Aim For Love (9 page)

“I thought we were rehearsing on Tuesday.”

“I’m going for a few days.” She tilted her head toward her right shoulder. “To solve this problem.”

“We have PT people here,” he said as he poured a second martini. “I have a great trainer. I’ll book him for the afternoon.”

“I’m going out to see Alex’s friend.”

“The Jap?”

“You did not just call him that.”

“That’s what he is.”

She wasn’t going to argue Kaz’s attributes with Derrick. It’d just bait him. “I think he can help me.”

Derrick narrowed his eyes. “I’ll come with you.”

“That’s okay, you have work here.”

A commotion at the door drew Sabrina’s attention. Four men with cameras slid in. Derrick looked over his shoulder.

“That’s Joe Severs.”

She tensed up.

“It’s okay, he’s a pro. Shoots for
Insiders
magazine. No monkey business like the jerk who tanked you.”

He waved Joe over to their table.

“Hey, the Hollywood glam couple, just my luck.” Joe slid into a seat next to Derrick. “Mind if I take a shot?”

Derrick slid his chair to hers. Then he grabbed her and planted a kiss. Light flashed.

“Great,” Joe said as he touched his knuckles to Derrick’s.

Sabrina was stunned at Derrick’s performance.

“I’d rather you not use that,” she said in a polite tone.

“Don’t worry, it’s a hot night,” Joe said. “Seems loads of A-listers are out on the town. The editors already have a lot of other juicy shots to choose from.”

A waiter brought a third glass, and Derrick poured Joe a martini.

“I’m going to marry this girl,” Derrick said. Sabrina heard the slurring in his words. Alcohol was not Derrick’s friend.

“Well,
that
might push you to the cover.” Joe grinned as he gulped down his martini.

“We’re
not
getting married,” Sabrina bit out. What the hell was Derrick up to?

“Getting married?” One of the hovering photographers snapped a photo.

Sabrina stood. “Excuse me.” She headed toward the ladies’ room and then zigged back to the VIP entrance. She handed the bouncer a twenty and asked him to see her to a cab. Spending her evening with drunken men was not going to help her at all.

The next day Sabrina dodged Derrick’s calls. She didn’t have to buy a copy of the tabloids to know that her face was plastered across them with headlines about their upcoming wedding—Alex had already emailed her the news.

Hype sold magazines.

And sometimes ruined lives.

Hers wasn’t going to be one of them.

She tapped out an email telling Alex she was going to Kaz’s the next day. She didn’t bother to address the tabloid shots. He knew better than to believe them.

The third time Derrick called, she turned off her phone. He might’ve had a few too many, but that didn’t excuse his drunken comments.

The worst of it was, she needed him. She wanted to succeed as an actor, wanted professional success more than she’d ever wanted anything. And Derrick had the magic. And the gift of being able to teach what he knew. The marriage thing would blow over while she was away, and then they could settle back into their work. Derrick was at his best when he was focused on acting. Still, evading his schemes wasn’t a price she’d expected to have to pay.

Chapter Eight

Sabrina turned off the two-lane road onto a gravel drive lined on both sides with budding peach trees. As she’d driven down the north side of the Tehachapi Pass and left LA behind, a sense of lightness had entered her. She took a deep breath. Now, surrounded by the orchard and under the spreading blue sky, she felt nearly giddy.

She pulled up in front of a well-kept farmhouse. A covered porch wrapped around the first floor and colorful flowers trailed from stone urns lined up beside the front door.

Sunlight glinted off paned glass as the door opened and Kaz stepped out. He lifted a hand in greeting, and the giddy feeling rolling through her screeched to a dead stop.

In making her plans and packing for her trip, she hadn’t really taken in the fact that she’d be spending three days with him. Three straight days with a man who she was pretty sure held her in disdain. A man who set her off in ways she had yet to sort out. She reminded herself that he was helping her as a favor to Alex and that Alex trusted him.
She
should trust him. But Derrick’s performance at the club had her on edge. It’d take a while before she trusted any man.

Kaz opened her car door before she could.

“Traffic?”

Already she could sense that he was more at ease on his home turf. She couldn’t say the same for herself.

“Not too bad,” she said as she stepped out.

“Do you have luggage?”

“Do you have sisters?”

He knitted his brows.

“One.”

“Then you must know that no woman goes anywhere for three days without luggage.” Her teasing words were more to ease her tension than to entertain. “Even Mother Teresa had luggage—she just had loads of minions to carry it.”

“Then consider me a minion.” Kaz opened her trunk and lifted out her two suitcases.

She was used to Alex lifting things effortlessly, but Kaz did so with a fluid grace that stunned her. She stared and wondered what his arm span was. Alex’s was seventy-two inches from fingertip to fingertip; they’d measured once. Kaz’s might be even broader, his chest was wider and—

“I asked if you preferred an upstairs or downstairs guest room.”

Evidently she hadn’t heard him ask the first time.

“Upstairs, thank you. I prefer a view.”

“Follow me then.” At the front door he kicked off his shoes and slipped into a pair of well-worn slippers.

She took the pair he handed her and donned them. So much for niceties. It could be a very long three days. At least he was walking ahead of her this time.

His jeans had the worn look that advertisers aggressively tried to copy. Slung low around his hips, they accentuated the muscles of his back. And his butt. And…his whole back body.

Back body
. As they climbed the stairs to the upper floor, she tried to remember what he’d said about women and back bodies.

He opened a door and gestured her to precede him into the room.

“Why don’t you take a few minutes to settle in and then we can get started.”

“Now?” She’d imagined getting her bearings first.

