“I’m going out for a while. Pack up so I can take you to Chance’s house.”
“Okay.”
He handled the change in plans with such calm it made Cassidy wonder. Have I spent that much time out? “Ryan?”
“Mmm hmm?”
“We’ll be going to Grandma’s for Christmas, okay?” She had not wanted to leave town for the holidays, but maybe a little concentrated time with Ryan would be good for both of them. Certainly she could not sit here in L.A. wondering how Brenna was faring with Kevin’s visit. She had no idea how long he intended to stay. Besides, she did not want to get in the way if Brenna decided to use the time to talk to Kevin about a divorce.
Cassidy sighed. Why’d I have to fall for her after she married? she asked, knowŹing that she had barely known Brenna prior to her marriage, not only because of her abrupt arrival to the series, but because of her own problems, affair, and divorce.
Melancholy words of a romantic song tripped across her brain. “It’s sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along.” Desperate to get away from Mitch, Cassidy had decided Cameron was “the right one” and jumped from one ship to another, completely overlooking the woman who was the reason she had agreed to join the series in the first place. She paused, realizing the implications of her thoughts.
She recalled the tapes her agent and the Pinnacle executives had shown her to convince her to accept the role of Lieutenant Hanssen. She even remembered the scene that had clinched it. Commander Susan Jakes had been injured, and Brenna played opposite a very talented actor, Brett Heslip, who portrayed a man who believed the injured commander was his daughter.
The range of emotions on Brenna’s delicate, determined face had immediately captured Cassidy’s attention. Brenna had played the lines written, but Cassidy recogŹnized that what made the words work was Brenna’s special gift portraying the rivŹeting emotional turmoil of a woman torn with real love for her rescuer. The Pinnacle people had not needed another session; Cassidy agreed to the part. She wanted the chance to play opposite that kind of depth.
But instead of working closely as allies, their characters were set against one another, and life seemed to imitate art. Despite that, though, Cassidy had intensified her attempts to break through Brenna’s icy reserve toward her off-camera.
Standing in front of her closet considering her choices, Cassidy recognized the nervous indecision that accompanied going on a first date. Brushing her hair back from her face, she shook her head. Come on. This is Brenna. The agenda was a movie and popcorn, which strongly suggesting a casual evening, so Cassidy reached for a pair of Capri pants in a neutral taupe. She stepped into the comfortable cotton Lycra mix, then looked through the sleeveless tops she favored and finally decided on a v-neck in pale blue cashmere that was not form fitting. She dusted her hair off her face and examined her appearance in the mirror. Shaking her head, she went to replace the Capris with dark blue jeans.
Splashing water on her face, Cassidy studied her features in the small bathroom
mirror, hoping Brenna would approve. She chuckled as SHe rubbed her damp palms on a towel. God, 1 am so nervous about this. What’s up with that? She thought about the compact woman and the glimpses of skin she had seen in the gym and in the trailer. Because I want something to happen tonight.
Thinking back to her one college experience, Cassidy was suddenly plagued by self-doubt. Would she be able to make Brenna’s first same-sex experience pleasurŹable? Just thinking about it made her stomach swirl with desire.
Her time with Misty had been an experiment, a solace for both of them for losŹing boyfriends. She had enjoyed herself, but the feelings had been ultimately casual, not emotionally entangling, no matter that she had been in a daze for an entire week. Her feelings had not even been hurt when Misty abruptly announced she was going to bed a fraternity brother who had caught her eye.
With Brenna, it was not going to be a game, and it was so far from casual as to feel in another universe entirely. Cassidy wanted to make Brenna cry out with pleaŹsure. She wanted to have Brenna lie in her arms afterward and for the two of them to whisper together of future dreams and wishes. She wanted to share a life with Brenna for years to come.
Walking out to the front door, she called for Ryan. “Come on, buddy.” With his small hand in hers, Cassidy felt steadier. She glanced in her front hall mirror and frowned. Grabbing a brush from the table, she stroked several times through her already perfect locks before ushering Ryan into the evening air.
