Keeping her lips tightly closed, she let Susannah do all the talking, though her agent glanced at her from time to time, sensing her simmering fury.
Suddenly Cammie could take it no longer. She felt ill and uncomfortable. Jumping to her feet, she muttered hasty excuses, then raced to the nearest bathroom where she splashed cold water on her face.
She would tell Susannah there was no chance. She couldn’t accept the part.
How noble you’ve become! she silently mocked the strained image appearing in the mirror above the sink. Suddenly you’re above the wiles and ways of Hollywood. It wasn’t that long ago that you charged after one missing Tyler Stovall, the offer of a part being wagged beneath your nose as a carrot. Where was your nobility then?
“I don’t care,” she said aloud, her voice booming out, startling her.
The door squeaked open and Susannah stuck her head around the jamb. “You okay, hon?”
“I’m ready to go home,” Cammie said on a sigh. “Talk to me about Cherry Blossom Lane tomorrow. I’m too tired today to make a rational decision. All I want to do is find Ty and fall into his arms.”
“Gotcha,” Susannah said with an understanding smile.
“I’m not saying no; I’m not saying yes. I just want to let this pregnancy get past the ‘crossed fingers’ stage. You think they can wait that long?” she asked, jerking her head in the direction of the offices they’d just vacated.
“They’ll wait,” Susannah promised, then, with a twitch of her lips, added, “You’re Tyler Stovall’s fiancée!”
“Thanks a whole lot!”
And the two friends embraced and laughed at the fates.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ty strolled around the spacious rooms of the threestory house, quietly excited about the possibilities. The bedrooms were on the top floor and the master suite swept up all the square footage of the west end. Stately palms swayed outside the window and, beyond them, a view across the pink-tiled roof of the nearest neighboring home and then the horizon where somewhere below lay the Pacific Ocean. The place was elaborate and expensive by most standards; relatively modest by those of Beverly Hills.
Ty dragged his attention from the view to walk through a small anteroom off the master. It was on the opposite side of the room from the master bath and walk-in closet and held a vanity and mirror on one side, an extra closet on the other. Through a connecting door lay a room that could be considered a small bedroom or den.
A nursery.
Ty swallowed, thinking of his impending fatherhood. For Cammie, he was excited. He wanted the world for her, and if this was it, then full steam ahead. For himself, he was filled with trepidation. There were so many pitfalls to parenting, so many traps. The Ron Howard film, Parenthood, had expressed the joys and traumas of being a parent so well that Ty had never been able to watch that particular movie without feeling somewhat anxious.
His mother had pooh-poohed his fears. “You’re letting Samuel’s selfishness stand as your prototype. You know you’re better than that, Tyler.”
She was right. Logically, he knew she was right. But in his illogical, scarred heart, he feared that somehow he would make worse mistakes than his father and ruin his unborn child’s life.
Ridiculous fears. Unable to eradicate.
Part of his problem was that he didn’t trust happiness. In the midst of all this “growing” and “accepting,” the old Tyler Stovall still expected some godawful cataclysm to smash his beautiful new world to smithereens. Betrayal was so common. Selflessness and love and pure giving was the rarity.
But he had that in Cammie, didn’t he? Yes, there had been some hurdles, some truths he’d had to face and examine and understand before there was trust. She’d come for him in Bayrock because she loved him, period. It wasn’t for the co-starring role, though that had been her initial introduction to the plan. But that hadn’t been Cammie’s true motivation; that had been Samuel’s.
To add insult to injury, Samuel had jumped onto Rock Bottom himself, wangling a role for himself in the film as well. Luckily, Cammie had warned him before he’d learned some other way. She understood his paranoia about these things.
Then there’d been all the hoopla over his return to Hollywood. Enough to drive a sane man crazy. Sometimes when he thought back, he was amazed at his own tolerance, especially since that particular trait wasn’t exactly his long suit.
