ric Dillon was the stuff of female fantasy. Dark, sullen, and gorgeous, he was Heathcliff gone supersonic and blasted through time into the nuclear age. People stared at him as he followed the two stuntmen through the crowd that jammed the Auto Plant, L.A.'s hot new night spot. The stuntmen were blond, with flashing smiles and party-animal demeanors, while Eric was grim and aloof. He wore a sports coat over a torn black T-shirt and faded jeans. His hair was brushed back from his forehead, and his turquoise eyes narrowly observed the world with a cynicism much too genuine for someone so young.

A hostess wearing a hard hat and short bib overalls that showed both breast and leg led them toward a table. He could tell by the way she looked at him that she recognized him, but she didn't say anything until he was seated.

"Destiny's my favorite soap, and I think you're the greatest, Eric."

"Thanks." He wondered why he'd let Scotty and Tom talk him into coming with them tonight. He hated meat markets like this, and he wasn't overly fond of either one of the stuntmen.

"I'm going to UCLA during the day," the hostess said, "and I schedule all my classes so I don't miss it."

"No kidding." His eyes flicked to the dancers on the floor. He'd heard it a dozen times before. Sometimes he wondered why UCLA even bothered to hold classes between one and two in the afternoon.

"I can't believe you're leaving Destiny," she pouted, her face girlish and surprisingly innocent beneath its veneer of professionally applied makeup. "It's going to ruin everything."

"The show's got a great cast. You won't even miss me." The cast was mediocre at best, made up of a bunch of has-beens and wanna-bes most of whom didn't even have enough respect for their profession to learn their lines.

The hostess was looking for an excuse to linger. He turned away from her and made a meaningless remark to Tom. Despite the girl's revealing outfit, there was a dewy freshness about her that attracted him, but as he lit a cigarette, he knew he wouldn't do anything about it. He never got involved with the innocents. Although he was only twenty-three himself, he had learned long ago that he hurt defenseless creatures with eager eyes and soft hearts, and so he stayed away from them.

As the hostess left, a waitress popped up at his elbow. "Hey, Mr. Dillon. I can't believe I got you at my table. I had Sylvester Stallone last week."

"How 'bout that."

"So how was he?" Scotty asked. The stuntmen collected movie-star gossip like other people collected stamps. He'd been trying to get work on a Stallone picture for months.

"Oh, he was real nice. And he left me a fifty-dollar tip."

Scotty laughed and shook his big blond head in admiration. "He can afford it, I guess. That Sly is some guy." Eric ordered a beer. He cared too much about his body to abuse it, and he never had more than two drinks when he went out. He didn't do drugs, either. He refused to turn into a burned-out zombie like so many other people in the business. Cigarettes were his only vice, and he was going to kick that habit as soon as things settled down.

For the next couple of hours, he tried to have a good time. Most of the girls in the place wanted to meet him, but he put up his invisible No Trespassing sign so that only the most aggressive bothered him. A guy with blow-dried hair offered him some coke that he guaranteed was pure, but Eric told him to fuck off.

He and Tom were shooting a game of pool in an alcove lined with metal lockers and time clocks when a busty blond in a sparkly blue dress came up to him. He saw right away that she was his kind of woman—stacked and gorgeous, four or five years older than he was, with good makeup and experienced eyes. One of the indestructibles. As she approached the pool table, he remembered why he had let Scotty and Tom talk him into coming along with them tonight. He wanted to get laid.

"Hi." She let her gaze travel from a dark lock of hair that had tumbled over his forehead all the way down to the crotch of his jeans. "My name's Cindy. I'm a big fan of yours."

He stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and squinted at her through the smoke. "Is that so?"

"A big fan. My friends dared me to get your autograph."

He chalked his pool cue. "And you're not the kind of girl who's going to turn down a dare, are you?"

"No way."

He set down the pool cue and took the thick black marking pen she held out, then waited for her to pass over a piece of paper for the autograph. Instead, she sauntered closer toward him and slipped down the strap on her blue dress, exposing her shoulder for his signature.

He lightly scraped the clip of the pen over the flesh she had revealed. "If I'm going to autograph skin, how about I autograph something more interesting than a shoulder?"

