Could This Be Love?

by Lee Kilraine

  “Sijan, seriously? What the hell? Have you been hanging out with Tynan or something?” Kaz nailed it. Like always.

  “He was only saying what I was already thinking. It’s not him. It’s me.” Sijan punched the heavy bag a few times, striking as hard as he could, before wrapping his arms around it to steady it. “In Hollywood—hell, in adulthood—you get cynical and stop trusting so easy. Then there she was, like an absolute perfect rose sitting in a field of wildflowers. And instead of being amazed at the beauty of the singular rose, you wonder what the rose is up to sitting in the field of wildflowers.”

  Kaz stared at him. “Sijan. You either need to leave Hollywood, or get some sleep. Maybe both.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Sijan looked at the clock on the wall and left the gym abruptly. He used his teeth to untie one boxing glove, pulling it off as he walked past his room down to Avery’s, where he stopped and listened for any movement behind the door. He tucked the boxing glove under his arm and knocked, calling her name quietly before opening the door and letting himself in.

  “Avery. It’s time to work out.” He leaned over the bed, shaking her shoulder lightly. “Avery. Let’s go. Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.” And damn was she ever with her blond hair soft across her pillow and around the sweet lines of her face.

  One violet eye peeked up at him. “No.” The violet eye closed.

  He ran his hand down the arm she had flung out to her side in sleep. The lean muscles and soft skin a subtle reminder of another time, another kind of workout. “Sweetheart, I’m just trying to help you reduce stress so you can keep your food down. But, we have to go to the gym to do that.”

  Avery shot up in bed. And the sight of her in a white tank undershirt was stressful to his already stressed system. He really needed to work off stress now, and looking at her soft and sweet, blinking away sleep, he was beginning to have second thoughts on how to go about it.

  “Avery, we either work off stress in the gym, or we work it off right now. Right here.”

  He watched her gaze move from his face, down his chest, taking him in as he stood next to her bed. Her eyes widened and her gaze whipped up to his. “What are you going to do, hit me? I already apologized last night.”

  Looking down at his hands, he remembered he still had a boxing glove on and another tucked under his arm. “Very funny. No, I thought hitting the bag would be a great way for you to get rid of some of your stress. Instead of taking it out on your stomach.”

  ***

  Her eyes feasted on Sijan, standing half naked in her bedroom. His dark hair, slightly disheveled as if he’d been running his hands through it, still looked male-model underwear-ad stylish. And so did his body. The baggy athletic shorts he wore hung low on his waist, putting his sharply cut ab muscles on display. Her blood pulsed in a familiar heated rhythm as she looked at his chest, shoulders, and arms, remembering when her hands and lips had mapped that territory. Her fingertips, palms, and lips had taken detours along the contour lines in his muscled shoulders and chest, over the delineated plains of his abdomen and across the valley next to his hip bones. She looked up into the chiseled lines of his striking face and the turbulence in his storm-cloud eyes. “Is something wrong, Sijan?”

  “Yes, something’s wrong. I . . .” Sijan shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know what you do for a living. It’s not that it matters. It’s that I failed to ask you.”

  Avery had the feeling that he had intended to say something else, but the question about the job had slipped out instead. She had no reason not to tell him now, right? Nothing was secret anymore. It was no secret Tansy had lied to her. And the large group of paparazzi camped at the gates of the farm was proof her identity and whereabouts were no longer a protected secret. “Pia and I own a small production company, A and P Productions. We specialize in commercials featuring animals. You’ve probably seen a few of our ads on television. The Rise ’n’ Shine coffee commercial?”

  “Petey? So . . . not chicken porn.”

  “No, coffee porn.” Avery looked into Sijan’s still troubled eyes. “Is there something else wrong?”

  “Maybe. But, I think I know how to fix it.” He reached out with his ungloved hand and pulled her out of bed, scooting her toward the bathroom door. “First, though, we need to teach you a healthy way to deal with stress. Please? Humor me and put on some workout clothes. I’ll humor you and pretend that tank top and bikini panties you’re almost wearing don’t make me want to jump you.”

  Avery turned to say she’d be willing, but he stopped her with a finger on her lips.

  “I know what I want and I think I know what you need”—Sijan’s finger grazed her bottom lip, then slipped down under her chin to tilt her face up to his—“and right now, sadly, they aren’t the same thing. Help me take the high road here and go put on workout clothes. I’ll wait for you in the gym.” He leaned in, pressing his lips to hers, then turned and left the room.

  The high road? Well, heck. Why did he have to be good when she was ready to be bad?

  Chapter Twenty

  Avery couldn’t complain about the routine her days were taking on. She and Sijan met in the gym for a workout and stretching every afternoon. He taught her to box . . . while stealing her heart.

  Sneaky man, except she was pretty sure he had no idea what he was doing to her. She even tried not looking at him during the workouts, but damn if he didn’t reel her in by being charming and engaging.

  “What were you like as a little girl?” Sijan held the punching bag from swinging while she hit it.

  “Awkward. When I was a little girl, I never seemed to fit in. I never had many friends, so I made them up. To keep me company. And the lonelier I got, the more fantastic my imaginary friends’ lives became. We’d act them out—”

  Sijan’s face poked out from behind the punching bag. “We?’

