by Alison Tyler
The newspaper was turned to the entertainment pages. As Luke started to close the paper and get ready to go home, he noticed a caption about a new film being shot in the city. He knew, without reading the article, that it had to be Cat's picture. San Francisco had grown popular for location shooting, but the likelihood of more than one film being shot at a time here was improbable.
There was a list by day of where Dangerous Assignment was being filmed. On Wednesday there was going to be a chase sequence in and around the Embarcadero area.
Luke told himself there was less point than ever in seeing Cat again. What if Teri had been right? What if she had something going with this man in the hospital? As well as with the tall, handsome, gray-haired guy. Maybe she had just sandwiched him in for the night between the two of them.
His office on Geary Street was nowhere near the Embarcadero. He had no excuse for "being in the neighborhood." He couldn't even use the excuse that he wanted to tell Cat Roy off. Their one madly beautiful night together gave him no claims on her.
The hell with excuses. The truth was, he had to see her again and he could not think beyond that need.
Luke had no trouble finding the set. Quite a few people had already gathered to watch. The action was taking place on a street corner where Liz Fuller and an actor Luke did not recognize were busy arguing for the cameras. As Luke wandered down the street to where two cars for the film were being given the once-over, he spied another argument going on, this one not part of the film.
It was Cat and the tall, dark-haired guy going at it tooth and nail. They didn't spot him, and he couldn't make out what they were saying, but he could see the glint of determination in Cat's eyes and the sharply etched frown of frustration on the man's brow. Finally, the man threw up his hands and walked over to a mechanic rolling out from under the car. That was when Cat saw Luke.
She started toward him. Her face was flushed with excitement, but Luke wasn't sure whether or not he was the cause. He didn't get an opportunity to find out. She was called back to get ready to shoot. Cat threw him a kiss and shouted for him to wait for her as she hurried over to the car.
What a day, she thought exuberantly. Not only had Dodger finally consented, albeit reluctantly, to letting her do the crash, after making her manually remove that damn hydraulic pin a dozen times, but her very special lucky charm had reappeared.
Cat slipped her visor over her face and zipped herself into her special asbestos suit. This was an extra precaution. The point was for her to do this part of the stunt without getting anywhere near the exploding car.
Yesterday she had shot the original part of her sequence—the one Dodger had gone over with her on Monday morning. This afternoon she was taking Ben's place at the wheel for the big finale. Her anticipation and excitement were really flying now that Luke was watching. He'd shown up just when she had finally decided she couldn't stand not seeing him again and was getting up her nerve to call him that night. Now she wouldn't have to make that call.
Luke stood on the sidelines, close to a couple of the mechanics. One of them had noticed Cat's gesture toward Luke and came over to him.
"Is Cat a friend of yours?"
"We met a few days ago."
"Ever see someone do a crash gag before?"
"Gag?"
"Stunt. In the business we call it a gag."
"Oh," Luke said, feeling all the more a complete outsider.
"I sure hope she can handle this one. Our guy got himself a concussion the other day, and Cat finally talked the boss into letting her handle it."
"How dangerous is it?" Luke felt a large lump in his throat.
"Well, let's just say that if everything goes according to plan it will be a breeze."
"If it doesn't… ?" He didn't really want to hear the answer.
"She could either get herself burned up bad or smashed to smithereens. Don't worry, though," he said to Luke, who was rapidly turning a strong shade of green beside him. "Cat Roy is a pro. And really, all she has to do to stay perfectly safe is to pull that release. Handling the car for the slowdown is a cinch. You watch her handle this baby."
It was the last thing in the world Luke wanted to do, but he felt riveted to the spot. He stood there watching her car and the empty duplicate Corvette, attached in some way he couldn't exactly figure out, speeding up as they headed straight toward a large brick wall. A sharp wave of nausea attacked his stomach. Seconds before the cars were going to hit the wall, the empty car shot forward on its own, slammed onto the wall, and exploded in a burst of flames. The other car had come to a stop a few yards away. Cat had been so quick to escape before the explosion sent debris flying that Luke never saw her until the flames subsided.
