Windstar (12 page)

“Oh!” she said with excitement rife in her voice. “I found a recipe for a tortilla casserole you are going to love! I can’t wait to make it for you.”

“I can’t wait for you to come home and share my bed with me,” he said quietly.

Angela drew in a breath, her heart thumping hard against her chest. “W … what?”

“You heard me,” he said. “We’ve been talking around it, wench, but now I’ve said it. When you come home, we’re going to sit down and ….”

“I’ve got to go!” she said. “Be good!”

“Angela …,” he began, but she had already hung up and he realized she had not told him where in Maine she was staying the night. “Son of a bitch!” he snarled, pitching the cell phone on the floor with enough force to crack the plastic case. He picked it up to make sure it still worked and was relieved to hear the dial tone.

When she didn’t call the next night, he paced the floor until three in the morning then threw the phone down and stomped on it until it was completely destroyed. At his six
AM
wake- up, he turned into a vulgar-mouthed, raving lunatic who insulted the makeup artist, blew his lines, was surly to the director, hateful to his co-stars, and downright mean to the people at craft services, having one of the poor women in tears at his insufferable outburst. The only thing he didn’t do was kick his horse, though he came perilously close to doing just that when the animal balked at his rough treatment of it. By the time he had nearly demolished the interior of his motor home, breaking whatever he could get his hands on, the producer showed up at his door with a heavy scowl firmly in place and a chubby finger pointed straight at Rory.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Keith?” Jesse Brewster demanded. “Are you on drugs again?”

“I don’t do drugs!” Rory snarled at the money man. “I’ve never done fucking drugs!”

“Then what is it? Booze? A broad?” At Rory’s expression, Brewster nodded knowingly, chomping the cigar in his mouth between his teeth. “It’s a broad. Well, son, you’d better get over it real quick because you’re costing me money and I won’t have any more of your shit. You hearing me?”

“I hear you,” Rory snorted, turned around, and stalked off.

“You’d better hear me, boy!” Brewster yelled after him. “You ain’t so cute I can’t replace your ass!”

Rory lifted his middle finger in the air as he slammed into his motor home to find Bobby sitting at the bar.

“You got a call from Angie,” Bobby told him. “She tried calling your cell, but I guess it’s not working.” He glanced down at what was left of the cell phone lying in the middle of the floor.

“So she fucking calls you, huh?” Rory growled. “Why the fuck did she call
you
?”

“Because she couldn’t reach you?” Bobby suggested with a roll of his eyes. “I told her to call back in half an hour.”

Rory plopped down on the sofa and kicked off his boots. “Aye, well maybe I don’t want to talk to her,” he said, his brogue so thick Bobby barely understood him.

Bobby held his cell phone out to Rory. “Do you or don’t you?”

Rory snatched it out of his hand and tossed it to the sofa. “Right at the moment, I don’t fucking know if I will or not.”

Throwing his hands in the air, Bobby left the trailer, mumbling something about pigheaded Scots.

His eyes drifting to the phone, Rory crossed his arms over his chest and lay there waiting for the thing to ring. The longer he waited, the madder he got so that by the time the silly ring tone peeled, he was sorely tempted to ignore it. Snarling, cursing under his breath, he finally picked it up before it could go to voice mail and barked into the mouthpiece.

“You’d better have a fucking good reason for not calling me last night, wench!” he shouted into the phone. “I sat up until three in the fucking morning waiting for you to fucking call and you ….”

“Sharon died last night,” came the soft words, hitting his ear like the blow of a sledgehammer.

His hand tightened on the cell phone. “What?” he whispered.

“She came downstairs while I was talking to you night before last and I took one look at her and knew she needed to go to the emergency room,” she said, her voice listless, hollow. “They did all they could but she died at 2:50
AM
this morning. I’ve been trying to reach you since four. The studio wouldn’t take a message.”

He scrubbed a hand down his whiskered face. “God, baby, I’m sorry. I …” He heard her sob. “Angela?”

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice breaking. “Rory, I don’t know what to do!” She broke down into keening.

“I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything.” He remembered he had no idea where she was. “Where are you?”

