by Nancy Bush
Irritated, Hayley snapped, “Read the menu and see.”
“Can I order two sandwiches?”
Leaning close to her, Hayley responded quietly, “I’m giving you a meal and fifty bucks. That’s it. You wanna do business or not?”
“I haven’t decided. Where’s the money, sweet-talker?”
With careful deliberation, Hayley pulled two twenties and a ten from the pocket of her black cords—Stanbury’s uniform. Mrs. Carver stuffed the bills into her slim, black clutch purse.
“You wanna come out Saturday night?”
The question was offered so casually, Hayley almost missed the implication. Her pulse rocketed, making her feel slightly weak. She was strong, invincible, except when it came to sex and men. She wanted to run from this situation she was setting up that would be nothing less than intolerable.
But then she saw herself receiving cheers, adulation, and awards. She pictured herself immersed in scripts and challenging scenes, working until she dropped, surrounded by people as driven and insatiably ambitious as herself. Everyone yearned to be Hayley Scott.
“Just tell me where, and I’ll be there.”
Rubbing her hands over her face Dinah pushed aside the hard copy of her latest article. It wasn’t due until Thursday and she didn’t feel like editing it right now.
Alone again, she poured herself another glass of wine and sat out on the beachfront deck, circling the bottom of her wine goblet across the pebbled-glass table, spreading the condensation into little droplets. She drank slowly until she was a little drunk and a little sad. Her bones felt like water and she was half-convinced that if she sank down into the squeaky cushions of Denise’s outdoor love seat she would melt.
It was at times like these—those few moments when she stopped and reflected—that she thought about, wallowed in, the ruins of her youth. She was a fraud. A total flimflam. What the hell did she know about love, anyway? Yet she wrote about it every day. Every goddamn day as if it were her driving force.
Love makes the world go ’round. All it had done for the three Scott sisters was create pain and destruction.
But then, it wasn’t really love that had motivated Thomas Daniels, although that couldn’t be said for Mama. Mama had fallen deeply, obsessively, in love, and when Thomas’s conquests had become more common knowledge than Friday night’s high school football score, Nina Scott Daniels had spent her days and nights lying on her lonely bed, lights out, claiming her despair and listlessness were all part and parcel of the trials of raising three headstrong young women.
Oh, Mama, we all knew better.
Denise had been a handful, that was true. And Hayley’s stubborn determination could be unbearable. She, Dinah, had always harbored big dreams and planned to scale insurmountable walls. But so what? They were all normal. Healthy. Possessed of women’s own peculiar strengths and weaknesses.
Except...
Dinah gulped her wine too fast and tears came to her eyes. She coughed and coughed, then absurdly, lusted for a cigarette though in high school she’d only dabbled at smoking to look cool. Thomas Daniels. If she believed herself capable of true hate, he’d be the reason. She also suspected he was a closet pedophile, though he’d never laid a hand on her or her sisters. Anyway, he’d never touched her, and Denise and Hayley had both vehemently denied the charge that fateful night Dinah had been forced to bring it up.
But those glittery, lustful stares! She’d been on the receiving end of those a time or two and it was enough to freeze your blood right in your veins. That’s what Mama had seen and understood, and that’s what had sent her to the dim sanctuary of her bedroom.
Thomas had worked as a carpenter and made more than a few conquests in the privacy of his victim’s homes. He’d been a handsome man in a rough, base sort of way.
Dinah had found him particularly disgusting, and whenever she met a man with that kind of burly build, with just the right color of near black hair, with that hint of a hidden smile, a judgment on women as a whole, she was repelled.
Glen Bosworth had been Thomas Daniels’s exact opposite: aesthetically slim; sandy-haired with an appealing, studious look accentuated by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses; dry; clever; and sensitive.
And avaricious.
Dinah smiled wryly. The sun was setting, turning the water into a murky shade of iodine. It was glorious. Maybe there was more to Los Angeles than varying shades of gray, she could admit grudgingly to herself, but she still looked forward to the beauty and dry heat of Santa Fe.
