Might never?
The truth was, it was darn near assured that she would remain childless. Apart from the obvious medical problems, there was no man in her life, and none on the horizon, for that matter. Artificial insemination held no interest for her. Just thinking about it made her shudder.
Don’t knock it, she chastised herself as she tipped back her glass and let the chilled fluid cool her throat. If you could be assured of a full-term birth, wouldn’t you try?
The wine was so cold, droplets of condensation ran down the curve of the stemmed glass. She watched one solitary drip work its way downward and closed her eyes, feeling suddenly so alone and miserable that her knees actually trembled. Before she fell apart completely, she sank into one of the wrought-iron swing chairs on her balcony. A glass-topped table sat between the two chairs and Cammie set her goblet down with unsteady fingers. A swelling pain threatened to consume her.
Okay. It was time to regroup. She’d accepted that she’d been let go from the show, and, truthfully, it hadn’t been a complete and utter surprise. Though she hated to admit that Paul could be right about anything, she had suspected her character’s days were numbered. The rumblings around the set usually had some merit. She should be glad she’d lasted as long as she had. Three years could be a lifetime in television.
And though Paul’s manipulations were despicable, she could see how they’d come about. She was one of the few people who’d been close to Tyler Stovall. Even Tyler’s father, Sam, had not enjoyed as warm a relationship as Cammie had with Ty. True, it had been years ago, but it was fresh in her memory—Tyler had been her only sibling, step or otherwise. To her, he was a big brother.
Liar! Cammie shook her head, unable to convince herself of that untruth even now. She’d harbored feelings for Tyler that were unsisterly to the extreme. The truth was, Tyler was no blood relation. He’d entered her life when she was an impressionable teen, hung around for several years, then gone on to a life of fame and fortune before his mysterious exit. But while he’d been within Cammie’s family circle, she’d learned to love him like a brother and more. Not that he’d known when they were teenagers. Goodness, no! She’d dreamed and fantasized about him, but when they were together, she pretended that she was his little sister because that’s what he wanted. He liked having her around, or at least she thought he did. He never seemed to mind, anyway, and though other girls were always calling him, and though he went out with them now and again—much to Cammie’s dismay!—he apparently never cared enough about any of them, for he didn’t ever try to further a relationship. She’d taken this as a good sign. Someday maybe they could be together, she’d decided in her girlish fantasies. It just had to be the right time.
The right time.
As her thoughts touched on their one night together, Cammie grabbed her glass, swept in a gulp of wine, then choked and sputtered as it trickled down the wrong pipe. How had she let that happen? What was wrong with her! Even after all these years, even after an ill-fated marriage and some years of growth, Cammie still could look back on the night they’d spent in each other’s arms and feel humiliation.
He’d never really known what had happened. She’d shown up during a time when he was unhappy and alcoholimpaired to the extreme. She’d wanted to talk, to reconnect, but it hadn’t happened that way. His despondency had somehow transferred itself to her and when he reached for her, his breath sweet with scotch, his hands strong, his body taut with need—well, she hadn’t exactly resisted the attraction!
She’d left before he’d awakened, and though she’d tortured herself with the memories of that night, she wasn’t deluded enough to believe it would mean anything to him even if there were the small chance he would remember it. No, much better to let that memory stay buried and dead.
Shuddering a little, Cammie set down her goblet with deliberation. Her blood stirred even recalling those long-ago moments in his arms—and yet she’d been just part of one drunken evening!
Hugging herself closely, she watched afternoon sunlight slant through the glittering liquid remaining inside her stemmed glass. She ached for the “could have beens” she’d never quite realized.
Tyler, Tyler, Tyler…
He’d walked into Cammie’s life at her worst period of adolescent awkwardness. She wore braces through ninth grade and was certain everyone stared at her. She was gawky and brainy and all but ignored by the popular crowd at her private school until her mother married the famous, and infamous, Samuel Stovall.
