“You really do come here a lot, don’t you?”
“When I first came to California I had two priorities. Get a job—an acting job—and go to Disneyland. Whenever my family comes out we always spend at least one day here.”
Johanna looked around as they walked. There were families, so many families. Infants and toddlers pushed in strollers, children with sticky faces riding piggyback and pointing toward the next adventure.
“I guess it is an amazing place. Everything seems real while it’s going on.”
“It is real when it’s going on.” He stepped to the back of the line, undaunted by its length. After a moment’s hesitation, he took a chance. “I was Pluto for six weeks.”
“Pluto?”
“The dog, not the planet.”
“I know who Pluto is,” she murmured. Absently adjusting her hat, she frowned at him. “You actually worked here?”
“In a dog suit. A very hot dog suit—no pun intended. It paid my first month’s rent.”
“What exactly did you do?” The line shifted up.
“Marched in the parade, posed for pictures, waved and sweated a lot. I really wanted to be Captain Hook, because he gets to have sword fights and look evil, but Pluto was all that was open.”
Johanna tried to imagine it, and nearly could. “I always thought he was cute.”
“I was a terrific Pluto. Very lovable and loyal. I did cut it from my résumé after a while, but that was on Marv’s suggestion.”
“Marv? Oh, your agent?”
“He thought playing a six-foot dog was the wrong image to project.”
While Johanna thought that one through, they were ushered inside. The spiel was camp and full of bad puns, but she couldn’t help being pulled in. The pictures on the walls changed, the room shrank, the lights went out. There was no turning back.
By the time they were in their tram and starting on the tour she was, so to speak, entering into the spirit of things.
The producer in her couldn’t fail to be impressed by the show. Holograms, music and elaborate props were blended to entertain, to raise goose pimples and nervous chuckles. Not so scary that the toddlers in the group would go home with nightmares, but not so tame that the adults felt cheated out of the price of a ticket, Johanna decided as she watched ghosts and spirits whirl around in a dilapidated, cobweb-draped dining room.
Sam had been right about one thing. It was real while it was going on. Not everything in life could be trusted to be the same.
She didn’t have to be prodded any further, not to visit a pirate’s den and dodge cannon fire, nor to take a cruise up the Amazon or a train ride through Indian territory. She watched mechanical bears perform, ate dripping ice cream and forgot she was a grown woman who had been to Paris and dined in an English manor but had never been to Disneyland.
By the time they started back to the car she was exhausted, but in the most pleasant way she could remember.
“I did not scream,” she insisted, holding the small stuffed Pluto he’d bought her in a headlock.
“You never stopped screaming,” Sam corrected. “From the minute that car started moving through Space Mountain until it stopped again. You’ve got excellent lungs.”
“Everyone else was screaming.” In truth, she hadn’t a clue whether she’d screamed or not. The car had taken its first dive, and planets had raced toward her. Johanna had simply squeezed her eyes shut and held on.
“Want to go back and do it again?”
“No,” she said definitely. “Once was quite enough.”
Sam opened the car door but turned before she could climb in. “Don’t you like thrills, Johanna?”
“Now and again.”
“How about now?” He cupped her face in his hands. “And again later.”
He kissed her as he’d wanted to do since he’d seen her studiously mopping her floor that morning. Her lips were warm, as he’d known they would be, but softer, incredibly softer, than he’d remembered. They hesitated. There was a sweetness in that, a sweetness that was its own allure.
So he lingered, longer than he’d intended. He wanted, more than was wise. When she started to back away, he gathered her closer and took, more than either of them had expected.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Johanna told herself even as she stopped resisting both of them. She was supposed to be strong, in charge, reachable only when and if she chose to be. With him, he only had to touch . . . No, he only had to look and she began losing ground.
All her careful analysis that morning was blown to dust the minute his mouth was on hers.
I don’t want this. Her mind tried to cling to that thought while her heart beat out steadily: But you do, yes, you do. She could almost feel herself separating into two parts, one aloof, one almost pitifully vulnerable. The most frightening thing was that this time she was more than afraid that vulnerability would be the stronger.
“I want to be alone with you, Johanna.” He said it against her lips, then again against her cheek as he trailed kisses there. “Anywhere, anywhere at all as long as it’s only you and me. I haven’t been able to get you out of my system.”
“I don’t think you’ve been trying.”
“You’re wrong.” He kissed her again, feeling her renewed resistance swerve toward passion. That was the most exciting, the most irresistible thing about her, the way she wanted, held back and wanted again. “I’ve actually given it a hell of a shot. I kept telling myself you’re too complicated, too uptight, too driven.” He felt her lips move into a frown and was seduced into nibbling on them. “Then I find ways to see you again.”
“I’m not uptight.”
He sensed her change of mood but could only be amused by it. Johanna, outraged, was fascinating. “Lady, half the time you’re like a spring that’s wound to the limit and just waiting to bust out. And I damn well intend to be there when you do.”
“That’s ridiculous. And don’t call me lady.” She snatched the keys from him, decided she’d do the driving this time.
“We’ll see about that.” He climbed into the car and nearly managed to stretch out his legs and get comfortable. “Going to give me a lift home?”
She was tempted, more than tempted, to order him out and strand him in the parking lot, right under Donald Duck’s cheerful beak. Instead, she decided to give him the ride of his life. “Sure.” Johanna put the car in gear.
She drove cautiously enough through the lot. It was, after all, full of pedestrians, many of them children. Things changed when she hit the freeway. She whipped around three cars, settled in the fast lane and rammed down on the gas pedal.
Drives like she’s ready to bust, too, Sam thought, but said nothing. Her speedometer might have been hovering around ninety, but her hands were competent on the wheel. And she might, he thought, burn off that temper that had fired up when he’d called her uptight.
She hated it that he was right. That was the worst of it. She knew very well that she was full of nerves and hang-ups and insecurities. Didn’t she spend most of her time fighting them off or blanketing them over? It didn’t do her any good to hear Sam pinpoint it so casually.