Shock Waves (Harlequin Blaze #354)

Come join the hot, hot, hot Sin on the Beach festival! That's right, beach babes and beach dudes, we're talking hot games, hot competitions, hot bodies to help us kick off the second-season launch of the hottest TV show this season!Twenty-nine-year-old Ellie Rockwellglam goth girl, coffee shop owner and serious Lou Reed fan read the announcement on the kiosk again, certain she was suffering from heatstroke. Or having a heart attack. Or both. Hardly what a woman on her first vacation in five years should be having."Sin on the Beach," she murmured, glancing over at the people setting up booths and tents along this stretch of Malibu Beach. It was one thing to read about this festival at her coffee shop, Dark Gothic Roast, located twenty miles inland in fast-paced, hyperstressed Los Angeles, quite another to be standing on the very sand where the TV show was filmed.Everybody and anybody knew better than to call Ellie on Thursday nights between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. when Sin on the Beach aired. She got teased a lot for loving this show, as though goths were narrow-minded enough not to like anything that wasn't black and morbid and reeking of Edgar Allan Poe. Okay, she could do without all the sunshine and tanned bodies on the show, but she dug the buffed actors in Speedos. Especially when they starred in the occasional mystery story line full of shadows and danger. Plus, the night scenes were to die formoonlight gilding the water, the ocean spilling its secrets and the occasional body onto the shore, the rhythmic tumble of distant, dark waves.She continued reading. The festival promised games such as Truth or Bare and Hot Shot Photo Scavenger Hunt, surfing competitions, limbo contests, something called Good Vibrations. Even nearby bars were getting into the festival mood by holding karaoke sin-alongs, and...Her heart stilled.What was this?She leaned forward, clutching her black silk top while reading the fine print at the bottom of the poster.Hey, you! Want to be an extra on Sin on the Beach and earn beaucoup festival points doing so? Then come to the open audition the first morning of the festival! If you're 18-30, act wicked, dress cool and have a rockin'bod, meet here on Tuesday, August 15, 7:00 a.m. sharp. Be hot, be sinful, be ready!For a wild, giddy moment, Ellie imagined herself as an extra on Sin on the Beach, looking killer in a black bikini, cavorting in the waves, maybe being the one who found the dead body in a mystery plot and getting to rip loose a bloodcurdling scream. How groovy would that be?She scanned the ad again. Wicked, dress cool and have a rockin' bod...Her short black hair was wickedly spiked, but she seriously doubted that's the kind of wicked they had in mind. Dress cool? Unless they were into the Mistress of the Dark look, she doubted they'd use that word for her wardrobe, most of it custom-designed by yours truly. Although, lifting everything from cappuccino machines to bags of coffee beans kept her in shape, so humility aside, she could probably pull off the rockin' body.Wicked. Cool. Rockin'.She blew out a sigh.One out of three wouldn't cut it.Just as well. She expected to hear any day that her business loan had been approved, which meant starting next week she'd begin the expansion of Dark Gothic Roast into the remodeled former warehouse in East L.A. The space was so large, she'd decided to try selling her clothes designs in one of the commercial spaces while overseeing the rental of the others. The enormity of her plans excited and scared the crap out of her. Rather than fret and worry until she got the news, she'd opted to adopt the pragmatic "what happens, happens" attitude.Until then, she'd chill, do her caretakiCollins, Colleen is the author of 'Shock Waves (Harlequin Blaze #354)', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373793587 and ISBN 0373793588.