"Why don't you marry her, then?" She dared to say something she never had to him before, she had never wanted to press him, but maybe now was the time, and she had had a bit of champagne as well. "You love her, don't you?"

He nodded, and smiled down at her sadly. "Yes. But I can't marry her."

Edwina looked startled. "Why not?"

"Think of what everyone would say. That I married her to get in tighter with Sam ... to tie things up with her father. That I married her for the money ... for a job." He looked unhappily at his sister then. "The truth is that Sam offered me a partnership six months ago, but as I see it, it's the girl or the job. If I marry her, I almost have to leave Hollywood, so people don't think I married her for the wrong reasons. We could go back to San Francisco, I guess." He looked at Edwina miserably. "But what would I do there? I left four years ago, and I don't know anything about any other kind of business. Except for what I do here, I don't think I could get a job. And I spent the money from Aunt Liz, so how would I support her?" He had a good income there, probably even a great one, but away from Hollywood he had nothing. And he had spent the money he'd inherited from their aunt on a beautiful estate, fast cars, and a stable full of expensive horses. "So if I marry her, we starve. And if I take the partnership with Sam, no Helen ... I can't marry her, and become partners with Sam, it just looks too awful. It looks like nepotism of the worst kind." He set down his gla.s.s again, and this time when the butler came by again, he covered the gla.s.s with his hand. He didn't even want to get drunk tonight. He just wanted to cry on his sister's shoulder, and he was sorry for not showing her a better time after inviting her down for the premiere.

"That's ridiculous," she insisted, looking at the anguish in his eyes. "You know the score with Sam. You know why he wants you to be his partner. Look at the compliment that is, at your age, that's unbelievable. You'd be one of the biggest success stories in Hollywood."

"And the loneliest." He laughed. "Edwina, I just can't do it. And what if she thought I married her to get ahead? That would be even worse. I just can't do it."

"Haven't you talked to her about any of this?"

"No. I only talked to Sam. And he said he'd understand whatever I decided, but he thinks the romance has gone on long enough. She's twenty-two years old, and if she doesn't marry me, he thinks she ought to marry someone else." And he was not yet twenty-four and he had almost everything he wanted, except a partnership with the most powerful man in Hollywood, and the woman whom he loved as his wife. He could have had both, but somehow he kept insisting that he couldn't, and Edwina understood his fears about it, but she thought it could be worked out, and she spent most of the evening trying to change his mind. But George was adamant as he drove her back to the hotel finally in his Lincoln Phaeton. "I can't do it, Win. Helen is not a bonus I get along with the business."

"Well, dammit." Edwina was getting exasperated with him. "Do you love her?"

"Yes."

"Then marry her. Don't waste your life going out with other girls you don't care about. Marry her while you can. You never know what's going to happen in life. When you have the chance for what you want, grab it." There were tears in her eyes when she spoke to him, and they both knew she was still thinking of Charles. He was the only man she had ever loved, the only man she had ever thought of, and he was long gone, and with him, he had taken an important part of her life. "Do you want the job?" she went on, determined to solve the problem that night, in spite of his reservations. "Do you want the partnership with Sam?" she asked again, and he hesitated this time, but only for an instant.

"Yes."

"Then take it, George." Her voice softened and she put her hand on his arm. "Life only gives you so many chances. And it's given you everything you ever dreamed of and more. Take it, love it, hold it, keep it, be grateful for everything you have. Do what you want to do ... don't waste your life giving things up for ridiculous reasons. Sam is offering you a fabulous opportunity, and Helen is the woman you love. If you ask me, I think you'd be crazy to give either of them up. You know that you're not marrying her to get closer to Sam. You don't have to. He's already asked you to be his partner. What more do you want? Go after it, and to h.e.l.l with what people think. You know what, even if someone does think something about it, or even dares to say it, by next week they'll have forgotten. But you never will, if you give it up. You don't belong in San Francisco, you belong here, in this crazy business you're so good at, and one day Sam's studio will be yours, or you'll have your own. You're twenty-three years old, kid, and you'll be at the top of all this one day. You already are. And now you've got a girl that you love too.... h.e.l.l," she said, smiling at him as the tears spilled from her eyes, "grab the gold ring, George ... you've got it, it's yours ... you deserve it." He did, and she loved him. She wanted him to have everything that she had never had. She had no regrets about her life, but she had given up her own life, in a sense, for these children, and now she wanted each of them to have everything, all their dreams, and everything life had to offer.

