Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set (63 page)

‘I told you, I have to check out somebody.’

‘
Why am I going, then?’

‘You’re keeping me company, Shannon. You’re going as a favor to me.’

‘And you’re going as a favor to Crawford,’ Shannon said quietly. 'You still haven’t explained that.’

The agent pushed aside her empty plate. ‘OK, why not? I mean, I didn’t want to say any
thing to you until It was certain, but... It’s almost in the bag, I guess, and... ’

The prickle of suspicion was doing a tap dance. Everybody seemed terribly interested in what had happened between her and Cade Morgan. And suddenly Jerry Crawford wanted something from Claire—that was interesting all by itself, especially since Shannon had never seen him  say more than hello or goodbye to her agent.

Until today, she thought suddenly, until today, when Crawford had spirited Claire into a dark corner of the sound stage and talked  to her in low tones for almost ten minutes; until today, when Cade Morgan had shown up and spoken knowledgeably about the script.
.

She took a deep breath. ‘Who’s performing at the Coliseum, Claire?’ she asked in a soft voice. ‘Who are we going to see?’

The woman glanced around her and then leaned towards Shannon. ‘Cade Morgan,’ she whispered dramatically, ‘that’s who.’ She ran her tongue across her lips and her voice dropped even lower. ‘ Crawford’s just about signed him for a role in your soap.
'

‘
What?'

‘
He was going to do a few days’ work— you know, a guest shot thing—but then today, after what happened between you and Morgan.’

‘Nothing happened!  I lost my temper. And  Morgan retaliated by making  a fool of me.’

‘That’s not the way other people saw it.'

‘Never mind what other people saw! ‘Cade Morgan and I... ’

‘Cade Morgan and you set tongues wagging on a set where people are so blasé they don’t react to anything! That’s pretty damned impressive.’

‘Look, I’m not going to argue about it. It’s over and done with, and—'

‘Shannon, just listen, okay? Jerry and the producers had a meeting this afternoon. They’re thinking of playing you and Morgan together.’

Shannon  stared at her agent in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious. You mean, Cade Morgan would play op
posite me instead of Tony?’

Claire smiled. "Exactly.'

'No. That's impossible. That’s Tony’s part. It’s set...’

‘So they’ll unset it. There’s time; your storyline doesn’t take off until next week. God, this is so exciting!’ Claire leaned forward and placed her hand on Shannon’s. ‘Everybody would be watching, and I do mean
everybody.
Hollywood people, Broadway people, international film people—they’d all see your work and know your name. This could shoot your career into orbit.’

‘No. No! Claire...’

‘And, of course, your part would be expanded. You might end up one of the stars, if things go the way Crawford expects.’

Shannon shook her head. ‘What this might end up is a disaster!'.

‘Disaster? Sweetie, Crawford says you and Morgan will be dynamite together. He says he has Morgan half-convinced to take the part. He says...’

‘Did he say what would happen if Morgan bombs? The man’s not an actor. Crawford wants him because he has an enormous following. And if Morgan bombs, so do I!'

‘Nobody's gonna bomb. Think of the publicity! Every fan Morgan has would tune in.’

Apprehension filled Shannon with cold dread. ‘Claire, listen to me,’ she said desperately. ‘You know what happens each time the camera’s on Rima. She’s not an actress—everybody in the scene with her has to carry her.’

‘You think that’s what will happen with Morgan Well, I guess it’s possible, but even so, he'll draw zillions of viewers.'

'What you're telling me is—you're telling me I don't have anything to say about this.'

'No,' her agent said bluntly, 'you don't. This is Crawford's decision.'

Shannon felt tears of anger burn behind her eyes.

‘It isn’t fair,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’ve worked damned hard for this chance. Just think of how many good actors have cut their teeth on soaps. If you can make it in daily daytime drama, you can certainly make it in films or prime-time TV. I mean, what are half the big nighttime TV shows but soaps?'

