Caught on Camera (13 page)

“You changed, didn't you?”

She shrugged. “The only difference between me ten years ago and me now is that nobody can tell I'm white trash anymore. Not without doing some digging. But I'm still the same person.”

“What was your life centered around before this silly show?”

Her gaze darted to one side, irritated. “Don't call it silly.”

“Fine. This amazingly useful and benevolent program that's surely saved thousands of lives. What came before this?”

“Well…”

“Come on,” he coaxed.

Her lips pursed and Ty knew she was suppressing a smile. She'd worn that face with him a thousand times, the one that usually told him she was trying very hard to not find him clever. “It'll seem really stupid,” she muttered.

“How much you care about this show will seem really stupid in five years. Go on. We've had sex, now, in case you didn't notice. Don't try and act like we're not as close as we both know we are.”

She fidgeted, seeming nervous. “Well, I used to be superobsessed with celebrities.”

Ty nodded, not surprised. She might be the picture of practicality when they were filming, but Kate loved all that red-carpet crap. “Like who?”

“Oh, it didn't matter who. I was a total magazine junkie, like fashion and gossip and lifestyle stuff. Before reality TV took off and everybody had their own show and you had to see how totally boring they are outside of scripts and sound bites.”

Ty smiled, pondering this. “All right. Go on.”

“I grew up so poor, the ridiculousness of the lifestyles was, like, mind-blowing.” Talking about this, Kate sounded ten years younger. Animated. Ty liked it.

“I didn't want to live that way,” she said. “Not really, but I dunno…it seemed like some crazy other world. An alternate universe to where I was doomed to be. Like reading about some kind of made-up fantastic creatures. I knew I'd never
be
that, but it seemed so exotic. And fascinating.”

“Sorry you ended up with me.”

“Like it or not, Dom Tyler, you are an up-and-coming celebrity. You've been in
People,
you know.”

“Have I?”

“Yeah, plenty. You'll probably be featured in the ‘Sexiest Man Alive' issue this year. You'd know that if you ever looked through the clippings binder I keep on my desk. And you've been in
Parade
, and on
ET,
and Ellen DeGeneres has talked about you on her show, a couple of times.
Esquire
wanted to do that little piece that you turned down because you were convinced they'd make you style your hair like some ‘new lad' or whatever you called it. You'll be properly famous in a couple more years. You're already properly famous in Australia.”

“I'm no Mel Gibson.”

She smirked. “Thank goodness. But you
are
famous. You're a heartthrob,” she said, smiling and poking him in the shoulder.

Ty made a disgusted face. “Standards are really slipping.”

“So anyway, I got my wish, Ty. You're my celebrity.”

“That just means I'll be washed up in a couple more years, begging to be on one of those D-list dancing shows. I do hope you'll tune in, Kate,” he said, glib. “You should be the famous one, you know. You're a hell of a lot more capable and charming than me. And you're hot.”

“Yeah, right.”

It was his turn to shrug. “You don't give yourself proper credit. You're enough on your own, without needing somebody less competent hanging on to you for dear life. And I'm good at hanging on to things—it used to be my job. I won't need you forever, Katie. You should be working this hard for yourself, not somebody else.”

Kate looked down at her feet for a long time, not responding, and Ty let it drop.

“Snow's letting up, I think.” He squinted skyward. The flakes were smaller and fewer now and the wind had diminished.

Kate glanced up to confirm. “What should we do?”

“Wait till it's light. Try and get a signal fire going if the visibility improves. If it doesn't, maybe keep following the trail. Fishing shelter's got to be walkable by now. What, maybe ten miles?” he asked.

“Hard to say. I lost track of the distance when we were on the sled. Could be closer. Could be farther. Plus we've yet to hit the fork.” Kate pursed her lips. “We won't be able to tell which way the dogs went, now, but even if we take the wrong one, at least we'll be closer. Maybe we could signal, then, if the clouds thin.”

“Yeah. Well, we'll live. That's the important thing.”

Kate nodded. “It'd be embarrassing for a survival expert to die on the job.”