No car sat in the Talbots’ driveway. Cassidy knocked; Gwen answered.
“Lou’s out,” she said when asked.
Cassidy handed over Ryan’s bag. “Are you sure you want him all night?”
“It’ll be easier on him. If you get home early, just get some sleep. We’ll see you after breakfast.” Gwen patted Ryan on the back and sent him to find Chance.
“When will Lou be home?”
“Sunday. He’s checking a job lead upstate.”
“So he did lose his job.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
Gwen shook her head. “Somebody will pick him up.” She leaned over. “So, is this a date with Brenna?”
“Snacks and a movie.”
Gwen pursed her lips. “Friends? She’s still married.”
“Yes.”
“Be careful.”
“Thank you, Gwen. That means a lot.” Cassidy grasped her friend’s hands briefly, then hurried out to her car.
Eagerness to see Brenna drove her across town quickly. She stopped at a florist shop on the outskirts of Pacific Palisades and chose two perfect roses surrounded by baby’s breath before proceeding to Brenna’s home.
Gripping the roses in one hand, she raised her empty one and rapped with the engraved knocker. This must be why men bring something on a date, she thought, hidŹing her shaking hands under the tissue paper. She had a sudden carnal image of grabbing Brenna as soon as she opened the door, pushing her against the wall, and kissing her hard. Excitement warred with anxiety as she waited.
Brenna had stepped out of the shower twenty minutes earlier. Aside from
brushing her hair, she had managed to decide on her underwear and not much else. Sealed at her vanity, she looked to the closet open to her left and at the array of clothes scattered on the bed and wished the butterflies in her stomach would go away. She stood and shook her head at her image in the mirrored door.
Her little voice prodded with uncertainty, You really want her to see you? Her gaze swept her figure. Forty-plus years glared back at her from the uneven sag of her breasts to the extra swell at her stomach. Tiny crow’s feet shaped the corners of her eyes.
Cassidy, on the other hand, was young, fit, and trim. Brenna sighed with pleaŹsure, reliving the feel of soft breasts nestled in her palms. She fisted her hands in her lap. Cassidy was not just a body, though Brenna had thought that when Cassidy first arrived. Since that original erroneous assessment, Cassidy had more than proven she was smart, forthright, and not at all arrogant, as Brenna had also wrongly assumed. Cassidy had gifted instincts as an actress and a giving nature.
That she could have fallen in love with a woman shocked the Midwestern CathŹolic part of Brenna. Trying to set that aside, she was clinging to the possibility that she had finally found someone who accepted her completely.
She scooped up her black sweater and stepped into her favorite steel gray slacks. Informal, she staunchly told herself. She stepped into sandals and crossed through the living room and from there to the refrigerator, where she checked on the bottle of wine she had chilling.
There was a knocker rap at the front door. Drying her perspiring hands on her hips, Brenna went to welcome her guest. “Hi. Come on in.” She looked at the short, deep brown leather coat Cassidy wore. “Can I take your coat?”
“Thanks.” Cassidy pulled it off, and Brenna opened the front closet, pulling down a hanger for the coat and then placing it back insid
e. Wondering at her brief thought of it never leaving, she left the coat with a lingering stroke down the arm.
As she turned around, Cassidy stood close over her shoulder. “How was the drive?” Brenna asked, feeling like her heart was doing a marathon.
“Fine.”
Cassidy’s arms moved, and Brenna jumped as something appeared between them. She looked down in wonder. “Roses?” She studied the entwined pair, a red rose and a golden rose. “Where did you find these?” She looked up into Cassidy’s face. “They’re incredible.”
“I thought of us when I saw them.” Cassidy blushed. “God, I’ve never said that to anyone before.” She leaned in for a fast kiss.
When they could part, Cassidy still nuzzling Brenna’s hair, Brenna took Cassidy’s hand and led her into the living room, her stomach aflutter with nervous butterflies. She couldn’t tell who was shaking more as they gripped hands and settled on the couch.
“When I invited you, I had every intention of just sharing a movie and popcorn with you.”
Cassidy curled on the couch and looked back at her steadily. “A first date,” she replied, “never goes too far. I grew up with the same mores.”
