The Thrill of It All (14 page)

He took a sharp right and beelined toward another one of those primeval outcroppings. She hurried behind, but lost sight of him as he threaded through the jumble of massive boulders. “Magee?” Her voice was
not
warbling, she could almost swear it wasn’t, even though she was preoccupied by thoughts of spiders and snakes and why she hadn’t insisted on keeping the car keys in
her
pocket. “
Magee?
”

“This way.”

She followed the sound of his voice, embarrassed by how relieved she felt when she edged around another boulder and caught sight of his boots.

His empty boots.

Beside a dusty pile of his empty clothes.

A panicked thought speared her. He’d been abducted by aliens. Maybe that’s what had happened to Ben!

“
Michael?
”

“I’m over here.”

She whirled, found herself facing a vee’d notch of space between two huge boulders. Stepping through it, she found him. Her feet stumbled to a stop, toes of her sneakers splashing in water at the outer edge of a natural pool, about as big as a hot tub for six. Magee lounged in it, naked.

“What are you doing?”

“Soaking my knees.” He grinned at her. “I promised relief, didn’t I? The water’s just right, not too hot and not too cold. C’mon, get in.”

Her eyes widened. “No!”

“Why not?”

She glanced around. “Because—”

“Someone might see you?” One of his eyebrows arched in a challenge. “There’s only me, and I’ve already looked my fill, right?”

A shiver shimmied down her back. “Yes, but—”

“Someone might come along? I doubt it, but let’s drum up one of your infamous excuses, just in case.” He stretched both arms along the lip of the pool and tilted his head, as if in thought. “I know. You’re a park ranger, with a sworn duty to protect all natural pools from…foreign bodies. If anyone shows, I’ll affect a Ukrainian accent and you can frisk me for my passport.”

“Don’t scoff.”

“Please. You’re the only scoffee in my life and I’m beginning to enjoy it.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Ah, you’re just mad because I wore my
I’m With Stupid
T-shirt today.”

That made her smile, because the phrase was on the back of the shirt and she’d just happened to have a Sharpie marker with her. At their first stop, under the pretext of removing some burrs, she’d held the fabric away from his body and penned out the
With
.

He crooked his finger at her. “C’mere. You know you want to.”

Oh, she did. Because she was hot. Because her knees
did
ache. Because she’d woken up giddy at the idea of spending the day with him and she didn’t want their time together to end.

Yet, she added. Not
yet
.

Her fingers went to the hem of her shirt. “Don’t look.”

Of course the devil didn’t even bother pretending he didn’t. But feeling naughty and daring, she threw off her clothes anyway and slipped into the water on the other side of the pool. But then his smug expression made her self-conscious, so she closed her eyes to enjoy the sensation of warm air and tepid water.

“Beautiful day,” he said.

She nodded. Desert daytime temperatures in winter usually wavered between the pleasant seventies and eighties. Her eyes drifted open and she took in the stark blue of the dry, smog-free air. “Not beautiful in the summer, though.”

“It’s not that bad.”

She waved a hand at him. “So says you, with your air-conditioning and your secret springs. At Aunt Vi’s house we had an old swamp cooler that broke down the afternoon school let out in June and stayed broken
until past Labor Day. My cousins and I used to scrounge for change every day to buy our way into the community pool to cool off.”

“Yeah, but then you left all that behind for Our Lady of Prim and Proper.”

“Our Lady of
Poverty
.”

“Sorry. Our Lady of
Poverty
.”

She frowned at him, trying to determine if he was scoffing at her again, or worse, judging her. But she couldn’t read the expression on his face and then he closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the ledge of the pool.

Still, in the silence that followed she couldn’t shake the notion that he was thinking the words that no one else had ever said to her. Not Aunt Vi, not Ashley, not any of the Charms. She tried pushing the thought away, but it loomed too large in her mind, spoiling the day, the relaxed atmosphere, these moments with this man who had begun to be a kind of…of friend to her.

She swallowed, trying to sound calm. “You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

“You’re right,” he answered, without opening his eyes.

She waited for him to keep talking. To ask her to explain herself. But he did nothing more than stay still and silent.

“OLPP was a great educational opportunity,” she finally said.

He grunted.

“I made friends with important people.” She bit her lip. “Influential people.” God, that sounded worse.

She rubbed her forehead with a wet hand. “One of them recommended me to her alma mater. I went to the University of Southern California on a full-ride academic scholarship.”

His mouth curved up. “Go, Trojans.”

