Starstruck (3 page)

Chapter Two

“
S
o, tell me about yourself,” Joe said, settling easily into the passenger seat of the
VW
bus and turning sideways to watch Liv start the engine.

“That’s my line, I believe,” she snapped irritably. “You’re the one wh
o’s supposed to answer the ques
tions.”

“All in good time,” he promised. “Over dinner, I think. But now it’s your turn.” He was smiling at her, the sort of smile that they always did close-ups of in his movies, the ones in which he was trying to find out what made the heroine tick so he could use the right line to get her into bed with him. Liv clenched her teeth and concentrated on backing out of the hotel lot without sideswiping the Buick next to her. “Well,” he prompted when nothing but silence was forthcoming.

“You’re not interested in me,” Liv said firmly, wishing he’d stop
l
ooking at her that way. “I’m not a very interesting person.”

The dark brows drew together in a frown. “Not interesting? Hardly. You’re the first woman I’ve ever met with a rabbit running loose in her car.”

“Something that doesn’t happen every day, I assure you,” she said. Nor did taking Joe Harrington home for dinner, she thought grimly.

“Well then, we’ve determined that you’re fond of rabbits and casseroles,” he went on relentlessly. “And you
have a child, I presume. It is your child we’re picking up at the baby-sitter’s?”

“Yes.” They were in the throes of rush-hour traffic speeding along the shore of Lake Monona, and Liv was trying to pay attention to the road.

“But you don’t have a husband.” It wasn’t a question.

“What?” She nearly veered into a passing hog truck.

“No ring,” he said smoothly.

“I suppose that’s the first thing you look for in a woman,” Liv said acidly.

“Not quite.” He grinned, and she knew he was watching the color rise in her cheeks and was amused by it. “But I don’t fool around with married women, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m glad to know you draw the line somewhere,” she said, slipping the bus neatly between two trucks and signaling to turn. “And here was I thinking you had no morals whatsoever.” She really didn’t care what she said to him now. If he was going to take offense he’d have done so in the lobby when she’d blown up. If he was simply going to invite himself along for dinner he deserved everything he got.

Joe ran his tongue over his lips. “You’re not going to be an easy interview, are you?” he asked shortly.

“I hope not,” Liv said. She turned into the tree-lined street where Jennifer’s baby sitter lived. “As I told you, this wasn’t my idea. And if you’d said no, I could’ve gone to Marv and said you’d changed your mind. Inasmuch as you apparently haven’t, I intend to get a good ten-inch story.”

“And a pound of flesh, obviously,” Joe said with a hint of grimness.

Liv gave him a sharp look as she turned into the driveway, but Joe was looking around the van curiously, not watching her.

“Who plays baseball?” he asked, fingering the glove he had picked up off the floorboards.

“That’s Ben’s,” Liv said.

“Who’s Ben? Your lover?”

Liv cut the engine and turned to glare at him. “Don’t judge us all by your standards, Mr. Harrington. Ben is my ten-year-old son.” She opened the door and began to step out.

“And the other one?” he asked, jerking his head toward the larger, more worn glove on the middle seat.

“Noel’s.”

“Another son?” He looked as though he didn’t believe a word of it.

“Clever of you. You’re getting the idea,” she said, turning away toward the five-year-old bundle of energy who was hurtling across the yard. “Hi, Jenn,” she called. “Tell Marge I’m sorry I’m late.”

Joe muttered,
“
Three?
”
He looked at her narrowly, the green eyes glinting behind the lenses of his glasses. “Are you pulling my leg, Olivia James?” he demanded.

Liv gave him a prim smile, the one she saved for all the men she’d met in the last three years who thought that five children constituted a flaw in her character. “Why no, kind sir. Why don’t you ask if there are any more like them at home?”

It was Joe’s turn to stare. “Are there?” His voice was hollow, as it was in his movies when the bad guy had a gun leveled on him.