Now, Ty rubbed his hands together, feeling oddly cold. Lastly, there’d been Cammie’s unexpected pregnancy. He’d thought she couldn’t conceive; he’d thought that’s what she’d told him. But instead, the root cause was some other malady…supposedly.
Hearing his own thoughts, Ty brought himself up short. What was he thinking? What kind of traitorous ideas were humming inside his own head! Of course she’d told the truth about that! Just because he didn’t know the full extent of her feminine problems didn’t mean she’d lied to him. It was just this damn fear over being a father. He was letting it infect his reason.
Anyway, all that was in the past now. The future was set, and it was a bright future. He and Cammie were ready to face the world as a team. This anxiety he currently felt was probably due to a lot of reasons, chief among them the fact that he’d finished Rock Bottom and was experiencing a strange kind of letdown. He’d been here before; it was normal, after so much energy had been placed in a project, to mourn the ending a bit. That’s all he was feeling. Nothing more sinister.
Don’t get all weird and fanciful. Let the rest of the populace of this town look for signs and answers and meaning. Get back to reality.
“Damn good advice,” he growled to himself, hearing a car turn into the circular drive outside. Cammie.
He bounded down the curved stairway that wound to an octagonal entry hall, the floor of which was composed of rectangular, gray slate. The front door itself was arched and painted to look distressed, with huge iron bands running horizontally near the top and bottom. It resembled the door of an old church or monastery, something out of a postcard from the ruins of Europe. Ty loved it.
But it wasn’t Cammie standing on the other side of the threshold. To his amazement, her ex-husband, the ubiquitous Paul Merrill, stood on the stoop.
“I know you’re meeting Cammie here,” Paul apologized. “She left her purse in my office and I’m returning it.”
Paul held out Cammie’s familiar faux alligator bag, which was about the size of a small suitcase, a point they’d often laughed about. Ty accepted the bag but did not invite Paul inside. It wasn’t his house yet, and he’d promised the real estate agent he would take care of the place as long as he and Cammie could have it to themselves, just for tonight. Because he was the Tyler Stovall, the friendly agent had gone against policy and handed him the key. One of the few perks of “celebrity-ism,” in Ty’s mind.
But Paul didn’t take the hint. Clearing his voice, he glanced down at the other bag in his hand, his own black leather briefcase. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, and I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure how to go about it.”
“Why don’t you save it till later?” Ty suggested, as with relief he saw Cammie’s blue BMW suddenly squeal in behind Paul’s black sedan.
“I’d rather get this out right now,” Paul said hurriedly, balancing the briefcase on his knee and snapping the locks. He glanced back at Cammie as if afraid.
“What’s the rush?” Ty teased her as she jumped from the car before it barely had time to come to a full stop. “We have first option on the place, I swear!”
She strode toward him and Paul, her mouth set, her gaze fixed, but there was a strange light of fear in those fabulous turquoise depths. Her attention was on Paul.
Ty glanced in confusion from Cammie’s beloved face to Paul’s sheepish one. And sheepish was the right word as Paul, handing Ty a sheaf of papers, suffered a wave of dark, unattractive color invading his cheeks. “I took the liberty of reading it,” Paul confided. “It’s the best thing I’ve seen in years.”
>
Confused, Ty dropped his gaze to the manuscript. A familiar coffee stain marred the front page of Father Knows Worst even before he read the title. His heart beat fast.
“I left my purse in his office by mistake…” Cammie’s voice came from a long way away, rippling like water.
“She gave it to me,” Paul denied, charging her with a glare to deny him.
“I didn’t!”
“I want to produce it,” Paul jumped in. “It’s fantastic. And your father will play the part in the film, naturally. It’s a perfect fit.”
“Ty, he took it and read it without my consent.” Cammie’s voice shook. “You should be strung up, Paul.”
“Oh, come on. You stuck a corner out of that monster handbag and set the whole thing on my desk. What? You didn’t think I’d catch the invitation. Don’t worry. There’s a part in it for you, too, but I guess you knew that, didn’t you?”
