“Nope.”

Her smile widened just a little. “Well, then. Need a designer?”

“I just might.” They chatted for a few more minutes, with Rafe promising to contact her soon for “designing” purposes, and when she left, the cat was still there.

“What’s this?” Stone came through the house, rubbing a towel over his wet head, not bothering to dry off the rest of him so that he left a trail of wet footprints.

Rafe groaned. “You won’t be doing that once I get my carpeting in.”

“Yes, Mom.” Stone eyed the cat. “That’s the ugliest cat ever.”

Rafe took another look at the feline, who sat as if it were royalty, while its fur stuck up in some places and was matted in others. “Go get me a can of tuna.”

“If you feed it, you’ll never get rid of it.”

“His ribs are sticking out. If I feed it, I think he’ll go away.”

Twenty minutes later they were in the backyard again, with the cat at Rafe’s feet.

“Told you not to feed it,” Stone said, eyes closed, face tilted up to the sun.

Rafe glanced at the cat, whose eyes were slits. “He’s just going to take a nap. He’ll leave after that. You know how cats are.”

Stone shook his head. “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Maybe, but Rafe had never been anyone’s sucker. Or so he told himself, all the way up until the next morning, when the cat still hadn’t left.

But Rafe had to. At dawn, he kicked the cat out to the front porch and drove his Jeep a couple of hours to the designated meeting spot for the day’s photo shoot.

Joshua Tree National Park was one of his favorite spots to photograph. Something about the stark, barren landscape drew him, made him itch for his camera. He parked near the other cars already there.

Sitting in a chair beneath an umbrella, getting her hair worked on and her face done, was his model for the day. A miracle. She still wore her own clothes, or what he assumed were her own clothes-jeans and a zippered, hooded blue sweatshirt.

She looked like Amber.

Her eyes were closed, her face in a relaxed expression, but her body sat tensely in the chair and her hands were fisted on the armrests.

Not Amber.

Ignoring both Emma and the odd and inexplicable tug on his gut at the sight of her, he turned his back on the scene and studied the land. He’d been out here many, many times, the most recent being two weeks ago when he’d come to hunt down the specific spot for this shot.

Joshua Tree National Park was a strange and beautiful place. They were only a couple of hours east of Los Angeles, and yet they might as well have been on another planet. Instead of concrete, glass and brick as far as the eye could see, wide open, high desert prevailed, outlined with sharp, rocky mountains. He couldn’t wait to shoot it, to capture the vast open space, the wild, eerie cactuslike Joshua trees.

People said Los Angeles was sex personified. But to Rafe, this place, with the wild primroses and sunflowers peeking out of the rock formations or springing from the base of the ghostly Joshua trees, with the violent, unpredictable weather and the biggest sky he’d ever seen, beat out Los Angeles for sexy any day.

From where he stood, he could see the exact place he wanted to set up. It appeared to be a large rock formation, jagged and pointing to the sky. It was only about two hundred yards away, and from his last visit, he knew it wasn’t a tough climb by any means. In fact he knew which trail would take them nearly to the top. He figured he could get his model up there, standing on the point of an outcropping with the open space sprawling behind and below her, so that she would appear to be on the very edge of the earth.

Perfect.

And when he finished with the shoot, he could say he was a third done with this, his last job.

Even more perfect.

“FINISHED,” JEN SAID.

Emma opened her eyes. “Thanks.” She reached for her bag, wanting to write down all the script changes that had come to her while she’d been sitting there. She had no idea how Amber handled all the idle time. It would drive her crazy.

When she’d finished, she looked up and started to smile at Jen, but caught sight of herself in the mirror. “Oh my God.”

Jen smiled. “You look terrific, don’t you think? Hot and sexy, but innocent somehow, too. You’ve got such great hair, Amber.”

Amber sure did. Emma’s wasn’t quite as thick and pampered, but apparently Jen hadn’t noticed.

Which made her feel like a big jerk. “Thanks.” She took one last look at the artfully messy hair, her huge eyes and lightly glossed lips. She couldn’t decide if she looked like she’d just gotten into bed, or out of it. “Um…what comes now?”

“You put on your outfit.”

Terrific.

“I left it in the changing area.” Jen pointed to another makeshift bamboo-and-sheet dressing area. “You know…don’t take this the wrong way…but you’re really easy to work with lately.”

