by Karen Rock
When he saw the finished project, she hoped he’d understand she’d only had his best interests at heart...
CHAPTER TWELVE
“JOY. BOYD. WELCOME to Scandalous History and congratulations on your engagement.” Katlynn aimed a serene smile into the camera just behind Boyd’s left ear. Farther back in Loveland Hills’s front parlor, directly in her line of vision, stood a protective Cole. His stance was braced and wide-legged, arms folded across his broad chest.
Sticky dampness pooled beneath the armholes of her floral-patterned dress. Aluminum reflector shields, set up around Boyd’s front parlor, bounced light straight into stinging eyes she willed to keep wide and open. Despite the conditions, she stayed mindful, as her life coach would advise her. If she messed up this interview, the production might go with the fractious segment she’d taped yesterday with Senator Reardon. She could not let Cole down, even if he still barely spoke to her, despite their fruitless rides out in search of Maggie and Everett’s secret meeting spots.
At least her family welcomed her. Just last night she’d babysat John’s and Michelle’s kids on their bowling league night and now knew every word to every song in Frozen. The irony of the lyric “Let It Go” did not escape her.
“Cut!” Gabe pointed at the tabby cat stalking haughtily across the room’s colorful braided rag rug. It leaped onto a chintz chair matching the one on which Katlynn sat, lifted a leg and began giving itself a bath. “This is a closed set!”
“Ginger! Sorry about that...curious cats...what can you do?” Sierra slipped past the sound crew, scooped up the protesting cat and hurried from the room.
“Pa!” Heath called from the hallway. “Have you got the keys to the backhoe?”
“Probably left ’em in my overalls’ pocket,” Boyd hollered back. “Check the wash.”
Gabe shoved his hands in his hair. With his mouth hanging open, eyes dark and wild, he so closely resembled the painting “The Scream,” Katlynn nearly laughed. “Are you expecting any more visitors? Pigs wandering in for breakfast?”
Cole shrugged. “We usually eat ’em for breakfast, but I can ask my brother Daryl to round some up for you.”
Gabe sputtered. By the look of him, her director teetered on the brink of one of his infamous tantrums, a mood that might ruin this crucial segment.
The recalcitrant senator had proved more challenging than expected, answering her pointed questions with persuasive answers. They would have raised doubt in her mind if she hadn’t already known the truth. She had to nail Joy and Boyd’s piece so the senator’s footage became cutting room floor fodder.
When she caught Cole’s speculative stare, she willed back the flush rising in her cheeks. She hadn’t explained her absence when she’d left to meet the senator. Keeping a secret this big from Cole felt wrong, even if it was for the right reasons.
“Gabe,” Katlynn said. “We’re ready when you are.”
He muttered to himself as he reset the shot. The key grip curled his fingers down, “Three, two...” Then a silent point.
“Joy. Boyd. Welcome to Scandalous History and congratulations on your engagement,” Katlynn began again, her voice modulated and warm. “From all accounts, your upcoming wedding has been a long time coming.”
Joy smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in her navy skirt until Boyd caught her hand in his. “It sure has,” he said. “I’d planned on asking for her hand over forty-two years ago.”
Katlynn angled her head and leaned forward. “Tell me about how you two first met.”
“Met? I couldn’t get away from her.” Boyd chuckled, earning him a playful tap on his arm from Joy, who relaxed slightly.
Good.
Act like your natural, charming self, Joy. As for Katlynn, it was tough to focus with Cole watching her like a hawk.
“Is that true, Joy?”
Pink suffused her cheeks as she tucked a silver strand of her bob behind her ear. “He might be exaggerating a tad.”
“She was a petite little thing. On the scrawny side,” Boyd began, the lines of his face easing as he looked down at Joy with a smile. “And a couple years younger than me. I remember thinking she had big eyes and an anxious smile. A pretty gal, but skittish.”
“And what was your impression of Boyd Loveland, Joy?”
