Hot Set, page 16
I pinch a pearl-colored ribbon between my fingers. “You going on location gives us a chance for perspective.”
He moves incredibly fast for a hulk. “I’ve got all the perspective I need.” Jack traps me in his arms. “We’ve got my home in Sneem as an oasis.”
“It’s reckless to believe that’s safe. Eventually, someone will show up with a camera.” I squeeze his arm. “Niks didn’t miss any of the looks you gave me today, and what about Moose?” I push against his chest so there’s enough distance to look him in the eye. “He’s not stupid.”
Jack paws the ground with his foot. “Moose knows you’re with me.”
“You told him?”
He nods. “It’s the only way he’d let me steal you away on Streaker.”
“Oh my God. He’ll talk to Bobby, and all hell will break loose.”
Jack holds my shoulders. “He won’t say a word. Trust me.”
Thoughts crash through my head like a rockslide. Who knows? Who doesn’t know? Who can we trust? I can’t think. I’ve been here before. I need to be alone and sort this out in my head. With Jack, it’ll be Treat all over again. I’ll be adored and not loved, because Jack can’t love me. Not out loud. Every kiss will be a risk. Our time together taboo. I won’t survive because every moment with him brings us closer. I refuse to sublimate something so precious to the spaces between words. If we can’t put a public face on the way we feel about one another, it will wither.
“I’ve got to go.” I hold up a hand to stop him when he tries to follow me. “Take Streaker back.”
“Don’t pull away from me, Gilly. I’m sorry I told Moose. I won’t open my mouth to anyone else.”
“It’s not about Moose. I’m messed up, Jack. Confused. Scared. Please. I just need to…” Words catch in my throat and all I can do is point toward the studio in the distance.
Despite my warning to stay back, he takes both my hands in his. “Please don’t give us a beginning and then take it away from me.”
I drop my head against his chest. “You’re wonderful.” I meet his eyes. “How can I endure not shouting to the skies that I’ve found someone who makes me see colors in the world I didn’t know existed?”
Those arms of pure muscle wrap around me. “Then let’s shout it. Bugger the scenario Meg and her bosses at True Time want to strap on my back. We won’t hide our relationship, and damn the fallout.”
His words set my insides aflame. This lovely person is willing to tell the world he’s mine. That means more to me than a thousand kisses.
I draw him down until our lips barely touch. “You know we can’t do that.” He slumps against me. “Think of what this looks like to them. At best, mutual infatuation. At worst, me being starstruck and you taking advantage.”
He tenses. “We’ll set them straight.”
I shake my head. “No, we won’t. Meg will go ballistic, and she’d have every right to.” My face heats. “If I wreck your perfectly planned image, Bobby could regret he took a risk on me.”
At the mention of Bobby’s name, Jack’s eyes narrow and darken. He’s jealous. Well, there’s another layer of crap to coat this whole awful situation.
“Jack, you said it yourself that first day in the stable. The Chieftain’s Son is what you’ve been working for. You can’t jeopardize it. We’d have no choice but to steal time together.” His faces coils, objections ready to spring, but I touch his lips with my fingertip. “The stress, the pressure of lying, will eventually ruin this.” I run my hands up his chest. “Please don’t fight me. I know what I’m talking about. We can still step back before sweet turns sour.”
Laying one hand on his chest, I stare up at him, waiting for him to agree. He closes his eyes for a long time. When he opens them, dull resignation clouds their brightness.
“If this is what you want.”
I gently grab two fistfuls of his shining hair and pull his face to mine. “Never think it’s what I want. It’s what’s has to be.” I kiss him quickly before I turn my back and make my way down the slope.
I am surprised he doesn’t follow. He’s all about getting what he wants, but it doesn’t matter if I’m what he wants. This show is the threshold to his future. Despite his proclamation to tell the world about us, he can’t. Every step rips me apart more than the last. Did I lose my mind to believe Jack O’Leary dropped from the sky to possibly be the love of my life?
