Someday Soon Page 26

  “Cammie.” Ty reached across the table to clasp her cold hands between his comforting palms. “You’ve got to tell me. I don’t want any children. As far as I can see, we’ve been playing with fire, and since I have no intention of going celibate with you around, I’d like to be assured that we’re safe.”

  “We’re safe,” she repeated flatly.

  “Not good enough.”

  “I can’t have children,” she whispered.

  “Can’t?” He leaned closer, trying to meet her gaze, but Cammie’s eyes had shifted and she gazed blankly across the room. It was the glassy stare of the grief-stricken. The hopeless. For Cammie, the noise in the surrounding room seemed to meld into one, long distant roar, and to her horror, misery welled up inside her, filling her chest, prickling her eyes until tiny tears collected on her lashes.

  “Cammie?”

  Jerking her hands free of his, she suddenly stumbled to her feet, then stood shaking a moment, fighting for control. But it was a losing battle. Suffocating, she ran blindly through the saloon doors, pushing herself through to the outside and the brilliance of a moon-bright May night.

  Sounds escaped her lips. Choking mews of pain. She hesitated, turning blindly from side to side. There was nowhere to go. Her lungs ached for air. She couldn’t breathe. The noises issuing from her throat were pathetic gasps of misery.

  She could hear Ty calling after her. Stumbling, Cammie ran headlong for the road, blinded to everything but her own inner torment. For a normally levelheaded individual, she reacted with pure, primal intensity, and only when she was out of breath, chest heaving, head spinning, stomach churning dangerously, did she stop running and lean over to balance her hands on her knees. Her hair curtained her face, which was just as well, for silent tears streamed over her cheekbones to collect on her chin and drip to the ground.

  Ty was beside her in an instant. His palms gently grasped her trembling shoulders and he rotated her to face him. “I’m sorry,” he said in a tone both concerned and baffled.

  “It’s—not—you,” she gasped out.

  “I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful to you.”

  “No, no, it’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not.” Lifting up her chin with one finger, he gazed into her tear-drenched eyes. “Come on. Let’s go home…”

  Home, Cammie thought with a wrench. “I—can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” He collected her in his strong arms and led her to the Jeep, tucking her inside. She stayed in the exact position he left her, a limp rag doll with no will of its own.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, she crossed the threshold into Ty’s now familiar cabin on unsteady legs. Home, she thought again. A few weeks earlier, she hadn’t known this place existed, now he’d called it home and it made Cammie’s heart ache with a pain so intense she wanted to cry out.

  It wasn’t her home. It could never be her home. She had a life waiting for her somewhere else, and she couldn’t just give it all up for Ty. She couldn’t. But her love for him made her crazy. She was acting like a madwoman—all irrational emotion and no sense. Her reason had deserted her, and she felt so vulnerable that it scared her to absolute silence.

  Ty led her unresistingly to the couch, and when she was settled, he touched a flame to the newspaper and firewood he’d stacked earlier in the grate. While he returned to the kitchen, she waited in a kind of frozen stupor, paralyzed by the decisions she had to make. Ty set a kettle on the stove, and when it was whistling like a tiny toy train, he poured her a cup of tea, then pressed her numb hands around the hot mug.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized again, watching her take a first, tentative sip.

  “It’s not your fault.” Her voice was a near whisper.

  “I touched a sensitive nerve.” When she didn’t respond, he added softly, “A secret sorrow.”

  Cammie glanced away. If he kept this up, she’d be bawling again for sure!

  “You can’t have children. It hurts, and I’m an insensitive jerk because, since I don’t want any, it’s hard for me to see.”

  “Don’t you really want any?” She gazed at him, her eyes naked with pain and incomprehension.

  Ty had to suck in a swift breath against her appeal. He wanted to gather her in his arms and soothe her fears. But he knew it was wrong for him to lie. “No,” he admitted a bit regretfully.

  “Never?”

  “After my father…after Gayle…” Ty searched for the right words but they eluded him. “It’s not something I want, that’s all.”

