by Susan Crosby
No one had insulted her yet, though. She was waiting for that. Acceptance. It was probably too soon to hope for it, however.
They all sat under a covered patio after the meal, the heat dragging them down, especially on top of the enormous meal. Maggie noticed that Tony got along reasonably well with his brothers, and his sister teased him like crazy. An occasional smile touched his lips, but mostly he just teased back, dryly, pointedly, until she reacted. The byplay fascinated Maggie. Her brother had been five when he died. They’d never had a chance to have a real sibling relationship, not like this.
“Look at those kids,” Sue-Ellen said, looking out toward the range at six of her grandchildren, racing their horses and stirring up dust. “So grown up, all of ’em.” She cast a glance at Tony and Maggie sitting together nearby. “It’ll be fun to have little ones around again.”
“Mother!” Tony’s sister, Mary Beth, said, her expression apologetic as she looked at Maggie to see her reaction.
Sue-Ellen shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”
Maggie smiled then met Tony’s gaze when she felt his fingers squeeze her shoulder. He tugged on his ear. She laughed. He tugged again. So, he wanted to make a break for it? Was he uncomfortable with the subject of babies? She wondered if he was serious. Was she supposed to make some kind of excuse and get them away? It wouldn’t be right for her to do that. He needed to be the one—
“Yankin’ your chain, darlin’,” he said, leaning close to her.
“I was panicking, trying to figure out what to do,” she whispered back.
“I could see that.” He looked pleased that he’d gotten her all shook up like that.
“Just for that, I’m going to kiss you right here in front of your entire family.” She paused, waiting for his reaction, but he didn’t move away. His eyes challenged her. She inched closer and kissed him, lingering a couple of seconds, until hoots and hollers went up around them.
“See? Babies ahead,” Sue-Ellen said, satisfied.
But Maggie began to wonder about his behavior in front of his family. Usually steady and self-confident, he’d hardly let her out of his sight all day. In fact there’d barely been a moment when he wasn’t touching her, either holding her hand or slipping his arm around her, keeping her tethered to his side.
At first she thought he’d finally really relaxed, feeling at home, as if there was no chance of media intrusion to ruin things. But as the afternoon passed, she realized he was actually more tense than usual. He’d hidden it very well, but she was also coming to know him very well.
What would make him stake that kind of claim on her in front of his family?
“We’ve all heard about what movie stars demand in their dressing rooms,” Mary Beth said. “Some of it sounds crazy. What do you have to have?”
“It’s pretty boring, I think. Bottles of flavored iced tea, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers. I don’t like to work on a really full stomach. Oh, and ice cream. I love ice cream.”
“What flavor?” Mary Beth asked.
“Anything with chocolate or caramel in it.”
“You don’t look like you indulge in it.”
“I work out. Hate it,” she added, wrinkling her nose. “At home I have a trainer, because it’s hard to get myself motivated otherwise. On set, it’s difficult to find time, since we usually start very early in the morning with hair and makeup. Then there’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait going on.”
The conversation about moviemaking went on for a while longer, with almost everyone asking something, especially when the kids came back and joined them.
“Maggie, can I ask you a personal question?” Mary Beth asked.
Whatever other conversations had been taking place came to a halt instantly. Maggie stopped herself from smiling. “Sure.”
“After you announced the end of your engagement to Scott Gibson and your new engagement to Tony, there were a lot of comments that weren’t really flattering about you. How did it make you feel?”
Tony frowned. “You don’t—”
“No, it’s fine,” Maggie said. “I don’t mind. I was okay with it, Mary Beth. I know my engagement to Scott was over before Tony and I got together. If people don’t believe that, it’s their problem.”
“Didn’t some of it hurt?”
“A little. I’ve lived my life honorably, I believe, so I can’t say it didn’t sting some. But I also know how the business works. If there’s a chance to sell more magazines or get more viewers, they grab it.” Plus, how could she object? It was only payback for the deception she and Tony were perpetrating. Garnet had pushed Maggie to do an interview on one of the reputable network magazine shows, but she’d turned it down, much to Garnet’s consternation. When the marriage ended, she didn’t want sound bites of herself extolling being in love and marrying such a wonderful man haunting her—or Tony. At least, no more than were already in the vaults.
“You just keep bein’ honest,” Hoyt said. “It’s the right thing to do. And you know our family’ll back you, right?”
Maggie felt Tony react. His father hadn’t uttered a word directly to her since his first greeting when she arrived. She’d seen him speak to his wife and other sons, but short sentences, not having conversations. He’d come close to having a conversation with her just now. “Thank you so much,” she said to him, her throat closing a little.
He nodded and sat back.
“Why, anyone can see you’re an upright and truthful young woman,” Sue-Ellen added, leaning over to pat Maggie’s knee.
Guilt swamped Maggie. How can I do this to them? How can Tony? I’m falling in love with his family. They continued to bombard her with questions, but she kept a smile on her face.
She wasn’t paid the big acting bucks for nothing.
