The girl in the stand had drawn a bead on him. She scratched her studded nose when he pulled the bills from his wallet. He didn’t hand her plastic with his name on it, but it didn’t matter. She said, “You’re him, right? Gentry’s new squeeze?”
“How many people buy these things?”
“Lots. Lots more read the headlines and pretend not to. Can you sign this for me?” She reached over and grabbed the one that showed him and Gentry in a clutch, probably in the hallway at the hospital.
“I hate to disappoint you, but none of it’s true.”
She shrugged. “It’d still be cool.”
He looked her in the face. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
She frowned. “It’s just your stupid name.”
Just his name. He took the papers and walked away as she muttered, “Jerkwad.”
Not good. The past three weeks, she had ridden the anticipation, gearing up for the new project, but as Cameron returned, she bolstered herself for another blow, the one that showed too clearly on his face.
He said, “Gentry, I’m sorry,” at the same time she said, “I’m so sorry, Kai.”
She anchored herself in his gaze, no longer the perilous, deepocean blue, but the warm, twilight blue of their night under the stars. She’d been too worked up to notice at the time, but it had sunk into her subconscious and came back now so clearly it hurt. The verdant scent of the forest, the insistent voice of the water, and stars—oh, the stars. The sky had been deep and close at once, enfolding them with promise as Cameron told her she was in the shelter of God’s wings. She held on to that now, knowing by his face she’d need it.
People had begun to collect on the pier but mostly congregated near the Harbor Restaurant or the Trading Company. She and Cameron perched on the huge, weathered gray log that formed a bench at the far end of the pier. A pure white gull cried overhead, winging out over the still, blue water of the bay.
He laid the first paper in her lap, and she read every word of the story. Then the next and the next. Had Myra any idea how vile she sounded? And what was with her being “forced” to give up her newborn son? She didn’t blame Cameron directly, rather the pressures of an untenable marriage. Now stronger, wiser, all she’d wanted was her child back, and a chance for reconciliation.
Cameron shook his head. “I can’t tell if she’s lying to herself or just everyone else, but that’s the last thing she wants.”
Then came the worst. Gentry read how she’d supposedly laid down the ultimatum, “It’s him or me.” She stood in wet T-shirt and bikini, looking demanding and risqué. The face of the little boy who shared the page broke her heart.
She looked up at Cameron, staring out over the water, wishing, maybe, they were back across it where he could rewind the last month and not involve himself with the mysterious woman who’d dragged herself into his life.
He dropped his gaze to the hands folded loosely between his legs. “Is this going to hurt Kevin?”
She felt his grief as his voice grated over the child’s name. She tried to imagine the little boy tucked safely away where no one would see or recognize him. But the British paparazzi had driven Princess Diana to her death. What were the chances no one would try to question or photograph the child and his family—when he’d already made front page?
She sighed. “It might.”
Cameron shook his head. “I remember the day my life got ripped apart. I thought I’d avoided that for him. I wanted to.”
“Would you be the man you are, Kai, if the things in your life hadn’t happened?”
“The obsessive, clingy, unhealthy man I am?”
“Consider the source.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “She’s powerful. And vindictive.”
“God’s powerful. And redemptive.”
He stood up and took a step to the bare edge of the pier. “I can’t keep him safe.”
“Give it to the One who can. Ask, Kai. Set the prayer free, and I promise God will catch it.”
When he didn’t answer, she stood up and stuffed the papers into the trash can. As much as she dreaded what was in store for her, she’d take it all to let Cameron and his son walk away. And then it hit her that this was how it would always be. As long as her name attracted attention, she’d be dragging anyone she cared about into her spotlight. And suddenly none of it seemed worth it.
He reached over and took her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
She kept her hat flopped down all the way to Cameron’s truck. This one was a midnight blue with no sea turtle decals but plenty of room for a surfboard in the bed. They got in and drove down the length of the pier and the ramp, past the dolphin fountain at State Street.
She didn’t ask where they were going. It didn’t matter.
After a while he glanced over. “You said you’re starting production on a new movie?”
She nodded. “In three days.”
“With the guy Darla got excited about?”
“Alec Warner. He’s established himself a solid, serious actor—”
“Who appeals to the female audience.”
“He does that.”
“Good script?”
She crossed her ankle over her knee. “It’s tight writing, welldrawn characters. Makes my work easier.”
“Work? You make it look easy.”
“You make surfing look easy.”
He slid her a smile. “You haven’t seen me surf.”
She leaned her head back, thinking of that morning in the water with him. It had provided that insulting photo and been followed by their altercation with Malakua, but the morning itself had been magical. “Do you still compete?”
“No. It’s a young man’s sport. And the prize turned brass.”
“If you hadn’t won, would Myra have gone out with you?”
“Not a chance. Second best might as well have not shown up.”
“Who was second?”
“I have no idea. It was never about the other competitors. Only the wave.”
“But for Myra it’s all about the other competitors.”