"Do you really mean it, Sis?"

"What do you think? I think you deserve it all. I love you, you silly boy." She rumpled the carefully slicked-down hair, and he returned the favor. He liked her hair in a bob, and she looked so pretty. It was a shame that she had never married, that there had been no one since Charles. And then, because of the champagne and the closeness of the moment, he dared to ask her something he'd wondered about for a long time.

"Are you sorry you never had more than this, Win? Do you hate your life now?" But he thought he knew the answer anyway, it was in her eyes.

"Hate it?" She laughed, and she looked surprisingly content for a girl who had spent eleven years bringing up her mother's children. "How could I hate it when I love you all so much? I never thought about it years ago, it was just what I had to do, but the funny thing is you've all made me so happy. I would have loved to be married to Charles, of course, but this hasn't been a bad life." She talked about it now as though it were almost over. And in some ways, for her, it was. In five more years, Teddy would go to Harvard. Fannie and Alexis would probably be married by then, or on their way. And George's life was certainly on the right track, except for torturing himself just then, but five years from then it would be long solved. And she would be alone then, the children she had raised would be grown. It was a time she didn't like to think about now. "I have no regrets," she said to George as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. "But I'd hate to see you miss out on spending the rest of your life with someone you love. Go to Palm Springs and get Helen, and tell Sam you'll be his partner, and forget about what people will think. I think it's great, and you can tell Helen I said so."

"You're amazing, Win." And later when he walked her into the hotel, he thought of what a great girl she was, and how lucky any man would have been to have married her. And there were times when he still felt guilty about her not getting married. He still felt that he and the children had taken so much from her. He was about to say something about it, when they both saw the same thing at the same time, and stopped. Alexis was walking across the lobby in a gray satin evening gown that was Edwina's, her hair piled high on her head, held back by a spangled headband with a white feather that she had concocted from somewhere, and she was on the arm of a tall handsome man whom George recognized, and Edwina didn't. They were obviously coming home from somewhere, and Alexis had not yet spotted George and Edwina.

"My G.o.d," Edwina whispered, thunderstruck, she had thought that Alexis was at home in bed, while they were at the party. "Who is that?" He looked to be about fifty years old, and he was undeniably good-looking, but he was three times her sister's age, and he looked more than a little drunk, and very taken with Alexis.

George's face was set as he advanced across the lobby, speaking in an undertone to Edwina. "His name is Malcolm Stone, and he's the biggest son of a b.i.t.c.h I know. He goes after young girls all the time, and I'll tell you one thing, I'll kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d before he gets Alexis." It was unlike him to use language like that or lose his temper around his sister, and Edwina was momentarily stunned. George looked as though he was going to murder him. "He's a big new star down here, or at least that's what he thinks. He's only been in a couple of pictures so far, but he has big ideas. And when he's not working, he keeps busy with the ladies, mostly other people's wives or daughters. Very young ones seem to be his specialty." And the way he was looking at Alexis said that George wasn't wrong. He had also had an eye on Helen, which had seriously irritated George several weeks before, and he wanted her for all the reasons George didn't. Because she was beautiful and rich, and because he wanted a conduit to Sam, her father.

"Stone!" George's voice boomed out across the lobby, and the pair stopped and Alexis turned, with a look of terror as she saw George. She had wanted to get home before they did, but she had had such a good time dancing at the Hollywood Hotel that they'd forgotten the time. She had met Malcolm several times in the lobby, and when they'd introduced themselves eventually, the third time they met, he had recognized her name. He had asked her if she was related to George Winfield of Horowitz Pictures, and when she said she was, he had taken her to lunch at the hotel. Edwina had been at the La Brea tar pits with the children that day, but Alexis had stayed at the pool to enjoy the sunshine.

"Just exactly what are you doing with my sister?" George spat the words at him as he strode across the room and stood in front of Malcolm Stone.

