“Who am I kidding?” she asked aloud, her voice echoing off the rafters in the empty hollows of the cabin. Ty had gone to work out at his health club, but Cammie, though invited along, had chosen to stay at the cabin and read his screenplay. She suspected he was secretly glad she’d remained; he hadn’t wanted to be in the room while she read his work. In fact, physically working out had probably just been a ploy to give her some privacy, which was fine with her because she wouldn’t have been able to lose herself in the story if Ty had been sitting across from her with bated breath, waiting for her review.
But it was a marvelous story, and more than once she’d felt tears burn the backs of her eyelids. She could just imagine the power this story would have on film, yet Ty had sworn it would never see the light of day in Hollywood; it was far too personal.
Far too personal…
Cammie closed her eyes, switching her thoughts from the manuscript to her own recent memories, specifically the stretch of lovemaking she and Ty were enjoying. Her cheeks reddened at the memories and her lips curved into an embarrassed smile. For it was embarrassing! They devoured each other. It was like two lost souls, clutching at each other for salvation, finding deliverance in the glory of touching and discovering each other’s bodies.
Sensations swamped her just at the memory. While his lips had trailed a hot line of fire from her mouth to the crest of her nipple, her hands kneaded the muscles of his back and her own mouth sought the curves of his ear, her tongue darting in and out until a low moan issued from his lips.
Somewhere, deep in the night, he’d groaned, “Cammie, what are you doing to me?”
“No more than you’re doing to me.”
Then this morning, while she lay sleeping and dreaming beside him, he’d awakened her in the most delicious way. Pulling back the covers, he’d exposed her smooth, honeygold skin to his questing tongue. Warmth suffused her, spreading like molten lava through the most intimate parts of herself. Cammie’s head lolled back and she opened herself totally to his skilled seduction.
He’d tried to hold off, to drag out the moment, but she’d slid her hands over his hips and straining manhood. Lightly, she brushed her nails across his most intimate parts, earning hard, burning kisses against her mouth, his tongue thrusting deep inside that moist cavern, foreshadowing the ultimate possession yet to come.
“Hurry!” she’d begged against his persuasive lips.
His answer was a half laugh, half groan of torment. Before falling asleep, she’d managed to slip on a pair of panties. Belatedly discovering them, Ty had growled in protest, yanking at the tiny scrap of fabric with urgent hands. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wisp of her panties tossed blithely through the air; her amusement at this vision quickly vanquished by a host of wild sensations as his hands explored every vital area. When his fingers parted her most secret femininity, she simply relaxed and gave herself up to his lovemaking. She gazed into his passionate eyes and drew his face to hers, kissing the slightly salty skin, rubbing her cheek against the beard that she’d grown so used to.
When he slipped inside her, she was wet and ready in a way that a distant part of her mind marveled at. How could it be this way? Loving him, wanting him, was all that was needed to turn her into a wild wanton. Her behavior both shocked and awed her; she hadn’t known she would feel this way. She’d made herself believe that their one night together in Los Angeles was an aberration, a beautiful fantasy that could never be repeated.
But she was fast learning that loving Ty was an experience she could enjoy over and again without fear of losing her desire. She craved him again already, and it had been mere hours since their last fervent encounter.
The front door suddenly blew open. May sunshine flooded the cabin, brightening the honey-toned fir beams and planks, sending a soft enveloping breeze to warm the morning air. Outside, birds twittered and the smell of summer was just around the corner. Cammie, whose back was to the door, gathered the screenplay in her hands, climbed off the stool, then turned slowly in Ty’s direction, her gaze still fastened on the pages of his work.
He stopped short upon entering.
“Ty, this is amazing work,” she said. “It’s very, very good. In fact it’s…” She glanced up, then gasped in shock, the manuscript fluttering from her hands to the floor.
“What do you think?” Ty asked her.
The beard was gone. Shorn. Completely eradicated.
Cammie gulped. “Whoa.”
“Whoa?”
Years had been lifted in the process. Ty looked younger, more vital, full of strength. He was, in fact, the image of himself at twenty-three. A decade had been shorn along with the beard, and just looking at him stirred strange feelings and memories inside Cammie. His gray eyes seemed bigger, deeper; his brows sterner. Dimples played beside his mouth, dimples lost in the thick fur of his facial hair. That simple beard had, in many ways, covered up the real Tyler Stovall.
He smiled, throwing her a flash of white teeth that melted her feminine soul. “I shaved at the club.”
“No kidding. You look—amazing.”
“I look too much like I did, don’t I? The girl working reception stared at me as if I were a ghost.”
Cammie could believe it. “Do you think she knew who you really are?”
“Maybe. No.” He frowned. “I hope not. I should have told her some story she’d believe, but I just wanted to get back here and see you. I’ll deal with her later.”
“You’ll have to come up with a whole new repertoire of lies. You look like Tyler Stovall now. Just like you were.”
He eyed her soberly. “I’m glad.”
Cammie’s heart thumped. “Are you saying—you’re ready to go back?”
