“You’re incredible.” Tyler gazed at him in a mixture of disgust and reluctant admiration. “You’ll use anyone at anytime for any purpose. You’re a complete opportunist. What do you really want me for? Tell me. Nothing you can say can shock me now.”
Cammie dug her fingernails into the arms of the chair. Samuel regarded Ty assessingly, as if wondering just how close he could come to the truth. It appeared as if Ty were warming to him a bit, despite all Samuel’s selfish explanations. But appearances were deceiving, and Cammie knew the extent of Ty’s acting prowess. She knew, even if Samuel, who was blinded by his own desires, didn’t, that Ty would never come back to Hollywood on a wave of free press, a wave thundering to shore with the wind of scandal at its back.
“I want you for me,” Samuel said bluntly.
“For you.”
“Yes, for me. I want my son back. I want him to resurrect his career. Whether you believe me or not, I want what’s best for you. Father to son.”
Ty’s jaw tightened and relaxed. “You have never been any kind of father to me,” he said in a low voice. “Not when I was young, not when you slept with Gayle, and not now.”
“I helped get your career going, and don’t say I didn’t. If you’d been a nobody, it would have been harder.”
“So, I owe you something for that.”
“Damn it, Tyler!” Samuel jumped to his feet, thunking his empty glass on the table. “You’re as stubborn as a mule and only half as smart. Look what you’ve done!” He swept an arm around the cozy room. “You’ve collected dust for ten years! Get out and live, boy, before you’re old!”
Like me…
The words weren’t uttered, but they hovered in the air anyway, betraying Sam’s feelings in unexpected eloquence. He wanted Ty back because it felt like his own youth was slipping away like sand through his fingers. Cammie could almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
“I’m not interested in returning right now,” Ty told him, his voice gentler. “Whether you think so or not, I have a life here. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s close.” A frown marred his brow. Was he remembering her? Cammie wondered. And the knowledge that this life would be one without her? That location was their enemy?
Or, was that putting too much emphasis on what she meant to him?
As if hearing her thoughts, Samuel swung his tyrannical gaze on her. “And what about you, Camilla?”
“What do you mean?” she answered automatically.
“What do you want?”
“This isn’t about me.” She shook her head. “I thought you were here to change Ty’s mind.”
“I thought you were, too,” he reminded her, shooting an icicle of fear through her heart.
“No,” she denied quickly. “What I want and what Ty wants aren’t necessarily the same. I wouldn’t expect him to change his life so drastically, just because I can’t live here.”
Samuel’s brows lifted, and the glint in his eyes could only be described as diabolical. Cammie began to sweat even before his first syllable was uttered. “So, you’ve thought about staying on, then? In this one-horse town?”
“What do you want to hear?” Ty interrupted. “That we’ve been seeing each other since she arrived? That we’re—involved? Okay, we’re involved. It’s been—great.”
If he’d thought that might derail Samuel, he’d only inadvertently greased the wheels. “You’ve gotten pretty cozy with each other,” he observed. “Romance. It’s a beautiful thing.”
“Cut the sarcasm.” Ty sounded tired.
“You’re all trusting and close and loving.”
“Samuel…” A livid warning rested in Ty’s tone.
“Am I wrong?” He gazed innocently at Cammie whose mouth had turned to cotton. He had the power to ruin her, and that moment was close—very close.
“I don’t know what you’re driving at, but you know what? It’s none of your business.” Ty, who had moved away from the door, now returned to it, silently asking his father to leave once again.
“What about the screenplay?”
Samuel’s bomb landed with a thud, or at least it sounded that way to Cammie, whose ears suddenly thundered with a swoosh of air, as if a hurricane were rushing throughout the room, rendering her deaf.
“The screenplay?” Ty repeated in a deadly voice.
“Camilla…” Samuel clucked his tongue. “You didn’t show him?”
“Show me what?” Ty asked, but he was looking at Samuel.
Cammie turned to Ty, to the man she loved, feeling as if she were in a vortex. His image seemed fuzzy and unformed. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t speak. “I—didn’t—” she stuttered.
