One of the Boys (New Jersey)

by Janet Dailey

  "Dane sounded worried when you didn't answer your phone." Charlie finally brought up the subject that had occupied both men's minds. "Where were you?"

  "Taking a shower." She didn't go into the circumstances of the other times.

  "You're making a fool of yourself, Pet," Lon said irritably. "All he wants is to take you to bed."

  "That's the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?" Pet challenged, releasing a thin stream of smoke and tapping the end of the cigarette in the ashtray.

  "Maybe it is." Lon reddened, but he wasn't deterred. "But it doesn't change the facts."

  "And those facts are?" Her voice was as cool as her glance.

  "The only way there's a future in having an affair with him is if you're sleeping with him to get some promotion in the company. Even then, I wouldn't be too sure that you wouldn't be out of a job when the affair ends. Why would somebody like Dane Kingston want an old lover working for him?" He leaned forward to stress his arguments.

  "I haven't slept with him, and I'm not becoming involved with him because I want a promotion, a raise or anything like that," Pet denied, and sipped at her hot coffee, trying to appear indifferent even though Lon's blunt appraisal of her motive had stung.

  "Then the only thing you're going to get out of this affair is a lot of painful memories and regret, because it isn't going to last," he insisted.

  "Why won't it?" she challenged.

  "Leave it alone, Lon," Charlie urged. "It's none of our business."

  But Lon ignored him. "He's Dane Kingston and you're Petra Wallis, that's why it won't last. You may be a beautiful woman, but his world is one long string of beautiful women. You can't compete with the glamour and excitement of the likes of Ruby Gale. Maybe he's through with her now, but there'll be someone else like her down the line. What are you—little Pet Wallis—going to do then?"

  He shook his head as if despairing that he could get through to her. But he was. Everything he was saying was being driven into her like a nail in a coffin. "If you want an affair, have it with an average guy like me. If not with me, then with someone like me. At least you'd stand a chance to have something that might last."

  "I appreciate the advice," she said stiffly.

  He sighed. "I know you aren't going to believe this, coming from me, but I like you, Pet. I don't want to see you get hurt."

  "I like you, too, Lon," was the only reply she could make.

  IT WAS HECTIC getting ready for the last taping. Because another performer had given his show the night before they weren't able to set up the bulk of their equipment until the day of the taping. An hour before show time, Pet was helping Andy secure a cable that had worked loose from the adhesive strip taping it to the floor.

  "Hey, Pet!" Rick called to her from the stage and motioned. "Dane wants to talk to you."

  "Tell him I'll have a headset on in a few minutes."

  "No. He's backstage," Rick explained.

  Andy glanced at her. "Go see what he wants. I'll finish up here."

  Wiping her moist palms on the hips of her brown slacks, Pet left him—but none too eagerly. Yesterday she would have raced for the chance to speak to Dane. But Lon's warning had forced her to take a long, hard look at where she was going. She didn't question anything Dane had told her or his desire for her. It was the things there hadn't been time to say—things she wasn't even sure he would have said if there had been the time. She was getting nervous about having dinner with him after the show because she knew where it would lead, and she wasn't sure anymore if that was where she wanted to go.

  Backstage it was becoming a confusion of singers, dancers and stagehands arriving and mixing with the production crew. Pet hesitated, glancing around for the familiar sight of Dane's tall muscular frame. But she didn't see him. Instinct guided her in the direction of Ruby Gale's private dressing room.

  He was standing outside the door, half-turned away from her. Pet stopped when she glimpsed the red-haired woman with him. She didn't want to approach him while he was with Ruby and possibly arouse the star's temper by her presence. Since neither of them had noticed her in the midst of all the people, Pet stayed where she was until he was finished.

  In a punishing kind of fascination, she noticed the way Dane's hands rested on Ruby's hips with such familiar ease. Her fingers were playing with his shirt-front and running through the curling collection of exposed chest hairs. Something plummeted to the pit of Pet's stomach when she realized her hearing had become attuned to their voices.