Joy studied their clasped hands before lifting her head and gazing straight at Katlynn. Given the camera practically resting on her shoulder, it was a good angle. “I thought he was the handsomest cowboy I’d ever seen. He was helping at the county fair’s 4H livestock exhibit, throwing hay bales like they were made of cotton candy. When one of the guys whistled at me, Boyd scolded him, told him to respect a lady.”
“I don’t remember that,” Boyd exclaimed.
“A lady has to have some secrets.”
Their affectionate, teasing exchange was enough to melt the cameras for goodness’ sakes. Katlynn’s muscles loosened. Joy and Boyd were naturals. Two regular folks finding happiness at long last. How could the show not prefer this angle? Was Cole pleased? She didn’t dare check in case his expression threw her off; she was in the zone.
“And were you smitten right away, Boyd?”
Boyd shook his head. “My friends called Joy my shadow because she followed me everywhere, especially after she kissed me when we played seven minutes in heaven.”
Katlynn sensed the crew’s rapt attention and Cole’s intent gaze. The normally silent set seemed to have entered a sound vacuum. Not even a breath could be heard. “Seven minutes in heaven? Sounds scandalous.”
“She was terribly persistent.” Boyd let out a long, suffering sigh, a hint of amusement running through it. The mixture of exasperated affection reminded her of Cole so much, she ached. How to get him to start talking to her again?
Joy rolled her eyes. “Every gal was after you. I had to get your attention somehow. When he spoke up to that boy at the fair, I knew he was the one for me. I wasn’t going to quit until I got my man, but Boyd played hard to get.”
“Really?” Katlynn angled slightly in Boyd’s direction. Just behind him, she glimpsed a slight smile curving up Cole’s lips. Did he think she was doing a good job? The possibility filled her with a helium-tank’s worth of bright, bubbly air. “Why, Boyd? You said you thought she was pretty...”
“I knew, straight off, to keep my distance.” Boyd absently toyed with the blunt ends of Joy’s hair. “She wasn’t a casual dating kind of gal, and I was too young to get tied down. Some people called me wild back in the day.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Homecoming dance my senior year. I’d been crowned homecoming king and scored the winning touchdown. I felt invincible. Untouchable. Then Joy asked me to dance.”
“And you turned me down.” Joy folded her arms across her chest and shot Boyd a mock-glare.
“First time.” Boyd hung his head and rolled his eyes up to the camera, his expression hangdog. “Second and third time, too.”
Katlynn shook her head ever so slightly in sympathy. On TV, the slightest movement was magnified several times over. Less was always more. “How’d that make you feel, Joy?”
Joy closed her eyes briefly. “Like a fool.”
Boyd pressed a light kiss to her temple. “When I saw some gals laughing at her, I got angry, so I asked her to dance.”
“Out of pity?”
“It was more complicated than that.” A smile curled Boyd’s mouth, and his eyes took on a faraway look. “She looked real pretty that night. I still remember her dress. Yellow with beaded straps. It floated around her like a cloud. She’d fixed her hair different, too, pulling it up on the sides and curling it. For the first time I noticed her long neck and pretty ears.” Boyd chuckled. “Funny the things you remember.”
Cole cleared his throat, twice, and Mary, the show’s hair and makeup guru, gasped “Awwwwww” from the sidelines
. Was Cole remembering their first date, the dreamlike moment they’d shared at his birthday party before tragedy struck?
“Cut!” hollered Gabe. Joy and Boyd straightened, looking slightly confused. “What part of quiet on the set isn’t being communicated here?” He subsided when Cole cocked an eyebrow at him, oozing quiet menace.
Mary clucked as she dabbed powder on Katlynn’s forehead. “Those two are a dream. What’s that thing my son’s always saying? Relationship goals? Boyd and Joy are mine.”
Since Mary moved on to freshening Katlynn’s lipstick, she simply nodded, her eyes seeking out Cole again. Joy and Boyd had found a second chance at love; could she and Cole do the same? Like Joy, Katlynn fell in love with Cole at first sight. Sometimes the heart knows...and can’t forget.
A moment later the cameras rolled again.
