Читать книгу Cutting Loose - Kristin Hardy, Kristin Hardy - Страница 10

THE MORNING SUN was still close to the horizon as Ty Ramsay ran along the canyon trail. He moved with ease, his lean, rangy body springy with power, sweat gradually shading his dark-blond hair to brown. Plenty of people liked living in the Hollywood Hills or amid the hustle and bustle of the Wilshire Corridor, a heartbeat away from a power lunch. Ty had gotten over that. Living in the canyon was what worked for him now. His neighbors were the coyotes who lived down the hillside and the doves who nested in the eucalyptus, not the Hollywood elite. So maybe it took him a little longer to drive into town to meetings and parties. Then again, there weren’t all that many parties worth being at anyway.

Except, maybe, for the one the night before.

Trish. He couldn’t figure out why she’d hit him so hard. Sure, she was gorgeous. Sure, she’d been dressed to attract attention. Then again, he was surrounded often as not by beauties dressed to impress. There’d been something more about this one, something that had pulled at him. She didn’t have the forgettable California blond look, but a delicate beauty that caught at his imagination, and an elusive wariness that made him wonder.

And brought her into his dreams.

It might have had something to do with their power-house kiss. It might have had more to do with laughing in the kitchen, watching the play of expressions over her face. Watching the stunned amazement writ large in the starlight as he’d trailed the leather of his whip over her shoulder.

His history with women had been checkered, at best. But he’d gotten tired of being a staple joke on the comedy circuit for having affairs with his costars. He’d made a vow nearly a year before to avoid relationships altogether until he figured out once and for all how to keep from making the same mistakes.

He had a feeling he was going to break his promise.

Ty followed the trail as it began winding back up the canyon. This early in the day, the October air held a crispness that gave him more energy as he went on, not less. The idea of body-sculpting in a glossy gym with some high-profile personal trainer did nothing for him. Better the peace and solitude of a morning run where the only noise was the thud of his footfalls and the whistle of an occasional bird. Ty glanced up at the walled house at the top of the hill, and sped up, knowing he was almost home.

Walls. Even in the canyon, you had to take personal security seriously, at least if you vied with Tom Cruise for top box-office draw around the globe. The little pulse of annoyance was so familiar he’d almost stopped feeling it. He’d known before he’d ever started acting what the price of fame could be, as he’d watched his uncle, Michael Pantolini, struggle with it. But when a college buddy had persuaded Ty to act in his senior project, everything had changed. Ty remembered the heady rush of those few short days, that sense of a previously unknown power surging through him.

He could no more have turned away from it than he could have stopped breathing.

And so he lived behind a wall and considered it a trade off. Ty slowed to a walk and turned down his asphalt driveway to see a bright-red Prius parked at the gate and a stocky, dark-haired man standing next to it, a camera slung around his neck. Speaking of privacy…

“Give us a smile for the hometown fans.” The man gave a cocky grin, lifting the camera up to his eye.

“You know, the last paparazzi who tried to shoot me here were picking up their cameras in little pieces at the bottom of the hill,” Ty told him, walking closer.

“No kidding?” The camera clicked and whirred as the photographer shot frame after frame.

“Once they finished picking themselves up, of course,” Ty said pleasantly. “Want me to demonstrate?”

The intruder lowered his camera and smirked. “You ain’t so tough.”

“Try me,” Ty suggested and took a step forward.

For a long moment they gave each other flinty-eyed stares. Then the intruder shook his head and waved the hand without the camera. “Cut.”

Ty narrowed his eyes. “You directors, you’re all alike. Never satisfied.”

The “paparazzo” patted one of Ty’s cheeks gently. “Ty, sweetie, you were fabulous, but if this goes any further you’re gonna need a stunt double.”

“You’re just cranky because you’re up on a Saturday before ten, Charlie.”

Charlie snorted. “You forget I have kids. Eight o’clock is sleeping in.”

