Undercover Mistress

entirely erase the wistfulness “-I’m very grateful to my parents. But I’m thirty-two years old, and I’d like to think I’ve done something with my life that I could be proud of.”

“Looks to me like you’ve done okay,” Roy said gruffly, nodding toward the row of golden statuettes on the top shelf.

She followed his gaze and made a disparaging sound. “Those? Well, the Oscars are my parents’, of course. As for the Emmys, let me tell you-”

But before she could, the doorbell rang. “That will be your friend, I’m sure,” Celia said lightly, as she rose to answer it. And Roy, who not so long ago would have given just about anything to hear that sound, now found himself silently cursing Max for being so damn prompt.

Halfway across the room, she paused, turned, then nodded toward the row of Emmys. “You want to know how much those are worth?” she said in an amused, conversational tone. “I haven’t appeared on the show I won them for in over a year. You want to know how much they miss me? To accommodate my ‘indefinite’ leave of absence, ‘Nurse Suzanne’ has been presumed to be dead after her plane went down somewhere in the Amazon jungle. Now-my contract comes up for renewal next spring, at which time one of three things will happen: If my contract is renewed and I decide to return to the show, Nurse Suzanne will be miraculously discovered tending the natives in some remote village. If it isn’t, either someone new will be cast in the role, and Nurse Suzanne will be miraculously resurrected following extensive plastic surgery to heal her terrible wounds, or no one will be cast in the role, and poor Nurse Suzanne will remain dead-‘dead’ being, of course, a tentative condition in daytime drama. Either way, with or without me the show goes on.”

The doorbell pealed again, more insistently. Celia threw Roy a dazzling, movie-star smile and went out, leaving him dazed and wondering whether any of the emotions he’d just witnessed were for real, or if he’d just been treated to an Emmy-worthy performance by one of the best actresses he’d ever seen.

In the living room, Celia paused to rake her fingers through her hair and draw several deep, cleansing breaths. It’s like being in a play, she told herself. All this adrenaline churning…butterflies rampaging… Exit, stage left. New Scene-a few minutes later-Celia enters, stage right.

Blowing out the last of the breaths in an explosive whoosh, she affixed a charming hostess’s smile to her lips, marched to the front door and threw it open.

“Hel-lo,” she said warmly to the man who stood there looking edgy, hand upraised to press the doorbell for the third time. “You must be Max. Won’t you come in?”

The man appeared to be around fifty, about her height and wiry in build. Even though his nose was rather large and his grayish brown hair was thinning, he was attractive in a way, possibly because he had a very nice smile. He was wearing jeans and a Hawaiian print shirt and sunglasses, the last of which he peeled off to reveal an astonished stare.

He muttered a profane exclamation, for which he immediately apologized. “Sorry. You really are Celia Cross. I thought-hell, I don’t know what I thought. My wife is never going to believe this…” He shook his head and his voice trailed off as he moved past her into the house, tucking the sunglasses into the pocket of his shirt and looking about him with undisguised interest.

In the living room, he halted, apparently transfixed by the view. When Celia joined him, he turned to her with a gleam of amusement in his keen gray eyes and said dryly, “Nice place.”

“Thank you.” She smiled back and decided she definitely liked him.

“So.” Deliberately turning away from the vast Pacific beyond the glass, Max took in a breath and lifted his eyebrows. “Where’s my boy?”

My boy? Liking the man more by the minute, Celia hid her delight and murmured, “This way,” as she made a graceful gesture for him to follow her. She was rather enjoying the role of gracious hostess as she led him to the room behind the stairs, knocked lightly as she pushed the door open, then stood aside like a well-trained housemaid for him to enter.

As he slipped past her, Max gave an explosive exclamation, the same one with which he’d greeted Celia at the front door. That was followed by, “Man, what the hell happened?”

“He was shot,” Celia offered. “Among other things.”

She thought Roy looked rather comical, actually, standing beside the bed with his head and one arm through the appropriate openings of the sweatshirt she’d given him to wear. The rest of the shirt was rolled up around his neck, leaving his chest and torso, complete with its Technicolor assortment of bandages, bruises and abrasions, mostly bare.

The look on Max’s face as he walked slowly toward him was like someone coming upon a tethered leopard- equal parts dismay and awe, with a healthy amount of caution.

Celia’s, as she gazed at the long, tapering lines of body disappearing into the sweats she’d once worn herself…sweats that now rode perilously low on narrow masculine flanks…must have reflected something very different. Remembering how that body had felt under hers, she had a sudden and terrible need to swallow-except she couldn’t, because her mouth had gone dry.

“I can’t lift my damn arm,” Roy muttered, throwing her a furious glare, as though it was somehow her fault. Transferring the glare to Max, he immediately contradicted his first statement with a growled, “I’m okay-I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Like a patient father helping a child dress for kindergarten, Max calmly lifted Roy’s arm and directed it into the proper sleeve opening.

Celia diverted herself to the easy chair where she perched on the arm and folded her arms across her waist. From there, she watched jealously as Max guided Roy to the edge of the bed and gently sat him down.

“Okay,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and frowning down at Roy’s glowering face, “let’s hear it. What the hell happened?”

Instead of answering, Roy stared meaningfully at Max and jerked his head toward Celia. Then, switching to her and showing his teeth in what he no doubt thought was a winning smile, he said jovially, “Hey…Celia…could I maybe get a glass of water? Or better yet, how about a cuppa coffee? What about you, Max? You want something to drink?”

“Uh, sure,” said Max, “that’d be great. Whatever you have.” But he flicked her a look of apology that made her inclined to forgive him.

Roy, however… What did he think she was-five?

Max’s eyes followed Celia as she rose with dignity, dipped her head in acquiescence and floated from the room.

“I can’t believe you,” he said in a low voice, after a long enough pause to make sure she’d really gone. “That’s Celia Cross you just treated like the hired help. Celia Cross.”

Roy shifted around and scowled, trying to pretend he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable about that himself. “So she’s an actress,” he muttered. “In a soap opera. Big deal. Anyway, she’s been trying to get me to eat and drink stuff ever since she hauled me in here. She’s probably thrilled I asked her for something.”

“I can’t believe you,” Max said again. “Where’ve you been living, under a rock? Or are you just too young to remember?” he paused to shake his head dolefully. “God, I feel old…”

“You are old,” said Roy, secure in the knowledge that Max had at least fifteen years on him. “Remember what?”

“Not what-who.” He jerked his head toward the biggest of the pictures on the wall, a framed movie poster. “Frederick Cross and Alice Merryhill-just about the greatest husband-and-wife team ever to grace the silver screen. They were…Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers without the music. Unforgettable.” He sighed, shaking his head. “When they died-”

Sympathy kicked Roy under his ribs. Or maybe old memories of the daddy he’d lost too young. “What happened to them?”

“Plane crash-small plane, in Africa, I think it was the early Eighties. Celia would’ve been just a kid. Oh-yeah-” he paused to throw Roy an accusing look “-that woman you’ve been ordering around like the maid? She’s their daughter-their only child. True Hollywood royalty, man.”

“Well, hell,” Roy said moodily, gazing at the poster, “I thought she looked sorta familiar.”

Celia was pacing in the kitchen like a caged lioness. She was about as angry as she could ever remember being.