Phoenix Falling

by Mary Jo Putney

  "I am pacing, aren't I?" He stopped halfway between the labyrinth and the encircling trees. "Is that better?"

  "Not much." She patted the grass next to her. "Sit down and contemplate the daisies or something."

  After a moment's hesitation, he did as she suggested. If she didn't mind the fact that she was wearing a semi-translucent gown that was sliding down one shoulder, neither would he. "You're looking as stressed as I am. Any reason in particular, or are you twanging on general principles?"

  "I kept thinking about what you said about finding out who my father is, and finally hired an investigator. Joe Mooney sends weekly reports about his lack of progress so at least I'll know where the money is going. One arrived today." She hunched still further, her arms tightening around her raised knees. "He still has a few leads to follow up, but in his professional opinion, I probably won't ever have a definitive answer."

  "Does that bother you?"

  "It's a loose end I'd like tied up, but if the information isn't available, I'll just have to accept that I'll never know."

  "Look on the bright side. If you did find your father, he might be a leech who'd want you to support him."

  "I hadn't thought of that." She smiled faintly. "I could prove I was a tough little chick by telling him to get lost. But at least I'd know who he was. It's strange. I've gone all of these years without knowing, but having started to look, now I'd like an answer."

  "Ambiguity isn't your strong point, Rainey. You're terrific in a crisis, but uncertainty sends you round the bend."

  "You know me too well."

  "The feeling is entirely mutual." He picked a small yellow flower from the grass and rolled it between thumb and forefinger. "A divorce decree should divide up not only marital property, but marital knowledge. I'd insist you return your appalling skill at reading my mind."

  "I'd demand that you hand over your obnoxious ability to sense what I'm feeling, usually before I do."

  They looked at each other, and burst out laughing. "You have to relinquish your knowledge of where I'm ticklish," he said.

  "And you have to wipe from your mind what I look like in the morning when I first wake up."

  He looked into her changeable eyes, green now in the grassy clearing, and realized that he was not the only one aroused by their on-camera grapplings. "My lawyer will tell you that I refuse to give that up."

  "Then you don't get the tickle secrets back." She raised a hand and traced the edge of his ear with her fingertip. The effect wasn't ticklish; it was incendiary, and she knew it. He leaned forward and kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers hungrily.

  She made a sound deep in her throat and moved closer. "We both deserve a reward after a difficult day," she murmured, "and there's no chocolate around."

  He laughed, feeling better than he had since leaving New Mexico. Catching her around the waist, he lay back on the grass and pulled her on top of him. "Give the costume designer a bonus. This silk and lace thing you're wearing is even more irresistible than chocolate."

  The looseness of the garment made it easy to slide his hands under as they kissed fiercely, the tensions of their work exploding into raw, needy passion. Her urgency matched his, and she tore at his Victorian buttons as he kneaded her silky skin under the lacy layers of the gown. When they came together, he forgot demons and shredding nerves and future loneliness in the intense reality of the moment. Though the past couldn't be mended, he could give her pleasure now, a gift of atonement for what couldn't be changed.

  She cried out, grinding her hips against his in a long, powerful climax. He let himself surrender to annihilation, crushing her to him as he convulsed uncontrollably. Then he held her trembling body close, not wanting this precious interlude to end. If only they could have remained like this, been satisfied with the intimacy born of affection and rare physical passion. But she'd wanted and deserved more, and he was incapable of it.

  Breathing nearly normal, she murmured, "We have to stop meeting like this."

  Tenderly he smoothed back her hair. "Not a problem. This didn't happen."

  She slid off him and rolled onto her back, expression troubled. "I wish I was better at convincing myself of that, or at least had better willpower."

  He took her hand, lacing his fingers between hers. "Sleeping together while we're getting a divorce is bound to have painful emotional repercussions. But you must admit that we're both much more relaxed than we were a few minutes ago."

  "Good point. I haven't a tense muscle left in my body. In fact, I might not have any bones, either."