He wasn’t getting it. She wanted him to understand, she wanted him to like her. People always liked her! They’d been getting along so well and it was—it was important to her that he, in particular, didn’t think less of her.

She waded through the water toward him. “Look, I couldn’t stay at my old school.”

In a slow movement he straightened and opened his eyes. “No?”

“No. The summer before I changed schools, I…I had an incident with the principal, Mrs. Myers.”

“What did you do? Try to sell her some light-up ice cubes?”

“She caught me trying to scam her husband.”

His eyebrows arched. “Scamming him how?”

“I told you how we used to scrounge for the entrance fee to get into the pool.”

His gaze never leaving hers, he nodded.

“We had a con. My cousins and I. My oldest cousin, Mark, would take us to the shopping center in the next town. We had brochures for a kids’ with cancer summer camp in Idyllwild and Polaroids of ourselves taken with our five-year-old neighbor who had
a really bad buzz haircut.” Her voice lowered to a near-whisper and heat rushed up her neck. “We approached shoppers in the parking lot and said we were collecting money so our sick little brother could attend the camp.”

“Then one fine day you gave your pitch to the principal’s husband.”

She nodded. “And when he was digging out his wallet, she walked out of the store.”

“I suppose she knew you didn’t have a little brother with cancer.”

“Yes. She knew the Charm family well. So she snatched the photograph and the brochure out of my hand and ripped them up.”

He let a beat go by. “And then?”

She blinked. “‘And then’?”

“And then did she call security? Did she grab hold of your earlobe and haul you home? Did she threaten to blackball you from the elementary school’s honor roll?”

Felicity felt another burning wave of heat washing over her face. “She told me I should be ashamed. Of myself. Of the Charms.” The words croaked out. “And then I was, Magee. I was ashamed to my very soul.”

Magee pulled Felicity’s wet little body into his arms, even as he told himself he should be running from her. She’d been trying to kill him from the beginning. First with her car, then with sex, but now the attempts had turned serious.

That summer camp story had nearly finished him
off. He could picture it so easily, the little orphaned kid criticized for the only family she had left in the world.

He kissed her. There was nothing he could do to stop himself. Despite his unspoken agreement with Ashley, after the knee-bruising with Felicity in his car last night, he’d given up on staying away from her. The way he figured it, their affair could last until she left town. Then he’d return to the straight and narrow, a last 3-D Club fling behind him.

“Magee—”

He kissed his name off her lips. That name. Magee had other obligations. Felicity, ashamed of her family, had left them behind and now sold stuff on TV.

It was Michael and Lissie who made love.

Later, as he drove back toward Half Palm, he glanced over at her. Her eyes looked drowsy, her mouth swollen. If they weren’t careful, someone was bound to guess what they’d been up to.

He knew he should feel guilty about it, but he supposed Denali hadn’t scoured the hedonist out of him altogether.

Ah, don’t be such a yobbo! It’s all going to come good
.

The Aussie accent, the Aussie words startled him. He glanced over at Felicity again. “Did you say something, dollface?”

She turned her head toward him and frowned. “Was I thinking out loud?”

He shrugged. “What were you thinking?”

“About Ben.” She sighed. “I’m still worried about
him—a little, anyway. I was wishing he’d followed my advice.”

“What advice is that?” Magee reached over to brush a lock of her soft, feathery hair off her cheek.

“I called Aunt Vi a month or so ago and he answered. During our conversation, he mentioned he was short on cash. I told him to get a job.”

Magee smiled. “I’ve told him the same thing myself a time or two.”

“I even had a good lead. I suggested he go see the Carusos.”

Magee’s heart gave one heavy
thwomp
and stopped. He coughed, trying to get it beating again, trying to find his voice. “The
Carusos
? You told him to go to the
Carusos
for money?”

She didn’t appear to notice he was having trouble breathing. “I went to OLPP with the Caruso girls. The family grows and packages foods for the gourmet market. I’m sure you’ve seen the La Vita Buona plant outside of Palm Desert. They call old Mr. Caruso, the grandfather, the Sun-Dried Tomato King.”

“Godfather,” Magee choked out. “They also call him Godfather.”

“What?” Felicity blinked at him. “What are you saying?”

He wanted to say he was certain now that he wasn’t going to survive knowing her. But instead, he turned off toward the Bivy, where he’d have a phone and privacy. “I’m going to call my brother. He lives in Las Vegas. He’ll know for sure.”

“Know what?”

