by Kay Hooper
“Lara? It’s your line.” Nick sounded impatient.
She broke Devon’s steady gaze and stared down at the script. Her line. Rapunzel’s line. In a voice that shook, Lara read, “Why may I not leave this place, Mother? I wish to—”
Melanie broke in with the voice of the witch, soothing and authoritative, her cold smile for the benefit of the audience rather than the trusting Rapunzel. “My child, the world outside this tower is a cruel place, and I would keep you safe from it. I will bring you a nice pet, shall I? You will have a companion when I leave each afternoon.”
“Damn!” Nick muttered.
“I wasn’t finished,” Melanie told him in her own voice.
He shrugged apologetically, but said, “I just remembered how much trouble we had the last time we needed an animal. Maybe I can find a bird or something.”
Lara was still trying to ignore the man across the table, and said almost absently, “We can use my cat.”
Nick looked at her. “A cat? Lara, if your cat’s anything like Susie’s, it won’t take kindly to stage direction.”
“You don’t know Ching.”
“A Siamese?” Nick asked with foreboding.
She had to laugh. “Yes, but not—not at all catlike. I’ll bring him in if you like, and you’ll see what I mean.”
“Worth a try,” the director said. “Bring him in tomorrow night, will you? Okay, Melanie, go on.”
Melanie went on with the witch’s lines, and Lara concentrated carefully on following and reading hers. At this early stage they were just reading, occasionally trying a certain tone or inflection. Nick interrupted from time to time and suggested a slight change in wording or a different emphasis, and they all made notes right on the script.
Lara’s concentration increased as the reading continued, until she was virtually unaware of the banging and thumps out on the stage; she didn’t even notice when the workers packed up for the night and left. But when Devon Shane spoke his first line, her thoughts scattered like leaves blown by a wind. His earlier brief greeting hadn’t prepared her for the effect of his voice. It was deep, compelling, curiously haunting; and the single, simple line he spoke was a plea that made her ache inside.
“Rapunzel, let down your hair…” Let me know you. Let me be with you. Let me love you. It was all there, an appeal to break a woman’s heart.
As Lara looked up from her script to stare across the table at him, she realized she wasn’t the only one affected by that dark velvet charm. Both Melanie and Sonia were looking at Devon with a kind of unconscious fascination; Pat gazed at him in surprise; and Nick wore a peculiar expression of baffled delight.
“Good,” he said blankly. And then, as Devon looked at him somewhat enigmatically and without comment, Nick added more briskly, “Very good. Now, I skimped on the stage direction at this point, but here’s what I’ve planned…”
What Nick had planned deviated slightly from the fairy tale. Rapunzel was trusting, he pointed out, but hardly an idiot and not at all deaf; she was bound to be able to differentiate between the prince’s voice and the witch’s. So he had decided that Rapunzel would lean out the tower window to see who was calling to her rather than meekly lowering her braid. The first meeting between the potential lovers would take place with the prince still outside Rapunzel’s stone prison.
They talked to each other, two lonely people. Rapunzel was innocent and curious, needing what she couldn’t put a name to, and this prince, like all fairy-tale princes, was falling rapidly in love with her beauty and purity.
Lara spoke her lines, gazing steadfastly at her script and trying to ignore the effect Devon’s husky voice was having on her senses. But as they progressed to the next scene, where the prince charmed Rapunzel into lowering her braid, Lara slowly realized that Nick had chosen to portray the lovers realistically. She remembered, now, that in at least one version of the fairy tale, Rapunzel had borne twins by the end of the story.
Nick, adapting the tale for an audience made up of adults, had decided to focus on the developing relationship, building sensuality as well as love and tenderness between them. By the beginning of the third act, Rapunzel and her prince were lovers in every sense of the word.
There would be no nudity, but the embraces Nick described with enthusiasm were passionate and sensual in the extreme. It was not something Lara had been prepared for—fairy tales tended to limit sexuality to chaste kisses—and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the matter. Nor was she able to guess how Devon felt about it, since the expression on his darkly handsome face remained enigmatic despite the emotion in his haunting prince’s voice.
She heard her own voice quiver with uncertainty as they continued reading lines, and wondered what the others heard in it. Nick, at least, seemed wholly satisfied, even delighted.
He glanced at his watch as they finished the first scene of the third act, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It’s after nine. I think we’ll leave the rest until tomorrow. Is anybody going to have a problem showing up by six every night?” He looked around the table, then nodded. “Good. Okay, then, same time tomorrow. Take your scripts home and study them if you get the chance.”
Lara gathered her script and rose, fighting a craven impulse to tell Nick he’d have to find another Rapunzel. She was, she reminded herself, a grown woman, and it was only a play, for heaven’s sake. An adult version of Dress-up or Let’s Pretend, with costumes and fake kisses. She could handle that. And she needed it, needed the focus in her life right now.
She’d been working sixteen hours a day for too long, exhausting herself just to be able to sleep without nightmares. When the inevitable crash had come, weeks ago, it had left her limp and unable to work; the walls had started closing in on her, and she’d wanted to run—somewhere. Anywhere.
