Cowboy For Hire (42 page)

What’s more, Karen had talked Martin into
footing the cost of everything by persuading him that the glory of
Amy would send people flocking to see the picture. Martin had taken
the bait, although, according to Karen, he’d seen beyond Karen’s
blithe talk to the two women’s true motive.

“He knows you’re pining away for Charlie,”
Karen said as she gazed at her handiwork with an eye to
improvement.

“I’m not pining away! He probably agreed to
pay because we’re giving him the jewelry and the gown after
Chicago.” Amy, embarrassed and beginning to heat up, turned so that
Karen wouldn’t be able to see her consternation.

Blast! She hated when Karen’s glib tongue
told the truth in such a bald-faced manner. Amy was accustomed to
people sugarcoating ugly truths. Such fiddle-faddling ways were not
Karen’s, though, and Amy loved her for it, even if she also
deplored it sometimes. Like now, for instance.

“Pshaw!” said Karen, with no remorse
whatsoever. Not that Amy had expected any. “And Martin says
Charlie’s pining away for you, too—although, of course, men handle
pining differently from women.”

Amy would just bet they did, although she’d
die before she asked. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
If Charlie’s pining involved other women, she’d probably fall down
screaming and tear her hair out. How embarrassing.

Amy’s internal emotions and reluctance didn’t
matter to Karen, who never needed to hear questions before she
answered them. “I guess he’s been running wild all over Southern
California.”

“Oh, my.” This was serious news, indeed. Had
the poor man taken to drink from the agony of losing her?

Try not to be a total ass, Amy Wilkes
,
her inner guide told her with remarkable pungency. “What’s he been
doing?” she asked, steeling herself for the worst.

Karen shrugged. “I don’t know.”

My, wasn’t that helpful? Amy tried not to
resent her friend.

She was right to withhold criticism,
apparently, because Karen immediately followed her disclaimer with,
“He’s been looking at land, I understand. And reading everything he
can get his hands on about other stuff.”

“What other stuff?”

Karen shrugged. “I understand he’s investing
in Peerless.”

“Oh.” Did that mean he intended to stay in
the pictures? For some reason, Amy was disappointed.

She’d always pictured Charlie on a horse on a
ranch somewhere, looking lean and sleek and absolutely masculine,
in front of a flock of cows. Or was it a herd? Whatever. Something
about acting in pictures didn’t seem quite manly to her, although
she allowed herself to be prejudiced by her experience.

“Of course, he’s made a ton of money with
Peerless, so I imagine he knows what he’s doing by investing. As
annoying as Martin can be sometimes when he gets to spouting the
marvels of movies with all his boyish enthusiasm, I think he’s
right about the flickers. They’re going to make a whole lot of
people a whole lot of money.”

“I suspect you’re both right.”

Karen made a dive at Amy and executed one
last adjustment to the waist of Amy’s gown. She stood back to view
her creation as Amy gazed at herself in the mirror. She was quite a
sight, if she did say so herself.

Lace the blue of her eyes and mounted on
cream silk adorned her body as if it had been sewn to the skin. The
gown featured a daringly low neckline, short cap sleeves formed by
a scallop of lace, and a blue cummerbund. The flared skirt dipped
into a long train at the back. With the gown, Amy wore long
cream-colored kid gloves, and a necklace and drop earrings of faux
sapphires. If Charlie still had any feelings for her at all, she
hoped the sight of her in this incredible finery would push him
over the edge.

If, of course, his pride didn’t stand in the
way.

Fear and pride. To Amy’s way of thinking,
those were the two monsters that stood in the way of a union
between them. Her fear and his pride. She’d wounded his pride. She
was ashamed of herself for it, because it was her fear that had
made her do it. Well, she might not be done with fear, but she was
sure aiming to battle it tooth and nail in order to secure Charlie
Fox.

Which was a darned good thing, since she was
at present scared to flinders.

In the meantime, Karen’s gaze of appreciation
had faded. She now sported a small frown and was tapping her cheek
with her forefinger.

Amy said, “What? What’s wrong?”

Karen cocked her head to one side. “Nothing’s
wrong, but something’s missing. Let me think for a minute until I
figure out what it is.”

