Grounded By You (20 page)

“If I do this, you agree to keep your head buried and in the game with me until the minute you have to get ready for this party. Sunday morning we’re back at it. No messing around, and no excuses.”

Millie loved it when she got her way. She stretched her hand across the desk. “Deal. Road trip!”

Josh shook her hand with a small smile. “I seem to recall that road trips with you are akin to some kind of torture.”

Millie pictured her painting of her childhood in her mind. “You aren’t remembering the right ones then. Speaking of, I have to go home and pack. You better book your flight. That’s a bit too far to drive.”

“See you in the morning,” Josh promised.

When Josh said that he expected her to keep her head down in prep during the whole trip, he wasn’t kidding. As soon as he found her at the gate, he started drilling her on some of the finer details of their proposal. She found herself digging through her notes to find the answers. Josh seemed less than thrilled at her inability to retain the facts. Their review was complicated by the fact that she had to run to the bathroom twice to throw up.

Finally they get on the plane, but Millie was dismayed when Josh sweet talked the woman next to her into switching seats with him.

“I thought I was going to get a few hours of peace,” she said with a sigh.

“No such luck,” Josh said. He pulled out a manila envelope and Millie groaned. “You told me that if I agreed to go to this shindig with you that you’d keep prepping with me. You going to renege on your promise now?”

“No,” Millie said, rubbing her forehead. “I told you that I haven’t been sleeping well, and I feel a monster headache coming on. I just need a few minutes of peace and quiet. Then I promise we can hit it again.”

For once, Josh seemed to listen to her. She leaned her head against the headrest and tried to block out the noise around her. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down for the last three days, and she felt her stomach rolling once again. She hoped that she could keep it together during the flight. The last thing she wanted to do was get sick on the plane.

She felt the slight lift as the plane’s wheels left the ground and then they were airborne. Her eyes opened, and she looked out the window at the city rapidly receding from view. She loved to fly. She associated it with going somewhere exotic and adventurous. Now though, she felt as if she were flying toward her doom.

“So, when do you plan on telling the folks?” Josh asked.

Millie swung her eyes toward him. “Tell them what?”

“That you’re pregnant.”

Millie gaped at him. “I’m not… uh,” she stammered. She let out a long breath. “Shit. How did you know?”

Josh’s eyes closed and then opened again with a pained expression. “Dammit, Millie. I didn’t know for sure. I figured I’d throw it out there. If you clawed my eyes out, I’d spending the rest of the trip apologizing for suggesting something so stupid. I was really hoping that I was wrong.”

She felt a flash of annoyance that once again her older brother tricked her so neatly. But then she realized that it didn’t matter, and there was a small part of her that was relieved that she didn’t need to hide it from him anymore.

“Well, you found me out,” she said. She squared her shoulders. “Now what? Are you proud of yourself?”

Josh took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m not proud of anything. I’m just concerned about my baby sister. How about you tell me how you feel about it?”

A wave of anxiety and sadness washed over her. She looked into her brother’s eyes and saw compassion there. No anger. No judgment. Just an openness and willingness to listen. She felt a flash of love and gratitude for him.

“I guess I don’t know how to feel about it,” Millie finally admitted. “Other than the fact that I’m scared shitless.”

“You’re going to keep it, I assume?”

Millie’s jaw tightened. She hadn’t known for sure until she heard the question asked of her out loud, and then it was a certainty. “Yes.”

“Who’s the father?”

Millie felt her stomach roll. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Jesus, Millie. Do you even know who it is?”

Millie’s hand clenched in her lap.
“You are so lucky we’re sitting in an enclosed space right now; otherwise I’d slap you. Yes, Josh. I know who it is.”

“What did he say about it?”

“I haven’t told him yet,” Millie said.

“Oh, c’mon,” Josh said, leaning his head back. “Don’t be one of those girls.”

“One of those girls?”

“The girl who decides to keep the kid and raise it on her own, and then years down the road she runs into the father with the kid in tow, and the guy realizes that she kept the fact that he had a kid a secret all that time.”

“You’ve been reading a few too many romance novels,” Millie said. “I plan to tell him. I just don’t know when. Or how. This isn’t exactly the easiest thing to tell someone, you know.”

“Do you think he’s going to be mad?”

“I don’t how he’s going to react to the news,” Millie said. “He’s just getting started with his career, and he has the upward momentum to go far. I don’t know how having a baby fits into that picture, or if he’d even want to be involved in our lives.”

“If that’s the case, the guy’s a prick,” Josh said. “And he wouldn’t deserve to be part of the kid’s life.”

Millie took a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, I have to figure out a way to tell him soon, before the truth of it is obvious.” She gestured toward her stomach. Already she was starting to see the physical changes of her pregnancy, but she was able to cover it reasonably well.

“Like the trips to the bathroom to throw up every morning weren’t obvious,” Josh said.

“What do you know about pregnancy symptoms?” Millie asked suspiciously.

Josh held his hands up. “Not me. I had a couple of girlfriends in college who got into trouble. I saw all the signs, and one of them cried on my shoulder when her boyfriend dumped her after finding out.”

“That’s awful,” Millie said.

“Yeah, guys are dipshits,” Josh said. “I hope for your sake that this guy is the stand-up kind. You shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”

Millie thought about everything that she knew about Sam. He always told her that he wanted what his parents had, a long marriage, kids, the white picket fence and the whole nine yards. She didn’t know if she was ready for all of that. If Sam was the stand-up kind of guy, and he did something drastic, what would she say? But then, if he went in the opposite direction and told her he didn’t want to be involved, she thought that she’d curl up and cry for the rest of her life.

