by Linda Cajio
He hadn’t been in the head of his character, Ezekiel, and he knew it. Furthermore, Libby knew it. He’d totally lost concentration. It was the first time he had let it happen in his career.
“You’re right, though,” he said. “My mind was … elsewhere.” He forced himself not to glance at the reason. For a passive observer, she caused a lot of commotion—inside him. He added, “I wasn’t in character, and I’m sorry.”
Libby looked nonplussed for a moment, then grinned. Richard glanced at Pen. She was smiling, admiration in her eyes. He hoped. At least she wasn’t looking at him as if he were the latest ogre out of Hollywood.
“Get your fanny in character, kid,” Libby said. “Or I’ll get Gibson or Costner.”
Richard smiled. “And what you’d have is Gibson or Costner, not Ezekiel Freemont, and you know it. Those guys haven’t had to act for years.”
She chuckled. “Stinker. Okay, setup time again. Hold the dogs! Everyone might as well break for lunch.” She glanced at her watch as she walked away. “Lunch at nine in the morning.”
“Sorry, people,” Richard called out. “Lunch is on me.”
Everyone laughed. Full meals and snacks were provided by a company hired by the production company. But Richard knew his jest had helped restore good humor to the set. Libby was firmly in control of her movie and star again. Now he’d be able to fight for things that he felt were important without being perceived as difficult. The more one paid attention to the politics on a movie set, the more one was able to accomplish.
He realized he was in the middle of the location with only a few technicians, who were resetting the scene. Well, he thought, he was living up to his old nickname, standing here like an idiot. He wasn’t ready to go into his trailer yet. The spring day was beautiful, and he wanted to enjoy it.
Pen was still sitting in the chair Libby had directed her to. She looked out of place, uncomfortably so.
As he neared her, a variety of emotions rose up inside him, shutting off any thoughts of easiness with her. He wouldn’t embarrass himself again. Besides, he was here to do a job, and he’d already screwed up once because of her.
Okay, so she was lovely, her slender body looking delectable in pink-and-white-striped shirt and jeans. She had legs that went on forever. Other men might call her skinny, but he considered her willowy. Her hair was a rich red, like leaves turned in the autumn chill; it was held back from her face by a pink bow, and her eyes were vivid blue. Any freckles she might have had were blurred by maturity into creamy skin. She wasn’t beautiful. He’d seen his share of beautiful women who left a lot to be desired.
“I thought you were very good,” she said when he passed close to her.
He paused. “You did?”
“It was amazing,” she added enthusiastically, “how all of you did that without a single person being hurt. It looked so real when that man was ready to tomahawk you that I almost screamed. Only the thought of Libby killing me for messing up her scene kept me quiet.”
He nodded again, not knowing what to say. He could smell the perfume she wore. It was light and fresh, like the scent of wildflowers on a dewy morning.
“I helped Libby find the locations here,” she added, smiling at him. “It’s really something to see all she talked about finally coming to life. Although I’m not sure why you’re filming a movie based on the settling of Fort Nashborough, Tennessee, in northern New Jersey. I never have understood why movies aren’t filmed in the places where they are set.”
He smiled slightly. “Nashville, Tennessee, doesn’t have the same geography as it had two hundred years ago, the same woodland area. And it’s too built up where the story actually takes place. It happens a fair amount of the time when authenticity comes up against real life.”
“I see.” She grinned at him. “I’ve been babbling like an idiot, haven’t I?”
“No … uh … no.” He became aware of a breeze fluttering along his legs, picking up the ends of his loincloth. His hair was hanging heavy on his neck, reminding him of how strange he must look to her. His stomach knotted. His heart pounded faster. He couldn’t seem to get his tongue working all of a sudden, a phenomenon left over from his painful childhood shyness. It usually struck at the worst times. This was one of them.