  "So the time hasn't been wasted."

  "I suppose not," she said, but her expression was grave.

  He wondered if the pressures of making this movie would drive them into each other's arms again. He hoped so, because physical intimacy had gone a long way toward repairing his tattered spirit.

  A few more such encounters and he might survive this movie after all.

  Chapter 20

  Over morning coffee, Rainey read Nigel Stone's latest article on Kenzie's mysterious past. This time, "Morgan the Castle," the Welsh caretaker of an ancient ruined fortress, said he'd always suspected Kenzie Scott was really a classmate of his from a fishing village in northern Wales.

  Rhys Jones had been a handsome lad with a quick tongue and a taste for playacting. After leaving school he'd joined the British Navy, then deserted and never been heard from since. Morgan's guess was that Rhys had decided to become an actor and taken the name Kenzie Scott, concealing his past because he didn't want to be court-martialed for desertion.

  Morgan supplied another photo of a small boy, this one sitting on the back of a wide pony with his little legs sticking out. The child looked vaguely like Kenzie, but not enough.

  She set the newspaper aside. As Kenzie had predicted, Stone was swamped with tips from an overhelpful public. The Inquirer printed only the most plausible possibilities out of the hundreds that had been sent in. If anyone had offered the truth, it was buried in a haystack of false sightings.

  Which was good, because Kenzie had enough to worry about. Though he hadn't flipped out again in the week since the wedding scene, he looked as tense as a bowstring, and had withdrawn into monosyllables off the set. She wished he'd talk to her, but he was doing brilliant work, so she left him alone.

  The production had rented him a sports car, and after shooting ended for the day, he would roar away, not to be seen until his call the next morning. Even though she knew he was a first-rate driver and had been raised in this country where they drove on the wrong side of the road, she had nightmare visions of him swinging around a curve on a narrow country road and smashing into a truck or tractor. Or speeding off a cliff into the sea.

  His wanderings kept him out very late. Since the hotel's two best rooms were in the same hallway with facing doors, she would lie in bed and listen for him, unable to rest until she knew he'd returned safely. She wasn't sure if she was acting like his wife, his director, or his mother, but she couldn't stop worrying.

  In another three weeks, shooting would be over and they'd go their separate ways. She'd feel as if an arm had been ripped off, but at least life would no longer be surreal. Post-production on The Centurion would keep her crazy-busy for the next several months, and by the time she surfaced again, she'd be a free woman, and over Kenzie. Mostly, anyhow.

  Or at least, maybe by then she'd want to be over him.

  * * *

  "Cut!" Rainey's flat voice ended the take.

  Swearing under his breath, Kenzie released Rainey's hands, then stood and rolled his tight shoulders, wondering if she was going to ream him out. Lord knew she had reason to, but in his present mood he'd explode if she took him to task for his failures. This was the eleventh take of this scene. Only two takes had been worth printing, and both were marginal. The fault was solidly his. He was getting worse and worse.

  He prowled away from the camera, the sea breeze blowing his hair. The scene took place on a cliff where Sarah had s
topped Randall from hurling himself onto the rocks below. As she gripped his hands, anchoring him to life, he stammered out the bare details of the atrocities he'd endured, saying enough for her to deduce why he was so profoundly disturbed and filled with self-loathing.

  In other words, Randall had to spill his guts to his wife, but Kenzie was incapable of evoking the right emotions. When he wasn't blowing his lines, he was failing in his delivery. In contrast, Rainey was at her best as a young wife offering compassion and acceptance for a situation that she was barely capable of understanding.

  Later the scene would be intercut with flashbacks of Randall and his captor that would be shot on the sound stage in London. Kenzie tried not to think about those last scenes, which came at the very end of the shoot and would be truly harrowing. Assuming he'd be able to do them at all. Based on how he was managing today, he might never make it as far as the bloody sound stage.

