The Spiral Path (35 page)

By
the time Rainey and Greg had all the coverage they needed for the wedding night
scene, Kenzie's internal demons were out in full force, howling and
slashing. Desperate to get away, he escaped from the house as soon as the shots
were finished.

He was halfway to the gardens when the
assistant director intercepted him. "There may be time to set up and shoot
another scene, Kenzie. Will you be in your trailer?"

He bit back an oath. "If you want
to shoot more, find another target." His assistant approached, but one
look at Kenzie's face and Josh stopped dead in his tracks.

Kenzie cut into the carefully manicured
woods. He'd walked this way before and knew the path led to the farthest
reaches of the private park. To solitude.

Rainey had said that Randall's violently
physical reaction to his wedding night was brilliant. Pure inspiration. Yet
even as she praised his performance, Kenzie could see her worry about the murky
depths that had spawned his inspiration. If only she knew.

Thank God she didn't.

He retched again as images of bare limbs
and violated innocence swamped his mind. He clung to a tree, gasping for
breath, until the cool air steadied his stomach, then he blindly continued
along the path.

The wedding night scene was bad enough,
and worse was yet to come. He hadn't the faintest idea how he'd get through the
rest of the movie. Inhabiting John Randall was chipping away at the defenses
that made it possible for him to function. But Rainey was right that this was
the kind of role that won Oscars. John Randall was so tormented, so antiheroic,
that the industry professionals who voted for the awards would be impressed at
Kenzie's willingness to so degrade himself.

It bloody well wasn't worth it for a
stubby little statuette.

Though John Randall was a neurotic mess,
he was a better man than Kenzie Scott, because he'd tried to resist entering
into a doomed marriage. If Kenzie had rejected the impulse to propose, he and
Rainey could have gone their separate ways, perhaps met now and then with
fondness instead of living in purgatory.
We'll always have Paris.
Or in
this case, the Northern California coast.

He reached the end of the path, and
found himself in a sunny clearing rimmed with flowers. In the center circular
patterns were embossed in the turf. This must be the labyrinth Rainey had
mentioned. What had she said? That it was a path to finding oneself.

That was the last thing he needed--he
knew who and what he was, and had spent a lifetime trying to bury that
knowledge. He started to turn away, then remembered that she'd also said that
walking a labyrinth was a way to find peace. That he could use.

As he located the starting point, he
wondered what one was supposed to do during a labyrinth walk. Pray? Meditate?
Try to empty the mind, zenstyle?

He inhaled deeply several times,
consciously letting go of the tension in his body. Then he started walking,
looking downward to stay on the curving path. That simple act helped focus his
mind and quiet his churning thoughts. His consciousness gradually narrowed down
to the act of walking while physical awareness increased: the pulse of his
blood, the steady pump of air in and out of his lungs, the woodland scents in
his nostrils.

By the time he reached the middle of the
labyrinth, his demons had largely fallen silent. That was good enough. He knew
they'd never go away entirely, for they were the forces that defined who he
was.

But he was also a survivor. Instead of
self-destructing, he'd built a comfortable, satisfying life, and even achieved
a bizarre degree of success. Every now and then the demons would wake and rip
at him, but eventually they returned to their slumbers. They would this time as
well. In a few weeks the
Centurion
shoot would be over, and he could go
on to his next project. He'd never even have to watch the finished movie.

Though he would miss Rainey bitterly,
his life would be simpler. If there were none of the joyous highs he'd
experienced with her, there would also be no crushing lows. He could have his
comfortable, detached existence back.

Feeling relatively peaceful, he exited
the labyrinth, and looked up to see Rainey. Tension returned with a vengeance.
Still dressed in her layered Victorian nightgown, Rainey sat on the grassy
embankment with her knees drawn up and her arms crossed on top of them. She
looked like a lost waif.

A sexy lost waif. Despite his distress
during the wedding night scene, his damned hormones had reacted to the fact
that he'd been rolling around in a bed with the most desirable woman he'd ever
known. "Have you come to find me, or lose yourself?"

"Some of both. I was worried about
you--acting of the caliber you were doing comes out of one's marrow."

"You were doing some high-octane
acting yourself."

"Which was why when I finished, I
took one look at the paperwork Val had carefully laid out in my trailer, and
decided to run away and hide. I can be a director, or an actress, but it's hard
to be both at once."

He prowled across the clearing, keeping
his distance. "Are you glad or sorry to be making this movie?"

After a long silence, she said,
"Both."

"Nothing like a definitive
answer," he said dryly. "What was it about this particular story that
made you so determined to make it?"

"I have control-freak tendencies.
You may have noticed."

He had to smile. "I've noticed.
So?"

"This was a way of getting
everything to come out right. The characters suffer a great deal, yet
ultimately they not only survive, but are better, stronger people for what
they've endured. They'll have a better, more honest marriage, too."

The parallel to their own failed
marriage was painfully obvious. Changing the subject, he asked, "Have you
seen the latest
Inquirer?
I haven't yet."

"Today's installment was pretty
interesting. Nigel Stone had two photographs alleged to be you as a
child."

Shock jolted through him. "Did they
look like me?"

She shrugged. "The pictures showed
a small, dark-haired boy with a face shaped approximately like yours and a hint
of cleft in the chin. It could have been you, but it could have been any number
of other men. The pictures were sent in by some fellow in Scotland who claims
you're his long lost brother, Hugh MacLeod."

He exhaled with relief. "How did
the man reach that conclusion?"