  "Darling, I feel so badly about tonight," Ruby was saying. "We've planned for so long to celebrate with champagne and caviar, and now I can't make it."

  She couldn't make it? Pet had thought the date was off because Dane had canceled to have dinner with her. No, she wasn't going to think of herself as a substitute. Dane had said he and Ruby were finished, so what did it matter?

  "Naturally I'm disappointed," Dane replied, and didn't mention anything about having another engagement. It wasn't necessary that he should. "I shouldn't be celebrating now anyway. My work is just beginning, editing it all together into a smooth, fast-paced show. It's just as well that we have to postpone it."

  "You're always so understanding, Dane." Ruby beamed and stretched on her toes to kiss him.

  "I understand that the star has a show to get ready for and she's letting me detain her." The kiss he gave back was little more than a peck. He turned her around and gave her a gentle push toward her door. "Go and make yourself beautiful."

  With a husky laugh, Ruby Gale slipped into her dressing room. As Dane turned to leave, his gaze immediately fell on Pet. She started forward quickly, so he wouldn't guess she had been standing there watching and waiting, a bright smile fixed on her expression. His features gentled at her approach.

  "Rick said you wanted to talk to me," she explained.

  "All the time…about the silken texture of your hair, the softness of your lips, the heady warmth of your body against mine," he murmured, caressing her with his voice and his velvet dark eyes. Then he seemed to catch himself and took a deep, regretful breath. It was strange, because Pet couldn't breathe at all. "But on this occasion it was business. I want you to get some behind-the-scenes action before the show starts—dressing rooms, makeup, wardrobe, musicians, stagehands. You know the kind of color I want. And concentrate on what goes on in the wings during a performance. You should be able to pick up some audience shots in the background."

  "Sure." Pet continued to stand there, looking at him, loving him, and struggling to display the professionalism of her craft.

  "Then you'd better get a move on," Dane urged with a dancing look, "before I take you behind that curtain and make love to you."

  Her pulse went to pieces, losing any semblance of normality. Behind that glint of amusement in his dark eyes a desirous light burned.

  "Yes, sir." Breathless, she mocked a formal salute and turned to hurry away.

  By the time she had got the hand-held camera, strapped on all its paraphernalia and commandeered a helper named Tom to carry the recorder and keep the attached wires and cords out of the way, it was half an hour before show time and preparations for the performance were in full swing backstage. She noticed Dane standing on center stage in consultation with her three co-workers who would be manning the cameras out front. They were going over his detailed notes on each number.

  Her gaze lingered on his lithely brawny build for an aching second, but her task had already been assigned, so she set to work to begin fulfilling it with Tom tagging along after her like a faithful dog carrying its master's newspaper; only in this case he carried the recorder.

  As she was setting up to get a shot of the general hubbub around the dressing rooms, a florist arrived with a huge standing bouquet of bloodred roses. Pet quickly seized on this piece of glamorous backstage color and followed him to the star's dressing room, the tape rolling.

  Pet was standing some ten feet away when the door opened at the florist's knock. Luck gave her the
perfect angle over the shoulder of the florist into the dressing room.

  Clancy, the secretary and girl Friday to Ruby Gale, answered the door. Beyond her, Ruby Gale was sitting in front of a mirror with her back to the camera and the door, dressed in a lavender robe. The mirror's reflection gave Pet a view of the star's face. If it had all been rehearsed, it couldn't have been more perfect.

  Evidently the florist had added some flattering comment of his own to the delivery of the roses, because the red-haired entertainer half turned to give him one of her sexy smiles. Her blue gaze flickered past him to the camera and Pet. She was instantly livid, coming to her feet and storming out of her room in a volcanic fury as flaming as her hair.

  "You snooping little bitch!" she screamed at Pet. "What are you doing sneaking about out here?"

  "I'm sorry." Pet tried to apologize and explain about the flowers, but her voice was drowned by the vicious abuse and accusations Ruby Gale hurled at her. She attempted to retreat, backing away, but she was relentlessly pursued. Too stunned by the vitriolic attack, Pet understood only half of the insults.