He crossed his arms. The bulging muscles under his shirt made him look like a model for one of the fragrance ads her brother had once posed for. Alex had given the proceeds from the modeling gig to the Kids and Books Literacy Program, but not before the ad campaign had plastered his half-naked image all over the country. Standing there with the light from the hallway silhouetting him, Kaz could’ve easily been the perfect man for such an ad.

“You have a long way to go, Sabrina. And we have a very short time frame.”

There it was, that measured, flowing, exacting tone she remembered. She was wrong about disdain, at least she hoped so. There was no judgment in his tone. He was stating a fact in the way someone might announce the weather report.

“I’ll meet you on the porch in, say…twenty minutes?”

“Fifteen,” she countered, knowing it was an absurd way of showing that she was up for whatever he wanted to shovel her way.

A slight smile curved into his lips. “Fifteen, then.”

He walked out, closing the door behind him.

In most old farmhouses, a man with his height would’ve had to duck to clear the door transom. This house had clearly been built with tall men in mind. Maybe his father was tall. Or his grandfather. Alex had told her stories about Kaz’s samurai grandfather. Too bad he’d passed away; she would’ve liked to have met him.

The sparely furnished room had a timeless quality. It might have looked the same five or ten or fifty years before. And yet the clean lines and simplicity lent a modern flair. The muted colors of the chair near the window and the cloth draping the bedside table gave it a Zen-like feel.

Peaceful.

Two deep purple irises and a single branch arranged in the elegant but simple Japanese style rose from a stone vase on a burled-wood chest of drawers. A mirror hung on the door leading to the bathroom, framed in the same polished wood. A simply woven off-white bedspread covered the bed.

Serene.

She adjusted her sling and began to unpack. She’d packed quickly—a pair of her favorite jeans, yoga pants in case she had to do mat work, a skirt, shorts, a tank top and T-shirt, and cotton blouses. She fingered the cotton dress she’d thrown into her suitcase at the last minute. It was her favorite; she loved the delicate sweetheart neckline and the tiny pearl buttons down the front. Why she’d packed it, she wasn’t sure.

A squat wooden Japanese-style tub stood in one corner of the en suite bathroom. She was relieved to pull aside a curtain to find a fully tiled modern shower. The buff-colored tiles were hand cast, similar to those her mother had commissioned for Trovare. One row had elephants marching tail-to-tail and the row above sported swimming salmon. Playful geckos ringed the top row of tiles nearest the ceiling. The geckos made her smile. Someone had a sense of whimsy.

She unstrapped her sling and washed her face. As she closed her eyes and splashed warm water across her cheeks, Kaz’s half smile rose in her mind. A smile shouldn’t shoot anxiety through her, shouldn’t feel like a challenge. But she was coming to believe that Kaz’s every move, his every word, was packed with a coiled power, a force held in check and waiting to spring.

Ridiculous.

Her imagination was wandering off with her. Five hours behind the wheel had turned her brain to mush.

Pain pinged as she reached for a towel. The long drive from LA hadn’t done her shoulder any good.

She lined up her toothbrush, hairbrush and a few make-up items on a tray near the sink. She rearranged the items and then arranged them again. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed what she didn’t want to admit.

She was stalling.

But putting off going downstairs wasn’t going to make the ordeal any easier. She spotted a tall glass next to the sink and ran water into it, then downed the tepid water in a few thirsty gulps. The daytime temperature was at least fifteen degrees hotter here in the valley than it was near the coast. No wonder the fruit blossoms were weeks ahead of those at Trovare.

She rinsed the glass and placed it by the sink. Then moved it to the other side next to her make-up and hairbrush.

Still stalling.

She strapped on her sling, grabbed the wide-brimmed straw hat from where she’d left it on the bed and headed for the stairs.

True to his word, Kaz was waiting for her on the front porch.

“Do you live here alone?” She’d thought there’d be other people around, family members, maybe workers. Instead, the farm was eerily quiet.

“Off-season, when I’m in town, I live with my parents and grandmother here in the house. But my parents and brother are in Japan visiting relatives and my grandmother is away at a meditation retreat. She’ll be back on Thursday morning.”

Sabrina hadn’t considered that she’d be alone with him. Alone in practically the middle of nowhere with not another house or person in sight.

“What about workers?”

“A family wedding. Half the county is down there for the next couple of days.” He crossed his arms and raised a brow. “There’ll be no one around to hear your cries for mercy.”

She let out a nervous laugh. If he was offended, he had every right to be.

He pushed away from the railing he’d been leaning on. “We should get started.” He looked down at her delicate strapped sandals. “Change into sturdier shoes. We’ll be walking first.”

“I can walk fine in these. They’re very comfortable.”

“We’re walking on uneven terrain. And there are snakes and ticks. Closed shoes are best. I’ll wait here.”

They had snakes at Trovare. Not many, but some. Ticks were just part of life in the country. But the paths she walked at home were manicured, graveled or spread with loamy vineyard mulch.

She dashed upstairs, feeling more out of place with every passing minute. She’d brought her gym shoes. She didn’t like wearing them outside, but they’d have to do. She laughed to herself when she thought of her closet with racks of heeled designer sandals and strappy, delicate evening shoes. Kaz would probably have her throw them all out.

“Much better,” he said as she stepped back on the porch.

He picked up a backpack and a small cardboard box and walked down the steps to the driveway.

She stayed put on the porch.

“One thing we need to get straight,” she said in her firmest voice, “is that if we’re going to work together, you have to
tell
me what to do. I might have good instincts, but I can’t read minds.”

He turned back to her.

“Right, I forgot. Hollywood and direction. Somehow I had the impression that you might be tired of people telling you what to do.”

She pressed her lips together and resisted the urge to glower.

He gestured to the steps.