"Absolutely nothing, dear boy, except having a lovely time. It has all been very aboveboard, hasn't it, my dear?" He had a phony English accent and Edwina could see from where she stood that Alexis was smitten by him. For a shy child, she had a strange affinity for older men. "Your sister and I have been dancing at the Hollywood Hotel, haven't we, my dear?" Malcolm smiled down at her, but only Alexis didn't see that the look in his eyes was anything but benign.

"Are you aware that she is not quite seventeen years old?" George was absolutely steaming, and Edwina was equally upset. It was very wicked of Alexis to have snuck out while they were gone.

"Aha." Stone smiled down at the girl. "I believe there's been a little misunderstanding." He gently took her hand from his arm, and offered it to George. "I believe we said that we were about to have our twenty-first birthday." Alexis flushed beet red with embarra.s.sment, but in truth Malcolm Stone didn't look as though he cared. It was only embarra.s.sing to have her age pointed out to him by her older brother. He had been aware all night long that she was far younger than she had claimed to him, but she was a beautiful child, a pretty girl, and being seen with her couldn't do any harm. "Sorry, George." He looked far more amused than penitent. "Don't be too hard on her, she's a very charming young girl."

George didn't mince words with him as they stood there. "Stay away from her."

"Of course, as you say." He bowed low to the three of them, and walked quickly away.

George stood staring at her then, and grabbed her arm as they hurried toward Edwina's cottage, and Alexis had begun to cry as her older sister frowned. "What ever possessed you to go out with him, for heaven's sake?" George was furious with her, which was rare for him. He was always his younger siblings' benefactor, intervening for them when he thought Edwina was being too severe. But not this time. This time he would have liked to give Alexis a good spanking, except that she was far too old for that, and, of course, Edwina wouldn't have let him. But he wanted to strangle her for falling prey to a man like Malcolm Stone. "Do you know what he is? He's a phony and a four-flusher! He's crawling his way around Hollywood to get ahead, and he'll use anyone he can!" George was well acquainted with the world he lived in, and men like Malcolm Stone were all over town, a dime a dozen.

But Alexis was sobbing openly by then as she wrenched away her arm. "He is not what you say he is! He's sweet and kind, and he thinks I should be in movies with him. You've never said that to me, George!" she said accusingly as the tears poured down her face, and in his estimation Malcolm Stone was anything but "sweet and kind." He was a snake of the very worst species.

"You're d.a.m.n right I've never said that to you! Do you think I want you hanging around people like him? Don't be ridiculous! And look at you, you're a baby! You don't belong down here, or in pictures, at your age!"

"That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me!" she wailed, as George almost dragged her into the living room of their suite and she collapsed sobbing into a chair as Edwina watched them.

"May I interrupt to ask why you didn't ask my permission to go out with him, or even introduce us?" That had occurred to her from the first, and it worried her now. Ever since she was a child, Alexis had been going off on her own, and eleven years before it had almost cost her her life on the t.i.tanic.

"Because ..." Alexis sobbed even more vehemently, clutching her handkerchief, and drenching Edwina's dress, which she had "borrowed" for her tryst. "I knew you wouldn't let me."

"That's sensible of you, Alexis. May I ask how old the gentleman is?" Edwina was clearly disapproving.

"He's thirty-five," Alexis answered primly, and her brother shouted in derision.

"My eye! He's fifty if he's a day! My G.o.d, where have you been all your life!" George interrupted, but Edwina knew that wasn't fair, she was a child from a sleepy town compared to this hotbed of glamour and illicit behavior in the South Land. She couldn't be expected to identify roues and cads at a mere glance like her older brother who worked and lived here. "Do you have any idea what someone like that will do with you?" Alexis shook her head, crying harder, and he turned to Edwina in exasperation. "I'll let you explain that to her." And then he turned back to his younger sister. "And you'll be d.a.m.n lucky if I don't send you home before your birthday."

