by Janet Dailey
Maybe Aspen was harder on dreams than some places. But he couldn’t blame it for the death of Pete’s dream. It was life.
A pair of red lights rapidly flashed on and off a half mile ahead of him. Bannon slowed the pick-up when he saw the vehicle with its hazard lights on. It looked like a Jeep pulled off on the shoulder. The road ahead looked clear, which left an accident or engine trouble. He’d already started to pull over when he saw Kit standing on the side of the road, waving her arms. He braked to a stop next to the Jeep.
“What happened?” he asked when Kit pulled the passenger door open.
“I ran out of gas.” She threw her shoulder purse onto the seat and piled in after it.
“You-“
“Shut up, Bannon.” She raised her hands, palms out, fingers spread, as if to ward off whatever was coming. “Please-just shut up and take me home.”
Her emotion-charged voice sounded close to temper or tears and he was not in the mood to deal with either one-not from her, not tonight. He held his silence. Kit turned her face to the side window, propping an elbow on its ledge and her chin on her hand.
They rode the few miles to her house in silence. When he parked in front of it, she immediately climbed out of the truck, dragging her purse after her. “Thanks,” she said as she closed the door.
He watched her dash through the snow and onto the porch. He waited until a light went on inside, then drove off, back down the lane.
Kit leaned against the front door, and let out a long sigh, then pushed away from it in a burst of restlessness and impatience. She threw her purse onto a chair and dragged off her coat, giving it a toss as well.
The phone rug. She whirled around and stopped, staring at it as it jangled again. It was John, calling to apologize-or argue with her some more.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” She crossed her arms tightly, her fingers kneading at her arms through the sleeves of her bulky, oversized sweater, all the agitation, confusion, anger, and uncertainty coming back stronger than before.
It rang a third time. What if it wasn’t John? What if it was the hospital calling about her mother? Or Maggie Peters, her neighbor?
In two strides, she reached the phone and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Kit. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for three hours.” Maury’s cranky voice came over the line. “I ask you to keep in touch, but do you? No.”
“I went to John’s for dinner.” She sank onto the chair, clutching the phone with both hands. “I’m glad you called, Maury. I just saw the changes that have been made to the script.” The instant the words were out, she tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Changes. My God, what am I saying? They didn’t change it. They ruined it.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad-”
She stood up. “They cut the heart out of my character.”
“They cut your part?”
“No. They cut the things that gave her depth and dimension. Now she’s just an ordinary cruel, conniving witch. A stereotype of a dozen others. I tried arguing with John, but…Olympic insisted on the changes and he won’t go against them.”
“If that’s what Olympic wants…” Maury let the shrug in his voice finish the sentence. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Kit. You’ll make the role memorable. Everybody will sit up and take notice of you. You’ll see. For that matter they already are. I-”
“I don’t care if anybody notices me.” She walked to the end of the cord and started back again, pacing like an animal on a chain.
“That’s a strange thing to say-”
“Why?” Kit demanded. “Why is it so strange that I don’t care whether I make this movie? I don’t like the things that are happening to me. I don’t like the things that will happen if I make it-”
“Kit,” he cut her off. “Kit, you’re upset. Now you’re not thinking. You’re not being realistic.”
“My God, you sound just like John.” She pushed a hand through her blond hair and threw her head back in disgust. “And for your information, I have been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Then you are not thinking clearly about this.” Maury began to speak slowly and very precisely, making an obvious effort not to sound impatient or irritated. “You can’t quit this film simply because you are unhappy with some changes that have been made in the script.”
“Why can’t I? If that’s what I want to do, why can’t I do it?” she argued, suddenly fighting tears.
“For one thing, you signed a contract-”
“Then I’ll break it. They can murder the script but they can’t hold a gun to my head and make me do the film. That’s illegal.”
“Do you still have the money they paid you when you signed the contract? They’d demand it back, Kit.”
She’d forgotten about that. “No, I don’t have it. You know I used it to pay some of my mother’s bills. But I’ll find a way to pay it back. I don’t know how, but…” She pressed her fingers to her forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache.
“I can’t believe you’re saying this. I can’t believe you would quit three weeks before this film is scheduled to start shooting. You’ve got a key role, Kit. Don’t you realize how many people are depending on you to do your job and do it well? Sure, they can find another actress to replace you, but how far will that set the filming back? What about wardrobe, all the fittings you’ve had? What about the crew-the cinematographer, the grips, the gaffers, the assistant director? They’ve probably passed up other projects to work on this movie. Don’t you realize the kind of problems you’d create? Is that fair, Kit?” He hammered at her. “My God, you talk like you’ve never played in a rotten film before. When did you suddenly get too good to do a bad script?”
“It isn’t that, Maury,” she said in frustration.
“Then what the hell is it?”
“I’m just confused.” She sat back down, sighing over this feeling she was caught in a trap.
“You’d better get unconfused. You’re on your way up, Kit. You’ve got a big career ahead of you. For God’s sake, don’t blow it,” he declared forcefully, then added, for good measure, “Do you hear?”
