Honey Moon (19 page)

After spending the weekend with her family, listening to Sophie whine and Buck burp beer, she arrived

at work on a Monday in mid-March to begin shooting the last show of the season.

Connie Evans, who did her makeup, studied her critically in the mirror. "Those circles under your eyes are getting worse, Honey. It's a good thing the season's over or I'd have to start using industrial-strength concealer on you."

As Connie dabbed away at the shadows, Honey picked up the manila envelope printed with her name that lay on the makeup table. She was supposed to receive her script for the week by messenger no later than Saturday afternoon, but more frequently, she didn't see it until she arrived at work on Monday. She wondered what the writers had in store for her this week. Since she continued to ignore their increasingly strident demands to come and talk to them, she hoped they hadn't decided to get even with her by making Janie fall into a beehive or something like that.

The last few scripts had spotlighted Blake. In one of them, he had a steamy romance with an older woman who was a friend of Eleanor's. The script had taken full advantage of Eric's dark sexuality, and Honey had gotten so upset watching it that she'd turned off the TV.

As Connie dabbed her with makeup, Honey drew the current week's script from the envelope and stared down at the title. "Janie's Daydream." That didn't sound too bad.

Ten minutes later, she leapt up from her chair and raced out to find Ross.

Liz, wrapped in a pale pink terry-cloth robe, was emerging from her own dressing room when Honey came barreling down the hall. Liz took one look at Honey's face and lunged for her as she flew by. With a hard yank, Liz pulled her into her dressing room and shut the door with her hip.

"What do you think you're doing?" Honey snatched her arm away.

"Giving you a minute to calm down."

Honey's hands clenched into fists at her side. "I don't need to calm down. I'm perfectly calm. Now get out of my way."

Liz leaned against the jamb. "I'm not moving. Pour a cup of coffee, sit down on that sofa, and get yourself under control."

"I don't want coffee. I want—"

"Now!"

Even in a bathrobe, the Queen of the Bitches looked forbidding, and Honey hesitated. Maybe she did need a few minutes to get herself together. Stepping over Mitzi, who was sprawled on the floor, she filled one of the floral china cups Liz kept next to her stainless-steel German coffee-maker.

Liz edged away from the door and gestured toward her own copy of the script lying open on her dressing table. "Be grateful that it's a family show and you don't have to do the scene nude."

Honey's stomach did a flip-flop. "How do you know what I'm upset about?"

"It doesn't take a mind reader, darling."

She stared down into her coffee cup. "I'm not kissing him. I mean it. I'm not going to do it."

"Half the women in America would be glad to stand in for you."

"Everybody's going to think that I've been talking to the writers again and I haven't. I haven't talked to them in weeks."

"It's just a kiss, Honey. It's perfectly believable that Janie would be having daydreams about kissing Blake."

"But nobody's going to think it's
Janie's
daydream. They're all going to think it's
mine.
"

"Isn't it?"

She jumped up, sloshing her coffee into the saucer. "No! I can't stand him. He's conceited and arrogant and mean."

"He's a lot more than that." Liz sat down on the dressing-table stool and began pulling on a pair of sheer pearl-gray nylons. "Forgive the theatrics, darling, but Eric Dillon is a walking danger zone." She shuddered delicately. "I just hope I'm not around when he finally explodes."

Honey placed her untasted coffee on the table. "I've got to wear a nightgown and a wig and dance around with him under a tree. What a stupid daydream. It's so embarrassing I can't even stand to think about it."

"It's a long dress, not a nightgown. And the wig will probably be beautiful.

You'd look silly kissing Blake in those jeans with that awful hair. If you ask me, you're going to look a hundred times better than you usually do."

"Thanks a lot."

Liz drew the panty hose to her waist. Beneath them, Honey could glimpse a skimpy pair of black lace panties.

"With all those marvelous displays of temperament, I could never understand why you didn't throw one of your hissy fits over something important. That horrid haircut, for example."

