Johanna crossed to the console and tapped the DVD player that sat on the bureau. “Well, the hotel’s provided us with all the latest equipment. Why don’t I see about getting you something to watch?”
Jocelyn seemed to come alive at the suggestion. “No cartoons, Mom,” she begged.
“No cartoons,” Johanna promised. “Any suggestions?”
Johanna looked from Jocelyn to Megan, who looked even more bored and restless than Jocelyn did now that she turned away from the window. It was apparent that in the week since they had had their talk, Megan had turned obedient, though decidedly sullen.
It was as if she had no one to appear bright for, Johanna thought. Probably because Harry wasn’t around to notice her in her tight skirts and short shorts.
Just her hormones dying to run wild again, Johanna diagnosed. Besides, Megan wasn’t her concern. Her daughter was.
“How about Summer Fun?” Jocelyn suggested hopefully. “I love anything with Rick Renfield in it.” She cast a side glance at Megan for approval. The dark-haired young woman merely shrugged, as if it was all the same to her.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Johanna promised.
Johanna returned in half an hour. She had managed to find not one but two films featuring Jocelyn’s newest heartthrob, a young actor with more hair than talent. But it wasn’t his acting ability that had Jocelyn sighing. It was his dimple—as well as various other parts, Johanna suspected. The young actor did incredible things to a pair of faded jeans.
No doubt about it, her little girl was growing up, Johanna decided with a sigh. She thought of storing her in a tower and cutting her long blond hair until she was twenty-five, but knew that did no good. All little girls grew up. She had. Johanna felt a wild desire to protect Jocelyn from all the mistakes that she had embraced with open arms. That too would do no good. Mistakes had to be made in order to learn from them. Miserable idea, she thought cynically.
“Will you ladies be all right alone?” She was trying her hardest to make Jocelyn feel as if she was treating her as an equal and not just as a young child, even though in her heart there was a part of Johanna that wanted to keep her that way.
“Sure.” Jocelyn shrugged carelessly. “You going somewhere?”
“Just out to clear my head.” She kissed Jocelyn’s forehead even as the girl pulled back from the fuss. It felt a little warmer again. Johanna reconsidered. “Maybe I’d better not.”
“Go ahead, Mom,” Jocelyn muttered moodily. “Quit treating me like a baby.”
Johanna held up her hands. “Heaven forbid, Granny.” She winked as she picked up her purse. “I won’t be too long.”
But she had lied. Not intentionally, of course. She hadn’t intentionally gotten lost in the maze of traffic that seemed to engulf her, coming out of nowhere and with no warning. She had just wanted the freedom of a ride for half an hour. She should have realized that was impossible in London. She was ensnared in a jam that had police rerouting traffic until she had no idea whether she was still in the country or not.
And then the car died.
Just as the rain started again.
She got out of her car and felt like weeping in frustrated anger. Either that, or shooting the stalled vehicle. She rummaged in her purse for her cell phone but couldn’t find it. Of all days to forget to bring it along. What was she going to do now?
“Damn!” she cried out, kicking a tire. People drove by without giving her a second glance. The rain fell, pasting her green raw silk blouse against her body.
He saw her from a distance and moved his van into the lane closer to the street. He wanted a better look.
He was right. It was her.
Tommy pulled over to the side of the street half a block away. Turning up the collar of his shirt, he hurried toward her, wondering what she was doing there. He had heard that her husband had gone to Italy. He had naturally assumed that she had gone with him. The man had seemed insanely jealous that day on the set.
“What’s a nice lady like you doing out here in the rain?” Tommy asked as he approached Johanna.
She stood shivering in the rain, too angry to retreat into her car for shelter. She whirled around at the sound of his voice and then smiled so broadly that she thought she’d laugh. A familiar face. “Getting wet and having a breakdown.”
He thought that he had never seen a lovelier face, so frail. She almost looked angelic. To distract himself, he looked at her dormant vehicle. “You mean the car?”
