Starstruck

by Anne McAllister

  “What’s in Madison?” Ellie asked. “Or should I say, ‘Who?’ ”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Joe snapped, completely unprepared to talk about Liv to anyone. Acknowledging that his past relationships left a lot to be desired in no way meant that he was willing to subject the disastrous beginning—or ending—of this one to Ellie’s probing mind. “It’s just a nice university town,” he said. “Some culture, some variety, some pace, but also some peace and quiet. And right now I want that.”

  Ellie gave him a quizzical look but refrained from commenting.

  “I’ve been thinking that I want to write a screenplay,” he told her. “I’m fed up with Steve Scott and the adventure boys and all that rot. That’s why I’m saying no to Luther. I’m sick of the notoriety and all the hoopla that goes with this sex symbol crap. I’m a person too—not just some stud. And as long as I keep on acting and doing a little directing, nobody’s going to believe it. But if I write something—” He felt himself warming to the idea even as he expressed it. It seemed right somehow. He could almost see bits of the story in his head, like film clips, as he talked. He had to do it, had to try, anyway. He needed more in his life than being just a jumped-up actor who rescued fair maidens and shot the bad guys while flexing his muscles and looking tough.

  “So you’re going to Madison to write a screenplay?” Ellie’s expression went from quizzical to incredulous. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Believe it,” said Joe. He grinned at her, feeling the enthusiasm growing inside him, flowering. He had visions inside his head—visions of himself bent over a typewriter, clattering away, pouring out his thoughts onto paper while happy children’s voices floated through the open windows and Liv hummed to herself in the other room. He dipped his head, avoiding Ellie’s penetrating gaze.

  “There is more to this than meets the eye,” Ellie said, her tongue tracing a circle on the inside of her cheek.

  “Ummmmm,” Joe mumbled. A part of him wanted to tell her about Liv, to ask her advice. But he couldn’t—not yet. Not until he knew better himself what he felt. Chances were he would get Liv out of his system as quickly as he had got all the others out. And he would wish that he’d never mentioned her to Ellie then. But maybe she was different. He’d been thinking about her constantly, ever since he’d left her that first time in Madison. He saw hundreds of lovely women every day, day in and day out, but all he had yearned for was to see Liv, to talk to her, to touch her. The phone conversations, far from appeasing his hunger, had whetted it more. He’d had obsessions before—infatuations—but nothing like this. It was weird.

  He found himself wondering what she’d been like as a child, if she had had Stephen’s gamin grin or Theo’s freckles. He grinned as he remembered her combative feistiness, her willingness to toe the line against the zoning commissioner or—heaven help him—himself. He remembered those moments at his house before Tom had shown up—her passion, the fires burning just beneath the surface, the promise of things to come. And he ached. He ached with such wanting as he had never known. And he ached with shame because he had not known how to handle what had happened next. Joe Harrington, the Mr. Cool of the Romance League, had acted like a gauche kid caught making out with the minister’s daughter. Ten thousand times since then he had told himself that he should have stayed, should have told Liv’s ex-husband where to put his hypocrisy, should have told her until she believed him that Linda Lucas meant nothing, absolutely nothing, in his life. God knew it was true! But somehow he had been speechless—caught flatfooted by Tom’s righteous indignation, Liv’s total embarrassment and his own confused emotions. All he could think was that if he left it would be better for everyone. But he had been wrong. He felt Ellie’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Hang in there,” she said, giving him a quick hug. “It’ll be fine.”

  Joe wished he was as sure as she was. A pity she couldn’t write him a happy ending as she could for one of her books. And what would it be, he asked himself mockingly, draining the last of his beer. He didn’t know. He only knew the next step—he had to get back to Madison as soon as possible.

  “Can I use your phone?” he asked Ellie. “I want to tell Tim to take a six-month lease on the Traynor place starting Monday.”

