Katy stared at him, her mind spinning. She’d spent the last few months convincing herself that Dayne couldn’t have cared much for her. Not if he could leave her and months later have his leading lady move in with him. But here . . . in a single instant, he had rewritten everything she knew to be true about that part of his past.
“Look—” his voice was tender, compassionate—“I didn’t come here to talk about my feelings for you, Katy. Really.”
“I know.” Relief came over her. Somehow it was wrong talking about whatever they felt for each other in light of Kelly’s abortion. Still, in the darkening shadows and under the cover of a raging storm, they felt like the only two people in the world, as if they’d stumbled into a place where honesty reigned and no subject was taboo. She searched his eyes. “Was she right?”
Dayne brought one hand to her face and touched her cheek. “How can you ask?” He worked the muscles in his jaw and returned his hand to hers. “But it doesn’t matter.”
Katy could hardly exhale. She waited for him to explain himself.
“I’m not who you need.” He gave her a sad smile. “I’m too much work, the two of us too different.” A flash of lightning lit the room, and she could see his eyes glistening. “But believe this, Katy. All the fame and celebrity, everything people see when I’m in a role or in the tabloids, that’s not who I am. Not really.”
She wanted to hug him, but she kept her spot, their knees a few inches from each other. “I know.” This was more transparent than she’d ever seen him.
A quiet chuckle came from somewhere deep inside him, but it sounded more ironic than humorous. “The trouble is, I’m not sure who I am.” He released her hands, stood, and walked around the sofa to the windows. “It hit me when Kelly told me the news.” He crossed his arms and stared at the sky. “I don’t know if it has something to do with being adopted or that my parents died when I was a teenager. But somewhere along the way I lost everything that used to matter to me.” He looked at her. “I never bothered to find out who I am.”
She nodded, and their past discussions flashed through her mind. His sudden interest in small-town America, his attempt at understanding Kabbalah, even his interest in her. “I think you’ve been searching.”
“I have.” He drew a long, slow breath and returned to his place on the sofa. This time he was a little farther away than before. “I have a friend, a guy I grew up with. He’s a missionary in Mexico now.” The corners of Dayne’s mouth raised, but the smile stopped short of his eyes. “Same upbringing as me—boarding school, distant parents, the whole works. Ever since I heard about . . . about the baby, I’ve wanted just an hour or two with the guy. To ask him how he figured it out—even after his parents chose God over him.” He leaned against the padded sofa arm. “You know?”
Katy pulled her knees up and hugged them. In the midst of all the sadness and uncertainty, the idea felt wonderful. “Then that’s exactly what you should do.”
“I am. At least I’m thinking about it. I called him. We’re both free the end of March.”
“Yes.” Katy sat up a little straighter. “Like you said, he figured it out. Maybe he could help you do the same thing.”
“That’s what I thought.” He gave her a partial grin. “I fly here when I need to talk to you. I could do the same to see him, I guess.”
She felt her soul sing at the possibility, and the smile that tugged at her lips felt wonderful. “True. You fly here on a whim whenever you feel like it.”
He angled his head, his eyes soft again. “Not hardly.” Their eyes held. “If I flew to Indiana on a whim, I’d be here every week.”
Dayne’s words touched her, but there was nothing more important right now than his going to Mexico to talk with his missionary friend. That was bigger than everything they clearly still felt for each other. “Maybe if you go to Mexico you’ll find the real Dayne.” She pressed her fingers to her heart, her eyes begging him to understand. “The one no one but you and God really know.”
The storm was moving away—only an occasional bolt of lightning and a low rumble of thunder in the distance. But the sky was still ominous, and the room was mostly dark.
Dayne stood and went to the window again. “From here you can see the clouds, the way they’re darker in some places than others.”
“Hmm.” Katy rose and went around the couch, coming up alongside him. “Sort of like life.”
“Yeah.” He turned his shoulder against the glass and faced her. “I didn’t really answer you.”
