The Spiral Path (26 page)

Swearing silently, he slipped from the
bed. Exhausted by days of grueling work, she didn't stir. He wondered how long
it would be until she regretted succumbing to their mutual craziness. Probably
about half a second after she woke up.

He pulled on his jeans and shirt and
left the bedroom, crossing the living room to go out onto the balcony. Sharply
cold night air on bare skin dispelled the physical languor of lovemaking. He
braced his hands on the railing, wondering why the devil he'd let them end up
in bed.

Because he had no willpower where Rainey
was concerned, which was the underlying reason for letting their marriage end.
Tonight's intimacy would rip open the wounds of separation all over again. Even
so, he couldn't make himself regret what had happened. For a brief spell, he'd
been ... happy.

He'd even been weak enough to wonder
what Rainey would do if he begged for forgiveness and another chance. Probably
she'd say no, but the chance that she might be willing was dangerously tempting.

Luckily sanity returned when his blood
cooled. Sex, no matter how great, changed nothing, except maybe to make matters
worse. They were still bound for divorce, still facing weeks of painful
proximity. Working together had been hard when the barriers were firmly in
place between them. Now the treacherous, illogical part of his brain would want
to be with her all the time even though tonight's lapse was an unplanned
aberration.

He wrapped his arms around himself,
shivering from the cold. Maybe he should blame John Randall, whose helpless
longing for Sarah had oozed into Kenzie's brain and emotions. Yes, he'd blame
Randall--if they'd been rehearsing a different story, he wouldn't have lost his
control so disastrously.

Uneasily he wondered where Randall would
take him next.

They'd
been working on different continents for a month, with Kenzie in Greece and
Rainey in California. Even daily phone calls didn't ease the bitter ache of
separation. It would be at least another couple of weeks until they could see
each other again, and she thought there was a very real chance that she'd
perish from longing. Not for sex, even though every night brought scorching
dreams, but because she missed the emotional intimacy. The knowledge that
Kenzie understood and accepted, and was always on her side. She supposed that
kind of closeness was why the institution of marriage survived.

If she hadn't wanted him so much, she
wouldn't have blurted out what should have been said face-to-face, and only
when and if the right moment arrived. During one of their daily phone calls,
she said, "Maybe it's time to have a baby--I could keep it around for
company when we're working at opposite ends of the world. Maybe two babies, so
we could each take one on location."

The silence was palpable even across
thousands of miles. They'd never discussed children, and now she knew why--her
instincts had tried to warn her that the subject would be a source of conflict.
She was about to start babbling to fill the blankness when he said, "An
interesting thought, but cats housebreak much more easily."

Though they'd never had a real fight,
his tone put a wall between them more frightening than an argument. "I was
just kidding, Kenzie. Kids have their points, but they don't make really good
pets."

More silence. "You wouldn't have
mentioned a baby unless the subject was on your mind. It's perfectly reasonable
to want children. Most people seem to."

Before she could reply, a knock sounded
on the door of her trailer, followed by the director's personal assistant.
"Miss Marlowe, you're needed on the set."

"I'll be along in a few
minutes."

The assistant looked worried. "You
need to come right away. He wants to shoot against the storm clouds, and the
sky is changing fast."

She clutched the phone, torn between the
need to talk things out with Kenzie and the demands of her job. Duty won. She
said into the phone, "I'll call you back later."

"It will be too late--a ten-hour
time difference, remember. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Good night, my
dear."

Then he was gone. She followed the
assistant outside, biting her lower lip so hard the lipstick needed renewing.
Luckily this scene called for her to stand around looking soulful rather than
actually act, because her concentration was nonexistent.

Her anxiety grew until, at the end of
the day's shooting, she asked the director to rearrange the schedule to give
her three days off. After an initial howl of protest, he cooperated. She'd
never requested special treatment before.

Kenzie was starring in a big, splashy
action movie currently shooting on the island of Crete. Since he'd given her a
shockingly expensive share in the private jet network for her birthday, she had
Emmy arrange a flight to Greece ASAP.