Anywhere except home. She could never go home again.
It had hit her suddenly, a cruel blow battering her in her exhausted state. That she was totally cut off from her past, rootless in a present she hadn’t chosen for herself. The numb acceptance of months had shattered, leaving her raw and scared and alone. She had tried to see a future for herself, and had found only walls and aloneness.
Lara didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t seen the advertisement in the newspaper. Her only thought as she’d read the notice of auditions at the community theater had been to go, to escape the enclosing walls of her apartment.
So here she was. There were people around her who were brisk and friendly, who accepted what she seemed to be with utter unconcern. There was life around her, the chaos of creativity, the thudding pulse of activity. And it had helped her. She had felt herself steadying, calming, rediscovering her lost balance.
“Good night, Lara.”
“Good night. See you tomorrow.”
She responded automatically to the farewells, rolling the script up in one hand and using the other to fish in the pocket of her jeans for her car keys as she left the now deserted stage and headed up the dim aisle toward the front of the building. She had parked out front, learning later that everyone left their cars behind the theater. Absently, she made a mental note to park around back tomorrow night.
The lobby was silent, the dim light throwing eerie shadows into the corners. Lara walked a bit faster, conscious of those walls leaning in at her; she felt relieved when she pushed open one of the heavy doors and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Pinewood was a small town, and like all small towns, it closed early. The theater was on Main Street, where three traffic lights now blinked an idle yellow caution above deserted blacktop. Shop windows glowed faintly from single lights left on to discourage theft, and old-fashioned parking meters dotted the curbs like lonely sentinels.
Lara’s small car was parked across the street by one such meter, which she’d fed quarters into. Still, she half-expected to find a parking ticket fluttering on the windshield.
She was no more than three steps into the street when she heard the screech of tires. Fro
m the north end of town, a battered pickup truck suddenly careened around a corner and roared toward her, fishtailing wildly.
Blinded by the headlights and pinned in their glare, Lara waited numbly like a rabbit staring at a diving hawk.
Chapter 2
Lara couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t move or think. All she could do was stand frozen and stare at the vehicle bearing down on her. It couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away when she was suddenly yanked back out of the street and held in powerful arms against a hard body.
Vaguely hearing the truck roar past, Lara didn’t try to free herself. The man held her tight. His fingers bit into her arm, and she was absurdly conscious of the faint, musky scent of his after-shave or cologne. Her face was pressed into his shoulder, and the arms around her were so strong…
Those powerful arms loosened suddenly, and one of his hands gently turned her face up. “Are you all right?”
His eyes were colorless pools in the faint light, his hard, handsome face still and unreadable. Lara drew a deep breath, too numb from the shock to feel much else. “Yes. Yes, I think so. It must have been a drunk driver.” Her voice sounded normal, she thought. Too normal.
A frown drew his flying brows together. “What else could it have been?”
“Nothing else. Of course, nothing else.” She was still holding her script and keys, and bemusedly looked down at her hands. “Thank you for pulling me out of the road. I couldn’t move for some reason. Stupid.”
“Natural,” Devon Shane corrected, that haunting voice of his cool and calm. “You shouldn’t drive yourself tonight; I’ll take you home.”
“You don’t have to—”
He ignored the protest. “Will you need your car tomorrow?”
“No. But I can’t leave it here.”
Devon took the keys from her nerveless fingers. “I’ll park it around back so you won’t get a ticket. Wait here.”
She half-turned to watch him stride across the street, but waited obediently on the sidewalk. Obedient. Obedient. Her mind began working again, and she felt a pang of self-disgust. When had that happened to her? When had the numbness of shock and grief become this apathetic willingness to do only what she was told, to wait for others to guide her?
She had never been that way—before. She had charged at life, taking responsibility for her own sometimes reckless actions and stubbornly resisting any guiding hand. But then all control over her life had been snatched away from her, leaving her rudderless and stunned, and she had been forced by the sheer madness of the situation to accept guidance.
That had been natural, she thought now, and reasonable; she couldn’t have coped on her own, and she knew it. But somewhere in these last months, acceptance had become a kind of mindless docility, and that was wrong. Wrong.
Lara started slightly as a car drew up to the curb before her, but she didn’t move as Devon got out and came around to open the passenger door for her.
“Get in,” he said.
She found herself taking a step toward him, then stopped jerkily. Who was he, after all? A stranger. Just a stranger with a haunting voice and burdened eyes. Just a man she didn’t know, a man she couldn’t trust.
“Lara.” He held out one hand to her. “Come on.”
She couldn’t see his face clearly, and his curiously moving eyes were only dark pools, but his voice…his haunting voice. She saw her hand reach out slowly until his long fingers closed around it, and his strong, warm touch was like a lifeline.
Seconds later, waiting for him to move around to the driver’s side after he closed her door, Lara thought vaguely, She would have let down her braid, Nick. Without looking. Without even hesitating. Any woman would.
“Where do you live?” Devon asked, sliding into the car beside her.
“About two miles away.” Her voice was steady. “On the main road. Just head south.”
He put the car in gear, but didn’t release the brake. “Do you want to report it to the police?”