They were inches apart, so close that Katy could smell what remained of his cologne. The combination of that and the nearness of him was intoxicating. She steadied herself. Be strong, Katy . . . God, help me be strong. He doesn’t need me; he needs You. That’s all this is about. She wondered if Dayne could hear her pounding heart. “About what?”
“Kelly’s observation.” His voice grew quiet. “That I never loved her the way I loved you.”
Katy was glad for the darkness, because it hid the heat she felt in her cheeks. “Dayne, you never loved me. You liked me.” She couldn’t keep eye contact with him another moment. Otherwise she’d close the distance between them and wind up in his arms.
She looked down at their feet, at how they were almost touching. When she felt more composed, she found his eyes. “I think you like the idea of me maybe even more than . . . than me.” She gave him a sad smile. “Your life is so complicated, Dayne. So difficult. I think you see me—” she glanced around as if maybe the answer lay in the shadows—“like I’m some sort of image.” The idea hurt more than she was willing to admit. She tilted her head, willed her tears back. “Maybe I represent the faith you’re seeking, the simplicity you’re craving. Maybe it’s not about me at all.”
At first, as she was coming up with the explanation for his devotion, his brow lowered as in confusion. But then as it became clear what she was saying, his eyes shone with hurt and then determination. “You’re not an image.” He gritted his teeth. When he spoke again, he had never sounded more sure about anything. “I know you, Katy. It’s not what you represent that draws me to you.” He touched his fist to his chest. “It’s what lives inside you.”
Katy didn’t want to challenge him, didn’t want to force him to see that his feelings for her were based more on imagination than reality. Not when his eyes were drawing her in, capturing her more completely with every passing minute.
When she didn’t say anything, he moved his hands to her shoulders and drew her close—slowly, carefully, in a way that seemed perfectly natural. It wasn’t the hug of two lovers or even two friends. In some ways it was deeper than that, an embrace filled with grief and most of all empathy.
Dayne put his hand on the back of her head and spoke near her ear. “I’ve wanted to hold you like this since I got here.” He leaned back just enough to look into her eyes. “I didn’t think we would.”
Again Katy’s face felt hot, but she wouldn’t let the heat make her feel guilty. She was doing nothing wrong. Dayne was a free man, and he was her friend—even if she believed everything she’d just told him about what he saw in her. She had her hand on his chest. “I didn’t either.”
Neither of them said it, but the obvious filled in the inches between them. Everything was different now. Tragically, there was no baby. But that meant Dayne was as free as he’d been the last time they were together—before the phone call from Kelly that day in the LA courthouse.
They swayed a little, two friends slow dancing to the sound of falling rain. She wanted to kiss him in the worst way, but months of taking the subject of Dayne to God made her keep her distance. “Ever since that night in the parking lot at Malibu Beach—” her voice was a whisper, all she could manage as weak as she was feeling—“I’ve prayed about you. Prayed for you.”
“You have?” His tone lightened. “Thanks.” He leaned in and placed the lightest kiss on her forehead. There was no seduction intended, but they were walking a tightrope, dangling together
over a canyon that—if they fell—would mean no turning back for either of them. He touched her cheek. “There’s no one else in my life who prays for me.”
This was it. Katy needed to make herself clear or she would lose the opportunity God was laying out before her. Make me strong, Lord. I need Your strength. The fact that there no longer was a baby didn’t change the things that had led up to there being one in the first place. And the loss Dayne was facing didn’t give her license to pretend those things had never happened.
She found her next breath. “I prayed for you and Kelly to be the right parents for your baby, and I prayed that—” she ached inside, but a strength bigger than her own pushed her to continue—“I prayed that God would help the two of us move on, to forget—” she ran her thumb along the base of his neck—“this. How it feels to be with you. Because the baby wasn’t the thing that made me know I had to let you go, Dayne. The baby was what made me finally see it could never work.”
