A Scandal So Sweet

Five

When Summer awoke the next day, she sat up slowly, her heart racing, as she thought about Zach upstairs in his own bed. Except for the birds, the house seemed too quiet and dark. But that was only because she was used to pedestrians on the sidewalks and tenants on the stairs, to sirens and traffic, to garbage trucks making their early rounds as the Upper West Side woke up.

Fearing Zach might not have slept any better than she had, she crept noiselessly from her bed to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth, washed her face and combed her hair.

Rummaging through her suitcase, she put on a T-shirt and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Okay, so he’d probably comment on how tight they were, but she didn’t own any other kind.

Grabbing her script, she headed for the kitchen where she found a bag of coffee. She closed all the doors before she ground the coffee and started a pot. Listening to the birds, she decided it might be more fun to work on the porch.

She went to the door and was taking great pains to open it without making the slightest sound, when the security alarm began to blare.

With a little scream, she clamped her hands over her ears and fought without success to remember the code.

“Blast it!” she muttered as Zach slammed down the stairs.

Wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, and dragging a golf club, he hurled himself into the kitchen.

“My fault. I forgot about the alarm,” she said, staring at his chest and finding him heart-throbbingly magnificent. “I was trying so hard not to wake you.”

He punched in the code and set the golf club down. “It’s okay. Usually I get up way before now. Coffee smells good.” He raked his hands through his hair.

“It does, doesn’t it?” She broke off, tongue-tied as usual around him, maybe because his gaze left her breathless.

“Did you sleep okay?” he asked in a rough tone.

“I guess.”

“I had a tough night, too,” he murmured, grinning sheepishly.

His super-hot gaze made her tummy flip. Suddenly, sharing the kitchen with him when he was sexily shirtless, when he kept his eyes welded to hers, seemed too intimate. She felt as awkward as she would have on a first date when she knew something might happen but didn’t know what. Quickly, she turned away and poured herself a coffee. Then she scurried outside. Behind her she heard his knowing chuckle.

Not that she could work out here, she mused, not when he was bustling about in the kitchen.

Concentrate on something else! Anything else but him!

The morning air was fresh and cool, and the sky a vivid pink. As her frantic gaze wandered to the fringe of trees that edged the far corner of his property, three doe and a tiny fawn picked their way out of the woods in a swirl of ground fog to nibble a clump of damp grass.

Summer tiptoed back to the kitchen door and pushed it open. Holding a fingertip against her lips, she waved to Zach to come out.

When he joined her, he smiled, as charmed by the scene as she.

“I’ll bet you never see anything like that in Manhattan.”

“There are all sorts of amazing sights in Manhattan,” she murmured in a futile attempt to discount the awe that sharing the dawn with him inspired.

“I’ll bet somebody as famous as you could never live anywhere as boring as Louisiana or Texas again. Or be serious about anybody who wasn’t a movie star like Jones.”

“I didn’t say that!”

His hard eyes darkened as they clashed with hers.

An awkward minute passed as she tried to imagine herself living with Zach, here, in Houston, anywhere. Impossible-she was an actress, who lived in Manhattan.

“To change the subject-what do you want to do today?” he asked casually.

“I need to study those scenes I have to shoot next week.”

“That’s fine. I did make tentative plans for us to meet Tuck and Gram at the new Cajun café on the bayou. Over lunch I thought we could encourage Tuck to enroll in one of the tech programs at the junior college.”

“Tuck’s not interested in school.”

“Really? When I informed him I might press charges if he didn’t take some responsible action about his future, he told me he’d like to take some courses that could lead to a career as a utility lineman.”

“I can’t believe this! You’re threatening Tuck, too, now.”

“It’s way past time he stepped up to the plate. I took him over to the junior college Wednesday and introduced him to Travis Cooper, who’s the young, enthusiastic head of that particular program. He was a late bloomer, like your Tuck, which may be why the two of them hit it off immediately.”

“Okay-I can do lunch,” she replied. “I like your results, even if I don’t approve of your tactics. Then I’ll need to study my scenes this afternoon…since I procrastinated last night.”

“Okay. While you do that, I’ll inspect one of my building projects.”

He took a long breath, his black eyes assessing her with such frank male boldness her tummy went hollow. “But, I’ll want to spend the evening with you. Alone. Here.”

“Of course,” she whispered, her skin heating even as she fought to look indifferent.

Without warning, he stepped closer and grinned down at her. “I’m glad you agreed so easily. I want you to be eager.”

He bent his handsome black head toward hers, and she was so sure he would kiss her, she actually pursed her lips and stood on her tiptoes as if in feverish anticipation.

