Caught on Camera

“You ought to be challenging me a bit more, then. Time to head to town?”

Kate consulted her waterproof watch. “Yeah. Let’s get packed up.”

The snowmobile team would arrive in short order to bring them back to the one-traffic-light-town they’d based the expedition in. They’d drop their stuff off at the motor court and go in search of dinner, and in just a few short hours the other Ty would come knocking. The thought made Kate shiver inside her more-than-adequately-warm coat.

2

“AH, CIVILIZATION.” Ty slid onto a bar stool beside Kate, relieved for a bit of padding under his frozen, beaten body. He sat on her right as always. She’d never told him exactly what had happened to her left ear, but he didn’t pry. Getting questioned about her childhood snapped Kate up tighter than a bear trap…and besides, Ty didn’t particularly fancy returning the favor. Secrets didn’t bother him. What he had with Kate was better. They lived in the present and took each other at face value.

He studied her in the red-and-blue glow of the beer signs and settled into the warmth, as easily as he settled into his friend’s company. He loved that about Kate—the comfort. Ty hadn’t felt that with anyone else, not girlfriends or drinking buddies or old college mates, not even his family, at least not since he’d been very young. But with Kate…effortless. Set loose in the current of their no-frills rapport, Ty was able to let go and simply drift.

She ordered a pint and a cheeseburger and Ty waved politely but dismissively at the bartender. He watched Kate grab some napkins, already preparing for her feast. Then Ty nudged her shoulder with his. “God, you’re mean.”

She turned to him, resting her elbow on the shiny wooden bar and her chin in her hand. “It’s your rule, Ty. No one told you you’re not allowed to eat.”

He shifted on his stool, trying to twist some of the achiness from his muscles. Saskatchewan was cold and damp and its early darkness made him miss Australia with a rare but tangible pang. Or maybe that was just his empty stomach. He looked at Kate. “Well, you’d think you might want to join me, you know, out of solidarity. Just once.”

“Don’t hold your breath, boss.”

“You know my idea for when we run out of places to film in the wild?” he asked, spinning a coaster around on the bar.

Her eyebrow rose. “That thing where you pose as a homeless person and survive for a week on the streets of Detroit?”

He shrugged. “Or Delhi, or Lagos. What d’you reckon? It’s sounding pretty good right now. At least I could go to a soup kitchen.” He picked up the coaster and balanced it on Kate’s head.

She gave a contemptuous snort. “Nobody’s going to fall for you as a homeless person.” She took the coaster off her head and poked his upper arm with it. “Not with triceps like those. And you can’t do an American accent to save your life. You sound like a South African Rocky Balboa.”

“I could get a voice coach.”

She shook her head. “No way.”

“What about my other idea, then? ‘Dom Tyler: Undercover in San Quentin. Survive This, Law-Abider!’ Prison food’s sounding pretty good right about now. Showers.”

“And shivs and gang wars and dropped soap? Forget it.”

The barman delivered Kate’s beer. She drew it close, sucking the foam off the top before picking up the glass, gazing over the rim at Ty with indulgent cruelty. Maybe it was his own maddening hunger, but every time she did that Ty couldn’t help but imagine it was the sort of look she’d give a man right after she tossed the handcuff keys all the way across the room.

She groaned with obscene satisfaction. “Damn, that’s good.”

“I’ll bet.” Ty offered her a smile that said he wasn’t finding her the least bit cute. And that was sort of true. She wasn’t cute. She was dead sexy.

Ty squinted at her as her French fries arrived. People called Kate cute all the time. She was petite, with the clearest, most luminous skin Ty had ever seen, like a face wash model. And shoulder-length dark brown hair, straighter and shinier than even a shampoo ad would dare to promise. Sure, she looked cute. Much the way a rabid kitten might seem adorable, right up until you made the mistake of petting it.

“What are you staring at, Ty? Do I have ketchup on my face?” She wiped a thumb over the corners of her mouth.

