Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (2 page)

Craig had wanted to be her lover. But he'd also wanted to keep her dependent on him. Maybe someday, sometime, the bells would ring for her. Craig just hadn't been the right person, and that was why she had left him, why she was here in Deepwood, in her father's house, waiting for her father so she could tell him she had left Craig and was planning on a divorce before she left for Europe. She had her mother's money from the trust her grandfather had left, which would be more than adequate.

Freedom! Funny that she should be waiting here- that in order to see her father and tell him what she was going to do, she'd had to call his office and make an appointment.

The impersonal male voice at the other end of the telephone had sounded faintly reproachful that she should interrupt her father's busy schedule with a request for his time. But in the end, after she'd been stubbornly insistent, she'd been told to wait-he'd be home by the end of the week. The voice had been remote and impersonal, like her father himself on the few occasions when they had met ...

Well, she didn't really care what he might say; she was only here to tell him, that was all. Face him, tell him, and that would really set her free.

Maybe it was the silence after the howling storm that finally lulled her into sleep.

When Anne woke up, her body uncomfortably cramped in the wing chair she'd been curled up in, the sun was shining again, reflecting off the snow that lay piled up in great drifts of silver-whiteness. After the howling wind last night, the air was still; the leafless branches of the trees seemed etched against the rich blue sky. Everything outside seemed sparklingly pristine, all new and fresh, while her room was still filled with the faintly smoky smell of last night's dead fire. It seemed suddenly important that she be outdoors, smelling the freshly laundered air and letting the cold whip color into her face.

Everything in her father's house was efficiently ordered-the staff directed by old Mrs.

Preakness, and even a private generator in case of a power failure. Her room had stayed comfortably warm, and there was plenty of hot water when she turned on the shower in the bathroom. The towels, hanging on warming rails, were soft against her skin.

Anne showered quickly, then pulled on one of her oldest pairs of slacks, a baggy, bulky sweater, and a ski jacket. No makeup-Craig wasn't around to protest-and her long hair, baby-fine and straight, needed only a comb run through it and a scarf to cover her ears from the cold.

Anne glanced at her reflection in the mirror for just an instant, as she thrust her hands into fur-lined gloves. Pale face; too little sun. Dark blue eyes with darker smudges underneath them. Silver-blonde hair worn straight and long. She grimaced at herself, wrinkling her nose. There was no one to care, or to protest. Craig had wanted her to look like a fashionplate-hair, makeup, dress, just so at all times. It was good to be her natural self.

Outside, a slight wind had sprung up. Anne squinted against the brilliant sun reflecting off snowbanks, and hesitated for a moment, wishing she had remembered to wear sunglasses. Then she shrugged, breathing the clean freshness of the air and wanting only to go beyond the big, electrically operated gates that had always made Deepwood seem more like a prison than a home.

She felt her heart lift when she heard the gates shut again behind her. God, it felt good to be free! And what was it she kept reading on posters? "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Somehow, with last night and all the retrospection behind her, she felt that way.

Anne started to walk downhill-nowhere special to go, just feeling like walking for as long as she wanted to. She'd always been driven before; this time was different, almost symbolic of her new independence. Her legs carried her with long strides, muscles stretched with unaccustomed freedom.

The snowplows hadn't had time to get up here yet, but before she knew it she had reached the outskirts of town, moving automatically onto the cracked and uneven sidewalk, paralleling a low stone wall.

She noticed the poster, slapped carelessly against the stone so that one corner had come loose and flapped in the rising breeze. And would have walked past, not caring, not noticing, if the name, in big red letters, hadn't caught her eye.

Miss Carol Cochran, appearing in the first pre-Broadway try-out of-Anne, suddenly curious, had to smooth the end of the poster down and hold it to read the rest.

Bad Blood was the name of the play, and now Anne vaguely recalled reading something about it in a magazine in Dr. Haldane's waiting room. It was always news when Carol accepted a role in a new play, and this one had been written by one of the theater's most promising young writers and was already slated to be made into a movie.

Most of the other names that followed Carol's seemed familiar. One, in letters almost as big as Carol's: Webb Carnahan. She'd heard of him too, she was sure of it. But it was seeing Carol's name that stopped Anne, bringing a sense of nostalgia.

School. The one before the Swiss finishing school. Boston, of all places, and everything so dull and proper and correct until Carol had arrived, turning everything upside down with her unsubdued, flaming beauty, her terrible grammar, and her uncensored comments on just about everything.

