Can't Stop Loving You

by Peggy Webb

  But it was not enough. The soft touch of Brick's hand on her cheek, the solid feel of his chest against hers, the long, sweet tangle of legs… none of it would ever be enough. She longed for the miraculous joining of their spirits, for the feeling of soaring higher than eagles, wings touching, held aloft by a love so rare that only a fool would cast it away.

  "They've gone," Brick said, his voice still soft with wonder and surprise.

  "Yes."

  "I guess we put on quite a show."

  "Isn't that what we do, Brick? Put on shows."

  "That's what we do, Helen."

  They lay together still, his back flat against the floor and her body flattened on top of his. Both of them were reluctant to end the contact.

  "I didn't mean to hurt you, Brick."

  The double entendre was not lost on him. His face thunderous, he moved quickly, disentangling them and setting Helen on the bench. With one booted foot propped next to her thigh, he treated her to his famous "look," the lifted brow, the curled lip.

  "It was just a spill on the floor."

  "Still, I shouldn't have hit you so hard." She pressed her hands together in her lap. "I'm sorry, Brick."

  "Are you?" He captured her in his fierce black stare. "Are you?"

  "Yes. I never meant to hurt you."

  The morning she had left shimmered between them, a memory almost too painful to recall.

  She had left him softly while he was still sleeping, sprawled in the warm bed where they had pledged their love in a hundred different ways. Blinded by tears, she'd placed the note on the nightstand where it would be the first thing he saw.

  Watching him sleep, her heart broke.

  Go quickly, while you can.

  Taking the Abominables and the cat and only enough clothes for overnight, she had slipped through the house and silently out the door. The chill of spring seeped through her bones and invaded her heart. Standing in the dew, she thought she might never be warm again.

  Spring would always remind her of leaving without saying good-bye.

  Now, sitting in the empty building with Brick so close, she couldn't afford any weakness, couldn't afford to second-guess herself.

  "Broken hearts are like broken bones; they have a way of mending," he said.

  His boots thudded against the floor, and he strode off the stage, leaving her with her hands folded in her lap.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the hot tears. Raw and vulnerable and hurting, she sat on the hard bench and thought of the safety of her house in Georgia. It seemed another world away.

  "I won't cry," she said, even as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

  "I will be brave," she whispered, then she placed her hands over her face and wept.

  FOUR

  Brick stood outside the stage door sucking oxygen into his lungs like a suffocating man. Helen was inside, sitting on the bench with her hands clasped so tightly, the blue veins showed through her fair skin.

  With every fiber in his being, he longed to go to her.

  And then what? Wait around for her to walk out the door again?

  He had been a fool to touch her, a fool to tempt fate. With a muttered curse he rammed his hands into his pockets.

  It wouldn't happen again. He'd see to that.

  Kicking gravel out of his path, he made his way to Farnsworth Manor and the relative sanity of a fiancée for hire and an evening of pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened between him and his ex-wife.

  He was an actor, wasn't he? It was time for his greatest performance.

  "Just what do you think you're doing?"

  Marsha stood in the doorway of Helen's room surveying the disarray of clothing scattered across the carpet and over the furniture.

  "I'm going back home to Georgia."

  "Fine." Stiff-backed, Marsha marched into the middle of the mess and scooped up a handful of lingerie. "I'll help you pack."

  Still clutching an armload of blouses, Helen sank onto the edge of the bed.

  "Just like that? I'll help you pack?"

  "Yes. It's cold up here. I hate it. I'll be glad to get back home."

  They worked for a while in silence. Every now and then Helen cut her eyes toward Marsha, but her secretary's face revealed nothing.

  Fine. They would leave. Just the way she'd planned.

  Her heart was heavy as she put the last blouse into the suitcase and closed the lid.

  "We'll leave first thing in the morning," Helen said.

  "I'll tell everybody to be ready."

  Helen glanced from the suitcase to the doorway. Beyond she could hear the dinner preparations of the Farnsworth household, the distant tinkle of silver against china, the muffled sound of footsteps, an occasional burst of laughter.

  Brick would devote himself to Barb Gladly at the dinner table. And Helen wouldn't be there to suffer.

  "You're not going to argue with me?" she asked.

  "Why should I argue? You're the boss."

  Helen walked to the window and stood looking out. Snow fell silently onto a land already covered with a fine white blanket.

  "We could wait until it quits snowing," she said.

  "Whatever you say."

  "The weather forecast predicts snow for the next four days."

  "I'll sit in front of the fire warming my toes instead of traipsing with you all the way across the estate to that drafty old barn Farnsworth calls a playhouse."

  Helen wadded the curtain in one hand, released it, and wadded it over again.

  "I don't suppose he'll say anything."

  "Who?" Marsha pretended ignorance.

  "Brick."

  "Not likely."

  "They can get someone to replace me."

  "Certainly."

  "I mean…" She wadded then smoothed the curtain. "It's not as if I'm the only actress who can play Katharina to Brick's Petruchio."

  "I agree completely."

  "You do?"

  "Of course."

  "Ginger Rutters will be happy to do it. She's always wanted to play this role opposite Brick."