  "What were you hoping—that I'd be half-naked so you could sell the tapes to some gutter magazine? I know how you got your job! How many men did you have to sleep with to get it? I know your kind! You're nothing but a tramp!" Ruby raged.

  Pet's face was scarlet, aware that everyone backstage was witnessing this vile scene. "You aren't on this production because of your skill with the camera!" Ruby went on. "It's your skill in bed, keeping the rest of the crew happy while they're away from home! You're a—"

  "What's going on here?" Dane's angry voice was the most wonderful sound Pet had ever heard. She turned as he came striding forward, relief cooling her hot cheeks.

  "This blond slut was snooping outside my door!" His arrival did not abate the redhead's abusive tongue. "She—"

  Pet interrupted quickly, "The florist delivered some roses and I was—"

  "You were sneaking about trying to—"

  "No more." Dane intervened to lay soothing hands on Ruby's shoulders, which trembled with the fury of her wrath. "I don't want you getting upset. I'll take care of it. You can leave it to me now."

  Pet stared at him incredulously, shock giving way to indignation. She was aware of the calming effect he was having on the star, but she wasn't the least bit interested in whether Ruby was pacified.

  "I won't have her sneaking around out here," the redhead insisted. Some of the venom had been removed from her tone although it remained imperious.

  "I promise you she won't bother you anymore." He curved an arm around the lavender-covered shoulders and turned Ruby toward her dressing room. "Don't worry about it."

  Tears scalded Pet's green eyes. She furiously blinked them away, turning to see Tom staring at her, wordless in profound sympathy. Stiff with righteous anger and raw pain, she couldn't respond to his look. She didn't need to communicate her desire to move away from the star's dressing room as Tom picked up the recorder to walk with her. Pride kept her shoulders squared and her head high, but she was trembling inside from Dane's abandonment of her. She was determined not to let it show how deeply she was hurt.

  That resolve flew out of the window when Dane came in search of her a short few minutes later. A wall of stormy tears kept her from seeing him too clearly, but she had a blurred image of his tight-lipped countenance, which was all her temper needed.

  "How could you let her talk to me like that?" Her angry voice scraped her throat to make the accusation hoarse. "How could you let her get away with it?"

  "It's only twenty minutes before the show starts!" Dane flared. "What did you expect me to do? Try to defend you and have her do one of her exit scenes? Then where the hell would I be with all this equipment and crew and a half-finished special?"

  "I don't care who she is or how important she is, nobody has a right to talk to anybody like that—not to me! Not to Tom! Not to anybody!" Pet retorted in a husky protest.

  "And what about the show?" he challenged.

  "Oh, God, yes. The show!" Her voice was breaking, cracking under the strain. "You said you'd sold your soul for it—and you were right. You'll get your show, Mr. Kingston. And I hope it keeps you happy, because I won't!"

  "Of all the damned time and places to pick—" he began in exasperation.

  "You'd better leave. You've got work to do before the show starts." She turned away from him, pretending to adjust something with the equipment while she choked on a sob. It was an eternity of seconds before she heard him walk away. She closed her eyes at the shattering pain in her chest.

  "Are you all right?" Tom murmured anxiously.

  "I'm fine," she sniffed, and wiped at her nose before lifting her chin. "We'll do his damned show."

  The decision created a strange detachment that permitted her to get through the taping of the performance, functioning mechanically, completely emotionless. From the wings she got a shot of Ruby Gale accepting the final ovation from the crowd, a heartily applauding audience in the background, and exiting to the opposite side of the stage to receive the congratulations of her personal entourage.

  The minute it was over Pet set the camera down and began unstrapping all the gear. "Take care of this stuff for me, Tom," she said tightly, and started to walk away. "I'm leaving."

  "But if Mr. Kingston—"

  "Tell him he has his show…and he can't fire me, because I quit."

