The Things She Says (13 page)

* * *

Kris couldn’t sleep. His condo was too hushed. Too cold. Too L.A. and impersonal with its mix of dark natural stone surfaces, concrete floor stained black and masculine furnishings he’d never thought twice about. It was all too...not where he wanted to be.

He plunked onto the leather sofa near the rush of a river rock waterfall in the living room and ran through scenes in his head, the same place he’d sat a thousand times. It was not working.

It was 2:00 a.m. That was pretty standard. He wore lounging pants and no shirt. Also typical. The leather chilled his back, keeping him alert and honest, and the peaceful shush of the waterfall washed street noise from the atmosphere. Totally normal.

He kept listening for VJ to tiptoe into the room, wearing that virginal white robe with the loose collar. The one so easy to slip off her soft shoulders and bare her beautiful body, allowing him access to that butterfly she’d inked—permanently—into her skin.

Not at all normal.

Why couldn’t he shake her out of his system? She lingered in his mind in a persistence of memory tattooed across his consciousness. Impossible to eliminate. Impossible to embrace. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t feel. Never in his life had he been unable to create, to escape into the imaginary as a method to deal with reality.

That refuge was gone.

He should be storyboarding
Visions of Black,
if nothing else, but definitely working up proposals to bring in additional investors. Instead, he was obsessing over the pain and resignation on VJ’s face when he’d told her he was leaving.

There’d been a moment, back in the hotel room, when he thought she was going to fall in his arms and beg him to stay. Demand that he love her like she loved him. Verbalize on his behalf what was in his heart because she saw inside him so much more clearly than he did. He’d braced for it, uncertain how he’d respond. The moment passed, and it became painfully obvious the scene wasn’t going to end that way.

Instead, he’d thoroughly killed her belief in happily ever after because he couldn’t find the courage to reach for it. He’d hurt her, irreparably damaging something precious.

Now he’d live in the purgatory he deserved. Recreating that scene a hundred ways but in the endings he created, he always figured out what had gone wrong before walking out the door.

He had a meeting with Jack Abrams in seven hours. In seven hours, either he’d have a plan to salvage
Visions of Black
or he’d have a front-row seat to the final demise of his career. This movie should have been the springboard, catapulting him to the next level. Not his swan song.

How had it come to this?

The intercom at the entrance to his condo buzzed, startling him out of his morose contemplation. A visitor. In the middle of the night. A short burst of hope that it might be VJ dissolved into the more likely scenario. Five bucks said it was Kyla. Blitzed.

He activated the two-way speaker, pretty sure he was going to be sorry.

“Hey, babe.” The cultured feminine voice floated from the box. “In the mood for some company?”

He grimaced. At least Kyla was a happy drunk and therefore less likely to cause a scene. “No. Go home and sleep it off.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t have to be that way. I just want to talk. Nothing else.”

Right. They hadn’t spoken since her hysterical call the afternoon everything had fallen apart with VJ, but yet, here she was in L.A., itching for yet another confrontation. “Call me in the morning. It’s after two.”

Even so, the rush of cars and boisterous pedestrians filtered in along with Kyla’s words. “Let me in. This button is hard to push, and I’m wearing five-inch heels.”

“Whose fault is that?” Nothing good was going to come of this late-night visit. Nothing. “I was asleep. I’d like to go back to bed.”

“Kris.” She snuffled. “We were lovers for a long time. I know you weren’t asleep. Unless you want a picture of me at your door on the front page of every tabloid in the morning, let me in.”

That was the last thing he wanted. A conversation with Kyla was second to last. He buzzed open the lock on the entrance and dashed into the bedroom to put on a shirt. No reason to give her any further ideas since she undoubtedly had plenty of ideas already.

He opened the door and let her totter in to collapse on the couch after she’d miraculously missed tripping over the lamb’s wool throw rug. Crossing his arms, he leaned on the shut door. “What’s so important?”