"I'm not talking about my hair," Honey retorted. "I'm talking about kissing Eric Dillon. I'm going to Ross right now, and I'm—"

"If you throw one of your famous fits, you'll undo all those delicious high-calorie bribes you've been baking. Besides, we start shooting in half an hour, so it's a little late to get a script change. And, anyway, what would you say?

Spending a morning dancing around outside and kissing Eric Dillon hardly qualifies as hazardous duty."

"But.."

"You've never kissed a man, have you, Honey?"

She drew herself up to her full five feet and one inch. "I'm eighteen years old. I kissed my first man

when I was fifteen."

"Was he the one you knifed or the one you shot in the head?" Liz drawled.

"I might have lied about that, but I'm not lying about the kissing. I've had a few romances." She searched her mind for some details that would convince her.

"There was this one boy. His name was Chris, and he went to the University of South Carolina. He had this T-shirt with Gamecocks written on it."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't happen to care."

Liz slipped off her robe and reached for the dress she was wearing in the first scene. Honey stared at her bra. It was nothing more than two black lace scallop shells.

"Eric will do all the work, Honey. God knows he has enough experience.

Janie's not supposed to know anything about lovemaking, anyway."

"It's not lovemaking! It's only a kiss."

"Exactly. I checked the shooting schedule. Since it's an exterior, they're not filming the scene until Friday. You'll have all week to get yourself together.

Now calm down and treat it like any other piece of business."

Honey held Liz's gaze for a few moments and then dropped her eyes.

Absentmindedly, she stroked Mitzi's head. "I don't understand why you're trying to help me. You do it all the time, don't you?"

"I try."

"That's what Dash said. But I can't understand why."

"Women should help each other, Honey."

Honey looked up at Liz and smiled. It was nice to hear herself classified as a woman. Giving Mitzi a final pat, she rose and made her way to the door.

"Thanks," she said, just before she let herself out.

That afternoon, Liz caught Dash alone. "You'd better keep an eye on your young charge, cowboy. She's a bit upset about this week's show, and you know as well as I do that when Honey gets upset, anything can happen."

"Honey's not my responsibility!"

"Once you smacked her, you made her yours for life."

"Damn it, Liz . . ."

"Ta-ta, darling." She wiggled her fingers and walked away, leaving a cloud of expensive fragrance behind.

Dash swore softly under his breath. He didn't want Honey in his private life, but it was getting harder and harder to keep her out. If only he hadn't gotten soft in the head that day he'd blistered her butt. He should never have invited her to his ranch. Not that he'd had a bad time. In fact, he'd had a damn good time with her, and he hadn't once thought about taking a drink.

She was surprisingly easy to be with for a female. Of course, she wasn't much of a female, which had been the major reason he had enjoyed their day together. No hidden sexual agenda had been percolating beneath the surface, and there had been something relaxing about being with someone who pretty much said whatever was on her mind. Besides, in a funny way, Honey saw a lot of things the same way he did. The IRS, for example.

As Honey came toward him and they took their places for the next scene, he realized that he liked Honey more than he liked his own daughter. Not that he didn't love Meredith, because he did, but even when she was a child he hadn't felt close to her. When she'd turned fifteen she'd gotten religion, and after that there'd been no stopping her. Just last week Wanda had called him with the news that Meredith had decided to drop out of Oral Roberts because the place was getting too liberal for her. As far as his son, Josh, was concerned, things weren't any better. Josh had always been pretty much a mama's boy, something a little more attention from his father might have prevented.

A light meter popped up in front of his face. Honey yawned next to him. Even wearing makeup she looked tired.

"Did you get any of those cookies I brought in last week?" she asked. "The ones with M & Ms in them?"

"I had a couple."

"I didn't think they were as good as those frosted brownies. What did you think?"

"Honey, are you doing any sleeping when you get home, or do you just stay up all night and bake cookies?"

"I sleep."

"Not enough. Look at you. You're getting all run down." He knew he should stop right there, but she looked so small and worn-out that his heart took possession of his brain. "Starting right now, your baking days are over, little girl."

Her eyes shot open in outrage. "What?"