"Maybe I'm shy."

"Why don't I believe that?"

Without bothering to raise the strap on her dress, she propped one hip up on the edge of the pool table and picked up his glass of 7-Up. She took a sip and then made a face when she realized it wasn't alcoholic.

"This girl I know said she slept with you."

"Could be." He flicked his cigarette to the floor and ground it out.

"You sleep with a lot of girls?"

"It's better than watching TV." He let his gaze drop to her breast. "So, do you want your autograph or not?"

The ice clicked in the tumbler as she set it back down. "Sure. Why not?" Grinning, she flipped over onto her stomach and offered him her buttocks. "Is this worth your time?"

Scotty and Tom snickered.

Eric hesitated for only a moment before he passed over his pool cue. Hell, if she didn't care, neither did he. "Definitely worth it."

Pushing her skirt up, he revealed a transparent pair of light blue panties. With one hand he slipped them down to the top of her thighs and uncapped the pen. The pool players at the next table caught sight of what was happening and stopped to watch. In bold script, he autographed her buttocks—"Eric" on the right side, "Dillon" on the left.

"Too bad you don't have a middle name," Scotty said with a leer.

Eric picked up his drink and took a sip. She didn't move, and he continued to gaze down at her. Condensation dripped from the glass onto her skin, trickling down over the rounded slope and into the valley. Her flesh pebbled with the sudden cold, and he could feel himself getting hard.

He slapped her lightly on the rear and hooked her panties with his index finger to pull them back up. "What do you say we get out of here, Cindy?"

Handing his glass over to Tom, he tossed Scotty a couple of twenties and headed toward the exit. It didn't occur to him to turn around and see if she was following. They always did.!!!"Let me come with you, Eric. Please."!!!"Get real, runt."!!!"But, Eric, I want to go with you. It's boring here."!!!"You'll miss Sesame Street."!!!"I haven't watched Sesame Street since I was a kid, you jerk."!!!"When was that, Jose? Two weeks ago?"!!!"You thinkyou're tough just because you're fifteen and I'm only ten. Come on, Eric. Please, Eric. Please."

Eric's eyes flew open. His pillow was soaked with sweat and his heart was thudding against his ribs. He gasped for air.!!!Jason. Oh, God, Jase, I'm sorry.

The sheet was clammy around his chest. At least he'd awakened before the dream got bad, before he heard that awful scream.

He sat up in bed, flicked on the light, and fumbled for his cigarettes. The woman beside him stirred.

"Eric?"

For a moment he couldn't remember who she was. And then it came back to him. The chick with the autographed ass. Dropping his feet over the side of the bed, he lit his cigarette with trembling hands and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. "Get out of here."

"What?"

"I said get out."

"It's three o'clock in the morning."

"You've got a car."

"But, Eric-—"

"Get the fuck out!"

She jumped from the bed and snatched up her clothes. After scrambling into them, she walked over to the door. "You're a real asshole, you know that? And you're not even a good lay."

As the door slammed behind her, he sagged back down into the pillows. Taking another drag on his cigarette, he stared up at the ceiling. If Jase were still alive, he'd be seventeen now. Eric tried to imagine a teenaged version of his half brother, with his chubby short-legged body, round face, and scholar's eyeglasses. Clumsy, nerdy, tenderhearted Jase, who had thought the sun rose and set on his big brother. God, how he'd loved that kid. More than he'd ever loved anybody.

The voices came back to him. The voices that were never far away.!!!"You're going to take Dad's car, aren't you?"!!!"Nib out, nerd-face."!!!"You shouldn 't do it, Eric. If he finds out, he'll never let you get your license."!!!"He won't find out. Not unless somebody tells him."!!!"Take me with you and I won't tell. I promise."!!!"You won't tell anyway. 'Cause if you do, I'll beat the shit out of you."!!!"Liar. You always say you will, but you never do."