"Apparently his brother joined the
army, became an elite SAS operative, and was in a helicopter that crashed into
the Persian Gulf during some sneaky operation. There was no body identified, so
the brother suspects that Hugh MacLeod was rescued but lost his memory, and
went on to Hollywood success."

"It's a good story. What was Nigel
Stone's take?"

"He rather liked this because it
explains why you're so cagey about your past--you don't remember it."

"As I said, it's a good story.
Tomorrow there may be one that's even better. Probably someone claiming I was
born in Sherwood Forest and raised by wolves."

Her brow furrowed. "Are there
wolves in Britain? I thought they were wiped out centuries ago."

"They were, but saying I was raised
by terriers wouldn't have the same effect."

"I'm glad to see that you're
recovering." She smiled, but it faded quickly. "Are you going to make
it through to the end, Kenzie?"

"I don't know," he said
honestly. "If I had the sense God gave a sparrow, I'd walk off the set
while I still have my sanity. But the tradition that the show must go on was
thoroughly ingrained at RADA. Having started this project, I have a
responsibility to finish it." His strongest identity was as an actor.
Quitting in the middle of production would betray his self-image of being a
consummate professional, and that would be even more destructive than inhabiting
John Randall's scalding skin.

"For the sake of the movie, I give
thanks to RADA."

He studied her pinched expression.
"You don't look very relieved."

"If you walked out, I'd be crazed,
but a little relieved, too." She rested her chin on her crossed arms.
"I don't want to be responsible for you having a nervous breakdown."

"I'm going to be rotten company
until shooting is finished, but I haven't lost my mind yet, and I don't think I
will."

"I'd like to believe you, but
you're a mass of nerves. It's so unlike you to be pacing back and forth like a
caged lion. You've always been so laid-back."

"I am pacing, aren't I?" He
stopped halfway between the labyrinth and the encircling trees. "Is that better?"

"Not much." She patted the
grass next to her. "Sit down and contemplate the daisies or
something."

After a moment's hesitation, he did as
she suggested. If she didn't mind the fact that she was wearing a
semi-translucent gown that was sliding down one shoulder, neither would he.
"You're looking as stressed as I am. Any reason in particular, or are you
twanging on general principles?"

"I kept thinking about what you
said about finding out who my father is, and finally hired an investigator. Joe
Mooney sends weekly reports about his lack of progress so at least I'll know
where the money is going. One arrived today." She hunched still further,
her arms tightening around her raised knees. "He still has a few leads to
follow up, but in his professional opinion, I probably won't ever have a
definitive answer."

"Does that bother you?"

"It's a loose end I'd like tied up,
but if the information isn't available, I'll just have to accept that I'll
never know."

"Look on the bright side. If you
did find your father, he might be a leech who'd want you to support him."

"I hadn't thought of that."
She smiled faintly. "I could prove I was a tough little chick by telling
him to get lost. But at least I'd know who he was. It's strange. I've gone all
of these years without knowing, but having started to look, now I'd like an
answer."

"Ambiguity isn't your strong point,
Rainey. You're terrific in a crisis, but uncertainty sends you round the
bend."

"You know me too well."

"The feeling is entirely
mutual." He picked a small yellow flower from the grass and rolled it
between thumb and forefinger. "A divorce decree should divide up not only
marital property, but marital knowledge. I'd insist you return your appalling
skill at reading my mind."

"I'd demand that you hand over your
obnoxious ability to sense what I'm feeling, usually before I do."

They looked at each other, and burst out
laughing. "You have to relinquish your knowledge of where I'm
ticklish," he said.

"And you have to wipe from your
mind what I look like in the morning when I first wake up."

He looked into her changeable eyes,
green now in the grassy clearing, and realized that he was not the only one
aroused by their on-camera grapplings. "My lawyer will tell you that I
refuse to give that up."

"Then you don't get the tickle
secrets back." She raised a hand and traced the edge of his ear with her
fingertip. The effect wasn't ticklish; it was incendiary, and she knew it. He
leaned forward and kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers hungrily.

She made a sound deep in her throat and
moved closer. "We both deserve a reward after a difficult day," she
murmured, "and there's no chocolate around."

He laughed, feeling better than he had
since leaving New Mexico. Catching her around the waist, he lay back on the
grass and pulled her on top of him. "Give the costume designer a bonus.
This silk and lace thing you're wearing is even more irresistible than
chocolate."

The looseness of the garment made it
easy to slide his hands under as they kissed fiercely, the tensions of their
work exploding into raw, needy passion. Her urgency matched his, and she tore
at his Victorian buttons as he kneaded her silky skin under the lacy layers of
the gown. When they came together, he forgot demons and shredding nerves and
future loneliness in the intense reality of the moment. Though the past
couldn't be mended, he could give her pleasure now, a gift of atonement for
what couldn't be changed.

She cried out, grinding her hips against
his in a long, powerful climax. He let himself surrender to annihilation,
crushing her to him as he convulsed uncontrollably. Then he held her trembling
body close, not wanting this precious interlude to end. If only they could have
remained like this, been satisfied with the intimacy born of affection and rare
physical passion. But she'd wanted and deserved more, and he was incapable of
it.

Breathing nearly normal, she murmured,
"We have to stop meeting like this."

Tenderly he smoothed back her hair.
"Not a problem. This didn't happen."

She slid off him and rolled onto her
back, expression troubled. "I wish I was better at convincing myself of
that, or at least had better willpower."

He took her hand, lacing his fingers
between hers. "Sleeping together while we're getting a divorce is bound to
have painful emotional repercussions. But you must admit that we're both much
more relaxed than we were a few minutes ago."