“If I’m right that the people you sent your cousin to have their fingers in something other than tomatoes—like loan-sharking. The way I’ve heard it, the Carusos are the first family of the California Mafia.”

The Bivy had just opened when they arrived. He jogged to the office, leaving Felicity to make excuses or explanations to Peter and Ashley. It wasn’t clear which she’d offered up when he emerged. She was standing near the bar, quietly talking with the other two.

She read the answer on his face, her eyes going big and her hand creeping over her stomach. “Magee?”

“Mafia, all right,” he said to her. “If Ben went to the Carusos for money, he could be in real trouble.”

“No,” she whispered. “Can it be?”

“Yes.” It was Ashley who said the word.

Their heads swiveled toward her. Magee wondered if perhaps one of Felicity’s earlier attempts on his life had affected his hearing.

“He did,” Ashley went on, louder. “He went to the Carusos for me.”

O
f the three stunned people staring at her, Ashley could meet the eyes of only one. “I didn’t ask Ben to,” she told Magee. “I wish he hadn’t.”

Would any of them understand? Felicity wouldn’t. Felicity had been born standing on her own two feet. She’d lost her parents, she’d moved away from Half Palm, she’d gone about making a life for herself, by herself.

Still, Ashley had to try to make them see.

“After Simon died, one night…one night a girlfriend took me to the Easy Money Casino outside Half Palm.” Even now she could remember how the flashing lights and ding-ding-ding of the machines had dazzled her, distracting her head and her heart from the weight of grief and the realities of single parenthood. “I…” She shrugged. “Liked it.”

Magee scrubbed his face with his hands, then shook his head, as if he were waking up from a bad dream.

“What does that have to do with Ben?” Felicity asked, her voice gentle.

Ashley risked a glance at her. Her younger cousin didn’t look angry or even aghast any longer. There was a wrinkle of concern on her forehead and puzzlement in her eyes.

“Once I started playing more often, I…I took out cash advances on my credit cards. Big advances. When I started having trouble making the minimum payments, I told Ben—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Magee was frowning now, but like Felicity, he looked more troubled than mad.

Ashley shrugged. “You were already doing so much….” From the corner of her eye she took a peek at Peter. But he’d half-pivoted his chair away from her so that she couldn’t gauge his expression.

She looked down at her hands, clenched together at her waist. Peter
would
understand. He probably already did. He was one of her best friends, she assured herself. Maybe her very best friend. Despite the recent tension between them, she could count on his sympathy and support.

“So Ben decided to help you, is that it, Ash?” Felicity sounded gentle still.

“He thought he could come up with some cash to help me out. So he started going to the casino, too.”

Magee cursed beneath his breath.

“I told him not to play the slots,” Ashley said quickly. “I made him promise he wouldn’t. He was sure he’d do all right betting on sports.”

Magee muttered another curse. Felicity guessed what happened next. “But he didn’t do all right. So he went to the Carusos to—what? Bail you out? Bail himself out at the casino?”

Shaking her head, Ashley wrapped her arms around herself. “The casino wouldn’t give the Charms any credit. But I still owed all that money on my cards and Ben was flat broke. A few days before he disappeared, he told me he’d gotten his hands on some more cash. He was going to use it as his stake to win big for both of us.”

Now Magee groaned, but Felicity ignored him. “So you don’t know for sure that he went to the Carusos,” she pointed out.

“No…not for sure. But he may have mentioned the name.”

The long silence following that said everything Magee and Felicity didn’t.

“I know, I know,” Ashley said. “I should have told Mom when he didn’t come home. I should have told you, Magee, or you, Felicity, when you came to town. But I…I didn’t want to sound a false alarm. Not when I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened.”

Even to her own ears, her excuses sounded helpless. Pitiful. Which was exactly how she felt.

Felicity turned to Magee. “Okay, let’s think. What have we got? Ben possibly taking a loan from the Carusos. Some men looking for Ben who say he owes them money.”

“Men who mean business.” Peter spoke for the first time, but Ashley couldn’t detect his mood from his
voice. “I heard a story about three slick guys who picked on a Ben look-alike outside another bar a few nights ago. They demanded the money he owed them and slugged him a few times before they checked his ID and realized their mistake.”

The fear Ashley had been running from caught up with her now, grabbing her around the back of the neck like an icy hand. “But there’s the note,” she whispered. “The one Ben left on the car saying he’s okay.”

