by Janice Sims
Patrice caught him watching her and smiled. “Come on in, and tell me about your trip home.”
He stepped in and took the washcloth from her, soaped it again and began gently scrubbing her back. “It was wonderful up until Aisha told me I should marry her.”
“What?” Patrice laughed. “Whatever possessed her to do that?”
T.K. told her everything. He even told her how Aisha had been trying to insinuate herself into his life ever since Malcolm’s death.
“Be careful with that one,” Patrice said. “Women like that can be dangerously deluded.”
T.K. couldn’t agree more, but he didn’t want to talk about Aisha anymore. He wanted to put her out of his mind and let the lawyers deal with her.
“How was your trip home? Is everybody in good health? Did you get to ride Billy One Star while you were there?”
She smiled, remembering her visit. “We prepared the traditional Thanksgiving meal with a Southwestern flavor.”
“Then I suppose there were hot peppers in every dish, even the dessert,” T.K. said.
Patrice laughed. “There were some spicy dishes, but two members of the family were not partaking as often as they used to. Keira and Nina are expecting. Momma and Daddy are beside themselves with joy—two grandchildren!”
“Our families have had a banner year for babies,” T.K. said. “First Mira, and now two more are on the way.”
They were finished showering, so he reached up and turned off the spray. He grabbed a big, clean soft bath towel from the rack next to the stall and draped it around Patrice’s shoulders. Peering into her eyes, he asked, “Do you like babies?”
Patrice was a little taken aback by the question. Was he talking about babies because they had just been discussing new additions to their families? Or could he be asking her if she liked them because he personally wanted to know if she wanted babies of her own?
“Who doesn’t like babies?” she asked.
T.K. could think of a few people who didn’t. Edina had said she would never bear a child and risk losing her figure. Aisha apparently was willing to barter her child for money. “Not all women like children,” he said.
The expression in his eyes told her that he was saddened by this knowledge. She grasped him by the arm and made him look at her. “I’m not one of them. I love babies. Why do you ask?”
He told her about his request to Saul Abraham. “If Aisha continues to threaten to take Mira and disappear, we’ll try to get custody of her. If we do, I would be the one to raise her. I want to be with you, Patty. I wondered if you would want to be with me if I came with a baby.”
Patrice took the towel, placed it behind his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. When she broke off the kiss, she smiled at him. “I adore you, and I’ll adore her, too.”
After they dried off, T.K. led her back to his bedroom where he asked her to sit on the bed while he took care of a few things. Intrigued, Patrice asked him what things. He gave her an enigmatic smile and told her to be patient.
He left the room. A couple minutes later, Patrice heard Maxwell’s gorgeous tenor on the sound system. She got a condom out of the nightstand drawer, held it in the palm of her hand and then climbed into bed and covered herself with the top sheet. She was sitting in bed with her knees drawn up when he returned with a bottle of champagne and two wine glasses.
He sat on the side of the bed, opened the champagne, carefully filled the two glasses and handed her one. Turning around, he touched his glass lightly to hers. “To the victor go the spoils.”
Patrice laughed because she knew exactly to what he was referring. He’d won the bet; therefore, he was the victor, and she was the spoils. He’d already had her. “I didn’t want to take your precious Camaro and make you cry,” she said in her defense.
“You can have it,” he told her. “You can paint it pink for all I care. I’ve got you, and I’m victorious.”
She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. “How sweet, but I’ll keep my Jeep, thanks.”
T.K., who was used to giving his lovers extravagant gifts, was a bit surprised by her refusal. “Then you can pick out any car you would like to have.”
Patrice drank some of her champagne and eyed him. “I don’t need two cars. I like my Jeep. I don’t need anything else.”
“Well, then how about jewelry?” He’d noticed she didn’t wear a lot of jewelry. Maybe she didn’t want to buy it for herself. Right now she was only wearing a pair of gold hoop earrings—and not the huge hoops, either, but something small and tasteful.
