Dear Cupid Page 19

  “You rode in with me, remember?” He offered her a half-teasing smile.

  “Yes, but—” She glanced over her shoulder, all too aware of Edward hanging on every word. The two men locked gazes and both of them straightened. Edward’s stance turned guarded, Mike’s aggressive. She immediately rejected any thought of introducing them.

  “It’s thoughtful of you to wait, but you really didn’t need to,” she said to Mike.

  “Of course I did.” He turned his attention back to her and the intimacy of his smile made her blush. “You rode in with me, you’ll ride home with me.”

  Her blush grew warmer at such a possessive male statement made in front of her ex-husband. “Mike, I’ll be here overnight.”

  Worry flashed across his face. “He’s that bad, then?”

  “They want to keep him on the IV and oxygen for a while. We’ll know better tomorrow when he’ll get to go home.” She glanced again at Edward, wondering how she’d get the privacy she needed.

  “I see,” Mike said, and to her surprise, he seemed to understand her distress. He nodded toward the door. “Maybe I could, you know, wait for you ... inside.”

  “Yes, please,” she answered gratefully. “And Mike,” she added as he moved past her. “Thank you. For everything.”

  He gave her arm a casual squeeze before turning away.

  Once inside the darkened room, Mike closed the door enough to block out most of the sounds in the hall, yet still let some light through. So that was Dylan’s father, he thought. The fool who’d lost Kate. White-collar wimp. The only thing he couldn’t see was why someone as vibrant and lively as Kate had married a stuffed shirt like that in the first place.

  “Mom?” a weak voice called from the bed.

  “No.” He stepped around the corner of the bathroom so Dylan could see him. “It’s me, Mike.”

  “Oh.” Dylan slumped back into his pillow.

  God, the kid looked pale, and every breath sounded like a hard-won gasp. He moved closer to the bed. “Can I get you anything?”

  The boy just closed his eyes, as if slipping into sleep. “They’re going to ... fight about me ... aren’t they?”

  Mike shifted uneasily, not sure what to say. He knew how to talk to boys about Power Rangers and spaceships, or how he’d help make the latest action-adventure movie. But how the hell was he supposed to answer a question like that?

  Looking at the boy lying in the bed, he remembered Dylan was roughly the same age as his youngest nephew, even if Dylan was much smaller. The thought of how he’d feel if this was one of his sisters’ kids lying there reached inside his chest and squeezed tight.

  “Well, yeah,” Mike said, “it did look like they were about to light into each other, but I don’t know that they were going to fight about you.”

  He watched the boy struggle to draw enough breath to talk. “They always fight ... about me.” Another hard breath. “Or money ... or Dad ... working ... too much.”

  “I see.” Mike took a seat in the chair by the bed. From out in the hall, he heard a masculine voice rise in anger then drop quickly to a tightly controlled rumble. Kate’s voice fired back, equally angry.

  “So,” Mike said, loud enough to cover up the sounds from the hall. “I hear they’re going to keep you here a while, eh, kid?”

  “I want ... to go home.” Though Dylan’s eyes remained closed, Mike saw tears wet the lashes.

  “What, and miss out on all this great attention?” The voices in the hall rose and fell, The words were muffled but the fury came through all too clear. “Hey, you play your cards right, you could have these nurses eating out of your hand.”

  Dylan just shrugged, too weak or disinterested to respond. Mike watched him, mentally searching for a way to bridge the awkwardness between them. What would he do if this were one of his nephews?

  “Hey, you like movies?” he asked.

  Dylan opened his eyes enough to give him a wary look.

  Mike leaned forward to brace his forearms on his thighs. “How would you like to see one being made?”

  The boy’s eyes widened a bit but remained guarded. “Maybe.”

  “Oh, well, if you’re not interested ...” Mike sat back.

  “I didn’t ... say that.”

  “Then you are interested?”

  Dylan frowned, refusing to utter a word.