  “It’s everything I want!” she admitted. “Someday.” Her voice broke despite her efforts to be brave. “But I can’t have it, and I know that. It’s okay, most of the time. It really is.”

  “Cammie…”

  “Don’t feel too sorry for me. You’ll only make it worse.”

  Ty touched her trembling chin with his thumb. “If I could, I’d fix things for you, but since I can’t…” He hesitated a moment before gently pointing out, “Maybe we’re perfect for each other. I don’t want any, and you can’t have any.”

  Cammie blinked and lifted a hand to her brow, feeling as if she were in a fog. The next moment, she dropped her arm, the effort too much.

  “My father sired about a dozen kids, give or take a few, legitimate and otherwise,” Ty went on with a trace of bitterness. “His twisted need to form a dynasty.”

  “You would have helped Gayle raise your child,” she reminded him.

  “Monetarily speaking.” He inclined his head. “I do have some responsible tendencies, you know.”

  “No, it’s more than that. You would have helped even if you’d learned later about Sam,” she said on a note of discovery. “Even if the child were his.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to. Dear old Dad would have stepped up to the plate.” Rotating his shoulders to relieve tension, he added, “But Gayle realized she wouldn’t get what she wanted, so she decided on a permanent way out.”

  “Or maybe she was just so terribly miserable,” Cammie suggested, “that it seemed like the only solution.”

  Ty’s mouth turned down at the corners. “At the time, it just was too much. I was shocked and then I was angry, and then when I found out about her and Dad…”

  “It seems like a shame to me that you’re letting that decide whether you have children of your own,” Cammie said softly, after a long, tense moment. “It’s like some kind of punishment, and I don’t think you deserve it.”

  “It’s not just Gayle. Samuel played his part.”

  “But you’re not anything like Samuel.”

  He didn’t answer that. Instead, he shook his head, as if sweeping the cobwebs out of his brain. “I almost called my father the other night,” he reflected moodily. “I did call him, actually, but when I heard his voice…” He drew a breath, his lips twisting. “Maybe I’ll need another ten years before I don’t care anymore.”

  “You might be too hard on him,” she surprised herself by saying.

  “Are you kidding? After what you know he’s like?”

  “People change,” she murmured, feeling too weak to fight, but unwilling to let Ty’s anger toward Sam control all his feelings, even down to fathering his own child.

  “Sam’s always the same,” Ty assured her.

  “How do you know? You haven’t talked to him in ten years.”

  “Are you defending him?”

  She almost laughed. “Are you kidding? He’s not my favorite person by a long shot. But he’s your father, say what you will. Someday, you’ll have to face that.”

  Ty didn’t argue with her further. Instead, he asked, “How are you feeling now?”

  “Better,” she admitted, sipping the tea gratefully.

  He nodded, then said, picking his words carefully, “I don’t mean to sound callous. Just because having a child’s not right for me, doesn’t mean everyone should feel that way. Because you want it so much, I wish you could have a baby.”

  His tend
er tone scraped raw nerves and new tears threatened. Cammie cleared her throat and tried to fight them back. “I’m okay.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me that you can’t conceive. Maybe it’s fate. Like I said before, maybe we’re meant for each other.” He heard how that sounded, and he shook his head, raking hands through his hair in a gesture she recognized as a sign of supreme emotion. “Cammie, I want you in my life.”

  Cammie’s lips parted to refute his erroneous belief that she couldn’t conceive; that wasn’t the problem. But then the rest of his words sank into her brain. I want you in my life. This was a huge admission for Ty, as close to a declaration of love as he’d ever come. Hope soared inside her, only to be shoved back down by reality: she couldn’t stay here in Bayrock.

  “What is it?” he asked to her swiftly changing expressions.

  “I have to go back.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not cut out to be a hermit.”

  “It’s not all that hermitlike here,” he pointed out. “And we would have each other.”

  “You know it’s not right, Ty,” she said achingly. “You’re asking me to give up everything that’s important to me, except for you.”