He frowned. “You don’t want a flashy car, and you don’t appear to be into jewelry. You dress nicely, but you’re not a clotheshorse. What do you like?”
“Think about it a moment, and get back to me,” Patrice told him, this time giving him an enigmatic smile. She sipped her champagne while T.K. thought about their time together. He even went back as far as the first conversation he’d had with anyone about her, and that had been Mark when Mark had phoned him and told him that Patrice had just participated in a rodeo.
“Oh, my God,” he said when the realization struck him. “You’re a simple girl in Hollywood. They’re going to eat you alive.”
Patrice laughed. “You’re wrong. I’m a smart, simple girl in Hollywood. Now, tell me what I like, Trevor.”
He put his champagne glass down, took hers and set it next to his on the nightstand, then drew her into his arms. They lay comfortably on the bed, wrapped together in the top sheet. “You like riding horses. You like making your surroundings beautiful. You spend a lot of time on your home. You like having loved ones around you, and you like feeding them. You like driving, too. If you have the time, you’d rather drive than fly to a destination because you like the feel of the road.”
She snuggled up to him. “Bravo, you get me.”
“I’ll buy you a ranch, and you can pick out all the horses you like,” T.K. said.
Patrice climbed on top of him. “Why don’t I just ride you?” She scooted down and licked him from the hollow of his throat to below his navel. T.K.’s penis grew hard fast.
Patrice licked him along the underside and paused at the tip. He was mesmerized. Her beautiful mouth on him sent blood rushing to his member.
As much as he loved the feel of her mouth on him, though, he wanted her pleasure even more. He stopped her just as she was about to take him fully into her mouth.
“Not yet, baby. I want to enjoy you first,” he told her, and with muscles flexing, he lifted her and laid her on the bed on her back.
What he’d only imagined for months he now did to her. He took his time tonguing her nipples, which were sweet and ripe, the sensation unbelievably satisfying. He was so hard he was literally in pain. Patrice was enjoying it, too. She arched her back with her sex thrust toward him as if she was begging him to take her. He held on to his control, though.
Then his gaze rested on her sex—her wet, swollen sex. He lowered his head and feasted. Patrice couldn’t hold back a little yelp that assured him he was doing something right. He was gentle but thorough, only stopping after her body lay quivering on the bed. Then he spied the condom lying on the bed, she must have gotten it while he’d been getting the champagne. He got it and put it on. He spread her legs and none too gently thrust into her. Patrice took his roughness by giving it right back to him. She held on to his hips and returned thrust for thrust, looking deeply into his eyes the whole time. She came a few seconds before he did, and the look of extreme pleasure on her face heightened his climax later. He’d never felt this way before. Could it be he’d finally made love to a woman whom he was in love with? He analyzed it. Maybe he hadn’t loved Edina at all. He’d held a part of himself aloof from her because he had suspected she wasn’t with him out of love. But with Patrice everything was on the table. He was vulnerable with her. His next impulse was to protect himself. But he tossed it out as soon as it had occurred to him. In order to experience love, you had to leave yourself open to being hurt.
They were a bit breathless afterward as they lay in each other’s arms.
Patrice sighed with contentment. Her stomach growled. T.K. heard it and laughed.
“I’ll get up and scramble some eggs and make you some toast,” he said. “I really should have one of the crew go grocery shopping for me.”
“I’ve got food,” Patrice said. “We can go to my place.”
“Do you know how cold it is out there?”
“It snows in Albuquerque, too. I’m used to it.”
“I just want to stay in here with you,” T.K. told her.
Her stomach growled again. “I’ve got roast beef for sandwiches.”
“You talked me into it,” T.K. said, rising. “I’ve got to take Sam for a walk anyway.”
Patrice got up, went into the bathroom, quickly freshened up and came back out to search for her clothes. She found them tossed aside in the living room, the hallway and the bedroom.
By the time she was dressed, T.K. was also dressed except for his coat. Sam was sitting by the door as if patiently waiting for them.
