One Magic Night (12 page)

There he was, the man she’d been hoping to forget. Ty Rundell stood just inside the door, his arms wrapped around a large cardboard box piled high with pumpkins. He wore the expensive leather jacket with a black roll-neck sport shirt and jeans, and he was just as disturbing to her senses as he had been last night. His attraction was heightened by the rueful smile, visible over the top of the box, that lifted his well-shaped lips as he stood at the door and faced the room full of curious teenagers he had obviously not expected to see. "Sorry," he said in a low tone to her. "I'm a little later than I planned to be.  Where do you want these?"

She fought down the shock waves that vibrated through her, cleared her throat, and said, "On the table will be fine."

He strode across the room with a lithe ease and deposited the box in the place she had designated, and she could almost hear the feminine sighs of admiration. He turned, sketched a quick, just-right salute to the class, bringing smiles to the girls and sheepish grins to the boys. As he passed her desk, he said in the same low tone, "I'll see you this evening.”

“Mr. Rundell.”

“Yes?”  He turned, and she was pleased to see a wary look on his face.

“It occurs to me that my class doesn’t often get to meet a famous movie maker in person.  Perhaps you’d like to stay and let us have a question and answer session with you.  I’m sure my class would enjoy getting an inside look of the movie business by an expert like yourself.”

She smiled at him, thinking this was a lovely way to disconcert him.  If he said no, he’d come off as a snob.  If he said yes, he’d have to stay and take his punishment.

“I don’t think I’d have anything of interest to say...”

“How did you get started in the movie business?” Jennifer Redfern asked.

He was trapped, and he knew it.  Well, let Leigh have a bit of her own back.

He settled one hip on her desk in a casual sitting position that made his legs look even longer.  She walked to the back of the room, leaving him center front.

“I began as a stunt man.”

“What stunts did you do?”  This from Tom.

“I flew an airplane into a hangar, rode down a steep cliff on a horse, and drove a car into several other cars so that one of them burst into flames.”

“How did you keep from getting killed?”  Mark Farrish wanted to know.

“Stunts are carefully worked out.  They have to be done just right so the camera is at the right angle when the stunt is being done.  Nowadays there are a lot of special effects in the movies that fake what the stuntman used to do for real.  You probably wouldn’t see the difference, but I do.”

“Are you going to make a movie here in Springwater?  That big hill might be good for a stunt.”

“You’ve got that right.  But no, I don’t plan to make a movie here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m on a secret mission,” Ty said, in his best James Bond voice.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”  Jennifer, again.

“That’s classified information, ma’am.  You don’t have high enough clearance for me to answer that.”

The class laughed, as he hoped they would.  “I think I’ve given you enough of a vacation away from your schoolwork.  It’s back to the salt mines for you guys.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means back to work, students.”

With a nod of his head to Leigh, he left the room, but the murmuring rose behind his retreating back like the wake churning after a boat. He’d charmed the girls, and earned the boys’ admiration.  She sat for a moment, trying to gather her stunned senses.  His kisses and caresses last night had made her forget that he’d promised to bring her the rest of the pumpkins this morning, and his appearance in her classroom at a time when she thought she was safe knocked her off-balance. She struggled to retain control, suddenly aware that if she didn't do something soon, her class would be totally "gone." She flattened her palms on the top of the desk, taking comfort from the solid wood underneath her hands, and then walked to the window, aware that the class was instantly alert to any action of hers.

She let them wonder what she was going to say and do and said nothing, giving the class a moment to quiet down. The room stilled. Self-consciously, Laurie Horton pushed a notebook around on her desk, and Mark Farrish slouched down into his seat and stuck his long legs out into the aisle.

Leigh glanced out into the school yard, and saw the one thing she did not want to see, Ty Rundell standing around the back of his gray foreign car, opening the door, and sliding under the wheel. She shut her eyes and turned away, but not soon enough. He moved with an economy of motion that was a pleasure to the eye and all the memories she had been fighting to contain came surging to the surface. His lovemaking had been like that too, a graceful movement of hands and mouth.

She fought to halt the sudden shakiness that attacked her knees, steadied her hand against the sill, and focused her eyes on her class. "Well, as Mr. Rundell said, it’s time to get back to work.  Who can tell me something about the daily life pattern of the Iroquois Indian?"

When the class was over, Leigh breathed a sigh of relief until Laura, one of the more mature, attractive girls, stopped in front of her desk

“That guy was fantastic." The girl ran a fingernail around the edge of her spiral notebook.  "Is he your boyfriend?"

"No," Leigh said firmly, "he is not my boyfriend.” The word seemed ludicrous applied to Ty.

"Umm, he looks like a movie star.  I’m surprised he’s not an A-lister."  A faint smile touched Laurie's lips, and her eyes had a dreamy dazed look.

Leigh said crisply, "You'd better go to your next class, or you'll be caught in the hall without a late pass.”

Laurie came out of her romantic haze and threw Leigh a sheepish look. "Yes, Miss Carlow."

At lunch time, Leigh sat at the opposite end of the table from Eve, not wanting to field her questions. The rest of the day kept her feeling a strong current of apprehension, and something else, something too nebulous to identify. It was almost as if, for the first time in her life, she was looking forward to the evening.

When the last class of the day ended and the building quickly emptied, Leigh spent a few minutes arranging the pumpkins around the foot of the corn shock. She stepped back to view the final results and was pleased with her efforts. Ty had chosen well.

