One Magic Night (4 page)

"What are you talking about?"

Pale with anger, her body tense under the hand to that still held her, she said, "I'm talking about your grand plan to seduce Claire Foster's daughter.  After all, she ought to be worth it. Her mother was the most celebrated lay in Hollywood."

“Leigh, stop it.  You can’t think I’d be that calculating.  There is no grand plan.  There are just two people, enjoying the moonlight.”

"Was that what it was?"

He held her for a moment, and then he said, "We need to talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Oh, yes, there is.”

“All right. Just let go of me."

He did as she asked.  She was free.  “I can’t let you walk away from me thinking I was that…heartless…or stupid." His voice was as crisp and cool as the air that moved over her cheek.  “Maybe a cup of coffee in your apartment might be more conducive to reasonable conversation.”

“I’m all for reasonable conversation,” she said, surprising him. 

“I’m glad to hear it.”  He didn't touch her again.  The brisk walk back through the chilly air had the effect of a cold shower on Leigh, and by the time they had climbed the stairs and she unlocked the door, she was reasonably in control.

She turned on the lights quickly, dispelling any illusion of intimacy. She crossed to the kitchenette and filled the carafe with clean water and was pouring it through when she heard the click of the door that told her he had come inside and closed it.

The small round kitchen table was loaded down with her book bag and the pile of papers that had to be read and corrected before Monday. She pushed them aside and made two places, laying out placemats and cups and saucers.

"Don't fuss."

"I'm not," she said shortly, keeping her back to him, searching for the paper napkins in a middle drawer. She found them, they were pink, left over from the Easter dinner she had served Hunt. She folded them in neat triangles and tucked them under the spoons.

Her voice cool and polite, she asked, "Milk or sugar?"

"Just milk."

The water had dripped through, and she flipped the switch, turning on the warmer. She lifted the carafe and turned to the table to pour the steaming brown liquid into the cups.

There was nothing left to do but sit down beside him. He had already seated himself, and he looked completely at home, lounging on the wooden chair with his feet thrust forward, stretched to full length and crossed at the ankles.

As she waited for him to say something, she slipped out of her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair. He didn't speak, didn't even seem to be watching her. She might have been in the room by herself. She took a sip of coffee, swallowed it, and could stand it no longer.  "I thought you wanted to talk to me."

He glanced up, one dark eyebrow arched in amusement. "I thought I'd wait until you're ready to listen."

"I'm ready," she said.

He gazed at her. "Leigh, I'd like to be able to tell you that I'm giving up the project." He paused, his blue eyes holding hers.

"But you're not going to," she said.

"No." The word was drawled in a cool tone.  "Your reaction to me makes it imperative that I go on."

She shot him a hot, angry look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He leaned back in the chair, his lashes half concealing the piercing blueness of his eyes. "Hasn't it occurred to you that you aren't the only child of a celebrity in the world? Think about the tragedy of Scott Newman's suicide. There are other people like you, Leigh, people who struggle with a burden so damn heavy they can hardly carry it. I've already talked to some of them. Maybe if the people were made aware of the problems facing the children of celebrities…"

"I’m perfectly all right."

He let his eyes travel slowly around the room. "Is this what you call being all right?  Hiding away on the top floor of a rooming house, drowning yourself in school work, and going out with a man old enough to be your father?"

Her gray eyes went luminescent with challenge. "I didn’t know this conversation was going to be about my life.”

“What you have isn’t a life.  You’re hiding from any semblance of a life.” 

“What makes you think you’re qualified to tell me about my life…”

He pulled her up out of the chair, planted his hard mouth on hers and released her, all within the time span of an instant.

She raised a hand to the mouth that tingled with the blood his kiss brought pulsing to the surface.  "Was that supposed to prove something?"

"I don't have to prove anything to you. You betray yourself every time I touch you," he said in a soft tone. "Think about that. I certainly will." Before she could move or speak, he crossed the room with his long stride and let himself out the door.

