Shadows in the Limelight

by Sandra K Rhoades

  Fortunately the waiter arrived with a trolley as soon as they returned to their table and further conversation was not instantly necessary. Assuming an interest she didn’t feel, Catherine watched the waiter prepare their salad. He made a minor production of the process, tossing the ingredients together with exaggerated gestures and finally serving it with a theatrical flourish.

  As soon as the man wheeled the cart out of range, Kent laughed softly. ‘To be honest with you, I don’t particularly like Caesar salad, but I always order it just to see him go through that routine.’

  Catherine looked at him quickly to see that his warm, attractive smile had returned, and she felt the tension drain from her. He had forgiven her for her refusal to talk about her career. Her eyes glowed with happiness as they met his and she tackled her salad with renewed appetite.

  As they sipped coffee and liqueurs later, Catherine decided she couldn’t remember when she had enjoyed an evening so much. There had been that bad patch at the beginning of the meal, but since then it had been delightful. Kent was a fascinating personality, extremely well read and intelligent, and though Catherine’s own education had been sketchy, he didn’t try to make her feel inferior by talking down to her.

  For a time, they discussed his political ambitions, and Catherine began to be caught up in his enthusiasm. Having gained experience in government at the local level, he planned to move into the arena of national politics in the near future, and as he discussed his ideas, Catherine found her admiration for him growing. While he had definite opinions on the issues, he was not dogmatic in his views and invited her comments and gave them due consideration.

  They had finished their coffee and Kent was escorting her from the restaurant a few minutes later when he drew her over to a table near the entrance. "Peter ... Leanne! I didn't see you earlier. You could have joined us for coffee.’

  The man sitting at the table arose smiling. Though about the same height as Kent, he was stockier, with very broad shoulders that owed nothing to the tailoring of his dinner jacket. ‘We thought about it, but you two didn't look like you would welcome company.’ His grey eyes twinkled as he saw Catherine blush.

  ‘Very perceptive of you,’ laughed Kent, slipping his arm around Catherine’s waist and smiling down at her. "Catherine, I’d like you to meet my tactful friend, Peter Castle, and this is his sister, Leanne. Peter, Leanne, this is Cat Devlin.’

  Catherine started, and she felt Kent’s arm about her waist tighten as he looked at her quickly. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that he would introduce her as Devlin and not Delaney? Peter held out his hand to shake hers, and it took her a moment to collect herself enough to offer her own. As her hand was engulfed in his, she could only hope that he wouldn’t notice the faint trembling she couldn’t control.

  ‘Cat Devlin,' Peter repeated the name. ‘This is a pleasure. I thought you looked faintly familiar. I saw you and your brother perform several years ago.’ He released her hand and looked back at Kent. ‘How about joining us for coffee? You’ve had this lovely lady to yourself for long enough.’

  His sister echoed the invitation and Kent looked at Catherine enquiringly. Pointedly, she looked at her watch. She didn’t want a replay of that earlier conversation with Peter and his sister. ‘I really don’t want to stay out too late, and I was looking forward to that walk you promised me...’ She smiled at Kent, then turned to Peter. ‘I’m sorry. Would you mind if we took a rain-check?’ Like for about two hundred years from now.

  Peter shrugged regretfully. ‘I’ll hold you to that ... in fact...’ he looked at Kent, ‘is Cat coming to the benefit with you?’

  ‘I haven’t asked her yet, but I’m hoping she will.’

  ‘Great, I’ll take good care of her while you make your speech—that way she won’t get bored.’

  He winked at Catherine, but she didn’t notice. Benefit ... speech ... there were bound to be reporters there. And with Kent as her escort, her presence would be news. ‘When is this benefit?’ she asked.

  ‘Next weekend, Saturday actually,’ Peter supplied.

  ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly make it.’ Catherine tried to look regretful as relief flooded her. ‘I have a florist’s shop and I’m contracted to do the flowers for two weddings the next day, so I’ll have to work that evening. Perhaps some other time.’

  ‘Couldn’t your assistant fill in for you?’ Kent interposed.