  “It wouldn’t be forever.” The words sounded wrenched from somewhere deep inside him.

  “How long?” she queried, but he couldn’t answer her. “Ty, I’m not asking you to return with me. I know you’re not ready, and that you might never be ready. But I’ve got a life I can’t just drop out of.”

  His gray eyes bore deeply into her blue ones. “How soon?”

  “What?”

  “How soon before you leave?”

  She swallowed. “Soon.” She had to get back. If nothing else, she had to shut off the “let’s get Tyler Stovall to star in our film” machine. She had to protect him from the clamoring producers and opportunists and fans who would kill his soul in their need to have a piece of him.

  He sighed in reluctant acceptance, joining her on the sofa. Cammie drew him near, kissing his face with a hundred soft touches of her lips, caressing his back and arms and hips, and holding him close. Ty’s fingers unbuttoned her blouse. Lovingly, he reached inside her bra and softly kneaded her breasts until the nipples were straining hard against his palms.

  After that, there was an urgency neither could deny. They ripped off their remaining clothes, kissing and straining and desiring a union that was both tender and shattering. In the aftermath of their fiery passion, Cammie held his cheek to her breast and considered telling him about Rock Bottom. He needed to be warned. He needed to know that others would follow after her. She could try to divert and delay them, but she suspected it would all be futile in the end. He hated the Hollywood life. He shouldn’t be dragged back there for the selfish purposes of others, herself included. He should be left to make his own decisions.

  “Ty…?”

  “Mmmm,” he murmured, his tongue licking a lazy circle on her breast.

  Cammie shivered and smiled. “Stop that. I need to be serious a minute.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Oh, sure. Like I can concentrate with you tasting me!”

  “I’m sure you could. You’re just not trying hard enough. Besides, you taste good.”

  “Ty!”

  “All right, all right,” he grumbled good-naturedly.

  “Let’s get dressed and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “It?” he questioned, picking up the serious vibes.

  “It,” she agreed, struggling upward as Ty finally reached for his discarded jeans and shirt.

  Ten minutes later, Cammie was finger-combing her hair and standing in front of the fire. She wore jeans and a cream-colored sweatshirt. Her feet were bare, her nails a pale peach color, and Ty had all he could do just to keep his mind on her voice because the overall picture was so sexy and alluring.

  “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she said, linking her fingers together in a thoroughly fetching way. She reminded him of a schoolgirl again, and yet her curvaceous body and independent soul were those of a total woman.

  He realized, with a sudden shock, that he loved her. Or, at least he felt something he’d never felt before. Love? He hadn’t believed he could feel that emotion, but this new sensation, this pulse-pounding, light-headed, silly, rapturous joy that made him want to alternately sing at the top of his lungs and whisper softly in her ear was entirely new.

  It was a revelation that sent his brain spinning, and he realized after a couple of moments that he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  “What?” he asked dumbly.

  “Ty!” she declared in exasperation.

  “Sorry. I lost track for a minute. What did you say?”

  Her lips pressed together, as if she were struggling to contain some overwhelming emotion. “I’m making a confession here,” she said doggedly.

  “Sweetheart, didn’t you hear me?” he asked tenderly. “I don’t care that you can’t have children. I’m not going to change my mind. I think a bigger problem is where we’re going to live, don’t you?”

  That caught her attention. “What?”

  “All right, you can’t stay here, I don’t blame you. It’s not exactly a bustling metropolis. We can move. And I know you want a career in television or film. That’s—not impossible, I guess. I don’t really want to go back to L.A., but maybe we could try New York. An apartment in the city, and then a place upstate. Maybe a farm. I don’t know.”

  He was surprised at the words passing his own lips. A few days, even a few hours earlier, thoughts of leaving Bayrock were misty half-formed ideas floating in the far corners of his brain. But for Cammie, for a chance at love, he would do it. He would do damn near anything.

  “Are you kidding?” She was stunned, disbelieving.

  “No.”