“I’m just not as ready to hide,” he answered, picking his words as if he were just understanding the truth himself. Gazing at the untidy papers spread at Cammie’s feet, her earlier words finally penetrated his brain. “You liked it,” he said, and she knew he was pleased.
“I loved it.”
Cammie bent to pick up the scattered pages. Ty came to help and, when the manuscript was gathered together, she handed it to him. Her fingers trembled a bit, which bugged her to no end. So he had a “new look.” So he was more like the old Tyler. So what?
Crossing to the couch, she plopped down on it. Her own susceptibility was an embarrassing nuisance. She wished she could be more nonchalant where Ty was concerned; if she couldn’t, she was destined for heartbreak.
Ty glanced down at the pages of the screenplay he’d dubbed with the working title, Father Knows Worst. He was glad he’d let Cammie read it. He’d needed a fresh eye, just for confirmation that his instincts were right about the story. Though he never intended to turn it into film, he felt vindicated somehow, just knowing that someone recognized its worth.
And that someone was Cammie.
Sliding a sideways glance in her direction, Ty was overwhelmed anew at what she did to him. She’d changed into the usual jeans and a greenish-blue corduroy shirt, a shade that matched her eyes. No proof against the fetching picture she made, Ty reached her in two strides, then stood gazing down at her, suddenly humbled by the tender feelings she engendered in his heart. Her hair tumbled in redstreaked waves across her shoulders, and her eyes were still heavy from lack of sleep, a condition he was totally to blame for. As he looked down at her, her lips parted, moist and full and so enticing that Ty groaned and flung himself on the couch beside her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed.
“Nothing.”
There was something so pure about her that he couldn’t get over it. It wasn’t real; he knew that. It was some silly picture he placed over the truth to wipe away all the tawdriness he’d known in the area of love.
Love…He shuddered at the idea, because he wasn’t sure he believed in it beyond the love of a mother for her child. Okay, fathers loved their children, too. Some fathers. But romantic love had no place in his beliefs. Most cultures, as it t
urned out, agreed with this philosophy. Arranged marriages were the norm, where parents were supposed to know best in these matters. Only in western society was the idea of an arranged marriage abhorrent.
Well, I would never trust my father to pick out a wife for me! he had to admit to himself. That would be a one way ticket to divorce-ville!
Still, it didn’t mean that there existed, between a man and a woman, a true romantic spirit that could last and endure beyond the physical. And he was too old to hope for its existence now…wasn’t he?
Just because you’re attracted to her beyond all sense doesn’t mean you are in love with her. You know better.
With that thought squarely in mind, Ty bounded to his feet again, still hanging on to the pages of his screenplay while Cammie looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“I’m glad you like it,” he told her gruffly.
“I don’t expect you to sell it to Hollywood,” she said. “It was too—telling.”
“Was it?” he asked rhetorically, for he knew fully what she meant.
“Yes,” she answered, and he glanced over at her again. His senses stirred again in spite of himself. She had the most outstanding effect on him!
“It got to me,” she added. “I wanted to break down and bawl like a baby a time or two.” She hesitated, grimacing before pointing out the obvious. “It would be amazing on film.”
“No.” He was adamant.
“Is it true? I mean, all of it?”
Her eyes were filled with uncertainty; she didn’t want to pry. Ty gnashed his teeth together, almost afraid to admit to such terrible truths. With an effort, he nodded curtly, and cringed when Cammie swept in a sharp breath of disbelief.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” he declared bitterly.
“Sad,” she answered gently. “Your father doesn’t know how to act like one, that’s all.”
“Is that some kind of excuse?”
“Not at all. It’s just that—there’s something unformed about a person who’s in such desperate competition with his own son.”
He stared at her. She was uttering thoughts he’d believed to be only his own. Glancing at the sheaves of papers that made up Father Knows Worst, he asked, “You picked that up from this?”
“I never thought about it before, but now I believe, well, that your father went out of his way to thwart you. He professed to be so proud of you, but it was really just envy.”
Ty felt slightly dazed. She’d echoed vague thoughts he’d never quite put into words. Thoughts that had found their way into his screenplay through the action he described between himself and Samuel. Oh, he’d changed the names, unable to write his and his father’s names on the printed page. It had seemed safer, somehow, to keep it in the abstract even while he was laying it down, step by step, just as it had occurred in life.
“You know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?” Cammie asked, her gaze soft and tender.
“Don’t…”
“You should send this to a producer, or a production company.”
“No.”
“It’s a beautiful story with a poignant ending.”
“Beautiful!” he rasped, shocked.
“Ty, it’s a story of triumph,” Cammie said. “Look at it objectively. The hero’s a man who ends up in the most unlikely of places—a small, cowboy town in the Northwest where the seamy tawdriness and trite ugliness of an unhappy childhood in the spotlight is replaced by a love for simplicity. And that’s where he finds his true self.”
He shook his head and argued, “It’s a story of a powerful father who despises his own offspring while he continues to populate the earth with them as a means to prove his own immortality!”
“That, too,” she agreed. “But it’s so much more, and you know it.”
