“You’ve got it, buster. Saturday at noon. Be here.”
Jason chuckled as the phone slammed in his ear. Apparently she hadn’t quite grasped what an honor it was to be in such high demand. Maybe he could explain it to her on the drive to Newark.
If she didn’t strangle him en route.
* * *
When Jason arrived promptly at noon on Saturday, Callie surveyed him with astonishment. His fancy suits had been traded for well-worn blue jeans. His expensive Italian loafers had been exchanged for sneakers that appeared to be about five years past their prime. He was wearing a Within Our Reach T-shirt exactly like her own, along with a baseball cap and sunglasses. He looked sexy as hell.
“Traveling incognito?” she inquired as she slid into the limo. She winked at Henry, who quickly hid a smile.
“Just one of the fans,” Jason agreed. “I’ll blend right in with the crowd.”
Callie doubted it. She anticipated a bowling alley crammed with women. Jason would stand out like Kevin Costner in his field of dreams.
“I just hope you’re bowling on my team,” she muttered. “Somebody has to get our score up.”
“Not me, sweetheart. I’ll be right there on the sidelines cheering for you, though.”
“Witnessing my humiliation,” she corrected. She scowled at him. “And don’t tell me all anybody cares about is my being a good sport. I am not a good sport.”
Jason grinned. “You really do hate to lose at anything, don’t you?”
“No more than you do, sweetheart.”
“Maybe we should talk about what today is all about,” he ventured. “Charity, Callie. It’s about soap stars coming out to raise money for a good cause. It is not about bowling.”
“Then why hold the stupid event in a bowling alley?”
“Because it’s fun.”
She rolled her eyes at that.
“You’ll see,” he promised.
Next thing she knew, he’d be telling her the world was flat. The man would lie through his teeth if it meant upping the ratings by half a point. She knew that better than anyone.
So, why was she even remotely considering getting involved with him? Why had she invited him along today? Retaliation, as he’d suggested? Or was it far more complex, a pitiful excuse to spend the day with him without having to admit that she craved a few hours in his company? When no answers came, she sighed.
He clasped her hand in his. “Not to worry. I’ll cheer for you, even if you roll nothing but gutter balls.”
Callie met his gaze. “What’s a gutter ball?”
Jason sighed at that. “It really is going to be a long afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Haven’t I been trying to tell you that from the beginning?” she grumbled.
Her spirits perked up marginally when the limo pulled into the huge bowling alley parking lot and she saw the welcoming masses of balloons and banners. Fans, cordoned off behind velvet ropes more suitable for the Emmy Awards than a bowl-a-thon, screamed her name as she exited the car ahead of Jason. She stopped so suddenly at the sound of it echoing across the parking lot that Jason stumbled into her heels.
She turned to him, eyes shining. She clutched his hand as the most incredible feeling of warmth spread through her. She’d never experienced anything like it before. These people liked her. They admired her.
Later she would be able to analyze the moment and accept that the outpouring of emotion was meant for the character she played, that not one of these people really knew her, Callie Smith, at all. But right now she felt as special as anyone on earth had ever felt. She recognized it as an emotion that she’d been waiting for all her life.
Glancing up into Jason’s face, she caught a glimpse of smug satisfaction. He’d anticipated this. He’d made it happen.
“I could get used to this,” she admitted.
“In a few brief weeks, you’ve already touched thousands more just like them,” he told her. “Did anything you ever did on Wall Street compare to that?”
Callie was sure there had been predictions that had paid off big for her clients. She knew there had been wheeling and dealing that had seemed incredibly rewarding at the time.
But right now, with her name being shouted by hundreds of fans, with requests for autographs coming from every direction, she couldn’t think of any single day or even a week as a stockbroker that was this moment’s equal.
That heady sense of excitement should have terrified her, but it didn’t.
And neither did the possibility that she might be falling in love with the man responsible for giving it to her.
14
Thanks to the mob scene outside the bowling alley and the equally enthusiastic crowd inside, Jason noticed that Callie quickly got into the spirit of the event. Every pin she struck down was a triumph. Every gutter ball was laughed off.
Her teammates from his other network soaps welcomed her as an old friend. There was none of the animosity Terry had described her experiencing on her own set every day. To his relief, these actors and actresses reserved their competitiveness for the teams from the ABC, CBS and NBC soaps, not for one of their own. Some members of the Within Our Reach cast could take a lesson from them. He would have pointed that out to Callie’s costars, but Terry had made him swear to stay out of it.
As he’d vowed to do today, he blended into the background, watching from a red plastic-covered bar stool, an icy mug of beer in hand. He’d picked the location in an attempt to remain out of the limelight, which belonged to his network’s stars. He found it served another purpose, as well. It allowed him to observe Callie for hours on end without being caught at it.
More and more, he liked what he saw. Not just the cute little tush that sashayed halfway down the alley before she plunked down her bowling ball. Not just that high-voltage smile that had her teammates and