“No. I couldn’t identify the truck. Unless you—?”
Devon turned the wheel and pulled the car away from the curb, heading south. “It happened too fast,” he said. “I didn’t see enough to make an identification either.”
There was silence for a few moments, and Lara was so aware of the man beside her that she could hardly think. What on earth was wrong with her? “I—I’ve never seen you around here.” Not that she got out much, but still, it was a small town. And she would definitely have noticed him.
“I’ve been here only a few days,” he said. “I was transferred from the West Coast.”
She glanced at him. “Oh? What do you do?”
“I work at Com-Tech. Do you know it? The big plant on the other end of town.”
Lara nodded. “It’s an electronics plant.”
“Right. I work in conceptual design.” He sent her a brief look. “How about you?”
“I work in design, too. A different kind. I’m a commercial artist, an illustrator.”
“Freelance?”
“Yes. I work out of my apartment.” She hesitated, then said, “It was an impulse, auditioning for the play. I’ve never done any acting before. Have you?”
“In college. It’s a good way to meet people when you’re new in town.”
New in town. She wondered if the driver of that truck had been new in town. Until now, the lingering shock and Devon’s effect on her senses had kept her from thinking about the near miss, but she couldn’t block it out any longer. She could feel inner tremors building, the numbness of shock giving way to the first icy prickles of fear. A drunken driver? Or something else, something that hadn’t been random, hadn’t been accidental?
Had Devon saved her from an accident—or a murder attempt?
“Lara?”
She clenched her teeth to prevent them from chattering. “It’s just up ahead,” she muttered. “The apartment building on the left.” She could feel the glance he sent her, but he said nothing as he guided the car into the parking lot beside the big, five-story building.
“My keys—” she began, but Devon was turning off the engine, getting out of the car. She waited until he opened her door, then got out herself and said, “Thank you for—for everything.”
“I’m coming up with you,” he said briefly, shutting the car door and taking her arm.
“You don’t have to.” The forced calm in her voice was deserting her, leaving a wavering sound behind it.
“I know that.” His fingers tightened gently around her arm. His free hand pushed open the entrance door for them, and he frowned slightly as he guided her inside. “Which floor, Lara?”
“Third. Apartment 304.” She answered automatically, wondering in bewilderment what it was about his deep voice that tugged at her so.
There was no elevator. They went up the carpeted steps of the central, well-lighted stairwell in a silence broken only by the occasional faint sounds of music or television from inside the apartments they passed. When they reached her door, Devon produced her keys and unerringly selected the correct one.
Lara had left the living room lamps on. She always left a light on, even during the day, reluctant to take the chance of returning to darkness. Her apartment was decorated in soft pastels, and the furniture was comfortable. And yet, it was an impersonal place, lacking a sense of its occupant. The framed prints on the walls were the kind that could have been found in any hotel room, and the color scheme blended with the bland touch of professional decorating.
Only the drafting table set up in one corner near a window struck a somewhat personal note, with drawings still pinned to it, and a clutter of supplies beside it.
Devon glanced briefly around the room, then guided her to sit at one end of the couch. He dropped her keys on the glass-topped coffee table. “Where’s your kitchen?”
She nodded toward the short hallway leading off the living room, not trusting herself to speak. She didn’t look at him as he left the room, just remain
ed where he’d placed her with her fingers tightly laced together in her lap. A very quiet and sane voice in her head told her that she had every right to feel frightened, that it was a bit too coincidental that an anonymous driver had so narrowly missed her tonight.
But it just didn’t make sense, she argued with the voice. It didn’t. It was such a chancy thing, hit and run, with so many possibilities of failure. Guns, a bomb, that made sense; she would have expected something like that. In fact, had expected it.
Lara felt her lips twist bitterly. But what did she know about it, after all? Books, television, the movies. She didn’t even know enough to be sure there was a reason for her fear.
A distraction from her chaotic thoughts presented itself as Ching crawled out from under the couch and leapt lightly up onto the coffee table. He was a strange cat. Technically he would be labeled a tabby point Siamese. His thick coat was a pale shade between cream and gray, and the markings on his face, paws, and tail were faint blue-gray stripes. He wore a leather collar with a silver bell that never made a sound unless he wanted it to.
In the five years that Ching had condescended to live with her, Lara had heard more than one baffled attempt to describe him; none of them quite hit the mark. Not only was he oddly colored and unusually large at almost twenty-five pounds, none of it fat, but he was un-catlike in behavior and in language; no sound even resembling a meow had ever escaped him. Oh, Ching talked. He muttered, he grumbled, he commented, he even cooed to wary birds outside the apartment windows. He always sounded polite, except when he was being profane, and his pale, aqua-blue eyes were eerily human in their expressiveness.
Now, sitting on the coffee table so that his long, ringed tail hung over the edge and swung slowly like a pendulum, Ching glanced toward the hallway and then at Lara. There was a question in the look.
“Company,” she murmured. She’d stopped feeling peculiar talking to her cat, deciding that anyone who lived with Ching would have talked to him. It was a compulsion. One just couldn’t help it, somehow.