She wanted to throw the cups at the door after him, but she didn't. Instead, she rose out of the chair, went to the door, chain-locked it, and escaped into her bedroom. Mechanically, she stepped out of her clothes and donned her nightgown, a light pink brushed cotton that she had bought for the cool nights up in the Adirondacks when she'd stayed with Dean for a month. Shaking with nerves, she lay down on the bed. Ty Rundell was wrong about her, of course.  He was a predator, a self-serving, egotistical specimen who fed on the misery of other people to make his living and, in the process, convinced himself he was some kind of grand humanist, solving the problems of the entire human race. She had seen his kind before, when she was very young, but hadn't understood about scavengers. She had been in awe of anyone who was creative, the writers in particular had caught her young imagination. Until she was thirteen and had stupidly confided to her mother that she thought one man in particular was "super."  The next night she had been restless, thirsty, unable to sleep, and had gotten out of bed. She had not turned on any lights, and when she reached the hall, she heard the voice of the man she had admired talking in low tones with her mother. "Claire, my God, you're beautiful. Your breasts are ivory perfection."

Her mother's voice had sounded cool, almost blasé. "What a way you have with words, darling. It's no wonder all the women fall for you."

"What women?” the words were half-muffled. Leigh had crept around the corner and saw them then, her mother half lying on the cushions of the long cream sofa, her designer dress unbuttoned to the waist, her much-praised skin gleaming in the soft light of one lamp, the man Leigh had thought wonderful leaning over her, his lips pressed against an ivory breast.

"My understudy, for one, and my hairdresser, for another." Her mother had laughed softly. "Why, even my daughter thinks you're quite something."

"Your daughter?" He said the words as if he couldn't remember Leigh existed. Then he groaned and raised his head. "You can't think I'd ever be interested in her," was the muffled answer. "She's a carbon copy, a dull child who happens to look like you. You're a beautiful, gorgeous original who has no equal."

Her mother's soft laugh had been husky, satisfied. She had elicited the praise she lived for.  "I've never been with a man who could be eloquent and aroused at the same time. It's quite a novelty." The light gleamed off the golden polish of her mother's long, sleekly manicured fingernails as she threaded them through the dark strands of hair Leigh had thought so attractive. "You are aroused, aren't you, darling?"

His groan was throaty, disturbed. "Claire. You must know what you're doing to me…"

Leigh had crept back to her room, sickened and destroyed in a way she hardly understood. It was only years later, when her mother grew older and her fame lessened, that the obsessive need to seduce every male in sight, especially those who cast an eye over Claire's young, attractive daughter, was so evident even Leigh could see it. But that was much later. The first time, young as she was, she had understood only on a subconscious level. Careful after that night not to express admiration for any male in front of her mother, she told Claire that she hated men. Her mother had only laughed, but she had believed Leigh, because she wanted to. "Leigh's little hang-up" Claire labeled it, secretly delighted because it removed Leigh from the competition.

Leigh played her part well…until Dean. With him, she almost overdid it-and cheated herself out of a friend.

She and Claire had been driving through the mountains on a rare motor trip, and their car had broken down in Tupper Lake. Dean had fixed it and taken them to dinner. During the meal, Dean had to be told who Claire Foster was. That endeared him to Leigh from the first, but she told her mother she thought he was boring, and for the first time, her mother seemed to agree. But Dean's virile masculinity and his cool self-assurance cast a potent spell over Claire. Their marriage had shocked and angered Leigh, until she discovered that Dean was as determined to accept her as the daughter he had wanted and never had, as she was to push him away.

For nearly a year she resisted. But in the end, her mother, bored and restless, had left and Leigh stayed. Under a mature man's care for the first time in her life, she began to relax and enjoy the kind of loving protection that Dean's special brand of caring provided. He made it possible for her to achieve a peace within herself, and a life of her own-independent of her mother's.

Thinking about Dean, remembering the quiet times of sitting around the campfire, roasting marshmallows till they ignited, waving the fire out and pulling the sticky charred remains off the stick to eat with her fingers, she decided she would call him tomorrow.  Her mind relaxed, she fell asleep.