She smoothed the microscopic lines of her fuchsia skirt and smiled demurely with flawlessly painted lips. “I wanted to see you. I miss you. Is that so bad?”

With a silent groan, he went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. “Drink this. I’ll call you a cab.” He handed her the glass, and when she took it, a long wave of her perfume settled over him. The scent was cloying and sweet. He’d forgotten how much he hated its artificial quality.

“Sit down.” She patted the couch and fluttered her surgically enhanced lashes. “I’m sorry about what happened in Dallas. Is your friend okay?”

He shook his head. “Not having this conversation.”

Slyly, she tapped a nail on her lips and peered up at him. “Since she’s not here, I assume it didn’t work out. Too bad. She wasn’t right for you anyway.”

That explained the timing. Kyla was scoping out his residence for signs of competition.

“Who was? You?” Cursing, he went back into the kitchen so the island would be between them. Small comfort. He’d already given her far too much of an opening.

Her fake interview laugh trilled through the air. “You like to pretend things are over, but there are still feelings between us or you never would have agreed to the engagement.”

He wasn’t taking the bait. She could talk until laryngitis set in, and he wasn’t going to let her goad him into another endless conversation about their relationship.

Except now he was thinking about it, as she’d intended.

Why had he agreed to the engagement? When the deal came together with Abrams, Kris immediately recommended Kyla for the lead role. Film was an industry, not a school yard. He couldn’t let personal feelings get in the way, and after she’d read the script, her agent had contacted his assistant to say she was in.

Things had snowballed from there. His palms gripped the hard, granite edges of the island countertop, grounding him. He’d agreed—at the time—because
Visions of Black
was more important than anything else.
Was.
Now it wasn’t.

“It could have been a new start for us, Kris,” Kyla said and came into the kitchen. She wasn’t nearly as drunk as he’d assumed. Her cornflower-blue eyes were bright and open, as if imploring him to plumb their depths and see the truth. A trick of the recessed lighting in the kitchen. Kyla never missed her mark.

She set the glass down and positioned a handful of talons on his arm. “I made a mistake. With Guy. When I told you, you got so mad. I thought that meant you cared more than you’d let on and needed space to get over it.”

He could have saved her the suspense if he’d just had this conversation a long time ago instead of avoiding confrontation. “Mad because you cheated on me and lied. I never gave you one reason to treat me that way.”

“That’s not true.” She pouted. “I was lonely, and you were so distant and focused on work. The thing with Guy happened in a moment of weakness. He was there for me.”

What a cliché. “You were bored. And guess what? I don’t blame you.”

Improbably, he wasn’t angry about Hansen. Not anymore. He had been detached and passionless with Kyla. When she’d moved on, in hindsight, he’d been relieved. He should have told her.

Kyla’s confusion grew as fast as his clarity. “Does that mean you’ve finally forgiven me?”

“It does. Totally forgiven. You were right, there was a lack of resolution to our relationship. Thanks,” he said sincerely. “For forcing the issue. I’m sorry I was so distant.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a delicate sniff and covered his hand with hers. “I understand why you’re like that. You’re almost a robot. That’s why you’re a director, not an actor, even though you’ve got the look. But you stay behind the camera because you can’t tap into the emotional layers necessary to be someone different in front of the camera.”

Someone different? He was already someone different. The person he could only be because of VJ.

He’d disconnected from life and poured himself into his art, the only defense he thought he had against all the raging things inside. If VJ hadn’t blasted his barriers apart, he’d likely have continued being a non-participant in his own story forever.

He’d tried so hard not to be his father that he’d neglected to be Kris. Only VJ saw through his defenses, demanding his participation, forcing him into the middle of the action. Drawing him out in spite of himself.

“Is that right?” he asked.

She nodded. “You like to tell people what to do. You’re a control freak, and it shuts you down inside. I can help you.”

“Let me ask you something. How come we hardly ever had sex?”