Cat yanked the helmet off as several crew members ran up to congratulate her on a perfectly executed stunt. When she finally broke free of the group and turned in Luke's direction, he was nowhere in sight.
"Hey, Bob, where did that guy go that you were talking to?"
"He left in a hurry. I think that gag did it for his stomach."
CHAPTER NINE
Dodger stood off to the sidelines while the others gathered around Cat. When they went off, he walked over to her, wanting to offer his congratulations alone.
"You did a good job there, little girl."
"Good? I did a great job and you know it, you old codger." Cat was still distracted by Luke's disappearance, but she gave her father a wide grin. Dodger didn't throw compliments around, and she was particularly happy with this one. She gave her father a big bear hug.
"Well, wasn't I great?" she asked, giving him a nudge in the stomach with her helmet.
Dodger grabbed it and plunked it back on her head. "Just be sure your head doesn't get so big that this won't fit on the next time around."
"Gotcha, boss." She grinned.
"And, Cat, don't start believing it's all easy sailing from here on out. Ben is still my number-one pick for this gag."
"Ben might fall off another roof," she teased. "Don't worry, Dodger, I'll wait my turn in line. I don't mind as long as I know I'm not waiting in vain."
"I see a lot of people in this business getting so high on their abilities that they begin to think they're indestructible. I don't want to see that happen to you. The cemeteries are packed with those people." Dodger's gaze reflected pain and anger.
Cat put her arms around Dodger's neck. "I'm going to be okay, Dodger. This head of mine doesn't swell easily."
He ruffled her hair, wanting to ease the intensity of the moment. "See that you keep it that way. I plan to dance at your wedding—and at my grandchildren's as well."
Another topic rarely discussed. Not that Cat wasn't absolutely clear on the issues. Dodger wanted Cat married, out of the business, and settled down with a houseful of kids. What Cat didn't know was that lately Dodger was acutely aware of how much he regretted not having that kind of life himself. At some point he was going to have to talk with Cat about Joanie. First, he needed to be sure there really was something to talk about.
"Oh, Dodger, about dinner tonight…" Cat scanned the area again for Luke. She was sure he'd be back. Bob might not have been joking when he'd said Luke had run off looking green. He could have gotten a little overwhelmed watching the gag. Even knowing she was only doing a stunt was likely to be a little unsettling to someone who wasn't in the business. It was something she was sure he'd get used to in time.
For the past couple of nights, after visiting Ben at the hospital, Cat and Dodger had stopped off at a restaurant for dinner. Today Ben was back at the hotel convalescing.
"Listen, Cat, do you mind if I beg off tonight? I've got a lot of work to do," Dodger said.
"Planning to go over some special effects?" she teased. The idea of Dodger and Joanie was beginning to feel less uncomfortable to Cat. Anyway, she thought, it's most likely another of Dodger's brief involvements. She only hoped Joanie was looking at it the same way. Cat was very fond of Joanie and didn't want to see her get hurt.
> Dodger flushed, his gaze directed somewhere between his shoes, hers, and the pavement. Cat began to wonder if she was assessing the situation correctly.
She put Dodger's love life out of her mind. Hoping to spend the evening with Luke, she told her father she didn't mind dining without him tonight.
She hung around the area after the crew had cleared up the debris and gone off. Her initial optimism that Luke would show up again took a complete nosedive when nearly twenty minutes went by and there was no sign of him. Why had he shown up in the first place? Curiosity? One last look? She was leaving on Monday. Maybe he'd come over to say good-bye again and then decided against it.
Cat never did like other people making decisions that affected her without some of her own input. As she stalked back to her dressing area, she decided that she had some very definite points of her own to make, and she had no intention of letting Luke wander off into the blue without his knowing what they were.
