Craving a Hero: St. John Sibling Series, book 3 (2 page)

She groaned at the reference to one of the tag lines hyping his movie character, turned, and trudged off, calling back to him, "Just stay on the trail and watch your step. I'm responsible for your safety."

"Yes, ma'aaaam."

The humorous note in his voice turned into a wail. Kelly spun around to see her charge somersaulting down the slope the ridge bordered. She cursed and skidded the forested hill after him. If the man broke a body part, the production company backing his latest movie was sure to blame her. They'd probably take the entire production budget of his up-coming movie out of her salary, which meant she could kiss good-bye any plan to move out her parent's house let alone a new truck. She'd be lucky if she even kept her job as a CO after this…not mention any chance of getting her father's approval.

"This isn't my fault," she shouted, sliding toward where St. John had come to a stop against a stump.

Dane St. John's screams and the angry buzz of ground hornets swarming up around him were the only responses she got as he scrambled to his feet.

"Dammit!" She shrugged off her backpack, dug out a spray can of wasp stopper, and blitzed the swarm, dropping them in midair.

But her movie action-hero star kept running, flapping his arms like some giant bird trying to get air born, one of those long-legged sorts. He was truly a man-sized action hero…whom she,
a mere female
, had just saved from a swarm of angry ground hornets. The fans of his high-octane action movie, soon to be plural, should see him now.

A smile tugged at her lips as she watched him race off through the trees, trying to outrun hornets that currently lay stunned at the bottom of the gulley he'd fallen into.
Some hero.

Though she had to admit, ground hornets had a nasty sting and he probably didn't know she'd rendered them helpless.

Not that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources was likely to see it her way, either. Even if tall, buffed, and handsome admitted it was his own fault he'd gotten stung by hornets, she was in deep doo-doo. Never mind that she'd told him to watch his step on the narrow path.

A flurry of irritated buzzes hummed from the leaf-covered forest floor near where she stood. The hornets fought the effects of the stunning spray. It wouldn't keep them down much longer, and when they came out of it, they would be angry. If ever there was a cue to exit…

She grunted at how easily she'd slipped into stage direction terms as she climbed the ridge St. John had fled. This is what babysitting a movie star got her, thinking in movie slang terms when all Kelly wanted was to be taken seriously as a Conservation Officer and given real assignments that got her outside the office. Not just fluff jobs like escorting a pampered movie star on what was essentially a nature hike.

She caught up to her charge on the two rut road where they'd left her company truck. St. John was bent over at the waist, hands on his thighs, breathing hard.

"Take your backpack and shirt off," she ordered.

He grumbled but complied. It was the first order of hers he'd obeyed without question.

"The backpack saved your back," she said, surveying his broad, sun-kissed shoulders and the expanse of skin tapering to the waist of a pair of jeans that hugged trim hips and a firm butt. She'd never stopped to explore what about a man's backside intrigued her, but his was the best she'd seen fill out a pair of well-worn jeans.

What'd he do, scavenge from some movie wardrobe the right
in-character
look? Or was it possible the man whose paycheck for one starring role no doubt exceeded her annual income times ten actually owned a pair of faded jeans with one corner of a back pocket tattered.

"Of all the damn stupid things—"

"Excuse me?" Kelly demanded in no mood to be dressed down by some actor. "But if you'd stayed on the path behind me like I told you to do—"

One look at his welted arms and face, though, and she stopped her lecture in mid I-told-you-so. "You're not allergic to wasps, are you?"

"I'm not allergic." He kept his head down, refusing to meet her gaze.

"You sure?"

"Yes," he snapped, his knuckles white around the shirt gripped in his fist.

"Because, if you are, we had better head back to civilization right now."

"I'm fine," he growled, giving her a lethal glance.

What a jerk.
She was the one who should be angry. He'd gotten himself into this fix, one she'd likely be blamed for.

Taking in the extent of damage done to his face, noting at least his lips had been spared—his luscious lips…

Stop it
, she silently ordered and dumped her backpack on the lowered tailgate of the truck and dug a Benadryl from her first aid kit. "You better take one of these."

"I'm fine," he all but howled.

"Look here St. John, you've got multiple bites. If your airway swells, you die just like us plain folk. Take this pill while you still have an opening to swallow through."
And I still have a job, Mr. Hot-Hunk-Out-of-Hollywood.

The set of his mouth shifted and the eyes that turned millions of women into quivering puddles of hormones narrowed at her. But he took the capsule from her hand, the scrape of his callused fingers over hers leaving a strange itch in her palm. Mesmerizing eyes she expected from a movie star, but not callused fingers.

"This'll ease the sting," she said, breaking open a tube of topical antihistamine, trying to ignore the tingling sensation where his fingers had touched her.

She dabbed at the bites on his arm and tried not to notice his Adam's apple bobbing up and down with every swallow as he washed down the Benadryl with water from his canteen.

Or the jagged little scar on the underside of his chiseled chin. So Dane St. John didn't run to a plastic surgeon to correct his every little defect.

The scarred jaw lowered and he nodded at the arm she dabbed. "Is something wrong there?"

"No. Why?" she asked.

"You've been dabbing the same spot for an awful long time."

"Oh." She started, and let go of his arm. "Tube's empty."

Kelly broke open a fresh vial and went to work on his other arm, noticing a wide scar slashed across his forearm. Maybe the guy wasn't as pampered as she'd first thought. "Not as many bites on this one."

"I'm sorry," he said without a hint of sarcasm.

