Starstruck Read online

  Back to square one, he acknowledged. And she would believe that his offer of friendship was just as insincere as she might have feared it was.

  “I trust you,” he said, and wiped damp palms on his bare knees.

  Liv smiled, a little tentatively, a little warily, but at least she smiled. “Tell the kids to be home by five, please. And tell them that I really will stop and see the tree house soon. But I do have to get back to work now.” She turned and walked down the path around the side of the house, and Joe followed her, hands stuffed in his pockets. She didn’t wait for him to catch up, but when she got to the car she stopped, and gave him another smile. “I’ll send a copy of the article over with the boys in the morning,” she promised. “If you don’t like it, we won’t print it.”

  Joe shook his head, refusing the out she gave him. “No, that’s okay. I trust you. Really.”

  Her smile grew. “I guess we are friends,” she said softly, and she got into the car and drove away. Joe stood, hands in his pockets, staring after her long after the car had disappeared over the hill.

  His trust wasn’t misplaced, either. The article, which appeared in the Sunday “People” section of the paper, was flattering without being gushy, discreet but not vague. Liv gave him credit for concern with peace and human rights, for a sincere effort to improve his craft of acting, for his desire to go beyond the acting and directing he had done so far to write his own screenplay. Of his heretofore widely touted amorous exploits, she reported nothing. The only reference to his marital status was a lead-in to one paragraph that said he was a thirty-six year old bachelor who divided his time between his career and many worthy causes. It didn’t claim that one of them was bed-hopping. It said nothing about his rantings and ravings about the Steve Scott identity crisis he was having, or about his complaints that his fame kept him from leading a normal life. It did say that he liked Madison because it offered him some of the everyday experiences and anonymity denied him in California, and that he appreciated the willingness of many local fans to simply ignore him.

  She quoted him as saying that it was hard to walk the line between being grateful to people for his success and wanting to be a private person whom no one recognized. “I am working on it,” said the quote in the paper, “with a little help from my friends.”

  Joe grinned as he read it. One friend in particular, he thought, going to the telephone to call her and tell her what a good article it was. How nice to have a friend who could put words in his mouth—the right words—words that said that she knew almost more about him than he knew himself.

  Chapter Seven

  Friends? Liv wondered as the days passed and July faded into the even hotter days of August.

  Friends with Joe Harrington? It wasn’t as impossible as it sounded. She soon discovered that when he wasn’t leering at her anymore, she could relax and enjoy his company. She put the lid on her own desire for more than friendship with him. It wasn’t realistic. It wasn’t even sensible. So she took what she could get and was grateful for it.

  It was lovely to have an adult around again—someone who didn’t think that batting averages were the height of sophisticated conversation, someone who didn’t consider a meal containing eggplant an abomination, someone who read more of the newspaper than the sports section and the comics. And if Frances thought there was more to it than that, she was wrong.

  “I think he’s smitten,” Frances said, knitting needles clicking away faster than the computer terminal on her desk.

  Liv shook her head. “He likes my honesty and my sense of humor,” she quoted, not even bothering to ask whom Frances was talking about. Frances never talked about anyone else.

  “But he calls you all the time,” Frances protested.

  “Maybe he just wants me to make him laugh,” Liv said. “For heaven’s sake, of course he calls me up all the time, Frances. My kids are always over at his house, bugging him. He wants to know things like can he give them an ice-cream cone half an hour before dinner, or how to get the grass stains out of Theo’s beige jeans. It’s not at all what you think!”

  But no one told Frances what to think. She had her own ideas, and nothing Liv said would change that. But Liv tried. She had told Joe not to call her at work, but he didn’t mind very well. “I forgot,” he’d say, unabashed, or “It’ll just take a minute,” and he would then proceed to tell her something that made her laugh or ask her an inane question that she knew he must have worked hard to think up. But she didn’t try too hard to stop him because she liked the calls. She liked Joe. He was a bright spot in an otherwise pleasant but not too exciting, hardworking life, and she needed that.

  The phone rang. “It’s for you,” Frances said with her customary Joe Harrington giggle, and handed Liv the receiver.