But he only laughed, as if he was pleased he had her wanting him. “Save it for tonight, sweetheart.”

A very colorful curse word popped into her mind, but she bit her lips and made do with a frown.

Lunch with Tuck and Gram was amazing. First, the succulent fried shrimp, which were crunchy and light, were so addictive Summer had to sit on fisted hands to keep from stealing the one Zach left on his plate just to tempt her. As she was staring at that shrimp, Tuck finished his gumbo and astonished her by informing Zach that, yes, he’d decided he was fine with giving Cooper and his dumb program a chance. She was further amazed when she listened to him converse easily and intelligently with Zach, as Tuck rarely did with her. She could tell that Zach really had been devoting a great deal of time to Tuck, and that Tuck was lapping up the attention.

Despite all that was enjoyable about lunch, she didn’t like the attention from surrounding diners, who stared and snapped pictures with their phones.

“Did you have an ulterior motive for lunching with all of us so publicly?” Summer asked after they dropped off Tuck and Gram and were driving home.

Zach’s mouth was tight as he stared grimly at the road. “Being railroaded on felony charges and then being tried in the court of public opinion wasn’t any picnic, either.”

“That still doesn’t make it right for you to use Tuck and Gram to get even with me.”

“Maybe I just want people to see that I have a normal relationship with all of you,” Zach said.

“But you don’t. You’re blackmailing me.”

“Right.” His dark eyes glittering, he turned toward her. The sudden intimacy between them stunned her. “Well, I want people to know that you’re not afraid of me. That you never were. That you liked me, loved me even. That I was not someone who’d take a young, unwilling girl off to the woods to molest her. Is that so wrong?”

His face blurred as she forced herself to focus on the trees streaming past his window instead of him. The realization of how profoundly she’d hurt him hit her anew.

Yes, he’d hurt her, too, and yes, he’d gone on to achieve phenomenal success. But he’d never gotten over the deep injury her betrayal had inflicted-any more than she’d gotten over losing him and the baby.

Because of her, Zach had been accused of kidnapping and worse. All he’d ever tried to do was help her.

When a talent scout had been wowed by her high-school performance in Grease, her stepfather had forbidden her to go back to her theater-arts class. He’d sworn he wouldn’t pay for her to study theater arts in college, either.

So she’d run away to Zach, who’d forced her to go back and try to reason with Thurman. Only after her stepfather struck her and threatened her with more physical violence if she didn’t bend to his will had Zach driven her to Nick’s fishing cabin on the bayou in Texas. There they’d hidden out and made love. There they’d been found in each other’s arms by Thurman and his men.

She did owe Zach. More than a few weekends. And not just because of Tuck. If Zach wanted to be seen with her and gossiped about-so be it.

“You don’t have to drive me home before you go to your site,” she said softly. “I’ll go with you.”

“I thought you needed to work on your love scenes with Hugh.”

His voice hardened when he said the other man’s name, and she felt vaguely guilty. Which was ridiculous, since she wasn’t in a relationship with either man.

“I do, but I’ll study on the plane, or later, when I get to L.A.”

“Well, if you’re coming with me, I’ve got to take you home anyway. Those sandals won’t work at the construction site and neither will that tight, sexy skirt.”

“Oh.”

“You’ll need to wear a long-sleeved shirt, jeans and boots. I’ll supply you with a plastic hard hat and a safety vest with reflective tape.”

“Sounds like a dangerous place.”

Even though it was Saturday, cranes, bulldozers and jackhammers were operating full force as battalions of workers carried out all sorts of tasks, none of which made sense to Summer as she adjusted the inner straps of her hard hat. Zach seemed as happy as a kid showing off as he led her around the site, pointing at blueprints, sketches and plans with a pocket roll-up ruler, introducing her to all of his foremen and contractors. Local men, all of them, who eyed her with open speculation.

Zach was developing hundreds of acres along the bayou, creating a dock for his riverboat casino, as well as restaurants, a hotel, a small amusement park, shops, a theater, a golf course and no telling what else.

“I’ve never built anything,” she said, “so I’m impressed. Look, you don’t have to entertain me. I’ll explore on my own.”

“You be careful and don’t go too far.”

At first she stayed close to him because the ground was rough and muddy. Then she began walking toward the dock on two-by-fours that men had laid across deep holes as makeshift bridges.

She was standing on such a bridge when Nick drove up in his battered pickup, looking for Zach. The elderly shrimper wore faded jeans, a T-shirt and scuffed boots. Even though he dipped his cowboy hat ever so slightly when he saw Summer, his cold, unsmiling face told her he hadn’t forgiven her. Until Zach’s uncle had shown up, Nick had been Zach’s sole advocate.

