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  What They Are Saying About

  StarCrossed Hearts

  "Ms. Carter expertly builds the relationships between Jessica, Dane and Mac. Both the story and rich characters keep the pages turning..."

  -- Michelle McBride, Ivy Quill Reviews

  "...the complexity of the story makes for an interesting read that will hold audience attention to the end." Four Stars!

  --Donna Bolk, Affaire de Coeur

  "I found myself so caught up in the romantic triangle and Jessica's mixed feelings for both the men in her life that I couldn't put the book down."

  --Kate Douglas

  EPPIE winning author of ON WINGS OF LOVE.

  Wings

  StarCrossed Hearts

  by

  Anne Carter

  A Wings ePress, Inc.

  Contemporary Romance

  Wings ePress, Inc.

  Edited by: Lorraine Stephens

  Copy Edited by: Sara V. Olds

  Senior Editor: Pat Casey

  Managing Editor: Kate Strong

  Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

  Cover Artist: Dee Prutsman

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Wings ePress Books

  http://www.wings-press.com

  Copyright © 2001 by Pamela Ripling

  ISBN 1-59088-002-1

  Previously Published ISBN 1-58697-247-2

  Published In the United States Of America

  September 2001

  Wings ePress Inc.

  P. O. Box 726

  Lusk, WY. 82225

  Dedication

  To my sister Tina

  for sticking by this project,

  for the tireless readings and collaboration,

  for producing the soundtrack album and for believing that

  Reel Heroes do exist

  To Lorraine Stephens, for believing in me

  and for giving my heroes life...

  and to my husband Michael

  for being a real hero

  and making this all possible.

  Part One: A Dangerous Heart

  One

  The Dali Capitan

  "And what have we here?" the pirate asked. He walked slowly around the two young wenches brought to his cabin by the first mate, appraising them as they stood trembling in wide-eyed terror.

  "A bit o’ female cargo from the St. Vincent, Cap’n. What shall we do with ‘em?"

  "I’ll decide their fate when I’m ready."

  The evaluation continued as the buccaneer came close to the first one, an aristocratic young woman with an expensive gown and dainty slippers.

  "And what might be your name, miss?" The pirate’s sinister tone belied his polite words. Handsome and virile, the rogue captain towered over her in both size and aura.

  "I am Marlena D’Medici," she said bravely, as if the sea dog should recognize her name. "And you are the ‘dread’ pirate, Simon the Dancer. I have heard the good people of the Barbary Coast call you the Dali Capitan."

  "The Devil Captain! Yes. You are well informed, my lovely."

  "We were bound for Portugal. How, now, are we to arrive there?"

  The pirate chuckled.

  "Arrive indeed," he murmured, taking the liberty of caressing the woman’s powdered cheek. "And this sweet package, what name be hers?" He moved to peer into the eyes of the second woman, who turned her face away in trepidation and disgust.

  "Ah! She is feisty, this little one." He grasped the servant’s chin and forced her to look at him. For a moment, his gaze softened in what might have been sympathy for the girl, so recently torn from the St. Vincent and her would-be protectors.

  "She is my handmaiden, Lucida. Sir, I must insist--"

  "You must insist what!?" Like emerald fire, the pirate’s green eyes flashed at her words. Any sentiment dissolved as quickly as it had appeared.

  "I do not understand your intentions. This ship is not even underway, the waters are so calm. Will we drift for an eternity?" the Medici woman asked, finding strength in words but not in spirit.

  "Little faith have ye in the winds of Hades, dear lady." He peered out the porthole at the sea, a mirror of jade ice. "Why, the fetid breath of Satan himself moves this vessel through these waters…’Fetid breath?’ What the hell is that?"

  "Cut! Dane, what’s the problem now?" The Assistant Director slammed his script to the floor.

  "I want a re-write. I don’t like this ‘fetid breath’ crap! Who authorized this change?"

  The cast began to move around uneasily as the tall, rugged Dane Pierce, leading man and executive producer of Bellerive, stormed past them and off the set. It was the third such outburst of the morning, and filming was already behind schedule.

  Jessica had been waiting since yesterday to utter her first and only line in the film. And they’d almost reached there! As Lucida, the young lady-in-waiting to the main character, the hopeful starlet would soon be finished with the role and off-camera; but today she’d had enough of the pompous, arrogant Dane Pierce.

  Merrily Mitchell also left the stage.

  "I’ve gotta have a smoke. Wanna come?" The leading lady swept past Jessica, her taffeta gown rustling with her brisk pace.

  "I don’t smoke, but I wouldn’t mind a break from this circus." Jessica hurried to match Merrily’s stride as the two headed for the soundstage door.

  Soon they were standing in the bright sunlight outside Studio B, where all the interior scenes of Bellerive had been shot on an elaborate sound stage built to recreate the interior of a three-masted pirate schooner. Merrily lit her cigarette and leaned against the stucco wall.

  "Dane’s got a hair up his ass about something. I wish he’d just get off it," Merrily commented, looking into the distance across the studio lot.

  "I don’t really know him," Jessica said quietly.