  “Uh, yeah. Me and my imaginary friends. I sound crazy, don’t I?”

  He let go of the bag and moved around to the front. “No. You sound like a lonely little girl. I’d have played with you if you lived next door to me.”

  Avery’s heart melted, until he said, “As long as you didn’t throw like a girl.”

  “Hey!” She swatted at his arm with her gloved hand, but he easily caught it and pulled her in close.

  Grinning, he said, “I’d surely have talked you into playing doctor and patient.”

  On another afternoon, he asked her about her love of animals.

  “Don’t ask me these questions, please. They just reinforce how messed up I am.” Avery turned to walk away from the discussion. She knew she was a therapist’s dream.

  Sijan grabbed her by the shoulders and wrapped her up in the safe harbor of his arms. “Avery, loving animals is normal. Not getting to is sad.”

  Avery shook her head. “No. Now, Sijan, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. My foster family was poor, and there were three children younger than me.”

  “Foster family? What happened to your parents?”

  “They died in a car accident when I was five.”

  “I’m sorry. Avery, I’ll grant you cats and dogs can get expensive, but how about a hamster or a fish?”

  She sucked in a breath as a long forgotten memory flashed through her mind. She stepped out of Sijan’s arms and moved in front of the punching bag. “I did have a fish. Once. You know how at the end of the school year the teacher lets one of the kids take home the class fish? My third-grade teacher, Miss Yetter, picked me to take care of Mrs. Goldie, the goldfish. She sent me home with the bowl and enough food for the whole summer and worked it out with Mr. Joe, the bus driver, so I could take it on the bus.”

  Avery punched the bag as hard as she could. “It took me twice as long to walk home from the bus stop that day because I was trying hard not to spill any water, even though Miss Yetter had lowered it. I put the little fishbowl on the kitchen table to share with the whole family. Tansy, Tracie, and Tommy were all excited. Mrs. Goldie
looked pretty sitting in the sunlight.”

  Her fist slammed into the bag again. And again and again. The sting on her knuckles, even through the protective glove, was a welcome distraction. Each punch harder than the next until her arms were so tired she couldn’t lift them again.

  “Okay, so you did at least have a fish.”

  “Yes. I had a fish.” Avery smiled a feeble wobbly smile. “For an hour I was the happiest girl in third grade. Then Michelle and Bob came home. Bob said we didn’t take charity. Michelle said I hadn’t earned the fish and that I didn’t deserve a pet since I didn’t appreciate what I had.”

  The muscles in Sijan’s jaw did that clenching thing. “How long did you live with Michelle and Bob?”

  “Eleven years.” Her gut twisted with the memories. “Michelle opened the door and Bob tossed the fishbowl outside. It shattered in the yard. I ran outside to try to save the fish, but after I got it scooped up I couldn’t find any water. Mrs. Goldie died in my hands.”

  Sijan turned and began hitting the bag as hard as he could. There was something satisfying about watching him get angry for her. As if her eight-year-old self wasn’t dealing with her sadness and loss alone. A sadness she couldn’t express back then because Michelle and Bob had said only bad girls felt sorry for themselves, so she had stopped crying herself to sleep each night. That memory made her need to punch something. Sijan had been right about that. It was a great way to deal with stress. She tapped his shoulder with her own gloved hand. “Okay. Step aside. My turn, Rocky.”

  ***

  The “de-stressing” workouts were coming in handy since the daily acting sessions dissected, exposed, and poked her long-buried pain. The emotion spewed out like angry sparks scorching everything around them. Sometimes she’d finish her lines to find Sijan, Dirk, and the crew staring at her long after she was done. She was turned so inside out she stopped caring. She acted instinctively, just as she always had. As the two weeks wore into the third, and the silence after she spoke her lines became more pronounced, she started escaping to the goat pen at the end of the filming day. There, she could pretend her life, the life she and Pia had carved out over the last five years, was still hers. She was good at pretending.

  ***

  Sijan didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Watching Avery act in a role he had written was more than bittersweet. It was brutal.

  “Does she even know how good she is?” Kaz asked after Avery darted off at the end of a day of shooting. He was setting up his computer to play back today’s scene on the big screen for everyone to watch. Everyone except Avery. She politely refused to view any of the work they were recording.

  Pia shook her head. “She never did, but it’s because it was never acting to her. It was feeling.”

  “All I can say is I have never performed so well. Her talent is raising my game, and I can’t wait for this to hit the big screen and watch my career explode.” Dirk’s enthusiasm was a physical thing. “Maybe I can talk her into another movie with me. You know, strike while the iron is hot?”

  Pia put her hands on her hips and sneered at Dirk. “Ferris, you’re an idiot.”

  Sijan was glad Pia had said it so he didn’t have to. Watching Avery’s performance at the end of each day was fascinating and heartrending. As an actor, it was wondrous to watch the art she was creating for the film. From her facial expressions to the depth of her emotions, each breath and gesture, the innate way her body reacted to other actors . . . all of it was a lesson that probably couldn’t be taught. As a man who loved her, it tore his heart out to know that hardships from her past were part of why she could touch such depths of emotion.