The sadness returned to his face, but still he held her. “Because of my lifestyle?”
“No.” She spread her fingers on the place over his heart. “Because in here you need to find what matters most.”
“I feel that way.” His hand came up alongside her cheek, and he worked his fingers partway into her hair. His breathing was slightly faster than before, his hand trembling. “I feel it whenever I’m with you.”
Katy covered his hand with hers, and then—against every screaming bit of her flesh—she took a step backward. “Because I have what you’re looking for.” There were tears in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She motioned to herself. “Not what you see on the outside but my faith, Dayne. My relationship with Christ. That’s what matters most.”
Dayne exhaled, straightened, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sorry.” He didn’t have to specify his reasons. Clearly they could both feel how close they’d come to giving in to their feelings. He leaned his shoulder into the window. “I didn’t come here for this, really.”
“I know.” She reached out and took his hand. “You need to go to Mexico. Let’s talk after that.”
Before he could say anything else, they heard voices near the front door.
Dayne looked toward the sound. “The Flanigans?”
“Yes.” Relief came over her. The minutes of whispering with Dayne Matthews while a thunderstorm raged outside were over. She had known that God wanted her to avoid kissing him, and she’d succeeded. She tried not to feel disappointed. “Stay here.”
He turned toward the window as she walked past the fireplace and into the foyer. Jim Flanigan was just coming through the door, Jenny and the kids behind him.
Bailey grinned and made wide eyes at Katy. “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“A tornado.” Jim gave her a wry smile. “Small one touched down near Clear Creek. No one got hurt, from what the news said.”
Katy shivered. She had told Dayne they had nothing to worry about. What had she been thinking? This was Indiana in March. Whenever a thunderstorm like that one rolled through, tornadoes could come with it.
Shawn darted to her and tugged on her shirtsleeve. “We saw three kittens running across the road on the way home from Wal-Mart and Dad stopped.” He had braces on his teeth now, and his words weren’t as clear as before.
She struggled to understand. “Kittens?”
“Right.” He jumped up a few times. “The storm musta scared ’em out of their hole or wherever they live, because cats can live in fields and have babies in holes, Katy. Did you know that?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “They hunt mice and rats, and sometimes they get mean because they’re living in the wild, but not these kittens because they’re just babies.” He grabbed a quick breath. “They’re in the van in a box. Wanna see?”
Justin took her other arm. “Come see, Katy. Daddy says we can keep one.”
“Maybe. If no one reports them missing.” Jenny gave Jim a doubtful look and mouthed the word thanks.
He winked at her. “Never enough pets, right, boys?”
They hooted, and the four younger boys headed back outside with Jim. “We better find them a place on the porch for tonight. That way they’ll be safe until . . .” Jim closed the door behind them, and immediately the commotion level dropped by half.
Bailey and Connor were taking off their rain jackets, and Jenny was checking the bottoms of her shoes for mud.
Katy pulled Jenny aside. She gestured to the next room. “Dayne’s here. We’ve been talking.”
Jenny knew everything about the situation with Dayne. All the details of what had happened from the beginning and right up until her meeting with him in Los Angeles, their talk at his house on the beach, and the baby he and Kelly Parker were expecting. But she showed no disdain at the news that he was in their house. “Bailey told me she saw him at practice.” Jenny dropped her voice to the slightest whisper. “He’s in the living room? Now?”
Katy nodded. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. I just wanted you to know he was here.”
Because the electricity was still off, Bailey and Connor hung up their jackets and walked right past the passageway to the living room without seeing Dayne. Bailey called over her shoulder, “Shawn’s right. You’ve gotta see these kitties. They’re so cute.”
“In a minute, okay?” Just as Katy was going to explain to the older kids that she had a visitor, there was a clicking sound followed by a hum, and an instant later the lights were back on.
Before she could leave the entryway and return to the living room, Dayne walked through the arch that separated the two areas and waved to Jenny and the kids. “You survived the storm.”