Did he? Tyler, for all his self-confidence, had little faith in his ability to express himself through screenwriting. Yes, he’d picked up a few subliminal tips from his mother when he was a child, and yes, she’d answered some knotty problems from him when he’d queried her on the phone while he’d written the thing. But he hadn’t believed it was any good. Not really. Because it was too personal and because just reading it over still had the power to inflame his sense of injustice and helplessness where his father was concerned.
There was no way he could allow it to be filmed.
“You don’t have to make that decision today,” Cammie said. “I just want you to know that it’s really a worthwhile effort. It’s loaded with the kind of truth that hits you in the gut. And let’s face it, that’s what everybody’s looking for.”
“I could never put my life out there like that—exposed for everyone to see.” He snorted derisively. “These people who write those tell-all books are gluttons for punishment! The whole world thinks they know you. Everybody’s an expert. I did this for a sense of closure, that’s all.”
Cammie nodded. “I couldn’t bare my soul for public viewing, either. But that doesn’t make this any less powerful. That’s all I’m saying.” The corners of her mouth lifted humorously. “And if this ever saw the light of day, your father would have a coronary!”
“That’s the first argument you’ve made that I’m willing to listen to!” Ty declared with a snort.
“I know you left because of Gayle’s faithlessness,” Cammie said. “Her suicide was terrible and shocking, and destroying her own child…” Cammie shook her head. “It’s unconscionable. But finding out she’d slept with your father was soul-destroying,” she added softly. “I know that’s what sent you here, to Bayrock.”
“I never loved her.” His voice sounded strange to his own ears.
“I know. It’s all in there.” She inclined her head toward the screenplay.
“She said she wanted me. She said a lot of things that I believed, and when she told me she was pregnant, I told her I’d pay for the baby.”
“Pay?” Cammie questioned.
“For its upkeep. Its cost. I didn’t want to marry her, and she didn’t want to marry me, either.” He smiled without humor. “At least, I wasn’t her first choice. I wasn’t as established as my father.”
“You don’t know what she was thinking,” Cammie murmured, hurting for him.
“I know she was pregnant, and I know she was having an affair with Samuel. Or, at least I learned that the hard way. I should have guessed, though. She was so…difficult, toward the end.” He ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes, thinking back. “Any woman my father was associated with was a whore, according to Gayle. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I think now she saw herself more with him than with me.”
Cammie nodded. The screenplay hinted at everything Ty now corroborated.
“But she didn’t want my money. She was upset. Who knows what would have happened if things had been different. But, according to dear old Dad, the baby was his.”
“Was it?”
“I don’t know. It was such a mess, and I was so angry and sick and fed up. My father was, of course, married and, unlucky for her, currently not interested in another divorce. She should have just stuck around,” he muttered bitterly. “He would have got there in time, I’m sure.”
“Maybe she loved you. Maybe Sam was just a tool, a way to make you want her more.”
“Oh, no.” Ty’s mouth curved bitterly. “She had me first. I told her I’d stick by her. But I was merely the stepping-stone, although I didn’t know that for a fact until after her death. She wanted my father.”
“Maybe.”
“She wanted the prestige of being Samuel Stovall’s wife—like so many others before her.”
Cammie glanced down at her nails. “Like my mother, you mean?”
Ty sighed. “No. You were right, and I was wrong. Your mother really loved him. At the time I just didn’t want to face how selfish and awful my father was. It was easier to blame your mother.”
Cammie gazed up at him with love. “Thank you for that. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I needed to
hear it.”
“I was such a bastard,” he said, grimacing.
“You weren’t. You were just protecting Samuel, and in a way, that’s admirable.”
“Completely back-assward and stupid. But admirable.”
Cammie smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Yes, it is. And I deserve it. It’s okay.”
They smiled at each other with renewed tenderness, crossing a huge gulf that had once seemed unpassable.
“Whew!” Cammie declared. “Look how far we’ve come in so short a time. I feel like all these terrible little issues that were digging at me are being put to rest, one at a time. I’m so glad.”
“Me, too,” Ty agreed, and it was as if those same nagging issues had been resolved for him, too. He felt stronger. Tougher. Less influenced by his previous life which had haunted him for so long.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m tired of all this wallowing in the past. Let’s get out of here. Do something different.”
Her brows lifted delicately. “Like what?”
“A boat ride. I know a guy who’ll rent me one anytime I like. Let me take you for a tour around the bay. What do you say?”
“Now?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Cammie glanced outside. Sunshine slanted from the sky in visible rays, cutting through grayish clouds that were rapidly scurrying away. It was warm, but the weather was iffy, as if it couldn’t quite decide whether to rage on toward summer or hang on to the last vestiges of a cold spring. The ubiquitous breeze flitted through the green leaves of a stand of nearby birches, reminding her that it could be raw as December up here, even in late May.
But Ty was already heading downstairs. He grabbed a red-and-black-checked, lumberman’s-type flannel shirt from a peg in the hall.
Cammie slipped past him into the bedroom and dug through her small bag. She needed something warmer. Ty appeared behind her, and as she pulled out a pair of black leggings, she said doubtfully, “Maybe I could wear these under my jeans.”
“I’ve got a pair of sweats you could put over those,” he suggested.
Someday Soon Page 24