“I hear, Maury.” Some of the nameless anger got into her voice.
“Good. Now, you take that script and make the best that you can out of it. That’s what you’re getting paid for. This is just the beginning, Kit. There will be other roles, better roles. You keep that in mind.”
“I will.” She told him good-bye and hung up, then sat there for several long seconds, holding the phone in her lap.
Maury made her sound like a spoiled child. Or a temperamental actress. But it wasn’t that. Damn it, it wasn’t that.
Giving in to the sudden wave of angry frustration, Kit roughly shoved the phone back onto the table and ignored the protesting jingle it made. She stalked out to the kitchen and slammed through the cupboards until she found the aspirin bottle, then slammed through them again for a water glass. She turned the cold-water tap on full force to fill it.
After she washed the aspirin down, she stood in front of the sink and gripped the sides of it. “Calm down,” she told herself angrily, but that was impossible. She had to use up all this anger, all this excess energy.
Cocoa. She’d make cocoa. From scratch, the way Mrs. Hatch used to.
With immense pleasure, Kit rattled through the pots, pans, and skillets before banging a saucepan down on a burner, then slammed through the cupboards again, gathering all the ingredients listed on the Hershey’s Cocoa can. She stalked to the refrigerator and yanked the door open, jerked the container of milk from the shelf, rammed the door shut, then turned.
Bannon stood in the doorway to the living room, melting snow dripping off the brim of the hat he held in front of him.
“When I got to the end of the lane, I discovered your billfold on the seat. It must have fallen out of your purse,” he said, tossing it on the counter. “I knocked, but I guess you were making too much noise to
hear me.”
“I’m mad, hurt, confused.” Suddenly it all seemed to drain out of her and she let out a long sigh, dragging a hand through her hair and sending him a wan smile. “I’m making some cocoa. Take your coat off and have a cup with me.”
When he hesitated, she added, “There’s nothing better to warm you on a snowy night.”
Looking at her, Bannon remembered a few things that were better. It was almost enough to make him turn around and walk out. Almost.
“A cup of cocoa would taste good.” He crossed the kitchen and hung his hat and coat on the hall tree by the back door, then pulled out one of the curved-back wooden chairs at the table and sat down.
A silence fell between them, an easy silence, as Kit measured ingredients into a pan and poured milk into another with none of her previous clang and clatter. He watched her moving about, stirring, mixing, tasting, all with the careless confidence of one accustomed to puttering about the kitchen. The simple, homey scene tugged at him again with the what-might-have-beens in his life.
“What brought you out on this wintry night, Bannon? Business or pleasure?” Kit asked as she stirred the combined cocoa concoction to keep it from scorching.
“I guess you’d call it business. A friend got into trouble, busted up some stuff.” He leaned his arms on the table and moved the sugar bowl from side to side between his hands. “I managed to talk the bar owner into letting him pay the damages and not press charges.”
“I take it your friend had been drinking.”
“Not this time. No, he was just frustrated and upset. He was just letting it out-the way you were doing earlier.”
“I was making a bit of a racket, wasn’t I?” She pulled a rueful smile as she took two cups down from a cupboard shelf.
“A bit.”
She filled both cups with cocoa and brought them to the table. “You always stick by your friends, don’t you, Bannon? Right or wrong?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Lawyer or not, you still would.” She pushed one of the cups to him, then sat down in the opposite chair. “That’s the way you are.”
“I guess.” The wedding band glinted on his fingers, catching her eye as he raised the cup and lightly blew on the cocoa’s steaming surface. It suddenly didn’t bother Kit to see it on his finger, at last seeing it as a symbol of his steadfast nature, standing by people whether they were around to know or not. After more than eight years in Hollywood, she recognized how very rare that was. But the thought reminded her of John and Maury and all the other things that were troubling her.
She took a testing sip of her cocoa. “It still doesn’t taste as good as Mrs. Hatch’s. Maybe she used something other than vanilla for flavoring. Next time I think I’ll try a little almond extract and see if that’s it.”
Bannon tasted his. “Personally I think all that banging and slamming added a little extra something to it.” His smile had a familiar touch of recklessness to it that warmed and teased. “Next time you run out of gas, remind me to drive on by.”
“Running out of gas was only the final disaster to my evening.” She swirled the cocoa in her cup and watched the miniature eddy the motion made. “John and I had a big fight tonight over the changes in the script.”
Absorbed again by her thought, she missed the coolness in that sound. She glanced up when Bannon rose from his chair and wandered over to the window, looking out as if to see whether it was still snowing.
She regarded his back thoughtfully. “Now I’m not even sure why I got so angry over them. I know it hurt to see the changes they’d made in my character. I was disappointed, upset. But actors never have any control over things like that. You can protest, but it rarely does any good. You’re stuck with what they give you. Artistic control only comes when you’re so big that they don’t dare say no to you.” She paused, considering that for a moment. “Maybe, deep down, that’s what I was reacting to-the kind of person you have to become to get that big, the bargains and compromises you have to make along the way, the way people will treat you and the way you’ll treat them.”
