by Nora Roberts
The fury leaped into her eyes and stopped him cold. He’d never seen that look before, or the power behind it. Or, if it had been there, he’d never bothered to look. “I don’t want anything from you. I did once, but I learned to live without it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a show of my own to produce.”
“Johanna.” She started to whip the curtain aside. It was the tremor in his voice that stopped her.
“Yes?”
“I apologize.”
Another first, she thought, and made herself turn back. “All right. The doctor told me not to stay long, and I’ve probably already overtired you.”
“I almost died.”
He said it like an old man, an old, frightened man. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I almost died,” he repeated. “And though I can’t say my life flashed in front of my eyes, I did screen a few clips.” He closed his eyes. It infuriated him that he had to stop just to gather the strength to speak. “I remember getting in the back of the limo—on my way to the airport, I think. You were standing on the steps with that dog Max forced on me. You looked as though you wanted to call me back.”
Johanna didn’t remember that particular incident because there’d been so many of them. “If I had, would you have stayed?”
“No.” He sighed, not with regret but with acknowledgement. “Work has always come first. I’ve never been able to put a marriage together the way I could a film. Your mother—”
“I don’t want to talk about my mother.”
Carl opened his eyes again. “She could have loved you more if she’d hated me less.”
It hurt. Even having known it all these years, it hurt to hear it said aloud. “And you?”
“Work has always come first,” he repeated. He was tired, much too tired for regrets or apologies. “Will you come back?”
“Yes. I’ll come back after the taping.”
He was asleep before she drew the curtain aside.
***
Max Heddison’s estate was as distinguished and well-tended as the man. Sam was ushered through the thirty-room house the actor had purchased a quarter of a century before. On the terrace were thickly padded chaises and half a dozen wicker chairs that invited company to spread out and be comfortable. An aging golden retriever was curled up in one, snoring.
In the sparkling L-shaped pool beyond the terrace, Max Heddison was doing laps. Across the sloping lawn, partially hidden by squared-off hedges, were tennis courts. To the east, identifiable only by a distant flag, was a putting green.
A houseboy in a spotless white jacket offered Sam his choice of chairs. Sun or shade. Sam chose the sun. As he watched, Sam counted ten laps, cleanly stroked and paced, and wondered idly how many Max had done before he’d arrived. The official bio said Max was seventy. It could have taken off fifteen years and still have been believable.
He accepted coffee and waited while Max hauled himself out of the pool.
“Good to see you again.” Max dragged a towel over his hair before he shrugged into a robe.
“I appreciate you letting me drop by this way.” Sam had risen automatically.
“Sit down, boy; you make me feel like a king about to be deposed. Had breakfast?”
“Yes, thanks.”
The moment Max sat, the houseboy was back with a tray of fresh fruit and dry toast. “Thank you, Jose. Bring Mr. Weaver some juice. Straight from our own oranges,” he told Sam. “I figure it only costs me about three dollars a glass.” With a grin, he dug into his breakfast. “My wife’s the health nut. No additives, no preservatives. Enough to drive a man to drink. She’s at her morning class, which means I’ll have time to sneak a cigarette before she gets back.”
Sam’s juice was served in cut crystal. He sipped, letting Max fall into a conversation about pruning and organic sprays.
“Well, I don’t suppose you came here to discuss fertilizers.” Max pushed his tray aside and reached in his pocket for a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. “What did you think of the script?”
“Who do I have to kill to get the part?”
Max chuckled and drew in smoke with great pleasure. “I’ll hold that in reserve. You know, I don’t care too much for today’s moviemakers—money-makers, I should say. In the old days, men like Mayer might have been despots, but they knew how to make films. Today they’re a bunch of damn accountants running around with ledgers and red pencils—more interested in profit than entertainment. But my gut tells me we might be able to give them both with this one.”
“It made my palms sweat,” Sam said simply.
“I know the feeling.” Max settled back, regretting only that his cigarette was nearly done. “I’ve been making movies since before you were born. Over eighty of them, and only a handful ever made me feel that way.”
“I want to thank you for thinking of me.”
“No need for that. Ten pages into the script and your name popped into my head. It was still there when I finished.” He crushed out his cigarette, sighing. “And, of course, I went straight to my consultant with it—my wife.” He grinned, drank more coffee and thought it a pity his wife had ordered decaf. “I’ve relied on her opinion for over forty years.”
It made Sam remember how important it had been for him to hear Johanna’s.
“She finished it, handed it back to me and said if I didn’t do it I was crazy. Then she told me to get young Sam Weaver to play Michael. By the way, she admires your . . . build,” Max said. “My sainted wife’s an earthy woman.”
The grin came quickly and lingered. “I’d love to meet her.”
“We’ll arrange it. Did I mention that Kincaid’s been signed to direct?”
