Wishbones

CHAPTER FOUR

Graf put his arm around my shoulders as we walked into the house. “I’ll be glad when we leave for location,” I said.

“Don’t let King get to you. Sometimes our fellow thespians make poor decisions in negotiating the legal byways.”

“I wonder.” I took a seat in the kitchen and watched Graf prepare coffee beans for a fresh pot. It was only five-thirty, too early for supper, and I didn’t feel like a glass of wine.

He put the water on to boil for the coffee press and leaned on the counter, studying me.

“What?”

“I thought maybe my feelings for you were echoes from the past still sounding.” He stopped and I felt my heart thud. “But you’re not the same person you were in New York. You’re different, Sarah Booth. All of the tentativeness is gone. You own the ground you stand on. I find that a little intimidating but also very attractive.”

“If you add that I cast a big shadow, I’m going to deck you.” The words came out nervous and silly.

“Don’t play this for a joke, because I’m not kidding.” His direct look said that this time he wouldn’t allow me to escape with humor.

I held up a hand. “You promised when I said I’d come out here that you wouldn’t press.” Panic was rising in me. My emotions were in complete turmoil, and I didn’t know what I wanted.

“I’m not going to press you to respond or reciprocate my feelings, but I am going to tell you the truth. It’s taken me a long time to figure out what I want and what I feel. If I can’t have you, if I lose you, I want it to be for a reason, not because I didn’t try.”

Giving myself a moment to think, I looked out the doorway. Wildflowers in vivid hues bobbled on a light breeze, and in the distance a wild mountainside rose up from the canyon floor, rocky and rough. This was terrain I’d never grow tired of seeing. As much as I loved Mississippi, I had to admit that California called to me.

“I won’t say that I don’t have feelings for you, Graf. I do. Strong feelings. But I’m not sure if what I feel is part of the past or for right now. I was so hurt when I left New York. You didn’t even call me.”

He looked down at the counter. “Because I knew you were leaving, and I knew there was nothing I could do to convince you to stay. You gave up on yourself, and the only thing you could do was go home.”

“And lick my wounds?” I wasn’t bitter. He was simply telling the truth. “I had to make some money or else I would have lost Dahlia House, and I was sinking in New York. I spent every penny I had trying to stay in the city long enough to get a role. I worked at it, hard, and it didn’t happen for me.”

He came around the counter and gently rubbed my shoulders. “I should have been more compassionate. I should have shown you what I was feeling. Instead, I let you walk away, and I let my pride dictate my conduct. I was hurting, but I didn’t want you to see it.”

How was it possible that I hadn’t noticed? I’d waited for him to rush out the door and stop me, beg me to stay, give me some lifeline to hold on to while my career wobbled. “I was proud, too.”

Another case of two reasonably intelligent adults making a train wreck of a relationship. “I don’t want to screw this up again, Graf. If we have a second chance, I don’t want to find myself in your arms and thinking about-”

“Coleman Peters.”

I put my hands on the counter to steady myself. “I want to be sure the past is dead and buried.”

“And I think that’s the right thing to do. But I’m falling in love with you, Sarah Booth. Whatever I felt before, this is deeper and stronger. I never realized I could feel this way.”

I swallowed. Honesty was not easy, but I owed Graf complete truthfulness. “I don’t know what I feel for you, other than an immense sexual attraction, which I don’t want to act on yet.” Liar! What a liar I’d become. I wanted to jump his bones right then and there and damn the consequences. I needed the weight and warmth of another human body to block out the emptiness I felt. But this was the classic mistake of the re-bounder.

“Christ, Sarah Booth, you make it hard on a guy.”

“No pun intended?” I had to get this conversation on a less serious track.

He groaned. “Please, we left high school years ago.”

“You did, maybe. I feel I was gypped out of a real high school experience, so I’m going to go through it now.”

His hands tightened on my shoulders and he leaned down and kissed my earlobe. “You can play it for humor all you want, but I know you feel something for me. That’s enough for right now.”

I turned my head and saw his lips. Before I could think it through, I was leaning toward them, hungry for his kiss.

The ringing of my cell phone brought me up sharp. “Shit.” I answered with a gruff hello.

“Well, hello to you, too. By the tone of your voice, I gather you’re still sexually frustrated,” Tinkie said. In the background was a babble of voices and clinking dishes. She was in Millie’s Café. I had a sudden hankering for a slice of Millie’s homemade apple pie.

“What’s going on?” I was hit with a wave of homesickness that made me almost gasp. Graf kissed my cheek and went onto the porch to give me privacy for my call. I kept finding new depth in him.

“Not so much here, but I see you’ve narrowly escaped a wildfire. You could have given us a call, you know.”

