Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (26 page)

Webb had been part of a learning experience she had needed. When she saw him again, she would prove both to him and to herself that it hadn't meant anything.

They'd had an affair-so what? "Thanks, Webb darling, for showing me a lot about acting."

It was dark and four martinis later when they landed at a small airport.

Monterey in the summer was colder than she remembered it. But she had been a child then, spending summers with her bored, beautiful mother. It had ended abruptly with that one particular summer from which the Dream stemmed-her mother's death and her grandfather's stroke.

'Why can't you talk about it?" Dr. Haldane had asked gently. And she had cried out wildly, "Because I don't want to -I don't want to!"

She had been happy before, spending her summers by the ocean; hearing it roar like a friendly lion when she lay in her bed at night. Getting wet and dirty and covered with sand, and nobody minding or scolding. Going into Carmel for a shopping treat and ice cream at Swenson's on weekends, with Grandmother introducing her to her friends.

"This is little Anne. My granddaughter."

"Oh my! Isn't she just the image of her mother?"

Sand-summers, snow-winters.

"Must we stay here? I hate Deepwood. There's nothing to do! Why can't we live in California?"

"Because of your father, darling! He wants us here."

"But he never comes!"

Now she remembered her mother's sharp, impatient sigh and understood it. "His work keeps him busy. Will you stop pestering me, Anne?"

After that there had been the schools. Private, impersonal. And Deepwood, which she had hated even more.

"No questions yet, love!" That was Harris, helping her off the plane and a few moments later into his private helicopter. Sitting beside her, he squeezed her hand, and kept hold of it as they took off. She was beginning to feel drowsy by then, not really caring where he was taking her. Anne leaned her head against his shoulder and smelled his expensive cologne. He put his arm around her, and she felt his fingers caress her breast very lightly.

"Only a short while now," he murmured, and soon after she saw the lights of a small landing strip below them.

"Where are we?" The helicopter was descending now, almost too quickly. Anne felt entitled to her question after all the time of holding back. But Harris, smiling, only reminded her to fasten her seatbelt. "I'm bringing you home, Anne. Be patient just a little longer, love."

There was a comfortable covered pickup waiting there to take them even further, driven by a dark-featured, politely expressionless man. Far above, Anne could catch glimpses of stars pinpricking a dark sky, although as the narrow road wound lower, streamers of fog wreathed them. She was beginning to feel really tired, trying to bring herself back to a state of interested awareness for Harris's sake.

"Only a short while longer, Anne." His arm tightened around her shoulders, and then suddenly, as if for dramatic effect, the fog seemed to thin and open up like a cobweb curtain and she had the eeriest feeling of deja vu as the road dipped down, widening slightly, and they drove down what appeared to be an avenue of dark, twisted trees.

Monterey cypress and twisted oaks. And she was a child again, telling herself, "One more bend and we'll be there."

And there, just as it had stood so often in her dreams, the house waited for her with lighted windows, welcoming her back. And she must be dreaming-she had to be!

"Welcome home, Anne," Harris said softly at her side, his voice echoing her first jumbled thoughts. "You see, I wanted the first present I gave you to be a very special one."

The garage had been a carriage house once. The doors had hardly ever been left closed. But now the closed, thick wooden doors opened silently and automatically to let them in, and it was much larger than Anne remembered it. The only thing that was the same was the sound of the ocean in the sea caves beneath when the motor was shut off. Pulsing, pushing, rumbling with a frustrated growl of anger as the waves pulled back, only to start a fresh assault.

"But if there are caves, why can't I explore them?" "Because it would be quite dangerous. They're almost always full of water, in any case."

"But, Grandfather, didn't you explore down in there when you were a boy?" "That's neither here nor there, Anne! It's out of the questionl"

She had loved the ocean then-watching fascinated from her window high up when it stormed; trying to imagine herself on a sailing ship out there. All the men on her mother's side of the family had belonged to the sea, all of them had died in it or within sight and hearing of it. And her mother, too-only this wasn't the time to remember that, when she should be trying to thank Harris for his gift to her.

