Desert Rain with Bonus Material

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Can’t I fly down after you have everything in place?” she asked.

  “It’s already in place. I sent the technicians there when Hidden Springs was rained out.”

  She muttered something.

  So did Roger.

  “Really, love, I’m sorry,” he said finally. “But we’re behind schedule as it is. If we don’t get the shots we need, the Romance campaign is in the loo.”

  “Get another model,” Linc said.

  His voice was clear and hard enough to make Holly flinch.

  Roger’s laugh was equally hard.

  “You’re joking,” Roger retorted. “Shannon is the Royce Romance campaign.”

  Linc looked at her.

  Waiting.

  “I’ll be at the airport in an hour,” she said tonelessly.

  She flipped the switch before Roger could reply.

  Linc got out of bed in a single, savage motion. He stood with his back to her. Every muscle in his big body was rigid with tension. When he spoke, his voice showed the effort it took to control himself.

  “Why?” Linc asked.

  “It’s my job.”

  “Quit.”

  “I’m under contract.”

  “Break it.”

  Holly’s breath came in with a rough sound.

  Too soon, she thought wildly. This is all happening too soon.

  “No,” she said.

  Slowly Linc turned around. His eyes searched hers. She met them squarely.

  “Is it so important for you to be wanted by more than one man?” Linc asked.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “That has nothing to do with it!”

  “It did for the two ‘models’ I knew,” he said coldly.

  “They weren’t typical,” Holly said. “Women who call themselves models and sell sex on the side don’t last long.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “You bet I’m right,” she said in a rising voice. “What those so-called models are peddling is nothing special. It can be found in any town big enough to have an alley.”

  Linc’s disbelief showed in the sardonic curl of his mouth.

  Holly got up and walked over to him.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “Real models work on their feet, not their back, and they work damned hard.”

  “Doing what? Undressing?”

  “Real models hold poses in impossible positions for hours on end and smile convincingly on command,” she said flatly.

  Linc looked skeptical.

  “Real models don’t eat when they’re hungry,” Holly said. “Real models exercise when they’d rather be asleep, work long hours under miserable conditions and then put up with insults from ignorant, bigoted people who think that model is another name for whore.”

  Linc watched her with eyes that were nearly black, as opaque as stones at the bottom of a twilight river.

  She took a deep, shaking breath, caught between anger and a fear that was turning her stomach to ice.

  “Models aren’t whores,” she said. “Fashion is a business. Models are part of it.”

  “Some business. Showing off overpriced clothes for rich women.”

  “Wrong again,” Holly said. “High fashion is a very small part of the industry.”

  “Industry?” he asked scornfully.

  “Precisely. Everybody who wears clothes is part of it. Even you. Fashion is part of the gross national product just like cars, candy bars, and computers.”

  With a tight, frustrated gesture, Linc ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Fine,” he said, his voice grudging. “Fashion is a flaming national asset. Is it more important to you than being with me?”

  “Why don’t you come to Cabo San Lucas with me?” Holly countered. “Then we’ll not only be together, but you’ll also see what modeling is—and isn’t.”

  “I have work to do. Real work.”

  “And just how is raising overpriced horses for rich men more important work than mine?” she challenged.

  “Raising horses isn’t work, it’s my life.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Linc’s expression changed, showing more surprise than anger.

  “Is that what you’re trying to say?” he asked slowly. “Modeling is your life?”

  “It’s part of me.”

  “More important than what we could have?”

  “I’m not making you choose between me and your work,” Holly said desperately. “Why are you making me choose?”

  He turned away, walked across the room, and began pulling clothes out of his closet.

  “I’ll drive you to the airport,” he said.

  She crossed the room quickly and stood behind him. Tentatively her fingers traced the muscled ridges of his back. Her arms slid around his body in a hug.

  “I love you,” Holly said softly.

  She felt him stiffen, then let out his breath in a long sigh.

  Gently he unwrapped her arms from around his body and turned to face her.

  “Don’t love me,” he said, his voice rich with anger and sadness.

  “But—”

  “Loving me will hurt you more than anything I could do to you. And in spite of what I think of models, I don’t want you hurt.”

  “I don’t understand,” Holly said in a low voice.

  Linc gathered her hands and kissed her fingertips tenderly, watching her with eyes that were far too dark.

  “Love is a game for masochists, Holly. You can’t win, you can’t stay even, and you can’t get out of the game.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said shakily.

  “You will.”

  Linc released her hands.

  “Get dressed,” he said, turning away. “You don’t want to be late for work.”

  Twenty

  Holly’s smile was brilliant. It ignored the hot needles of fatigue that stitched across her shoulders and made her thighs quiver beneath the flowing, sea-green chiffon gown.

  Behind her reared the desolate splendor of the rocks that formed Cabo San Lucas. Barren, weathered, shimmering beneath the brutal tropical heat, the heaps of stone endured the sun and sea that would eventually destroy them.

  A desultory breeze lifted clinging folds of chiffon from Holly’s sticky skin. The fragile cloth rippled and gleamed, echoing the waves swelling toward the brutally hot sand.