I kick a rock that proves to be bigger than I thought and stub my toe through Maureen’s shoe. Toe, heart, mind…everything hurts. I glance back at the hill, but the angle prevents me from being able to see if Jack’s still there.
I take a stuttering breath. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever known before, with his love of books, family, and even golf. He could have been the creative partner I’ve always yearned for. The few facets and nuances I’ve learned about him only make me want to discover more, but the price is too high. The demands of being Donal Cam, the Chieftain’s Son, are inhuman. Not just the professional aspect, but Meg will parade him around until she’s built a stack of swooning females that reaches the clouds.
I can’t stand the thought of Jack being less to me than he has already become. I have to do more than take a step back to prevent these golden memories from tarnishing. I have to leave him.
Navigating the rocky caps that seem to grow from the land gets trickier as I pick my way down toward the front doors of The Clan. I’ll go to my office and call Patrick to take me to Waterville. I need tea and bed.
A week without Jack will allow me to get my head on straight. It’s better to end on a high note, before we’re discovered and suffer God knows what kind of fallout. God may not know, but I do. It’ll be my head on the platter. My new life wiped away before it has a chance to begin.
I reach down the front of my sweater for the lanyard that holds my key fob to get into the studio. It comes out in one long cord, the buckle undone.
“Are you kidding me?”
There’s no mystery how it came unfastened. I’m forced to retrace every hard-earned step. I trudge across rocky ground and back up the slope, grateful angry-looking clouds keep their distance while the moon brightens the night.
The figure next to the faerie tree stops me. He’s a vision as grand as any brushstroke by a master. Long bright hair dances in the breeze, shining like moon glow. The body is all warrior, Celtic royalty, untouchable by any, save a god. It’s the sadness, the pain in his voice that drives a blade through my heart.
He faces the faerie tree, oblivious he’s no longer alone. Streaker doesn’t give me away as she munches on a patch of grass. A strip of golden fabric catches the light as Jack raises it to a branch. My heart nearly bursts when I see it’s threaded through my key fob. As solemnly as if he’s performing a ritual, Jack ties my fob to the hawthorn tree. He touches it with one finger.
“God, help me, this woman has gone straight to my heart. I know our timing is damned. I respect my duty to the show. It’s not fair of me to expect Gilly to put her dreams on the line just because the wish in my soul is to be with her.”
Jack gives the tree a shake. “We’ve only met the morning once in each other’s arms, but it’s single moments that change a person’s life forever. And, oh God, mine is changed.”
He drops his head. When he speaks again, his voice is strained and so full of sorrow it takes crazy self-control not to run into his arms and comfort him.
“Why did you bring her now when it can’t be? What can I do not to lose her?” He raises his eyes to the moon. “Just tell me, and I’ll do it.”
Jack’s sincerity, his longing, drives cracks through my resolve. Every word he speaks finds an echo in my heart. He’s not blowing past our duty to the show or what being together might cost us. Even though he understands why we shouldn’t be, he still doesn’t want to lose me. My chest aches from holding in breath. I release it in a gust and press a hand to my heart.
Perspective I planned to find while Jack was away hits me with blunt force, and tears splatter down my cheeks. I do want a life waking up next to him in the morning. Yes, the show and our careers matter, but Jack matters more. He’s right. The challenge of being together is ours to solve, together. Damn Treat and his emotional wrecking ball for making me believe running is the right choice. Happiness is the right choice. Jack is the right choice.
I move so lightly up the hill, it’s as if I’m floating. Call it faerie wishes or fate that brought me back up this hill, it doesn’t matter. My decision is made. Not vetted, over analyzed, or dissected, simply made. I wrap my arms around Jack from behind and lay my head against his fortress of a back. He doesn’t speak. His heartbeats reverberate through his body into mine. Neither of us moves. We become part of night’s stillness.
If I leave Jack now, he will forever be a beautiful place I lingered in for a moment, the beginning of potential love never to be visited again. Here on the hilltop, I return to paradise. If I stay, there is no going back to a life free of secrets. This time, I’m not being forced into a secret alone. We will be the secret together.
