High-Stakes Bachelor. Cindy Dees

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СКАЧАТЬ signaled that he was ready to shoot, and Jackson pocketed his phone. He joined her on the mat and someone passed him a king-size club, which he swung a few times, getting the feel of it. Apparently, he already knew the choreography.

      “Places, everyone!” Adrian called. “Quiet on set, please.”

      She stepped into the middle of the mat and took up a fighting stance, feet apart and knees bent. Jackson did the same, towering over her. Lord, just being close to him made her heart beat faster. The guy was like a high-powered electromagnet.

      “Almost doesn’t seem fair to beat up a squirt like you,” he teased.

      She snorted back, rising to the bait. “Big, clumsy lunk. You’re gonna have to catch me first.”

      He grinned at her taunt and leaped at her. He was flipping fast for a guy his size. Step. Swing. Dodge, slide left. Spin. Jump. Swing. Swing. She chanted the choreography in her head by rote.

       Ka-pow.

      Her arm jarred from the impact of her club on Jackson’s face.

      “Jackson!” she cried out as he doubled over, swearing. “You were supposed to spin right, not left!”

      “Yeah, I got that memo just now,” he muttered in a voice muffled by his hands.

      She spied blood dripping from between his fingers. “Medic!” she shouted. Adrian was backing away from Jackson, looking sick to his stomach. No one responded immediately to her shout, and Jackson was bleeding all over the place. A sports trainer in high school, she leaped into action. She whipped off her green camo T-shirt and wadded it up. “Here. Use this to catch blood while I find a first aid kit.”

      Good thing she’d worn a camisole under her shirt today. She looked around frantically and spotted a big red cross on the far wall. She raced over to the first aid kit, yanked the briefcase-size metal box down and sprinted back to Jackson.

      “What did I hit? How hard?” she asked urgently.

      “Nose. Clocked me good.”

      “Lemme see.” He was reluctant to take her shirt away from his face, and she had to physically peel his fingers loose. She reached up to gently squeeze the spot she’d hit.

      “Youch!” he yelped.

      Nothing crunched or wiggled under her fingertips. If his nose was broken and she’d pinched it like that, he’d have howled to the rafters, not just squeaked a little. Crud. She was going to get sued into the Stone Age if she’d just ruined the prettiest face in Hollywood.

      “It doesn’t feel broken,” she announced. “But you’ve got the mother of all nosebleeds.” She stuffed his nostrils with gauze and ordered, “Tilt your head back.” She called out to no one in particular, “Is there somewhere he can lie down?”

      “My office,” Adrian replied thickly. Guy must get queasy at the sight of blood.

      In stunt work, guys got banged up all the time. Cuts and scrapes were all part of a day’s work. She guided Jackson’s hand to her shoulder and followed Adrian’s assistant to the director’s office. His big palm gripped her bare skin lightly, and her bones felt oddly small and fragile under the heat of his hand. A shiver of something unidentifiable ran through her.

      “Okay, Jackson. We’re at the couch.” She guided him down to a leather sofa. “On your back.”

      “Let me guess, you’ve been dying to get me flat on my back on a casting couch,” he joked.

      “Oh, baby, oh, baby, oh,” She intoned as she tucked a throw pillow under his head. Keep it light. Impersonal. He’s a freaking movie star.

      “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

      She took a closer look at his nose. It was swelling across the bridge and turning red. His left eye was puffing shut, too. “You’re lucky that club was covered in foam. Looks like you may still get a shiner, though.”

      “Great. A black eye from a girl. I’m never gonna hear the end of this.”

      “I’m so sorry—” she started.

      He cut her off immediately. “My fault. I wasn’t paying attention and zigged when I should have zagged. I was distracted.”

      “That phone call?” she asked sympathetically.

      He huffed in obvious exasperation at the memory of the offending phone call. She recognized that sound from countless times listening to guys grouse about their relationships. “Woman trouble?”

      He scowled. “You could say that.”

      “Anything you want to talk about?” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth. That was her. Ole shoulder-to-cry-on for every guy she knew. They all went to her for advice about chicks. Apparently, having the same reproductive apparatus as their girlfriends made her some kind of expert.

      Which was a load of crap, by the way. She didn’t know squat about women. Hell, she hardly knew how to be one, herself. And she had no idea how to do a relationship. It wasn’t like her own past had given her any sterling examples to go by. After the disaster—God, was it two full years ago now?—she’d pretty much sworn off men.

      Jackson rolled his eyes. “My grandmother is haranguing me to settle down, find a nice girl and get married. She’s just antsy to get a great-grandkid, and figures that, out of all my brothers and sisters, I’m her best prospect. She’s being a total pain in the ass.”

      Jackson Prescott was looking to get hitched? Wow. Talk about an eligible bachelor.

      “I don’t even have a girlfriend.” He added, scowling, “No matter what the damned tabloids say.”

      Really? Interesting. Oh, get over yourself. He’d never take a second look at you. Aloud, she commented, “You could have an actress friend fake an engagement with you to shut up your grandmother for a while. Or, you could just skip the wife and go straight to the baby. People don’t have to get married to make babies.”

      “So I should, what? Pick up some random chick in a bar and get her pregnant to shut up my grandmother?”

      She shrugged. This flavor of woman trouble went well beyond her ability to give advice on it.

      “I don’t even like going to bars,” he grumbled.

      Shut the front door. “Seriously?” she blurted.

      Someone barged in just then with the plastic bag of ice she’d asked for on the way in there. She stole a hand towel from the sink in Adrian’s bathroom, wrapped the ice in it and laid it gently on Jackson’s face. She felt for the guy; she would have no idea how to go about picking up a woman if she were a man.

      In an attempt to be helpful, though, she commented, “There are other places besides bars to meet women. I hear there are good pickings in the produce section of grocery stores. Apparently, if you act clueless when a hot girl comes along, she’ll stop and help you.”

      Jackson retorted, СКАЧАТЬ