The Girl from Summer Hill (25 page)

“For once in my life, money is no object. I've
earned
this! I'll call you tonight and see what you've found out.”

“I don't know if I can do anything that fast. I need—”

Devlin hung up, not wanting to hear the man's excuses. Like all extremely lazy people, he expected others to work backbreakingly hard.

It was morning and Tate and Casey were in her bed, the first night they'd slept together. She had on just her pajama top, while Tate wore nothing at all.

“I'm glad I bought this place,” he said. They were snuggled together, her head on his chest. There'd been a few women before he was successful, but back then all he'd thought about was getting a job that could pay the bills. After his name had been on a couple of movies, there'd been more women, but they'd only been interested in him as a star.

Casey was the first woman who didn't seem to care about his movie-star status or even his looks—except to make jokes about them. She was interested in him as a man.

“I'm glad you didn't try to make it modern,” she said. “No odd-looking sculptures in the garden. Do you mind if I put some more plants in the herb garden? I could use a patch of cilantro. And I need more lemon verbena.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Sure. Buy whatever you want and give me the bill.”

“Or send it to your accountant?”

“Nina takes care of that and she'll be here soon. She's doing some charity work now, and as soon as she finishes, she and Emmie will come.”

Casey smiled up at him. “I can hear the anticipation in your voice. Why don't they live in L.A. with you?”

“They did, but after the divorce, Nina moved to Massachusetts. L.A. had too many bad memories for her. Speaking of which, Nina says I need a house in California that isn't all steel and glass.” He stopped talking and waited for her to say something, but she didn't. “What kind of house do you like?”

“One with a kitchen,” she said. “Walk-in pantry, big marble island. Or stainless steel—I can't decide.”

“Any rooms attached to it?” He was laughing.

“Bedroom.” She ran her bare leg down his.

“Sounds good to me.” He kissed her, his hands on her face. He didn't want to leave. Last night he'd talked to the director of his next movie, saying he'd rather not leave the country to go look at sets.

The director had not been understanding. “You want to blow off a multimillion-dollar production for some local play?”

Tate hadn't said any more.

He looked into Casey's eyes. “After the play is over, maybe you'd like to see my house in L.A. If you don't like the kitchen, we can find another house.”

“That sounds good. I bet there are fabulous grocery stores in L.A. Now I have to order some ingredients online. Tamarind was in the quail dish. I had to do overnight shipping to—” His cellphone was ringing. “You better get that.”

Tate stuck out a long arm to pick the phone up. “It's Jack.” He clicked it on. “Yeah, yeah. I'm dressed and ready and waiting for you. I'll be there in seconds.” He turned the phone off and rolled back to Casey and started kissing her neck.

She pushed away from him. “You told Jack you were dressed, so now you have to get up.”

“I am up.”

Casey gave a giggle. “Not like
that
. Stop kissing me.” She was leaning her head back as his lips began to move down her shoulder. “Tate! We don't have time for this. You have a plane to catch.”

“It'll be a quickie.”

“You don't like quick. You like long and slow and…” She was sliding down in the bed.

“I'm an actor. I'll pretend I'm your last boyfriend and it'll all be over in seconds. Just lie very still and think about tamarind and cilantro.”

Casey started to laugh, but he kissed her as he moved on top of her.

Jack and Tate reached the car at the same time and they grinned at each other across the car's roof. It had taken a lot more than seconds to get there. Inside, they sat on opposite ends of the leather seat and told the driver to go.

“So where's your suitcase?” Tate asked.

Jack shrugged. “I left everything here, maybe even my heart. What about you?”

As the car pulled onto the street, Tate looked out the window. “Mine but not hers.” He turned back to Jack. “I practically asked her to move in with me in L.A., but she just wanted to know what the grocery stores carried.”

“That sounds good. Maybe she is thinking about living there.”

“No, she isn't,” Tate said. “What about you and Gizzy?”

Jack took a moment before answering. “You know how I was glad she didn't ask me a lot of questions? Now I'm a little concerned that she doesn't want to know anything about me.”

In spite of himself, Tate remembered the photo Haines had shown him of Gizzy kissing a fireman. “What's her boyfriend history? Has she had a lot of them?”

Jack frowned. “I don't know. As much as I love her nonstop action, sometimes I wish we could have a heart-to-heart. What do you know?”

