by Sandra Brown
Gnawing on his trademark cigar, the director turned to Rylan and looked him over. “You’re a god-damn fool for doing this,” he growled. “That’s why we’ve got stunt men on the payroll, you idiot.”
“Which way to the airplane?” Rylan asked blandly.
He ignored the director’s florid language and concentrated on the technician’s explanation of how the explosions would be set off, how the one-take shot would be captured on film, and how he was to eject himself safely afterward. Timing was critical. The actor, the cameramen, the special effects technicians, all had to be synchronized and had to rely on each other’s expertise.
“Okay?” the director roared. “Is everybody ready? Let’s do it.”
As it turned out, it was another full hour before they did it. During that hour, the director repeated Rylan’s directions to him at least a dozen more times. The wardrobe mistress checked his flight suit to make certain it was “grimy” enough. The makeup man oiled and “sweated” him.
“I don’t need that,” Rylan said with star-status querulousness, pushing the squirt bottle out of his face. “It’s hotter than hell out here.”
“They’re about to set your ass on fire, and you’re complaining about a little sweat?”
Finally Rylan climbed into the cockpit of the fake jet and pulled on the helmet with DEMON printed in bold red letters across it. Camera angles were checked and rechecked in the video monitors mounted on them. Everybody stood clear; the director gave the signal to roll the cameras.
Rylan smiled and waved through the dusty canopy of the airplane as the script called for. They were recreating an airshow at which Rumm had successfully landed a malfunctioning plane, to the wild appreciation of the crowd. Shots of that would be edited in later. But even after landing, Rumm wasn’t out of the woods.
They had all warned him, but Rylan was surprised by the impact of the first explosion. It rattled his insides and, for a moment, gelled his brain. He didn’t even feel the second and third charges when they went off.
Goda’mighty!
His eyes reflexively squeezed shut against the flash of brilliant light. When he opened them again, he was certain that something had gone wrong and that he’d died and gone straight to hell. All he could see in front of him was a solid wall of red-orange flames, from which rose an equally impenetrable curtain of black smoke.
The heat was so intense it seared his eyeballs and melted his flesh. He was sure his skin was dripping off his skull like the most hideous special effects in horror movies.
Really dumb thing to be thinking about now, he chided himself. But what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? Oh, yeah. I’m supposed to open the canopy and get the hell out of here before I fry.
He groped for and found the release lever immediately. But, unlike the run-throughs they’d done, it didn’t respond to his touch. He pulled on it. Harder. It didn’t budge.
He fought down the sour panic that filled his throat like vomit. God, it hurt to breathe. The air was so damn hot. He tried the lever again, his teeth clenching with the effort.
Jesus!
The director knew down to the split second when that canopy was supposed to fly off and Rylan was to climb out and roll clear of the burning aircraft. When it didn’t happen, he exploded out of his chair, throwing his cigar on the ground. Screaming for fire extinguishers, he led the swarm of people that began running toward the burning aircraft.
Pat nearly choked on the undigested doughnut that rose into her throat. She screamed.
The wardrobe mistress was thinking that it was a damn shame she’d never slept with Rylan North, who was going to die in his prime, and therefore become a Hollywood legend that she would one day tell her grandchildren about.
The makeup man clutched the crucifix around his neck and, with this sudden reminder of mortality, regressed to his childhood fear of hell and damnation and begged God’s forgiveness for the ménage à trois he’d been engaged in the night before.
And the petite, dark-haired woman, who was standing beside her Mercedes convertible, saw the reenactment of her worst nightmares.
She was witnessing the burning death of the man she loved.
Somehow Rylan spotted her. Later, he wondered about that. It was a miracle that he had picked her out of the scores of people who were all hysterically shouting instructions he couldn’t hear above the roar of the fire and frantically making gestures he couldn’t interpret.
Kirsten wasn’t moving, only standing in the open door of her car, hugging to her chest something that inexplicably looked like a movie script. Tears, running copiously from beneath her sunglasses, had made her cheeks wet.
At first he thought she was only a figment of his imagination, that his life was flashing before his eyes as it was reputed to do moments before death. But he knew from the stark terror on her face that she was real.
“Get her away from here!” he shouted through the canopy. But of course no one could hear him. “God, no, don’t do this to her,” he prayed.
Impervious to the heat of the metal lever and the flames that were voraciously licking at his gloved hands, he pulled on the lever with superhuman strength. It gave way and the canopy popped off as easily as the top of a beer can.
Reacting on sheer reflex and the desperate need to get to Kirsten, he scrambled out of the burning aircraft and launched himself away from it, sailing several feet through the air in a daring escape that would make moviemaking history. He landed on his side and rolled to his feet as he’d been directed to do.
But Rylan wasn’t thinking about directions. He was thinking only about the woman, the roiling black column of smoke behind him, and the living hell it represented to her.
He was immediately surrounded by people. Throngs of them. So many he couldn’t fight his way through.
“Don’t panic, Rylan!” someone shouted.
“The suit is asbestos. It’s only smoking, not burning.”
