The Thrill of It All (19 page)

Finally the damn machine stopped belching coins. It took longer for it to cease its caterwauling. The police lights continued to revolve with bloody regularity as he glanced over to see who’d come to his aid with plastic cups a second, then a third time.

“Peter,” he said. Maybe his good fortune—which had been running like a Derby winner all evening—had finally run out. “I’m not looking for company.”

The other man’s gaze flicked to the overflowing cups, then back to his face. “What
are
you looking for? A small fortune?”

“Ash said the slots helped her forget,” he muttered. “I thought I’d give it a try.”

Peter’s eyebrows rose. “Forget? That’s not like you. You’re more of the stewer type.”

“Cut the psych shit, or get the hell away from me.” Magee turned back to the machine. He fed it a dollar coin. The stupid thing started shrieking at him again. Tokens gushed.

Peter handed him another cup. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

His back teeth made an unpleasant grinding noise in his head. “What do you want?”

“For one thing, to see if you’re okay. Someone came into the bar and said they’d spotted your Jeep in the Easy Money parking lot. Seemed like a strange choice.”

“On the day a man’s fiancée dumped him?” The slot machine died down, giving his sarcasm the quiet it deserved. “Doesn’t seem that strange to me.”

“Is that what’s bothering you, Magee? That Ashley and I are together?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He hesitated. “All of the above.”

“I love Ash and Anna P.,” Peter said.

He knew that. And they loved him back. Leaving him the only unhappy one. “Simon would want them taken care of.”

Peter let a beat go by, then sighed. “Just so you know, I’m not going to take care of them like Simon would. I’m not Simon.”

You’re working so damn hard to be
someone
you’re not
.

“Is that what you thought I was doing, Pete? Trying to be Simon?” Felicity had said so.

“I think you’ve been trying to figure things out.”

Magee turned to look at the other man. “Why the hell did we do it?” He’d resisted analyzing his actions all his life, but the truth seemed imperative now. “Why did we take those risks? How long did we think our luck could hold?”

“Some of the why was because it was fun. And then some of the why was those demons, pal. I was showing my father I could accomplish something that took more balls than passing a class in anatomy.”

There was a weight on Magee’s chest that made it hard for him to breathe. He hadn’t climbed to prove anything to anyone!

Or had he? Magee remembered telling Felicity about walking that two-by-four.

“I did it to give fear a face,” he heard himself say. To take that amorphous disquiet hanging over his family and turn it into a rock wall, a new route, a summit he could physically tackle. He’d told Felicity his childhood had been suburban-sitcom perfect, but he saw now how the sudden knowledge that it could be taken away—fathers died! mothers feared! brothers threatened!—had hit him hard.

Air whooshed out his lungs. “Are we head cases?”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t miss it at all?”

“I hate the fucking snow.” Magee’s answer was automatic—and the truth. “I don’t want big mountains anymore. I’ve been through epics, accidents, and sufferfests on them and now they’ve lost their allure. But…but I miss the rock.”

He realized that was true, too.

“You know anything about adaptive rock climbing?”

Magee raised a brow. “You’re kidding. You want to go back up?”

Peter nodded. “With the right partner.”

“You want to risk again?”

“I want to
dare
. There’s a difference I don’t think I can explain.” Peter hesitated. “What do you think?”

Magee studied his old friend. He knew what was being asked. A paraplegic climber needed a strong partner, and a patient one. Someone who enjoyed the chess problem of rock climbing as much—more than—the athletic challenge.

“I don’t know if I can trust my judgment anymore—or if you should. And you gotta know that my luck ran out on that last climb with Simon.”

Peter slanted a look at the overflowing cups of tokens. “You sure about that?”

Magee stilled, looking down on the piles of tokens. He hadn’t lost his luck after all? “But…” He shook his head, trying to fit this new piece into the puzzle. Was life truly that random? Could it be so purposeless, so meaningless, that the reason he was alive and Simon wasn’t was something so trivial as chance?

A familiar figure hovering just out of earshot
caught his attention. Felicity’s Hardy Boy, Drew, looking like something a debutante had dragged in from a charity luncheon. Linen slacks, light blue dress shirt open at the throat, a navy blue blazer. All that was missing was the yachtsman’s cap or a polo mallet.

“What’s he want?” he ground out.

Peter glanced over his shoulder, looked back at Magee. “You. He came to the bar and said he wanted to talk to you.”

As Pretty Boy approached, Peter wheeled away. Magee set the cups of tokens aside and folded his arms over his chest.

“Good to see you again, Magee,” Drew said, his palm outstretched. “I have a favor to ask.”

Magee shook hands, then, glancing down as he shoved his fingers in the pockets of his faded jeans, he noted the slogan on his T-shirt. “I’m in a pisser of a mood, and frankly, Drew, I think my shirt says it all.”