“Your loving little friend has something to say,” Samuel prompted.
“Get out!” Ty yelled at him again. “Get out now!”
“Tyler!”
“If I have to, I’ll bodily throw you out! Get the hell out, now!”
Samuel opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. Ty’s tense, murderous gaze said it all. No more explanations. No more waiting. No more secrets revealed.
“Go,” Ty urged, his voice so soft, Cammie wondered if she’d read his lips instead of hearing the sound.
Frustration tightened Samuel’s lips. He hated being thwarted. But he’d done it to himself! In his desire to get Ty to do his bidding, he’d thrown Cammie to the wolves, thereby sabotaging any hope of achieving his goal. Now, he strode stiffly to his son, but Ty’s eyes clashed furiously with his own. Still, he couldn’t quite admit defeat. “Ty…”
A pungent curse escaped Ty’s lips, punched with power, made more so by the fact that it was spoken so softly.
Samuel hesitated one last time. His lips parted, but Ty’s expression was stone. Expelling a furious snort, Samuel departed with ill grace, striding stiffly outside. Tyler gently shut the door behind him.
He turned to face Cammie, his back against the door.
“What screenplay?” he asked.
The moment had come. Cammie felt suspended, floating. She’d set this up all on her own. It was no good blaming Samuel; she’d taken the bait and run with it. And her innocence, if it could be called that, wouldn’t be acknowledged. She’d tricked Ty, though not in the way he would assume; she was only guilty of withholding the truth, but that, in its own way, would be damning enough.
And she’d known it all along. Why, oh, why hadn’t she come clean in the very beginning? Now, it would appear she’d been Samuel’s cohort from the onset—which was not that far from the truth.
“What screenplay?” Ty asked again, his voice flat, wiped clean of emotion.
Cammie licked her lips.
“My God. You told him about Father Knows Worst!”
“No!” That brought her to her feet. Ty’s stunned expression was more than she could stand. “He doesn’t know about your screenplay. He couldn’t!”
“Couldn’t he?”
“No.” Cammie was emphatic. “I don’t see how. I haven’t talked to him since I left L.A.”
“Then what did he mean?”
“Ty, take a seat,” Cammie begged, gesturing to the couch Samuel had so recently vacated. She couldn’t have him standing there, legs spread apart, expression tense and accusing, while she dissolved into the armchair, weak and guilty.
“Do I need to sit down?” he questioned in a voice that was hard to read.
Cammie nodded jerkily, and Ty, after a short hesitation where his jaw perceptibly tightened, strode stiffly to the couch and eased himself down onto it, his gray eyes searching Cammie’s face, reading God knew what. Her own features felt tight and frozen.
“Go,” Ty clipped out.
Cammie swept in a breath and let it out slowly. “I haven’t been completely honest with you—I’m sure you’ve guessed that by now. Your father gave me your address, that much is true, but he did it for other reasons than the ones he gave you.”
“What other reasons?”
“He wanted you back. He wanted you back
as an actor. And a son, of course,” Cammie stumbled on, knowing she was digging her own grave.
“Of course.”
“Ty…”
“Just tell me.” His gaze was cold as the North Sea.
“There is an opportunity for you,” she admitted in a low voice, unable to put any power behind her words. “A lead role in a Summer Solstice production.”
Cammie cringed, waiting, but Ty looked more perplexed than angry. “Summer Solstice?” he repeated blankly.
“A husband-and-wife production team. They’re the ones producing Rock Bottom, the screenplay Samuel’s talking about.”
“You mean, this is about a part?” Ty asked slowly. “That’s all?”
“Well, y-e-ss.” She drew out the word, waiting for the volcanic reaction that was sure to follow.
But she was wrong, it appeared, for Ty looked merely relieved, and then almost amused. “The answer’s no. I’m not interested. End of story.”
Cammie had no response, mostly because she didn’t know which tack to take. He didn’t understand all the complexities yet, and when he did, he wouldn’t be so blasé.