  "Lots of women would."

  Helen whirled from the window.

  "Are you saying Brick is appealing?"

  "I didn't say it. You did."

  "No, I didn't. I simply asked you the question."

  Helen paced the floor, occasionally frowning at the suitcase as if it had done something to offend her. The afternoon in the theater filled her mind. Her skin still burned from Brick's touch.

  "Well… he certainly has no appeal for me," she said.

  Marsha gave her an arch look but wisely declined comment.

  "Don't give me that look, Marsha."

  "What look?"

  "You know the one. The one that says I'm being irrational and overreacting." Suddenly all the fight left Helen. She sank onto the carpet and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Go ahead, Marsha. You might as well say it."

  "Say what?"

  "What you've been dying to say ever since we left the theater." Marsha pulled up a chair, folded her hands in her lap, and waited.

  "All right. I admit it. Brick flustered me." Helen pushed her heavy hair off her forehead. "It was more than that. Oh, God… Marsha… I felt the earth move." She dropped her head onto her knees. The tears that had not been far away since rehearsal started all over again.

  Marsha dropped to the carpet, put her arms around Helen, and held on, silently lending both comfort and support. When the tears finally ran their course, Helen wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, then went into the bathroom to blow her nose.

  With her tear-streaked face she looked nothing like the idol of stage and screen who had earned the adulation of fans around the world, but like a fragile, vulnerable woman, capable of intense emotions and great pain.

  "There were no tissues in the bathroom. How can a man like Farnsworth not have tissues in his bathroom?"

  She held a wadded piece of toilet paper in her hand, and behind her was a white
trail leading from the doorway to the bed. She blew her nose once more, then began to unload the suitcase.

  "We're not leaving," she said.

  "I never thought for a minute we would."

  "Why didn't you say something?"

  "I figure when a person is upset about something, it's best to let him get it out of his system." Marsha picked up the toilet paper and threw it into the wastebasket. "Is it out of your system now?"

  "Not quite. I think I have a few tears left."

  "Then cry it out. My shoulder's broad."

  Helen hugged her hard. "How can I ever thank you?"

  "With a raise." Marsha never cracked a smile.

  "If I paid you any more, you'd be making more than the governor of Georgia."

  "I figure I'm worth more to you than the governor."

  "Then earn your keep by making some excuse for me tonight at dinner. I don't want to be ailing. Think up something much more dramatic and important than that."

  "You're plotting the takeover of a small island in the Caribbean?"

  "Something like that… and, Marsha, smuggle some food up here."

  "I hope my raise is enough to cover all this cloak-and-dagger stuff."

  Helen made a face at her across the suitcase she was unpacking.

  Marsha paused outside the door and shook her head.

  "Lord, Lord. What's to become of those two?"

  As she started down the hall, Barb Gladly emerged from Brick's room.

  "That man is going to be the absolute death of me," Barb said.

  Thinking of the look on Helen's face, Marsha hoped it wasn't death by loving, but she didn't say so.

  "Great artists can be touchy," she said, inviting conversation.

  "Grouchy is more like it. I went in there to ask him what I should wear to dinner, and he nearly bit my head off."

  "Why?"

  "Said he wasn't going to dinner. I told him Mr. Farnsworth would be expecting him, but he said he didn't care if the president of the United States was expecting him, he wasn't going."

  Barb inspected her long red fingernails, buffed them across her thigh, then gave Marsha a sly look. "I don't suppose it had anything to do with what happened at the theater this afternoon?"

  "Don't look at me. I never interfere with things that are none of my business."

  "Well, I do."

  Good, Marsha thought as Barb sashayed off. It was high time somebody interfered.

  The peanut butter and crackers Marsha had brought upstairs after dinner would never sustain her through the night. Helen glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Midnight. And she hadn't slept a wink. She'd look like a raccoon at rehearsals. A starving raccoon.

  She kicked at the twisted covers, punched her pillow, and tried to forget that her stomach was growling.

  "It's all your fault, Brick Sullivan." It would serve him right if she starved to death.

  She looked at the clock once more. Two minutes after twelve. She wondered if she could possibly find the kitchen without being detected.

  Throwing on her robe, she padded barefoot to the door, then peered up and down the hall like a teenager on an escape mission. Seeing it empty, she raced toward the staircase.

  So far so good.

  She kept in the shadows close to the wall. The third stair from the bottom squeaked, and Helen placed her hand over her heart as if she'd been caught stealing the crown jewels.

  Laughter bubbled up, and she had to press a hand over her mouth. When she was certain that no one had heard, she made her way across the darkened hallway and toward what she hoped was the direction of the kitchen.

  Her white silk robe and gown gleamed in the moonlight pouring through the French windows.

  "Should have worn black," she muttered. "Like a cat burglar."

  Laughter threatened to be her undoing once more, and she had to stop and pull herself together. At the rate she was going she could starve to death on the way to the kitchen.

  When she had sobered up, she began her journey once more. She could see the kitchen door now, just a few steps away.

  "Food. I hear it calling my name."

  She put her hand on the door and pushed.

