Behind the Scenes Read online

  Praise for Trish Jensen

  “Behind The Scenes had me laughing hard from the first page all the way to the last. . . I feel as if I’m reading my first Janet Evanovich novel. . .”

  —mrsgiggles.com

  ———

  Together they might produce a hit TV show. If they don’t kill each other while falling in love.

  Tanya Pierce’s TV-executive uncle has tapped her to host a realty show about beauty makeovers. Tanya runs an acclaimed beauty spa in a small California town—definitely outside the Hollywood spotlight, just the way publicity-shy Tanya likes it. Her partner will be AJ Landry, a sexy producer known for creating hit programs—and for distrusting women like his ex-wife, who are looking for a meal ticket to television fame and fortune.

  When Tanya and AJ meet, sparks fly. Get ready for a rollicking story filled with humor, wit, and dizzying romance.

  Trish Jensen Novels from Bell Bridge Books

  The Harder They Fall

  Stuck With You

  Against His Will

  Just This Once

  Nothing But Trouble

  For a Good Time, Call

  Behind the Scenes

  Coming soon

  Phi Beta Bimbo

  Behind the Scenes

  by

  Trish Jensen

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-385-6

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-331-3

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2006 by Trish Jensen

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  A mass market edition of this book was published by Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited, Modern Romance Series Extra in 2006

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo/Art credits:

  Couple (manipulated) © Ammentorp | Dreamstime.com

  :Ebsa:01:

  Dedication

  To Chris White, an incredible friend and the one to introduce me to L.A. Thank you for everything. Does that about cover it, or do I need to make a list?

  And to Sharyn Cerniglia, the inspiration for the Sharyn in this story. You rock, lady!

  Chapter One

  “I’M TELLING YOU—I want passion! And I want my hair Passion Red!”

  Tanya Pierce sucked in a deep calming breath. “Mrs. Ledbetter, I sincerely don’t think red’s the color for you,” she said, meeting the woman’s gaze in the mirror. “Your complexion screams for an ash brown.”

  Tanya’s client sniffed. “I’ve been mousy brown all of my life. Now I’m ready to live a little.”

  “For goodness sakes, Nellie,” Tanya’s grandmother Zegretti scoffed from her waiting room seat. “You’re almost ninety. You haven’t had brown hair since the Eisenhower Administration.”

  Even with the hum of various blow-dryers and running water in Tanya’s eight-station shop, All About You, the click-clack of her grandmother’s knitting needles rang out in the air.

  Gran was a regular at Tanya’s shop. Not to have her hair or nails done, but because she felt All About You fulfilled a lifelong tradition as the humming gossip center in the small town of Sonora, California. If there was a scoop to be dissected, it was right here, and Gran prided herself on being up to the minute on the latest news.

  There wasn’t all that much going on this early on a Tuesday morning. The Beatty twins were in for their weekly cut and curls, which had to turn out precisely alike or they weren’t going anywhere until the situation was rectified. Mrs. Ledbetter, who could clear the main drag with one sighting of her ninety-two Cadillac heading into town, was demanding odd things for her hair. And Mrs. Teasdale, who considered herself the local matriarch by virtue of the fact that she could order her sheriff son to arrest anyone at any time just for looking at her funny, was always a nerve-racking customer.

  Mrs. Ledbetter glared at Gran through the mirror and smacked her hand on Tanya’s counter. “Sophia Zegretti, you aren’t any spring chicken yourself. Besides, I might have seen a few Christmases over the years, but I’ve still got a lot of twinkle in my tree lights, if you know what I mean.”

  Tanya was afraid to even go there. “Mrs. Ledbetter, how about if we color your hair my way first, and if you’re still not happy, we’ll do it your way?”

  “Yes, and get that awful hot-pink polish off her nails, too,” Gran chimed in.

  Mrs. Teasdale lifted her head from the shampoo sink to eye the offensive polish, in case it was worthy of an arrest warrant.

  Mrs. Ledbetter’s face beeted up. “I want Passion Red, and I’m the customer,” she said mulishly.

  Tanya sighed and headed to the small room in back of the shop to mix up a batch of the coloring. It was not going to be good for business if Mrs. Ledbetter paraded all around town with glow-in-the-dark red hair.

  As Tanya passed by the five employees working that morning they each rolled their eyes in sympathy. Just wait until her masseuse learned that Mrs. Ledbetter had scheduled a massage for tomorrow. At least All About You’s fitness instructor wouldn’t be subjected to this client. Mrs. Ledbetter felt it was unladylike to sweat.

  Sharyn, Tanya’s best friend, roommate, shop assistant, and sanity met her in the back room. “Want me to prep the Oh-my-Lord-what-have-you-done-to-my-hair antidote batch?”

  Tanya grinned. “Yeah. Warm Ash Brown, please. You don’t think she’s going to be happy with Passion Red, hmm?”

  “The two don’t belong on the same planet. I’ll try to get Mrs. Teasdale out of here before it happens so she doesn’t phone in a six-seventy-two.”

