Playing the Part

by Kimberly Van Meter

  It was as if she were infused with some sort of island magic, if he were to buy into her Caribbean stories, and he was under her spell. He shook off the fanciful notion and grinned, observing Lindy and Carys laughing while they watched tiny fish flit between their legs as they kicked up the fine, floating sand.

  “Lindy said we should go for a night swim!” Carys said, looking up with an excited grin.

  “I don’t know about that— There are sharks out there, remember?” he said, shaking his head.

  “Yes, but they rarely eat chicken,” Lindy quipped with a daring grin that made his stomach tighten with desire even though he wanted her to stop putting dangerous ideas in his reckless daughter’s head. Then Lindy made chicken noises and Carys copied her.

  “Very funny,” he said drily. “Why would you want to go out at night? You can’t see anything.”

  “There’s something peaceful about the sea at night. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Yeah, real peaceful...right up until the point when the great white rips into your torso. No thanks.”

  “Aww, Dad,” Carys moaned. “Stop being such a worrywart.”

  “I’m serious,” he protested, trying hard not to grin when Lindy went cross-eyed at him as she stuck her tongue out. “Oh, real mature, Miss I-Love-Danger,” he said, barely able to hide the laughter in his voice. “All I’m saying is, perhaps for an eleven-year-old girl, a night swim probably isn’t the best idea.”

  Lindy sighed and conceded the point. “Oh, okay. Your dad is mildly right,” she said. “But when you get a bit older, that’s definitely something you ought to give a try. There’s nothing like it.”

  “I want to try it now.” Carys pouted, shooting Gabe a dark look for spoiling all the fun.

  Lindy caught the look and rushed to his defense. “No, your dad is right. I was just kidding. There are some things that go bump in the night and it’s best to swim when you can see them in plain sight.”

  “Like what?” Carys asked.

  “Sharks, stingrays, jellyfish... That’s it mostly.”

  At Lindy’s casual answer Carys’s eyes widened and she seemed to lose some of her fire to go on a night swim.

  “Oh,” Carys said, pursing her lips in thought. “Hmm...

  maybe I’ll wait until I’m a little older.”

  “Probably wise,” Lindy said, laughing at Carys’s expression as the girl grinned and disappeared under the water to pluck seashells from the seabed at her feet.

  While Carys splashed and played in the surf far enough away for privacy but not far enough to cause alarm, Lindy swam lazy circles around Gabe, delighting in the knowledge that he was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself.

  “So tell me about what you do for a living? What does a CEO do all day?”

  “Everything,” he quipped, sending a splash her way, which she avoided by going under. She reemerged with a giggle and he smiled warmly. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know.... It sounds so...executive office-ish.”

  “It is,” he acknowledged without arrogance or false modesty, either. “I’m the boss. I do all the hiring and firing of the upper management and I oversee every acquisition.”

  “Acquisition of what?”

  “I’m a corporate raider, to put it simply. I acquire struggling companies with undervalued assets and then I break the assets apart and resell them at a higher value.”

  “Sounds mercenary,” Lindy said with a grin.

  “It can be,” he said.

  “My sister Lora would love you. She was a corporate marketing executive in Chicago before she came back to St. John to help out Pops with the resort. I can only imagine the fascinating conversations you two would have,” Lindy said. “You might discover you have more in common with her than me.”

  “I doubt that. There’s only one Bell sister who’s caught my attention and she’s right here in front of me.”

  Her heart rate sped up at his sexy admission. “When you say things like that it makes it hard to keep my hands to myself,” she warned playfully, floating past him.

  His brow arched and he said, “When you tease me with a look-don’t-touch, you make me hard.”

  Lindy gasped at his bold statement and longed to curl her hand around him beneath the waves. She’d never been so hot for one person. She deliberately looked away and submerged herself. When she popped up again, she asked, “How did Charlotte handle you being such a workaholic?”

