Once in a Blue Moon (12 page)

She had struggled over her duty to protect Jenny and her duty to tell Michael that Jenny was his child for so long that finally she realized that even if she told him now, Michael was bound to be angry with her for not telling him sooner.
What if he stormed out of her life because he was furious over her deception?
Every day that she waited made it harder and harder to reveal the truth. Several times she worked up her courage to tell him, but then something would happen that would distract her, or the words would stick in her throat.

So she let the days slide by without telling Michael about Jenny, hoping that somehow she would find a safe way to do it. But that way never seemed to come.

Two weeks after that day at the beach, Isabelle was surprised when she heard her doorbell ring and looked out to find Michael on the doorstep. They had not planned to see each other tonight, one of the rare evenings when they didn’t. Michael was leaving the following morning on a four-day tour of the Northwest, arranged by the studio’s publicity department, and Isabelle had a heavy shooting schedule tomorrow.

“Michael!” She swung the door open, smiling, all thought of memorizing her lines tonight receding in the joy she always felt at seeing him. “What are you doing here?”

He grabbed her and swung her around, then pulled her close for an enthusiastic kiss. When he released her, Isabelle was breathless.

“What in the world—” she gasped. “What’s going on?”

“Going on?” he asked with an air of mock innocence. “What makes you think anything is going on?”

Isabelle grimaced. “Come on, don’t make me drag it out of you.”

“You see before you,” he said gravely, stepping back and assuming the stance of an old-fashioned orator, his hand hooked in a nonexistent coat lapel, “a man who is going to read for the lead role in a prime-time series.”

Isabelle’s jaw dropped. “Michael! Oh, Michael, that’s wonderful!” She threw herself back into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing hard.

Finally she released him and stepped back. “So tell me. Give me all the details.”

“It looks good. Amon Hatcher Productions is producing it, so you know it’s got a good chance of being bought.”

“Michael! That’s great! When do you read for it? Aren’t you excited?”

“Walking on air would be more like it,” he grinned. “The audition is next Tuesday, right after I get back. By that time, of course, I’ll be sick with terror, but right now I’m having a hard time staying off the ceiling. My agent just called me. I’ve got to run over to his house and pick up the script, but first I had to come by and tell you.”

“I’m glad.” Isabelle beamed at him. “You’ll get it—I know you will. You’re too good an actor not to.”

“An unbiased opinion.” He laughed, his eyes dancing.

“Just because I happen to love you doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s good,” she retorted.

“Michael!” Jenny came into the room, and her eyes lit up at seeing him.

“Jenny! How’s my girl? Come give me a hug.”

Jenny was more than happy to comply, running over and throwing her arms around his waist. “Mama said you weren’t coming tonight.”

“I hadn’t planned to.”

“But he had great news, so he came to tell us,” Isabelle explained.

“Really?” Jenny’s eyes grew huge and round. “What?”

“I have an audition for a role. A nighttime series.”

“Oh.” Jenny was clearly less impressed by the news than they were. “Is that good?”

Michael chuckled. “Yes, sweetheart. It’s very good.”

“I’m glad.” Jenny threw her arms around him for another hug, then stepped back. “You want to see what I made in school today?” Jenny’s school ran year-round, so even though it was summer, she still went to school half a day.

“Sure. I’d love to.”

Michael and Isabelle waited, smiling, as Jenny ran back to her room. She returned a moment later, carefully carrying a circular, almost flat, piece of fired clay. Isabelle had already seen it. It was an impression of Jenny’s hand, which had then been painted and fired. She made one every year, marking on it her name and age.

Suddenly Isabelle’s stomach turned to ice.
Jenny’s age! He would know when he saw that!
She waited, frozen; there was nothing she could do to stop Michael from taking the hand, as he was doing, and looking at it.

“Wonderful!”

“We do one every year,” Jenny volunteered.

“I see. So you can see how much your hand has grown?”

Jenny nodded, pleased that he understood. Isabelle took a step forward, saying, “Jenny, why don’t you take the plate and—”

“I want to give it to him,” Jenny countered. Isabelle’s heart sank.