I breathe out a single phrase. “Ten and we’ll own this.”
With painstaking slowness, Jack swivels within my arms as if he’s afraid any rapid movement will send me running. He grasps my hands and traps them against his chest. “Swear to me you aren’t faerie magic come to break my heart.” The words are barely out of his mouth when thunder rolls over the line of nearby hills. His eyes dart toward the sound and then back to me.
“I swear.”
“Last night, I dreamed I was pulled underwater. My arms and legs were bound so I couldn’t swim.” The breath he takes is powerful enough to push against me. “Looking up, I saw you above the water.” He stretches a strand of my hair. “Your hair shone like rubies. You called to me, but I fell farther away.” He leans in so our foreheads touch. “I couldn’t bear the agony of not touching you. I welcomed the drowning, but it didn’t come. Only the falling.” His grip tightens. “You walking down that hill away from me was that dream come to be.”
Bringing our joined hands to my lips, I whisper against his skin. “I’ll play in your tournament, and we’ll try to figure out this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
He adds a kiss on top of mine and whispers. “Mo chroí.”
I press against him. “You said that before. What does it mean?”
The moon’s brightness reflects off tears welling in Jack’s eyes. He truly looks like a being not quite of this earth. “My heart.”
I lay a hand over his heart, feeling its strong beat under my touch. “Mo chroí.”
Icy wind slices across the hilltop, and Jack cocoons us inside his cloak. We hold tight to one another as rain begins to fall.
Chapter
Seventeen
Paranoia is an effective motivator. I skitter around the writer’s room like a chipmunk on stimulants, doing my damnedest to anticipate everyone’s needs. Despite Jack’s assurances that Moose is trustworthy, my eyes flick toward the door with every movement, expecting the stable master to barge in and expose me.
“For God sakes, Gillian,” says Maureen, throwing a pencil at me, “if you don’t stop spinning around the room, I’m going to need Dramamine.”
I stoop to pick up the pencil. “Sorry. Can I get you some coffee?”
She throws her arms wide to block me. “Step away from the coffeemaker.” Maureen kicks out a chair and nods to it. “Sit. Bobby forbade us from asking you to fetch coffee.
I roll the pencil back to her. “I go a little crazy when I don’t have something to do.”
A script comes sailing through the air and lands with a smack on the table in front of me. “Let’s read. I need to hear it.” Maureen turns her chair backwards to straddle it. “You’re Donal Cam.”
As I read Jack’s lines, an ache for him tolls inside me like a bell. He’s been gone for three days on night shoots up in Northern Ireland. The vampire schedule he keeps is in direct opposition to my days here at The Clan, so we’ve only texted. I erase them immediately, certain I’ll do something idiotic like leave my phone out on the big table in the writer’s room for everyone to see Jack’s messages. I added another layer of security by changing his contact name to Cheese and Onion Pie.
“Nice accent,” says Maureen. “You’ve nailed Jack’s speech pattern.”
Heat rolls across my face as I focus on the words you’ve nailed Jack. “It’s pretty distinct.”
Maureen laughs. “It’s just plain pretty, like the rest of him. Damn fine casting.”
“Was the Donal Cam in your head from the books anything like Jack?”
Maureen straightens her arms and arches back as if she’s in the throes of the best sex ever. “So-oh-oh-oh much better.” She snaps to attention. “And if you ever tell him I said that, I will have to kill you.”
Even though Maureen is clowning around, I sense she’s as smitten with Jack as every other female on the planet aged fourteen to four hundred. The pulsing waves of lust crashing over Jack from every direction knock my spine out of alignment. If only I had the freedom to snarl “Stay away from my man” to the feminine collective.
Jack’s ringtone chimes from the pocket of my jeans. “Excuse me, Maureen. I’m expecting a call from L.A.” I quickly do the math in my head to make sure the time differential makes sense. Check.