  Liv was reaching for the last white undershirt to pin it to the clothesline when she saw Stephen and Theo hurtling down the hill on their bikes. The stiff breeze carried their first words away from her and she called, “Be careful when you cross that street!” But the boys were oblivious, grinning like fools, and at last she heard “Joe’s back!” and the wind slapped the undershirt across her face.

  Chapter Six

  It wasn’t exactly a surprise. Liv had been anticipating the moment since George Slade told her that Tim Gates had sent him the money for six months’ rent two days earlier. It was almost a relief to know—like discovering what disease you had, so you could at last go about finding a cure for it.

  “Really?” She finished pinning up the shirt and carried the wicker laundry basket over to the patio. “How nice.” Her tone was carefully neutral, even if her emotions weren’t. She didn’t want the kids thinking that he had hurt her badly—a conclusion that Noel had already jumped to earlier, and not without grounds, she had to admit. But she didn’t want to sound eager to see him either. For one thing she wasn’t—really. For another, even if she were eager, she would be a fool to encourage Joe Harrington. Relationships like ones he was used to were exactly what she didn’t need.

  But she needn’t have worried. They had no intention of dragging him home. “Me an’ Stephen are going to the hardware store,” Theo announced breathlessly as he skidded in the gravel and dropped his dirt bike with a thud. “For Joe,” he added importantly.

  “The hardware store? What for?” Liv asked. Heavy duty springs for his bed?

  “For nails,” Stephen explained, a broad grin on his face.

  “Nails?” That sounded permanent.

  “We’re buildin’ a tree house.” Theo said. “Joe an’ Ben are gettin’ the wood.”

  “You shouldn’t bother Joe,” Liv began, but Stephen interrupted.

  “He’s not bothered. He suggested it.”

  “I bet he wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been standing there,” Liv said firmly. The boys had trekked the mile and a half to Joe’s unoccupied house almost daily since he had left. Liv hadn’t said much about it, thinking that his absence would be the best discouragement. Now she was beginning to wish she’d forbidden them to go.

  Theo shrugged. “Who cares?”

  I do, Liv thought. It meant they would be at his house at all hours, and chances were that he’d come home with them. She would have to see him, talk to him—resist him. That was the crux of the matter.

  Once she had got over feeling angry and humiliated and indignant with herself and Joe and Tom, she had had to face how she really felt about what had happened that night. And nothing betrayed her feelings more clearly, she discovered with dismay, than hearing that Joe had, in fact, rented the Traynor house for six months. Completely unbidden a tiny stab of elation pricked her. He’s coming back, she thought. And then what, she had immediately demanded, cross with her own perverse happiness at the thought.

  There was no way she was going to let such a man get close enough to hurt her again. She wanted a steady man, a reliable man—if, indeed, she wanted a man at all. What she definitely did not want was a man like Joe Harrington who had the reputation of being a hundred times the Don Juan that Tom James was. No, if Joe was coming back she would have to squelch that renegade bit of happiness, snuff it out before it could flicker to life again.

  “Wanta help us build it?” Stephen asked her, swinging back onto his bike.

  Liv shook her head. “No, thanks.” She wasn’t going to go near Joe’s place. She didn’t want the boys to go, either. But she couldn’t think of a convincing reason to stop them, so she managed a weak smile and waved them off, praying that Joe Harrington would have as little desire to
see her as she had to see him.

  God and Joe, however, seemed to have other ideas. When five o’clock roiled around and she was just about to put Jennifer in the car and drive over to Joe’s place to fetch the boys home—a move that she desperately did not want to make—she heard talking and laughing on the patio; the kitchen door burst open, and Theo, Stephen and Ben all trooped in, carrying a large bucket of fried chicken and coleslaw, a six-pack of soda pop, another of beer, followed by Joe Harrington armed with a sheepish grin and a fistful of daisies. He held them out to Liv with a quizzical, hopeful look on his face.

  Her heart was crashing around in her chest like waves crashing on a beach in a storm, and she wiped her hands on the dish towel, gripping it to stop them trembling. “Hello,” she said coolly, and she knew from the look on his face that he’d sensed the drop in room temperature, even if the boys hadn’t.

