§ § § -- August 24, 1991

The sun was just setting when the Tomai's Catering van pulled to a halt in the circular drive near the gate. Someone had rigged up a bell, about a foot in diameter, on a post driven into the ground just in front of the gate, and Maureen Tomai looked at it with surprise before shrugging and swinging the clapper back and forth with some gusto. The resulting clanging echoed off the retaining wall and sent quite a few birds sailing out of the trees, startled by the sudden racket.

The double doors popped open and Russell St. Anthony strode to the gate, more irritable than usual. "What the hell do you want?" he barked.

Maureen turned to stare at him, and her green eyes went wide with recognition for just a moment before narrowing and frosting over. "Hm," she mumbled to herself before speaking up in an icy tone. "The meal you ordered is here." St. Anthony stared at her for long enough that she planted her hands on her hips and demanded, "Do you want it or not?"

"Who are you?" he asked without replying to the question.

"Tomai's Catering," she told him. "You called us at lunchtime and ordered quite a bit of food from us. It's here, so where do you want it?"

"Oh," he said foolishly, still staring at her as if he had never seen a woman before. "Uh…just bring it in the kitchen." She tossed her head, turned and began to assist her mother's employees with the food while St. Anthony fumbled with the lock and managed to get it undone, swinging the gate open and then following Maureen closely when she came inside with the first couple of items.

In the kitchen she set them down on the counter and then all but tripped over him when she turned to go get more. "Do you mind not tailgating me, Mr. St. Anthony?" she said, frowning at him and stepping around him.

"Wait," he said, grabbing her arm. She shook it off, her frown growing increasingly annoyed. He cleared his throat and said, "Ex…excuse me," as if experimenting with an unfamiliar language.

"What is it?" Maureen asked with strained patience.

"I…" St. Anthony drew in a breath; never in his life had he been so taken off balance by a woman, and the feeling unnerved him so much that he snapped out the next words. "Stay here and eat with me."

"I can't do that," Maureen replied in a clipped, professional voice. "I'm working tonight. Sorry." She dodged him and made her escape; he ran after her, determined to get her to talk to him.

"Please, for heaven's sake, wait!" he cried, stopping her in the entry in spite of herself. She sighed in exasperation and turned to face him, and he approached her with both palms in front of him, a supplicating expression on his face. "Please, I'd really appreciate the company. If you have to, call the caterers and tell them you're here with me, and I'll make your excuses. I'll even pay you for your time. But please, stay and share my dinner."

Maureen stared at him, perplexed. "What for?"

St. Anthony seriously considered her question for a moment. "Well…as a matter of fact, I've never met a woman who looked like you," he confessed frankly. "Those eyes of yours. Most green eyes have a washed-out look to them, like a bleached-out leaf or something. But yours are different—they make me think of emeralds, or the way the hills in Ireland look in the spring." He became aware of the dubious look she was aiming at him, and grinned for the first time since he'd stepped foot on the island that morning. "Yeah, I know. Trite and stupid and all that, and it sounds like a cheap line, and I must be coming on to you, blah blah blah."

"Well, I hate to confirm your own suspicions, but that's exactly what it sounds like," Maureen agreed. "If you fed poor Michiko lines like that, I'm amazed she fell for it."

St. Anthony's face went slack and he let his hands fall to his sides. "Christ on a crutch," he snapped, "did this entire island know her personally or what?" Once again Maureen's gaze iced over and he reached out. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I seem to keep running into…well, I mean, I'm just tired of my fickle past coming back to haunt me."

Maureen smiled faintly and said, "Well, maybe if your past hadn't been so fickle, it wouldn't be coming back to haunt you."

To his own surprise, St. Anthony laughed. "I like you," he said cheerfully. "I think you're the first woman in years who hasn't been bowled over by my practiced lines or intimidated by my smart mouth. And I actually admit I have a smart mouth and practiced lines." His laugh settled into a broad grin and he extended both hands to her. "Please," he entreated one last time, his voice softening, "stay and eat with me. This place is very lonely, and I've been feeling isolated all day. Please, will you?"

"Well, I might," she said slowly, "but I really can't. Staying here to eat with you wouldn't be much of an excuse for skipping out on my job. I might get grounded." She chuckled at her own small joke, and he tipped his head to the side, quizzical. "Oh. Well, my mother owns the catering company. My name's Maureen Tomai."

"Ah," he said and smiled. "Maureen Tomai, you and your amazing green eyes are a vision, and I'm sure that vision will occupy my dreams all night long. Come on, come in here and call your mother for me, and put me on the line so I can explain to her. I want you to stay here, and I promise to compensate you for any time you lose on the job. I just need a dinner companion and someone to talk to."

She stood for a very long minute or so, wavering. "I really shouldn't," she mumbled at last. "I shouldn't and I know it…but I'm going to." St. Anthony beamed and took her hand, all but towing her to the kitchen. "I just hope I won't regret it."