She said this with such surprise, Emma nearly grimaced. Amber had gotten herself quite the reputation. “Thanks.” She glanced over at the hanging sheets, wondering what would be waiting for her this time, wondering if she’d have any free minutes between now and camera time to work on the laptop in her bag; she needed to fix a scene she was worried about. She looked around, then felt someone staring at her. Craning her neck, her eyes collided with Rafe’s.

His gaze was dark, inscrutable. He gave nothing away, this man, at least nothing that he didn’t want to give away.

Was he thinking about the kiss? Because she was. Why had he wrangled one from her when Amber would know they didn’t normally do such a thing?

Because he knew she wasn’t Amber?

Her pulse skipped a beat at that, but he revealed nothing as he looked at her. He appeared the same as he had in Kauai-full of carefully restrained energy. He wore faded Levi’s, the fibers white in all the stress points, of which there were many, and a cream cable-knit sweater shoved up at the elbows. He looked lean and rugged and more than slightly annoyed. Her pulse tripped again.

She wished she’d told Amber no. If she’d refused, she’d be hard at work right this very moment, lost in a script she controlled instead of wondering what was going to happen.

He gestured ahead of him, where she could see a dusty trail leading off to what looked like a daunting mountain. Everyone around her-Stone, Jen and two lighting techs-started off, carrying whatever it was they would need.

Emma felt her mouth drop open a little. They were…taking a hike?

Rafe let out a grim smile. “You’re going to want to change now-there’ll be no privacy at the top.”

The top. She craned her neck to even see the top. The mountain looked gigantic, dark red and extremely…sharp. Good God. She swallowed hard. Hiking wasn’t her thing. Anything aerobic wasn’t her thing. Give her a nice, stress-relieving yoga tape any day.

“I don’t hike.”

His grim smile didn’t falter. “I’m not surprised, but this isn’t a hike, it’s just a little walk. You’re not afraid of a little walk, are you…Amber?”

The way he said her sister’s name made her glance at him, but he’d slid on a pair of dark sunglasses with reflective lenses, so she couldn’t begin to tell what thoughts were running in his head.

“Do you need help changing?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said. Or squeaked. She whirled away and hid behind the hanging sheets. A narrow full-length mirror hung off the bamboo, and hooked on to it was a pair of jean shorts and a bright-red halter top. On the floor sat a pair of thick wool socks and brand-spanking-new hiking boots in her size.

Not bad, she thought, letting out a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She’d be fully covered. She liked that, because the thought of facing Rafe in the light of day with anything less than a full set of armor felt a bit…daunting.

She stepped out of her own jeans and top, and then pulled on the shorts.

Uh, oh.

“Problem?”

She jumped a little at the sound of Rafe’s voice just outside the dubious protection of the sheets, and hurriedly slipped on the halter top.

“Amber?”

She stared at herself in the mirror wondering who the hell was staring back. Certainly it wasn’t her with the piles of makeup designed to appear “natural,” the artfully messy hair and the eye-popping clothes, because she’d never looked so naturally…hot. Maybe it was the way Jen had teased her hair, making it seem as if she’d just stumbled out of her lover’s bed-although, no one really looked this good in the morning.

And the outfit…“Man, oh man,” she whispered just as Rafe pulled back the sheet.

Standing behind her, he slowly pushed the sunglasses to the top of his head. His eyes met hers in the mirror, then traveled down, over the red halter top that left her shoulders bare. It also exposed plenty of cleavage all the way to the middle of her torso and that’s pretty much where the top ended. Her belly rose and fell far more quickly than she would have liked as his gaze dropped lower, to the hip-hugging shorts that were so low, the black elastic band of her panties showed around the top.

She didn’t want to think about what else showed. She’d thought the thong last week had produced a wedgie beyond belief, but that was nothing to the feel of the denim riding up and exposing at least half of each cheek. She’d peek, but she didn’t want to bring it to his attention-

“It’s good,” he said, his voice even.

How did he do that? Remain so cool, while her heart threatened to burst right out of her chest just from seeing him look at her. “There’s…not a lot of coverage.”

His gaze cut down to her behind. “Nope.”

She stared at herself in the mirror, careful not to look at his reflection-his sharp eyes, his lean unshaven jaw or the way the wind had tousled his hair into a mess that her fingers suddenly itched to touch.