Heartthrob (37 page)

He’d been sitting here for nearly two hours. Not drinking. He was on top. He shouldn’t be feeling like this.

The drug test kit was on the bar, and he picked it up and took it with him as he left the whiskey on the counter and went out the door.

It was after midnight, and the streets were empty. Most of the lights in the motel and the trailers next to it were off.

Kate’s light was still on.

She was sitting at the kitchen table when he came in. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying.

He’d come back to tell her he couldn’t stand her mistrust another moment longer. He knew it wasn’t fair of him to give her an ultimatum. But he simply couldn’t handle it anymore. Sooner or later, she was going to have to trust him. And he was intending to demand that it be now.

But Jed knew the moment he walked in, there was no
way in hell he would willingly end their love affair. Whether she trusted him or not, he still wanted her. Whether she trusted him or not, he ached for her touch, for her smile, for the incredible feeling he got when he gazed into her eyes.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He was so tired, he was swaying on his feet. All he wanted was to crawl into bed with her and hold her. But first he had something to do.

He went into the bathroom and filled the test kit. He brought it out and put it in the refrigerator. “You can send that to the lab in the morning.”

She didn’t say a word.

Kate stared at the drug test kit Jed had filled and sealed and stored overnight in the refrigerator.

She couldn’t send it to the lab. She took it and headed for the bathroom, intending to flush away her chance of ever knowing if Jed really had slipped while away from her in New York. She honestly didn’t want to know.

“What are you doing?”

Jed was standing in the doorway.

“Um …” She’d thought he was listening to music with his headphones on.

“You were going to throw that away, weren’t you?”

Kate couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t need to send this out. I know it’s … clean.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said quietly. “You really are a lousy liar. You don’t want to send it, not because you think it’s clean, but because you think I was on something yesterday.”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. He was right.

Jed took it from her hands, and went to the telephone. He gazed at her emotionlessly as he dialed and waited for the line to be picked up.

“Yeah, Annie.” His voice was flat. “I got a urine sample
that needs to go to the lab. Can you get over here and take care of this right away?” He paused. “Good. I’ll leave it in the fridge. Make sure Kate gets the results ASAP.”

He hung up the phone.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m going over to the set early, to work on this morning’s scene with Susie. You better come along, because God knows what I’ll take while you’re not looking.”

“If they catch us, they’ll probably kill us.” Laramie and Jane worked to secure a hiding place for Moses in the foundation of his burned-out plantation house.

Jane barely even glanced up. “Then, we better make sure they don’t catch us.”

The camera’s focus was on Susie as the two actors performed the scene for what felt like the thousandth time that day.

Jed, completely Laramie, laughed softly. “Sometimes I wonder how you could possibly be Sarah’s sister. She was afraid of everything, but you’ve got so much fight in you … Sarah couldn’t even fight to stay alive when she caught the fever.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough with emotion. “She didn’t want to live after the baby died.”

Susie was looking up at him, emotion brimming in her eyes.

Annie touched Kate’s shoulder, motioning for her to follow her. Moving soundlessly, they backed far enough from the camera to talk.

“There’s a call for Jericho,” Annie told her, holding out the cell phone, her hand over the receiver. “A woman named Laura Price has called five times, and she says she’s just going to keep calling until she speaks to either Jericho or you.”

Kate took the phone. “What’s this about?”

Annie shrugged. “She says she’s David Stern’s sister-in-law?
I tried to get her to leave a message, but she wouldn’t. She’s definitely postal.”

Kate put the phone to her ear. “Ms. Price? This is Kate O’Laughlin. How can I help you?”

“Jericho called last night, but we didn’t get the message until this morning,” the woman sounded extremely upset, her voice wobbling. “Alison’s beside herself because nobody thought to call him to let him know.”

“Let him know
what
?”

“David’s dead.”