“
Was
okay,” Felicity corrected. “Maybe by now they’ve found him and—wait, wait,
wait
.” She rounded on Magee. “I don’t believe what I’m saying. Are you sure about this? The Carusos grow produce, that’s a fact. The girls went to OLPP with me, and I heard that one of them now has her own interior design business. Their grandfather is the Sun-dried Tomato King!”

Magee drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I know. They do own legitimate businesses.”

Felicity sighed. “I think we need another Charm family meeting.”

Family
. The icy hand on Ashley’s neck squeezed. “Felicity, do me a favor? Please? Go straight to Mom’s. Anna P. is there with her. You and Magee stay with them until I’m off work.”

The door to the Bivy opened and a raucous group of dusty climbers pushed in. “Hey where’s the music?” one yelled.

“I need a beer,” ordered another.

Barstool legs screeched against the floor. “Make that three beers!”

Magee shot a look at Peter. “I can stay. Help out.”

But the other man shook his head. “Do what Ash wants. Jim’s on in an hour to tend the other half of the bar. We’ll be fine.”

Wearing that worried wrinkle between her eyebrows again, Felicity reached over to rub Ashley’s upper arm. “Why don’t we trade places for the evening, Ash? I’ll play waitress. You go home to Anna P.”

“No.” It was Peter again. “Ashley’s on tonight and Ashley will do her job.”

No?
To Ashley, getting her daughter and then going home and pulling the covers over her head sounded like all she could handle right now. She opened her mouth to say so, just as Peter lifted his gaze to hers, meeting her eyes for the very first time since her confession.

The frigid anger that she saw in them froze the words in her throat. Speechless, she accepted a consoling hug from Felicity and a shoulder squeeze from Magee before the two of them headed off, leaving her to face Peter, the one person she thought would have accepted her mistakes.

The one person who looked as if he wanted to burn her at the stake.

She decided to avoid him as much as possible, which wasn’t difficult, since the evening was busy. He passed her orders over the bar, but other than that he didn’t send her so much as a smile—but neither did
he send another harsh word or cold glance. As the night wore on, she began to wonder if she’d imagined his earlier reaction.

That was it! He’d been surprised by what she’d said about Ben and about her gambling…situation, but Peter wouldn’t desert her. He knew she was the kind of woman who depended on the men in her life.

He took a break at eleven, calling out he’d only be ten minutes. Waving a hand in acknowledgment, she let herself relax a little more. By the time he returned, the bar would be quieter. They could have a few minutes of their usual, comfortable conversation.

She needed the usual. She needed the comfortable.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then twenty. She cast a glance toward the door to the combined storeroom/ break room, but it didn’t budge. A little niggle of concern tickled her spine, but she didn’t have a spare second to act on it when a rowdy party wandered in.

Once she’d settled them with their beverages, Peter had been out on break nearly thirty minutes. Signaling to the other bartender that she’d only be gone a second, she dashed for the break room.

“Peter?” she called as she opened the door.

“Go away.”

His voice sounded strained, but she couldn’t see him or into the small break area—essentially a folding table and a couple of chairs—because of some tall stacks of cased beer. “Is everything all right?”

“I’ll be out soon.
Go away
.”

For a moment she considered it. But there was something in his voice…

She took a slow step around the stacks of beer. Then, seeing him bent over in his chair, she rushed forward. “Peter! What happened?”

“Damn it.” His shoulders hunched and he twisted away from her. “I told you to get out of here.”

The harsh tone of his voice was enough to make her hesitate, but not enough to get rid of her. “Is something the matter? Do you want Jim instead of me?”

“No, I don’t want Jim instead of you. I don’t want anyone.”

She’d come up behind him. “You’ve hurt yourself!” He was cradling his left hand in his lap. Now she could see there was a broken bottle on the floor, that his hand was wrapped in a crimson-stained towel, and that Peter’s face had gone chalky.

Her eyes widened and she backed up a step. “I’ll call an ambulance. You must have lost a lot of blood.”

Peter swayed in his chair. “No!” he choked out. “Not a lot of blood.”

Puzzled, she strode back to him and peered into his lap again. “You need to show me.”

With a disgusted sound, he turned his face away and lifted the towel.

He was right. There wasn’t all that much blood. The cut was hardly bigger than the one she’d gotten on her finger the other day in her kitchen. “Then what’s the matter?”

“Makes me sick,” he muttered, throwing the towel back over the injury. “The sight of blood makes me sick. Now go away.”

She stared at him. “You’re afraid of blood?”