“That doesn’t say a lot for Travis,” Bannon remarked a little harshly.
“No, it doesn’t, I suppose,” she admitted. “But when people are so quick to use you, so quick to criticize, to judge, and condemn-fairly or unfairly-you have to become bard and cynical. You have to become a little ruthless, too. I never wanted to see that. I never wanted to believe that was true.” She stared at her cocoa. “Remember what you told me about money changing the way people think, that the money won’t let them think any other way? It’s the same with fame. Fame is power, money, and glory all rolled into one.” In a surge of restlessness, Kit got up and wandered over to the window by Bannon. Sighing, she gazed at the white flicker of snowflakes beyond the darkened pane.
“I don’t like the things that are happening to me now, Bannon. I don’t like the kind of person I’ll become if I keep going. And I have to change to survive.” Otherwise it would break her. It would tear her apart-the way it was tearing her apart now.
“What about the bargains you’ve already made?” Bannon’s voice had a hard edge to it. “If you quit now, it means you’ve made them for nothing.”
The events of these last few weeks made it incredibly easy for her to read between the lines of his remark. “Are you by any chance referring to John Travis and the dirty gossip that’s been flying around that I slept with him to get this part?” The lift of his head and stiffening of his jaw provided all the answer she needed. “Not you, too, Bannon,” she burled, her voice vibrating with anger and hurt. “Damn you.” She saw his startled frown and spun away, walking stiffly to the counter and slamming the cup down, cocoa sloshing over the sides. “Don’t you see that’s just what I’ve been talking about? The way people judge me, assume things. People who should know me better!”
“Kit, I…I was out of line-”
“You’re damned right you were out of line,” she declared, her chin quivering as she whirled back to face him, almost surprised by the confusion and regret she saw in his eyes. “For your information, I have not gone to bed with him, but that’s not what got me the part. I got it because I’m good. Because I’m damned good.” She stopped and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Why am I telling you this? It’s none of your business. She lowered her hand to look at him, fighting a whole host of old emotions. “I wish we could kill whatever romantic illusion there still is between us.”
Too many hot bitter tears blurred her eyes. She didn’t see him move. Suddenly he was in front of her, his hands gripping her upper arms.
“I’ve wished it, too, Kit. But you don’t kill things like that,” he said in a low voice, then almost angrily hauled her to him, his mouth coming down to cover hers with a hard, driving pressure. Her response was purely instinctive, her body curving to him of its own volition.
John had kissed her with more finesse; he had made her feel more sexually alive. Yet the simple roughness of Bannon’s kiss called up feelings much more basic, much more ageless-feelings that made a woman want a man for reasons that went beyond sex. There was a beauty in it that brought tears to her eyes.
Bannon drew back a little, his callused hands framing her face, his breathing more than a little ragged. His eyes moved over her, a dark and troubled light shining from them, the sight of it making her ache.
He kissed her again, this time with restraint. Then he folded her to him, his mouth rummaging lightly through her hair.
“How can I want you more than I did before>” he murmured thickly.
She closed her eyes against his words, unable to breathe and hurting because of it, her hands rigid on his waist. “Don’t, Bannon,” she whispered tightly. “I can’t go through it again. To be as close as we were-and to lose it. As much as I want you right now, I can’t go through that again.”
“I can’t defend the past, Kit. I can’t explain it, not even to myself,” he admitted. “I know the man I was with you; I know the man I am now
. But the man I was for those three months, I don’t know him. When I looked at her, did I feel the lure of something forbidden? Was it because she was dark like the night with all its mysterious promises and you were bright and fresh like a summer day? Was it because she was there and you were gone? Or was she someone new and different? Maybe it was all those things. I don’t know, Kit.” The pain that rumbled through his voice was an echo of her own. “I can’t change the past. It will always be with us.”
A strange and wonderful peace came over her. Despite-or maybe because of-his inability to explain, she suddenly understood. She didn’t know how or why, but-it was all right now.
“Bannon,” she whispered and let her arms slide around him again.
It was true the past would always be with them, and there would be a part of him that would always belong to Diana. She had been the mother of his daughter; she would always have that claim on him, and his daughter would always be there to remind him of it. Kit believed she could finally accept that.
He stiffened slightly. “I want you, Kit. But you deserve more than I can give you.”
“Just give me all you can. That will be enough.” Somehow she knew it would be.
A gusty sigh broke from him an instant before the weight of his mouth on hers forced he head back while he kissed her with a hungry, pillaging force. She gloried in the need she tasted, a need she echoed.
He drew back an inch, his roughened breathing fanning her skin.. “I want you, but not here-not like this, not like a couple teenagers making out in the kitchen. I want you in bed, your hair spread over a pillow, making a golden frame for your face.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Without preliminaries, he scooped her up into the cradle of his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then ran her fingers through his hair while she explored his ear, taking lone-nips of its lobe.
He carried her up the steps and into her bedroom, then kicked the door shut behind him. Shutting out the world-and the past.