The Thrill of It All (4 page)

She’d left him behind without a backward glance, let alone a goodbye kiss. It was as if they were complete strangers.

Which, of course, they were.

Thank God.

He’d done his part to keep it that way, refusing to exchange insurance information. Repairing the Jeep’s bashed headlights was on him, an object lesson in what could happen when he deviated from the straight, narrow, safe course he’d assigned himself.

Last night he should have been making a marriage proposal instead of making out with a feathery-haired woman whom fate had pushed into his path. Shaking his head, he climbed into the driver’s seat of his Jeep. She had her regrets, too, he knew, because with the tow truck driver on scene she’d kept her head down and her voice hushed.

Only twice had he seen any animation in her. First, when she’d babbled some cock-and-bull story ex
plaining her nakedness—“a previously undetected dermatological, allergic reaction to white chiffon evening gowns”—that had him choking back laughter and the tow truck operator scratching his head. Then, after the driver explained he’d come out their way upon receiving a tip from Billy’s Tire Repair about a stranded car, she’d released one of those tarantula screeches of hers and stomped off, muttering darkly.

He should pity Lissie’s next victim, Magee thought as he started the Jeep’s engine. But as he turned toward Half Palm, he could only feel relief that she was moving on to wreak havoc in some other man’s life.

Eyes closed, Felicity rubbed her cheek against something furry. “Michael,” she whispered. It must be his warm chest pillowing her head. “Michael.” She smiled drowsily.

He started to purr.

Felicity’s head shot up and her eyes popped open. “Ouchouchouch,” she moaned, squinting against the bright sunlight that was sending a shaft of pain through her head. The purr-er wasn’t Michael. She wasn’t in the back of his car. She was at Aunt Vi’s, in the bedroom she used to share with her cousin Ashley. And sharing the bed with Felicity were four tattered-looking cats. They all blinked back at her.

She flopped back onto the pillow, careful to miss the curled bodies of a matching pair of ugly tabbies. Tugging the worn quilt up around her ears, she decided to escape back into sleep.

Tomorrow, next week, next year—yes, next year—
would be soon enough to tackle the problems awaiting her.

A light knock sounded on the bedroom door just as small paws minced up her chest.

Felicity opened one eye. Met the moss-green ones of a short-haired black cat with ears bigger than its head. It found the level ground between her breasts and sat, then lifted a foot and began cleaning bubble-gum-pink pads.

The knock sounded again, followed by Aunt Vi’s voice. “Felicity? Are you awake?”

The cat stopped licking and looked at her. Felicity gave a small shake of her head, then placed her forefinger over her lips. Then another cat, carrying something in its mouth, romped up, displacing its black-haired buddy.

“Felicity?” At Aunt Vi’s renewed knock, the romper dropped the something in its mouth, right below Felicity’s chin.

Wet with cat spit, the thing was huge, black, and hairy. Certain it moved, she let out a shriek and leaped from the bed, scattering the cats that proceeded to escape through the opening bedroom door. Aunt Vi peeked in.

“You
are
awake! Did you have a good rest?” Aunt Vi was smiling. She made no comment about the fact that Felicity was on top of the unslept-in twin bed and hopping from one foot to the other.

“A great rest,” Felicity replied. “Until that—that—” She pointed a finger at the wet, black, spidery thing lying on her rumpled coverlet.

“That’s exactly what I called you about.” Aunt Vi crossed to the bed and grabbed up the disgusting thing. Then she held it under Felicity’s nose, even as she cringed away. “
This
is why we need your help.”

Felicity twisted her hands in the old flannel nightgown she was wearing and looked at the juice-can curlers rolled into Aunt Vi’s grayish brown hair instead of what she was holding. “Auntie, you know I can’t help with tarantulas.”

“Tarantulas! No, no, this is why I’m worried about Benjamin. He must be in trouble. Why else would he think he might need a disguise?”

Swallowing, Felicity peered at what was in her aunt’s palm. Okay, it definitely wasn’t alive. “But what the heck is it?” she asked.

“A mustache. He borrowed it from Uncle Leo a couple of weeks ago. Benjamin had been missing for several days before Leo told me about it—and that’s when I called you. What do you think we should do?”

With the tarantula threat on hold, Felicity dropped onto the mattress and put her head in her hands. What should “we” do? Her purpose for coming to Half Palm was to extricate herself from the Charms and their attendant problems.

But she needed to get her bearings first. “Aunt Vi, I…I need a quick shower, and then we’ll, uh, talk, okay?”

Aunt Vi patted her shoulder, as the four original cats and two others leaped onto the mattress to arrange themselves around Felicity. “I’ll have coffee
ready. Ashley and her boyfriend are coming for lunch in half an hour.”

Looking up, Felicity stroked the tabby that had settled onto her lap. “Ashley’s seeing someone?”

“It’s been eighteen months since Simon was killed.”

“That long?” Felicity suppressed a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t made it to Ashley’s husband’s memorial service, or even talked to her cousin except for a single sympathy phone call.

