Love's Dance

by Marianna Roberg

  Ellen, at the doctor's instruction, removed the IV from Jaina's hand and bandaged it. Then, as Colin moved back, they helped Jaina off the bed.

  "Would you like to get dressed first?" Dr. Grey asked.

  Jaina looked down at her hospital gown. "Yes, please."

  Colin held up the duffel bag he'd been carrying. "Here. I just grabbed some things for you."

  "I hope there's a full set of clothing here," she said wryly.

  "There is. They just might not match," he said. "Do you, uh, need any help?"

  Jaina looked from the bag, to him, and then to the nurse and the doctor, realizing that it was extremely likely they knew that she had been sleeping with Colin. "Um. Yeah."

  Colin handed Jessie to the nurse and guided Jaina to the bathroom. She dug through the bag, pulling out her boots, socks, her jeans from the day before, underwear, the bra she'd also been wearing before, and her olive green moleskin shirt that laced up the front.

  "What?" he asked, as she looked between the shirt and the bra.

  "Um. You remember how this bra looks on me, right?"

  Colin swallowed, remembering. "Yeah..."

  "Well, let's just say that the neckline of this shirt is really low with this bra."

  "Ah." He grinned. "What's the problem?"

  "Just checking."

  Feeling self-conscious, Jaina dressed quickly. She only lost her balance once, and that was while trying to get into her jeans and her foot got stuck.

  Colin grabbed her before she could topple. He held her steady while she giggled.

  Jaina found a hairclip in the pocket of her jacket, which he'd also packed for her. She twisted her hair up in a bun and clipped it faster than Colin could track. Then she threw her arms around him, startling him.

  "Thank you," she said into his chest. "I don't deserve you. You're the best..."

  Colin wrapped his arms around her. He rested his chin on the top of her head. "I don't deserve you," he told her. "I've done nothing but make things difficult for you."

  "No, you haven't. Actually... you saved my life. And don't say you didn't. I saw the petechiae while I was getting dressed. And don't look surprised. I know what they are because I've had them before. I was told it'd be a one-time thing, probably, when I was fourteen. But apparently not." She made a face. "This is what made me go into shock so easily."

  "The doc called it...idio..."

  "Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura?" Jaina nodded. "But since we've caught it this early, I should be okay."

  Colin wanted to tighten his arms around her, but didn't want to cause more bruising. She suddenly seemed incredibly fragile, and he was afraid.

  "Come on," she said. "I want to go home."

  "Work," he sighed suddenly. "I've got to work today. You are going home."

  "If you're going to work, I'm going to work," she said.

  "Jaina, you could hurt yourself," he protested.

  She rolled her eyes. "With what, a lipliner?"

  Colin opened his mouth, but she lifted a hand and stopped him.

  "We'll figure out what to do with Jessie. Then I'm going to work. After that, I promise, I'll rest all weekend. Okay?"

  Reluctantly, he nodded.

  She grinned. "Let's go ask Dr. Grey if it's okay if we have sex."

  ♥♥♥

  After repeating her instructions about red meat and iron supplements, Dr. Grey released Jaina. She also prescribed a cortisteroid, prednisone, after Jaina informed her she'd had ITP before.

  Jaina didn't mind the prescriptions. She didn't mind the orders about red meat.

  She minded the restriction on sex until at least 48 hours, to give her time to recover. The more she thought about how she couldn't, the more she wanted to.

  Carrying Jessie, they went in search of the girl's mother. They found her sitting in a bed, arm in a cast, staring blankly at one of the curtains surrounding her bed. She had the same wispy blonde hair, and blue eyes, as her daughter. Her face was covered in bruises. Neither could figure out how it was that Jessie recognized her, and cried, "Mommy!"

  The woman looked up at the sound of her daughter's voice. "Jessie!"

  Colin carried Jessie into the curtained area. "We've been watching her. Uh..."

  The woman looked at him with curiosity. Her accent was American, though her daughter's wasn't. "Are you the man that beat up Andrew?"

  Colin grimaced. "I didn't beat him up. He was after Jessie, and I... stopped him."

