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  quickly, taking her place.

  Rory did, glancing furtively from one adult to the other with a long sigh.

  It was a quiet meal, compared to the ones that had gone before. Tippy felt terrible,

  because she'd ruined not only her Christmas and Cash's, but Rory's as well. They ate

  in a long silence until everyone was finished.

  "I offered to make the biscuits," Rory told Cash, "but she said she wanted to be able

  to eat them afterward."

  Cash chuckled. "Are you that bad a cook?"

  "Not with most things," Rory said. "But I have a hard time with bread."

  "Me, too," Cash confessed. "I used to make a passable biscuit, but these days I just buy them in tins and heat them up." "Tippy doesn't. She does them from scratch." "A woman of talent," Cash said without looking at her. It was a good thing. She went scarlet and jumped up to get the cherry pie she'd

  made and open a small pint of vanilla ice cream to top it with. Her hands shook. Cash saw it and cursed himself for losing his head the night before. She was taking the blame for everything, when it was his own damned fault.

  She fixed three bowls of dessert and passed them out with a frozen smile. "This is a bake and serve pie. I didn't have time to do one from scratch, but these are pretty good."

  "Everything was good, Tippy," Cash said, his voice deep and apologetic.

  She didn't look at him. "I'm glad you liked it."

  He ate his pie, feeling two inches tall. She was going to blame herself for everything. After he left, it would be even worse. She'd convince herself that she was little better than a call girl, and she wouldn't go near him again.

  He blinked, amazed that he knew her that well. He'd accused her of reading his mind, but he could see right into her own. It was eerie. It was as if they were...connected.

  'This is really good, Tippy," Rory said. "Want me to wash up?"

  "I don't mind," she said at once.

  "Let Rory do it. I want to talk to you," Cash said firmly, getting to his feet.

  "I really should—" she protested.

  He caught her hand and pulled her into the living room, out of sight of the kitchen. He looked down at her solemnly.

  "Nobody's to blame," he said firmly. "It just happened. Don't beat yourself to death over it. Whatever happens, I'll handle it."

  She swallowed and then swallowed again. She couldn't look at him without hearing his voice, husky and deep at her ear, while he whispered to her in the darkness. He framed her face in his hands and forced it up to his searching eyes. He winced when he saw her eyes. "Let me go, please," she whispered, tugging away from him. "I'm not a child. You don't have to worry that I'll...that I'll chase you, or anything." He felt sick to his stomach. He'd done untold damage, much worse than he'd suspected. "I never would have thought that."

  She moved back, forcing a smile. "I hope you have a good trip home. Please tell Judd and Christabel hello for me. I expect she's very happy now, with a husband who wants her and two little babies to look after. She's going to make a wonderful mother."

  "Yes, she is," he said, and he couldn't help the tenderness in his voice. Christabel had been special to him.

  Tippy knew that, and she was jealous. She hated herself for it.

  She glanced up at him and away. "Well, I'll just go and help Rory with the dishes. I'll send him out to say goodbye first. Thanks for bringing him home. And for taking me out on the town."

  He was angry now, and it showed. His eyes were blazing. He hated being in this position. He didn't know what to do or say that wouldn't make things even worse, and that infuriated him.

  Before he could think of anything, she was gone and Rory was standing in her place, looking curiously at Cash. "I wish you could stay longer," he told the tall man. "It's the best Christmas I ever had."

  Cash was touched. He was already fond of the boy. He held out his hand and shook Rory's firmly. "If you ever need me, Tippy has my number. Or if she's not around, just call the Jacobsville Police Department and somebody will find me. Okay?"

  Rory smiled at him. "I won't need you. But thanks, Cash."

  "You never know." He glanced toward the kitchen. "Take care of her. She's a lot more fragile than she looks."

  "She's okay," Rory said. "It's just that nobody ever paid her much attention except if they wanted something from her. It's natural that she might go a little overboard because a man liked her for herself, you know?" He grimaced. "I'm messing it up again. I don't know how to put it into words..."

  "I understand what you mean, Rory," he said and laid a big hand on the boy's shoulder. "She'll get over it."

  "Sure she will."

  Neither of them believed it, of course.

  "Take care of yourself. I'll see you again," Cash promised.

  Rory grinned at him. "You, too. Stay out of fights."

  Cash's eyebrows raised. "I will if you will." Rory smiled self-consciously.

  "I'll do my best." "And so will I. See you." "Sure. See you." "Goodbye, Tippy," Cash called from the front door. "Have a safe trip," she called back, and said nothing else. Cash opened the door and went through it. When it closed, he felt as if he'd left part of himself inside.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TIPPY FELT HEARTSICK after Cash left. She missed him and she hadn't really known him long enough to feel that deeply. But they'd skipped a few steps along the way. Her heartbeat accelerated every time she thought of his handsome face. She wondered how she was going to live without him in her life.

