23
The following two days were uneventful. I finished reading the rest of the scripts and then boredom was the kick I needed to begin making notes about my ideas for a production company. Then, after dinner alone for the second night in a row, I decided to watch a movie.
I settled in by the warming glow of the fire that one of the bodyguards had lit for me earlier. Winter was only a few weeks away and the nights near the mountains were growing colder.
As the credits rolled, I wondered when Marc would be back. He’d been gone for a couple of days now. I had no idea if it was to work on my case or to see his daughter—possibly both. If Ruby were my daughter, I wouldn’t want to be away from her.
Jay had left earlier that afternoon, too, for a couple of days off. It didn’t matter where I was—my spacious Hollywood Hills estate or at this secluded ranch—I always felt alone these days.
Pushing aside my grim thoughts, I did my best to focus on the movie.
When I heard the sound of a car pull up an hour or so later, I couldn’t take my eyes off the television screen. A minute later I was aware of the front door opening and closing, but figured whoever it was would hear me in here.
Marc strolled into view and when he saw me he frowned. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
I thought I saw him frown some more—I couldn’t be sure because I was focused on the screen. After another minute, Marc walked in and sat on the sofa beside me.
“What on earth are you watching?”
“The Conjuring 2.”
“A horror movie?”
My eyes didn’t leave the screen. “Uh huh.”
I jumped in my seat as a hand came out of the murky water and grabbed a little girl.
I felt Marc’s eyes on me instead of the movie.
“Shh,” I said, glancing at him and registering his puzzled expression. “Don’t ruin it. Either you sit here and shut up, or you leave me alone.”
He shook his head and eased back against the sofa cushions. He sat through the rest of the movie with me, thankfully not saying a word.
When the credits rolled, I set aside the cushion I’d been clinging to.
“What the fuck, Lena?” Marc asked.
“What?”
“A horror movie?”
“Yeah.” My heart was still racing and I took a few deep breaths to calm the adrenaline pumping through my body.
He shook his head at me. “You’re out here in the middle of nowhere, by yourself, and you watch a horror movie about demonic possession?”
“I’m not by myself. There’s two bodyguards in the house, and it was an excellent movie. The first one got rave reviews, and I’ve got to say, this was just as good.”
“You have a stalker.”
“Hopefully not for much longer if you’re any good at your job, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
Marc shook his head. “Why would you choose to scare yourself?”
I shrugged. “It’s fun.”
“It’s fun? Demonic possession is fun?”
“OK, maybe the real thing isn’t, but you’ve got to admit what you saw of that movie was very well done.”
“Princess, I think you’re on some sort of horror movie high.” I followed his gaze to the coffee table. “You’ve been drinking,” he accused.
“Yes, I had a glass of wine.”
“Lena, how many times have I told you—”
“Relax, will you? My shoulder’s feeling much better, so I didn’t need any painkillers tonight. Just a horror fix.” So that might have only been partly true, however the combination of the horror movie high and the glass of wine had eased any pain.
“I won’t even try to make sense of that.”
“Now that’s disappointing. Aren’t you wired to figure things out?” It was quite possible I was a little tipsy and I’d had more than one glass of wine, not that I was telling Marc.
“I’ve never understood horror movies.”
“What’s to understand? Facing your fears in a horror movie is way more fun than doing the same thing in real life. I used to watch them all the time when I was a teenager.”
He was doing that investigator thing again, staring intensely at me like he could see my thoughts. “When your mom was sick?”
“Yep,” I said easily, the vino making me way more chatty than usual. I lifted my empty wine glass and watched the flames from the fire dance through the glass. “Demonic possession isn’t half as scary as facing cancer every day.”
“I believe you.”
I set the wine glass down and swiveled to face him. “What about you? Did you face evil every day when you were in the Marines?” I knew I was probably going too far, but I couldn’t help myself. You’d think now that I finally knew a few key details about him, it would satisfy my curiosity. If anything, it had only whet my appetite.
“Not every day, but I saw enough.”
“You don’t like to talk about it, do you?”
“No.”
“Could you have died?”
“On more than one occasion.”
“Is that why you’re here now? Because it’s safer?”
Marc leaned back and watched the shadows from the flames dance on the ceiling. “I could die crossing the road. But, yeah, I couldn’t do it to them again.”
“Your family?”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Yes.”
You would have thought I’d be getting sick of his one-word answers, but that wasn’t the case. I had the feeling this was as articulate as Marc got about his time in the Marines. That he was answering me at all was a miracle.
“Would you ever go back?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I already lost my wife, I don’t want to lose Ruby, too.”
At the mention of his wife, or ex-wife if Ruby’s description of the ‘douche’ boyfriend was accurate, I remained silent. Clearly his wife was still alive and well, so I had to assume his time in the forces had been difficult on their relationship.
“I don’t think you’ve lost her. From what I’ve seen she adores you.”
Marc was staring into the flames and grimaced. “If I went back, one day I’d turn around and she’d be all grown-up. She’s too grown-up as it is.”
