Undying Laughter

“Watch your language, Doctor,” she purred before making a mad dash toward the house.

“Don’t let Porter drip on the hardwood,” she instructed the stunned-looking Gina as she raced up the stairs. “Offer them a drink or something while I get dressed, please.”

“Whatever you say.”

Destiny had a limited selection in her closet. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford a decent-size wardrobe, it was simply a matter of practicality. Living for a week here, a month there wasn’t exactly conducive to becoming a clotheshorse.

“Please let them sell that pilot,” she prayed as she towel dried her body and pulled on a sweat suit in a muted shade of mauve. Glancing at her reflection, she knew she didn’t have time to do anything with her unruly mass of hair, so she simply left the pins in place and shoved any stray strands behind her ears.

She felt her cheeks warm as she remembered the deep, husky whisper of his voice when he’d commented on her birthmark. The memory alone was enough to make her body come to life with a series of electric pulsations that radiated from the core of her being outward to her fingertips.

“You’re being stupid,” she told herself as she hopped on one foot and forced the other into one tight espadrille. Wesley was definitely not her type. He was obviously a mamma’s boy. Why else would he still be hanging around The Rose Tattoo with his mother? And she wasn’t about to take on another needful man in her life.

She switched positions as she pulled on the other shoe. “For heaven’s sake!” she scolded herself. “Stop acting like the guy just proposed. You’ve known him all of fourteen hours. He’s hardly in your life.”

Destiny found Dylan and Wes seated on the comfortable living room furniture. Actually, Wesley was on a pile of beach towels, his black hair slicked off his forehead. Dylan was nursing a beer, while, she noted, the wet one had opted for a soft drink. Easy, girl, her conscious warned.

“Sorry we disturbed you,” Dylan said to her, though he was glaring at his companion. “But Wes led me to believe that this was something of an emergency.”

“Emergency?” she echoed.

Wes’s eyes darkened to an almost blackish blue as he gave her a reproachful look. “I saw your expression this afternoon when you got those flowers. It doesn’t exactly take a member of Mensa to see that you have a possible stalker on your hands.”

“Has someone been stalking you?” Dylan asked.

Destiny went to the bar and poured herself a glass of diet soda, wondering where Gina had disappeared to. “I have gotten a few strange notes and some flowers.” Offering them her best stage smile, she added, “Most girls dream of getting flowers on a regular basis.”

“You aren’t most girls,” Wesley said softly.

Destiny felt her face redden with warmth as his eyes lingered on her mouth.

“You look very nice when you aren’t all painted up,” he commented.

She let out a small laugh. “Obviously, you’ve never worked under the glare of footlights, Doctor,” she told him. “Without all that paint and glitter, I wash out like a ghost.”

Wes looked as if he wanted to say something more on the subject, when Dylan spoke up.

“Do these deliveries show up every place you appear?”

She nodded.

“For how long?” Dylan asked.

Gina appeared suddenly, dressed in a flowing skirt that almost masked her limp. “They started six months ago.”

“What?” Destiny gasped.

She watched as Gina lowered her gaze. “David and I thought it would be best if you didn’t know about them.”

“David’s your manager?” The question came from the agent.

She nodded. “But if I get this pilot, I won’t have to spend forty-five weeks a year traveling. Whoever’s sending these silly flowers and cryptic notes will probably lose interest when he doesn’t have to follow me all over hell’s creation and back.”

“Pilot?” Wesley asked.

“It could lead to some really terrific things for me, and David—”

“Wants to make sure he gets a financial piece of that action,” Wesley finished.

She gave Wesley a reproachful look, then turned to the obviously less hostile Dylan. “David knows how hard I’ve worked for this.”

“How long have you known him?”

Destiny did a mental tally before she answered. “Almost ten years. He owned a small comedy club in Maryland.” Noting the skeptical expression on the agent’s face, she formed the letter T with her hands. “Time out here,” she said. “David has done nothing but wonderful things for me. He gave me a shot when I was only eighteen. He arranged for financial backing so that I could go out on the road to build a reputation. He—”

“Also wanted to be a comic, isn’t that right?” Wes said.

Sighing, Destiny said, “That was years ago. David gave up on performing when he realized he didn’t have the timing to do stand-up.”

“So now he’s living his dreams vicariously through your career?”

Glaring at Wesley now, she felt her blood pressure begin to rise. “As soon as you pass your boards, Dr. Porter, feel free to diagnose at will. Until then, I’d be grateful if you’d keep your Psych 101 diagnoses to yourself.”

“It is a possibility,” Dylan said, breaking the string of tension connecting Destiny to the handsome doctor.

“No,” she said, without even a trace of the venom she’d spewed at Wesley. “The worst thing I can say about David Crane is that he can, on occasion, be overbearing.”

“What about the other people you’re close to?” Dylan queried.

“There’s only Gina and Walter.”

“Gina’s the one with the gun,” Dylan surmised, smiling at the now-demure Gina. “Who’s this Walter person?”

“Walter Sommerfield,” Destiny answered. “He lives in Potomac, Maryland. He and his daughter, Samantha, used to come to every one of my shows when I was working at David’s place.” Sadness settled over her as she remembered the bright-eyed young woman with so much promise. “After Samantha died, Walter sort of latched on to me and gave me the backing I needed to hit the road.”

“What happened to the daughter?” Wesley asked.

“She died in a car accident two days after she was accepted at Harvard Law School. Walter had already lost his wife. Losing Samantha nearly killed him.”

Wesley nodded. From anyone else, it would have been a comforting gesture. From Wesley, though, she interpreted it in a completely different way.

“Is Walter’s pain psychologically significant?” she asked. Why, she wondered, did everything this man say or do annoy her so much? It was like nothing she’d ever experienced in her life. Destiny walked over to the phone, lifted it from the cradle and held it near Wes. “Maybe you can have a session over the phone. Maybe you’d find it fascinating to discuss the story of his only child’s death?”

Calmly, Wesley took the phone from her hand and replaced it. In the process, his knuckles brushed against her skin, causing an immediate and involuntary reaction. It was a tingle that warmed her blood and quickened her pulse for just an instant.

“I have no intention of causing anyone any pain,” he said softly.

When he spoke in that deep, velvety voice, Destiny was quite certain that she would do anything he asked. Hell, she thought, if he used that voice to tell her to take a leap into Charleston Harbor, she’d be smelling like fish and diesel fuel in no time flat.