Danny Ray (Ray Trilogy) (25 page)

Angela had expected her appearance on the soap
to last only a couple of weeks. That’s all they had indicated when they offered her the opportunity to be on the show. Now the writers continued to include her into the script. It seemed that the directors liked her work. It was very demanding work and a lot of actors didn’t want to put in all of the hours required, but Angela had no other obligations. She appreciated something to keep her busy and her mind off home.

She couldn’t help but wonder about Danny. She refused to inquire about him when she called home and nobody had volunteered any information. Still, she wondered if the biographer ever got his biography done. Did Danny get patched back up with that woman from New York? Has his fan mail slowed down?

She pushed the questions from her mind. During high school she had held a torch for Danny but he never paid her any attention other than a casual conversation once in a while. When she went to college, she dated some but never got a real interest in anyone except Carl Nelson. They went out together for two years. Everyone thought as soon as graduation came, they would tie the knot, in fact so did she for a while. Carl brought up the subject time and time again. He was a handsome man with dark wavy hair and he actually met one of her inflexible standards of being as tall as she. She had no regrets about Carl. In the end it turned out to be just a college romance, neither of them was terribly upset when they split their ways.

She pulled into the parking lot and went up to her apartment.
The flashing light on her phone indicated that she had a phone message. She punched the button, “This is AFFINITY. Will you please call the agency in the morning?”

She stood looking at the phone. Well, that could mean one of three things. They either had more contracts to offer her, they wanted to extend the contract on the soap, or she was fired. Deciding not to worry about it, she went into the bathroom and filled Terry’s whirlpool tub with steaming water topped with
fragrant lilac bubbles. She grabbed the book she was reading from the bedside table and climbed in.

She soaked and read for over thirty minutes before she heard the doorbell ring. “Oh, Rats,” she muttered as she climbed out of the warm water and wrapped a towel around her and another one around her hair. She walked to the front door leaving a trail of wet footsteps
and peered out the hole in the door.

She was so startled when she saw who stood outside the door
that she almost dropped the towel. It was so unusual that anyone ever came to her door. She was sure when she reached the door that she would find someone looking for someone else. Without thinking that she needed to put on clothes, she unlocked the door to let him in.

Danny smiled appraising her condition and said, “Hello, Angela.” He entered into the living room.

She still hadn’t gotten her tongue yet. She closed the door and when he opened his arms to her she stepped into them. If he hadn’t held onto her towel for her it would have all fallen to the floor. She put her arms around him while the tears ran down her face.

It felt so wonderful to have somebody from home here with her, especially Danny. They held each other for a while. Danny smelled the lilac scent on the soft skin of her neck and placed there a few feather light kisses, while he promised himself that he would not take advantage of the situation. He knew they needed to talk and he had a few fences to mend here and a few apologies to make.

Finally she stepped back holding up her towel and he placed his hand at the back of her neck and brought her in for a tender kiss on the lips before she left to get dressed. By this time her heart was pounding so hard and birds were singing in her ears. She went back to her bedroom and leaned back on the door after she closed it. She smiled as she thought
, I’ve always heard of the birds and the bees but this is the first time I ever heard them.

While Angela dressed Danny walked around the apartment noticing that she had done very little to make the place hers. No pictures or artifacts sitting around that
looked like anything she placed there. Then he saw the balcony outside the kitchen door, and he thought this is what Angela put here. The tiny balcony blazed in a profusion of color and greenery, a tiny retreat in an otherwise impersonal habitat.

They or
dered in Chinese and she told him about her commercials, her directors, the other cast members on the soap, her interviews, and auditions. He told her about the animals he had sold and bought. He told her about the hogs that he had and about breeding them.

She wanted to know about his house construction and whether it was completed. He told her about being ready to tear down the old house and that he w
ould be ready to landscape the yard.

Finally, she announced, “Danny, I have to get up early to go to work in the morning. You’re welcome to stay here tonight.”

“I came straight here when I got here. So I don’t have a motel room yet.”

“That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.”

She brought out a pillow and a couple of blankets for him to sleep on the couch. “I’m sorry. I know that couch is too short for you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Angela. Every bed I’ve slept on since I got out of the hospital has been too short for me,” Danny grinned.

When she turned to leave, he put his arm around her and pulled her into a hug and kissed her. “Angela, it’s so good to see you again.”

After enjoying the hug and kiss, she said in return, “I have missed you, too.”

Danny lay on the couch propped up on his pillow against the arm of the couch. He tucked both of his hands behind his head and thought about his first night with Angela. It was more like getting reacquainted and catching up with each other’s lives. It seemed like they skirted around every issue that was important as far as their relationship was concerned.

Funny, he thought. Every woman he had been with in the last few months
where he spent the night, he was in her bed. Now that he decided he wanted to marry Angela and spend the rest of his life with her, here he was on the couch for the first time. Ted moved into his house to take care of everything until he could come home. He came with both of their parents blessing to bring her home and to stay as long as necessary to obtain that objective.

At six the next morning Angela came out of her bedroom dressed in shorts and tee shirt fresh out of the shower. Since Danny usually got up that early to take care of the animals, he already was dressed with his blankets folded.

“Danny, would you like to go with me to the set?” Angela invited. “They provide breakfast before they plaster my face with make-up. Come with me if you’d like.”

