Caught on Camera

Chapter 4, Scene 2, Part 7

Chapter 4

The Spa Who Loved Me

Scene 2

Two hours later Rachel emerged from the elevator wearing the turquoise halter top and white cotton tennis skirt, feeling uncomfortably as if she'd switched bodies with a glamorous, sexy stranger. That body burned "down there" where Claire had energetically ripped off strip after strip of wax. A Brazilian, she called it. Rachel called it torture.

Mopette waggled happily on a leash behind her. They scooted across the polished wood floor to the entrance as fast as her black flip-flops and the white dog's short legs allowed, camera pendant bouncing on her chest, a white plastic poop bag in hand. The doorman pulled open the door and tipped his head. "Ma'am."

"Thank you, George." He did a double-take as Rachel scooched past him, dashed across the parking lot and positioned the leashed dog on the manicured lawn. She untied a white garbage bag from one wrist and waited.

And waited.

"Do your business, you little--" She looked up as a middle-aged man in a golf shirt approached a vehicle and eyed her appreciatively. "Darling pet," she finished.

Mopette did not sit. Rachel waited some more, shifting her weight impatiently from foot to foot. The car left, and an airport limo pulled up to the entrance. Rachel strained to identify the couple alighting from the limo. Mopette strained against the leash in the direction of the lush green open spaces of the hotel's eighteen hole golf course. At a distance of thirty feet, without her glasses for all she knew the blurry arrivals were assistants rather than celebrity guests. She aimed the camera pendant in their general direction anyway, snapping pictures until the figures disappeared through the front entrance.

Mopette tugged on the leash, alternately yapping and sniffing fresh humid air through a twitching black button nose pointed at the stand of pine trees between the hotel and the golf course. Perhaps finicky, spoiled Mopette required privacy.

Fine. She wrapped the leash around one wrist and let Mopette lead the way slowly up a stone dust path toward the ninth fairway. The little dog trotted happily, its tiny pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth, the pink and white candy striped bow askew behind one ear. Upon reaching the rough at the edge of the rolling vista of groomed grass, Mopette tugged Rachel over to a water hazard.

"Are you thirsty, Mopette?" Rachel hadn't thought to bring water. Wishing for her glasses, she squinted up the green fairway to check for golfers before allowing Mopette to approach the rushes at the water's edge. Mopette yipped, her short tail with its white plume wagging madly. A splash alerted Rachel to a big old turtle swimming across the small pond. She laughed. "Maybe I like you after all, Mopette." Strolling outdoors on a sunny June afternoon sure beat cleaning toilets.

An electric golf cart holding two men crunched over the pebbled path adjacent to the fairway and stopped.

"That looks like Candy's dog," the passenger said.

"Mopette," the driver called in a deep voice.

While Rachel's attention was distracted, Mopette had ventured into the weeds bordering the pond. Obediently Mopette lifted short legs from wet muck and yanked Rachel towards the visitors. She drew close enough to recognize Halden Armstrong at the wheel. Oh my gods! The A-list star who owned his own film production company appeared more gorgeous in person than in photos in the entertainment blogs she followed. She froze, hitched a breath and held it. Her first celebrity in the flesh. She'd seen all his movies, of course. He owned the screen in every scene.

Halden unfolded long legs, levered his six feet six inches from the cart. The blond Adonis, with piercing blue eyes and muscular build reminiscent of Chris Hemsworth, supplied a blindingly sexy smile that reputedly had caused teenage girls to faint. She deduced that he expected her to explain what she was doing with Candy's dog. She scrabbled for appropriate words. He probably had no idea she'd be walking down the aisle ahead of his bride.

"Ms. Kane--" She caught herself. Cousins were on a first name basis. "Candy asked me to walk the dog."

"Typical," proclaimed Halden's passenger in the golf cart.

Ignoring his partner, Halden offered her a hand the size of a dinner plate. "My name's Halden Armstrong. And yours?"

"Rachel Lehmann, sir, I mean Mr. Armstrong." She switched the leash to her left hand and held out her right. His hand gently enfolded hers like a baseball glove before releasing it. "I may never wash this hand again," she blurted without thinking.

He raised his chiseled chin and laughed, clearly in an excellent mood. "Hey Mick, I have a fan way up here in Canada." To her, he invited, "Call me Halden." He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder at the shadowed figure in the golf cart. "That's Mickey McNichol, the agent who launched my career. He's one of my groomsmen."

The other man climbed out of the golf cart and approached them. Oh no. Mickey was the guest she'd slathered with sunscreen that very morning. Dwarfed beside the easygoing groom with the superhero body, Mickey appeared shorter than his actual five foot eleven height. His lean physique pulsed with contained energy. His dark eyes snapped with controlled irritation at the interruption of their golf game. Did he recognize her? Her heart tip-tapped under the skimpy top.

Halden was speaking. "Mick, Candy texted me an hour ago about Rachel, her long lost cousin who's stepping in to replace the Maid of Honor."

Mickey's assessing gaze smoothly raked her body from freshly dyed blond hair to passion pink polished toes without any sign of recognition. "Pleasure to meet a cousin of Candy's, Rachel." He took her hand and gave it a hearty shake. "Let's have a drink after the rehearsal. Speaking of which--" He briskly addressed Halden who rubbed the underside of Mopette's chin with the toe of his golf shoe. "It's three thirty," he warned. "We need to shower before the rehearsal starts at four."

"Relax." Halden waved a hand to dismiss the urgency in Mickey's voice. "They can't start without me. Besides, I've got a hundred bucks on the game and I'm winning. Rachel, may we give you a lift to the clubhouse?"

Rachel was about to accept when she spied Mopette's muddy brown stumps. "Oh my gods!" she yelped.

Halden's deep throaty chuckle echoed across the fairway. "Candy treats that dust mop like a toy instead of a live animal. I'm happy to see it have fun for a change." He aimed a wickedly amused grin at her, winked.

Dazzled, Rachel forgot to breathe. This, she told herself, is star power.

"Don't worry," Halden continued. "Wendy's a sport. Sneak Mopette into a bathroom and she'll hose her down." He climbed back into the golf cart. "Catch you later."

Halden was real, Rachel decided. A truly nice guy, despite his fame and fabulousness. But it was Mickey who'd made her heart pitter pat. His intensity tugged her like metal to Magneto of the X-Men movies.

The men zoomed off in the electric cart, blackly silhouetted against the strong sun beating down from the cloudless sky above the tops of spear-like pines lining the fairway.

She needed to get dressed in time for the rehearsal as well. Rachel looked down at her charge sitting proudly beside a ribbon of poop. "Good dog! Halden likes you, so you mustn't be such a naughty dog after all."

After using the plastic bag to gingerly collect all evidence of Mopette's toilette, she tugged on the leash. "Let's go." Mopette whined and planted her tush on the grass, apparently tuckered out by her big adventure. "No, I will not pick you up. You need a bath. I can't return a filthy dog to Wendy or Ms. Kane."