Heartthrob (22 page)

He turned away, suddenly uncomfortable, aware that he’d stripped himself down, nearly to the bone, in front of Kate O’Laughlin, of all people. Or maybe this was something else he’d wanted her to know, too.

“But we’re not talking about me—we’re talking about Moses, here,” he said, gesturing toward Jamaal.

“I’m not Moses. I don’t want to be Moses. Shit,
that’s
the problem.”

Jed moved toward the cabin’s open door, motioning for Jamaal to follow him. “Come here. Come inside.”

Jamaal hesitated in the doorway.

“All the way in,” Jed ordered him. There was a huge fireplace smack in the center of the back wall. Windows with a single swinging shutter were cut only into the front of the building. The walls were rough brick, and the floor
was hard-packed dirt. It was dark and damp and reminiscent of a prison cell.

Jamaal inched in a little farther.

“Sit on the hearth,” Jed ordered, sitting on the bricks that extended out two or three feet into the room. Jamaal slowly sat next to him. “Close your eyes.”

Before he shut his own eyes, Jed caught a glimpse of Susie and Kate, peeking in through the open windows. Kate was wearing a baseball cap to protect herself from the screamingly hot sun. She’d worn hiking shorts and clunky boots for this outing, with a slightly clingy T-shirt that defied description. Lord, what a body. He’d had to turn and face the back of the van during the ride over, because there was no way in hell he could look in her direction and keep his gaze from traveling southward.

Having her as his baby-sitter was both his salvation and his punishment. She was driving him mad, but at the same time, he didn’t want her to find a replacement.

Luckily she was having trouble finding anyone. She’d thought she’d found someone yesterday—a man named Simon Nealy—only to discover this morning that he had a police record. He’d served time for armed robbery. So long, Simon. Currently, Pastor Harlan’s teacher friend was her only hope. And he wasn’t due back in Grady Falls until June 26.

If Jed’s luck held, Kate would be stuck with him for another few weeks.

“Take a deep breath,” he told Jamaal, taking one himself and attempting to exorcise Kate from his mind as he exhaled. Kate and her demure little yellow-flowered, innocent-looking cotton pajamas that covered a body that was pure sin. Kate, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, looking sleepily up at him and innocently asking if he wanted to go back to bed…

“Now,” Jed told Jamaal, “open your eyes really slowly and … listen.”

As he opened his own eyes, Kate pulled Susie down with her, beneath the windows, out of sight.

The silence was complete, and very spooky. After only about thirty seconds, Jamaal shifted. “Listen to
what?
”

“Shhh.” Jed motioned the younger man to be silent.

Outside the cabin, nothing moved. There was no wind, no life to the oppressively hot South Carolina day. And there, in the dimness of that cabin, even the stony silence of all the years since emancipation couldn’t suppress the voices of the past. Generations of African American men, women, and children had lived in this building. They had lived in oppression, and they had lived in fear because their lives were not their own.

Jamaal was sitting with his head down, elbows on his knees, his hands locked behind his neck, staring at the dirt floor.

“God knows how many young men just like Moses lived in this very cabin,” Jed said softly. “God knows how many of them ran, and were caught and beaten to death. Moses is fictional, but they’re not. Even though there’s no record of them, they lived and they died.” He paused, listening again to the silence. “You know what amazes me the most?”

Jamaal shook his head, still staring down at the floor.

“They were born into this backward, fucked-up world, and they were told right from the first moment they could understand that this was the way things were. And you know that their mothers and fathers—out of love and fear—taught them to bow their heads and say ‘yes, master,’ because if you bowed your head, you wouldn’t be beaten. If you bowed your head, chances were, you wouldn’t be killed. But some of these little black boys and little black girls grew into men and women who took everything they’d been taught and threw it away. Because they knew in their hearts that it
was not right.
And somehow they could see past the oppression and fear, and
they could hope. They took that hope and that belief that slavery was wrong, and they sought to escape. And that’s Moses. Smart enough to see through the lies. Strong enough to stand tall despite the fear. So proud that he’d rather die than bow his head to another man. So full of hope.”

Jamaal looked up at him, understanding finally glistening in his eyes. “Shit.”

Jed nodded, meeting his gaze. “Yeah.”

Kate turned off the light and climbed into bed.

“I was wondering what happened to you in eighth grade …” Jericho’s warm voice slipped quietly through the darkness. “You never got around to telling me.”

Kate wanted to scream. She didn’t want to lie here in the dark, talking quietly with this man. She didn’t want this deceptive sense of intimacy.

She wanted to watch him act, and to cut his paychecks. Period, the end. She didn’t want him to smile at her, she didn’t want him to talk to her. She didn’t want to follow him around and supervise him.

And most of all, she didn’t want to feel him watching her, to know that he wanted more.

He wanted sex.

He’d said as much to her today at Brandall Hall.

And if she were the kind of woman who had casual relationships—well, then, she’d want it, too. But she wasn’t. At least not anymore.

But every now and then, like this morning when he’d brought Jamaal into the cabin and spoke so eloquently about slavery, like in the van when he’d told them the way his father had purposely scarred his face, like when he went in front of the camera and transformed himself into Laramie, like when he caught her eye and smiled—not one of his movie star smiles, but that little rueful lifting of
one side of his mouth … At those times, Kate caught herself watching him. And wanting him.

She didn’t want Jericho, she corrected herself. She wanted Laramie. And those were two very different things.

It was stupid to want him, no matter who he was pretending to be. Yes, he was sexy. There were few who disputed that. But Kate refused to want him simply because of the way he looked. She refused to be that shallow. She’d engaged in casual sex only one dreadful two-week period of her life, and it had been awful, terrible, miserable. She’d felt bad for months after. Years. She wasn’t going to do it again.