  “Dirk, I hear Mama Cates calling you from the kitchen. Something about the ingredients to make your special martini.” Pia led him by the elbow out the door. Once he was gone, she whipped around to confront Sijan. “What are you going to do about this?”

  Jeff and Kent looked at each other in confusion, then back at Pia. Jeff said, “Pia, what are you talking about? We’ve never seen work like this before. Audiences will eat it up. Hell, she’ll probably be up for an Oscar.”

  “Probably. If we ever let it see the light of day,” Sijan said. “I realize that can’t happen.”

  “Thank God,” Pia said, punching him in the arm and grinning. “It’s about time you came through for her. Ol’ Dirk is going to be mighty disappointed.”

  Sijan rubbed his arm and scowled. “Ol’ Dirk is getting a master class in acting from Avery he’ll never get anywhere else. That alone will help his career more than one great movie.”

  “You know, we only have about two more days of shooting.” Kent looked back and forth between Sijan and Pia. “Then we’ve got a finished movie in the can. Well, add in a few days for final edits, but it’ll be ready to turn in.”

  Kaz cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow at Sijan. “You do have to turn something in to fulfill the contracts. And not only is this a work of art, but it’s the only thing you’ve got.”

  “I know, I know. I’m going to call Jerry now to confirm a few details about the specifics of the contracts and the parameters of what we can film. It’ll take two days to finish filming this movie. I should have answers and hopefully a plan by then.”

  Pia stared Sijan down. “You better, ace. Or I’ll take up boxing like Avery and make you my punching bag.”

  Sijan left a message on Jerry’s phone, then hit the gym for a workout while Avery was getting her daily animal fix. If he ever talked her into taking a chance on him again, he’d fill the farm with animals for her. He would like to think that these weeks working together were wearing down her resistance, but knowing what she’d experienced in Hollywood it had probably taken every scrap of courage she had to open up to him. He’d be lucky as hell if his idiocy hadn’t chased her back into her protective shell for good.

  ***

  Two days later, Avery wasn’t sure she was going to make it through the day’s filming. It was the final day, and they only had one last scene to record. It wasn’t the final scene of the movie. They had filmed that yesterday, the poignant good-bye scene between the husband and wife who had agreed to a divorce. Though they’d each rediscovered the love they had for each other, it was too late to get beyond the distrust and betrayal that falling out of love and the affair had created. Dirk had turned in a surprisingly strong performance.

  Today’s scene was the good-bye between the wife and the “other man.” It wasn’t nearly as emotional as yesterday’s scene, but Avery couldn’t get it right. She’d just messed up the third take. She walked off the set, over to the far wall, leaning her back against it as she tried to pull herself together. This was the last scene, darn it. Once this was done, she could walk away.

  Yippee, right? Wrong. Lord, she was an idiot. That’s what was giving her a hard time in this scene. Hearing Sijan say good-bye with no regret in his voice. She turned and rested her forehead against the wall. A super colossal idiot.

  She’d gone and fallen in love with Sijan Cates.

  “All right, let’s take five, everybody,” Sijan said.

  Sijan leaned his body next to hers on the wall, the warmth from his body seducing her. She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. So much gorgeousness. But he was everything she already knew she couldn’t live with. Living the Hollywood life had devastated her. She didn’t enjoy acting because it was so blindingly painful. At the very least, these last few weeks had proven she was right about that.

  “What can I do differently to help you? We can rewrite the lines, or I can change my delivery. You name it, you got it.” He reached out, taking her hand, turning her until she faced him fully. They each leaned a shoulder against the wall, with about a foot of space between them. “We’re a few minutes from wrapping this up. Then, if you want, you can walk away.”

  Avery looked up into Sijan’s face, knowing that when she did walk away, she wouldn’t be walking away whole and unscathed. She pulled her hand away from the reas
suring warmth of his, crossing her arms over her midsection. “It’s not you, it’s me. Your delivery is perfect. I’m having trouble focusing today—you know, staying in character.”

  “We can finish tomorrow. Hell, we can finish next week, if you want.” Sijan’s eyes shifted alertly. The poor man seemed to be trying to identify what she herself couldn’t put words to.

  With a firm reminder to herself that it was John, the “other man,” saying good-bye, not Sijan, she shook her head and said, “No. Let’s wrap this up now. I think I can get it right this time.”

  Both Avery and Sijan played their parts perfectly. John, the other man, said good-bye with only a little regret. He’d enjoyed the sensual relationship, but when Sarah asked for more he knew it was over. The part he loved, the competitive drive to entice a woman away from her mate, was long over anyway. He usually liked to make his exit long before it felt like a relationship. He had stayed a little too long this time. Sarah’s good-bye was full of regret, but not for losing John. She’d realized too late that it was her husband who held her heart. How ironic was it that, if not for the affair with John, she and Paul might never have realized they still loved each other? But because of the affair with John, her husband could never forgive her. There were no winners in their game of love.

  “That’s a wrap.”

  The bright, hot lights for filming shut off as the room’s overhead lights flickered on. Dirk and Tynan had slipped in to watch the shooting of the final scene.