It was almost one o'clock when she woke, and by the time she showered, dressed, and cleaned the apartment, it was close to three before she could sit down and relax with a cup of coffee and put that call into Dean.  She got his voicemail.  He must be fishing, the lucky guy.

She began to look over the mountain of papers she had to have corrected for Monday's classes. She was halfway through the history quiz she had given on Friday when the knock sounded on her door.  She tensed, knowing Hunt would have tapped out his special little clichéd rhythm.  She smoothed suddenly damp palms down the side of her denim pants, tugged her T-shirt down over her hips, and went to the door.

"Howdy." It was Deke she-couldn't-remember-his-last name, and in his jeans and denim jacket he looked ten feet tall, holding her little ice bag by its plastic neck. "Just stopped by to return this."

"Uh, thank you, Mister…”

"Just Deke is okay." His eyes skittered past her shoulder. "Actually, I had an ulterior motive."

"Oh?" She took the ice bag from him, her face carefully expressionless. 

"I was hoping I might get invited in for a cup of coffee." A grin split his wide mouth. "Figured the air might be a little better up here than it is down there."  He nodded toward the stairway.

She gave him a slight smile and couldn't stop herself from asking, "What's the matter with the air down there?"

"It's a mite blue, mostly." He shook his head, a mischievous light in his eyes. "Us gentlemanly cowboys have tender ears.  We aren't used to such talk."

"I'm sure you aren't," she said dryly, knowing she was being charmed, but liking his way of doing it. "Won't you come in, Deke?"

"Why, thank you kindly, ma'am, don't mind if I do."

She went into the kitchenette to stow away the ice bag and fill the coffee maker. "Oh, and Deke?" She turned.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Ma'am?"

"Now that you're inside my apartment, you can drop the phony cowboy act."

He grimaced. "Was it that bad?" His tone was normal, his accent middle western, she guessed.

"I've heard worse."

"How did I give myself away?"

"I heard you talk yesterday, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." He shot her an admiring, amused smile. "That was stupid of me."

"We all make mistakes. Milk or sugar?"

"Just black."

She poured out the coffee, and he took up his cup.

"Careful, it's hot," she warned him.

"Just the way I like it." He sipped it, closed his eyes appreciatively, and put the cup down.

She tasted her own and then said in what she hoped was a casual tone, "What seems to be the trouble down there?"

"We both overslept, and the one mechanic in town doesn't work on Saturday afternoon. Looks like we're stuck here for the weekend."

"Looks like," she said noncommittally.

"I don't think Ty slept very well last night, either."

"Perhaps the beds weren't right for you," she said coolly.

"We've slept in worse," Deke drawled.

"I'll bet you have," she murmured.

"Hey." Deke held his hands up, palms out. "Hold your fire." His smile was way too appealing.  "I surrender."

"Sorry. I guess I didn't sleep very well last night, either." Restlessly, she got up from the table and went to the sink to pour her coffee out. It had turned bitter.

Deke's eyes flickered over the papers scattered at the other end of the table.  "You really teach?"

She turned and leaned against the counter. "Well, if I'm pretending, the kids haven't noticed."

"That isn't what I meant.”

"Skip it. What do you do for a living, Deke? Do you work for Mr. Rundell?"

"I suppose you could say that. Mostly I just stick around to help him keep his feet on the ground."

"Do they have a tendency to fly off?"

Deke squinted at her, lifted a light brown eyebrow. "Yeah, once in a while he goes into orbit." He drained his coffee cup, set it back on the table. "We started out as stunt men together. He'd done some race car driving, so he did cars, and I did horses."

"Doesn't he ride? He told me he was raised on a ranch."

"He rides but only when he has to." Deke's eyes narrowed. "When did he tell you that?  He doesn't usually tell anybody about being raised on a ranch." Deke ducked his head, took another sip of coffee. "He make a pass at you?"

She looked at him steadily and said in a dry tone, "What do you want, a blow-by-blow, or are you watching out for him?”

