Crossed Hearts (Matchmaker Trilogy) (18 page)

“And there were other shows. After five years in the top ten with
Pagen
, I started making movies during the series filming break. I fought it at first. I didn’t know why at the time. Now I realize that something inside me was telling me that it was too much, that I needed a break from the rat race for a couple of months a year. That I needed to touch base for a short time with who I really was. But then I got greedy. I wanted to be more famous, and
more
famous. I wanted to become an indelible fixture in the entertainment world. I wanted to be a legend.”

He sighed and bent his head, rubbing his neck with harsh fingers in an anger directed at himself. “I was running scared. That’s really what it was all about. I was terrified that if I didn’t grab it all while I had the chance, someone would come along and take it from me. But I wasn’t all that good. Oh, I was Pagen, all right. I could play that part because it didn’t take a hell of a lot of acting. Some of the other stuff—the movies—did, and I couldn’t cut the mustard. None of them were box office hits, and that made me more nervous. Only instead of being sensible, taking stock and plotting a viable future for myself, I fought it. I berated the critics in public. I announced that the taste of the average moviegoer sucked. I got worse and worse on the set.”

He looked at her then. “I was paranoid. I became convinced that everyone was waiting for me to fail, that they were stalking me, waiting to pounce and pick the flesh from my bones. I was miserable, so I began to drink. When that didn’t help, I snorted coke, took whatever drugs I could get my hands on—anything that would blot out the unhappiness. All I succeeded in blotting out was reality, and in the entertainment world, reality means extraordinary highs and excruciating lows.”

Taking a shuddering breath, he sighed. “
Pagen’s Law
was canceled after a nine-year run, mostly because I’d become so erratic. The producers couldn’t find directors willing to deal with me. They even had trouble gathering crews, because I was so impatient and demanding and critical that it just wasn’t worth it. More often than not I’d show up on the set drunk or hung over, or I’d be so high on something else that I couldn’t focus on the script. When that happened, I’d blame everyone in sight.”

Very slowly he began to walk toward the sofa. His hands hung by his sides and his broad shoulders were slumped, but the desolation he felt was such that he simply needed to be near Leah. “It was downhill all the way from there. There were small parts after the series ended, but they came fewer and farther between. No one wanted to work with me, and I can’t blame them. New shows took over where
Pagen
left off. New stars. The king was dead. Long live the king.”

Very carefully he lowered himself to the sofa. His hands fell open, palms up in defeat, perhaps supplication, on his thighs. “In the end, I had no friends, no work. I was a pariah, and I had no one to blame but myself.” He looked down at his hands and pushed his lips out. “I’d gotten so obsessed with the idea of being a star that I couldn’t see any future if I didn’t have that. So one day when I was totally stoned, I took my Ferrari and drove madly through the hills. I lost control on a turn and went over an embankment. The last thing I remember thinking was thank God it’s over.”

Leah’s sharp intake of breath brought his gaze to hers. Her hands were pressed to her lips and her eyes were brimming with tears. He started to reach out, then drew back his hand. He needed to touch her, but he didn’t know if he had the right. He was feeling as low, as worthless, as he’d felt when he’d awoken in that hospital after the accident.

“But it wasn’t over,” he said brokenly. “For some reason, I was spared. The doctors said that if I hadn’t been so out of it, I’d have been more seriously hurt. I was loose as a goose when I was thrown from the car and ended up with only contusions and a couple of broken bones.” His expression grew tight. “Someone had sent me a message, Leah. Someone was telling me that I hadn’t spent thirty-six years of my life preparing for suicide, that there was more to me than that. I didn’t hear it at first, because I was so wrapped up in self-pity that I couldn’t think beyond it. But I had plenty of time. Weeks lying in that hospital bed. And eventually I came to accept what that someone was saying.”

His voice lowered and his gaze softened on hers. “As soon as I could drive, I left L.A. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed to get as far away from that world as possible. I kept driving, knowing that when I hit a comfortable place, I’d feel it. By the time I hit New Hampshire, I’d just about reached the end of the line.