Amy, who had become accustomed to episodes of
this nature during the filming of
One and Only
stood still
and waited. At last Karen cried, “I have it! Your hair.”

Amy’s right hand shot to her hair, upon which
she’d spent an inordinate amount of time earlier in the evening.
“What about my hair?”

“You need feathers.”

“Feathers?” Good heavens.

“And I think I have some right here.”

To Amy’s amazement, Karen pitched into her
luggage and after digging around for a moment, produced one of her
ever-present boxes, this one evidently having started out in life
filled with Cuban cigars. “What’s in there?”

“Feathers.” Karen gave a negligent shrug.
“And some other stuff. You never know what you’re going to
need.”

Up until she’d met Karen, Amy had never
considered emergencies of an apparel-related nature. Emergencies to
her had always been accompanied by some kind of danger or worry.
How naïve she’d been. She blinked as Karen tossed several strands
of fake jewels—neatly rolled and tied—onto the bed, followed by
several yards of rolled-up ribbons and a couple of silk flower hair
ornaments, and then lifted a variety of feathers out of the box.
“Here they are.”

They were indeed. Amy, guessing that it was
safe to move by this time, walked to the bed to see what was what.
Karen whirled around and held out two blue feathers and one black
one. “The very thing!” she cried.

Amy trusted Karen implicitly when it came to
clothes, so she said, “I’m happy to hear it.”

“You just wait.”

Karen tapped her shoulder, and Amy obediently
turned around. She felt Karen poke the feathers into her hairdo—a
new and creative arrangement she’d practiced for weeks at home—and
prayed that nothing would come loose. It didn’t.

“All right, go look at yourself,” Karen said.
The note of complacency in her voice encouraged Amy to do as she’d
said.

“My gracious, you’re right. They’re
perfect.”

“Aren’t they, though?”

Amy turned around. “Thank you, Karen. Thank
you for everything.” Since she was about to sniffle, she grabbed a
hankie out of the cleverly hidden pocket in her skirt and blew her
nose.

“Nonsense,” asserted Karen. “You’re my best
friend.” She, too, began to sniffle.

It was therefore a couple of watery lasses
who went to Uncle Frank and Aunt Julia’s room a few minutes later
to bear them off for a spectacular evening of frivolity and
entertainment. Martin was going to meet them all in the lobby of
the hotel and take them to a magnificent restaurant for a bit to
eat before the premiere of
One and Only
. He had warned them
that photographers and newspapermen would be swarming around them
all evening in order to capture pictures and quotes from the
stars.

“Don’t forget,” he told them with patent
glee, “this is the very first featured motion picture ever made.
This is a huge occasion for the whole of the motion picture
industry. For the whole world, even! The newspapers are going to
eat it up.”

Amy believed him, although she herself
considered the amount of publicity being expended for something as
trivial as a moving picture rather sad. She’d prefer it if the
press kept its photographers and writers for important things. Like
floods and famine and war and so forth. Sensing that tragedy
shouldn’t be the only thing to which the press paid attention, she
added the discovery of ancient Egyptian tombs, breakthroughs in
medical research, and great scientific revelations to her list of
publicity-worthy ventures.

Tonight, however, she was it—she and rest of
the cast of
One and Only.
Which, since Horace Huxtable
wasn’t present—thank God—meant Charlie Fox. Amy swallowed nervously
and she and Karen, along with her aunt and uncle, all splendidly
attired for the occasion, walked to the head of the magnificent
staircase leading to the hotel lobby.

Twenty-One

Charlie had declined Martin’s invitation to
wait in the lobby for Amy and her family.

“Karen’ll be there, too, of course. Can’t
have an actress attend a premiere of a major motion picture without
her dresser along.” Martin had chuckled gleefully and rubbed his
hands together.

Charlie was glad Karen would be there. And
Amy’s aunt and uncle. Their presence, not to mention the hordes of
photographers and print men Charlie had glimpsed in the lobby,
would postpone his intended purpose, and he was grateful to them
for it.

Shoot, he’d never been a coward before
this.

His life’s happiness had never depended so
completely on one evening, either.

