When Kam Heskin was a little girl, every summer she and her family would visit her grandparents' cabin in Montana on Tongue River. She would spend hours lying on her stomach on an old dock, peering through the wooden slats and watching the crawling spiders and fleeting fish. "If you sit still watching something long enough," smiles Heskin, "all of a sudden, you see everything that's moving that you never saw before."

Heskin's practiced eye for detail has helped her assimulate into her role as SUNSET BEACH's new Caitlin. Brought up on old-fashioned, Midwestern values (she once had to paint a shed as punishment for staying out until 1 a.m.), the gracious actress resists critiquing the performance of predecessor Vanessa Dorman, explaining, "I really haven't seen too much of her work at all. I saw one tape of Vanessa when I first started [in late June] - just to catch up on what was going on. And then, just the other day, I rented [from the BEACH archives] Caitlin's wedding to Cole to really solidify all the characters' relationships."

In the video, one of the wedding reception scenes left Heskin truly stunned - and we're not talking about the cast's performance of the hokey pokey. "I was watching and was like, 'Oh, my God! Cole and Caitlin are dancing to my wedding song!'" she exclaims. "'How Do I Live?' by Trisha Yearwood was one of my favorite songs, which is why we choose it for our wedding for our first dance."

The other half of Heskin's "we" is new husband Jonathan Cheriff, owner of Manhattan's American Spirits restuarant. When she flew out to LA from NY to assume her role as Cole's young bride, Heskin was intending to become a new bride herself in just a matter of weeks. A postponement was considered, but ultimately, with a lot of help from Mom and an early wedding gift from NBC, Heskin was able to plow ahead with her plans. "We were onl about three months away at the time," she recalls. "I had the dress. We had reserved the place. Our honeymoon was set and paid for." What's a bride-to-be to do? In Heskin's case, she opted to make a rather extraordinary request of her new employers - a very premature two-week vacation.

"Originally, before I even came out here to screen-test, that was part of the negotiations," she confides. "It was very nice of them. I would have been open to change the wedding date, but nothing was movable at the time. Even the planes were booked." So, after Heskin's first two months on the beach (most of which was spent on the high seas, struggling to survive the tsunami), Caitlin was shipped off to San Diego with baby Trey.

During her time away, Heskin got married in an August 1 ceremony, which went off flawlessly - well, nearly. "My bouquest of champagne-colored roses ended up dying the day of the wedding," she sighs. "But they took it apart and put new flowers in." The only other disappointment was the absence of Heskin's grandmother, who had passed away in June. In rememberance, a single rose was placed on a chair.

The honeymoon was a little rockier, since it found the newlyweds in the middle of a real-life "Shockwave" disaster. "Tahiti had had a hurricane the week before we arrived," she explains. "The days were awfully windy and cold, so we stayed in our room and played chess. We sort of got in a tournament with each other. I kept winning. and he wanted to win - but he's a good loser."

Heskin also seems to be winning over BEACH fans, though she's learning that being a recast is not easy. She admits, "It was weird watching Caitlin and Cole's wedding [on video] because all the characters I know were calling out 'Caitlin,' I kept thinking they were talking to me, but then I saw someone else. I know from my experience as an audience member that adjusting to a recast can be very strange at first because you can become very attached to a character, and then you suddenly have someone new. But after a couple of months, I was always able to begin seeing the new actor as the character."

It's only natural for Heskin to be somewhat concerned with BEACH fans' acceptance of her. Then again, Heskin concedes that it's in her nature to be a worrywart. "I thought that I had multiple sclerosis for the longest time," she confesses. "My hands kept curling on me - getting a tingling pins and needles sensation. I'd get tunnel vision and see stars. Before long, I couldn't control my arms anymore. It would happen a lot in grocery stores. The earliest time I remember it happening was when I was on the school bus in elementary school. I got a bloody nose - blood everywhere. And I couldn't hold the Kleenex because my hands were so tight. It happened through the years, and quite frequently in college. My Mom feared I might be in early stages of MS, but I never knew what it was. Just recently, I was talking to Shawn Batten (Sara) who said, 'I get panic attacks. My hands curl; I get tunnel vision.' She described what was happening to me to a 'T'. I was like 'Oh, my God.' Shawn warned me there'd be certain things that would trigger it. So now, I know when it's coming on."

One thing Heskin is not wasting any time fretting about is her job security at BEACH. "This business, in general, tends to be insecure," she rationalizes. "In the back of your mind, there's always that seed of possibility. But I think that's the case in any job you do. I think they wanted to see a strength in Caitlin's character - for her to become a stronger person and start dealing with all the stuff that was going on with her. And I'd like to think that Caitlin has become a little bit stronger. With anything's that happened before, there's always the chance of it happening again, but there's nothing I can do about that. All I can do is do the job that I'm here to do and do it well." Bravo.