She had just pulled off one of the toughest daredevil stunts in the business. So why not another, she mused with a smile.
Liz Fuller was removing her makeup in her dressing room.
"Well, if it isn't Wonder Woman herself." Liz grinned. "You know, I tried to talk Dodger out of letting you do that crazy gag. What would I do if I lost the best double I ever had?"
Cat came over to the dressing table. "Thanks a lot. And I thought you loved me for me alone."
Liz squeezed her knee. "We'll be pals all the way to the Hollywood Haven Rest Home for ancient actors and busted-up old stunters."
"I thought we could be pals all the way to Rome," Cat said, dabbing her finger into some cold cream and rubbing it across her dried lips. She may have appeared cool as a cucumber before that stunt today, but contrary to Liz's comment, she wasn't Wonder Woman. She had stepped into that Corvette fully cognizant of the risks. Now she was stepping into another risky situation, and this time she was far less certain of the actual dangers involved.
Her feelings baffled her. In the past she was always the one angling to keep relationships casual, making sure she didn't get herself tangled up so tightly that she wouldn't be able to undo the knots. Now she was throwing the lasso over herself with her own two hands. Rome meant Greece. And Greece meant Luke. This was some crazy stunt she was embarking on. She could be heading for the biggest crash of her life. Then again, Cat was very accomplished at pulling up the brakes when danger came close to disaster.
"Well, pack your bags, sweetie. We head out one week from today. Dodger's got the whole schedule. You'll be happy to hear you are going to get that opportunity to loll around the Greek islands for a while. Peter ordered some last-minute rewrites, and there's going to be an extra week location shooting on Skiathos and some of the other little islands in that area. I hope I can handle it." Liz stared at her image in the mirror.
"The ghost of Tony Vargos?" Cat asked gently.
Liz turned to Cat. "I did what may turn out to be a very dumb thing. I asked Peter to audition Tony for a small part in Victims."
"And he got it."
Liz nodded, a sly grin forming. "I started remembering those romantic nights with Tony on that yacht and how good we were together… Now that I've gone and set myself up, I'm beginning to remember all the problems."
Cat sighed. "Look, all you're doing is giving yourself a second chance. What if you and Tony could make a go of it again?" What if Luke and I could? She had to talk to somebody. She and Liz were now in the same boat. They were both about to do something that could be very dumb.
"Liz, if I talk to you about something—something personal, do you promise you won't laugh or— or…"
"Of course not, Cat. We joked around before about being pals, but I could use a friend to confide in, and if you could, too, I'd love it."
Cat moved away from the table and began to pace the small trailer dressing room.
"Remember the doctor that tried to stop me from jumping out of that window?" She saw Liz nod and went on. "Well, I've seen him again. That afternoon I went over to his apartment. I was just going to apologize." She paused. "No, I wasn't. I wanted to see him again."
"Something crazy happened to me up on that ledge." She gave Liz a sly smile. "It felt almost like a bolt of electricity went through me. He looked at me with those sexy eyes of his, and I felt like I was melting inside. It wasn't only a physical attraction. There was something about him—a gentleness, a sincerity, a feeling that people really mattered to him, that I mattered. It really shook me, Liz. Maybe I went back to see him to prove to myself I'd let my imagination get carried away. Only it didn't work out that way."
Liz smiled. "How did it work out?"
"We spent the next evening and night together." Cat stopped pacing. "We told ourselves and each other that it was fantasy—one special night of love and then back to our real lives."
"You don't want the fantasy to end?"
"That's the problem." Cat perched herself on the dressing table's edge. "Does it have to be a fantasy? Is it so impossible for the two of us to have something real?" She cast Liz a wan smile. "It probably is impossible." She remembered Luke's little speech in her hotel room after she'd pulled that stunt with the bellhop. If he ever did settle down it was going to be with a woman like Teri Caulfield, someone who matched his life-style.
"Where does Greece fit into all of this?" Liz asked.
