Authors: Mariah Stewart
“I’m not trying to force the price up. I swear, I’m not.”
“I know that. But I just can’t get that through to anyone.”
“Who have you spoken with so far?” Dallas asked.
Norma went into the hall and returned with her bag. She opened it and took out a small notebook. She thumbed through it until she came to the page she was looking for, then she handed it to Dallas.
“Here’s the list along with their comments. Abbreviated comments, but you’ll get the gist.”
“Would it help if I met with some of these people directly?” Dallas studied the list.
“It might.” Norma smiled weakly. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“See what you can set up for me. The sooner the better.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Norma finished the last bit of coffee in her cup. “So. Couldn’t help but notice that’s some guy you’ve got there.”
“He’s … amazing. He’s …” Dallas sighed. “He’s the guy I fell in love with when I was sixteen years old, except that now he’s all grown up.”
“Not too many like him around. Oh, sure, lots of pretty faces in Hollywood, but how many of them would risk their life to save a child? A child that isn’t even his.”
“Not many, I suppose.”
“Damned few, if you ask me. I’d hold on to that one, honey.”
“He has his business here,” Dallas told her. “My business is on the opposite coast.”
“Too bad.” Norma shrugged, then went on to something else. “So, when do you think you’ll be coming back to L.A. for good?”
“Cody and I planned on September seventh. The day after Labor Day. I figured that would give me two weeks to get Cody situated to go back to school.” She inspected a fingernail and found she’d bitten it without even realizing.
“Cody seems like a different kid here,” Norma remarked.
“Doesn’t he?” Dallas smiled. “He’s been really happy here. He has a best friend—a real best friend—for the first time ever.”
“Logan. His partner in yesterday’s crime.”
Dallas nodded. “Every kid needs that kind of playmate.
Not that I want them to do that again. I just mean—”
“I know what you mean. Hell, I’ve stayed in Laguna Beach for five years longer than I’d have liked to because my daughter has such a strong social network there. I figure it helps to make up for the fact that I’m a single parent and she’s an only child. She has lots of friends on our street and has gone to the same school forever. I’d like to move from that house, but I know it’s better for Elisabeth if we stay there for a few more years. I keep telling myself that once she leaves for college, I can live anyplace I want.” Norma’s phone chirped, announcing a text message. “Excuse me, Dallas, I need to take a look at this. I’ve been expecting … yeah, that’s what I’ve been waiting for.” She looked up at Dallas. “Mind if I excuse myself to make a call?”
“Not at all. Go right ahead.”
Dallas lifted her feet and rested them on the big round ottoman that sat next to her chair. She hadn’t realized how tired she was until she sat down and started to relax. She yawned and closed her eyes, and wished that she’d gone back to Grant’s when he did, but she didn’t want to leave Cody until she’d gotten used to the fact that he’d survived his ordeal and was back home again, safe and sound, when the outcome could have been so very different. Could
easily
have been much different, had it not been for Grant. There were so many awful stories in the news, so many terrible things happening to innocent children—other people’s children—that she could scarcely believe that her child had been spared, that her son had not been
one of the stories that would cause every other parent to slap a hand over their mouth in horror.
The last thought she had before falling off to sleep was that leaving St. Dennis at the end of the summer was going to be much harder than she’d ever imagined it could be.
When Dallas called Grant the following morning and asked him to have lunch with her, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But he hadn’t expected what she had to say.
“Norma’s set up meetings for me for this week. Four of them. We’re hoping that I can talk someone into putting up the money for
Pretty Maids
. So far, everyone’s turned her down,” she told him over pizza at Ferrari’s Pizza. “Everyone seems to think I’m jockeying for someone to put up superbucks for me to star in the film, which I’m not doing, and frankly, I am a little disappointed that some people I’ve known for years and have worked with before would think I’d play such games, but there it is.”
“I’m assuming the meetings are on the West Coast.” All he could think of was he wished he’d chosen a different place for lunch. It was noisy and crowded and not the type of place where you’d toss your heart onto the table. But he was good at improvising. He’d go with what he had. Apparently,
he wasn’t going to get another chance before she left. He was going to have to make this time count, speak his mind, and get it all out there, once and for all.
