Can't Stop Loving You (3 page)

Which might be an improvement over his
present state.

A night bird called from the nearby forest,
mocking him. If he had any sense at all, he wouldn’t even be out
here; he’d be cozied up next to Barb in her warm bed.

She’d invited him.

Not only was he playing a besotted fool where
Helen was concerned, but he was a besotted fool with a code of
honor, warped though it might be. He never used women. Barb was
being paid handsomely for a job, and that job did not include
sleeping with the boss.

Beset by demons, he pulled his collar up,
rammed his hands into his pockets, and forged on, occasionally
kicking at the tight turf as if stones were blocking his path.
Suddenly the back of his neck prickled, and he was aware that he
was not alone.

Stopping in the shadows, he lifted his head
and strained his eyes into the darkness. She was there on the
seventh green, her silhouette as unmistakable as if she’d been
standing under the bright lights of a stage instead of in the pale,
cold light of the moon.

Brick clenched his hands into fists. Helen
Sullivan on the seventh green. Had the same memories that brought
him there sent her winging into the night?

Rage tightened his jaw, and hard on its heels
came a sense of loss so painful, he almost cried aloud.

Memories overwhelmed him....

She’d been in one of her kittenish, playful
moods that night. The gold glitter in the center of her green eyes
always tipped him off.

He set his bags inside the door, happy to be
home from a three-month tour of
Much Ado About Nothing
,
but happier still to be facing the woman he’d dreamed about every
blessed sleepless night and longed for every waking moment.

“Come here, wench. Your lord and master is
home.”

“Not until I finish basting the beast,
darling. The way to a man’s heart, they say...” With a wicked grin
she cast aside the dark green terry cloth robe she was wearing and
stood before him in heels and a flirty blue apron—and not a stitch
more.

He stood beside the door, raking his eyes
over her, loving the way she responded, the quick tightening of her
nipples, the tiny shivers that rippled along her skin, the way she
licked her full bottom lip.

Neither of them moved. Both of them knew how
much better the loving would be when it was honed to a fine edge by
anticipation.

“You baked a beast for me? You, the woman who
abhors the kitchen?”

“Every now and then I’m willing to make the
supreme sacrifice to satisfy your ravenous appetite.”

“There’s only one thing that will satisfy my
appetite tonight.”

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

Ever aware of her audience, she put a finger
to her temple in a saucy way that lifted her breasts. The heat
coursing along his veins turned to a full-fledged firestorm.

“Strawberries,” she said, grinning at him.
“In strategic places.”

“How strategic?”

“Very.”

Her tongue slid over her bottom lip once
more, then rested there, teasing him. He took one step toward her,
then another... and another, his eyes never leaving that sexy pink
tongue.

“Can I have all I want, Helen?”

“How much do you want?”

“About two quarts.”

“Only two? I thought you said you were
ravenous.”

“That’s for starters.” He stood before her
now, so awed by the perfection of her body that he hardly knew
which part of her to touch first. With one finger he traced her
damp bottom lip, then trailed it down the side of her throat and
across her creamy shoulders.

“For starters?” she asked, her breath already
hitching in her throat.

“I thought we’d have a little exercise before
we eat.”

“Anything in particular in mind?”

“Golf.”

“In the dark?”

“I play my best game in the dark.”

She slid one finger into the small gap
between the third and fourth buttons on his shirt and began to draw
hot, erotic circles. That tiny contact of flesh against flesh was
almost enough to make him lose control.

“Show me,” she said.

With slow deliberation he put his hands on
her shoulders and turned her around. The long, slender length of
her body from neck to ankle was bisected by the perky bow of her
apron. He skimmed his palms down her back, loving the way she
shivered, loving the way her skin was already heated.

He untied the bow, and the wisp of an apron
drifted to the floor. Helen lifted her hair off her neck with one
hand then turned toward him.

“I’m afraid I have nothing to wear for this
game.”

“Nothing is exactly what I had in mind.”