Too late I remembered the reporters from the night before. The fire hadn’t threatened us, but no telling what kind of story it had turned into. “We’re fine. The blaze was contained before it got dangerously close.”

“That’s not what the story in Hollywood Gossip says.”

“Tinkie, you know full well how some publications blow things way out of proportion.” I was still a bit annoyed that the telephone had so rudely interrupted the kiss.

“True, but I don’t know when the story is dead-on or when it’s exaggerated. That’s why you should call home and let us know.”

I sighed. She was right. I’d been so caught up in my life that I’d forgotten my responsibilities to my friends. “We’re fine.”

“Are you?”

“Except that I’m missing you and Zinnia and everyone.” Giving voice to that sentiment told me how real it was.

“How’s the movie business?”

“The screen test was good. They’re writing Sweetie into the movie. Graf is wonderful to act against. Everything is good here.” I’d only been gone a couple of days, but it seemed an unbridgeable gap now. Tinkie no longer shared my life. We reported on events to each other. I thought of telling her about the message on the mirror in Bobby Joe’s house, but I decided against it. While it would intrigue her, it would also worry her.

“Cece is planning a big story about you once the movie starts production. She hinted she’d like an invite to the set.”

“Absolutely, and of course you and Millie might come with her?” My heart lifted at the thought.

“That’s a distinct possibility.”

“You’ve made my evening.” I couldn’t wait to see them, to show them the little I’d learned about Tinseltown.

“Stay in touch, Sarah Booth. Life continues here in Zinnia, but it isn’t the same without you.”

“I’ll be a better caller,” I promised before I hung up. I walked out to the porch to talk with Graf. He put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head.

“Let’s start dinner. If I stay here with you, I won’t be able to honor my word not to press you. I want to give you the time you asked for.”

Before I could ask him to stay with me, he went into the kitchen and began rattling pots and pans. I was left with a million-dollar view and a body and heart at war with each other.

Graf had an early call the next morning, and Sweetie and I took advantage of a brisk March sunrise to head down the canyon for a hike. I’d lost at least fifteen pounds during my false murder accusation, and I was determined to keep it off. Climbing up and down the steep trails was the best exercise I could find, and I’d get to spend the morning with Sweetie Pie.

We went far down, dropping into cool shade and then barren patches of sun-soaked ground. When I got to the fire zone, I took great care. Sweetie stayed near me as I moved around the west side of the scorched area.

I was absorbed in trying to understand how the firemen had determined it was arson-I didn’t see any empty gas cans lying around. Fire investigation was a talent I’d never looked into. Maybe later Tinkie and I could take a course.

Sweetie froze at my side. Her lips drew back and she bared her teeth. A growl I’d never heard came from her. Instinctively, I reached for her collar. Before I could grasp the leather, she jumped forward with a wild, unearthly howl and disappeared into the brush.

“Sweetie!” I ran after her, remembering how blithely I’d dismissed Graf’s warning about mountain lions and coyotes. “Sweetie Pie Delaney!” I made my voice stern as I pushed and panted my way through the dense underbrush that hadn’t burned.

A long, low howl, as eerie as anything Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had created in The Hound of the Baskervilles, floated over the air. I struggled into a small clearing protected by jagged rocks in the shadow of one of the cliff faces. Sweetie stood over something blue, her muzzle lifted in a low, mournful cry.

“Sweetie.” I rushed forward, my only thought to grasp her collar and snap on the leash that I wore around my waist.

I was upon her before I even looked at the blue object, which registered instantly as the size and shape of a human body.

Sweetie waited for me to get close enough to see that it was a woman. From the position of her body, I knew she was dead. Bones didn’t grow at those angles. Sweetie nuzzled the dead woman softly with her nose and howled again.

“Stop that,” I told her as I hooked the lead. The dog was creeping me out, howling as if she were in a ghost story.

I walked around the body, taking in the platinum blond hair, the manicured hands, adorned with expensive rings that seemed to clutch the dirt. I was no expert, but I’d be willing to bet the woman had been alive when she fell. I looked up the cliff face and saw where she must have slipped. Along with the blue athletic clothes, she wore hiking boots.

Sweetie had come home the night before-the night of the fire-with a piece of blue material in her mouth. I noticed that the dead woman’s pants leg was torn, a piece of material missing. The poor woman had been lying out in the canyon with flames raging a short distance away.

“We have to call the police,” I told Sweetie.

Sweetie had other ideas. She tugged the leash from my hand and went straight back to the body. She nudged the dead woman again with her nose. A draft of wind caught the woman’s blond hair and shifted it.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. I recognized the woman. It was Suzy Dutton, the actress.