Once In A Blue Moon. Kristin James

be great for you, too. Otherwise, you’re hanging in limbo while Mark’s out, with nothing to work on but that old resentment of Christine, and that’s getting kind of tired.”

      That was true, Isabelle knew. People would get a kick out of this fight between them next week, but their conflict was from the past, and people would soon grow bored with it. The worst thing about all this was that Karen was right. A running feud with Curtis over his brother would spark up her story as much as Michael’s. She knew how damaging it could be to one’s popularity when one’s love interest left a show. There had been one actor who was quite popular on “Tomorrows” whose storyline had died because his wife had been killed off. He had drifted around being sad and having people commiserate with him for a few weeks, but his scenes had grown fewer and fewer, and fan mail for him had tailed off. Finally he had been written out, too.

      Isabelle sighed. “I know. You’re right.”

      Karen gave her a puzzled look. “Then why so downcast? What’s the problem?”

      How could she tell Karen that the thought of doing any kind of love scene, even a rejected seduction, with Michael Traynor scared her right down to her toes? Isabelle thought of kissing Michael, and her stomach turned to ice. She could remember vividly the way his lips had felt on hers, the feverish shivers that had run through her every time he kissed her. What if she still reacted that way? It would be so humiliating!

      Worse than that, it might stir up old feelings, feelings whose size and intensity frightened Isabelle. She had promised herself long ago that she would never again be so vulnerable to a man as she had been to Michael Traynor. It frightened her to think that if she kissed him, even in pretense for the show, she might once again feel as she had when she had been a girl of eighteen. That she might open up even the tiniest crack in her emotional armor.