“Then I saw this place. Victoria’s husband had owned it—he used it for hunting parties—and Victoria kept it for a while after his death. Shortly before I came, she put it on the market through a local broker. From the first it appealed to me, so I bought it.” He looked away. “It’s odd how ignorant you can be of your own actions sometimes. Through all those years of success—of excess—the one thing I did right was to hire a financial adviser. He managed to invest the money I didn’t squander, and he invested it wisely. I can live more than comfortably on the income from those investments without ever having to touch the capital.”

He reached the end of his story, at least as far as the past was concerned. “I’ve made a life for myself here, Leah. I’ve been clean for four years. I don’t touch alcohol or drugs, and I’ve sworn off indiscriminate sex.” He looked at his hands, rubbed one set of long fingers with the other. “That other life wasn’t me. If it had been, I wouldn’t have botched it so badly. This is the kind of life I feel comfortable with. I can’t—I won’t—go back to the other.”

Hesitantly his eyes met hers. “You’re right. I should have told you all this sooner. But I couldn’t. I was afraid. I still am.

Leah’s cheeks were wet with tears, and her hands remained pressed to her lips. “So am I,” she whispered against them.

Garrick did touch her then, almost timidly cupping her head. “You don’t have to be afraid. Not of me. You know me better than any other person ever has.”

“But that other man—”

“Doesn’t exist. He never really did. He was a phony, an image, like everything else in Hollywood. An image with no foundation, so it was inevitable that it collapse. I don’t want that kind of life anymore. You have to believe that, Leah. The only life I want is what I have here, what we’ve had here for the past two weeks. It’s real. It’s totally fulfilling—”

“But what about the need for public recognition? Doesn’t that get in your blood?”

“It got in mine and nearly killed me. It was like a disease. And the cure was almost lethal, but it worked.” He took a quick breath. “Don’t let the mistakes I’ve made in the past turn you off. I’ve learned from them. Dear God, I’ve learned.”

Leah wanted to believe everything he said. She wanted to believe it so badly that she began to shake, and her hands shot out to clutch his shoulders. “Greg Reynolds wouldn’t be attracted to me—”

“Garrick Rodenhiser is.”

“I’d be nothing in Greg Reynolds’ world.”

“You’re everything in mine.”

“I couldn’t play games like that. I couldn’t even play them for Richard.”

“I don’t want games. I want life. This life. And you.”

Unable to remain apart from her a minute longer, he captured her mouth in a kiss that went beyond words in expressing his need. It was possessive and desperate and demanding, but Leah’s was no less so.

“Don’t ever be that other man,” she begged against his mouth. “I think I’d want to die if you were.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” he murmured, then, while his hands held her head, took her mouth again and devoured it with a passion born of the love he felt. His lips opened wide, slanted and sucked, and he was breathing hard when he released her. “Let me love you,” he whispered hoarsely, fingers working on the buttons of her shirt. “Let me give you everything I have … everything I’ve saved for you … everything that’s come alive since you came into my life.” Her shirt was open and his hands were greedily covering her breasts. “You’re so good. All I’ve ever wanted.”

Leah gave an urgent little cry and began to tug at his sweater. This was the Garrick she knew, the one who turned her on as no man ever had, the one who thought her beautiful and smart, the one who loved her. She felt as though she’d traveled from one end of the galaxy to the other since Garrick had begun his story. On a distant planet was the actor, but on progressively nearer ones was the man who’d suffered fear, then disillusionment, then pain. Even closer was the man who’d hit rock bottom and had begun to build himself up again. And here, with her, was the one who’d made it.

“I love you so,” she whispered as his sweater went over his head. He brought her to his chest and held her there, rotating her breasts against the light matting of hair, then wrapping his arms around her and crushing her even closer.

He sighed into her hair, but that wasn’t enough, so he kissed her again and again, then eased her back on the sofa and began to tug at her jeans. When her body was bare, he worshiped it with his mouth, dragging his tongue over her breasts and her navel, taking love bites from her thighs, burying his lips in the heart of her.

Leah’s knuckles were white around the worn upholstery, her eyes closed tight against the sweet torment of his tongue against that ultrasensitive part of her. The world began to spin—this galaxy, another one, she didn’t know—and her thighs tensed on either side of his head.