‘You don’t have to sell me on soaps,’ Claire said patiently. ‘I don’t think anybody has to sell Morgan, either. That’s why he wants this part of Tony’s. I’m sure he’s got his eye on bigger and better things.’

Shannon’s eyes flashed. ‘And what happens to Tony? Does he get dumped?’

Claire sighed. ‘That’s one of the advantages to all those characters and plotlines. They’ll find another part for Tony. Not that they have to—you know how it is in a soap. Nobody’s indispensable.’

‘Which brings us back to square one. Have you  thought about what might happen to me if this over-the-hill guitar player doesn’t work out?’

Claire patted Shannon’s hand.
‘Relax. Crawford wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardize the ratings. If he wants to use Morgan, he must figure the guy can carry it off. Where is that waitress?’ Claire added, peering around the restaurant. ‘I don’t want to get to the our seats late.’

The few mouthfuls of steak lay like lead shot in Shan
non’s stomach.

‘I can’t believe this. The man has no training, no talent, nothing except his name.’

‘His name, his gold records, his fans...’

‘He probably has all the acting talent of a—a baboon,  and I’m supposed to make him look good?’

‘I don’t think that’s what Crawford expects, Shannon. He says the guy has natural talent.’

‘In bed, maybe,’ Shannon snapped, the words tum
bling from her mouth before she could censor them.

‘So you do know what came across in the studio today,’ the agent said softly.

‘What happened today had nothing to do with sex.’ For the space of a heartbeat, Shannon remembered the pressure of Cade Morgan’s hand on her neck and the feel of his mouth on hers. ‘Nothing at all,’ she repeated,  forcing the fragmented memory aside. ‘I insulted him. He got even. Period. End. Finished. Why can’t anybody understand that?’

Claire sighed and signaled for their bill. ‘To tell you the truth, that’s what I thought, after I heard the story. But Crawford insisted that wasn’t the case. So, while you were scrubbing off your make-up, I talked to a few other people.’ She cast a sidelong glance at Shannon and smiled guiltily. ‘I told you, they saw the same thing Crawford saw.’

‘They saw what they wanted to see.’

‘
Maybe. That’s why I wanted to see Cade Morgan perform tonight.’ She took Shannon's hand. ‘Look, you know I wouldn’t let you make a bad career move. If there aren’t any sparks or flames or whatever it is all those jokers think they saw...’

‘Of course there aren’t!’

‘Then I’ll be the first to say so. And tomorrow, I’ll convince Crawford it’ll be better to let Morgan do his guest shot and to let you and Tony have another go at that scene. I promised Jerry, OK? What’s the big deal?’ Claire glanced at her watch and slid from the booth. ‘We don’t have much time,’ she said. ‘Morgan’s Marauders come on in half an hour.’

Shannon got to her feet and slipped into her jacket. ‘Believe me, if his group’s anything like him, that’s a perfect choice of names,’ she said grimly, following Claire out of the crowded restaurant. ‘Wait until you see this man
. There’s nothing subtle about him.’

Claire buttoned her coat as they stepped into the crisp autumn night. ‘‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ she said. ‘We’ll watch the performance and then we’ll go backstage and I’ll introduce myself to Cade Morgan...’

Shannon came to a dead stop. ‘I am not going backstage,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t want to see the man again.’.

‘Look, you want me to get this idea out of Crawford’s head, right? Well, how do you expect me to do that unless I can tell Crawford there isn’t any chemistry between the two of you? Those mythical sparks everybody talked about...’

‘They're just that,’ Shannon said stubbornly. ‘Mythical. Nothing more.’

‘Fine. Just let me do my job tonight.' Claire tucked her arm through Shannon’s as the light changed. ‘ Trust me, OK? We’ll say hello to Cade Morgan...’

‘Not me,’ Shannon said quickly. ‘I’m not saying anything to him.’

‘Fine.  I’ll say hello, you’ll glare. Fair enough?’

‘And then tomorrow you’ll tell Jerry his idea’s no good, right?’

‘
If that's what I think, that's what I'll tell him.’

