by Janet Dailey
"If I thought she was irreplaceable, I would argue with you, So you needn't be concerned that you've upset me," he assured her.
As soon as Pet had removed all the gear and given it to Charlie, she slipped self-consciously away from the location set. She was aware that Dane had observed her departure without comment. By getting rid of her, he had averted a scene and a possible delay. It had been the sensible thing to do, she knew that, but it did sting to be rejected so readily.
Chapter Nine
SITTING BENEATH THE SHADE of a tree with the trunk for a backrest, Pet laid the paperback book aside. It couldn't hold her interest, or else she wasn't concentrating. She sighed and plucked a long blade of grass to twirl it between her fingers. Eyeing the sun, she wondered if its lengthening shadows had called a halt to the day's shooting yet. In a little while she would wander over to Charlie's van and wait, but it was cooler here and more peaceful, although her surroundings didn't seem to soothe her.
A bird flitted in the branches overhead. Drawing her knees up, she pulled the blade of grass apart and discarded the pieces. It was worse having nothing to do. Finally she pushed to her feet and absently dusted the seat of her pants. The soft rustle of footsteps on the grass turned her head toward the sound.
A breath stopped in her throat. Dane was walking toward her, lithe and supple. His gaze never ceased its study of her while he approached, gauging her reaction to his arrival. Pet knew her eyes could be much too expressive, so she made a casual half turn, bending to pick up her book.
"Are you finished for the day?" She was able to ask the question without having to look at him.
"We wrapped it up about twenty minutes ago. Too many shadows." He leaned a hand on the rough bark of the tree trunk and let his gaze roam the surroundings. "It's peaceful here."
"Yes," she agreed. Her glance slid away before it actually met his. "Charlie will be waiting for me, then."
"He was packing the equipment up when I left. I told him I'd find you and send you along to his van." Dane continued to study her with disconcerting directness.
"He'd probably like some help. I'd better go." But she didn't want to leave.
"Pet, about this morning, it wasn't by choice that I ordered you off the set." His dark eyes were grave as they searched her face, waiting for her response.
"I know." She looked across the green grass to the village center, liking its quaintness. "You did it because you had to keep Ruby happy for the sake of the production."
"Yes." He reached out to take hold of her forearm and force her to look at him. "But who's going to keep me happy? Will you?"
Unable to answer, Pet could only gaze into the masculine face with its tanned skin drawn tight over angular features. But the longing to be the one who could keep him happy was written in her jade eyes. She heard his sharply indrawn breath, then his mouth was coming down to crush hers.
His arm hooked her waist to haul her against his length. The contact with the taut columns of his thighs and hard flatness of his stomach made her weak. Her hands clutched his waist, hanging on while the world spinned at a dizzying speed. Nothing seemed to exist as her mouth opened under his passionately to return the hungry kiss. Then his hand moved onto her breast, circling it, cupping it, flattening it, and fighting the restriction of her blouse. When she felt his fingers tugging at the buttons, she partially returned to her senses and pulled breathlessly away, half pivoting out of his arms while she had the strength.
"Don't!" There was a catch in her voice, a deep, tearing desire interfering with the protest.
"Don't what?" Dane yanked her around, punishing her with his hard grip while his angry gaze burned her already heated flesh. "Don't touch you! Don't hold you! Don't kiss you! Don't what? Don't want you? That's impossible!" he raged in a savagely low voice. "I've tried. I've tried it all—working till all hours of the night, cold showers, and endless recriminations for getting mixed up with someone who works for me! It hasn't changed a damned thing."
Pet was shaken by the ferocity of his emotional response. This intensity was more than she had bargained for. She didn't know how to cope with it, any more than she knew how to handle her own abandonment of common sense.
When he slackened his hold, she didn't try to escape him. There was no resistance as his hands moved to her hair to release it from the confinement of the combs and leather poke. His fingers slipped through its length and gathered it into silken handfuls.