A stiletto scraped against the Travertine when she half stepped, half stumbled in surprise. “You never wanted to. I assumed you had a low sex drive but were too proud to talk about it. Some macho European thing.”

“How come
you
never wanted to?”

“I did. I tried. You blew me off, muttering about edits or a read-through the next day, and you’d disappear inside yourself.”

That sounded about right. Excuses instead of intimacy. Justifications instead of passion. He only allowed film to excite him.

Until VJ.

“But I’m okay with that,” she purred. Her hand wandered up his arm, toying with his biceps and brushing against his sleeve, as if she had every right to do so. “We’ll work on it. So let’s put it behind us and start over. I forgive you for that little indiscretion in Dallas and—”

He laughed and removed her hand. “You don’t want to get back together. You just want something you can’t have, and you can’t have me. I’m in love with VJ, and I let her go like a complete idiot. I have to get her back.”

Finally,
something
that made perfect, absolute sense. It was so clear now. He loved her, with ferocious terror and awe. She was his passion and had torn that lid off in her unique VJ style, unleashing a flood of emotion and creativity he had hadn’t even realized was missing.

She
balanced him. He’d been teetering so far in the other direction, the true danger lay in living an unengaged life, not in somehow turning violent overnight. Without VJ, his soul would shrivel back up into that person who wasn’t his father, but also wasn’t who he wanted to be.

Kyla’s eyes widened. “She tried to destroy your career, Kris. You can’t be serious.”

“If my career is over, it’s my fault, not hers.” His career was low on the list of concerns at this moment. He’d built it from nothing once, he’d do it again. After settling more important matters. “I should’ve taken responsibility for the problems in my relationship with you a long time ago. If I had, the fake engagement would have died at the outset, and you wouldn’t have had a chance to issue a statement about VJ. You forced her into talking to the press.”

That was his mistake for ever mentioning her to Kyla, which he’d only done as yet another way to avoid his feelings. No more autopilot. VJ warranted all of his heart. All of his passion. The answer was so simple—transfer the energy he spent pretending to be something he wasn’t into ensuring that the passion he felt for her never died, never changed, and was always a positive reinforcement of his love.

It might be the hardest thing he’d ever attempted. Fear hijacked his lungs, but he squeezed in a deep breath.

He’d make it happen. VJ was worth it.

“You should know better than to cross me,” she said, and that was as close to an admission of guilt as he’d get. Her eyes narrowed. “She’s a nobody. She’ll never fit into our world.”

“Then I’ll put my creative energy into finding a way to fit into hers. Oh, to be clear, we’re through. Finally, completely and forever. Your cab’s here.”

Without another word, he escorted one of the world’s most beautiful and glamorous women out the door and locked it behind her. He had a lot of work to do before he could earn his happily-ever-after.

Somehow, he had to figure out a way to give VJ back the belief in it.

Thirteen

V
J hopped into Bobby Junior’s ancient truck, slammed the door and stared straight ahead at the sun rising along the horizon in an inferno of heartbreaking colors. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Sorry.” Her brother rested a work-roughened hand on the steering wheel. He started the truck and pulled out of Pamela Sue’s driveway to make the long trek to the hospital where Daddy lay recovering. “I don’t mean to.”

She sighed. This was why she’d waited until this morning to ask Bobby Junior to take her to see Daddy. She’d needed a day to collect herself. A girl could only have so many illusions shattered in a week and losing the one where her oldest brother was still a hero might be the straw.

“You’re dying to ask me about it. Go ahead. What do you want to know? How many times Kris and I had sex?”

Fourteen. Counting the times they’d done...other stuff.
Get over it.
She couldn’t let the memories unwind or she’d blubber like a housewife watching talk shows.

“No!” Reddening, he shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about that.” He signaled to turn onto Little Crooked Creek Road and cleared his throat. “I have three kids. I know how they got here. It’s different when it’s my little sister.”