  Rory went back to school after the first of the year and Tippy resumed work on the film. She began having some odd bouts of illness, and when she consulted her pocket calendar, the one she circled for her periods, she noticed that her long night with Cash had been at the worst possible time. More than that, her period was late. And it was never late, despite the very physical challenge of her job.

  She worried about the stunts she was required to do. Didn't they say that it was dangerous to do physical labor during the first trimester? Or was that just an old wive's tale?

  A month after Cash's departure, she bought a home pregnancy kit and used it. The results were predictable, and vaguely Unifying. She couldn't call Cash and destroy his life. She al-itady felt protective of the tiny life inside her.

  She was going to have a baby. Would it look like her, or like Cash? she wondered dreamily. Or would it look like some ancestor neither of them even remembered? She thought of diapers and formula and two-o'clock morning feedings with pure delight. Rory would love having a niece or nephew.

  But she'd have to quit work. Not at once, but when she started showing. It was no big thing for a Hollywood star to have a child Out of wedlock. But it was for Tippy. It would give her mother a weapon to use against her. Despite her own murky past, she could go to the tabloids and say that Tippy slept around and wasn't a good guardian for her little brother.

  There was another consideration. Cash didn't want marriage. He was adamant about being a loner. He'd meant their encounter to be a one-night affair, despite his hunger for a child. It had probably been just as he said, something to bring the heat up between them. Men did say things in passion that they didn't mean. Tippy had heard other women talk about it, even if she didn't know from her own experience.

  Her problem was what to do about it. She couldn't hide it for forever. At some point, she'd have to see a doctor. There were vitamins that a pregnant woman had to have. She'd have to eat properly as well—something else that would impact her career. She wasn't allowed to gain more than five pounds during the filming Of the movie, and that was written into her contract. She needed the money so badly, for Rory's school tuition and her own rent and utilities and food bills. She couldn't afford to lose her job.

  But she wanted her child, just as much. She sat in the evenings after work and

  fantasized about it. She would have some

  one of her very own, someone of her own flesh and blood and bone to belong to. She
r />   would be a mother. It was an awesome responsibility. It was a heady joy as well.

  She patted her flat stomach gently and thought about the day when she would hold

  her child in her arms. She sighed, closing her eyes on dreams.

  THE REALITY WAS A LITTLE LESS euphoric. The second assistant director, a gung ho young

  man named Ben, took over while the first assistant director took a break to handle a

  personal problem. Ben insisted that she run the length of a board between two

  buildings and land with a breakfall on the roof of the location set in Manhattan.

  There was a drop, not a big one, and the chances were slim that she'd fall. Still,

  she put a protective hand over her flat belly, feeling it was too risky. "I can't do

  this," she said firmly.

  "You make the jump or you're out of work," Ben said coldly. "I'm pregnant," she

  began. "Hire a stunt double." "No dice! I'm already over budget and my job's on the

  line. I'm not paying for a stunt double, and there's no need for one. The jump is

  perfectly safe." "Can you guarantee that no harm will come to me or my baby?" "How

  many times do I have to say it? You'll be fine!" he snapped.

  "Well if you're absolutely positive..." Still she made her position clear. "If this jeopardizes my pregnancy you'll grow old paying for it. That's a promise!" she warned.

  "Yeah, yeah, like you have any pull with my boss, when he's directing A-list actors!" he retorted. "Get to it!" She went back to the scene, her mind far removed from the hus-tle and bustle of the set, from cameramen and sound men and makeup technicians and the location

  manager. All she could think

  about was what she had to lose if anything went wrong. Cash didn't even know. She was going to have to tell him, and speak to Joel Harper about this arrogant little ape who'd caged a job with him. For the meantime, she resolved herself to finish the scene. She closed her eyes, said a small prayer, and made the running jump. She misjudged the distance without her glasses and went down. The fall left her in a tumbled heap with a terrible pain in her stomach. She screamed.

  SHE WAS AMBULATORY, but Joel Harper, just arrived on the scene in time to find her bent over double, called for an ambulance at once. They rushed her to the emergency room while Ben tried to explain his actions to Joel, who was calling him names in a steady unprintable stream all the way to the hospital.

  "She was pregnant, you idiot, why do you think I've been so careful with her for the past week?" Joel demanded. "If she loses the baby, she can sue us for every damned dime I have, and collect. And she'd be within her rights! Damn you!"

  "But, sir..." Ben protested, white-faced. "You're off the picture," Joel told him icily. "And you'll never work on another film of mine! Get out of my sight!" Ben walked away cursing his own fate. But he didn't leave. He stood nearby, waiting for word of Tippy's condition.

  Joel Harper waited patiently until the doctor came out to speak to him.