  "Maybe you don’t want to. He’s a killer. God, I could just about fall into those deep green eyes of his! A killer."

  "I don’t know. He’s no Errol Flynn," Jessica replied candidly. "He seems pretty full of himself."

  Merrily squinted at Jessica with a bemused smile.

  "Don’t ever let him hear you say that," she advised. It may have been too late, however, for at that moment Dane Pierce emerged from the open doorway beside them.

  Dane’s eyes perused Merrily’s face quickly before turning his gaze upon Jessica, who turned hers away.

  "We’re not on camera, little one," he said, sarcasm coloring his words and Jessica’s face. "So you think I’ve been miscast? Possibly?"

  "I wouldn’t know," she replied, taking care to give him a wide berth as she went back inside.

  Dane shook his head.

  "This is turning out to be one shitty day." He stared after Jessica, a frown creasing his already tense face.

  "Wanna smoke?" Merrily offered, holding out her pack.

  "Naw. I’m off ‘em right now. Let me ask you something. Who the hell is that girl?"

  "She’s my handmaiden, of course," Merrily replied dryly.

  "No, I mean, who is she? She been around?"

  "She’s a rookie. Her name is Jess Taylor. Jessica. Why?"

  "She’s…cold."

  "You mean, she hasn’t thrown her pantie
s at you yet." Merrily tossed her cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out, unmindful of her satin slipper. "I’m sure she’ll come around."

  Dane broke into a grin and followed Merrily back inside.

  ~ * ~

  The afternoon did not go much better than the morning, with more than the usual interruptions plaguing the production. Jessica did, indeed, finally utter her one line and gratefully left the stage. And while weary of the sluggish progress of the day, she decided to hang around until the crew called it quits. She sat on the floor amid empty boxes and discarded set walls in the property storage area, her script open in her lap and an apple poised in her hand. In the adjoining sound stage, she could hear a commotion and realized the filming had once again hit a snag.

  Suddenly alert, she tensed as she heard approaching footsteps, a thunderous echo preceding them. Angry footsteps, accompanied by equally angry mutterings of foul words, cursing some unknown devil. She froze where she sat, hoping to remain unseen to this oncoming presence.

  Jessica held her breath as Dane Pierce stormed past her and out the side door, the auto-closer slamming it behind him. She relaxed with a sigh and had no sooner looked back down at the script than the raging star reappeared in the doorway, looking around in frustration for something to punch. His fist eventually met with a stack of empty cartons, the toppling of which forced a small cry from Jessica’s lips. His eyes immediately searched for the source of the cry, and found Jessica hastily getting to her feet, dropping her script from the tangled folds of her floor-length costume. She knelt to retrieve the script; he knelt also and reached it first with an implied apology.

  "I didn’t know anyone was here," he murmured, handing her the now-curling bradded manuscript. His anger was put on hold as he waited expectantly for her response.

  "Obviously," she said, hoping her annoyance was clear, the uneaten apple clenched behind her back. "You’re not having a very good day, are you?" Not sounding nearly as sarcastic as she’d intended, Jessica forced a bold smile and peered into the actor’s face. "What’s wrong now?"

  He turned toward the closed door. "Everything. Nothing." He paused, then looked at her again.

  Jessica wished for an end to the awkwardness.

  "Is there something I can do…to help?" Her offer was half-hearted and sounded it. Anticipating his reply, she began gathering up her belongings for a hasty escape to her car.

  "I just wanted to get out of here for awhile…you know, sometimes you just need to get away from a problem to see the up side of it…but I remembered when I got out here that I have no wheels." He pushed open the heavy door, his gaze perusing the parking lot. Jessica waited while he ran his fingers through his ashen hair, combed back and grown long for his role as the pirate captain of the Bellerive. He leaned against the doorframe and sighed in apparent despair.

  Jessica found herself staring; the breeze coming through the door rippled through the voluminous sleeves of his shirt. She shook her head briefly.

  "If…If you need a lift somewhere, I was just leaving." Not that I want to spend any measurable amount time with you. She cleared her throat and waited. He looked back at her, and with the heat of the early-June sun blowing in through the open door, her rough cotton gown felt made of lead. The lowered green eyes really looked at her this time, as though memorizing her face for a later review. A slow smile spread across famous lips, and Jessica could see "up close and personal" what made this man a top box office draw among women around the world. Other women, of course.

  Oh God, he’s not really going to take me up on it…She felt herself blushing and hoped it wasn’t obvious.

  "Yeah, if you don’t mind, there is someplace I’d like to go, Miss--?" He held out his hand. Reluctantly, she completed the handshake.

  "Jessica. Jessica Taylor."

  "Jessica." His enunciation made her name sound special, as though she was receiving some great, coveted award, and yet she resented the feeling. He was being manipulative, she decided, and she wouldn’t fall prey to it. She forced herself to move toward the door.

  She led him to her car, parked illegally alongside the building. "I like your parking place," he told her, "and I love your car."

  "It’s okay." After she started the bright blue two-seater, she casually unlatched and threw back the "ragtop" convertible while the engine warmed. "Do you mind?" She gestured to the open top on the sports car.

