Luke sensed a distancing in Carrie before he left for New Hampshire in October, but he was at a loss what to do about it. The company’s hiatus would last two weeks, during which he’d learn more about the suspicious mole recently removed from his mother’s leg and try to persuade his parents to move south for the winter. He didn’t really have time to deal with relationship problems, as much as he was charmed by Carrie.
He did care for her. She’d brought a joy to his life that he’d only imagined before he met her. He loved being with her in that beautiful old house and had grown fond of her family, even dour old Estill. They’d opened their arms and their hearts to Luke during the short time he’d been in Yewville, and he’d always be grateful for that.
After arriving at his parent’s home in Garrett Falls, he called Carrie at least once a day between visits to the doctor with his mother and long rambling talks with his father. He sent roses because that was Carrie’s middle name, he plied her with big boxes of candy and even, in a quixotic mood, shipped her a giant plush peach that reminded him of Yewville’s notorious water tower. He e-mailed her a couple of times a day. She appeared grateful, and she always inquired after his parents, but she still seemed, well, distant.
It wasn’t as difficult as he’d expected to get his parents to agree to accompany him to Yewville. His mother, it turned out, was fearful of slipping on the ice again during the coming winter, and his father seemed tired and uncharacteristically unwilling to argue. The growth that had been removed from his mother’s leg was benign, but she limped when she walked and was more listless than usual.
“I’ll find you a nice house in South Carolina,” he told his mom. “And, Dad, you can take those volumes of the Harvard Classics that you’ve always intended to read and enjoy them while you’re there.”
“Hmmph,” his father said, though he looked secretly pleased. “I don’t expect you to plan my life for me.”
“Now, Howell, you be quiet,” his mother remonstrated. “It might be fun.”
“Ruth, I’m only doing it for you,” his father said, but Luke smiled to himself. He couldn’t wait for them to meet Carrie and all the rest of her family. In that big uproarious group, they might forget their troubles and start enjoying life.
ALTHOUGH THE TREES were already showing leaves of tawny gold, bright orange and persimmon when Luke left, by November the air carried a definite nip. Frost often formed overnight on the empty stalks in Carrie’s garden. Carrie began bringing Shasta home from the garage with her every night to let her sleep in the old doghouse in the side yard. Unfortunately she didn’t dare let the dog in the house, where she and Killer could pick a fight.
“I’ll eventually find you a good home,” she told Shasta over and over. Carrie toyed with the idea of keeping Shasta, letting her live in the yard. That didn’t seem fair, though, since she could never let her inside. Shasta deserved to be a real pet with her own home and a family. She deserved better.
Carrie started hanging out at the garage, even though she hadn’t opened it again and wouldn’t until the filming of Dangerous concluded later in the month. It felt uncomfortable to have so much time on her hands, and Hub agreed. He stopped in one day and found her listlessly thumbing through a parts catalog, with Shasta lying at her feet.
He bent to pet the dog, who wagged her tail enthusiastically as she always did when Hub was involved. “Hey, Carrie,” he said, easing onto a stool beside the counter. “What’s doing?”
“Same old same old,” she told him. “How about you?”
“I’m so bored, I’ve started doing a few oil changes on my own out in our old barn. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I guess you’ll bring those customers back with you when we reopen, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure. I can’t wait. There’s just so many talk shows I can watch on TV. Plus, the guys pester me to go hunting with them all the time, but I don’t like to hunt.”
“Stop by the home place and visit with me sometime. Bring the kids,” Carrie said.
“Even when you’ve got company? As in Luke Mason?”
She eyed him uneasily. “What have you heard about that?”
“Only that you spend a lot of time together.”
She blew out a long breath of air. “Who says?”
“You might as well take an ad out in the Yewville Messenger when you’re riding around town in a bright-red Ferrari with a handsome movie star,” Hub replied.
“And here I thought the Mess was only interested in the size of my cucumbers,” she said dryly.
“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but what’s going to happen when the movie people leave Yewville?” Hub asked quietly.
She was at a loss to reply, but she knew that probably everyone else in town was wondering the same thing. She turned her back so that Hub wouldn’t notice the emotions playing out on her face.
“Luke goes his way and I go mine.” It pained her to form this likely eventuality into words.
“He’d better not hurt you,” Hub said in all seriousness. “Around here we don’t take kindly to people who wound one of our own.”