  "The security guard says you'd pinned him to the wall and were choking him when they got there."

  Jaina's brows shot up and she turned a very interested look at him. "You choked him?"

  Jessie distracted her mother long enough for the couple to give vague exit lines and they bolted for the car. Outside, it was snowing. Jaina paused by the passenger door and looked up at the white flakes drifting down.

  Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her. They stood for several moments in silence, their breath mingling as vapor.

  "This isn't how I would have wanted this morning to go," he said.

  Jaina laughed. "And you think I would?"

  "Certainly not. I'm only saying... We should have slept the night through, and then I could wake you..." he trailed off, letting that imply everything he would have done to wake her. Jaina grinned against his chest and felt a tingle down to her toes. 'Stupid doctor,' she thought.

  "Then," he continued, "breakfast in bed... We'd still have to go to work, naturally, but we could have a quickie in my trailer..."

  She laughed, giving his waist a squeeze. "Sorry, love, not until next week. As it is, we need to haul tail if we're gonna get to the studio in time."

  She stood on her toes and kissed him. "You can take a nap in your trailer, though. And maybe I'll join you."

  Colin sighed. "I still think you need to call in sick, and then I could leave the set early..."

  "Not a chance, bub. Let's go."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jaina gritted her teeth as they stopped off at her brother's house so she could get her makeup. "When Dr. Grey said 48 hours, did she mean 48 hours from seven o'clock last night, or 48 hours from five o'clock this morning?"

  Colin laughed. "I don't know."

  "I hate doctors."

  He waited for her to come back down the stairs, a blue fuzzy hat on her head, a pastel scarf around her neck, and black gloves. She carried her makeup case, which had been moved from her old one into one that actually locked.

  "I don't want to drop it and have lipstick go flying," she said, when he commented. "You didn't notice this yesterday?"

  "Jaina, the only times I was around you yesterday, I was not thinking about makeup."

  It could have been the cold that made her cheeks redden, but he knew it wasn't. "You blush like no one else I know," he said.

  "It's your fault," she said irritably, as her flush got worse.

  "Yes, yes, blame me," Colin laughed. "Hurry, we need to be there."

  She gave him a baleful look. "Really? I didn't know."

  He held her door open for her, which she usually didn't let him do.

  "You're letting me be chivalrous," he observed.

  Jaina shrugged. "Have to every once in a while."

  ♥♥♥

  It was as they were pulling into the studio parking lot that Colin swore.

  Jaina raised an eyebrow at him. Knowing she wasn't that fond of profanity, he usually kept it to a minimum. "Something wrong?"

  "I just remembered about a scene I'm supposed to film today. With Rebecca Maguire."

  Jaina didn't like the sound of that. "What... scene?"

  Colin grimaced. "I didn't tell you because you were angry with me. Alex and Lisa..."

  "Is it sex or just kissing?"

  He wouldn't meet her gaze. Jaina sighed. "Why today, of all days? I can't watch that, I can't, because... you're mine! But I can't not watch, because I... well, I want to supervise."

  "Supervise? Don't you trust me?"
<
br />   "I trust you. I don't trust her."

  Jaina sat unmoving for several moments, thinking about the actress she'd met earlier in the week. Not being privy to getting a copy of the script, Jaina didn't know the details of the current episode. Usually, she'd relied on Angela or Colin, but Angela hadn't been filming for most of the last week, and she hadn't been speaking to Colin.

  "Is this an ongoing thing?" she asked. "I mean, more than once?"

  Colin swallowed. "Uh. I believe so."

  Closing her green eyes, Jaina shoved the door open. "If she does anything inappropriate, I'm taking revenge the only way I can."

  Warily, he asked, "What's that?"

  "Making her look fat on screen."

  She stomped off.

  ♥♥♥

  Colin knew that Jaina was angry, but she wasn't really mad at him. She was just mad at the timing. Today should have been spent lounging in bed, possibly making love, rather than Jaina having to watch while he pretended to have sex with another woman.