Dallas nodded. “I’m flying out tonight. God, I hope I can sell someone on this. It means the world to me to be able to make this film.”
He forced a smile. “I can’t imagine anyone turning you down, once you tell them about it the way you’ve told me. They’ll be fighting over each other to give you the money to make it.”
She reached across the table and touched two of his fingers with hers.
“It means a lot to me that you believe in me. I have so much to thank you for … not just for saving Cody’s life, but that’s certainly in the number one spot.”
“Do me a favor, Dallas.” He put down the slice of pizza he’d been about to bite into. “Don’t tell me again how grateful you are.”
“I
am
grateful to you.” She put down the paper cup of water she’d been drinking. “From what Beck and Hal have told me, you could have been killed out there in the Bay on Sunday morning. They said you could have been tossed overboard from that dinghy you were in, that at one point they thought you
had
been tossed into the Bay. Beck said there was no way they could have gotten to you because the water was too shallow for Hal’s boat to get any closer to the beach.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You risked everything to save Cody. Do you think I could ever forget that?”
“I didn’t do it because I wanted your eternal gratitude, and I don’t want to be Cody’s savior. Of course I’m glad that everyone made it home all right and the worst thing that came out of it was Logan’s cold, which according to Clay is minor. But I don’t want to be your hero, Dallas. I want to be …” He struggled for the right words, then gave up. “I want to be your guy.”
She reached across the table and touched his face. “You’ll always be my guy, Grant.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then said, “I know you think that I’m not coming back, but you’re wrong. I’ll take care of my business and I’ll be back by the end of the week. I promise.”
He could have said—wanted to say—
Yeah, well, I’ve heard those words before. I think we both know how that turned out
.
But he couldn’t bring himself to burst the bubble of the illusion that she would come back to him, or ask how long she’d stay this time. So instead, in the midst of the commotion of a children’s birthday party and a rowdy bunch of tourists, he said, “Here’s the thing, flat out. I didn’t choose to fall in love with you. I didn’t want to, this time around—I really didn’t—but I couldn’t help myself. And once I realized what was happening, I just said the hell with it and let myself fall. If I have to pick myself up, I can do that. I did it once before. I survived then. I can make it again.”
She started to speak, but he silenced her by saying, “No, this is my turn. If I stop, I’ll probably run out of nerve. So here it is: I don’t want your eternal gratitude.
I don’t want you coming back here to be with me because you feel
indebted
. That’s the word you used the other day. I went after Cody because I thought I knew where he and Logan might have gone, and knowing it and not going for them—well, that’s not the way I’m wired. But the last thing I want is for you to be
indebted
to me. Don’t come back if that’s all you feel, Dallas. Please stay in L.A. if that’s all we’re talking about here.”
He glanced at his watch. He was already ten minutes late for a surgery he’d scheduled.
“I gotta go.” He pushed back his chair. “Got a schnauzer with a cancerous growth on his liver that we’re going to try to remove.”
He leaned across the table and kissed the side of her face. “Good luck with getting your film made,” he whispered. “I hope they give you everything you want, and more.”
“I’ll be back by the weekend,” she said softly.
He forced another smile. “Sure. I’ll see you then.”
He left her sitting at the table because he couldn’t bear the thought of watching her leave, didn’t want to see the back of her as she walked away. He could have asked her to drop him off at the clinic but he needed the time to walk off the hurt and to try to clear his head. She always did have a way of clouding his head.
He had no doubt that she’d get whatever it was she was going out there for, and he’d be happy for her because it meant so damned much to her. She’d make her film and it would be great and probably win her
all kinds of awards and her life would be firmly entrenched on the West Coast again. But he also had no doubt that he’d been a fool to let this go beyond friendship again. He should have known—oh, hell, he
had
known—what was going to happen. Same story all over again. Dallas here for the summer, Dallas gone come September to chase her dreams. Grant stuck in his own life.
Had he really not changed all that much since he was eighteen?
