She smiled her charming smile “Sure, Martin. I’ll wait here. I’m eager to know what’s going to happen.”
“Great. I’ll be right back.” Thank God. The relief he felt was all out of proportion to the situation. For Pete’s sake, it wasn’t as if he’d never see her again if she went up to her room.
He was shaking his head in befuddlement when he followed the bellboy to the telephone room.
As soon as Martin left the saloon, Christina jumped up from her chair and dashed to the powder room. There she frantically checked her appearance in the mirror for any signs of wear and tear.
“You’re being a fool,” she told herself savagely even as she pinched her cheeks in order to drum up more color. “You’ve never given a hoot about your appearance before now.”
Which was true. She’d never wanted to impress a man before now, either.
“Oh Lord.” She turned and sagged back against the ornate countertop beneath the lovely antique mirror cunningly built into the wall of the ladies’ powder room. The Desert Palm Resort provided nothing but the most elegant of accommodations for its wealthy guests. “What in the name of heaven is the matter with me?”
No answer occurred to her in the time it took her to finish primping and return to her tucked-away table in the corner of the saloon. Martin hadn’t come back yet, so she sat, folded her hands demurely in her lap, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Was he coming back? Had he forgotten he’d promised to report to her? Did she mean so little to him that he wasn’t going to remember her for even five minutes?
Never having been prey to the insecurities common to her feminine sisters since she’d never particularly craved the attention of men, Christina didn’t at first understand why her heart was thumping and her nerves were skipping.
When she realized what was happening inside her—and why—she sat bolt upright, aghast. Good Lord, was she having a fit of the female vapors? Was she honestly fretting herself into a frenzy over some man? Was she having an internal hissy fit worrying about whether Martin Tafft was going to forget his promise to return to her in the saloon? Was she, Christina Mayhew, feminist and future physician, actually, honestly and truly, in this nervous state because she cared what Martin Tafft thought of her?
By gum, she was.
What an abysmal shock. How could she have permitted herself to sink to this degrading level of feminine nerves?
No answer had occurred to her by the time Martin entered the saloon, blinking into the darkness. Christina saw him, and her heart soared like an eagle. She hated herself for it, too. Blasted heart was totally out of control.
She decided her best course of action was to ruthlessly suppress these nonsensical emotions of hers. If she resumed treating Martin as if he were merely one more member of the Peerless organization—granted, he was more to her taste than most—she’d soon be back to normal. And it couldn’t be soon enough for her.
Therefore, she waved and called out in her most friendly, let’s-be-pals voice, “Martin! Over here.”
He rejoined her, looking even more weary and worried than he had when he’d left the saloon to take his telephone call. Christina’s innards wanted to reach out to him, her womanly parts wanted to press him close to her breast and succor him, and every cell in her body cried out to offer him solace and comfort. To kiss him and stroke his poor tired body. To feed him hot chicken soup and massage his shoulders. To stroke his weary brow and make him a good strong pot of tea. To sit with him and let him pour his heart out to her.
And if her innards, womanly parts, and cells didn’t settle down and stop behaving in this outrageous manner, she’d just have to give them a severe talking-to. Maybe get Gran to lecture them, too. Nothing, not even a million years’ worth of instincts, could survive one of Gran’s scathing denunciations.
She managed to produce a friendly but disinterested smile and was pleased to see that the thought of her grandmother was strong enough to cow the unruly elements that had been running rampant inside her. “What’s the matter?” she asked. Then she wondered if the question had been a sneaky way for her rebellious soft side to skirt her rigid efforts of suppression.
This, she decided savagely, was going to be one hell of a battle.
After running his fingers through his hair—Christina wanted to do that so much, her palms itched—Martin offered her a rueful smile. “Oh, nothing much. The filming’s already behind schedule, our star’s arm’s broken, and Phin wants me—me—to take over Pablo’s part.”
Christina stared at him, her mind having suddenly gone completely blank.
His smile twisted and he nodded as if he agreed with whatever she’d been thinking. “You might well look appalled. Christina. Can you imagine it? Me?”
Christina’s mind stayed blank for only a second. Then it filled up with the most delightful array of mental images—images of Martin and her frolicking in the elaborate Egyptian pool George Peters had created; of Martin and her kissing madly, passionately, recklessly; of Martin watching her as she stepped out of her bath, naked as the day she was born.
Her face got so hot, she had to wipe it with the frilly doily her drink had been sitting on. Darn. She had to stop this at once. Where was the control for which she was so famous?
In an effort to chase all of those images back to where they belonged—out of sight forever—Christina said in a voice she was proud of, “But—well, Martin, you and Pablo don’t look very much alike.”
“No, I know we don’t.”
His smile twisted even more, and Christina could tell he was comparing his physiognomy unfavorably to Orozco’s. Her tongue nearly tripped over itself in an effort to reassure him. “I mean, you’re both terribly handsome—although, personally, I don’t care for Pablo’s oily side, and you have to admit he’s a slimy snake—but, I mean, face it, Martin, you’re light and he’s dark. I much prefer your looks to his, but—”
Good Lord in heaven, however had she allowed that blithering speech to slip past her rigidly guarded lips? Christina sat back, felt her eyes widen in horror, and stared at Martin.