"You have beautiful hair, Pet," he groaned, and rubbed his mouth across her cheekbone, drawing closer to her lips. His breath was warm and moist, caressing on its own. "I keep seeing it this way—the way it was yesterday morning, a tawny, rumpled cloud on your pillow. I never should have used that key, or else I should have thrown Baxter out."
"Why didn't you tell me you weren't…involved with Ruby anymore?" Her voice throbbed as her arms curved around his middle.
"Why didn't you ask me?" Dane countered. "God, I thought I'd made it obvious. Do you actually believe I would invite another woman to a party given by my mistress if she and I were still lovers?"
"You…you could have been having your cake and eating it, too." Pet recalled the phrase the reporter had used. It had sounded so plausible at the time.
"I could have." He tugged at a handful of hair to force her head back. His gaze seemed to stab deeply into her. "But I'm not the type. What are you doubting now? I can see it in your eyes. Very expressive eyes they are, too."
"I was just wondering how you knew about the rose canopy above her bed," Pet admitted, because the question would plague her until she knew. "You said you hadn't slept with her lately, but—"
"I haven't." Irritation put a harsh edge on his voice. "All entertainers seem to have little eccentricities; hers happens to be going over new arrangements while sitting in bed. In order to have a discussion of them, it seems logical to join her on the bed. I suppose I could have pulled a chair up, but I don't happen to be bashful or easily embarrassed."
"But you and she were lovers."
"Yes, we were lovers, for the lack of a better term." The flaring of his nostrils revealed his dislike of Pet's continued pursuit of the subject. "Do you expect me to be a virgin?"
Pet attempted a negative shake of her head, and succeeded as much as his grip on her hair would allow. "I just wondered if you were always so quick to discard a woman once you grew tired of her." Because she wasn't certain how well she would take it if he dropped her as quickly as he had seemed to abandon Ruby Gale. "Everyone still believes the two of you are having an affair," she reminded him when she saw the darkening anger in his eyes. "You act like it when you're together."
"As you pointed out earlier, I have to keep her happy. Dammit, Pet," he muttered in exasperation, "you know how costly delays can be. No other producer would touch Ruby with a ten-foot pole. Her reputation for walking off a production or causing endless changes has thrown a hundred budgets out the window. A television special with her can be a gold mine if it doesn't cost you two gold mines to get it. I'm walking a tightrope with her. Why do you think I'm personally handling this project?"
"How far would you go to keep her happy, Dane?" Pet hated herself for asking, because it wasn't fair. She had no right to ask that kind of question.
"You have to ask!" He stared at her, an incredulous frown narrowing his gaze.
"Dane, I'm not sure about anything," Pet whispered on a tiny sob. "I'm unsure of how I feel, what I think, what I do. Every ounce of sense I have tells me I shouldn't want you, but I do."
With a muffled groan he pulled her forward against the hard warmth of his mouth. The hand at the nape of her neck began stroking it softly and sensuously, sending shivers tingling down her spine. A faint hungry sound rolled from her throat as she arched against him, surrendering to this wild joy that flamed from his kiss.
When she wound her arms around his neck, his mouth parted in an irresistible invitation to deepen the kiss, and Pet accepted it eagerly. In direct response, his hand flattened
convulsively on her hips, shaping her more firmly to him to give her potent evidence of his need, and she trembled uncontrollably.
Abruptly Dane dragged his mouth from hers, the hand at the back of her head applying pressure to bury her face against his neck while shudders racked his torso. She could feel the hard, uneven thud of his heart. The rate of her own pulse would have rivaled the speed of his car. Happiness was such a fragile thing. Its beauty filled her eyes with tears and swelled her heart to the point of bursting. How could she ever contemplate denying this ecstasy that she was a kiss away from discovering?
Her hands spread across the broad muscularity of his back to hold him closer while her lips began exploring his throat, savoring the taste of his skin and absorbing the heat of his flesh. In a slow, roundabout way she reached his ear, her tongue delighting in the shape of it. A raw sound of desire came from his throat before he turned his head to stop the arousing caress, his mouth rough against her cheek and his breathing heavy.