His jaw hardened. “We’ve been apart four years. Until she got wind of you, I hadn’t heard a word.”
She closed her eyes. If not for her, Cameron’s face would not be splashed across the tabloids with Myra’s hateful accusations. He wouldn’t even know he’d lost his son. “But why? If she hated the marriage …”
“Because I didn’t. I loved coming home to her, loved our discussions, our excursions. I loved watching her work. I loved … her. She can’t stand that I might get over it.”
“That’s wrong.”
“It’s Myra. If she gets replaced, especially by someone incredible, then she’s not the best anymore. She’ll do anything to stay on top.”
Gentry stared out the window, watching the miles pass by. She understood devotion to excellence and could see herself striving for the apex of her art, her industry, just as she and Uncle Rob had ascended the peaks. The lure not just of excellence but ascendence. Could she become like Myra, sacrificing everything to get to the top, then finding hateful ways to stay there—no matter who got hurt?
She shook herself. “Where are we going?”
“My house.”
“What about my car?”
“I’ll get you back.”
“The press will have your address.”
He slid her a glance. “Can you play it?”
“What exactly?”
“Whatever.”
She released a short laugh. “Cameron …”
“It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do. They’re going to write anything they feel like.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That I’m not going to let Myra or the press or anyone else dictate today or tomorrow or ever.” He gave his attention back to the road.
Was he really so tough? Or was he hurting more than he wanted to show—and asking her to share it? She swallowed the lump in her throat and settled in fo
r the drive.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Cameron’s Pismo Beach house was gray wood with white trim, a modest two-story with an ocean view and a seemingly paparazzifree driveway. She glanced quickly around. “So far, so good. But beware of long shots.”
“So you’d rather I not sweep you back and kiss you breathless?”
His saying it brought the blush to her cheeks, but he headed for the door without noticing. She heard that kind of bravado all the time, but from Cameron Pierce it was different. He didn’t boast; he meant the things he said.
A staircase rose to the right of the foyer, a front room opened to the left. It seemed oddly appointed until she realized there were gaps where other furniture had stood. Four years, and he hadn’t rearranged what was left? Some of the shelves on the wall held books, but others were bare. No decorative items except for one photo of Nica and Okelani at some kind of festival with flowers in their hair and leis around their necks. Nails in the wall showed where pictures had hung, but now displayed only wispy, gray cobwebs.
He touched her arm. “Want some lunch?”
“Sure.” She followed him into the kitchen, equally Spartan; a wrought-iron tree that held mugs, a butcher block with a couple knives, and a clay pot that once housed plant life. Cameron hadn’t washed his breakfast dishes or the pans and plate from the night before.
“Sorry for the mess.” He opened the dishwasher, half filled with a few days’ worth.
He must not have planned on company until the press sent them scurrying for cover. “This is nothing after Helen. That girl could pile up dishes.”
He shoved the dirty pans into the bottom rack. “I take it you’ve spoken.”
Their single conversation sat in her mind like the hole where a tooth used to be, no longer bloody, just pulpy and tender. “She read for a part in Just Illusions. We’ll be working together.”
“You arrange that?”
“Only the audition. She did the rest.”
He slipped a bowl and several mugs into the top rack, then closed the dishwasher, looking quickly for anything he might have missed.
“Don’t worry about it, Kai. Your place is fine.”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his Dockers to halt their frenetic activity.
She went to the refrigerator and opened the door. In a movie, it would have had nothing but beer bottles and condiments, but Cameron’s had a half package of spinach wraps, deli turkey, and Havarti in one drawer, baby greens and tomatoes in another. She set those on the counter and fished a bottle of Dijon from the door. “Plates?”
He got them.
“Knife?”
He slid one from the block. “I was going to do that.”
“I’m impressed you have fresh and wholesome food. And I’m hungry.” She thinly sliced a tomato—his knife was sharp—and layered the wraps.
He filled two glasses with ice water from a filtered tap, set them on the table in the nook, and pulled a chair from the desk to make two places.
Gentry glanced over her shoulder. “I thought we could sit outside. The arid thing you have going with the urns is interesting.” Tall pots outside the French doors to the patio held withered reminders of past life, similar to the gaping holes inside.
He opened the door. “Pismo Beach is not Hanalei.”
“Evidently.” She followed him through. “Was it quick or did they suffer?”
“To be honest, I didn’t notice.”
“Nica would weep.”
“She would, definitely.”
Gentry handed him his plate. The plants were so dead they’d all but mummified over several seasons, she guessed. The soil had stretched away from the pot sides, forming an airy moat around each barren isle. But plant fibers were strikingly resilient, if you didn’t mind brown and dusty, and might last indefinitely.
Cameron tucked his chin. “Depressing, isn’t it?”
Not nearly as much as the patchy living room. She sat down on the stone bench between the urns.
Standing beside her, he raised one foot to the bench and made a table of his thigh. “I had a patio set …”
“This is fine. Are you offering thanks or should I?”