“What would the tabloids say?”

“I dunno, but I'm sure there'd be a TV movie about it,” she said.

Ty laughed. “Lovely. If you make it back to civilization, I give you permission to do the casting, and to have an illicit affair with the bloke playing me.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I'm sure it would pale in comparison to the real thing.”

Beneath the pleasure of seeing Kate smiling, Ty felt bitterness surfacing. He couldn't help but wonder which she cared about more—him, or the show. The show or herself, for that matter. Her priorities baffled him. That she'd called out in concern for the bloody camera as their shelter erupted in flames, as if it were her child, for heaven's sake. Damn, that had hurt.

“What will you miss more, Katie, when this is all over? Me or the show?”

Her mouth twitched as she considered her response. “It doesn't matter, Ty. By the time we get back, I'll still get both.”

 

A
COUPLE HOURS LATER
the snow had officially dropped to picturesque, Christmas card proportions. Visibility was poor, but the sky was beginning to lighten with the approaching dawn. Kate glanced down at Ty, lying awkwardly on his back with his legs dangling off the door-bed, fingers linked atop his chest.

She'd spent nearly the entire time since their conversation had dried up thinking about the last thing he'd said. Of course she cared more about him than the show. Looking at him now, it was hard to imagine her day-to-day life without him. Still, not seeing him at all would be easier than seeing him in L.A., then saying goodbye when he left her behind for months at a time to do the part of the process she'd come to love most.

She tapped his shoulder. “Hey. Ty.”

His eyes opened with a swiftness that told her he'd been awake this entire time. “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Exactly—it's getting light. And I'm getting sick of just sitting here.”

He squinted into the open sky above them. “Not looking too promising for a signal fire, is it? What do you fancy? Up for a hike?”

“Yeah, sure. If it's unworkably bad we can always come back and wait. But I can't imagine you want to sit around doing nothing, either.”

“And I bet you're just dying to get all this on film, aren't you? Next week on
Survive This!,
Dom Tyler actually survives something.” He held his hands up as if he were envisioning the ad. “Let me try and find my socks.”

“I'll help.” Together they sifted through the slush and shingles until they'd recovered Ty's two missing wool socks and her single one. She draped them over the stove to dry and they sat back down on the door.

Ty laughed to himself.

“What?” Kate asked, looking over with a skeptical smile.

“We had sex,” he whispered, conspiratorial.

She rolled her eyes. “Well spotted.”

“When the season three DVD is released, I'm thinking it'd make a great bonus feature.”

Kate slugged him hard on the arm, pretending to be merely mock-irritated, but feeling genuinely angry. She was still tender from their lovemaking, both physically and emotionally, and she didn't want it spoken of so lightly. The rush of vulnerability made her shiver and in its wake she felt resentful. “Don't tease me about that video.
My
video.”

“Are you worried that if it got out, everyone would see your tattoo?” Ty asked.

Her eyes narrowed to slits and her shoulders bunched up reflexively at the comment. Kate hated her tattoo. Her “tramp stamp,” as they had since become known. A Celtic design across the small of her back had seemed like a great idea when she was a rebellious seventeen-year-old, but now it was her dearest wish to get it removed as soon as possible. The final erasure of all the evidence of her former incarnation… Just a couple hundred more bucks to go and she'd have the money saved up. She glared at Ty. That was a low blow and he knew it.

“Don't look so pissed,” he said. “It's cute.”

“Let's get a move on,” she said, anger bubbling.

“You're the boss.” God, same old Ty. That glimmer of him she thought she'd seen when they'd been intimate must've been a trick of the firelight.

They pulled their hot socks on and their boots, and Kate did her best to organize the pack.

“Hey, Katie.”

“What?” She didn't bother glancing up from her task.

“Look at me.”

She complied, meeting his eyes in the weak morning light. “Yeah?”

“Stand up straight.”

“Why?”

“Because I bloody want to kiss you, that's why.”

She stubbornly turned her attention back to the pack.

He made a little
hmm
sound, clearly amused. “Are you mad at me?”

