with Brian, watched her gesture, then consult the thick notebook she carried.
He had to admire the way she moved. Must be all that leg, he supposed, that had her eating up the ground so efficiently while appearing to take her time. All that energy so tightly packed in that willowy frame, the glacier blue eyes and china-doll skin masking the muscle it took to...
"Whoa, wait a minute." He sat up straighter, narrowed his eyes and pictured her with the hammer hefted on her shoulder again. "Shorter handle," he muttered. "Two-sided head. Yeah, yeah. Looks like I am working."
He went inside, grabbed a sketch pad and pencils and, inspired, dug out his binoculars. Back on the veranda, he focused on Cilla through the glasses, studying the shape of her face, the line of her jaw, her build. She had a fascinating, sexy mouth, he mused, with that deep middle dip in the top lip.
As he began the first sketch, he rolled around scenarios, dismissing them almost as soon as he considered.
It would come to him, he thought. The concept often came from the sketches. He saw her... Diane, Maggie, Nadine. No, no, no. Cass. Simple, a little androgynous. Cass Murphy. Cass Murphy. Intelligent, intense, solitary, even lonely. Attractive. He looked through the glasses again. "Oh yeah, attractive."
The rough clothes didn't disguise that, but they played it down. He continued to sketch, full body, close-up face, profile. Then stopped to tap his pencil and consider. Glasses might be a clich, but they were shorthand for smarts. And always a good mask for the alter ego.
He sketched them on, trying out simple, dark frames, rectangular lenses. "There you are, Cass. Or should I say, Dr. Murphy?"
He flipped a page over, began again. Safari shirt, khakis, boots, wide-brimmed hat. Out of the lab or classroom, into the field. His lips curved as he flipped the page again, and his mind raced as he sketched out who and what his newly minted Cass would become. The leather, the breastplate-and the very nice pair rising over it. Silver armbands, long bare legs, the wild swirl of hair with the circlet of rank crowning the head. Jeweled belt? he wondered. Maybe. The ancient weapon- double-headed hammer. Gleaming silver when gripped by the hand of the blood descendant of the warrior goddess...
And yeah, he needed a name for her.
Roman? Greek? Viking? Celt?
Celtic. It fit.
He held up the pad, and found himself grinning at the image. "Hello, gorgeous. We're going to kick some major ass together."
He glanced back across the road. The trucks were gone now, and while Cilla was nowhere in sight, the front door of the farmhouse stood open.
"Thanks, neighbor," Ford said, and, rising, went inside to call his agent.
SURREAL WAS the best way to describe Cilla's view on finding herself sitting on the pretty patio of her father's tidy brick colonial, sipping iced sun tea fussily served by her stepmother. The scene simply didn't fit in with any previous phase of her life. As a child, her visits east had been few and far between. Work trumped visitations, at least in her mother's game.
He'd come to her now and then, Cilla remembered. And taken her to the zoo or to Disneyland. But at least during the heyday of her series, there'd always been paparazzi, or kids swarming her, and their parents snapping photos. Work trumps Fantasyland, Cilla thought, whether you wanted it to or not.
Then, of course, her father and Patty had their own daughter, Angie, their own home, their own lives on the other side of the country. Which, Cilla mused, equated to the other side of the world.
She'd never fit into that world.
Isn't that what her father had tried to tell her? A long way, and not just the miles.
"It's nice out here," Cilla said, groping.
"Our favorite sitting spot," Patty answered with a smile that tried too hard. "It's a little chilly yet, I know."
"It feels good." Cilla racked her brain. What did she say to this sweet, motherly woman with her pleasant face, dark bob of hair and nervous eyes? "I, ah, bet the gardens will be great in a week or two, when everything starts to pop."
She scanned the bed, the shrubs and vines, the trim swath of lawn that would fill with pockets of shade when the red maple and weeping cherry leafed out. "You've put a lot of work into it."
"Oh, I putter." Patty flicked her fingers over her short, dark bob, twisted the little silver hoop in her ear.