Redwood Bend

  “I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Katie.”

  “I told you—I don’t have any expectations.”

  “I have work there and in Montana,” he said. “I don’t have any real reason—”

  “I know, Dylan. It was a fling, I know. Not something I’ve ever done before, but I knew going in that you were… How did you describe yourself? Kind of hit and run?”

  “You’re probably better off,” he said.

  “Sure. Right. You told me—you have bad-relationship DNA. Listen, don’t drag this out. This is no big surprise… Actually, I knew before my tire went flat, and it has nothing to do with your DNA. Our lives just don’t match.”

  “I’d like to ask you to come with me, but I have no idea what I’d be asking you to do. I have no idea what the next months would—”

  She was shaking her head. “Nah. Tempting though you are, I have commitments here. I have kids to raise and I promised them a stable and steady father figure. Plus, I think I like it here, bears and all. People step up for each other. There’s a real dearth of handsome movie stars, but…”

  “I haven’t been a movie star since I was about fourteen. You do get that, right?”

  She nodded. “Sure. But listen—my life has finally leveled out after a rocky year and I’m not in a position to take risks. Not with my boys. They’re so good, so resilient, I sometimes take them for granted. But now and then one of them will say something that reminds me they’re only little boys—they’re tender and they need security. Just a few weeks ago Mitch asked if I thought his dad would like him.” Her eyes misted. “My first commitment is to them. I’m not for taking chances. Do you get that, Dylan?”

  He gave a slow, solemn nod. “You don’t have any regrets about us, do you?”

  She shook her head and tried a smile, though it was tremulous. “You’re the best four-week boyfriend I’ve ever had. The only one.”

  He swallowed hard. “Will you tell them goodbye? Will you tell them I couldn’t wait to see them again and I said goodbye?”

  “Sure.”

  “I could wait, but—”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I can’t do this all day. So I might’ve regressed to my childhood and had a little crush…”

  He leaned toward her and touched her lips gently. “Little?” he asked softly.

  “Come on, think about this,” Katie said. “You don’t really want a lot of blubbering and sniveling and someone clinging to your ankles as you try to get away. You have business to get to and I…” She lifted her chin. “I have a life to get on with.”

  He smiled at her. “You were the best time I’ve ever had, Katie.”

  “You weren’t bad. I’ll think about you sometimes.”

  “Our timing might’ve been off,” Dylan said. “If we’d met at another time, in another way…”

  “There’s a small danger there, too,” she said. “You don’t want to get between me and the cubs. If you think that bear was scary…”

  “If it matters, I’ve never had this much trouble saying goodbye before.”

  She swallowed and her nose got a little pink. “Thanks for saying that. Now please, get going. Are you driving the motorcycle all the way to L.A.?”

  “I rode it all the way here from Montana—not a quick trip. But I’m in kind of a hurry now. I should… Katie, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m going to see you again because… I let you down.” He was quiet for a second. Then in a hoarse voice he said, “I hope you get on with your life in exactly the way you want to.”

  He leaned toward her, kissed her forehead and turned to go. Halfway to his motorcycle, he turned back, closed the distance between them in two giant strides and took her roughly into his arms. He covered her mouth in a powerful kiss, licking open her lips and taking possession of her. She let out a small whimper, holding him tightly, answering his kiss with her acquiescence. A tear slid down her cheek.

  When he pulled away, he touched her cheek gently with his thumb.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You just weren’t going to be happy till you made that happen. Now get outta here. I’m really done saying goodbye.”

  A little peck on the lips and he left.

  He popped a wheelie on the way out of the clearing.

  Katie stood there for a while after the sound of that motorcycle was little more than a distant purr. Then she sniffed, wiped her cheeks and muttered, “What was I thinking? I should’ve known better. Those Hollywood bad boys never change.”

  Dylan had been on his bike for over four weeks and he was in no mood to ride all the way to L.A. His brain was sluggish and he was distracted. This is exactly what happens, he told himself, when you let yourself get too comfortable. He’d had plenty of girlfriends in the past but had never had the kind of routine he’d had with Katie. He’d let himself get lured into a false sense of security and now, headed for the job he dreaded but had to do, he was feeling a profound sense of loss.

  And he had to get over it. Fast. She was moving on. A kind man would not do anything to hold her back.

  He drove to that small airport in Arcata, talked the manager into storing his bike in a hangar and hitched a flight to Santa Rosa where he’d pick up a nonstop to Los Angeles. A month ago he’d packed for a seven-day ride with his friends and everything was getting pretty worn out even though he’d done laundry; he intended to spruce up his scant wardrobe. He wasn’t going to try to impress anyone, but he would have the courtesy to look civilized for business meetings.