Perhaps the real reason they had become friends was because they were such opposites. Anne had been the wide-eyed listener, and Carol the doer. It was Anne who covered up on the nights that Carol sneaked out, when she needed "a night on the town." Carol had hrought adventure into her life. And although Carol had lasted only a year at school, Anne had never been able to forget her.

"I won't promise to write, sweetie, because-hell, I never write letters anyhow, you know that! But one day, when I'm famous and rich, we'll look each other up and compare notes. Talk about old times ..."

Anne still remembered the way Carol had looked that day, sitting on her suitcases on the steps while she waited for her stepfather to pick her up. Her eyes squinted against the sun with determination; her smile was wide and flashing. They'd be leaving for Europe the next day. Carol had said. "Europe! Will you think of that? For a high-class call girl, my mom really did good, didn't she?" And then she'd laughed, seeing Anne's face. "Shit, baby! Haven't I taught you to call the facts of life by name?

And me, I'm going to do even better."

Since then, Carol had gone on to become rich and famous, just as she had promised. But Anne had never looked her up. Craig wouldn't have approved of Carol, with her marriages and her flamboyant antics that always made the front pages. And she had been too busy fighting for her self's survival.

But now, today-it didn't really matter at all what Craig might or might not approve of, did it?

They'd probably be rehearsing right now in the old theater in the middle of town. She could slip in through the side door and watch Carol. It would be fun to see her again-to watch a Broadway play in rehearsal.

Hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket, Anne started downhill again, and now she was almost running.

THE SIDE DOOR 'to the theater had never been locked, for as far back as Anne could remember. She didn't think it even had a lock. As a child, she had often wandered into the theater through this very door, walking softly down musty, shadowed aisles, clambering up onto the stage to pretend she was a star, giving her best performance. With eyes half-closed, she had made the theater come alive-chandeliers blazing with light, the worn velvet of the heavy curtains taking on a bright new opulence.

She hadn't been down here for years-but now the wrought-iron doorknob turned rustily and the door opened as it had before, so many times, allowing her to slip quickly inside. Fortunately, there was some kind of a gun battle in progress on the stage-the staccato sound of shots drowning out the squeaking of ancient hinges as Anne pushed the door shut behind her. She stood there uncertainly for a few moments until her eyes adjusted to the dim interior.

Forcing herself into a sense of daring, Anne walked softly along the carpeted length of the theater and slid unobtrusively into a seat in the back row. No one seemed to have noticed-there were people in scattered, tiny groups, sitting ahead of her in the front rows.

The action onstage captured her attention almost immediately. It didn't take her long to realize that it was one man, playing an obvious gangster type, white suit and all, who was making the whole scene come alive. He was supposed to have just killed someone, she surmised, and was arguing with an older man and a woman as he thrust a gun back into his shoulder holster. He projected an angry, animal emotion that made only him real and the other two actors just background shadows.

Involuntarly, Anne found herself catching her breath, unable to take her eyes off him as the scene progressed. He moved like a jungle animal-she was reminded of a black panther, darkly beautiful to watch, but just as deadly and dangerous.

I'm being silly! Anne tried to tell herself. He's just an actor, like all the others. She suddenly remembered seeing him in a TV movie some time ago. He'd played a young medical student, hooked on drugs, and she'd been caught by his intensity, thinking that he was really good; but seeing him today, in person, he impressed her even more. Not just impressed her-that was too shallow a word! He fascinated her, forcing her to keep watching him, not wanting to miss any little gesture or motion, like the way he would occasionally rake his fingers through his shaggy dark hair, or let the comers of his mouth lift in a menacing-sarcastic smile.

Caught up, Anne forgot why she had come here in the first place. She hadn't even thought to glance around the darkened theater for Carol until the lights came back on abruptly, shaking her out of her trance.

"Webb's damn good when he wants to be, isn't he?" The man's voice came from behind her, and then, as Anne involuntarily turned to look, his voice changed. "Hey-who are you? Don't you know you're not supposed to be here during dress rehearsal?" He seemed to 100m over her, a big, burly man in a checkered wool jacket. "How in hell did you get in here any-how? I could have sworn I locked those blasted doors!"

Her first reaction was to turn and run. Oh, God! Now every-one must be watching her! Anne heard her own stumbling words as she stood up quickly.

"I-I'm sorry-I didn't realize-the side door is never locked, you see, and I just wandered in when I saw the poster ..."

She blundered out into the aisle, and suddenly felt a strong hand close over her arm.