§ § § -- September 18, 1991

St. Anthony had been living on the island for about three weeks when he made his way to the main house one Wednesday evening. He looked a bit wan, but he was curiously deferential. "Mr. Roarke?" he said, poking his head through the open French shutters. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Roarke and Leslie, conferring together on a proposal by the operators of the island's amusement park to add a water slide, looked up. "Ah, Mr. St. Anthony," Roarke said. "No, not at all. Come in and have a seat."

"Thank you," the actor replied and walked in, lifting both hands to his head and wincing. Leslie watched, mystified; Roarke's expression acquired a touch of concern. St. Anthony sighed deeply when he had settled himself into a chair. "Well," he said. "It's good to get out of that morbid hellhole I bought from you last month."

"What brings you here?" asked Leslie neutrally.

"I just wanted to tell you…" St. Anthony hesitated, glancing back and forth between his hosts, then frowned and squeezed his eyes closed, reaching up and massaging his forehead with the tips of his fingers. "Mr. Roarke, please accept my apologies for my rudeness to you on prior occasions. You managed to come through for me, in a way I never anticipated." He looked up and smiled with an uncharacteristically diffident mien about him.

"Indeed," Roarke said, eyebrows lifting with interest. "How so?"

"I've met the most amazing young woman," St. Anthony said, leaning forward in his chair. "She has a good level head on her shoulders, and she's intelligent as they come. I've been having her over as a guest on as many evenings as she'll come, just for dinner and some conversation, and we've become friends. Imagine that, Mr. Roarke. Friends!" He sat back and stared out one of the windows behind Roarke and Leslie with a wondering look. "As far back as I can remember, this woman is the first real friend I've ever had."

"I see," said Roarke, a faint smile playing about his lips. "Who is the lady in question, if I may ask?"

"Oh, ask away," St. Anthony said with a grin that made Leslie blink a few times and peer at him more carefully, unsure she was really seeing such an expression on the actor so famous for being demanding and cantankerous. "Her name's Maureen Tomai."

"You're joking," Leslie blurted without thinking.

"Not at all, Miss Hamilton," St. Anthony said, smile lingering. "Not at all. She's been quite a stimulating companion to me. The first night I was in the chateau, she delivered my dinner to me, and I talked her into staying and sharing it with me. Since then she's been a regular guest. And she's amazing. She does chat with me, but most of the time she simply lets me ramble. She makes the most incredible listener, Mr. Roarke. I could look into those lovely green eyes of hers and carry on for days. Those eyes…the first day I saw them, something about them inspired trust in me."

"You must have once known someone with eyes that color," Roarke suggested.

St. Anthony closed his eyes and winced. "Yeah…I…I can just barely remember my mother. Her eyes looked like that." He opened his eyes again and stared at nothing. "She died when I was almost four. It was like she abandoned me. But when she was alive, there was no one else I trusted that much as a small child." He focused on Roarke. "And to meet someone with eyes the color of my mother's…don't know how you did that, Roarke, but I have to admit to being impressed. She's made my days more bearable." A spasm crossed his face and he again massaged his forehead, with more vigor than before.

"Are you all right?" Leslie finally asked.

Roarke glanced at his daughter, studied the actor and then said quietly, "Have you told Miss Tomai yet, Mr. St. Anthony?"

St. Anthony seemed to abruptly forget his pain and stared at Roarke in disbelief. His normal irritability returned to the fore and he demanded, "What do you know, Roarke?"

"The question here might more correctly be, do you know, Mr. St. Anthony?" Roarke countered quietly.

St. Anthony got up and tried to pace the floor, but he was assaulted by a spasm that made him double over and was forced to stop and grab the chair, supporting himself with both hands on its back. "There's nothing to know," he said, a twinge of desperation in his tone.

"Stop denying the truth," Roarke said severely, rising in his turn. "I believe you are fully aware of it, especially now that your deterioration has advanced to this point. Are you planning to inform Miss Tomai, if you have not already done so?"

"If you think you know so much, Roarke," St. Anthony growled, "then suppose you stop dancing around the subject and just say it in so many words." Yet another pain hit him and he grimaced in agony, teeth bared and eyes screwed shut, slowly wilting over the back of the chair. He moaned with such pain that Leslie's expression reflected empathetic awareness, and Roarke closed his eyes for a moment.

"You are dying, Mr. St. Anthony," he said at last.

The words seemed to bounce around the room. Leslie whipped her head around and stared at Roarke. "Dying?" she repeated.

St. Anthony lifted his head as the pain subsided and began to pant heavily, a measure of relief on his face. He returned Leslie's astonished scrutiny. "He's right," he told her. "I have a brain aneurysm—inoperable. It's the same thing that killed my mother."