  The net of diamonds around her throat sparkled like drops of water flung from a breaking wave. Late afternoon light turned her eyes to gold and made even the jagged rocks look velvety, almost inviting.

  The director raised his bullhorn.

  “Right,” he said in a clipped voice.

  Holly held her breath and let herself hope that the shoot was finally over.

  “Again,” the director said. “But get Shannon’s hair first.”

  “Damn,” she said under her breath.

  She put her fists in the small of her back and knuckled hard on knots of burning muscles. Her body was cramped from hours of bending and turning and posing on the uneven ground.

  The motion sequence she was doing now was easier physically, but mentally it was infinitely worse. Walking down to the water and standing ankle-deep in foam was easy.

  Stepping into Roger’s arms and looking eager for his embrace was not.

  It was bad enough to be held by a man who was not Linc. To be kissed was unbearable.

  For the hundredth time Holly wished that Roger had chosen a stranger, rather than himself, to be the Royce male model. It would have been easier for her to ignore desire in a stranger’s eyes.

  With outward patience she stood while the stylist fussed over her long hair.

  “Bloody damned nuisance,” the stylist muttered. “Whatever I do, the wind will undo before I turn around.”

  “Tell me about it,” Holly said sardonically. “My scalp is raw from all the combing.”

  With a complete lack of sympathy, the stylist raked the brush through her long hair aga
in.

  Holly sighed and stood still, enduring what was necessary for her profession. Roger wanted her hair unbound, rippling and lifting in the wind like a midnight cloud. The effect would be sensuous and romantic.

  If it ever worked.

  The air moving off the sea was sultry, salty, and uncertain. It turned Holly’s hair into tangled strings. The unpredictable breeze also required her to hold poses until her muscles cramped while the photographer waited for the generator-driven fans and nature to stop fighting for control of her long hair.

  At least the still photos are almost done, she thought. For that small blessing I give thanks.

  One more crack from Jerry about icicles and I’ll shove his camera down his throat.

  After a final brutal sweep with the brush, the stylist trotted off the set, leaving Holly to the elements once more.

  “Shannon, are you awake out there?” the director yelled through the bullhorn.

  She gritted her teeth and waved.

  “Remember,” the director continued, “this is supposed to simply ooze sensuality. ‘When you meet the man of your dreams, be wearing a Royce.’ ”

  She waved again.

  “Remember the theme,” the director yelled. “It’s the man of your secret dreams walking out of the water, not some stranger!”

  “I’ve read the script,” Holly called.

  “Then bloody well act like it!”

  “Then bloody well get on with it!” she yelled.

  There were sidelong looks around the set. Before this shoot, Holly had had a reputation as the least temperamental of models.

  No longer.

  The crew had seen—and heard—more of her temper in the last five days at Cabo San Lucas they had in the last five years.

  “Action!” yelled the director.

  Automatically Holly followed the directions in the script. She waited for a wave to break on the shore. Then she turned languidly and bent over, trailing her fingertips through the water that foamed lightly across her feet.

  She tasted the salt on her fingertips with a lingering touch of her tongue. Then, slowly, she arched her back and lifted her long hair into the wind.

  She looked sad and wistful and very much alone, a woman longing for her lover.

  The expression came easily to Holly’s face. She had been aching for Linc since he had left her at the airport five days ago.

  She had called him three times.

  The housekeeper had answered each time.

  Linc had not returned the calls.

  “Makeup!” yelled the director.

  With an irritated jerk of her head, Holly dropped her arms. Impatiently she waited for the makeup man to come out and repair whatever damage the director had spotted.

  Roger was farther out in the water, just behind the place where waves curled over into thunder and foam. Swearing, he dove through the breaking waves and started wading toward her. His path was the incandescent wake of the sun across the face of the sea.

  Quickly he came ashore and stood by Holly’s side, watching her with a mixture of sympathy and worry. He had worked with enough volatile women to know that the normally unflappable Holly was very close to slipping the leash on her temper.

  “Under the eyes,” the director instructed through the bullhorn. “Gloss the lips while you’re about it.”

  Roger stood very close, examining her critically.

  “You really should try sleeping at night,” he said.

  “I do try.”

  “Then try succeeding,” he said in a clipped voice.

  Holly started to retort, but the makeup artist shut her up by applying gloss with a heavy hand.

  The hair stylist rushed forward again, ever alert for the opportunity to brush her hair into a flyaway cloud of black silk.

  The makeup man went to work erasing unwanted shadows under her eyes.

  “I sleep just fine,” Holly said the instant her lips were free.

  “Rot,” Roger said. “I’ve heard you pacing your balcony all night, every night.”

  She compressed her lips and said nothing.

  There was nothing she could say. She had slept only a few hours a night since Linc had dropped her at the airport without so much as a goodbye kiss.

  “I’ll tiptoe from now on,” she said tightly. “Sorry to keep you awake.”

  “I’m more worried about your sleep than mine.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Bloody hell,” he snarled. “I don’t want the Royce Reflection to look like a half-starved, overworked waif.”