“Why, thank you, Jenny.” Michael smiled, looking down at the hand impression again. His eyes fell to the bottom of the plate. He went very still.

Slowly he raised his head and looked straight at Isabelle. “Ten?” he asked hoarsely. “Jenny is ten?”

“In April,” Jenny happily supplied. “I was ten in April.”

Michael glanced at her, then back at Isabelle. “Then she’s—”

Isabelle nodded, stiffening her spine.

“J
enny...” Isabelle said quietly. “Why don’t you go back to your room now and look at the TV show you were watching? Okay?”

“Okay.” Jenny looked disappointed, but then turned to Michael and took his hand. “You come, too. It’s that show—” She made a vague gesture with her hands. “He says, ‘And now let’s see what Mr. Bear is doing.’” She imitated a grown man’s syrupy voice.

“Another time, sweetheart.” Michael was pale, and his voice was still as death. “Right now I have to talk to your mother.”

His eyes followed Jenny as she went down the hall to her bedroom. Then he turned back to Isabelle.

“She’s mine?” His words fell like rocks between them.

“Yes.”

There was a long moment of silence. Michael shook his head. “Good God, why didn’t you tell me?”

“You had left me. I didn’t even know your address.”

“You could have called. Did you make any effort to find me?” He scowled at her darkly.

“No!” Isabelle shot back, lifting her chin. “I saw no reason to. You had left me. You obviously didn’t want anything to do with me. Why would I think you had any interest in my child, either?”

“You know why I left. But a baby would have made it an entirely different situation.”

“You think I would try to hold you by using my baby?” Isabelle replied scornfully. “All I knew was that you had dropped me flat. That you hadn’t even waited to say goodbye to me in person, just left me a note and took off. Do you think I would call you and beg you to come back because I was pregnant?”

“No, you’re too full of stubborn, stupid pride! Damn!” Michael thrust his hands back into his hair. “All those years lost—all that time I was a father and didn’t even know it!”

“I had to do what I thought was best—for me and for my baby. I had enough problems without worrying about whether I was doing you a disservice by not telling you!”

Michael turned and began to pace distractedly up and down the room. “Hell, Isabelle...” He paused and turned to her. “I guess I can understand why you didn’t tell me when you knew you were pregnant. But—” he faced her squarely, his voice hardening “—why in the hell didn’t you tell me when I came here? After I explained to you about my leaving and you’d forgiven me, why didn’t you tell me? You knew how much I had wanted a child. You could see how much I liked Jenny. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was scared!”

“Scared! Of what! Me?”

“At first I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how you’d react to Jenny. I told you that I’d known men before who didn’t want her around.”

“You couldn’t have thought I didn’t like her!”

“No. Once I saw you with her, I knew you weren’t like that. You were good with her, and—but there was still the chance that you’d leave, that you and I would find out we didn’t have the same feelings anymore, and then you’d leave. It would have hurt Jenny doubly if she had known that you were her father. I—I wanted to protect her.”

“From me?” His blue eyes flashed. “You thought that I would have abandoned my daughter! Is that what you think of me? That I’m a callous son of a bitch with no real feelings? That I’d drop Jenny like a hot potato as soon as I wasn’t in your bed?”

“No, of course not,” Isabelle began.

“Then what did you think?”

“I don’t know—I’m not sure. The longer it went on, the harder it was to tell you. I was afraid you’d be angry with me, just like you are! I was scared to do anything to upset the relationship. It was too wonderful to risk it. I’m sorry, Michael. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want to hide it from you. I just...put it off, and then it got worse and worse the longer I didn’t say anything. Can’t you understand?”

“Yeah, I understand.” His voice was laced with bitterness. “I understand that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. I understand that you’ve been deceiving me all these months, hiding secrets from me. What else is there that I don’t know about?”

“Nothing!” Isabelle flared. “Michael, please, don’t be like this.”

“How else should I be? What should I do? Just say, ‘Oh, sure, I don’t mind that you didn’t tell me that Jenny is my daughter. It’s okay that I’m in love with you and you say you’re in love with me, and yet you kept this secret from me? What does it matter that you’ve been lying to me all this time?’ I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

“I didn’t lie to you!”