Dabbing at the bites on his shoulder, she peeked up at him. The squint lines framing the famous blue eyes lent his face an apologetic expression. Add the puppy-dog look in his eyes to the sincere note in his voice that framed his apology and maybe…

No way.
She was
not
falling under the spell of his charms. He was an actor, albeit one of those who quipped out witty lines in the midst of flying bullets and fiery explosions.

Still, curiosity got the best of her. She lowered the sting-kill swab from his broad shoulder, and scrutinized him through narrowed eyes. "What are you sorry for?"

"I shouldn't have snapped at you. None of this is your fault."

"It wasn't? I mean, I know it wasn't."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Sunlight cut through the trees and across his face, his considerably welted face. She winced. "When are you supposed to start shooting your next movie?"

He grunted. "Judging by your reaction to my face, not as soon as the production company plans."

"Sorry," she said, retrieving a fresh tube from her kit.

"Not the kind of face that would make magazine covers now, huh?"

She cocked her chin and offered him an impish smile. "Oh, I don't know. I can think of a tabloid or three that would jump at the chance to feature
this
face on their front page."

"That good, huh?" He smiled the trademark smile that sent most women swooning.

Most women.
Not her.

Yeah, right. Three mornings ago, when they'd met face-to-face and he'd turned that smile on her, she'd very nearly melted at his feet. It'd taken every ounce of control to retain her professional persona. She was, above all else, a woman trying to prove herself at a man's job. She had no time for infatuations, especially with any man as superficial as an actor. So, she'd pasted on her best CO face and shook his hand…which had left hers tingling far longer than was healthy for a career woman.

She nodded at a stump on the side of the road. "Sit and I'll dab your face."

He frowned at the stump. "Think I'll just stoop down for you, if you don't mind."

"Leary of stumps now, are you?" she teased and dabbed the welts dotting his forehead, trying to ignore how he smelled more of pine needles and rich, loamy soil than of fancy aftershave.

"Something like that," he murmured. His smile faded and his eyes angled at the ground.

So Mr. Macho Movie Star didn't want to admit he'd been taken down by a hornet laden stump. Fine, she wouldn't blow his image.

Straightening, she said, "Now let's see the part of your backside the backpack didn't protect."

His gaze widened at her. "Surely you aren't serious."

"Surely I am. Drop the pants, Buster."

"I'll have you know I get big bucks for baring my butt," he said as he turned away from her and unzipped his jeans.

"Well, whether administering first aid to your butt or the butt of somebody less famous, I get the same bucks, and not many of them I might add."

He looked over his shoulder at her. "So why'd you become a Conservation Officer?"

"It's all I've ever wanted to be."

He hitched a questioning eyebrow at her.

"My dad was a CO," she added, "a very dedicated one."

"And you idolize him."

"Something like that," she said, using the same line he'd used when he'd hedged about the true reason he hadn't wanted to sit on any stump. Before he asked any more questions that might force her to admit she was out to prove something to her father and the local group of all male, old-timer COs, she prompted, "Enough talk. Drop the shorts and bend over."

The sight of screen star Dane St. John's bare backside covered in angry welts made Kelly laugh.

"That's not the reaction I usually get," he muttered, but there was a good-natured undertone to his voice.

"I imagine not," she replied, more serious now, breaking open a fresh vial of sting kill. "Lean over the tailgate."

He complied but not without a groaned, "You'd get big bucks for the kind of shot I'm giving you." He glanced back at her. "You don't have a camera in that pack of yours, do you?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," she chirped, continuing to dab at his welted behind. "Big bucks, huh?"

He peered over his shoulder at her. "You wouldn't."

"A picture like this could help pay for the damages your production company is sure to charge me for getting you hurt."

He shook his head. "The production company won't sue you."

She glanced up, hope surging through her. "They won't?"

He grinned back at her. "They'll sue your DNR."

She frowned. "Then I can kiss my job good-bye."

"A job you clearly like." His grin faded. "I was just kidding about the production company suing the DNR. Besides, you didn't get me hurt. I did it myself trying to impress you."

She paused in her dabbing. "Impress
me
?"

"Yeah," he said, still looking back at her. "You're the real deal. Law enforcement in the field and I'm just—"

She all but choked. "Did you just call me the
real
deal?"

He pulled up his pants, zipped them, and faced her. "That's what you are, right?"

She gazed up into his earnest eyes. "But-but, nobody takes me seriously."

He shrugged. "Nobody takes me seriously, either." He pointed at his face. "You thought I was a male bimbo. Right?"

She felt herself blush. "Sorry."

He smiled at her, not the big screen smile the world got to see. This one was smaller, a little sheepish, and a whole lot more endearing.

"I'm the one who should be sorry," he said. "I was so busy showing off for you I didn't even think about how my screwing up could affect your job."

"Yeah, right. Dane St. John showing off for me." But, in spite of her words, her heart was doing a two-step against her ribs.

"Why not? You're not impressed by my Hollywood image. That's quite a turn on." He fingered the crisp collar of her khaki shirt, his knuckles just one thin layer of cloth away from her skin. "Besides, you're damn cute in your CO uniform," he finished.

"Cute?" she countered, her bluster hiding that she liked that he liked what he saw. "Is that all it comes down to?"

He shook his head, his gaze locked on hers. "Mostly it's because you're the real thing."

"Real thing, huh?" she retorted, not feeling anywhere near as defensive as she had earlier.

"Yeah," he said, leaning close. "Now give me one of those sting kill swabs."