Free Torn by Christina Brunkhorst Page B

scanned those present. Julie knew he looked for Chelsea because the moment he spotted the young woman, the blue depths of his eyes would gleam as though the sun just slipped inside them.
    Pocketing a small slip of yellow paper, Julie walked toward the pair. Her full, maroon-painted lips curved up into a smirk at the expression on Ty Benson’s face while he listened to Chelsea. From the attention he gave her, Chelsea had to be telling him the secret meaning of life, because the man was positively transfixed .
    Chelsea, it amused her to see, became quite relaxed with the cast and crew as she spent more and more time working on the film. And her acting… As a director, Julie found it amazing that a novice was able to give such stellar performances with each take. Chelsea worked wonderfully with each actor in every scene shot so far, but her scenes with Tyler were –– in a word –– riveting . Ty and Chelsea carried out each act with such instinctive precision that it was nearly impossible to believe that they hadn’t paired together on a film prior to this one.
    Now Ty was talking, and Chelsea showed him the same attentive courtesy that he’d given her. As Julie approached, she overhead the gist of the conversation: Chelsea was, apparently, having nervous jitters about doing a love scene, and she certainly wasn’t comfortable with having her chest bared for the world to see. She’d been so excited about actually being in a movie that she hadn’t noticed the nudity mention in the contract when she’d signed her name to the paper.
    Ty was trying to both reassure her and cover his amusement at the same time. Truth be told, Julie could tell he looked forward to the scenes, improper though it might be. But he was a red-blooded male after all. Chelsea was lovely, and there were all these… quirks working with her that never failed to bring a smile to his eyes.
    Like when Ty and Chelsea were arranged just so on the grass during a picnic scene, and “Tina’s” gown had slipped when Chelsea moved her leg, revealing a large tattoo of a bald eagle with a stylized tribal moon. Julie’s exasperated “CUT!” along with Chelsea’s “Oops!” had caused him to lose it. Julie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her friend laugh like that, and he was still chuckling when Drew Maverick finished covering the tattoo with makeup. As far as Julie was concerned, it hadn’t been that funny, but obviously there was something about Chelsea that touched Ty in a way he’d never been touched before.
    Then there was the time when Ty and Chelsea stood before the small, rustic log cabin that was Paul and Tina’s “home”, and Chelsea’s nose had sparkled. “Oh… Crap!” she’d exclaimed after Julie had hollered “CUT!” a second time. Chelsea removed the two tiny gold studs from her left nostril and gave them to Drew, who’d come running out with his make-up case to see what had gone wrong this time. Ty had clearly been startled –– it was obvious that he hadn’t even noticed them, probably because he was so used to seeing them by now.
    Then there was Jake Morgan. After witnessing his wife kissing another man during a scene, he’d stopped visiting the set. Acting or no acting, Ty and Chelsea were simply way too good together for Jake to hang around and watch. So that meant that Ty had Chelsea all to himself each and every day.
    Julie gave the pair a few seconds to register her presence but, when they didn’t, she cleared her throat. “Ty? Helllooo…”
    Ty blinked and looked up at her from his seat on an old log. Julie stared at him, an odd mixture of caring and concern flowing through her. He glanced over at Chelsea as she came to her feet. Slowly, he did the same.
    “What’s up, Jules?” he asked.
    She shrugged. “Nothing, or everything.” She reached into the pocket. “Just on my way to eat when I remembered that my assistant passed this message to me during filming.”
    He looked at the scrap of