  He expected Rainey to call for another take. Instead, she told her AD, "Break time," and took Kenzie's arm. He flinched at her touch, then felt oddly comforted.

  "Walk with me," she said. "Maybe the sea breezes will clear our heads."

  At least she was going to yell in private rather than in front of everyone. He was grateful for that, though he'd still bristle defensively. God knew he was trying, and Rainey ought to know it, too.

  Silently they followed the path along the cliff, the wind blowing tendrils of her hair and fluttering her long, heavy skirts. When they were far enough from the production crew for privacy, she said quietly, "As this movie has progressed, you've had to reveal more and more of yourself. You've done so brilliantly. This scene is the most intrusive yet and it won't equal your other work unless you can allow that camera into your soul. It's a lot to ask of you, maybe too much."

  She glanced up into his face. "Think about it. When you're ready, we'll do one more take and print whatever we get. If you still can't hit the right notes, to hell with it. We'll do some editing magic with the film we have and fake it. Okay?"

  He drew a shaky breath. If Rainey had tried to browbeat him, he'd have fought her, maybe even walked off the set—something he'd never done before.

  Instead, she understood the hell he was going through, and would accept it if he'd reached his limits. Which meant he must do his damnedest to spill his guts for the camera. "You're one amazing director, Rainey," he said gruffly. "Give me ten or fifteen minutes alone, and we'll try it again."

  She nodded, then shyly stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Thanks for doing your best, Kenzie."

  His gaze followed her as she turned back toward the camera, graceful as any Victorian lady who'd been raised with corsets and full skirts. Then he turned and continued along the cliff.

  She was absolutely right that the problem was one of self-revelation. He didn't know if he was capable of peeling any more layers away. It didn't matter that no one watching the film would know exactly what he was revealing—he knew, and he was already working way past his comfort zone. If he didn't go further still, he would fail the movie and the character he was playing. Authenticity was a subtle quality, but most viewers knew when it was missing.

  A willingness to reveal oneself was essential to acting. He'd done a fair amount of that early in his career, when he was working in England. Then he'd gone to Hollywood and become an action star, where he could do a good job without ever having to push himself until it hurt. In fact, he'd avoided roles that might have made him uncomfortable, until The Centurion.

  His thoughts circled back to the bedrock truth that if he was anything, he was an actor. He owed it to himself, Rainey, and his craft to do his best no matter how painful that might be. Which meant spilling his guts.

  He spent the rest of his walk thinking about the scene and the character, then returned to the set. Rainey was frowning over the script, but she stood when he approached, her gaze questioning.

  "Let's do it," he said tersely.

  She nodded and set the script aside. As she took her position, she said, "You might want to try looking right into my eyes this time."

  As he waited for the makeup girl to tousle his hair to her satisfaction, he realized that on the previous takes, he'd avoided looking directly at Rainey because of his desire to conceal himself from her. It took a lot of trust to reveal so much to a woman he'd wronged. He inhaled deeply, then gave her a nod of readiness.

  "Now," she said, her voice gentle.

  As the camera began to roll, he gazed into the infinite depths of her eyes, and revealed his bleeding soul, sentence by stammering sentence: the horror, the pain, the humiliation that had destroyed his sense of who he was, leaving... nothing.

  He nailed the scene perfectly.

  "Cut!" Jubilant, Rainey released his hands and threw her arms around him, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Kenzie, I've always known you were one of the best actors anywhere, but you surpassed yourself that time."

  Though glad he'd finally got it right, he felt too raw to deal with anyone, even Rainey. "Twelfth time lucky." He disentangled himself from her hug. Trying not to sound too brusque, he said, "See you in the morning."

  He broke away from her and escaped to his trailer, waving off a makeup girl and costumer. Usually he appreciated help in removing makeup and complicated period costumes, but at the moment he couldn't bear to be touched. Swiftly he cleaned off his makeup and exchanged his Victorian outfit for slacks, shirt, and sweater.

