Free Summer Storm by Joan Wolf

he offered her wasn’t good enough. She loved him, she admitted that in the darkness and the privacy of her solitary bedroom; she would never feel for another man what she felt for him. She even understood why he was the way he was. He had always been on his own; his mother had died when he was very young and his father had remarried and then died a year later, leaving Kit in the care of an indifferent stepmother. He had grown up learning how to fend for himself and he had learned to be ruthless. Once he decided what he wanted, he went after it; and if anything came between him and his desire, he walked over it without rancor and without pity. It had been like that with the baby. And then with her.
    Now he had decided he wanted her again. He wanted her to leave her home, her family and friends, the peaceful fulfillment of her work—and for what? To live a life she loathed and feared, where you couldn’t go out to dinner without being followed and photographed, where every shiver in your relationship was blazoned across the front pages of horrible newspapers, where there was no peace and no silence. And for what? For the nights that could make the universe shudder? But what of the days? And the long, lonely times when he was gone on location. And the other women, beautiful and available, always so tantalizingly within his reach?
    No. No. No. She would never go back to being Mrs. Christopher Douglas.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Mary finally fell asleep about four in the morning and three hours later her alarm rang. She felt heavy-eyed and sluggish as she made her way down the path to the dining room. She collected coffee and a muffin from the buffet and sat down at an empty table. There was no sign of Kit.
    She finished her coffee and went to get a second cup. When she arrived back at her table it was to find she had company. Eric Lindquist was sitting there, and as she reseated herself he gave her his endearing boyish grin. The Sunshine Kid, Mary thought sourly, and started on her second cup of coffee.
    “Have you heard who George snagged to play Gertrude?” he asked enthusiastically.
    “No. Who?” She was not in a talkative mood.
    “Margot Chandler.” Mary’s eyes widened and he laughed. “I’m not kidding. Dr. O’Connor. Margot Chandler has actually consented to play Hamlet’s mother.”
    “She’s too young,” Mary said incredulously.
    “Not really. She must be at least forty-five. Well preserved is the proper word for her, I think.”
    “Has she ever done any stage work?”
    “Not to my knowledge.” His grin widened. “This is definitely a ‘Hollywood Goes Arty’ summer at Yarborough.”
    “Kit has played Shakespeare on stage many times,” Mary said astringently and suppressed a sudden urge to smack the handsome young face across from her. There was nothing on earth, worse than a condescending twenty-two-year-old, she decided.
    “Actually, I know he has. He had a damn good reputation at drama school—they still talk about him. But I’m certain as hell that Margot Chandler hasn’t ever put her luscious mouth around a Shakespearean phrase.”
    “What on earth was George thinking of?” Mary asked despairingly.
    “Well, he didn’t have a whole lot of time to pick and choose. And apparently La Chandler has decided that her days of playing sexy leading ladies are numbered and so she had better look for a new métier for her talents. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Liz Taylor’s big hit in The Little Foxes galvanized her. And, then, few women would pass up the chance of acting with Chris.” His blue eyes were widely innocent in his suntanned face.
    “As his mother?” Mary asked ironically. Eric grinned. He rather overdid that boyish smile, she thought cynically, and rose. “I’ll see you in class,” she said.
    “Sure thing.” He paused. “Mary,” he added tentatively.
    She stopped, turned and looked at him. She had always maintained a carefully formal relationship with all her students.