“Garrick!” she cried.

“Let it come, love,” he whispered, his warm breath as erotic as his thrusting tongue.

Wave after wave of electrical sensation shook her, and she was still in the throes of glory when he opened the fly of his cords, stretched over her and thrust forward. She cried out again. Her knees came up higher. And it was like nothing she’d ever dreamed possible. Her climax went on and on—a second, then a third—while Garrick pumped deeply, reaching and achieving his own spectacular release.

He didn’t leave her, but brought her up from the sofa until she was straddling his lap. And he began again, stroking more slowly this time, kissing her, dipping his head to lave her taut nipples with his tongue, using his hands to add extra sensation to the similarly taut nub between her legs, until it happened again and again and again.

Only when they were dripping with sweat and their bodies were totally drained did they surrender to the quiet after-storm where emotions raged. Leah cried. Damp-eyed himself, Garrick rocked her gently. Then, when she’d quieted, he pressed his lips to her cheek.

“I want to marry you, Leah, but I won’t ask you now. Too much has happened today. It wouldn’t be fair. But I’ll be thinking it constantly, because it’s the one thing that I want in life that I don’t have right now.”

Leah nodded against him, but she didn’t breathe a word. She was sated, exhausted and happy. Yes, too much had happened today. But there was something else, something that went hand in hand with marriage that she hadn’t told him. She had her secrets, too, and the burden of disclosure was now hers.

B
UT BURDENS HAD A WAY
of falling from shoulders when one least expected them to. Such had been the case with Garrick’s soul baring. Such was the case with Leah’s.

A month had passed since she’d arrived at the cabin, one day blending into the next in a continual span of happiness. With the ebbing of mud season, Garrick’s Cherokee was functional again. They drove into town for supplies, drove to the artists’ colony, where Leah inquired about weaving lessons, drove to Victoria’s cabin and freed the Golf, which Leah drove back to Garrick’s and parked behind the cabin. They took long walks in the woods, often at daybreak when Garrick checked the few traps he’d set for coyotes, and picnicked in groves surrounded by the sweet smell of spring’s rebirth.

Then, one morning, Leah awoke feeling distinctly muzzy. The muzziness passed, and she pushed it from mind, but the next morning it was back, this time accompanied by sharp pangs of nausea. When Garrick, who’d been fixing breakfast, saw her dash for the bathroom, he grew concerned. He followed her and found her hanging over the commode.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked, pressing a cool cloth to her beaded forehead.

“Garrick … oh …”

He supported her while she lost the contents of her stomach, then, very gently, closed the commode and eased her down. “What is it?” he repeated as he bathed her face. Her skin was ashen. His own hands shook.

“I didn’t think it would happen … could happen …”

“What, love?”

She looked bewildered. “And I was never sick like this …”

“Leah?”

“Oh, God.” She covered her face with her hands, then removed them to collapse against Garrick. “Hold me,” she whispered tremulously. “Just hold me.”

His arms were around her in an instant. “You’re frightening me, Leah.”

“I know … I’m sorry. … I think I’m going to have a baby.”

For a minute he went very still. Then he began to tremble. Framing her face with his hands, he held her away from him and searched her eyes. “I thought,” he began, “I guess I assumed that you … I shouldn’t have … are you sure?”

“No.”

“But you think so?”

“The nausea. I felt a little yesterday, too. And I haven’t had a period.” She was as bewildered as ever. “I didn’t think … it was never like this.”

“You weren’t using birth control … an IUD?’

Her eyes were brimming with tears. “I’ve never had to worry about it. I always had trouble conceiving.”

“Not now,” Garrick said, pride and excitement surging within him. But something about what she’d said, and her expression, tempered his joy. “Have you conceived before?”

She nodded, then dissolved into tears.

Pressing her face into the warmth of his shoulder, he soothingly stroked her back. “What happened?” he whispered.

It was a while before she could answer, and when she did it was in a voice rife with pain. “Stillborn. I carried for nine months, but the babies were born dead.”

“Babies?”

“Two. Two separate pregnancies. Both babies stillborn.”

“Ahhhh, Leah,” he moaned, holding her closer. “I’m sorry.”