She made light of this. “It’s a consensual relationship, Hub. We’re equal partners. What’s to say I’m not going to hurt him?”
“I don’t go for anyone hurting anyone. But I expect you know that. I’ll bring the kids by someday like you said, Carrie. I’ll call first to make sure it’s okay with you.”
To make sure the coast is clear, Carrie thought but didn’t say.
As if that weren’t enough to think about, Dixie’s Mustang squealed to a stop outside shortly after Hub left. Dixie was elated to find Carrie in her office.
“Carrie, guess what! Luke called me today and asked if I have a house suitable for his parents to rent for a few months. I told him about the Winder place, and he suggested that I send photos! How about that?”
Carrie remained cool. “That’s wonderful,” she told Dixie. “He mentioned that moving them here was a possibility and would be a good way for him to spend more time with them.”
“It’ll give you a way to get to know them, too.”
“That isn’t the purpose,” Carrie informed her, slamming the catalog closed. “He’s worried about their health.”
Dixie regarded her with amusement. “You can find more ways around a subject than anyone in creation.”
“And the subject is?” Carrie asked impatiently.
“You and Luke,” Dixie reminded her.
“Dixie, you already know all there is to know.”
“I’ve noticed the way he looks at you. As if you’re a tall drink of water on a long hot day.”
“That’s colorfully romantic, but don’t make anything of it.”
Dixie backed off at that. “I want to tell you about Luke and the Winder place. Any chance of getting together for dinner at my apartment some night this week?”
“Any night,” Carrie said with a notable lack of enthusiasm. The truth was that her days and nights were flat and boring without Luke. If he didn’t return until a week from today, that would be 168 hours and 10,080 minutes until she saw him, more or less. And he hadn’t said exactly when he’d be back.
“Let’s have dinner tomorrow. Joyanne can come, too, and she’ll tell you all about how Tiffany put her in touch with her agent.”
“Now, that’s electrifying news.” Carrie was happy to hear it.
“Joyanne’s real excited. She’s already choosing her wardrobe to go to Hollywood.”
“Maybe you can lend her your red silk dress,” Carrie suggested impishly.
Dixie wadded up a bit of paper and threw it at her sister on her way out the door. “I might as well, since I never have a chance to wear it. Bye, Carrie.”
Carrie smiled and waved. At least maybe one of them would gain something lasting out of this episode with the movie people.
Not that she’d expected Luke to love her, of course. But it would have been right nice.
LUKE AND HIS PARENTS arrived in Yewville several days later. As Luke turned to give his mother a hand down the stairs of the plane, his eyes sought Carrie and found her standing at the door to the airport’s small cinder-block office building. She waved enthusiastically. His eyes lit up, and he smiled and winked as a photographer purported to be from some Hollywood fan magazine snapped pictures. Carrie winked back at Luke and waved again, all but hopping up and down in her eagerness to touch him, but it was a bittersweet meeting, knowing as she did that eventually he’d be leaving for good.
She had brought a welcoming bouquet of fall flowers for Ruth and a loaf of Dixie’s pumpkin bread for Howell. Luke treated Carrie to a mild hug. Introductions went by in a flurry of excitement, the pilot shutting down the plane, the copilot running after Luke to hand him his briefcase. Ruth loved the flowers, and after she realized that Howell was at a loss over what to do with the pumpkin bread, Carrie took it back and stuffed it into her carryall for transportation to the Winder house, where a squadron of house cleaners had been rendering the place spotless for the past week.
Luke sneaked a kiss on her cheek and whispered “Tonight” in her ear as his parents climbed into the backseat of her SUV. He followed in the Ferrari while Ruth, Howell and Carrie got acquainted.
Ruth was like a little brown wren, her eyes darting around to take in everything and chirping agreeably whenever something was said to her. Howell, on the other hand, displayed a grumpiness that Carrie decided was only skin-deep. She detected a twinkle in his eyes a few times, reminding her of Luke.
Carrie explained how she’d tried to make the Masons welcome before they arrived. “My sister, Dixie, our cousin Voncille, Memaw Frances and I cooked dinner and left it in the refrigerator,” she said. “I’ll show you when we get there. I hope you’ll like the house. It’s big and comfortable and about the only place left in Yewville to rent at present.”
Ruth was truly touched that Carrie and her family had prepared a meal and kept saying so as they all trooped into the house. Luke, looking anxious, watched his parents for their reaction.
