Caught On Camera. Meg Maguire

bar, about what they were to each other, everything but lovers. What he felt for Kate went far beyond familiarity and trust and partnership, beyond sexual attraction, too. It was wrapped up in how he felt around her. Calm, but alive. After growing up in the suffocating vacuum left in the wake of his sister’s death, Ty had emerged into adulthood starved for human energy. He’d found it in dozens of half-assed relationships with animated but hollow women—women who appeared dynamic but were really just terrified of being alone. But Kate…her energy ran deep. She was driven. She practically vibrated with passion, but it was contained. Focused. Sometimes Ty wanted to wrap himself around her and feel contained, too, for a change.

      Of course 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.”