They had agreed to celebrate it in Los Angeles over her Easter holiday, but the rest of the week proved to be more than a little strained. Alexis was in obvious disgrace and Edwina had had several serious talks with her. The trouble was that she was a beautiful girl and she was far too visible to the men in Hollywood. Even here, everywhere they went, people stared at her, particularly men. She overshadowed everyone around her, even her sisters. And to complicate matters further, two days after her evening with Malcolm Stone, a scout approached her in the hotel lobby and asked if she would like to make a movie for Fox Productions. Edwina gently declined for her, and Alexis flew to their room in fresh gales of tears, accusing Edwina of trying to ruin her life forever. She took to her bed and that night George asked Edwina what was wrong with her, she had never been this way before, but he also hadn't lived at home for the past four years. And Alexis had never been the easiest child, and she wasn't now either. Although she was shy, and somewhat unaware of her dazzling looks, she was dying for a career in the movies.

"It's a difficult age," Edwina said to George calmly when they were alone. "And she's a beautiful girl. That's confusing sometimes. People offer her all kinds of treats, and we say she can't have them. Men run after her, and we say she can't go. In her eyes, it's not much fun, and we're all the villains. Or at least, I am."

"Thank G.o.d." He had never realized how hard it had been for Edwina. Bringing up children was not as easy as he had sometimes thought. "What are we going to do with her now?" He acted as though she had committed a crime in Los Angeles, and Edwina laughed.

"I'm going to take her home, and hope that she settles down. And pray that she finds a husband before she's much older, and then he can worry about how pretty she is." She laughed, and he shook his head in bewildered amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I hope I never have daughters."

"I hope you have twelve," she laughed. "Speaking of which," she said, looking at him pointedly, feeling like a much older sister again, '"what have you done about Helen? Why aren't you in Palm Springs?"

"I called and now they're visiting friends in San Diego. I left a message at the hotel, but I'm going to wait till they get back. I'm sorry you didn't get to see Sam, by the way." Edwina had met him once, three years before, and she had liked him. He was an impressive man, with intelligent eyes and the face of a wise man, and everything about him, from his great height, to his powerful handshake, exuded power.

"I'll see him next time. But listen, you," she said, looking at him severely, "don't mess up your life. You remember what I said, and do the right stuff. You got that?" She grinned at him then, but they both knew she meant it.

"Yes, ma'am. You'd better tell your sister that too." But after a day of crying about her blighted movie career, Alexis calmed down enough to enjoy her birthday. They had one day in Los Angeles left, and Edwina wanted to take the two youngest children on the set of George's latest movie. He was busy in the production office, but the children were able to meet Lillian Gish, which was the high point of their visit. And seeing him in his working environment allowed Edwina to ask him a question she'd been wondering about since the scout from Fox Productions approached Alexis.

"Would you ever let her do a picture for you?"

He thought about it for a minute and sat back in his chair with a long sigh. "I don't know. I never thought about it before. Why? Are you her agent?"

Edwina laughed as he teased her. "No, I just wondered. She seems to have the same fascination with all this that you did." It was true, and she was certainly pretty enough to be a star. She was just a little young, but maybe one day ... it would have cheered Alexis to know that.

"I don't know, Edwina. Maybe. But I see so much go on here. Would you really want her in the midst of all this?" He didn't. He wouldn't even have wanted it for his own children, if he had any. Just as Sam didn't want it for Helen. And as a result, George thought, she was a nicer person.

"Helen seems to have survived it," she pointed out, and he nodded.

"That's true. But she's different. And she's not in the front lines. Her father would lock her up before he'd let her appear in a movie." Edwina had often wondered why she wasn't, but that explained it.

"It was just a thought. Never mind."

"Where is Alexis?"

"Resting at the hotel. She didn't feel well."

"Are you sure?" He was suspicious of everything now, and all the men he saw looked like rapists, h.e.l.lbent on attacking his sister. Edwina teased him about it as she went back to the set to pick up the others.

George took them all out to lunch afterward, and he dropped them off at the hotel and went back to his office. But when they went back to the rooms, Alexis wasn't there, and Edwina sent Teddy to the pool to find her.

