Heartthrob (41 page)

As he spoke the words, Jed knew
he
was the jackass. He’d known all along what Kate wanted. She wanted Jed Beaumont. Not Jericho. Not Laramie. Just Jed.

McCoy started toward Jamaal and Susie, and as Jed watched, Susie moved protectively in front of Jamaal. But then Jamaal moved in front of Susie.

“I’m going to take your daughter to dinner tonight,” Jamaal told McCoy. He was standing there, almost entirely naked, but completely in command.

McCoy nodded, a jerky movement with his head. “You touch her, and I’ll kill you.”

Jamaal nodded, too. “
You
touch her, and I’ll kill
you.
”

Russell McCoy looked at his daughter. “I love you enough to pray this won’t last.”

Jed shook his head. It wasn’t perfect, but it certainly was a start.

K
ate tried to back away, but Jed had already seen her.

He’d been talking to Russell McCoy, and it looked as if—miraculous as it might seem—he’d negotiated some sort of peace treaty between McCoy, Susie, and Jamaal. In fact, Susie looked happier than she had in weeks.

As Jed came toward her, Kate flipped nervously through the papers on her clipboard. God, she’d almost foigotten how impossibly good-looking he was, even dressed as the drunken Laramie, with his hair dull and matted, with three-day-old stubble on his face.

“Hey,” he said with one of his rueful half smiles. “It’s me. I’m here. How was Boston?”

“One of my stores burned down.”

“Oh, hell, I didn’t realize that. I hope no one was hurt.”

Kate shook her head. “One of the firefighters suffered smoke inhalation, but she’s going to be okay.”

“I missed you,” Jed said. He swallowed, as if he were nervous. Jed nervous? It didn’t seem possible. But his eyes looked … scared. He couldn’t seem to look directly at her.

Kate looked across the set. “I think Victor’s ready for you. You better … Go.” She glanced at him and forced a smile.

“This is, um …” Jed swallowed again. “This is a particularly tough scene for me.” He laughed, but it didn’t quite touch his eyes. “I’ve been dreading it for the past few weeks.” He drew in a deep breath. “It’s just a series of close-ups, I know, but well,
you
know what Laramie’s feeling here, right? It’s some pretty intense stuff. He’s coming face-to-face with his despair—the same despair he drinks to avoid. Suddenly it’s all right there, this hopelessness, right in his face, unavoidable and …” He actually had tears in his eyes. “Christ, look at me. I’m already scared to death because, you know, I’ve got all this stuff of my own, about … about David and everything, stuff I’ve been working overtime to keep from coming face-to-face with.”

Kate could barely breathe. Jed had just told her he was afraid. He’d just been honest with her, admitting he’d been avoiding all of the emotions he’d felt when David died.

“If I …” He paused, moistening his lips nervously. “If I, like, lose it, will you, um … will you help me?”

“Of course I will,” she whispered.

“I mean, I know I can do it on my own. It’s not like I’m going to self-destruct or something if you’re not there to save the day, but—”

“I’m here.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks.” He actually managed to hold her gaze for three seconds before turning and walking away.

I’m here.

He’d said that to her as he’d approached.
It’s me. I’m here.

Kate exhaled swiftly, making a sound that was almost a laugh.
It’s me. I’m here.

She’d just been talking to the real Jed Beaumont. The
one who’d gone into deep hiding upon David’s death. The one she’d thought she’d never really known.

But she did know him. She knew him well.

He’d held her in his arms the night she’d had the spiked iced tea. He’d held her in his arms plenty of times since then, too, as they made love, and then talked long into the night. He’d fixed her salad, and had helped her run errands. He’d met her gaze across the crowd at the Grill, telling her with just one crooked smile that paradise was waiting back in his trailer.

He’d also come into the conference room; told her he loved her, and that he didn’t want their relationship to end when this movie finished production.

And she’d sent him away.

Victor called action on the set, and in the dusty clearing in front of the town hall, where the slaves were being auctioned, the camera tracked Jed as he moved with the deliberate care of a slightly inebriated man.

Kate moved to the video monitor. There was a video camera that taped all they were getting on film, so that Victor and the actors could immediately see how each scene looked.

As the camera moved in closer and closer on Jed’s face, he looked up at Moses, standing there in chains. He stumbled, falling to his knees, and the camera followed him down.

Kate could see revulsion cross Laramie’s face, his shame at being part of a society that catered to such barbaric practices. Then she could see recognition. This wasn’t just any slave. This was Moses. Then came bleakness. His own realization that he was as bound to sorrow—deep,
deep
sorrow—and the whiskey that numbed it, as Moses was bound by his chains.

He told all that to the camera without saying a single word.

Tears brimmed in his eyes, and Victor called to cut.

The crew efficiently brought the camera back to the starting point, but Jed didn’t move. He knelt in the dust, his head bowed.

Kate moved toward him, but Victor got there first. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to do that any better, but I know how you like to take at least two or three takes, so if you want to, we’re set to go again. Unless you want to take a break?”

Jed looked up, looked over at Kate, and gave her one of his heartbreakingly poignant half smiles. “I think I’m …” He nodded, his voice completely matter-of-fact. “Yeah, I’m, um, I’m going to throw up now.”

Kate grabbed him, and hauled him to his feet. “Town hall basement,” she told him, and he ran toward the brick building, taking the stairs down three at a time. The door to the men’s room was swinging when Kate got there, and she stood for several long moments outside of it.

“Jed?” She pushed the door open and peeked inside.

He was sitting on the floor inside one of the stalls.

She knelt next to him. “Should I get a car and drive you home?”

He pushed his hair up and out of his eyes. His hand was shaking, and his face was gray. “It’s not much like a home without you there.”