  “Now what?” Liv said automatically, her eyes skimming down the columns of print she was scanning.

  “Stephen’s sick,” Joe said without preamble.

  “Sick?”

  “Not dying or anything. I was going to give him some aspirin and keep him here, but I thought I should check with you.”

  Liv glanced at her watch. It was barely two. She couldn’t skip the meeting Marv had set for three-thirty, but she had no right to stick Joe with a sick child either. And Margie wouldn’t want him if he was ill; she had three of her own to think about. “I’ll call Tom,” she told Joe. “He can come and get him.”

  “I don’t mind having him,” Joe said hastily.

  “No.” Liv was decisive. “Tom’s his father. He can take time off and come and get him.”

  “Whatever you want,” Joe said finally, his voice flat and impersonal. “Good-bye.” He hung up abruptly and Liv was left staring at the receiver.

  “Stephen’s sick,” she told Frances.

  “With what?”

  “I don’t know,” Liv said helplessly. Darn Joe anyway. He had hung up without telling her anything. No symptoms, no temperature, nothing. “I’ve got to call Tom to go get him.” She dialed Tom’s office number, trying to think what she would say to him when he asked about Stephen's symptoms and how she would explain why he was at Joe Harrington’s. “This is Olivia,” she said to his receptionist. “I’d like to talk to Tom.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. James. He’s in Phoenix.”

  “Phoenix?” What on earth?

  “He’ll be back Monday,” the receptionist went on relentlessly.

  Monday? Liv hung up. Phoenix! And he hadn’t even bothered to call and let her know that he was going out of town. What about his promise to take the boys boating on Sunday? Damn him.

  Hastily she called Joe back. “I’m sorry,” she said as soon as he answered. “Tom’s out of town. Will you keep him until I can get there?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll hurry from the meeting.”

  “Take your time. We’ll be fine,” he assured her.

  But when she got to Joe’s house shortly before five, she wasn’t sure. Joe looked worried, harassed, harried. Parental, she thought, and she couldn’t help smiling.

  “How is he?” she asked, her own worries surfacing again.

  “Hot. He’s got a headache,” Joe said, leading her through the living room and up the stairs to a bedroom where Stephen lay, flushed and still, under a summer-weight quilt. “I looked for a thermometer, but our architect didn’t seem to have one,” he said to her as she felt Stephen’s forehead. “It’s probably nothing serious. Kids get bugs all the time.”

  “I know.” But it was never very nice when they did. And if it lasted, who would stay with him? Noel was at camp. Tom was gone. Baby-sitters, even competent ones like Margie, didn’t like diseases. Liv’s thoughts were winging all over the place.

  “Let him sleep a while,” Joe urged. “Come on downstairs and sit down. You look beat.” He took her arm and she let him lead her, unprotesting, down to the living room. He pushed her into an easy chair.

  “Relax,” he told her.

  “I can’t. I have to go home an
d get dinner on the table. Then Theo has a ball game tonight and—”

  “I’ll go buy a couple of pizzas.”

  “No. I have to take them home.”

  “Why?”

  “Um, well, because… well, you shouldn’t have to be bothered with us, with Stephen, with the rest of them. You don’t want that kind of hassle.” She wished he wouldn’t look at her with that compassionate expression in his eyes. It was all too tempting to just lay all her burdens on him.

  Joe’s features softened further, his mouth quirking into a grin that quickened her heart. “Why don’t you just let me decide what I want, huh, friend?”

  “But—” Her shoulders sagged. How could she say no to a grin like that?

  “Pepperoni?” Joe asked with a smile that said he knew he’d won.

  “Whatever you want.” Liv waved her arm wearily. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  The green in Joe’s eyes seemed to flame for a moment, but he shook his head as though banishing his thoughts. “Don’t worry about it. What are friends for? Come on, gang,” he said to Ben, Theo and Jennifer. “Let’s go buy some pizzas and give your mother a rest.”

