Someday Soon Page 22

  Gayle…

  Sadness and a renewed spurt of anger rushed through him. His sorrow over her death, and guilt, had ended up being replaced by a whole new set of emotions, ranging from disbelief to fury, when the truth had finally come to light after her swan dive.

  A truth he still couldn’t bring himself to talk about. Her pregnancy…

  “We need a DNA sample,” his lawyer had said, “to be sure the child’s yours.”

  Ty had been too numb to understand. He’d been living in a fog, aided by the evils of drink, and the man’s words seemed nonsensical. “What does it matter now?”

  “Your father wants to know.” To Ty’s incredulous look, the lawyer added with a look of sympathy, “He thinks it might be his.”

  Ty had come unglued. He’d rushed over to his father’s house and blasted him with the news in front of his latest wife, while she held his latest son screaming in her arms. What a scene. Scripted right out of a melodrama. Samuel hadn’t denied the accusations; he’d just wanted to know if Ty had agreed to the tests. The answer to that was an unqualified, “No!”, then he’d slammed out of the place and driven back home, drinking himself into an alcoholic stupor that had lasted the better part of a week. When he’d finally recovered, he’d left L.A. No regrets. No second thoughts. Just a desperate need to shake the dust of that miserable place behind him.

  He didn’t know to this day whether Gayle’s unborn child had been his or his father’s. Samuel had wanted to know for reasons of his own. Ty figured his father could give the DNA sample, and to hell with it. He’d mourned the loss as if the child were his anyway, no matter how much he’d tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with him.

  When he’d first arrived in Bayrock he’d kept to himself with almost fanatic perverseness. But time is a great healer of ills, and finally he broke through the shell of his own paranoia and started to rediscover a life. He’d met a few of the locals, and had even dated a bit, but always at arm’s length. He had no interest in encouraging anyone, but as the years passed, he slowly began to feel a bit of safety, and then, finally, a recognition that it just didn’t matter as much anymore.

  So, when Missy crossed his path after he helped out Corky, he let himself start seeing her. She was uncomplicated. More rural than urban, and though she played her little games, they were easily dismissed. Only when he realized how involved and insistent she’d become did he start to ease away, and when that began to happen, she doubled her efforts to hold on to him, which was the death knell itself to their relationship.

  He’d just about given up on women entirely until Cammie walked through his door. She’d knocked him sideways, and even though he knew it had more to do with his lack of female companionship than her feminine wiles, it hardly mattered. He was won before she dropped her coat on the couch.

  And that was why he’d been so damned testy these past few weeks. He was in a quandary, a vortex, a terrible place, where lust and love swirled together into a potent mix in which he felt he was drowning. At first he’d tried to call her his “sister,” thinking that would help. But they both knew that was a crock, and when she’d looked so vulnerable, yet slapped him with that sassy tongue, he’d been undone.

  Finally, finally, they’d made love, and though it had been a fabulous, soul-defining event, he could sense her wariness and ambivalence. She was a fabulous sexual partner, so giving and luscious and deliciously demanding, a mixture of virgin and wanton that could turn a man’s brains to mush, his body into a hormone-raging group of jerking muscles, his soul into slavery.

  When she’d disappeared this afternoon, he’d pretended it didn’t matter. What the hell. She was free to go where she pleased. But it had dug into his skull like a screw, and he’d been unable to work on anything, not his business papers or his screenplay, and though he’d called himself every kind of fool, he’d gone in search of her—and discovered her with Missy, of all people.

  And now all he could think about was burying himself inside her warm sheath. It boggled the mind. How could it be that he, Tyler Stovall, was so obsessed with sex? There’d been a time in his life when it was so readily available that he could scarcely work up the enthusiasm. He couldn’t count the times he’d gone through the act by rote, even with Gayle. In those days, Cammie Pendleton was a little girl, at least in his mind, and not interesting to him in that way. She was his little buddy, if he thought about her at all, and mostly he didn’t, because he was a young jerk who thought only about himself.