It wasn’t as if they had anything in common, after all.

“She’s living with the man,” Aunt Vi said. “I think you’ll like him.”

Twenty minutes later, Felicity entered Aunt Vi’s Depression-era kitchen. Looking around at the worn tile, the chipped sink, the cheap cabinets, she wasn’t surprised to find nothing had changed.

But
she
had! That’s what the visit to Half Palm was for, to show the Charms just how unlike them she’d become. Now she only had to figure out some quick, painless way to make it clear she was breaking her ties with them.

Aunt Vi turned away from the counter to hand Felicity a thick mug filled with coffee. “Oh, good. You found some of your old things.”

Felicity tugged on the hem of the tight T-shirt she wore, then sank onto the plastic cushion of one of the metal-legged chairs drawn up to the formica table. To ease the equally snug fit of her pair of worn jeans, she wiggled.

“They were all there. Right where I left them when I went off to USC.” The whole house was exactly as she’d left it, from the boarded-up second story windows to the neglected pots of cactus lining the cracked-cement front walkway.

In the case of her clothes, she supposed she should be glad. While she’d planned to arrive in Half Palm dressed in her awards-ceremony finery and driving her beautiful new convertible—undeniable proof she didn’t belong in this place with them—instead she’d been towed into town wearing nothing more than a survival blanket.

Thank God it had barely been daylight.

Even though brewed in a chrome percolator that must be as old as she was, the coffee tasted good. Felicity gulped it down with her eyes closed, aware that Aunt Vi was hovering in a way that spelled out more trouble.

With half the cup downed, she made herself look up.

Aunt Vi smiled. “Good news!” From behind her back, she whipped out something that she then set in front of Felicity.

Her mug at her lips, she froze. Her Joanie.

Aunt Vi came around behind Felicity as if to admire the statuette from her same angle. “Is this what you told me about when you arrived this morning? Is this your award?”

Felicity found she couldn’t speak. It couldn’t be! Her Joanie, her perfect, gleaming prize, was now nicked, dented, and scratched.

“Your Uncle Billy brought it over,” Aunt Vi contin
ued. “He thought you might want it with you since your car won’t be ready for…uh, for a bit.”

Felicity swung around to look at her aunt. It was better than looking at the scraped and bent disaster that had once been her golden Joanie. “What do you mean, my car won’t be ready for a bit? I told Uncle Billy to get it to the point where I can drive it back to L.A. I’ll have the body work done there.”

Aunt Vi shrugged, moving across the kitchen with Felicity’s cup to pour her more coffee. “I don’t know. Something about a drive shaft? He said it isn’t safe to tow it any farther.”

Felicity could feel her blood pressure rising. It was a burning sensation that rose from somewhere around her stomach to wrap strangling hands around her neck. “Aunt Vi, do you know why my car is at Uncle Billy’s in the first place? Did you know he’s up to his old tricks?”

Aunt Vi fluttered her hands. The Charm women all fluttered when directly asked about nefarious practices. Add to that the fact that Aunt Vi was born a ditherer, then straight talk and simple action were outside her MO. “I don’t know anything.”

Felicity sighed, because
that
was the first thing Charms were taught. If anyone asked, deny, deny, deny. “He’s salting the outlying roads with nails, Aunt Vi. Remember that little scam of his? The one he used some years ago to pick up business at the tire repair shop? I thought he’d sworn to the sheriff he wouldn’t do it again.”

“We have a new sheriff now. Sheriff Mendoza re
tired.” Aunt Vi set the refilled mug beside the mangled Joanie. “He’s living near his daughters in Tempe. I miss that man.” She beamed a fond smile.

Felicity rolled her eyes. The only thing a Charm would miss about an authority figure was the opportunity to avoid one.

“Aunt Vi, I could have been hurt,” she said, shoving that out-of-body memory from her head. “And not just me, there was also M—”

But there was no reason to say the name aloud, not when she was halfway to convincing herself the whole Michael part of the night before had been some weird after-accident dream as well. Felicity would
never
have begged a stranger for sex!

It simply
had not
happened. Her lingering headache was easily explained by her head hitting the car window. The minor muscle pain an aftereffect of the collision, too. Neither had anything to do with shots of tequila or lovemaking on metal floorboards. Bottom line, since she’d never see the man again, as far as she was concerned, Michael did not exist.

The kitchen’s back door squealed as it swung open. Felicity looked up and found herself leaping to her feet to rush the newcomer. Without thinking, she reached out with both arms. Squeezed.

Then, embarrassed by her enthusiasm, she released her cousin Ashley, stepping back from the taller woman who’d been like a sister to Felicity until she’d left Half Palm. “I…I’m sorry, Ash. I don’t know what got into me.” Several cats had come through the
back door, too, so Felicity slid past the awkward moment by picking one up. “How, uh, are you?”

“It’s good to see you.” Ashley smiled, then tilted her head. “I like Felicity’s short hair, don’t you, Mom?”