“No.” Sam’s interest was piqued again. “You don’t get much better.”
“Thought the same myself.” Max watched Sam thoughtfully from under his bushy white brows. “Patterson’s producing.” He saw Sam’s eyes sharpen and reached casually for more coffee. “Problem?”
“There might be.” He wanted the part, more than he could remember wanting any other. But not at the cost of his still-too-tenuous relationship with Johanna.
“If you’re concerned about Jo-Jo, I don’t think it’s necessary. The complete professional, our Jo-Jo. And she respects her father’s work.” He saw the dull anger in Sam’s eyes and nodded. “So, it’s gotten that far, has it? I wasn’t sure Johanna would ever let anyone get that close.”
“It wasn’t so much a matter of choice as circumstance.” He hadn’t come just to talk about the script. When Sam had called to make the appointment, he’d already decided to dig for whatever Max might have buried. “I take it you haven’t heard that Patterson had a heart attack last night.”
“No.” The concern came automatically. The friendship went back a quarter of a century. “I haven’t so much as flicked the news on today. I go for days at a time without it. How bad?”
“Bad enough. As far as I know, he’s stable. Johanna went back to the hospital this morning.”
“He lives hard,” Max mused. “Carl never seemed to be able to settle down long enough to enjoy what he was working for. I hope he still gets the chance.” Max tipped back in his chair and looked out over the pool, the grounds. “You know, I have three children of my own. Five grandchildren now, and the first great-grandchild on the way. There were times I wasn’t there for them, and I’ll always regret it. Holding a family and a career together in this business is like juggling eggs. There’s always some breakage.”
“Some people juggle better than others.”
“True enough. It takes a lot of effort and more than a few concessions to make it work.”
“It seems to me that in Johanna’s case she made all the concessions.”
Max said nothing for a moment. He considered having another cigarette but decided his wife’s sensitive nose would find him out. “I hate old men who poke into young people’s business. Ought to be out playing checkers or feeding pigeons. But . . . just how serious are you about Jo-Jo?
”
“We’re going to get married,” Sam heard himself say, to his own astonishment. “As soon as I talk her into it.”
“Good luck. And that comes from the heart. I’ve always had a soft spot for that girl.” Max poured another cup of coffee and knew he was a long way from ready to feed pigeons. “How much did she tell you?”
“Enough to make me understand I’ve got an uphill battle.”
“And how much do you love her?”
“Enough to keep climbing.”
Max decided to risk a second cigarette. If his wife came sniffing around, he could always blame it on Sam. He lit it slowly, savoring the taste. “I’m going to tell you things she wouldn’t appreciate me saying. Whether it’ll give you an edge or not I can’t say. I can tell you I hope it does.”
“I appreciate it.”
With the smoke trailing lazily from between his fingers, Max looked back. A long way. “I knew her mother well. A beautiful woman. A glorious face. Bone structure always makes the difference. Johanna favors her physically, but it ends there. I can say I’ve never known anyone more completely her own woman than Johanna.”
“Neither have I,” Sam murmured. “It doesn’t always make it easy.”
“You’re too young to want things easy,” Max told him from the comfortable perspective of seven decades. “When something comes easy, you usually let it go the same way. That’s my philosophy for the day. Now, Glenna was selfish, driven by her own demons. She married Carl after a brief and very torrid affair. Affairs were just as torrid thirty years ago, only a bit more discreet.”
He drew in smoke and remembered a few of his own. Though he’d let them go without regret upon his marriage, he could still be grateful for the experience.
“They were a golden couple, the photographers’ darlings. Carl was dark, ruggedly handsome, broad shouldered. Glenna was almost waiflike, pale, fragile. They threw incredible parties and incredible tantrums. To be honest, I quite enjoyed both. You may have heard I was a hellion in my youth.”
“I heard you were a hellion,” Sam agreed. “But I didn’t hear it was something in the past.”
“We’ll work well together,” Max declared. He took one last drag before crushing the second cigarette out. “When Glenna was pregnant, she spent thousands decorating the nursery. Then she started to lose her figure and went on a rampage. She could sit for a photographer like a Madonna, then toss back a Scotch and curse like a sailor. Glenna had no middle ground.”
“Johanna told me she was ill, a manic-depressive.”
“Perhaps. I don’t pretend to understand psychiatry. I will say she was weak—not weak-minded, but weak-spirited—and tormented by the fact that she was never as successful as she needed to be. There was talent in her, real talent, but she didn’t have the drive or the grit to stay on top. It became easy for her to blame Carl for that, and the marriage. Then it became easier to blame the child. After Johanna was born, Glenna went through phases of being a devoted, loving mother. Then she’d be almost obscenely neglectful. The marriage was crumbling. Carl had affairs, she had affairs, and neither of them ever considered putting the child first. Not in their nature, Sam,” he added when he saw the fury flare. “That’s not an excuse, of course, but it is a reason. Carl wouldn’t have cared if Glenna had had one child or thirty. He’d had no more than a passing interest. When the break finally came, Glenna used the child as a weapon. I don’t mean to make Carl a hero, but at least he never used Johanna. Unfortunately, she was never that important to him.”