“Get to Kirsten,” he yelled. “Kirsten. Help her. Let me—”
“He’s not making any sense.”
“He’s hysterical, you jerk. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Kirsten!”
He fought like a madman for them to release him, but they wrestled him to the ground. Kirsten was lost to his view.
“Get those damn gloves off. They’re smoldering.”
“Wrap his hands in something.”
“No. Don’t wrap them.”
“Whatever you do, hurry, hurry, before he’s scarred!”
He gazed down at his hands and with amazing detachment realized that smoke was rising out of his sleeves and that the flesh on the backs of his hands was abnormally red and puckered.
Someone nearly broke his neck yanking the helmet off his head. “Somebody go tell Kirsten—”
“Did anyone think to call a damn ambulance?” the director bellowed. “Damn imbeciles.”
Rylan struggled to sit up. “Kirsten,” he croaked, and ineffectually pointed his burned hand in her general direction.
“Lie down, Rylan.” Pat applied a restraining hand to his shoulder, demonstrating more composure than anyone else. “You’re going to be all right.” She told the director, “There’s an ambulance already here. Remember you ordered it just in case an accident like this happened.”
“Then everybody get out of its damn way. I ought to sue you, you bastard,” he yelled down at Rylan, “for taking a chance like that. Helluva job though,” he added, chomping on a new cigar. “Helluva job. Everybody in the audience will be peeing in his pants.”
“Here come the paramedics.”
“Everybody stand back.”
“Rylan, they’ll take you to the hospital right away.”
Someone pressed a cold cloth to his forehead. It was useless to fight them. And, God, he was tired.
Where was Kirsten?
Kirsten, Kirsten.
“You’ll be glad to know there’ll be no scars,” Pat told him as she entered the private hospital room where
he’d been treated. “The doctor says the burns were superficial, even though I know they hurt like hell. Keep that antibiotic salve on them for the next few days and take these pills for pain if you need them.” She set a small container of medication on the bedside table. “They’re harmless and will only produce a mellow state of well-being, or so I’m told by frequent users.”
Rylan didn’t even crack a smile.
Pat chatted on, undaunted by his moody silence, which she figured was a delayed reaction to the potentially fatal accident. “Our esteemed director called to tell you that this crash sequence and your escape from it is the most exhilarating piece of film he’s seen in all his days in Hollywood. I think he considers your scorched hands of no more consequence than the sacrificial cigar he lost. The flowers are from him, by the way. The crew sent—”
“What was she doing there?”
Pat looked at him with perplexity. “What? Who? Who was where?”
“Kirsten Rumm. What was she doing on the set?” he asked darkly.
Pat lowered her bulk into the only available chair and looked warily at the man sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. The sullen mouth and hooded eyes weren’t due to pain and delayed fear, she realized now. They were the offspring of controlled fury.
“Was she there?” she asked.
“Yes. I saw her from the cockpit.”
“Maybe you just imagined—”
“I saw her!” he shouted. “What was she doing there?”
Pat quailed. “If she was, I guess it was my fault. I called her.”
“Why?” His whisper was rife with menace.
“To . . . to . . . We really needed that script, Rylan. I asked if it was there at her house. She went to check your room and came back to say that yes it was.”
“And you asked her to bring it to the set.” Disregarding the tightness of the skin on the backs of his hands, he clenched them into fists.
“No, no, I didn’t,” Pat countered firmly. “I offered to send a messenger out there to pick it up, but she— Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Back to Los Angeles?”
He realized the slip he’d made, but didn’t take time to ruminate on it now. There would be time enough to think later. After he’d seen Kirsten. “To her house. I can be reached there.” He shed the hospital gown as he headed toward the narrow closet. Someone, probably maternal Pat, had had the foresight to bring him a change of clothes.
She pushed herself out of the chair. “But you can’t leave the hospital!” she cried helplessly as she watched him dress. “The doctor ordered you to stay overnight for observation.”
Rylan had a crude and anatomically impossible suggestion as to what she and the doctor could do with his order. He left the room and the hospital without breaking stride. Since his motorcycle was still at the set, he hired a taxi outside the hospital to drive him to La Jolla.
Even from the bottom of the hill, he could see that Kirsten’s house was dark. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s home, pal,” the cabbie remarked over his shoulder. Rylan, wearing his opaque sunglasses, had gone unrecognized.
“She’s here,” he said with conviction. When they rounded the last curve in the winding driveway, he saw her Mercedes parked in front of the house. “Thanks.” Whoever had provided the clothes and sunglasses had also stuffed some bills into his trouser pockets. He tossed a more than adequate amount of them into the front seat of the cab and got out.
The front door was locked. He went around to the back of the house and tried each sliding glass door until he found one that was unlocked. He braced himself for the burglar alarm to go off. When it didn’t, he made his way through the darkened rooms.
He found her in her bedroom, lying across the wide bed, which made her look incredibly small by comparison. Her shoes were on the floor, toes pointing toward the bed, as though she’d stepped out of them and had lain down in one movement. She was curled into a fetal ball, her knees drawn up, head bent so drastically that her chin almost touched her chest.