“Two,” Liv said demurely, as she moved away to talk to Jennifer’s baby-sitter who had come out onto the porch. She couldn’t resist tossing him a backward glance as she did so. It was always worth it to see their faces when she told them. Some of them counted on their fingers. Joe Harrington was no exception. He looked as if he’d been poleaxed. Then, much to her amazement, he burst out laughing. She had just reached the porch when he leaned out the window and yelled after her, “Now I understand your predilection for rabbits!”

“Who’s that?” Margie Cunningham asked, peering
around Liv’s shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of the man sitting in the van.

“A friend,” Liv mumbled, mortified, hoping that he wouldn’t do anything that would identify himself. Having friends who yelled things like that would be bad enough. Hearing it from one of America’s foremost sex symbols was too much all together.

“Happy birthday,” Marge said. “Doing anything special?”

If only she knew, Liv thought. “No, covering a story,” she said. “Sorry I
was a bit late. I got a short-
notice interview.”

“No problem,” Marge assured her. “Say, did you hear that Joe Harrington’s speaking at the university tonight?”

“Yes. On international communications, I think,” Liv said. “Celebrities for Peace or some crazy thing.” She shrugged. “The peace idea isn’t crazy, but why should some actor know more about it than anyone else?”

“Who cares?” Margie said, the same dreamy look in her eyes that Liv had seen earlier in Frances’s. “He’s so gorgeous, I wouldn’t care if he was talking about grafting apple trees. I’d go to hear him anyway.”

And another one bites the dust, Liv thought. Pity he had decided to waste his time on her when conquests were his for the asking all over town. He must really want that chicken-and-rice a lot, she thought wryly. “So long,” she said to Margie, and fairly sprinted to reach the car by the time Jennifer did. Jennifer didn’t know who Joe Harrington was—there was no need to worry about her being overawed by his presence or anything like that. The worry was what she would say to him, no matter who he was. Jennifer, Liv knew from five years experience, did not know the meaning of the word discretion.

“Who’re you?” Jennifer asked as she climbed in over the driver’s seat and regarded the man slouching across the way with calm speculation.

“I’m Joe,” he said easily. “Who are you?”

“Jennifer Alison James,” she told him. “I’m five. How old are you?”

Take that, Liv thought, starting the engine and backing out of the drive with a smile on her face. Joe slanted her a grin.

“Another reporter in the family,
huh?”
he asked. “I’m thirty-six,” he told Jennifer.

“That’s older than Mommy, isn’t
it?”
Jennifer asked. “She’s thirty-two.”

Joe shot Liv a smug grin. “Is she, now?” He stretched his legs and smirked at her. He looks just like a cat, she thought. A very large, dangerous cat. A tiger. Did tigers have such startling green eyes?

“Yes. Are you coming to our house for dinner?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good.” Jennifer bounced up and down on the middle seat, her golden hair swinging in a halo around her head. Like a cherub, Liv thought, downs
hifting as she went around a corn
er. “Are you going to be Mommy’s boyfriend?”

“Jennifer!” So much for cherubim.

“It’s a thought,” Joe said lazily, not at all discomfitted. “Does Mommy need a boyfriend?”

“No, Mommy doesn’t!” Liv snapped, trying to control a desperate urge to drive directly into Lake Monona. “Jennifer, I bet you can’t hold your breath until I count to thirty. And
you—”
she shot Joe a quelling glance that would have been more effective if he hadn’t already been almost doubled over laughing “—you hold yours for five minutes!”

“Yes, ma’am, whatever you say, ma’am,” he mocked, wiping the grin off his face with his hand though his eyes continued to laugh at her.

The silence that ensued was almost worse than the conversation. No job is worth this, Liv thought. But it was too late to get rid of him now. If she dumped him out, he would probably just follow her home, or call up
Marv and complain. Why didn’t he at least stop staring at her? It wasn’t so much that he seemed to be looking at her as if she were a bug under glass. That wasn’t the feeling at all. Rather, she got the idea that she was being savored, like a very tasty looking mouse on a tiger’s dinner plate. Just before he opened his mouth. It was a relief to pull into her own driveway next to the story-and-a-half frame house she had been lucky enough to find within her budget when Tom left them and their other house was sold.