  "Absolutely not," he responded, adjusting the small bucket seat to accommodate his long legs.

  Her confidence building, Jessica turned the car around and headed up the hill from Studio B.

  Dane directed her to a picnic area on one of the hilly back lots. They got out and viewed the studios from above. "Not in a hurry, are you?" he asked, sitting down on the grass beneath one of the studio’s two-hundred-year-old oak trees.

  "No, nothing much is happening back there anyway," she quipped, watching for his reaction to her sarcasm. He rewarded her with a friendly chuckle.

  The breeze was warm but comfortable, the sun expending its late afternoon rays before it would come to rest on the horizon of the Pacific. Jessica suddenly felt conspicuous and began re-tying the laces on the bodice of her costume. She could feel him watching her, and she hated the shapeless dress and the fact that her light brown hair, normally falling in soft curls to her mid-back, was a matted mess from the ride with the top down. At least she was still made up from this morning’s shoot, and the artist had highlighted her features to bring out the gold flecks in her brown eyes. Soft color accented her slightly high cheekbones. Her lips had been made a little fuller and peach colored. She had thought at the time that a lot of care was being wasted for her brief scene, but others on the set had remarked that Mr. Pierce was a perfectionist and that every detail of the movie had to be just right. Perfectionism and egotism; a great combination, Jessica thought.

  She absently brushed aside her few, thinly layered bangs.

  "Too bad about the haze. The view is usually better. You from around here?" he questioned.

  "I was born and raised in that valley."

  "Yeah? So was I. Thought you looked like a ‘Valley Girl.’" Pierce offered her a grin.

  "I didn’t know there was a look to it."

  "You don’t like me, do you?" he asked, still smiling, more to himself than to Jessica.

  Momentarily stunned by the bluntness of his question, Jessica looked at her hands. "What--makes you think that?" she stammered.

  At this Dane threw back his head and laughed. "Would it help if I admit up front that I’m a conceited hunk of bullcrap who’s so full of himself that most real people can’t stand me, and millions of fans have been duped into thinking I can act?"

  Jessica looked at him now, his eyes capturing her stare and holding it. She saw no conceit, no egotism, no real immodesty. Embarrassed, she swallowed hard. "I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression. I meant no disrespect."

  Pierce chuckled at her discomfort. "Forget it. You just don’t know me yet."

  Maybe you don’t want to know him. Why had Merrily said that?

  "So, what do you think of the film?" he asked suddenly.

  She turned to face him, relieved at the simple question. "It’s magnificent," she said simply. "It’s sure to be a smash. I can only guess at how the filming is going, but I’ve read the script over several times, the cast is terrific…I just love Merrily as the pirate’s lady, and…" she paused, mortified by her childish enthusiasm.

  "Don’t stop!" He motioned for her to continue. When she didn’t, he did. "You know, the only thing wrong with my being so involved with the film is that I can never get a fresh outlook on it. I have to just stick to my original, first impression, and not get too balled up in the analysis of it all." He looked to the distance again, his fingers randomly pulling at blades of grass and tossing them down.

  Jessica moved to sit across from him, wrapping her arms around her knees and tucking her feet under the long gown. With his eyes diverted, she was able to gaze freely
upon him. She guessed him to be in his mid-thirties. The breeze lifted his hair and he repeatedly pushed it back from hanging over his ever-changing green eyes. His face was thin but not drawn, with a prominent nose and lips that some women would term "promising;" a whimsical smile seemed almost permanent. Overshadowing the look, however, was still an aura of self-importance.

  Despite her rather negative assessment, his remark about the film impressed her. "I cannot even imagine what it must be like for you," she offered softly. Pierce broke his faraway gaze and looked back to her, the ready smile crinkling his eyes.

  "So tell me, Jessica Taylor, are you going to be a big star someday?"

  "Perhaps."

  "What would you like to do?"

  "Like what? You mean, what roles would I play if given a choice?"

  "Yeah."

  "Never thought about it," she said coyly, her eyes down.

  "Bullshit," he drawled, narrowing his.

  Jessica chuckled involuntarily. On the set, she’d been rather awed by this larger-than-life hero, but here on the shady hillside she was beginning to see him as just a guy, human and casual like everyone else.

  "I guess I sometimes imagine myself in a remake of From Here to Eternity. I would love to have been in Gone With the Wind."

  "Scarlett O’Hara?"

  "Of course."

  "Good for you. And your leading man?"

  "Dangerous question, my dali capitan," she replied, "but of course you are the public’s choice for today’s Rhett Butler."

  "But not yours."

  Jessica shrugged with a small smile.

  "There are a number of leading men in my wish book. I would invite you to compete."

  "Your generosity is touching." Pierce leaned back against the oak, a blade of grass held loosely in his teeth. After a moment of regarding her, he continued. "So you like the old movies. What’s your background? What else have you done?"

  "My favorite question," she responded sarcastically. "Nothing. A few plays…a couple of walk-ons…I think I’m a career extra."

  "Commercials?"

  "No. I hate them." She spoke with conviction.