The other man’s gaze dropped.

I can only please one person a day, today isn’t your day and tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

Amusement glinted in Drew’s pale blue eyes as he raised a hand to smooth back the strands of his perfectly smooth hair. Magee stared him down, refusing to shake back the ragged stuff that was hanging over his own forehead.

“Still…I was hoping you could do something for Felicity.”

Magee set his jaw. He
was
doing that, damn it. She wanted to walk out of his life and he was letting her.
That he’d suggested it be any different had been his surprise talking—shock—because his original plan for the future had been derailed. He’d always known what he and Felicity had was of the here-today-gone-tomorrow variety.

He’d counted on it.

Drew’s eyebrows rose. “Is that a no?”

Magee shrugged. “Depends on what it is.” So he was curious. Sue him.

“She told me about that tightroping you did at the rock gym.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s…impressive. I thought we might pump up the presentation of the Mountain Logic merchandise with a demonstration.”

Magee frowned. “You want to tape some folks doing it at the rock gym? It’s fine with me, though you’ll have to check with my other partners, too.”

“I want a live demonstration. At the amphitheater. With you on the rope.”

“Is this Felicity’s idea?” She hadn’t appeared to like him doing it all that much the first time.

“This is between you and me.”

Ah
. “For Felicity…or should I say, Felicity’s
show
.”

Drew smiled, displaying a piano’s worth of dazzling dental work. “You understand.”

Oh, he did. He hadn’t been challenged to a pissing contest in years, but nothing about them ever changed. This was between him and Drew and which one of them would look like a real man—the right
man—in Felicity’s eyes at the end of the day, the boulderer or the businessman.

He could tell Drew who she’d pick. Magee could also tell him he didn’t want her—she was too shallow, too uptight, too ready to leave him and Half Palm behind.

But he had nothing else on his agenda, nothing else mapped out for the rest of his whole damn, meaningless life.

And he didn’t want Drew to best him, either. “You’re on.”

It was a purpose—though not a noble one. And maybe it was nuts, but at least it was going to get him through another day.

S
itting across from Aunt Vi, Felicity drank her last cup of coffee in the old kitchen. She’d slept her last eight hours in her old bed the night before. It had been easy enough to dodge Drew—he’d actually disappeared on
her
—so she hadn’t been forced to stay in the same Palm Springs hotel with the rest of the GetTV group.

If Drew asked about that, she’d give him some sort of excuse, but the day would be so busy she suspected it would slip right by him.

Though they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Ben yet, Felicity had to believe he’d turn up any minute. She did believe it. In an odd way she trusted Mr. Caruso. By the end of today, her life would be back to normal. The airing of her latest
All That’s Cool Afternoon
would be a smooth-running success. She would escape Half Palm and the Charms for the second and final time in her life. She would make it through the day and back to L.A. without ever seeing Michael Magee again.

Aunt Vi got up to top off their mugs, then settled back into her chair, the movement setting the rickety table to wobbling. Felicity steadied it without thinking, then frowned. “Aunt Vi, you should buy yourself a new table.” Not to mention a new housecoat and slippers. As a matter of fact, Felicity had sent her a beautiful set last Christmas.

“I’m comfortable with the things I have,” Aunt Vi replied with a vague wave of her hand.

“But I send you money every month.” And Felicity had, from the day her GetTV salary had covered more than just her necessities. Suspicions growing, her frown deepened. Those no-good Charms! “Aunt Vi, what have you done with it?”

She sipped at her coffee. “I’m saving it for a rainy day.”

Felicity sighed. At least some other Charm hadn’t bilked it out of her. But the table had two, if not three teetery legs! “Isn’t today rainy?” she asked, lifting her mug and letting the table wiggle away.

“No.” Aunt Vi glanced out the kitchen window. “Today is beautiful, and will be even more so as soon as my Ben is back.”

What could Felicity say to that?

“Besides,” Aunt Vi continued, “I’m saving it for you. I don’t need anything more than I have.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped. That money was intended for her aunt! It was supposed to make Aunt Vi’s life more comfortable…and Felicity more comfortable with absenting herself from it.

Blood money,
a little voice inside her said.
Ransom.

She jumped up to give Aunt Vi a brisk, brief hug. “I’ve got to get going. My car’s all packed, and…” The sting of tears was beyond silly. “Don’t forget to call that number I gave you the
instant
Ben walks through the door. GetTV’s using one of the ranger station’s landlines and my crew will get word to me.”

“Will you have a chance to stop by Uncle Billy’s shop on your way out of town?”

“No.” She planned on risking speeding tickets. “Is that a problem?”

“He has your statue.”

“My statue?” Her Joanie. Her mangled, busted Joanie. Why would Uncle Billy have it? But she didn’t want the thing. She never wanted to see it again, because it reminded her of things she never wanted to think about again.