But Martin didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, Christina could have sworn he flushed. “Thanks, Christina. I don’t know about the handsome part—”
“I do,” she said firmly, then slapped a hand over her mouth. Darn it all, if she didn’t stop blurting things out, she’d turn into a dithering prissy miss in no time at all Whatever was the matter with her? She almost wished Gran were here to hit her with her cane. The two words she’d let escape stopped Martin cold for several uncomfortable seconds. They were uncomfortable for Christina, at any rate.
Martin only appeared confused.”Well,” he went on after a stunned moment, and he had to clear his throat. “Um, Phin says if I wear dark makeup and dye my hair black and they film the rest of the picture from a distance—except for the extreme close-ups, for which they can use Pablo—”
“Ew, I wish they wouldn’t.”
There she went again. Christina swore at herself to stop allowing these words to break out of the jail in which she wanted to confine them. Clamping her teeth together so hard she hoped it would take a crowbar to pry them apart, she shut up again.
“Er, well, they’d have to, you see, unless we want to reshoot the whole blasted thing all over again, and that would cost a fortune. Anyhow, close-up shots are the newest discovery in camera work these days. Close-ups and crosscuts in scenes. Phin just told me that Griffith is doing a spectacular epic about the Civil War, called Birth of a Nation. They’re developing all of these new techniques, so we might as well use them, especially now, when we really need to get this picture finished. Besides, we can’t let Griffith outdo Peerless.” He looked and sounded so sincere, Christine’s heart hitched once more.
After hesitating for a moment as she tested her self-control, she dared to nod and say, “Yes, I see what you mean.”
Martin seemed to brood for a few more silent moments. Then he startled
Christina by pushing his chair back. “Will you excuse me for a minute, Christina? I’d really like to get another gin and tonic. I feel the need for a relaxer.”
She could see the logic in that. She’d get another pink gin fizz, except she feared the first one had been the villain that had loosened her tongue to begin with. “Of course, Martin. I understand completely.”
“Thanks.”
Christina watched intently as Martin walked to the bar and ordered his drink. She told herself that, objectively speaking, there was nothing about Martin Tafft that should serve—objectively—to damage the iron self-will that had been both her pride and her saving grace for lo these many years. He wasn’t the most handsome man in the world. She tilted her head to one side and surveyed him critically, taking stock of him from head to foot, without prejudice.
Nope. He wasn’t.
Oh, sure, he appealed to her but that was only personal—and it was the personal she was determined to fight. After all, physical attraction was all well and good, but it was transitory. How many millions of times had she heard or read about people who’d been wildly attracted to each other, had given in to their feelings without engaging their brains, and had ended up not merely hating each other, but with their lives lying in tatters around them as a consequence of their lack of self-discipline
Christina Mayhew did not lack self-discipline. If anyone in the world should be able to resist mere physical attraction, it was she. And she would. So there. She’d have blown a raspberry to cap her determination but knew that would have been childish.
Of course, it was also true that Martin Tafft appealed to her on a different level. Not that it was any deeper than the physical level, but—oh, very well, maybe it was a little deeper. She admired his skill, talent, professionalism, enthusiasm, and work ethic.
That one was easier to deal with. Christina admired a good many people who lived their lives according to those sterling qualities. Her entire family—well, except for Uncle Harry, who was wildly eccentric and had run off with an artist to Paris—lived by those same principles. And even Harry, while frivolous to a fault, had stood firm for his principles, no matter how nutty they’d sounded to the rest of the family. When Christina went to medical school—and she would go to medical school—she expected to meet any number of people with the same qualities.
She did enjoy talking to Martin. That one was more difficult to deal with. He was an excellent listener, unlike so many people she’d met in her dealings with the motion picture industry. He didn’t always interrupt a person to tell one of his own stories. And he had so many interesting stories to tell, too, both about the pictures, which could be amusing as a topic of conversation, and about Egypt. Christina followed the many Egyptian excavations taking place these days with the liveliest interest. She adored stuff like that.
But she could always read about Egyptian excavations in the National Geographic. She didn’t need to talk about them with someone who’d actually lived in Egypt.
She had to cut her inner musings short when Martin returned to the table and sank into the chair he’d recently vacated. He sipped with appreciation at his gin and tonic.
Gesturing at the glass in his hand, Christina said, “That should relax you a bit.”
“I guess.”
He sounded so dispirited, Christina’s heart started doing strange things again. First it hitched. Then it squeezed. Then it ached mildly. Then it started to pound like a kettledrum.
Bother. Since when were hearts supposed to go through callisthenic exercises? This was ludicrous. Angry with her unruly heart, she spoke rather too sharply when she said, “Besides, it’s not as if you’ve been told to slit your wrists or climb Mount Everest or anything. You only have to act in a picture.”
Bother. She wished she’d used a more conciliatory tone and had chosen her words with greater care. Martin, who seldom frowned in displeasure, frowned at her now And he looked far from pleased.