  He watched her interact with the others, as she applied their makeup, acting as if nothing were out of the ordinary. She was even able to explain, calmly, the hospital wristband and the bandage on her hand from the IV. Finally, he was forced to leave. Jaina couldn't say anything to him as he left, because she was talking to Robert Bartlet, who played Kirk Mason.

  Moments after Colin left, the door opened and a woman with bleached blonde hair walked in. Jaina tensed at the sight of Rebecca. Robert looked at Jaina, then at Rebecca, and back at the makeup artist, who was close to snapping the brush she held.

  "I'm not finished with Robert," Jaina said pleasantly. "If you could come back in a minute, I can see to your makeup then."

  The woman smiled, unaware of Jaina's discomfort. "There's another chair. I'll wait."

  Silently, Robert watched the exchange. As much as the woman tried to hide it, it wasn't exactly a secret that Jaina had feelings for Colin. He wondered if the other man knew, or if he thought they were just friends. In any case, Jaina clearly knew that Colin would be filming some rather intimate scenes with Rebecca, and she wasn't comfortable with it. Not by a long shot. He made a mental note to talk to Colin, sound him out. Jaina was too nice to be put through this.

  Jaina swiftly finished with Robert's makeup. As much as she despised his character, he was really nice, and she enjoyed talking to him. More than that, he had been, momentarily, a buffer between herself and Rebecca.

  Rebecca sat in the chair Robert had vacated. Jaina consulted the notes she'd been given on Rebecca's costuming for the day.

  "How long have you worked on the show?" Rebecca asked.

  "Just this season."

  "That's not long at all."

  Jaina was suddenly glad that the choices had been largely left up to her. She picked out a color a shade too dark for the actress, one that would make her lips smaller. "Not really. However, I was the makeup artist on Oceana."

  Rebecca looked interested. "Oh, with Jack Fallon?"

  Jaina managed to keep from throwing something. "Yes. Interesting person, Jack. Utter scumbag."

  The other woman looked surprised. "Really?"

  "And gay as Rupert Everett. Only dumb as a stump." Jaina struggled to hide her irritation. In addition to the awkwardness created by the change in her relationship with Colin, there was the simple fact that in her mind, the only woman Alex Noble should be kissing was Nora Stevens, and vice versa. Funny that she'd had both of the Others in her trailer that morning.

  "You sound like you don't like Jack very much."

  "I don't." Jaina finished Rebecca's makeup. "All done. Have a nice day."

  She smiled pleasantly as the woman left, but internally, she was envisioning torture methods.

  ♥♥♥

  When Colin saw Rebecca shortly thereafter, he knew Jaina had already started taking out her aggressions. Rebecca looked decidedly unsettled. He was secretly amused by it.

  After three hours filming in the hot "studio" of the radio station where Rebecca's character worked, the director turned to Colin and said, "You. Touch-ups. Back in three."

  Colin nodded and quickly dashed to the makeup trailer.

  Jaina looked up when he came in. He saw she had a thick book on her lap. It was The Sea Of Swords in one volume.

  They stared at each other for several moments, the comfortable intimacy of the past day suddenly gone. It was replaced by an almost awkward silence.

  Jaina set her book aside, placing a bookmark in it. She rose and wiped her suddenly sweaty palms on her hips.

  "Hi," she said nervously. "Touch-ups?"

  Colin nodded.

  Jaina reached for the powder. He stopped her. Their skin seemed to burn where they touched.

  "I have three minutes. It will take you about twenty seconds to put the powder on. That means I have two minutes and forty seconds."

  His mouth came crashing down on hers. Jaina's heart pounded in her chest as he lifted her, setting her on the counter. She wrapped her legs around his hips, heedless of the bottles they'd knocked over.

  Too soon, he pulled away. Jaina knew that they had to stop, otherwise they wouldn't, and that would be bad.

  "When are you filming the se- the scene?" she asked.

  "In just a few minutes. Are you sure you want to be there?"

  "You know I don't like Rebecca. I'm not letting her get anywhere near you without being there. I'll bring some of my stuff to justify my being there. You know... deal with flaws?"