It didn’t help that she was dealing with a mess of hormones running through her body that were wreaking havoc with her nerves.

She squeezed Josh’s hand. “I’m glad that you know. I hate hiding things from you.”

“I’m not so thrilled that I know, but I’m here for you, sis. You can count on me. Tell me how I can help, and I will be there,” Josh said. He bumped her shoulder.

Millie smiled faintly. Then she grabbed the manila folder out of Josh’s hand. “Enough baby talk. Quiz me. I’m ready.”

She could tell that there was more that Josh wanted to say, but then he took the folder and opened it. She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure how Josh would react to knowing that Sam was the father. She hoped once again that fate was kind and that she would make it through the next twenty-four hours in peace.

Delaney was stalking him. Ever since her proposition of rehearsing their physical romance skills, Sam had been avoiding her. He knew he was walking a fine line because that also meant that he was letting the possibility of trouble in their relationship surface. He had a bit of breathing room because the last two days they had been filming scenes that didn’t involve both of them, but he felt her stare whenever they happened to cross paths in make-up, wardrobe, or by the catering tables.

He was running out of time though. The first physical romance scene was being shot that evening at dusk out by
Grossler’s Point. Sam realized too late that the reason they were moving the filming offsite from the Willoughby was because of Kate and Reed’s engagement party. He didn’t know when Millie was arriving, but he felt a nervous energy pulsating through his body whenever he thought of how tantalizing close she was going to be to him.

Sam knew that he should leave well enough alone. He could shoot his scenes and then head back to the hotel. He figured that she would be staying at the Willoughby and then leaving the next day. His potential window of time to see her was small, and when he finally decided that he’d try to sneak away, he starting building the plan in his mind.

Lee already told them that he was prepared to be out at Grossler’s Point all night if necessary to get the shot just right. If Sam didn’t nail it perfectly on one of the first few takes, he would be out of luck, and he would miss his chance to see Millie.

It was crazy, reckless and stupid, but Sam felt sick about the idea of not seeing her at all. He wanted to make sure that she was okay. Once he confirmed that, he’d leave and he’d never bother her again. It was the promise he made to himself, and he’d keep it, come hell or high water.

With that focus in mind, Sam brought his all to his scenes that morning, and even Lee remarked how well he was doing. He said he felt like Jackson was right there in his head alongside him, so it was easy. Sam thanked Lee for his praise and then went on his way. Today, he was Jackson Monroe. Today, there would be no doubt that he was in it to win it.

Which left one small, nagging doubt in his mind. His kiss with Delaney had to be spot on. He had every reason to believe that in the moment, his interpretation of Jackson would take over. But he couldn’t shake what Delaney had said about the fact that they had never kissed before, and everyone thought that they had. Even if they were in a couples’ spat, everyone would expect them to be consummate professionals. Anything less and he’d be stuck out at
Grossler’s Point all night.

So as the crew started packing up to move out to their site for the evening shoot, Sam went in search of Delaney. He didn’t have a lot of time. They both needed make-up and wardrobe, and he was less than thrilled about the fact that they were going to be in water for the majority of the shoot.

The scene they were going to shoot had Jackson finding Camilla out swimming in a remote part of the lake during one of his solitary walks. She shyly asks him to join her in the water, and after some playful banter, the attraction between them can no longer be denied. He kisses her, and it was the start of the consummation of their forbidden relationship.

Sam found Delaney by the wardrobe tent, talking intently on the phone. He motioned to her that he wanted to talk to her. She nodded and gave him the signal that it would be just a minute. Sam studied the lake while he waited and began the process in his mind of channeling his character. It was the only way he knew to separate what he was about to do with the reality of his outside world.

Delaney ended her call as she walked up to him with a smile. “Hey, stranger. What’s going on? I was wondering if you were ever going to speak to me again.”

“Can you take a walk with me?” he asked.

Delaney looked around. “We’re almost ready to leave. Lee said he wants to have everything ready to roll by five-thirty.”

“Just a few minutes,” he insisted.

“Sure,” she finally said. She fell into step beside him as they moved away from the rest of the crew toward the beach. “It’s too bad they can’t do this shot here where it’s supposed to be. But I guess that’s one thing about being able to take artistic license with the material. To have the real beginning and end of their relationship in the same place is kind of poetic in its own way.”

“It’s tragic,” he replied. “But cyclical, like everything in life.”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry about pushing you the other morning. I realize that all of this has taken a toll on you, and I wasn’t helping the situation,” Delaney said.

Sam looked down at her in surprise. “Everything you do, you do for this movie.”

Delaney shrugged. “I do, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a bitch about it. I like you a lot, Sam. And I respect your acting abilities. I mean you’ve got me believing every word you say to me during our scenes. If I was the real Camilla, I can totally see how she fell for this guy despite the fact that he was married.”

Her words brought Sam a small measure of comfort. “People hate him, but there’s so much more complexity to his character that drives what happened. And I believe that he did love Camilla. You aren’t really sure of it until the end, but then you feel his heartbreak when he realizes that she’s gone forever.”

“I doubt you wanted to take a walk to talk about Walter Moolen’s philosophical characterizations,” Delaney said. “Although, I sense a strong undercurrent of irony in your tone.”

Sam put his hand on her arm. He looked down at her, and when he blinked, he saw Jackson’s Camilla there, lovely, vulnerable, and so wanting of something more from him. “I need your help tonight. It needs to be real, Delaney. As real as we can make it.”

He watched her lips part, and then he didn’t wait for her answer. He wasn’t sure if it was Jackson’s character in his head, or if it was his desperation and ache over the thought that Millie might be beyond his reach forever. He leaned his head down and softly kissed her lips.