What a Woman Needs (24 page)

H
EY,
isn’t this the movie you’re doing, Bryan?” Kelsey shoved the newspaper in Bryan’s face the minute he walked through the front door the next morning.

His eyes met Beth’s before he took the paper.

Beth went back to cleaning up the dog toys that Sherman had, yet again, managed to drag all over the house. The dog hadn’t figured out that he was actually supposed to play with the toys, not the basket, and make them all play fifty-two pickup. At least it was better than the clothesline, but still . . . The dog was more work than the kids.

“It says the actress shut down the set for a few days. Does this mean you don’t have to go?”

Bryan took the paper and removed his baseball cap. Jason took it from him and hung it on the key hook by the door, then looked over his arm to read the article.

“Hmmm.” Bryan skimmed the rest, then opened the paper to the next page. “My agent hasn’t called, so as far as I know, I’m still good to go.”

“What happened?” Beth asked with the sick feeling in her stomach. She didn’t want him to go and she didn’t want to talk about his movie and she
really
didn’t want to talk about the actress he was going to be working with. And probably kissing. He kissed gorgeous women in all of his movies.

And in his private life, too, don’t forget that.

As if she could.

She glanced at the mantle. At Mike’s picture. He’d want her to be happy; they’d talked about it in that what-would-you-do sort of way married couples do, though, she’d assumed they’d been discussing the other
marrying
someone else, not hooking up for a night of passion.

God, she could so use one of those right now.

“It says the actress threw a hissy fit and destroyed the set.” Kelsey looked a little too happy reciting the story.

Beth tossed Sherman’s toys back into the basket. Of course one missed. “Kelsey . . .”

Bryan grabbed the runaway tennis ball. “The report says that Carina Dempsey took exception to the staging and wanted it changed.” He skimmed some more, then folded the paper up and tucked it under his arm. “You can’t believe everything you read, Kels.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kelsey flopped onto the sofa and crossed her arms with a sour look on her face.

Beth needed to nip the gossip-mongering in the bud now before it caused problems later on. Teenage girls could be vicious.

“Like when the reporters said Dad was drinking before the flight.”

Beth would have been so much happier if Kelsey’s attitude
had
been about gossip.

“Nuh-uh. They
speculated
that he had.” Jason, obsessed with his father’s reputation, had read every article Beth hadn’t been able to keep from him. He’d learned the idea behind the concept of
speculated
within the first week and it’d been his mantra. It’d seemed like forever before the NTSB had released the results of the toxicology screen and vindicated Mike. “And they were wrong.”

“So you mean she
didn’t
trash the place?” The power of gossip took over.

Beth shook her head. Teenage girls . . .

“Hard to tell what’s what,” said Bryan. “I’ll know more when I get there.”

“When do you go?”

“I’m due on set in two weeks. I can go any time, so I might go out the weekend before. Get the trailer set up, learn the lay of the land, see who’s there already. It’s helpful to know who you’re working with before you show up to shoot.”

“You’re going to shoot?” Mark, of course,
would
perk up at that. “A gun? Or a laser?” He brandished his lightsaber.

“I bet it’s a machine gun,” added Tommy, grabbing the water machine gun Mike’s dad had bought them for their birthday. Crap. She needed to get that thing outside. There’d already been one water fight in the bathroom.

“No, a cannon.”

“A tank!”

“Yeah, a tank would be cool!”

Nothing about Bryan leaving was cool. Beth bent down to hide the feelings that thought evoked and found at least eight socks under the sofa that Sherman must have misappropriated. She was going to change his name to Sock Monster, and just call him Monster for short. It was fitting.

And
of course
the aptly renamed monster nailed her in the back of her thighs, making her take a header into the sofa, hitting,
of course
, the wood frame, and for a moment she saw stars. Unfortunately, they weren’t the kind she’d seen with Bryan last night.

“Sherman!” Tommy went running to rescue the menace who’d bounced off and went sliding across the hardwood floor.

“Mommy!” Maggie came running to Beth’s aid, brushing the hair out of Beth’s face. “Are you okay, Mommy? Do you have to go to the hospital?”

Maggie had an irrational fear of hospitals. People went there to die in her experience.

“No, sweetie, I’m fine.” Beth rubbed the bump and sat on the couch.

Bryan knelt down in front of her and, oh, the image that presented.

Man, she must have really hit her head hard.

“Here. Let me take a look at that.” He brushed the hair off her head. “You’ve got an egg.”

“An egg? Why does Mommy have an egg on her head? You didn’t take it from our ’speriment, did you, Mommy?”

“The experiment!” Tommy jumped off the back of the sofa, machine gun in hand.

“My egg!” Mark ran after him.

After a second of indecision, Maggie ran into the kitchen, too.

“Well, I guess that lets me know where I stand on the level of importance around here.”

Bryan smiled and it made her head hurt a lot less. He brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “They made sure you were okay, then they went after the, and I quote, coolest experiment in the world. If I ever see Sean’s client again, I’m going to have to thank her.” He touched the lump again. “In the meantime, let’s get some ice on that.”

“Great. Just what I need. A goose egg on my forehead.”

He held out his hand to help her stand. “The good news is, it’s beneath your hair line. And blue is a good color on you.”

She nudged him with her shoulder, inordinately pleased that he’d noticed what color looked good on her, and annoyed with herself for being pleased.

The doorbell rang just as they made it to the kitchen to see three very intent children studying the eggs in the cups.