Their grasps on one another’s hands tightened, and they leaned closer. “So, do we start the movie?” Brenna’s voice quavered.
“What’s the movie?” Cassidy’s voice was even less steady, and she did not break contact with Brenna’s eyes.
“The English Patient”
“I hear it was good.” Cassidy’s mouth was only a breath away.
Brenna’s breath was short. “Very good,” she barely voiced. “One of my favorite movies.” Their mouths fell together as she finished. Hands and arms tugged bodies close.
“Four days.” Cassidy hid her head against Brenna’s shoulder as she murmured her fear. “I thought… Four days and you didn’t say anything. I thought that you had decided you couldn’t”
“I never stopped thinking about Monday,” Brenna replied, still keyed up and slightly raspy. “I couldn’t find any time alone to talk to you.”
Cassidy leaned back, and Brenna turned so their bodies settled together, her arm across Cassidy’s stomach. “So, um…” Cassidy’s fingertips circled over Brenna’s forearm in a slow manner as they both caught their breath. “How about that movie?”
“All right.” Brenna slipped from her cozy spot and put in the tape. “The movie.” She handed Cassidy the remote. “Popcorn?”
Nodding, Cassidy turned on the television and then the tape player, amused by the absence of up-to-date equipment. It was a VHS player, not even a combination DVD/VHS machine like she had in her own home. Brenna had a turntable, too, obviŹously a classic, for records that were on another shelf. As the previews played, she adjusted the sound level then turned to watch Brenna in the kitchen. “Need help?”
“No.” Brenna paused and turned around. “Well, yes. I…there’s something in the refrigerator I thought we might enjoy.”
Cassidy was immediately on her feet with an eager smile. “Chocolate?”
“Ah, the perfect aphrodisiac,” Brenna remarked. “I’ve never had to think like a seductress, so no, chocolate never occurred to me. It’s a bottle of wine.”
Cassidy opened the refrigerator, found the wine bottle, and read the label. “Wine and popcorn a first for me.”
“Well, it is a first date,” Brenna quipped. “Lots of firsts,” she set the pan of kerŹnels over the gas burner, “in lots of things.” Concentrating on the popcorn, she felt Cassidy come up behind her.
The younger woman’s hands caressed her shoulders. “You’re shaking as much as the pan.”
“I guess I am.”
“How late are Thomas and James going to be out?” Cassidy asked. “Just for refŹerence.”
“Their curfew is one a.m.” As Cassidy did not move, Brenna began to relax. Their bodies were close but not touching. The heat was incredible addictive, seductive. She moderated her breathing to concentrate on not burning the popcorn. When the silence was broken by the first kernels exploding, Brenna stepped back directly into Cassidy’s chest.
“Careful.” Cassidy’s hand closed around Brenna’s and steadied the pan. “You have this nasty habit of acquiring burns when you’re around me.”
Brenna chuckled and more of the expectant tension broke, leaving her closer to the lightheartedness that characterized their easiest conversations together. “I’m glad you came over.”
“Are you all set for tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Brenna nodded soberly. “Kevin arrives in the morning.” She pulled the pan away from the fire and poured the popcorn into a large earthenware bowl. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow. Let’s just think about tonight.”
“If I do that, we won’t be doing much talking,” Cassidy said, popping a puffed kernel into her mouth. “But if you’re worried about Kevin…are you going to be okay while he’s here?”
“1 haven’t figured out what to say to him. He’s… I mistook need for love,” she said sadly. “He was stability when I needed it.”
“Do you think you ever loved him?”
“Once, maybe. I’m not sure anymore.”
“What’s different with us?”
Brenna shook her head. “I’m not any better at putting that into words, but I feel…like you might understand me…all the little parts that don’t make sense someŹtimes…even to me.”
“I can’t wait to discover all those little parts,” Cassidy said with a smile. “Ready for the movie?” They returned to the living room, wine and popcorn in hand. Brenna and Cassidy sat together on the couch, and Brenna found the remote and pushed play, keeping the volume low.
