Read Can't Stop Loving You for Free Online Page B

raise.” Marsha never cracked a
smile.
    “If I paid you any more, you’d be making more
than the governor of Georgia.”
    “I figure I’m worth more to you than the
governor.”
    “Then earn your keep by making some excuse
for me tonight at dinner. I don’t want to be ailing. Think up
something much more dramatic and important than that.”
    “You’re plotting the takeover of a small
island in the Caribbean?”
    “Something like that... and, Marsha, smuggle
some food up here.”
    “I hope my raise is enough to cover all this
cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
    Helen made a face at her across the suitcase
she was unpacking.
    o0o
    Marsha paused outside the door and shook her
head.
    “Lord, Lord. What’s to become of those
two?”
    As she started down the hall, Barb Gladly
emerged from Brick’s room.
    “That man is going to be the absolute death
of me,” Barb said.
    Thinking of the look on Helen’s face, Marsha
hoped it wasn’t death by loving, but she didn’t say so.
    “Great artists can be touchy,” she said,
inviting conversation.
    “Grouchy is more like it. I went in there to
ask him what I should wear to dinner, and he nearly bit my head
off.”
    “Why?”
    “Said he wasn’t going to dinner. I told him
Mr. Farnsworth would be expecting him, but he said he didn’t care
if the president of the United States was expecting him, he wasn’t
going.”
    Barb inspected her long red fingernails,
buffed them across her thigh, then gave Marsha a sly look. “I don’t
suppose it had anything to do with what happened at the theater
this afternoon?”
    “Don’t look at me. I never interfere with
things that are none of my business.”
    “Well, I do.”
    Good
, Marsha thought as Barb
sashayed off. It was high time somebody interfered.
    o0o
    The peanut butter and crackers Marsha had
brought upstairs after dinner would never sustain her through the
night. Helen glanced at the clock on the bedside table.
Midnight.
And she hadn’t slept a wink. She’d look like a
raccoon at rehearsals. A
starving
raccoon.
    She kicked at the twisted covers, punched her
pillow, and tried to forget that her stomach was growling.
    “It’s all your fault, Brick Sullivan.” It
would serve him right if she starved to death.
    She looked at the clock once more. Two
minutes after twelve. Too late to call Kat. Or even B.J., who was a
workaholic and a night owl. Helen wondered if she could possibly
find the kitchen without being detected.
    Throwing on her robe, she padded barefoot to
the door, then peered up and down the hall like a teenager on an
escape mission. Seeing it empty, she raced toward the
staircase.
    So far so good.
    She kept in the shadows close to the wall.
The third stair from the bottom squeaked, and Helen placed her hand
over her heart as if she’d been caught stealing the crown
jewels.
    Laughter bubbled up, and she had to press a
hand over her mouth. When she was certain that no one had heard,
she made her way across the darkened hallway and toward what she
hoped was the direction of the kitchen.
    Her white silk robe and gown gleamed in the
moonlight pouring through the French windows.
    “Should have worn black,” she muttered. “Like
a cat burglar.”
    Laughter threatened to be her undoing once
more, and she had to stop and pull herself together. At the rate
she was going she could starve to death on the way to the
kitchen.
    When she had sobered up, she began her
journey once more. She could see the kitchen door now, just a few
steps away.
    “Food. I hear it calling my name.”
    She put her hand on the door and pushed.
    o0o
    When the door creaked, Brick bolted from his
chair.
Discovered.
Of all the rotten luck. And just when
he was well into the cold chicken.
    The door swung slowly inward. He grabbed the
chicken and bolted for the nearest hiding place he could find. The
pantry was crowded, but he squeezed in between the pickles and the
olives and prepared to wait out the intruder.
    Helen stood just inside the door, trying