LITMIR.BIZ

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Dom Tyler could make swallowing the contents of raw songbird eggs erotic. Unlikely as it seemed, this shot was pure gold when it came to capturing the viewers’ attention. And with the snowy locale, this episode needed all the help it could get. Even though it was technically spring, winter still felt very much like the order of the day here in Saskatchewan. Winter meant snow and ice, gusting winds and cruel cold. And layers. Layers made the chance that the viewers would get a glimpse of Ty’s bare torso seem less likely. And that meant fewer pairs of anticipating eyes glued to the screen—the top half of Ty’s body secured them the largest chunk of their enviable viewership. They were by far the best-performing show on their nature-and travel-based network, and survival had very little to do with it.

      “The viewers are going to love that,” Kate said when he finished recording.

      “Our viewers are kinky, then…present company included.” He smiled at her, dismantling the tripod.

      Kate bit back a smile of her own. “I’m immune to your charms, thank you very much. And if the viewers had to spend as much time with you as I do, they’d feel the same way.”

      Ty faked offense, raising his eyebrows. “Now don’t tell me this isn’t what you were expecting when you moved to L.A. I mean, tell me this isn’t Hollywood glitz and glamour at its best.” He waved an arm around, indicating the dreary landscape, the minimalist campsite and the two of them. He hadn’t bathed since they’d left Los Angeles three days earlier, the antithesis of glamour. Kate wasn’t looking much better.

      “I never thought being a personal assistant would be glamorous.”

      “Of course not.” He grinned at her, looking skeptical. “Your coffee table’s only covered in celebrity mags because you couldn’t find any coasters, I’m sure.”

      Kate pushed the slushy snow around with her foot. “Being a PA—the kind I thought I’d be,” she corrected, “is pretty slummy. I assumed I’d be fetching twelve-dollar lattes, and wiping poodle crap off somebody’s stilettos. Holding some celebutante’s hair back while she puked discreetly in the alley behind the poshest club in Hollywood. That sort of thing.”

      “Very classy,” Ty said. “But I know there’s more. Don’t think I can’t see you salivating when the swag turns up.”

      True. They’d been making this show for three seasons now and Ty was beginning to qualify as a bona fide TV celebrity. Kate had nearly hyperventilated the first time a designer offered Ty a suit to wear to an awards ceremony. He’d ultimately blown the event off in favor of a Lakers game and she’d grudgingly returned the goods.

      “This isn’t exactly what I’d pictured…more frostbite, fewer flashbulbs. And you aren’t exactly the boss I’d pictured, either,” she admitted, squinting at him as they walked back to the fire. “I’d imagined a starlet with a dietpill habit, not some nature-boy with an adrenaline addiction. And this isn’t the skill set I thought I’d be gaining.”

      Ty dragged a frame pack over and extracted a length of rope from the front pocket, tossing it to Kate. “Bowline,” he ordered in his best drill sergeant’s voice.

      Kate made a perfect bowline knot in seconds flat. One of a hundred talents she’d learned from Ty and from books since landing this crazy job.

      “Double figure eight.”

      She tied a beauty.

      “I bet Reese Witherspoon’s PA can’t do that,” Ty said smugly.

      “No, and I bet she can’t treat a snakebite or diagnose dengue fever.” Kate made a loose slipknot and tossed it around his neck. “Now that I think about it, Ty, this gig’s not really teaching me any of the skills I’ll need if I’m going to run a powerful Hollywood agency someday. I thought I’d be reading Variety in first class, not manuals about ice-cave exploration in the back of a Cessna.”

      He shrugged. “Funny what choices the universe makes for you.”

      “Yeah. My cosmic dart didn’t land quite where I’d expected,” Kate added, referring to Ty’s new preferred method of choosing their shoot locations—tossing a dart blindly at a world map until it hit an appropriately forbidding destination. He had a penchant for leaving decisions up to chance, an aversion to caution that bordered on superstition.

      He slid a long hunting knife from the sheath on his belt and slapped the handle into Kate’s palm. He pointed to a spruce tree a few yards away and stepped back.

      Kate took aim and threw. The knife whipped through the air and the blade found its target, thwacking into the trunk, dead center.

      Ty groaned and clapped a hand over his heart as if he were fighting an arousal-induced heart attack. “Goddamn, woman.”

      Kate smiled to herself, and hoped the cold breeze would banish the prideful flush warming her cheeks.

      Ty slipped the rope from his head and put it away. “And to think, when I met you you’d never even had poison ivy before.”

      “That’s not true.”

      “Well, you had a manicure. You can’t deny that. What have I done to you?”

      “Nothing I didn’t ask for,” Kate said, rising to the flirtation. True, this show was most definitely not the job she’d envisioned when she’d started looking for work as an assistant, fresh off the plane from the East Coast. She’d been desperate and had no experience, and Ty had simply been the first person who’d succumbed to her strong-arming and hired her. Unlikely or not, it had evolved into Kate’s dream job. The travel and new experiences comprised a part of that, but secretly, the real appeal was Ty himself. Kate looked him over again, eyeballing the man who’d easily become her best friend these past couple years. The closest friend she’d ever had…though she’d never told him as much. She took a seat on the log, stretching her achy legs out in front of her.

      “You may not be grooming me for a gig as an agent,” Kate said, “but I’ll settle for executive producer.”

      “You’re practically that already.” Ty jogged to the tree and retrieved his knife, slid it into its sheath as he trudged back. “I know you thought you’d be choosing my thousand-dollar wristwatches instead of pulling leeches off me, but no one can deny you’re still an ace at running my life.”

      Kate smiled with indulgence. “And that’s exactly what I wanted.”

      “Control freak.”

      “Death wish,” she shot back. “And like it or not, you’ll be in GQ before you know it. The glamour will follow,” she murmured, dreamy, holding her hands out as if envisioning their future rendezvous with stylists and PR agencies.

      “So you say.”

      “Plus this gig is a fantastic workout.” She flexed her arm. Her figure had certainly benefited from two-plus years of this demanding lifestyle. “And my passport’s got an enviable collection of stamps.”

      “Good to know there are some positive side effects to putting up with me,” he said. “And you’re always up to the challenge.”

      “I survived three nights in Death Valley, Ty. I think I can handle the likes of you.”

      Kate wrapped up their banter with an emphatic slap of her hands on her thighs and stood, refocusing on the task at hand. She grabbed a half-frozen protein bar out of her pack, gnawing on it while Ty stowed the tripod.

      “How do we get your shirt off in this episode?” she asked, chewing.

      “I’m thinking sweat, hypothermia danger, drying clothes by the fire?”

      She frowned. “We do that in like, every single snow scenario.”

      “Yeah, and it’s the most legit rationale.” He let slip a hint of rare irritation. “But I’m listening. What’s your brilliant idea this time?”

      “You want to fall in an icy river?”

      He

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