Easing her arm around Brenna’s shoulder, Cassidy asked, “Have you looked over the English script?”
“A little. I like it.”
“I read somewhere you’d done another movie overseas before,” Cassidy said.
“A mythic romance.” Brenna sipped her wine. “I was twenty-five. It was in ScotŹland. Tom hated that I was gone for a month. After that, he wouldn’t let me do anyŹthing unless it was shot in L.A. Understandably, the project offers tapered off.”
“But you liked that movie.”
“I loved it,” she enthused. “It was epic. How I carried the role really mattered. He just didn’t care.” She took a long swig.
Taking the bottle from her, Cassidy nodded. “Tom was a director, right?”
“Still is, though he does fewer projects.”
“So, Kevin is totally opposite. I can see it.”
“So could I. It was the only clear image I had during those days.”
“I really am sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk like this when I first joined the cast,” Cassidy said. “I gather I was the devil incarnate for much of the first year?”
Brenna winced. “That wasn’t fair of me.”
“I could have told Cameron to stop setting up all those PR appearances. All that extra publicity work kept me away from Mitch, but that build-up wasn’t fair to you.”
Brenna waved that off. “Even if he had ulterior motives, he actually did help you. It doesn’t sound as if your marriage was ever good. How did you meet Mitch?”
“At a cabana bar when I first got to L.A. after graduation,” Cassidy said. “I did a little modeling. He was working the beach bar, and going to school. After he finished his master’s in finance, we moved back to his hometown, Highland, Illinois, which was across the river from St. Louis. My parents liked having us closer, too, and for a while it was all right.
“Like you, though, I wanted to get back to L.A., to maybe do some acting. At first it was all right with Mitch. I’d stay with Gwen and Lou when I came out to do some modeling and a few walk-on parts. Then I became pregnant with Ryan. Mitch really began working at holding on to me. Forbidding me from leaving, and, well, hitting me when I didn’t listen. When I got the vampire movie, he managed to make it look like a simple accident, but he broke my foot in three places. A dire
ctor here saw footage and wanted me to screen test. I missed three calls from my agent because Mitch erased the voicemails.”
Brenna and Cassidy eased together as they talked more about their early marŹriages, about what they had done to their lives as they discovered what they really wanted. About how marriage and motherhood had changed them and their expecta-
tions of what was important. About all the missteps they had madeanyway.
Shaking her head, Brenna lamented, “I ran away from the anxiety your arrival generated in me and walked right back into a marriage and all out of fear. Kevin should have a woman who loves him. I can’t be her.”
“Do you think he’ll understand?”
“I don’t know. He may feel like I’ve been lying to him. Trouble is, I’m not cerŹtain I wasn’t. I certainly was lying to myself. Doesn’t that mean I lied to him?”
Cassidy hugged her and kissed her temple. Caught by the scent of Brenna’s hair, she continued nuzzling the fine strands. “I don’t know the answer.”
“It’s enough that you listen,” Brenna replied, her hand stroking Cassidy’s leg as they sat in a half-dark room illuminated only by the television’s flickering. “Really.” She moved closer and melded their torsos together, pressing a tender kiss to the full lips.
Cassidy didn’t let her pull away, instead wrapping her arms around Brenna’s back while she explored Brenna’s mouth. Both their heartbeats ticked up a notch. “First date?” Cassidy asked breathlessly when they parted briefly.
Brenna found it so easy to slide her hands under Cassidy’s sweater. “Um. Maybe… There was…” She brushed Cassidy’s lips, remembering their first kiss in the woods. “Camping…we shared a sleeping bag. Then there was…um, the gym and dinŹner? So…third?”
“Certainly kissing is permitted on a third date,” Cassidy murmured, pressing her lips to Brenna’s and then sliding her tongue into wet warmth.
“Absolutely,” Brenna concurred breathlessly as she pulled back. Slowly her finŹgers edged the cashmere up Cassidy’s ribcage. “We’ve showered together already,” she pointed out. Hands shaking slightly, she eased the top higher, “And seen each other nude.”
Turning Point Page 37
