Reilly's Return (2 page)

“That’s right,” Faith said. “We’d all move to Anastasia.”

“And live happily ever after.” Alaina’s tone lacked the sarcasm she had no doubt intended. She sounded wistful instead.

“Even if we never end up there, it’s a nice dream,” Jayne said softly.

A nice dream. Something to hang on to, like their memories of Notre Dame and each other. Warm, golden images they could hold in a secret place in their hearts to be taken out from time to time when they were feeling lonely or blue.

Jayne reached up to dab a hankie at the tears
that clung to her eyelashes. The memories weren’t enough to ease her heart now, and she hadn’t even left her friends behind yet. How was she ever going to make it without them? They were her anchors, her rocks, her shoulders to cry on. How could she ever find true happiness without them?

Bryan set the timer on the camera once again then jogged around to stand behind Faith. “Who knows?” he said. “Life is full of crossroads. You can never tell where a path might lead to.”

And the camera buzzed and clicked, capturing the Fearsome Foursome—wishful smiles canting their mouths, dreams of the future and tears of parting shining in their eyes as a rainbow arched in the sky behind them—on film for all time.

R
EILLY WAS GOING
to show up sooner or later. It was fate, destiny, an ominous portent that had appeared in her morning horoscope. She could feel it in the bottom of her belly, that deep, hollow sense of impending doom. She could feel it in the weight of the antique gold bracelet that circled her left wrist with tingling warmth. That was a sure sign.

It wasn’t going to matter a bit that she had left Hollywood and moved up the coast to Anastasia—hundreds of miles away from Tinsel Town in more ways than just distance. The year of waiting was over, and he was going to find her.

Jayne Jordan abandoned the wall she’d been washing, dropping her sponge in the metal bucket full of soapy water that sat beside her. Tucking her feet beneath her, she took a deep breath and
squeezed her eyes shut as if preparing to dunk her head under water. Heedless of the fact that she was sitting on a scaffolding eight feet above the floor of the stage, she released the air from her lungs and willed herself to relax. Strains of a Mozart serenade floated through her mind as she attempted to banish the sense of dread from her body. Unfortunately, the sweet joyous notes that had poured unblemished from the composer’s soul did nothing to erase the image of Pat Reilly from her mind.

She could see him clearly. His image was indelibly etched on her memory. Those breathtaking sky-blue eyes, pale and opalescent, staring out at her from beneath straight dark gold brows; eyes set in a face that was ruggedly masculine. She could feel the intensity of those eyes penetrating her aura, burning through her veneer of restraint and searing her basic feminine core.

It had been that way from their first meeting, and she had cursed both him and herself for it. It had been that way at their last meeting, and it would be that way again, once he found her. And he
would
find her. Pat Reilly was many things, not all of them admirable, but he was nothing if not a man of his word.

Jayne could still feel the mist on her face. She could see the green of the hills and the gray of her
husband’s headstone and Reilly as he’d stood before her with the collar of his leather jacket turned up against the wind. She could still taste his kiss, the only kiss they had ever shared, a kiss full of compassion and passion, wanting and guilt, sweetness and hunger. And she could hear his voice—that low, velvety baritone with the Australian lilt that never faded, vowing that in a year’s time he would return to her. When they both had had a chance to lay Joseph MacGregor’s ghost to rest, he would be back.

The year was up.

Jayne sucked in another deep breath as a wave of panic crashed over her. In a valiant effort to fight off the feelings and the memories, she pinched her thumbs and forefingers together to make two circles, held her hands out before her, and began chanting. “Oooommm … oooommm … oooommm …”

The community theater was empty for the moment. Because she hadn’t been able to sleep, Jayne had shown up at the crack of dawn to begin cleaning up the building that had stood unused for the past six years. But it wouldn’t have mattered if there had been a hundred people present. She would have gone right on chanting had her entire staff of volunteers been gathered around. When a person needed to meditate, a person needed to meditate. It wasn’t good for a body to block out its spiritual needs.

“Oooommm … oooommm … oooommm …”

She scrunched her eyebrows together in an expression of absolute concentration and oooommmed for all she was worth, but it didn’t do a darn bit of good. In the theater of her mind the memories played out, undaunted, in all their Technicolor glory. Memories of Reilly proved to be as stubborn as the man himself.