  At the mention of his deceased wife, Gabe’s expression dimmed and she realized she’d hit a sore spot. She felt like an idiot for inadvertently ruining the playful mood between them. “I’m sorry.... I shouldn’t have asked something so personal,” she immediately apologized, but by the haunted expression in his eyes, Gabe looked as if he needed to confess something.

  “I worked too much. I should’ve been home more,” he said quietly. “She didn’t tell me she was sick until it was too late to do much about it. I’d been too wrapped up in my deals and business meetings to realize I should’ve noticed something was wrong. She went through a lot alone.”

  “Oh, Gabe...I’m sorry,” Lindy said softly, hating the real pain reflecting in his eyes. She bit her lip, wondering what to say to that admission without sounding trite and awkward. Gabe saved her the trouble.

  “There’s a lot I would take back if I could. Let’s just leave it at that. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, nodding. A moment of silence followed until Lindy surprised him with a splash right in the face.

  “What the...?”

  She broke into a grin, and splashed him again, prompting him to lunge after her. She squealed and swam away but not before he caught her quickly and hefted her into the air with a roar and then tossed her into the waves.

  They spent a good hour splashing around in the surf, taking turns dunking one another or chasing Carys to throw her into the water. When the sun started to sink into the horizon, they reluctantly headed for the beach and started drying off amid laughter and chatter. It felt so good to share a day with them both. Lindy couldn’t remember when she’d felt right at home with people other than her own family.

  Lindy happened to catch Gabe’s look and what she saw there almost took her breath away. Had any man ever looked at her like that? With one smoldering glance that took a nanosecond to absorb, Gabe managed to make her feel lost and found, hot and cold, scared and exhilarated.

  And Lindy didn’t think she liked it. It smacked of conversations that inevitably included words like forever and I love you.

  Sure, there were plenty of men who had thought they’d been in love with her but she’d let them down quickly and abruptly. She wasn’t the kind of woman who suffered that kind of tedious relationship crap. She was in it for a good time, not a long time. She swallowed and broke eye contact to scoop up her clothes and shake out the sand. “We’d better get back to Larimar. I’m sure my sister has some sort of odious task for me to do,” she said airily, though truthfully, her skin was becoming prickly and she needed some space. It was then she realized she’d missed a call from Paul Hossiter. Thankful for the distraction, she quickly returned the call.

  “Hey, Paul, what’s up?” she asked, hoping for a miracle. “Did you suddenly realize you need my family’s resort?”

  “No, but I may need your hot little body,” Paul answered back, causing Lindy to laugh and be thankful that Gabe wasn’t hearing the other end of the conversation. Still, she angled away from Gabe and Carys and motioned for them to go ahead to the car. Gabe’s brow furrowed but he gave her the privacy she needed.

  “Aww, come on now, Paul. You know that’s not going to happen anytime soon,” she teased, enjoying the banter. “Why’d you really call?”

  “No, I’m serious,” Paul said and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Except
you need to get your mind out of the gutter, little girl. One of our actresses got some kind of terrible flu and she dropped out when we needed her. You’re perfect for the part.”

  Lindy bit her knuckle to keep from squealing but kept it together to ask, “Is it a speaking part?”

  “Yeah, not a major speaking role but decent. Probably about a day or two of work on location with a few days scheduled once we’re back in L.A. for ADR. You know the drill.”

  “Right,” Lindy said, shaking out her hand where her knuckles still had bite indents. “What are we talking? I guess I should call my agent and run it by her.”

  “Aww c’mon, Lindy babe, it’s a bit part,” he groused. But then he sighed and said, “Oh, all right. I’ll have my assistant send it over. But I need an answer by tonight or else the part goes to my No. 2. Got it?”

  “You betcha,” Lindy answered, unable to keep the grin from her face. “I’ll call. I promise.”

  Paul chuckled. “You know, if this were a different day and age...a little gratitude wouldn’t be out of order.”

  “Stop being a perv,” Lindy said, still on cloud nine. She’d been wanting to get onto a Paul Hossiter film for years but he’d kept passing her over. She wondered what the part would be like. “I’ll be in touch.”

