Coming Attractions (3 page)

“I’ll just bet you will,” Levi
muttered under his breath.

“But, I’ll be honest with you,
Cara, I don’t hold out much hope for its return.”

Cara’s heart deflated. She loved
that bike and having it stolen was more like losing a pet than losing a car.
There was something special about a motorbike. Each one had its own quirks and
personality. Her Ducati—Duke, as she called him—was thoroughbred impressive and
bullet fast. A person could easily be intimidated by his sleek racing lines and
fat 17-inch wheels, his racy burnished chrome and immaculate lustrous duco.

But Cara knew the bike beneath the
gloss and glamour. She understood Duke didn’t like cold mornings and needed to
be warmed up before they took off on the day’s adventures. She knew she had to
ride him smoothly, not throw him around the way you could some of the Japanese
imports. She was grateful for his pessimistic fuel gauge and the squooshy
sheepskin seat cover she’d bought. She also realized that compared to many newer
sports bikes, Duke’s swanky chassis supported a
less-powerful
engine, but its grunt meant she could still accelerate like a peregrine falcon.
She also knew that in the hands of the right rider—her, for instance—Duke could
keep up a blazing pace on any road.

Her heart ached at
the thought of losing her loyal, faithful
compadre,
and the sentiment was clear in her husky reply.

“Thanks, Brian. I appreciate you
trying. I know you’ll do your best.”

“He had better do his best,” Levi
said stonily, fixing the police officer with a hard stare.

Brian sighed and withdrew a tablet
and stylus from his satchel. “Let me take down the details and I’ll get back to
the station and write up a report.”

“I might catch a ride into Ocean
Ridge with you, Brian, if you don’t mind, seeing as I’m suddenly without wheels—”

“I’ll take you into Ocean Ridge,”
Levi interjected, and in light of his stark tone, nobody argued.

As Levi saw the police officer off
the property, the two men safely confining their conversation to the weather
and upcoming ball game, Cara washed their mugs and teaspoons and propped them
in the draining rack, wondering why Levi had suddenly turned serious and severe
and what had happened to the playful, sinful love bunny she had met earlier in
the day. The question must have been in her eyes as he returned.

“He’s either incompetent or he’s
lying,” Levi growled, picking up a floral tea towel and beginning to dry the
crockery, “and when it comes to recovering your motorcycle, which any fool can
see means a great deal to you, neither is acceptable.”

Her mind photographed the moment—a
mental picture impregnated with sound and touch, taste and scent—an unexpected
moment in time that made her feel so close and cherished that tears gathered.
Cara tucked the split second aside to look at later, in private, and moved her
mind to safer ground.

“I do love the bike, but common
sense says it’s only a possession. It’s replaceable. What do you ride?”

Levi dropped the Smurfette mug he
was drying and she heard it crack as it hit the linoleum. Neither of them moved
to pick it up. His whole body had stiffened and his expression darkened. He was
all tension and guarded fury. A quiver of unease trickled through her. Clearly,
she’d inadvertently set foot in forbidden territory.

“What makes you think I ride
anything?” he asked, something sour and perilous in his voice.

She made her speech sure and steady
despite her inner hesitation. She didn’t waver, didn’t step back. “When you
rang the police this morning, you trotted out the make and model of my bike
when you probably only walked past it on your way into the house. Someone who wasn’t
a rider wouldn’t take in that kind of detail.”

He let out a breath and his face
softened. “No wonder you’re such a good a writer. You’re pretty observant.”
Levi’s hand involuntarily went to the scar on his cheek. “Fact is, I don’t
ride. Anymore.”

His statement was like a door
closing. His mouth firmed and his eyes went blank, not so much forbidding her
to trespass on the topic, but completely shutting the conversation down.

Cara’s response was twofold—empathy,
for whatever lay behind such a heavily guarded door could only be deeply
painful, and curiosity. Her innate writer’s instinct was piqued by his mystery.
Any enigma that made this intriguing man tick was especially enticing. But, for
the moment, empathy won out and she let the subject go, busying herself wiping
down the sink and keeping her eyes to herself as he bent down to retrieve the
broken mug that had belonged to her sister. The handle had snapped off, but it
was otherwise unharmed.

Cara automatically reached for the
third drawer where her mother had kept all kinds of knickknacks from matches
and thimbles to string and stray jigsaw pieces. Triumphantly, she held up the
superglue. “See? No problem. It’s a quick fick.”