  "Is she married?" the doctor asked.

  "No," Joel said. "She has a young brother..."

  "She lost the baby," the doctor said curtly. "She was six weeks along, by the look of it. She's inconsolable. I had to sedate her."

  Joel was shattered. He looked at Ben, who'd heard every word and was looking shaky. "You son of a bitch," Joel said, enunci

  ating every word as he went for the younger man and grabbed him by the collar. "She

  lost her baby because you forced her to do a stunt she should never have had to do in

  the first place!"

  "She volunteered to do it!" Ben lied. "I didn't force her! She didn't care about the

  baby!"

  "In a pig's eye!"

  Ben saw the intent in the older man's face. He cut his losses. He turned and ran. Neither man noticed the man standing nearby with a pad and pen, who started scribbling excitedly and jerked out a cell phone. A reporter for one of the bigger tabloids had followed a wounded prison escapee and his captors into the emergency room in hopes of a scoop. But now he had something better. Much better.

  "Give me the rewrite desk," he said. "Harry? Take this down. Tippy Moore, goddess of models, sacrificed her baby today for the sake of a movie contract...!"

  THE TABLOIDS SOLD IN EVERY grocery store in the country. Even in Jacobsville, Texas. Cash Grier had stopped by the local Jensen Supermarket to pick up some eggs for an omelet after his duty shift. The tabloid carried a photo of Tippy Moore at her most glamorous with a headline in red ink denouncing the career-minded model for sacrificing a baby on the altar of selfishness.

  Cash almost choked. Tippy had been pregnant, and the child was almost certainly his. She'd been just at six weeks, the tabloid read, and it had been that long since Christmas Eve.

  'Terrible, ain't it?" an older woman said, noticing his fascination with the headline. "She was here making some movie last year. Pretty little thing. I guess women these days don't care much for home and family. Poor little baby. But maybe it's better off. I mean, what sort of mother would a woman like that make?"

  Cash hardly heard her. He paid for his eggs, white-faced, and went home. He didn't turn on the television or the lights. He sat there in the dark while history repeated itself.

  TIPPY WAS SO BROKEN UP over her miscarriage that she couldn't cope with going back to work, even though she was out of the hospital in less than twenty-four hours, with no other physical damage. Joel Harper postponed the additional scenes until she could return, hiring a stunt double and apologizing daily for his assistant director's incompetence. He'd filed a complaint against the man himself, and he'd badgered Tippy to get an attorney and file suit.

  But Tippy didn't care. She was inconsolable. She couldn't even call Cash and tell him how sick she was about the loss. He'd have seen the tabloids by now. He'd think she did it deliberately, just as his ex-wife had done it deliberately. He'd think she didn't want his child. Maybe even that she was getting even for having him walk out on her. She wasn't. She'd wanted the child, so badly.

  In the end, Joel Harper was so concerned that he called the commandant at Rory's

  military school and explained the situation to him. The commandant put Rory on the first

  plane for Newark on Saturday, at Joel's expense, and Joel met him at the airport.

  "How is she?" Rory asked at once.

  "Have you read the tabloids?" Joel replied as he escorted the boy to a black stretch

  limo waiting outside in the parking lot.

  "Yes," Rory said glumly. "Actually, I should say, they've been read to me by the

  other boys."

  Joel grimaced. "I wouldn't have asked you to come, Rory, but she's not herself."

  "I know that," Rory told him. "My tenth birthday was yesterday, and she didn't

  phone me. That's not like her. She always sends me something, and she always calls."

  Joel sighed as he put the boy into the limo. "She's still in depression and she can't

  snap out of it, even to work. She needs someone with her."

  Rory was trying to be stiff-lipped, but tears brightened his eyes.

  "You know who the father is, don't you, Rory?" Joel asked. "Do you think he'd

  come to see about her?"

  "Maybe," Rory said. "But I want to talk to her first, before I call him."

  Joel was amazed at the sensibility of the young man, who seemed so mature for

  his age. "Okay," he agreed. "We'll wait."

  Tippy had been sitting around in a T-shirt and sweatpants in her apartment,

  watching an old movie. But she stood up at once when she heard Rory's voice, and ran

  to the buzzer to let him in. She held out her arms when he reached the door. She cried

  like a child, while Rory patted her back and tried to sound comforting. Joel paused long

  enough to say hello, and then he left, promising to return the next afternoon to put

  Rory on a plane
back to Maryland.

  Rory sat down on the sofa beside his sister, worried now that he could see how haggard and strained she looked. Her eyes were so full of pain that he could hardly bear to look into them.

  "Joel wants me to call Cash," he began slowly. "No!"

  "But, sis—" he pleaded.

  She cut him off. "Listen to me. Promise me you won't get in touch with him.

  Promise me!"