  Chapter Eleven

  MOONLIGHT SILVERED the foamy caps of the waves rushing onto the sandy shore. Pet lifted her face to the ocean breeze, closing her eyes to the pain that hadn't found a release. Her hair had long ago been freed from its confining pins as if loose and falling free it would somehow allow the hurt to tumble from her. But it hadn't.

  Turning parallel to the ocean, Pet began to walk again along the stretch of beach. To her left was the Boardwalk and its towering buildings and hotels etched in lights against the night sky. She didn't know how far she had walked since she had bolted from the casino theater to wander aimlessly up and down the quiet beach, avoiding the piers with their noisy rides and bright lights. She wasn't the only one walking along the oceanfront. A few others were strolling its expanses, mostly couples.

  A wave came rushing in to lap the firmly packed sand near her feet, but she ignored its mild threat. Her gaze wandered ahead, studying the strip of glistening wet sand that marked the extent of the tide's encroachment onto the beach. The dark figure of a man was standing ten yards in front of her by the water's edge, but facing her and not the sea. Her heart gave a painful thump in her chest as she recognized Dane and paused.

  Refusing to run or walk up to him, Pet took a few steps into the soft sand beyond the reach of the waves and sat down. Her hand shook as she lighted a cigarette and stared out to sea. Drawing her knees up, she rested her forearms on them. The sand crunched under Dane's approaching footsteps, but she didn't look up when he stopped beside her.

  "I'd just about given up hope that I would find you." His voice was low and husky. "I looked every-where—the hotel, the casino, up and down the Boardwalk. If it hadn't been for all that golden hair shining in the moonlight, I would probably have gone on looking all night for you."

  Pet made no reply, not even acknowledging his presence with a look. She took another puff of the cigarette and watched the breeze blow the curling smoke away from the burning red tip. Inside she was dying.

  "Don't you know you shouldn't be walking alone at night?" But when his question was met by her continued silence, Dane sighed heavily. "I can't even make you angry, can I?"

  There was an agonizing tightness in her throat. The paralyzing numbness that had kept everything dammed up inside was wearing off. She started shaking and had to bury the cigarette in the sand to keep from dropping it.

  "You were right, Pet," he said with a throbbing hoarseness. "I sold my soul for that show."

  A tiny, agonized sound slipped through the constricted muscles of her throat.

  He continue
d to tower motionless above her, "Pet, you're the only one who can buy it back for me."

  The husky appeal in his voice finally pulled her head up. She searched his shadowed face. The pride and strength remained forever carved into his features, but his dark eyes were haunted.

  "When the show was over and I found out you'd walked out, I didn't try to find you right away. I went back to the control van and sat there, going over in my mind what had happened and what you'd said." Turning, Dane sat down on the sand beside her, adopting her position and letting handfuls of sand run through his fingers. "I thought I had the thing that was most important to me right there in front of me—the show tapes. Not in so many words, but you told me what an arrogant, selfish bastard I was. I've been called that before, but coming from you…" He sighed heavily and clasped his hands between his spread knees, studying his linked fingers. "What I'm trying to say, Pet, is that what's important to me is your love and respect. Nothing else means anything."

  "You don't really mean that, Dane," she whispered sadly. "You just want me to forgive you so you'll feel better. You don't care whether or not I love you. We haven't even known each other long enough to fall in love."

  "Maybe you haven't, but I've been waiting for you all my life." His gaze locked onto hers and refused to let it go. "I love you, Pet. I realized it the morning that I came into your room to waive you up, and I knew that I wanted to wake you up every morning for the rest of my life. It was too soon. I couldn't tell you then. You would have thought I was handing you some line to persuade you to sleep with me. So I waited, knowing you were attracted to me and hoping that after this show was finished I'd have the time to make you fall in love with me, too."

  "You don't even know me." She shook her head for a moment, breaking the spell he was casting.

  "I know you. After our run-in a year ago, I made it my business to know about you. At the time I told myself my interest was purely professional," he said with a humorless laugh. "I personally reviewed everything you did, every project you were on, your past employment, your education, your family, everything. If you weren't any good, I was going to get rid of you—this green-eyed blond who told me to shut up."