  So, how did this happen? And how was he going to get rid of Missy? He had to do it soon or his body, which was receiving lusty messages from his brain about Cammie, was on the verge of reacting in a way he wasn’t going to be able to conceal.

  Absently, he pushed the buttons on the remote, waded through a few commercials as Missy prattled on, and finally settled on a drama with young, fresh actors and actresses who Ty didn’t recognize. Apart from a few names that were perennially on the Hollywood top-end list, there was seldom a celebrity who could keep his or her fame going full tilt, as so many of them were wont to do. For Ty, fame had been like carrying the weight of a dead elephant around. As the lead singer for the Rock group INXS had once been quoted, “Fame is like the ocean. It’s pretty from afar, but if you jump in, you’d better know how to swim.” He, like Gayle, had suffered a premature death.

  “So, what is it you do again?” Missy asked Cammie. “I don’t remember what you said.”

  Since Cammie, as far as Ty could tell, had never mentioned her profession, it stood to reason she didn’t want Missy to know. Whether that was to protect his identity, or because she was as uncomfortable with that “celebrity” thing as he was, Cammie had been very quiet about being an actress.

  He glanced her way and caught a sideways look from jewel-bright aqua eyes. Cammie knew Ty found humor in the situation, but she didn’t want Missy to know anything about her. “I’m out of work at the moment,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah?” A thought struck Missy. “Are you looking for work here?” she asked, seeking to keep the horror from invading her voice and failing utterly.

  “Not really. I’m not sure—” Cammie cut herself off as her gaze riveted momentarily on the television set.

  Oh, God, no! she thought.

  There she was, on the small screen in all her glory as Donna Jenkins, straight-jacketed and wild-eyed as gas hissed through the vent of the room in the sanitarium.

  “Carbon monoxide,” Donna Jenkins mouthed in the faintest whisper, her fate sealed as someone watched her struggle for air outside the room, through the tiny window.

  And so ended the final cliffhanger from this season’s finale of Cherry Blossom Lane…

  Both Tyler Stovall and Missy Grant stared at Cammie in varying degrees of amusement and wonder.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ty could have laughed out loud at the consternation and suppressed horror written across Cammie’s face as she viewed herself on television.

  This, then, must be Cammie’s nighttime drama, the one she’d been fired from by her Judas of an ex-husband.

  Missy gazed blankly from the screen to Cammie, then to Ty. “Was that you?” she asked Cammie, completely lost.

  Cammie was half inclined to lie, but she’d put her fingerprints all over the thing by reacting so violently. “I’m afraid it was,” she admitted.

  “You’re—you’re—on television!” Missy fairly shrieked.

  Cammie winced, wondering just how far a leap it was for Missy’s brain to sizzle through the connection to Ty. She would know who he was. It would be too obvious.

  “The truth comes out,” Ty said lazily, not nearly as worried as Cammie felt he ought to be.

  “You’re on television,” Missy said again, staring at Cammie in total disbelief.

  “I was. My role on Cherry Blossom Lane is over.”

  “Her ex-husband took care of that,” Ty put in, earning him a killing look from Cammie, who felt everything was unraveling at much too fast a pace.


  “Ex-husband? Who’s he?”

  “One of the producers.” Now it was Cammie who wished she could find a quick way to get rid of Missy, but this latest revelation had left Missy with even less desire to leave.

  “I don’t believe it!” she sputtered, blinking rapidly. “You’re an actress. On television. I’ve never met anyone who’s an honest to God actress. How did you get the part? Did you know someone? Do you have an agent?”

  “Yes,” Cammie admitted, helpless in the face of this onslaught of questions.

  “Do you live in New York?”

  “Los Angeles,” Cammie said.

  “Oh, yeah. Of course. Hollywood.” She shook her head. “Wow.” Slowly, as the neurons began to fire and deductions were invariably made, she turned to look hard at Ty.