“When we hit the floor, the band swung into a slow tune,” Boyd continued his story slowly, bringing the avid listeners back in time. “She put her arms around my neck and smiled up at me, her eyes big and dreamy, and I warned her, ‘I’m not falling in love with you.’ She just kept smiling.”
Boyd scrubbed a hand over his eyes, and a short laugh escaped him. “But I did. I did. As soon as I held her, I knew she was the one.”
“You knew that quickly?” Katlynn asked.
“It was more a feeling than a knowing.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Mary throw a hand over her mouth to stifle another “Awwww...” The same feeling coursed through Katlynn. A kaleidoscope of emotions flitted across Cole’s face, shifting and fusing, one into the next. Was he identifying with Joy and Boyd as much as she did?
“What forced you two apart?”
Joy peeked up at Boyd through her frameless glasses, her hazel eyes wide and slightly dark with regret. “My husband, God rest his soul.”
“A love triangle,” Katlynn mused, putting the “salacious” spin on the words Gabe loved. The intrigue just kept coming.
Joy placed her hands over her knee; her mouth turned down in the corners. “He’d always been sweet on me, but I never saw him as more than a friend. Besides, Boyd and I were serious, and I wasn’t the two-timing type.”
“Most loyal gal that ever was,” Boyd interjected.
Joy reached over and squeezed Boyd’s hand. “Then me and Boyd went jumping from this huge Scotch pine atop cliffs into a spring-fed ravine. My parents had warned me never to go up there because of the underwater rocks, but I never listened well back then. They were always lecturing me about something or another, especially about Boyd. They didn’t approve of me dating an older boy. Said he was too reckless. Wild.”
The mischievous smile playing on Joy’s lips had Katlynn guessing Boyd had been the tamer one in the relationship.
“So, you went diving, your parents found out and they forbade you from seeing Boyd again?”
Disappointment deepened the faint lines around Joy’s mouth. “Worse. I landed wrong and broke my leg and pelvis. I was laid up in the hospital for weeks and Boyd never visited, not once. It crushed me worse than the fall.”
“Why didn’t you visit, Boyd? Guilt?”
Boyd opened his mouth then snapped it shut when Joy continued. “I thought so, at least at first. I even wrote him letters, but he never wrote back. My only visitors were my parents, a couple of girlfriends and Jason Cade.”
“Your future husband.”
“Right. Except I was still too hung up on Boyd to have any feelings for Jason. The day I got released, I phoned Boyd, but his mother told me he’d joined the marines and shipped out the day before.”
Katlynn’s eyes swung to Boyd. “Without leaving word?”
Boyd and Joy shook their heads in tandem. “It hurt me bad. Over time, I picked myself up, told myself to stop pining for someone who didn’t care about me and to learn to love the young man who did. When Jason proposed, I accepted.”
“Then what happened?” Katlynn leaned forward, all ears. She loved finding the heart of a story, and every one of her instincts told her she’d struck gold.
“Boyd came home on leave the following Christmas and asked if he could see me. I didn’t tell anyone, just snuck out and met him. When I showed him my ring, he got really quiet. I asked if he planned on congratulating me, but he refused. He claimed I broke his heart.”
Katlynn’s on-air, sympathetic expression felt completely natural for the first time in a long time. “Did she, Boyd?”
“Cut!” Gabe shouted. “Katlynn, sweetheart. You look stunning as always. But the face you’re making is creating a line between your eyebrows.”
“So?” she challenged, empowerment coursing through her. Fine. She was showing a few more lines and extra pounds. So what? Spending time amongst regular folks again, with Cole, her family and the Lovelands, had made her comfortable in her own skin...with who she really was.
Gabe’s mouth dropped open and Mary giggled from the sidelines. Their pregnant lighting tech gave Katlynn a thumbs-up. Two female sound engineers exchanged swift, nodding smiles.
Yes. This is what Hollywood needed. A host who wasn’t afraid to show her age or her predilection for cheesy eggs.
Speaking of which...her stomach growled. She’d only had time to inhale a yogurt before this taping.