“I was just curious about when this happened.”

Caught, she admitted the truth. "Last night. Neither one of us could sleep. We went for a walk. More coffee?"

"I won't turn it down." He held out his cup, his brown eyes watching her. She turned her back to him to replace the coffee server, and he said carefully, "Must have been a nice night for a walk."

She faced him, leaning against the cupboard. "It-was.  Do you feel you have to watch out for Ty?"

A smile lifted his mouth, crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Ty can watch out for himself. I just wanted to know if I'm stepping on any toes, that's all. We have a rule. No poaching on the other's territory."

The thought of being just another conquest in the long line of women snared by Ty Rundell made her say icily, "I'm not a territory."

Deke raised a lazy eyebrow. "That fellow you were with yesterday seemed to be staking his claim.”

The temptation to hide behind Hunt was strong, but her innate honesty won out. "No. He’s just a friend.  I don’t have a that kind of relationship with him or any other man."

"Good. Then you shouldn't have any objection if I volunteer to cook a pizza for your supper tonight."

She hadn't fallen into such a skillfully constructed trap since Paul. "You ought to wear a sign. Posted. Dangerous."

"Now what fun would that be?" He hitched his pants up at the knee, and swung one leg over the other. "You can always refuse,” he grinned at her, a disarming, little boy grin, "but you'll be sorry if you do. I make a mean pizza."

"There aren't any utensils in that apartment downstairs. What are you going to bake it in?"

Deke raised his eyebrows and said, "Now don't that beat all? I bought all the ingredients and forgot I didn't have anything to work with."

His boyish air of innocence made her want to laugh. "You're a fraud, Deke."

His grin widened. "But you're gonna let me use your pizza pans anyway, aren't you?"

"Tell me something."

With an extravagant wave of his hand he said, "For you, honey, anything."

"What do you do for Ty Rundell, really, besides soften up the people he's decided he needs to see?"

Deke narrowed his eyes and stared at her from under light brown lashes. "You call me dangerous? Honey, you're lethal. I never had a teacher as sharp as you."

"Probably because none of them had their early training in Hollywood," she said, her voice dry. "I used to watch a producer slap an actor on the back at a party one night and fire him the next morning."

Deke's face changed, became thoughtful. She could almost see him mulling her words over in his mind and searching for a response.

"Whatever you're going to say, make it the truth," she warned.

His face changed, seemed older, more right for him, somehow. "All right. Cards on the table." She tensed.  He was watching her closely to gauge her reaction.  "Ty didn't order me to come up here. We don't have any grand plan. We mostly play it by ear. I know Ty wants to talk to you. He evidently didn't make much headway last night because if he had, he'd be writing this afternoon instead of swearing at everything and everybody in sight. I took it upon myself to see if I could get you to spend the evening with us.”

She shook her head, and he held up his hand. "Now, wait a minute. This isn't an 'either, or' situation. I personally want your company this evening. Whether you want to talk to Ty or not, well, that's your business. If you don't want to talk, fine. We'll eat, instead. But don't say no to me because you aren't going to talk to Ty.  We ain’t joined at the hip, ma’am."

She had to smile at that. "You are a very persuasive and dangerous man, Deke." But he was interesting, too, and he made her realize how narrow her life had become since she'd come to Springwater. She hadn't talked with anyone like him in ages, and it was stimulating to match wits with an adept adversary.  Deke reminded her of her stepfather, although she was sure Deke was far more worldly aware than Dean. Dean was intelligent and wise and thought everyone else was, too. Deke knew better. Knowledge of the world gleamed from his eyes.

She leaned back against the counter. "You don’t make one of those pizzas with ham and pineapple and heaven knows what else on it, do you?  I’m a cheese and pepperoni woman myself.”

Deke grinned. "I can guarantee you one cheese and pepperoni pizza, pineapple free.”  Pressing his advantage, he said, "Eight o'clock?"

"Come around seven thirty, and put it together here."