  When the door creaked, Brick bolted from his chair. Discovered. Of all the rotten luck. And just when he was well into the cold chicken.

  The door swung slowly inward. He grabbed the chicken and bolted for the nearest hiding place he could find. The pantry was crowded, but he squeezed in between the pickles and the olives and prepared to wait out the intruder.

  Helen stood just inside the door, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. There were no windows in the kitchen to give even the faintest hint of light. Rather than fumble around in the darkness knocking over chairs and the Lord only knew what else, she decided to find the lights.

  She ran her hands along the wall until she finally found the switch. Lights flooded the room, and for a moment she stood blinking in the brightness.

  Feeling like a thief, she stole to the refrigerator and rummaged around until she found leftover chicken, green salad, and chocolate cake.

  She tiptoed to the cabinets and tried not to rattle dishes. A silver fork slid from her hand and landed with a clatter on the floor.

  Her heart pounding, she stood perfectly still for the count of ten. When no one rushed into the kitchen to find her skulking around like a burglar, she carried her ill-gotten bounty to the table and sat down.

  "Mind if I join you?"

  Helen turned around so fast, she nearly toppled her chair. Brick stood in the doorway to the pantry, his hands full of chicken and his face full of wicked glee.

  If she told him no, she'd be giving herself away.

  "Certainly not." To show that she meant what she said, she shoved a chair out from the table with her bare foot.

  Brick plopped his chicken on the table and caught her foot.

  "Barefoot, Helen?"

  "Yes."

  "You always did like to pad around the house in your bare feet."

  He traced her toes with the tip of his index finger. The heat from that simple contact left her absolutely breathless, but she wasn't about to let him know what he did to her.

  "Some habits never die," she said.

  "No. Some never die."

  Still holding on to her foot, he caught her with a riveting gaze that sent a flush throughout her body. She sat perfectly still, praying that she'd have the strength to endure this late-night encounter with Brick Sullivan.

  "I never could resist kissing that dominant toe." Leaning down, he pressed a light kiss on the toe he'd always called dominant, the one that extended slightly beyond her big toe.

  The last time he'd kissed her dominant toe they'd been in the kitchen. Memories flooded through her mind… the smell of oranges and grapes, the taste of sweet juice running down his chest, the smooth, hard feel of the kitchen floor, the warm, wet feel of his mouth, the sensation of falling off the edge of the earth.

  Heavy with memories, she sucked in a sharp breath.

  Brick's black eyes held hers a moment longer, then abruptly he let go. Helen didn't know whether to feel relieved or deprived.

  "There will be no replays, Helen," he said.

  "Replays?"

  "Replays of love."

  "How do you know what I'm thinking?"

  "Your eyes always give you away." He reached onto her plate and helped himself to a bite of her salad. "Love died the minute you walked out the door."

  She started to jump out of her chair, but he caught her wrist and pulled her back down.

  "Sit. You've deprived me of one meal tonight. I see no need to eat this one alone."

  Sitting seemed easier than making another scene.

  "You didn't come to dinner because of me?"

  "Isn't the reason you didn't come because of me?" His thumb circled her wrist. "Well, Helen?"

  "Yes. I was a coward." She jerked her wrist free, then picked up her fork. "It won't happen again."

  "N
o. We're both civilized adults. Not only that, but we're professionals. It's time to act it."

  "Why didn't you think of that sooner?"

  "I apologize for my part in what happened at the theater this afternoon. It was a bit of childish revenge."

  "Apology accepted."

  "Tomorrow will be different."

  "I agree one hundred percent. Tomorrow is another day."

  "Yes ma'am, Miss Scarlett." Brick's grin was wide.

  "Oh, hush."

  Helen tried not to attach any significance to the easy repartee between them, but she couldn't help but compare Brick to other men. He was a giant among men, full of energy and fun and talent and passion.

  She had fallen madly in love with him the first time they'd met. It had been at a New Year's Eve dance. She'd gone at the insistence of friends…

  "You have to meet him, Helen," they said. "He's gorgeous and talented and fun loving."

  "He's an actor," she said, as if that alone disqualified him from consideration as a serious suitor.

  "He's a great dancer too. Come on, Helen. One night of dancing. What do you have to lose?"

  Her heart, for one thing. She was just recovering from having lost her heart to a man who saw fit to stomp on it and throw it away. Men always seemed to do that to her.

  Betsy and Susan wouldn't take no for an answer, and in the end she'd gone.

  The minute she spotted him waiting at the table with Betsy and Susan, she'd known she was in trouble. He had exactly the kind of looks she admired in a man, dark and exotic, poised and polished, self-confident and powerful. But it was his eyes that really got to her. Black as the pits of hell, they sparkled with intelligence and wit and passion.

  "Oh, help," she said to herself. "I'm in trouble."

  Her prediction was entirely right. One turn on the dance floor was enough. It was not merely the way he danced, nor the way he held her, both of which were wonderful. It was more, ever so much more.

  Their hands touched. Her fingers wove through his. His thumb caressed her wrist. She drew slow, sensuous circles in his palm.

  "You're a toucher," she whispered, leaning back to look up at him.