Can't Stop Loving You (4 page)

“Hmmm,” she said, drumming her long red
fingernails on the top of her purse. When Brick finally let Helen
go, Barb slid from her seat unnoticed and quietly made her way
backstage. She had seen things that threw a whole new light on the
carefully laid plans of Brick Sullivan.

Barb Gladly was nobody’s fool. And besides
that, she was the world’s biggest romantic.

“It’s time to make a few plans of my own.”
She knew just the person who would help her. Grinning like a cat in
a cream factory, she headed straight to Matt Rider.

o0o

Clifford Oates had directed some of the
finest Shakespearean actors in modern times, but he had never
directed a pair as charismatic as Brick and Helen Sullivan. They
were virtual giants on the stage, filling it with a presence that
almost overwhelmed an audience.

Sitting on the front row watching Helen take
her place, Clifford felt the skin along the back of his neck
prickle.

Helen didn’t merely
act
Katharina;
she
became
Katharina. She was fire and suppressed
sexuality as she made her entrance.

Brick’s Petruchio was arrogant, bold, and
outrageous as he watched his ex-wife make her way toward him.

Clifford leaned forward in his seat.
Something was happening onstage that was not due to mere presence,
something electric, something magical. The voices of the great
actors filled the room. By the time they got to lines that earned
Shakespeare the reputation of being a bawdy bard, Clifford had
almost forgotten that his job was to direct.

He had become a captive audience.

“‘Come, come, you wasp, i’faith, you are too
angry.’”

As he spoke Petruchio’s lines, Brick moved so
close to Helen that his thigh touched hers. She didn’t acknowledge
by so much as a blink of the eye that he had done anything except
what the script called for.

“‘If I be waspish, best beware my sting,’”
she said.

There
was the reaction he’d hoped
for. It was in her voice, that high, bright edge that meant he’d
disturbed her.

He pressed his advantage, moving closer
still, so close, he felt the stiffening in her spine.

“‘My remedy is then, to pluck it out.’”

Ever the consummate professional, she didn’t
miss a cue.

“‘Ay, if the fool could find it where it
lies.’” Her eyes warned him not to try.

“‘Who knows not where a wasp doth wear his
sting? In his tail.’”

Boldly Brick snaked his arm behind her back
and firmly planted his hand on her backside.

She stiffened as if she’d been shot. Giving
him a scathing look, she marched to the proscenium and leaned
toward the director.

“That’s not in the script,” she said.

Clifford roused himself like a man who had
been drugged.

“It looked good to me,” he said.
“Natural.”

“I don’t care how it looked. It’s not in the
script. This is Shakespeare, not the Playboy channel.”

“Brick and I discussed this before
rehearsals...”

Helen whirled toward her ex-husband. “I’ll
just bet you did.”

Brick sauntered toward her, walking in that
maddening way he always used when he wanted to placate her. Instead
of placating, his arrogance only fed her flame.

“Don’t you take another step, Brick
Sullivan.”

“I’m the other star in this production,
Helen. Any major dispute regarding stage directions will be
overseen by me.”

“This is not about stage directions; it’s
about mutiny.”

Brick grinned. “Whose? Yours or mine?”

“Mine. I’m walking if you don’t stick to the
script.” She placed her hands on her hips. “And it does not call
for you to maul my butt.”

“What makes you think I’d want to do a thing
like that, Helen?”

His innocent posture enraged her. She stamped
down on his foot. Ever the actor, Brick pretended more pain than he
felt.

“Helen, why would you want to go and do a
thing like that?”

“Because you deserve it, you wretched
cad.”

Clifford saw his entire production unraveling
before his eyes. He hurried from his seat and joined them onstage.
Placing one hand on Helen’s arm and the other on Brick’s, he
mediated.

“Now, Brick... Helen. I know this is your
first time onstage together in a while.”

“Two years,” she said.

“Two and a half,” he said.

“Two.”

“You left in April.”

“It was August.”

“I know because the forsythia was in
bloom.”

“It wasn’t forsythia; it was marigolds.”