She reached for his belt buckle, and suddenly
the waiting became too much for both of them. Buttons ripped, the
metal buckle clanged against the floor, his pants bounced off the
bar and landed on a chair.

Then she was in his arms, and he was racing
through the French doors. A nip of fall was in the air, and when
the night breezes swept over them, their skin tightened like the
peel of a crisp, juicy apple.

The seventh green lay before them, shadowed
by a copse of oak trees, the gentle swell of earth spread out
blanket-like and inviting. He was in her before they touched the
ground.

The feel of her around him made his senses
reel.

“No more road tours,” he said, meaning
it.

“Liar.”

She pushed him back against the cold, prickly
grass; then, poised above him like some fine racing filly from
Kentucky, she made him forget that he’d said the same thing dozens
of times before and that she knew he would always change his
mind.

And she didn’t care. Acting was in his
blood... and hers.

They would always be on the road, living out
of a suitcase and keeping the telephone hot, moving so fast that
the cities soon ran together and nothing was real except the bright
lights of the stage and the one who waited at home.

Wind rattled the dead leaves of the oak trees
and bit at their naked flesh, but nothing could stop the momentum
that sent them reeling over the ground, sometimes racing along like
two thoroughbreds in a dead heat, sometimes pausing to touch and
taste, to explore and savor.

And when at last their passion was sated, she
bent over him with her hair cascading over his belly and licked the
fine sheen of perspiration caught in the valley over his heart.

“Promise,” she whispered.

“Anything,” he said, meaning that too.

“Promise we’ll never lose the
spontaneity.”

“Never, Helen. As long as I have breath in my
body.”

It was a promise he was destined to break.
Not because he wanted to but because two years later she walked out
the door and never came back.

Now she was standing on another golf course
in another state with her face lifted in pensive attitude toward
the moon as if she, too, remembered and, remembering, felt the keen
sense of loss and the hopeless sense that everything that should
have been perfect, that
was
perfect, had somehow slipped
through their grasp. Helen and Brick Sullivan, the two most
successful Shakespearean actors of their time, couldn’t make the
thing most important to them work: their marriage.

“Damn you to hell, Helen.”

The wind caught his whisper and carried it up
to the treetops where it startled an owl, who lifted his wings and
soared into the darkness. Helen turned slowly in his direction.

“Who’s there?” she asked. He stood quietly,
not wanting to be discovered—especially by Helen, especially near
the seventh green. Her hand, glowing white in the moonlight, flew
to her throat. “Is someone there?”

Damned his warped code of honor. He couldn’t
bear to frighten her. He stepped out of the shadows.

“It’s only me, Helen.”

“Brick.”

Was that panic he heard in her voice... or
longing?

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared, just startled.”

She lifted her hair off her neck in an
unconsciously seductive gesture. Or perhaps it was calculated. He
didn’t know Helen anymore, hadn’t known her since she’d left
him.

In order to keep his thoughts from taking
dangerous dips and turns, he studied her. She was no more dressed
for walking in a cold New Hampshire night than he. Her sweatshirt
was cotton, and her anorak was much too lightweight to do more than
break the wind.

In the old days he’d have offered her his
coat, then wrapped his arms around her so his body heat would warm
her.

The old days were dead. He had to keep
reminding himself of that fact.

“You picked a strange time to go walking,
Helen. Was an evening in my company that disturbing for you?”

He hoped it was. He wanted to see her
suffer.

“How like you to take credit for everything,
Brick. My walk has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”

“That’s good to know. I wouldn’t want us to
start rehearsals with any misunderstandings between us.”

“You’ve made your position perfectly clear,
and now I’ll state mine. Miss Thirty-eight, twenty-six,
thirty-eight can have you. I’m clearly not interested.”

“Clearly.”

He cast a significant glance at their
surroundings. For a moment the unflappable Helen was flustered,
then she quickly recovered her composure.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking...”