Jane turned away from Laramie. “Maybe I won’t marry anyone. Maybe I’ll talk you into taking me west, and I’ll dress in pants and paint a mustache under my nose and live like a man. I’ll strike it rich panning for some of that California gold.”

Laramie laughed. It was real laughter, and the sensation stopped him. The only times he’d laughed like that since Sarah died were when he was with Jane. Jed let all that show on his face as he spoke. “Sarah used to talk about you all the time.”

“She did?”

“Yes, ma’am. She used to tell me she was glad you were so much younger than she was. She’d laugh and say that if you weren’t just a little girl, I would’ve fallen in love with the younger Willet sister instead of her. I always thought she was crazy.”

At least he did before he met Jane. Laramie didn’t say the words aloud, but he let them linger in his eyes.

“I miss her,” Jane whispered.

“I do, too.”

“And … cut!”

Jed smiled at Susie. “Batting a thousand today, huh?”

Her answering smile was slightly strained. Damn, she was doing a remarkable job, considering the pressure she was under from her father. Jamaal was miserable, too.
The tension on the set had skyrocketed over the past few days.

And his own personal bullshit with Kate—the fact that she didn’t trust him—was only making things worse.

He rolled his head, trying to loosen up his neck, as the camera was reset for a different angle, as the lights and reflectors were being repositioned. He could see Kate and Victor, off to the side, in a huddle.

Kate looked upset. But that was her expression du jour these days. She looked up, directly at him, and the first thing he thought was, dear God, what’s happened now?

“Jed, can you come here?” she called as Victor turned away.

“Hold up, people,” Victor called. “A change in plans.”

“Wait,” Jed said to Victor. “We’re not going to do my close-ups now? What’s going on?”

“Change in plans. Talk to Kate.” The director took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with the bottom edge of his T-shirt. “Susie, can I have you for a minute, please?”

“I’m ready to do this now,” Jed protested as Kate led him away from the set, toward the edge of the nearby woods.

As she turned to face him, he saw that she was crying.

“Whoa,” Jed said. “Kate, I know the past few days have been tough, but—”

“They’re going to get even tougher,” she told him. “I have some very bad news.”

“My urine didn’t test clean? It’s gotta be a mistake. A lab mix-up, because I swear to you, I didn’t—”

“Sit down.” She pulled him down with her, right there in the cut grass. She was wearing shorts that weren’t made for sitting in any kind of grass, but she didn’t seem to care. She held onto his hand, and when he looked into her eyes, he knew that whatever this was, it was going to be really, really bad.

“Is it my sister?” he asked quietly. “Did her goddamn drunk of a husband finally kill her?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Who, then?”

“David.”

David. He nodded.
David.
Around him the world stood absolutely still. The relentless hum of the locusts faded away. Even the sun’s rays seemed to lose their strength as time just hung. “Is he …?”

Kate’s beautiful blue eyes were filled with sorrow. “He died three days ago, Jed.”

“
Three
days?” He took a deep breath. But it was shocking how much the simple act of drawing in air could hurt, so he began breathing shallowly. He pulled his hand away from hers, suddenly unable to bear the gentleness of her touch. “How?”

“You knew he was working up at the state prison.”

Jed nodded.

“One of the prisoners lost his temper during some kind of therapy session, and threw David against the wall. He hit wrong, and his neck was broken. Just like that. They put him on some kind of a lung machine, because he couldn’t breathe for himself, but … complications occurred and he died a day later.”

He nodded again.

David was dead. Jed had been in New York, turning cartwheels over his good fortune, and David had already been cold and
dead.

Grief rose in his chest, a powerful wave of emotion so strong, he knew if he let even the smallest bit escape, he’d drown. He stomped it back, feeling it pushing against him, pressure building. He forced it back, forced it away, sealing it up and slamming home the bolt to keep it locked up.

