by JoAnn Ross
But gradually, as her maternal instincts developed, assisted by a mountain of child-care books, Lena began to relax. And to enjoy being a mother. So much so, that by the time Grace was three years old, she couldn’t imagine a life without her bright, beautiful child in it.
There were a few moments of self-doubt, like last week, when she’d watched Grace and Molly having a pretend tea party together and wondered, deep down inside, if she and Reece had deprived the pair of having an honest mother-daughter relationship.
But it wouldn’t have worked, Lena reminded herself yet again. After all, Molly was a nun. Whoever heard of a nun raising a child?
The courts had decreed that Lena was Grace’s mother, Reece her daddy and Molly her aunt. Despite Reece’s initial concerns, the situation had worked out for everyone involved.
But sometimes, late at night, while she was lying in bed unable to sleep, listening to the sound of the waves outside and Reece’s breathing inside, Lena worried about what she’d do if Molly ever decided to leave the order and claim her child.
But she wasn’t going to worry about such an unlikely scenario on such a picture-perfect day, she vowed as she carried the bag of peat moss into the backyard.
The sun was shining, making the ocean beyond the cliffs shimmer like glass. A few white clouds drifted by in a dazzlingly clear blue sky. Lena and Grace had decided that the largest one definitely looked like a cocker spaniel.
They were planting bulbs in the rock garden beside the house. “Tulips have always been my favorite flower,” Lena confessed to her daughter. She did not mention that this was the first time in her life she’d ever actually planted any. Always before, obsessed with the idea of dying young like her mother, she’d always stuck to annuals. It had seemed safer that way.
Grace looked up from patting the dirt over a newly planted bulb. “Why?”
“Because they’re a happy flower.”
Grace’s smooth brow furrowed. “Flowers can’t be happy or sad,” she argued, reminding Lena of Molly. “They’re just flowers.”
“I was talking about the way they make you feel.” Lena smiled down at her daughter. “They’re so bright and cheery, just like crayons. You can’t help but smile when you see them.”
Grace thought about that. “Is that true?”
“Absolutely.”
“Everyone smiles when they see tulips?”
“It’s impossible not to.”
“Then I think we should give some to Uncle Alex,” she decided. “Because he’s been really grouchy lately.”
Lena laughed. “Good idea. But he’ll feel better when he and your aunt Theo get married.”
The clear bright blue eyes widened with obvious delight. “Uncle Alex and Aunt Theo are getting married? Really?”
“Absolutely.” Lena grinned conspiratorially down at her daughter. “But don’t tell your uncle Alex. Because he doesn’t know yet.”
“It’s a girl thing, right, Mama?” It was what her mommy and her aunt Theo always told her when they were having lunch together here at the house, laughing about Daddy and Uncle Alex.
“Absolutely.” Unable to resist touching her daughter’s black curls that fell nearly to her waist, Lena pulled off her gloves and ruffled Grace’s hair. “Come here, you,” she said, pulling the little girl into her arms, “I need a hug.”
As she felt Grace’s slender little-girl arms wrap around her, Lena closed her eyes and said a brief prayer of thanksgiving. Then wished that it were possible to freeze time.
“Well?” Alex glared over at the woman who’d been driving him up a wall for weeks.
Theo stretched with feline satisfaction. “It was wonderful,” she all but purred. Turning over onto her side, she ran her hand over the chest that remained rock hard from daily workouts on the Soloflex machine. The pewter hairs sprinkled among the darker chestnut ones reminded her that no matter how young she felt inside, they didn’t have all the time in the world. “But you’ve always been a wonderful lover, Alex.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. And you know it.”
“Oh?” She arched a russet brow. She was a redhead this week, but had been considering a rich sable she thought might make her look a bit like Jackie O during the former First Lady’s editorial days.
“Don’t play dumb with me, sweetheart. In case you’ve forgotten, I used to have the best confession rate on the force. I can play this game better than you.”
Although she truly doubted that, Theo decided this was not the time to argue the point. “I assume we’re back to my offer.”
Back-to-back Emmys for best Daytime Drama, as well as others for writing, and several cast awards, had earned Theo a highly lucrative offer from The Guiding Light.
“What else?” he grumbled, reminding Theo of a grumpy old bear just emerging from hibernation.
“Believe me, darling, the day I take my work to bed, is the day I retire. Especially when I’m in bed with you.” She pressed a wet kiss against his navel.
“Dammit, woman, I’m trying to have a serious conversation here.” He grabbed hold of her hair and jerked her head up, not gently. “The least you could do is cooperate.”
“I’m sorry.” The ability to empathize had made her a very wealthy woman. Looking at the honest frustration on his face, Theo realized that the time for teasing was over. “I promise to be on my best behavior, Officer.”
Although her tone was as sweet as spun sugar and her gaze guileless, Alex looked at her sharply, as if trying to decide whether or not she was laughing at him.
“All right,” he said. “We’re long overdue for a talk. But first, there’s something I need you to do.”
“Anything,” she answered promptly, meaning it.
“Put something on. There’s no way I can talk business while you’re sitting there with your gorgeous tits in my face.”