“Bangor. I’m in Bangor,” she said and he could barely make out her words. “At the Rustic Lodge.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can!”

Hanging up after trying to calm her down, he ran out of the motor home, shouting for Bobby. When his assistant finally answered, Rory gave orders to get him a charter jet--damn the expense--and to get ready to accompany him to Maine.

“What’s happened?” Bobby asked. He’d known something was wrong when she’d called him, had tried to get her to tell what was wrong but she’d only wanted to talk to Rory.

“Her friend died,” Rory told him.

“Oh, shit,” Bobby said. “Okay, I’ll handle it. You’d better go talk to Brewster and Reynolds.”

Rory nodded. The last thing he wanted was to have to deal with the executive producer and director of the movie but unless he never wanted to work again, he needed to make as nice to them as he could, hoping they’d be willing to shoot around him instead of suing his ass.

“You’re shitting me!” Brewster said then waved a dismissive hand. “Get the hell out of here, then. You’re no use to us until this is settled. We’ll shoot around you.”

It took less than an hour to charter a Gulf Stream and another half hour for the luxury plane to get airborne. The entire time Rory sat in the plush leather chair, chewing on a thumbnail, and stared sightlessly out the window. Even as rain lashed the glass, he didn’t seem to notice.

* * * *

She was sitting quietly in the lobby as prim and proper as any well-bred southern debutante. Her knees were pressed together, legs to one side, her back straight and not touching the chair. Her head was down, her hands clasped in her lap and she didn’t hear the gasp of breath as Rory Keith came hurrying in.

“There she is,” Bobby said uselessly as he followed in Rory’s wake.

He came to her and hunkered down at her feet, smiling softly as she lifted her head to look at him.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted her, reaching out to cover her hands with his. He caressed her chilled flesh.

“Hey,” she replied. Her eyes were swollen, her nose red, and her bottom lip trembled.

“You still have your room here?” he asked gently.

She nodded and watched as he twisted around and looked at Bobby. “Find out what you can from the manager. I’ll take her upstairs.”

Bobby met Angela’s tearful gaze. “We’ll take care of everything, Angie. Don’t you worry, okay?”

“Thank you, Bobby,” she said.

Rory got to his feet and without another word, bent to lift her into his arms, hefting her high against his muscular chest.

“I can walk,” she said, but she put her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Aye, well, so can I,” he replied. He carried her toward the elevator. “This is me walking.”

She smiled against his body and tightened her grip on him.

They said nothing on the way up to her room and when he got her there, called out to a maid to have her come open Angela’s door.

“Poor thing,” the Hispanic woman said. “She’s been sitting downstairs all morning.”

“Turn her bed down, will ya, love?” he asked the maid.

The woman finally realized who it was she was standing beside and visibly started. Her dark eyes grew round as she hurried in to do as he asked.

Rory didn’t know he was carrying her toward the bed Sharon had slept in. “Not there,” he heard her say. “That’s Sharon’s.”

The maid turned away from that bed and pulled the spread and sheet down on Angela’s. She stepped aside so Rory could lay the still woman down. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Keith?” she asked.

“You have a bar here?” he asked. At her nod, he asked for a double shot of whiskey. “As strong as the bartender’s got.”

“Yes, sir,” the maid replied.

Angela curled up in the bed on her side, her back to him. She was wearing a long sleeveless summer dress and he bent over to take her sandals off.

“You wanna get butt naked with me, wench?” he asked as he sat down beside her and pulled off his boots so he could sit with her. He tugged his shirt from the waistband of his jeans.

“I want you to hold me,” she answered and when he drew his legs up on the bed, she went into his arms, half-lying against him as he stroked her back and smoothed her hair.

“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “I’m damned good at holding.”

She snuggled against him and started crying.

“Oh babe,” he said, feeling helpless as her body shook against his. “What can I do?”

The maid came in with the glass of whiskey and her kind eyes grew moist. She set the glass down on the nightstand and told Rory to call if he needed anything else. Quietly letting herself out, she put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door behind her.

“I didn’t just hang up on you,” Angela said. “I saw her come out of the elevator and ….”