"Don't," he ordered in a low, thickened voice.
"Don't what?" she whispered, and teased him with his words while her fingertips sensuously traced the strong column of his neck. "Don't want you. Don't kiss you. Don't—"
Angrily he silenced her with a hard, bruising kiss that was brief in its fury. Then he growled against her skin, "Half the time I never know whether to kill you or kiss you!"
"I prefer the latter," Pet murmured, careless of the provocation in her reply. The world had stopped its frenzied spinning, but she wasn't ready to get off.
His hands firmly created a space between them, the support of his hard length denied her as he held her a few inches away. Her gaze ran warmly over the rough planes of his essentially male features, aware of the sobered slash of his mouth.
"We've got to come to an understanding," he insisted, "These next few days aren't going to be easy." In a trembling underbreath he reluctantly issued, "God, that's an understatement!" Then he turned his hard gaze away from her for an instant.
"I think you could be right," Pet sighed, because it was hard staying out of his arms. It was always like that when she was near him.
"I know I am. Pet—" he used her name so he could have her complete attention, which had become distracted by the opened neckline of his shirt and the springy chest hairs it revealed "—I have to leave now for Atlantic City. There are a few details I have to iron out with the management at the casino. Then I have to be back here for the taping tomorrow. We aren't going to have any time to be together."
"I see." She didn't ask if she could go with him. If Dane had wanted her along, he would have invited her. He had to know she would accept.
"I still have a company to run, so my schedule is going to be like this until this damned special is done," he said, revealing his impatience and irritation at the circumstances, which offered some consolation. "I want you to understand that isn't the way I want it. I don't want you getting any crazy notions in your head that because I'm not with you, I don't want to be. No more of that imagination of yours working overtime about rose canopies and being patronized or whatever ridiculous molehill you can make into a mountain."
"No more." Pet shook her head in promise.
"There's another thing you'd better know. I don't give a damn what the crew thinks about us. You can keep on trying to be one of the boys if you want. But if I get a chance to touch you or kiss you, don't you dare shy away from me because one of them might be watching," Dane warned. "I'll be discreet. There won't be any passionate clinches in front of them, but I'm not going to guard my every look and action. If they want to accuse you of receiving special treatment, you can tell them for me that you damned well are special! Any objections?"
"None. Half of them think we've already slept together anyway," she admitted, a little thrilled by his possessiveness.
"I wish we had. Maybe I wouldn't be twisted into so many hard knots inside." His gaze raked her, smoldering with the frustration of unsatisfied desire. Pet saw the effort he made to get a grip on himself, to bank the fires that burned in his eyes. "There's still the matter of Ruby to be settled," he added.
"Dane, I—" Pet began.
"Listen to me," he insisted. "She has to be the center of attention all the time. She won't share the spotlight with anyone. So when I'm around her, it will appear that I'm totally indifferent to you. You saw what happened this morning the second she suspected my interests weren't wholly devoted to her. She immediately made a scene. It doesn't matter to Ruby whether the attention she receives is genuine or not, just so long as she can command it. Until this taping is wrapped up, she will appear to have my undivided attention. Do you accept that?"
"Yes," she nodded, beginning to understand the spoiled and self-centered temperament of the talented performer. It also explained why Dane had been so very attentive to the star.
"You know she isn't going to let you work off the taping tomorrow." Dane eyed her with grim resignation. "She's going to keep you off the studio cameras at the casino, too, which means you'll be working the hand-held, providing she doesn't demand that you leave the production altogether?
"Maybe it would be best if I did. I don't want to cause problems. You can get someone to replace me," she suggested. "I can go back—"
"No." He rejected that idea out of hand. "You aren't going back, not even if I have to replace you. You're going to stay with the crew. You aren't going back until we all go home. I know I'll be working all the time and maybe I'll only get to see you five—ten minutes, half an hour at a time. But I'll know you're there and if I get the chance to be with you, I will."