“I never expected such a nice place,” Ruth kept saying over and over as she admired the pretty curtains that Carrie herself had hung at the kitchen windows and the worn but comfortable furniture that the Winders had left. Howell was happy about the garage workshop, complete with tools, and both were pleased with the country setting of the home.
“And you’re only spitting distance away from my house,” Carrie told them. “Anytime you need anything, or if you want information about where to shop, please give me a call. Also, I’d be delighted if you’d come to church with me on Sundays. We have a wonderful preacher and a Sunday-school class for every age group.”
Although the Masons seemed disconcerted about the invitation to church, they did ask where to buy food and the location of the nearest drugstore, which Carrie was happy to supply.
“I’m sure you’re tired from your trip, so I’ll leave you be,” she said after she’d shown them the house and turned over the keys, which Dixie had allowed because she was showing another property. “I’ll come over to check on you tomorrow.”
As they left, Carrie wondered what, if anything, Luke had mentioned to Ruth and Howell about their relationship, but he was not enlightening her at the moment, presumably as intent as she was to be reunited—really reunited—after two weeks apart.
“Meet you at your house in a few minutes,” he said with a grin as they climbed into their respective cars in the driveway.
Carrie, not caring if she got stopped for speeding, drove well over the limit the short distance to the home place, where Luke braked to a stop behind her in a flurry of white gravel dust. They got out of their cars, rushed toward the middle and met in a collision of bodies that would do justice to a couple of Yewville High football jocks. Luke swept her grandly into his arms, swinging her around until she laughed and begged him to set her down.
He kissed her, pressing her close for a long moment of synchronized thudding heartbeats before holding her at arm’s length. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said, his eyes warm with pleasure at the sight of her. Simple words, but he couldn’t have expressed them more eloquently. She had the notion that they were actually in their own special movie, complete with a made-to-order backdrop of trees decked out in red and gold and orange, plus a sound track of dry leaves crackling underfoot.
“I missed you, too,” she said. “Let’s go in, dinner’s waiting.”
Hand in hand they ran up the steps and in through the unlocked door. Once inside, Luke caught her in an embrace.
“Oh, Carrie, you smell so good,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “When I’m away from you, I remember how you smell, but then when I’m with you again, I realize that I haven’t remembered at all.”
She couldn’t be within the circle of his arms without feeling a stab of desire so strong that she had to pay attention to it. “Luke,” she said as he found the zipper of her skirt. “Luke,” she said again as it puddled on the floor, but by that time he was lifting her sweater over her head and chuckling at the sight of her.
“I forgot to mention that I wasn’t wearing underwear,” she murmured demurely as he swung her into his arms.
“If you had,” he said unsteadily as he climbed the steps two at a time, “we never would have made it out the door at my parents’ house before I had my way with you.”
She smiled as he dumped her unceremoniously on the bed and proceeded to yank off his clothes, tossing them every which way until he stood before her, bronzed and hard and ready.
“Fortunately I know when to keep my mouth shut,” she said.
He leaped into bed on top of her and kissed her in a tangle of tongues and merging of lips, not to mention the advantageous juxtaposition of other body parts.
“And when to open it, too,” Luke said.
FILMING OFDangerous resumed at the boardinghouse on Palmetto Street, which had been vacant since the last surviving Pankey sister died. Mary-Lutie and Yancey Goforth had lived there the first year of their marriage, and some of the same furnishings remained. Tiffany and Carrie had been working on the delivery of her lines at Tiffany’s house on the lake for three days, and Carrie demurred when Tiffany asked her to be present on set.
However, on the morning of the filming, Tiffany phoned in a panic. “Carrie, I need you,” she said, sounding as if she’d been crying. “I can’t do this scene without you here, and Luke says I need to pull myself together, and Jules stomped off the set, and I think I’m in big trouble.” The sentence ended in a long wail.
“I’ll be there shortly,” Carrie said, tossing aside the yarn that she was winding into balls for Memaw, who intended to knit Luke a sweater for Christmas, never mind that he hadn’t said he’d be in town then. Of course, his parents were here, but that didn’t mean anything. Luke hadn’t spent the last several holiday seasons with them, and she wasn’t counting on his starting now.
She arrived at the boardinghouse to find Tiffany barricaded in a bathroom and Jules pacing the floor downstairs. Luke was wheedling Tiffany through the bathroom door but stepped aside when Carrie arrived.