Patrice zipped up her parka. She was dressed warmly in jeans made of winter-weight denim, an undershirt, a long-sleeved pullover sweater, socks, fur-lined boots and a fur-lined hooded parka. She didn’t play with cold weather.
T.K. was more lax in his winter attire. He didn’t even have on an undershirt, just a long-sleeved pullover sweater, jeans, thick socks and athletic shoes, with an expensive insulated parka in which he felt warm and toasty.
After pulling on her hood, Patrice went and helped him with his. “Being hair-deprived as you are, you need this,” she joked.
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “You look like a cute little Inuit.”
They left the RV and immediately felt the urge to turn around and go back inside. The air was bitingly cold on the skin of their faces. The wind was blowing fiercely, and it was snowing.
“I take it back,” Patrice said, her breath making white plumes in the icy air. “Albuquerque was never this cold!”
Sam bounded down the steps ahead of them. T.K. had put on his black doggy coat, and he looked kind of like a baby bear in it. T.K. had his leash in his hand but didn’t think he needed to use it because he doubted Sam would run off in this weather. The dog was not fond of the cold. He was a real L.A. pooch.
“Hurry up and do your thing, Sam,” he urged. He had the blue bag in his coat pocket. It wasn’t one of his favorite tasks, but he was a responsible dog owner.
“I wonder if Santa really lives in Wyoming and the claim that he lives in the North Pole is a total fantasy,” Patrice joked.
“That guy at the gas station not far from here did resemble St. Nick,” said T.K.
Patrice chuckled, remembering the friendly guy with the white beard and hefty build. “Nah, that wasn’t Santa. Santa wouldn’t own a gas station. A reindeer ranch, maybe.”
“How do you know what Santa does in his spare time?”
“Spare time? He has no spare time. He’s supervising the elves while they make the toys all year long.” She paused when she saw Sam stop by a bush and lift his leg. “We may have some action over there.”
A few minutes later, Sam finished, and T.K. went and did his duty, tossing the blue bag into a garbage can.
He left Sam in his trailer and walked with Patrice over to hers. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I suggested Wyoming as a location for this movie,” he said as he followed her inside. He locked the door behind them. “We could have done it on a Hollywood back lot and faked the snow.”
Patrice was pulling off her coat. “That wouldn’t have been half as authentic as Wyoming,” she disagreed. She put her coat on a nearby chair. T.K. took his off and put it next to hers.
He followed her into the kitchen. “Yeah, but we would have been comfortable.”
“Comfort isn’t everything. This movie will have some wonderful cinematic moments. The rugged terrain here is worth every penny. Besides, some of my favorite movies were filmed in Wyoming.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. He washed his hands at the sink, dried them and got the bread from off the counter while Patrice looked in the fridge for the roast beef and other sandwich makings.
“Yeah,” said Patrice, her head nearly inside the fridge. “Shane and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the first Spielberg movie I ever saw.”
“You’re so young, I figured your first Spielberg movie would be something from his later years.”
“I didn’t see it in a theater. I saw it on tape at my friend Beanie’s house. We were having a sleepover.”
“What’s Beanie short for?”
“Benina,” said Patrice. “Benina Johnson. She moved away. I haven’t seen her in years. These days my best friends are two women I met while at Juilliard, Belana Whitaker and Elle Jones-Corelli.”
“Corelli?”
“She married Italian composer Dominic Corelli.”
“I know him!”
“You do?” Her arms were full with a package of thin-sliced roast beef, a plastic jar of spicy brown mustard, lettuce, tomatoes and a jar of pickles. She carried everything over to the counter, took a moment to wash and dry her hands and then started making two sandwiches. “How do you know Dominic?”
“I was doing a film near Milan with George Clooney, and George has a house on Lake Como. Dominic has a house—”
“Yeah, I know. That’s where the wedding was held.”
“Anyway, we all got together and played cards. He’s a good player but not nearly as cutthroat as you need to be if you’re playing with those guys.”
Patrice laughed shortly. “You play cutthroat poker.”