“I’ll stay with you for a while,” she said quietly.

“Will you …” He had to start over. “Will you stay longer than awhile if tell you that I feel …” His eyes filled with tears, and he squeezed his eyes shut, resting his head back against the metal walls of the stall. “I feel really,
really
angry that David’s dead.”

Kate’s heart was in her throat. “It’s okay to be angry.”

One tear and then another escaped from beneath his eyelashes. “No,” he said, quietly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it’s not okay.”

“What’s
not
okay is to hold it inside the way you do.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “My father killed
my mother,” he said with almost no inflection in his voice. “He got drunk, and he got angry and he hit her, and then she was dead.”

Kate put her arms around him. “Oh, Jed, you’re not like him.”

He held her tightly. “David used to say that, too. Oh, God, I don’t want him to be dead.”

He was crying. He was finally crying.

Kate sat in the men’s room, just holding him, and crying, too.

Kate was still in the trailer when Jed got out of the shower.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this tired. This drained.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let himself cry when he wasn’t in front of a camera.

She’d had dinner sent over from the Grill, and it was out on the table. “Are you hungry?”

He sat on the couch. “No, I’m … too nervous to be hungry.”

“Nervous?”

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to ask you to spend the night.”

She sat down across from him.

“I’m figuring my best bet would be to use a blunt, honest approach. The truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Kate nodded. “I’m fond of the truth.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath and exhaled quickly. “Here’s the truth. I’ve got a lot of crap to work out here,” he told her. “I’m probably going to need to be in therapy until the day I die. I’m never going to be very good at just … talking about how I feel. Most of the time I don’t even know how the hell I feel. But I know when I’m with you, I actually like myself. For the first time in my life, I don’t have to pretend to be someone else.”

She was quiet, just watching him.

So he kept going. The truth. “I want to work with you again, Kate. I want to be part of your next project. I don’t even care what it is. Hell, I’ll go to Boston and stock your store’s shelves with paper clips as long as you’re working next to me. I want you around, 24/7—except this time I’m thinking twenty-four hours a day, seven
decades.
See, I figured the best way to ask you to spend the night might be to go big, and ask you to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“Jed—”

He shook his head. “Better let me finish, because there’s more truth you need to hear.” He looked her straight in the eye and gave her Jed Beaumont, no trimmings, no frills. “I know I’m not the easiest person in the world to live with. And I can’t guarantee that I won’t slip back into any old bad habits. I know you still don’t really trust me, but I don’t resent that. Really. I don’t blame you—I’m okay with it. I’ll just keep on working to reestablish myself as someone worthy of your trust. I’m going to join AA again—really go for it, stick with it. David wanted me to get back into it. It’s a present I’ve decided to give myself, in his name.

“Meanwhile, I’ll keep trying to be honest with you and tell you how I feel. But the truth is, there’s really only one promise that I can make you, and it’s that I’ll love you forever.”

Kate was silent.

“So, okay,” Jed said. “Maybe it’s not such a good deal for you and—”

“Are you going to ask me to stay? Because if you ask me, I’ll give you an answer.”

“Will you—”

“Yes.”

“—marry me?”

From across the trailer, Kate smiled at him. “Definitely, yes,” she whispered again.

He smiled, too, feeling his eyes fill with tears. He kissed her, and for the first time since he could remember, he didn’t try to contain and stifle everything he was feeling. Terror. He was definitely feeling terror. But it was joyful terror, like having the best party of his life while teetering at the edge of a cliff.

“I love you, Jed Beaumont,” Kate whispered, and he knew at the moment that that cliff was nothing to fear. Because with Kate in his arms, he could fly.

Jamaal stood behind the camera and watched as Jericho and Susie filmed the very last scene in the movie. Laramie was saying good-bye to Jane—ready to take Moses, now a free man, north to Boston.

Jamaal wasn’t in this scene. He had wrapped earlier this morning and had been officially released. His suitcase was packed, and his plane ticket to New York was in his pocket. One of the gofers was ready to take him to the airport, but there was still a little time before he absolutely had to leave.

And he hadn’t said good-bye to Susie yet.

She and Jericho had about four more days of work. Jamaal would’ve loved to stick around and just watch, because, damn, they were good.

And the last thing he wanted to do was walk away from Susie now that her father had finally taken the first steps toward being human again.

The man was a tyrant to start with, but he’d truly loved his wife. And when she’d left him, he’d crumbled. He’d started drinking heavily. And he’d become even harsher and more cruel in his dealings with his daughter.

But he was ready to change. He’d taken a big step by agreeing to go into counseling just last night.

No, Jamaal didn’t want to leave. But he had to.

His agent had set up a meeting in New York with a director who was interested in casting him in a suspense
drama about a medical student who uncovered some funky goings-on at a teaching hospital. It was a good part. Susie had thought so, too. It was, she’d pointed out, a part that had nothing to do with the color of his skin.

He’d had dinner with her last night, just as he’d told the Pit Bull he would. It had been amazing to sit there in the light, to not have to sneak around and hide.

They’d gone for a walk afterward, and he’d talked nonstop the entire time—because he knew if he stopped talking, he’d kiss the girl. And he was scared to death that once he started kissing her, he’d completely lose control. And if
that
happened, he didn’t doubt for a single moment that Russell would come after him with a shotgun.

But now he knew that if he didn’t get a chance to kiss her good-bye, he’d be cursing himself for being a fool for the rest of his life.

As the camera rolled, Jericho picked up a duffle bag and swung it over his shoulder. “Promise me,” he said to Susie—to
Jane.
“No taking in any runaways while I’m gone.”