“You’re despicable!” Cammie was appalled. “You took my handbag from me!”
Paul shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. “I’m merely practical.”
Ty stepped away, unable to listen to more. Betrayal. Lies. Deceptions. The words flitted across his brain. He couldn’t hear very well for the surf in his ears and the thick, pounding heartbeat that threatened to pulse right out of his chest.
“Go away,” he said thickly.
Cammie’s beautiful eyes begged forgiveness. “Ty…”
“GO AWAY!”
“Ty!” she cried in agony.
He slammed the door in their faces. It shook in its frame. The flesh of Ty’s palm turned red and throbbed from pain. He stared at it uncomprehendingly. Staggering, he turned in the direction of the kitchen.
Three steps, and the front door swung open behind him. Cammie slipped inside. Belatedly, Ty realized he hadn’t slipped the dead bolt in place.
“I won’t let you do this,” she said in a quavering voice that revealed her feelings.
“Where’s your cohort?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “Paul’s not my cohort. He’s nothing to me.”
“You told him where I was.”
She shook her head vehemently. “He must have overheard me repeat the address when you called on the cell phone while I was at the studio. I didn’t tell him. I wouldn’t!”
An engine fired up outside. Paul was leaving. Ty strode to the front window to watch Paul’s black vehicle tear onto the road, leaving him alone with Cammie.
“For God’s sake, Ty. You know Paul means nothing to me. I would never work with him on anything. You know it!”
“I only know what you’ve told me.”
Ty’s harshness cut Cammie like a knife. She couldn’t believe it. Not now. Not after all they’d conquered together. “He’s my ex-husband. A mistake from my past.” She swept an arm toward the screenplay Ty still held in his hands. “It’s just these kinds of manipulations that made me realize what a snake he is! Tyler, please. He stole that from my purse!”
“He just happened to find it there.”
“Yes!” Cammie was emphatic, but her body still quivered from head to toe with fear. She had to make him see, make him understand. “I had it in my purse, and,…and I wasn’t feeling well, so he took my purse when I entered his office this morning. I was glad, at the time. You called, and told me about the house. Then, later, I just couldn’t sit there any longer in that meeting. I felt—bad. I practically ran out of the room. Susannah took me home and I didn’t think about my purse until I was getting ready to meet you here. Then it was too late to go back to the studio. I called Paul, but he was gone.”
“On his way here,” Ty clipped out.
“I suppose. Anyway, I figured I’d get my purse later, but I never thought about your screenplay! Even if I had, I wouldn’t have believed Paul would be so bold, even knowing what I know about him! He’s just so desperate for success.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
His stony countenance played havoc with Cammie’s emotions, which were unstable anyway in her condition. Her eyes searched his beloved face for some sign of understanding, or, failing that, forgiveness, but she dimly realized she’d reached the end of his patience and belief in her. It hurt to know there was still some distrust yawning between them; she’d thought they’d breached the gap entirely.
But what could she do but plead her case? “I know it’s impossible for you to believe I wasn’t part of this.”
“You’re a part of everything,” he pointed out.
They were standing in the hallway between the entry and kitchen, a narrow alley with a built-in glass-fronted cupboard on one wall, a sideboard on the opposite one. Feeling weak, Cammie leaned on the sideboard. “Please, Ty,” she begged.
“You came to Bayrock to find me and you were given a part in Rock Bottom. You pleaded innocence, but you got my address from my father. You convinced me it was all on the up and up, but then Samuel was suddenly in the film as well. You told me you couldn’t get pregnant, but you did.”
“I told you I couldn’t have a baby!”
But Ty ignored her. “And you told me you understood how private my screenplay was, how it was just a catharsis.” His gray eyes bored into hers, heavy with accusations. “What are you going to tell me now that I could possibly believe?”
Tears filled her eyes, drenching her lashes. Her fight for Tyler had been an uphill battle from the onset, one she’d valiantly fought out of love. But she was tired, and this lack of belief in her motives hurt so much she could scarcely breathe. And it made her angry, too. How could he think this of her? How could he?