“I teach gifted students at the elementary school here,” she was saying, “and my kids would just love this. Blairstown is pretty small and rural—”
“Excuse me,” he blurted out, his voice working at last. He turned and strode off to the woods, his legs eating up the ground in an ever-quickening pace.
The green canopy of trees closed over his head, filtering the sun into pinpoint shafts of brilliance. He walked deeper into the bracken until the sounds faded behind him. His heart rate slowed to normal; his panic attack was subsiding.
He glanced down at his open shirt and loincloth and cursed the story line that dictated the costume. His profession always managed to ensure that no actor ever looked like a normal human being. He could just imagine what Pen Marsh thought of half his backside hanging out for the world to see. That she kept a straight face was a testament to her manners.
Manners made him think of his own. He knew he’d been abrupt with her, but her presence had thrown him back in time to his childhood. It seemed that he hadn’t overcome as much as he thought.
“It’s just a momentary throwback,” he muttered. He had long ago determined he’d prove his worth to all those who’d maligned him. That was why he had never changed his name, something actors still did on a regular basis.
Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself he was here to do a job. And he’d do a damn good one and let the work speak for him. To everyone—especially Pen Marsh.
Now it was time to get into Ezekiel’s skin once more.
He pushed on deeper into the woods.
Pen sat in a high canvas chair and watched the preparation for the reshoot of the battle sequence.
She wanted desperately to leave, feeling like a complete fifth wheel. Occasionally a member of the crew would look at her as if she were an annoyance, which she probably was, to be tolerated only because she was the director’s relative, which she definitely was. Libby was off conferring with people and had no time to babysit her. And she had somehow offended the star.
She knew what she’d done with Richard—gone on like a giggly teenager and wasted his valuable time. He had tolerated all he could before excusing himself. He had given her plenty of signals that he needed to move on, not looking at her directly after their initial contact, for one. But, no, she’d gawked again, completely star-struck. How Libby even noticed he wasn’t all there during the scene was unfathomable to her.
The man himself had been incredible, running and leaping and dodging in a way that Davy Crockett would have envied. So what if he’d had a faraway look in his eyes? His facial expression looked determined enough to her—more than determined. Lord, but she would love to have a man look at her that way.
“They leave you all alone, miss? Don’t mind them too much. I doubt they’d pay attention to old Georgie himself if he showed up around here.”
Pen turned around to find Richard behind her, grinning good-naturedly at her. He was leaning on his rifle, his forearms folded over the muzzle, the very picture of sexy and self-confident ease. Her heart seemed to stop beating, then pounded hard and fast.
“ ’Course if old George showed up in these parts, we’d probably shoot him for trespassing,” Richard added. “I’d be first in line. Miss, you might want to close that pretty mouth of yours. Catching flies is a championship sport out here, but we tend to use our hands for it.”
Pen could feel her jaw down somewhere around her knees. She closed her mouth, her face heating with embarrassment. She was doing it again, and she couldn’t stop it. Come on, girl, she admonished. He puts his pants on one leg at a time.…
The images her fertile mind conjured had her almost gaping again. Damn, but the man was sexy. She coughed and cleared her throat.
“It’s okay. Everyone’s busy—”
“Make-work. That’s the problem with people nowadays,” he said. “They put more elbow grease into make-work than into enjoying life. Give me a tent and a good hunting ground, and a man can live out his days in contentment.”
“I … see.” She didn’t, but she wasn’t about to admit it. He was talking to her again. A bit oddly, but talking. She wished she could grasp what he was saying, but they seemed somehow out of sync. Who was “George”? The former president? She didn’t think he’d referred to George Bush.
He grinned. “You don’t see, do you? Not until you live out there for a while, taking in beauty the way nature planned it.”
Pen remembered Libby saying something about the studio sending Richard on a survival course before the movie. That must be what he was talking about. She tried for her best schoolteacher tone. Anything was better than stammering like a star-struck dolt. “I bet it was fascinating to learn all those woodsman’s skills—”
“Necessary if a man wants to eat on a regular basis.” He pointed to Libby. “Now there’s a bossy woman. She’d probably tell General Washington he was crossing the Delaware the wrong way.”