Bailey had seen him earlier that day, so she was able to hide her surprise and delight.
Connor, though, came a few steps closer. “Are you . . . are you filming here again?”
“No.” He chuckled and looked at Katy. “Just needed an afternoon with your theater director.”
“Oh.” Connor’s mouth hung open for a few seconds.
Bailey grabbed his arm, her eyes dancing. “Come on, Connor. We’re supposed to go look at the kittens, remember?”
The kids left, but Connor looked back a few times. Katy felt herself smile. Of course he looked back. No matter what had happened before, regardless of the connection between her and Dayne the last time he was in town, it wasn’t every day that the kids came home to find a movie star in their living room.
Her smile faded. In some strange way, Connor’s reaction made her sad. This was the same reaction Dayne faced everywhere he went, in almost any setting. People staring at him, wondering if they might sneak an extra-long look or a photograph, people lined up next to him for an autograph at Starbucks or the grocery store or anywhere he went. Not just in Hollywood but here too.
It was the reason he wore hooded sweatshirts and baseball caps. And it was just one more reason why he could never share her lifestyle, not the way it was today.
“So, Dayne, how’s life?” Jenny smiled at him. She had a natural way of inviting people into her home, making them feel welcome. Dayne couldn’t have known by her reaction that she was privy to the details about him and Kelly.
The three of them talked for a few minutes; then Dayne checked his watch. “I have to go.” When he looked at Katy, the regret in his eyes was glaring. “I wish I had longer.”
Dayne said good-bye to Jenny, and they walked in a group out to the porch, where Jim and the boys had moved the box of kittens.
Katy peered inside and put her hand to her mouth. “They’re adorable.” They were gray with varying amounts of white, no more than five or six weeks old.
Jim looked up from the box and rose when he saw Dayne. His surprise lasted only an instant. “Dayne . . .” He reached out and shook his hand. “I hear I missed your visit last time.”
“Yes. My schedule’s a little strange sometimes.”
Jim chuckled. “I’ll bet.” Around him, the boys were on their knees, reaching
into the box and petting the mewing kittens. “Boys, this is Mr. Matthews.”
Katy studied the way Dayne held his hand out to the younger boys. Each of them in turn said their name and told Dayne it was nice to meet him. She could see by Dayne’s face that he was impressed. A few feet away, Bailey and Connor leaned against the house and tried not to laugh—probably because their silly brothers didn’t have the common sense to know exactly who Mr. Matthews was.
A few minutes later when they were in Katy’s car, Dayne gazed out his window at the scene on the front porch. “I love that family.” He looked at Katy. “That’s what I want.” He hesitated, turning his attention once more toward the Flanigans. “The family, the laughter, the love. Even the kittens on the front porch.”
Katy smiled, her eyes straight ahead. She didn’t state the obvious. Not then and not ten minutes later when she dropped him off at his car. She was tempted to turn off the engine and linger in the dark of the parking lot, but there was no point. Not if she seriously wanted to end the visit without crossing lines. His flight was in two hours, so he couldn’t wait either, which was good. It made the decision for a quick good-bye even easier.
“Thanks.” Dayne leaned across the console of her car and gave her a hug that lasted a few seconds. “You were the only one I wanted to talk to.” He drew back, but his eyes stayed locked on hers. “Keep praying for me, Katy. I’m not sure I understand it, but I like it.”
“Of course.” She had one more question. “So you’re going?”
“I have to.” He checked his watch. “I have two hours, so that’s an hour to Indianapolis and—”
“Dayne.” She put her hand on his. “I’m talking about Mexico.”
He grinned, and for the first time that afternoon, his eyes lit up. “Yes. I’m going.”
“Okay, then.” Her voice was low, and the electricity between them bordered on dangerous. “That’s it.”
“What?” He narrowed his eyes.
This time she could feel her own smile fade. “That’s what I’ll pray for.”