Baby On His Hollywood Doorstep

If so, why hadn’t she left as soon as she’d handed Grace over? Ran back to the train station and used the last of her funds to buy a ticket that would have taken her as far away as possible?

“Do you need to return to Chicago immediately?”

“No.” Helen closed her eyes at how quickly she responded. Heaviness filled her as she opened her eyes and looked at Jack. She had no idea what to say, what to do. It was as if she was caught in a trap even stronger than the one she’d lived in the past few years.

Chapter Four

If Jack had been alone, he might have spewed an entire sentence of curse words, but he wasn’t alone. The woman standing before him was hiding something, and she was holding his niece. His niece. And he didn’t have a clue as to what to do about that. About either of them. He’d never been so out of his element as when Grace had started to cry. Nor had he ever been so relieved as when Helen had shown back up in the doorway.

He’d also never seen fear in someone’s eyes like what had appeared in hers when he’d asked if she had to return to Chicago.

Damn it to hell, this shouldn’t even be his problem. It should be Joe’s.

Which is precisely what made it his. And why it fit so well. Every time he was almost there, almost to the point where everything was good and right, Joe stepped in. It had been that way his entire life. So why should it change now?

Angry like he hadn’t been in some time, he spun around. Ran a hand through his hair, and tried to think. Nothing came to him, much like a few minutes ago, when Grace had been crying.

He huffed a breath of scalding air, full of anger toward Joe for once again leaving him with a mess to clean up, and then drew in another breath. His hands were tied, like they had been so many times before.

Unlike his brother, he’d always accepted that honesty was the best policy, so he turned around. “I have to be up front with you. I don’t have a clue how to take care of a baby, nor do I have a clue where Joe is. Last I heard it was Florida, and I will call some connections I have there, see if they’ve heard from him, know where he is, but it could be days, weeks, before I learn about his whereabouts.”

She didn’t make a move, or say a word, other than to glance down at the baby in her arms.

Frustration had his nerve endings tingling. “And there’s more. I have a movie to make. The actors have been hired, the sets have been built, the script’s written. We start filming in the morning. I have two months, eight weeks from start to finish, to get it filmed, edited and ready to show. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll have to lock the doors of the studio permanently.” He’d never admitted that realization, not even to himself, but it was the truth. The movies he’d made the last couple of years had been small-budget productions, and the minimum runs they’d been given in theaters had barely been enough to pay the salaries of his crew and the actors, especially once the Broadbents had been given payments toward Joe’s debt.

Her gaze was on him, and remained there as she nodded.

At a loss, he let out a sigh. “I know that’s not your problem. That none of this is your problem.” He wished it wasn’t his problem, either, but it was. That little girl in her arms was his niece and like it or not, he couldn’t turn his back on her. “But I don’t know what to do, other than to ask you what it will take for you to agree to continue to care for Grace for the next eight weeks?”

“Eight weeks?”

The fear in her eyes returned full force. He didn’t want yet another issue, but couldn’t deny that it was his only option to deal with it. Whatever it was. “You have to level with me, doll. Tell me what’s really going on. Why you’re acting like some moll on the lam.”

Her head snapped back as if she’d been struck a blow on the chin. “I’m not a moll, and I’m not your doll, either.”

There was fire in her eyes, which was surprising considering how meek she’d been a moment ago. He hadn’t meant she was a gangster’s gal, or his doll, but that really had struck a nerve with her. Which he was going to take advantage of now that he had her full attention. “Then what are you?”

A frown filled her face, but not her eyes, they were still snapping.

“Why are you hiding and what are you running from?” he added.

She stood stock-still for so long he wondered if she was going to answer. When she did finally move, it was to lift the baby in her arms up against one shoulder and pat Grace’s small back. He held his silence. Watching her movements. Once again, the idea of filming her entered his mind. He had to push it away, which wasn’t easy. Her movements were elegant, smooth. Graceful. It was her thoughtfulness, that really held his attention. How she was contemplating her next move. The audience would see that too, and wonder, just as he was, what she was about to say.

“I came here fully expecting to give Grace to her father, that he’d know how to take care of her.”

“And then?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He could tell she was being honest, and honesty brought honesty. “I haven’t talked to my brother in over two years, but would doubt he’d know any more about taking care of a baby than I do.”

“Why haven’t you talked to him in two years?”

He was tired of standing, and figured she was too, so waved at the sofa, silently inviting her to sit down.