Cammie’s mother, Claire Pendleton, had lived on the fringes of Beverly Hills most of her life. She’d done modeling in her youth and had been wooed and won by Cammie’s father, only to be left in the lurch with no wedding, no husband, and no money. After Cammie’s birth, Claire went back to modeling and was successful enough—with the aid of Cammie’s father’s pittance of child support—to exist and finally prosper. When Cammie was old enough, Claire enrolled her in a modestly prestigious private elementary school. Cammie made friends fairly quickly, but when junior high and high school hit, she discovered her own awkwardness.
She took acting classes to get over her shyness and discovered a serious desire for the craft. She made friends in the theater department; kids interested in what she was interested in. She was fairly happy. She dreamed of a career in acting when she finished school.
Claire was doing an outdoor shoot on Catalina Island when Samuel Stovall first encountered her. He was driving around the island in a Jeep on a beautiful sunny afternoon and he spotted Claire standing in the midst of wind and rock and sea. Within months she became his third wife—and Cammie his first stepchild. He’d sired a string of biological children he seemed relatively unconcerned with, however, and when Cammie and Claire moved in with him, it was to learn that one of his sons, Tyler, was part of the arrangement.
Tyler’s mother, Nanette Stovall, had relinquished him as a result of the Stovalls’ divorce settlement. Word on the street was that she’d amassed a cool two million as a result, but Cammie, who knew Nanette, thought that must be no more than gossip. Nanette loved Tyler and from comments Tyler made, Cammie suspected it was more likely a case of a teenage boy wanting to live with his father and Nanette unhappily giving in to the arrangement. Whatever the truth of it, Tyler resided in the bedroom next to Cammie’s and became her stepbrother.
Word spread at school with the speed of a wind-driven brush fire. Cammie was Sam Stovall’s stepdaughter! Suddenly, she was popular. Kids invited themselves over who’d heretofore never shown her an inkling of interest.
And then the girls spied Tyler.
He practically had to fend them off with a sword. Cammie watched this with a mixture of pride and dismay. She was proud he was her stepbrother—and dismayed that every girl wanted him. They hung on his every word, like he was the celebrity he would one day become. Tyler was clearly uncomfortable with this adoration, but he managed to stay fairly polite about it.
It was then that Cammie recognized her own feelings for Tyler. She tried to deny them, but her reaction to her so-called friends’ attention to him made her rethink those feelings. Tyler was dark-haired, slow-talking, with expressive, thick-lashed gray eyes and a way of staring into a feminine soul that drove any clear thought from the poor girl’s brain. He resembled his father, but there was an uncaring edge to Sam Stovall that his son luckily did not possess. Sam could be thoughtlessly cruel; Tyler was thoughtfully kind. Of course, that was only when it suited him. If Cammie, or anyone else, unduly annoyed him, he could certainly act like a jerky older brother. But he had moments of tenderness, where he understood things about Cammie that she couldn’t even voice herself, and for that she loved him. Adored him. And began fantasizing about him.
Tyler graduated from high school three years earlier than Cammie. He attended UCLA and also picked up small acting jobs and TV commercials. It didn’t hurt him that he was Sam Stovall’s son; Tyler was the first to admit it. But when he was chosen for the supporting actor in a small-budget
film that just happened to become the sleeper of the season, Tyler’s success as an actor suddenly owed more to ability than nepotism.
He still lived with Sam most summers during those first few years. Sometimes he took summer classes, sometimes he worked doing odd jobs around the studios. Cammie’s schoolgirl crush grew into out-and-out adoration. She followed him everywhere, and if he guessed why, he never let on.
She watched him date other girls, counting the minutes until he returned home. Luckily, he never brought them to his father’s house; Cammie knew, because she always waited up.
She could still recall the way he looked at her one night when he discovered his “little sister” half-asleep on the couch, the TV silently flickering away across the room, a bowl of cold popcorn and a soda can on the table beside the couch, testament to her lonely vigil.