Clifford had the sinking feeling that he was
on a runaway train headed straight for the ravine of failed
directors.

“Why don’t we all take a break?” he said.

His suggestion was met with a hoot of
laughter from Brick and a smile of derision from Helen.

“Who needs a break,” Brick said. “This is
merely a professional argument.”

“Strictly professional,” Helen agreed.

Clifford swallowed hard. “All right. Then
let’s start at the top of that scene.”

“No need to waste time.” Brick sauntered back
to his place. “Let’s just take it from where we left off.”

“Good.” Clifford took his seat once more,
thinking that there was nothing good about it. “Now, where were
we?”

“I had just discovered the stinger in her
tail.”

“Discovery, my foot.” Helen crossed her arms
and glared at him. “It was more like an invasion.”

“Was it, now?” Brick stalked her, his voice
silky and deadly. “An invasion, you say? That can be arranged.”

“Not in this lifetime, Brick Sullivan.”

Clifford smote his forehead. “I’m getting too
old for this,” he muttered.

In the wings, Marsha whispered to Matt, “What
did I tell you?”

“It’s better than I expected,” he said.
“Those two are still madly in love.” He winked at Barb Gladly, who
had her arms wrapped around the necks of the Abominables.

“If they get any madder, they’re going to
kill each other.” Marsha grabbed a glass of water, threw in a slice
of lemon, and marched onstage.

“Break time,” she announced.

Clifford groaned.
Now
he was taking
directions from Godzilla the secretary.

Helen took a long, slow drink from the glass.
The more she looked at Brick’s maddeningly insolent smile, the
madder she got. With careful deliberation she upended the glass
over his head. Water drenched his hair, ice cubes slid into the
neck of his shirt, and the wedge of lemon landed in the crook of
his ear.

Dead silence filled the rehearsal hall. Brick
and Helen stared at each other as if they were two gladiators
prepared to fight to the death. Then suddenly Brick laughed. His
hearty roar broke the tension, and soon everybody was chuckling and
patting each other on the back and making their way to the break
room for a fortifying cup of coffee.

“How do you want yours, Mr. Oates?” the girl
at the coffee pot asked. “Cream? Sugar?”

“With a little TNT,” the director said. “They
say the only way to control a raging fire is to apply a little
dynamite.”

Break time did wonders to cool hot tempers.
Or so Clifford thought.

They had started all over with act 2, scene
1, and Helen and Brick were sailing through their lines. Just as
the director sank back into his chair and was starting to relax,
they came to the deadly scene that had lately resulted in Helen
cooling Brick off with a glass of ice water over his head.

“‘Who knows not where a wasp doth wear his
sting? In his tail.’”

Clifford breathed a sigh of relief. This time
Brick was being good. No hands on Helen’s backside.

“‘In his tongue,’” she replied, every bit of
Kate’s tartness evident in her voice and her stance.

“Good... good,” Clifford said.

He bragged too soon.

“‘Whose tongue?’” Brick’s line. Spoken with a
dangerous glint in his eye.

“‘Yours, if you talk of tails; and so
farewell.’”

“‘What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman’—”

Suddenly Brick caught Helen around the waist,
sank onto a low bench, and tipped her over his lap.

Her roar of outrage filled the stage. She
came out of his grasp flailing and kicking.

“‘That I’ll try.’” Her line was served up
with a stinging wallop that clipped Brick’s jaw and knocked him
backward across the bench.

“Cut... cut...” Clifford yelled.

Offstage the Abominables broke loose from
Matt and galloped onto the stage. Straddling Brick, they licked his
face, his ears, his hands.

Helen tugged at their leashes, trying to get
them under control.

“Stop it,” she said.

“Don’t stop them. I’m a dying man.”

“You’re a conniving man. Get up off that
floor.”

“No. I want to lie here and wallow in my
pain.”

“You want to lie there and gloat in your
victory. You meant to cause mayhem, and you did.”

Helen did some fancy sidestepping to keep
from getting tangled in the dog leashes.