  Then they were gone. Liv’s eyes flickered shut. She wouldn’t sleep, she told herself, but it wouldn’t hurt to rest for a minute. If Stephen were really ill, it would be a long time before she would get much rest again. That was one of the realities of single parenthood that she had discovered early on. Hell, she thought tiredly, what was she going to do?

  “Leave him here tomorrow,” Joe said flatly when he got back and plopped a plateful of pizza onto her lap.

  “But—”

  “He’s usually here, anyway,” Joe went on. “And then Ben and Theo can keep working on the house without him feeling left out. He can supervise from inside. Anyway, he might be fine tomorrow.”

  “Well—” It was tempting. All her problems would be solved if Joe kept Stephen. Well, maybe not all her problems, but all the ones she was allowing herself to think about. She wouldn’t even consider the ones that might arise as a result of agreeing to Joe’s proposal.

  “Please, Mom?” Ben and Theo pleaded on Stephen’s behalf.

  She gave up. “All right,” she said, “but I won’t feel right about it. I pay Margie Cunningham for babysitting Jennifer.”

  Joe ground his teeth. “So pay me. Whatever will ease your incredible conscience.”

  “At least I have one,” she flared, and immediately regretted it. She hadn’t baited him about his woman-filled past since they’d agreed to be friends, and now she was wondering if she had spoiled everything: “I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her head.

  “I forgive you,” he said gruffly. “Anyway, as far as consciences go, you might be surprised. I’ll expect you to drop them off at eight.” He got out of his chair and carried his plate into the kitchen. “I’m going out to take a walk,” he said, one hand already opening the screen door. “Don’t lock up when you leave, please.”

  He really knew how to make an exit, Liv thought. She wondered if he had taken classes in it. But she had deserved it. He had been trying to help her out, to be nice, and all she could do was make sarcastic remarks. Damn her sharp tongue anyway.

  “Come on, kids, finish up,” she said. “Then you can clean up the dishes and I’ll fetch Stephen and we can go home. I think Joe’s had enough of us for one day.”

  In the morning, though, Joe was waiting on the steps when she brought the kids at eight and dropped them off. He hustled them inside with the efficiency of a daycare-center professional and gave her a perfunctory wave that implied, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” So she waited until he did.

  She wanted to call and ask how it was going, if Stephen was all right, but she didn’t want to sound as if she didn't trust him. Oddly enough, she did. He had shown his concern for the kids continually over the past few weeks. Sometimes she thought that Tom could have taken lessons from him, Tom, who was in Phoenix doing who knew what—playing golf and other games no doubt— while Joe Harrington, of all people, cared for his sons. She ground her teeth and went back to roughing out an article on the upcoming concert series being held at the university, one ear listening for the phone.

  It didn’t ring all day—at least Joe didn’t call—and she was nearly a nervous wreck when she got out of the car that night. He called her five times a day when nothing was wrong. Why didn’t he have the decency to call once now?

  “How is he?” she demanded as she burst in the door. Joe was sitting at the typewriter in the den, hands poised over the keyboard. Theo and Jennifer were watching the “Electric Company” on TV, and Ben was up in the tree house, hammering away.

  “Not bad,” Joe said, getting up. “He’s in bed reading. He’s still got the fever. Theo does, too. And now Stephen’s got these blisters on his face.”

  “Blisters?” That didn’t sound like flu. Liv flew up the stairs and into Stephen’s room, with Joe padding after her as though she were the doctor and he the concerned parent.

  “Let me see your face, Stephen,” she said to her son, who had his nose buried in a book.

  Stephen looked up and blinked. Half a dozen or so dear blisters dotted his cheeks. She brushed back the hair on his forehead and found three more. “Pull up your shirt,” she told him.

  “Cripes, more,” Joe said. “What kind of flu is that?”

  Liv managed a sour smile. “Try chicken pox.”

  “Chicken pox?”

  “I’m afraid so. And probably Theo has it, too. And Jennifer will be next,” she moaned, thinking of the implications. “What am I going to do?”

