Heartthrob Read Free Page B

the Historical Society that no one ever goes to. They’d let us shoot both exteriors
and
interiors for next to nothing. The town has one motel, with about twenty trailor hookups alongside it. Across the street is this incredible little restaurant—the Morning Glory Grill. It’s owned by these two ladies, Edna Rae and Sally, who can cook unlike anything you’ve ever tasted in your life. I’ve started preliminary negotiations to take over the Grill instead of setting up a dining tent for food service—we’d save money that way, too.”
    “I got some good news, too,” Victor told her. “I found Laramie.”
    Kate froze, her boot in her hand. Laramie. She shook herself, tossing it onto the floor. This was good news. This odd feeling of premonition she was having was only due to complete fatigue.
    “Did you get the videotape I couriered to you?” Victor asked. “I sent it last night—you should’ve received it by now.”
    Kate looked at the package she’d brought up with her from the front desk, the uneasy sensation getting even stronger. “You found our Laramie last night, but you’re only calling to tell me about it today?”
    “Yeah, well, I know you, and I know until you see this tape you’re not going to believe that—”
    “Wait.” Kate’s premonition was growing into a chillingly bad feeling. “Why are you playing games? Why aren’t you just telling me the name of the actor you’ve found?”
    “Did you or didn’t you get the tape?”
    “I got it.”
    “Play it, Katie. Then call me back.” With a click, Victor—the rat—hung up on her.
    “I’m hating this.” Kate unwrapped the tape and carried it across the room to the VCR. “I’m really, truly hating this, Victor.”
    She’d spent the entire day either tromping through the South Carolina underbrush or driving to a new location, where she’d tromped through the underbrush some more. Her feet hurt from walking, and her butt hurt from sitting in the car. She was hungry and sweaty, and she wanted a shower and room service and a tall, cold drink—not necessarily in that order.
    She was scared to death that the face she was going to see on this tape belonged to an actor who would be absolutely inappropriate for the role of Virgil Laramie. She was scared this face was going to belong to Rod Freeman, who was a fabulous actor but fifteen years too old, or Jamie Layne, who was fifteen years too young. Or, God help her, what if the Internet rumor that she’d heard in Grady Falls hadn’t been a rumor after all, and Jericho Beaumont’s was the face that would appear on the screen?
    Kate turned on the TV and set it so the VCR would play. There was only blue for several long moments. And then the tape gave a visual burp, and a picture came on.
    It was a man, and he was sitting in a chair. The lighting was bad, and he was blurry, but she recognized the background as the New York casting office she’d gone AWOL from just yesterday.
    The focus improved, and the man in the chair was recognizable, too.
    He had shoulder-length dark hair, a long, almost square face that angled suddenly at his jawline, narrowing into a strong, tapered chin, and an exquisite, elegantly shaped mouth. It was the kind of mouth any red-blooded woman would give a good long second glance—and then spend the next ten years dreaming about kissing.
    But it was his eyes that truly set him apart. They were hazel—a gorgeous mix of green and light brown with a darker ring at the outer edge of the iris. His eyes were the focal point of his face. They seemed to glow with his intensity, even in the bad lighting of the casting office.
    The man in the chair was indeed Jericho Beaumont.
    Jericho Beaumont. Nominated for four different Oscars—two in the same year.
    Jericho Beaumont. He’d dominated at the box office for close to two years, and then he’d fallen from grace, struck down by his addictions to drugs and alcohol. No one had known that he’d been playing the rehab game for