LITMIR.BIZ

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friend’s name is Kathryn. She’s a girl,” Gracie said. “She’s an actress, too, and I get to see her every day on the set.”

      “Is she your age?” Clay asked.

      “No, she’s a year older than me. She has a birthday coming up and she’s going to be nine. She thinks she’s much smarter than me because she’ll be nine before I will be.” Gracie released a long-suffering sigh. “She’s kind of a know-it-all, but she’s my best friend anyway.”

      At that moment Helen returned to take away the soup dishes and to serve the main course of Swiss steak, baked potato and fresh, steamed asparagus.

      Thankfully, Clay offered nothing more personal about himself throughout the course of the meal. Libby didn’t want to know anything personal about him. It was enough that he had a killer smile. It was enough that he bothered her on a level she didn’t quite understand.

      Gracie kept up a running monologue throughout the meal, telling Clay all about the movie they were in the middle of shooting, about the other child actors who were in the film and how much fun they had on the set.

      Although Clay wasn’t big on conversation, he listened with interest to everything Gracie said and it was apparent that in the few brief hours of the early evening the handsome cowboy and her daughter had begun to form a relationship.

      Gracie liked him. It was obvious in her easy chatter, in the way she smiled at him so frequently. Libby wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On the one hand she hated to see her daughter forming any kind of attachment to a man who wouldn’t be long in her life. On the other hand she knew it was important that Gracie trust Clay. Her very life might depend on that trust.

      The meal passed without too many awkward silences, thanks to Gracie. After dinner, Libby told Clay he was officially off duty while she attended to Gracie’s bath and bedtime. He disappeared into his bedroom while she and Gracie went into her room so Gracie could take a bath in her mother’s tub, as was her habit.

      Half an hour later Gracie swam around in the oversize tub. Libby sat in a chair nearby. “I like Mr. Clay,” Gracie said. She scooped up a handful of bubbles and put them on top of her head, then posed as if doing a commercial shoot for bubble bath.

      “I know. I could tell.”

      Gracie slid down in the water. “He has nice eyes. They’re real green, like grass.”

      Libby had noticed. His eyes were a beautiful shade of green, but she didn’t find them particularly nice. Whenever he gazed at her they were cool and distant and held just the slightest whisper of censure that let her know he didn’t think very much of her.

      Not that it bothered her. He didn’t have to like her. That wasn’t his job. And she didn’t have to like him. She could find him pleasant to look at without having to like him. Okay, so pleasant seemed too mild a description for the edgy tension that swept through her whenever she looked at him.

      “Tell me your lines for tomorrow’s shoot,” Libby said, hoping to distract her daughter from any more observations about Clay West.

      It was eight-thirty when she finally got Gracie tucked into bed and went down to her office for the list and schedule Clay had requested. She’d not only written down the names of the people intimately involved in Gracie’s life but also what they did.

      She retrieved the papers, then went back up the stairs and knocked on his bedroom door.

      When he pulled open the door, her breath caught in her throat. He had obviously taken the time alone to shower for his dark hair was damp and the scent of minty soap wafted from him.

      He was shirtless, his chest a broad expanse of tanned, muscled flesh, and his jeans rode precariously low on his slender hips.

      Male. The man was so intensely male. God, it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed any kind of a physical relationship with a man. She had an insane impulse to reach out and touch his chest, to thread her fingers through the dark tuft of hair that sprang up in the center.

      “Yes?” For just a brief moment his eyes flickered with a hint of amusement, as if he could read her thoughts.

      A flash of annoyance shot through her. “I have those things you asked for.” She thrust the papers toward him.

      He scanned the first sheet quickly, then looked back at her. “I think we need to go over some of this together. In case I have questions or need clarification. Is now convenient?”

      Only if you put on a shirt, she thought. “Why don’t we meet in my office in a few minutes and go over things?”

      “Fine. I’ll see you in a few.”

      Before going back downstairs, Libby went into Gracie’s room to check on her daughter. For a long moment she stood at the side of Gracie’s bed, watching her daughter in slumber.

      Here was the reason Libby didn’t have any personal relationships. Gracie had a dream, a dream like the one Libby had once had.

      In Libby’s case nobody had helped nurture that dream, but had rather tried to squash it out of her. Her aspirations for herself had been met with not only a lack of support but also a cold censure that had forever broken a piece of Libby’s heart.

      Like Libby, her daughter had expressed the desire to be in movies, to act. Gracie loved it. Libby had made the decision to forget her own career and become Gracie’s biggest support, to nourish her dream in every way possible as nobody had ever done for her.

      She leaned down and pressed her lips against Gracie’s soft cheek, then turned and left her bedroom. As she headed downstairs to her office, she thought about the handsome stranger who had been brought into their lives.

      She couldn’t help but admit that something about him was more physically appealing to her than any man had been for a very long time. On screen, it would be called chemistry; off screen, it was just irritating.

      If there was any one place in the house where she felt most at home it was in her office just off the living room. The office was large and held not only her beautiful mahogany desk, but also a tasteful burgundy-and-gold love seat and a coffee table.

      The walls were covered with framed photos. Some of them were of her when she’d first come to Hollywood and had worked as a model/actress. Others were of both her and Gracie from a shoot they’d done together for baby food, and the rest were of Gracie. They were a pictorial history of their work here in Hollywood that told a story of success.

      Whenever Libby wasn’t with Gracie she could usually be found here in the office. From her chair at the desk she not only planned and negotiated Gracie’s next career move, but also kept detailed financial records and sifted through the social invitations to decide which events she and her daughter would and wouldn’t attend.

      As she waited for Clay to join her, she tackled a stack of invitations that Maddie Walker, their secretary, had placed on her desk at some point during the day.

      They were the usual mixed bag: dinner invitations, several charity events and a surprise birthday party for a director who had worked with Libby on her first film. That picture had been filmed years ago when Gracie was a baby and Libby had been focused on her own career rather than her daughter’s.

      She tensed as she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He came into the room, bigger than life and, thankfully, wearing a shirt. He carried the papers she’d given him and for a long moment he stood in the doorway of the room and gazed at the photos on the wall.

      “You were an actress?” he finally asked.

      She noded. “I came to Hollywood when Gracie was three months old. For the first two years of her life I did some modeling and acting.” She started to explain to him why she’d stopped working and how Gracie had been discovered, but then realized it was nothing he needed to know.

      “Interesting,” he said. When he sat on the love seat he significantly dwarfed the overstuffed piece of furniture.

      “Did

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