  “I was a stunt double,” he said, lying with such practiced ease that Cammie’s lips parted in surprise. “You said yourself I bear a resemblance to Tyler Stovall.”

  “You do!” Missy’s head bobbed excitedly.

  Ty grimaced. “Yeah, well, it was great at first. They used me once or twice on his films, but then the fool took off and that ended my career.” Ty sighed and shrugged. “I hung around for a while, but the work dried up. Decided to pack it in, and I sort of fell into real estate development and property management.”

  Acting. He was acting, Cammie realized with a certain amount of admiration. He was so good. So natural. She almost believed him herself.

  “You never told me!” Missy declared now, playfully slapping at him.

  Ty slid Cammie a conspiratorial glance that Missy couldn’t see even while he lifted his shoulders in an uncaring gesture. “I like my privacy.”

  Someone had once told Cammie that the truly gifted liars always kept close to the truth. And she’d also heard that the best way to deal with a potential problem is to point an arrow at it and explain it away before the first question even arose. Ty had successfully done both, but then, he’d had years to manufacture this story.

  How strange that her climactic scene on Cherry Blossom Lane had aired tonight. She’d almost forgotten that other life, she was so embroiled in this one. But it was a reminder that time was passing and decisions were going to have to be made.

  “What an idiot!” Missy declared vehemently. “He just takes off and doesn’t even think about it. He ruins your career in the process, too.” She sniffed. “Selfish bastard. Probably ran off with his gay lover.”

  Ty rubbed furiously at his nose, fighting back a storm of mirth that threatened to crack his facade. Cammie’s eyes twinkled in shared merriment as they met his, and he had to restrain himself from rushing over and swooping her into his arms, kissing her all over.

  It took another thirty minutes to roust Missy out, and even then, it was only because Cammie feigned tiredness, managing to fake a few yawns. Ty jumped on that excuse and expertly maneuvered his ex-girlfriend to the door. Cammie sped up the process by waving good night to Missy as she strolled down the hall to Ty’s bedroom. Closing the door behind her, Cammie then pressed an ear to the panels to hear what Ty said next.

  “She sleeps in your room?” Missy questioned.

  “Yes,” was Ty’s answer. His voice warned her not to travel that road further, but Missy, as Cammie had learned, wasn’t good at picking up the subtext of any conversation.

  “And where do you sleep?” she demanded.

  “Wherever I damn well please.”

  “Jerry, you know what I mean!”

  “Yes, I know exactly what you mean,” he agreed almost gently. Cammie winced, aware that Ty was trying to leave Missy a chance to back out gracefully. But it wouldn’t work. Missy wasn’t made that way.

  “You act like she’s your sister and all, but she’s not,” Missy barreled through, proving Cammie right in her next breath. “So, what’s really going on? I have a right to know.”

  “Missy, go home. Go to bed. Don’t think about it.”

  He was still trying to be kind, but it was too much for Missy.

  “You haven’t seen her in years! She didn’t even care enough about you to come visit until now!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said flatly, a further warning she refused to heed.

  “Just because her husband left her doesn’t mean you have to play the knight in shining armor! Come on, Jerry, wake up! She’s just lonely.”

  “Missy…”

  Cammie felt bad, wondering if she should do something to stop this escalating fight. But maybe it had to happen. Ty certainly needed to clear the air with her; maybe today’s events were the precursor to the inevitable.

  “Jerry…” she pleaded.

  That was all the eavesdropping Cammie could stand. She moved quickly away from the door, rubbing her hands over her elbows. She didn’t know what she was doing here herself, and Missy’s pain and disappointment made her feel all the worse.

  Eventually, Ty tapped on her door. Cammie opened it, glancing past him.

  “She’s gone,” he-told her on a sigh.

  “I feel—terrible,” she said.

  “Don’t…” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, clearly at a loss to what to say next.

  “It makes me feel weird to hear her call you Jerry,” Cammie admitted, grimacing. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “I’ve gotten used to it. Sort of. It’s been a lot of years,” he reminded her on a short, humorless laugh.