Two hours later, she was in the air. She
debated letting him know she was coming, and decided surprise was best. If he
had time to rehearse a response, she'd never find out what he really felt about
children, and they desperately needed to have an honest conversation on the
subject.

She flew through the night and into
morning, landing in Crete near noon. A hired car waited to take her out to the
movie location.

As the car wound through the stark,
sun-saturated landscape, she stared out the window, wondering what she would
say to her husband. All her life she'd wanted children--at least two, because
she'd hated being an only child.

She had dreamed of having Kenzie's
children in images so vivid she'd wake up reaching for a soft infant form.
They'd have three, she thought, two girls and a boy. She could see their faces
in her dreams. They would be raised with the stability she hadn't known with
Clementine, and the warmth she'd never received from her grandparents.

But even more than babies, she wanted
Kenzie. If he truly didn't want children--well, she would have to accept that.
Heaven knew there were powerful arguments against having kids when they both
had such demanding careers. But some actors managed it, and she thought they
could, too.

Maybe he'd only been startled by her
bringing up the subject of children so suddenly, and he'd like the idea after
he got used to it? She suspected that was pure wishful thinking on her part.

She'd visited Kenzie earlier in the
shoot, so it was easy to get admitted to the production site. Recognizing her,
the security guard grinned toothily and pointed out the right trailer, assuring
her that her husband was inside.

The trailer was parked in the shade of a
cypress tree, its air conditioner roaring. Since the door was unlocked, she
swung it open and climbed two steps into the cool interior. Blinking at the
dimness after the brilliant sunshine, she called, "Kenzie? I hope you're
in the mood for a surprise."

"Shit!" The voice was throaty
and female.

Rainey's eyes adjusted, and she froze.
Kenzie was sprawled against a mound of pillows on the bed, straddled by his
mostly naked costar, Angie Greene. Her red-nailed fingers on his zipper, she
made a rueful face. "You shoulda called first."

Rainey felt as if she'd been slammed in
the belly with a baseball bat. This couldn't be happening, it was the stuff of
cheap melodrama. Maybe they were rehearsing for a bedroom scene. But Kenzie
made no move to explain or deny. After the first flash of shock, he just stared
at her, his expression as unreadable as granite. She could almost hear wheels
clicking in his brain over the best way to play this scene.

Angie sat back on her heels, her crotch
still covering Kenzie's. Flipping her tumbling blonde hair over her shoulders,
she said breezily, "Don't look so upset, Raine. This is just a location
fuck. No big deal."

Maybe it wasn't for Angie Greene, a
voluptuous chaser of men and headlines, but it was a big deal to Rainey, Unable
to bear the thought of breaking down in front of them, she fumbled for control,
and found her grandmother's cool detachment. "So inconsiderate of me not
to realize that my husband couldn't be trusted out of my sight. I'd expected
better of him."

Kenzie swung Angie to one side, setting
her on the bed beside him. "I'm sorry, Rainey. But maybe this is for the
best."

Any frail hope that they might survive
this shattered. She tugged off her wedding ring and threw it on the floor so
hard that it bounced and skittered across the trailer. "My lawyer will
contact yours."

Then she spun on her heel and left,
grateful she hadn't dismissed the hired car, even more grateful that she hadn't
arrived five minutes later and caught them in the act. If that had happened,
she'd have been violently ill.

Shock kept her impassive until she was
back at the airport. Mercifully, the jet hadn't yet been assigned another trip,
so she booked it for the return flight.

She cried for seven thousand miles.

Rainey
awoke weeping to find Kenzie sitting on the edge of the bed, a gentle hand on
her arm and his expression concerned. "Are you all right?"

She almost blurted out that she'd had a
ghastly nightmare of him in bed with another woman, then bit off her words when
she realized that she'd been dreaming the truth. Being with Kenzie had brought
it all back, as agonizing as when it happened. He'd been right to warn her the
night before that the joys of lust would be followed by a fierce morning after.
She drew a shuddering breath. "I've been better."