No Regrets (16 page)

“I categorically refuse to make this easy on you, Alex. After all we've been through, all we've shared, I'm not letting you off the hook that easy. If you want to break up with me, you're going to have to damn well say the words.”

“Break up with you?”

He'd always thought of her as the strongest, bravest, sexiest woman he'd ever met. Now, realizing how badly she needed comforting, he damned the artificial legs that were lying beside the bed, cursed the stumps that kept him from leaping out of bed and taking her into his arms.

“Isn't that what all this is about?” she asked.

“Hell, no. Actually, what I was trying to do, in my own admittedly clueless way, was to propose.”

“Propose?”

“As in, ask you to marry me.” He sighed, thinking of
how badly he'd screwed this up. Dan would laugh his fool head off if he knew what a fuck-up his dad was. “I was also going to ask you—beg you, if necessary—to stay here in California with me, but I realize now how important this new job offer is, so I was thinking, there's no reason we can't have one of those commuter marriages—”

“No.” She flung herself back onto the bed so hard the mattress bounced, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard.

“No?” he asked when the blissful kiss finally ended.

“No, I'm not going to New York. And yes, yes, yes, I'll marry you.”

She kissed him again. Harder, longer. And as the kisses deepened and the afternoon shadows grew longer, Alex decided that while he might have screwed up the actual proposal, there were some romantic things he did pretty damn well. If he did say so himself.

 

“You don't understand.” Tessa sighed as she refilled her champagne glass. It crossed her mind that she'd been drinking a bit too much lately. But who wouldn't? With all the stress she had in her life. “I don't have the money.”

Jason laughed at that. “Hell, baby, don't give me that.” He was lying on his back, floating in the pool. With his tanned, buffed-up body, Tessa thought he looked a lot more like a soap opera hunk than a cop. “You've got it made. A house in Beverly Hills—”

“On the flats, not in the Hills,” she pointed out. “And it's rented.”

“It's still a long way from that dive in West Hollywood. A shiny red Porsche sitting in the driveway—”

“Leased.”

“Dammit, Tessa, would you quit interrupting me.” Although the mirrored sunglasses kept her from seeing his eyes, from the warning edge to his tone, Tessa knew they'd be as hard as granite.

“I'm sorry.” She took another long drink and willed her nerves to calm.

She didn't need this. Not now. Not with the rumors circulating about Terrance Quinn being in Mexico, hidden away at some secret clinic in Guaymas, receiving an esoteric cure for liver cancer.

Although she'd worked in Hollywood long enough not to believe every rumor, she'd been worried for days that this story just might be true.
Terrific.
That's all she needed. Her agent dying just when it was time to renegotiate her contract.

“My point,” he said, “is that you're a supporting cast member in a top ten-rated sitcom. You're getting fifteen thou a week, baby. Even a dopehead wino like you can't spend all that.”

“I wish you wouldn't talk to me like that.”

She'd tried for a flash of fire and ended up sounding pitiful. Dammit, if they were going to argue like this, she'd have to take another Xanax. Besides, it wasn't true. She hardly ever drank while working. As for drugs, she managed to get along just fine without them during the week. It was on the weekends, or during the program's hiatus, that she'd get in trouble. What she needed, she told herself for the umpteenth time, was to get back to work.

So, where the hell was Terrance?

“Then quit holding out on me.” He rolled off the
float and came out of the pool to stand over her. Drops of water fell onto her hot oiled flesh. “You seem to be forgetting who made all this possible, sweetheart. If I hadn't discovered you that day on Sunset Boulevard and introduced you to Miles, you'd have ended up slinging hash at that Denny's where you were going to eat Christmas dinner. Or making porno movies for the mail-order video market.”

“I really don't have any money.” It was the truth. Her expenses were ridiculous. Not to mention the checks she kept writing out to him. She'd discovered early in their relationship that Jason was a gambler; unfortunately, he was a chronically unlucky one. “And I won't until I sign the new contract.”

“Then sign it.”

He made it sound so simple. “Terrance says it isn't in my best interest. He says I should hold out for a movie of the week to be part of the deal. He also says that their demand for approval on any commercial endorsement contracts—”

“Terrance says this. Terrance says that.” His acid tone mocked her concerns. “For your information, sweetheart, your agent is currently puking his guts out in Mexico. And not because of any Montezuma's revenge he might have picked up while deep-sea fishing. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to come back. Because it isn't going to happen.”

“You don't know that.”

“Believe me, I do. Don't forget, I've got contacts south of the border. And they tell me that Quinn's ticket on planet earth is about to get punched.”

Her head whirling with the horrible reality of her sit
uation, Tessa downed the rest of her champagne and rose unsteadily to her feet.

“Where do you think you're going? We're not finished here.”

“I have to pee.”

“You need a downer.”

She didn't deny it. “You don't understand, dammit—”

“Of course I do.” Even though she knew this sudden show of concern was an act, Tessa didn't resist as he gathered her into his strong arms. “I understand your career is at a crossroads right now, baby. I also understand that it's got to be scary, thinking about losing your agent.”

Tessa wrapped her arms around his waist. “I don't know what I'd do without Terrance,” she mumbled into his chest.

“We'll figure out something.” He ran his hand down her hair. “Meanwhile, since there's no way either one of us can come up with a cure for liver cancer in the next twenty-four hours, we may as well find something to take our mind off our problems.” His hand slid slowly, past her waist, cupped her bottom and lifted her against him.

“You always think sex is the answer to everything.”

“Not everything.” He leaned back and grinned down at her. “Did I happen to mention that I busted a guy selling coke at a dance club last night?”

Against her will, she felt that little trip of her heart. “I don't suppose you happened to miscount how many Baggies he had on him?”

His smile widened. “What do you think?”

“I shouldn't. Not with all the champagne I've drunk.”

