Dual Image

by Nora Roberts

  and Booth’s film is going to be a smash.”

  He eyed her over his glasses, then grinned. “The power of positive thinking.”

  “If it works.” She leaned her elbows on the table, then rested her chin on her fists. “All my life I’ve been moving toward certain goals, without really understanding that I was setting them for myself. They’re almost within reach.”

  Bigby glanced up at the waitress before he turned back to Ariel. “How about some pie with the coffee?”

  “You twisted my arm. Blueberry.” She touched the tip of her tongue to her lip because she could almost taste it.

  “Two of each,” Bigby told the waitress. “Speaking of Booth DeWitt . . .” he went on.

  “Were we?”

  He caught the gleam of amusement in Ariel’s eye. “I think you mentioned him to me a few weeks ago. A man who didn’t think much of relationships or actresses?”

  “You’ve quite a memory—and very sharp deductive skills.”

  “It was easy enough to put two and two together, particularly after Liz Hunter’s performance on the MacAllister show the other night.”

  “Performance?” Ariel repeated with a half smile.

  “An actor can usually see through another, I’d think. A lawyer’s got a lot of actor in him.” He paused and folded his hands on the chipped Formica much as he did on his desk. “She put DeWitt through the wringer a couple of years ago.”

  “They damaged each other. You know, sometimes I think people can be attracted to the specific persons who are the worst for them.”

  “Is that from personal experience?”

  Her eyes became very sober, her mouth very soft. “Booth is right for me. In a lot of ways he’ll make my life difficult, but he’s right for me.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I’m in love with him.” When the pie was brought over, Ariel ignored the coffee and concentrated on it. “Bless you, Charlie,” she said after the first bite.

  He lifted a brow at the sliver of pie she was in raptures over. “You’re easily impressed.”

  “Cynic. Eat it.”

  He picked up a fork and polished it absently with a paper napkin. “At the risk of putting my foot in it, DeWitt isn’t the type of man I’d have matched you with.”

  Ariel swallowed the next mouthful. “Oh?”

  “He’s very intense, serious-minded. His scripts have certainly indicated that. And you’re . . .”

  “Flaky?” she suggested, breaking off the next piece of pie.

  “No.” Bigby opened one of the little plastic containers of cream that were heaped in a bowl on the table. “You’re anything but that. But you’re full of life—the joy of it. It’s not that you don’t face the hard side when it comes up, but you don’t look for it. It seems to me DeWitt does.”

  “Maybe—maybe he expects it. If you expect it and it happens, you aren’t as staggered by it. For some people, it’s a defensive move.” A small frown creased her brow before she smoothed it away. “I think Booth and I can learn a lot from each other.”

  “And what does Booth think—or am I out of line?”

  “You’re not out of line, Charlie” she said absently as she remembered how grim Booth had been when he’d come to her door, how intensely he’d made love to her. He’d relaxed, degree by slow degree. Then he’d slept, with his arms tightly around her, as if he’d just needed to hold on. To her, she’d wondered, or to the peace? Perhaps it didn’t matter. “It’s hard for Booth,” she murmured. “He wanted to be left alone, wanted his life to go on a certain way. I’ve interfered with that. He needs more time, more space.”

  “And what do you need?”

  She looked over and saw her answer hadn’t pleased him. He’s thinking of me, Ariel realized, touched. Reaching over, she laid a hand on his. “I love him, Charlie. That’s enough, for now. I do know it’s not enough for always, but people can’t put a control switch on emotions. I can’t,” she corrected.

  “Does that mean he can?”

  “To a certain extent.” Ariel opened her mouth again, then shook her head. “No, I don’t want to change him, even in that way. Not change. I need the balance he brings me, and I need to be able to lighten some of those shadows he carries around. It’s the same with Scott, in a way. I need the stability he brings to my life—the way Scott, maybe children in general, can center it. Basically, I have an outrageous need to be needed.”

  “Have you told Booth about Scott? About the custody hearing?”