“You sure as hell didn’t tell me the truth! You think you’re absolved because I didn’t ask you a direct question, ‘Is Jenny my daughter?’”

“No.” Isabelle turned aside. Her heart ached within her.
Had she lost him forever? Was Michael too angry, too hurt, to forgive her?
“I was wrong. I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

“I want Jenny to know that I’m her father. I want to be a father to her.”

Isabelle nodded, not looking at him. “All right.” She wanted to ask him, “And what about us?” but she found that she didn’t have the nerve. She didn’t want to hear him say that it was over between them.

“But not now,” she went on quietly. “I don’t think either of us is in the proper mood to tell her something like that.”

“You’re right.” His voice was heavy. Isabelle braved a glance at him. He looked weary and hard. He glanced around the room in a kind of stunned way, almost as if he didn’t know the place. “I have to go now. I have to think. I’ll talk to you later.”

Isabelle wanted to cry and beg him to forgive her, but pride kept her knees stiff and her back straight, at least until he was out the door. Then she sank down onto the floor right where she was, the strength she had summoned up now vanished, and she gave way to her tears.

* * *

Isabelle dragged herself through the next few days. She looked and felt so awful the next day that the director had finally cut short the filming. The weekend was no improvement. Though she did not have to cope with her job, she had plenty of free time to think—and that was just as bad. She was afraid that she had lost Michael for good. He did not phone her, even though she did not leave the house all weekend, just so she would be by the telephone in case he did. And she could not call him to apologize, since he was on tour and she didn’t know exactly where he was. Not, she reminded herself, that apologizing would make any difference. Michael certainly hadn’t seemed swayed by her apologies the other night.

He was furious, and Isabelle was honest enough to know that he had reason to be. She should have told him weeks ago. Now that she thought about it, really thought about it, she was not sure why she had not. It had been a difficult thing to do, but that didn’t explain away her reluctance to tell him; she had faced up to lots of other things that she did not enjoy and had done them.
Why was this so different?

The answer came to her in the feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was afraid—afraid of losing Michael again, afraid of giving herself completely to him and once again being left behind, heartbroken. It had been so painful when he left the first time, and it had been made even harder by the discovery that she was pregnant. Then, after Jenny’s birth, she had struggled through months of fear and pain, worrying about whether Jenny would even survive. It had been the most terrible time of her life.

To protect herself against the pain, she had built up a wall. Looking back, she could see now how she had refused to let anyone else in, except for her mother and father. She had dated rarely, and when she did, the relationship never lasted for long. For ten years, she had not let herself care for another man, commit to another man. It had been easy to pretend that she did it to protect Jenny, when in reality she was the one who had wanted the protection.

Then, when Michael came back into her life, she had been unable to keep him out. She had fallen in love with him all over again. But she had been reluctant to give herself to him, heart and soul. Keeping the knowledge from him that he was Jenny’s father had been her last-ditch defense. Somehow it represented a separation from him, a barrier, as if she could keep her heart safe by hiding this secret from him.

But when he walked out on her, everything had crashed down on her. She realized then that she had not been able to keep her heart safe; she loved him too much. And all she had wound up doing was hurting them both. Isabelle hated herself for what she had done. She had been both a coward and a fool. Worse, she might very well have destroyed all hope for happiness for her and Michael.

She wished she could explain to him, apologize, let him know how very much she loved him. But there was an icy knot forming in her chest as each day passed with no word from Michael. She began to be afraid that she would never get the opportunity to even try to set things right.

* * *

Isabelle leaned back against the couch in the actors’ lounge. Her head and neck ached, and there was still another scene to shoot. This was, she thought the most miserable Monday of her life. Michael should be coming home today, with the other actor and publicists who had gone on the tour, and Isabelle had been both eager and sick with fear all day long. She felt as if her very life were hanging in the balance.

Felice plopped down on the couch beside her and eased her feet out of her shoes. “These blasted heels,” she grumbled, rubbing one of her feet. “I think Wardrobe purposely gets the highest, thinnest heels they can find for me. Amanda hates me.”