Whaler's Island-and long before that, Wrecker's Island. Really an almost-island squatting hump-backed in the ocean with only a narrow spit of land connecting it with the Big Sur coast. Her great-grandfather had had the bridge built so that they could cross over safely even when the tides were at their highest.

"My grandfather used to be a naval captain. And his grand-father was a whaler.

That's when he first saw the island. Actually, they used to shine lights off the headland, long ago, to lure in ships ... Anyway, he was a smart man, and I think he dabbled in smuggling, although Grandfather never would admit that to me. His ship anchored off the shore one day, and eventually he married the daughter of the Spaniard whose land grant included this island-and quite a bit of the land inland, as well, stretching all the way to the mountains. I used to think that someday I would write a book about the family .. ." Anne broke off, suddenly aware that she was talking too much, probably from sheer nervousness.

Harris was watching her with an indulgent smile, his eyes unusually bright under the enormous crystal chandelier.

She could feel herself flush with embarrassment. "Harris! I can't imagine how you found out-and managed to buy it! And as for calling this a present, just as if it were aa box of candy, I don't know that I can .. ."

"I can afford my whims, Anne. And it seemed right. A magnificent coincidence that this place should be on the market just when I was looking for coastal property. It's perfect -don't you see that? And by rights, it should belong to you. Do you remember when I once talked to you about families, old families, and their roots in the land?

Houses like this one are part of our roots. They carry a sense of continuity from generation to generation."

She shook her head, still dazed. "Oh, Harris! This is-I still can't grasp it all. And to buy a place like this can hardly be called a 'whim,' you know! I'm still in a state of shock, but I couldn't possibly .. ."

He leaned across the table, his hand touching hers where it lay clenched on the linen tablecloth. "The deed is made out in your name, Anne. And you have to admit that this would be an ideal location for shooting most of the movie! Apart from that, there are no strings attached, my love. This is your home, as it always should have been."

He smiled at her. "And now, while we're having our coffee, why don't you tell me more about your great-grandfather?"

Just when she thought she was beginning to understand Harris Phelps, she didn't understand him at all! Anne felt tangled up in the web of her own confused emotions, and it felt easier for her to talk, exorcising some of her memories that way.

"My great-grandfather was a bit of a scoundrel, I suppose. But my grandfather .. ."

He'd left a trust. She could understand, of course, why her grandmother had sold the land, not wanting to be alone with painful memories. She had turned suddenly frail and old. Why keep it? Not for Anne, who was still a child, with a father who had more than enough money of his own. She had died within a year of selling it.

And then, not too many years ago, there had been pictures in one of the glossy magazines. Yes, that was it. Anne could remember the wrench in her stomach when she saw the pictures and read the article that accompanied them. Danny Verrano, the singer, owned the island now. He was the kind of man who was always surrounded by sycophants-and a lot of women. And yet, he needed his private retreat. There had been innuendos about wild, week-long parties in the carefully guarded seclusion that this particular place provided. He'd built a draw-bridge over the natural moat that the ocean provided on the land side. It was the kind of colorful, flamboyant thing Verrano would do. And no doubt he and his friends had used the private beach, too-the water was always aquamarine, studded with rocks so that it wasn't safe for boats to come in too close. But the beach was part of the past that Anne didn't want to remember.

As if he'd sensed the dark direction of her thoughts and wanted to lead them forward again, Harris began to talk casually of his plans.

"You might want to change the decor, Anne. Poor Danny had deplorable taste."

Poor Danny had also developed a drinking problem; especially after his records had stopped selling. He had been relieved to find a buyer for what had become a white elephant.

But Harris had already dismissed Danny Verrano as he went on thoughtfully: "I suppose it'll have to do for the moment, though. At least he had the forethought to build guests chalets, and he did convert one of the tower rooms into a screening room. That's going to prove very useful to us. Yves and Jerry can do all their editing right here, instead of having to fly the film to the studio in Los Angeles." He smiled at her, inviting her to share his satisfaction. "It's perfect, Anne! Plenty of room to accommodate everybody-and we can be perfectly self-contained while we're out here shooting. We can bring supplies in by helicopter, and it'll be no problem keeping out the inquisitive public-and the kind of reporters we don't want."