Shannon took a deep breath. ‘Okay. We’ll suffer through a couple of hours of bad music and then we’ll go pay our respects to Cade Morgan.’ She smiled tightly. ‘Actually, I’m sure he wants no more to do with me than I want to do with him. In fact, we’d better make sure he doesn’t know we’re in the house until he finishes performing. Or he might just have me thrown out.’

‘Is his music bad?’ Claire asked innocently. ‘I’m not sure I’m familiar with it.’

Shannon thought of the softly haunting songs and husky voice she’d listened to for years, though she'd sooner have walked through the flames of hell and admit to that.

‘Neither am I,’ she said, lying so glibly that she never had time to wonder why she had lied in the first place.

Had so
many people ever been in one place at one time before? Shannon stared at the stage of the Coliseum, as much surprised by the size of the audience as by its intensity. There had been tickets waiting for them at the box office—courtesy of Jerry Crawford, Shannon was certain, although Claire had ignored her when she’d asked who had arranged for them—and they’d been ushered to two seats in the first row, center stage.

The auditorium was enormous. There were enough people seated in it to make up the population of a small town. The opening act was just leaving the stage as Shannon and Claire settled into their seats. The crowd applauded politely and then the usual rustles and coughs spread through the huge hall.

The crowd was murmuring quietly, but Shannon was aware of an electricity in the air, a subtle tingle that sent a shudder through her. She felt as she sometimes did on a hot August day, watching the sky darken as a thunderstorm swept in. There was that same sense of something powerful and exciting approaching, the same heady mixture of anticipation and caution.

The house lights dimmed. The first, faint melody of an old Marauders’ song sighed eerily through the Col
iseum and the audience grew silent. Gradually, smoky- blue spotlights winked on, revealing the Marauders—a drummer, a bass player, and a guy  playing the keyboard.

Applause thun
dered through the auditorium, rolling towards the stage like a mighty wave, meeting the song and curling over it until the applause and the music were a palpable force, throbbing with a life of its own.

‘Look,’ Claire whispered, poking her elbow into Shannon’s ribs. ‘Morgan’s coming.’

The breathlessly delivered message had not been necessary. One of the spots had picked up a figure at the rear of the stage. Shannon’s eyes followed its smoky glow and locked on the man standing motionless beneath it.

It was Cade, wearing a chambray
workshirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of faded jeans. His head was bent towards his guitar as he twisted the tuning pegs. And then he looked up and smiled, and suddenly the crowd was on its feet, the applause a deafening roar from hands held high as it paid homage to a man who had survived musical fads by transcending them.

Cade moved downstage, still smiling at the crowd, and when he reached the microphone, he nodded and held up his hand.

‘Thank you,’ he said, the husky words barely audible above the applause. ‘Thank you,’ he repeated, and the audience quieted in expectant silence. He looked around the huge auditorium and a slow grin eased across his face. ‘We’re happy to see you, too,’ he said, and as the applause thundered towards him again, he turned to the bass player and nodded.

The crowd sighed as if with one voice, and suddenly the hall was silent. Cade lifted his guitar and his fingers plucked at the strings. A minor chord thrummed in the darkness, a chord so poignant it brought a lump to Shannon’s throat, and then Cade’s voice whispered through the darkened auditorium, as smoky and blue as the spot
light, as husky and intimate as she remembered it from the studio.

She sank slowly back into her seat, her eyes never leaving the man on stage. He was singing an old song, a ballad she’d heard a thousand times before. But she’d never heard it sung quite this way: his voice caressed the words and re-grouped the phrases until suddenly the song had a passion and a meaning that made it new. Shannon realized she was holding her breath as she listened.

Perhaps everybody had been doing the same thing, because the auditorium was absolutely silent until Cade plucked the last notes from his guitar strings. A sighing sound whispered through the Coliseum, as if the thousands gathered there had shared the song’s sorrow together, and then applause and shouts shattered the stillness.

Claire turned to Shannon, eyes shining with delight.

‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’ she whispered. ‘He’s got this crowd in the palm of his hand.’