Eric squeezed his eyes shut. He remembered grabbing Jase in a good-natured headlock and giving him a Dutch rub, being careful not to hurt him—always so careful not to really hurt him—just to toughen him up a little. His stepmother, Elaine, who was Jason's mother, protected him too much. It made Eric worry about the little rodent. Jason was the kind of kid other kids automatically picked on, and they didn't know when to stop, not like Eric did. Sometimes Eric wanted to beat the shit out of all of them for picking on Jase, but he never did because he knew he'd only make it worse for his half brother.!!!"All right, runt. But if I take you with me tonight, you've got to promise me you won't bug me for the next two months."!!!"I promise. Promise, Eric."

And so he'd taken him. He'd let Jason climb into the passenger seat of his dad's Porsche 911, the car that was forbidden to him because he was only fifteen. The car that was too powerful for an inexperienced driver to handle.

He'd peeled from the driveway of their fashionable home in the Philadelphia suburbs, a fifteen-year-old without a care in the world out for a joyride. His father was in Manhattan for the night on business and his stepmother was playing bridge with her friends. He hadn't worried about either of them finding out. He hadn't worried about the sleet that was beginning to fall. He hadn't worried about dying. At fifteen he was immortal.

But a nerdy pest of a little brother proved to be far more fragile.

Eric lost control of the car on a curve in a road that ran alongside the Schuylkill River. The Porsche spun like a top as it was tossed against a concrete abutment. Eric—too cool to wear a seat belt—was thrown free at the moment of impact, but law-abiding Jason had been trapped. He had died quickly, but not quickly enough. Not before Eric had heard him scream.

Tears trickled from the corners of Eric's eyes and slid down into his ears.!!!Jase, I'm sorry. I wish it had been me, Jase. I wish it had been me instead of you.

Liz Castleberry's wardrobe fitting had taken longer than she'd planned. As a result, she was glancing down at her watch as she stepped into the hallway outside the studio's costume shop instead of watching where she was going. Just as she cleared the doorway, she found herself bumping against something solid.

She let out a soft exclamation. "Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. I—" Her apology faded as she lifted her eyes and saw the man standing before her.

"Lizzie?"

His slow, deep drawl wrapped around her, drawing her back into the past. Hollywood wasn't as small a town as outsiders thought, and it had been over seventeen years since they had spoken. As she lifted her eyes, she experienced the dizzying sensation of being shot back through time to 1962 when she had arrived in Hollywood with a beautiful face and a spanking new degree from Vassar. Because she had been caught with her guard down, the words that slipped from her mouth were unexpected.

"Hello, Randy."

He chuckled. "It's been a long time since anybody in Hollywood has called me that. Nobody else remembers."

Each of them took a moment to study the other. Little was left of the Randolph Dashwell Coogan of those days, the wild young rodeo rider from Oklahoma who had been working as a stuntman when they met and had been so dangerously attractive to a well-bred young woman from Connecticut. His wiry blond-brown hair was shorter than it had been then. Although his body was still tall and spare, the passage of time had engraved unforgiving lines on the hard planes of his face.

His eyes weren't as critical as hers and they warmed with admiration. "You look beautiful, Liz. Those green eyes are as pretty as ever. I was real happy when Ross told me you were going to play Eleanor. It'll be great working together after all these years."

She lifted one dramatically curved eyebrow. "Did you read the same script I read?"

"Piece of crap, isn't it? But something interesting happened yesterday. We may see a few changes."

"I'm not going to hold my breath."

"Why did you take the job?"

"Tactless question, darling. I'm of a certain age, as they say. Work isn't as easy to find as it used to be, and my tastes are as expensive as ever."

"As I remember you're just about the same age I am."

"Just about the same age as Jimmy Caan and Nick Nolte, too. But while all of you forty-year-old? can

still make screen whoopie with cute little ingenues, I'm reduced to playing a mother."

She said the last word with such distaste that Dash laughed. "You don't look much like any mother I

ever saw."

Liz smiled. Despite her grumbling about her age and the career problems it was causing, she wasn't entirely displeased with being forty. Her long hair was the same rich shade of mahogany it had always been, and the green eyes that had first made her famous were still luminous. She hadn't put on weight, and her skin was only beginning to crease gently at the corners of her eyes. Being forty had its advantages. She was old enough to know exactly what she wanted out of life—enough money to maintain her Malibu beach house, buy the beautiful clothes she loved, and contribute generously to her favorite charity, the Humane Society. Her golden retriever, Mitzi, provided daytime fellowship and an assortment of discreet attractive men offered nighttime thrills. She truly enjoyed her life, which was more than many of her friends could say.