“Was there something else?”
Cammie sighed heavily. She sensed she was at the end of her relationship with Ty no matter what she said, what she did. She felt outside of herself, watching the pathetic soul lost in the depths of the chair, knowing that poor fool was about to have her rising hope and burgeoning love quashed forever.
“There’s more, obviously,” Ty answered his own question. “Go on.”
“When Samuel learned I wanted to see you, he gave me a copy of Rock Bottom in exchange for your address. He wanted me to convince you to come back and take the role.”
“Okay.” He waited, but Cammie, unable to continue and bring about her own demise, merely shook her head. “Where’s the copy of the screenplay?” Ty asked.
“I—I didn’t bring it with me.”
“Why not? Wasn’t that your bargain with the devil?”
“I couldn’t do it. I just—let him think I could,” she admitted wearily.
“You thwarted him.” Ty’s lips twitched with amusement.
Cammie could have cried out at the unfairness of it. She could have been forgiven. He would have forgiven her! Bringing him the script would not have been a crime in itself; she was the messenger, not the message. But when he learned of her own personal stake, of the part she herself had been offered, there would be no convincing him that the role had no bearing on her feelings and reasons for searching him out.
“You heard him. Samuel had me followed, so I guess I didn’t really thwart him much.”
“Don’t worry so much, my love,” Ty told her. He knelt beside her chair and pulled her cold hands in the comfort of his own, gently urging her forward into his arms. She felt shaky and lost, and a protest issued involuntarily from her lips. “Don’t let him ruin this for us,” Ty urged into the glory of her hair, his strong arms enfolding her, his heartbeat strong beneath the cheek she rested against his chest. “We have each other. We’ll figure this out. We couldn’t stay on in Bayrock anyway; I guess I always knew that. You want to go back to L.A. Maybe it’s not impossible. Maybe I could find a ranch out there somewhere, like my mother. I don’t know.”
“Oh, Ty!” She could have cried over the unfairness of it.
“Take it easy. Samuel wants the past swept under the rug, and he wants me back in Hollywood. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes, it does,” she argued. “I want you back, too. You know that.”
“Then I’ll give it a try,” he said soberly.
Disbelieving, she pulled back to gaze into his beloved face. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes. Dear old Dad’s right about one thing,” he said, his lips twisting ironically. “It’s time to put the past behind me, and that’s never going to happen unless I face my own ghosts.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely. I’m almost sorry you didn’t bring the damn thing with you.”
“You mean the screenplay? Are you interested?”
“Oh, there’s a twinge,” he admitted. “I liked acting. But when I relived all the sordid details surrounding Gayle’s death”—Ty pretended to shudder from head to toe—“all those terrible feelings came right back. Over the years I’ve sometimes wondered whether running away was the best choice, but when Samuel brought up the past, it convinced me leaving was my only choice. I knew it then; he reminded me now.”
Cammie clung to him, to his warmth and support. He kissed the top of her head, pulled her to her feet, then slowly set her at arm’s length from him so that he could stare into her eyes.
“Why do you look so frightened?” he asked, perplexed. “I don’t blame you.”
Cammie choked out a hysterical laugh. “Not yet.”
“How could I blame you for Samuel’s treachery? He hasn’t changed a bit! He’s selfish and egocentric, through and through. He has his moments, but they’re not enough.”
“Ty…”
“Cammie, you said yourself you didn’t bring the screenplay. That oughtta tell me something.” When she still couldn’t relax, he asked, as a means to lighten the mood, “So, what is this screenplay about?”
“Rock Bottom? Do you really want to hear?”
He stroked her hair, willing her to get over the harsh interruption of Samuel’s arrival. Once over the initial shock, he himself was almost relieved to be found out. It made his next course of action inevitable. And he felt more tethered, though he was loath to admit it. Seeing his father again had made him recognize that family thing that Cammie had first touched again. It was important, no matter how much he tried to run from it. “Start with Summer Solstice Productions. Who’s this husband-and-wife team?”