  “We brought you dinner,” he said, thrusting the daisies into her hand and nodding at the flurry of activity going on around them as the boys slapped plates on the table and clanked down the silverware.

  “You needn’t have,” she said. The daisies were burning her hand, and she turned to grab a glass out of the cupboard, stuffing the flowers into it and running water to the brim. Anything not to have to look directly at him.

  “I know,” he said, and the grin flashed again, a bit more hopeful this time. “But I didn’t figure you’d invite me to stay, otherwise.” He asked an eyebrow and she thought, damn his boyish vulnerability anyway. But she shrugged, knowing that the battle was already lost. The troops were all on his side. She could hear Stephen chattering away about two-by fours and Ben’s calculations of how many steps they would have to make up the side of the tree, and she knew there was no use in fighting him now.

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said ungraciously and turned to get her tossed salad out of the refrigerator. Fortunately she wasn’t required to make scintillating conversation. The kids were saying enough for everyone. Their enthusiasm was enormous, and in spite of her own misgivings she was pleased that they were getting to make this tree house.

  It wasn’t something that Tom had ever bothered about. Tom would come and watch their ball games occasionally, or take Noel out to play golf with him. But he’d never bothered to go swimming with the kids or to build things with them, and Liv thought now, listening to them, how odd it was that Joe Harrington should be acting more like their father than her ex-husband ever did.

  “Use your napkin, not your sleeve, Theo,” Joe said, and she thought, Lord, he even sounds like a father. He had certainly come a long way since the first time he had sat at this table and fussed about having to eat peas. She lifted her eyes from her plate just long enough to glance at him.

  He was grinning at her and her eyes dropped immediately. The look he gave her was far too sensuous, far too provoking, far too reminiscent of Albert Finney playing Tom Jones, gnawing on a chicken leg while he seduced Mrs. Waters with his gaze. They should do a remake, she thought. Joe Harrington would be a natural Tom Jones.

  “Can we go back and work on the tree house some more now?” Ben asked Joe when they had finished eating.

  “Ask your mother,” Joe said. “It’s all right with me.”

  All eyes turned to Liv, whose first reaction was to say no, shove Joe out the door and bolt it from within. But that was a selfish reaction, albeit a safe one, and after bearing an hour’s worth of enthusiasm about the tree house, she couldn’t do it. Besides, just because the kids played at his house it didn’t mean that she had to have anything to do with him. “All right,” she said with what she hoped Joe would hear as indifference.

  The whoops and hollers quickly changed to groans when Joe said, “Dishes first, though,” and mobilized the kids as though he were a drill sergeant, not an actor.

  “There,” he said when the kitchen was spotless. “Come on.” The kids raced on ahead out of the kitchen, and Liv stood behind one of the kitchen chairs regarding Joe warily, as if the chair’s flimsy wooden frame would protect her from his formidable presence and charm.

  “Not me,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m not coming.” Because she knew that was what he was waiting for.

  Joe didn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes traveled slowly from Liv to the daisies on the windowsill and back again. The warm evening light bathed his features in a kind of golden glow, and Liv felt an ache deep within her. He sighed and scratched his ear. “Liv,” he said carefully, “we have to talk.”

  “No, we don’t.” There was nothing he could say that she wanted to hear. Whatever he said, she knew, would undermine her resolve against him.

  “Something special was happening between us that Saturday night,” he persisted.

  Liv grimaced. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” she retorted sarcastically, her knuckles white as she gripped the chair lack. What did he know about “special?”

  Joe shook his head, a red flush staining his cheeks. “You’re not all the girls!” he grated angrily.

  “You can say that again!” Liv snapped. “But I was handy, wasn’t I? Not too bright and not too beautiful, but better than nothing, huh?”

  “Stop it! It wasn’t like that and you know it!”

  “How do I know it?”

  Joe’s shoulders slumped, and a look of helplessness overtook his features. He shook his head defeatedly and stared unseeing past the blue gingham curtains into the yard beyond. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know.”

