leave them there.
She suddenly thought of a new list. Dump the cast and come back four weeks later to see who was still alive, figure out who’d killed off Ginger, and givethatguy a million bucks just for shutting her up.