“I took it out, Ma! It was burning!”

“Here, look at my lip!”

“Theo ripped his new cords!”

“I did not! Tony ripped ’em!”

“Slow down,” Liv said to the swarm of boys clustering around her as she got out of the car. “One at a time.” But she was only half-aware of sorting out the nearly burned dinner, the torn pants and the split lip. A part of her was tuned solely to the man still seated in the
VW
, and a prickling on her neck made her aware that he had got out and was coming to stand beside her.

“Nice lip,” he said to Ben.

The ten-year-old grinned, flipping a strand of brown hair out of his eyes. “You shoulda seen the other guy.”

“A fight?”

“Naw. A misunderstanding. If you call it a fight, old Grish makes you stay after school.”

“I see.” Joe’s tongue traced a circle inside his cheek. “You must be Ben.”

“Yeah. Who’re you?”

Not something he was asked every day, Liv was sure. Thank heavens she didn’t have movie addicts among her children. Only Noel had seen
Hills of Thunder,
Joe’s latest box office smash.

“This is Joe Harrington,” she said. “He’s giving a speech tonight that I have to cover. And you have to baby-sit,” she turned to say to Noel who, at any other time, would have looked pained. At the moment, how
ever, her tall, blond twelve-year-old son was staring in awe at the man before him.

“Steve Scott,” he murmured, slack-jawed at being face-to-face with the hero Joe had played in his last two movies.

Joe made a wry face. “Among other things,” he said, offering Noel a handshake. “Joe Harrington, really. Steve Scott is a lot of things that I’m not.”

A ladies’ man not being one of them, Liv recalled, remembering the bevy of gorgeous women chasing after the playboy adventurer Joe had been in the film. She had forgotten how enthralled Noel had been with that film.

“This is Noel,” she said quickly, putting her arm around the boy, who was almost as tall as she was. “My oldest,” she added. “He’s twelve. And this toothless urchin is Theo, who’
s seven.” She hugged the brown-
haired, gap-toothed boy leaning against her. “We’re missing Stephen, my eight-year-old. He’s at a cello lesson.”

Joe courteously shook hands with them all, and Liv, surprisingly, found herself relaxing a bit. After the initial moment of awe when Noel recognized him as a movie star, Joe seemed to fit right in. Better, in fact, than some of her occasional, few-and-far-between dates had. They had stood around looking as though they were trying to formulate their position on birth control, whereas Joe immediately organized the kids, sending Theo out to the car to rescue the rabbit and Noel after the cleaning, and telling Ben, “Let’s you and I set the table, and maybe your mother will feed us before I starve to death.”

It was easy to see why he was also a successful direc
tor, Liv thought. He seemed born
to take charge, even in places where he had absolutely no business running anything! But it was hard to feel completely irritated with him when he was giving her five seconds to herself for a change. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened to her.

“Thanks,” she told him grudgingly when she returned from the bedroom to find him moving around the table busily laying out forks and knives.

“Pure self-interest,” he said. “I haven’t eaten since St. Louis at seven this morn
ing. Everyone else had chicken à
la king during the speech in Chicago at noon.”

“What about you?” Liv asked, tearing up lettuce for
a salad, but finding her attention drifting to the man behind her.

“I gave the speech.”

“Poor thing.” Liv smiled at him. “Such a rough life,” she teased. But privately she was beginning to think it wasn’t such a bed of roses after all. He was every bit as handsome as his pictures, but there was a weariness about the man that she wouldn’t have predicted. And he was obviously as hungry as he said he was. As soon as they sat down, he piled his plate with casserole, lettuce, and a large helping of her Jell-
O
salad, shoveling it in without a word, while the children chattered on around him.