Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (5 page)

"You know, that's all anyone really notices about me. I've got nice bones. Like a-a-racehorse! I've never been told that I'm sexy, or beautiful, or any of the things a woman really wants to hear. Oh dear, I'm sorry! You were only trying to be nice. I don't know why I'm reacting like this-I think it's all just nerves!"

Someone rapped twice at the door and a male voice said, "You're on, Miss Cochran!"

"Okay, she's coming. Get the lighting all set," Harris called. He looked sharply at Anne, holding her arm. "You're sure you're ready? Here, let me take that glass." His voice was brisk and completely businesslike now, but the look in his eyes was unfathomable as he went on, "Try to remember that all you have to do is react. You rehearsed this scene with Carol-there's really nothing to it. You stand there, holding onto the drapes, and all you think about is that you want to look out there to see what's happening, but you're afraid."

"Yes." Was that really her voice? It sounded disembodied. "It's like going to the dentist, isn't it? Once you sit in the chair, you know that soon it'll all be over.

Honestly, I'm okay now."

Harris's voice, as he guided her onto the set, was like a sea murmuring in her ears.

Or maybe that was the sound of the shifting, coughing audience hidden out there beyond the heavy curtain.

Anne tried to make her mind a careful blank, to remember the times she had climbed onto this same stage, playing different roles for an imaginary audience. She had always been good at make-believe, and this time was no different. She was Carol Cochran, star! Not Anne-Anne was another person she could rediscover after this was over. Forget the fact that there were real people out there and think only that she was Carol playing a girl called Toni, who had just betrayed her lover to the FBI.

Without her realizing it, Harris had eased the heavy wool robe off her shoulders, leaving her curiously light in Carol's borrowed negligee. The subdued lighting came from behind her, outlining her body.

Don't think; react. Someone had said that to her a minute ago. Now she was standing by a window that wasn't really a window, clinging to a fold in the heavy drapes that half-obscured it.

There was a sound of miniature explosions, like firecrackers going off, and a dull whooshing sound that meant the curtains had opened.

You're on, Miss Cochran!

She stood very still, her body gone rigid with fear; it looked right to the audience, because fear and tension and a sense of waiting were exactly what she was supposed to portray.

More shots and shouting voices before the door burst open and he half fell in through it, his white shirt spattered with dirt and blood; a look on his face combined shock and pain and hate.

She was forced to look at him, and he made it all become real, as if it was actually happening, the printed words she had read on the pages of Carol's script.

She stood there-Toni stood there at the window, still rigid with fear, and something else, now that he was here. He was coming toward her, and she took an involuntary backward step, one hand coming up over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

He went down on his knees, staggered to his feet again as he stumbled toward her, one hand outstretched, gasping, "Toni-damn you, why do you just stand there? Help me! You've got to-"

He almost fell against her, hands clutching spastically, ripping the negligee from her body while his voice, hoarse and pain-filled, almost screamed at her.

"Toni-Christ! They're after me, and you've got to ..." And then, just as if he'd read something in her face, his voice changed, becoming stronger, full of shock and hate.

"You! You set them on me, didn't you? Just-like you promised ... bitch! You killed me, just like you said-you-"

He was dying at her feet, and she couldn't move. Tears started to her eyes and she couldn't stop those either, or any of her reactions, like the shaking that seemed to begin in her bones, sending tremors through her body when the dim light behind her reflected off the sudden widening of his eyes, holding her own gaze snared.

Ridiculous thoughts chased themselves around in Anne's head, as she looked down at him, almost mesmerized. He didn't blow his lines after all, she thought. Carol will be mad. So it was all for nothing. And what will he do now, when he finds out ... ?

She didn't realize the curtain had come down until she heard the applause-starting with a smattering and rising to a roar. Escape-but she couldn't escape. He'd trapped her ankle with his fingers, digging painfully into her flesh. "No curtain calls for you, baby." His voice was soft, angry. "Just a lot of explaining to do."

Someone had tossed her robe from the wings, and Webb Carnahan, his face dark and menacing, had come easily to his feet, catching it and pulling it roughly about her shaking shoulders as he demanded, "Is this one of Caro's pranks? But you're going to tell me all about it, aren't you?"