She thought about her current article. Flick would like it. She was good at writing clever stories about relationships with the opposite sex, great at delivering anecdotes about failed love affairs, ones she’d sometimes experienced, but more often merely imagined. Surfacy stories. Vignettes about why she was mad at him, or why he went crazy when she did this or that.
But she never scratched beneath the surface. She was too afraid.
Still, e-mails poured in. Lonely people wanting to know how she resolved her problems. She sometimes worked with a psychologist to make certain her answers were fair and helpful. Lord knew she was no expert. She hadn’t the faintest idea how to make a real relationship last. If she were important enough to be researched, it might be a problem, but as it was, no one cared much about her bona fides at the Review.
Anyway, maybe love was all an illusion. As insubstantial as dust motes. As deceptive as this silly charade she was playing for Denise’s benefit.
She looked around herself. At Denise’s house and beachfront property. If someone questioned who she was and what she was doing, would she tell them the truth?
Dinah considered. Hell, no. She could be Denise for a while. Why not? Maybe she’d incorporate it into one of her later stories: “Role Playing to Spice Up Your Sex Life.”
Oh, yeah? She laughed aloud. Well, she could manufacture something up; she was an expert at manufacturing something up. Better than revealing the plain, boring truth.
Twenty minutes later she trundled up to the guest room. Slipping out of her clothes, she fell into bed, asleep inside of five minutes. She was so deep in slumber that later, when the tickle of air over her bare arms penetrated Dinah’s sleep-fogged brain, she incorporated it into her dream. She was on a windy beach, immersed in sunshine and idle time. Snuggling deeper into the covers, she drew the slippery satin sheets of the guest room bed up to her chin, refusing to be pulled into reality just yet.
The breeze feathered the hair at her temples—a cool, chilly breath. She couldn’t ignore it forever. Sighing, Dinah lifted one sleepy eyelid. Had she left a window open? Reluctantly raising her head, she saw the light was on in the hall.
Her heart jolted. She distinctly remembered turning it off.
Throwing back the covers, she fumbled for the switch to her bedside lamp, then bit back a scream when a huge hand clamped over her mouth.
“Don’t scream,” a very male, very low, nerve-tingling voice commanded.
She screamed anyway, a pathetic, pinched sound behind hard fingers. The smell of alcohol was heavy and rich. Oh, God. Her head swam with fear.
“I’ve tried to be fair, but you’re a bigger bitch than I even thought. You’re not going to ruin Blackbird. I won’t let you. So forget about that audition or so help me God, I’ll throw you out on your cute little ass right now.”
With his free hand, he switched on the lamp. Dinah gazed in wide-eyed silence at the lean, masculine face bending over her. Steely blue eyes regarded her without humor. Thin lips formed an uncompromising line. An incredibly perfect, aquiline nose looked out of place on that otherwise rugged countenance.
Realization dawned. John Callahan in the flesh.
He slowly lifted his hand from her mouth, but Dinah couldn’t find the breath to speak.
“Don’t look so petrified. The last thing on my mind right now is you,” he snarled in an ugly tone.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, clearing her throat when she heard the shaky timbre of h
er voice.
“Your choice, Denise,” he responded in a deep drawl. “Make it.”
Dinah stared at him. “What?”
“The audition.” His teeth were set. “That goddamn Sandberg called me today and I told him to shut up about you. You’ve really got your nerve. I wouldn’t put you in the role of Isabella if I was guaranteed an Academy Award!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.”
That did it. Why was she arguing with him? She was supposed to be Denise, and since he didn’t seem to realize she wasn’t, well . . . “Get the hell out of my house!”
The look on his face changed suddenly from cool tolerance to hard-eyed fury. Dinah automatically shrank back, but he pinned her shoulders against the bed.
“Don’t,” she murmured, suddenly frightened.