She watched him cautiously as she crossed the room and then perched herself on the edge of the cushion, almost as if prepared to jump up and run for the door all over again.

He sat in the chair next to the sofa, but it wasn’t standing that he was tired of, it was this—another obstacle. “I haven’t talked to Joe in two years because he was blackballed from acting in Hollywood and left the state. I tried to smooth things over, but...” He shook his head. There hadn’t been anything he could do. No one had wanted to hear him defend his brother. He’d told Joe that, and that he wasn’t going to lose his standings for Joe’s mistakes. Not again. That’s when Joe had sold out to the Broadbents and left town.

“What had he done to become blackballed?”

“Misconduct.” He shrugged. In truth, Joe’s actions had been no different than half the men in Hollywood, more maybe, he was just the one unlucky enough to get tangled up with the wrong doll. The movie industry wanted the world to believe they had standards and every once in a while, they pulled out a stool pigeon to prove a point. That had been Joe. Jack understood all this, but that didn’t mean he condoned Joe’s actions. Fooling around with a married woman was wrong and one married to a topliner was downright reckless. He shook his head. “Joe had been a good actor, had become popular, and he’d let that popularity go to his head.”

She frowned. “Will he be back? To Hollywood?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I doubt it.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, she glanced down at Grace. “Not even for his daughter?”

Jack didn’t know. Long ago he’d stopped trying to figure out his brother. There were times Joe had been there when he’d needed him. When they’d been in their teens and their parents had died. Joe had gotten them to California and then taken on any and all menial jobs he could get, while insisting Jack go to school. Filmmaking was new and raw then, and Joe hung in there when others hadn’t and finally worked his way into acting. The money he’d made then had not only kept them both in food and clothes, it had funded the start of Star’s Studio.

Although he hadn’t wanted that in the beginning—he’d wanted to try something completely different from what he’d always known—he’d stuck with it because Joe had wanted it.

They’d made money, more than they would have elsewhere, and he owed his brother for that. For all he had, and always would. He’d never forgotten that, either. Nor would.

“I won’t know that until I talk to him.” He’d make some calls in the morning, to a couple of the film companies that were popping up down in Florida. He’d heard through the grapevine that Joe had been down there, looking for work a few months ago. Trouble was, Joe might not call him back. They’d been at crossroads when Joe had left, and nothing had happened to resolve that.

“I have no idea when that might be,” he admitted. “But, I can promise, that if you give me eight weeks, enough time to get this movie made and into theaters, I’ll then take over full responsibility for Grace. I’ll pay for all of her needs starting right now. I just need you to take care of her.”

“Eight weeks...”

The tremors in her voice shifted his train of thought. He knew actors. There were people who could instantly step into a role, become a character completely, then there were others, that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t act. Couldn’t pretend to be anyone other than themselves.

He’d put her in that second category. She also couldn’t hide something else. She was scared. Beyond scared. Her hands were trembling and she kept glancing at Grace, almost as if the baby might pop up and fly away like some little bird.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

She looked away while gnawing on her bottom lip. Even her arms were trembling. So was her chin.

“What’s preventing you from accepting my offer?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

His hope rose. “Nothing?”

She shook her head. “Everything.”

Huffing out a breath, he asked, “Which is it? Nothing or everything?” Maybe all of his imagining her on the big screen was because she could act. Or lie. Had been lying all along. “Is Grace not who you say she is? Is she your baby and you made all this up about Vera and Joe?”

“No.” Her shoulders squared as she leveled a glare on him. “Everything I have told you about Grace and Vera is true. The letters say as much.”

He didn’t need to read the letters. He knew she wasn’t lying. He was just stuck between a rock and a hard spot. “I’m sorry. I do believe you.” Standing, he rubbed at the tension in the back of his neck. “There is one other thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. Another reason I need you to care for Grace.”

“What is it?”

“Right now, while I’m making this movie and getting it out to the public, I can’t have word spread that I’ve taken in Joe’s abandoned baby. This is Hollywood. The rules change daily. That could be enough to have me blackballed for still associating with my brother.” His own words sickened him. “I know that sounds selfish, but it’s the truth. I can’t argue for it or against it, it’s just what it is right now.”

“So you want me to pretend like Grace is my baby?”

He didn’t want to face her, but did. “I want you to go on taking care of her, not saying anything, one way or the other.” He wasn’t proud of this, but he had to think of his future, of what this movie meant, perhaps even more now than ever. He had Grace to think about. Her future.

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