Starstruck (29 page)

“Loved you.” She smiled, her own heart just now beginning to steady and slow. Her hand went up to stroke his hair and ear, and she tilted her head sideways, pulling back from him slightly to study his profile. He was cleanshaven again, with just a day’s worth of sandpapery beard, handsome as ever, and when he grinned down at her, the tiny chicken pox scar next to his left eye crinkled into another engaging dimple. “Leave it to you,” she teased, “to turn chicken pox to an advantage.”

“Think so?” he looked enormously pleased, and she remembered that Veronique had said he’d never be the same again.

“What about Veronique and the Steve Scott film?” she asked suddenly.

“It’s not on. Never has been.” He told her about Luther’s pressure tactics and his leak of the story to the gossip magazines. “You saw it?”

“Oh yes. That’s when I thought all hope was gone.”

“It nearly was,” he admitted. “It seemed the path of least resistance, doing Steve Scott. I was ready to, I think. Then I got Noel’s card.”

Liv shook her head. “What card?”

“Telling me about his game. Remember, I told him that if I couldn’t come he should send me a card with the score on it. He did. Also mentioned that you and Tom were there. I felt as if I’d been stoned. The very thought of you and Tom was all it took to crystallize my thinking. I knew then that I loved you, that I didn’t want anyone else near you. Ever. I caught the next plane back to Madison, determined not to let him have you.”

“So what happened? I mean, you came over last night and—”

“How did you know that?”

“Jennifer saw you.”

“Oh. Well, I saw her and the boys. And
Tom. I thought he was really b
ack for good then.” She saw a look of despair flash in his eyes as he remembered. “I thought I was really too late. And what was I going to do? Strap on a gun and challenge him to a duel? If he’d come to his senses sooner than I did,
I
figured it was nobler to leave. To try to forget you. I didn’t deserve you, anyway.”

Liv ro
l
led her eyes. “You are an idiot. How could you think I still loved Tom after what he did? After what I did, making love to you?” She looked at him with all the love she felt there in her eyes for him to see, and he sh
ook his head, smiling, kissing h
er, his own eyes flaming with a brightness that danced like the sunlight in the leaves rustling gently above their heads. Liv rolled over onto her back so that she lay side by side with Joe under the quilt, looking up at the green turning to gold above them.

He grinned and said, “I’ve never made love in a tree house before.” He turned his head and looked at
h
er with warmth and gentleness in his face. “Have you?”

“Hardly.” Liv laughed, then grew serious as she thought about all the places Joe had probably made love, even if he had missed tree houses until now. “Will I be enough for you, Joe?”

He frown
ed. “You mean, will there be oth
er women besides you?”

“Yes.” She didn’t want to ask, but she had to, had to know if he’d considered it.

“No. I tried that already.” He grimaced. “After I left you in Madison and went back to L.A., I told myself I could forget you. I was wrong. I loved no woman
after you.” He kissed the tip o
f her nose gently. “I’ll never want to, I promise. I know now that it wasn’t love I was after with them, anyway. It was challenge, coupled with needing to forget you. But I couldn’t forget you. And now I’ve got you. Besides, just recently I discovered
that you’re all the challenge I
’
ll
ever need.”

“I love you,” Liv whispered, stroking an errant lock of hair off his forehead and following her fingers with her lips.

“And I love you.” He sat up, his bare back dappled with sun as he groped in the blankets for the champagne bottle. “This was supposed to be for us to celebrate our future with,” he said ruefully, tipping it upside down and letting the last drops spill out. “Shall I get dressed and go buy us another?”

Liv shook her head. “No thanks,” she murmured, running her hands down the length of his spine till he shivered. “I think you should lie back down and prove how much you love me some more. And then when I’m convinced, we can climb down from our little love nest and drink a toast to our marriage as we mean to go on.”

“Huh?”