She shook her head. Her hair had turned a dark shade of honey from the rain. “No, I mean me.” She ran her hands up and down her arms. “I hate this miserable weather. I hate being in London. I hate Europe. I hate driving on the wrong side of the road.” She realized she was beginning to babble and covered her mouth with her hands in a futile gesture. “Oh God, Tommy, I’ve never been so miserable in my whole life.”
He looked embarrassed for her, yet felt protective of her at the same time. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, Mrs. Whitney.”
She hadn’t meant to let the note of hysteria break out like that. Composing herself, Johanna went on. “I’m the one who’s sorry. There’s no need to apologize. Lately, my life has been everyone’s business and the name is Johanna.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “I have decided to completely disassociate myself from anything that remotely has to do with Harold T. Whitney—except for my daughter, of course.”
He grinned now. “Of course. You have a daughter?”
“Yes. Jocelyn. She’s twelve.” She liked his smile. It seemed so genuine. She had had her share of phony smiles. Everyone in Harry’s entourage had one.
“There’s O’Hurley’s.” He pointed to a pub across the street that he frequented. “We’d better get you inside and nursing a hot cup of tea before your daughter’s mother comes down with pneumonia.” He took her arm.
“No chance of that. I never get sick.” But she went with him anyway, because she wanted to get dry, because she wanted to drink something hot and warm. And because she liked the sound of his voice.
“You don’t say.” He held the door open for her.
“Absolutely.” A board creaked under her foot as she crossed the threshold.
“Gerald,” Tommy called out to the bartender as he followed Johanna in, “two teas, please.”
“One tea and one coffee,” Johanna corrected, cupping her hands around her mouth to be heard above the din. “Make that Irish coffee.” She turned and saw the amused look Tommy gave her. “Takes the chill out, so they tell me.”
“Aye.” He grinned and a dimple appeared in one cheek. “So they tell me.” He raised his voice again. “You heard the lady. Two Irish coffees it is, Gerald.”
Gerald, wearing a multi-stained apron large enough to serve as a tablecloth about his wide middle, grumbled. “Make up your minds, you two, for the love of heaven.”
Without giving it a thought, Tommy placed his hand on the small of her back and guided Johanna to a tiny booth off to the side. The small gesture was utterly intimate and Johanna felt herself responding to it. And to Tommy.
Because of its distance from the bar, the booth had a clear view of the room and the dart game that was being seriously played out between two feisty looking old men in worn plaid caps. Each had his own respective cheering section.
Tommy nodded toward Gerald. “He adds charm to the place.”
She looked around for the first time. Unlike a bar or a lounge back home, the place Tommy had brought her to was well lit and somehow cozy. She could see that it was a place where people of both sexes could meet and just talk. There was none of the feel of it being a meat market the way singles bars back in the States were. She began to relax a little.
“It is charming.” She looked back at Tommy, her eyes bright, curious.
“A pub’s purpose is to serve warm beer and cool advice,” he said.
“Your coffees,” Gerald announced, placing two ivory colored mugs before them. Hers had a fine, thin crack running around the si
de.
Tommy reached into his pocket for his wallet.
Johanna realized what he was doing and placed her hand on his shoulder to stop him. “No, please, allow me.” Gerald looked on, amused. “It’s the least I can do since you saved me from a king-sized headache on the set.”
Tommy shrugged nonchalantly, not thoroughly comfortable with the offer. “Anyone would have done the same. And I’m not used to a woman doing the paying for me.”
“And I’m not used to accepting favors without returning them in kind.” She smiled at him. “Humor me.”
He realized that he wanted to do a lot more than just humor her. “Aye, that would be easy to do.”
She didn’t know whether he was aware of it, but his gaze made her feel like a woman. “Then we’re agreed.”
He withdrew his hand from his wallet. “If that’s what you want.”