  Josh had left a pile of messages, stacked in order of importance. He ignored them. Grabbing his car keys, he stepped from the trailer.

  And ran smack into Nigel Stone. As a camera flashed in Kenzie's face, the reporter gave a smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on a snake. "You're raising the Inquirer's circulation, Mr. Scott. Readers are fascinated by the hunt for the real man. Information has been flooding in. Care to make any comments? I thought the Welshman who suggested you were a naval deserter might be on to something."

  To be accosted by this weasel now. Kenzie tightened his fist against a violent desire to smash Stone's ugly face, but he'd learned early that it was disastrous to allow a bully to know that he was getting under one's skin. Especially in front of a photographer who was busily recording every detail.

  Collecting himself, he managed a piece of acting almost as difficult as what he'd just done for the camera. "A very entertaining series, Mr. Stone." Smiling with practiced charm, he walked past the reporter. "Some of your stories are better than the ones I've been spinning for years. I'm glad that such a good time is being had by all."

  Stone pursued him. "I couldn't find a record of the birth of a Kenzie Scott on the date you claim, or for years in either direction, so you must have changed your name."

  "One could assume that. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for an engagement."

  As he unlocked the door of the Jaguar, Stone said sharply, "I know who you are, Scott, and I swear to God I'll find the evidence I need to expose you."

  For an instant Kenzie froze. Reminding himself that Stone couldn't possibly be sure, he slid into the low car, quoting Macbeth, " 'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.' I'm merely an actor, Stone, a creature of smoke and mirrors. There's no mysterious truth. Only what meaning or pleasure people find in my work."

  He slammed the door, put the car into gear, and roared away, wheels spitting gravel back at the reporter and photographer. Kenzie's facade of composure lasted long enough to get him out of sight. As his underlying exhaustion took over, once more he wondered bleakly if he'd be able to finish the shooting schedule. He'd given the movie his best, and now, like John Randall, he was left with... nothing.

  * * *

  He drove west along the coast into Cornwall, then turned inland, following the old B roads, marked yellow on most maps, that wound their way through villages and towns far from the modern motorways. On the rocky coast route, he whipped the Jaguar around tight turns on steep winding roads.

 
Such driving required complete concentration, preventing his thoughts from circling obsessively. Inland he once had to slam the brakes on to avoid plowing into a herd of sheep, and later nearly smashed a bicyclist riding down the center of the road. After that, he slowed a little, but not much.

  His only stop was for petrol. Probably he should eat, since he hadn't been doing much of that lately, but he dropped the idea when his stomach knotted.

  Driving helped banish thoughts of Nigel Stone and John Randall and the carefully constructed being known as Kenzie Scott, but he couldn't escape Rainey so easily. He yearned for her as a dying man yearned for grace. Damnably, he knew that if he went to her for comfort, she'd give it with no questions asked. Yet he'd forfeited the right to ask for it.

  So he drove through the night in a futile attempt to outrun the demons.

  * * *

  He returned late to the small hotel that was temporarily home. He'd barely slept for days, and wouldn't tonight despite his bone-deep exhaustion. He'd have to settle for lying down and relaxing, muscle by muscle. Experience had taught him that would allow some rest. At least enough to face the next day.

  His hand was on the porcelain knob of his room when he looked across the narrow hall at the door to Rainey's suite. She was just inside there. Soft, warm, accepting, with the generous heart she did her best to conceal in her professional life. So close...

  More than anything on earth, he wanted to hold her. Reason and conscience debated instinct, and lost.

  There were a couple of paper clips in his pocket, so he dug them out and straightened them into lengths of wire. The hotel locks were primitive, and he'd lost none of his old skill.

  It took less than a minute to pick the lock, and go in to his wife.

  Chapter 21

  There was someone in her room.

  Rainey jerked awake as years of urban fear sent adrenaline surging through her veins. It took a moment to remember that she wasn't in crime-ridden California, but the quiet English countryside. Not that location mattered if assault was imminent.