“I know,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

She pulled her head back and looked up at him. “I didn’t want you to think I hung up because of what you said.”

He caressed her cheek. “I understand.” He leaned over and took up the glass of whiskey. “Here. I want you to drink this.”

She made a face but obliged him, gagging at the sharp, stinging taste, but she managed to get most of it down before she shook her head. “No more. That’s awful.”

He lifted the glass to his nose and took a whiff. “Pretty strong stuff,” he agreed. “Drink.”

“Rory ….”

“Drink,” he ordered, putting the glass to her lips.

She held her nose and gulped the rest of the whiskey, coughing as the liquor burned her throat.

There was a light tapping at the door and Bobby called out that it was him.

“Just a minute,” Rory said and eased his arm from around Angela and got off the bed, padding in his stocking feet to the door. When he opened it, Bobby slipped inside.

“I talked to the manager and to the authorities. There won’t be any need for an autopsy but they want to know what to do with the body,” he said in a low voice.

“We’ll have to discuss funeral arrangements and getting the body back to ….” Rory began, but Angela’s low voice stopped him.

“She didn’t want a funeral. She said to just cremate her and for me to take the ashes home to Georgia,” she told them.

“I’ll see about contacting a crematorium,” Bobby said. “Anything else you need me to do?”

“Someone will have to turn the rental car in,” Angela said.

“Bobby can drive it back to New York and turn it in there,” Rory said and at her listless nod, he told Bobby to get a room there for they’d be spending the night.

“You sure?” Bobby asked.

“I’m positive,” Rory snapped. “Just do it.”

“Okay.”

Bobby left and Rory came back to the bed, stretching out once again beside her. He enfolded her in his arms and rested his chin atop her head.

“Are you going to get into trouble with the studio?” she asked.

“Nah,” he scoffed. “They’ll shoot around me.” He ran his palm lightly up and down her arm.

“Rory?”

“Yeah, babe?”

She said nothing for a moment then pushed against him so she could look up into his eyes. She held his inquisitive gaze. “Life is short,” she said. “Sharon lied to me when she said she had two months. She knew it was only weeks. It breaks my heart that she didn’t even have that much time.”

“I know,” he said and smoothed the hair back from her temple.

“I love you.” She said it simply, without fanfare, without her voice breaking.

He grinned at her. “Finally succumbed to me lucky charms, huh?”

She put her fingertips to his finely chiseled lips, answering his smile. “You wore me down, Boss Man.”

“You know I’ll hold you to those words, now, don’t you?” he asked, searching her gaze. “There won’t be any taking them back. There’s no do-overs involved in this.”

“I would like to hear your feelings on it, though,” she said. “On what I said.”

“That you love me?” He snorted. “Hell, wench. Every woman between the ages of two months and a hundred loves me. Why should you be any different?”

“Conceited oaf,” she said with a sigh. “To you everything is a joke.”

“You want jokes or you want to hear me say I love you with all my heart and all my soul and all my massive ego?”

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“With all my heart and all my soul and most of my massive ego,” he said. “That part of me that isn’t madly in love with myself.”

She shook her head and though she felt like crying again she settled down in his arms and put her arm around his waist. “You are so not stuck on yourself are you?”

“Of course, we’ll have to hire a housekeeper to replace you,” he said and when her head snapped up his eyebrows rose. “Won’t we?”

“Hell, no!” she said. “That’s still my job. I like taking care of you and making a home for you. I want to care for you and make you a proper home, and I don’t want any other woman living with us!”

“Well, I suppose that’s good then,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how I’d pay another housekeeper’s salary plus meet our water bill obligations.”

She gave him a playful pinch. “I know a way to settle that problem, Keith.”

“How’s that?”

Her eyes went dark with desire. “We could share a shower.”

His smile was slow and full of wicked delight. “Well, now, wench, that is, indeed, a possible solution to the matter.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “A damned good one, actually. It just might keep me out of the poorhouse.”

He leaned down and took her mouth with his, his tongue sliding sensuously over her bottom lip to get her to open to him, his teeth pulled her lip down so he could slide inside, taste her, thrust deeply.