  They hung up and Lindy ran to the car. She jumped in and said in an excited rush, “You’re never going to guess who just called and offered me a bit part in his newest film...Paul Hossiter!”

  Both Carys and Gabe stared as if that name held absolutely no meaning whatsoever, and Lindy had to remember that she wasn’t in L.A. and she wasn’t chatting up her fellow actors and actresses at some retro-chic diner. “Paul Hossiter, you know, he makes those cool action flicks, such as Dark Side of Dangerous and Fatal Flaw?”

  Carys still looked confused and then shrugged, saying, “My dad doesn’t let me watch rated R movies.”

  Slightly deflated, Lindy realized Carys had made a good point. Neither of those flicks would’ve been appropriate for a kid. She looked to Gabe—surely he’d seen those movies? “How about you?”

  “Sorry...I must’ve missed those ones. I don’t get to the movies very often,” he said, lifting his hands in apology. “Maybe I’ll catch it on Netflix or something when I have a chance. I like a good action movie.”

  Lindy exhaled and shook her head, silently laughing at herself. “Sometimes I forget that the world doesn’t revolve around what’s happening in Hollywood. Anyway, yeah, so Paul offered me a small job.”

  “Are you going to take it?” Carys asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I’m having my agent take a look first but that’s just a formality and Paul knows it. It’s a small part, probably only a few speaking lines but that’s okay. It’s a paycheck and I could really use one of those. Plus, it helps keep my SAG membership good.”

  “What’s a SAG?”

  “Screen Actors Guild,” Lindy said. “It’s the actors’ union. It’s complicated, kiddo. We’d be here all day if I tried to explain.”

  Carys accepted that but her expression had still dimmed. “What’s wrong?” Lindy asked, looking to Gabe. “What happened? One minute it’s all smiles and giggles and then after I get amazing news, it’s all doom and gloom. Did I miss something?”

  Gabe opened his mouth to answer but Carys jumped in first. “It’s just that I was hoping we’d be able to go shopping together tomorrow and get ice cream.”

  “Oh,” Lindy said, bothered to see that look on Carys’s face, but she really needed this job. She bit her lip, not sure what to say. She looked to Gabe for help.

  “Lindy is an actress...that’s what she does for a living. Sometimes, grown-ups have to make sacrifices in order to get further in their career. Sort of like when Dad has to cancel dinner reservations or a movie date with his favorite kiddo,” he explained, but somehow that didn’t make Lindy feel better. Carys already knew that grown-ups bailed for reasons that sounded logical on the adult end, but to a kid, it was just being ditched for something else.

  “How about this...want to come onto the set with me tomorrow?” she asked, impulsively throwing out the offer before truly thinking it through. Seconds after the words left her mouth she knew she shouldn’t have offered. Paul’s films were not exactly kid-friendly. But the light in Carys’s eyes was worth the risk. That is until she caught the completely disapproving expression on Gabe’s face.

  Oops.

  She sent a tentative smile Gabe’s way. “It’ll be fun?” she ventured.

  He shook his head and exhaled a sharp breath as he muttered, “We’ll see,” and then pulled onto the highway.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE NEXT DAY Lindy fidgeted behind the wheel of the Jeep with Gabe and Carys in tow as they rode the car ferry across the channel to St. Thomas. She’d considered making some excuse so they stayed behind but she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words for fear of crushing Carys.

  So here they were. Riding to a movie set with jangling nerves. And Lindy felt ready to vomit.

  “Your agent was okay with this role, huh?” Gabe asked in an attempt to start conversation. She shot him a brief look and then nodded. She wasn’t about to tell him that she overrode her agent’s opinion on the subject. In defense of her decision, Lindy knew that her agent didn’t care for Paul Hossiter at all, so she basically stuck her nose up at any project attached to him, which frankly wasn’t doing Lindy’s career any favors. But that was a different conversation altogether. She tuned back in and realized Gabe was still talking. “Are you sure it’s going to be okay for me and Carys to tag along?” he asked, sounding nervous.

