Bad Attitude (7 page)

Molly looked around for something to throw besides a soft pillow and saw nothing within reach. “Look,” she fumed. “I did what I did to protect you from Sonny Sims. I didn't know what else to do when he rode in here looking for blood—yours.”

“He was? And you figured that by being naked in my bed, you'd distract him? Well, you certainly are distracting.”

“I figured,” she said, “if he found the two of us together in an intimate setting, he'd more likely believe you weren't sleeping with his wife.”

“I'm not sleeping with Heather.”

“Good.”

“I'm sleeping with you,” he said, tugging at the sheet, beneath which she was covertly trying to don her clothes. “Haven't you heard? I'm sure the news must have spread all over by now. In fact, I wouldn't be half surprised to wake up in the morning and read about us in the
International Intruder.”

“Will you stop!” Snapping her jeans, she dropped the sheet. She glared at his frank appraisal as her lace bra disappeared under the oversize T-shirt she pulled on and knotted to one side. “I'm leaving now.”

“Not a good idea,” Mitch said, putting his ankle upon a stack of pillows.

“What?”

“Think about it, Molly. You've got to follow through. It's important we make what you started believable. If you leave now, he'll know he's been had.”

“How—how exactly do you suggest we make this believable?” Molly stammered, eying him suspiciously.

Mitch rubbed his bare chest while he considered her question. Finally he said, “You ever hear Bonnie Trait's song, ‘Something to Talk about'?”

Molly nodded.

“I think that's the action we ought to take. We've got to give ‘em something to talk about.”

“You're suggesting …”

“Love bites.”

“Love bites?”

“Yeah, you know, hickeys. All you have to do is offer up your pretty neck, my sweet.”

She shook her head. “No.” But Mitch was right. They would have to continue the charade of being lovers.

Unfortunately, it was a role she found far too easy to play.

T
HE RINGING
of the telephone jarred Mitch from a restless sleep. He flung out his arm in the dark, knocking the portable set to the floor. Lunging to catch it, he banged his injured ankle, swore and despite his groggy state, located the upended receiver where it had landed on the floor.

“Hello…” he mumbled, massaging his ankle and wondering if there was any ice to put on it. He squinted at the travel clock beside his bed.

“Peter, do you know what time it is?” Mitch grumbled into the receiver.

“It's still early. Don't tell me you're in bed at one o'clock.”

“It's not still early, and it's not one o'clock, either. You're calling the Midwest, where people go to bed with the chickens and where it's two hours later than it is in California. It's three o'clock in the morning here.”

“Did I just hear you groan?” Peter asked.

Mitch finished propping up his throbbing ankle with a pillow. “It's nothing. I just banged my ankle when I dropped the phone. Now, what was it you wanted? Did Tom Cruise turn down $13 million to herd sheep in Australia with his wife or something and they're offering the deal to me?”

“I'm looking for Molly. She's not in her trailer.”

“I know. She's right here with me.”

“Damn it, Marlowe, it's three in the morning.”

“You want me to wake her?”

“Put her on,” Peter growled.

Mitch looked at Molly, who lay asleep on the other side of the bed—way on the other side—fully clothed. He hadn't been able to talk her into a few love bites, but had made her see the sense of spending the night in his trailer.

Turning on the light, he shook her arm gently to wake her.

She continued to snore softly.

He shook her again a little harder, calling her name.

She blinked her eyes open; they were a deep, murky green from sleep. “Where—what?” she asked, disoriented.

“Peter's on the phone. Says he needs to talk to you.”

“You didn't tell him I was here!”

Mitch nodded, gave her a wicked smile and handed her the phone.

“Mr. Ketteridge?” Molly spoke uncertainly, realized she had the receiver upside down and righted it. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned and shot Mitch a puzzled,
How did I get here?
look.

“I thought you promised not to have an affair with Marlowe.”

“I'm
not
having an affair with a client,” she denied emphatically.

“Careful, Red, you'll ruin my bad reputation,” Mitch said behind her.

“Is that a fact, Ms. Hill? Then you won't mind explaining what you're doing in Marlon's trailer at three in the morning.”

“What am I doing in Mitch's trailer at three in the morning?” she repeated, looking at Mitch for a clue.

He mouthed a name—
Sonny Sims.

Light dawned and she was fully awake. “I'm here, baby-sitting Mitch, what you sent me to do. Saving his life, actually.”

“You're sleeping with Marlowe to save his life? Really, Ms. Hill, what line did he feed you?”