“Maybe you can talk to her,” he said impatiently. “I sure can’t.”
Carrie convinced Tiffany to open the door and slipped inside. Tiffany was seated on the lid of the toilet, and Carrie perched on the edge of the big bathtub.
“How can I help?” Carrie said, all concern.
“I’m not saying these lines right,” Tiffany said.
“We practiced,” Carrie reminded her. “Over and over.”
“Jules yelled at me. I need lots of takes, and it scares me when he yells.”
Carrie adopted a reasoning tone. “Let’s you and me go over your lines, and then I’ll have a word with Jules.”
“He thinks I’m a hysterical female.”
“All right, Tiffany, let’s go. First Luke says, ‘Aren’t you coming to bed, honey?’ And you say…”
“‘Yancey, I told you, I’m not tired.’”
“Remember how we talked about pulling the vowels out of the back of your nose. Ti-arred.”
“Ti- arred.”
“That’s better. After that Yancey says, ‘I love you, Mary-Lutie. I can’t stand it when you pull away.’”
“‘I love you, too, Yancey.’”
Carrie continued to feed Yancey’s lines to Tiffany, and as they worked, Tiffany’s confidence began to return.
“Tiffany, you’ll blow Jules away,” Carrie told her.
“You think?” Tiffany asked anxiously.
“Sure. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, Carrie, almost more than anybody. Okay, I’ll compose myself while you talk to Jules,” Tiffany said, though not without a last forlorn sniff.
With some relief, Carrie told Becky, who was wringing her hands in the hall, to find the makeup guy for Tiffany and hurried off to locate Jules. He was talking with Luke downstairs.
“Tiffany is ready to resume filming,” Carrie announced.
“What was wrong?” Jules wanted to know.
“She doesn’t like to be yelled at.”
Jules ripped off a few choice phrases in a foreign language unidentifiable to Carrie, and Luke slid an arm around her in a show of silent support.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Luke said warmly as Jules stomped off upstairs. “You’re just what we needed.”
“No extra charge,” Carrie said wearily as he massaged her shoulder. “I hope I can leave now.”
“We want you on set in case Tiffany gets upset again,” he told her.
Carrie sighed. She supposed that wrapping Memaw’s yarn balls wasn’t nearly as important as getting this scene filmed. “Okay,” she said. “I hope it goes quickly.”
After Luke and Tiffany resumed their places in a bedroom where the bed was suggestively mussed and the lights were as hot as the noon sun in July, Carrie wished she hadn’t let herself be talked in to staying for this scene. She knew from reading the script that it culminated in Mary-Lutie and Luke falling into bed together and doing things that she and Luke did privately. The trouble was, they hadn’t done them for several days, and she was starting to get itchy, if that was the way to put it. She’d have made love with him several times a day if she could.
But now there were his parents to consider, and they required attention as they settled into the Winder place. Luke bought them a car and showed them around town. He went to their house for dinner and stayed late to watch TV with his father after Ruth went to bed. He did this so Howell wouldn’t be lonely, but what about Carrie? She was relegated to watching television alone, or working crossword puzzles or talking on the phone to her friends. Killer wasn’t all that much company when she was accustomed to someone who carried on a conversation.
While Carrie was reflecting on all this, Luke was getting into the bed. That brought her back to reality, for sure.
With the cameras rolling, Luke smiled enticingly at Tiffany. “Aren’t you coming to bed, honey?”
Tiffany exhibited her famous pout. “Yancey, I told you, I’m not tired.” Her accent was perfect, the intonation correct, and Carrie smiled in relief.
Tiffany slowly and provocatively untied her robe, revealing a pink nightie that Carrie recognized from her church clothes bank. Dixie had donated it over a year ago, and Carrie had folded it and put it in the box herself. And now here was Dixie’s nightgown right there on Tiffany Zill’s body while she climbed into bed with Carrie’s own boyfriend!
Carrie turned away, unwilling to watch something so disturbing. But her exit was blocked, and it was supposed to be quiet on the set, and she couldn’t leave. She faced front again, hugging her arms around herself and feeling slightly queasy.
Luke delivered the next line earnestly and as if it came straight from his heart. “I love you, Mary-Lutie. I can’t stand it when you pull away.”
“I love you, too, Yancey,” Tiffany said, walking over to sit on the bed beside him.