  Dylan was completely miserable about setting Katie free, but kept telling himself it was necessary. She might be disappointed in him for a while, then maybe a little angry, but ultimately he believed she’d be glad she didn’t have to worry about how her future would turn out with someone like him, some actor with a bad track record. A fling, she’d said. And as she’d said from the beginning, she could do a lot better.

  There was one significant problem—he’d never met a woman like her before and probably never would again. Better? He wouldn’t. Not a chance.

  “Okay, so I want Katie,” he muttered. So what? he asked himself. He’d get over it. He’d gotten over other things he wanted but couldn’t have.

  The minute he got on the ground in Santa Rosa and turned on his phone, it came alive. There were voice mails and missed calls. He checked the call log while he waited for his flight to L.A. to depart. His mother? His MOTHER? And his half brother, Bryce? His stepsister, Blaine? There must have been twenty calls and he’d never given anyone this phone number. Lang, knowing his family history, would never have shared his cell number. He’d had a few calls from family members over the years, either at Childress Aviation or the Montana house, but they always wanted something from him, not looking for ways to reach out in friendship or, God forbid, affection.

  He couldn’t resist and listened to the first message. And he thought, This is exactly how you get reeled in, by letting them in your ear, your head. Even though he hated his mother, he loved her and had always wanted her to act like a mother.

  “Dylan, darling, I heard you’re going to be in town to talk about a movie and I have to talk to you first, because, well, the business hasn’t been real nice to me in the past few years and I’d like to…”

  He clicked off. He didn’t even want to know what Cherise would like—a part? A job? A loan from his grandmother? A contact? She had a script he should read? A little party at which she would like him to appear to show the public they were still family? The possibilities were endless.

  He called Jay Romney. “It’s been twenty-four hours since I made an appointment with you and I have twenty messages on my phone from family members. I never gave them this number. I thought we agreed—no one would be told about the potential for a movie.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jay asked, genuinely shocked. “It just figures. Listen, kid, with all due respect, your family has a lot of friends in low places and your call came into my office. Delete t
hem. I can’t control everything.”

  “You’re saying you had nothing to do with this?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not! Why would I? I want you for a movie! You think I’d screw that by handing out your personal cell number? Here’s mine, log it. You call me on my cell only. And if you want to reschedule to avoid these people, I’ll do it. Just say the word.”

  He keyed in the cell number and then, after a moment of silence, he asked, “No one’s dying, are they? Because I didn’t listen to the messages.”

  “No one’s dying that I know of. But in your family…”

  “I listened to my mother’s voice mail—she said she heard I’d be in town about a movie and the business hasn’t been kind to her the last few years…and that’s about where I deleted,” he said.

  “You’re a sweet kid, Dylan, but you can cut ’em loose. You’re on your own here. I’m not dealing with anyone but you.”

  “If any of them are involved in this…”

  “I’m not dealing with anyone but you, Dylan. That’s it. On my word.”

  His word was probably worth a cup of coffee and little more, but of all the people he had worked with in Hollywood, Jay was probably the most honest and trustworthy. He said, “I’ll see what happens. If this gets out of hand, obviously there won’t be a movie with me in it.”

  And then he traveled the rest of the way, with his phone off. He made it to L.A. in the late afternoon, rented a car, found himself a nondescript hotel and watched TV, something he did rarely. He spent Saturday at a mall, buying more appropriate clothes and shoes. He checked his call log and messages, looking for one in particular, but the only one that mattered to him wasn’t there. And of course it shouldn’t be—they’d said goodbye.

  Sunday night he drank a little more than usual and when he slept he dreamt of Katie, her warm body against him. Not a sex dream… It was much worse than that—it was more intimate than sex. It was the kind of closeness he had with her. She was there, soft and sweet and laughing, saying smart-ass things, holding him against his worst childhood fears of loss and abandonment.

  On Monday when he went to Jay Romney’s office, standing in front of the door, waiting on the street, was Cherise. His mother.

  “Dylan,” she said, a bit breathless. “Sweetheart!”

  “Why does anything ever surprise me,” he muttered.

  Cherise straightened herself. She would be sixty-three by now, older than his father would be had he lived, but she didn’t look a day over forty, though her skin was a little tight across her face. She was too thin, but that would not be too thin for Cherise’s tastes; she worked hard at thin.

  “Is that all you have to say to your mother after all these years?”

  She hadn’t called him once in twenty years to ask how he was getting along. Never just to talk. She always had an agenda that revolved around him helping her out in some way. For reasons he would never be able to explain, he had achieved the kind of enduring popularity and success his extended family found enviable and it was that for which they reached out to him, the rare times they had. “Pretty much,” he said. “I didn’t listen to all the messages.”