Keeping her at a distance, he kissed her, his mouth clinging to her lips for an enchanting instant before he lifted his head. The sweet torment of longing made his expression bleak and grim. Pet wanted to smooth away the hardness in his face with her hand, but he wouldn't let her touch him, as if not trusting his reaction.
"You said before that you were unsure," Dane said tightly. "Maybe you can appreciate the way I feel. The times I've been with you haven't been among my more rational moments. It's like being trapped between two battling weather fronts—one hot and the other cold. I never know which it's going to be with you."
"You pick a lot of the fights yourself." Pet wasn't that submissive that she would accept full responsibility for their arguments. He had been at fault, too. "You shouldn't say things you know will irritate me."
"Maybe I have." He granted that it was possible without admitting it, "From now on, understand the pressure I'm under. If I'm sharp with you, be tolerant…at least until this taping is done. I'd sell my soul to have it finished right now." Then Dane laughed, a wry sound. "Some say I made a pact with the devil when I signed the contract with Ruby."
"Don't laugh!" A sudden pain brought a quick frown to her forehead. "It isn't funny."
Dane stared at her, his eyes narrowing in anger. "I don't want to know what you're thinking right now. I haven't got time to correct whatever erroneous impression is forming in that mind of yours." He raised an arm to glance at his watch. "I'm already five minutes late. Ruby will be wondering where I am."
"Ruby?" Pet stiffened. "I thought you said you were driving to Atlantic City?"
"I am," he said tightly, and released her.
"She's going with you." Her voice sounded remarkably flat.
"Yes, she's going with me. She wants to check on the dressing rooms backstage. God help us if they aren't up to her standards," Dane grumbled, and irritatedly ran a hand over his hair.
"I'm sure you'll make it right; Dane." Pet managed a smile, an attempt at reassurance, yet strangely the words had an ominous ring to them.
"I have to go," he said as if needing to impress her with the inevitability of it.
"I know. Go ahead." This time she really worked at the smile and it felt more natural. "Tell Charlie I'll be along in a minute. I just have to gather up my things." Such as the combs and the hair poke he had scattered on the ground, as well as her handbag and the book she'd
been trying to read.
Dane took a step away. "I probably won't see you until tomorrow."
"Drive carefully." A sarcastic little voice wanted to add, the star of the show will be riding with you and nothing must happen to her. But Pet didn't let that voice speak.
ALTHOUGH PET WASN'T PRESENT during the next morning's taping, she gathered from what Charlie had intimated at lunch that it wasn't going well. Ruby Gale was being difficult and demanding, and Dane wasn't satisfied with the results they were getting. Only the crew knew of his displeasure, from what Pet could tell. Not a shadow of blame was ever cast on the star.
Professional curiosity got the better of her. Bored, with nothing else to do, she wandered over to the mobile television unit parked some distance from the shooting site. The snub-nosed van was no bigger than Charlie's. She tried the door and found it was unlocked. Even though the van was parked in the shade, it was stuffy and hot inside. She left the sliding door open to let the fresh air in.
The interior was equipped with a monitor and a videotape player among other things. Those were the two items that interested Pet, along with the three-quarter-inch cassettes she found on top of the player. Charlie's handwriting on the labels identified the contents as part of this location's taping. She punched them into the player and adjusted the monitor screen, sitting back on the little stool to see what had been taped and what might be wrong with it.
Twice she played them through, nagged by something she knew wasn't right yet unable to fault the performer or the cameraman. The lighting was perfect and so was the background. Punching the cassettes in for the third time, she kept asking herself how they could be improved.
Halfway through it the third time, Pet had the gem of an idea. She stopped the tape, rewound it and punched it through again. In her mind she made the changes, the additions, and checked them mentally to see if they would work. The elation grew with each passing second.