Danielle Steel: Heartbeat

PRAISE FOR

DANIELLE STEEL“STEEL IS ONE OF THE BEST!”— Los Angeles Times “THE PLOTS OF DANIELLE STEEL'S NOVELS TWIST AND WEAVE AS INCREDIBLE STORIES UNFOLD TO THE GLEE AND DELIGHT OF HER ENORMOUS READING PUBLIC.”—United Press International“Ms. Steel's fans won't be disappointed!”— The New York Times Book Review “Steel writes convincingly about universal human emotions.”— Publishers Weekly “One of the world's most popular authors.”— The Baton Rouge Sun A MAIN SELECTION OF

THE LITERARY GUILD AND

THE DOUBLEDAY BOOK CLUB

PRAISE FOR

HEARTBEAT“Steel has made her reputation with her storytelling…. She has created characters readers care about, with whom they could identify.”— The Indianapolis Star “A reader slips easily into Danielle Steel's Heart beat” —New York Daily News “Steel's loyal army of readers will welcome Heart beat. ”—Baton Rouge Advocate “A surefire winner! …Steel weaves the lives of these unlikely lovers with warmth and tenderness, giving her legions of fans just what they want.”—Swanton (Ohio) Enterprise “A poignant, gently humorous novel.”—Norton (Virginia) Coalfield Progress “Danielle Steel's readers have come to expect her finely crafted portraits and rich writing style. Heart-beat , a certain best-seller and her 27th novel, easily continues this tradition.”—Lamar (Colorado) News “A combination of humor and tenderness, this story of good people struggling through modern American life is sure to be another winner for Danielle Steel.”—Pratt (Kansas) Tribune

a cognizant original v5 release october 31 2010

Books by Danielle SteelVisit the Danielle Steel Web Site at:

www.daniellesteel.comDELL PUBLISHING

To Zara ,

sweet heartbeat

of my life ,

may your life be ever

full of love and joy …

and to your daddy, who has

filled my life to the brim

with love and joy and heartbeats

with all my heart and love ,

d.s.

HEARTBEAT

THE SOUND OF AN ANCIENT TYPEWRITER SANG OUT staccato in the silence of the room, as a cloud of blue smoke hung over the corner where Bill Thigpen was working. Glasses shoved up high on his head, coffee in styrofoam cups hovering dangerously near the edge of the desk, ashtrays brimming, his face intense, blue eyes squinting at what he was writing. Faster, faster, a glance over his shoulder at the clock ticking relentlessly behind him. He typed as though demons were lurking somewhere near him. His graying brown hair looked as though he had slept and woken several times and never remembered to comb it. The face was clean-shaven and kind, the lines strong, and yet something about him very gentle. He was not a man clearly defined by handsome, yet he seemed strong, appealing, worth more than a second glance, a man one would have liked to spend time with. But not now, not as he groaned, glanced at the clock again, and let his fingers fly at the typewriter still harder. Then finally, silence, a quick fix with a pen as he leapt to his feet,and grabbed handfuls of what he had been working on for the past seven hours, since five o'clock in the morning. Nearly one now …nearly air time … as he flew across the room, yanked open the door, and exploded past his secretary's desk like an Olympic runner, heading down the hall as quickly as he could, darting around people, avoiding collisions, ignoring surprised stares and friendly greetings, as he pounded on doors that opened only inches as he shoved a hand inside clutching a sheaf of the freshly written changes. It was a familiar procedure. It happened once, twice, sometimes three or four times a month when Bill decided he didn't like the way the show was going. As the originator of the most successful daytime soap on TV, whenever he was worried about the show, he stopped, wrote a segment or two, turned everything upside down, and then he was happy. His agent called him the most neurotic mother on TV, but he also knew he was the best. Bill Thigpen had an unfailing instinct for what made his show work, and he had never been wrong. Not so far.

A Life Worth Living was still the hottest daytime soap on American TV and it was William Thigpen's baby. He had started it as a way to survive when he'd been starving in New York years before as a young playwright. He had started playing with the concept and then the first script during a time when he was between plays in New York. He had started out writing plays on off-off Broadway, and in those days he had been a purist. The theater above all. But he had also been married, living in SoHo in New York, and starving. His wife, Leslie, had been a dancer in Broadway shows, and at the time she was out of work too, because she was pregnant with their first baby. At first he had kidded around about how “ironic” it would be if he finally made it with a soap, if that turned out to be the big break of his career. But as he wrestled with the script, and a bible for a long-term show, it stopped being a joke, and became an obsession. He had to make it …for Leslie … for their baby. And the truth was, he liked it. He loved it. And so did the network. They went crazy over it. And the baby, Adam, and the show had been born at almost the same time, one a strapping nine-pound baby boy with his father's big blue eyes and a mist of golden curls, the other a tryout on the summer schedule that brought the ratings through the roof and an instant outcry when the show disappeared again in September. Within two months, A Life Worth Living was back and Bill Thigpen was on his way as the creator of the most successful daytime television soap ever. The important choices came later.

He started out by writing some of the early episodes himself, and they were good, but he drove the actors and director crazy. And by then his career on off-off Broadway was all but forgotten. Television became his lifeblood in a matter of moments.

Eventually, he was offered a lot of money to sell his concept and just sit back and go home to collect residuals, and go back to writing plays for off-off Broadway. But by then, almost as much as his six-month-old son, Life , as he called it, was his baby. He couldn't bring himself to leave the show, much less sell it. He had to stay with it. It was real to him, it was alive,and he cared about what he was saying. He talked about the agonies of life, the disappointments, the angers, the sorrows, the triumphs, the challenges, the excitement, the love, the simple beauty. The show had all his zest for life, his own sorrow over grief, his own delight for living. It gave people hope after despair, sunshine after storms, and the basic core of the story line and the principal characters were decent. There were villains, of course, too, and people ate them up. But there was a basic integrity about the show that made its fans unshakable in their devotion. It was in effect a reflection of the essence of its creator. Alive, excited about life, decent, trusting, kind, naive, intelligent, creative. And he loved the show, almost like a child he was bound and determined to nurture, almost as much as he loved Adam and Leslie.