  "Good idea." Colin brushed his thumb over her swollen lips. "Do your thing then, I've got to get back."

  Jaina dusted powder over his face, giggling when he sneezed. He helped her down off the counter, and they left the trailer, careful not to touch.

  ♥♥♥

  Rebecca eyed Jaina as the makeup artist followed Colin into the set. "Brought a tagalong, have you?"

  Jaina said something insulting in Gaelic, which neither of the actors understood.

  As Rebecca settled into her chair, Colin moved closer to Jaina and asked quietly, in French, which she also spoke, "What did you say?"

  Jaina focused on her supplies as she said, "I'll tell you later."

  The director gave her no more than a cursory glance as she moved to stand behind the camera and the rest of the crew. Jaina crossed her arms, her smaller kit hanging loose in her hand, and watched, feeling anything but her outward calm, as the director gave quick instructions, then said, "Action!"

  Colin and Rebecca began exchanging their lines, acting out the final part of their "drunken strip trivia" session. Jaina's fingernails dug into her palm as Colin and Rebecca began kissing.

  She found in just moments that she couldn't watch, and turned her eyes to the floor, hearing Colin breathing just as he had with her. Jaina knew it wasn't real, knew he loved her, knew it was she that he wanted, not Rebecca, but still...

  Jaina wanted to scream, "Mine!" and stop filming, but hugged herself tighter, burrowed into the corner where she was out of the attention of any of the other crew.

  Then she recalled what she'd said to Rebecca, and a small smile played across her face. It wasn't a nice smile.

  She opened her eyes and fixed them on the scene across the room. "Alex" and "Lisa" had disappeared beneath the desk. A few more moments, and the director said, "Cut!"

  ♥♥♥

  They did the scene three more times, from different angles. Finally, the director was satisfied, and Colin left the set with Jaina, supposedly to freshen up.

  Back in the makeup trailer, as Jaina handed him some mouthwash, he asked, "What did you say to Rebecca?"

  Jaina waited until he had the mouthwash in, then said, "'Fall in a hole and die.'"

  Green mouthwash splashed in the sink as Colin spluttered. "You said what?"

  "Don't worry, she didn't understand me."

  He shook his head and sighed. It was a very good thing it was over. Otherwise, there was no telling what else Jaina would do.

  Until next week
, that was.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jaina's quiet in the car on the ride back to her brother's house that night disturbed Colin.

  "Plotting murder?" he asked.

  She looked up, startled. "What? No. No, I was, um... thinking."

  "Do I want to know?" he asked.

  Jaina surprised herself by not blushing as she said, "It had to do with you and hot fudge."

  Colin found himself liking that thought. "Oh, really?"

  "But it has to wait," she sighed. Then she groaned. "And I have to schedule an appointment with an OB/GYN."

  "I take it you don't want to go?"

  She shot him a look. "I hate the OB/GYN's. Those speculum thingies are evil. They're like... salad tongs of doom."

  He had to laugh, though he didn't know what they were, exactly. "I can go with you, if you'd like."

  That she blushed at. "Uh, no, that's okay, I'll, uh... I'll get Teniel to go with me."

  "All right."

  Jaina was silent for a moment, then said, "Colin? I was wondering... We'll have to tell my family, and yours, about us eventually, but... I was wondering what you were thinking about it."

  Colin kept his eyes on the road. Visibility was reduced due to the lightly falling snow. "I thought maybe we'd keep it just between us for now. I've been very... well, I don't reveal a lot to people, you know, so it's..."

  "I understand. And I agree. For now, it's just us." Jaina frowned. "I certainly don't want Rebecca knowing."

  Colin sighed. "I don't know why she was being so... rude to you today."

  Jaina smiled ruefully. "I probably didn't help matters any. I was kind of nasty right back."

  "You aren't... going to do anything to her, are you?"

  She laughed. "No, no, I'm not. I know she's just doing her job. None of us can help it that her job involves faking sex with my lover."

  He glanced at her as they pulled up in front of the house. "I like the sound of that."