“How about just mildly empathetic?” Gabe wheedled, softening his normally abrasive tone even further for her. “Project with those beautiful eyes. Facial muscles are passé.”
And part of our basic biology...at least for those not shot up with Botox.
When the camera light flickered on, Katlynn puckered her eyebrows again, taking advantage of her star status. Gabe wouldn’t dare challenge her a second time in front of the crew. “Did she break your heart, Boyd?”
Boyd blinked up at the whirling ceiling fan. “Clean in half. When she told me I had it wrong, that I’d crushed her by not visiting, by not answering her letters, I knew something bad had happened. I went to the hospital every day, leaving word with the nurses, but they never allowed me to see her and returned the gifts I’d left. I thought she was mad and wouldn’t forgive me for daring her to jump at the ravine.”
A short silence descended, broken by the living room’s chiming grandfather clock. After a moment Joy blew out a long breath. “We just stared at each other for the longest time. Not comprehending. My parents had always been protective. They must have wanted to keep away the man they held responsible for nearly killing their daughter.”
Joy stared down at her white heels; a perfect match for the belt spanning her waist. When her eyes rose, her lashes blinked fast, swatting back tears.
“What happened next?” Katlynn coaxed.
“I cried.”
“I cried, too.” Boyd guided Joy’s head down to his shoulder. “I swore it wasn’t too late for us. We could make this right. Then she threw up.”
“As in...”
“Vomited all over his shoes. I had morning sickness.” Joy peered up at Boyd. “And that was that. When I confessed my suspicions about a baby, Boyd got so still I thought I’d stopped his heart and killed him outright.”
Boyd rested his cheek atop Joy’s head; the loving picture they made nearly broke Katlynn’s heart. “I thought she’d done me all over again. Could hardly breathe. It took everything I had to wish her and Jason well and leave. Never spoke to Joy again until a couple years ago, at a bereavement support group.”
The small smile playing on Joy’s lips triggered Katlynn’s memory. “Did I hear you got kicked out for talking too much?”
“We had a lot to catch up on.”
“I can imagine. How did your children take the news of you two getting reacquainted?” Katlynn didn’t have to see Cole’s frown to sense it. He didn’t want her asking tough questions, but this was her job. One she loved. Yet she’d have to quit it to be with Cole unless some other compromise existed...
“And are they supportive?”
“We’re counting on it,” Joy said, her eyes just a trifle sad. Cole shifted his body weight to his other leg. Hopefully, this interview would help ease the tension that’d flared anew at the softball game. “Tonight’s our rehearsal dinner so fingers crossed everyone gets along.”
“And no one gets killed,” Boyd added with a wink, although the strain around his mouth belied his lighthearted gesture.
“If you could go back, change things, would you?”
Boyd and Joy stared at each other for a long, potent moment before facing Katlynn again. “No,” Boyd said as Joy shook her head. “We’ve each raised children we’d never wish away. And the time apart has only made me appreciate what a lucky man I am to have this second chance. She’s the wind behind me, pushing me forward. The light in the window calling me home.”
This time, when a sigh rose from the crew, Gabe just kept filming. Katlynn supposed they’d have to address the sound issue in editing, but the moment was too pure to spoil with a cut.
“I love you, Boyd Loveland,” Joy murmured, her hand on his cheek.
“I love you, Joy Cade. Can’t wait to tell the world so next week and make you mine at last.”
“Congratulations, Joy and Boyd, and thank you again for sharing your powerful story with us today.”
“Cut.” Gabe strode from behind the camera, his movements quick and electric. Like Katlynn, he smelled a good story...maybe even an Emmy-worthy one. “Let’s shoot a few more reaction shots and outtakes and then we’re done. Excellent job as always, Katlynn.”
“Gabe? May I take five?”
His eyes narrowed on her face, assessing. “Do we have a skin anesthetist on call? Maybe some Botox during your break?”
“He can take that Botox shot and shove it where the sun don’t shine,” Mary growled beneath her breath when Katlynn joined her in the walk-in pantry they’d converted into a dressing room. “You look gorgeous just the way you are.”