“I'm just trying to be professional, Ty. You ought to try it sometime.”

“You don't want to kiss, then? One last time before we leave our love nest?” She could see him in her periphery, waving his hands to encapsulate the smoke-stinking remains of the cabin. Her cheeks burned. She stood and shoved the pack into Ty's arms, then walked away from him, grabbing the axe and heading toward the route they'd been following when they'd found this place, what felt like a lifetime ago.

The ground was even worse than when they'd been tossed from the sled. The storm had added at least a couple inches of slush to the frigid stew underfoot, and Kate gave them a generous two hours before their so-called waterproof boots began to fail. Still, this was better. She couldn't sit back there anymore, not next to Ty. Not now that his feelings about the previous evening's events seemed to be coming clear. She was relieved she hadn't given away what it had really meant to her, apart from red-hot sex.

“You want to film me?” Ty asked, sounding uncharacteristically soft. She didn't blame him. He'd gotten no rest in the past thirty hours and hadn't eaten a real meal in three days. She forgot sometimes what he put himself through for this. As much as she did. More. Maybe he was right. Maybe he didn't need her, after all.

A long, loaded breath oozed out of her. “If you're up for it, yeah. I'll film it.”

“Sure.”

Kate traded him the axe for the camera and got herself equipped. “Rolling.”

“Welcome to day four of my three-day excursion in northern Saskatchewan,” Ty said brightly. “In case you're just joining us, allow me to recap. The crew and I got dumped from our dogsled, lashed by a late-season blizzard, found an emergency shelter, only to have it burst into flames in the dead of night, and now we're trudging back along the sled trail, where we don't actually know which route to take to meet the safety crew. I have a confession to tender, as well—I ate half an orange that my camera crew packed for their lunch. So sue me. At least I won't get scurvy.” He flashed his charming smile.

Ty went on for a while, riffing, explaining creosote fires and expounding on some of the features of the landscape, but Kate wasn't listening. She watched him in the viewfinder, trying to square the man she was recording with the one she'd made love to. He was good…. He
could
do this by himself. He could do this in his sleep, if he ever got any. He could certainly do this with someone else….

“Kate?” Ty on the tiny screen prompted.

“Sorry, what?”

“I'm all out of half-cocked nonsense to blather at you.”

“Oh, right.” She shut the camera off.

“That boring, eh? Well, the one thing you don't do for me is narration, so I guess that's to your credit.”

“I don't feel like talking, Ty. I'm really tired.”

“Okay.” He looked up at the sky for a moment. “Do you feel like singing? You want to do ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light' with me? You can be Meat Loaf.”

“No, Ty.”

“Just trying to cheer you up,” he said, catching her obvious irritation.

“I'm fine.”

“You look sad.” He cleared his throat. “I'm not used to you looking that way.”

“Will you let me keep my job? All of it?”

“Not the filming bits.”

“Then get used to me looking sad.”

Ty turned her by the arm so they were facing and halted. “I don't mean to flog a dead horse, but I can't help but think you care more about this than…than anything.”

“Exactly.”

“Sorry, Kate, but that's not okay.” He suddenly looked and sounded very impassioned. “I'm not worth sacrificing everything for. You can't do this, and get hurt or killed because of me.”

“Ty—”

“And don't try and tell me it's your choice, like that's what this is about. This is about me having to live with it, if anything ever happened to you. This is self-preservation, trust me.”

“How noble of you.”

He shook his head, frustrated, but released her so they could continue the hike. “I never claimed to be some selfsacrificing saint.”

“No, more like suicidal.” She turned the thought over in her head and came up thoroughly annoyed. “You have a hell of a nerve, you know. Getting all protective of me, when I can't even get you to buckle your seat belt or look both ways before you cross the street. I've spent three seasons sitting by and respecting your, frankly idiotic, way of doing things. At first I thought, well, maybe it's good TV. Ty sets himself up for some calculated danger so he can show the audience how to get out of a jam, hey, good for the show. But that's not it, is it?”