  “No.” Ariel stirred sugar into her coffee but didn’t drink it. “It doesn’t seem fair to saddle him with a problem that was already in full swing when we met. Instinct tells me to handle it myself, then when it’s resolved, to tell Booth in my own way.”

  “He might not like it,” Bigby pointed out. “The one thing Ford brought up in our last meeting that I have to agree with is that some men can’t or won’t be responsible for another man’s child.”

  Ariel shook her head. “I don’t believe that of Booth. But if it’s true, it’s something I’ll have to deal with.”

  “If you did have to make a choice?”

  She said nothing at first, as she dealt with the ache even the possibility brought her. “When you make a choice between two people you love,” Ariel said quietly, “you choose the one who needs you the most.” She lifted her eyes again. “Scott’s only a child, Charlie.”

  He leaned across to pat her hand. “I just wanted to hear you say it. To be completely unprofessional again,” he said with a grin, “there isn’t a man in the world who’d turn down either you or Scott.”

  “That’s why I’m crazy about you.” She paused a moment, then touched her fork to her tongue. “Charlie, would you think I was really a hedonist if I ordered another piece of this pie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Ariel lifted a hand and gestured for the waitress. “Once in a while I just have to be decadent.”

  * * *

  Amanda’s life was a pressure cooker. As she went over the pacing of her lines one last time, Ariel decided she was grateful for the tension. It helped her deal with reality just a little better. She’d spent the morning in court, and the following day she was scheduled to take the stand. That was one part she couldn’t rehearse for. But the good feeling she’d experienced the first day of the hearing hadn’t faded, nor had her optimism. It was poor Amanda, Ariel mused, who’d continue to have problems that would never completely be resolved. That was life in a soap opera.

  The rest of the cast had yet to return from the lunch break. Ariel sat alone in the studio—lounged, that is, on the rumpled bed she would rise from when Amanda was awakened by the sound of breaking glass. Alone and defenseless, she’d face the Trader’s Bend Ripper. She’d have only her wits and professional skill to protect her from a psychotic killer.

  Already in costume, a plain nightshirt in periwinkle blue, she continued to murmur her lines out loud while doing a few lazy leg lifts. She’d had some vague twinges of guilt about the second piece of blueberry pie.

  “Well, well, so this is the lightning pace of daytime television.”

  Immersed in the gripping scene between Amanda and a psychopath, Ariel dropped the script and gasped. The pages fluttered back down to her stomach while her hand flew to her throat. “Good God, Booth. I hope you’re up on your CPR, because my heart just stopped.”

  “I’ll get it started again.” Placing a hand on either side of her head, he leaned down and kissed her—softly, slowly, thoroughly. As surprised by the texture of the kiss as she’d been by his sudden appearance, Ariel lay still and absorbed. She knew only that something was different; but with her mind spinning and her blood pumping she couldn’t grab on to it.

  He knew. As he eased down to sit on the bed and prolonged the kiss, Booth understood precisely what was different. He loved her. He’d awakened alone in his own bed that morning, reaching for her. He’d read something foolish in the paper and had automatically thought how sh
e’d have laughed. He’d seen a young girl with a balloon giggling as she’d dragged her mother toward the park. And he’d thought of Ariel.

  And thinking of her, he’d seen that the sky was beautiful and blue, that the city was frantic and full of surprises, that life was a joy. How foolish he’d been to resist her, and all she offered.

  She was his second chance. . . . No, if he were honest, he’d admit that Ariel was his first chance at real happiness—complete happiness. He was no longer going to allow memories of ugliness to bar him from that, or from her.

  “How’s your heart rate?” he murmured.

  Ariel let out a long breath, let her eyes open slowly. “You can cancel the ambulance.”

  He glanced at the tumbled bed, then down her very sedate, very appealing costume. “Were you having a nap?”

