Reilly's Return by Tami Hoag

each other. They took their places, standing beside the brass bed. Reilly put his arm around Cybill’s shoulders, keeping a discreet distance between them. Knowing what was in store, Cybill took one look up into Reilly’s famous blue eyes and went mute again. Jayne frowned and nibbled on her thumbnail, at a loss as to how to handle the situation.
    “She’s not exactly Meryl Streep, is she?” Candi murmured. She stood beside Jayne, one hand braced against her aching back, one rubbing her protruding belly. “I’d volunteer to take the part, but I don’t think I could get close enough to him.”
    Jayne gave her a wry look. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t be very believable as a virginal ingenue.”
    “No,” Candi said with a snort. “But at least I can talk.”
    “Jayne, I can’t do this,” Cybill whispered, her voice trembling with desperation. She had abandoned Reilly and now grabbed onto Jayne’s arm with a death grip. “That’s Pat Reilly. The script says I’m supposed to
kiss
Pat Reilly!”
    Jayne heaved a sigh. “Cybill, honey, he’s just a man.”
    Cybill was astonished. “Jayne, are you out of your mind? Rodney Povich at the hardware store is just a man. My husband is just a man.” She jerked her thumb in Reilly’s direction. “That’s
Pat Reilly.”
    Jayne’s shoulders drooped in defeat. Candi gave her an I-told-you-so look.
    “Why don’t you walk through it with me, Jaynie,” Reilly suggested, his tone thick with dangerous undercurrents. “Show Cybill what a snap it is.”
    Jayne glared at him. He was being obnoxious in the extreme. She was beginning to regret her dream come true of directing him. He’d been subtly difficult ever since his first scene. He wasn’t giving her even a small sampling of the talent she knew he possessed, the talent she had been so determined to bring out. If anything, he seemed to be fighting it—fighting her—and she was darnnear ready to give him a swift kick in the seat of his well-worn, indecently snug jeans.
    “All right,” she said tightly, picking up her script as if it were a gauntlet he’d thrown down.
    She took her place before him, standing beside the fancy brass bed. He pulled her much too close and looked down at her, his eyes blazing with challenge and belligerence and barely leashed passion. A strange recklessness tilted her chin up, and her mahogany-fire hair spilled down her slender back and over Reilly’s arm.
    “Put a little something into it this time,” she suggested beneath her breath.
    “Oh, I’d be glad to, luv,” he muttered, his eyes flashing at her unintentional double entendre.
    “Wilson,” Jayne began, thankful she had memorized most of the play, since she couldn’t pull her eyes away from Reilly long enough to read her lines, “how am I supposed to quit this life? I need the money. If I leave Lucky Louie’s now, Aunt Mabel and Aunt Catonia will lose their home. They’ll be thrown out in the street.”
    “I’ll help you, Desiree,” Reilly said stiffly.
    “How can you help? You dress up in a chicken suit and pass out handbills on the sidewalk. Don’t tell me—that’s just a hobby. You’re really the third-wealthiest man in America.”
    “No, I’m not. But I’d be the richest man in the world if only I could have your love, Desiree.”
    As directed in the script, Reilly gazed down into Jayne’s eyes and the earth shifted suddenly beneath his feet. His anger vaporized, slipped through his grasp like smoke. The tension that had had him in its grip since his first line of the evening melted. Awareness of his surroundings dimmed. His focus was wholly on Jayne, on the feel of her in his arms, on the way the light turned her hair to a nimbus of dark garnet around her head.
    This was what he wanted. This was what he had craved for so long—to hold her in his arms like this. When she was this close, his heart pounded in a rhythm he didn’t recognize, and his head filled with cotton wool. She was so pretty, so