Luke—no, Yancey—reached for Tiffany and pulled her into his arms. They kissed, slow and sweet, and Carrie hid her face in her hands. The scene hit all too close to home. Those were the things she wanted Luke to say to her, and hearing him speak them to someone else, even though she knew he was only acting, was devastating.
As soon as the director yelled, “Cut!” Carrie fled. Pushed blindly through the gaggle of techs and wardrobe people, clattered down the stairs and outside, where she ran all the way to her SUV. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she clung to the steering wheel and rested her forehead on her hands until it resumed its normal beat.
When she was able, she drove home, where she put on her most comfortable bathrobe and climbed into bed. Before she yanked the covers up over her head, she knew what she had to do. She’d realized it before Luke left for New Hampshire. So why didn’t she go ahead and dump him?
Huh. That was easy. She wanted to be with Luke as much as possible until he had to leave. And also, possibly, because she was a wimp?
No one had ever accused her of wimping out of anything in her life, but then, love reputedly did strange things to people.
“WHAT WOULD REALLY make this place more like home is a dog,” Howell said that evening over after-dinner coffee around their kitchen table. Carrie hadn’t wanted to go to their place for dinner, but Luke had stopped by and cajoled her out of bed, saying that they lived so close, she could come home if her headache got any worse. Carrie hadn’t exactly told him she had a headache, but he’d assumed it, and since it wasn’t her time of month for cramps, she’d let it go.
Carrie looked around from the pot she was scrubbing in the sink. She had insisted that Ruth sit down because she seemed tired after cooking a huge dinner.
“A dog? Did you say dog?” Carrie said, forgetting she was supposed to have a headache. “I’ve got a wonderful dog for you, haven’t I, Luke?”
Luke leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the domestic scene, which appeared to please him. “She certainly does, Dad. A very special dog.” He winked at Carrie.
Carrie dried her hands and explained how she’d been allowing Shasta to live at the garage but hoped to find her a good home.
“Maybe her owners will show up and reclaim her,” Howell said.
“Hasn’t happened yet,” Luke contributed. “Doubt if it will.”
“She’s a pretty dog, white with black spots. She loves to go for walks and play ball,” Carrie said. Howell had recently expressed an interest in exploring the countryside on foot but had decried a lack of companions since Ruth was unable to walk distances. Shasta could accompany him; she loved romping in the woods.
“You could meet the dog, Dad,” contributed Luke. “Plus, Shasta’s a movie star. She has a cameo spot in Dangerous.”
“Okay, Carrie, I’ll drop by the garage tomorrow,” Howell declared, his eyes lighting up.
“I’ll even throw in a month’s supply of dog food,” Carrie said. “And her leash and collar, of course.”
“We’ve discussed getting a dog before, but somehow we never got around to it,” Ruth said, and Carrie’s heart went out to her. She realized from what Luke had told her and through her own observations since they’d arrived in town that the elder Masons held themselves back from participating in the full life that they could have if only they’d put the past behind them.
To Carrie, it seemed as if Ruth and Howell didn’t feel worthy of enjoying themselves, as if they somehow blamed themselves for their daughter’s death. She’d already made her mind up to draw them out of themselves and into the life of the community. It was easy to become involved in Yewville. People were friendly, welcoming, and no one knew about the tragedy they’d endured so long ago. Luke’s parents could start over again in this new place and perhaps find the pleasure in living that had eluded them for so long.
It was late when Luke took Carrie home, and they chatted about his parents’ situation on the way.
“I’ll be forever indebted to you if you can interest Mom and Dad in something outside themselves,” Luke said gratefully. “You have a way with them, and they like you.”
Carrie brushed this compliment aside. “I’ll get them involved in church. Your mother used to like to go, she said.”
Luke pursed his lips. “After the accident, she couldn’t get over how God had let Sherry die. Even though the pastor counseled both Mom and Dad, her faith was never the same. I noticed that after Sherry was killed, every time we went to church, Mom would look over at the door to Sherry’s Sunday-school room, and she’d tear up. Finally we all stopped going.”
“This church will be different. No sad memories,” Carrie said, and Luke’s hand closed over hers. He didn’t say anything, and she thought it was just as well that they weren’t, for once, talking about themselves and how eager they were to be alone. That made it easier, when he walked her to the door, to tell him she wanted to get a good night’s sleep.
“You’re dismissing me?” he said, smiling down at her in a manner that was too charming by half.
“Not exactly,” she hedged.
“Can’t I come in? For a good-night kiss?”