"She's not there. Maybe she went for a walk somewhere." He went back outside to see if he could see Tom Mix in the lobby again, and Fannie started to pack, to help Edwina. But by dinnertime, Alexis still hadn't reappeared, and Edwina was beginning to panic. She wondered suddenly if George had been right to be suspicious, even though she hated to think that way about her younger sister. But Alexis had always been different from the rest of them ... shy ... distant ... removed ... afraid of everything as a small child, although she was better now. But she had always clung to the adults in her life, and she did now. She was desperately attached to Edwina, and to George, and in some ways Edwina had always felt that she had never recovered from Phillip's death, even more than that of their parents. She seemed to have an almost unnatural need to attach herself to her friends' fathers and uncles and older brothers, not in a s.e.xual way, at least not in her mind, but it was as though she were eternally searching for a big brother like Phillip, or a daddy.

Edwina called George finally, at eight o'clock. He had had plans for that night, and he was going to take them to the station in the morning. And with fear in her voice, she explained to George that Alexis was missing. She was glad that he had not yet gone out, and he arrived at the hotel in evening clothes to discuss the situation with Edwina.

"Have you seen her with anyone?" Edwina said she hadn't. "Could she be with Malcolm Stone again? Do you think she could be that stupid?"

"Not stupid," Edwina explained, fighting back tears, "young."

"Don't tell me about young. I was young too." He still was, Edwina thought, smiling, although at nearly twenty-four he didn't think so. "I didn't disappear every two minutes and chase around with fifty-year-old deadbeats."

"Never mind that, what are we going to do, George? What if something's happened?" But somehow, he didn't think she'd been kidnapped or hurt, unlike Edwina, who was convinced of it and wanted him to call the police. But he hesitated to do that.

"If she's not hurt, and she's with Stone again, or someone like him, the press is going to get hold of it, and make a big stink, and you don't want that either." Instead he walked around the hotel, handing out big tips and asking questions, and in twenty minutes he had their answer. And he was fuming. She had gone to Rosarita Beach, with Malcolm Stone. He had borrowed a car, and left with a beautiful, very young blond girl, and taken her to the famous hotel where everyone went to drink and gamble and have illicit affairs, just across the Mexican border.

"Oh, my G.o.d ..." Edwina burst into tears, and ordered the children into the other room. She didn't want them to hear it. "George, what are we going to do?"

"What are we going to do?" he blazed. It was eight-thirty by then, and it would take him two and a half hours to get there, driving as fast as he could. It would be eleven o'clock by then, and with luck it wouldn't be too late ... maybe. "We are going to drive to Mexico, that's what we're going to do. We are going to get her. And then I'm going to kill him." But fortunately she knew her brother better than that. At his orders, she grabbed a coat, and ran out the door after him a moment later, calling over her shoulder to Fannie and Teddy not to leave the room, no matter what, and they would be back very late.

Edwina flew through the lobby behind George, and he wasted no time flooring the car and heading south. And it was twenty to eleven when they got there. The hotel was a rambling affair on the beach, and there were expensive American cars parked all around it. People came down from Los Angeles all the time to get drunk and wild and more than a little crazy.

They walked into the hotel and George fully expected to have to pull every bedroom door off its hinges to find her, but they were still sitting at the bar, which was lucky. Malcolm Stone was gambling and very drunk, and Alexis was a little drunk and very nervous. And she almost fainted when she saw George and Edwina. George crossed the bar to where they were, in two strides, grabbed her by the arm, and literally yanked her off the barstool.

"Oh ... I ..." She couldn't even speak, it happened so fast, and Malcolm Stone looked up with bland amus.e.m.e.nt.

"We meet again," he said coolly with a Hollywood smile, but George wasn't smiling at him.

"Apparently you didn't understand me the first time. Alexis is seventeen years old, and if you come near her again I'm going to have you run out of town and then put in jail. You can kiss your movie career good-bye right now if you come near her again. Now, are we clear this time? Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly. My apologies. I must have misunderstood the last time."

"Fine," George said, dropping his tailcoat on a chair, and aiming one punch at Stone's midriff, and the next at his chin before stepping back again. "See that you don't misunderstand me this time." And as Malcolm Stone knelt dazed on the floor as people stared at him in amazement, George picked up his coat, grabbed Alexis by the arm, and walked back out of the bar with Edwina behind him.

Chapter 27.