“A quick what?” he asked.

“Oh…” She laughed. “Old family
joke. One day, my sister Mia was toddling around with her finger in her ear and
my father asked her what she was doing. She told him there was a ‘wack’ in her
ear. Puzzled, he asked her if she meant ‘wax.’ ‘No,’ she told him, ‘there’s
only one.’”

He grinned, obviously enjoying the
cute anecdote.

“It became a running joke,” she
told him as she opened the glue and fixed the handle in place. “A one-page
facsimile was a fack, not a fax. If there was one carton, it was a bock… You
get the idea.”

He smiled indulgently at her as she
stretched to place the mug on the windowsill to set, flashing a strip of
tanned, toned midriff in the process. When she turned, she found his eyes lustrous
and his face relaxed again. In fact, his grin was positively wanton.

“In that case,” he told her,
letting his eyes trail lazily over her, “you’re a fock—not only a babe, but one
of a kind.”

She laughed his comment off, but
she couldn’t help but be warmed by his insouciant flattery. He really was a fine-looking
guy, and that morning kiss really had set her libido flying. She wouldn’t mind
going back for seconds, she thought, as she watched his big hands gently cradle
the dishes and imagined them clasping parts of her anatomy instead.

“So, do you think Brian is
deceitful or inept?” he asked, returning to their earlier topic as he selected
a plate and made a show of being super careful as he dried it.

She smiled. “I don’t think Brian
would lie to me...”

“He certainly seems to have a soft
spot for you.”

Was that a proprietary note she
heard in his tone? One kiss didn’t give him any rights to her, even if the kiss
was the most mind-blowing, body-shaking, sock-rocking kiss she had ever
experienced, and even if she felt a prickle of delight at his high-handed attention.

“Well, isn’t that lucky. He might
put in a bit of extra effort when he’s looking for the scumbag who stole my
bike. Meanwhile, thanks for offering to take me in to Ocean Ridge. My sister
lives there. I guess I’ll bunk in with her family tonight.”

Cara blushed, recalling that she
had basically broken in to Flinders’ Keep last night and that she had no legitimate
reason to be there. “And I am sorry for intruding on your property. I have no
right to have stayed here last night. I was just... It was...”

“Yeah.” He sighed, meeting her
eyes. “Sometimes the past just keeps on dragging us back, no matter how hard we
try and pull away...”

He kissed her then. Not a hard,
racy kiss this time, but something more tentative, exploratory and soft. It was
an invitation and a question all at once and she found herself completely
disarmed by Levi’s gentleness.

Her body leaned into his. His hands
slid down the length of her still damp hair and hers snagged his nape, drawing
him closer until their bodies were molded as one. They fit together as though
they had been designed for one another, she thought dimly in the instant before
her body melted against his and her mind gave up the ability to form a coherent
thought.

His lips were supple and inquiring,
his tongue tenderly probing. His unexpected care drew more than a physical reaction
from her. Oh, her mouth burned with unsated hunger all right. Her skin flushed
with pleasure, her breasts ached, her nipples tightened, and her sex throbbed,
wet and hot. She sure as hell wanted him on a physical level with every sliver
of her substance.

But there was something underneath
the material reaction of flesh and hormones and secretions—something intangible
and untried. A nascent awareness waking somewhere inside her that was at once
disconcerting and enticing. It was too new to name, too fluid to pin down, too
fragile to define. But she felt it as surely as she felt his hands curl around
her buttocks, as clearly as the rock hard erection now pressing against her
pelvis.

“I want you...” he breathed into
her mouth. She felt more than heard the words, tasted them, swallowed them.

Desire ripped through her. Her
delicate emotional reaction was like a potent accelerant and she was consumed
by a lusty fire that inflamed her until she no longer had any awareness of
herself or her surroundings. There was only Levi, his mouth and his muscles and
his engorged cock pressed hard against her groin.

“Oh God, I want you, too,” she
husked as she drew her face away from his, heated and breathless.

Their eyes devoured one another,
craving and celebrating and questioning all at once.

At that moment, her stomach rumbled
and the mood lightened a little, but he did not let her go.

“Sounds like someone needs
breakfast,” he laughed, dropping a kiss on the tip for her nose.

“Mmmm, Levi on toast sounds just
perfect,” she taunted, placing a string of small kisses along his jaw to his
mouth.

