Page 15

Billie was sitting cross-legged on an enormous cushion on the floor wearing a faded nightshirt withKiss me, I’m Irishemblazoned in shamrock-green across the front. She looked up from her guitar and cast a quick warm smile at Kendra. “Hi, did I wake you?”

Kendra shook her head. “I only meant to nap for a while anyway. That’s a very pretty folk song you were singing. I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”

“That’s not surprising since I just made it up an hour ago.” Billie’s fingers moved caressingly over the strings. “I like to play around with composing every now and then. It’s something to do when you’re alone.” She shrugged. “And when you’re on the road, you find yourself alone more often than not.”

“And you’re on the road a lot?”

“I get restless,” Billie said simply. She looked down at her guitar, her violet eyes far away. “You know, sometimes I feel there’s something special out there waiting for me just around the corner or over the horizon. But when I get there, whatever it was has already faded away. I can catch a glimpse of it in the distance, but I can never quite touch it.” She struck a soft chord. “So I try another road.”

“Well, your roads certainly have some interesting twists and turns,” Kendra said lightly. “Did you get Yusef settled?”

“If you could call it that. He’s lying outside on our doorstep in a sleeping bag. Dave offered to put a cot in the wardrobe tent, but he wouldn’t have it. He seems to think I’ll be thrown into some dire peril if he’s not right on top of me. I tried to get Joel to put a cot in here, but he turned me down flat. He said there was no way he was going to let a bordello bouncer become our roommate. Yusef isn’t the only one who’s overprotective around here.”

“Yet you seem to be able to manage Joel very well from what I’ve seen,” Kendra observed. “Have you known each other long?”

“About three months,” Billie answered. “And no one ‘manages’ Joel Damon. The only reason he sometimes listens to me is because we’re friends. We liked each other from the minute he picked me up on the highway one day. Sometimes it happens that way.”

“He picked you up?”

“Well, not exactly the way that sounds,” Billie said with a grin. She put her scratched and battered guitar aside. “Drag up a cushion and I’ll tell you all about it.” She suddenly snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot, you must be starved. I brought you a thermos of soup and a packet of crackers from the commissary tent at dinner time. They’re on the brass table over there. I really should have awakened you but you were sleeping so deeply, I thought probably you needed rest more than food.”

“I did.” Kendra found the thermos, plastic spoon, and crackers and returned to where Billie was sitting. She nudged a scarlet cushion a bit closer with her toe and sank down across from her. “Thanks, Billie. I am a little hungry.” She unscrewed the top of the thermos. “Now, tell me how Joel picked you up.”

“My motorcycle broke down on a highway in Oregon and I was thumbing a ride to the nearest gas station when this sinfully gorgeous Mercedes slinked to a stop. Joel proceeded to read me the riot act on the dangers of hitchhiking and then he gave me the lift and ended up by offering me a job inVenture.” She smiled, reminiscing. “I thought he was just giving me a line, but he showed me his ID and persuaded me to go on to Michael Donovan’s film colony at Twin Pines with him until I made up my mind. I didn’t really take much persuading. I had just left the Rainbow People and I didn’t have a definite destination in mind anyway.”

Kendra’s eyes widened in shock. “The Rainbow people?”

Billie’s expression looked shrewd. “How very odd that you and Joel should have the same reaction,” she said softly. “It’s an Indian tribe whose lands are situated near the Puget Sound in Washington. They have an Indian name which is a real tongue twister so most people just call them the Rainbow People. I lived with them for six months before I met Joel on that highway in Oregon.”

Rainbows again. She seemed destined to be reminded of that night. Kendra’s eyes dropped to the rich broth she was spooning from the thermos. “So Joel talked you into taking the part,” she prompted.

Billie nodded. “I tried to tell him I couldn’t act, but he said it didn’t matter. The role was practically all action anyway and what he really needed was my face. He said it was a face that people would care about. With a role that has as many cliffhangers asThe Perils of Pauline,it’s very important that the audience care whether I make it across that canyon.” She grinned. “Or rather, that you make it across. Anyway, I stayed at Twin Pines for a week while Joel and Michael were having their discussion. There’s not a heck of a lot to do in the backwoods of Oregon, so we spent most evenings just sitting around talking, trading our life stories. You become close pretty quickly under circumstances like those.”