“You don’t have to, you know,” he told her, seating himself on the end of the couch so that she had to tuck her knees in or her bare toes would have actually touched his leg.
“Don’t have to what?”
“Wait up. I can take care of myself.”
“I know that.”
“Then why do you do it?” he wanted to know, gazing at her in that penetrating way she’d come to both love and fear. When Tyler wanted answers, there was nothing to do but tell the truth.
Still, he made her so nervous! She had to fight to keep from chewing on her nails. “I’m not waiting up. I’m watching TV.”
He flicked a glance at the screen. “What are you watching?”
Cammie had no idea. A black-and-white horror movie of some kind had appeared after the last program, and she’d paid no attention. “I don’t know, I fell asleep.”
“Ahhh…”
He said it so knowingly that it bugged her. “I was watching Letterman, okay? I didn’t pay attention to what came next!”
“Well, Letterman must have quit the network because you’re on a local channel.”
“Oh, fine! I switched the channel first! What’s the big deal?”
“You don’t have to wait up,” he repeated, picking up her feet and putting them on his lap, absentmindedly massaging her soles.
It was something he’d done upon more than one occasion during the years they’d been stepbrother and -sister. Tyler radiated physicality. He liked touching and being touched, not necessarily sexually, though she didn’t doubt he liked that, too! But it was more than that. A way to connect and say, “I like being with you.” His father was that way, too. He hugged everyone he met whether he liked them or not. For Sam, it was a way of saying, “Aren’t we all just such great friends?” whether he felt the sentiment or not. Just part of the Hollywood bullshit, Cammie suspected. But Tyler’s manner of touching was truer and full of unspoken loyalty.
Except that it played havoc with Cammie’s fluttering emotions. Deliberately she pulled her feet from his warm embrace. Sensing the unspoken rejection, Tyler got up from the couch. That wasn’t what she wanted! She hadn’t meant for him to leave. She just couldn’t handle his warm fingers on her nervous flesh.
But she couldn’t tell him that! Instead, she blurted out, “Where are you going?”
“To bed. It’s late.”
“Don’t go yet.”
He stretched and yawned. “I’m done in.”
“Stay and watch a little more with me.”
“You’re crazy,” he murmured, but he sat back down again, carefully avoiding her curled up feet.
She was sorry she’d reacted to his touch, but how could she ever tell him she was afraid of herself? That every time he looked at her, her heart flipped over? That sometimes when she saw him pull off his shirt, the temptation to run her fingers over his strong, smooth muscles was almost more than she could bear?
Tyler found the remote and clicked through a bunch of shows until he landed on a late-night comedy revue. He laughed at some of the jokes, but Cammie could scarcely break a smile. She was so nervous that it felt as if moving might somehow give away her true feelings. When had it happened? This complete obsession with Tyler. It hadn’t been that way in the beginning.
“What are you going to do after graduation?” he suddenly asked, flicking her a look. The room was dark except for the light from the television screen, but she could still see the way he peered intently at her.
“I don’t know. Go to college. Maybe—UCLA—or I don’t know, a community college nearby.”
“You still interested in acting?”
It was embarrassing to admit. Tyler was the one beginning to be successful in that tough field. She felt like a groupie. Nodding jerkily, Cammie fought to think of something to say, some way to legitimize her desire so it wouldn’t seem like she was just copying him.
“I could get Dad to introduce you to some people. He knows everybody.”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Cammie murmured. She could have kicked herself for how many times she’d stated that phrase this night. It sounded like she didn’t have a brain in her head!
“It’s always been who you know. It hasn’t changed,” he told her with an ironic smile that spoke volumes about his own loathing of the way things were. Still, neither of them could deny that being a Stovall opened some doors.
Cammie could think of nothing to say. Her brain just shut down again.