Pen chuckled, knowing Libby wouldn’t even hesitate. “I’d hate to see what she would have told Patton.”
“Don’t know the gentleman, but I expect she’d give him an earful. But she’s what the frontier needs. Not those prissy things we get now, all trussed up like turkeys ready for the spit.” He turned to her, taking in her jeans and shirt. “You dress in a practical way, miss. I’ve seen a few women out here dress like a man. It makes sense to me, for what we’re all doing.”
It dawned on Pen that she wasn’t talking to Richard Creighton, but to the character he played in this film. Old Georgie was not George Bush, but King George III. Of course Ezekiel wouldn’t know who Patton was. Was this normal for actors to walk around in character when the cameras weren’t rolling? Whatever, he was certainly charming and flirtatious now. He also might have a few screws loose. She pushed down her confusion. The man talked about enjoying life, so she certainly ought to enjoy this.
“Okay, everybody, we’re ready for Take Two!” Libby shouted. “And only Take Two, Richard!”
Richard laughed. “See what I mean? Bossy.”
Pen nodded.
“Wish me good luck, miss,” he said, patting her on the back in a brotherly fashion. “I’m about to save a man I hate for the woman I love. Pardon my language, but honor is hell.”
Pen’s heart took several double beats before calming to its regular rhythm again. Or as regular as it was going to get around Richard Creighton.
The actors took position again on the “battlefield.” Libby called for the action to begin. Pen watched in awe as “Ezekiel Freemont” outran, outshot, and outdodged death at every turn. The expression on his face was a frozen mask of resignation and sometimes of pain as the man did what he had to do in order to live with himself afterward.
If she thought she’d been star-struck before, she knew now she hadn’t even been close.
What a man!
TWO
Libby’s idea of a dinner party for twelve was three boxes of pizza, a case of soft drinks, no veggies and no dessert.
Pen grinned in amusement at her cousin as she managed to get a slice of plain cheese. The rest of the boxes’ contents went in a swoop of hands. Every available chair was occupied, as was most of the floor space in the small living room of Libby’s rented house. Pen had settled herself into a corner, a little out of the circle.
“Where’s Richard?” someone asked.
The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Pen thought. She’d been up to the set every day for the past several days, watching them film. Richard hadn’t done more than mumble a greeting to her. She had to admit she hadn’t said much either, terrified she’d sound like an idiot again. But she’d come for dinner, knowing he was invited. Now she felt out of her depth in this mix of actors and technicians. They had talked business from the moment they’d walked in the door, most of it Greek to her. She still wasn’t sure what a “best boy” was, but she did know the man they referred to was fifty if he was a day.
“He was supposed to be here,” Libby said finally, looking around as if just realizing dinner had started without one of her guests. “You know Richard. He’s living up there on the mountaintop like Daniel Boone. With no clock, he could show up anytime. Or not at all.”
“Method actors,” a grizzled-looking man said, chuckling. “Hell, they keep us in business.”
“Really?” Pen said, focusing on Libby’s words. “He’s living outdoors like a frontiersman?”
“It keeps him in character,” Libby said. “Richard’s fanatical about it. That’s why he’s so good, although it must be hell when it rains.”
“And the mosquitoes,” Pen murmured, knowing how nasty they got during New Jersey summers. It was no better here in the Kittatinny Mountains than it had been at her childhood home in the flat southern end of the state.
“Richard’s probably swathed in mud or bear grease to ward them off,” Libby said. “I didn’t expect him to come, really. He’s always been such a loner. You remember, Pen.”
“Actually, I don’t,” Pen admitted. “You and he were years ahead of me in school. I was just a kindergartner, terrified of being away from my mother. You told me his family moved shortly after school started that year.”