“I guess you do,” Kendra said slowly. It was ridiculous to feel this sharp twinge of jealousy. She didn’t want to know the Joel Damon with whom Billie had become friends. It was too dangerous for her. As long as she could convince herself her feelings were only physical, she was safe. “It surprises me that Joel would let anyone slip beneath the armor of cynicism he wears.”

“He’s not all that hard to know,” Billie said, her expression earnest. “He uses cynicism to protect himself from getting hurt. He wants to give to people, but he’s afraid that if he does, there will be just another betrayal.”

“Anotherbetrayal?”

“Who knows how many there have been in his life?” Billie’s eyes were compassionate. “His childhood must have been an emotional horror story. His mother was married six times and evidently shuttled him off to private schools whenever she got the opportunity. Her father was Giles Damon, the steel tycoon, and she would never have had a child at all if he hadn’t wanted an heir for the business and exerted a little pressure in the only area the bitch would feel it.” Her lips tightened. “Her monthly allowance.”

“Aren’t you being a bit hard on her?” Kendra asked lightly. Oh Lord, she didn’t want to think about Joel Damon as a vulnerable, sensitive child. A child hurting and alone, who would run away to a Norman fortress to draw strength from its ancient permanence. “Perhaps she actually wanted a child herself.”

Billie shook her head. “She made no bones about the fact she was coerced into having Joel. She thought it was wildly amusing to tell how she’d researched bloodlines to find just the right stud who would fulfill her father’s requirements. She finally chose an Italian prince who was making a very luxurious living as a gigolo on the French Riviera. They went through a marriage ceremony to legitimize the union and Joel was born seven months later. The prince was then paid off handsomely and divorced.” Billie smiled grimly. “Oh yes, she kept the title. She told everyone it was the only thing she’d gotten out of the marriage that was worth anything. With a background like that can you blame Joel for not wanting to get close to anyone?”

The gigolo. Joel had looked as if she’d struck him when she had innocently thrown that taunt at him. The pain on his face had been stark and raw before he had covered it with a sarcastic expression. Kendra suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. He was becoming too real and human with every word Billie spoke. She had to keep him one-dimensional if she was to come out of this with her heart whole and emotionally intact.

She jumped to her feet. “I think I’d better get to bed if I’m going to be any good at all tomorrow,” she said hurriedly as she screwed the top back on the thermos and folded the cellophane around the remaining crackers. “I have to be on the set at six.” She strode across the room and put both items back on the little brass table. “I’m afraid I didn’t ask which bed was mine before I just plopped.”

“It doesn’t matter, use either one.” Billie picked up her guitar again. “Will it bother you if I play for a little while? I’m something of an insomniac.”

“No problem. I sleep like a log.”

“So I noticed.” Billie’s fingers stroked the strings lovingly. “You looked so exhausted that I was a little worried. Are you sure you’re up to working tomorrow?”

“I’m sure.” As Kendra moved briskly toward the bedroom, she threw the other woman a grin over her shoulder. “Haven’t you heard? We stunt people are as tough as old leather.”

“Try it again, Kendra.” Joel’s voice was silky smooth and absolutely expressionless. Kendra gritted her teeth to keep back the exclamation of pure fury she wanted to hurl at the stone-faced monster lolling carelessly in the camera’s hoist some twenty feet above her. She had rolled down that bloody inclinefivetimes and Joel still wasn’t ready to film it. She sat up and dusted off the knees of her jeans and meticulously straightened the copper curls of her wig. She wouldnotcomplain and give Joel the satisfaction of knowing that his treatment was getting to her. She’d roll down that hill a hundred times if his august lordship decreed. She had taken all the punishment he had handed out to her in the past two weeks and she could keep on for as long as he could dish it out.