“Oh, Felice...” Isabelle smiled faintly.

“She does. Ever since the time last year when I refused to wear that awful olive-green dress she got for me. Do you remember?”

Isabelle’s smile grew broader. “I remember the fight.”

“It made me look like a cow, a sick one at that.” She paused, then said thoughtfully, “Do you suppose she’s actually getting shoes that are a half size too small for me?”

Isabelle couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

“Well, at least I got a laugh out of you. You’ve looked like gloom-and-doom lately.” Felice swung around to face Isabelle, pulling her legs up and sitting cross-legged, heedless of her long taffeta skirt. “I guess it’s ‘cause Michael’s been gone, huh?”

“I guess.”

“It’s pretty exciting about his audition, isn’t it?”

“What?” Isabelle dragged her attention back to Felice.
How did the show’s grapevine always manage to work so effectively?
“Yes, it is.”

“I’m sure Danny will be furious if Michael gets the job.” Felice shrugged and grinned. “That ought to teach Danny not to be so tight. It’s his fault for signing Michael to only a one-year contract. I mean, a guy like Michael, what does he expect?”

Isabelle nodded. “Yeah, it’ll work out just right if the network picks up the series.”

They would shoot the pilot for airing next spring, and if the network picked it up for the fall season, filming would probably begin about the time Michael’s contract was up. It would be a perfect situation for him.

Isabelle wanted very much for him to get the role—it was most soap actors’ dream to move into prime time or, even better, movies. But she couldn’t entirely get rid of the ache in her chest at the thought of not seeing him every day on the set. If he decided to break off their relationship, then it would mean that she would never see him at all. Her heart twisted inside her at the thought.

“There’s Tish.” Felice waved to the AD standing in the doorway of the lounge and unfolded her legs. “Time to get back to the salt mines.” She shoved her feet into her shoes, grimacing as she did so. “Come on, let’s get this scene over with so we can all go home.”

“Yeah.” Isabelle rose and followed Felice and Tish to the set, where two of the other actors were already waiting for them, as well as the makeup artist to do the last-minute touch-ups.

The scene went quickly. They were all competent actors and eager to get through for the day. When the scene was over, they all relaxed, Felice with a groan of relief as she quickly bent and pulled off her offending shoes. Isabelle turned to walk off the set.

There, standing just inside the door, was Michael. Isabelle stopped. Her heart began to race, and she felt suddenly cold, then hot, then cold again.

The other actors greeted him as they filed out the door. Isabelle just stood, unable to move her feet forward. Michael looked at her. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet, then back up at her. He tried to smile.

“Too mad to even talk to me?” he asked finally.

“Oh, Michael.” Isabelle went toward him in a rush. He moved forward, too, his arms held out, and enveloped her in a hug.

Isabelle’s arms went tightly around his waist, and she laid her head against his chest. His chest was hard and warm beneath her face, his heartbeat reassuringly steady. She could feel his lips brush her hair.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Tears sprang into Isabelle’s eyes and trickled out. Her heart felt as if it might burst with joy. “Oh, Michael.”

He chuckled huskily. “Can’t you say anything else?”

“No. Yes.” She raised her head and looked up at him. “I’m so happy to see you. I was sure you would hate me forever.”

He bent and pressed his lips to her forehead, then her nose and finally her mouth. “I could never hate you.”

Isabelle let out a breathy little laugh. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Michael said, glancing over at the crew, interestedly watching.

Arms around each other, they walked down the hall to Isabelle’s dressing room, and Isabelle locked the door firmly behind them.

“When’d you get back?” she asked.

“About forty minutes ago.”

She raised her eyebrows quizzically at him. Michael looked a little sheepish.

“I drove straight here,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to talk to you on the phone about it, so I couldn’t call you, and—oh, hell! I was torn up inside. I missed you so much.”

Isabelle went into his arms again, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him. “I missed you, too,” she whispered when she finally pulled her mouth away. “I thought you didn’t call because you were mad at me. I was afraid I’d lost you forever. I was so wrong and so stupid not to tell you earlier! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”