by Ruth Langan
That night, as Jace fed the news to the networks, he had been completely poised—his face, his voice, devoid of the emotions churning inside him. He was, as always, the complete professional. Looking back on it he realized he’d never permitted himself to give voice to his grief, choosing instead to push himself to work even harder, to block the feelings.
It was only one of the hundreds of instances in which he’d suppressed his emotions on the job. It was the only way he knew how to survive. But he was only now beginning to realize what a terrible price he’d paid for his stoicism. Though he still couldn’t bring himself to speak of them, the scenes of all that carnage haunted him. And something as simple as an attack by a hungry hawk could bring the memories flooding back, casting a pall on the day.
He ran a hand through his hair and realized he was sweating. He hadn’t really left any of it behind. He’d brought it all home with him. And he feared it might remain with him for a lifetime.
By the time Jace returned to the cabin, Ciara had added a fresh log to the fire and had set her boots nearby to dry.
As he placed the carton of milk on the counter, she noticed that he had carefully composed his features. But, though he was no longer frowning, there was no warmth in his eyes. Whatever memories he carried, they hadn’t been resolved, she thought. They’d merely been tucked away.
Like her, he’d come here to be alone—to think, to bleed, to resolve. And then, hopefully, to move on. But like her, he was forced to snatch what little time he could find alone, to do just that. She wished, for both their sakes, that the snow would melt quickly, so that each of them could find the solitude they sought.
Jace stepped outside and retrieved the rusty generator that he’d hauled from the shed.
“You have a choice to go with the hot chocolate—” she poured milk into a pan and set it over the fire “—plain toast or cinnamon toast.”
“That’s it? No sandwiches? No soup?” He closed the cabin door and slipped out of his parka and boots.
Ciara grinned. “You can have whatever you’d like. As for me, I wouldn’t want to spoil my appetite for that fabulous dinner you’re going to make.”
“You’re not going to let me forget about that, are you?” He spread newspapers over the floor, then knelt and began disassembling the motor.
“Not a chance.” She set bread over the coals, turning it often until it was evenly browned on both sides. “After all, it isn’t every day I have a reporter willing to feed me.”
He glanced over, enjoying the way her hair had escaped from the ponytail to dip provocatively over one eye. “Oh, I bet there are plenty of reporters willing to take you to dinner.”
“Sure. And they’re all after something. A scoop about a fling with my leading man. A feud with my director. A catfight with some other actress.”
He couldn’t resist saying, “Not to mention those reporters who would just like to get you into bed.”
Instead of disagreeing, she surprised him by nodding. “That too. So they can brag about it the next day. You wouldn’t believe how many sharks there are out there who feed on celebrities.”
At the tone of her voice he looked up. “Sounds like you’ve been bitten a time or two.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been bitten. But I’ll never give them the satisfaction of seeing me bleed.”
“So you came up here to bleed in private.”
“Yeah.” She thought about it a minute. “I guess I did.” She looked over. “How about you? Any blood left in those veins?”
“Very little. I practically bled to death before I made it here.”
She was surprised, and more than a little touched, by his admission. It had to be difficult for a very private man like Jace Lockhart, who wasn’t accustomed to sharing much of his life with others.
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
He nodded. “The walking wounded.”
She crossed the room and knelt beside him, placing the toast and hot chocolate on a tray between them. She nodded toward the generator. “Do you really think you can fix that thing?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never thought of myself as a mechanic. But in a jam, I’ve been forced to repair a motorcycle engine, a truck’s driveshaft, and the broken wires on my sound equipment. Not to mention the time I had to defuse a bomb.”
“A…bomb?” Her hand went to her throat. “Where?”
“Myelinore. A town so small it isn’t even on a map. I was following the trail of a group of terrorists who had blown up a U.N. truck and had taken a survivor as hostage.”
“Why?”
“Because they wanted to get world attention.”
“No. I meant, why did you follow them? Why didn’t you just report the incident and let somebody else do the tracking?”
“Oh.” He gave that quick grin that always did strange things to her heart. “I was the only one around. If I hadn’t followed them, they’d have gotten clean away. And the man they’d taken hostage was a friend of mine who had a wonderful wife in Paris, along with two small children. I figured I’d never be able to face Monique and her kids if I didn’t do all I could to save Henri.”
“And did you? Save him?”
“Yeah. After nearly getting us both killed. When the terrorists left him bound and gagged in a deserted house, I broke in, thinking I’d just untie him and we’d slip away. But the terrorists had very cleverly booby-trapped the place before they left. There wasn’t enough time to escape, so I had to figure out which wire to cut or we’d both have ended up like that rabbit with the hawk.”
Ciara shivered. It occurred to her that the danger she’d sensed about Jace Lockhart was very real.
“Weren’t you scared to death?”
“There wasn’t time to think about being scared. I did what I had to.”
I did what I had to. Those words triggered a memory of her childhood. She’d once asked her mother how she had kept going, when she’d found herself alone with six children depending on her. And her mother had said, I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself, honey. I just did what I had to.
