Kitabı oku: «Baby On His Hollywood Doorstep», sayfa 3

“Can you contact your brother. Tell him Grace is here?”

Jack didn’t look her way. Couldn’t right now. She wouldn’t like his answer. He didn’t like it, either.

He let out the air that had grown stagnant inside his lungs. “You’ve taken care of Grace since she was born?” He already knew the answer, but was trying to figure out his next steps. Steps that were completely foreign to him.

“Yes.”

“And paid to bring her here?”

“Yes.”

“What did your family think of that?” Another thought formed. “Or Vera’s family?”

There was that flash in her eyes again. A mixture of sadness and fear. “Neither of us have any family. Vera had worked for the circus. That’s how she got to Chicago. And she didn’t have any family to return to.”

Jack wanted to know about her. Helen. But a gut sense said she wouldn’t answer any questions about herself. He stood up and picked up the bag once again full of mail. “Is the circus how she met Joe?”

“Yes. He was a magician.”

Jack had already known that as well. Joe had perfected several magic tricks over the years, and had used them to land more than one job. After opening the closet, he set the bag inside. “Had he continued on with the circus? Left when it moved on?”

“No. Vera said they both stayed in Chicago. That Jack had gotten a job at one of the playhouses for a short time, but then had to return here and said he would send for her. That’s when he gave her this address and said she was to contact him here if she needed anything.”

Of course Joe did. That’s what he’d always done. Passed the buck.

Jack closed the door and stood there for a moment. The baby had started to fuss and Helen was scooping her off the couch. That baby was his niece. Joe’s baby, and as inadvertent as that may be, Grace was now his responsibility.

The mess with the Broadbents was nothing compared to this. What the hell was he going to do?

“I’ll pay you,” he said as the thought formed.

“Excuse me?”

It might not be the ultimate answer, but it would do for now. “I’ll pay you to continue to take care of Grace.”

She glanced at the baby, and then up at him. Sorrow filled her eyes as she sadly shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Why? You have been since she was born.”

“Because I promised Vera I’d bring her here. And I have.”

She had all right, and that could open a can of worms that could take him down. It would be all the Wagner brothers needed to convince the owners of the new theater to break his contract and go with them.

Right now, it was just the two of them, Julia and Miss Hobbs who knew about Grace. He had to keep it that way.

“Just until I find Joe.” Then he could send them to Florida, or to wherever Joe was. Let his brother take responsibility for his own actions this time.

She glanced down and the smile she provided the baby might very well be the most precious and beautiful smile he’d seen to date. But then, she closed her eyes and bit her lips together. When she lifted her lids, looked at him, tears had welled in her eyes again. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

Money. It had to be the money. Traveling here had probably taken all she’d had. He didn’t have much to spare himself, but he did have a bank account that he’d been depositing any royalties owed to Joe from past projects, knowing Joe would return some day and want it. Expect it.

He hadn’t used that money to pay the Broadbents because Joe had sold them shares in future projects, not past, but he would use Joe’s money for this, his daughter. And not feel guilty about it.

He had no idea what it cost to take care of a baby, so merely said, “Whatever it costs, I’ll pay you.”

She kissed the baby on the head. He let out a sigh of relief and pulled his billfold out of his pocket. To his shame, he had only a few dollars on him. Pulling them out, he said, “I’ll go to the bank and get more tomorrow.”

She laid the baby back down on the couch and picked up her purse. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. For Grace’s sake, I can’t.” Turning about, she started for the door.

“Wait! You can’t leave!” He started after her, but a crunch beneath his foot made him pause. Her glasses. He’d broken them. She was already out the door. “Wait!”

* * *

Tears once again blurred Helen’s vision. This time it wasn’t just heartache, there was anger inside her, too. Anger that her life would never be her own. No matter where she went. She couldn’t continue to put Grace in danger. That’s all there was to it.

A baby’s cry—Grace’s—made her feet stumble, but she forced herself to keep moving forward. Down the hall. In Chicago, after leaving her cousin’s house, she’d gone to the edge of the city, where she thought the lack of large businesses would make the mob not as prevalent. That hadn’t been true. The neighbor of Amery’s grocery store hadn’t been run by the Outfit. It had been a smaller mob, one that oversaw little more than the bootlegging of whiskey to the area speakeasies. But nonetheless, they’d been there. Mobsters in big fancy cars, their mugs on street corners.

It was there, late at night, looking out the windows of the grocery store that she’d concluded that there was no getting out. Not for her. Any one of those thugs could have been a stool pigeon for her uncle.

Grace was still crying, and Helen balled her hands into fists as she neared the door of the studio.