“We don’t have any toast,” he
murmured, licking the seam of her lips, darting his tongue swiftly between them,
and withdrawing it just as quickly.

“Tease.” She grinned. “How about
just Levi then?” She trailed her own tongue in the wake of his own, her eyes
alight with the promise of delicious mischief.

But her stomach growled again and Levi’s
joined in the chorus.

“I think we’ve been outvoted, Cara.
And besides, Brian said there’s a bad storm coming. So, unless we want to get
stranded here with nothing to eat but each other—”

“You won’t find me complaining.”

He laughed. “But your tummy is. Let
me drive you to your sister’s place in Ocean Ridge. I need to pick up some
supplies since I’m expecting an entire crew to arrive tomorrow... Are you
pouting?”

“Maybe a little,” she replied,
hamming up her hangdog expression and turning her eyes hopeful and worshipful.

“Would it cheer you up any if I
suggested that once I’ve done my shopping and you’ve done your visiting, I
swing by and pick you up and we eat dinner here together?”

She let her eyes fill with mischief
and changed her fake pout into a smoldering sexy smile.

“What’s for dinner?” she purred
provocatively.

“Ramen noodles? Mac and cheese? A
hard-boiled egg?” he answered glibly.

Her eyes narrowed in make-believe
vexation.

“But I think I have something you’ll
approve of for dessert.”

Chapter
Three

Levi didn’t just drop her at the
curb as Cara had expected him to. Instead, he helped her down from the silver
Tacoma and walked her up the path to the front door of the 1930s brick house
that belonged to her sister. It felt strange and, she had to admit, kind of
nice to be escorted along the petunia-edged flagstones by a handsome man. She
did a mental fast-forward to the movie premiere of
Lost Treasure
and imagined the two of them walking arm in arm down
the red carpet.

Whoa,
cowgirl. Let’s not get too carried away!

It was only a moment after her
knock that two giggling children opened the door—a boy and a girl, both dressed
in pink tulle, covered in sequins and glitter and sporting fairy wings and
tiaras.

“You’re Auntie Cara!”

“You must be Josie...”

But the girl had turned tail down
the hallway shouting, “Mom, Auntie Cara is here! I can tell her from her photo.”

The boy—Liam, she assumed—followed
his sister as fast as his stubby legs would take him. Not to be outdone, he
added, “And she has a man!”

Cara and Levi exchanged an amused
glance and a few seconds later, Mia appeared, wiping her hands on the edge of a
polka dot apron. The woman broke into a trot as soon as she spotted Cara, and
the two women embraced affectionately then held one another at arm’s length to
assess the passage of time before hugging again.

Finally, they drew apart and Cara
stepped back to introduce Levi.

“Mia, this is Levi Callister. He
bought Flinders’ Keep, remember? He’s producing my next film.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr Callister—”

“Levi.”

“Levi,” Mia said, extending her
hand and shaking his. “Won’t you both come in?”

“Many thanks, Ms. Kelly—”

“It’s Foster, but Mia is fine.”

Cara opened her mouth to comment,
but quickly closed it again. If her sister decided to keep her married name,
that was her business.

“My apologies, Mia. But there’s a
storm brewing and I have some errands to take care of. I’ll come back for you…what?
About four, Cara?”

“Actually,” Cara corrected, “I have
a couple of errands of my own. How about I meet you at four at Sails…if it’s
still there?”

“The old café’s doing a thriving
trade again,” Mia assured them. “Business in Ocean Ridge is booming.”

“So we hear,” said Cara.

“In that case, done. See you then,
then,” Levi said, and shot Cara a grin that was brimming with so much sinful
intent that her legs actually trembled.

“Well, he has more than a
professional interest in you, by the looks of things,” Mia said primly as she closed
the front door and led Cara down the hallway to the kitchen.

“I only met him this morning!”

“Works fast, too, then, I see.
Josie, Liam, Freya! Come and greet your auntie properly now, please!”

Mia moved to the counter and
flicked the switch on the yellow kettle just as the two boisterous blond fairies
came barrelling into the room, bundling Cara into matching bear hugs. The third
child, Freya, skulked up the rear with no sign of pink or sparkles and no
indication of an imminent embrace either.

Cara kissed the top of each fairy’s
head, being careful not to dislodge their tiaras. She then extended her hand to
Freya, who eyed her warily before cautiously taking her fingers in a firm
shake.