Ciara shook aside the eerie feeling, to concentrate on Jace. “After you’d freed Henri, and had escaped the booby-trapped house, what did you do?”
“We ran as far and as fast as we could, and hid in the forest until we could make our way back to safety.”
“Did you ever go back to that town? Myelinore?”
“There was nothing to go back to. When the terrorists were done, they’d blown it clean away. The few buildings that remained were empty. All the residents had fled.”
Ciara’s voice lowered. “And Henri?”
Jace smiled then, and she could see in his eyes a sense of satisfaction. “He went back home. To Monique and his kids. The last I heard, he was serving as an advisor to the U.N. team in Paris. And living quietly in a cozy cottage in the country.” He bit into the toast and shot her a look. “Hey, this is good.”
“Of course it is.” She sipped her chocolate, still reeling from all the things he’d told her. His life was so different from anyone else’s she’d ever known. And so far removed from her life in Hollywood that she couldn’t even begin to imagine it. “Why does it surprise you that I can cook?”
“I didn’t expect you to be handy in the kitchen.”
“I’m not really. But I do know how to make a few things. Breakfast, mostly. I make a really mean omelette.”
“Good. You can show off your skill tomorrow morning.”
“What makes you think I intend to cook tomorrow?”
“Because, if I’m making dinner tonight, it’s the least you can do to show your appreciation.”
“I think I’ll wait until I’ve tasted your cooking. I may not be so grateful.”
“Coward. You’re going to eat those words.”
“Thanks. But I’d rather eat steak. I’d like mine medium, with a few mushrooms and onions on the side.”
“What you’d like and what you’ll get may be two different thin
gs.” He stopped tinkering with the generator long enough to devour the rest of his toast. Then he downed his hot chocolate in several long gulps. “Thanks. I guess this will hold me until dinnertime.”
“I should hope so.” Ciara picked up the tray and headed for the sink. “Because that’s all you’re getting, unless you make it yourself.”
Minutes later, Jace looked up to see her heading toward the bedroom. When the door closed he turned his attention to the generator. He really needed to get this thing in good working order as quickly as possible. He was desperate to restore enough power to use his laptop computer. He’d promised to check in with his wire service as soon as he arrived in the United States. By now they’d be wondering where he was, and why he wasn’t bothering to contact them. He didn’t want his crew thinking he’d completely deserted them.
But the truth was, he suddenly couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for world news. It never seemed to change. When peace came to one area of the world, war inevitably broke out in another. He supposed the world would always be divided between men of goodwill, and men of ill will with a lust for power and domination.
He sat back to study the rusted wires in his hands. But his thoughts kept drifting to the woman in the other room. He’d told her more about himself than he’d intended. Maybe it was because she was so easy to talk to. She had a way of listening. Really listening—not just faking it. And she had a way of asking questions without being intrusive.
He grinned as he started scraping away rust before splicing several frayed wires. Next he’d be trying to convince himself that Ciara Wilde was just like any girl next door. Still, despite the movie star face and fabulous body, there was a freshness about her that was disarming.
Usually he could tell, after just a few minutes with someone, whether or not he wanted to know them better. In Ciara’s case, he sensed there was a whole lot more inside than the woman she showed to her public. Maybe, just maybe, he’d reserve judgment. It could be that his first impression had been colored by fatigue.
Or it might turn out that she was “Hollywood,” after all. In which case, he’d be only too happy to send her packing as soon as the weather allowed.
Four
In her bedroom, Ciara opened the notebook and removed a sheaf of dog-eared papers. Since she had the luxury of several hours before dinner, she’d decided to use the time constructively. She pulled a chair close to the window for light, then set several candles on the nightstand. Tucking her knees under her, she began to scan the first page, making corrections as she read.
She’d been working on this screenplay for the better part of a year. At first it had seemed an impossible dream. With her demanding schedule, how could she ever hope to find the time to craft a script that was both bright and interesting, with characters who had depth and soul? But little by little it had begun to take shape. She wrote everywhere. Between scenes on the sound stage. During long evenings on location, while the rest of the cast and crew partied. She even wrote on weekends, whenever Brendan was engaged in his own movie projects.
Now that she’d completed several drafts, she had become even more critical. She’d read enough scripts in her time to know that her characters were coming along nicely. The dialogue flowed smoothly. The setting was exactly the way she wanted it. But some of the action scenes still seemed contrived.
She paused, pen between her teeth. Action. That was it. That was what was all wrong. She’d been influenced by the sort of action Brendan faced in his movies. Sound effects and computer-generated explosions. Now she found herself thinking about the things Jace had lived through. She’d never before met anyone like Jace Lockhart, who had seen real terrorists, and had defused a live bomb. The mere thought of it had her heart pounding, her palms sweating.
How could anyone live their lives on the edge of danger each day, never knowing what they would have to face next? What would a man like Jace have inside him that would give him the courage, the nerve, to keep going?