She laughed and took a sip of the black coffee. It was hot and the whiskey in it was hotter, but it did a lot to burn away the chill she was feeling. In one fiery moment, it blurred the room and made her oblivious to her wet clothing. “Why are you here?” she asked suddenly.
“Because a lovely lady needed to take the chill out of her bones.” He laughed at her.
“No.” She shook her head and found that the room tipped a little. They certainly didn’t believe in watering down their liquor. “I mean why aren’t you with Harry and the others in Italy. Don’t they need sets there?” She took another healthy sip. The heat was getting easier and easier to withstand.
Tommy toyed with his mug, watching her. “They might, but that’s for the prop carpenters to build.”
Johanna blinked, confused. “Oh, did I make a mistake? I thought you were—“
“I was.”
Then she didn’t understand. Was the whiskey clouding her brain? “But?”
He took a long drink. “Your husband had me fired, I’m afraid, right after you left the set.”
She stared at him, appalled. But that sounded just like something Harry would do. Johanna felt both ashamed and angry. “That bastard.”
“Aye, that was a word I played with in my mind.” Although he sounded as if it hadn’t bothered him at all. He struck her as the type that rolled with the punches. Or maybe he hadn’t learned yet that they hurt at times.
She was ashamed of her husband, ashamed that Tommy had lost his job because he had helped her. “I’m so sorry.” The words sounded hopelessly inadequate.
He hadn’t meant for her to feel guilty. “You needn’t be. I went back to working with my father. I’m happier that way, actually. Working on the set was a lark, because my friend Jamie thought it might be fun. But I like working for myself better.”
Someone cheered and she looked at the game at the dart board. One of the men had won and the loser was challenging him to another game. Johanna looked back at Tommy. His eyes were on her and she felt herself fighting a blush. “What is it you do?”
“I build things.”
“Like a contractor?”
“More specifically, like a carpenter. I’m working on a chest of drawers right now.”
“Oh, for whom?”
He finished the rest of his coffee and set the mug down. “An old couple I know in Gloucestershire.”
“Does it pay well?” She knew she shouldn’t be asking, but questions seemed to come so easily with him. The Irish coffee didn’t hurt either.
“Not that particular one, but I’m not doing it for the money.”
“What do you do for money?” Too late, she realized that the question might be misconstrued.
He grinned a moment, rocking on two legs of the chair. He liked the blush that colored her face. It made him think of delicate pink roses painted on a fine piece of china.
Pulling his lips into a serious expression, he addressed her question. “I’m helping to remodel this old house that some Americans’ve bought recently and now want renovated. But for myself, for my gratification, I’m working on this chest. There’s a certain satisfaction to working with your hands, creating something unique.”
She looked at his hands. They were strong hands. Hands a woman could feel safe in, not the artistic hands she had felt on her body so long ago. Yet though they were large, there was nothing clumsy about them. Harry’s hands had been graceful and delicate. And impersonal.
Abruptly, she realized that she was staring and shifted her gaze. She took another long sip and found her embarrassment waning.
“You know,” she told him, leaning forward slightly. “You’re very easy to talk to.”
“Right now, Mrs. Whitney—“
“Johanna.”
“Johanna,” he amended. “I think you’d find an aborigine straight out of the bush easy to talk to.”
She ran her fingertip along the fine crack on her mug. “You think I’m drunk?”
“I think you are, as the expression goes, feeling no pain.”
His choice of words struck a chord. “Oh now, there you’re wrong, my friend. I feel pain all right. I feel lots of pain. But it’s time to stop just standing there and taking it.”
He seemed to understand what she was saying. He had certainly heard enough about Harry during his short stay on the set. “What are you going to do?”
What was she going to do? Suddenly, she knew. “Well, the first thing is that I’m going to leave Harry.”
“And the next thing?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can’t seem to plan that far ahead yet.”
“But you will.”