  ‘She hasn’t been with me very long,’ Catherine replied. ‘She doesn’t have the experience to take over yet. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to give it a miss.’

  There was a brief silence, and finally Kent said, ‘I understand.’ Though he had accepted her excuse, his expression was faintly sceptical. ‘Well, if we’re going for that walk, we’d better move. I’ll be seeing you, Peter, Leanne. So long.’ He slipped his hand under her elbow to escort Catherine away.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a nightcap?’ Catherine asked a short while later. They had reached the door to the apartment and she was fumbling in her handbag for her key. Although she had been the one to say she didn’t want a late evening, she was reluctant for it to end.

  ‘I’d better not. I have an early appointment in the morning.’ She found her key and Kent reached out and took it from her, unlocking her door.

  Catherine stood uncertainly in the open doorway. ‘Well, then ... thank you for a lovely evening...’ She stared up at him, her throat suddenly dry. She had been waiting hours for this moment when he would finally kiss her and now it looked as though he wasn’t going to. Disappointment washed over her and she quickly turned away so he couldn’t read her expression. ‘Goodnight, Kent,’ she said huskily, taking a step into her apartment.

  ‘Catherine,’ he said softly, turning her back to him with a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and read the amusement in his eyes, as he pulled her into his arms. ‘You didn’t think I was going to let you get away without even a kiss, did you?’

  She stared up at him, her pulse beginning to pound, and her lips parted softly as his came down on hers. His mouth was warm and sensuous as it covered hers, moving in gentle exploration, just as she imagined it would be. A warm flush flooded through her, awakening pleasurable sensations throughout her body, as her arms slid around his neck and her lips moved in tune with his. His hands were warm through the thin material of her top and it was only with difficulty that she checked the urge to yield against him.

  Slowly, as though reluctant, Kent set her away from him. ‘I’d better be going,’ he said softly. Catherine stared into his face, her eyes wide and luminous. Drawn, his mouth found hers again, tenderly at first, then deepening as he felt her respond. He pulled her firmly against him, pressing her breasts against the hard wall of his chest. She felt a tremor go through him and knew it echoed the one in herself.

  Abruptly, he released her, stepping back to put a space between them. ‘I really must go,’ he said, his voice slightly unsteady. ‘Goodnight, Cat.’ Turning, he quickly walked away.

  She watched his retreating back, feeling dazed and a little confused, for though she had wanted him to kiss her, she hadn’t been prepared for the depth of her response. She had occasionally wondered if she were frigid, since she was normally inhibited in her reaction to the physical advances of men. While she enjoyed their kisses, she had never visualised carrying the relationship any further. She hadn’t wanted Kent to stop though, and the knowledge thoroughly disconcerted her.

  He turned back to look at her when he reached the end of the corridor. For a moment he stared at her, his face expressionless, then like a magician conjuring a rabbit, he suddenly produced that melting smile and her heart lurched. ‘I’ll phone you,’ he called back to her, then turned the corner and was gone.

  After entering her apartment, Catherine prepared for bed, before seating herself in front of the mirror. She felt restless and as she pulled a brush through her long auburn hair, she grimaced at the reflection in the mirror. With her hair free from the confines of the chigno
n she usually wore, her cheeks slightly flushed, she’d resurrected the way she’d looked as singer Cat Devlin. Kent’s questioning about her time as Cat had been the flaw in an otherwise perfect evening. She hoped her curtness had succeeded in convincing him that she wouldn’t discuss the past. Musing, she realised how distinctly she separated the two identities in her mind, as if Cat Devlin were nothing to do with her. Indeed, settled in her life as Catherine Delaney, she really felt that Cat Devlin was a stranger and didn’t stop to consider that no one can dismiss a large part of their life without damage.

  Standing up abruptly, she eyed the bed reproachfully, knowing that with the state of her thoughts she would be unlikely to find peace in it tonight, and on impulse, she turned away to walk into the living-room and over to her desk. Opening the bottom drawer, she took out a long-playing record album. She had an extensive record collection housed in the rack next to her stereo, but this album had never been part of it.