  He made an impatient gesture when Holly started to argue.

  “Don’t bother denying it,” Roger said. “I’m the one who has had to take in your dresses down here. Twice.”

  “Sorry,” Holly said again.

  He swore.

  “I don’t want apologies, I want you happy!” he said.

  “Is that in my contract?”

  There was a taut silence.

  “It’s that damned cowboy, isn’t it?” Roger asked finally.

  Holly’s face changed despite her efforts to show nothing. Then she pulled her professional smile over her face like a mask.

  “It’s the humidity here that’s too rough,” she said casually. “A regular sauna. Guess I’ll never make a tropical princess.”

  “It can be just as humid in Palm Springs,” Roger pointed out.

  She just smiled again, a smile as empty as her eyes.

  The makeup man finished and left as silently as he had come.

  Holly hardly noticed.

  Her whole attention was focused down the beach, beyond the roped-off area that kept the curious public away from the set. She thought she had seen a man there, a tall, well-built man, walking toward the water.

  The man had moved like Linc.

  Holly’s heart stopped, then beat frantically. She stared out over the ocean, but could see only a lean, muscular man silhouetted against the incandescent wake of the sun.

  He dove into the brilliant colors and vanished.

  “What’s wrong, love?” Roger asked. “You’re shaking.”

  For a moment she couldn’t answer.

  He turned away and called to the director.

  “Wrap it up,” Roger yelled crisply. “Shannon has had enough for today.”

  “No,” Holly said.

  The stark refusal stopped him. He looked back at her.

  She didn’t notice. She was too busy raging at herself that just the shadow of a powerful, easy-moving man could upset her so much that she forgot where she was, who she was, why she was here in sultry Cabo San Lucas.

  This has to stop, Holly told herself harshly. I can’t go on like a sleepwalker blundering through a dissolving dream.

  I owe Roger more than the shell of Shannon.

  In the past she had pretended that Linc was nearby when she performed for the camera.

  I’ll just have to pretend again, using new memories they same way I used old ones.

  New memories that were hot enough to melt the icy fear that came when she thought of his words.

  Don’t love me.

  Love is a game for masochists. You can’t win, you can’t stay even and you can’t get out of the game.

  Yet she could no more help loving him than breathing.

  “This is the best time,” Holly said to Roger. “The light is like honey.”

  “There’ll be another afternoon tomorrow,” he said.

  “The hurricane won’t stall off the coast forever. Tomorrow might be too late.”

  “But—”

  “Ready!” she called out to the director, cutting across Roger’s protest.

  And this time she was.

  She pulled her memories of Linc around her, wrapping herself in shimmering sensuality. She remembered the moment when she woke up in Linc’s arms, his warm tongue teasing her lips, making her smile.

  Jerry, who was on the sidelines taking still photos for the magazine campaign, crowed triumphantly.
<
br />   “That’s it! God, babe, that’s fantastic!”

  “Quiet!” the director shouted.

  Holly heard Jerry and the director as though they were at the end of a long tunnel. Wrapped in memories, she radiated a sensual hunger that was all the more compelling because her face was shadowed with loneliness.

  Wind swirled around her. It caressed her skin, lifted her hair, and billowed the countless layers of sea-foam chiffon, revealing the perfect curves of her legs.

  Light poured over her like a lover made of molten gold.

  Roger, wet with salt water, his hair in artistic disarray, walked out of the breakers toward her. A black mask and snorkel dangled from his left hand. Slanting light picked up the gleam of water trickling down his tanned skin. Black swim briefs clung to his athletic body.

  Holly watched him walk forward and mentally fitted Linc’s likeness over Roger.

  It didn’t work.

  She closed her eyes and tried again.

  The director’s frustrated comments bounced off Holly’s concentration. She held out her hand and let herself be pulled into Roger’s arms.

  His head bent slowly toward her. He kissed her with cool lips as he had all afternoon, kisses that were meant to appear sexy but were simply part of the script.

  Then his arms tightened and his tongue shot between her teeth, trying to change a stage kiss into something much more intimate.

  After an instant of shock, Holly stiffened her arms against Roger’s chest and angrily shoved away from him.

  “Cut!” yelled the director.

  He strode down the beach, bullhorn in hand.

  “Shannon, what in bloody hell is wrong with you?” the director demanded.

  “Ask Roger.”

  The director turned to his boss.

  Roger sighed, shrugged, and glanced at Holly.

  “Sorry, love,” he said to her. “You’re such an overwhelming temptation.”

  “I’m supposed to be,” she said coolly. “That’s the whole idea of the campaign. Your idea. Remember? An act.”

  Roger smiled charmingly, but there was real masculine hunger beneath his polished surface.

  “Women who look like you need more than kissing,” he said quietly.

  With a hissed word, Holly turned her back on him.

  Roger took the director’s arm and walked the angry man back up the beach, talking to him in soothing tones.

  Holly didn’t bother to listen. Her eyes were closed and her whole body was tight. Motionless, she fought her instinctive revulsion at being kissed so intimately by any man but Linc.