  “I hardly knew what to do when Cherry Blossom Lane came on. I thought she’d realize who you are. I’m amazed she didn’t.”

  “Nobody believes I’m Tyler Stovall,” he said without rancor. “Give them half an explanation and they’ll take it. You saw how she reacted when she realized you were on television. It’s just too hard to believe. Actors aren’t real people,” he added ironically.

  “Still…” Cammie wasn’t completely convinced, even though she’d gotten a little of that herself. The public believed she was Donna Jenkins—period. There was no Camilla Merrill there at all.

  “No one recognizes me because they don’t believe there’s any possible way I could be Tyler Stovall. It’s easier to think I’m a stunt double.”

  “That was inspired,” Cammie said with a smile.

  “I’ve had a long time to come up with every excuse in the book,” he admitted. He eyed her with a certain amount of detachment. “Do you plan to stay in it? Acting, I mean.”

  Cammie didn’t quite know how to respond. And she didn’t think saying “It all depends on you!” would be the right choice. “I guess.”

  “You’re not dying for the fame and fortune?”

  “A couple of years on a television show cures you of that. But I’d like to keep my hand in it somehow. I love doing it.”

  Her honesty reached him. Everything she said, everything she did, just fascinated him all the more, and he wanted to wrap her up and keep her close. A ridiculous idea, since they were at polar opposites in their choice of lifestyle and career.

  Except there was that script…

  Ty lowered his lashes, thinking hard and unwilling to let her read anything in his eyes. He’d taken that copy of his script from its nightstand drawer and squirreled it away upstairs with his other, newer copies. He’d been working on the damn thing for over a year and it was nearly finished, and although he had no plans to ever turn it over to Hollywood, it had been a therapeutic experience for him, a balm to his unhappy soul.

  “I want to show you something,” he heard himself say, then gestured for her to precede him out of the room. Cammie hesitated a moment; he didn’t blame her. Ever since she’d arrived, they’d embarked on this wild, furious, roller coaster of emotion that neither had expected. It was glorious and frightening and downright pleasurable, and Ty didn’t want the ride to end.

  But it had to…someday.

  Just don’t make that day today!

  He led her upstairs to his loft office. Cammie followed with both anticipation and trepidation. He hadn’t al
lowed her into the loft since the first day he’d shown it to her. Oh, it wasn’t that he’d written some huge “Keep Out” placard; he’d just made it very clear that his office was his private work area. He also had taken up sleeping on the sofa tucked beneath bookshelves at one end, and so Cammie had respected his privacy completely. And after his annoyance when she’d discovered his script, well, it was a slam dunk that she wasn’t going to be stepping over that particular line again.

  Thinking of the script she’d barely caught a glimpse of reminded her of her injured finger. The nail was cracked and split and the underlying skin blackened, but there was a tiny moon of new pink where the nail had begun to grow out.

  “Does it still bother you?” Ty asked, following her gaze.

  “Oh, no. It’s just so ugly.”

  “Nothing about you is ugly.”

  The compliment made her blush. Cammie felt as ridiculous and callow as a schoolgirl. Her voice was light as she murmured, “You could make a girl’s head turn, you silvertongued devil.”

  “Oh, by the way, my mother called,” he said. “She still didn’t say anything about you.”

  Nanette had placed several calls to her son since Cammie had been staying with him, but as yet she hadn’t mentioned Cammie had been by to see her. She was keeping that secret safe for the time being, though she now had a tendency to sing Cammie’s praises at each and every opportunity, according to Ty.

  “You should tell her I’m here,” Cammie said.

  “I thought about it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted honestly. “I guess I just don’t want anything to—spoil this.”

  Cammie knew exactly what he meant. She didn’t want to spoil this time-out-of-time together, either. But it would have to end soon, no matter what either she or Ty wanted. The clock was ticking and eventually the bomb would explode. Samuel Stovall had to know she was here, and he wouldn’t wait forever.