  For several minutes, she simply stared at the record jacket. Both she and her brother were featured on the cover, but it was his face she focused on. He had been a handsome young man, Catherine thought, staring at the portrait. Looking at his wavy, dark hair, she smiled faintly, remembering how he had cursed it. Even for the photo, he hadn’t been able to completely tame the lock which insisted on falling across his forehead whenever he moved. Her eyes held the bright blue ones in the portrait, then moved to the slightly crooked smile that their female fans had loved. A faint sprinkling of freckles marked the bridge of his nose and his complexion glowed with health in the photograph.

  Biting her lip, Catherine frowned down at the image of her brother. It had been taken only a few weeks before his death. It just didn’t seem possible he could have been taking drugs then, but she couldn’t dispute the evidence. Since the day he had died, she had lived with the knowledge that her brother had been a drug addict.

  Going to the stereo, Catherine switched it on. As the first notes sounded, she settled on the sofa, closing her eyes. She seldom let herself think of the past, but the memories were crowding in on her tonight and wouldn’t be dismissed. How exciting it had all been in the beginning! She could still recall the glowing praise given them, the prediction that the Devlins’ star would rise high in the heavens. To audiences disgusted with lewd stage shows and comedians who relied on bathroom humour to get their laughs, the Devlins were a breath of clean northern air, something totally new in the jaded world of Nevada’s gambling centres. On stage and off, they were a clean-cut, wholesome pair who lived by the old-fashioned values and morals thought lost in the tinselled glamour of show business.

  She had thought the magic would never end, that after the struggles of their childhood, she and Casey had found paradise. It wasn’t until the day Casey died that she discovered their paradise was as much an illusion as the idyllic childhood Rick had created for them.

  That day, her first indication that something was wrong was when Casey had failed to show up for their morning rehearsal. With their next opening only a week away, they had had a lot of new material to go through, and Catherine had been furious. In a temper, she had stormed out of the rehearsal hall and driven to his apartment to find him. When she reached the apartment, Brian Collins, Casey’s valet-cum-body-guard, told her he hadn’t been there since the previous evening, and that he had just returned from trying to find him.

  Catherine’s anger had instantly dissolved in a surge of anxiety. Several months earlier Casey had bought a high-powered Porsche 930 Turbo and frequently took it for a drive in the desert in the early hours of the morning. Now the car was missing from its parking space.

  She had insisted that they contact the Devlins’ manager, Rick Moss. He had handled their career since its inception and if anyone would know how to handle Casey’s disappearance, he would. When Rick reached Casey’s apartment, he told her to go back to her rehearsal at the hotel and he and Brian would go out into the desert to see if they could find her brother. She remembered that she had wanted to call in the police, check the hospitals, but Rick wouldn’t let her. Until they knew what had happened, they couldn’t afford any publicity. Surprisingly, Brian had sided with Rick. Catherine knew Rick well enough to know that his interest in the Devlins was purely monetary, but Brian was genuinely fond of Casey and for a time, Catherine felt her anxiety lessen. Nonetheless, she refused to return to the hotel and had insisted they allow her to accompany them.

  Oddly enough, it hadn’t taken them long to find him. Later, Catherine had sometimes wondered if Rick hadn’t known exactly where to look. On first seeing her brother’s body, sprawled across the front seat of the car, she couldn’t accept what had happened. A heroin overdose—it couldn’t be true. Her brother wasn’t a junkie, he didn’t take drugs so he couldn’t have overdosed. He just couldn’t!

  Even when Rick had shown her the paraphernalia of an addict in her brother’s jacket pocket, she hadn’t wanted to believe. Only when both he and Brian confessed that they had known for months that Casey was taking something did the truth sink in. Rick might lie about something like that for his own reasons, but she knew Brian could be trusted to tell her the truth. Nevertheless, she couldn’t forgive either of them for keeping it from her until it was too late.