Ty laughed and shook hands with Charlie Tarkington, college buddy and the person responsible for getting him into film. “I thought you hated leaving Santa Monica for the wilderness.”

“I figured it was about time I brought your camera back.”

“I was just going to put a call into the stolen property division. You could have gone through the gate, at least.”

Charlie shrugged. “I forgot the code.”

“It’s the date of the premiere of our first movie, dork.” Ty pressed his thumb on the security pad scanner and the gate glided noiselessly open to reveal the house beyond.

The structure was perched at the edge of the hillside. Sleek and white, the building’s clean lines were banded with glass. The high wall might have been for the privacy a man in Ty’s line of work had to fight for; the broad swathes of windows were for the freedom and openness he craved. When they stepped through the front door, it was to a flood of light, a room that stretched out and flung the viewer directly out into the canyon.

Charlie, as usual, went straight to the glass and stared out at the view. “You ever get nosebleeds up here?”

“Hey, when you make the big bucks you can afford lots of cotton balls. Want something to drink?” Ty turned off into the kitchen to rummage in the refrigerator. He knew some actors who had cooks, maids, an entire staff to take care of them. So far, he’d resisted anything beyond a weekly housecleaning service and the occasional visit from a landscaping crew to keep the yard from getting too out of control. Outside, he was fair game for the public. Here, he jealously guarded his privacy. “What do you want, O.J.? Soda?”

Charlie wandered into the kitchen after Ty, idly surveying the brushed aluminum Sub-Zero appliances and granite counters. “I’m tempted to ask you for a cappuccino just for the entertainment value of seeing Mr. People’s Choice Award figuring out how to use the knobs on that machine.”

“For that, you get water,” Ty said, grabbing two bottles from the refrigerator and tossing one to his friend.

Out on the deck, they relaxed in redwood Adirondack chairs and watched the morning mist burn away, until they could glimpse the sea in the bright distance.

“So, you into preproduction for Dark Touch yet?” Charlie asked idly, leaning back with a sigh.

“We start rehearsals next week.”

Charlie turned his head to study Ty. “And you’re not looking too thrilled about it.”

“It’s got problems, especially with the dialog.” And unless Ty did something about it, he’d be the chump stuck mouthing the bad lines. “The concept’s solid, it’ll definitely play, but the script needs tightening.”

“And?” Charlie prompted.

He shrugged. “And it’s just another Ty Ramsay hero. You know, the strong, quiet outsider who comes in and saves the day against the terrorists or the mobsters or the counterfeiters or whoever. Same guy, different movie.”

“They’re not all the same.”

“You’re right.” Ty gave a humorless smile. “They’ve each got their signature flaw: one smokes, one has anger management issues, one’s a rule-breaker, one—”

“Dresses in women’s underwear?” Charlie offered.

“Only in your movies. Admit it, Charlie, I’ve been one-tracked.” Ty fell broodingly silent and stared out at the canyon.

“So ask your agent to get you some other kinds of scripts. Go for the dark, sensitive stuff.”

If only it were that easy. “The studios want dark or sensitive they go to Nic Cage or Johnny Depp. They don’t come to me. They come to me when they want a guy who’s good at blowing stuff up.” He took a long drink of his water and reminded himself he should be happy for his success, not feeling as though his life wasn’t meshing the way he’d expected it to.

“Well, you could have the opposite problem. The studios look at me, they see Mr. Indie. Winning that jury prize at the film festival helped me in terms of getting small money, but it hasn’t done dick for me in the big leagues.”

“You want to blow stuff up?” Ty raised an eyebrow.

“Not exactly.” Charlie took a pull on his bottle of water. “Just once, I’d like to do something that’s not on a shoestring budget, though. If I could just have a crack at it, I could make it work.”

“Don’t I know that feeling. When you’re talking about millions, though, they want to know you can do it before they put the money behind it.”

“It bites,” Charlie said moodily.

“Yeah.”

They watched a swallow flit among the trees.

“You know—”

“Of course—”

They both stopped. “You first,” Charlie said.