“Good to see you again, Freya,”
Cara said in a businesslike tone.

The older girl gave a grudging nod.

“Okay, kids, go and play outside
for a bit. There’s a storm on the way and I don’t need you climbing the walls
once you’re holed up in here. Go run off some of that energy while you can. You
can catch up with Auntie Cara later.”

The children obediently tore across
the kitchen and out the back door, slamming the flyscreen behind them.

“Do they run everywhere?”

“Everywhere,” Mia confirmed. “They’re
always full on and flat out, as their father was.”

Cara didn’t miss the slight
emphasis on the past tense that still colored Mia’s conversations about her
former husband.

Mia had married her childhood
sweetheart, Joe, right after high school. They had been a solid loving match.
Joe had been a model husband and provider, and their life together seemed to
make Mia happy. Mia had thrived on mothering their three children and turning
the old house they had bought into a home.

Whenever Cara had watched them,
thought about their cozy existence, she had felt…stifled. There was no way she
could settle for the kind of bland, predictable life her sister had chosen.
Sports all weekend, slow renovations, nine-to-five jobs, jolly street parties
with the neighbors, not to mention scraped knees and winter colds, hard won
promotions, study, and the kind of day-to-day domestics that would have done Cara’s
head in.

Maybe they did Joe’s head in
because one November day three years ago, he packed up and shipped out, leaving
his family behind. There were still odd spaces where his belongings had been—a
blank square on the wall over the lowboy dresser, empty corners where twin
black Bose speakers had stood, and an open space on the end of the kitchen
table where there had always been a jigsaw puzzle in progress.

“Tea still okay? Black? Have you
eaten?” Mia asked.

“Yes. Yes. And no.”

“Will toast do? What do you want on
it?”

Cara’s mouth tilted up in a
spontaneous smile, thinking of Levi. “Er...cheese would be great if you have
it. Want me to make it?”

“You sit and tell me what’s been
happening in your life. It’s been too long,” Mia chided.

Cara drank her tea and ate her
toast and told Mia a little about her recent projects, some funny yarns about
her travels, and about the dramatic theft of her precious motorcycle that
morning.

“You still gallivanting round on
two wheels, Cara? Heavens, you’re twenty-eight years old and still living like
a teenager.” There was no heat in the comment, but Cara knew the disapproval
was real and quashed a familiar prickle of defensiveness.

It was a fair point, Cara
acknowledged. Rootless and solitary, Cara didn’t own property, didn’t possess a
car. She lived her life out of a San Francisco studio apartment she rented
cheaply from a director friend, but it was more a place to store her few
belongings and crash between trips than any kind of home.

Mia, on the other hand, was the
type to put down deep roots. As she told it, when Joe insisted on moving on to
bigger and better career opportunities in a new and more glamorous locale, Mia
had chosen to let him go without her rather than pull up her family.

That decision had raised many
questions for Cara—like, if Mia had loved Joe, wouldn’t she have followed him
to the ends of the earth? And if she hadn’t loved him, why had she married him?

Cara had witnessed the moment Joe
and Mia had first met. Even today the memory seemed fresh, the deep and instant
attraction tangible. So, how could Mia let Joe go? Had their relationship
really curdled so much over the decade they lived together that they wanted to
split? Was it some deep flaw handed down from their mother, something that
compelled the family to destroy their love relationships and familial bonds?

Cara had never had any kind of real
relationship with a man, so she felt in no position to judge her sister, or
even to begin to understand the inner workings of a supposedly lasting and
intimate bond like a marriage.

She sighed. She and her sister were
as different as milk and marbles, she acknowledged, though their similar looks
belied that truth. Mia was a little shorter and a lot curvier than Cara, but
both of them sported the long, thick honey blonde hair their mother had
bequeathed. Their features were alike, but Cara’s face, like her frame, was
honed and angular. Her eyes were bluer. It was almost as though Cara was drawn
sharply where Mia was all dreamy soft focus.

“Yeah, still footloose and fancy
free. What about you, Mia? The garden’s come along beautifully. Last time I was
here, you were only digging the beds. Now, it looks like the botanical gardens.”

Mia’s face lit with pride and she
stood, inviting Cara to follow her into the backyard. Fruit trees laden with
plums and apricots bowed over raised garden beds flourishing with vegetables
and herbs. Flower gardens in full bloom edged the yard and a broad paved patio
yielded to a lush green lawn where Josie and Liam frolicked with their magic
wands.