She’d created many disguises for herself over the past two years, everything from a young boy to an old woman, but hadn’t been able to carry much besides Grace all the way to the railroad station. Therefore, she’d left most everything behind. Other than the drab dresses, head scarves and her glasses.

Her glasses. She’d taken them off because it had been too hard to see the writing on the envelopes. Spinning about, she hurried back toward the hallway.

She told herself it was to get the glasses, that she had to have them, but the moment she stepped into the office door, she knew the real reason. Grace was still crying and Jack stood next to the couch. The bottle in one hand, a can of milk in the other.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he said, looking at her hopelessly.

Helen hurried forward. “You start by picking her up.” She did just that, and snuggled Grace close to comfort her. “Once she’s calmed down, you can see to what she needs, whether it’s a diaper change or a bottle.”

“How do you know the difference?” he asked.

She shrugged. “If her diaper is dry, you fix a bottle. If it’s wet, you change her.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do this. I can’t.” Holding up the can of milk, he added, “I don’t even have a can opener.”

“There is one in the bag,” Helen said, carefully laying Grace down on the couch. The baby was no longer crying but a diaper change was definitely in order. The bag and most of its former contents were spread out on the floor near her feet. After picking up a clean diaper, Helen asked, “Where is the powder room?”

“Next door down the hall, on the right.” He met her gaze. “Thank you for coming back. Thank you very much.”

Earlier, while sitting on the floor next to him, she’d caught herself staring at him. More than once. Couldn’t seem to help it. He was extremely handsome, with his blond hair that flopped over his forehead and his dark eyes.

He had the kind of handsomeness that made people stop in their tracks and take a second look. She’d heard about that more than seen it. In fact, she may never have seen it, and truly only heard about it from Vera. That’s how she’d described Joe McCarney. Stop-in-your-tracks handsome.

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and bent down to pick up Grace. “We’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be here.”

She found the powder room and as she saw to changing Grace, she couldn’t help but wonder who would see that the diaper was properly washed, or that the bottles and nipples were cleaned after each use, or all of the other things that needed to be done to see to the care of a baby. She hadn’t known any of those things in the beginning, but did now, and had cherished doing all of them.

It had been a long time since she’d had someone to love. Grace had filled that hole since the moment she’d been born. She’d told herself from the beginning that Grace wasn’t hers to love, that her only duty to the baby was to find her father.

She hadn’t done that.

She hadn’t fulfilled her promise to Vera. The promises she’d made to Grace.

Despite her fears, she couldn’t leave. She’d tried twice, and couldn’t do it. Giving Grace a hug, she whispered, “Don’t worry, sweetheart, no matter what, I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”

She left the powder room with more resolve than she’d had in a long time. Jack was still in the office, had returned all of Grace’s items to the bag and had it sitting on his desk.

“Thank you,” he said again as soon as she entered.

The relief on his face was so evident she had to bite her lips to keep from smiling. There was no denying that the idea of staying with Grace a bit longer filled her with joy.

“I had no idea what to do,” he said. “She started crying as soon as you stepped out the door.”

“I heard. Your shouting probably scared her.”

He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been around a baby before.”

“I hadn’t, either,” she admitted. That had been frightening at first, but had quickly turned into joy. More joy than she’d known in a very long time.

“I’ll pay whatever you want, for you to take care of her until I can find Joe.”

Helen held her breath for a moment. Could she do it? Stay with Grace? “I came back for my glasses,” she said, needing a bit more time. She was nearly out of money, so wouldn’t get far, if she did leave.

“About those.” He glanced down at his desk. “I stepped on them by accident.”

She looked down, saw the crushed frames and broken glass.

“Why do you wear them? You don’t need them.”

“Yes, I do.” Not to see with, but to hide behind.

“I’ll buy you a new pair.”

It was almost as if the smashed glasses were a symbol, one that told her she couldn’t hide for the rest of her life. She already knew that, just hadn’t known how to get out. How to get far enough away that she wouldn’t have to hide. That had been her goal, why she’d saved every penny she could. Yet, until Grace, she hadn’t had the courage to leave.

That’s why she’d stayed put, in the little apartment above the grocery store, stocking shelves, scrubbing floors, reading newspapers every night, and wishing she could go outside, enjoy the sunshine, the rain, even the snow and wind, every day.

“Tomorrow. I’ll buy you a new pair, tomorrow.”

Helen pulled her eyes off the glasses. A new pair wouldn’t make a difference. Tomorrow would be no different from today. She took a moment to think back over the past few days. Traveling on the train she’d experienced a small amount of the freedom she’d sought the past two years. Before then in another sense. Guilt arose when she thought about that. How she’d wanted out when she should have been thankful her family had been alive and well.