Molly ignored the sarcasm and plunged right in with her explanation. “You've heard of Sonny Sims….”

“Yeah, the one with hands like hams,” she said in response to Peter's apt description. “Well, Sonny boy showed up here with murder in his eyes. He was determined to find out if his wife Heather was having an affair with Mitch. I sort of averted the bloodshed by saying I was the one involved. That's why I'm spending the night in his trailer.”

“Get your things—” Peter began.

“You can't fire me! I'm not—”

“I'm not firing you. I want you to move into Marlon's trailer and stay there with him until the film wraps.”

“You can't be serious.”

“I'm dead serious. This Sims guy is a fruit-cake. He can ruin everything. Don't you read the front page of the
International Intruder?
He and his wife are always battling over her wandering eye and his jealous rages. I don't want Marlow in the middle of one of their infamous spats.”

Dread—and excitement—consumed Molly as she listened to her boss's reasoning. She was going to have to move in with Mitch for the duration of filming. It was nothing less than a direct order.

“Okay, okay, I'll do it if I absolutely must.”

She heard Mitch mumble something about a liven baby-sitter and turned to glare at him.

“Why were you calling, Mr. Ketteridge?”

“I almost forgot. Are you the one who retyped my entire Rolodex?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because I don't know any Robert Abernathy at the Healing Center, yet I have a card on my Rolodex for him.”

“Why are you in your office, looking at your Rolodex at one in the morning?”

“It's all your fault—yours and my mother's!”

“I don't understand.”

“You were the one who suggested I get tickets to a Takers' game to relax.”

“Right. Did you have a relaxing time?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I believe it was you who suggested I take the mechanic my mother found for my temperamental car.”

“That's right. Didn't that work out?”

“Hardly. She turned out to be a Takers' fan—a fanatical Takers' fan. She threw her drink on another fan, starting a brawl that got us ejected from the game.”

Molly's hand flew to cover her lips to silence her laugh.

“What? What?” Mitch inquired in a stage whisper, his curiosity getting the better of him, while Molly tried to keep him quiet.

“I can never go back to a Takers' game,” Peter groused.

“Really, you were that embarrassed, Mr. Ketteridge Maybe you should look up that therapist. Abernathy, wasn't it? He might be able to get you to relax.”

“Don't worry about me. You just move your things in with Marlowe.”

“Okay, I have everything under control.” She was getting good at lying.

“Even the weather?”

“Well, maybe not the rain. But production should be starting back soon. It has to stop raining sometime.”

S
HE WOULD LOSE HER MIND
, Molly was sure of it. She couldn't continue to live with Mitch at such close quarters and not do something patently foolish.

Only one day had passed, and already she was climbing the walls. Angie had helped her move her stuff earlier, and since then the rain had kept everyone in their own trailers. She'd tried to stay busy reading scripts Peter had sent her, but Mitch wanted to play games instead. She'd suggested he get together with the crew for some poker, but he'd said he was tired of playing poker for money and inquired if she knew how to play strip poker.

He couldn't help but know the effect he had on her, that he had, in fact, on any breathing woman. But for some reason he was enjoying using that knowledge to aggravate the hell out of her.

His campaign to disturb and distract her from her baby-sitting job was going much better than hers to teach him some good sense. She didn't think good sense and Mitch Marlowe were ever going to be on handshaking terms. He enjoyed pushing the envelope too much. And for no reason other than the pure joy of doing it.

If the truth were told, Molly knew she wasn't all that much different. That was the problem. She understood Mitch way too well. And sympathized with him. Not about the foolish chances he took that would sooner or later get him killed. No, what she sympathized with was his loneliness.

All the beautiful women in the world didn't necessarily chase away the loneliness. Not if you were lonely for a particular person.

She had to stop letting Mitch get to her. In their game of cat and mouse she was very definitely the mouse. The trouble was, Mitch had some very tempting cheese as bait.

Nonetheless, no woman in her right mind would want a permanent relationship with an actor, she reflected. In fact, she wasn't sure that wasn't an oxymoron.

Molly also knew she'd never recover from a brief affair with Mitch. He wasn't serious. He was only enjoying taunting her with the idea, because she'd had the nerve to agree to baby-sit him for Peter. Turning up the heat was only his latest game.

If she played, she'd lose.

M
ITCH SLOUCHED
on the sofa, lighted a cigarette and inhaled. His blue eyes gazed at her defiantly, he exhaled slowly and the smoke drifted around him. Sitting there in a sleeveless, white T-shirt and second-skin biker shorts, he looked like a forbidden fantasy.