She tugged him back under the quilt and wrapped her arms around him. “I mean, why bother with champagne when right in the kitchen here we have enough grape Kool-Aid to float a ship on!”

T
he seductive kiss and warm breath touched Liv’s ear just as a pair of hard arms went around her and pulled her back into her husband’s arms. She started, then relaxed, loving the feel of his lean, hard length against her, relishing the kisses that continued down the edge of her jaw until suddenly they stopped.

“What’s that slop you’re mashing?” he demanded
.

“Banana,” she told him, turning in his arms and kissing him soundly on the lips before she stepped back to wave a forkful under his nose. “Want some?”

“Yuck.” Joe wrinkled his nose. “Nick eats that? I thought he was a smart baby.”

“He is,” Liv agreed. “Takes after his mother.”

Joe glared. “All Harrington. Spitting image of his father, everyone says.”

“In looks, maybe,” Liv conceded. “And personality. Who else has a two-month-old Casanova for a son?”

“Keep picking on me, and I won’t tell you what I’ve planned for tonight,” Joe mumbled into her hair.

“Tonight?”

“Our first anniversary. Or had you forgotten?” he teased.

“Of course not. But I thought you might have had enough to do recently, what with finishing up the screenplay and preparing to direct it, convincing Luther to produce it and arranging locations in Spain, to spend time planning anything else.”

“I told you, I love a challenge,” Joe grinned, kissing her nose. “That’s why I married you.”

“That’s why, is it?” she asked tartly, turning back to the banana.

“Of course. And because I thought it was the easiest way to give my father a half-dozen grandchildren. Besides, I love you.”

She dropped the fork with a clatter and turned, the banana forgotten. “I love you, too. More each day if possible.”

“Good. You can start proving it right now.” He spun her around again and untied the apron around her waist.

“But I’ve got to feed Nick,” she protested. Aprons were a necessity with Nick. “And then I’ve got to pick up Ben at scouts and Stephen at cello, and Jennifer is—”

Joe shook his head. “Nope.”

“Nope?”

“Nope.”

“Are you trading Steve Scott for Gary Cooper these days?” Liv asked, but Joe didn’t answer, just took her by the shoulders and steered her into the living room of the architect’s house that was now permanently theirs. “Joe
…
” she began again, but then she looked up to see Arthur Harrington sitting on the couch, his youngest grandson regarding him in cross-eyed awe as he bounced up and down.

“Hello,
my dear,” Arthur’s wife, Louise, said brightly
from her seat by the bookcase, as though they had just popped in from next door.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Liv asked, stunned. “I thought you’d had enough of us to last till Thanksgiving at least.” They had seen Joe’s parents only last month at a lake in Minnesota. She thought the chaos of that week, joyful though it had been, would satisfy them for quite a while. Obviously she was wrong.

“They’re baby-sitting for the weekend,” Joe told her.

“All the way from Sioux City?” Liv sputtered.

“Absolutely,” Arthur Harrington said firmly. “A man can’t see too much of his grandchildren.”

Joe looked at Liv and rolled his eyes. “Humor him,” he told her. “It’ll work in our favor, I promise you. We’re spending a weekend at the Sheraton, just you and I. Undisturbed.” He reached behind the chair where his mother was sitting and pulled out an overnight bag he had already packed. “Come along, my love,” he said, taking her arm.

“But—” Liv stared at him in wonder, then looked at his parents, who beamed and urged her out. Shrugging she bent to give Nick a quick kiss. Then, marveling at the resourcefulness of the man she had married, she followed him, still bemused, out the door. “I can’t believe they’re really going to take care of the kids,” she said as he helped her into the car.

Joe grinned. “Believe it. My father would walk across the Sahara for you and those kids.” He bent over and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth before going around and getting in on the driver’s side. “He considers marrying you the smartest thing I ever did.” He touched her cheek tenderly, the love of a lifetime there for her to see in his eyes. “He was right, Liv,” he said softly. “It was.”