"How is your family?" she inquired.

"Which one?"

Once again, she smiled. There had always been something wonderfully self-effacing about Dash. "Take your pick."

"Well, you might have read that my last wife, Barbara, and I split a couple of years ago. She's doing real well for herself, though. Married a Denver banker. We still get together every once in a while. And Marietta started a chain of aerobics studios in San Diego. She always did have a good head for business."

"I seem to remember reading about that. She kept you in and out of the courtroom for years, didn't she?"

"I didn't mind the courtroom so much as the way she sicced the IRS on me six months ago. Those bastards don't have any sense of humor."

Seventeen years had passed since she had fallen in love with him, and she was no longer fooled by that easy cowboy charm. Dash Coogan was a complex man. She remembered him as a gentle, giving lover, generous to a fault with his money but unable to share anything of himself. Like the western heroes he played, he was a loner, a man who put up so many subtle barriers against intimacy that it was impossible to truly know him.

"My kids are doing real good," he went on. "Josh is in his junior year at the University of Oklahoma and Meredith's going to be a freshman at Oral Roberts."

"And Wanda?" After all these years there was still a slight sting to her voice. She and Dash had spent several weeks in bed together before he'd gotten around to mentioning the fact that he had a wife and two children tucked away in Tulsa. She thought too much of herself to be involved with another woman's husband, and that had been the end of the affair. But Dash Coogan wasn't the easiest man to get over, and it had taken her months to put her life back in order, something for which she had never quite forgiven him.

"Wanda's doing fine. She never changes."

Liz wondered if Wife Number Four was looming on the horizon. She also wondered what he would do if the show wasn't a success. Everyone knew that Dash had only agreed to do the show because he'd struck a deal with the IRS to pay off his debt. If he'd had a choice, she had no doubt that he would have stayed on his ranch with his horses.

A younger version of herself might have asked some of these questions, but the more mature Liz had learned to appreciate a life without messy personal entanglements, and so she made a play of looking at her watch. "Oh, dear. I'm late for my appointment with my masseuse, and my cellulite simply hates it when that happens."

He chuckled. "You and the second Mrs. Coogan would get along fine. Both of you enjoy all that fitness stuff, and you're both a lot smarter than you like to pretend. Of course, Marietta's degree came from the school of hard knocks, and yours came from Harvard or one of those places, didn't it?"

"Vassar, darling." Laughing, she gave him a brief wave.

He grinned and disappeared into the costume shop.

Several hours later, as Liz carried a glass of iced herbal tea and a small endive salad out onto the deck of her beach house, she found that she was still thinking about Dash. Mitzi, her golden retriever, trailed after her and plunked down across her feet. As Liz took a sip of her tea, she considered how much there was about Dash to admire.

He had fought a fierce battle with alcoholism and come out the winner. But he didn't seem to have taken his recovery for granted, and over the years she had heard stories of the ways in which he had helped other alcoholics.

The hero's white hat would have fit him perfectly, she decided, if it weren't for his womanizing.

In many ways he was an improbable Lothario, and if rumor were to be believed, he hadn't changed that much over the years. There had never been anything lecherous about his behavior. Quite the opposite. She remembered that he had always been shy around women, never directly seeking them out or trying to draw their attention. As much as she might want to rewrite her personal history, she knew that she had been the aggressor, setting her sights on the young stunt rider the moment they had been introduced on the set of her first picture. She had been drawn as so many women would be over the years by his overwhelming masculinity, made even more irresistible by a quiet, old-fashioned courtesy and deep sense of reserve.

No, Dash's flaw hadn't been lechery; it had been spinelessness. He couldn't seem to say no to an attractive woman, not even when he was wearing a wedding ring.

The afternoon was hot and breezy, and the faint sound of music came from the house next door. Liz glanced over to see Lilly Isabella sitting beneath an umbrella on her deck with several friends.

Lilly looked over and waved, her silvery-blond hair glistening in the sunlight. "Hi, Liz. Is the music too loud?"

