boots.”
Dakota waved a dismissive hand at the words. “Past history.”
Glancing at her makeup artist, Dakota held out her hand for the lipstick she favored. Alicia dug the tube out of her makeup caddy and placed it in Dakota’s palm. Without benefit of mirror, Dakota did the honors quickly. Finished, she handed the tube back to Alicia and squared her shoulders.
She was going to wear what she had on, she decided. “Now let’s move on to our present history.”
But as she began to walk out of her dressing room, MacKenzie placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Small problem.”
Dakota narrowed her eyes. “What kind of small problem?”
“That animal trainer who was scheduled to be on the show—”
Dakota nodded. It was Monday. She’d gone over the week’s guest-star list, skimming over their biographies and trying to get to know a little about them before she faced them on her program. “Fearless Frederick. What about him?”
“Seems that Fearless was taken to the emergency room last night. One of his animals decided to challenge his title and took off the tip of one of his fingers. I hear Fearless turned the E.R. blue.”
Dakota stifled a shiver, trying not to envision the gruesome sight. “Is he okay?”
“They sewed it back on, but needless to say, you won’t be holding on to one of his trained snakes today.”
“Can’t say I’m really disappointed.” Though she was game for anything, there were definitely things that went to the bottom of her list. Holding wriggling snakes and animals that viewed her as a substitute for lunch sank right down to that level.
MacKenzie resumed walking toward the set. Dakota fell into step beside her. “Fortunately, I had a backup plan.”
Dakota laughed under her breath. Her best friend had always been an overachiever. Had she been on the Titanic, the diminutive woman would have found a way to float the ship to safety.
“Never doubted it for a second. So, who am I interviewing?”
“No!”
The deep male voice rang out with dark authority that made the stagehand in the distance jump. MacKenzie rolled her eyes. “Him.”
Making a half turn, Dakota temporarily abandoned her path to the stage and instead followed the single word to its source. Nothing like meeting the guest just before the show, she thought.
She looked to her right at MacKenzie. “And ‘him’ being?”
MacKenzie, shorter than her boss and friend by some three inches, clutched her clipboard to her chest as she lengthened her stride and hurried to keep up. “Ian Russell. Of Russell and Taylor, bodyguards to the rich and famous,” she added when Dakota looked at her quizzically.
Dakota remembered the names. They were the former homicide detectives. The two men were scheduled for the end of the week. She decided that the bodyguard business must be slow to be able to get them on such short notice.
“You come near me with that powder brush, and you’re going to find yourself walking a whole lot stiffer,” the man in the guest-star chair warned Albert, their head makeup artist, just as Dakota rounded the corner and came on the scene.
Highly frustrated, the makeup artist rolled his small dark eyes and looked helplessly at Dakota. “Dakota…?”
A wealth of emotions and entreaties were locked into the single intonation. Dakota rose to the occasion. Smile in place, she took the brush from Albert with one hand while placing the other on the annoyed guest’s chest. Dakota gently but firmly pushed the tall, dark, brooding man back into the chair he was attempting to vacate.
Apparently caught off guard, the man gave little resistance. There was no doubt in Dakota’s mind that, had her guest star resisted, she could have jumped up and down on his chest with her full body weight and made no impression whatsoever. Unless he wore armor, her hand had come in contact with rock in human form. Splaying her fingers wider, Dakota wasn’t sure she even detected a heartbeat.
“Hi,” she murmured, “I’m Dakota Delany, and you really don’t want to come off looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost.”
Staring at her, realizing introductions were necessary, he began saying, “I’m Ian Russell and—” The rest was swallowed up as Dakota began to deftly apply powder to the rugged planes and angles of a face that could have easily belonged to Hollywood’s newest action star. Damn, but he was attractive. She could see women lining up six deep to avail themselves of his services. Some of which might even have had something remotely to do with bodyguard work.
As she applied the brush in short strokes that seemed to vibrate down her arm into her own soul, her eyes held his for a very long moment. The magic she’d laughingly told the woman in the antique store she was waiting for felt as if it had just arrived.
She found herself struggling, just for a single heartbeat, to remove the brush from the man’s face. But for that moment she felt as if the brush was an extension of her fingers. Very odd.
“There,” she finally murmured, hardly aware of forming the word. “Done.”
A deep laugh from the next chair brought Dakota back to her surroundings. Tilting her head, she spared a glance at the other man in the area. Dakota assumed the brown-haired, green-eyed man to be Randy Taylor, Ian’s partner.
“I’m afraid there’s little chance that anyone’s going to mistake Ian for a friendly anything. That scowl was chiseled in when he was three days old. Been there ever since,” Randy said, grinning broadly. He crossed the room to her and offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Randy Taylor. I’m the reasonable one. And you’ve already met Ian Russell, my not-so-silent partner.”
Ian’s scowl deepened as he rose to his feet and yanked off the makeup apron. He towered over the woman who’d just dusted him with something. “Look, you’ll be better off talking to Randy on your show. I don’t know about the ‘more reasonable’ part, but he’s the more talkative one.”
Randy laughed, shaking his head. “He’s right. He’s as talkative as a tree when he gets into a mood.”
Dakota smiled, remembering an old Broadway song she’d heard in a recent revival. It was from Paint Your Wagon and entitled, “I Talk to the Trees.” Suddenly she found herself wanting to talk to the trees.
Chapter Two
Moments before show time, Dakota gave her reluctant guest her brightest, ten-thousand-volt smile as she looked up into his stony face. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
As she assured him, she casually slipped her arm through his. She slowly began to stroll in the general direction of the soundstage as if it was the one true destination for them all.
It took a great deal of self-control for Ian not to snort at her remark. He was just as sure that he wouldn’t be fine at all, and he at least had a basis for the opinion. He knew himself a hell of a lot better than this blond woman with the electric-blue eyes did.
This was all Taylor’s fault,