  “Just what we did today, obviously,” Joe said. He was leaning casually against the door frame, barefoot, in cutoff jeans and a yellow short sleeve shirt with the tails flapping against his thighs. It was funny how Tom, wearing virtually the same outfit, could contrive to look unkempt, while Joe looked only sexy. It’s all in the mind of the beholder, she told herself firmly. Just remember he’s your friend. But how could she keep thinking that if she saw him virtually all the time when she wasn’t at work for the next week or so?

  “No. It’s impossible,” she said, needing to reject his suggestion.

  “Why?”

  “You can’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. I mean, this is a communicable disease. The city health department even gets into the act.”

  “To do what?” Joe looked fascinated.

  “Oh, fill out forms, keep the kids out of school for thus and such many days—if they’re in school, that is. That sort of thing. We did it when Noel and Ben had them.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Joe said, maddeningly calm.

  “You don’t want sick kids for a week!”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “You don’t, see?” He reached out and gently closed her mouth. “So why don’t you just drive home and get whatever you and the kids will need for a week or however long this takes, and come back. We’ll eat in about an hour.”

  “You mean move in here?”

  “Well, I could move to your place, but it’d be less crowded if you came here. And we’d get a bit less notoriety, I imagine.”

  “There won’t be any if I don’t move in,” she protested, fumbling for excuses that seemed just out of reach.

  “But you won’t have a babysitter, either,” he pointed out.

  “I’ll hire one.”

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather have Joe, Mom,” Stephen interrupted, looking up from his book to add his unfortunate opinion.

  I wouldn’t, Liv thought, feeling trapped. But she didn’t see any other way out of it. Margie wouldn’t take them. She couldn’t find anyone else on short notice. She stalled, studying the wallpaper, the pine needles scratching on the window screen, the assorted blues in the hand-braided rug underfoot. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t know what else to do.” Probably, she thought, Joe would get sick of his m
agnanimous gesture within two or three days, anyway. Surely he couldn’t keep up this concerned-father role for more than a week And then maybe she could just take a few days off work. Marv wouldn’t mind a week, but stretch it into two and he would flip.

  “I knew you’d see sense,” Joe said, chucking her under the chin. “Now, off with you. The chef gets mad when he has to eat cold pork chops.”

  Liv went, her mind reeling. She had visions of running into Frances on her way home. “What are you up to?” Frances would ask. “Moving in with Joe Harrington,” Liv would reply. It was good that Frances didn’t have a heart condition.

  By the time Liv returned, she had the whole week mapped out in her head. “The only way it will work,” she told Joe with the brisk efficiency of a first-grade teacher, “is if we have ground rules.”

  Joe looked at her from over the top of his newspaper, a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, yes?” he inquired politely.

  “Yes. Now the way I see it, we can put Theo and Stephen in the blue bedroom because they’re both sick. Jennifer and I can use the bedroom at the back, and Ben can sleep on the couch. He’s already had the chicken pox, anyway. We’ll use the blue bathroom and leave the gold one off the master bedroom for you. I’ll cook breakfast and dinner and I can make the kids sandwiches and leave them for lunch. I went to the store and got plenty of food—Ben’s putting it away now. Then, as soon as I come back at night, I’ll be sure they stay out of your way. We’ll go into the den or the bedrooms and play games or something and—”

  “You missed your calling.”

  Liv stopped midsentence and stared at him. “What?”

  “I said, ‘You missed your calling.’ You’d have made a terrific traffic controller—or prison warden.” Joe eased himself out of the chair and crossed the room to where she was standing by the window. Liv backed instinctively toward the kitchen until she ran into a bookcase and was trapped. “Calm down,” he said softly.

  “But—” She was trembling at his nearness.

  “Calm down.” His hypnotic green eyes measured her from head to toe. “You are as uptight as a stretched-out rubber band. One more ground rule and you’re going to snap.” His hand reached up and snaked behind her neck, closing on her nape and massaging gently. “That’s better,” he murmured as though he felt her muscles relaxing—as indeed they were relaxing, against her better judgment. He led her, unprotesting, to the sofa and pushed her down gently but firmly. She felt a momentary frisson of panic as she recalled the first time they were on this couch together.