“Ford, I’m not shocked by the fact that you and Cilla are sleeping together, and I don’t own a shotgun.”
“Okay. Well.” He took a deep gulp of tea. “Okay then.”
“Is it?” Gavin opened another paper. “If you read this one, you’ll see it’s suggested you’ve been seduced by the lonely, trapped spirit of Janet Hardy-or you’ve seduced the granddaughter in an attempt to become Janet’s lover.”
Ford actually snorted. "Sorry, but it just strikes me funny. I don’t know, if they had any real imagination, I’d be the reincarnation of somebody cool. Bogart or Gregory Peck, who’s slaking his lust for the reincarnation of Janet Hardy by banging Cilla every chance he gets. And God, sorry about the banging comment. Really.”
Gavin sat back, took a sip of his tea. “You were one of my best students. Bright, creative. A bit awkward and eccentric, but never dull. I always enjoyed what could be called your unique thought process. I told Cilla this morning I’ve always been fond of you.”
“I’m really glad to hear that, considering.”
“And considering, what are your intentions toward my daughter?”
“Oh boy. I just got this thing in my chest.” Ford thumped on it. “Do you think extreme anxiety can cause a heart attack in somebody my age?”
“I doubt it, but I promise to call nine-one-one if necessary.” Eyes direct, Gavin inclined his head. “After you answer the question.”
“I want her to marry me. She’s not there yet. Still got that thing,” he added, rubbing now with the heel of his hand. “We’ve only been…” Probably not the way to go, Ford decided. “We’ve only known each other a few months, but I know how I feel. I love her. Am I supposed to tell you about my prospects and stuff? This is my first time.”
“It’s mine, too. I’d say between you and Cilla, your prospects are more than fine. I’d also say, in my opinion, you suit each other.”
“There, it’s going away.” Ford took his first easy breath. “She needs me. She needs someone who understands and appreciates who she is, and who she’s decided to be. And I need her, because who she is, and who she’s decided to be are-big surprise to me-what I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
“That’s an excellent answer.” Gavin rose.“I’m going to leave those here,” he said, gesturing to the papers. “You handle that with Cilla however you think best. I’m going to go paint. I’ll see myself out.” At the edge of the kitchen, he turned back briefly. "Ford, I couldn’t be more pleased.”
Pretty damn pleased himself, Ford sat down at the bar and read through all the papers, all the stories. And knew just how he’d handle it.
It took considerable time, but the end result more than satisfied. He and Spock crossed the road, and finding the front door locked, Ford used the spare key she’d given him. He gave a shout and, when she didn’t answer, started upstairs. The sound of the shower solved the mystery of where Cilla was. He thought briefly and intensely about joining her, but that would spoil the order of events.
Besides, surprising a woman in the shower in a locked house invited screams-and the woman could produce a serious scream. So he contented himself with sitting on the side of the guest room bed-as it remained the only bed in the house-to wait.
She didn’t scream when she saw him, though from the amount of air she sucked in when she stumbled back, she’d have shattered every piece of glass for five miles if she’d cut loose.
“God, Ford. You scared the hell out of me!”
“Sorry. I figured I’d scare you more if I came in the bathroom while you were in the shower.” He fisted his hand as if over the hilt of a knife, pumped it and did a fair imitation of the Psycho shower scene.
“It might’ve been worse. No Spock?”
“He wanted to go see if there were any invisible cats out back.”
“I need to get dressed. Why don’t you go sit out on the patio. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Unhappy, he thought. Irritated. And with a faint haze of discouragement. His idea would either help or make it worse. He might as well find out.
“I brought you something.”
“What? Why don’t you take it down, and I’ll…” She trailed off when he took the thin package wrapped in tabloid paper from behind his back.
She hitched the towel a little more securely between her breasts. “So, you’ve seen them.”
“Yeah. Oh, and two of your subs, my supposedly lifelong friends Matt and Brian, snuck off the job to come over and rag me about it. Punish them as you will. But meanwhile, open your present.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I completely underestimated the interest, the angles. And I walked straight into it by using my mother’s publicist in the first place. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“Okay, you can claim the stupid award. Open your present.” He patted the bed beside him.
She sat, stared down at the package he put in her lap.
“I didn’t use pages with any of the stories on them. We might want to make a scrapbook.”
“It’s not funny, Ford.”
“Then you’re really not going to like your present. I’ll just take it back, bury it in the backyard. Where I may come across some worms we can both eat.”
“Really not funny. You have absolutely no idea…” Temper had her ripping the paper. Then she could only stare down.
It was a slim volume, comic-book style, she supposed. The cover held a full-color drawing of her and Ford, locked in a passionate embrace. Over their heads, in what she could only call a lurid font, the title read:
THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES AND
MANY LIVES OF CILLA AND FORD
“You wrote a comic book?”
“It’s really more a very short, illustrated story. Inspired by recent events. Come on, read it.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say, not initially. The five pages he’d done in black and white, complete with dialogue balloons, narrative captions and illustrations, ranged from the ludicrous, to pornographic to brutally funny.
She kept her face expressionless-she still had some acting chops-as she read it through.
“This.” She tapped her finger on a panel depicting Ford, full monty, sweeping a naked Cilla into his arms while Spock covered his face with his paws. “I don’t think this is to scale. A certain attribute is exaggerated. ”
“It’s my attribute, and I’m the artist.”
“And do you really think I’d ever say, ‘Oh, Ford, Ford, hammer me home’?”
“Everyone’s a critic.”
“But I do like this part in the beginning, where the horny ghosts of Janet and Steve McQueen are floating over our sleeping bodies.”
“It seemed appropriate as there’s that legend of how they got it on in the pond. Plus, if I’m going to be possessed by the spirit of somebody, he’d be top of the cool scale.”
“All-time champ,” she agreed. “I also like how the paparazzo falls out of the tree while taking pictures through the bedroom window, and the little X’s in his eyes in the next panel before Spock drags him off to bury him. But my favorite, possibly, is the last panel, where all four of us are in bed smoking cigarettes with expressions of sexual gratification on our faces.”
“I like a happy ending.”
She looked up from the book and into those green eyes. “And this is your way of telling me not to take all this so seriously.”
“It’s my way of giving you another way to take it, if you want.”
She scooted back to prop herself at the head of the bed. “Let’s have a table read. I’ll be Cilla and Janet, you’re Ford and Steve.”
“Okay.” He moved back to sit beside her.
“Then, we’ll act it out.”
He grinned over at her. “Even better.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Every day brought visitors. Some she welcomed, and some she ignored. There was little she could do but ignore those who parked or stood on the shoulder of the road taking pictures of the house, the grounds, of her. She shrugged off the members of the crew who entertained themselves by posing. She couldn’t blame them for getting a kick out of it, for grabbing a portion of that fifteen minutes of fame.