He hadn’t given her much of a chance to talk, but really, what could she say? He’d heard the “I’ll be back” line before, and sure, she probably meant it when she said it. If she didn’t intend to come back, she’d have told him. Dallas was honest, he’d give her that.
He walked along the hot sidewalk, and with each stride, he saw the rest of his life spreading out before him in chunks of June-July-August, just as it had long ago. She’d leave in September, and when Cody finished school in June, she’d be back. And he’d be waiting, counting the days, until she got there.
The sad, simple fact of my life at age thirty-eight is is that I love her. I always have, and I probably always will. Not much different than things were when I was eighteen—that’s the sad part. The simple part? That’s the part about loving her. I can’t not love her. I tried. It didn’t work
.
“Took the cure but it failed,” he muttered as he crossed the road in front of his clinic and went in through the front door.
You are one pathetic chump
, he told himself.
One big, sorry …
“Dr. Wyler, the Fosters are here with Mika and she’s been prepped for surgery.” Mimi met him at the door that led back to the operating room.
“I’ll be right there.”
Grant went into the back and prepared for the operation on the schnauzer. Feeling sorry for himself was going to have to wait. He pushed all thoughts of Dallas to the back of his mind, then went in to do the job of trying to save the dog’s life. Dallas had her priorities, and he had his.
“That went well,” Dallas said sarcastically as she slid into the passenger seat of Norma’s Jaguar sedan. “They couldn’t have been more annoying if they’d tried.”
Norma passed a tip to the valet and snapped on her seat belt as the door closed quietly. “I told you they think you’re playing with them.”
“Why would they think that? I’ve worked with Adam Kessinger before. He knows me. He knows what I’m like. Why would he think I’d be playing him? If I wanted more, I’d have asked for it point-blank. Why would he think I’d be playing him?”
“Because everyone else in town does it?” Norma shrugged. “I did warn you …”
“Yes, you did.” Dallas leaned her head against the headrest and sighed. This had been her third turndown in as many days.
“Everyone expects that you will agree to star in the film if and when the price is right.”
“Damn it, that makes me so mad.” She felt like punching something. “I’m wondering if there’s any point in meeting with Helga Graham tomorrow. She never liked me very much anyway.”
“It’s up to you. I have no problem canceling out on her.” Norma smiled as she made a left. “She never liked me much, either.”
“I guess I’m going to have to go to the alternate plan,” Dallas said.
“Which is?”
“Finance it myself. That is, if I can afford to.” She made a face. “I don’t even want to know how much of my assets Emilio walked off with.”
“Oh, I know the exact number,” Norma told her. “That would be zero.”
“What?” Dallas frowned. “That can’t be right. California law—”
“Dallas, you’re as bad as Emilio. Apparently neither of you read the fine print.”
“What fine print?”
“In the marital settlement agreement. The part where both parties agreed that all community property would go to Emilio and both of you would keep your personal assets.”
“So all the money I made …” Dallas thought aloud.
“Is yours. And all the money he made … is his.”
“I made a whole lot more than he did.”
“No fooling.” Norma’s smile spread from ear to ear.
“Didn’t his lawyer catch that?” Dallas was still wide-eyed that Norma had managed to protect her earnings.
“He did. But since I gave Emilio twenty-four hours to sign the agreement before I pulled it off the table, he wasn’t about to take a chance of losing millions of dollars in real estate.”
“So my investments … my bank accounts … the artwork I bought before we were married …”
“All yours, darlin’.”
“I can do it.” Dallas sat straight up. “I can finance the film. I can make this movie on my own.”
“That’s going to take a chunk of it. Not to mention that it’s going to be a lot of work.”
“Not if I hire the right people.”
“First you have to find the right people,” Norma reminded her. “Really good people are not that easy to find.”
Dallas grinned. “Hey, I found you, didn’t I?”
“Poor Cody is exhausted, but I never saw a child fight sleep the way he did tonight. He just couldn’t hug that dog of his enough,” Berry said. “And he’s never come into a room specifically to hug me as he did not once, but three times since you arrived.”