He made that disgusted sound again. “For God’s sake, yes. Terrified. Horrified. Makes-me-want-to-barf scared. Okay? Are you satisfied?”

Keeping a cautious eye on him, she headed for the first-aid kit mounted on the nearby wall. Then, with the antiseptic and a wide adhesive bandage in hand, she crossed back to Peter. It only took a second or two to take care of the cut, but even after it was done, he wouldn’t look at her.

She disposed of the stained towel then went about sweeping up the broken glass. “I had no idea you were afraid of anything.”

He mumbled something.

The pieces of glass clattered to the bottom of the metal trash can. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘To hell with it.’”

Startled, she looked over at him. “Peter?”

His face was set, his eyes glittering. “I said, ‘To hell with it.’ Why should I worry about hiding my weaknesses from you anymore? You don’t want me, so what’s the big deal about another flaw or two?”

“It’s not a flaw—”

“And why you should be critical of
me,
I don’t know. Jesus Christ, Ashley, you get into gambling and into credit card debt and your way of dealing with it is to tell your dumbass of a baby brother?”

“I wanted to take care of it myself—”

“Give me a break, Ash.” He pushed his chair toward the door. “Calling in Ben to bail you out is not taking care of it yourself.”

She flushed in shame. Peter was right about that. “Well, you know I’m not good at—”

“And don’t give me that, either. That crap about needing a strong man.” He spun the chair to face her, his expression furious. “That’s a bullshit excuse. Bullshit! You let Simon roll over you when he was alive. You let Magee baby you after Simon was dead. But you forget that I’ve seen you when both of them weren’t around. Simon would be gone for weeks at a time, and you were fine then, Ash, and good at taking care of yourself, your job, your home, Anna P. You’d be fine again if you’d can the clinging vine act.”

He spun around and wheeled toward the door again. “Take the advice of someone stuck sitting down, Ash, the advice of someone who’d trade years off his life to be able to do what you should. Put your own two feet on the floor and stand the fuck
up
.”

Ashley trailed Magee, who carried Anna P. over his shoulder, through the dark house. She followed him into her daughter’s room and watched as he laid the little girl on her pillow. Ashley drew up the covers.

On the bedside table, next to the framed photo of Simon, was Anna P.’s favorite stuffed animal. Magee lifted the fleece llama and tucked it beneath Anna P.’s chin. Then he took Ashley’s hand in his warm one and led her out.

In the living room, he left her to flip on the nearby lamp. She stood where she was, her heartbeat sluggish, her mind numb.

Magee turned and studied her for a moment. Then he crossed to her again, once more taking her hand. His fingers were so warm and strong. She let her hand rest in his.

“I’ve let you down, Ash,” Magee said. “I’m sorry.”

She should shake her head. She shouldn’t let him take any blame. But that took so much energy and she was so, so cold.

“It’s not going to happen again,” Magee continued.

He took a deep breath and Ashley envied him the ability. The conversation with Peter in the bar’s break room earlier that night had stolen hers.

Magee’s fingers tightened on her hand. “Ashley, look at me.”

Strong men made everything so easy. She did as he asked.

“I should have been clearer about this before, Ash,” he said. “I want you to marry me. Marry me and let me look after you and Anna P., just like Simon would.”

Simon
. Ashley latched on to the thought of him. Brash, loud, larger-than-life Simon. The one who always knew what she should do. He
would
want that. He would want her and Anna P. to have someone like Magee to lean on.

“Say yes, Ash,” Magee urged.

Once again, she obeyed.

Aunt Vi’s cats were underfoot, the TV was droning, Charms were wandering between the kitchen and the living room. The only family member who appeared
to feel any urgency, Felicity thought, grinding her back teeth, was herself.

“Ben may have gotten into trouble with the
Mafia,
” she said again. “Don’t you think that requires some action?” The family fidgeted. Knees shifted, coffee cups rattled, someone passed out old copies of
Us
magazine.

Only Aunt Vi appeared to hear her. “Ashley and Magee aren’t here yet. Maybe we should wait—”

“It’s Ashley that got Ben into this mess!” It was out before she could stop it. And then, worse, she sensed movement behind her.

Aunt Vi fluttered. “Good morning, you two. Can I get you anything?”

Felicity looked over her shoulder. The late comers, of course. Her gaze slid off Ashley’s face and then caught the strange expression on Magee’s. He was looking at her with—She couldn’t put her finger on it. Disappointment?