“I do,” he said, smiling. “Do you play poker?”
“Not well enough to play with you guys, no doubt, but yes, I play. I don’t gamble, though, so what’s the point?”
“Why don’t you gamble?”
“I just have an aversion to wasting money. Growing up, money was tight. There were four of us kids, and sometimes ranching wasn’t very lucrative. You have good years and bad years. I guess I learned to be frugal. I’d rather give the money to somebody who can use it rather than gamble it away. That’s all.”
“I do both,” said T.K.
“Yes, I’ve seen you at charitable events around town,” she told him.
“Why is it I never noticed you?”
“Because I was just another young actress clawing her way to the top,” said Patrice.
“No,” T.K. disagreed, pulling her into his embrace. “You are not just some young actress clawing her way to the top. You’re special.”
Chapter 10
It was December, and they were at the end of the filming schedule. Patrice felt sad on one hand because she would miss everyone she’d worked with. On the other hand, she was so ready to leave the cold of Wyoming behind. People joked that L.A. enjoyed wonderful warm weather because it was so close to the entrance to hell, what with all the sinners who lived there. But she had come to appreciate L.A. more with each passing day. It had been below freezing here every day in December.
Mike had waited for this delightful weather to shoot the gunfight in the snow scene during which Patrice’s character, Bella, takes a bullet to the stomach. Of course, no one survived a gut shot in the 1800s. Medicine hadn’t been advanced enough back then to work the kinds of miracles that were seen today on a daily basis.
That morning, the wardrobe people dressed her in an emerald-green frilly dress trimmed in black, with long curly extensions hanging down her back, black lace-up ankle boots and a thick black hooded cape. After several starts and stops and, to Patrice, way too much time spent lying in the snow, they got the final scene on film.
In the scene, she was supposed to argue with Ted Knowles’ character, Bass Reeves’s nemesis, Sheriff Jesse Beaumont. Beaumont had tracked them down, and he’d spotted her in the general store buying more appropriate clothing for the winter weather. He grasped her by the arm and prevented her
from leaving. Bella kneed him and fled the store, her only wish to get to Bass and warn him.
She ran out into the street, trying to make it to the livery stable where Bass was bartering with the owner for fresh horses so they could continue their escape unimpeded by exhausted horses. She stopped short when Bass came out of the stable and began walking toward her.
Sheriff Beaumont was right behind her, gun drawn. “Reeves!” he yelled upon seeing Bass. “You stop right there and raise your hands in the air.”
Bass, not wanting Bella to get hurt, did what he was told.
“Take off your gun belt and get down on your knees,” Beaumont ordered. There was a satisfied smile on his face. He thought he had the upper hand and that he was finally going to see Bass Reeves hang.
“Bass, don’t!” Bella shouted, seeing Bass untying the leather straps that held his gun’s holster securely against his right thigh.
Beaumont was so hungry for payback that he didn’t wait for Bass to loosen the straps and allow his gun belt to fall to the ground. He raised his gun to shoot Bass in cold blood. Bass was concentrating on Bella, so he didn’t notice what Beaumont was getting ready to do, but Bella did. She turned and threw herself in front of Bass just as Beaumont fired and the bullet hit her in the midsection.
To Bass’s tormented mind, Bella seemed to fall in slow motion.
“No!” Bass shouted and shot Beaumont right between the eyes. The sheriff was dead instantly, and Bass rushed to Bella. It was snowing heavily now, and as he held her head in his lap, her blood stained the snow beneath her. She looked up at him and smiled.
“You were the best time I ever had,” she told him.
“You’re gonna be okay, Bella. Save your strength,” said Bass. A few people were slowly emerging from neighboring buildings and venturing onto the wooden sidewalks. “Somebody get the doc!” he yelled.
A shopkeeper turned and ran in the opposite direction, presumably to fetch a doctor.
Bella’s breath was labored now. She continued to smile. “Too late for that,” she told Bass. “You’d better go, baby. I’m sure the bastard didn’t come alone.”