“So, the lurid details are what you wanted to ask about.”

It took a full five minutes before he responded. “Jamie...she wondered about the tattoo. Did you really get one?”

“You want me to come over tonight and show it to her? Show the kids?”

“VJ.” Bobby Junior frowned, looking a lot like Daddy, and chomped on the ever-present gum he’d traded for chewing tobacco after the birth of his first kid. “You took off with a stranger and ran around all over Dallas, getting photographed and talked about on the news. People are curious. You ask a lot if you expect them not to be.”

The folks in Little Crooked Creek could pass judgment with the best of the internet piranhas. Day before yesterday, VJ stepped off the bus and huddled on a bench to wait for Pamela Sue, only to glimpse Mrs. Pritchett caning across the street to avoid VJ. Two weeks ago, they’d shared a pew in church. VJ had held the hymnal for the eighty-year-old woman since her arthritis flared up in the August heat.

“Well, I’m sorry I caused such a ruckus trying to have a life.” She laced her arms across her chest but it didn’t bandage the hurt. “You can say it. I got what I deserved. I let a guy have the milk without buying the cow and then he left to go back to his real life in Hollywood. Can’t expect to grow an oak tree with okra seeds, right?”

Kris’s business card was burning a hole in her pocket. He’d written his cell-phone number on the back in swirly numerals and left it on the coffee table of their—his—hotel room. No message, no indication of why. He’d probably left it accidentally. With no intention of pulling it out until she could write him a check, she’d tucked it into her bag. As a memento of what happened in real life when she forgot that fairy tales were for books.

“That’s not what I was going to say.” His back stiffened, pulling away from the cracked bench seat. “Daddy was bad after you left. Worse than normal. Went off on a tear, throwing furniture around. Mrs. Johnson called the sheriff when he drove through her flowerbed at midnight. I had to pick him up, still drunk, from the clink.”

Bobby Junior’s quiet condemnation dug into her stomach with claws. She’d walked out on her responsibilities. Lots of people had to deal with parents and life and real hardships. They didn’t leave. “I guess that’s my fault, too, same as the heart attack.”

“Daddy’s heart attack wasn’t your fault. Yeah, he got a shock seeing you on TV and hearing the things people were saying. But the doctor said it was the stress of Mama and a year of hard drinking. I would have told you that if you’d come around instead of hiding out at Pamela Sue’s.”

“I’m here now. I’m being a good daughter and going to see Daddy, aren’t I?”

Wounds from the night she left Little Crooked Creek were still fresh and coupled with the new ones, she couldn’t have done this any sooner. All of yesterday had been spent in the fetal position on Pamela Sue’s bed, alternately bawling and staring at the wall.

Then Daddy had taken a turn for the worse, and she’d forced herself to push back the grief. What if he died before she saw him again? She didn’t want to have to live with that. He was still her father.

The shoulder where she’d stopped to check out the sleek Ferrari flew by in a flash. Just like her relationship with Kris. Relationship—or whatever it was called when a person blinks and the highlight of her existence vanishes, leaving only a sharp memory too vivid to erase and too painful to enjoy.

She’d only meant to drool over the car. Not the driver. Or his hands. His mouth. The way he opened up when he was inside her and his soul spoke without any words. And when he did talk...her eyelids fluttered closed and time stopped while she ached.

She missed Kris, and it was a slow, agonizing death instead of the difficult, but eventual, recovery she’d hoped for.

Bobby Junior took a deep breath, jerking her out of her misery. “Why didn’t you tell me what Daddy did to you?”

“Which part?” she asked, too surprised he’d found out to answer right away.

His hands were clamped so tight on the steering wheel, veins popped. “When I picked up Daddy from the sheriff, he was babbling about how he’d driven you away. I finally got him to tell me he’d taken all your money.” Bobby Junior paused for a beat. “And that he hit you.”

She shrugged. “What difference would it have made if I had told you?”