  “I mean, because if you are, I could get passes for you and your mom to come watch one of the location shoots. They’re filming a really big stunt next Sunday.”

  “What kind of stunt?”

  “A man on horseback is going to jump from a train into a river.”

  Dylan closed his eyes. “That doesn’t ... sound so ... big.”

  “It would if you were the guy on the back of that horse. So you interested?” He hid a smile as the boy tried not to give away his excitement.

  “I guess,” Dylan finally sighed. “If Mom says ... okay.”

  “Hey, no sweat. You just work on getting well. I’ll handle your mom.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Kate pressed her fingertips to her temples to ease the pounding in her head. “I am not going to argue with you all day about fault, Edward. Dylan being in the hospital isn’t the only issue here. The fact is, you broke your promise to him. Again.”

  “The hell I did,” Edward shot back. “I took him to the ball game.”

  “Then immediately dumped him on your mother.”

  “I told you, an important dinner meeting came up.”

  “Something important always comes up.”

  “You don’t understand. You never understand.” His eyes filled with condemnation . “If I land this client, the portfolio is worth millions. You want me to brush that off to spend one evening with Dylan?”

  “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She lifted her hands. “Of course you should break a promise to your son, let him down for the thousandth time, in order to land a new client. After all, as long as you have money, who needs anything else?”

  He gave her a condescending smirk. “I find it so ironic the way you always harp on me about working too much, when you’re just as bad. When we were married, you were so wrapped up in that mindless drivel of a column, the house could have fallen down and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “Mindless drivel of a column.” Normally the insult would have hit her like a knife straight to the chest. Now she just stared at Edward as if seeing him for the first time. He was no different than Gwen. Actually, he was worse. He couldn’t stand anything taking attention away from him. Their marriage had worked in the beginning because she’d been so foolishly in love with the whole notion of being a bride, she’d made him the focus of her universe. The column, however, wasn’t the real source of his jealousy. No, the true thorn in his side was his own son.

  A strange calm settled over her. “You know what? I give up. You win, Edward. You win.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” His frown turned wary.

  “It means I’ll stop bothering you. I’m tired of putting Dylan through hell in hopes that someday you’ll realize you have a wonderful, bright, sensitive son who is a sheer joy to be around. So, no more calling to remind you when it’s your weekend to take him. No more calling you, period. From now on, whether or not you have a relationship with Dylan is up to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to see how my son is resting.” She turned toward the door.

  “Kate, wait a second.”

  “No, Edward. I’m through waiting. The ball’s in your court. You can either serve or throw in the towel. Frankly, at this point, I don’t even care.”

  She stepped into the darkened room and stopped for a moment to close her eyes and compose herself. Every encounter with Edward left her utterly drained.

  An odd sound caught her ears, like someone imitating a space-age laser being fired. She stepped around the corner and found Mike sitting beside her son’s bed.

  “And then ... what happened?” Dylan asked, so enthralled with M
ike, he hadn’t even heard her come in.

  She watched in fascination as Mike, who was moving his hand like a spaceship over the bed, explained how some special effect had fallen flat, and what he had done to fix it. She’d never noticed that calming quality to his voice. He looked so natural sitting beside her son’s bed that the oddest thing happened: Suddenly she couldn’t imagine him not being there.

  How on earth had he planted himself so fully in the center of her life?

  Sensing her presence at last, Dylan turned to her. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, yourself.” She smiled as she stepped closer.

  “Mike says ... we can come watch ... him make a movie.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Frowning at the weedy sound of her son’s voice, she tucked the sheets around him.

  “Well, it won’t actually be me working on the set,” Mike clarified. “I just thought you and Dylan might enjoy watching the crew film one of the horseback-riding stunts.”

  “Can we, Mom?” Dylan begged. “Can we?”