He swore something unintelligible, then with a deft muscular twist, tossed her over his shoulder. Her stomach slammed into hard bone and muscle, knocking the breath from her lungs. She shrieked in surprise, legs flailing. Rocklike arms clamped against her legs as he strode toward the door. Her nose bumped into a cotton, blue work shirt as she bounced against him.
It happened so fast they were in the hallway before she started to struggle in earnest. No use. His arms were too strong, his determination too deep.
“Good-bye, my love,” he mocked.
“You can’t throw me out!”
For an answer he strode along the gallery toward the stairs.
“Wait!” she cried. By God, he meant to actually do it. He was going to literally toss her out of the house.
“I’ll ship your things later,” he said with a first note of humor. “Leave an address.”
In impotent fury she pummeled his muscled back with her fists. She kicked wildly and he tightened his grip around her legs and grabbed one wrist behind her back. “This is my house!” she yelled. “Put me down or you’ll be the sorriest man that ever lived!”
“I already am. And for the record,” he added through clenched teeth as Dinah attempted to bite his wrist, “this is my house. You’re a guest.”
Dinah struggled to knee him in the crotch. “You—god—damn—bastard!”
One knee connected square and his groan of pain intensified her struggle. But his strength was phenomenal. He squeezed her wrist and ankle so tightly, she was certain she’d have bruises.
He carried her outside, to the deck where she’d been peaceably drinking her wine scant hours before. Waves crashed somewhere beyond. Dinah twisted violently.
White-ruffled breakers leaped against a deep, black sky. She kicked, but John Callahan’s strong hands were iron manacles.
“Let go of me!” Dinah screamed in fury.
“You incredible bitch,” he said in wonder. “You don’t know when to give up.” He swung her upward.
“Don’t! Wait! My God!”
“Good-bye, my love,” he said again, this time with a twinge of irony.
Then she was bodily thrown over the deck rail to the cold beach sand, three feet below.
Chapter Four
She screamed with all her might!
A half second later she hit the cold, dank beach. Sand went up her nose and grated against her teeth. She couldn’t believe it. Could—not—believe it! He’d thrown her over the side of the deck as if she were so much garbage.
Clenching her hands, Dinah gathered up two fistfuls of the grainy, gray stuff, so infuriated, she was almost afraid to move, certain she would combust into a pile of supercharged atoms if she so much as twitched.
How dare he? How dare he?
Sputtering, she leaped to her feet, ready to climb over the deck rail and hurl herself at him.
But he was gone. She heard the deck door slide closed and the lock click with cold finality behind him. He’d dumped her unceremoniously and turned on his heel. She would have him arrested for assault! She would sue the bastard for bodily harm!
Quick as a cat, she dashed past the birds of paradise and draping bougainvillea that lined the flagstone pathway to the front door. She knew where the spare key was; she’d hidden it herself. With a speed that defied belief, she snatched the key from a tiny hidden hook beneath the cantilevered siding, twisted it in the lock, and half stumbled, half fell inside.
She was in the foyer before John Callahan’s small brain and long legs had connected that she might be wily enough to find a way back inside. But he must have heard her because determined footsteps approached from the kitchen almost immediately. Frozen, Dinah hovered in the center of the tile foyer, undecided and alarmed but with her anger spiraling into the stratosphere.
Who the hell did he think he was? No wonder Denise had asked for her help. Dinah was tougher, generally cooler in the midst of a fight (though her limbs were shaking with such fury right now, it was hard to tell), and incredibly sharp-tongued and incisive when she was certain she was in the right.
And she was in the right. No question about that. This was Denise’s house and her husband had bodily thrown her out, dumping her with such cool disdain onto the beach below that Dinah could scarcely believe it even now. She could have been hurt. Seriously hurt.
For the briefest of moments a glimmer of junior high revenge brightened her thoughts. She would feign injury. Cry crocodile tears. Or better yet, stoically fight back the pain that his thoughtlessly cruel actions had wrought, proving how brave she was and how sadistically wrong he was.
She would sue him, by God. Toss his arrogant ass into court.