Eventually Tyler got to his feet again. “Well, good night,” he said. And then he surprised her by leaning down and planting a kiss on her forehead. Cammie squeaked in protest; she couldn’t help herself. He appeared not to notice, but long after he’d gone to bed she lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling, her forehead tingling with the memory of that platonic kiss.
Maybe things would have turned out as Tyler had predicted. Maybe Sam would have shown her around and helped her learn the ropes of Hollywood. Instead, shortly before graduation, Cammie raced home from school early, bubbling over with enthusiasm because Tyler had dropped by to tell her he’d been signed for a feature film and to congratulate her on her coming graduation day.
But the news was brutally knocked from her head because as Cammie ran down the hall to her mother’s bedroom and threw open the door, she discovered Sam Stovall in bed with a beautiful starlet.
“Cammie!” Sam bellowed.
But it was too late. Cammie gasped in shock and skid to a halt. The bleached blonde atop Sam Stovall ceased riding him for all she was worth and collapsed, cringing, against his chest. Sam yelled, his face turning purple. Cammie backed out of the room and into the hallway. Her legs quivered. Her head thundered. She staggered downstairs and slowly remembered that her mother had told her she had a job in San Diego that would possibly keep her overnight. Sam had chosen the time to have an affair in their own home.
One of the few times she’d actually skipped class led to the worst few hours of her young life.
Sam, after hustling his lovely paramour home, sat Cammie down for a long talk. He didn’t expect her to lie for him; he knew she would tell her mother the truth. What he did expect was for her to understand. Unbelievable! How could she ever understand anyone’s infidelity? She wasn’t made that way.
Nevertheless, Sam sat across from her at the diningroom table and explained in his own weird way that he should not be expected to live up to Cammie’s standards. “That isn’t the way it is here,” he said, as if the speech were well rehearsed. Based on his succession of ex-wives, it probably was, too. “There’s a certain amount of temptation that can’t be ignored. Call it a case of too much availability. A man like me can’t be that perfect,” he added with his trademark smile. Sure, he was self-deprecating, but Cammie didn’t believe him one bit.
“A man like you?” she asked through stiff lips.
“I’m a romantic icon to millions of women. Sometimes I stray.” He lifted his palms in surrender to his weakness. “Your mother understands.”
“My mother knows?”
“Did you think it was the first time?”
His blatant disregard for the sanctity of marriage hit somethi
ng inside Cammie. “I think you’re disgusting!” she bit out. “I hope my mom divorces you!”
“She won’t.” He started losing interest in the conversation. If Cammie wasn’t going to believe his lines, then there was no reason to continue.
“She will, if I have anything to say about it!” Cammie declared.
“Your mother loves me too much,” Sam responded matter-of-factly, as if he’d weighed all the angles and found he always came out on top. “I’d be more likely to divorce her.”
“Then do it,” Cammie stated through quivering lips.
He gazed at her blandly. “I just might.”
Swallowing hard, Cammie suddenly saw a terrible trap yawning in front of her. Sam didn’t care about Claire. He was bored with her. “If you hurt her, I’ll never forgive you,” she whispered.
“Oh, Camilla…” He clucked his tongue at her naïveté.
She ran from the room—smack dab into Tyler’s broad chest.
“What?” he asked, concerned.
“Your father’s a bastard!” she choked out. “A cheat. A lying, horrible bastard.”
Tyler gazed from her tear-stained face to his father’s stern visage. “What’s going on?”
And that’s when the other shoe dropped. “Claire and I are divorcing,” he said. “Cammie didn’t want to hear it.”
“What?” Cammie gaped at him.
“I’m seeing someone else,” Sam added.
Tyler shook his head as if he were struggling to keep up with the conversation himself.
“I’ve offered Claire an ample settlement—a king’s ransom—but she’s holding out for more.”
“You’re a liar!” Cammie breathed in shock.
“I’ll probably have to give her the house, too.” He gazed in mock pity at Cammie. “I’m sorry, Camilla, but she’s no different from the rest.”
Someday Soon Page 4