“Well, trust me, he was a loner.” Libby laughed. “Who would have thought that Penns Grove, that little bitty town, could produce John Forsythe, Bruce Willis, Richard, and yours truly. How I got in there I’ll never know.”
Pen grinned. “Me neither.”
Everyone laughed.
“Thanks. What a great relative you are.” Libby munched on her pizza. “God, but I miss true pizza. The stuff we get in California is bread dough with sun-dried tomatoes and jack cheese. Easterners think they have died and gone to pizza hell.”
“Here, here,” half the group muttered, clearly Easterners missing their pizza with thin crust, overloaded with pungent oregano sauce and stringy mozzarella cheese.
“When’s Mary Jane due in?” another person asked.
Pen knew the man was talking about the costar, Mary Jane Stevens, an actress with box-office draw. To her surprise, several expressions became closed. She wondered what the woman was like to cause such a reaction.
Libby shrugged. “We don’t need her for a few more weeks, and she has a conflict until then anyway.”
The doorbell rang, and Pen knew immediately who it had to be. Abruptly she put down her slice of pizza, as on edge as a girl on her first date. She took a deep breath to calm herself as Libby went to answer the door. Five minutes with a famous actor, and she had become ridiculous in a full-fledged crush, with stars in her eyes and sludge in her brain. He had access to thousands of women, so why would one mundane schoolteacher interest him? Worse, even if the impossible happened and he was attracted to her, what on earth could she expect but to be left? He was only in town for a short time and then he’d be gone. She ought to remember that and start acting her age. She was a mature woman with several long-term relationships behind her, none of which panned out into marriage. She was damn grateful for that, she thought, since all three of the men with whom she’d been involved seemed to have had the Peter Pan syndrome. For some unfortunate reason, she’d been drawn to that kind of man. She thought she was past it, holding out now for a good guy or a terrorist, whichever came along first.
Richard Creigton had all the earmarks of a Peter Pan.
Dammit, she thought in disgust. She was quite content with her life. She was proud of her hard-won sense of self-worth, and gawking at famous actors was not her style!
Richard wasn’t wearing any home cures for keeping the insects away. He had on normal jeans and a chambray shirt; his long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. His only concession to his character, if it was that, was the plain brown moccasins on his bare feet.
He looked sexier than ever.
Pen could feel her control slipping away and made a desperate mental grab for it. The man couldn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. He only looked that way.
A couple of people said hello, and Richard nodded in acknowledgment. Pen noticed he held his mouth tight, his chin almost rigid. It wasn’t a look of anger, more like repression. He was famous, respected, and gorgeous, so she wondered what he had to be repressed about.
“I think there are a couple more slices left,” Libby said, “if these pigs haven’t eaten it all. Sit down over there by Pen.”
In that instant Pen gladly would have shot her cousin. With a harpoon gun. To make matters worse, Richard sighed in clear disgust, yet dutifully stepped over a few bodies to get to a spot next to her. Pen edged over, giving him plenty of room. She smiled a hello. He nodded back.
Good job, Pen. She praised herself just as she would one of her kids who had conquered a difficult problem. But even as she did, she became aware of the warmth of his body, the very maleness of him, separated from her by mere inches. Her heart thumped, her nerve endings sizzled, and her brain went blank. For a repressed guy, he oozed animal magnetism.
“How’s it going up on the mountaintop?” Libby asked.
“Okay,” Richard answered, and bit into his slice of pizza. “Good pizza.”
“Come on, Richie,” Libby coaxed. “Quit doing your Gary Cooper impression. Have you been fighting off any bears up there? Dancing with wolves? Kicking the you-know-what out of mutant woodchucks?”
Pen grinned at her cousin’s teasing. Libby would be irreverent with the Pope, and Lord help them all if she ever got within speaking distance of the man.
“I had a run-in with a skunk this morning,” Richard answered, chewing thoughtfully. “I named her Libby.”