As Denise? her mind questioned. That would never work. There had to be something she could do.
The footsteps grew louder, closer. Dinah held her breath, fighting an absurd impulse to run. Then Callahan appeared in the archway between the lower hall and the foyer.
But he didn’t stop there. He strode purposely forward, his strides devouring the space between them in less than two seconds. It was a move meant to intimidate, and Dinah, had she been any less strong, would have shrunk into herself as a means of protection. Perversely, her own hardships were what saved her now. Years of dealing with a sociopathic stepfather followed by Flick’s acid test in the business world had honed Dinah’s strength to a pure, fine point. If he took one step nearer, she’d gouge him with all her fiery willpower. Her eyes narrowed in anticipation.
Five feet away he stopped short to stare at her. It was then she realized she wasn’t acting anything like her sister.
John Callahan was facing a woman he didn’t know.
Dinah’s throat closed in fear.
“Denise?” His voice was slightly rough, just short of gravelly. The hair on her arms stood on end.
“I could have you arrested,” she accused, her tone so steely it brought his eyebrows crashing together.
Once more she smelled the subtle fragrance of hard alcohol, a musky, dangerous scent that nevertheless Dinah found perversely attractive. It had been nice when Thomas Daniels drank. He was less vicious, more inclined to fall into a dumb stupor than predatorily follow after her and her sisters with his mean little eyes. It was ass backward, she knew; most people shuddered at the destruction that living with an alcoholic caused. But Thomas hadn’t been an alcoholic. Alert and at the top of his senses was when he’d been the most unpredictable. Stone-cold sober he was a predator who made Dinah feel insecure and who sent Hayley and Denise scuttling to the corners of the house in order to escape his notice.
Dinah had forced herself to face off with him. Afraid, but unwilling to show it, she’d refused to back down when she’d sensed one of his “moods.” It had served her and her sisters well. Thomas’s cowardice had prevented him from doing all those things she read in his eyes that he wanted to do.
Now she sized up Callahan. A bully. Like her good old stepdaddy, Thomas Daniels.
Her eyes narrowed to aquamarine slits. Callahan’s jaw locked, hard as stone and just as unyielding. Dinah’s pulse fluttered but her expression remained challenging and full of icy indignation.
“Been here? This is my house. I’ve always been here.”
Did he hear the faint, telltale shake in her voice? Lord, she hoped not. You couldn’t give a man like Callahan the least little hint that your emotions weren’t as secure as they looked.
“Really,” he stated flatly.
“Yes, really.”
She didn’t like his tone. And the way he stared at her. Did he know? Could he know? She wasn’t the actress Denise was, but by God, she was going to give an Oscar-winning performance now if it killed her. What was he doing here?
“So my promiscuous wife has developed a backbone,” he murmured. “Congratulations.”
She didn’t answer. She would have liked to defend Denise’s honor, but it would have been wasted effort.
“That doesn’t mean you own this house,” he pointed out coldly.
“I own this house,” she disagreed.
He raked a hand through his hair, a thought-gathering gesture that was curiously seductive. Probably practices in front of a mirror, she thought with an inward snort.
“That won’t get you in Blackbird. I’ll cut off my right arm before I ever put you in a film again.”
He was obsessed with this film idea. “My claim is to this house. That’s all I want. Except that I want you out of it,” she added as an afterthought.
His expression changed to weariness mixed with annoyance. Dinah had the feeling she’d stumbled onto worn ground. “You’re so damn free with lies,” he bit out. “It’s nearly your least attractive trait.” At her stony look of incomprehension, he added, “Ah, come on. We both know what the other one is.”
“I think you’d better spell it out,” she said stonily.
“Well, let’s see. The last spelling I cared about was D-E-R-E-K. But then I’m sure to be behind the times.”
The rumors surrounding Denise swirled inside Dinah’s head. Callahan wanted her to believe them. He acted as if he believed them totally, but then, maybe that was merely a matter of blame shifting.