She offered him her cheek, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“Carrie, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just—”
“You can’t fool me. Something’s going on.”
A chill breeze whirled out of the north, stirring the dried leaves on the porch fiercely. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Are you going to make me stand out here in the cold?” he asked.
She sighed and pushed open the door. He followed her inside.
“I’ve felt all evening as if you’re shutting me out, Carrie. Does it have something to do with my parents?”
“I like your parents,” she told him truthfully.
He pulled her into his arms. “I’m ready for a little fun and games,” he said. “How about if you walk down the stairs totally naked and I ravish you on the parlor floor?”
“Luke,” she said. “I—” She bit her lip, turning her head away. After today, she was quite certain that she couldn’t make love to him as long as she still pictured him between the sheets with Tiffany Zill.
“Today,” she began, “when you and Tiffany were filming that scene—” She stopped, gathering her courage and telling her stomach to calm down, though it seemed to have no intention of cooperating.
Luke frowned and let her go. She walked across the room and regarded him from a distance, hoping she could banish the picture of him in bed with Tiffany from behind her eyelids.
“When you were in bed with Tiffany, I couldn’t watch,” she said, stumbling over the words. “You told her you loved her. It hurt me to hear it.” The picture behind her eyelids morphed into a movie, complete with gestures and Luke’s dimple. Her stomach flipped upside down and sideways.
Luke looked horrified, though he masked the expression. “Carrie, Carrie,” he said, striding across the room and looping his arms around her waist. To her dismay, she felt tears stinging the back of her throat.
“We were playing the parts of Yancey and Mary-Lutie,” he said. “It had nothing to do with real life.”
“In my head I know that, but my heart isn’t getting the message,” Carrie said. She swiped at a tear.
He rested his cheek against her hair. “That’s what’s difficult about my profession,” he said. “As an actor, I’m able to draw the line between reality and make-believe, but it’s too much to expect other people to do the same.”
“I don’t want to be on the set anymore when you or any reasonable facsimile are filming love scenes,” she said. That nude wedding-night scene was coming up, and she didn’t care if it was Luke or his body double playing the part, she didn’t want to see it.
He kissed her temple. “Okay, I’ll make sure you don’t have to be. Anything else?”
“Oh, just the slight matter of you and me,” she said, moving away from him. She was escalating this, but she couldn’t help herself; her emotions were too near the surface now to back off. She sat on the sofa, fiddled with the bracelet she wore and blinked up at him.
He sat beside her and picked up her hand. “I told you I’m crazy about you,” he said.
She steeled herself, knowing she’d come across as a clinging vine if she said what she wanted to say. Then again, she wasn’t going to strangle him like the wisteria had done to the oak tree she’d removed from the side yard last year. She just wanted to know, for heaven’s sake.
Nothing to do but plunge in, so she blurted it out. “What’s going to happen to us?” she asked before commencing to hold her breath in suspense.
He stared at her. “We have a great thing going,” he said.
“That’s what it means to you? ‘A great thing going’?”
“Well, yes. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re successful in your field—”
“Successful in my field,” she repeated, flummoxed that he would bring that up or even think it in the first place.
“You are,” he said. “Successful.”
She let out all the pent-up air and breathed again. “I’m an auto mechanic. That probably doesn’t impress much of anybody where you’re from, with all those gold stars in the sidewalk for people famous in show business, so you’re excused from saying I’m successful, Luke. But why can’t I know how you feel about me?” She’d mustered her gumption, though not all her spirit. It wasn’t encouraging that he flushed and clamped his lips together.
Okay, so she’d riled him, which was not exactly a surprise. Most men didn’t cotton to confrontation when a woman was the one initiating it.
“Don’t run yourself down, Carrie Smith. Ever.”
It sounded as if he was upset on her behalf, not because he felt called upon to defend himself. “Okay,” she said, the word almost lost in an exhalation of breath.
“I admire you for what you’ve done with Smitty’s. People respect you.”
“Uh, okay again.” She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Luke hung out with starlets and movie producers; she’d scanned an old copy of Variety he’d left lying around his house and learned that he hobnobbed with major players in a business she would never understand. But if he wanted to admire her, she’d certainly let him.
“Carrie, when we’re through filming Dangerous, I have to go back to California. There are a couple of major deals in the works, and they require my attention. I’ll be back in Yewville, though, before too much time has passed.”