"You're not going to let Mike scare you off, are you?" said a man's voice. "He shouts a lot, but he doesn't bite. It's okay, Mike, this little gal is a friend of mine."

Stopped short in her headlong flight, Anne looked up unwillingly, and amber-gold eyes raked over her, making her want to pull away from his possessive grip.

"Hi, baby. Thought you'd never get here." His voice was warm, just as if he had been expecting her after all. The man he'd called Mike seemed to melt somewhere away into the background, grumbling sourly in an undertone.

Webb Carnahan. Anne remembered his name, and she felt that she might never forget his face as he smiled down at her; the smile seeming to lighten his otherwise somber face, etching lines at the corners of his eyes.

"Well, now. Seems like I caught myself a wide-eyed country gal." His voice, deliberately soft and drawling, rasped across her nerve ends. "What's your name, country gal?"

He might have rescued her, but he was making fun of her now.

"Anne. And I'm not .. ."

He would be, of course, the kind of man who ignored what he didn't choose to hear.

"Annie, huh? It suits you. Annie Oakley!" He had not let go of her arm, in spite of her efforts to tug it away. And now, as Anne felt her face flush with embarrassment, she heard him laugh softly.

"My name is Anne Hyatt, and please-let me go! He-that man was right, and I shouldn't have come in here at all. It was good of you to rescue me, but I .. ."

She wished she had the presence of mind not to stutter and stumble over her words.

But everyone was watching them now, and she felt isolated in the spotlight of their curious looks.

His eyes squinted down into hers, making her feel mesmerized in spite of herself.

"Who said anything about rescuing?" He laughed softly, just as if he felt the sudden racing of her pulse under the hard, determined grip of his fingers. "I'm capturing you, little scared

Orphan Annie! You were a bad girl, sneaking in through that side door to watch us, just like Mike said. And you're like the fresh air outside. Just what I need. Come sit with me and watch the next scene, huh?" His smile curved wickedly, and the curiously helpless feeling that had come over her ever since he put his hand on her persisted-making his hand on her arm stronger than her will.

Front row center, and if he could ignore the curious glances and the whispers, then so could she.

He was the type of man who had always made her feel uneasy. Far too sure of himself and his easy power over women. Now she was painfully aware of him, feeling the casual brush of his arm against hers, not able to see beyond his eyes, which close up were almost gold, with strange dark flecks in them. Eyes that coolly assessed her even while his mouth still wore that slightly mocking smile.

"Hey, settle down. No one's going to bother you now. And it's warm in here, so why don't you take off that silly scarf? Here-hold still . . ."

With a casual air of ownership he leaned toward her, long fingers untying the knot and slipping the scarf from her head; tossing it across her lap before he lifted a thick strand of her hair. "Comsilk hair-you ought to be a shampoo girl. You live here, Annie?"

Studying her through narrowed eyes, Webb Carnahan caught the mixed emotions of her face. How old was she? Seventeen? Eighteen? Hard to tell, with her scrubbed, un-made-up face; the only color in her cheeks was put there by cold and embarrassment. Funny that less than an hour ago, he had been standing in the snow outside the same side door she'd crept in by-arguing with Tanya. And when Tanya had flounced back inside, slamming the door shut behind her, he'd looked back up the hill and seen a girl running down it, silver-blonde hair flying. She had the grace and slimness of a skier, even when she held her arms out unself-consciously to keep her balance. Symbol of openness and freedom. Girl-child out for a run in the first snow. With a feeling of regret, he'd returned to the musty, warm interior of the theater, Mike's grumbling, and Tanya's sullen glances. Annie. He'd recognized her at once from the silver swing of her hair, the dark blue of her jacket that almost matched her eyes. He noticed the slight swell of her breasts and the clean purity of her profile, and it amused him to pretend he'd invited her to watch their rehearsal. It had also been in his mind to teach Tanya a lesson. If there was one thing he couldn't take, it was a woman who acted possessive and started to make demands, just because he'd bedded her once or twice. Tanya was what the French would call un type, and he'd met her type all over the world-a sexy, well-endowed woman, only too aware of her attractiveness and sexuality. But now he found himself unwillingly intrigued by this girl-woman at his side. "Country gal," he'd teased her-but was she, in spite of her air of nervous naivete and an outfit she'd obviously worn more for warmth than with an eye for fashion? Funny to find her here, in a town of old people. He'd joined the other members of the cast in grumbling when Harris Phelps, who was producing Bad Blood, had picked this town of all towns for their tryouts. Thoughts flashed across the surface of his mind while he