decided she’d blame that one on the heat of the room.
“It was pure hero worship for me when I did that first one. I don’t think I’d ever admitted to anyone, myself included, that I wanted to be a photographer until I started working on that documentary, even though I made my parents pay for all those classes when I was a kid. But I’d been watching him in the movies my whole life.” He rolled his shoulders back and looked up at the ceiling. “He was always the good guy, you know? Even when he was playing an outlaw.” She saw his cheeks lift in a faint smile at the old memories. “I asked his permission the first time I took his picture. He laughed at that. The man has twenty cameras on him when he takes the trash out.”
“That was the picture on the cover, right? It’s a beautiful shot.” And it was. He’d captured the older actor leaning against the rough bark of an oak tree. You could tell from the tension in his face and the angle of his hips that he was in some physical pain. But his head was turned slightly away from the camera, as if someone had just called his name, and his shoulders were thrust back as if he was ready to step forward and shoulder the mantle of his role once more. “It shows that he’s still the good guy.”
“Yeah, he is. He’s the whole reason I have a career now. Him and Ben.” J.D.’s attention shifted back to her. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of the wine bottle and ignored her protests as he splashed more cabernet into her glass. Droplets of red wine puddled on the back of her hand where she’d tried to shield her glass. She licked the rich berry wine off her skin and rubbed her hand against her warm thigh to dry it.
“What do you mean?” she asked when he didn’t pick up the thread of their conversation.
J.D. seemed to have lost his train of thought. He was staring blankly at her mouth. When he blinked and lifted his eyes back to meet hers, she saw him reconnect with the conversation.
“He saw the book I’d made for Ben, my director friend, and he asked if I’d make him a couple dozen more so that he could give them as gifts to his daughter and some of the crew. Someone showed it to the director of this historical film that was being shot, and he called me.” He shrugged. “Everything else just fell into place.”
“And how did this lead to you losing your wife during filming in the Amazon?”
She stretched her arms over her head and recrossed her legs, seeing J.D.’s gaze wander again as his T-shirt rode up above the sagging waistband of his silky shorts on her hips. So she was watching as his eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
“Sarah. Tyler. Is that a tattoo?”
Shit. Talk about a reason to blush. She loved the delicate scrollwork of the old-fashioned ace of hearts playing card that rode her hip, invisible unless she was wearing a skimpy swimsuit.
Or saggy shorts.
But a tattoo was so not what people expected from her. It was just one little secret thing she’d done for herself, a reminder of a side of her personality that she kept hidden from almost everyone. But making a big deal about it would only intensify J.D.’s curiosity. And right now it was her curiosity that needed to be satisfied.
“Duh. A million people have them, Damico.” She tugged the hem of his T-shirt back down and hoped her casual dismissal would put him off. “The lost wife?”
He tore his gaze away from her waist.
“I thought the director told me it would be the chance of my life. Turns out I should have heard, ‘I want a chance at your wife.’ Lana’s part was a small one, but I was happy that we’d be working together for the first time.”
“And the director cast your wife just to get her to come to the Amazon with you and then hit on her?” Her mouth dropped open. “I mean, I know the movie business is supposed to be sleazy, but come on. Yuck.”
“To be fair, I don’t think the director even knew we were married. Lana and I didn’t exactly bring anyone to Vegas with us for the wedding. It was pretty spontaneous.”
“Okay, but surely everyone on set knew the two of you were together.”
“Not exactly.” He sat up abruptly and grabbed the thigh of his uninjured leg with one hand, kneading it. “Sorry. I get muscle cramps now that I’m using this leg so much.” He set down his wine glass and bent forward to massage his leg with both hands. “It was only Lana’s second role, and she didn’t want people to think she expected any special treatment just because she was married to a hotshot Hollywood photographer. She’s pretty cool like that. So she asked me not to let anyone know we were married.”
He winced again, and before she gave any thought to what she was doing, she waved at him to sit back and rest and started to knead the hard knot out of his thigh.
Talk about whoops.
His flesh was warm beneath her hands, almost hot, even through the thick cloth of his sweatpants. She could feel the long ridge of his quadriceps muscle flexing beneath her fingers as she applied pressure to the knot.
Right. Keep talking.
What had they been talking about?
The super cool ex-wife. Right.
“So, you, ah, fell for that one, huh?”
“Thanks. Yeah,” he sighed and leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Well, she was spending all of her free time in the director’s trailer between takes, but I figured what was the harm?”
“What was the harm?” she repeated in disbelief. She quit the massage and smacked him on the kneecap. “Is there something in the water down there that made you stupid?”
“The director’s name is Jane.”
“Ah.” She stared at him, struggling to keep her face expressionless. “I see.”
“Live and learn.”
A heartbeat more and she couldn’t help it. The giggles just spilled up and out of her throat until she had to cover her face, because each time she glanced at J.D. he just looked more offended.
“I’m sorry,” she said and snorted as she tried to stop laughing. “It’s not funny.”
“Funny? No.” But his eyes were crinkling up at the corners and he shook his head as he started to smile too. “Ridiculous? Just a little bit.”
“Poor J.D.” She smiled and hugged his knees sympathetically. “That must have been pretty painful, your wife sleeping with the director.”
“It was.” He toasted her with his wine glass. “Not quite as painful as when I walked in on them in our trailer, and then tripped as I was storming out. That’s how I got this.” He rapped his knuckles against the cast.
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. And even that didn’t hurt as much as finding out my leg hadn’t been set properly, so it needed to be rebroken and reset unless I wanted a permanent limp.”
“Ouch. Again.”
“Yeah, it’s frigging raining bad luck over here.”
She swigged back a healthy
