Picture Perfect Read online

  Alex smirked. "Not likely." He gently stroked my hair, and I curled into the contact. "I think my body just liked the exercise."

  He had told me several nights before about being born with a hole in his heart, about not being able to run and play until he was nearly eight. "Imagine that," Alex had said dryly. "A romantic hero with a broken heart."

  I had heard the weariness in his voice, the pain of a little boy who saw himself as defective and did everything in his power to compensate for his weakness. I wondered why he had mentioned this to me. I let myself pretend it was because he thought I'd truly understand.

  As I closed my eyes against his chest, remembering, Alex stiffened and sat up. I looked away, ashamed that I had made him uncomfortable by holding him. I shook my head, cataloguing the reasons Alex Rivers did not want--did not need--someone as inexperienced as I was.

  Alex turned toward me. "There have been a lot of women," he said carefully, "but I don't let anyone get close. You need to understand that. The truth is, I don't want to be disappointed again. Not by someone else's shortcomings, and especially not by my own. So I act like it's not that important." He shook his head. "Cassie," he said, "I'm so damn tired of acting."

  Moving on instinct, I leaned toward Alex and slipped my hand under his shirt. He was telling me what I had no right to expect, although I knew it was far too late. I had not been in many relationships, but I had had Connor, so I understood that this was how it all started. You fell in love with someone because of the tilt of his smile, or because he could make you laugh, or in this case, because he made you believe that you were the only one who could save him. When it finally came, it might be a one-night stand for Alex, but not for me. By then I would have given him too much.

  I heard Alex's quick draw of breath as my skin skimmed over his and settled, palm placed against his chest. I smiled into his eyes as I held his heart in my hand.

  SUNDAY WAS THE DAY OFF FOR THE CAST AND CREW, ALTHOUGH leisure time in Tanzania left much to be desired. I was sitting on a swing in the shade, when Alex slid an arm around my waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  And it really was beginning to feel like that. I had all but abandoned the UCLA site. After that night on the edge of the pond where Alex had set the terms for a relationship, we were inseparable. In fact, Alex and I had been together so frequently that when he was missing, people on the crew came up to ask me if I knew where he was. I had felt a little uncomfortable at first, the way he'd so easily drape his arm over my shoulder while I was demonstrating how to clean a fragment; or the way, in front of everyone, he'd tell me what time to meet him for dinner. He reminded me of primate studies of territoriality I'd followed: males conspicuously leaving their mark to let others know where they weren't welcome.

  But on the other hand, no one had ever been so possessive of me that they'd tried to stake a claim, however temporary. And, well, it felt good. Iliked knowing that in the morning, I was the first person Alex would seek out. I liked kissing him goodnight and knowing a passerby in the hall had seen us. I was acting like a teenager for the first time in my life.

  Alex drew me closer. "I have a surprise," he said, whispering the words against my ear. "We're going on safari."

  Immediately, I pulled away and stared at him. "We're doing what?"

  Alex smiled. "Safari," he said. "You know, lions and tigers and bears, pith helmets and ivory poachers. Things like that."

  "No one poaches ivory anymore," I said. "The only thing they'll let you shoot with is a camera."

  Alex stood, pulling me to my feet. "Well, I for one am sick of cameras. I'm all for taking it in with the eyes."

  I followed him, already picturing the rolling Serengeti, the slow-moving herds stirring breezes. A single black jeep was waiting at the foot of the porch, and a slight native with a brilliant white smile offered his hand to help me climb in. "Cassie," Alex said, "this is Juma."

  Juma drove us for over an hour into the heart of Tanzania, jostling us over brush and gullies that were never intended as roads. He stopped in the shadow of a small grove. "We wait here," he announced, and he pulled a blue-checked blanket from the jeep and spread it over the grass for us to sit on.

  The plains faded purple at the edge of the horizon, and the sky overhead was the color blue the word had been invented for. I stretched out on my back. Beside me, Alex lay propped up on one elbow so that he could watch me. That was another thing I'd had to get used to in his presence--the focused attention. He would stare at me as if he was taking in every movement, every subtle change. When I told him it made me uncomfortable, he had shrugged.

  "Can you honestly tell me you don't notice the way I look?" he had said, and of course, I'd laughed at the idea. "Well, I can't keep from noticing you, either."

  His eyes started slowly at my hairline and traveled down the bridge of my nose, my cheeks, my neck, and my shoulders. He left a physical warmth in his wake, as if he'd actually touched me. "Do you ever miss Maine?" he asked.

  I blinked into the sun. "Not so much. I've been at UCLA since I was seventeen." I paused, thinking of how much of the explanation I had avoided. Although Alex had told me the truth about his family, I had yet to let him in on my own secrets. In the past weeks I had thought a hundred times about telling him, but two things had stopped me. First, the moment was never right. And second, I was still afraid I would scare him away.

  The sun filtered through the penny-size leaves of the tree we were sitting beneath, casting a shadow of lace across Alex's legs. If I told him and he ran in the other direction, so be it; I had been convincing myself all along that this fling couldn't amount to anything. After all, what was he going to do when the filming ended? Fly back to L.A. with someone like me on his arm, and announce to his glittering friends that I was the woman of his dreams?

  "Alex..." I said hesitantly. "Do you remember me telling you that my parents owned a bakery?"

  It wasall I had told him, really, when pressed for details about myself. It was the only safe thing I could say. Alex nodded, lifting his face to the sun. "You helped make meringues," he said.

  I swallowed. "I also helped pick my mother up off the floor every time she passed out." I kept my eyes trained on Alex's face so I'd know exactly when the impact of my words had hit. "She was a drunk," I said. "A southern belle to the last, but a drunk."

  He was looking at me now, but I couldn't read his expression. "What about your father?"

  I shrugged. "He told me to take care of her."

  His hand came toward me very slowly and cupped my cheek, and his skin beside mine was hotter even than my shame. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

  "Why did you tellme ?" I whispered.

  Alex gathered me up in his arms and held me so tightly I couldn't separate his heartbeat from my own. "Because we're two of a kind," he said. "You were made to take care of me, and I'm going to take care of you."

  I struggled at the thought of that, but then I sank into the comfort he was offering. It was nice not having to be the one in control, for a little while. It was nice to be the one who was protected, instead of the one who'd been protecting everyone else.

  We both sat up quickly at the sound of thunder. But there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and suddenly Juma appeared at our sides with a pair of binoculars. "Over there," he said, pointing, and what was a gray cloud on the horizon crystallized into flesh and blood.

  Each elephant moved deliberately, one heavy footstep dragging into the next. Their skin seemed older than parchment, their tired eyes blinking in the dust. From time to time one would raise its trunk and trumpet, a high, heralding two-step scale.

  Minutes later came a group of giraffes, their ears brushing softly against the low white clouds. I could hear Alex draw in his breath as one broke from the pack to step in our direction, its legs buckling gently at the knees and straightening, stiltlike, long yards away. The giraffe was the color of Caribbean sand, dotted with spots on its back and neck. It reached its face into