But it was more than that, Shannon thought, watching Cade as he acknowledged the  applause. She had been at concerts before, and always there was the sense that you were watching someone perform.

Not tonight.

A special bond existed between Cade and the audience. They seemed to share both the music and the pleasure in each other.

‘Play
Sea Lover
,’ a
voice called, naming one of his earliest hits, and Cade nodded.

‘Great choice,’ he responded, and the audience laughed with delight at the shared joke.

As he struck the opening chords of the song, a smile lit his face, curving into the shadowed contours of his high cheekbones.

Shannon caught her bottom lip be
tween her teeth. Surely it was a trick of the light that made him look the way he did: powerful, yet with a counterpoint of vulnerability. There was no other way to describe the easy masculine grace of his body and the hint of loneliness in the sensual curve of his mouth.

If only she could see his eyes, she thought suddenly. His eyes would hold the key to the real man...

It was as if he'd read her thoughts. He looked down, straight down to the first row, to the center of the row, and her heart thudded crazily. He was smiling at her, his indigo eyes telling her things she wanted to forget, that he remembered her, remembered their kiss, remembered the feel of her lips under his and the taste of her on his mouth.

She tore her eyes from the figure on stage and looked down at her lap. She felt light-headed: well, it was warm in here. And she hadn’t eaten much of her supper, and there hadn’t been time for lunch or breakfast. She needed a cup of coffee and some fresh air.

He was looking at her again. She could feel his eyes on her, feel the power of his glance.

Her heart was racing. She raised her lashes slowly, half-afraid to find him staring at her, half-afraid to find he wasn’t. Yes, his eyes were on her, there was the shadow of a bittersweet smile on his lips and he was singing about—about what it was like to want a woman he couldn't have…

Shannon took a deep breath.
I know what you’re doing, Cade Morgan,
she thought, forcing her eyes to meet his unflinchingly.
You want that part, don’t you? You don’t want a guest shot; you want something more permanent and meatier, and you think I can help you get it.

She lifted her chin. He wasn't an actor,  but he was one hell of a per
former. The act he'd put on in the studio was almost as good as this one, but she was onto him. Could he see into her eyes? She hoped so, because she wanted him to read what was in them.

He might be able to twist this audience around his finger, but she wasn't that easy.

She looked down at her lap. At her folded hands. No matter what he did, she wasn't going to look at him again. Or think about him. She was going to run through my lines for the next day, run through them again and again...

Shannon lifted her head. People were on their feet throughout the auditorium, applauding and chanting Cade’s name. She glanced up at the stage and then quickly turned towards Claire.

‘Is it over?’

Her agent pursed her lips. ‘Is it over? What kind of question is that? Yes, it’s over. Where have you been for the past hour?’

‘Then let’s go,’ Shannon said, disregarding the question. ‘Come on, okay?’ she said, rising from her seat, 'I've had it.’

The agent stumbled to her feet and tugged at Shan
non’s sleeve. ‘We can’t leave yet. We have to go backstage, remember?’

‘I don’t have to. I’ll wait outside.’

‘You said you’d go with me.’ Shannon shook her head and the other woman smiled. ‘He knows you’re here. I saw him watching you.’

‘He can’t see anything with those lights in his eyes,’ Shannon said quickly. ‘It’s just a performer’s trick, looking out at the audience that way.’

‘There were no lights in his eyes. The man was looking straight at you.’ She smiled and one eyebrow arched delicately. ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid of being in the same room with him? I saw the way he looked at you.’

‘Of course not,’ Shannon said crisply. ‘I just don’t see any purpose to this. I already told you I don’t want to work with him.’

‘Then let me tell Jerry Crawford he’s got the whole thing wrong. Come on, Shannon. Remember the old saying? There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.’

I don’t need this, Shannon thought as she followed Claire through the crush to the backstage entrance. Cade Morgan, the entire situation—she definitely don’t need it.

She wanted to tell Claire she’d changed her mind, but the noise of the crowd drowned everything out and then it was too late. They were backstage.