The complaint, which Theo decided to take as a rather backhanded compliment, made her reconsider her recent decision to have her ample breasts “fluffed up” a bit.
“Whatever you say, sweetie.” She reached down, picked up the gauze swim cover-up from the floor and pulled it over her head. “Is that better?”
Alex shook his head. “Not much.” The damn top was nearly see-through. “But it’ll have to do.” Using his hands, he pushed himself up to a sitting position beside her. “First of all, I want you to know that I understand what a coup this job would be.”
“Not every writer gets a chance to be a producer,” she agreed.
“I know. And you deserve it. And I’m damn proud of you.”
Theo, who’d never lacked self-confidence, found his gruff compliment more pleasing than all the gilt statues she had won. “Thank you.”
“And I realize the money they’re offering could set you up for the rest of your life.”
“It’s quite a lucrative offer. Of course,” Theo added, “it does cost more to live in New York.”
“Yeah.”
Theo wanted to assure him that she didn’t want to go to New York. That she hated the idea of leaving him. But since they were playing for higher stakes here—the most important she’d ever played for in her life—she resisted showing her hand.
Alex took a deep breath. “We’ve been together now four years. And as Dan keeps telling me, a relationship is like a shark. It’s gotta keep moving. Or die.”
For a fleeting, horrifying moment, Theo wondered if Alex was trying to tell her it was over. While she waited for her heartbeat to settle, she pretended sudden interest in the watercolor of a vineyard, across the room. She and Alex had bought the painting on a recent trip to Napa Valley where they’d sampled wines, had picnics overlooking lush green sunlit valleys and made love for three glorious days and nights.
“Interesting, Daniel should know so much about relationships,” she murmured. “Since I doubt if he’s managed to make one last more than ten days.”
“That’s his point. He says that when a guy finds the right woman, he’ll know it right
off. If the woman you’re dating isn’t the right one, you move on. If she is, you move hell and high water to keep her.”
“I see.” Growing more and more nervous, Theo began plucking at the sheet. What was he thinking of, asking his son—who couldn’t be more than thirty—for romance advice? She’d thought for sure that Alex had fallen in love with her, as she had with him. Surely she couldn’t have misjudged him so badly?
He reached out and took hold of her hand. Theo watched, momentarily intrigued as it disappeared between his much larger ones.
“I don’t know what I would have done without you, these past few years,” he said. “I’ll admit when we first met, I didn’t take you all that seriously. I mean, you were a lot of fun to play cards with, and even more fun in bed, but I never imagined any kind of future with a woman like you.”
A woman like you. The words did not strike her as exactly complimentary. Theo reminded herself that she should be paying attention to her feelings right now. After all, they’d prove invaluable in her work. Hadn’t her very own mother, a brilliant, manic-depressive poet once told her, “Everything’s grist for the literary mill, darling.” Including, it seemed, Theo thought miserably, a broken heart.
“But then I had that accident. And amazingly, you stuck around, encouraging me, daring me, cussing at me when I didn’t want to get out of bed. Comforting me when I needed it.” His hand tightened, squeezing hers. “I honestly don’t know if I ever would have had the guts or fortitude to walk again if I hadn’t had you in my life at the time.”
“That’s me,” she quipped flatly. “Florence Nightingale to the lame and stubborn.”
He tilted his head and looked at her curiously, surprised by her shaky attempt at humor. “Are those tears?”
“Of course not.” Furious with her atypical lack of self-control, she blinked furiously. “Go ahead, Alex,” she said with a brittle brightness, “this little tour down memory lane is fascinating.”
A tear escaped. He brushed it away with a fingertip. “You are crying.”
“It’s allergies,” she sniffled.
“Bullshit.” He gave her another long, puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t!” Frustrated and embarrassed, Theo pulled away and jumped out of the bed. “And you know why? Because you’re a fucking man. And like all men, you don’t have a clue about how to conduct a relationship.”
“I believe I already admitted to that.”
Theo, who was on a roll, didn’t hear him. “Oh, you all think, so long as you give a woman at least one orgasm every time you make love and pretend to listen to her when she’s gossiping about something you find excruciatingly boring, give up a few basketball games on ESPN in order to go to the theater, and assure her she doesn’t look fat in her new dress, you’re being the perfect nineties male.” She stopped pacing long enough to glare down at him. “But you still don’t get it, do you, hotshot?”
“Get what?”
“I give up!” She threw her arms in the air and resumed pacing.
Fascinated, and a little afraid of her, Alex watched. And waited. He did not have to wait long.
“Do you realize how hard it was on me to spend all that time at the rehabilitation clinic while I was trying to establish a new career?” she demanded, her hands splayed on her hips in a way that pulled the transparent material taut against her body, momentarily distracting him. “Do you have any idea how many scripts I wrote while stuck in traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway? Did you have any idea that I was operating on less than four hours’ sleep a night during the first six months after your accident?”
“I said I appreciated it. You don’t have to shout.”
“Dammit, I’m not shouting,” she shouted. “I’m not telling you this because I want your appreciation!” She spat the word out of her mouth as if it had a bitter aftertaste. “I didn’t hang around after the accident because I had any martyr complex, Alex Kovaleski. I stayed with you because I realized that I’d already fallen in love with you. Serious, once in a lifetime, forever-after kind of love, goddammit!”