He thought
a minute and said, “Well, what else do I have to do? Sure.”

During the day she found time to slip out and call AFFINITY to see what they h
ad in mind when they called her yesterday. The offer they made her was very tempting but her emotions were on such a roller coaster right now with Danny there, she asked them to give her a couple of days to sort out things.

As Danny watched Angela work with the other cast members and the director, he could see that the people with whom she worked liked and respected her. He wondered
, why would she want to live on a ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, when she could have all of this action and glamour? By the time she finished for the day, his heart felt pretty low. Was he doing the right thing for Angela by selfishly wanting to take her home with him?

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

When they reached the apartment Angela quickly prepared two potatoes and two chicken breasts to bake. Then she tossed some baby spinach leaves and grape tomatoes with some green pepper slices
in a salad bowl. This took her about fifteen minutes. Now she could spend time with Danny until the food in the oven finished baking.

Danny sat at the bar on a stool watching her efficiently prepare the food leaning on his elbows. Angela saw the solemn expression on his face and asked, “What’s the matter, Danny? You seem sad.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to cheer up,” he said producing a smile.

“Come on, out with it. Something is bothering you.”

Danny gave a heavy sigh. “Yes, something is bothering me. Several somethings.”

“Have I done something wrong? I’m sorry if I’ve offended you some way.” Angela sat down beside him in confusion trying to think what she could have done.

He took her by the hand and led her to the couch. “We should sit over here where it’s more comfortable. We have a lot to talk about.”

Suddenly, she panicked thinking of home. “Has something happened at home that you came here to tell me?”

“No, no,” He said soothingly still holding her hand, “everything at home is fine, except me maybe.”

She frowned again, “What’s the matter, Danny?”

“What’s the matter with me is that I miss you,” he confessed looking over into her eyes.

She pulled her hand back and said hotly, “Along with Eve and Lisa?” She put her hand over her mouth as soon as she said it, realizing it was a cheap shot that in ordinary circumstances she would have never said.

His eyes widened in surprise at her outburst, but he knew he deserved anything she dished out at the moment. He held up his hands palms out and said, “I apologize for not explaining.”

By this time she was pacing the living room floor in front of him. “You’re right. You do owe me an apology. I tried to overlook and excuse your little indiscretion with Eve considering that we never verbally committed to one another. It seemed our little relationship over the summer was drying out and I needed to make more money if I ever got my
greenhouses up and running. I leave one weekend and you get a hot romance with that firefly at the newspaper office. A common courtesy of, ‘by the way Angela, I’m bored with you’ would have gone a long way. At least I would have known that our relationship was over, but you want to go on and pretend nothing ever happened and never ask me for another date.” She stopped her pacing to illustrate with a flash of her hands in the air. “Like, ‘Poof,’ nothing ever happened between us.”

Tears sprang to her eyes
. Danny hated to hear her tirade but he knew he deserved every word she said. “I sorry that I hurt you,” he answered contritely. “You’re right I should have talked to you.” He hated to know that he was the cause of her tears, but again the tears gave him hope that she still cared that much.

“Are you still seeing her?” Angela asked.

“No,” he answered startled that she asked, but also realizing that she had no way of knowing. “No, Eve took a job in Chicago.”

“You also went to see your old flame in New York,” she accused. “Did you think I should stand by holding my hands while you romanced her?”

Danny stood up and walked over to the window and looked down on the parking lot. He needed to get his words right or he would be leaving without resolving anything between them.

Angela stood across the room watching him look out the window. She knew she was being harsh with him, but at the minute she didn’t care. She felt like her heart had been pierced. This is the first time she had actually verbalized her pain and she needed some answers.

In spite of her pain she admired his tall physique with his wide shoulders and narrow hips. She was proud of him, how he came through so much pain with his leg and losing his pro-status in football. He had developed in to an admirable man and she would like to spend the rest of her life with him, but not under these circumstances.

Danny turned to face her, “Lisa and I were very close during my last year of college and my Dallas Cowboy career. During my time in the hospital she came to see me a few times, and then she stopped coming without an explanation. I suspected that she didn’t want anything to do with me because I wasn’t the man I used to be.”

He walked over and perched on the bar stool again. He continued, “When I received the letter from her, she implied that she wanted to continue our relationship.” He looked at Angela who stood with her head down. He figured the last thing she wanted to hear was him being intimate with another woman, but he had started and intended to try to get her to understand.

“I needed to resolve
my feelings for her one way or another. I kept having dreams.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

“Did you?” Angela asked again still not looking at him. She walked over to the window to look out this time.

“Yes,” he said with another heavy sigh. “She only wanted me if I would stay in New York and become a puppet for her and her father in his business.” He shook his head. “That’s not me. I’ll make my own way and earn whatever I have.”

The timer beeped and she went to remove the chicken and potatoes out of the oven. She set them on the top of the stove and removed the salad from the refrigerator and sprinkled it with Italian dressing.
They ate mostly in silence, each of them struggling with their own thoughts and emotions.

Angela
finished her meal first, sat back and asked him, “What do you want from me? Obviously, you came here for a reason.”

“Angela,
want you to be my wife,” he blurted out before he thought.

“And I’m supposed to be flattered that you would leave your other girlfriends to propose to me?” She retorted back at him, in spite of the fact that marrying Danny had always been her dream.