  She raised her gaze from her son to the man who sat at his side. Those clear blue eyes caught and held her. A smile spread slowly over his face, and to her dismay, she felt her body flush with heat. How could she stand over her son’s sickbed growing aroused with memories at everything she’d done the night before?

  “Come on, Kate,” Mike coaxed in a voice that held a hint of intimacy. “I promised the boy I’d talk you into it, if he promised to get well.”

  Self-preservation urged her to say no. Mike was getting too close to her heart, too quickly. She needed distance, and time to think.

  “Please, Mom?” Dylan begged, his face earnest.

  Her shoulders slumped. “All right, we’ll go. But just this once.”

  “See, kid?” Mike winked at Dylan. “Like I told you, no sweat.”

  Chapter 20

  KATE battled a silly sense of excitement as she drove through the hill country on her way to the location shoot. True to his word, Mike had gotten them passes, and she was absurdly eager to see him again. She’d barely done more than talk to him on the phone for the past week. The remodeling project in the kitchen was finally finished. Even though Mike wanted her to get started on the living and dining room, she’d been too busy with other things to do more than pick out a few fabric swatches. Now that she’d lost her column, she’d agreed to take on more of Linda’s accounts—a decision she was beginning to regret.

  After a few days of shuffling kids to soccer practice, dance classes, piano lessons, picking up laundry, and buying groceries for other people, she missed being Dear Cupid more than ever. As much as she enjoyed people, she did not enjoy being expected to satisfy their every whim, no matter how well it paid. The whole experience reminded her too much of being married to Edward.

  Plus, she’d thought working for Linda would allow her more time with Dylan than a conventional job. On that score she was sadly mistaken. While Dylan did accompany her on many of her errands, he generally sat in the car and sulked because he wanted to be home with his books and computer games.

  After one particularly grueling day, she’d finally given in and called Mike’s friend, the freelance writer. The woman had generously shared her knowledge about syndicating a column. It all sounded so simple, and yet so daunting. With every day that passed, she knew she wanted to continue writing Dear Cupid, at times more than she wanted her next breath, but one question stopped her cold every time. What if I fail?

  The question nagged at her even now as she steered the car through a series of turns. What if she submitted samples of her work, and received nothing in return but rejections?

  She snorted in disgust at her own thoughts, wondering when she’d turned into such a coward. She just hoped Mike didn’t ask her again if she’d followed his friend’s advice. She was rapidly running out of excuses, and feared he’d recognize the truth: that she lacked the guts to go after one of the things she wanted most. Not a pleasant confession for someone with the reputation of charging headlong toward life with arms stretched wide.

  Would she ever recapture that optimistic exuberance? Did she even want to? Time and time again, she’d charged toward something she wanted, only to fall fiat on her face. Could she stand to take one more fall? On the other band, could she continue to look herself in the mirror if she didn’t go out on a limb for something that meant so much to her?

  “Mom?” Dylan asked from the backseat, breaking into her thoughts. “Are we really gonna see a horse jump out of a train into a river?”

  “That’s what Mike says,” she answered absently as she checked the directions Mike had given her over the phone. Either the location shoot was more remote than she’d thought, or she was lost.

  “Yeah, but do you think a horse is really gonna do it?”

  She glanced at her son in the rearview mirror and noticed the disbelieving smirk that hovered at the corners of his mouth. No one would ever guess from looking at him now that he’d been in the hospital a mere week ago. They’d discharged him late Monday and by Wednesday he was already back at school. “Why do you keep asking that?”

  “1 don’ know.” He shrugged, trying to look bored. Except, she could see the longing that lurked in the back of his eyes. “People promise kids neat stuff all the time. But when you get there, it’s just some dorky thing to keep you busy while they go do something else.”

  “People” meaning his father, she assumed. “Well, I don’t think Mike’s the type to intentionally lie, but I’m with you. I say we reserve judgment till we get there, okay?”