Uniformed security guards stopped them every few yards and then wide-shouldered men in turtleneck shirts and tweed jackets replaced the guards, but, in spite of Shannon’s hopes, Claire talked her way past each questioner until finally they were standing in front of Cade Morgan’s dressing-room door.

Shannon fought back a mounting desire to turn and run. Instead, with a mindlessness that embarrassed her when she thought about it later, she ran her fingers through her hair and wondered if she still had any lipstick on.

Her pulse drummed in her ears as the door swung open at Claire’s knock.

At first, she thought the room was empty. It was half in shadow, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

He was there, standing before a dressing-table, drying his dark hair with a white towel. He was bare-chested: water droplets gleamed in the dark hair curling on his muscular chest and in the shadowy strip that tapered to invisibility beneath his jeans.

Shannon flushed and raised her eyes to his face. Yes, it was just as she remembered it, the cheekbones high and angular, the chin square and strong, and the eyes...those eyes...

‘I’m Claire Holden. I hope we aren’t disturbing you, Mr. Morgan.’

‘Miss Holden.’ Cade’s voice was soft and flat. He smiled politely, but his eyes never left Shannon’s face. ‘Thank you for coming tonight.’

‘Thank you for the tickets.’ Claire made a face as Shannon shot her a steely glance. ‘Look, if this is a bad time... ’

Cade shook his head. ‘No, this is fine. Just as long as I had the chance to take a quick shower...’

‘Well, I just wanted you to know I enjoyed your performance,’ Claire said. ‘Miss Padgett and I...’ Her voice faded into the silence of the little room and she looked from Cade to her client. A smile started on her lips and she stepped back into the corner.

‘I
t’s nice to see you again, Shannon,’ Cade said softly, tossing the towel aside. ‘Did you enjoy the concert?’

Shannon nodded. Be polite, she thought. You can manage that, can’t you? ‘I...yes, thank you, it was...it wasn’t quite what I’d expected.’

Cade smiled. ‘Really? Is that good or bad?’

‘It’s... it’s neither. I just meant it wasn’t the way I’d thought it would be.’ He was still smiling, waiting for her to say something more, and finally she shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was a very polished performance,’ she said carefully.

Cade laughed and tossed the towel aside. ‘Somehow, you make that sound like a put-down.’

Shannon took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t come here to quarrel with you, Mr. Morgan,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m here because my agent asked me.’

‘I see.’ His smile curved. ‘I guess that means Jerry and your agent discussed the possibility of our working together, hmm?’

‘Well, yes, but I think...’

He nodded and dug his hands into his back pockets. ‘You think it’s a lousy idea, right? Well, I’ve got to admit, I have some doubts...’

Thank goodness, she thought, letting out her breath. ‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. I was afraid...’

His eyes darkened. ‘Yes, I’ll bet you were.’

‘The thing is, I’ve been an actress for a long time and I understand what happened today.’

‘Do you?’ he asked softly.

At least he was listening, she thought. And he’d admitted he had doubts about Craw
ford’s insane scheme. Go on, she told herself. Get to it.

‘You see, you came along just after I’d blown a crucial scene. That’s why Mr. Crawford misinterpreted what he saw—what he thought he saw—happen between us.’

‘I see,’ he said evenly. ’“So it was simply Jerry’s error of judgment.’

‘Yes. No.' She knew she was blushing. 'What I mean is that I’m a seasoned actress. And Tony’s a trained actor...’

‘Which I’m not,’ Cade said bluntly.

It was a statement, but it was more than that. There was a challenging tone to his voice, one it was imposs
ible to ignore. Shannon hesitated and then she took a deep breath.

‘Claire—my agent—told me you’d thought about taking a guest role
.
I think that’s a great idea. There’s so much you could pick up that way.’

A cool smile flickered across his face. ‘Don’t be so polite,’ he said, brushing past her and reaching for a cashmere sweater draped across the back of a chair. ‘What you mean is, you think I’d be overstepping myself if I took an ongoing part
.’