“You love me?”
“Of course I do, you big boob. And it’s coming as a definitely unpleasant revelation to discover that it’s got me feeling every bit as bad as when I was fifteen and had a gigantic crush on Jeremy Parcell. So, why don’t you just get it over with?”
“What over with?” Alex was more confused than ever.
“Aaagh!” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath that once again drew his eyes to her magnificent breasts. Despite the disastrous way this conversation he’d planned so carefully was turning out, Alex experienced a renewed stirring of desire.
“I categorically refuse to make this easy on you, Alex. After all we’ve been through, all we’ve shared, I’m not letting you off the hook that easy. If you want to break up with me, you’re going to have to damn well say the words.”
“Break up with you?”
He’d always thought of her as the strongest, bravest, sexiest woman he’d ever met. Now, realizing how badly she needed comforting, he damned the artificial legs that were lying beside the bed, cursed the stumps that kept him from leaping out of bed and taking her into his arms.
“Isn’t that what all this is about?” she asked.
“Hell, no. Actually, what I was trying to do, in my own admittedly clueless way, was to propose.”
“Propose?”
“As in, ask you to marry me.” He sighed, thinking of how badly he’d screwed this up. Dan would laugh his fool head off if he knew what a fuck-up his dad was. “I was also going to ask you—beg you, if necessary—to stay here in California with me, but I realize now how important this new job offer is, so I was thinking, there’s no reason we can’t have one of those commuter marriages—”
“No.” She flung herself back onto the bed so hard the mattress bounced, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard.
“No?” he asked when the blissful kiss finally ended.
“No, I’m not going to New York. And yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”
She kissed him again. Harder, longer. And as the kisses deepened and the afternoon shadows grew longer, Alex decided that while he might have screwed up the actual proposal, there were some romantic things he did pretty damn well. If he did say so himself.
“You don’t understand.” Tessa sighed as she refilled her champagne glass. It crossed her mind that she’d been drinking a bit too much lately. But who wouldn’t? With all the stress she had in her life. “I don’t have the money.”
Jason laughed at that. “Hell, baby, don’t give me that.” He was lying on his back, floating in the pool. With his tanned, buffed-up body, Tessa thought he looked a lot more like a soap opera hunk than a cop. “You’ve got it made. A house in Beverly Hills—”
“On the flats, not in the Hills,” she pointed out. “And it’s rented.”
“It’s still a long way from that dive in West Hollywood. A shiny red Porsche sitting in the driveway—”
“Leased.”
“Dammit, Tessa, would you quit interrupting me.” Although the mirrored sunglasses kept her from seeing his eyes, from the warning edge to his tone, Tessa knew they’d be as hard as granite.
“I’m sorry.” She took another long drink and willed her nerves to calm.
She didn’t need this. Not now. Not with the rumors circulating about Terrance Quinn being in Mexico, hidden away at some secret clinic in Guaymas, receiving an esoteric cure for liver cancer.
Although she’d worked in Hollywood long enough not to believe every rumor, she’d been worried for days that this story just might be true. Terrific. That’s all she needed. Her agent dying just when it was time to renegotiate her contract.
“My point,” he said, “is that you’re a supporting cast member in a top ten-rated sitcom. You’re getting fifteen thou a week, baby. Even a dopehead wino like you can’t spend all that.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk to me like that
.”
She’d tried for a flash of fire and ended up sounding pitiful. Dammit, if they were going to argue like this, she’d have to take another Xanax. Besides, it wasn’t true. She hardly ever drank while working. As for drugs, she managed to get along just fine without them during the week. It was on the weekends, or during the program’s hiatus, that she’d get in trouble. What she needed, she told herself for the umpteenth time, was to get back to work.
So, where the hell was Terrance?
“Then quit holding out on me.” He rolled off the float and came out of the pool to stand over her. Drops of water fell onto her hot oiled flesh. “You seem to be forgetting who made all this possible, sweetheart. If I hadn’t discovered you that day on Sunset Boulevard and introduced you to Miles, you’d have ended up slinging hash at that Denny’s where you were going to eat Christmas dinner. Or making porno movies for the mail-order video market.”
“I really don’t have any money.” It was the truth. Her expenses were ridiculous. Not to mention the checks she kept writing out to him. She’d discovered early in their relationship that Jason was a gambler; unfortunately, he was a chronically unlucky one. “And I won’t until I sign the new contract.”
“Then sign it.”
He made it sound so simple. “Terrance says it isn’t in my best interest. He says I should hold out for a movie of the week to be part of the deal. He also says that their demand for approval on any commercial endorsement contracts—”
“Terrance says this. Terrance says that.” His acid tone mocked her concerns. “For your information, sweetheart, your agent is currently puking his guts out in Mexico. And not because of any Montezuma’s revenge he might have picked up while deep-sea fishing. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for him to come back. Because it isn’t going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Believe me, I do. Don’t forget, I’ve got contacts south of the border. And they tell me that Quinn’s ticket on planet earth is about to get punched.”