She waves me off.
I try to be cool as I answer Cheese and Onion Pie on the way into my office niche. To my horror, I accidentally hit speaker for a split second before I tap it back off. Thank goodness I have impeccable reflexes. Turning my back to the writer’s room, I cradle the phone against my ear.
“Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.”
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Shouldn’t you be in my bed for number ten?”
The need I feel for Jack drops from my heart to lower regions. I speak as quietly as I can without looking suspicious. “I’m not alone, Mom.” Benj and Benny emerge from their office to confer loudly with Maureen over some point of historical accuracy. “My not alone just tripled.”
“I’m near to dying for you sitting in this wild and brilliant place.”
“Where are you?”
“Carrick-a-Rede Island. Birds are going mad in the sky while the sea throws a fit down below me.”
“Pictures please.”
“Naw. I’m going to bring you here. I want to carry you across the rope bridge, lie you back in the grasses, and kiss you ‘til you cry for mercy.”
Benj pokes his head into my cave. “Gillian, we need a referee with a viable I.Q.”
“Be right there.”
Jack’s voice is low and throaty. “You’re leaving me alone with the wind and the sea?”
“And the birds.”
He groans in my ear. “Truth is, I’d like to drink in a little more peace, but I’m on my way to a radio interview in Belfast.”
“With Niks?” He doesn’t answer. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair. I’ll stop being a pain in the ass about her.”
I hear him release the breath he’d been holding. “Fair enough. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Wait, don’t go. I really am sorry.” He’s still on the line. “Tell me more about the interview.”
A breathy inhale precedes a few more beats of silence. “I’m to answer for our shoot of episode 101 up here.”
“Answer for what?”
“We might have started a bitty fire filming the opening battle sequence. Bobby had to do class A persuading and a fair amount of replanting before we got the go to use this location again.”
Sweet relief sweeps over me, hearing Jack’s more casual tone. Why did I have to go to the petty place so quickly with Niks and the interview? Jack doesn’t deserve that.
“I miss you, Cheese and Onion Pie.” My reward is a quick chuckle.
“It’s the same for me.” Someone calls for him. I’m ashamed of myself when I revel in the fact it’s a male’s voice. “I’m off for now, love.” He ends the call.
I set the phone down and then pick it up to call back and apologize one more time. My finger hovers above the phone screen, but I don’t follow through. Let it go for now. We’ll work this kink out with the rest of them on Saturday at the tournament and, hopefully, in his giant spa tub afterward. I vow to keep a lockdown on my insecurity over whatever that something is between Jack and Niks that’s none of my business. I can’t torture Jack when he’s thrown together for publicity with Niks. He can’t control that.
This goddamned wariness is Treat’s fault, that son of a bitch. I tap my index finger on the top of my desk. No, it’s my fault for giving him all the power in our relationship and being grateful for whatever affection he chose to toss my way. Jack and I are not like that. We’ve started the beginning of a true partnership.
I stare at the new lock screen on my phone, the portrait from the lobby of Donal Cam and Nieve. It’s the only way to have Jack on my phone that won’t look like I’m fangirling.
“Appreciate him, Gilly.” I promise myself not to go home and stress over Niks and him on location. I’ll use our time apart to curl up in my window seat and reread the rest of The Chieftain’s Son series. I’m beginning to play more and more with taking a literary beat and condensing it into a series of images. The challenge stokes my creative engine.
After researching Benj’s historical snafu, I busy myself for a couple of hours, refining the spreadsheet I’m playing with for an episodic breakdown of book two. Donal Cam has it rough. Nieve is betrothed and refuses to give the poor bastard a second look.
I suppose my dabbles into season two are a step closer to buying this reality as a viable future.
When Danna calls my name, I return from the twelfth century. “Join us, Gillian. Bobby’s on his way.” The entire team congregates in the writer’s room. “He wants to discuss 113.” She looks directly at me as if translating. “The season finale.”
I grab my laptop and take a seat in one of the green mesh chairs.
