that your only frame of reference?” She couldn’t resist the urge to tease at him, just a bit. “The movies?”
“I wasn’t including myself in the ‘most people’ category.” He shoved away from the post and stepped in close to run a hand down the horse’s face. “Besides, you’re here to do that for me.”
She slanted a narrow-eyed glance at him over her shoulder, annoyed that he wasn’t taking offense or her hints to back off. And that he was getting to her. “Another item on my job description?”
The smile that spread over his features was positively wicked. “Care if I add some more?”
If this were any other man, she’d think he was flirting. But this was Fitz Kelleran, one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive. And she was…nobody a man like him would ever flirt with. She turned back to her task.
“Wasn’t Hannibal an ancient general?” he asked.
“A Carthaginian. He fought the Romans.”
“And lost, right?”
“Yeah.”
Fitz rubbed his knuckles over Hannibal’s nose. “Sorry, fella. You’re named for one of history’s losers.”
She smiled and realized she was enjoying herself, enjoying the company and the conversation. Maybe she was a sucker for that notorious charm, after all. Or maybe her relatively mellow mood on this pretty evening was smoothing out some of her rougher edges. Or maybe, just maybe, she was starting to like Fitz Kelleran. Just a fraction of an inch’s worth. It was hard holding petty grudges against someone who seemed to appreciate her horse as much as she did.
“Hannibal wasn’t really a loser,” she said. “Well, in the end, maybe. But he was a brilliant tactician, one of history’s best. A dreamer and a fighter. A powerful combination. Anyone determined enough to take elephants over the Alps—now that’s someone with a whole lot of spirit.”
She evened up another section of mane, and then swept her hand along her horse’s long, warm neck. “This Hannibal’s got a whole lot of spirit, too.”
“Why, Ellie Harrison.” He shifted to stand behind her and lowered his voice to a seductive singsong of a whisper. “You’re a romantic.”
“No, I’m not.” Another wave of warmth crept across her cheeks, and she hunched her shoulders in mortification. She hoped he couldn’t see the pink creeping over the back of her neck. She suspected the man saw too much for comfort.
She sensed him leaning in closer, closer, until his breath washed the scents of coffee and mint over the side of her face. “Yes,” he said. “You are.”
She was on fire, trapped between two large, warm bodies. She swallowed and steadied, and then tugged again at Hannibal’s mane. The horse quivered and snuffled his impatience with her clumsy moves, and her elbow accidentally connected with Fitz’s surprisingly solid midsection.
“You don’t know me well enough to say something like that,” she said.
“I know you’re a romantic. That’s a start.”
“A start off on the wrong foot, maybe.”
“I like that ‘maybe.’ It’s full of possibilities. Like taking elephants over the Alps.” He moved away, and a chill raced down her spine in the cooling night air.
She sucked in a deep breath and turned for the comb. Fitz was still there, standing too close, studying her face with those sky-blue eyes, famous eyes she’d sighed over on the screen a dozen times. Eyes that locked on hers and darkened in pure and potent male consideration.
Oh. My. God.
She swallowed a fizzy brew of disbelief and panic and primitive female response. “Excuse me.”
He stepped back and shoved his hands into his pockets, and then whistled some tuneless nonsense as he strolled down the breezeway. He paused in the wide doorway, turned and flashed her one of his dazzling smiles. “Elephants over the Alps, Ellie. Elephants over the Alps.”
THREE DAYS LATER, Fitz launched himself from a rickety set chair to stretch his legs. It wasn’t the acting that wore him down and got him in trouble. It was the waiting around, the inactivity that made his legs twitch and his hands itch and his mind the devil’s playground.
Surely it was the stop-and-go boredom that kept these vaguely impure thoughts about their no-nonsense saddle boss oozing and bubbling in the sewer of his subconscious. It couldn’t be her stop-right-there scowl. Or those slitty-eyed glances she shot him every so often.
He thought he’d had her pegged—the uptight widow saving herself and the family spread for the guy with the whitest ten-gallon hat in the local cattlemen’s association. But then he’d caught her crooning a silly lyric to that big red horse of hers, and watched her eyes drift soft and dreamy over some ancient, ill-fated hero.
Something had been tugging at him since that night, something other than an urge to tease her cross-eyed and wipe the smug off her face, or loosen up her thick reddish braid and stick his tongue down her throat. Whatever it was, she’d sure thrown him off balance.
“Fitz.” Burke stepped into his path. “Nora’s looking a little pale.”
Fitz turned to see Marlene clucking at Nora and dabbing a foundation sponge along her forehead. The endless delays, combined with the day’s heat, were beginning to take their toll.
“Think I might be a bit temperamental about my lunch hour today,” he said. “You get her out of the sun and off her feet while I clear things with Van Gelder.”
A few minutes later he found his leading lady collapsed in a chair beneath a van awning. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, thanks. Burke went for some water.” Nora sighed and let her head fall back against the chair. “I saw you pulling strings for me just now. Thanks.”
He swung another set chair around and lifted her feet onto it. Where was Anna, her assistant? “How are you doing? Any morning sickness?”
“Not yet.” She smiled and smoothed her hands over her stomach. “Just more tired than usual. This break will help.”
He ran a finger along the back of her hand. “You let me know whenever you need to take another one. I can come up with enough excuses for both of us.”
“Thanks, hon.” She sighed and settled more comfortably in the chair and closed her eyes. “You’re a real gentleman.”
“Yeah, that’s me all right.” Knowing Burke would be back soon to play mother hen, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head and strolled off in the direction of the catering truck.
Across the open area behind the set, he spied a battered wooden lawn chair tilted at a crazy angle, one of its wide legs bumped up against the roots of an oak tree umbrella. The scene had a kind of Norman-Rockwell-does-Montana rustic appeal. He made a mental note to stake out some territory in the dappled shade for a post-lunch nap.
There were two chairs, he discovered as he drew closer, and the second was occupied by a scrawny kid with Ellie’s fly-speck