The theater was dark and dank, an unpleasant contrast to the sunny spring morning outside. Pat Reilly ignored the atmosphere. His mind was on more important things than the musty state of the auditorium. He ignored the clutter of junk that had been piled haphazardly backstage, stepping over and around the stuff when necessary, but barely sparing it a glance.

He had followed Jayne Jordan’s trail to Anastasia, wondering how long it would take actually to track her down once he got there. But luck had been with him. Driving into the picture postcard coastal village, he had spotted her car—a vintage red convertible MG—slanted drunkenly into a parking spot on a side street with one chrome-spoked wheel on the curb.

If he’d had any doubts about the vehicle being
hers—and he hadn’t because only Jayne would desecrate the beauty of an antique car with a Save Catalina’s Wild Goats bumper sticker—the building the car was parked beside would have settled the question. The marquee was missing several letters, making the building look like an old crone whose teeth were dropping out one by one, but there was enough of the words left so they were understandable. It was the Anastasia Community Theater—a fitting place to find the woman he was looking for.

Now he wound his way through the rubble to the stage proper, following a weird chanting sound. That would be Jayne, he thought, a wry grin tugging at his mouth. The glue beneath the false beard he wore pulled at his skin and he winced. Damn, he probably should have taken five minutes to peel off the disguise. It was his fans he was trying to hide from, not Jayne.

He’d done enough hiding from Jayne and his attraction to her. The time had come for both of them to face facts. Mac was dead and there was nothing standing in their way. It was time to face this damnable attraction that had burned between them from the first time they’d laid eyes on each other, this attraction both of them had denied and cursed and fought against. She had been his best friend’s bride, and Lord knew Pat Reilly would sooner have died
than betray a mate. But Mac was gone now. A year had passed since they’d laid him to rest. And there was no reason for the living to go on feeling guilty.

He stopped in the wings, stage left, his booted feet spread slightly. He jammed his big hands at the waist of his well-worn jeans and shook his head as he got his first look at the woman he had come there to find.

Jayne sat atop a rickety-looking scaffolding, her legs twisted into a impossible pretzel design that probably had something to do with yoga or some equally mystical malarkey. She was just as he remembered her: pretty in a way that had nothing to do with cosmetics or fashion. Especially not fashion. Jayne’s outfits would have made any other woman look like a refugee from Goodwill. This morning she wore gray thermal underwear bottoms, a purple T-shirt, and a man’s gray plaid sport coat that swallowed up her petite frame.

Still, she looked damned appealing to Reilly, proving that hers was an inner beauty that was enhanced by delicate features and eyes like huge pools of obsidian. Her hair was spread around her shoulders in a dark auburn cloud that was nearly black in this light and so wild, Reilly would have bet she couldn’t get a comb through it to save her life. But it was soft and silky. He knew because
he’d once buried his hands in it. He’d dreamed of it nearly every night since; every night for a year.

“Oooommm … oooommm …” she chanted, her face a study in concentration as Reilly moved closer.

She had a beautifully sculpted mouth. It was wide and expressive with full, ripe lips. Painted a lush shade of mulberry, those lips curved seductively around the
O
sound she made and closed softly on the
M
. Reilly’s skin warmed and his mouth went dry as he stared. He could remember exactly the texture and taste of those lips, though he’d sampled them only once, and he had certainly kissed a dozen women since. It was Jayne’s taste that lingered on his tongue, sweet and sad and frightened, full of longing and guilt and loneliness. He had craved that taste as if it had been wine. Its memory had haunted him just as the memory of her sweet Kentucky drawl had haunted him.

Memories of Jayne had haunted him more than memories of Mac had, but the thing that had haunted him most was guilt. Now that he saw her, he was all through feeling guilty.

Dang it all, Jayne grumbled inwardly, this wasn’t working at all. She was supposed to be relaxing and
finding inner peace, centering her being with the cosmos, forgetting about Reilly. Ha! If anything, her premonition about him was growing even stronger. Her bracelet was like an anchor fastened around her wrist, heavy with warning. Why, it was as if he were in the same room with her! It was as if those incredible fluorescent blue eyes of his were boring into her, burning away her sense of self.

