Rubi rolled her eyes. She’d gotten pretty close to Beau and Cindy—they let her ramble on about Cash and were a safe deposit spot because they wouldn’t go blabbing to the tabloids. She had officially turned into a fan-girl and was completely, ridiculously, happy.
“Okay, people, back to one!” called the assistant director.
Rubi looked down at the black tape on the ground that she and Beau were to share. This scene was the big kiss scene. The final cut would include sweeping music, dramatic lighting, and close-ups. Out here in the desert, it was all a little anticlimactic and planned. Beau placed his non-camera arm around her. “This okay?” he asked.
“Hang on.” She adjusted her shirt so that he wasn’t pulling the fabric. They shuffled a little, trying to fit their bodies close enough together for the shot. Rubi leaned back, feeling like she should shove him away, but corrected herself. This was work. There was nothing in this kiss besides the camera angles and the technical direction. They’d even already rehearsed it half a dozen times. Besides, the sooner they got this done, the sooner they could move on to the next scene and she was one scene closer to Cash.
Tanya scuttled over and pulled Rubi’s extensions over her shoulder. She fluffed and arranged the curls and then tamed a flyaway. “Thanks,” said Rubi. Tanya winked at her. She stopped to adjust Beau’s leather jacket and brushed the hair at his temples forward, then hurried away.
They marked the scene and take and the director yelled, “Action.”
“What if it wasn’t a room full of gold—would you still feel this way about me?” asked Beau. His eyes searching.
She placed a hand on his cheek. “I thought I was searching for the treasure, but what I was really searching for was you ”
Getting past security wasn’t as difficult as Cash thought it would be. Apparently Daphne had called ahead and given the all clear for him to have free access. The receptionist had turned out to be quite the romantic at heart.
He wandered the mini city of trailers, storage units, and tents, looking for any sign of Rubi. Everything was suspiciouslynotlabeled. For all the equipment and backgrounds, there had to be someone who knew where things were. That didn’t help him any. The few people he saw were all in a hurry and too far off to speak to.
“Action!” The shout echoed across the area and bounced off the red cliffs. He sort of recognized those rocks as the ones Rubi had blown bubbles in front of, but he couldn’t be sure. Everything was all twisty out here and his sense of direction was off. He wasn’t lost, but he might as well have been. The sets looked real from the front and yet were all bare timber behind. His confidence wavered like the blossoms in his hand in the breeze. He was well out of his element here.
Cash headed towards the center of the makeshift world where lights glared down from steel wires. Over the heads of a group of people standing in a semicircle, he could see the cameras and set. Pushing through, careful of the flowers, the stems moist in his hand, he emerged on the edge of the group, watching two people kiss and kiss good. He couldn’t quite tell who it was—he rarely had time to watch movies or television these days. But the woman had blond hair down to her belt. Hescanned faces, sure that Rubi would be here where things were happening.
The couple pulled apart and turned so he could see the woman’s profile. “What the ” he said before the guy next to him elbowed his side and scowled.
Rubi, her hands on some guy’s shoulders and her body pressed up against him as if it were made out of Play-Doh, had just finished a passionate kiss. The kind of kiss that put other kisses to shame. She hadn’t kissed Cash like that—all hungry and demanding like she wanted him to haul her off to a bed.
What the ?
Where was he supposed to go with that?
He stomped his feet and her eyes swiveled in his direction. Her cheeks picked up and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. She stepped out of the guy’s arms, glancing over her shoulder at him. His brow furrowed in confusion.
Cash had seen enough to know he’d seen too much. He held the flowers out at arm’s length, turned them sideways, and dropped them to the dirt before spinning around and stalking back through the maze.
“Wait!” Rubi’s voice, so familiar, cut through the curious murmurs and went right to his heart, which pounded in traitorous response.
“What’s going on? Cut. Cut! Rubi!” yelled the voice that had said action. “Beau! Where are you going?”
Somewhere in his head Cash realized everything around him was fake, but with the fog in his head, he suckered into the illusions, ducking through doorways that led nowhere and maneuvering around vehicles that turned out to be well-painted plywood props, in his attempt to evade uniformed security guards.
Seeing Rubi kiss someone else with all the love and joy he’d thought she reserved for him had seized Cash’s lungs. He gasped and gulped air, his legs churning in the deep sand.
He turned a corner and almost ran into the guy who had had his hands all over Rubi. He was huge and Cash didn’t care. On instinct, he ducked his shoulder and slammed into him. They thumped against a storage unit, making more noise than this place had seen in a week. Cash’s hand was smashed between the bodies and metal. He grunted and fell back, shaking out his injury and getting ready to go again.
“I get it. I get it,” said the guy who Cash now recognized as Rubi’s co-star. “I didn’t deserve it, but I get it.”
“Get what?” Cash shook out his hand. Dang, that hurt.
“I get why you want to hit me. I do.” He held up both hands.Hewasn’t any worse for wear. “But you really need to settle down and listen to me.”
Cash sneered. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
“Fine—at least talk to Rubi.”
Cash’s sneer disappeared. He kicked the side of the container, making a loud banging sound again. He’d told Rubi he was in this, and he was—all in—in deeper than he’d realized. She’d been so reluctant to get close to him, but he should have been more worried about falling for her. “Why?”
“Because she’s in love with you, stupid. At least, I assume it’s you. You’re Cash, right?”