There were people swarming all around them now, moving bits of scenery, and he lifted her off her feet and into the strong grip of his arms. Sheer instinct made Anne turn her face against his shoulder, and she heard his cynical laugh.

"Smart move, baby. We don't want anyone to know you're not Carol, do we?"

Not too many steps to Carol's dressing room. Anne winced when he kicked the door shut behind them, setting her none too gently onto her feet.

But his voice was deceptively quiet. "Now, suppose you explain what the hell this is all about?"

Where was Harris? Nobody here to rescue her from the consequence of her own folly. But she was a big girl now, wasn't she?

Defiantly Anne moved back and away from him, ripping the wig off her head as she did, and shaking her own hair loose. She observed with pleasure the look of amazement on his face as he recognized her.

"I suppose I should apologize. We-Carol and I, thought .. ." There was a rapping at the door, and Harris Phelps's voice, sounding sharply concerned, said "Anne? Are you all right?" With a swift, angry motion, Webb strode to the door and locked it, the sound in the sudden silence making Anne flinch. Webb's voice mimicked Harris's.

"Why don't you tell the man you're just fine and we have some talking to do?"

"I'm fine, Harris. Honestly," Anne replied.

He wouldn't want a scene, any more than she did. Or Carol. And Webb knew that, of course. He had folded his arms, and was staring at her with a quizzical smile. "You sure follow direction well, Annie. I can see Carol's touch behind the scenes. Well-who wins the bet?"

She didn't want to face his eyes any longer, and turned away from him, seating herself in front of the mirror, ready to cream off the heavy makeup. "You do, of course. And now that you know all the answers, there's nothing more to talk about, is there? This was Carol's idea of a trick-a joke. And I went along with it. I'm sorry if it made you mad."

Why did he have to come and stand so close behind her? So close that she could feel the angry warmth of his body ... ? His fingers closed over her arms, lifting her up and turning her around, almost in the same motion. "Are you really sorry, Annie?

Show me. Or did Caro forget to warn you about the kind of unscrupulous bastard I am?"

Her startled, involuntary protest was strangled in her throat as her head was bent back by the hard pressure of his mouth on hers.

Anne felt her mind give way as her body took over. She had never known what desire was, but she felt it now, like a hard, grasping knot in her belly-a pain that had to be assuaged. And as her senses took over, her arms went around his neck; instead of trying to pull away she pressed closer to him, wanting ... needing ...

There was a couch on one side of the dressing room, and he carried her there, stripping off her robe before he stripped off his own clothing.

Unshaded lights blazed an outline of the mirror, and the whole world was outside the door, but nothing seemed to matter at this moment, this time.

Desire was a snake, gnawing at her vitals, slowly uncoiling inside her and filling her with sensations she hadn't known existed. All her reactions were purely instinctive, completely primitive. And if his mouth hadn't covered hers she would have screamed aloud when the moment of cloudburst came, the only reality that of his body over hers, filling her, taking her past naked desire to fulfillment, all without wasted words.

There was a wetness on her face. She didn't know it was from tears until Webb put his hand up and wiped them away gently with his fingers. She thought his fingers shook, but she couldn't be certain; her own body was shaken by tremors she couldn't control.

Anne kept her eyes closed-against the glaring lights, against any form of reality that might take her back to what she had been before-before this.

"Jesus Christ, Annie!" Webb's voice was an oddly harsh, forced-out whisper-she could still feel that fast cadence of his breathing against her, but he hadn't moved, and neither had she since that final explosion of physical sensation. All her senses gathered up into one tight, aching knot until it had become a starburst ... No bells going off, but who needed bells?

"Did I hurt you, baby?" Gentler now, his fingers still touching her face, smoothing back strands of damp hair. She shook her head no, wondering if she was ever going to be the same again-if, when she opened her eyes and looked at him, the way he looked at her would be different. When he moved as if to draw away from her, Anne realized suddenly that she was still clutching him tight, her arms locked around his body, her fingers like nerve ends that could feel every slight movement of his muscles rippling under the smooth, sweat-slippery flesh of his back.

She did open her eyes then, and he was staring down at her-not smiling with self-satisfaction as she'd half-dreaded, not frowning with the impatience of sated passion either. His look seemed to concentrate on her intently, as if he too didn't quite believe what had happened between them just now.