“Did you see her much when she was little?”
“Nowhere near enough.”
“There’s plenty of dads who aren’t doing something as noble as you were who don’t see their kids. My dad was always traveling. And for what? To make someone else money.”
“Still doesn’t make it right.”
“No. That’s true.”
We sat side by side staring at the fire. It was almost as if the flames had cast some sort of spell over us. Minutes passed and we sat there in a comfortable silence listening to the crack and pop of the wood burning.
I actually caught myself thinking it was nice. Our companionship, if you could call it that. Duncan had always been talking. About his latest production, a recent headline, an industry prediction—he always had something to say.
Until now, I hadn’t realized there could be a connection in silence.
After a while I opened my mouth in a wide yawn.
“Come on,” Marc said. “You should go to bed. Although I’ll be amazed if you don’t have nightmares after that movie.”
“No, I won’t,” I mumbled, attempting to stretch my legs. “Can’t we just stay here all night? I like the fire and the sofa’s comfy.”
“If you want.”
We stared at the fire some more until I drifted off to sleep.
*
The ring of a cell phone woke me.
I squinted when I opened my eyes. The early morning sun streamed through the arched windows and lit the entire room. The cathedral ceilings soared above my head and for a second it felt like I’d woken in a church.
“Romero.”
I blinked as Marc strode past me, his cell phone to his ear.
I sat up groggily. I must have slept all night on the sofa. I blinked again and saw the sofa next to mine, with a cushion teetering on the armrest. We. We must have slept all night on the sofa.
I winced a bit as I moved. I hadn’t taken any painkillers in twenty-four hours and my injured shoulder was more noticeable. The pain was a cross between a bone-deep throb and like someone had hit my shoulder with a car. Although I guessed falling onto the ground from a great height was similar.
I stood and wandered over to the front window. Marc was standing in the drive still talking on the phone. His free hand rested on his hip and somehow it made the magnificent vista more appealing.
I took a step back from the window when I realized where my thoughts were heading.
Was it possible after all this time that I liked him?
I’d known him for the better part of four years, ever since Duncan had requested his involvement for what turned out to be a relatively non-threatening stalker. Back then, I’d thought of Marc as abrupt and distant. And I guess he could still be described that way, but . . .
I didn’t not like him anymore, I realized. There was more to him than his hard-edged persona would have you believe. The same way I liked to peel away the layers of a character I was playing, I had an instinctive desire to see beneath Marc’s tough outer shell. But why now? What was different this time?
Duncan.
With a sinking feeling, I knew it was true. When I was with Duncan, my world was all Hollywood. I lived and breathed it. The previous times we’d come into contact, I’d viewed Marc’s involvement in my life as necessary but inconvenient.
As if he could sense me thinking about him, Marc shifted and glanced toward the house.
I jumped back from the window so I was out of view, but not before I caught the expression on his face: troubled.
If I didn’t know him better I would have said he didn’t look any different to his usual brooding self. But now I did know him better. There had been emotion written into his features. Instead of carefully considered detachment, worry had flashed in his eyes and there was frustration etched in the lines of his face.
I turned and made my way to the bedroom. Once inside, I turned the corner into the en suite and flicked on the light.
My own face appeared troubled too. For too many reasons to count: my shoulder hurt; I still had a stalker at large; I was in the middle of nowhere when I should be on-set filming; my house had burned down; I was undecided if I liked Marc; and I damn well wanted a shower and was sick of my stupid sling.
Suck it up, Lena. Now wasn’t the time for pity. I didn’t believe in it—mostly. Apart from my shoulder, which would heal with time, I was healthy and my acting career going from strength to strength. I’d been relieved to see the emails from my agent saying that Manning was committed to seeing out the movie and they’d pushed the filming of my scenes back a few weeks. It would cost them, of course. But what had Marc said? They can afford it for their star performer.
So I’d just have to concentrate on getting better.
In the meantime, I really needed to figure out how to manage the logistics of my sling better.
I looked down at my shirt and grimaced. Step one was learning to take my shirt off one-handed. I focused my concentration on undoing the buttons with my index finger and thumb. The first button took an agonizingly slow minute to get undone, and when it came loose, I blew out a long breath.
The next one took about half that time.
“See? I can do this,” I muttered to myself, already starting on the next button down.
“It will be quicker if I help.”
I cried out in shock and leapt back—straight into Marc’s solid chest.
He caught me around the waist, his forearm resting against my lower abdomen.
“Marc,” I gasped, still short of breath after the shock. “What on earth?”
“Sorry. You were concentrating so hard you didn’t hear me come in.” He didn’t let go of me.
I tried to step away, but he tightened his grip. The pressure was gentle but it surprised me and I tried to twist to face him.
“Relax,” he said, holding me like I was a frightened bird. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
I could feel his breath on my ear and panic shivered through me. Or was it something else?
“What are you doing in here?” My emotions were in overdrive. My heart was still racing over the surprise of his appearance and the sensation of having him so close was almost too much to bear. Almost.
He met my eyes in the mirror. “We got him.”