Free Hot Touch by Deborah Smith Page B

heartily. She bit her lip, smiled, then laughed a little with him. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh, really laugh, other than when she was with the ferrets. Wanting to absorb the sound, he struggled not to kiss her.
    From the general direction of the plantation came the honking of a car horn. She lifted her wrist and gazed at the wide ceramic bracelet that contained an elegant watch face. “So much for lunch. The crew must be signaling us. We’re late.”
    Paul slowly unwound his arms and noted that she didn’t leave too quickly. She became very formal and busily straightened her wet, wrinkled scarf, but she stayed close to him. He smiled to himself.
    “
Chère?
”
    “Yes?”
    “You make pretty good mudbug bait.”
    She threw the scarf at his head.
    After lunch Wolf growled heartily and on cue for the scene that had caused so much trouble that morning, and now he went through his paces in the outdoor scene as if he were the only calm creature within a hundred miles.
    Caroline stood on the sidelines, sipping a diet drink and peering out from under a sunhat contentedly.
    Wolf looked over to confirm her promise from time to time.
You help, she-friend?
    I’ll help
.
    He went back to work with a vigor that made Paul whoop with pleasure.
    Caroline was happy to make Paul happy—she was willing to admit that. She felt as if some strange power had taken hold of her; she’d never intended to tell him her melodramatic history, or huddle in his arms like a sad child, or let him talk her into going out with him.
    Their lunchtime encounter had left her drained and yet revitalized. She frowned, trying to categorize the odd feeling. It was something like the sensation she got after an hour of exercising with her Jane Fonda videos.
    She’d read somewhere that the pleasant exhaustion from aerobics was nearly as good as the languor that followed great sex. Good grief—what did that reveal about her feelings for Blue? Having never had great sex, she could only speculate.
    Frank’s brother, Tom, had been the sweetest, most unselfishly loving man she’d ever known, and he’dmelted a lot of her defensiveness. Caroline smiled pensively. Thanks to Tom, she’d become a much nicer person.
    But by the time she met him, severe diabetes had taken a toll on his energy. Still, they enjoyed a beautiful relationship and it made her regret the callous way she’d treated men before.
    Not that she’d known any mature, sensitive men before she met Tom. She was a loner; she remembered only the crude, demanding boys from high school.
    She’d dated the bad guys, the troublemakers, boys who worried her stepparents to no end, exactly as she wanted. Revenge had been more important than self-respect.
    Caroline watched Paul guide Wolf through a few more rehearsals of the current scene. Paul Belue, hmmm. Here was a man who didn’t fit either of the extremes she’d experienced with the male of the species. He was sweet but lusty, gentle but wild.
    Caroline realized that just thinking about gentle, lusty, sweet, wild Paul Belue was enough to make hot sensations slip down the inside of her belly like melted sugar. She shut her eyes and desperately willed him out of her thoughts.
    Wolf’s sharp excitement plunged into her mind. Caroline jerked her eyes open and stared at Wolf, who stared beyond the barricade of lights, camera equipment, and people toward some impending disaster.
    “Waaatch out!” Ed Thompson called from somewhere near the pastures. “Gaaate ooopen! Llamas ouuut!”
    Chaos.
    Dabney, lounging in the director’s chair with her black miniskirt hiked to the tops of her thighs, leapt up screaming and ran around like an addled blackbird. Crew members climbed onto anything available. Frankcame out of his trailer, grasped his head in horror, and simply stared.
    Dozens of llamas overran the set.
    Caroline began to chuckle. These long-necked, big-eyed darlings were as dangerous as a patch of petunias. They stopped amid the equipment