“How could two people like that ever have someone like Johanna?”
“Another question for the ages.”
“Is Patterson her father?”
Max lifted both brows. “Why do you ask?”
It was a confidence he felt he had to break. Not for himself. Sam had already decided her parentage meant less than nothing to him, but the truth would be important to Johanna.
“Because when she was still a child, Johanna found a letter her mother had written to Patterson right after she’d gone back to England. She told him she’d never been sure if he was Johanna’s father.”
“Good God.” Max ran a hand over his face. “I had no idea about that. It’s a wonder it didn’t destroy Johanna.”
“No, she wasn’t destroyed, but it did plenty of damage.”
“Poor little Jo-Jo,” Max murmured. “She was always such a lonely little girl. Spent more time with the gardener than anyone else. It might not have mattered if Carl had been different. I wish she’d come to me with this.”
“I don’t think she’s told anyone about it until last night.”
“You’d better not let her down.”
“I don’t intend to.”
Max fell silent for a time, thinking. Johanna’s parents had been his friends. He’d been able to accept them for what they were and for what they weren’t, all the while regretting it for the child’s sake.
“For what it’s worth, I’d say the letter was pure spite and total nonsense. If another man had fathered Johanna, Glenna would have blurted it out long before the separation. She could never keep a secret for more than two hours. Make that two minutes if you added a drink. Carl knew that.” His face clouded as he hunched over the table. “I’m sorry to say that if Carl had suspected Johanna wasn’t his flesh and blood he never would have kept her under his roof. He’d have put her on a plane to her mother without a backward glance.”
“That doesn’t make him a saint.”
“No, but it does make him Johanna’s father.”
***
“We have something special for our home audience,” John Jay began, giving the camera a brilliant smile. “If you’ve been listening this week, you know that our Drive American contest is already underway. We at Trivia Alert are very excited about having the chance to show all of you at home how much we appreciate you. To win, all you have to do is watch and answer. Every day this week, sometime during the show, I’ll be asking questions. Today it’s time to tell you at home what you have a chance to win.”
He paused, giving the announcer the time to describe the cars and eligibility requirements. As requested, the studio audience applauded and cheered.
“The week of Fourth of July,” John Jay continued on cue, “one of you at home will win not one but both luxury cars. All you have to do is answer five questions in order. Send your answers to Trivia Alert, Drive American, Post Office Box 1776, Burbank, California 91501. Now for today’s question.”
There was a dramatic pause as he drew the sealed envelope from the slot. “Question number three. What is the name of Captain America’s alter ego? Write down your answer and be sure to tune in tomorrow for the fourth question. All complete sets of correct answers will be part of a random drawing. Now, back to our game.”
Johanna checked her watch and wondered how she could get through two more segments. They were already behind schedule due to a delay caused by an overenthusiastic member of the studio audience who had called out answers during the speed round. They’d had to stop, reset, calm the contestant and begin again with a new batch of questions. Usually she took that sort of thing in stride, but somewhere along the way her stride had broken. For the past few hours, Johanna had been struggling to find her pace again.
When the segment ended, she nearly groaned with relief. She had fifteen minutes before they would begin again. “Beth, I have to make a call. I’ll be in the office if a crisis comes up.”
Without waiting for a response, she hurried off the set. At the end of the corridor a small room was set up with the essentials. A phone, a desk and a chair. Making use of all three, Johanna called the hospital. She still had ten minutes left when she learned that Carl had been downgraded from critical to serious condition. She was rubbing her eyes and thinking about another cup of coffee when the door opened.
“Beth, if it isn’t a matter of life and death, put it on hold.”
“It might be.”
She straightened immediately
at the sound of Sam’s voice. “Oh, hello. I didn’t expect you.”
“You don’t expect me nearly often enough.” He closed the door behind him. “How are you doing?”
“Not bad.”
“Your father?”
“Better. They think he can be moved out of CCU tomorrow.”
“That’s good.” He came over to the desk and sat on the edge before giving her a long, critical study. “You’re dead on your feet, Johanna. Let me take you home.”
“We haven’t finished, and I promised to stop by the hospital after the taping.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you.”
“No, please. It’s not necessary, and I’d be lousy company tonight.”
He looked down at her hands. They were linked together tightly. Deliberately he took them in his own and separated them. “Are you trying to pull back, Johanna?”
“No. I don’t know.” She took a long breath, and her hands relaxed in his. “Sam, I appreciate what you did for me last night