  While the two of them began stirring the two dyes, Tanya heard the tinkle of the front door bells then a shrill, “Where is that daughter of mine? She better not be hiding from me!”

  Oh, jeez. Just what she needed. Her mother. And Tanya knew that tone of voice well. She was in some sort of trouble.

  “You’re in trouble,” came her mother’s yell.

  Tanya grimaced in the safety of the back room. “Think quick, Sharyn. There has to be a law for interfering mothers and grandmothers.”

  “They’re Italian,” Sharyn said. “They can’t help it. I think it’s all that oregano.”

  Tanya blew a breath. “I know they love me, but do they have to . . . ?”

  “Love you to death?”

  “Or to an asylum.” Tanya dropped the mixing brush in the sink. “At least maybe there I’d get some peace.”

  “Mother, where is your granddaughter?” the voice shouted.

  Tanya glanced longingly toward the back door.

  “She’ll hunt you down like a runaway goat,” Sharyn predicted.

  “She’s making me up some Passion Red magic,” they heard Mrs.
Ledbetter say.

  There was a stunned silence from the front of her shop. Then Tanya’s mother breathed, “My Tanya wouldn’t commit such blasphemy.”

  “Nellie wouldn’t hear otherwise,” Gran said.

  Tanya took her time readjusting her ponytail to recapture all of the escaped curls, sucked in a bracing lungful of air, then walked out from her hiding spot, plastering a sunny expression on her face. “Mama! What brings you by?”

  “You know darn well, missy,” her mother said, glaring.

  Tanya didn’t have a clue. As much as Gran hung out in her salon, Mama didn’t have much use for gossip. Well, not in public; she made Gran reveal any juicy stories over plates of lasagna.

  “I haven’t been picked up for shoplifting, selling drugs or stealing cars, so, no, I honestly don’t know.”

  “It might do you some good if you did get arrested,” Gran snickered. “That cute Officer Panzio might even use handcuffs on you, if you’re lucky.”

  Leave it to Gran to be practical and lascivious all at once. In fact, Tanya finally noticed the shape of the thing Gran was knitting at the moment. It didn’t look like a baby blanket. It looked more like a pickle warmer. And Tanya didn’t know a person in Sonora who took their pickles warmed.

  “I just had a nice long talk with your uncle Frank, Tanya,” her mother said, bringing Tanya’s mind back to more conventional topics.

  “Ooh,” the Beatty twins said in unison. How they’d heard her mother when they were both under dryers running full blast, Tanya didn’t know. She also didn’t know what they were ooh-ing about.

  “Mama, I’m busy, and this is Passion Red. We’re talking intense concentration work, here. Could we have this conversation later?”

  “You turned down Uncle Frank’s amazing offer.”

  Uh-oh.

  “She did?” Mrs. Teasdale and Mrs. Ledbetter said in unison. Their shocked reactions were a little comical, considering none of them knew anything about Uncle Frank’s “amazing offer”.

  “Not interested,” Tanya said, beginning to brush harsh red streaks onto Mrs. Ledbetter’s head with a vengeance.

  Tanya’s mother turned, apparently appealing to the masses. “Her uncle Frank—who basically raised her as his own after my Tommy passed on—has offered her a chance to head her own makeover show on national television. And she turned him down!”

  A torrent of gasps echoed throughout the shop. A litany of “How could she?” followed.

  Not that she felt the need to defend herself, but Tanya turned to defend herself. “I’m perfectly happy right here.”

  “You’re growing old right before our very eyes,” her mother said. “And it’s breaking your mother’s heart.”

  “How is doing a television show going to slow the aging process, Mama?”

  “It’ll get you out there,” Gran chimed in, “for all the men in America to see. If you’re lucky, there’s a good Italian one just waiting for a pretty girl like you.”

  Tanya clunked down the bowl of coloring and lifted Mrs. Ledbetter out of the chair. “I know. Men—especially Italian men—watch makeover shows by the handful.”

  “It only takes one.”

  “I don’t know that I really want a guy who’s into makeover shows.” She was not going to do it. Not a chance.

  “It’s for your uncle Frank, Tanya. Does he ask you for all that much?”

  When he was asking her to perform in front of strangers, he wasn’t just asking much, he was asking her to rip out her own lungs and trample them. Because breathing would be impossible.

  Tanya was spared from answering by another tinkling of the front door bell. Yvonne Matterling, co-owner of Sonora New and Used Books with her husband Matt, strolled in, loaded down with books. “Here you go, Angelina,” she said to Tanya’s mother.

  Tanya knew for a fact that her mother only read magazines: Readers Digest to boast a broad knowledge of world events; Architectural Digest to have ammunition when complaining about what her own house didn’t look like, and Playgirl, to do what . . . Tanya didn’t know what and felt better that way.

  For her mother to buy books from Matt and Yvonne was a scary proposition. Tanya took a closer look through the stack. Every single volume involved making it big in Hollywood.