“I’ll get it,” said Bryan. “You go see what Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, and Pavlov are up to in there,” said Bryan as he headed to the front door as if he belonged here.

But he didn’t. And he couldn’t. So she turned her attention to the kids who
did
live there, who
were
the focus of her life and the reason she couldn’t go chasing Bryan down on movie sets.

She did, however, go chase him down a few minutes later, when he hadn’t returned, to see what the hold-up was.

She should have known. There was a pack of hungry jackals, er, reporters on her front porch.

“I have no comment on that,” Bryan was saying. “I’m not there so I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Do you plan to fly out sooner than scheduled?”

“As you can see, I have prior commitments.” Bryan nodded his head toward her house. “I’ll be on set when I’m due. As to the rest, I can’t comment. Now, if you wouldn’t mind leaving so this family can have their privacy back, I’d appreciate it.”

“Do you expect Carina to get fired?”

“There have been other reports from other sets she’s ruined when she wasn’t happy.”

“Word is they’re looking to replace her.”

“Would you continue with the film if she’s replaced?”

The questions didn’t let up, but Bryan deflected them. Beth had to admire his professionalism and ethics for not throwing the actress under the bus even though
she’d
heard the same things about Carina, who was known for on-set theatrics. Frankly, Beth was always of the opinion that the woman did it on purpose to keep her name in the papers. As they said in Hollywood, there was no such thing as bad publicity. In suburbia, however, it was a whole other story. Beth could do with never having her name mentioned in the paper ever again.

Which meant,
of course,
a reporter decided to drag her in the conversation.

“Mrs. Hamilton, would you care to comment on Bryan’s services in your home?”

Oh, the sniggers
that
question got from the assembled crowd—and oh, the anger it got from Bryan. “Beth is
not
involved in this. Leave her out of it.”

“But surely your sister would like the publicity for Manley Maids? We just need a quote from your
client
.”

Yeah, the reporter was going deep with the innuendo. Beth wanted to be sick.

Bryan just got madder. “My sister wouldn’t appreciate the innuendo.”

He was close to losing his professional cool and that would not be good for his image—or her reputation because the minute he started defending her, people would think he had a right to, which meant there would have to be something between them and that’d open another whole can of worms.

“Mac runs a professional service and comments like yours have no place in it. Press conference is over, folks.” He turned around and entered her house without a backward glance—but with a definitive slam to the door. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Well, technically, it is. If I weren’t here, you wouldn’t have to deal with them.”

“You’re only here for a few more days. I’m sure I can put up with it ’til then.” It was a small price to pay to have him around because at least there was an end in sight.

Wait. Was that supposed to be a good thing?

“I’m glad
you
can.”

“Um, okay?”

Bryan looked behind him out the front door, then steered her into the study, away from the prying eyes of the press still on her porch.

He shut the door. Then he put his hand behind her neck and pulled her into another knee-melting kiss.

Five minutes later—or maybe thirty—he finally let her go. And, man, did she have a hard time letting him.

“I’m sorry,” he said as his lips left hers. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Kiss me?”

“Yeah.”

“Because? I mean, you did it last night, too, and I wasn’t complaining, if you remember.”

“I do. And that’s the problem.”

“It’s a problem that I don’t ask you to stop kissing me?”

“Yes. Because if you did, I would stop. And then I wouldn’t think about what else I want to do with you.”

“What
else
?”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Come on, Beth. You’ve had five kids. Presumably they weren’t immaculate conceptions.”

She blushed. “Of course not.”

“Then you know what I’m talking about.”

“Well, yes, but . . . But you’re leaving.”

“Exactly. And it’s wreaking havoc with my control. I can’t have you; you’re not that kind of woman, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting you. And when I talk about leaving, about not seeing you again, walking out of your life so someone else can walk into it, well, it’s not what I want.”

“What
do
you want, Bryan?” God, she could hope for so much . . .

“That’s just it, Beth. I want
you
. But I don’t want this.”

“This?” Her kids? Her life? Her world? God, that hurt. He gave her everything in one sentence and ripped it away in the next.

“I have a career that’s starting to take off. I can’t walk away from it now. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.”

“I’m not asking you to walk away from it.”

“I know. But I’m thinking about it.”

God, so was she. But if she’d ever thought there could be some compromise to their differing lifestyles, that media event on her front porch had put an end to it. Her kids didn’t deserve that upheaval. And she didn’t deserve the heartache. “Then perhaps you should leave now, Bryan. Make the break easier.”

For a moment, he looked pained. But he was a good actor, able to call up emotions at will, and she saw him do it. Saw him suck it up, tuck it away, and pull out his professional side.

He raked the hand that wasn’t still behind her neck through his hair. “Yes, perhaps that’d be for the best. You’re right; your family doesn’t need this intrusion. You all have lived through enough. My career and all that goes with it are my choice, and it’s not fair to thrust it on you. I’m sorry, Beth. For so many things.”

For what could have been . . .

“I’ll just go say good-bye to the kids and—”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“What?”

She took a deep breath, knowing she was doing the right thing, but also knowing they would be hurt that he didn’t say good-bye. But better a clean break than one drawn out with tears and promises of what could never be. “They don’t need the separation messiness. Just go. I’ll tell them you got called to the set and that you had to leave. If you stay and make a production out of leaving, they’ll put more importance on it than there should be. After a week or so, they’ll move on.”

 • • • 

B
RYAN
didn’t think his insides could have been ripped apart any more after she’d asked him to leave, but telling him the kids would move on . . . That did it.