  “I,” she countered primly, “was working. The rest of the cast is at lunch, I wasn’t due in till one.” She pushed at the hair that fell dark and disordered over his brow. No tension, she thought immediately, and smiled. “What’re you doing here? You’re usually knee-deep in brilliant phrases this time of day.”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “That’s nice.” Sitting up, she threw her arms around his neck. “That’s very nice.”

  It would take so little, Booth mused as he held her close. What would her reaction be when he told her that he’d stopped resisting, and that nothing had ever made him happier than having her in his life? Tonight, he thought, nuzzling into her neck. Tonight when they were alone, when there was no one to disturb them, he’d tell her. And he’d ask her.

  “Can you stay awhile?” Ariel didn’t know why she felt so wonderful, nor did she want to explore the reasons.

  “I’ll stay until you wrap, then I’m going to steal you and take you home with me.”

  She laughed, and as she shifted her weight, the script crumpled beneath her.

  “Your lines,” Booth warned.

  “I know them. This”—she flung back her head so that her eyes glittered—“is a climactic scene full of danger and drama.”

  He looked back at the bed. “And sex?”

  “No!” Shoving him away she scrambled onto her knees. “Amanda’s tossing and turning in bed, her dreams were disturbed. Fade out—soft focus—she’s wandering through a mist, lost, alone. She hears footsteps behind her. Close-up. Fear. And then . . .” While her voice took on a dramatic pitch, she tossed her hair behind her back. “Up ahead, she sees a figure in the fog.” Ariel lifted a hand as if to brush away a curtain of mist. “Should she run toward it—away from it? The footsteps behind her come faster, her breathing quickens. A sliver of moonlight—pale, eerie—cuts through. It’s Griff up ahead holding out a hand to her, calling her name in an echoing, disembodied voice. He loves her, she wants to go to him. But the footsteps are closing in. And as she begins to run, there’s the sharp, cruel glimmer of a knife.”

  Ariel grabbed both of his shoulders, then did a mock faint into his lap. Booth grinned. A quick tug of her hair had her eyes opening. “And then?”

  The man wants more.” Scrambling up again, Ariel pushed the script aside. “The scream’s caught in her throat, and before she can free it, there’s a crash, a splinter of glass. Amanda jerks up in bed, her face glistening with sweat, her breath heaving.” When she demonstrated, Booth wondered if she knew just how clever she was. “Did she dream it, or did she really hear it? Frightened, but impatient with herself, she gets out of bed.”

  Swinging her feet to the floor, Ariel got out of bed, frowning at the door as Amanda would do, absently pushing back her hair and reaching for the low light beside the bed. “Perhaps it was the wind,” she continued. “Perhaps it was the dream, but she knows she’ll never get back to sleep unless she takes a look. Music builds—lots of bass—as she opens the bedroom door. Cut to commercial.”

  “Come on, Ariel.” Exasperated, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward the bed.

  Obligingly she circled his neck with her arms as she stood in front of him. “Now you’ll learn the best way to keep that shine on your no-wax floor.”

  He pinched her, hard. “It’s the Ripper.”

  “Maybe,” she said with a flutter of her lashes. “Maybe not.”

  “It’s the Ripper,” he said decisively. “And our intrepid Amanda goes downstairs. How does she get out of being victim number five?”

  “Six,” Ariel corrected. “The saying goes, that’s for me to know and you to find out.” With a jerk of his wrist, he’d whipped her around so that she tumbled into his lap, laughing. “Go ahead, torture me, do your worst. I’ll never talk.” Linking her hands around his neck, she looked up at him and smiled. And she was so beautiful, so full of life at its best that she took his breath away.

  “I love you, Ariel.”

  He felt the fingers at his neck go limp, saw the smile fade, her eyes widen. Inside, Ariel felt as though someone had just cut off the flow of blood from her heart. “That’s a tough way to find out a plotline,” she managed after a moment. She would have sat up if she’d had the strength to resist the gentle pressure of his hand on her shoulder.