“Do you have to smoke?” she nagged as she did each and every time he lighted up.

Mitch groaned and closed his eyes. “Look, I'm going to quit. Okay?”

“When?”

“I don't know. Soon.”

“If you were going to quit, you'd put out that cigarette right now.”

“Don't you ever give up?” Knowing she was sensitive about her red hair and her weight, he gave in to an urge and taunted, “You know, sometimes I wish I'd been locked up with someone who was mean, lean and blond.”

Molly cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”

He nodded.

“I got a news flash for you,” she countered. “I
am
locked up with someone who is mean, lean and blond, and trust me, it ain't what it's cracked up to be.”

“Touché.”

It was her turn to play rotten. “If I had my way, I'd be locked up with someone who had more sense than a stone.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, unless it's about my dating Sharon Stone. You do have this thing about blondes, don't you?” Refusing to be serious, he went on, “Is that what this is all about, Red? Are you jealous?”

‘It's a wonder you can fit your ego through the door,” Molly muttered, flopping sideways into a big, comfy chair. “You're being purposely obtuse. You know exactly what I'm talking about,” she said, determined to get the matter of Matthew's death into the open. “I'm talking about your death wish.”

“Just because I smoke an occasional cigarette, it doesn't mean I have a death wish,” he said, putting out the one he'd just lighted. “It only means I have a bad habit. Don't you have any bad habits, Red?”

“I'm not talking about the cigarettes, and you well know it. They'll kill you, all right, but it will most likely take years. Your death wish is more immediate.”

“I do
not have a death wish.”

“What you have is a classic case of denial, Mitch.”

“What?”

“You're denying your reckless and dangerous behavior since Matthew's death the same way you've been denying the fact that your brother, not you, was responsible for his death. You can't bring your brother back to life by feeling guilty. I know that. You have to let him go and start to live again.”

“That's easy for you to say,” Mitch said, his voice bleak. “You don't know what it feels like. You don't know how it feels to have a part of you gone forever.”

“I know only too well what it feels like,” Molly whispered softly.

Mitch looked at her oddly.

“My older brother, Joey, died when I was ten,” she explained. “He was a thrill seeker like Matthew. I idolized him. Everywhere Joey went, I tagged along … and he let me. I think in some way he needed my childish worship. My parents were pretty tough on him, always demanding he measure up. My love was unconditional. We were very close.

“He was always taking dares and it scared me. There wasn't anything he liked better than living on the edge. I used to beg him not to be so reckless, but he'd just laugh and muss my hair.

“He died,” she said, her voice catching, “he died in a stupid, senseless way. On a bet. He was trying to swim across the river and the current was too swift. I had to stand on the far shore and watch as the current pulled him under. I had to watch Joey

drown, unable to save him….“ Tears escaped from

her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

“I'm sorry, Molly. I didn't know.”

“Well, now you do. Don't make me watch again, unable to save you. I couldn't bear it if it happened again. This time I wouldn't survive.”

“What do you want me to do?” Mitch's voice was raw with pain.

“I want you to stop. Allow yourself to feel the pain, to grieve and then to live again. Get off the suicide express.”

Mitch looked at her with the expression of a recalcitrant teenager.

Molly forged ahead, determined to get through the strong, tough-guy facade to the devastated man. “Don't you see what you're doing?” she demanded.

“I'm not doing anything,” he said, lighting another cigarette.

“Yes, you are. You're trying to bring Matthew back with these senseless stunts. By being him. But you're not him, Mitch. He was the thrill seeker, not you.”

Frustrated, Mitch stabbed out the cigarette. “We were identical twins.”

“Yes, you were twins who were close,” she agreed, wondering how Mitch really could bear the loss of a reflection of himself. She couldn't show her sympathy … that wouldn't help Mitch. “But even though you were very close, you weren't the same person. You became an actor because you needed to express yourself in another way.”

“You don't know what I need—”

“Yes, I do. You need what we all need … to be happy. To be happy, Mitch, you have to like yourself. Lose the self-pity.”

Mitch hooted. Crossing his arms over his chest, he surveyed her so intently that she squirmed. “That's a fine thing for you to say,” he declared.

“Why?” she asked, fairly sure she wasn't going to like his answer. While it was perfectly fine for her to dissect him, she wasn't open to having him critique her. She was far too vulnerable for that, despite the tough-guy mouth she used as armor.

“Well, look at you,” he said.

Molly's heart sank. “What about me?”