more than a year before I got shuffled to the next one. I was in five altogether from the age of six to seventeen. Some were better than others, but I never belonged. A lot of that may have been my fault.'
Brooke sighed, not pleased to remember. 'Not all foster parents take in children for the money. Some of them-most of them,' she amended, 'are very kind, loving people. I just never felt a part, because I always knew it would be temporary, that my sister or brother of the moment was real and I was…transient. As a result I was difficult. Maybe I challenged the people whose home I was placed in to want me-for me, not out of pity or social obligation or the extra dollars my living with them would bring in.
'My last two years in high school I lived on a farm in Ohio with a nice couple who had an angelic son who would yank my hair when his mother's back was turned.' A quick grimace. 'I left as soon as I graduated from high school, worked my way cross-country waiting tables. It only took me four months to get to L.A. ' She met Parks's quiet, steady look and suddenly flared. 'Don't feel sorry for me.'
The ultimate insult, he mused, taking her rigid hand in his. ' 'I wasn't. I was wondering how many people would have had the guts to try to make their own life at seventeen, and how many would have the strength to really do it. At the same age I wanted to head for the Florida training camps. Instead I was on a plane heading for college.'
'Because you had an obligation,' Brooke countered. 'I didn't. If I had had the chance to go to college…' She trailed off. 'In any case, we've both had a decade in our careers.'
'And you can have several more if you like,' Parks pointed out. 'I can't. One more season.'
'Why?' she demanded. 'You'll only be…'
'Thirty-five,' he finished with a wry smile. 'I promised myself ten years ago that's when I'd stop. There aren't many of us who can play past forty like Mays.'
'Yes, it's obvious you play like an old man,' she returned dryly.
'I intend to stop before I do.'
Taking a straw, she began to pleat it while she studied him. 'Quit while you're ahead?'
'That's the idea.'
That she could understand. ' 'Does giving it up with half your life ahead of you bother you?''
'I intend to do something with the second half, but at times it does. Other times I think about all those summer evenings I'll have free. Do you like the beach?'
'I don't get there often, but yes.' She thought about the long, hot commercial she'd just filmed. 'With occasional exceptions,' she added.
'I have a place on Maui.' Unexpectedly he leaned over, caressing her cheek with fingers that were whisper soft and undeniably possessive. 'I'm going to take you there one day.' He shook his head as Brooke started to speak. 'Don't argue, we do that too much. Let's go for a drive.'
'Parks,' Brooke began as they rose, 'I meant what I said about not getting involved.'
'Yeah, I know.' Then he kissed her long and lingeringly while she stood with her hands filled with paper plates and cups.
Chapter 5
It was three days before Brooke heard from Parks. She was aware that the last four-game series in the regular season would be played out of town. She knew, too, from what she told herself was simply a casual glimpse at the sports section, that Parks had knocked in three more RBIs in the first two games.
In the meantime, she was busy looking over the story board for his first block of commercials.
The word had come down that the first thirty second spot would be filmed before the league playoffs, in order to capitalize on Parks's exposure in the competition. That left Brooke little time to prepare, with an already demanding schedule of studio and location shoots, editing and preproduction meetings.
But challenge, like food, was vital to her.
Closed off in her office, with a half an hour's leeway before she was due at the studio, Brooke ran over the final script for the initial de Marco commercial. Casually slick, she thought, approving. It had minimal dialogue and soft sell-Parks at the plate, swinging away while dressed in de Marco's elegant sports clothes, then a slow dissolve to the next scene with him dressed in the same suit, stepping out of a Rolls with a slinky brunette on his arm.
'Clothes for anytime-anywhere,' Brooke muttered. The timing had been checked and rechecked.
The audio, except for Parks's one-line voice-over, was already being recorded. All she had to do was to guide Parks through the paces. The salesmanship hinged on her skill and his charm. Fair enough, she thought and reached for her half cup of cold coffee as a knock sounded at her door. 'Yeah?' Brooke turned the script back to page one, running through the camera angles.
'Delivery for you, Brooke.' The receptionist dropped a long white florist's box on her cluttered desk. 'Jenkins said to let you know the Lardner job's been edited. You might want to check it out.'
'Okay, thanks.' Curiously, Brooke frowned over the top of the script at the flower box. Occasionally, she received a grateful phone call or letter from a client when they were particularly pleased with a commercial-but not flowers. Then there'd been that actor in the car spot last year, Brooke remembered. The one who was on his third wife. He'd alternately amused and annoyed Brooke by sending her batches of red roses every week. But six months had passed since she had convinced him that he was wasting her time and his money.
More likely it was one of E.J.'s practical jokes, she considered. She'd probably find a few dozen frog legs inside. Not one to spoil someone's fun, Brooke pulled off the ribbon and lifted the lid.
There were masses of hibiscus. Fragrant, dew-soft pink-and-white petals filled the box almost to overflowing. After the first gasp of surprise, Brooke dove her hands into them, captivated by their purely feminine scent and feel. Her office suddenly smelled like a tropical island: heady, exotic, richly romantic. With a sound of pleasure, she filled her hands with the blooms, bringing them up to her face to inhale. In contrast to the sultry scent, the petals seemed impossibly fragile. A small white card fluttered down to her cluttered desk.
Letting the flowers drift back into the box, Brooke reached for the envelope and tore it open.
I thought of your skin.
There was nothing else, but she knew. She shuddered, then chided herself for acting like a mooning teenager. But she read the line three times. No one had ever been able to affect her so deeply with such simplicity. Though Parks was a thousand miles away, she could all but feel those lean, strong fingers trace down her cheek. The flood of warmth, the flash of desire told her she wasn't going to escape him-had never truly wanted to. Without giving herself any time for doubts or fears, Brooke picked up the phone. 'Get me Parks Jones,' she said quickly. 'Try Lee Dutton, he'll have the number.' Before she could change her mind, Brooke hung up, burying her hands in the flowers again.
How was it he knew just what buttons to push? she wondered, then discovered at that moment she didn't care. It was enough to be romanced-and romanced in style. Lifting a single bloom, she trailed it down her cheek. It was smooth and moist against her skin as Parks's first kiss had been. The ringing phone caught her dreaming.
'Yes?'
'Parks Jones on line two. You've got ten minutes before they need you in the studio.'
'All right. Hunt me up a vase and some water, will you?' She glanced at the box again. 'Make that two vases.' Still standing with the blossom in her hand, Brooke punched the button for line two. 'Parks?'
'Yes. Hello, Brooke.'
'Thank you.' 'You're welcome.'
She hesitated, then let herself speak her first thought. ' 'I feel like a teenager who just got her first corsage.'
Dropping flat on his back on the bed, he laughed.
'I'd like to see you with some of them in your hair.' Experimentally she held one up over her ear. Unprofessional, she thought with a sigh, and contented herself with the scent of them. 'I've a shoot in the studio in a few minutes; I don't think the lights would do them much good.'
'You have your practical side, don't you, Brooke?'' Parks flexed the slight ache in his shoulder and closed his eyes.
