Page 49 of Guilty as Sin
She was getting trembly just looking at hispicture.Time to move on. To a dozen book covers, terse titles in a huge, uncompromising font, and his name on top.Jason Black.
A paragraph of sales copy that told her not much at all.
Jason Black is the pen name of the New York Times-bestselling author of a dozen high-octane thrillers featuring ex-Delta Force operative Matt Sawyer. Black is Australian by birth and a longtime member of an elite division of the Royal Australian Army, for which he still serves as a consultant. His first book,Hard to Kill,will go into production shortly as a major motion picture starring Rafe Blackstone.
Wait.Prickles were forming on her arms for a different reason now. Some more furious Googling, and she was sitting back and blowing out a breath.
Another head shot. More folded arms, but a much more casual posture. More muscles. More black hair, some white grin. And a face that could launch a thousand ships, or more likely, get ten thousand women to think about taking off their clothes.
Rafe Blackstone. The world’s most famous werewolf superhero. Paige was familiar, you could say. She’d seen Rafe Blackstone shirtless a whole lot more than she’d seen any other man that way in the past couple years, and she’d enjoyed it. But she hadn’t realized he was Australian.
A list of films, butHard to Killwasn’t among them. Nothing saidbrother,either.He had to be, though, didn’t he? Brother, or cousin?
Some more searching, and finally, a YouTube clip of a talk-show interview. Rafe Blackstone, flashing that famous smile, his blue eyes amused, sitting back on a couch in black pants and boots with one ankle propped on a knee, talking like he was in his living room. Looking like Jace, and not. Like the other side of Jace’s coin. The more finely drawn side. The more casual side. The softer side?
“You have a new project coming up,” the interviewer, a chummy late-night host, was saying. “One that’s personal for you. You’re not only starring in your brother Jason Black’s new movie, you’re producing it, too. How exciting is that for you?”
“Aw, it’s brilliant.” The deep, amused voice of the werewolf was familiar. The Australian accent wasn’t. But then, he was an actor. “Can’t wait. No pressure, of course, considering how many ways Jace knows to hurt me if I stuff up.”
“I understand he writes Matt Sawyer from experience,” the interviewer said. “Has he shared much with you about that experience to help you prepare for the film?”
“Those guys don’t talk much,” Rafe said, “and Jace probably talks less than most. I know he was a commando, and for a long time. That’s no secret. I know he did hard things and that they changed him. But as far as what’s fiction and what’s not? He’d tell me, but then he’d have to kill me.”
The interviewer smiled, clearly seeing the hype for the movie and missing the truth beneath. “The two of you are close, I understand. Did you fight as kids? Practice your moves on each other?”
“Not too much. I’d’ve been scared to.” Rafe was laughing again. “Nah, he’s three years older. He wouldn’t have thought it was fair. He’s a protective bloke. Nobody took him on in the schoolyard, and nobody went after me, either. No surprises there. Jace was in the First Fifteen as well.”
“The First Fifteen is…”
“You’d call it the varsity squad. Rugby. Queensland’s rugby territory. He was a battler, and a bloody hard tackler, too, and that was out there for everyone to see. You’d have had to have a death wish. You still would, for that matter. Which is helpful knowledge for an actor, yeah. It’s all in the body language.”
“Will it be easier, then, to do the part, since you know him so well?”
Rafe sobered, the blue eyes thoughtful now. “Yes and no. He’d be the first to tell you that doing the job in real life isn’t much like a book, or a movie, either. And that Matt Sawyer isn’t real.”
“When you’re acting Sawyer, though, surely you’ll call on that knowledge.”
A hesitation. “I will and I won’t. I can’t really know, even though he’s my brother, because I haven’t done it myself and he hasn’t shared. I’ve read all his books, and I have some idea about the dirt, the fatigue, the pain, and what kept him going through it. Part of it’s mateship, and part of it’s Jace. The doubts, though? The fear? I’ll have to guess about that. I’ve used my brother in every film I’ve done, got inside his head as much as I can without really being there to know what it feels like when it’s life and death. And I haven’t got very far at all.”
The camera stayed on his face. It was a good place to stay. “He tells me,” Rafe added, the smile flashing again as if he’d steered too close to the truth, “that he uses me as well. Not sure that’s quite as flattering. He thinks, ‘What would this look like if Rafe did it prettier?’ And then he writes it that way.”
She bought the book.
Three hours later, she was still in the wicker rocker, her ice pack warm and her coffee cold. Her heart raced, her finger hovered over the screen, impatient to swipe, and when she set her phone down at last, she felt like she’d run a marathon.
On the drive to Kalispell, though, when she’d had time to think, she realized that a lot of the story was ridiculous, especially Sawyer’s combat skills. Against multiple trained opponents, multiple times? Yeah, no. It was about as realistic as James Bond. But James Bond sold movie tickets, and so would this. Especially with Rafe Blackstone playing Sawyer, stripping off his wetsuit for that scene where he walked out of the sea. That would work.
You tended to believe, after a few years as a cop, that everybody lied. Or to put it more charitably, that everybody cast their story with themselves in the lead, and in the right. There were two sides to most stories. And all the same, Jace’s ex-wife had to be crazy. If she’d been in it for the money, she’d been nuts to leave, because that book had beengood. And if she’d been in it for Jace, she’d been even more nuts. So he didn’t like going to parties. Paige would bet he could host a pretty good party right there on the couch, and that he’d be glad to do it. If the man could make a goat that happy, what could he do for a woman?
It was more than that, though. He was tough, he was tender, and he talked. What woman wouldn’t that work for?
Unfortunately, her chance was gone, so she’d better focus on now. She went to the electronics store and bought her monitoring device, then headed back up to Sinful. When she came around the last bend in the road before dropping into town, though, her phone rang.
She pulled over. After which the phone stopped ringing, of course.
The call was from her station. There was a voicemail, too.
She didn’t listen to it right away. Instead, she put both hands on the steering wheel, took some deep breaths from her belly, and focused on the view in front of her.