Of him.

“Maybe I’ll win another one next year.” She would, she decided, definitely. Another year of hard work, of buffing her image and polishing her performance, and she’d possess that untarnishable perfection she reached for.

Aunt Vi pulled her down for another hug. “You know we love you. Don’t be a stranger.”

Felicity left the room without saying that’s exactly what she hoped to become to them.

A live show was chaos. A live show on-location was Chaos. A live show, on-location, with an audience was Utter Chaos.

Felicity would usually have fed off the energy of it,
however. But today, the manic scurrying of the crew and the excited buzz of the crowd the audience manager had found at Palm Desert’s famous El Paseo shopping district and then bused in to fill the seats in the nature amphitheater only sucked away her spirit.

So she hid in her dressing trailer, foregoing her usual last check of the set. As for the audience—she didn’t feel up to facing anyone, including the eye of the camera. Her hands trembled with stage fright as she shuffled through her note cards. And she nearly leaped out of her skin when there was a knock on her door—but it was only her assistant. Not with a message from Aunt Vi, but with the notice that it was near time for Felicity to get mic’d up.

Where was Ben?

The question screamed in her mind and was answered by every mob movie and episode of
The Sopranos
she’d ever managed not to click away from fast enough. Violent programming sent her channel-surfing, but even she could imagine a dozen gruesome endings for her goofy, good-hearted young cousin. Yet she had Mr. Caruso’s word.

The crime boss of the California Mafia.

Her assistant knocked again, giving Felicity no more time to wallow in anxiety. She was hardly aware of threading through the cables, satellite dishes, and other GetTV trailers to arrive at the amphitheater’s side entrance, but she relished the few more minutes of semi-privacy as a technician wired her with the microphone and also the IFB. The Interruptive Feedback Button fit snugly in her ear and gave Drew, as pro
ducer, an open line to communicate instructions during the show.

As the audience manager warmed up the crowd for her introduction, she whispered to her assistant, “I’m expecting a message on the landline. If it comes through, have Drew pass it on, all right?”

Until she knew that Ben was home, she wouldn’t present a single Caruso product. It might mess with the schedule Drew had handed her the day before, but once she was on-air, no one could stop her from running the show as she liked.

Then she heard her name announced, and, waving and smiling, she high-heeled it across the amphitheater’s stage to her stool and table full of products. During the trip across the short distance she absorbed as much as she could.

The set pretty much as it had looked the day before. Pacifying.

Large, enthusiastic audience. Gratifying.

And in that audience, standing out like crows in a wheat field, a sprinkling of hard-jawed, olive-skinned men in severely cut suits.

Terrifying.

Apparently Mr. Caruso was determined she keep to her end of their deal as well.

She collapsed onto her stool, grateful her knees no longer needed to hold her up.

“What’s the matter?” Drew said in her ear. “You look like a rabbit. Lick your lips, then smile some more.”

Felicity did a quick check of her appearance in the
three separate monitors set up in front of her, off-camera. One showed the full-frontal shot that was beamed into the viewers’ living rooms, while the others showed her left and right profiles. Drew was right, and rabbit impersonations weren’t going to win her another Joanie.

With a little bounce, she resettled herself on the stool, straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders. Then, touching her ear, she grinned at the audience. “My producer just told me I resemble a rabbit. Not a good thing in these wide-open spaces, wouldn’t you agree?” She pretended to scan the bright blue sky above her for predators, noting but dismissing another cable that was strung between two of the one-hundred-foot-high boulders behind her that served as the walls of the amphitheater.

Most of the audience laughed.

Ignoring the serious Suits who didn’t, she launched into a welcome for the live audience and a brief explanation to the at-home viewers about their location. “We’ve taken you to the ski slopes of Tahoe, the pier in Santa Barbara, and that memorable roller-coaster at the Magic Mountain theme park. But today we’re at one of the most unique—and starkly beautiful—spots in Southern California.”

Her eyes scanned the scenery around them. “I wish I could tell those of you at home how blue the sky is here. We’re sitting snug, cupped in a bowl of mountains. The air is so clean and dry that the smallest detail is cleanly etched against the stark blue, almost like a movie backdrop. As a matter of fact, this area
served as the location for many movies over the years, standing in for everything from the Sahara to a lush tropical isle. I think the audience with me today will agree that basking in the seventy-something-degree sunshine while not far away rises the snow-covered San Jacinto Mountain makes a special way to start the New Year.”

The audience clapped, except for the goons.

“Get a move on,” Drew directed in her ear.

It wasn’t the message she was waiting on. So she smiled again, stalling. “They say you have to see the desert in spring to appreciate it, but winter is pretty wonderful as well. Now, bring me back here when it’s a hundred and eleven in August, and you may hear an entirely different story.”