THE DRIVE BACK TO LOS ANGELES WAS PAINFUL FOR ALL, BUT particularly so for Alexis. She cried copiously all the way, not because she was afraid of the punishment they would mete out, but mostly because she'd been frightened and embarra.s.sed. But the humiliation they had caused was not quite as unnerving as the realization had been that Malcolm wasn't planning to take her home that night. She had just figured that out when George appeared in the bar, like a knight in shining armor. It had come a little close for her this time, and even though she liked Malcolm, and he treated her like a little girl, "his little baby" he kept calling her, and it made her feel all warm and happy inside, it was a relief to be going home to the safety of her life with Edwina.

"You are never coming down here again," George told her in no uncertain terms when they got back to the hotel, in addition to a barrage of reproaches he had pelted her with on the drive north from the Mexican border. "You are unmanageable and you can't be trusted. And if I were Edwina, I would lock you up in a convent. You're just lucky you don't live with me. That's all I have to say!" But he was still spluttering when she went to bed, and he poured himself a drink with Edwina. "Christ, doesn't she realize what that guy would have done? That's all we'd need, his little brat running around nine months from now." He took a sip of the drink and collapsed on the couch as Edwina stared at him in disapproval.

"George!"

"Well, what do you think would have happened to her? Can't she figure that out?"

"I think she has now." Alexis had explained it to her while she undressed and Edwina tucked her into bed like a sad, naughty child. It was difficult for Alexis, she was a woman, and yet still a baby. And Edwina suspected she always would be. The shocks in her life had taken their toll, and she needed more than anyone had to give. What she really needed was what she could never have. She needed a mommy and a daddy, and since she was six years old, she had never had them. And there had been the terrible night when she had thought she'd lost everyone, when they'd thrown her into the lifeboat with her doll, just moments before the ship sank.

"He told her he was going to bring her home tonight," Edwina explained to George as he sipped his whiskey. It had been a long drive and a long night and his hand hurt from where he had hit Malcolm Stone. Edwina did not mention how impressed she had been by her brother's stellar performance. "And she'd only just figured out that he'd lied to her when we turned up, like heroes in a movie."

"She's d.a.m.n lucky. Most of the time there are no heroes when you're dealing with people like Malcolm Stone. I swear, I'll kill him if he ever comes near her."

"He won't. We'll be back in San Francis...o...b.. tomorrow, and by the time we come back again, he'll be gone, or he'll have forgotten all about her. This is quite a town you live in." She grinned, and he laughed. It had all ended well at least, there was no harm done, and he was happy they had found her. "Actually," Edwina grinned mischievously, "old as I am, I rather like it."

"Stick around, Win." He laughed at the look in her eyes. If anything, she looked prettier in the excitement. Her eyes were shining and her bobbed hair framed her face, and he was reminded again, as he often was, of how lovely she was, and what a waste it was that she had never gotten married. "h.e.l.l, if you stick around, maybe we'll find you a husband."

"Terrific," she laughed at him, it was not a high priority on her list of concerns. She was only interested in finding husbands for Fannie and Alexis, and at the moment, marrying him off to Helen. "You mean like Malcolm Stone? What an incentive."

"I'm sure there must be someone else around."

"Great. Let me know if you find him. Meanwhile, my love ..." She stood up and stretched. It had been a long night and they were both tired. "I'm going home to San Francisco where the only excitement is a dinner party at the Templeton Crockers, and the only scandal is who bought a new car, and who winked at someone's wife at the opening night of the opera."

"Christ," he groaned, "no wonder I moved down here."

"But at least up there," she said, walking him to the door with a grin and a yawn, "no one has ever abducted your sister."

"There's a point in its favor. Good night, Win."

"Good night, love ... thanks for saving the day."

"Anytime." He kissed her on the cheek then, and walked back to his car. His beloved Lincoln was covered with dust from their wild ride, and he drove slowly home, thinking about how much he missed Helen, and how fond he was of his older sister.

Chapter 28.

IT WAS TWO MONTHS LATER WHEN GEORGE CAME TO SAN Francisco to visit them, and Edwina wondered why he had come. He hadn't called her in a while, and she had just a.s.sumed that he was busy. But he had come, it turned out, to tell her that he had proposed to Helen and she had accepted. He beamed when he told her, and she cried when she heard the news. She was happy for them, and he looked as though he had the world on a string.