  Liv’s anger faded somewhat as she stared at his baffled face. She had expected an angry response, not confusion. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” she demanded, thrown off balance.

  “Well, I mean, how can I prove it?” He shrugged helplessly, like a man condemned. “I can’t point to my sterling reputation and ask you to believe me, now, can I?”

  Liv shook her head. “Never mind,” she told him. “Forget I asked.”

  The screen door flew open and Ben poked his head in. “Hey, c’mon Joe, we’re ready!”

  “Yeah, just a sec. Listen,” he beseeched her, “I’m not leaving Madison. I meant what I said, Liv. I don’t want to lose what we had that night—”

  “We didn’t have anything,” she protested. “Lust, that’s all.”

  “No,” he argued. “I think I know lust a damn sight better than you do. That wasn’t lust.”

  Liv knew her face was crimson. Why couldn’t he just drop it? “I want them home at eight,” she told him, wringing the dish towel in her hands.

  “You have to talk to me sometime, Liv.”

  “Eight,” she reiterated, her spine so rigid that she thought it would crack. She turned away from him and began rearranging the spices in her cupboard. Anything, just so he would leave her alone.

  “All right,” he said finally, moving to the door, his eyes still boring into her. She ducked her head to avoid the penetrating gaze that made her feel as though he were trying to touch her soul. Alphabetical, she thought. First allspice, then basil. Cinnamon. Her hands moved mechanically.

  “Thank you for the nice dinner,” she mumbled as the door banged after him; but she didn’t budge from the cupboard till she heard his car drive away. Then she went into the living room and sank into the sofa, wondering at the weak, spineless creature she had become. Where was her willpower that she could feel her knees buckle at the sight of his handsome face? But, a more perverse side of her argued, it wasn’t just his handsome face doing it, though heaven knew it was attractive enough—it was the way he acted with the kids, firm but enthusiastic, the thoughtfulness of the fried chicken and the daisies, the teasing friendliness of their early phone conversations. There were so many things that made Joe Harrington difficult to resist.

  But he must really think I’m dumb, she thought, if he figures he can just come in here and feed me some line about “something between us” and have me drop into his arms like some roast duck. He might be hard to resist but he wasn’t impossible. It would be eas
ier from here on out, she told herself. Now that she had seen him, she could steel herself against him, avoid him, ignore him. Sooner or later he would go away.

  Sooner or later she would crack, Joe told himself. She couldn’t keep on being Miss Stainless Steel forever. But for two weeks she hadn’t been doing too bad a job of it, he admitted, ripping another sheet out of his typewriter and crumpling it up.

  The floor was littered with paper—his screenplay—but his mind was littered with thoughts of Liv—Liv saying, “No thank you,” when he invited her to dinner; Liv saying, “I’m busy,” when he suggested going for a swim; Liv saying, “I can’t, but I’m sure the kids would love to,” when he offered to drive them to Milwaukee to the zoo or a ball game. Nothing he came up with made the slightest dent in her refusal to have anything more to do with him. And nothing he could do succeeded in banishing her from his mind.

  How he’d tried! After he figured out that she was going to do her iceberg imitation every time he came near, he thought that if she could do it, he could too. That was when he discovered how limited an actor he actually was. He couldn’t stop himself watching her every move, couldn’t pretend indifference to her curtness, couldn’t feign coldness if she ignored him whenever he came around. It wasn’t his nature. Instead he tried harder, agonized more, and ached to the very core of his being.

  His salvation—if he had one—was the kids. Their cheerfulness made her coldness bearable. They arrived enthusiastically almost every morning, stayed all day, mucking about in the kitchen and yard as though it were their own home, hurrying to tell him their latest accomplishments or bemoan their setbacks. They invited him to all their games and swim meets, some of which Liv attended, too, when her work permitted, and to impromptu picnic suppers, swearing that “Mom said it was okay.” Oddly enough they gave him a comfort and an anonymity that he hadn’t had in years.