need,” Patrice graciously said, discreetly looking around for T.K. “He’s sweet.”
A tall, well-built man in jeans, a polo shirt and athletic shoes stood at the panoramic picture window, his back to them. Mark cleared his throat. “T.K., I’d like you to meet Patrice Sutton.”
T.K. turned around. He and Patrice walked toward one another, meeting in the center of the room. They shook hands. His big hand swallowed hers. His palm was warm and dry and his skin was kind of rough. Strangely, the roughness of his hand impressed her. Usually, actors’ hands were as soft as hers. It wasn’t as if they worked as laborers or ranchers, the job she traditionally associated with “real” men.
“Good to meet you, Patrice,” T.K. said, smiling down at her. He was six-four to her five-seven.
Patrice smiled back at him. Her throat suddenly felt dry. She cleared it. “Good to meet you, too, T.K.,” she softly said. All she was thinking at that moment was Blanca was wrong. Oh, God, I’m holding T. K. McKenna’s hand!
She released his hand. After releasing his hand, she didn’t seem to know what to do with hers. She tugged her shoulder bag closer to her side and looked around for Mark, who had become her safe harbor in a stormy sea. She didn’t know why being in T. K. McKenna’s presence made her nervous. She’d met some of the most successful actors in the business, luminaries who were considered legends, and she had managed to maintain her dignity.
She had known he was magnificent to behold. She had seen practically all of his 30 films. However, the physical impact of seeing him in person magnified his sex appeal tenfold. For one thing, he smelled wonderful. She just wanted to go to him, bury her nose in his muscular chest and stay there awhile. Also, his burnished honey skin was beautiful; that was the only word for it. Usually she preferred men with rich dark-chocolate skin, but even though his wasn’t very dark, it was very appealing. She itched to touch him, rub his bald head.
T.K., who was used to making people nervous, immediately recognized that Patrice was a bit flustered. He casually put a bit of distance between them, going again to stand near the window, talking the whole time. “Mark tells me you ride.”
Mark came and took Patrice by the elbow and directed her to one of the plush leather armchairs in front of his desk. “Make yourself comfortable.”
He went and sat behind his desk. T.K. remained standing. From across the room, his magnetic gaze held hers.
“I grew up on a ranch in New Mexico,” Patrice said, her voice stronger now.
He looked impressed. His brown eyes held an amused glint. “No kidding, a working ranch?”
“Yes, with cattle and horses and everything,” Patrice told him with a shy smile.
He couldn’t help noticing that some of the tension had gone out of her expression. She apparently loved talking about the ranch.
“Your folks still run it?” he asked.
“Suttons have been running it since the late 1800s,” Patrice said proudly.
T.K. went and pulled another of the leather chairs close to hers and sat down. He leaned toward her. “That’s fascinating. Have you read the script yet?” He wasn’t sure whether or not she’d been provided with a script. Sometimes the casting director gave the actor only part of it to read during the audition.
Patrice glanced at Mark. Before she had left after auditioning for the casting director, he had given her the script. At the time, Patrice had thought it odd that one of the producers would discreetly give her a script, but now she understood that Mark had seen something in her that he had liked that day. That’s why he had given it to her.
She smiled at Mark. “Mark gave me a copy. It’s a wonderful story.”
“Did you know it’s loosely based on the life and times of a real black lawman?”
She did. She had researched Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves after reading the script.
“I found a couple of books online about him,” she told him. She smiled at T.K. “You look kind of like him. However, he was only six-two, and he had a handlebar mustache.”
T.K. looked over at Mark and grinned. “She’s done her homework.”
“What made you want to tell the story of Bass Reeves?” she asked both of them.
Mark deferred to T.K. T.K. leaned back in his chair before beginning, thinking he was crowding Patrice and she might get skittish again if he didn’t back off a little. He found himself naturally drawn to the attractive actress. She had the kind of rich brown skin with red undertones that he loved. Her sooty black hair was healthy-looking and shone like a raven’s wing. Her dark, wide-spaced eyes were beautiful. He tried not to look at those full red lips because he kept getting an image of them kissing whenever he did. He didn’t know if the fact that she had grown up on a ranch made him see her as a natural beauty or if it was simply that she appeared so fresh to him. She fairly glowed, and unlike some actresses who knew their effect on males, she appeared quite unaware of her sex appeal. If she were aware, she would be looking him straight in the eyes with a confident expression in her own. She found it difficult looking into his eyes for any length of time, and she was blushing like crazy. He decided that Patrice Sutton was a very sweet, unaffected girl. He hoped she stayed that way.
“It’s a piece of the American West that has been sorely neglected,” he said of wanting to tell Bass Reeves’s story. “We’ve had movies about Wyatt Earp, ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, but nothing about Reeves, who was just as big a legend as those men. He was good with a gun. He tracked down and arrested countless outlaws and killed fourteen of them in fair gunfights.”
“Where does the character I read for, Bella Donna, come in? Was she a real person, too?”
“I’m afraid not,” T.K. told her. “Not much was writ ten about his relationship with women.”
“The scriptwriter made her up at our request,” Mark told her. “We thought the lawman should have a noble love.”
“So the writer made her a prostitute?” said Patrice incredulously. She couldn’t help it. If Bella Donna was a fictional character, the writer could have made her a schoolteacher.
“Prostitutes were prevalent in those days,” T.K. said unapologetically. “Because women were so scarce in some areas, oftentimes those were the only kind of women a man saw for years. Think of the lack of opportunities women had back then. Bella Donna might be a prostitute, but she’s also loving and extremely tough. She’s a worthy mate for the marshal.”
“Aren’t you afraid of what the NAACP is going to say about your film? It’s wonderful to remind moviegoers of a great man in history, a great black man, but to pair him with a prostitute? Some people are going to be upset about that.”
T.K. smiled. “A film that doesn’t cause controversy doesn’t cause a stir in the minds of moviegoers. It’ll be good for box-office receipts.”
Patrice nodded in agreement. He was a shrewd businessman as well as a fine actor. “All right, I understand your reasoning.”
“Does that mean you want to work with us?” T.K. asked hopefully.
Patrice’s stomach muscles tightened in panic. Was he actually offering