  “It’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Listen, I should probably warn you that the movie business is a lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’ I mean, my call time is noon but depending on how efficiently the takes are going, it could be anywhere from one to two hours later.”

  “This is so exciting,” Carys said in a breathless whisper that oozed excitement. Lindy couldn’t help but grin. The kid’s enthusiasm was infectious. “Are there going to be movie stars, I mean, besides you, there?”

  At that she smiled, then answered, “Well, according to the call time, there might be an actor or two you recognize.”

  “Like who?” Carys asked, jumping up and down in the seat. “Someone totally, amazingly famous?” she asked. “Like Selena Gomez?”

  Selena Gomez? Lindy tried to place the name. “Is she the latest Disney kid?” At Carys’s affirmative head bob, Lindy chuckled but shook her head. “No. Sorry, kiddo. This isn’t a Disney flick. But there’s going to be some pretty cool people nonetheless. I bet I could even wrangle a meeting with the director. Would you like that?”

  “Ohhh, my Goood,” Carys squealed, causing Gabe and Lindy to wince. “That would be aaaa-mmmmaaazing!”

  Lindy felt her chest muscles loosen up and she could actually breathe for a minute. She grinned at Gabe but he didn’t look any less tense. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered, trying to shrug off any evidence of his discomfort. “I’m just not used to being in situations where I’m not familiar. I’ve never been on a movie set before.... I don’t know what to expect. I don’t like surprises.”

  “I love surprises,” Lindy murmured with a smile. Boy, could they be more different from one another? “It’ll be fun, I promise.” She hoped.

  * * *

  GABE MADE A conscious effort not to appear as if he were scowling. Charlotte had once told him that when he was concentrating or focused on not doing something, he had a tendency to scowl. He didn’t want to spoil the day for Carys or Lindy but he was distinctly out of his comfort zone.

  The ferry landed in St. Thomas and Lindy drove off the ferry and onto the road. “Do you know how to get where we’re going?” Gabe asked.

  “Yeah, it’s been a whi
le but I used to drive around St. Thomas all the time. I went to high school here because there’s no high school in St. John. The production is renting out a villa on the hill. It should be pretty high-end. The catering ought to be amazing. All-you-can-eat goodies,” she said, winking at Carys in the rearview mirror.

  Gabe smiled and tried to relax. It was no big deal. So Lindy was in the movie business. It wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t as if they were trying to be a couple or anything. He could be supportive in the short term. Besides, it wasn’t as if he was trying to audition for a permanent role in her life. The reasoning should’ve been a comfort but it wasn’t. The knowledge only served to make him grouchier and it was getting more difficult to hide it the more he thought about it.

  They drove up a long, windy road that plateaued at the villa. Security stopped them before entering and Lindy gave her name, which was then cross-referenced on the guard’s call times. They finally got through and Gabe joked, “With the security you’d think they were trying to protect the president’s location.”

  “Well, Paul doesn’t like when details about his production get leaked without his approval. He likes to dole out the information as he sees fit. He gets really peeved when reporters or those damn paparazzi get wind of his films.”

  “Like when stuff ends up on TMZ?” Carys piped up and Gabe did a double take.

  “How do you know what TMZ is?” he asked.

  “Dad, you’d have to live under a rock not to know what TMZ is,” Carys answered with a roll of her eyes. “Right, Lindy?”

  “Well, yeah,” she admitted, her reluctant answer coaxing a smile from him. “But then with the circles I run with...it’s kinda like our CNN.”

  Gabe nodded and grunted as if he understood but he felt more bewildered than ever, and the fact that his daughter seemed more hip to the outside world was a bit unnerving. Suddenly, he felt like that old guy desperately trying to hang out with the cool kids yet who was so clearly not one of the cool kids. “You know, I’m in pretty good shape for my age,” he blurted, causing Lindy to do a double take. “I’m just saying, you know, I might not know about this TMZ thing but that doesn’t mean I’m some old guy who needs a walker to get around.”