"You got yourself a date." Deke eased his lanky frame out of the chair.

When he was gone, Leigh cleared the cups away from the table and ran the hot water into the sink. Was she completely insane, inviting two men into her life who could destroy the peace of mind that she had worked so hard to achieve during the last seven years? She hadn't fenced verbally with an intelligent man since the last time she was in Hollywood.

The last time. She thrust her hands into the hot water

as if to cleanse away the thoughts. They ran on inside her head, unhindered by her attempt at control.

She was twenty when her mother called her at Dean's cabin that summer. "I've always taken such good care of myself, but now it seems I have this tumor, darling. It's the damnedest thing." A hesitation, a slight laugh. Claire Foster, at her Academy Award best. "They say there's nothing that can be done, the fools." Another long pause while Leigh caught her breath. "I need you, darling. Will you come?”

Reluctant, guilty and ashamed of her reluctance, Leigh agreed. That summer, between her sophomore and junior year in college, she climbed on the plane to Los Angeles.  On the way she read the magazines she had brought with her, magazines about teaching and creativity and exciting new ways to present classroom material. She had a talent for working with children, she discovered, and she enjoyed her college work. She had read those instead of the glossy magazine the flight attendant handed her with a picture of her mother on the cover. That had been a mistake. For if she had read that magazine, she would have known about Paul.

She sloshed the cups vigorously into the water and turned the faucet on full force to rinse them. Her legs trembled; her hands shook.  Her cell phone rang. She dropped the cup, watching it bounce between the rubberized prongs. The phone went again.  Like someone in a dream, she walked to the counter where her phone lay.  "Hello?"

"Leigh? You sound strange. Is anything wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong.  How are you?" Sharp, perceptive Eve with her wasp tongue and her tall, agile body was a woman in her forties who had never found a man able or willing, to match wits with her.

"I'm looking for company, that's how I am," she said bluntly. "These math tests are driving me bananas. I've got to get out of this house or I'll lose what little sanity I have. Are you busy tonight?"

"I…”  She started to explain about Deke and the pizza, and a sixth sense made her stop. Suppose she tossed some of Deke's maneuvering back in his lap? She didn't want to face Ty and Deke alone, and Eve's presence would make the numbers come out right. "No, I'm not doing anything. Why don't you drop over about eight?  I'm tied up till then.”  She wasn't one to indulge in subterfuge, but she knew if she told Eve the truth, Eve would run a mile. Eve, like Leigh, carried battle scars.

"Oh," Leigh said, "don't eat supper. We'll have something here."

"You're on," Eve answered with evident enjoyment.

When she hung up the phone, she knew she’d been slightly underhanded.  But Deke seemed like a good match for her friend.  Eve was stunningly attractive...and tall enough to match Deke’s sky-high height.

Promptly at seven thirty, Deke appeared at her door.

He was smiling, and he was alone.  "Ty refused to come," he told her cheerily, a big brown paper bag in his arms.

She felt a brief flash of irritation.  For two hours she had braced herself for this encounter, and he hadn't even bothered to show up.  Their walk in the darkness and that kiss had meant nothing to him. But even though she told herself that she was glad she wouldn't be seeing him again, she couldn't prevent herself from asking, "Where is he?"

"Working on the car.  We pushed it down to the station, and he's down there now, lying on his back, looking under the damn thing." Deke shook his head. "I told him to forget it." He smiled.  "He doesn't listen to me much."

"No," she murmured, "I don't suppose he does."

She had laid everything out on the table Deke would need, a round pan, a bowl, spoons, measuring cups, a pizza cutter. He went to work at once, deftly measuring the ingredients for the crust into the bowl and dousing the flour and yeast with the warm water. He kept up a running commentary all the while, telling her about his work in the studio. He told a story well, but she listened with only half her attention, her eyes trained on the clock above the stove. Ty's absence knocked everything off center. Without him, the whole thing would look like a setup to Eve.  She would take one look and run. Nothing Leigh might say would convince her to stay, unless she could think of something.