"Not at all," Liz called back. "Enjoy yourselves."

Lilly was the twenty-year-old daughter of Guy Isabella, one of Liz's leading men in the seventies. He had bought the house several years ago, but his beautiful young daughter spent more time there than he did. Occasionally Liz invited the girl over, but she had grown selfish with her solitude and she didn't enjoy being around young people very much. All that desperate self-centeredness was too wearing.

As she sipped her tea, she reminded herself that she would be spending lots of time with young people for the next few months—the unknown actress Ross chose to play that silly part of Celeste, and Eric Dillon, of course. It pricked her vanity to be playing the mother of a twenty-three-year-old, even though Dillon's character was only supposed to be eighteen on the show. But more than that, she was worried about working with someone reputed to be difficult. Her hairdresser had been on the set of Destiny for a while, and Liz had heard stories that Dillon had a reputation for being surly and demanding.

He was also wildly talented. Her intuition about these things seldom failed her, and she had no doubt that he would one day be a big star. Those cruel good looks combined with a burning intensity that couldn't be taught in any acting class were going to catapult Eric Dillon to the very pinnacle. The question remained, would he be able to handle his fame or would he burn out as so many others had before him?

Eric had slept poorly, and he didn't get up until one in the afternoon. His head was aching and he felt like shit. Throwing his bare legs over the side of the bed, he reached for his cigarettes. A cigarette, a glass of high-protein breakfast drink, and then he'd work out for a couple of hours.

His clothes were strewn on the floor from the night before, and he thought about how much he liked sex. When he was in bed with a chick, he didn't have to think about anything —not who he was with, not anything. Life was reduced to the simple task of getting off. Once he'd heard a guy say he'd fucked some chick's brains out. Eric didn't think like that. He thought about fucking his own brains out.

As he got up, he spotted some black smudges soiling the bottom sheet. Puzzled, he made a closer inspection. It looked like writing, like script letters: CIRE. His mouth curled as he remembered Cindy

and her autographed ass. Just like a rubber stamp.

He pulled on a jock and a pair of running shorts, then walked out into the living room. The house was a small Benedict Canyon ranch, a perfect bachelor's quarters with its few pieces of comfortable furniture and big-screen television. He went into the kitchen and snatched a container of high-protein drink from the shelf. After dumping a couple of scoops into the blender, he added some milk and hit the button. But the night dreams were still too near, and the sound filled the small kitchen like the whine of a siren. It drilled into his brain, bringing back the chilling memory of the siren on the ambulance that had carried Jason's broken body away. He jabbed at the blender to turn it off, then stared at the foamy contents.!!!"Your stepmother feels— You have to understand, Eric, that with Jason gone... You have to understand how difficult it is for Elaine to have you around."

Two weeks after Jason's funeral, Eric had looked into his father's drawn, handsome face and known that Lawrence Dillon couldn't stand to have him around, either. Since his own mother had died when he was

a baby, it wasn't too hard for him to figure out what was going to happen to him.

He had ended up at an exclusive private school near Princeton where he had broken every rule and been kicked out after six months. His father sent him to two more schools before he managed to graduate, and then only because he had discovered the school's drama department and learned that he could forget who he was when he slipped into another person's body. He'd even spent a couple of years in college, but he'd missed so many classes going into the city for casting calls that he'd eventually flunked out.

Two years ago one of the Destiny casting agents had spotted him in an Off-off Broadway play and signed him to portray a character who was scheduled to die after six weeks. But viewer response had been so strong that his character had become a regular. Recently, he had attracted the interest of the Coogan show producers.

His agent wanted him to be a star, but Eric wanted to be an actor. He loved acting. Slipping inside another person's skin took away the pain. And sometimes, for a few moments, a look, a couple of lines of dialogue, he was good, really good.

He drank the protein mix straight from the blender, then lit a cigarette while he wandered back out into the living room. As he passed the couch, he caught a glimpse of his face in the oval wall mirror. For a moment he stared at his reflection, wishing it were ordinary, wishing he were a regular guy with a funny nose and crooked teeth.

He turned away from the face he hated, but he couldn't turn away from what was inside himself. And he hated that even more.