Aim For Love (28 page)

Her girls’ weekend with Jackie hadn’t helped to clear Sabrina’s head. Talking with Jackie had just stirred up every image and fantasy she’d fought over the past weeks to shut down. Jackie had taken her to the beach, showed her some surfing moves. They’d drunk one too many margaritas and watched movies late into the night in Sabrina’s cozy living room.

But the fun hadn’t dimmed the shame she felt for not listening to Kaz and throwing herself at him anyway.

She was good and haunted now, but not by any specter. Long walks on the beach and late nights rearranging her bungalow only made the loneliness yawn deeper inside her soul. For the first time in her life she felt homeless and unmoored. She couldn’t even touch her own body without sensing Kaz’s touch. The sense of longing, of lack, of something missing, was worse than the nightmares, worse than the pain she’d endured after the attack. How could something that
wasn’t even there
be so painful and pull her forward more powerfully than any goal or plan? Her shoulder was better and her heart was breaking. Not a very balanced trade-off.

As she waited for her coffee to brew, she flicked on the tiny television next to her toaster. It was still on the baseball network. She’d tortured herself the previous afternoon watching an exhibition game between the Giants and the Dodgers. Alex had hit a homer and it had barely registered. She’d been watching for shots of Kaz in the dugout, for the next shots of him on the mound. After an hour, she’d forced herself to shut off the television. Kaz had pitched a near-perfect game. And every move he’d made had ramped up the deep yearning she felt each time she thought of him.

And even when she didn’t.

Her body remembered him without any prompting from her mind.

And her heart held constant vigil, undeterred by reality.

The coffeemaker sputtered. The sportscasters were buzzing with the news that Kaz had made the team, that he’d been offered an unheard-of contract for an unproven rookie. One of the announcers surmised that with the big signing contracts for some of the players being brought over from Japan, maybe the Giants brass had hopes that Kaz would be the next Tanaka. The media could make absurd leaps, she knew that from experience. But maybe in this case they were right. She hoped so, for Kaz’s sake. As she sipped her coffee, the announcers segued into speculation about Alex. She knew better than to believe his threats to retire. It’d take more than pain and life complications to get her brother to walk away from the game he loved.

As she dressed to head over to the film set and gathered her gear, one thing became clear—she was in no mood to act out a love scene with Derrick. Why Natasha decided to shoot the love scenes in the second week made no sense to her. But organizing the shooting schedule was Natasha’s job, not hers. Her job was to show up ready.

Derrick had made a couple more outrageous statements to the tabloids about their blossoming relationship. If he wasn’t her co-star, she’d sue the jerk.
Sure she would
. Just as soon as the soft spot she held for him melted away. She’d been wrong about her feelings for him, but that was no fault of his. He’d been her mentor, and she’d been the one who confused the powerful reality of him guiding her into the crazy world of Hollywood for some sort of romantic attachment. And even though she didn’t trust him, she felt affection for him and a deep sense of gratitude. But she knew now that it was the affection of a student for a mentor, nothing more. Maybe they could be friends, but he’d have to stop his antics.

She didn’t want to out him, but she had to find a way to get him to come to grips and stop using her as a smokescreen. It wasn’t fair. Not to either of them.

Before she left the house, she chomped down on four cloves of raw garlic. It was a minor retaliation, but it made her feel protected. Maybe that was why in vampire stories people resisting the dark forces wore strands of garlic around their necks.

She wasn’t going to be a victim, not to Derrick.

But to her heart?

Garlic wasn’t going to ward off the urges firing through her every time she thought about Kaz. She’d argued with herself, telling herself that it was impossible to fall in love so quickly, that she wasn’t a nineteenth-century virgin left trembling at a man’s mere touch. But Kaz had scorched straight through her objections. There was no denying it—she’d fallen in love, and now her life felt like a hollow, miserable fiasco.

Natasha was waiting for Sabrina when she reached the set.

“Jeez, we won’t need make-up to have you look your part today.” Natasha handed Sabrina a glass of fresh orange juice from the craft services cart. “You okay?”

“A bad night’s sleep, that’s all.” She didn’t want to pile another worry onto Natasha’s overflowing plate. The film was going over budget and they’d only been shooting for a couple of weeks.

“Well, go take a nap. My crew just informed me that we have to rewire the set. Fire code or something. You’ve got a couple hours.”

“I’m sorry, Natasha.”

“Hey.” Natasha clasped her in a bear hug. “If this electrical snafu is the only problem I have today, I’ll count it as red-letter fab.”

Sabrina’s stomach roiled with acid as she walked outside. Eating the garlic had been a stupid move. She’d need a hell of a lot more than garlic to keep her boundaries with Derrick.

She closed the door of the trailer that was fast becoming her second home and then curled up on the bed that stretched across one end of it. But sleep didn’t come. Instead, her mind continued to torture her with exquisite 3D memories of every happy moment, every smile, every touch that she’d shared with Kaz Tokugawa. It was just her luck that her heart opted for the one guy who wasn’t available. And that her soul wouldn’t let go no matter how many rational arguments she trotted out.

Just what did she have to tell her heart before it would believe Kaz could never be hers? Did she have to keep reminding it that
she’d
pursued him, that he loved another woman? Surely such reminders were too demeaning and painful to dwell on even in the privacy of her mind.

Why was her heart so damned slow to learn? It had been hesitant to seek and find love, and now it was slow to release it. But holding tight to a one-sided love was beyond foolish—it was irrational. And yet telling her heart that, even whispering it aloud, didn’t break her grip on love’s memories. She’d done the hard work of facing her fears, of integrating the hidden, shadowed parts of herself and coming out whole. She’d even come to terms with Kristen’s character and could bring her to life without falling off her own center.