God, she felt tired! And sleepy. Tonight, for sure, she wouldn't need a Valium to put her under. But for Harris's sake, Anne tried to put on a bright-eyed front as she took very tiny sips of her after-dinner Courvoisier.

Harris was telling her of his plans for the next week-a time for relaxation and acclimatization, as he put it. And for entertaining a few very select guests. Important people-and people who had put money into the movie. James Markham, an Arab emir with an unpronounceable name who happened to be Karim's uncle, and Dr.

Harold Brightman, who had written the best-selling Relaxation and Meditation, a book that Dr. Haldane had recommended she read.

"Oh-we're going to have our own resident guru?"

Harris laughed. "Very perceptive, Anne! Yes. Nerves tend to get frazzled in this business, you know. And especially since we'll all be more or less isolated here together for a while, we're bound to have personality clashes-all kinds of petty problems. Brightman's writing another book, and in return for his being allowed to gather material for it, he's agreed to be our company doctor-more or less!"

Harris continued to talk until his silent, well-trained servants had cleared the table; after that, he took her upstairs. To her old room-it was almost uncanny, how he had picked it out. And although his own room connected with hers, he had been considerate enough to allow her a lock on her side of the door.

"If you want to be alone tonight, love, I'll understand ..." Sometimes a demon inside her wished that Harris wasn't quite so understanding. Why couldn't it have been Harris, instead of Webb, who made the lights come on for her and could take her, even if against her will, past the point of caring or even thinking?

"I'm so tired! And I don't think I've really taken all this in yet . . ." No sooner had the words come out than she almost wished Harris would stay-his closeness keeping all the unwanted thoughts and memories away. When he left her alone, her nightly routine of brushing her teeth, creaming off her makeup, and changing into her nightgown armed her against the rest of the night.

Lying in bed at last, Anne heard the distant roaring of the waves breaking against the cliffs and sucking the sandy beach, and knew how the ocean would look through her window in the morning. Its constant, unchanged murmuring had always been a comfortable, familiar sound when she was safely shut .behind thick stone walls.

This was the old part of the house-what she had always thought of as the Spanish part. Amos Mallory had added on to it later, building upwards and outwards until the original estancia was almost a castle. Too many rooms, too many layers. Like her own self-empty on the inside and veneered on the outside.

But at least Amos had left untouched, the central courtyard around which the house had been built, and she would be able to see it again tomorrow. Sunbathe there if the sun showed itself, undisturbed by the winds that usually blew whether the day was sunny or not. And she wouldn't let herself think beyond that for now. Let tomorrow look after itself.

Turning over onto her stomach, Anne pulled the covers up over her head, just as she had been used to doing long ago. Maybe it would be a nice day tomorrow ...

"TODAY, THERE'LL BE LOW COASTAL FOG, clearing inland, by afternoon. The temperature .. ."

With a muttered expletive, Webb Carnahan turned off the radio, switching to sweet music stored up in a tiny cassette. Nothing but music; no announcer's voice cutting into sound. Stanley Turretine's "Salt Song." And at least it was sunny and hot in San Jose. Hell with coastal fog-he wasn't there yet.

The white Ferrari, top down, cut through slowpoking traffic, drawing envious looks.

Especially from women.

"I swear it was him! Webb Carnahan! Oh God, is he ever beautiful! Even better-looking than his pictures. And he looked at me!"

Following Highway 101, Webb kept his attention on the traffic, which was murder-as usual on a Friday afternoon. Two-lane stretch right here, and too many stoplights to switch her onto Cruise Control. He didn't need to be held up getting a ticket. Take it easy ... The motor, all that wasted power under the hood, purred impatiently. And he remembered how he'd made it from Pebble Beach to San Francisco in under two hours in the old days before the fifty-five-mile speed limit. Staying with David Black and his wife until Meg, who was now David's ex-wife, had developed a crush on him, and showed it too obviously. Meg-basic bitch. One of the few women he'd been attracted to and hadn't had. Which was maybe one of the reasons why he and David were still friends. He'd been a guest on David's talk show before he'd left for Europe.