Chapter Nine
“So, where it says here in the script, Grace and Marcus kiss, it means a full-on lip-lock?” Tony asked a few nights later. They’d retired to his bedroom right after dinner, as had become their habit. He’d been running lines with her for the past hour, had noticed that things were heating up between the two lead characters and came to his own conclusion before they’d even reached the page where the scene would end in a kiss.
Tapping a pen lightly against her chin, she didn’t look up from her script. “It’s make-believe, you know,” she said, as if he’d lived in a cave all his life. “Anyway, it’s just Rafe. No big deal.”
No big deal? Rafe Valente was no big deal? He was certainly a big deal with women all around the world, as well-known for his play-the-field ways as Maggie was for her good-girl ways, probably one of the reasons they’d been paired together for the movie—built-in conflict just in the pairing.
Tony also knew that Maggie had been romantically linked to more than one of her leading men through the years.
When he didn’t say anything, she finally gave him her full attention, even setting her script aside. “What’s going on, Tony? You’ve been different ever since the barbecue at your parents’ house. That’s three days.”
“Different how? And why aren’t you answering my question?”
“Yes, it’s a full-on lip-lock,” she answered evenly. “How else do people kiss?”
“How long does it usually take to get it right? Till the director is okay with it?”
She smiled in a way he didn’t like at all. “Why, Tony, I do believe you’re jealous.”
“Hell, no, I’m not jealous. I don’t get jealous. Waste of time and energy, and destructive at that.”
“I’m glad to hear it. It’d probably be a good idea for you to stay away from the set, though, just in case it does end up tapping into your time and energy.” She went back to reviewing her dialogue, mouthing her lines, gesturing.
“I can handle it,” he insisted.
“Good.” She climbed off the bed and paced while she continued. She was working on an entire page of uninterrupted dialogue where her character was supposed to be explaining why she’d been lying to the hero about her
reasons for showing up on his ranch, interrupting the man’s ten years of self-enforced isolation.
“I’ve been different, how?” Tony pressed.
“Tony, I really need to get this done. I always show up prepared.”
“This’ll only take a minute. Quick answer and you’re done.”
She sighed, then she sat on the bed beside him, facing him. “Okay. You were different at your parents’ house. You…stuck to me like glue, almost.”
“I was looking out for you. First time meeting a big family like that can be nerve-racking.”
“I think I was holding my own okay. And you were behaving differently, I don’t care what you say. Were you afraid I’d embarrass you or something?”
“Hell, no. I was proud to have you on my arm.” Maybe he shouldn’t tell her that…
“It seemed beyond pride to me.” She looked away for a second, as if debating something. “Were you feeling as bad as I was for misleading them? Before too long we’ll be telling them the marriage is over—something we already know. And your mother is so happy. Was that weighing on you?”
Mostly he’d been showing off. He was going to be marrying Maggie McShane, the circumstances of which didn’t matter, as far as he was concerned, and yet at the end of the party he hadn’t been as satisfied as he’d thought he would be. His father hadn’t treated him any differently, just like years ago when he’d won his first trophy—
Whoa. Now he was thinking of her as a trophy?
He took Maggie’s hands in his. “Yes. I felt bad about lying to my family, too,” he said, deciding to take the easy, and still honest, way out. He didn’t want her to know how frustrated he was with his father—had been for years—because he’d never acknowledged what he’d accomplished. It was as if it was expected of him. And, unlike his brothers, he’d done it all without his father’s help.
“That’s the worst part of this whole situation, at least to me,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I would forget. They all made me feel so much at home. I’d thought they would be hard to get to know, based on some of the things you’d told me. I found them all very open.”
Because you haven’t disappointed them yet, he thought. Then they’ll shut down. Oh, not completely. He was still part of the family, after all, but he wasn’t treated the same as his brothers and sister, not by his father, anyway.
“Satisfied?” Maggie asked. “Did I answer your questions?”
“Yeah.” He wanted to kiss her, hard and long, then drag her under him, and make her forget she would be kissing America’s Heartthrob tomorrow. It was getting more and more difficult not to make love to her, not to hold her close during the night, although sometimes that happened spontaneously as they slept. Whether he instigated it or she did, he didn’t know. He just knew that occasionally he woke up with her nestled against him, her hand on his abdomen, her breath warm against his flesh.
He needed to work harder at this wooing business, he decided. He’d been treading too carefully.
“I think we should practice the kiss,” he said.
She smiled. “Really?”
He sat up a little more and met her gaze. “What do you think? Soft? Hard? Over and done with fast? Or slow and easy?” He framed her face with his hands, let his thumbs brush her cheeks, saw her eyes darken.
“The director will tell—”
He shook his head. “If you were the director. You know the script. How would you see it?” He wanted her to take the lead. She hadn’t so far, not since that helluva night in bed they had at the motel. But he also thought she’d been holding back a lot. A whole lot. Her body language spoke volumes. “Pretend you’re Marcus and I’m Grace,” Tony said. “You lead.”
Her eyes flashed. She liked the idea. The challenge. “I have to get on my knees,” she said, moving to do so. “Be taller than you.”