Dang it, he had to stop thinking these
things. Charlie had smiled and bidden Martin farewell. At this
moment, he held down the table at the glorious restaurant to which
Marin and the rest of the party would go as soon as they’d all
assembled in the lobby of the hotel. He’d ordered a cocktail,
because he didn’t know what else to do, and fiddled with it as he
waited. He was as nervous as a newborn calf facing a branding
iron.

Would she or wouldn’t she? He wanted to run
his fingers through his hair, or bury his head in his hands and
moan for a while, but didn’t dare mess up his fancy new haircut.
Shoot, he’d never before been to a big-city barber.

But he’d done it for Amy. And when he’d
looked at himself in the mirror, all duded out in his fancy Los
Angeles tailor’s clothes, he hardly recognized himself.

Good God almighty, what if
she
didn’t
recognize him?

He gulped some of his cocktail—a concoction
called a Manhattan and awfully sweet—and told himself to calm
down.

Oh, good God, there they were. He saw
Karen.

He saw Martin.

He saw an elderly couple who he assumed were
Amy’s aunt and uncle.

He saw a swarm of photographers, all calling
out for the party to stop walking and turn to have their likenesses
captured on film.

He saw Martin smile and speak to the
reporters. “After dinner, fellows. Let the lady have a bite to eat
first.” Martin sounded cheerful. Charlie felt a fierce, sudden and
unexpected urge to hit something.

And at long last—when he’d almost forgotten
whom it was he was looking for—he saw Amy.

His mouth fell open. His fingers, which had
been fingering his Manhattan glass in a frenzy of nervous energy,
stilled. He felt his eyes open hugely.

It was a
damned
good thing he hadn’t
waited with Martin in the lobby. It would have been too humiliating
to have his knees give out on him there, and to fall to the floor
in front of her in an attitude of worship.

He’d always considered her a pretty woman,
and since he’d tasted the sweets of her love, he’d ached for her,
but he’d never seen her lovelier than she was this evening. He
hoped his heart would hold out long enough for him to beg her to
reconsider and marry him.

Bracing himself on the table to he wouldn’t
keel over, Charlie stood politely. Once he was up on his hind legs,
he balanced himself by grasping the back of his chair. Because he’d
been acting for a while and had learned the rudiments of pretense,
he forced himself to smile amiably.

“There he is!” Martin cried happily.
“Gentlemen, you can have one shot of Peerless’s newest cowboy star
before you depart and leave us in peace.”

Any army of photographers rushed up to
Charlie. He’s never seen such heavy equipment wielded so handily.
Although he was mightily disconcerted by Amy’s presence, he steeled
his nerves and smiled for the cameras, hoping all the while that
Amy was impressed.

Or maybe she’d be disgusted that he’d done
another picture. Shoot, he hadn’t thought of that before.

On the other hand, Charlie’d heard time and
time again that females were beginning to swoon over moving picture
cowboys.

Aw, dang it, Amy wasn’t like any of those
stupid women. She was special.

At any rate, it was too late to decline. He
must have been caught on film a hundred times or more by the time
Martin succeeded in shooing the last of the newspaper vultures out
of the restaurant. The restaurant manager, not happy about the
swarming mob of reporters, helped.

The time had come.

Well, not the time for his proposal, but the
time to greet Amy. He’d considered at least sixteen hundred
different ways to do it, and decided a warm smile and a friendly
handshake would be intimate but not pushy. After all, they’d worked
together for a month. He knew better than to remind Amy of what
else they’d done together.

Dagnabbit, every time he thought about that
night they’d spent together—that portion of a night, he meant—a
jolt of desire shook him. He suppressed it with difficulty.

“Charlie!” Karen cried, and ran up to him and
gave him a big hug.

That was Karen all over, he decided with a
grin. He wished Amy had a tiny bit of Karen’s effusiveness. “Howdy,
Karen. Good to see you again. How ya been?”

“Just wonderful. And you”

“Fine, fine.”

“Here’s Amy,” Karen said with the air of a
master of ceremonies introducing the starring act. She swept her
arm out, narrowly missing Charlie’s cocktail glass, and indicated
Amy who was standing there looking both gorgeous and a bit shy. She
had a glorious smile on her face, though, and her eyes, which were
by some miracle of chance or purpose the same color as her gown,
were sparkling like the sapphires around her neck.