“I know you enjoy acting, Christina, but I don’t. My pleasure in the pictures is in putting them together and overseeing the production. I’m no actor, and acting in Egyptian Idyll will only make more work for me. I’m already spread too thin If I have to act, too, God knows how I’ll get my other work done.”
“I’m sorry, Martin. I didn’t mean to sound so cross.” She hadn’t meant to sound so abject, either. She simply couldn’t find a middle ground with Martin Tafft. And she’d never had this problem before. It must be physics.
As she understood more about the natural sciences than most young ladies, Christina was happy when that thought occurred to her. If it were physics, if Martin’s chemical makeup and her chemical makeup were somehow or other drawn to each other, then Christina couldn’t be faulted for behaving oddly in his presence.
No sooner had that happy thought settled in than an extremely unhappy one followed. Good God, if it was physics, then she was jinxed.
Christina flatly refused to become a victim of her own physical or chemical underpinnings, and that was that. She sat up straighter in her chair. “I understand your problem, Martin, but, believe me, acting isn’t all that much work. I’m sure it won’t interfere with your directing chores. I mean, it’s not as if you didn’t have to be on the set anyway.”
Martin took a larger gulp of his gin and tonic and sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” He seemed to be trying to shake off his gloomy mood.
When he smiled, Christina discerned lines of stress around his eyes. She sat on her hand to keep it from reaching out to smooth away those clear signs of tension.
This was absurd. Martin needed her support. He didn’t need her to be sitting across from him, fighting tooth and nail with herself in order to keep her ill-controlled impulses in check. He deserved more from her than that, if only out of fellow feeling. After all, she was planning to be a healer. It was, therefore, her job to attempt to remedy distress when it presented itself to her.
Besides all that, it would give her a good excuse to touch him
She silently shrieked at herself to stop trying to undermine her better instincts. Even as she did so, she pulled her hand out from underneath her bottom and leaned over the table to touch Martin’s furrowed brow. He jerked his head up, startled.
If he felt the same electrical tingling she did every time they touched, Christina didn’t blame him for jerking. “Try to relax, Martin. Everything will work out all right.”
“You think so?” He both looked and sounded skeptical.
“I’m sure of it. You must know by this time that pictures are always a little confusing while they’re being made. After you finish the shoot and go through the film and edit it, I’m sure it will be a wonderful picture.”
He only stared at her for several moments, his large, dark, and perfectly gorgeous eyes directed at her face. Christina, who couldn’t even recall the last time she’d been ill at ease in the company of another human being, felt like squirming in her chair.
Martin opened his mouth, then shut it without speaking. After another second or two, he opened it again, and again shut it without speaking. Christina didn’t have any idea what he was thinking, but she wished he’d spit it out, because she didn’t know if he wanted her to stop stroking his poor forehead. She didn’t want to stop. She loved touching him. Which was probably a very bad thing.
“You know,” Martin said eventually, after another couple of failed attempts to get words out, “every time we touch, I feel—something.”
“You do?” Christina felt her eyebrows lift in surprise.
He nodded, as if he were too unsure of his ground to say anything more until he found out how she’d react to his first declaration. She decided to help him out.
“I do, too.”
“You do?” His smile fairly dazzled her. “I’m glad. I thought it was just me.”
After hesitating for only moment, she said, “No. It’s not just you.”
She almost swooned when he reached for her hand as it stroked his brow and lifted it to h
is lips. Sweet Lord in heaven, she was going to die right here and now if he kept that up. She didn’t say so, but only swallowed.
“What does it mean, Christina?”
The way he said her name entered her ears and trickled through her body like sweet, warm syrup. She felt her bones start to melt and languor steal over her.
Her reaction to his touch astonished her. She didn’t know what it meant. Was this passion? She’d become accustomed to thinking of herself as a cold fish of a female who possessed few of the feminine emotions so common among her earthly sisters. Therefore, this reaction to him was unaccountable to her.
“I—I don’t know.” She also never stammered. If this was passion, it was obviously no good for the mental functions of those involved.
He reached for her other hand, which had been gripping the table. He had to pry her fingers loose. Christina didn’t know why, either, because she was in no condition to be stubborn about anything, much less keeping a grip on the table. He fondled both of her hands in his and lifted each one in turn to those wonderful lips.
“Your hands are lovely, Christina. So small and smooth and perfect.”
Oh, God, he was making love to her And she was falling for it. Christina wanted to thrust the table aside and leap upon Martin Tafft right here and now. Since even in her befuddled condition she knew that was out of the question she said, “Erk.”
That wasn’t right. It wasn’t even coherent. She tried again. “Thank you.” Better. Not great, but better. “And something definitely happens when we touch.”
“Yes. It does.”
Ah, a simple sentence, but an understandable one. Maybe she was getting a handle on this stuff.
Martin turned her hands over so that her palms lay face up on his and leaned over to kiss them. Any slight handle Christina had discerned in the fog clouding her brain slipped away like smoke. Good God, this was awful. It was wonderful. It was the most pleasurable experience in her whole life.
Her Leading Man Page 11