Especially not with a recovering alcoholic and substance abuser. True, Jed had been clean for more than five years, but he’d told her today that staying sober was painfully difficult. Who in their right mind would want to deal with
that
on an ongoing basis?

Add into the equation all that she’d learned about his childhood—his abusive, alcoholic father, and the fact that lying and stealing were not against his moral code. At least it hadn’t been when he was young.

And while she could certainly forgive Jed Beaumont for his “survival at all costs” mentality, and while she could even admire his determination and endurance, she would be insane to even consider starting a romantic relationship with him. Because he wasn’t Laramie. He wasn’t some fictional character who could be saved by the power of love.

So why was she lying here, thinking about him, dwelling upon the possibilities, and—God help her—considering giving in to the subtle sexual pressure he gave her simply by looking in her direction?

“Kate, are you awake?” he asked quietly.

She breathed slowly and steadily, praying that he’d think she was already asleep.

She heard him sigh, heard him start muttering to himself—tomorrow’s lines, she realized, recognizing a word here and there.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, he fell silent, the way he’d done every night, sleep coming instantly, as if someone had pulled his plug.

And then Kate lay in the darkness, listening to him breathe, tired to the bone and knowing that when she finally
did
fall asleep, a curious mix of Jed Beaumont and Virgil Laramie would haunt her dreams.

“I
’m sorry,
what
are you doing?”

Jed looked at Kate, who was standing in the doorway, and repeated himself. “I’m packing for my trip to Alabama.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, no …”

He zipped his overnight bag closed as he glanced up at her again. She was completely dismayed. “David’s fundraiser for the Center is tonight. I made arrangements to have tonight and tomorrow off, weeks before shooting started.”

Jed could tell from her face that she remembered. “But that was before Bob Hollander left. He was supposed to go with you. I’m sorry, Jericho, I can’t possibly leave the set.”

“I promised David I’d be there. I’m the guest of honor. Believe it or not, people are paying a hundred bucks a plate to eat dinner in the same room as me.”

She slumped against the door frame, covering her face with her hand. “Oh, God.”

Jed held his breath. He wanted her to come to Alabama with him. He was counting on it, in fact.

Of course the alternative—letting him go all by himself,
like the responsible grown-up that he was—would be nice. While it wouldn’t be as much fun, it would mean that she trusted him enough to let him go.

Since Bob Hollander had been fired, since Kate had been providing his supervision, 24/7, the daily urine tests had stopped. Maybe Kate figured there was no point to the tests, since the results had come up consistently clean. Or maybe she figured to cut back on lab costs, since she could see with her own eyes that he’d had no opportunity to obtain or ingest any chemical substances.

Or maybe—dare he believe—one tiny part of her was starting to trust him. It was funny. He was starting to want her trust almost as much as he wanted her to sleep with him.

Kate turned and went into the other room. He heard her pick up the phone, heard her dial. She made at least eight calls, but each time she hung up she was no closer to finding a replacement baby-sitter than before.

She came back down the hall, and Jed pretended to be engrossed with organizing his script, making sure he had the scenes they’d be filming upon his return—lines he was planning to review during the flight to Alabama. And for one sudden, nearly paralyzing moment, he didn’t want to look up at her. Because he knew he’d be able to tell with one look whether or not she trusted him to go by himself. And suddenly, it was
so
important that she trust him.

“Any luck?” he kept his voice light.

“No.”

“How about if I promise to be good?”

Kate sighed, and when he turned to face her, she looked as if she were going to cry. “I’d love to let you go by yourself.”

“But you can’t.”

“I’m sorry, Jed.” She was, that much was obvious.

So okay. Back to his original plan. She was going to have to come along. He may not have had Kate’s trust, but he was going to have
her
—tonight. “I can’t miss this,” he
told her, pulling out a little Laramie and adding it to the apology in his voice. “I’ve got to go.”

She took a deep breath. “What time’s the flight?”

“A little after three.”

She looked so miserable, Jed took his plan, and took Laramie and threw them both out the window. “Look, I was going to visit David for a few days,” he said, “but maybe we can make arrangements to fly back tonight—after the dinner. We can take a red-eye.”

Her face brightened. “You’d do that?”

He had to laugh. “No. I just thought I’d suggest it and then refuse—you know, to torment you.”

She laughed, too. And then she crossed the room and hugged him. “Thank you.”

A hug was the last thing Jed had expected, and he was caught completely off guard. She smelled sweet, her perfume so enticingly faint, he wanted to bury his face in her neck. And her body—with her soft breasts and firm stomach and thighs—was a completely perfect fit against his. Her hair was like silk against his cheek.

But she pulled away before he could capture her in his arms, before he could find his voice and beg her to stay right where she was for the next four years, before he could seek the softness of her mouth with his own.

She was blushing. “Sorry. That was inappropriate.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I mean, no—I mean …” Whoa. Slow down. Get a grip. It was only a hug. “We’re starting to be friends, so …” Christ, what was
that
supposed to mean?

Kate nodded as if she knew. “I’m glad you feel that way, too. I’ll call the airline.”

“The party’s formal. Do you have a dress?”

She gave him a look. “Do I have a dress? What kind of a question is that for a producer who raised millions of dollars through schmoozing?”

“A valid one.” His heart rate was finally returning to normal. “I didn’t bring my tux on this shoot—I figured
there wouldn’t be much occasion for black tie. David’s getting me a rental for tonight.”

“I have a dress,” she reassured him.