  Her cheeks were wet when the faint clicking sound from the stereo intruded into her memories. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she stood up, she replaced the album in the desk, closing the drawer with a decisive push. If only she had known, she might have been able to prevent her brother’s destruction. Although she had agreed to the cover-up of his death, making it look like a car accident so her brother’s image would remain untarnished, she knew that the Devlins’ career had ended. The price of success had been too high.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE next morning Catherine sat at her desk and stared dreamily at the door of her office. She really should get down to untangling the mess she had made of the calculations in the ledger that lay before her, but it was much more fun to sit and think about last night, about Kent. He had said he would call, but, she thought optimistically, he might drop in. His office was just upstairs; he wouldn’t be going out of his way.

  Sighing softly, she picked up her pen and looked down at the column of numbers in the book. Sales tax—who wanted to worry about sales tax? Still, she applied herself to the chore and was soon lost in a world of bewildering forms and calculations that left no room for other thoughts to intrude.

  When the phone rang, she reached for it absentmindedly: seven per cent of—she tried to hang on to the thought as she spoke automatically into the mouthpiece. ‘Dogwood Florist’s.’

  ‘Good morning, Cat,’ Kent’s low, faintly husky voice sounded in her ear and sent every number flying out of her head. ‘Are you busy?’

  Catherine looked down at her desk and wrinkled her nose. ‘No,’ she lied.

  ‘Good. I didn’t want to interrupt anything.’

  ‘I wasn’t doing anything important.’ The tax man might not agree, but she didn’t care.

  ‘I was wondering if you were free tomorrow night?’

  ‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘I’m not really sure. Er ... what were you thinking of doing?’

  ‘The RCMP Musical Ride is at BC Place. My dad’s company has a box and I thought you might enjoy going to see them.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Catherine hedged. It was an attractive offer: scarlet-coated Mounties performing a precision drill on horseback set to music. She admitted she was curious about the loge too: she had seen a piece on television about the box seats at the new stadium when it had first opened, and knew they were more like luxury suites than seats in an arena. She also knew they held a dozen or more people.

  ‘Are you interested?’ Kent asked, and Catherine realised how long she had been silent.

  ‘Er ... it sounds very nice, but I don’t think you should count on my being able to make it.’

  ‘You have other plans?’ There was a tinge of frost in his tone now and Catherine
bit her lip.

  ‘Well, not a date...’ She fingered a page of her ledger, then gave a brittle laugh. ‘In a way it is—with the tax man. I have to have my sales tax in on Monday and if I don’t do it tomorrow night, I don’t know when I’ll get it done.’

  ‘You can’t get it done before then?’ he pressed.

  ‘I’ll probably work on it, but ... I’m not very good at bookkeeping, so I can’t really plan on having it finished.’

  ‘I see.’ He paused. ‘I would have thought you would have an accountant to handle that sort of thing for your shop.’

  ‘I think it’s better to keep track of the money in a business yourself.’

  ‘But if you have difficulties with it, wouldn’t it be better to hire a professional?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Catherine responded. ‘I mean, at least I know I’m honest.’

  ‘So are the vast majority of accountants,’ Kent returned drily.

  ‘I didn’t mean to say they weren’t,’ she assured him hastily. ‘It’s ... I don’t know ... you know what they say: once bitten, twice shy,’ Catherine finished lamely.

  ‘Oh, someone cheated you?’ he asked with interest.

  ‘Well ... not really. I just don’t think it’s wise to give someone else control of your business affairs.’ How did they get on to this topic? She wasn’t going to explain about Rick. ‘Anyway, Kent, I am sorry about tomorrow night, but I’m almost positive I’ll have to work.’

  There was a brief silence at the other end of the line, then Kent said in a stilted voice, ‘I understand. I’m sorry. I think you would have enjoyed it.’

  ‘I probably would have,’ Catherine agreed softly. There was a short awkward silence and, at war with herself—she wanted to see him despite the risks—she knew he was going to say goodbye and hang up. Suddenly she blurted out, ‘I’ll be free Monday night ... I did the flowers for a new restaurant on Hastings Street a few weeks ago and, at the time, I thought it sounded like a nice place to try. It serves Greek food.’ She had spoken quickly and now she stopped and drew a deep breath. Women’s Lib may have been around for years, but she had never asked a man for a date before. ‘Would you have dinner with me there on Monday?’