God help him, God help him…

“Alison’s sister feels awful that she didn’t call you before this. When she saw your name and number in David’s
book, she didn’t believe he really knew you. But when you called and left a message on the answering machine …”

The sky was so blue, it hurt his eyes. Jed stared up at it. Pain no longer meant anything to him. He was completely, totally, blessedly, painlessly numb.

“The funeral’s late this afternoon,” Kate said quietly. “I’ve already chartered a flight that’ll get us to Alabama in time. A helicopter’s coming in an hour to pick us up and take us to the airport.”

“An hour,” Jed echoed, turning to look at her. “Then, there’s time for my reaction shots.”

Kate gazed at him, and he could see her surprise. Even her tear-filled eyes and slightly red nose didn’t detract from her incredible loveliness, he noted dispassionately.

“Jed,” she said. “We’ll get your reaction shots some other time.”

“But I want to do it now.” He stood up. “If we do it now, we won’t have to screw around with continuity. I want to get it over with.”

“Jed, God, it’s okay if you cry.”

Something twisted inside of him. Maybe she was right, but he couldn’t risk finding out. He couldn’t risk falling apart. What if he broke down, and couldn’t get himself back to his careful state of control? God help him, he’d have to start drinking again, if only to re-achieve this numbness and false sense of calm.

No, it definitely wasn’t okay if he cried.

“It won’t take long,” he said, and went back onto the set.

“T
his is bullshit,” Jamaal said.

“I agree.” Victor sat down in his director’s chair.

“What does the Pit Bull think? That I’m going to try to get down with his daughter right here, in front of the camera? Are we really supposed to just do this scene, no real rehearsal? No discussion?”

“Obviously, there’s going to have to be some discussion, but McCoy’s being a real bastard. You’re not allowed to speak to Susie directly. Anything you say has to go through me—if that isn’t the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard in your life.” Victor lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “It’s been worse with Kate gone again. Annie’s overwhelmed. She still hasn’t been able to reach Susie’s mother. And apparently McCoy’s hassling Annie, too, demanding that Susie come back to her own trailer.” He sighed. “Christ, what a mess.”

Jamaal took a deep breath. “Victor, you gotta help me, man. For a week now, I haven’t gotten close enough to Susie to even say like, how are you doing? I just want to be able to look her in the eye and ask her if she’s all right.”

Damn, what he really wanted to do was pull her aside
and ask if she’d meant what she’d said to her father—all that stuff about being crazy about Jamaal, and willing to do whatever, whenever. If it was true, thank God he hadn’t known. It had been hard enough to ignore his own desires. If he’d had to fight hers as well…

The assistant director stepped forward. “Annie just pulled up with Susie McCoy. The father’s right behind them.”

“Thanks, Frank.” Victor looked at Jamaal. “Just don’t antagonize McCoy, all right?”

Jamaal didn’t answer. Susie was coming in the door, wearing that long dress of Jane’s. It had to be hot as hell with all that fabric around her, and she looked exhausted as well as uncomfortable. Her eyes found his instantly, but then she quickly looked away.

Come on
, Jamaal urged her silently.
At least
look
at me.

But she didn’t. And Jamaal found himself looking directly into Russell McCoy’s eyes.

If looks could kill, Jamaal would be little more than a drying bloodstain on the floor. “Hey,” he said. “Mr. Susannah’s Father. How’s it hanging, bro?”

“Don’t,” Victor muttered.

“Hey, I’m just being friendly. Can’t I be friendly?”

“No.” Victor stood up. “Let’s get started. Do we all know where we are here? It’s toward the end of the movie, Jane and Laramie have built this hiding place in the ruins of his burned-out plantation house. They’ve spirited Moses away from Reginald Brooks’s slave quarters, and he’s been in here, hiding for nearly a week. Because she’s afraid she’s being watched, Jane hasn’t been able to come out to see him—until now. She’s bringing him clothes and money and more food, and she’s here to tell him he’s going to leave tonight. And as much as she wants him to be safe, part of her doesn’t want him to go. And Moses, you’re feeling the same thing.”