Fab, just fab. She was healthy, whole
and
brokenhearted. Just great.

She looked up at the ceiling, ignoring the tears that silently tracked down her cheeks. She didn’t cry often, but she decided a woman was allowed a few tears over her first love.

Besides, she couldn’t figure out a way to hold them back any longer.

After an hour of tossing and aching, she gave up and read through the day’s scenes one more time. Then she brushed her teeth in the small sink and gargled half a bottle of mouthwash. The garlic had been a truly desperate measure. A useless desperate measure. She had far better tools for dealing with Derrick. She just needed to wield them.

But when the make-up assistant came two hours later to prep her for the shoot, she was still a tense ball of nerves. She wasn’t any more psyched to shoot love scenes with Derrick than she’d been earlier in the day. But that was show biz, where the pretend took precedence over the real and invented stories wormed their way into the truth.

She passed on the lunch the assistant offered. Maybe after she got through the shoot she’d be able to think about food.

And find a way to ignore the hunger that gnawed louder in her heart every day.

Chapter Twenty-six

The day after signing with the team, Kaz was just finishing an early breakfast in the hotel café when his grandmother slipped into his booth.

“I’ve
never
understood the appeal of American breakfasts,” she said as she tapped her fingers on the menu.

“How did you get here?”

“I took the bus last night. It has wheels; it stopped here. This is a very strange town, Kazi-san.” She took a bite of the toast he’d left on his plate.

“I didn’t know you had such a burning interest in spring training.”

“I have a burning interest in
you
. I saw the report on your first game.”

“How?”

“The games are reported online. I saw only the report of your first one—that was enough.”

Kaz raised a brow. She hated computers.

“And I didn’t need the numbers to see that you’re not right. If your grandfather were alive, he’d have been here yesterday.”

“I had an off day.” He touched a finger to her arm. “I made the team.”

She put the toast back onto his plate and covered his hand with hers. Her face softened.

“Your grandfather would have been very happy, Kazi.” She held him in her penetrating gaze. “But I see no joy about this important accomplishment in your face.”

Kaz lowered his eyes to the plate of half-eaten toast.

“It’s time to stop, Kazi-san.”

She ordered a cup of tea from the server and then sat back in the booth, crossing her arms.

“You don’t get to be eighty-four and not know something of the world.” She locked him in an inescapable gaze. “It’s time to take down the walls. The vow you made has fenced you in worse than any barbed wire could have.”

Kaz frowned. Obaa recognized something more confining than barbed wire?

“Are you talking about the farm?”

“The
woman
. You love her.”

“But I vowed—”

“Your grandfather may have been a samurai master, but he wasn’t a master of the heart. He should never have extracted those vows from you; it wasn’t fair in any way.”

She must’ve read the astonishment in his face because she reached out and squeezed his arm.

“The world is changing, Kazi-san. Already has changed. Love knows none of these false boundaries.
Koi wa shian no hoka
. Love is without reason, it doesn’t heed fences and vows and never did.
I
have learned to forgive. I do not forget the terrible days in the camps, I cannot. But I forgive. Your grandfather died before he learned that lesson.”

“She’s
ojousama
,” Kaz said, using the term for women from extremely well-to-do-families, for women out of reach except to members of their own class. He’d never admitted to anyone the shame he’d faced with Stacy so many years ago. Hell, it felt like a lifetime ago. He’d thought he’d been in love then, but now he knew differently. Not that it mattered much anymore. The shame still lived in him, a shame that had solidified into an impenetrable wall when he’d considered having a life with Sabrina.

His grandmother scowled. “You reject so you won’t be rejected. You hide behind a vow you shouldn’t have made and conventions that are shadow puppets. Such behavior is cowardly and not worthy of you. Sabrina’s station in life doesn’t matter.” She sat forward and patted his hand. “Sabrina has heart, Kazi.”

Her words sparked through him as they waited for the server to place her tea in front of her and leave their booth. Hell, he
knew
that what mattered was true dedication to purpose. He just hadn’t been ready for purpose to have anything to do with his heart.

“You have a chance for
renai-kekkon
,” Obaa said quietly, emphasizing the old-fashioned phrase reserved for a marriage union made from love. “I was a picture bride, chosen from a photograph my family sent. Many of us were in those days. It was fortunate that I fell in love with your grandfather and he with me—it could have been different, loveless. But
you
, you have a choice.”

He heard a familiar laugh and turned to the door of the café. Alex and Scotty entered, saw him and headed for the booth.

His grandmother took his hands, drawing his attention back to her. “It’s time you use all these talents and powers to aim for love, Kazi.”

Aim for love.

Her words rocketed through him as he introduced her to his curious teammates. They congratulated him on making the team. But his mind wasn’t on baseball. In his mind he was already halfway to LA.

Halfway to Sabrina.

Damn, why had he let her go? And why hadn’t he pursued her when she drove away?

She couldn’t know that he was trying to do the right thing. She couldn’t know he’d shut down his emotions, his heart, when she left. Shut them down so he wouldn’t feel the ache of her absence.

Because he’d never said anything, never fought for her, she couldn’t know that he
would
fight for her, that he’d fight for their love. Hell, how would she know? He’d given up because
he’d
decided what would be best, what was possible, what would be better for her, easier for her. He hadn’t talked with her, hadn’t even hinted at the depth of his feelings. Obaa-chan was right—he’d hidden behind an ill-made vow. And he’d let fear and shame win. He hadn’t given love any chance at all.