Lovescenes

‘Will you listen, dammit?’

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘no, I won’t. I never should have listened to you in the first—‘

‘There I was, packing to fly home Sunday night, satisfied that Scorpio had agreed to consider me for a film in the spring, when my agent knocks on my hotel room door. ”Unpack,’ my agent says. “Forget that deal in the spring. Jeff Anderson’s out of the movie Scorpio’s about to film and you’re in. You start tomorrow.”’

&n

bsp; Shannon stared at him. ‘Jeff Anderson broke his leg and you’re replacing him?’

‘Jesus, Padgett, how many times must I tell you? Yeah, he was skiing at Aspen and he hit a marker and smashed his leg all to pieces. How else would I have got a chance like this?’

Her voice was a whisper. ‘You mean—they offered you the part last Sunday?’

‘Ten o’clock Sunday night, rehearsal starting Monday, filming al­ready scheduled for Tahiti, and all of a sudden they’re without a male lead. Next thing I knew, everybody was in my room, insisting I had the charisma of a Jeff Anderson, whatever the hell that means. “Are you crazy?” I said. And my agent said, “Just sign the con­tract before they change their minds.” So I signed and then I went to call you.’

‘To call me? Sunday night? But Claire said you signed Sunday afternoon.’

‘Listen, Padgett, was Claire there or was I? I signed at eleven that night and I grabbed the phone so I could tell you what had happened.’

Shannon swallowed. ‘But you didn’t call me.’

‘Damned right I didn’t. I picked up the phone and realized there was a three-hour time difference between California and New York. That meant it was two in the morning for you. And I thought, hell, suppose her an­swering machine’s not on. I didn’t want to wake you, not when I knew you had to be on the set early the next morning. And then I realized what a nice wake-up call my news would make. So I called the hotel desk and asked them to wake me at four in the morning. I figured I’d call you then...’

‘Four,’ Shannon repeated. ‘Seven, my time…’

He nodded. ‘ I wanted to be your alarm clock and tell you about my contract as you opened your eyes.’

‘But you didn’t,’ she said softly.

‘The damned hotel desk never woke me. The next thing I knew it was eight o’clock my time, which meant you were already gone for the day, so I left a message on that rotten machine of yours. I felt lousy, knowing that you’d probably hear my news from somebody else first. I think I even said as much.’

Shannon drew in her breath, remembering the apol­ogetic words he’d left on her answering machine. ‘I... I didn’t hear the whole message,’ she said, picturing the plastic bits and pieces still lying in the corner of her living-room. ‘My answering machine...broke.’

‘And you never replaced it?’ She shook her head and an angry scowl twisted his face. ‘I thought you’d just disconnected it to avoid me. I started sending you tele­grams, but you ignored them.’

‘I... I didn’t get them. I’ve been staying at Claire’s since Sunday.’

Cade scowled darkly. ‘I called her office a dozen times and they wouldn’t tell me where you were or how you were or...’

‘Cade...’ Shannon put her hands lightly on his chest. ‘You mean you didn’t have this Tahiti film in mind when you signed with Tomorrows?’

He sighed in resignation. ‘Haven’t you heard a thing I said? I was so worried about Tomorrows that the only way Crawford could talk me into signing was by agreeing to a contract I could walk away from in case I felt I was making an ass of myself.’

Shannon closed her eyes. ‘A month-to-month con­tract,’ she whispered.

‘With a one-week cancellation clause,’ he said. ‘My security blanket, my agent called it. Crawford kept talking about a four-month storyline...’

‘So did Claire.’

‘I told him from day one that I might want to move on to something else if it came along. He said that was no problem. That’s the best thing about soaps, he said. No character is...’

‘Indispensable.’.

Cade nodded. ‘Of course, that changed once I’d signed. He kept trying to pressure me into signing some­thing long-term.’ His eyes darkened and his fingers spread on her shoulders, caressing the skin beneath the thin silk dress. ‘That’s the only thing I feel badly about,’ he said softly. ‘If I’d let him pick up my option, you and I could have played Johnny and Alana a little longer. But I couldn’t pass up this film, love. You under­stand that, don’t you?’

Yes, she thought, looking at him, she did. The door had opened for Cade and he had to either pass through it or watch it close in his face. That was how the theater was..

‘Yes, I understand,’ she said softly. ‘It was too good a chance to pass up.’