Tate hesitated. Should he show Jack the photo that Haines had sent him or not? Maybe it was all a lie, but he and Jack had been duped by ambitious women before. He took out his cell and clicked on the photo. “I was told this was taken two days ago, but that could be wrong.”

Jack glanced at the picture, then handed the phone back to Tate. “That's what I was beginning to suspect.”

The two men looked at each other.

“We'll see how things stand when we get back,” Tate said, and Jack agreed.

“So how have you been?” Olivia asked Casey. “Anything interesting happen?” They were wearing pretty Regency-era dresses and sitting on chairs that had been set up outside the gazebo. Onstage, Lori was flitting around Gizzy and teasing about how wonderful the soldiers were. She seemed very young but at the same time quite seductive.

“That girl is really talented. I hope she does something with it,” Casey said.

“I found out that she's staying in a lake house with her grandmother, Estelle, who I knew in high school. I want to talk to her about getting Lori into Juilliard.” She took a breath. “How lucky Estelle is to have a granddaughter like her.”

Casey reached across to squeeze Olivia's wrist.

“Actually, I was asking about you and Tate,” Olivia said. “He's been gone for a whole twenty-four hours. How are you holding up?”

“Very well. I don't have three meals a day to cook, and I don't have him hanging around my kitchen all day. He isn't bugging me to go everywhere with him in his little red truck. Did I tell you that one day he went to the grocery with me? It was a fiasco! He bought three dozen grapefruits and challenged me to make a pie with them. I didn't, but when we got back I put up some jars of a rather nice marmalade with a stalk of tarragon in the middle. Using the whole stalk was his suggestion, and he cleaned the grapefruit for me. Well, anyway, I can now do my summer canning without him underfoot.”

Olivia was smiling. “You told me that story. Twice. You miss him a lot, don't you?”

“I do, but I wish I didn't.” She blew out her breath in exasperation. “I've always prided myself on functioning on my own. Even when I lived with someone, I stood on my own feet.”

She paused, then said, “I'm confused about what's going on between Tate and me. Before he left he talked about my being his cook in L.A. I guess I'd be his sleep-in chef. But I—” She put her hands over her face. “I really, really
like
him and I miss him—but I don't want to. I
like
being independent. I grew up with a mother who was gone all the time, and I learned to rely on myself. But then, that's what drove my ex-boyfriend crazy. He used to say he didn't feel needed.”

“When you were a child, there must have been times when you wanted your mother to be there.”

“Yes, but I knew she was helping other people.” She looked at Olivia. “But sometimes I wanted her to help
me
. Sometimes I wanted to be like the other girls and complain about how my mother wanted me to choose a truly hideous prom dress. When I chose my dress, my mom was in Mumbai at a medical conference, and my caretaker at the time was a retired butcher. I now know how to field dress an elk, but sometimes…”

“You wish you could have had a normal teenage fit.”

“Yes.” Casey glanced back at the stage. “This is stupid, but I miss Tate even more than I used to miss my mother. I didn't think that was possible. But I don't know if I can trust him. Devlin says—”

Olivia cut her off. “Are you basing part of your judgment on what someone else says? Casey, you can't do that. You have to use your own instincts, what
you
want.”

“I know,” she said, “but I can't dismiss information from someone who knows Tate so well. Uh-oh. Kit wants us onstage. I may be off in this, but are you and our illustrious director angry at each other?”

Olivia stood up. “He made a pass at me and I turned him down. Come on, we have lots of scenes to rehearse.” She started toward the stage, but Lori stopped her.

“I was wondering about something, and Kit said you could help me. There's a scene where Lydia gets to go on a trip, but her sister Kitty can't go. The girl playing Kitty and I are friends—or used to be—and…” She gave Olivia a look of helplessness.

“You want to know how to play it so you're glad but not shoving your triumph in her face.”

“Yes!” Lori said. “That's exactly what I want.”

“Let's go over to the side and we'll figure out how to run the lines so you don't hurt your friend's feelings.”

As Casey watched the two of them walk away, she thought how sad it was that Olivia would never have her own grandchildren. Then she thought of Kit. He was older, but he was a really good-looking man. “Why in the world would you turn him down?” she said under her breath.