She tilted her head and looked up at him. “What makes you think that?”
“I don’t think anything at all. Just guessing.”
“Good guess. Yeah, my dad was army. We moved around a lot.”
“So you’ve seen the world.”
She didn’t smile this time. “You could say that.”
“You probably still see a lot of it, being an actress.”
“Sometimes a lot more than I want to.” She took a couple sips of her beer and kept her gaze focused below, where the movie was being filmed. And she stopped talking.
Logan didn’t know what to make of Desiree Jenkins. She couldn’t be more than mid-twenties at best, which put her firmly in the close-to-ten-years-younger-than-him category. Scrubbed of makeup, she looked like a teenager, but there was a worldliness in her eyes that made her seem a lot older.
She sure was pretty with her long dark hair and wide eyes that he couldn’t quite get a handle on, color-wise. Every time she shifted position, so did the color. At first they seemed blue, but now they were more like a brownish green, with little flecks of gold in them.
“You’re staring.”
He frowned. “Huh?”
“You’re staring at me. Do I have dirt on my face?”
“No. I’m looking at your eyes. The color of them.”
“Oh yeah. My dad told me I had chameleon eyes. I figure they’re just hazel, with a little of every color in them. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Huh. I guess so.”
She leaned back against his truck again. “Not much impresses you, does it, Logan?”
“Nope.” But her eyes did.
“So tell me about your ranch. What do you do here?”
“Work.”
“Wow, so descriptive. I’ll bet you’re a great conversationalist at parties.”
“Don’t get to a lot of parties around here.”
“Maybe you don’t get invited to a lot of parties.”
“Can’t say that breaks my heart any.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, about the ranch?”
“We work cattle. We also have horses, but they’re wild mustangs so we don’t mess with them except to feed them in the winter.”
“Okay. Do you raise the cattle for beef?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t strike me as a dairy farmer.”
“Really. And what does a typical dairy farmer look like to you?”
She shrugged. “No idea. Not like you. You’re more the rugged, work-the-land type, not the milk-the-cows type.”
He wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment, or whether she’d just insulted dairy farmers. Either way, it was obvious she had no idea what she was talking about. Then again, he didn’t know shit about movie making. But he wasn’t spouting off about that, either.
“Well, I gotta go.”
She pushed off the truck and handed him the empty beer bottle. “Thanks for the drink. You should come down and watch filming.”
“No, thanks. I’m plenty busy with my own work.”
“You might find what we do interesting.”
“I’m interested enough in what I do.”
She cocked her head to the side, revealing the soft column of her neck. He didn’t want to be interested in her neck, but he was. “Afraid you might linger a little too long? Maybe get bitten by the acting bug?”
He laughed at that. “Uh, no.”
“Then come on down and watch us work. I’ll make sure the big burly guys won’t bother you.”
Martha would have a fit if he got an invite and he didn’t say yes. “Martha, my house manager, is a big fan.”
“Bring her down to watch a day of filming. We’re doing a big dramatic scene tomorrow. She’d probably love that.”
“She probably would.”
“I’ll have to warn you there’s a lot of standing around and waiting in between takes, but I promise you the end result is always worthwhile. You and Martha come on out to the set. I promise it’ll be fun.”
There were a million reasons this wasn’t a good idea. But then there was Martha, and he hated the thought of cold sandwiches. “What time?”
“I’m usually in makeup by six a.m., so we should start shooting by eight.”
“You get up that early? I thought all you movie stars slept ’til noon.”
“Now who’s funny? I’ll let the crew know you’re coming.” She lifted her arms over her head, stretched, then kicked off into a run, waving at him. “See you tomorrow, Logan.”
Why the hell he’d agreed to that, he had no idea. He had more than enough to do, and losing a day would put him behind.
But at least Martha would be happy.
? ? ?
DES MADE IT BACK TO THE FILM SITE AND RAN STRAIGHT into Theo, her director.
“Des. Where’d you go?”
“I took a run to get some exercise. Did you need me for something?”
“Yes. We need to reshoot one of this morning’s scenes. I told you not to disappear.”
“Sorry. I’ll head over to makeup and hair.”