There was something strangely exhilarating about the reversal of their positions, of her looking down on him, especially when she lowered herself toward him. But as she neared, she grinned.
“Stay in character,” he urged, the anticipation driving him crazy. His heart thundered.
Finally she kissed his temple, his eyebrow, his eyelid. He closed his eyes, letting himself just feel, enjoying her being in charge. She made a small sound of need as she repeated the kisses on the other side. She rubbed his earlobes with gentle fingers. When had they become erogenous zones? His throat vibrated.
She pulled back.
“Don’t stop,” he said, looking at her, seeing something like panic in her eyes.
“It’s one thing for us to kiss in front of other people because we need to seem like a couple,” she said. “This is…different. Tempting. Too tempting.”
“We won’t let it get out of hand.”
“I’m not sure I trust myself that much.”
Ahh. Just what he wanted to hear. “Then trust me. I won’t let anything happen except a kiss. Keep going. It’s safe.”
She stared back, then finally, “Close your eyes.”
He did. Her lips brushed across his, feathery touches that woke up every suppressed hormone in his body. She pulled back, came at him again, the contact lasting a little longer, a little deeper. Then her tongue traveled along his jaw, leaving a damp trail that her breath made even more sensitive. Her mouth descended again, her tongue lightly sweeping his lips. He opened them, let her inside, all warm and curious.
A long, throaty sound escaped him as he met her tongue with his. She pushed him back onto the bed, straddled him, made love with her tongue. He ran his hands down her back, over her rear and cupped her, spreading her legs farther apart, settling her on him, aligning her, feeling her heat even through their clothes.
He needed this. Needed her. He’d been slowly going crazy having her nearby for the past couple of weeks and not doing anything about it, except get stirred up when they were in public. He thought he had a lot of self-control—
She sat straight up, panting, pressed a hand to her mouth. “We can’t do this.”
He didn’t say anything. How could he?
“It’d be too hard to end it when the time comes.” She moved off him. “I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted my instincts.” She went into the bathroom and shut the door.
And he was left frustrated, physically and mentally. A common state, these days.
He should stay away. Tony knew he should stay far, far away from the set. Maggie wasn’t going to be happy that he’d shown up in time to watch her love scene, but he was going crazy at home, barking orders at his foreman, making his own horse skittish, feeling a need to do something physical and strenuous.
Instead he’d taken a drive to the set, parked way off in the distance as he’d been told to and walked quietly to where the action was taking place. He already knew it was supposed to happen in the barn, with broken hay bales scattered around to make a place for them to break their fall as the kiss got deeper.
“Don’t think it’s a good idea, you being here,” Dino said, coming up beside him, walking at the same pace.
“Tough.” His frustration needed some kind of outlet.
“Especially not with an attitude.”
Tony stopped before they got in hearing range of the crew. “I have an attitude?”
Dino smiled. “Mr. Iverson won’t think twice about kicking you off the set. You want that? You want Maggie to go through that humiliation?”
“No.” They hadn’t had a fight yet. He didn’t want to start.
“Then go home.”
“I can handle it.”
“No, you can’t. Trust me. I’ve watched it happen before. Not with Maggie,” he added. “With lots of other couples. If you want to keep your sanity, you stay away during love scenes. It’ll be bad enough watching it on-screen.”
“I know what I can handle.”
Dino shook his head several times, slowly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Then don’t.” Tony started walking again. “You can come with me. If you se
e I can’t handle it, you can take me out.”
“Mr. Iverson’s not gonna let you on set, Tony. I’m telling you to keep you from being embarrassed. Go home.”
He knew the second Maggie realized he was there. She went completely still, even as someone was fluffing her hair and someone else was dusting her face with a makeup brush. She wore supertight jeans and a low-cut blouse. Other people turned to see what she was looking at.
Mac Iverson finally noticed. His shoulders slumped. Tucking his clipboard under his arm, he started toward Tony, but Maggie rushed up and stopped him, then walked the forty feet to Tony. Dino slipped away.
She gave Tony a hug, looking like a loving fiancée—if one didn’t see her face.
“I’m leaving,” he said before she started talking.
“This is business, Tony.”
It bothered him that she didn’t smile once. It showed she was pretty ticked off at him. “Any chance of you getting home early enough to go for a ride?” he asked.
“After this scene, I’ll be done for the day.”
“So, I should wait around?”
“There’s a lot of setup and follow-up. It may only be thirty seconds in the movie, but it’ll take a long time to film.”
“Places, please,” the director shouted.
Tony had to let her go do her job—kiss a man most women drooled over. “See you later,” he said.
“Count on it.”
He turned and walked away, not looking back. She’d moved into the barn by the time he got into his truck, started it and finally looked out the windshield.
Tony chewed himself out all the way back to the ranch. He was acting like a dumb teenager in…lust. His hormones had been overriding his common sense ever since she’d moved in.
Hell, he’d never experienced a flicker of jealousy before, and here he was, making a fool of himself and putting pressure on her, embarrassing her in front of the people she worked with. She’d already had enough gossip to deal with.