She put down her mug, pleased by his answer. “Yes, I will. And you’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“An aborigine would be a lot more difficult to talk to than you.”
He laughed. The sound created a warm and happy sensation within Johanna.
Chapter Fourteen
The soft murmur of voices in the pub created a soothing effect. Johanna felt as if she could go on talking to Tommy for hours. There were no uneasy long silences, no sense that there was some sort of ritualistic feeling out of male and female going on beneath the words. They were just two people, talking. And enjoying each other’s company. Johanna leaned back in the booth and watched as raindrops lazily slid into one another and then raced down the multi-paned window. Beyond it, a heavyset man in a yellow rain slicker was hooking up the Mercedes that Harry had leased for her. Tommy had called a local towing service for her and had stayed to keep her company while she waited for it to arrive. It was he, not she who had braved the rain and had taken care of the details when the tow truck had finally arrived. At Tommy’s insistence, she had remained inside, nursing a third cup of coffee, this one sans the Irish touch. She wanted a clear head when she returned to the hotel.
Now, sitting opposite her, Tommy glanced out the window. He saw that the car had been secured and that the driver was climbing back into the cab of his truck. He turned back to look at Johanna. “It looks like you’re going to need a ride back to your hotel, luv.”
Johanna picked up her purse, then remembered she didn’t have her phone. Looking over to the far end of the bar, she saw that the public phone was occupied. She bit her lower lip in frustration. She had every intention of calling a cab, although the idea of going back right now, instead of waiting for a cab to arrive, was tempting.
“Oh, I couldn’t put you out any more than I already have.” Johanna smiled her thanks. “I really shouldn’t have let you wait here with me to begin with.”
“Why not? I’ve nothing else to do this evening.” He signaled for the check. “It’s been rather nice spending some time with an intelligent lady.” A barmaid responded quickly, having eyed him for some time. She took the money he tendered. “Keep the change, darlin’.”
The barmaid beamed and moved on, her hips swaying saucily.
Johanna wondered if Tommy knew that he was saying all the right things to her. His words weren’t polished or studied. An
d they seemed to tumble out as soon as he thought of them. There was an honesty to them that meant more than all the flowery lies she had ever heard. He was very sweet and guileless.
And young.
Robbing the cradle, Johanna? As the thought played itself out in her head, she fidgeted slightly with her purse.
But no, it wasn’t like that. She was sure that Harry would have seen it in that light. He couldn’t conceive of a man and a woman carrying on a conversation for more than a few sentences before they started stripping off each other’s clothing. And while she had to admit that she found Tommy exceedingly attractive in a rough, earthy way, she was in no way inclined to carry that attraction to any sort of fruition.
Or so she told herself.
“You’re sure I’m not putting you out?” she asked, hesitating. “I can always call a cab.”
He cocked his head. He had only worked for Whitney Productions a little more than a month, but in that time he had picked things up and had heard a great deal about the man in charge. Harold T. Whitney was not the kind of man Tommy would have wanted to associate with on his own free time. He thought of him as a bully, a womanizer and a weakling. He especially disliked men who threw their weight around women and Harry was notorious for that. Seeing his wife, Tommy found himself disliking Harry to an even greater degree.
He wondered if she was afraid of being with him because of her husband. Or was it something else? “You can call one if you feel more comfortable—“ he began.
“Oh no,” she said quickly, not wanting him to think that under any circumstances. “It’s not that. I can’t think of when I’ve felt more at ease. You’ve been nothing but kind—“
Tommy leaned forward and she caught the musty scent of soap, cologne and man. Something within her stirred. “Then let me be a little kinder.”
With a touch of nervousness, she licked her lower lip. “If you wish.”
Her unconscious reaction was very appealing to him. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her. Tommy rose and pulled back her chair for her. “I wish.”
Johanna glanced over her shoulder as she got to her feet. “You know, Tommy, you’re going to make some lucky girl a wonderful husband someday.”
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