The Spiral Path (69 page)

She might as well believe that was true,
since it felt better than to believe she was the product of casual adultery.
Deciding to get all the hard questions out of the way at once, she asked,
"When you cast me in my first lead role, and when you got financing for
The
Centurion
against the odds--how much of that was because you thought I might
be your daughter, and how much was it on merit?"

"It was both," he said
seriously. "I did give you special consideration, but I never would have
made a bad business decision that would cost investors millions if you weren't
up to the job."

Marcus had known exactly the right
answer to give without getting into trouble. Her father was a smart man. It was
an odd, exhilarating thought. Marcus Gordon was
her father.
Dear God,
she had three half-brothers! She'd met and liked them, too. Wistfully she
realized they couldn't be told the truth, because they'd be bound to resent
their father's infidelity. But she knew.

She pressed her fingers against her
forehead, fighting a desire to cry. Pregnancy definitely turned her into a
watering pot. "This is going to take getting used to, but ... I think I'm
glad."

His face lit up like a sunrise. "I
know that I am."

A gentle push from Kenzie, and suddenly
she was in Marcus's arms, crying. She'd always wanted a father.

Better late than never.

CHAPTER 41

I
ndian
Blanket. Kenzie sat back on his heels to admire his latest transplant.
According to the desert handbook he'd bought, it would have a splashy red
flower with yellow edges during its late spring blooming season.

Though he didn't know a damned thing
about gardening, he'd discovered that he quite enjoyed it. For weeks he'd been
landscaping around the labyrinth, moving in tough native plants with the goal
of making the area look natural, only better.

Since it was time for lunch, he stood
and poured water around the base of the transplant. Was there time to walk the
labyrinth before going down to the house? No, he didn't like being rushed.

After his first harrowing attempt, it
had been a week before he'd had the nerve to walk the spiral path again.
Luckily he'd never again had such an intense reaction. Overall he found it
calming, and sometimes even uplifting.

He was almost to the house when Rainey
raced out the back door, her ankle-length skirt swirling around her legs. She'd
caught up on her rest since signing off on the movie, and it agreed with her.
The pregnancy didn't show yet, but she assured him that any minute she was
going to start ballooning. Despite his anxiety about impending fatherhood, he
found the process interesting, and he and Rainey had never been closer.

Her eyes were gleaming wickedly when she
bounced into his embrace. "Have I got a deal for you!" Grabbing his
hand, she towed him toward the house. "As soon as you finish lunch, we're
going to Santa Fe."

"Why do you want to go there?"
He had no trouble visiting a small town like Chama, but he wasn't sure he was ready
for Santa Fe.

"Remember Dame Judith Hawick?"

"Of course I remember Dame
Judith." He washed his hands at the kitchen sink. "Is she visiting
Santa Fe and we're going to meet her for dinner?" That he would enjoy.

"Sort of. She's a guest director at
the Santa Fe Shakespeare Forum this fall, and she's putting on
Much Ado
about Nothing.
Tonight is her opening."

He frowned, not liking the idea of being
in a large crowd. "I've seen the play, thank you very much. If we're
meeting her for dinner, another night would surely be better than on her
opening."

"Oh, this isn't about seeing the
play." Rainey darted him a glance that clearly said she was up to
something. "It's about you playing Benedick to my Beatrice."

"What!" He stared at her.
"Rainey, you've convinced me. Pregnancy makes women insane."

"Not this time. The production was
all set to go, until most of the cast went out for a late supper after last
night's dress rehearsal. Dame Judith says this is clear proof that a good dress
rehearsal is a disastrous omen." Rainey steered him to the table and sat
him down in front of a chicken Caesar salad.

Ignoring the food, he asked, "I
presume there is a point to this?"

"Today half the players, including
her leads
and
their understudies, are down with food poisoning, way too
sick to set foot on a stage." Rainey sat opposite him and started on her
salad. "Dame Judith can cobble together most of a cast. She's going to
dress in drag and play Leonato herself. But she desperately needs two good
leads. She'd heard we were in New Mexico, so she tracked us down through Marcus
and called me."

"If that many people are sick, they
should cancel the performance."

"The show must go on," she
said piously.

"Rubbish. Sometimes the show
shouldn't go on, and this is one of those times."

Her expression turned serious.
"This is really important to Dame Judith, Kenzie. It's her first time
directing in this country, and she's frantic for it to go well. She almost
cried with relief when I said we could fill in." Rainey's changeable eyes
were pleading. "I owe her one for acting in
The Centurion
at a
price I could afford. That's my obligation, not yours, but you know the part,
and you're available. Please--will you do it?"

Mouth dry, he said, "I haven't done
live theater in over ten years."

"You don't have to be great, just
competent. The audience will be so blown away at having Kenzie Scott fill in
that they'll be very forgiving."

"Shakespeare is usually presented
in an edited form, and we don't have her script."

"Dame Judith e-mailed it to me.
It's printing out now. You can drive while we run lines, and I tell you where
the variations are. Plus, if we leave in the next half hour, we should reach
Santa Fe in time for a fast run-through with the rest of the cast."

She'd thought of everything. He closed
his eyes, struggling with fear. "I don't think I can do this, Rainey. I'm
not at all sure I'll ever be able to face a camera again, and live theater is a
hundred times more terrifying."

Her hand came over his where it rested
on the tabletop. "I know this will be hard for you, but even though you
feel stripped to the bone and vulnerable, no one but me knows about your
past," she said quietly. "This is a good chance for you to decide if
you want to continue acting, Kenzie. The stakes are a lot lower than on a
big-budget movie, and you'll be helping Dame Judith out at the same time."

He'd loved live theater when he was at
RADA, but that was a long time ago. Now the thought of standing in front of
hundreds of staring eyes made him want to lock himself into Cibola and never
come out. But Rainey was right, dammit. He needed to find out if he was still
an actor. More than that, he owed Dame Judith for standing up for him after
Nigel Stone's ambush. "I can't really say no, can I?"

"Not really." Her smile was
tremulous. "I'm scared, too, Kenzie, but I think we can do this."

"Your faith exceeds mine." He
regarded the salad. Appetite had vanished, but it was going to be a long, long
day. He picked up a fork and began to eat.