“Didn’t expect to see the likes of you here, cher,” he said when he walked up to her. “Dangerous place for a woman.”

Nick was thinner than the last time she’d seen him, his tanned skin crisscrossed with lines, his wispy hair steel-gray. But the penetrating blue eyes that pierced her hadn’t changed much.

“And you’re a dangerous woman for any man, even Zach. I warned the boy to stay away from you, but he won’t listen,” Nick said, eyeing Zach, who stood a hundred yards to their right, deep in conversation with a contractor. “He never did have a lick of sense where you were concerned. I don’t like you settin’ your hooks in him again. By coming out here with him you’ll have the whole town talkin’ and thinkin’ you’re a couple again.”

“Tell him. He invited me for the weekend.”

Nick spat in disbelief. “Well, you tell him I stopped by and that I’ll catch up with him later. Or, if he’d prefer, he can drop by…after he gets rid of you.”

She nodded.

He turned and left.

Her mood dark and remorseful, she headed toward the dock. Because of the deep holes in the ground, she was forced to cross on the makeshift bridge again. She’d nearly reached the dock when Zach called out to her.

Maybe she turned too fast-one of the boards slipped, and she tumbled several feet into the muddy hole filled with rocks and debris. When she tried to stand, her left ankle buckled under her weight.

She looked up in alarm and saw Zach running toward her, his dark eyes grave. Leaping over the boards, he was soon towering over her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes-except for my left ankle.”

“I should never have brought you here.”

“Nonsense. I fell. It all was my fault.”

“Hang on to me, then,” he commanded, jumping down into the hole.

Half carrying her, he led her out of the pit and back to his car. As he drove away from the site, he called Gram, who recommended her doctor, a man who generously offered to meet them at the emergency room. Dr. Sands actually beat them to the E.R., and Summer, who’d once fallen off a stage in Manhattan and had waited hours in a New York E.R., was both appreciative and amazed to be treated so quickly and expertly in such a small hospital. Most of all, she was grateful to Zach for staying with her.

When a team of nurses stepped inside the treatment room and asked him to leave, Zach demanded to know what they planned to do.

“Dr. Sands wants her to disrobe for an examination, so we can make sure we don’t miss any of her injuries.”

“But it’s only my ankle that hurts,” Summer protested.

“Hopefully you’re right. But this is our protocol. We have to be sure.”

Summer reached for Zach’s hand. “Would you…”

So, he stayed beside her, gallantly turning his back when they handed her a hospital gown and she began to undress. But once, when she moaned, he turned. She saw his quick flush and heard his gasp before he averted his gaze from her body.

Her stomach fluttered. Funny that it hadn’t occurred to her to be embarrassed that he should see her almost naked. She simply wanted him beside her.

When the professionals finished checking her body and stooped to examine her ankle, she cried out in pain.

Zach was at her side, pressing her hand to his lips. “Hang in there. We’ll be home before you know it.”

Home. How sweetly the word buzzed in her heart. She squeezed his fingers and held on tight, feeling illogically reassured.

He was right. In less than an hour she was back at Zach’s house, propped up on his couch by plump pillows, surrounded by his remotes, her script and her favorite snacks.

Strangely, after the hospital, there was a new easiness between them. Gram and Tuck had stopped by to check on her, and after they departed, Zach remained attentive, never leaving her side for long. He said he wanted to be nearby in case she needed anything. She found his hovering oddly sweet and realized it would be much too easy to become dependent on such attentions.

When the sun went down, he cooked two small steaks and roasted two potatoes for their dinner while she watched from her chair at the kitchen table. They had their meal with wine and thick buttered slices of French bread out on the back veranda.

Again she marveled that a man who must be used to servants knew his way around in a kitchen. She didn’t mind in the least that he hadn’t thought to prepare more sides. The simple meal was perfect even before the three deer re-appeared to delight them.

Later, when she was back on the couch again and he’d finished the dinner dishes, he pulled up a chair beside her. Pleased that he hadn’t gone up to his room, she declared the steak delicious and thanked him for his trouble.

“I’m not much of a cook,” he said. “Eggs, steak and toast. That’s about it.”

“Don’t forget potatoes. Yours were very nice. Crispy.”

“Right. Sometimes I can stick a potato or two in the oven and sprinkle them with olive oil and salt. I have a cook in Houston, but I don’t like eating at home alone. So, mostly I eat out.”

