those muscles? Much more defined than she’d expected. “Uh-oh. Did I get you out of the shower?”
He pulled the door wider. “I was out. What are you doing here?”
“I watched your movie this morning. It was so sad, I had to talk to you! Every thing or person I really got attached to dies in that movie! And that was based on your own childhood…?”
“Well, very loosely,” he said.
“You killed off your father!?” she said with a sniff.
“Not actually my father, but the father in the script. Sam Shepard. Come in, Kelly.”
“I’m on my way to the farmers’ market, but I have to know about this.” She allowed herself to be pulled inside. What she wanted was for him to take off his pants so she could fill her eyes with the rest of him. But what she said was, “Do you want to find a shirt?” And then she fanned her face with her hand.
He grinned at her. “Sure,” he said. “Give me a second.”
She didn’t move from just inside the door. When he came back, she said, “What did your family think of that movie?”
“Well, my mother called it pap, except the part where the mother is played by Muriel St. Claire and the father by Sam Shepard. But she didn’t like being widowed so young. My dad, on the other hand, thought it was awesome. He said he hopes he goes out in a hail of bullets like Sam did rather than eighty-five years old and facedown in a potato patch.” Then he smiled.
“That movie almost killed me,” she said. “I sobbed for an hour!”
“You liked it,” he accused.
“I don’t know. It’s going to be a long damn time before I watch another one of your movies! I’m going to need a better briefing before I do.” She sighed. “I think I might have PTSD.”
He chuckled. “It was hard to write, too.”
“Did you cry while you wrote it?”
“I got a little choked up, but when I started feeling it, I thought I’d hit a home run. That’s what I was looking for. Will you please come inside?”
She just stood there. “Was it that hard to be you, when you were sixteen?”
“I think it’s hard for everyone to be sixteen.” He pulled her into his arms. “You know what? When I feel you against me, I get a little drunk.” His hands were running up and down her back, his chin balanced on top of her head. He inhaled the pure scent of her hair. “You feel so damn good. You smell like heaven.”
“We have nothing in common. Nothing.”
“I think we have a lot in common. I like to hold you like this, you like being held like this. You like to cook, I like to eat. The movie business, who cares? You don’t have to watch ’em. You and my mother can sit on the porch and snap beans or something while I watch with my dad, who hopes to go down in a hail of bullets.”
“I don’t think I’m going to get over it very soon. I’m emotionally damaged.”
“We’ll make out awhile and you’ll feel better.”
“You know, Lief—I think we’re making a big mistake here. We shouldn’t get involved—this isn’t going anywhere. I have to get a job, and there’s no job here. You have to get your family life in order and write more devastating, Oscar-winning scripts that blow my mind. I don’t know anything about teenagers and you have one and you’re keeping me a secret from her.” She shook her head. “This is all a big mistake.”
“What if it’s not?” he asked. “What if it’s perfect?”
“Are you looking for a mother for your daughter? Because I can assure you, I’m not it. And I don’t even know her!”
“Until I met you, I wasn’t looking for anything at all. Since meeting you, I’m kind of looking for a girlfriend.” He smiled at her. “That’s all. Poor Court—I’m the only mother she’s going to get, I think. But, I’m going to bring Courtney and Amber to your Halloween party. That should bring you out of the closet.”
“It’s not a party, it’s a kind of a picnic. A pumpkin pick.”
“Everyone’s excited about it. I think the town sees it as a party. And I’m bringing the girls.”
“What do you think the odds are Courtney will find me even tolerable?” she asked him.
“Odds are fantastic,” he said. “She wants a puppy from Amber’s dog’s litter. She picked him out and named him. She’s going to like everything