Cute… Ty knew better. He saw Kate when no one else was around, at all hours of the day and night, at her best and her worst. In dresses and heels at cocktail parties and in his own boxers and undershirt while her filthy clothes were drying by a bonfire in some godforsaken stretch of remote wilderness. Sexy. Sexy when she chased him down to exact her revenge for a well-aimed snowball to the face, sexy when she greeted him half-asleep, grudging smile framed behind the chain-lock of her motel room door at 3 a.m.

Kate’s burger arrived and she luxuriated in it, a cat in a sunbeam.

“I hate you,” Ty murmured, mouth watering for more than just the burger.

“Oh man, this is amazing. So juicy.”

“I hope you get food poisoning.”

“I suppose I’m overdue,” she said through a bite.

That was true enough. The number of times she’d smoothed Ty’s hair off his forehead and rubbed his back while he suffered through the consequences of an ill-advised meal out in the woods… She’d said she was prepared to do anything as a PA, no matter how unglitzy, but she couldn’t have meant all this. One day she was going to reach her limit, and though it’d kill Ty to lose her, at least he’d finally be able to make good on those threats his body issued whenever he came within two breaths of kissing her. Such as now, for instance.

“Do you want my pickle?” she asked with sickly sweet innocence. “I could toss it out into the snow. That wouldn’t be cheating. You’d still technically be foraging.”

“I’m going to break into your room when you’re showering and flush the toilet on you.”

She grinned, eyes narrowing. “Maybe I should order dessert,” she whispered, and took another bite.

“Evil.” Evil for more than this food flaunting—for flirting back when Ty knew she’d never go there with him as long as they were professional partners. Kate put her job above everything, surely far above any attraction she might feel for him. If they ever got their moment, it’d have to come after the show was canceled. On especially long nights, when he and Kate were the only humans for miles around and he lay awake listening to her steady breathing in a dark tent or the back of the van, Ty prayed for bad ratings.

“What would you have right now, if you could, Ty?” Kate’s eyes darted to the chalkboard menu behind the bar. “Steak?” she guessed, perusing the fare. “Fried chicken and mashed potatoes?”

He offered his best Sean-Connery-as-Bond accent. “Don’t toy with me, Moneypenny.”

“Something not on the menu?” Kate asked with raised eyebrows, a distinct challenge. Get a drink or two in this girl and she turned into a flirting machine.

Ty rose to the dare she was posing, licking his lips. “Such as…?”

She leaned in closer, fixing her eyes on his. “I know exactly what you want,” she said. She was only teasing, but Ty’s body responded nonetheless.

“What do I want, Katie?”

“Ooh, I’m thinking…crab,” she concluded. “Legs. With lots of melted butter and new potatoes.” She did know what he liked. She knew him better than she probably even realized, and that’s what made Ty’s attraction tougher and tougher to write off the longer they worked together. She gave a last wiggle of her eyebrows before she sat up straight again.

“I could fire you, you know.”

“Yeah right, Ty. You’d be lost without me.” She turned to watch the television mounted in the corner. A newscaster was droning about a late-season storm warning, but Ty thought Kate ought to be more concerned with the imminent threat her flirtation was causing. He watched her expression change as she turned to him again.

“You know, you and I are like everything except lovers,” she said.

The statement threw Ty for a momentary loop. Hope and lust jockeyed for his attention, warming him like whiskey, from the inside. “Yeah. Why? You looking to change that?”

She smirked at his tone, shook her head and took another sip of beer. “Nope.”

Ty’s body cooled with disappointment. “Why not?”

“Well, mainly because it’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

Ty rolled his eyes. “Brilliant. Thanks for even bringing it up, then.”

“But I was just thinking how it’s interesting, about you and me.” She wagged a French fry between them. “I mean, we’ve managed to make all this work for three whole seasons now, under the most stressful conditions possible. But we’re both still totally useless with relationships.”