“What if we teamed up? To start a production company, I mean.”

Charlie’s eyes gleamed. “You took the words right out of my mouth. You act, I direct. With your name, we can find the financing. Hunt up a few scripts we like, start them into development…”

“Everybody’s happy.” Ty sat forward, suddenly alive with energy. “Equal votes. When we find one we both like, we go with it. Then later, once the company’s running, we can pursue separate projects if we want.”

“There’s a script I’ve got optioned,” Charlie said slowly, “but I haven’t done anything with it because I know it would take more than I could come up with to do it right. I’ll send it over to you Monday. If you’re serious about this.”

“I’m serious.”

“Serious now or serious ‘some day’?”

“Serious yesterday. I am so ready for this, you wouldn’t believe.” Ty lapsed into silence, drumming his fingers on the chair arm. “We’ll need a name.”

Charlie considered. “Two Guys Productions?”

“And you’re supposed to be the creative part of the team? This is going to show up on a screen fifty feet high. How about Zephyr Productions?”

“Oh, sure, you want to name it after a bunch of hot air?”

“You’ve got a point,” Ty allowed and thought some more. “Okay, how about GDI Films?”

“GDI Films? As in ‘God-damn Independent’?”

“You know, that scrappy outsider thing.”

Charlie mulled it over and nodded slowly. “It works. I like it. So what’s our next step? We do the legal stuff, but how do we get things rolling?”

“I was at a party for the premiere of my cousin’s doc the other night,” Ty said thoughtfully. “Met a guy who might be good for coordinating things.”

“As long as that’s all he wants to do,” Charlie warned. “We don’t want to bring in some outsider who’s going to try to run things.”

“No, but we do need someone good to chase details. This guy sounds solid. I’ll follow up, see if I can get more info on him.”

“But keep it low-key.” Charlie nodded his head to some beat that only he could hear. “So yeah, Sabrina’s doc premiered last night, huh? How was it?”

“Really good. No surprise there. Sabrina knows what she’s doing. And she gives a hell of a party.” Trish, sliding her hand down her hip. Trish, dangling those delicious legs as she sat on the kitchen counter. Trish, silky and warm against him.

“So who is she?”

Ty blinked, then looked out at the canyon. “Sabrina’s my cousin, you idiot.”

“I’m not talking about your cousin. I know that look. Who is she? Tell Uncle Charlie.”

Ty considered denying it, but Charlie always had been able to read him. “No one you know.”

“I knew you wouldn’t stay on the wagon,” Charlie said comfortably.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, even you, action boy, are human. You can say you’re giving up women all you want, but you can only have so many gorgeous babes falling at your feet before you cave, right? Carpe diem and all that.”

Ty gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, you’re free, single and over eighteen. What’s the problem?”

“I wasn’t on the cover of the Enquirer once last year,” Ty said, almost to himself. “It was kind of nice, you know?”

“You decided to give up women because of the tabloids?”

“No, I decided to take a break because I got tired of thinking I’d found the one and having it end in knockdown drag-outs with people I’d cared about.”

The humor faded from Charlie’s eyes. “Look, your parents, that love-at-first-sight thing? That doesn’t happen to real people.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“And what you feel on a movie set when you’re paid to pretend you’re a guy in love with a knockout who’s pretending to be in love with you, that’s not real, either.”

“Okay, okay.” If Ty was sick of playing the same parts in films, he was doubly sick of doing the same stupid things over and over again in his personal life. “Give me some credit, I’ve figured out the whole fooling-myself part. It’s not all looks.” There had to be more—a real connection, fun, complexity that made him want to get beneath the surface.

“So I take it this one’s—er, what do we call her?”

“Trish.”

“So this Trish looks like your grandmother, then?”

Ty’s mouth tightened briefly, then relaxed as he saw the humor in it. “Not exactly.”

“Didn’t think so. Look, you have whatever fun you want, bud. Just don’t let it interfere with GDI, because we’ve got a mission. GDI Films,” he repeated. “I like it already.”