Just One Look. Joanne Rock

owns a .38, Tabitha?”

      She paused for a long moment, then cocked a hip against a lopsided table propped up by a stack of books on one end, the movement of her body a subtle reminder of the famous curves that hid beneath the big sweater.

      “Honestly, Detective? I do.”

      2

      TABITHA SAT ON the fire escape outside her on-location shoot the next afternoon and tilted her face up toward the sun’s rays. Wrapped in her winter coat over a bathrobe, she waited for her call to the set and tried to swallow down the attack of nerves that always came with her body double work.

      “We’ll be ready for you in just a minute, Tabitha,” one of the set assistants called out the door where she sat in a cast-iron patio chair chilled from months of a New York winter.

      “Thanks.” She smiled weakly, her game face not quite assembled yet after last night’s stray bullet scare and a sexy cop diving headfirst through the front door.

      Oddly, she half wondered which event had rattled her more. The bullet had been scary, no doubt. But the man…wow. After her divorce, warm feelings for men in general had sort of disappeared. And there was a certain comfort in that lack of emotion after life kicked your butt. Last night had been a wake-up call to her snoozing hormones, however. Warren Vitalis ignited some serious heat with just one look.

      In the distance she heard a police siren. Would she ever see the hot detective again? Or had he handed over her case to the patrol cops who had shown up later in the evening after she’d admitted the only person she knew with a .38 was her? Detective Vitalis’s suggestion that her ex could have been involved in the shooting last night was ludicrous since her former husband had always been far too concerned with appearances and what other people thought of him to lower himself to gangster tactics.

      No, Manny Redding had too many other more subtle weapons to hurt her. The cheating creep.

      “We’re ready now, Tabitha,” the set assistant called out, ending any time for psyching herself up for this scene.

      Damn it.

      Today wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill soap opera shower scene. Tabitha had been a little nervous about this gig—a prime-time movie special for a cable network—from the moment she’d learned she would be standing in for the actress playing a prostitute. Worse, the prostitute was in her late teens and Tabitha’s body was clearly that of a woman on the far side of twenty-five. She’d be thirty next year. Could she still pass off her bod as a nineteen-year-old’s?

      Planting one foot in front of the other, she congratulated herself that at least she hadn’t resorted to any of the unhealthy eating tactics she’d struggled with in the past. She’d worked her tail off for the lean muscle tone she had these days. One of the best benefits of her spectacularly messy divorce was the clear head that allowed her to be healthy again. She’d silenced her ex-husband’s voice in her head telling her she wasn’t cut out to be on film. That she shouldn’t share her talents with the world when he needed her working behind the scenes for him.

      And finally, that no other man should look at his wife.

      The subtle possessiveness that started off as sort of endearing eventually became suffocating and for a few dark months toward the end she’d staved off the anxiety with food. The bulimia she’d struggled with as a teen resurfaced with a vengeance.

      She was under control again now. Every day that she bared her body for the camera now soothed a little more of her wounded ego and healed the part of her that knew she’d stayed in a bad marriage for too long. Besides, body double work was just a means to an end to finance her return to filmmaking.

      Allowing her coat to slide off her shoulders, she didn’t bother counting the number of people on the closed set the way she used to when she first started life as a body double. By now, she didn’t care how many people saw her mostly naked because she was stronger. More fearless.

      And screw them if they couldn’t appreciate an almost thirty-year-old’s body forged of sweat and discipline.

      Letting the bathrobe slip from her shoulders, she allowed the world to see her flesh-toned body stocking that covered only the most crucial parts. The custom-made nude thong matched her skin color exactly. The pasties she wore on her nipples weren’t half as cute as the one Janet Jackson had once famously displayed to the world, but Tabitha’s more functional brand made sure her nipples didn’t show up unexpectedly in any camera shots.

      There were no costume malfunctions when Tabitha was in charge.

      Tabitha walked toward the bed where the scene called for her to fake a sexual encounter with the aging former Hollywood bad boy who’d been relegated to made-for-TV movies after hitting rehab too many times. He was handsome enough, she supposed, if you liked a guy in makeup with a sock covering his privates.

      But as Tabitha strode toward the bed, her mind suddenly replaced the actor with a vision of Detective Warren Vitalis lying between those sheets waiting for her, his virile male body taking up much more of the bed than her current co-star.

      A wave of want halted her in her tracks and sent pleasurable shivers over her bare skin.

      Ooh.

      There couldn’t have been a more supremely bad time for her mind to play tricks on her or for her hibernating libido to come roaring back to life. Her cheeks flushed, not from embarrassment so much as that preorgasmic full body tingle she’d only vaguely remembered until this moment. Her nipples tightened beneath their cover-ups and she half feared the self-adhesive pasties would pop right off her suddenly excited body.

      Scavenging every bit of willpower she possessed, she forced herself to see the makeup line on her co-star’s neck, to remember where she was and that she wanted to get this scene over with. The sexy detective might have her fantasizing, but she couldn’t allow wishful thinking to cloud her vision ever again.

      Lust had landed her in the worst sort of marriage. She’d be damned if something so insubstantial as sexual attraction would ever steer her into the arms of any man who didn’t see beyond the surface to appreciate the woman inside.

      WARREN STALKED THROUGH the old building a block behind Central Park West in search of the camera crew. In search of one woman in particular. Tabitha’s casting agent had given Warren a hell of a runaround this morning, but once he’d finally pried an address out of the guy, Warren had hightailed it to the shoot to have another crack at the closemouthed body double.

      She hadn’t been totally honest with him the night before and that pissed him off. She’d admitted to owning a .38 that had been a gift from her husband while they’d been married. What she hadn’t bothered sharing was the fact that it had been reported stolen long before her divorce was finalized.

      She also hadn’t bothered sharing the fact that her divorce had been acrimonious and high-profile since her ex was a powerful New York producer. Why would she want to protect a guy who—judging by the claims volleyed at her in the tabloids—had been determined to drag her name through the mud during divorce proceedings?

      The questions gnawed away at him after he’d gone to the station to file an incident report and do a little homework. Tabitha’s vacant eyes when he’d first entered her apartment had eaten at his conscience, telling him she’d probably been in shock when he dove into her apartment and pointed a gun at her.

      “Detective Vitalis, NYPD.” He announced himself at the door once he found the right apartment and then flashed his badge a few more times to gain access to the room where Tabitha was shooting.

      Several crewmembers tried to explain the concept of “closed set” to him on his way in, but he’d always been good with people and adept at using the authority of his position to get where he needed to be. He didn’t want to stop the shoot, but he had to admit a definite interest in seeing Tabitha Everhart at work.

      And when was the last time he’d felt that kind of intense interest in any woman? Occasional nights with holster groupies had never engendered the