“Me, too. Or I do take-out. Because I don’t have time to cook.”

“I imagined you in ritzy New York restaurants, dining on meals cooked by the world’s best chefs, eating with famous movie stars.”

When his expression darkened, she suspected he was thinking of Hugh.

“Not all that often. Fancy meals take time to eat…as well as to cook and serve,” she said, avoiding the topic of Hugh. “And fans pester you for autographs. Besides, there’s nothing quite like a homemade meal, is there?”

“You used to want to be an actress so badly. What’s it like now that you’ve succeeded?”

“It’s nice, but I work almost all the time. Even when I have a job, I’m always auditioning for the next part. When I sign on with a show that isn’t in New York, I travel and live out of a suitcase. One minute it’s a crazy life, full of parties and friends, then it gets pretty lonely. You can’t hold on to anything because it’s all so ephemeral. The friends I make within a cast feel closer than family for a while. Then they vanish after each show closes,” she admitted.

“But when you sign with a new show or film you have a new set of friends.”

“Yes, but as I get older, I see that, despite the bright lights, a life without stability isn’t nearly so glamorous as people think.”

“It’s what you wanted.”

She sighed. “Be careful what you wish for. I guess I took my real life for granted. Lately, I’ve realized how much I miss family…and roots.”

“What does that mean?”

“My job is so all-consuming that I…I haven’t been good at relationships. I’m Southern, like Gram. She sees my single state as a failure, and lets me know it every chance she gets. Her dream for me was marriage to a handsome husband. I was supposed to have two children, a boy and a girl, and live happily ever after in a cute house surrounded by a white picket fence.”

He smiled. “But you, being a modern woman, aren’t into such an outdated, traditional formula for happiness. Strange, that it can still exert such a hold over a female as wise as your grandmother.”

“You’re right, of course. I just wish I could make her understand that I have everything I set my heart on. I’m grateful for what I have, for what I’ve achieved. So many people would give anything to be me.”

She was saying the same truths she’d lived by for years, but, for some reason, the words felt hollow tonight.

Zach didn’t say anything.

She’d never imagined having such an ordinary, simple, companionable evening with him, and she found herself enjoying it more than she’d enjoyed anything in a very long time. When they’d been kids, they’d been friends before they’d been lovers. They hadn’t fallen in love until after he’d graduated and she’d been entering her senior year.

Now, as an adult, she spent so much time working on her image and her brand, so much time learning various roles, and never very much time being herself. What would it be like to have a lifetime of such evenings with a man like him? To take them for granted?

She sighed. That wasn’t who she was now. She had her career, a bright future-and it was on the stage and screen.

“What about you?” she whispered. “You’re successful. Are you happy?”

“Like you, I’m not unhappy,” he muttered thickly. “I, too, have everything I always thought I wanted…except maybe for…” He shot her a look that was so intense it burned away her breath.

“For what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he growled. “Not even billionaires can have it all. Not that we don’t pretend that we can, with our fancy cars and homes and yachts.” Frowning, he sprang to his feet and then glanced at his watch. “But you’re injured, and it’s late. You must be tired. Besides, Sands prescribed that painkiller. I’m afraid I’ve been very selfish to keep you up so long.”

She didn’t want him to go. “No. I’m barely injured, and you’ve waited on me hand and foot… And I just sat there and let you.”

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer.”

“But I really do want to know…about you,” she whispered.

“Let’s save that boring tale for later,” he said, cutting her off. “Who knows-maybe you’ll get lucky and never have to hear it.” He picked up her crutches. “Why don’t I help you to your room?”

Feeling stunned and a little hurt by how abruptly he’d ended their pleasant evening, she got to her feet. As she stood, her uncertain eyes met his. But he wouldn’t hold her gaze.

Suddenly, she again felt awkward at the thought of their sharing the house for another night. Stiffening, he handed her the crutches and then backed away.

“I hate these things,” she said as she placed the crutches under her arms.

“It’s a minor sprain. The doctor said you might even be off them as soon as Tuesday.”

“I hope so. Thanks again for tonight. When you convinced me to come here for the weekend, I never thought…we would have this kind of evening or that I could enjoy simply being with you so much.”

“Neither the hell did I,” he admitted in a stilted tone, still not looking at her. “Believe me-I had a very different kind of weekend in mind.”

“Well, you’ve been very nice.”

“Good night, then,” he muttered, his voice sounding so furious she realized he’d had more than enough of her company.

He’d blackmailed her because he’d wanted revenge. He’d wanted sex. Had this evening, with its simple pleasures, bored him?

She felt hurt and rejected, just as she had last night.