She swallowed against a new spate of tears, hoping they’d miraculously dry up. Tears could do that. They could disappear, like socks in the washer. “You will?”
“I’ll want to see you. I’ll need to check on my parents. Oh, I’ll have to leave again soon after, but I should be able to manage at least a week in Yewville and maybe a couple of days more.”
“That’s it?” she asked, unimpressed.
“I envision spending a week or two out of every month here unless I’m on location.”
“A week or two out of every month,” she repeated, parrotlike.
Luke stood, paced across the room, turned to face her. Light blazed behind his eyes, a warmth that could be translated as love. Or was it? She’d seen the same emotion on his face today when he was playing the scene with Tiffany.
“I care about you, Carrie, but I can’t promise more than now,” Luke said, seemingly as frustrated as she felt. “I can’t commit to anything else.”
“We’re from different worlds,” she said, all the while thinking, Trite, Trite, Trite. “We don’t belong together. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“I hadn’t exactly thought of it that way, though I know the demands of my work don’t make much sense sometimes. What I’m telling you is that we should enjoy and take pleasure in now. It’s quite a spectacular now. Why isn’t that enough?”
Carrie remained silent for a long time, dredging her answer up from where she’d first hidden it when she’d realized she was in love with Luke Mason. “Because I deserve better,” she said, her chin jutting up a notch. Like Shasta deserved more than a doghouse in the backyard.
“Better,” he repeated.
She had the urge to go lock herself in the bathroom as her resolve burgeoned, flared and coalesced into speakable thoughts that threatened to push Luke away for the rest of her life. “It’s what I never asked for before when the men in my life zigged off on their everlasting hunting trips and golf tournaments while I was zagging at home with nothing for company but a TV and a lop-eared rabbit.”
“Why didn’t you ask for what you wanted?”
She hugged a sofa pillow to her chest. “Never considered it. Maybe I should have.”
“So I’m the one who has to answer for what these other guys did?”
“Didn’t. Most of them didn’t do squat except conjure up five-year plans that included buying the latest camouflage outfits for hunting or new sets of golf clubs, but never once did any of them mention a set of wedding rings.”
There, it was out. Since she was a little girl, she’d always expected to marry and have a family someday, and Luke’s plan of dropping in and out of her life didn’t promise anything of the sort. It relegated her to a convenience instead of elevating her to the position she’d always expected to assume in one special man’s life. Luke might very well be that special man—he was all she’d ever wanted and more—but he wasn’t offering much as far as she could tell.
A steeliness rose up inside her, a hardness springing from her core, and it didn’t recognize spectacular nows or a man who believed that dropping in and out of her life was enough. If he couldn’t figure out that she was finally asking for what she wanted from a man, he was a pure tee idiot.
“You’d better go, Luke.”
He blanched, and it was such an immediate reaction that she knew for sure he wasn’t acting now.
“Carrie, I didn’t expect—I mean, don’t you understand? I’m doing the best I can.” He held his arms out and let them fall.
For a moment she felt sorry for him, but then, why feel sorry for Luke Mason, who had his own private plane and a home in California and could afford to jet here and there, bestowing on all sorts of women the most spectacular nows of their lives?
“I’m doing the best I can, too,” she said quietly.
He stared at her over the gulf of their misunderstanding for a moment that seemed to stretch out to eternity, and then he gave an eloquent little shrug of his shoulders. He didn’t speak, only pivoted and walked out the door, then closed it gently behind him.
She listened bleakly to his footsteps as they crunched across the gravel driveway and after that watched the Ferrari as it drove away.
When the taillights disappeared, she would have drowned her misery with all those tears that she’d been holding back, but the phone rang. It was her sister.
“Hi, Carrie,” Dixie said cheerfully. “I called for a long phone visit. We filmed the Miss Liberty 500 scene at the racetrack yesterday, and a talent scout offered Joyanne a Hollywood contract!”
Joyanne’s good fortune was not something that Carrie cared to hear about now. “Dixie,” Carrie said, making an effort to remain calm. “Oh, Dixie, Luke and I just broke up!”
Dixie gasped and something clattered, like a pot lid dropping on the floor. “Oh, Carrie. You’d better tell me all about it.”
“As it turns out, Luke’s not that different from every other guy I’ve dated,” she began, and then, to the accompaniment of Dixie’s sympathetic sighs and groans, she told all. Well, almost all. Leaving out the sexy parts, of course.