“What difference—” He thumped the seat between them, startling her with the force. “You could have stayed with me and Jamie. Let us help you get your money back. You’re so independent. There’s nothing wrong with asking for a little help. Why didn’t you?”

Her throat hurt from the twinge in Bobby Junior’s voice. How selfish she’d been to leave without thinking how others might take it. She probably should have told her brothers about Daddy hitting her, too, but she’d been so sure no one would take her side. “I don’t know.”

“I do. You’re just like Mama. Both of you take charge. The whole time Mama was sick, you did what had to be done. I don’t know where you found that grit. Then she—” His voice broke and he swallowed. “She died and all of us were lost. Except you. You took care of the funeral. Daddy. The boys. Everyone except yourself. I’m surprised it took so long for you to break. Woulda been nice if your rebellion had been a little safer and lower profile.”

“Pamela Sue made me promise to use condoms.” Which wasn’t everything she wanted to say but her throat closed.

The blush, not quite gone anyway, flared up and spread from his cheeks to his neck. “Glad to hear it,” he said gruffly and tapped her chest. “But I meant safer in here. You’re different. Your shoulders are heavier.”

“I grew up. It was past time. I have to face reality, not live in a fantasy world where an exciting man sweeps me off my feet, only to disappear at midnight.”

All of a sudden, it didn’t seem so devastating to be back in Little Crooked Creek, still broke, but not in such a bad place after all. Some maids became princesses, and some women just became self-sufficient. When she’d left the first time, options were hard to come by and the one promising excitement and escape won. Now, because of Kris, she had the wisdom to evaluate opportunity openly, honestly and without a coating of fairy dust. That’s what strong women did. Like Mama. Like her.

“Want me to kick his butt? I’d like to think you still need me for something.” Her brother’s affable gap-toothed grin settled her heart. Not completely, but along with the gift of absolution, it went a long way. He ruffled her hair like he had for as long as she could remember.

She smiled at her brother and patted his arm. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

Downtown Van Horn unrolled through the windshield as Bobby Junior drove down the main street lined with adobe-plastered stores, family-owned Mexican restaurants and dust. West Texas still wasn’t for her. She’d find a way to get back to Dallas and start building a life on her own terms. A life based in reality.

He pulled into the hospital lot and parked, then threw an arm around her shoulders to walk with her into the lobby. They sat by Daddy’s bedside for a few hours, talking to each other, talking to Daddy without expectation of a response, smiling at the nurses. Daddy woke up once and squeezed VJ’s hand. It was enough. She’d find a way to forgive him. Not today, but eventually. Some hurts went too deep to heal easily.

When the truck pulled into Pamela Sue’s driveway, her friend sprinted out and opened the door. She pushed VJ to the center, then bounced onto the vacated seat. “What took you so long?” she asked, breathlessly. “We have to go down to Pearl’s. Drive, Bobby.”

“What’s at Pearl’s?” he asked, as he shifted into Reverse and peered at the rearview mirror. “I got to get back to the garage.”

“It’s a surprise for VJ,” she said. “Drop us off and skedaddle.”

VJ gave Pamela Sue a one-eyed stare. “A surprise like pin a scarlet letter on VJ or more like a surprise public flogging of VJ?”

When Pamela Sue had picked her up from the bus station, VJ’d asked to visit Pearl first, to apologize for leaving her former boss in the lurch. Pearl was a marshmallow, so she wouldn’t be the one pinning or flogging, but as for the rest of the town, it was anyone’s guess.

“Neither. Wait and see.” In a very un–Pamela Sue way, she kept her mouth closed clear through the single stoplight in the center of town. Right before Bobby Junior turned the corner at Pearl’s, she asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to come in, Bobby? You might be sorry you missed it.”

Now VJ was really curious. Oh. Everyone had missed her birthday. Surprise party, of course. She whimpered. Normally, she’d love that but with folks’ dirty looks and general hostility, attendance would be slim.