She’d seen the televised news segments of the bloody scenes of carnage, when terrorists’ bombs had exploded in public places. The sight of the chaos, with dazed victims staggering out of harm’s way, was horrible to watch. How much worse must it be for Jace to have lived through it, when the victims weren’t strangers, but people he’d known and cared about? How could he keep everything in his life on an even keel, with such images burned indelibly into his mind?
Immersed in the feeling, she bent to the page and began to write, using Jace as her model. Only when the candles had burned too low, and the light outside the window grew too dark to make out the words on the page, did she look up to realize she’d been writing for hours. She carefully placed the pages in the notebook and set it on the night table.
She had often lost herself in her writing. But there were always so many interruptions. These few hours had been like a special gift. No pressure. No schedule. No jarring telephone or fax to mar the silence. No signal from the director to prepare for another scene, or makeup and wardrobe people milling about.
Though it had been difficult at first, she had finally adjusted to having people around her constantly, dressing her, fussing over her hair and face. Adapt or die, Jace had said. She nodded. It was true. As alien as it had seemed to her, she had managed to adapt to a life lived constantly in the public eye. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.
She stood by the window a moment, staring into the gathering shadows. What would it be like to live like this all the time? To have no distractions? No reporters pushing and shoving to be first with the latest tidbits of scandal. No one knocking on her door, telling her it was time for her voice coach, her dance instructor, her personal trainer.
As Brendan often reminded her, she couldn’t have it both ways. If she wanted the success and the glamour and the life-style, she had to accept the publicity, the hordes of reporters and the loss of privacy. But was it worth the price? Whenever she thought about leaving it all behind, she was reminded of the life she’d left. Would that be her fate? She shivered. No. She would never go back.
Money was important to her. Not just because of the things it bought: the place in Malibu, and the pretty little house in Kentucky that she’d bought for her mother. More important, because it meant security and independence—something Ciara treasured above all else. She’d watched her mother struggle with the burden of six children and a husband who found all his dreams in a bottle. They’d moved from one shabby apartment to another, often leaving in the night when her mother couldn’t scrape up enough money to pay the rent. When her father had finally left them, her mother was forced to work two jobs just to keep her family together.
Ciara clutched her hand into a fist, until she forcibly relaxed each finger. She was never going back. If it meant playing empty-headed blondes jiggling in a bikini for the rest of her life, that’s what she’d do before she’d go back to the life she’d known as a child. Whenever she thought about leaving it all behind, she would suffer a flashback to her needy childhood. That was always enough to remind her that she couldn’t have it both ways.
Still, wasn’t it possible to have what she wanted, and reclaim her life? Or would she find her world crumbling, and all her hard-won independence lost?
When she had first voiced her concerns about a lack of privacy, Brendan had been quick to soothe. It was true that he had made a career of attracting the media. And that meant for her, as Mrs. Brendan Swift, whatever privacy she craved would be further eroded. It was only natural to assume that the marriage of two movie superstars would only increase the blinding glare of the spotlight, he’d reminded her. But Brendan had also assured her that the merger of their two fortunes would “buy” them a certain amount of privacy. There was his mansion, of course, which had become such a fortress that the photographers could only snap their pictures from helicopters, unless specifically invited onto the grounds. But Brendan had a reputation for being a freewheeling spender. There were rumors that he spent as much as he earned. And lately
she’d begun to wonder if his fortune was really all he led her to believe it was. There was the nagging little fear that he coveted her money, and her fame, as much as her love. When she’d suggested a prenuptial agreement, he had balked, saying that if the press learned of it, he’d look foolish. When she’d pressed, he’d gone into a rage. Hadn’t he been more than generous with all his ex-wives? Why wouldn’t he treat his current wife even better?
Brendan was so smooth, so persuasive. She felt as though she’d been swept along by the sheer force of his overpowering personality. He’d dismissed her worries and trampled all her defenses. Still, the nagging little fear persisted. Maybe because he’d been too smooth. Too persuasive. And a little too annoyed at her questions.
She’d tried to give him back the engagement ring, telling him she needed time to think. But he wouldn’t take it. He insisted that he loved her and that they’d work things out. But he refused to talk about the things that were really bothering her. He wanted to go ahead with the wedding and then work things out afterward. He didn’t understand that she just couldn’t do it that way. And so she’d run two weeks before her wedding. And was running still. But sooner or later she would have to return for the reckoning. She’d better be prepared with the answers. And right now, she didn’t know what they were, what she wanted. All she knew was that she would have to live with her decisions.
She pressed her hands to her temples and rubbed at the headache that was beginning to throb. That’s what she got for thinking. But then, that was the reason she was here. To think. To plan. And to come to some decisions, no matter how painful.
Jace was doing some heavy thinking of his own. It helped to have the generator to focus on. But while his hands were busy, his mind was in overdrive. He’d forgotten just how pleasant it was to have an entire day to himself. No agenda. No video or audio. No notes to transcribe. He closed his eyes a moment, listening to the sounds of silence. No traffic screeching. No mobs shouting. No thunder of automatic rifle fire in the distance.