“You don’t?” Full of memories and unable to
help himself, he caught her wrists in a tight grip. “You never
could lie well, Helen.”

“No, I never could lie well.”

With her chin tilted at a stubborn angle and
her eyes sparking fire, she challenged him.

“You remember...”

“Don’t.” She jerked out of his grasp. “I
remember every detail, including the way you taste. But that
doesn’t mean I want to taste you again.”

He tried to hide his wounded male pride as
well as his disappointment, though what he had to be disappointed
about was beyond him. Hadn’t he hired Barb Gladly for the specific
purpose of keeping Helen at a distance?

“First the red dress, then the seventh green.
You could have fooled me, Helen.”

“You always did have an overactive
imagination, Brick. I suggest you put it to good use studying your
lines.”

In the regal manner that had captivated fans
the world ‘round, Helen Sullivan left him standing on the golf
course with nothing but the cold wind for company. The moon glinted
on her hair and reflected off the pale silk of her anorak. When she
turned toward the house, it illuminated her profile, face, and
body, which were every bit as perfect as he remembered.

Rocking back on his heels, he stuffed his
hands into his pockets.

“I’d rather study
your
lines,
Helen,” he said.

When she disappeared into the house, he shook
himself. Helen Sullivan was a witch. He’d fallen under her spell
once; he had no intention of doing it again.

Ever.

“Then what am I doing standing out here
freezing my butt off?”

Brick hastened to the house and mounted the
stairs two at a time. When he strode past Helen’s door, he didn’t
even glance to see if her light was on.

In his room he got out his script and perused
the familiar lines. As he read he began to grin.

Tomorrow Helen Sullivan would rue the day she
ever agreed to share a stage with her ex-husband.

Helen told herself she was ready for
rehearsals with her ex-husband. She had her entire crew backstage.
Matt and the animals were stationed near the curtain so they could
see all the action, and Marsha was stationed at her elbow. Brick
would easily get past the Abominables, but he would never make it
beyond Matt Rider, and if he did, he wouldn’t get past Marsha.

Of course, he’d made it perfectly clear he
didn’t
want
to get past anybody, but that small fact did
nothing to calm her.

“Act two, scene one!” the director called.
“We’ll take it from Katharina’s entrance.”

“He did that deliberately,” she said, turning
toward her secretary.

“Who?” Marsha held out a glass of water with
a slice of lemon.

“Brick. He’s been over there for the last
thirty minutes plotting with the director.”

“What’s wrong with act two, scene one?”

Instead of answering, Helen narrowed her eyes
in the direction of her ex-husband.

“If he thinks he’s going to intimidate me, he
has another think coming.”

With that parting shot she tossed back her
hair and marched onto the stage.

Marsha joined Matt near the curtain.

“Looks as if there’s a storm brewing,” she
said.

“It’s long overdue,” he said.

o0o

Brick knew that look of Helen’s, that walk,
that stubborn chin. Adrenaline pumped through him. He felt
exhilarated, challenged, ready for battle.

He watched through lowered lids as she took
the opposite side of the stage.

“What’s the matter, Helen? Afraid of this
scene?”

“No. Nor any other scene in this play.” He
could feel the sparks as she marched across the stage and faced him
nose to nose. “You might as well get this straight right from the
beginning, Brick Sullivan. Anything that takes place on this stage
is strictly a part of the theater. Including the sizzling kiss in
act two, scene one.”

“You’ve thought about it, have you?”

“Not at all. I just happen to know my
Shakespeare.”

“Places!” the director called.

Brick snaked his arm around Helen’s waist as
she turned to leave.

“Ready to be wooed, wildcat?”

She whirled on him.

“If you make one more move that’s not in this
script, you’ll feel more than the sting of my tongue.”

“I’ve felt it all before, Helen.”

Her color came up. Mesmerized, he kept a
tight grip on her waist.

They struck sparks off each other that could
be seen even at the back of the auditorium where Barb Gladly was
stationed.