She hadn’t been thankful about that, not enough, and today, she’d been so worried about herself, about getting away again, that she’d left Grace with someone who didn’t have the ability to care for her. Jack could learn. She had, but that wasn’t the issue. The true issue was whether she was really willing to let her past, her fears, have so much control over her that she was willing to let Grace suffer while Jack learned to take care of her. Is that who she was? Who she’d become?

If so, why hadn’t she left as soon as she’d handed Grace over? Ran back to the train station and used the last of her funds to buy a ticket that would have taken her as far away as possible?

“Do you need to return to Chicago immediately?”

“No.” Helen closed her eyes at how quickly she responded. Heaviness filled her as she opened her eyes and looked at Jack. She had no idea what to say, what to do. It was as if she was caught in a trap even stronger than the one she’d lived in the past few years.

Chapter Four

If Jack had been alone, he might have spewed an entire sentence of curse words, but he wasn’t alone. The woman standing before him was hiding something, and she was holding his niece. His niece. And he didn’t have a clue as to what to do about that. About either of them. He’d never been so out of his element as when Grace had started to cry. Nor had he ever been so relieved as when Helen had shown back up in the doorway.

He’d also never seen fear in someone’s eyes like what had appeared in hers when he’d asked if she had to return to Chicago.

Damn it to hell, this shouldn’t even be his problem. It should be Joe’s.

Which is precisely what made it his. And why it fit so well. Every time he was almost there, almost to the point where everything was good and right, Joe stepped in. It had been that way his entire life. So why should it change now?

Angry like he hadn’t been in some time, he spun around. Ran a hand through his hair, and tried to think. Nothing came to him, much like a few minutes ago, when Grace had been crying.

He huffed a breath of scalding air, full of anger toward Joe for once again leaving him with a mess to clean up, and then drew in another breath. His hands were tied, like they had been so many times before.

Unlike his brother, he’d always accepted that honesty was the best policy, so he turned around. “I have to be up front with you. I don’t have a clue how to take care of a baby, nor do I have a clue where Joe is. Last I heard it was Florida, and I will call some connections I have there, see if they’ve heard from him, know where he is, but it could be days, weeks, before I learn about his whereabouts.”

She didn’t make a move, or say a word, other than to glance down at the baby in her arms.

Frustration had his nerve endings tingling. “And there’s more. I have a movie to make. The actors have been hired, the sets have been built, the script’s written. We start filming in the morning. I have two months, eight weeks from start to finish, to get it filmed, edited and ready to show. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll have to lock the doors of the studio permanently.” He’d never admitted that realization, not even to himself, but it was the truth. The movies he’d made the last couple of years had been small-budget productions, and the minimum runs they’d been given in theaters had barely been enough to pay the salaries of his crew and the actors, especially once the Broadbents had been given payments toward Joe’s debt.

Her gaze was on him, and remained there as she nodded.

At a loss, he let out a sigh. “I know that’s not your problem. That none of this is your problem.” He wished it wasn’t his problem, either, but it was. That little girl in her arms was his niece and like it or not, he couldn’t turn his back on her. “But I don’t know what to do, other than to ask you what it will take for you to agree to continue to care for Grace for the next eight weeks?”

“Eight weeks?”

The fear in her eyes returned full force. He didn’t want yet another issue, but couldn’t deny that it was his only option to deal with it. Whatever it was. “You have to level with me, doll. Tell me what’s really going on. Why you’re acting like some moll on the lam.”

Her head snapped back as if she’d been struck a blow on the chin. “I’m not a moll, and I’m not your doll, either.”

There was fire in her eyes, which was surprising considering how meek she’d been a moment ago. He hadn’t meant she was a gangster’s gal, or his doll, but that really had struck a nerve with her. Which he was going to take advantage of now that he had her full attention. “Then what are you?”

A frown filled her face, but not her eyes, they were still snapping.

“Why are you hiding and what are you running from?” he added.

She stood stock-still for so long he wondered if she was going to answer. When she did finally move, it was to lift the baby in her arms up against one shoulder and pat Grace’s small back. He held his silence. Watching her movements. Once again, the idea of filming her entered his mind. He had to push it away, which wasn’t easy. Her movements were elegant, smooth. Graceful. It was her thoughtfulness, that really held his attention. How she was contemplating her next move. The audience would see that too, and wonder, just as he was, what she was about to say.

“I came here fully expecting to give Grace to her father, that he’d know how to take care of her.”

“And then?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He could tell she was being honest, and honesty brought honesty. “I haven’t talked to my brother in over two years, but would doubt he’d know any more about taking care of a baby than I do.”