  She stiffened as if affronted. “I only said I’d like to see you while you’re in town…”

  “There were calls from Bryce and Blaine,” he said. “Why are you circling the wagons? What is it you think I can do for you?”

  “Can we have a late lunch? Talk things over?”

  “How did you find out I’d be here?” he asked. “How did you get my number?”

  “I can’t actually remember… Can we just have a meal? A drink? Dessert later on?”

  He laughed. “You don’t eat dessert, Cherise.”

  “Please, can’t you call me Mother?”

  “No, I can’t. That train left the station a long time ago,” he said.

  She straightened her spine. “Are you staying at your grandmother’s house?” she asked.

  He briefly wondered what that had to do with anything and then as quickly he realized family would start showing up wherever he was housed. He employed his considerable acting talents to behave as if bored. He looked at his watch and said, “You have sixty seconds to spit it out—tell me what you want from me. Otherwise, there is no conversation between us. I’m here on business.”

  “I want a job in your film.”

  “Well,” he said, smiling. “There’s a big surprise. And jobs for Blaine and Bryce, as well?”

  “I’m not in the business of finding them work—we’re not in touch. I just want something to do, quite honestly. And if I could do it with my son…”

  He took a step toward her. “You’re not in touch with them, yet they also had my cell number?”

  “I can’t explain that. I have nothing to do with that.”

  He whistled. “Amazing,” he said. “Sorry, Cherise, but we’re not going to work together. It would be a very bad mix. Have a nice day.” And he stepped past her into the office building. But his heart squeezed. That was his mother, and she was still not above using him. No wonder he was so fucked up.

  When he stepped into Jay’s office, Sean Adams was already there and rose to shake his hand. The first thing Dylan said to Jay was, “Your office is now off-limits. Cherise Fontaine met me at the front door, looking for work in a movie I haven’t even agreed to do. I think we’d better move this meeting to a more secure location or you might have every one of my extended family in the lobby. You have a leak.”

  “Well, shit,” Jay said. “Come with me.”

  “I hope there’s a back door,” Dylan said.

  Katie had been cautious about how much time Dylan spent around her cabin while the boys were home so they didn’t start to think of him as a member of the family. If he was around for dinner or the evening, she shuffled him out the door by the time she was getting the boys ready for bed. But it didn’t take Andy and Mitch any time at all to notice Dylan was missing. They asked if he was coming over five minutes after they got home from summer program on Friday afternoon. Katie had talked to herself all day long about sucking it up; she did not want her boys to grieve his departure. “Well, funny you should ask,” she said with fake nonchalance. “Dylan had to leave town—he has to work.”

  “When is he coming back?” Mitch asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ll be sure to ask him that if he calls. But, honey, if he’s out of town working, he’s very busy.”

  “I don’t want to miss him,” Andy said. “When is he calling us?”

  Oh, God, that shot her through the heart. He was not likely to call. All part of goodbye was admitting their relationship, such as it was, was over. He had to go where work led him and she had to get on with her life. That was a roundabout way of saying they’d go for the clean break.

  But what she said was, “I’m not sure, sweetheart. But if he does, I promise to ask him if he’s coming back to visit.”

  That brief exchange had prompted her to reach out to her brother. “I need a little backup,” she said. “If you have a little time this weekend, could you spend some with the boys? Anything that comes to mind.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You and Dylan have some plans?”

  “Well, that’s the thing—Dylan had to go to L.A. to work. Of course I knew this was going to happen soon. L.A. or Montana. The man has to earn a living.”

  “Are the kids upset about that?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say so, but they did have fun with him when he was here and they asked about him. I think it might be best to distract them. Do you mind?”

  Conner, oblivious to what might be under the surface of Katie’s request, simply answered, “Be glad to. I love hanging with the guys. Think they’d like to go fishing?”

  Katie let go a sigh of gratitude. “Sunday?”

  “Sunday it is. You want to go?”

  “I think I’d like to spend a little time with Les. Thank you for her, by the way.”

  Conner chuckled. “My pleasure, but I didn?
??t exactly get her for you.”

  Just what the doctor ordered, Katie thought. The boys were distracted by fishing with Uncle Conner and Katie had some girl time with Leslie. When Leslie suggested the front porch, Katie asked for the back porch, away from the curious eyes of neighbors who might pass by.

  “Have you heard from Dylan?” Leslie asked right away.

  Katie shook her head. “I’m sure that’s my doing. I suggested he had to do his thing and I should get on with my life. Les, I don’t fit into his life and he doesn’t really fit into mine.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Leslie asked.

  “From the first second I saw him, I knew we came from opposite worlds. He might be living in Montana and running a small airport, but he’s a movie star. All he had to do was pick up the phone and bam! Hollywood wants him back.”