He said nothing, but went straight to the bed and sat down. Leaning over her, he stroked her hair. For a moment she only lay there unmoving. Then she rolled to her back and gazed up at him through the darkness.
His heart twisted with remorse when he saw that her eyes were swollen from crying. There were smudges of watered-down mascara beneath her lower lashes. Her lips looked bruised. He dipped his head and stroked them with his tongue, then kissed them softly. The most articulate actor in Hollywood couldn’t come up with anything appropriate to say. He kept it simple and to the point. “I’m sorry you were put through that.”
Her lower lip began to tremble. She slowly sat up and inclined toward him. His arms, his soul, were ready to receive her. He held her fragile frame against him and buried his face in her neck. She folded her arms across the back of his neck. Her sobs shook them both.
“Don’t, don’t,” he murmured. “It looked a helluva lot worse than it was.”
“It was ghastly. Awful. Just like my nightmares.”
“I know, darling, I know.” He smoothed his hands down her back. “I saw you. Through the fire. And I—”
It suddenly occurred to him that at that moment, when his death had seemed imminent, he had thought first of Kirsten and the anguish she was suffering. Wouldn’t it have been natural for his first concern to be for himself? Yes, unless she had become more important to him than his own life. Yes, unless he loved her.
He turned his face into her neck and placed a fervent kiss on the softest, most fragrant of skin. The kiss was an unspoken profession of the love he couldn’t declare. She wasn’t ready to hear about it. But he knew it, and he celebrated it. He loved her! It was heaven; and it was hell. Because he didn’t know whom she was crying over.
“I couldn’t imagine what you were doing there,” he said. “I thought I was seeing things.”
Sniffling, she put space between them. “She . . . this lady named Pat . . . called and—”
“I know all about that now. There will be hell to pay.”
“No, no, don’t be angry with her. I volunteered to bring the script to the set.”
“Why? I thought you wanted to stay away from it.”
“Originally I did, but . . .”
Her voice trailed off and she looked away. He cupped her cheek and turned her face back toward him. “Why, Kirsten?”
Her answer was a long time in coming. “I’ve been so confused.”
“About what?”
“About what was going on inside me, what I was feeling.”
“Feeling?”
She lifted tear-laden eyes and looked straight into his. “Feeling for you.”
Rylan’s heart began thudding harder and faster than it had in the burning airplane that morning. “What’s this feeling like?” he asked gruffly.
“I think you know.”
“Give me a hint.”
“When I’m around you, I can’t think clearly. I always make a fool of myself.”
“Never.” His gaze greedily wandered over her face.
“I do,” she said with desperation. “I had everything under control until you came along. Now I’m always flustered and unsure and I don’t know why.” She made an impatient gesture. “I can’t explain how I feel.”
He lifted her hand and pressed it over his heart, inside his shirt. “Is what you’re feeling anything like this?” His rapid heartbeats drummed against her palm.
“Exactly like that,” she whispered. Holding his gaze, she raised his hand and laid it over her left breast. “See?”
Making a low, growling sound, he bent his head and kissed her. She kissed him back, responding in kind to the urgent stroking of his tongue.
Still, there was a hesitancy underlying her kiss. While he could think clearly, he pulled away. “What is it, Kirsten? What’s wrong?”
“You’re too intuitive for your own good.”
“It’s just that when a woman kisses me, I want her
to be certain who she’s kissing.”
“You know,” she gasped softly, surprised.
Solemnly he nodded.
She shuddered on the heavy breath she drew in. “That’s what I mean by being confused. We talk about Charlie around the clock. When we’re not talking about him, I’m writing about him. You move like him. Your gestures are the same. You say his words, which I’ve written down. You even use the same inflections. But now, when I think of him, I see your face, not his.”
She looked up at him, profound confusion in her expression. “I don’t know if I’m falling in love with him all over again or if it’s you I’m attracted to.”
Rylan rested his forehead against hers. For once in his life, he wished he wasn’t so good at his craft. It wasn’t unusual for him to take on the mannerisms of the character he was playing for the duration of the filming. He literally became the person he was portraying. He prided himself on that ability. But this was one time he wanted to be seen only as himself, stripped of any affectations and pretenses.
“If you had met me some other place,” he began slowly, “say I was the telephone repair man who had come to install your phone, would you have been attracted to me?”
She actually laughed. “I’m not dead, Rylan. I have hormones. Is there a living, breathing woman who wouldn’t be attracted to the way you look?”
“That doesn’t count,” he grumbled. “Would you be attracted to me, the man?”
“I don’t know,” she moaned, rolling her forehead from side to side against his, brushing noses. “I think so. The most honest answer I can give you is that I find you fascinating.”
“I’ll settle for fascinating.”
She smiled at his quip. “You’re not at all what I expected you to be. You’re much more serious. Oh, you swagger. You appear not to give a damn about anything but yourself. But I realize now that you’re not aloof to people, only to superficiality.”
He liked what he was hearing. He laced his fingers together at the back of her neck and kissed her temple. “Tell me more.”
“You have much more depth than I imagined you would. More caring. Your human side makes your audacity tolerable.”