  It was the God’s honest truth. And it was a small sacrifice, he realized, recognizing how selfish he’d been to expect her to join him in his self-imposed exile. And foolish, too. Pointless. It was time to face the music, at least at some level, and he knew he could do it with Cammie.

  “Ty,” she whispered, completely undone by his aboutface.

  “Don’t make it so hard,” he urged gently. He crossed the small space that separated them, waiting until her hopeful eyes turned up to meet his. “I can compromise, if I have to. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Ty!”

  She flung herself into his arms. Ty grinned, kissing her warm neck, feeling freer and younger than he had in years. He was an idiot. A romantic, lovesick fool.

  “Oh, Ty, are you sure?” she asked tentatively.

  “Completely.”

  “You won’t—you won’t change your mind?”

  “No,” he answered gently.

  Bzzzzzzz!

  The buzzer at the door made them both start. They stared at the door in unison, as if it were the intruder itself. Cammie was lost in ecstasy. She didn’t care who was trying to break into this heavenly moment; nothing could change how she felt.

  “Go away!” Ty yelled.

  “Yeah! Go away!” she called after him.

  Bzzzz! Bzzzz!

  It sounded like angry bees, and with a groan, Ty disentangled himself from Cammie’s warm embrace and headed for the door. His shirt was untucked and wrinkled and his hair was mussed. Add to that, the sense of fulfillment that fairly reeked from him, and it wouldn’t take the newcomer too long to figure out what had been going on between them.

  Cammie couldn’t have cared less. She grinned at him, her own hair wild and free, her eyes flashing with merriment. Wiggling her fingers at him, she winked and lifted her brows up and down several times, silently inviting him to join her as soon as he’d dispensed with the intruder.

  Ty flashed her a grin and twisted open the knob.

  The look that crossed his face was indescribable. Instantly, fear clutched Cammie’s heart and she shot to her feet and scurried to his side, her gaze locking onto the newcomer.

&n
bsp; Pure shock bolted through her.

  “Hello, Son,” Samuel Stovall’s unmistakable drawl greeted Ty. “Long time no see…”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I should have guessed,” Ty said into the tense aftermath that followed. He hadn’t exactly offered Samuel any kind of welcome, but he hadn’t slammed the door in his father’s face, either.

  Samuel Stovall stood near the fireplace, surveying Ty’s hideaway with a look that hovered somewhere between appreciation and disbelief. Cammie stood near Ty, wondering why she, too, hadn’t believed Samuel would follow her. After all, she’d been here too long, and the movie machine in Hollywood cranked along regardless of the fact that Cammie Merrill no longer wanted to be one of its cogs.

  “You’ve been here for ten years?” Sam repeated, as if he couldn’t fathom how anyone could transplant themselves to a place as remote as this.

  Ty responded with a terse, “How did you find me?”

  “I have a man who—does things for me,” Samuel admitted, his craggy, handsome face carefully neutral. “You remember William Renquist?”

  “Renquist found me?” Ty was incredulous.

  “With the help of a private investigator.”

  “Ahhh…” Ty’s jaw was a rock. “So Renquist didn’t burglarize my stockbroker’s home. That was the work of someone more qualified.”

  Samuel eyed his son carefully, weighing his words. Clearly, he wondered how much Ty actually knew, and how much he was guessing at. Cammie remained silent. Her own judgment by Ty was bound to come soon—as soon as Samuel brought up Rock Bottom. The truth would kill her. All her dreams would be smashed to smithereens. Still, her mind raced like lightning, searching for an answer, an excuse, a way to keep the axe from falling on her own vulnerable neck.

  As if on cue, Samuel said, “We were expecting Camilla back long before this,” jumping right to the heart of the matter.

  Ty frowned, clearly at a loss, while Cammie held her breath in expectation. “We?” he demanded.

  Samuel sent a look Cammie’s way, silently asking her what she’d already told his son.

  Her heart thundering, Cammie declared tautly, “I don’t report to you or anyone else.” She hated herself, her own cowardice. “You gave me Ty’s address. I didn’t ask you for it.”