he wanted other things, as well. So many nights spent lying beside her during these early-morning bed hijackings, wishing he could turn over. Roll onto his back and feel her hands, curious and fearless and demanding, touching him. He twitched from the thought of it. Kate might technically be his employee, but she was also the ringmaster in their two-man circus. She was the one in control, dishing out directives, and he wanted that little shot-caller in bed. He craved the hands of that capable, judgmental taskmaster on his body—assessing him and demanding his obedience.
Sighing at his own ridiculous lack of professionalism, Ty sat up and clicked the TV off. He went to the bathroom door and knocked.
Kate’s shout came through the hiss of the water and the shoddy pressed wood of the door. “What?”
“What color is the shower curtain, Katie?”
A theatrical groan. “It’s opaque, Ty.”
He pushed the door in, and was smacked in the face by the steam rolling out from behind the partition. It was a wonder Kate didn’t boil herself alive, she took such insanely hot showers. But she’d done her time in glacial rivers, and gone days without so much as a wet hand towel to wipe her face. She’d earned these indulgences.
“Are you excited?” she asked over the din, and Ty heard a shampoo bottle snap open or closed.
He closed the toilet lid and sat. “Yeah. You?”
“Of course. I’ve never been dogsledding before.”
“They sounded skeptical.”
“Yeah, well, they should be,” she said. “They wanted us to train for a week, so the dogs would get to know us. We’re giving them four hours.”
“We’ve done madder things.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I am a little nervous, though.” Her steam-flushed face appeared at the edge of the curtain, hair dripping water over her cheek and onto the bath mat. “Those dogs are brutal. I watched some videos online—it’s like kicking apart drunks in a bar fight, keeping them in line. Drunks with fangs.”
“I’m up for it.” Few things intimidated Ty…. Decisions petrified him, but with Kate around, happily calling the shots for the show, he was mercifully stripped of that duty. He was in charge of taking the actual risks, the ideal job description for a man who lived to tempt fate. Anything for a thrill. Anything to keep him safely distracted from the static buzzing in his restless skull.
Kate’s head disappeared behind the curtain. “Bet you’re ready for today to be over with, old-timer. Ready for some time off?”
Ty laughed. “Only in this business does thirty-one count as old age.” Still, thirty-one…when had that happened? Ty’s life and career had progressed through a series of flukes—the reckless acceptance of others’ dares, the pursuit of goals selected by the flip of a coin or the toss of a dart. On-screen, Ty was the picture of focused self-assurance, but demand something as simple as a choice of restaurants from him and he froze. He’d gotten good at hiding it, always deferring to his date’s choice of destination, ordering whatever special the waitstaff suggested. Ty was a pro at passing off paralyzing indecision as easygoing chivalry.
Kate’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Okay, get out.”
Ty closed the door behind him, the dry air of the main room feeling arctic after the sauna of Kate’s shower. The water shut off and he listened as she pushed the clacking curtain rings to one side. He was good. He didn’t try and picture the scene. Not this time, anyhow.
She emerged five minutes later smelling like her usual postshower self. Lotion, he guessed. Nothing flowery, just clean. Like laundry. Ty wanted to toss her across the bed’s rumpled sheets and get himself slapped.
“What are you sighing about?” She toweled her wet hair and looked at him with those stormy blue eyes.
“Nothing.”
“All right then, get your dog-kicking boots on, Grizzly Adams. Let’s go make a masterpiece.”
3
“THERE! THAT’S IT!”
Ty looked to where Kate was pointing, spotting the sign for Grenier’s Sled Supply and Excursions up ahead on the winding, pine-lined road. He turned them into the drive, their rented truck bucking in the deep, slush-filled potholes. Unseen dogs barked hysterically.
Kate the Guerilla PA was out the door before Ty even brought them to a complete stop. She strode toward the gruff lumberjack of a man who’d emerged from the converted farmhouse. The two met halfway in a long handshake, and Ty watched Kate launch into her spiel, whipping out waiver forms and other legal inevitabilities from her laptop bag. There were papers to be signed regarding their safety, the equipment’s safety, the price of the rentals versus the negotiated cost of flashing the business’s sign and giving them a name drop in the show. Thank goodness for Kate. That sort of stuff bored Ty to tears.
He gathered the two packs and the camera gear from the back of the truck and joined the conversation, glancing between them. “All right?”
Kate did the introductions. “Ty, this is Jim Grenier. Jim, this is Dom Tyler.”
“Of course. Me and my wife love your show, Mr. Tyler.” Jim Grenier seemed to be telling the truth, or a decent facsimile of it.
“Cheers. And ‘Ty’ is fine, by the way.” He accepted the older man’s hand and shook it with a manly curtness. This was what men wanted from Ty—what his on-screen persona promised. No nonsense, a man’s man. Ty always delivered it, too, knowing men were by far his harshest critics…particularly specimens like this one, real frontiersmen, rare in this day and age. Ty scanned Grenier, his rugged clothes and boots, weather-beaten face and full beard. Ty’s duty was to acquiesce, to demonstrate his enthusiasm and gratitude for the knowledge on offer, but never to come off as a softie. Plenty of these guys were dying for a chance to knock a hotshot television survival host down a few pegs. Ty thought this fellow seemed okay, though. Skeptical, but amused. It beat open contempt, at any rate. Plus Ty felt he should get a pass on this one—what did an Aussie know about dogsledding?
“Let’s go meet the team,” Jim said, and he led them back to a paddock filled with barking dogs. All huskies, some white Siberian, some gray and more wolfish-looking, some tethered and others roaming free. All of them sized Ty and Kate up with ethereal blue or pale brown eyes.
The next few hours were spent getting a crash course in the sport. They’d both done their homework but it was a tough skill to pick up and run with—the dogs snarled and snapped, prone to infighting and distraction. After a few hours, though, Ty and Kate were confident. Kate excelled at shouting and rushing the dogs when they began to jump on one another. She played a very convincing alpha female, even though a few of these dogs weighed a good seventy-plus pounds, most of it muscle. Kate was slender, healthy and fit but not jacked, yet when her mind was set on something she turned as ferocious and unrelenting as a junkyard dog herself.
“You’re a little too good at that,” Ty said as she reasserted order following a scuffle.
“You forget I had six older brothers.”
Ty smirked at her. “And just how many of your brothers are dead again, Kate?”
Her lips pursed into an irritated frown. “None,” she admitted.
“And yet you still talk about your family in the past tense.”
“Yeah, well being out here with you makes Dorchester, Massachusetts, feel like a lifetime ago, Ty.”
He wanted to pry, but held his tongue. Kate only ever spoke about her past in vague or elusive terms. She didn’t act as if she was hiding anything, just turned weary and contemptuous when the topic came up, as though she were being asked to recite the multiplication table or some other mundane bit of information. But because he knew she was stuck with him, both physically and professionally, Ty didn’t mind salting the wound. If she didn’t