"Annie ..."

Then the telephone, sitting squat and malevolent on the floor, began to ring insistently. She'd never know what he had been about to say or how she might have answered him.

Br-rr... Br-rr ...

Webb swore violently under his breath as her arms fell limply from around him.

At least she could watch him ... Anne had never thought a picture of a male nude particularly entrancing, but now she found that the sight of Webb's naked body, the self-assured grace with which he moved, striding to snatch up the telephone, carried its own excitement. She had never been so acutely aware of a man's body, and its beauty, its "fearful symmetry," as she was now. And he did fit those lines from Blake's poem-"Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night .. ,"

She felt as if she was on some kind of a high-not satiated but strangely content, so that even the interruption of the telephone couldn't bother her. Not yet ...

Webb had scooped up the phone, snatching off the receiver with an angry gesture.

"Yeah?" And now he sounded mad, his voice turning hard. "Yeah, Harris. Sure, Anne's here and she's okay ... That was real thoughtful of you ... Listen, why don't you talk to her?"

He was thrusting the phone at her, forcing her to fight the lethargy in her limbs in order to sit up and take it.

"Anne?" Harris's voice sounded worried. "Listen, I didn't mean to desert you, love, but that girl Tanya had been drinking, and she was working herself up into an extremely unpleasant mood ... rather than have her banging at the door and creating a scene, I thought it might be best to whisk her away. But I'm concerned about you. Are you sure you're okay?" He seemed to drop his voice slightly. "I know how nasty Webb can get when he's angry, and if I'd thought ..."

Anne tried to keep the breathlessness out of her voice as she said carefully, "Of course I'm all right. I mean-we did have quite an argument"-involuntarily her eyes went to Webb, who was calmly pouring Carol's cognac into two glasses, giving her a silent, mocking toast with one when he caught her glance-"but everything's just fine now. I'm sorry-"

"You don't have to apologize, Anne! Listen, I thought I'd call before I came down to get you-you are going to show up at Carol's party, aren't you? She's expecting you ..

."

"Carol's party?" Oh God, she hoped Harris wouldn't think she sounded as bemused as she felt, with Webb's eyes, narrowing wickedly, traveling all over her body. Some kind of sanity came back to her, and she clutched at the telephone as if it was a lifeline. "Oh-oh yes! It'll just take me a few minutes longer to-to finish taking all my makeup off and change-"

She felt the receiver taken firmly from her, exchanged for a glass she could hardly hold with her shaking fingers.

"Listen, Harris," Webb said, "you tell Care-baby that she owes me for the little trick she played on me tonight. And you don't have to come charging down here to rescue Annie-I'll bring her back in one piece. We've decided to walk back for the exercise, especially since it's such a nice clear night."

WHERE WAS ALL HER DETERMINATION to make something of her life to satisfy herself-the bitter courage that had brought her this far along the path to freedom?

Anne paused at the open door to Carol's suite, hesitating-still tom between the ridiculous, impossible urge to turn and run from the loud music and the heat and the people in there, to run back to Webb, and the need to assert her independence of him by walking forward instead.

Harris Phelps must have been watching for her. He came forward and took her arm, his pale gray eyes sharp with concern. "Anne! I'd really begun to worry, and so has Carol. It's been over an hour ..."

"I really am sorry, Harris!" She hoped her voice sounded as insouciant as she tried to make her shrug. "But we walked, and it was uphill most of the way."

"Where's Webb?"

"Oh ... he decided to make an early night of it, I guess." Had she said it lightly enough? She forced a smile for Harris, trying to shut out the image of Webb's dark, angry face-the sound of the door to his room slamming shut.

How had they begun to quarrel? Had it been her own urge for survival that made her want to negate the powerful pull he exerted over her senses? The feeling of not belonging to herself as soon as he touched her had been frightening. Wasn't that what she had been trying to escape? And then, when he had left her alone to cream off her stage makeup and get dressed, there had come the nagging memory of Harris's warning words ... Webb's own obvious familiarity with the things in Carol's dressing room, with Carol herself. And Tanya, who had been so upset. What about her?