Roarke nodded faintly. "How long have you been given?"

"The last time I saw a doctor was two days before I flew out here," St. Anthony said. "From that point, he gave me about three months at maximum. The thing's buried so deep in my brain that modern medicine just can't get to it. Roarke…" He looked up abruptly and stared with new hope in his eyes. "Do you have a cure?"

Regret filled Roarke's dark eyes and he slowly shook his head. "I am sorry, Mr. St. Anthony," he said softly. His voice carried an undercurrent of a very personal pain, and Leslie suddenly remembered Helena Marsh: Roarke's wife of five days had died of a similar affliction nearly twelve years before, and he had been unable to do anything for her. She stood up beside him and slipped her hand into his; he squeezed hers in acknowledgment.

St. Anthony mumbled a halfhearted curse, as though he'd expected such an answer. "I have no descendants," he said painfully, pushing himself off the back of the chair with an effort and taking slow but determined steps across the Persian rug. "When I got the news, I realized a lot of things that I had never bothered to think about before. All I've done all my life is perform roles onstage—submerging myself in fictional personae. It was a way to deny what was happening to me. I'd get sick periodically, and Pete and the others on my staff would tell me to slow down and mellow out. I never paid any attention. Nobody ever understood what made me me…what made Russell St. Anthony the Beast of Broadway. And then I met Michiko Tokita, and she was more sensitive than most. She's the one who talked me into seeing a doctor, and that's when I found out what I had.

"I could tell she was expecting me to put a ring on her finger, but I just couldn't do it. I seem to have inherited this thing from my mother, and I'll be damned right to hell if I pass it down to any children. Yet…a man's immortality is his offspring, and I'm beginning to think I might want a kid after all. But it's selfish. I can't do that to a child of mine, and I don't want to leave some poor woman in the lurch…"

"And that's why you pushed Michiko away from you," Leslie said.

St. Anthony nodded. "Yes, that's why. I loved her about as much as I was ever capable of loving anyone, and the day that prince announced his engagement to her, I was finally forced to face the complete reality of my situation." He straightened up slowly and painfully. "I'm dying, and I've wasted the love of at least one very good woman. To answer your question, Roarke, no…I haven't told Maureen about the aneurysm."

"How can you continue to hide it from her?" Roarke asked practically. "You must realize, Mr. St. Anthony, that eventually she will notice that something is amiss, if she hasn't already. It's plain to see that your painful spells are increasing in frequency and intensity. Eventually you will be unable to function on your own, and there will be no recourse other than to check you into the hospital."

"From which I'll never check out again," St. Anthony said. "At least, not alive."

"Unfortunately, yes," said Roarke, voice quieting. "And then, where does that leave Miss Tomai? She will be forced to find the truth; and perhaps Leslie, as her close friend, will find herself forced to explain it to her. No, Mr. St. Anthony, it's only fair to tell her." He gently disengaged his hand from Leslie's and leaned on the desk, piercing St. Anthony with an intense gaze. "If you care about her as your friend, as you claim to do, you must tell her."

"Damn it," mumbled St. Anthony, looking exhausted. "I know you're right, Roarke, but how can I do that? I wouldn't hurt her for anything…because, as ridiculous as you'll probably find this, I think I'm in love with her. Truly and honestly in love, like I've never been before." He returned Roarke's minute scrutiny. "That," he said fiercely, "I categorically refuse to tell her. She considers me a friend and I can see that's all it'll ever be. I'd rather minimize her pain when my end comes."

"That's up to you," Roarke said without argument. "Your feelings for Miss Tomai are entirely your affair. But she does deserve to know the truth of your condition."

"Maureen's pretty tough," Leslie ventured gently. "She'll be able to take it, I think. As Mr. Roarke said, it's better you tell her in advance. And when you do, enjoy your friendship with her, and leave her with some good memories. That'll be your best legacy to her."

St. Anthony studied her with surprise, then smiled a little. "Thank you, Miss Hamilton," he said. "You've just convinced me. Thank you. I'll go now and tell her, if you'll both excuse me." They nodded and watched him labor his way out the shutter doors once more; neither spoke till he had pushed through the bushes that screened the terrace.

Then Roarke turned to Leslie with an impressed expression. "Very wise words, my daughter," he said with a smile. "Very wise indeed."

Leslie looked up at him with a wistful glint in her eyes. "I spoke from experience. Remember when Tattoo said at the gala that I'd eventually remember Teppo with more smiles than tears? That made me think, and I realized he was right. I have so many beautiful memories of my years with him. And if St. Anthony can leave Maureen some memories like that, it'll be easier for her, too."

Roarke's smile widened and he hugged her. "So it will. And in his last days, I believe he himself will be enriched by his friendship with her."

"I think he already is," Leslie murmured, and Roarke nodded.