His brow furrowed, but he said, “Mahalo, ke Akua, for the food I was going to make for Gentry. And … please straighten out the mess we’re in.” He didn’t go on aloud, but his eyes pressed shut, and she added prayers for his little boy and the whole ugly situation.
It looked like a desert island she’d landed on this time, but she imagined the pots springing into bloom with the first drops of rain. And maybe something good could still come from it all. He sat down beside her, and they ate in the companionable silence of two people who’d skipped the small talk. Stomach full, she drew her knees up and leaned against him. “So why am I here?”
“I don’t know.” He looked around. “I didn’t realize the place was so … bleak.” He broke a brittle stem that might once have been geraniums.
She followed his gaze over the dead urns, the windblown leaves huddled against the foundation, a fringe of weary rhododendrons growing along the edge of the narrow yard. They could have stopped anywhere along the beautiful coastline, but he’d wanted her in his home, unprepared as it was to impress a guest.
She turned back to him. “What is it, Kai?”
His throat worked. “She was sitting out here reading magazines. She told me about Kevin like it was no more than something she’d read.”
Gentry released a slow breath.
“Not his name, though. I learned that from the lawyers.” He shook his head. “I didn’t give her a chance to say much, but still, you’d think she’d use his name. Instead she called him her son, my son, as though he were some object that belonged to us.”
“Distancing is probably normal when you give up an infant.”
“He was a bargaining chip. Her ace up the sleeve. It was her sister she wanted me to take him from, as though she’d just parked him there for a while.”
Gentry allowed his words to sink in. The whole morning had been a shock—learning he had a son, reading the hateful articles. Who would do that to him?
He clenched his fists. “She’s Nica’s opposite. She takes where Nica gives, hurts where Nica helps. Nica feels everything, but Myra …”
“What did you think when you married her?”
He hunched over. “That she never looked back. Never feared loss.”
“You can’t lose what you don’t care about.”
“I’d been caring for Nica so long I thought someone so strong would …” He rested his face in his hand. “I thought she’d ripped everything out already. Then this.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I keep trying to stay ahead of the crest, because once the curtain drops …”
“It’s okay to hurt.”
He pressed both hands to his face. Gentry held his shoulders as he wept.
“I’d have raised him without her, if she didn’t want a family. I don’t know how I’d have managed it exactly, but I wouldn’t have tossed him away like something irrelevant. What will he think when he learns I gave up the chance to change that?”
“What you did was heroic. Maybe someday you can meet him and explain. But right now you’ve left his life intact.”
He groaned. “I tried.”
“He’s three and a half. He won’t be reading the tabloids or know why people want his picture. His parents will shield him.”
Cameron nodded. “So what now?”
“Well, for starters …” She swung her legs down and stood. “The plants have to go.” She grabbed hold of the stems and pulled the withered root block and solid, crusted soil from the nearest urn. “Where’s the garbage?”
“In the garage.” Nonplussed for only a moment, he stood, uprooted the other two urns, and led the way through the back door into the cramped garage, where they deposited their loads into the large plastic trash receptacle. He turned. “Now what?”
“The living room. D
efinitely the living room.”
When they’d arranged the tan ultrasuede sofa and brown leather chair with a couple end tables and the lamp, she surveyed the room. “Let’s go shopping.”
“Can we?”
“As you said, they’ll print what they want to.”
At one shop in Pismo Beach, they collected a table lamp and a glass sculpture of Orcas cresting. Guessing that the empty spots had been filled with items Myra considered hers, Gentry insisted he choose things that appealed to him, offering minimal comment only when pressed. She smiled at the four-foot teakwood surfboard he chose for the blank wall. Her only contribution was a frame for the photo of Kevin that Myra had left on the counter.
He picked another like it and said, “For a picture of you.”
“Are you asking for my autograph?”
He shook his head. “Just your smile. And those rain-forest eyes.”
Strolling back to the truck Cameron made one more purchase. A potted palm.
Gentry gave him a skeptical look. “Tell me you’re not feeling sadistic.”
He smiled, hoisting the palm to his hip.
As they’d shopped, she’d signed whatever people held out. Now, arms full, she wasn’t approached, though their activity drew plenty of curious glances and photographs. She didn’t care. She felt as free as Jade, with nothing more troublesome than a blank slate.
Back at the house they arranged the items that reflected Cameron’s personality and filled the empty spaces. He stepped back and circled her shoulders with his arm. “Thanks.”
She nodded. “I know what it’s like to have gaps.”
He turned. “Have you remembered—”
“No. But, Cameron, I don’t care. Uncle Rob and I are moving forward, putting all that behind us. Life is too short to waste it looking back.”
He raised her chin. “Myra said the same thing. Only, she left destruction in her wake.”
She covered his hand with hers. “You’re stronger than any destruction she can wreak.”
“Gentry.” He brought his other hand behind her neck.
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