  This wasn’t good. Tanya didn’t want to make it big in Hollywood. She didn’t want to make it big anywhere. Making it big involved crowds and cameras and abnormal amounts of attention. She shuddered at the thought. Being well-known and sought after might be some people’s idea of a dream come true. To Tanya it sounded like a Freddy Kruger nightmare.

  She loved Sonora. It was small and peaceful and friendly. She loved the tranquility and the safety and the beauty. And until this moment she’d loved Matt and Yvonne.

  Tanya finished brushing on Mrs. Ledbetter’s disaster and pulled her over to a hair-dryer. She turned it on low and set the timer. Then she spun back, plunked her hands on her hips and faced the outraged-and-ready-to-rebel crowd. “I’m not doing it.”

  “I’m suddenly not feeling so good,” Gran said.

  “Baloney,” Tanya said.

  “I guess she’s forgotten about how Frank bought her that pony,” Mrs. Teasdale chimed in.

  Tanya rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing it.”

  “Don’t forget that he put her through beauty school,” her mother added.

  “I’m not doing it.”

  “And even though he was busy making a name for himself in the entertainment industry down there in Los Angeles, he came up for weekends her whole life.”

  “I’m not doing it,” Tanya said again, but she was horrified to find her voice weakening.

  “And never missed a holiday, which is more than I can say for most fathers.”

  “I’m. Not. Doing. It.”

  “And he’d never tell her about how his job is hanging in the balance.”

  Tanya gaped at her mother. “You’re making that up.”

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, not this time.”

  Her mother went and sat with some others in the shop, talking in a low voice. Tanya managed to avoid any more guilt trips by keeping busy cleaning her instruments. But as she beckoned Mrs. Ledbetter over to the sink for a rinse, she faced her mother down again. “Uncle Frank could get anyone to take that job. Why me?”

  “Because.”

  “Wow. Now there’s a reason that’s hard to argue with.”

  After the rinse, her wash girl brought Mrs. Ledbetter back to Tanya, who almost shoved her into the chair.

  “Oh, my Lord, what have you done to my hair?” the woman shrieked after a glance in the mirror.

  Tanya exchanged an eye-roll with Sharyn, then reached for the Warm Ash Brown Sharyn had cooked up. “Ready to do it my way?”

  “Oh, heavens, yes! Get this off my head!”

  A collective sigh of relief sounded throughout the shop.

  “Tanya to the rescue again,” Mrs. Teasdale said.

  Tanya made the mistake of glancing at her mother, who was smiling triumphantly. “And that’s why your uncle needs you.”

  “She’ll do it,” Mrs. Ledbetter whispered, just loud enough to be heard down in Los Angeles.

  “YOU WANT ME to do what?”

  “Produce a new show tentatively titled Pretty Women.”

  AJ Landry stared at the Vice President of Programming for Jupiter Broadcasting Company, Frank Pierce, in shock. And something that felt suspiciously like nausea. “You want me to give up producing our top sitcom to produce a . . . a—”

  “Makeover show. Yes.”

  “No.”

  Frank held up his hand. “Hear me out, okay?”

  It was not going to happen. Not a chance in hell. But AJ
respected Frank too much to say so without at least a listen, after which he’d keep a straight face as he said, “Not a chance in hell.”

  Frank took a sip of coffee from his JBC mug. “Makeover shows are the rage. They’re cheap to produce, they’re great money if you’ve got a fresh angle that sponsors will get behind, and Jupiter needs one. Badly.”

  “But why me?”

  Frank shrugged and smiled. “You’re my best producer. Everything you touch turns to gold. And we need your Midas touch on this one.”

  AJ tried to choose his words carefully. “No.”

  Frank’s smile faded. “No is tantamount to saying, ‘I’m tired of my association with Jupiter.’”

  Wow, that was a shocker. As far as AJ knew, Frank had never used not-so-subtle threats on anyone. He certainly didn’t want to cut ties with the network. He loved the challenges, and he respected almost everyone at JBC, but a makeover show? No way.

  So he opened his mouth to say those two little words. Frank held up a hand. “I’m prepared to sweeten the pot.”

  There wasn’t enough sugar in the world.

  “Let’s make a deal,” Frank said.

  AJ closed his mouth. “Okay, Monty. Hit me with what’s behind door number two.”

  “Just get this show off the ground. We’ve got three sponsors willing to fund six episodes. If they like what they see, we’ll renew the show. You get it off the ground, make it a hit, make them want to stay on board, and I’ll give the go ahead for you to shoot the pilot for Making It Big.”

  AJ sat up. He’d been pitching that sitcom for two years, ever since he’d written the pilot as a way of purging his feelings about his ex-wife. That was a pot-sweetener if he’d ever heard of one. “I’d only have to produce the first six shows?”

  “You’d only have to produce it until we have a hit on our hands.”

  Oh, well, that wasn’t asking much. “What if it tanks?”

  “In your hands, it won’t.”

  AJ loved a challenge. And he appreciated confidence as well as the next person, but he’d been in broadcasting long enough to know no program was a sure thing. And he knew next to nothing about makeover shows. He’d have a lot of research to do. “I’ll do it on one condition.”