  “And if it’s dorky, we can leave?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  At that moment, they popped over a hill and she spotted the entrance to the ranch Mike had mentioned. A burly cowboy with a clipboard jumped off the tailgate of a pickup truck as she turned onto the dirt driveway.

  Kate rolled down the window and felt a wave of hot, humid air invade the air-conditioned car. “Is this where they’re filming The Seekers?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Are you with the cast or crew?”

  “Neither, actually. I’m Kate Bradshaw, a guest of Mike Cameron’s.”

  The man checked his list and nodded. “Yep. Gotcha right here. You’ll need visitor’s passes.” He pulled two from beneath the clip on his board and handed them to her with instructions for her and Dylan to wear them around their necks. “Now what you need to do is follow this here dirt road till you get to the filming site. You can’t miss it. Just park anywhere behind the honey wagon.”

  “Thanks.” Laughing at the term honey wagon, Kate rolled up her window and headed through the iron gate.

  “Mom?” Dylan asked. “What’s a honey wagon?”

  “Well, I don’t know what he means, but in medieval times it was the cart that went around a village, collecting the um ... contents from people’s slop jars.”

  “Slop jars?”

  “Potty water.”

  “Uuughhh, ga-ross! I told you this would be dorky.”

  When Kate found the filming site, the number of RVs and semis surprised her. Thick electrical cords snaked along the ground connecting and entangling them in a man-made web. A large tent that looked like a makeshift dining hall sat off to one side. Since the RVs and portable toilets formed in a line with a makeshift parking lot to one side, she assumed they were the “honey wagon.”

  “Well,” she said, getting out of the car, “I guess this is it.”

  “I guess so,” Dylan agreed as he climbed out his side.

  “I suppose the first order of business is to find Mike.” Shading her eyes, she searched the area. The woody scent of barbecue drifted toward them on a light breeze, but other than the handful of men tending the pit, the area appeared deserted. “Got any ideas?”

  Dylan’s brow puckered in thought. “I’d try the river.”

  Kate nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  They followed a trampled path through a field of wildflowers that led uphill. The sun beat down on her head and
bare arms, making her glad she’d worn a cotton sundress that allowed air to brush her skin. When they topped the hill, they stopped and stared at the scene below. Camera crews worked along both banks, focusing their lenses on the section of tracks that spanned the river. An ambulance waited downstream, as if anticipating the worst, along with a truck bearing the name of a veterinary clinic.

  In the other direction, an old-fashioned train curved around the nearest hill, looking nostalgic and impressive with its restored steam engine.

  “Well,” she said, “I would definitely say these people are serious.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan agreed, clearly awed. And then he pointed toward the crowd near the train. “Look, there’s Mike!”

  The excitement in her son’s voice caught Kate off guard. Dylan rarely warmed to people quickly, yet he seemed as excited to see Mike as if he’d spotted Jim.

  Then she glanced up and caught a glimpse of the trademark Hawaiian shirt and warmth rushed through her. He stood with a small crowd gathered around Trey Evans and a massive-looking horse. Frank, the special effects supervisor, gestured with his hand as if describing how the jump should go. Trey appeared to be arguing over some point, with Jesse serving as interpreter.

  Mike shifted, looking restless as his eyes searched the crowd. When he spotted her on the hill, he went still. He smiled slowly, and her body tingled with the simple pleasure of seeing him, of knowing that in a moment she’d be talking with him, laughing with him, just being with him.

  Katy, girl, she told herself, you are definitely in trouble. The thought made her nerves jangle as she watched him excuse himself and stride up the hill to join them.

  “You came,” he said, sounding as breathless as she felt. Their eyes held for a moment and she wondered if he would kiss her. Not in front of Dylan, her panicked brain pleaded, even though her body argued strongly in the other direction.

  As if sensing her quandary, he turned his attention to her son. “Hey, kid, what do you think?”

  “I think Mom’s right.” Dylan nodded gravely. “Y’all are definitely serious.”