“Nora and James Connelly. They’ve become very successful in the last few years. Everyone’s clamoring to be in one of their films. A Summer Solstice film is as close to a sure bet as it comes in this industry.”
“So, why do they want to resurrect me?” Ty gently steered Cammie away from the living room and toward the short hall that led to the bedroom. He was done fighting his father and the ghosts of the past for one night. All he wanted was to fall asleep in the shelter of the arms of the woman he loved. Loved. It was getting easier by the minute to say, to accept.
“They want you because you’re perfect for the role,” Cammie murmured, letting herself be led. “It’s a great part.”
“You’ve read the screenplay.”
“Mmmhmmm. I read it the night your father gave it to me.”
Ty stopped for a moment. His hands cupped her chin, lifting her reluctant gaze to the scrutiny of his. “Did you think I would actually come back to Hollywood for a role?”
“I said you wouldn’t,” she admitted honestly.
He regarded her thoughtfully. “It’s that good?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I should go back for it?” he asked curiously, without any real intent behind the words.
“I think you should do whatever you want to do. Based on what your father said tonight, and what I now know about Gayle and everything, I wouldn’t blame you if you never returned!” She kissed his now smooth cheek, loving the smell of him. “But I also know that if you did go back, it would be because you’d come to peace with the past. Nothing, certainly nothing as superficial as a film part, could lure you to Hollywood unless you were completely ready.”
“You sound sad, like you expect it to never happen. Didn’t I just say I might go back?”
“But you won’t.”
She was so positive, all of a sudden, and Ty couldn’t understand her attitude. It was as if she didn’t want him to answer “yes.” Something else was going on, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They both jumped at the harsh knocking on the front door. Muttering to himself, Ty reluctantly released Cammie and strode to the entryway. A glance through the triangular
windows revealed his father had returned.
“Dear old Dad,” he groaned. Cammie’s already ashen face grew still whiter, bewildering Ty anew. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his hand on the knob.
She shook her head.
“Cammie!”
“Answer the door. Find out what he wants. He won’t go away unless you do.”
“I should just let him rot out there,” Ty muttered.
“Your father’s bullish.” Cammie’s smile was wan. “Runs in the family.”
“I’ll take that as an insult,” he said, loving her all the more. She seemed so fragile to him tonight, totally unlike the independent, smart-tongued woman he knew her to be.
Bang! Bang!
With an oath of repressed fury, Ty threw open the door, meeting his father with an icy glare. “There was something else?”
“You bet there was,” Samuel answered, having clearly recovered his full composure. The minutes since his departure had convinced him he didn’t have to listen to his son. Samuel Stovall’s recognition of self-worth was ever-present. He’d just forgotten for a moment that he, not Tyler, was the boss, forever and ever.
“Ahhh…” Tyler said as his father thrust a sheaf of papers at his chest. The title Rock Bottom jumped out at him.
“Read it, damn it,” Samuel bit out. “You can do that much, can’t you?”
“It won’t do any good.”
“She should have given it to you,” Samuel declared, throwing a vitriolic glance Cammie’s way. “What were you thinking? You can’t just stay here indefinitely. Nora and James don’t want you that badly,” he told her, and Cammie’s breath caught in her throat.
Here it comes!
Ty glanced from Cammie to his father. “If they don’t want me that badly, why are you insisting I read it?” he asked Samuel, missing the messages entirely.
“Not you. Her!” Samuel’s furious brow suddenly cleared, as he realized the truth of the moment. “Didn’t she tell you?”
Ty, sensing he was out of his depth, stood in silence, waiting.
“I was offered a role, too,” Cammie broke in with a rush.
“What?”
“Offered a role?” Samuel barked out an ugly laugh. “That’s the reason she came to find you, Son. They don’t want her, unless she gets you! It all hinges on you.” He shot Cammie a pitying glance. “Camilla, my dear, you really ought to learn to throw your cards on the table. Did you think he wouldn’t find out? Tyler, if you take the part, Camilla is your co-star!”
Someday Soon Page 28