"You heard me. People are going to have to start liking you for your sweet personality and not for your cookies. The next time you bring anything to eat on the set, I'm pitching it right in the garbage."

"You are not! This isn't any of your business!"

"It is if you want to come out to the ranch on Saturday and go riding."

Right before his eyes, he watched the war going on inside her, the battle between her desire to be with him and her independent nature. Her jaw set in that stubborn line he'd grown all too familiar with.

"You're manipulating me. You think you can go hot or cold on me whenever you feel like it, without the slightest regard for my feelings."

"I told you the kind of man I am, Honey."

"I just want to be your friend. Is that so terrible?"

"Not if that was all you wanted. But you make me nervous." He looked out beyond the cameras to the rear of the studio and decided to say what was on his mind. "You want a lot from people, Honey. I get this feeling that you'd suck out my last drop of blood if I let you. To be honest, I don't have any to spare."

"That's an awful thing to say. You make me sound like a vampire."

He didn't reply. Just gave her some time to sort out her options.

"All right," she said sullenly. "If I can come out to the ranch, I won't bake anymore."

A queer glow of pleasure warmed his insides at the idea that she enjoyed being with him enough to compromise her pride. She was a great kid when she wasn't being a pain in the ass. "One more thing,"

he added. "You also have to get through this week with a little dignity. I'm specifically talking about Friday's shooting schedule."

Honey glared over at Liz, who was flirting with a new cameraman. "Somebody has a big mouth."

"You should be glad that particular somebody is watching out for you."

They were interrupted before she could reply, which was probably just as well.

Friday crept toward her like smog. When it finally arrived, she refused to look in the mirror as they fussed with her makeup and zipped her into a white lace dress that sloped down off her shoulders and brushed the floor. They fastened a lavender lace choker around her neck, then set the wig on top of her head. It was long and honey-colored, just like her real hair.

"Perfect," Evelyn, her newest hairdresser, said, standing back to admire Honey.

Connie, who had just finished her makeup, concurred. "Go on, Honey. Stop being a chicken. Take a look."

Honey braced herself and turned toward the mirror. She looked . . .

"Holy shit," she whispered softly under her breath.

"My sentiments exactly," Evelyn replied dryly.

Honey had been afraid she'd look like a boy in drag, but instead, the delicate young woman who stared back at her was a vision of femininity. There was a blurry, dreamlike quality about her features—from the light blue luminosity of her eyes to her soft pink mouth, which didn't look like it belonged on a sucker fish at all but on someone beautiful. Her hair curled softly around her face and fell in waves over the tops of her shoulders, just like a story-book princess.

The AD stuck his head in the trailer. "Show time, Honey. We need you on—

Wow!"

Evelyn and Connie laughed, then escorted Honey from the trailer. She squinted slightly in the sunlight. The women walked on each side of her, picking up the hem of her dress to keep it off the grass and giving her last-minute instructions.

"Don't sit down, Honey. And don't eat anything."

"Stop licking your lips. I'll have to powder you again."

Eric was already on the set. Honey avoided looking at him. She felt excited and scared at the same time. It was one thing to have to kiss Eric Dillon when she looked like a horse's rear end. It was quite another when she looked like Sleeping Beauty. She pressed her hand to the pocket in the side seam of the dress and was reassured to feel the tiny tube of Binaca breath spray she had slipped there.

Eric adjusted the lavender sash at his waist. He was dressed like Prince Charming in a white shirt with billowy sleeves, tight-fitting purple trousers, and calf-hugging black leather boots. The costume was constrictive, but as he leaned down to wipe a smudge off his boots, he decided he'd worn worse.

At the sound of female laughter, he looked up. Honey was coming toward him, but several seconds passed before his brain registered what he was seeing. His mouth set in a grim line. He should have known. For two seasons he'd been looking at those tiny features and that incredible mouth, but he still hadn't realized quite how pretty she could be.

She drew closer and lifted her head. Light blue eyes, dewy and star-filled, drank him in, begging him to find her beautiful. His stomach clenched. If he wasn't very careful today, she would go off in another love spin.