The audience laughed and clapped again.

“In case you’ve forgotten”—Drew’s voice was as dry as the air—“we’re here to sell.”

She darted a quick glance to the rear of the audience, where she could see him standing, wearing his headset and accompanying mic. He looked his usual put-together self, but she sensed his impatience.

“Read the prompter, Felicity. The revised schedule’s on there. Start with the massage pens.”

Revised
schedule? Her gaze darted to the prompter, but the first product was the same from yesterday’s schedule. With a tiny nod, she took a breath and picked up one of the vibrating pens that came with a diagram of stress points on the body. Her mouth opened and she launched into her sales pitch on automatic, her delivery smooth and her enthusiasm real-
enough-sounding, even as her mind focused on the problem at hand. The Caruso products were to follow and there was still no word that Ben was safely home.

Her gaze found each of the mobsters in the audience. Sweat was glistening on their faces—she could have told them a business suit was a bad fashion choice for the desert outdoors—and a few of them were shifting in their chairs, apparently bored.

One shot her an evil look.

Her speech hitched a second, along with her breath. If she’d doubted their presence was meant to intimidate her, now she knew she was wrong. Oh, what to do?

If she introduced the products, then she lost her leverage for getting Ben back.

If she didn’t introduce them, it would be one public, potentially damaging career move. Drew would think she’d lost her touch and her marbles. After all, she was the one who had waxed poetic on the sauces to begin with.

The sales period wound down for the massage pens and she was still unsure. She tried stalling with a few more comments about the desert until Drew growled in her ear again. “Get on with it, Felicity. Read the prompter.”

She didn’t need to read the prompter to know what was next. As she half-turned toward the table beside her, her eye caught a figure looming in the same side entrance to the amphitheater that she’d used. Her heart stuttered in her chest and her body froze.

Magee. Michael Magee, the man she’d planned on
never, ever seeing again. Out of his usual ratty jeans and rude T-shirts and in a pair of shorts and shirt that she recognized as Mountain Logic climbing gear. There was a climber’s harness buckled around his hips and flexible rock shoes on his feet. He watched her with his cool, gunslinger’s stare.

And underneath that dark, judgmental gaze, she was supposed to sell the Caruso products, and sell out her family.

“The prompter,” Drew growled again in her ear.

Her eyes still locked on Magee, she blindly reached for one of the bottles of sauce. There was a high-pitched whine in her ears, but she didn’t think it was coming through the IFB. It was her nerves, every last one of them plucked and humming, thanks to Magee’s presence.

Trying to catch her breath, she turned to the audience. The Caruso cohorts were all sitting up straight. The one who’d given her the evil look had lowered his brows and folded his arms over his chest in a clear posture of intimidation.

But Felicity refused to let herself be rattled. Holding the product toward the audience, she smiled and spoke directly to the Evil Suit. “Here’s something new I’ve just uncovered—a hidden treasure—from a local family who keeps several secrets.”

“Felicity,” Drew cut in. “Not that, read the prompter.”

She ignored him, focused as she was on Evil Suit, who sat up even straighter as what she said appeared to sink in. He half-rose out of his seat.

“As a matter of fact…” she continued.

“The prompter,” Drew ordered again.

She ignored him again. “…I’ve known this family for years, but until just recently I didn’t realize that—”

A hand swiped the bottle of sauce away from her. Felicity looked around, startled. Magee! Michael Magee, on her set, with her sauce, trying to stop her from doing what
she
wanted!

He leaned down to burn her ears with an angry whisper. “I’m going to be mad as hell if I was saved for this. If I find out my sole purpose in life is to keep you from pulling stupid stunts.”

Stupid stunts! Felicity heard that echo and re-echo even as she finally paid attention to Drew’s commands and glanced at the teleprompter. He
had
revised the schedule. The Mountain Logic clothing was up next, not the Caruso sauces. She made a quick apology to the audience—“This is why they call it live TV”—even as Drew spoke again in her ear.

“Your friend will demonstrate some climbing moves while you give the pitch.”

Later on she’d figure out whose idea this was and why. For now, she dragged her professionalism back around her and flashed another smile for the audience. “World-famous climber Michael Magee is here to show us what the products from Mountain Logic are designed to do. While you might not aspire to extreme sports, you’ll feel like an extreme athlete in this comfortable yet hip line of sportswear.”

On one of the monitors, she saw the camera zoom
back to catch Magee leaping onto a sheer rock face behind her. He landed like a fly, his fingers wedging into an unseen fissure, his rock shoes balancing on an invisible ledge.

She had to keep her eyes on the audience after that. Not that she was afraid for Magee—Lord knows it was clear the man was made to crawl up perpendicular surfaces—but because watching him move with such power and grace made her remember too much about how they’d moved together.