Freefall (49 page)
Was it? Myra seemed a lifetime ago, but it had been a lifetime’s worth of hard lessons. “I realize it’s your profession, but … I’ve been there.”
“I know.” She searched his face. As the pent-up energy seeped off, her shoulders softened. “Will you come home with me? I make a mean lobster salad.”
He couldn’t seem to go a day without talking to her, hardly managed an hour without her in his thoughts. When she looked like that, asked like that, did she think he’d say no? “Okay.”
He followed her off the set and past another, leaving worlds behind. He had taken a taxi from the airport, so he had no truck in which to transport her. But this was her turf. She stopped at her pearl beige Honda Prelude in the back parking lot. Nice, but he guessed it was intentionally understated.
She pressed the keyless entry. “They’ll be waiting outside the gate. Driving out together could stir things up again.”
“I can catch a cab.”
She considered a moment, then said, “Get in.”
Though they were photographed and followed, it surprised him how passé the attention seemed. It would be bigger news if she fell for her leading man.
His ordeal with the press had run its course, and one day he’d realized no one was out there hassling him. He would handle it if this sparked more speculation about him and Gentry as long as his son was kept out of it. Myra’s ploy had been vicious but short-lived since Tom and Mary had kept Kevin safely tucked away. And now it was old news. They had thanked him profusely for not making their lives a battle. But life basically was a battle. You just couldn’t always see the enemy.
Gentry’s apartment was loaded with personal touches, and he saw by contrast how the blankness of his home must have screamed at her. Didn’t take an investigator to realize she liked scents; candles, soaps—the clear glycerin kind—a bowl of potpourri in the kitchen. The place was clean but not fastidious. She liked novels; a wide variety, multiple genres and time periods. Movies: film noir to
The Passion
of the Christ
, a floor-to-ceiling shelf arranged alphabetically.
“Are you required to buy every movie ever made?”
“It’s a reference library. If a director says play it like Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp, I have something to study.”
“Do you?”
“Of course.” She went into the kitchen and pulled out vegetables and a package of precooked lobster. “In that cabinet you can get the pot for the pasta.”
He found it and filled it with water, got the package of tricolor bowties from the pantry, and set it beside the stove. “I can chop.”
She handed him a knife, and they worked together on the cutting board—artichoke hearts, tomatoes, three kinds of olives, capers, and green onions. No one would know she’d spent the day being a star. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and he pictured her on Kauai in the salt waves at sunrise. A mermaid. A magical sojourner from another realm. A realm both deadly and beautiful.
“What?” she asked without looking.
He moved the hair off her neck and kissed the place Alec had found. Her breath caught. He turned her face and kissed her mouth. “I love you.” She raised her lashes to reveal the teal green depths, and he sank in, drowning. “It started that night with the centipede and hasn’t stopped. I think about you all the time. I tell myself, Cameron, you love too hard. You’ll crush the life from her.”
She set down her knife. “You don’t love too hard. You’re just in a world that’s made love cheap.”
“Nothing about you is cheap.” He stroked her arms.
“Then you’re not mad?”
He cupped her shoulders. “I won’t like what happens tomorrow; I’ll hate it.”
“Kai, I promise you—”
He kissed her, deeply and slowly. “I’ll hate it, but if that’s the price …” He breathed the musky scent of her hair. “I’ll pay it.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t the only one lost.” He stroked a tendril of hair off her forehead, remembering it damp and muddy. She’d forgotten who she was, had staggered out of the wild, bruised and bewildered. But at least she’d known she didn’t have the answers. He’d thought he did. He swallowed the emotion that threatened to silence him. “I need to stop fighting.”
She circled his waist with her arms. “I love you, Kai.”
And with that he came in from the sea.
With no other lights on, Gentry lit
the candles around her living room. Pillars on trays with polished stones, purple Zen votives, a fourwick pillar on a wrought-iron stand, a hanging, stained-glass oil candle in the corner. She caught his amused expression when she sat and faced him on the futon and drew her knees to her chest. “What?”
“Now I know what my house is missing.”
“You have a fireplace.” She held his eyes, drinking in the whole of their experience to this point and anticipating. She wasn’t fearing for her life or her sanity; he wasn’t wrestling his past. They were linked in the moment in a way she’d never experienced with anyone. And he was right; it had started in the mountains of Hanalei beside the stream where the forest met the stars.
She rested her chin on her knees. “What are you thinking?”
“That I want to make love to you.”
“To me or the myth?”
“There’s only you. That’s all there’s ever been. I let you believe the other because I didn’t want you to know what I really felt.”
He slid his hand down her calf and clasped her heel, sending warmth through her like a tonic, loosening her joints and sparking her heart into quick, erratic flights.
His eyes deepened, drawing her in and holding her under. “If you hadn’t had your mountaintop experience, would we?”
“Probably. If you weren’t a missionary’s son?”
“Grandson. My parents were hedonists.” At her raised brows, he smiled. “Well, what do I know? I was six.” He slid his fingers over her feet.
She bit her lip at the exquisite sensation almost too much to bear. Were feet off limits?
“I just have this sense of their enjoying everything.” He rubbed the arches of each foot. “That’s what I wanted. A soul mate.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
He shook his head. “No.”
He didn’t have to elaborate.
“Gentry.” He clasped her ankles. “Did you mean it?”
She straightened. “I will never tell you something I don’t mean. I need to be real with you.”
“You are real. Too real.” He swallowed. “When I saw you on the shore that first night, I thought, what did Nica get me into this time?”
She smiled. “I thought, who does this guy think he is?”
“I’ve never been so thankful for Nica.”