“Why haven’t you talked to him in two years?”

He was tired of standing, and figured she was too, so waved at the sofa, silently inviting her to sit down.

She watched him cautiously as she crossed the room and then perched herself on the edge of the cushion, almost as if prepared to jump up and run for the door all over again.

He sat in the chair next to the sofa, but it wasn’t standing that he was tired of, it was this—another obstacle. “I haven’t talked to Joe in two years because he was blackballed from acting in Hollywood and left the state. I tried to smooth things over, but...” He shook his head. There hadn’t been anything he could do. No one had wanted to hear him defend his brother. He’d told Joe that, and that he wasn’t going to lose his standings for Joe’s mistakes. Not again. That’s when Joe had sold out to the Broadbents and left town.

“What had he done to become blackballed?”

“Misconduct.” He shrugged. In truth, Joe’s actions had been no different than half the men in Hollywood, more maybe, he was just the one unlucky enough to get tangled up with the wrong doll. The movie industry wanted the world to believe they had standards and every once in a while, they pulled out a stool pigeon to prove a point. That had been Joe. Jack understood all this, but that didn’t mean he condoned Joe’s actions. Fooling around with a married woman was wrong and one married to a topliner was downright reckless. He shook his head. “Joe had been a good actor, had become popular, and he’d let that popularity go to his head.”

She frowned. “Will he be back? To Hollywood?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I doubt it.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, she glanced down at Grace. “Not even for his daughter?”

Jack didn’t know. Long ago he’d stopped trying to figure out his brother. There were times Joe had been there when he’d needed him. When they’d been in their teens and their parents had died. Joe had gotten them to California and then taken on any and all menial jobs he could get, while insisting Jack go to school. Filmmaking was new and raw then, and Joe hung in there when others hadn’t and finally worked his way into acting. The money he’d made then had not only kept them both in food and clothes, it had funded the start of Star’s Studio.

Although he hadn’t wanted that in the beginning—he’d wanted to try something completely different from what he’d always known—he’d stuck with it because Joe had wanted it.

They’d made money, more than they would have elsewhere, and he owed his brother for that. For all he had, and always would. He’d never forgotten that, either. Nor would.

“I won’t know that until I talk to him.” He’d make some calls in the morning, to a couple of the film companies that were popping up down in Florida. He’d heard through the grapevine that Joe had been down there, looking for work a few months ago. Trouble was, Joe might not call him back. They’d been at crossroads when Joe had left, and nothing had happened to resolve that.

“I have no idea when that might be,” he admitted. “But, I can promise, that if you give me eight weeks, enough time to get this movie made and into theaters, I’ll then take over full responsibility for Grace. I’ll pay for all of her needs starting right now. I just need you to take care of her.”

“Eight weeks...”

The tremors in her voice shifted his train of thought. He knew actors. There were people who could instantly step into a role, become a character completely, then there were others, that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t act. Couldn’t pretend to be anyone other than themselves.

He’d put her in that second category. She also couldn’t hide something else. She was scared. Beyond scared. Her hands were trembling and she kept glancing at Grace, almost as if the baby might pop up and fly away like some little bird.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

She looked away while gnawing on her bottom lip. Even her arms were trembling. So was her chin.

“What’s preventing you from accepting my offer?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

His hope rose. “Nothing?”

She shook her head. “Everything.”

Huffing out a breath, he asked, “Which is it? Nothing or everything?” Maybe all of his imagining her on the big screen was because she could act. Or lie. Had been lying all along. “Is Grace not who you say she is? Is she your baby and you made all this up about Vera and Joe?”

“No.” Her shoulders squared as she leveled a glare on him. “Everything I have told you about Grace and Vera is true. The letters say as much.”

He didn’t need to read the letters. He knew she wasn’t lying. He was just stuck between a rock and a hard spot. “I’m sorry. I do believe you.” Standing, he rubbed at the tension in the back of his neck. “There is one other thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. Another reason I need you to care for Grace.”

“What is it?”

“Right now, while I’m making this movie and getting it out to the public, I can’t have word spread that I’ve taken in Joe’s abandoned baby. This is Hollywood. The rules change daily. That could be enough to have me blackballed for still associating with my brother.” His own words sickened him. “I know that sounds selfish, but it’s the truth. I can’t argue for it or against it, it’s just what it is right now.”

“So you want me to pretend like Grace is my baby?”

He didn’t want to face her, but did. “I want you to go on taking care of her, not saying anything, one way or the other.” He wasn’t proud of this, but he had to think of his future, of what this movie meant, perhaps even more now than ever. He had Grace to think about. Her future.