"Luke is going to be there this summer. Maybe my taking on this film is a dumb idea. "
"Oh, no. You aren't backing out now. If you can tell me to take the risk of a second go-around with Tony, then the same is true for you, sweetie. Besides, we'll each have a friendly shoulder to cry on if things don't work out."
Cat dipped her pinky finger in Liz's pot of rouge, smeared one spot on her own forehead, one smudge on Liz's. "There, now we're blood sisters."
When Luke reached his apartment, he walked into the living room and sank into the couch. That stunt of Cat's really had done a number on his stomach, but his head felt even worse. What had ever possessed him to think there was any way he could contend with someone like Cat Roy, a woman who came within a hair's breadth of killing herself every time she went off to work? When she wasn't leaping out of windows, she was steering into brick walls. And this was only one film. He realized he'd seen the barest fraction of what her life was all about. But he'd seen enough to know it wasn't for him.
One issue resolved. That left the burning passion still ripping a hole through his heart. Seeing her again had not helped that issue. Instead it had made the flames shoot out more fiercely.
He walked into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. His eyes drifted to the window. He went back into the living room, determined to forget phantom images. Sitting at his desk, he made an effort to organize some of his notes. The pamphlets on Greece were cast off to one side.
He picked up a letter confirming his cottage for the month of July on the isle of Skiathos off the coast of Athens. He had picked this little island as his headquarters after weeks of research and talks with travel agents. Not only was it supposed to be very beautiful with its wild strawberry bushes, forests of olive trees, and silver-pebbled beaches, but it had easy access to Athens and ferry service to the other outlying islands in the chain.
Why couldn't he focus on his trip instead of on Cat? Before she appeared on that ledge, his fantasies had easily slipped into ones of Greece, even to meeting some exotic Mediterranean beauty there for a brief but satisfying interlude. Now those fantasies eluded him.
His doorbell rang. As he walked across the living room he saw a note being slipped under the door. He bent to pick it up. As he unfolded the paper he opened the door. There was no one there. Standing in the hallway, he glanced down at the neat, angular script and the big, bold signature.
The note was brief: "Sorry you couldn't wait for me this afternoon. I wanted you to meet Dodger, the guy I told you was like family to me. Actually, he is family. He's been bossing me around since I was a baby."
Cat poppe
d out of her hiding place around the corner. She held out a familiar-looking Thermos. "Dumb excuse, huh?" She grinned.
"I'm glad you came up with some reason to reappear." He walked slowly over to her.
"This time I filled it with my secret stomach-settler recipe. Bob said you looked kind of green when you left the shoot."
"I don't need it now."
"What do you need?" she whispered against his ear as he moved closer.
He smiled. "I may need to be committed in the morning, but at this moment all I need—all I want—is you."
"Don't worry, Doc," she said in that hot, sultry voice that moved right through him, "I only want to drive you a little crazy." She slid her arms around his neck as he lifted her in his arms, carrying her back to the apartment.
Luke slammed his door shut with his foot and walked into the living room. He didn't put Cat down, not wanting to let go of her now that he had her in his arms again. She felt so vital, so good, so full of life and energy. It was hard to even remember his fears as he pressed her against him. The pain seemed so removed from the ecstasy of the moment.
Cat loved the way he held her—like she was the most precious thing that he'd ever carried. She circled his neck in a tighter clasp, content to stay where she was.
Luke moved to the couch, sat down with Cat on his lap. Her eyes were a bright sea-blue as she gazed at him.
She leaned forward to kiss him, but he held her at arm's length, his eyes narrowing. "Family—huh?"
"Dear old dad," she acknowledged, her eyes glimmering.
"I wouldn't call him old. I hope I look that good when I have a daughter your age. How old are you, anyway? Do you realize how little I actually know about you?"
"I'm old enough to know what I'm doing," she murmured seductively, kissing him lightly.
Luke cupped her chin. "Any other family I ought to know about? Like that guy in the hospital who fell off a roof?"