“I’m still wondering who this guy thinks he is.” She squealed as he lunged in and assaulted her ribs.
They tumbled off the futon, and he kissed her on the floor. Then he drew back. “I admire the talent God’s given you. If you believe you’re supposed to use it, then I’ll deal with the parts I don’t like. But when all is said and done—”
Her phone rang. Comical how many times they were interrupted by the communication her uncle had helped to perfect. “It’s my mother. If I don’t answer she’ll leave a forty-minute message.” She stretched up for the phone on the end table.
Cameron sat up and pulled her back down, and she leaned against him as her mother asked all about the film project. “Is it as good as you’d hoped? And what about that Alec Warner? I can’t tell you how many people want to know.”
“He’s a talented actor, Mom.” She tried not to speak too glowingly, but Alec’s skills did complimented hers. She looked at Cameron and clipped her answers. “Yes. Yes. Mostly. I don’t know yet.” She sucked in her upper lip when it got too personal. “Mom …”
“Anyway, honey, the reason I called is to tell you Uncle Rob’s going home.”
“What? When?”
“Tomorrow. We’re having a little bash Saturday, and I was hoping you could fly up.”
“Of course. Oh, that’s great!” She covered the receiver and told Cameron, then went back to her mom. “I’ll be there.” She asked with her eyebrows and he nodded. “With a friend.”
Her mother said, “I don’t know if Aunt Allegra’s out of town again. She’s not answering, but I think she’d like to be included.”
Sure. She hadn’t been there for him in the crisis, but she wouldn’t want to miss the party. Gentry shook her head. “I’ll try her.”
“Would you? One less thing for me to worry about.”
Between the scandal, Dad’s heart surgery, and the disastrous trip to Kauai, Mom had worried more than any other time in her life. But Uncle Rob was going home, and that was worth celebrating. She hung up and settled back into Cameron’s arms. “You were wrong. Hope does keep its promise.”
“Then I hope I’m wrong every day for the rest of my life.”
Once again the night shadows closed in as all the doubts and regrets pressed close enough to suffocate. It had been days since she answered the phone, a week at least since she’d left the house, and then only to grab a carton of milk for her morning muesli. In the impartial bathroom light Allegra looked into the mirror, and an old woman looked back. What she’d feared for years had overtaken her.
The phone’s shrill cries hardly registered. Why would Curt not stop calling? Didn’t he see what she saw? Her teeth were flawlessly capped, figure undimpled, skin tight and supple, breasts enhanced. Nails buffed, hair coifed, yet it was the eyes of a hag that looked out at her. She had turned half a century, but it may as well be a hundred. How had she thought she could cheat time? Believed she could deceive fate?
Exhaustion clung like rags to her flesh. Gentry might be the actress getting all the acclaim, but her talent hardly compared. When Gentry Fox walked off the set she stopped pretending. Allegra Delaney-Fox never rested, never ceased playing her part. Oh, she was weary.
She’d been running so long, trying so hard to prove her daddy wrong, to prove she was worth something. And she had been, to the man who’d loved her. But when he had told her that all the things she’d done were worthless, that he’d found what mattered and wanted to start over, she’d walked away. She could not remake herself again. It was already killing her.
Curt banged on the door. “Allegra, I know you’re in there.” His cuts had healed, the bruises faded. He was not there to play on her sympathies; he had to reestablish their relationship now that Rob was going home. What good was it if she wouldn’t turn to sympathetic Curt in her sorrow? He’d get nothing. Zilch. And then it would all catch up, and he’d be the dead one.
If only things had worked the first time. He wasn’t cruel, never meant the guy to suffer. Should have been over quick, a simple accident. But he’d depended on someone else. Big mistake. This time he’d do it right. Besides, who would want to go on as a cripple? Robert Fox would thank him—if he could. But right now, he had to work on the other end. “Allegra.” He sang her name. “Open up. I need to talk to you.”
The door swung inward, and there she was. He’d never known anyone so elegant. The way she moved, the way she spoke. She almost wasn’t real. After Nicki, it was more obvious than ever. Allegra was a crystal goblet; Nicki a to-go cup.
He held out the extravagant bouquet, no tacky black balloons or over-the-hill cards. He liked her age. He liked how good she made him feel. How safe. She was class. He leaned in and kissed her throat. “Happy birthday, babe.”
“Curt, what …”
“I wanted it to be a diamond choker. But I already owe you. It didn’t seem right until I can pay back … Anyway, I hope you like the flowers.”
She took the bouquet. “They’re beautiful.”
“Went with a white theme. Classy, not flashy. Just like you. Perfect.”
Why did she look as though he’d lost his mind? Couldn’t she tell he meant it? Emotion flooded his voice. “I miss you.” Exactly the right tone, but the sentiment hit too close. He used her indecision to walk in and close the door behind.
She put the roses and lilies and other pure white flowers he’d ordered to make his point into a vase with a tassel tied around the neck. She filled it with water and admired the effect. Gracious, but not exactly overwhelmed. “Thank you, Curt.”
“No party?”
Her smile was forced. “No.”
“Birthdays are meant to be celebrated. Especially when you’re lovelier every day.”
“Curt …”
“Don’t ask me to leave. I know I disappointed you, but …” He spread his hands.
“You didn’t disappoint me. It’s my own—I can’t go on with it, that’s all.”
He sat down on the grand piano bench, determined to talk her out of that viewpoint. He could too. He had to. “Please, can we talk about it?”
She smoothed a lacy thing under the piano lamp. “I don’t know what there is to say.”
“Then let me talk and you listen. Because I have so much to say I can’t keep it in.” He’d find the words, the perfect words to bring her back, rekindle the romance. It was there; he just had to make her see.