If he ever did show up, she was going to be in big trouble. She’d known from the first he was more man than she wanted to handle. Reilly radiated an aura of masculinity that was enough to make a woman swoon. It was no wonder he’d rocketed to superstardom despite the awful films he’d made. There was just something about him, an inner power, an animal magnetism so strong, it no doubt made compasses go haywire. The hairs on her arms were standing on end just thinking about it.

“Don’t think about it,” she mumbled, breaking in on one mantra with another. “Don’t think about it.”

Movement. Maybe movement was what she needed to bring her being into proper alignment. She chanted with renewed vigor and volume. She stretched her arms above her head and swung them in a circle, smacking her hand into the side of the bucket full of dirty wash water, knocking it over the edge of the platform she sat on.

The metal bucket managed to hit Reilly a glancing blow off the side of his head before much of the water had sloshed out of it. He dropped to the stage floor like a ton of bricks, his breath leaving him in an unceremonious “Ooof!”

Jayne’s eyes snapped open and rounded like saucers at the sound. She stared in horror at the man sprawled below her, face down in a puddle of water.

“Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed. She scrambled down from her perch just as Faith and Alaina found their way to the stage from the side door.

“Jayne! What did you do to that poor man?” Faith asked, rushing forward.

“It was an accident!” Jayne wailed. She circled the prone figure warily and nibbled at her thumbnail. “What if I’ve killed him? I was struggling to achieve a sense of spiritual well-being through abstract meditation. It hardly seems right that an innocent bystander should die because of it. Unless, of course, that was his karma,” she added on a hopeful note.

Alaina Montgomery-Harrison blew up into her chestnut bangs and planted her elegantly manicured hands at the waist of her brown trousers as she stared at the body. “I hope you’re insured. This guy could sue your butt off.”

“Spoken with all the compassion of an attorney,”
Jayne scolded, winding her hands into the bottom of her purple T-shirt.

“Sorry, but all my compassion went down the john this morning with my breakfast,” Alaina grumbled, slumping down to sit on an overturned crate, careful not to get her alligator wingtips in the dirty water.

Faith kneeled down beside the man on the floor and pressed two fingers to his throat. Her shoulders dropping in relief, she rocked back on the heels of her canvas sneakers and dragged a hand back through her mop of red-gold curls. “I think he’s just knocked out.”

“Thank heaven,” Jayne said, joining her friend on the floor. Her hands were shaking as she tried to push her hair back behind her ears. She hooked the fingers of her right hand beneath her bracelet and slid it around and around her wrist, hoping for a stronger sign of what this all meant, but her source had gone abruptly silent. That in itself seemed a very bad sign. “Do you think I should call an ambulance?”

The man moaned and stirred a bit, his movement rippling the surface of the dirty puddle around him.

“Looks like he’s coming around,” Alaina commented. “Now, Jayne, whatever you do,
don’t
apologize. It’s as good as an admission of guilt.
He’ll take you for every nickel you’ve got, and then you won’t be able to afford to pay my fee for representing you.”

Jayne shot her a look of disgust. Alaina in her normal state was business-minded. Alaina in her newly pregnant state was a shark, a virago, a tigress.

“Ooohhh …,” the man moaned.

Jayne pressed her fingers to her pale cheeks and moaned along with him. “Ooohhh … I’m so sorry, mister! I didn’t mean to crack your skull with that bucket! I’m
so
sorry!”

Alaina rolled her eyes and muttered an expletive.

Jayne leaned down closer to get a better look at her victim. He seemed vaguely, disturbingly familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. She had the distinct feeling she might have known him if his hair had been lighter or if he hadn’t had a beard. And there was something about his nose that looked very strange, almost as if it wasn’t real.

“Cripes, Jayne, what was in that bucket, battery acid?” Alaina questioned. “This guy’s face is coming off.”

“What?!”

“She’s right,” Faith said, frowning. She pulled a packet of baby wipes out of her purse and yanked out half a dozen, which she applied gingerly to the man’s face. “I think he’s wearing makeup.”