“Now stop that,” she said to her pets.

But they would have none of her commands.
Giddy with joy, they gave their former master a tongue bath that
showed
they
at least were delighted with the game he was
playing.

The combined weight of the Great Danes was
too much for Helen to handle. She went down in a heap, landing
sprawled on top of Brick with her face merely inches from his.

“You insufferable rake,” she said. “You
blackguard. You... you...”

Helen sputtered to a stop, trapped not by
anger but by emotions much deeper, much more disturbing. The gleam
in Brick’s dark eyes was the one she’d seen so many times before,
the unmistakable gleam of passion... and the feelings that coursed
through her were the unmistakable ones of response.

It had been so long. Two years. Two years
without the quick, hot flash of desire, the endless delight, the
joy of rushing into the arms of a man she had loved more than life
itself.

Had loved,
she kept reminding
herself. She no longer loved Brick Sullivan. Couldn’t afford to
love him. Wouldn’t let herself love him.

His eyes were black and deep and lit from the
inside by the glow that had been only for her. Her lips
trembled.

Lord, don’t let me cry. Not here. Not
now
.

“Helen.”

His whisper stirred the hair at her temple as
he reached to touch her cheek.

“Helen.”

Again, he whispered her name. There was
wonder in his voice, wonder and a terrible pain. She closed her
eyes, allowing herself the small forbidden luxury of his touch. His
touch was light, exquisite, the stuff of dreams. His fingertips
skimmed across her cheekbones, down the side of her throat, then
back up to her lips.

A small tear slid from underneath her eyelid,
unaware. She heard his quick intake of breath, felt the tremble in
his hand.

His body was long and lean and hard,
perfectly fitted to hers. They had always said so. Late at night
cuddled together in the middle of their curtained bed, they used to
marvel at their perfect fit, marvel and laugh, then love again just
to be sure they hadn’t been mistaken.

How beautiful their love had been, how
magical, that combination of love and laughter that lingered in the
heart and spirit and soul even when they were separated, that
wondrous bonding destined by fate and smiled upon by the gods.

Brick slipped his finger between her lips and
brushed lightly against the moist, satiny inner lining. The
pleasure was almost more than she could bear.

Run,
her mind said, even while her
heart said
stay.

Powerful currents raced between them. The
tempo of their breathing changed.

Lord, don’t let me fall in love with this
man again
.

But she knew it was useless to pray for the
impossible. She had always been in love with Brick, from the
beginning of time, through wars and holocausts and whirlwinds, from
ancient Rome to the courts of French kings, from the savage
frontier to the far eastern boundaries of the world. He was her
heart and she was his. Wherever they were, whatever they did, they
would recognize each other... and yearn.

Memories of their love filled her so that she
could not move. The people standing around them ceased to exist.
There was only the two of them and the explosions of love they
detonated in each other.

From a far-off place she heard Marsha giving
commands, felt the movement of the Abominables as they were led
away, heard the shuffle of feet as the stage cleared. Clifford’s
statement, “That’s enough for today,” seemed redundant.

But it was not enough. The soft touch of
Brick’s hand on her cheek, the solid feel of his chest against
hers, the long, sweet tangle of legs... none of it would ever be
enough. She longed for the miraculous joining of their spirits, for
the feeling of soaring higher than eagles, wings touching, held
aloft by a love so rare that only a fool would cast it away.

“They’ve gone,” Brick said, his voice still
soft with wonder and surprise.

“Yes.”

“I guess we put on quite a show.”

“Isn’t that what we do, Brick? Put on
shows.”

“That’s what we do, Helen.”

They lay together still, his back flat
against the floor and her body flattened on top of his. Both of
them were reluctant to end the contact.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Brick.”

The double entendre was not lost on him. His
face thunderous, he moved quickly, disentangling them and setting
Helen on the bench. With one booted foot propped next to her thigh,
he treated her to his famous “look,” the lifted brow, the curled
lip.

“It was just a spill on the floor.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have hit you so hard.”
She pressed her hands together in her lap. “I’m sorry, Brick.”