  “I love you, Ariel,” he repeated, forgetting all his plans for telling her with finesse and with intimacy. “I think I always have. I know I always will.” He cupped her face in his hand as her eyes filled. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted and was afraid to hope for. Stay with me.” He touched his lips to hers and felt the tremor. “Marry me.”

  When he would have drawn back, she clutched at his shirt. Burying her face in his shoulder she took a deep breath. “Be sure,” she whispered. “Booth, be absolutely sure because I’ll never give you a moment’s peace. I’ll never let you get away. Before you ask me again, remember that. I don’t believe in mutual disagreements or irreconcilable differences. With me, it’s forever, Booth. It’s for always.”

  He forced her head back. In his eyes she saw the fire and the passion. And the love. “You’re damn right.” Her breathless laugh was muffled against his mouth. “I want to get married quickly.” He punctuated the words with another kiss. “And quietly. Just how soon can they shoot around Amanda so we can have more than a weekend honeymoon?”

  Ariel hadn’t known anyone could outpace her. Now, her thoughts jumbled as she struggled to keep up. Marriage—he was already talking of marriage and honeymoons. “Well, I, let’s see . . . After Griff saves Amanda from the Ripper, she loses the baby and goes into a coma. The hospital scenes could be—”

  “Aha.” With a self-satisfied smile, Booth kissed her nose. “So Griff saves her from the Ripper, which removes him from the list of suspects.”

  Ariel’s eyes narrowed. “You rat.”

  “Just be glad I’m not a spy for another network. You’re a pushover.”

  “I’ll show you a pushover,” Ariel claimed, and overbalanced him so that he landed on his back. He loved her. The thought brought on such giddiness, she collapsed against him, laughing. Before he could retaliate, they heard someone rushing up the stairs.

  “Ariel! Ariel, you’d better take a look at—” Stella skidded to a halt when she saw Ariel and Booth laughing and half lying on the bed. She whipped the paper she held behind her back and swore under her breath. “Whoops!” With an embarrassed smile she called on all her skill to keep either of them from noticing that she felt slightly ill inside and desperately worried. “Well, I’d have knocked if you’d bothered to close the door.” She gestured with her free hand toward the false wall. “Suppose I go out and come in again?” Right after I burn this paper, she thought grimly, and grinning, backed up.

  “Don’t go.” Ariel struggled all the way up, but kept one hand tucked into Booth’s. “I’m about to bestow a singularly great honor on you.” She squeezed Booth’s fingers. “My sister, however rotten, should be the first to know.”

  “By all means.”

  “Stella . . .” Ariel stopped because she caught a glimpse of something in her friend’s eyes. A glimpse was enough. “What is
it?”

  “Nothing. I remembered I have to talk to Neal about something, that’s all. Look, I’d better catch him before he—”

  But Ariel was already rising from the bed. “What was it you wanted me to see, Stella?”

  “Oh, nothing.” There was a warning, a deliberate one, in her eyes. “It can wait.”

  Unsmiling, Ariel held out her hand, palm up.

  Stella’s fingers curled tighter around the paper. “Ariel, it’s not a good time. I think you’d better—”

  “I think I’d better see it now.”

  “Damn it.” With a glance over Ariel’s shoulder at Booth, Stella passed her the paper.

  Celebrity Explorer, Ariel noted with a slight flicker of annoyance. As tabloids went it was bottom of the barrel. Half amused, she glanced over the exploitive headlines. “Really, Stella, if this is the best you can do for lunchtime reading, I’m disillusioned.” Absently, she turned it over and scanned under the fold. From behind her Booth saw the tension shoot into her body.

  SOAP OPERA QUEEN’S DESPERATE BATTLE FOR LOVE CHILD

  Below the bold print headline was a grainy picture of Ariel sitting on the grass in Central Park with Scott’s face caught in her hands. In one part of her mind she remembered that frozen moment from their last Sunday afternoon. As she stared at it, appalled, sickened, she didn’t hear Booth rise and come to her.

  Something slammed into his stomach—not a hammer but a fist that