“You haven’t given me a lot of faith in your words, either,” she declared bitterly, to which Ty’s brows snapped together.
“I haven’t?”
“All your philosophy of love only being for others…all your talk about not wanting to be a father…all your sarcasm and snobbery about returning to Hollywood…It was all lies!”
For a moment, Ty was too dumbfounded to react to her outrageous statements. And Cammie was too angry to stop the floodtide once it had begun. “Acting! That’s what it is. A convenient dogma to be thrown out like a shield. You’ve been hiding behind it for years, and whenever you feel threatened, you just start blaming everybody else before they can get close.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded, more amazed than angry.
“You. Tyler Stovall.” Cammie pressed a hand to the small of her back where a spreading ache was developing. “It’s so easy for you to disdain everything. Everybody else has got to have a hidden agenda, some secret, nefarious purpose that will somehow serve them and work against you. You’re paranoid, that’s what it is. So certain that—that—” She swept in a sharp breath.
“Certain that what?” Ty demanded, too distracted by her words to pay much attention to her body language.
“—that there isn’t any good in anybody. You try and convict people just like that.” She snapped her fingers. Pinpoints of light flickered in front of her eyes and a distant humming seemed to swell loudly. She turned in bewilderment to what she thought was the direction of the sound, but the humming built to a deafening crescendo all around her. Distantly, she realized the sound was inside her head.
“I think I have just cause,” Ty bit out, but his voice was wavy and far, far away.
“Oh, my God,” Cammie said suddenly. “I’m going out.”
“Out?”
Ty’s attention snapped back just as Cammie crumpled into his arms. Her face was white as alabaster, smooth and innocent. Concern flooded through him. He carried her carefully to the living room which was at least carpeted, but in the process he felt a sticky warmth. He looked down at his hands.
Blood.
The baby. She was miscarrying the baby.
Panic ran through his veins like ice. For a moment, he stood in utter silence. Guilt slammed like a hammer inside his head, but he shoved it aside. No time for recriminations. Cammie needed action.
As if t
he scene had been rehearsed, he carried her directly to his car, struggling for tense, precious moments with the lock on the front door, then the keys in his pocket, then the car doors, seatbelts, and finally ignition.
He dialed 911 on his cell as he pulled from the drive, demanding the address of the nearest hospital. He gave his name and Cammie’s, then reported his current position. They asked him what he believed was wrong with Ms. Pendleton, and Ty choked on words of explanation.
She’s losing my baby. She’s losing her one precious hope. She’s losing everything she wanted.
He hung up without answering.
“Cammie,” Ty whispered as he sped through the darkened streets, ignoring speed limits and indignant drivers alike. “I’m so sorry. So, so, sorry.” Tenderness roughened his tone. He ached so much, it felt like he needed to cry out. Biting back the emotion, he lifted a hand from the wheel to gently touch a tress of Cammie’s shining hair.
She moaned softly. Her lashes fluttered. Her skin was ice as Ty caressed the back of one limp hand.
“Hold on, my love,” he whispered, a catch in his throat. “We’re almost there.”
The emergency room was hopping. All manner of broken bones, scraped bodies, and listless victims of some kind of illness or another crowded the waiting room and surrounding hallway. Ty carried Cammie inside and an orderly snagged a wheelchair and helped Ty slip his lovely burden to its depths. Ty followed the orderly who motioned him back to the row of admitting desks where all seats were taken.
Ty’s patience snapped. Never one to handle authority well, he ignored the rules and strode to the inner rooms in search of Cammie.
“Excuse me!” a thin, tough-faced nurse bit out. “Go back outside!” She pointed in the direction he’d just come.
Ty didn’t even answer. He moved past her, much to her shock and fury, and when he found the curtained partition which served as Cammie’s “room,” he shouldered his way past a departing nurse.
“Sir, you must leave,” she ordered.
“I need to see her.”
“Are you her husband?”
Someday Soon Page 36