Three hours later in her apartment, her nervous anticipation had risen to an intolerable level. After her shower and shampoo she changed clothes three times, her feminine instincts battling with her determination not to dress as if this were a real date, until at last she settled on one of her dressier school outfits, a cream-colored silk blouse, a softly gathered wool skirt in shades of gold and rust and brown, and a dark brown velvet blazer that contrasted with the honey color of her hair.

Her indecision and the extra care she lavished on her makeup made her late. When the knock sounded on the door, she was still in the bedroom, applying her lip gloss. She decided to finish rather than go to the door with one half of her mouth done. Her hand shook and slipped, sending a bit of red color below the curve of her lower lip. She swore softly under her breath, snatched a tissue, wiped the whole business off, and started over again. The knock sounded more loudly this time, its tattoo communicating an impatience.

She finished, threw down the sable brush, and ran out of her bedroom. She opened the door, and nearly received the force of his clenched hand that had been raised to knock again. He jerked his arm back and stared at her.

"I almost hit you,'' he said, frowning.

“I’m sorry. It was my fault.  I knew I was running late.”

He gazed at her from under dark lashes. "I thought you had lost your nerve."

Stung, because she hadn't once thought of backing out and wondered if he’d been hoping she would, she said, "Are you disappointed  that I didn't?"

He clamped his lips together as if to stop words from coming out that he wanted to say and said tersely, "Get your coat."

They were in the car and driving up the hill when she said, "Where are we going?"

"To the city," he said coolly.

"But that's forty miles away. Surely you aren't going to drive that far for a meal."

He leaned back in the seat, holding the wheel with one arm, the other lying casually at his side on the divided seat between them.  "Why not?"

She stared ahead into the pink twilight, her pulses quickening. Ty wore a dark gray wool suit that had been cut to fit the breadth of his shoulders, the lean taper of his waist. His hair had been brushed to a careless fullness around his head, and his jaw was smooth and exuded the tangy scent of his after-shave. It would be an evening of much longer duration than she had imagined. She sat up in the soft seat and pressed her hands together in her lap. She felt as if a cool, clean wind had blown through the car, touching her skin with an excitement that made her nerves tingle and her body tauten. A wild recklessness surged through her, and for once, she took the initiative. "Why didn't you go back to California with Deke?" His sidelong glance was quick enough, startled enough, to give her satisfaction.

"Anxious to get rid of me?"

"You say you're no longer interested in interviewing me. If that's true, there's no reason for you to stay in Springwater."

Ty was silent for a moment, his eyes on the road.  Then he drawled, “I said I was no longer interested in interviewing you. I didn't say I was no longer interested in you." His words hung in the air, the smoky darkness of his voice reminding her of the way he had held her, the kisses they had already shared. She fought the rush of blood to her cheeks and said in what she hoped was a cool tone, "There must be someone in Hollywood anxiously waiting for your return."

He arched an eyebrow. "A woman, you mean?"

"Of course, that's what I mean."

His smile was as attractive as ever.  "Would it bother you if there were?"

“Of course not."

His mouth tightened. "Yes, that was an absurd idea, wasn't it, thinking you might care about what goes on in my life?" He turned his eyes back to the road and lifted his free arm to the steering wheel to wrap his fingers around it, as if he needed something to hold to keep his temper under control. She sat back, wishing she had never agreed to come out with him, knowing the entire evening was going to be a fiasco.

"No, Leigh, there's no one anxiously waiting for my return." He paused, and when she didn't reply he said, "You know how it is in this business, you work with a crew on a project, and you become close to a few people. You begin to know them well, too well, perhaps. The project ends. You vow you'll keep in touch. But you don't. You get busy with another project and you're scrambling to make it work and you concentrate on it twelve or thirteen hours a day. You fall into bed at night and try to forget the rest of the world exists, because you don't have the energy to think about anything else…”  He trailed away, staring moodily into the darkness.

She listened, and she thought of Claire. Perhaps her mother hadn't hated her. Perhaps she had treated Leigh with indifference because her career took everything, all her time, her attention, her emotional energy.

When the long drive was over and they topped the rise of a hill, the city skyline loomed ahead of them, the black angular lines of one skyscraper silhouetted against the pink glow of the sky and towering over lower buildings.

"There is something rather awesome about seeing a city all at once, isn't there," he said softly, as if their harsh exchange of words those miles back had never happened. "I get the same feeling when I walk into the theater and see a film that I've been working on for two years." He stared ahead, a brooding look on his face.  "Millions of little bits and pieces and angle shots and retakes, all combined into one superhuman project.  If it works, it's unreal, an unbelievable miracle."  He was silent for a moment.

Then he said, "That's what makes all those long hours and the sweat and the strain and the frustration worth it, I guess. The film, finished, up there, on the screen, playing in half a dozen major cities at the same time." He gave her a sidelong glance. "I suppose you think that's the ultimate ego trip."

"Not at all. Movies are an art of expression. Why shouldn't you take pride in your work?"

''Why didn't you try acting?"

"If you've done any research on celebrity children at all, you should know that's a ridiculous question."

"Afraid you couldn't live up to your mother's standards?"

"There was no 'afraid' about it.  I was told any number of times I didn't have my mother's looks or élan."

"And you accepted those opinions as the gospel truth," Ty said smoothly, turning off the thruway and guiding the car down the street toward the center of the city.

"No one ever told me any differently."

Ty lifted his eyes to a traffic light, watched it turn from amber to red, and thrust his foot down on the brake. "I didn't see your mother in person. But I've seen all her movies and stills." He pulled the car into a parking ramp, waited for the machine to disgorge its ticket. "I've never seen you on the screen," he drawled, ''but right offhand I'd guess that your brand of subtle sensuality kept severely in check would come across in a much more exciting way than  Claire's blatant sexuality."