But then she caught sight of the parking lot at Pearl’s. It was full. Jam-packed, with cars and trucks lining the street for a block, and people streaming through the front doors.

Eyes wide, she glanced at Pamela Sue. “It
is
a public flogging. I’m suddenly feeling very feverish.”

“Just get out.” She hooked elbows with VJ and hauled her out of the truck the second Bobby Junior braked at the curb. The engine shut off, and Bobby Junior swung out of the cab.

“Can’t stay but a minute,” he said in concession.

All three of them trooped inside. The diner was dark—the kitchen, the dining room, entrance—but the rustle of people was unmistakable. The lights flashed and everyone yelled, “Surprise!” but there were no decorations, no cake and no balloons.

Instead, a line of people stood in the middle of the room, each holding a single yellow sunflower. Confused and a little weirded out, she turned to Pamela Sue. “What is this?”

“Take the flowers,” she said, which was no answer at all, and dragged her toward Mrs. Johnson, who was at the head of the line. VJ trailed after Pamela Sue, only because their arms were still hooked.

Mrs. Johnson extended the flower, which had a rectangle of white attached to it with a silky ribbon, and said, “I liked the red dress.”

A compliment. Not a judgmental put-down. Mystified, VJ gripped the sunflower, held it to her nose and inhaled the fresh fragrance. The dress hung in the back of the closet at Pamela Sue’s. Another memento she couldn’t toss. “Thanks. I liked it, too.”

“Read the card,” someone in the audience urged.

Intrigued, she flipped the card and took in the words. Her stomach seized up like an overheated engine. The card shook so hard in her trembling fingers, it was a wonder she held on to it. “I can’t. It’s Greek. I don’t know how to translate it.”

“I do,” Kris said from behind her.

She spun and oh,
yes.
There he was, in the flesh. Clad in black, ebony hair falling against his cheekbones, arms crossed and one hip leaned gracefully against the discolored wall. Beautifully, sinfully gorgeous and—

Dear Lord. Every person in this room knew they’d been intimate. Frozen, she stared at him. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. One hand flew up to cover her mouth.

Kris straightened and strode toward her, eyes fluid and searching and beguiling. He stopped a couple feet away but didn’t touch her.

His phone buzzed.

The only thing she could think to say was, “You went to the communication dark side and started carrying your phone in your pocket?”

With a wry laugh that almost broke the tension, he pulled it out and pitched the phone at the closest table. “I kept hoping you might call, and I didn’t want it to go to voice mail.”

She
was the person too important to leave a message?

“What are you doing here?”

All around them, fascinated faces watched her and Kris, blurring into a ménage of colors as it crystallized.

He was here. In Little Crooked Creek.

“I’m doing what I should have done in Dallas when you said it was time to get back to reality.” He edged closer, his sensual aura overwhelming. “My reality isn’t the same anymore. You destroyed it and gave me something better. A reality where fairy tales come true. I’m here to recapture that reality.”

His voice washed over her, flowing through the coldness inside, heating her thoroughly. She must be asleep. Dreaming. Tentatively, she reached out and flattened a palm against Kris’s chest. Solid. Warm. Amazing. Real. It took every ounce of will not to sink into his arms.

This was all wrong.

“Kris.” She shook her head and snatched her arm back. “You don’t want that. You never wanted anything other than to make movies, and I ruined that.”

The taut lines around his sculpted mouth softened. “You’re wrong. I was wandering around in the desert, lost, and didn’t even realize it until you found me. You showed me how to tap into my emotions. To tell the story from my heart. Without you, my career is nothing. I’d abandon it in a second if that would prove it to you.”

“No! I can’t let you do that,” she said fiercely and took a step back. He was too close, and her will was only so strong. “You shouldn’t even be here. Go back to Hollywood and get photographed a bunch with Kyla so people forget about me. Then maybe you can still make
Visions of Black.
”