“You haven't had that much.” His lips plucked at hers. “Come on, sweetheart. We'll get a little high, have some mind-blowing sex and in the morning everything will be coming up roses.”

Anything would be better than this constant arguing. If only Terrance were here.

But he wasn't. And if Jason was telling the truth—and about this, there was no reason to doubt him—he wouldn't be coming back. Tessa couldn't imagine what she was going to do without the man who'd so skillfully guided her career through the rough white water that was Hollywood dealmaking.

“Perhaps I should call Miles.” Miles had set her up with Terrance in the first place. Maybe he'd know what to do.

“You don't need to call my damn brother. When are you going to get it through that gorgeous red head that I'm all you need?”

Before she could respond, Jason had picked her up and was carrying her into the house. The very same house on which she owed two months' back rent.

There had to be an answer, Tessa assured herself. After all, she'd already had more than her share of luck. She was a successful actress. Her publicist had called last week to set up interviews with
ET
and
TV Guide,
and there was even talk of her making the cover as one of three upcoming stars of the future.

As Jason had pointed out, she lived in Beverly Hills and drove a Porsche. And not just any bottom-of-the-line model, either, but a Targa that screamed success. Okay, so they were both leased, but the majority of
wannabe actresses in town wouldn't even be able to afford a fraction of the payments.

Something would work out, she assured herself as Jason dropped her onto the bed. It always did.

 

“One day Coyote came across some otters playing a game of nanzoz,” Molly read to the children who'd gathered at her motor home. Today was inoculation day in Canyon de Chelly and now that all the shots had been given and tears dried, she was entertaining her young patients by reading from a book of Navajo legends. “He asked if he could play with them.”

“But the otters knew he was a rascal,” a little girl about Grace's age volunteered.

Molly rewarded her with a smile. “They certainly did, Helen. They told him to go away, but he begged and begged and finally they agreed to let him join the game. So long as he bet his skin, the way they did.”

“But when they lost their skins, they just jumped in the water and got new ones,” a little boy said.

“Exactly. And, of course, Coyote, who didn't know how to play the game nearly as well as the otters, lost his skin. But when he jumped in the water—”

“He didn't get a new skin,” the children shouted the familiar story line in unison.

“He jumped into the creek again and again, but his skin didn't come back,” Molly agreed. “Finally he was so exhausted, the otters took pity on him and pulled him out of the creek, dragged him to a badger hole, threw him in and covered him up with earth.

“Well, before he got into all this trouble, Coyote had had a beautiful smooth coat, just like the otters. But by
the time he dug his way out of that badger hole, he was covered with fur again, but it was a coarse, rough fur, like badger fur. And this is the coat Coyote has had to wear ever since.”

“Tell us about Coyote fighting the spiders and swallows,” Helen Redhouse said. “That's my favorite one.” Her smile lit up her dark face and her eyes, like polished brown stones, looked up at Molly with something bordering on adoration.

“I want to hear about Bear Woman,” a boy called out, prompting an argument as the various camps took up sides.

Molly glanced out the window, to where the sun was setting in the west behind them. Following Navajo tradition, she'd parked the motor home so her door faced the east, and the rising Father Sun.

“I think, if we don't waste time arguing, we just may have time for both before your parents have to take you home.”

Since the adults in question were enjoying themselves at the trading post, bartering, pawning, selling, buying and gossiping, Molly knew they would not mind her keeping their children a little longer.

The truth was, although she worked each day until she was exhausted, and had put thousands of miles on the motor home driving from outpost to outpost, she hadn't been able to entirely shake her depression. The only times she ever felt truly happy—and fulfilled—were times like now, when after a day's work, she was surrounded by children. Children she could pretend, for a brief time, were her own.

When the cheers settled down, she turned the page and began to read another of the beloved stories they all knew by heart.

 

“I feel like a damn fool.” Theo stood in front of the full-length mirror, staring grimly at her reflection.

“What on earth do you mean?” Lena asked.

“Surely you're not having doubts?” Molly asked at the same time, exchanging a concerned look with her sister.

“Not about marrying Alex.” Never about that. “It's just this getup.” Theo ran her hands down the front of the ivory lace jacket topping a chiffon tea-length skirt that swirled around her ankles.

“You look beautiful,” both sisters said in unison. The subsequent smiles they traded held none of the tension that had hovered between them for days.

“Like a blushing bride,” Molly tacked on.

“That's just the point. I've already been married—”

“Only for two weeks,” Lena pointed out. “Thirty years ago.”

“I never would have suspected George was gay,” Theo mused. “I mean, back in those days, they didn't have TV talk shows. I was so damn innocent, I figured I must be the only woman in the world to come home and discover her new groom makin' whoopie with the pool boy.”

“That must have been a shock,” Lena said sympathetically. Theo had told her the story two days ago over a long lunch.

“Well, you certainly don't have to worry about that with Alex,” Molly said.

“No.” To both sisters' amusement, Theo blushed like a girl at the thought of her fiancé's lovemaking. “That's for sure. But I still think I should have just worn my purple satin. Alex likes that one a lot.”

“The purple looks gorgeous on you. But this makes you look as if you stepped from the pages of a bride magazine,” Molly said.

“When you tried it on last night, Grace said you looked like a fairy queen,” Lena reminded her.

“Nah.” Theo turned this way and that, her frown softening as she studied the uncharacteristically feminine dress sprinkled with seed pearls. “George was queen of the fairies.”

As she laughed along with Molly and Lena, Theo began to feel more like herself again. Maybe it was a ridiculous dress for a woman in her fifties to wear. But dammit, she felt pretty. And for someone who'd worked overtime all her life striving for over-the-top glamour, she was discovering that pretty and feminine could feel nice, too.

“What about my hair?” She patted it nervously.