“I don’t know if it’s something I
should worry about,” Mia confessed, gesturing toward her son. “Josie has always
been a girlie girl. She loves to play fairies and princesses and mermaids. Just
recently, Liam has been joining in. He’s into the dress-up box more than she
is. They both love wearing Mom’s old things, all those outlandish silks and
velvets, the sequins, the glitter and junk jewelery—the trashier the better. It’s
like they’re channelling her gaudiness just to try my patience. It’s one thing
for a little girl...”

“Kids experiment,” Cara assured her
sister, though she had no idea if that was true. “It’s a phase he’ll likely
grow out of.”

Cara thought about adding that if
Liam didn’t leave the love of dress ups behind in his childhood, it wouldn’t
really matter. She knew plenty of men in the film world who didn’t fit the
conventional masculine role. But somehow, she knew her traditional sister would
take no comfort from that sentiment. So, she switched topics, again.

“What about Freya? How’s she doing?”
Cara asked, spotting the young girl furiously weeding one of the garden beds.

If anything, the new subject made Mia’s
brow furrow further. “She’s such serious kid. So somber and stoic. Joe leaving
hit her hard. I think she feels responsible in some way. It sounds crazy, but it’s
almost like she thinks she needs to be the ‘man of the house.’ She mows lawns
and delivers papers to earn money that she never spends. And she’s always
tidying up after the other kids or making dinner so it’s in the oven when I get
home from work, or changing washers in the faucets... I’ve tried to talk to her,
but I just can’t get through.” Mia gave an edgy laugh. “It’s topsy-turvy,
really. Most parents are trying to get their kids to be more responsible. I
just wish Freya would goof off a little. Be a kid. You know?”

“I hear you,” Cara said. “Want me
to talk to her? Give her some words of wisdom from the crazy, irresponsible
branch of the family tree?”

“I never said you were crazy or—”

“It’s okay, Mia. I was kidding.”
Kind of.

“Oh. Of course. A chat with Freya sure
can’t hurt.”

“And what about Joe?” Cara asked,
her concern overriding her sense of boundaries. “Is he in touch? Paying child
support?”

“Like clockwork. I’m putting it
aside for the kids’ educations. Freya, at least, is college material.”

“It must be hard for you without
him.”

“Seems to be a family curse.” Mia
shrugged. “Grandpa Hank left Grandma Beth when the kids were small. Dad
disappeared when we were babies. I shouldn’t be surprised that Joe left me. It
was like history repeating. At least he didn’t go and get himself shot to death
by Middle Eastern thugs like Dad.”

It physically hurt her to see her
sister so despondent and she could only imagine Joe’s pain in living without
the woman he clearly loved. When two souls were so obviously meant to be together,
it was excruciating to watch them tear their love to shreds.

“I’m so sorry, Mia.”

“Forget it,” Mia said brusquely. “I’m
not inclined to wallow. He’s gone. There’s nothing I can do about it except get
on with my life and do my best for the kids. Speaking of, why don’t you go and
have a word to Freya, if you’re still willing. She’s heading for her hidey
hole, the tree house. I’ll go and fix some lunch.”

****

As Cara climbed the creaky rope
ladder to the tree house in the old elm, she could hear Freya moving about and
papers being shuffled. She rapped lightly on the trapdoor. For a moment, the
rustling sounds stopped dead. Cara waited. Eventually, the trapdoor swung open
and a pair of serious gray eyes stared down at her.

“May I come in?”

The girl paused, thought about the
request, then finally nodded a wary acquiescence.

Glad she was not overweight, Cara
squeezed through the tight opening and into the tiny but immaculate space.

“You keep the place pretty clean.
My tree house used to be a dog’s breakfast—full of cobwebs and junk food
wrappers and comics.”

Freya didn’t respond. She just
watched Cara cautiously.

Cara tried again. “I notice you’re
working on something there.” She nodded at a bundle of papers beside the little
girl. “Something interesting?”

Freya nodded but didn’t elaborate.

Finally, Cara eased into a more
comfortable position with her back against the wall and relaxed. If Freya didn’t
want to talk right now, that was okay. She would just share the tree house
space for a while and let the girl get used to her presence. There would be
other opportunities to talk.