Like everything else in Half Palm, Ashley hadn’t changed a whit. She was still tall and slender, with a long fall of blond hair in a precise center part. Growing up, Felicity had wanted Ashley’s height and Ashley’s hair and…well, just about everything that Ashley had.

And Ashley had something very, very special that Felicity had only seen pictures of. “Where is she, Ash? Where’s your baby?”

“Not a baby anymore.” Ashley’s smile was sadder now. “Anna P’s turning four.”

“So that’s what you call her.” Felicity had sent an engraved Tiffany cereal bowl and cup at the baby’s birth, engraved “Annapurna.” Her daddy had named her for the first mountain he’d climbed after meeting Ashley. “Where’s your Anna P.?”

“Magee’s bringing her,” Ashley answered. “My housemate. We had to come in separate cars because I’m going to work straight from here. They’ll be here any minute.”

“Well,” Aunt Vi said. “We’d better get lunch out, then.”

Felicity followed her aunt’s direction, moving into the living area to unfold the metal TV trays and then set them with mismatched silverware and plastic-ware plates. At one point she found herself in the
kitchen alone with Ashley, and though it wasn’t part of her cut-herself-free-of-the-family agenda, Felicity couldn’t help but ask.

“‘Housemate,’ Ash? Aunt Vi calls this Magee your boyfriend.”

Her cousin didn’t meet her eyes. She lifted a hand, let it drop. Like her mother, Ashley was a natural ditherer, but this felt more like reticence, not helplessness. “He was Simon’s best friend,” she finally said quietly. “And he’s been taking good care of Anna P. and me. We’ve needed that.”

Thinking of Simon, Felicity quieted, too. She’d met him once. Right before their daughter was born, he and Ashley had visited L.A. and Felicity had taken them to dinner at Fidel’s in Manhattan Beach. With his Australian accent, his golden hair, his brawny arms, Simon had been larger-than-life. Felicity had expected the evening to be awkward and small talk hard to come by, but they’d ended up closing down the restaurant thanks to his outrageous, funny stories of climbs and other climbers.

The memory made her smile. “I liked Simon,” she said softly.

“You’ll like Magee, too,” Ashley replied.

“Of course she’ll like Magee,” a male voice said from behind Felicity, accompanied by a round of little girl giggles.

That voice!
Felicity froze.
It couldn’t be….

“Tell her, Anna P.,” he went on. “Tell her everybody likes Michael Magee.”

C
rossing his arms over his chest, Magee leaned against the kitchen wall and looked toward the woman washing the lunch dishes. “Need a hand?”

She jumped, splashing water and soap suds on the apron she wore over skinny Levi’s and a striped T-shirt. Turning, she hissed at him, “How
could
this have happened?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You eat, the dishes get dir—”

“You are so not funny.” She darted a nervous glance past him to the living room beyond.

“Your aunt and Ashley are outside with Anna P.,” he said. “We’re all alone.”

Mimicking his pose, she crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him, even as a flush crawled up her neck. Looking at all that embarrassed color only improved his mood. An hour before, he’d nearly dropped Anna P. when he’d walked into the kitchen and got his first glimpse of Ashley’s cousin, but the instant horror written all over “Lissie’s” face had eased his.

Her obvious discomfort told him his task was going to be easy. In order to do what he planned—what he owed Simon—and take care of Ashley and Anna P. for the rest of his life, he had to ensure that the events of the night before would stay out in the dark desert and never come back to haunt him.

But the woman across the room got in the first word.

“I think I should tell you…” she started, and the blush on her face deepened, turning her fair skin a clear pink. Even her full lips took on more color. “I want you to know…”

It was clear she wanted to leave last night behind, too, so there was no point in prolonging her misery or postponing his move. He stepped into the awkward silence she couldn’t seem to fill. “I’m not sure I caught your name when we were introduced before lunch. Felicity, is it? And I’m Michael Magee, though most people just call me Magee.”

She blinked. The eyes that had been dark pools the night before, he realized, were really a deep, bottomless blue. Thanks to a nothing nose, small chin, and short, feathery haircut, the big eyes and pouty mouth dominated her face.

“Magee?” she said, as if trying the word out.

He nodded. “Magee.”

Her gaze stayed trained on his. “And I’m—”

“Felicity,” he supplied. “It’s good to meet you.”

Then she nodded, too, and just like that, he thought with relief, they’d agreed to pretend the night before had never happened. It was the easiest way to play it.

“Well, then, it’s good to meet you, too.” She strode forward and held out her hand.

Without thinking, he shook it. Damn him.

Because for moments more than was necessary, her fingers clung to his. He gripped back, only able to hold on as an unexpected, electric jolt of lust buzzed through his body. Their eyes met, and Magee took a screamer of a fall into that bottomless blue.

“Magee? Felicity?” Ashley’s voice floated toward the kitchen.

He jerked his hand back, his elbow slamming into the kitchen wall. “Shit!” The shooting pain at least gave him something else to think about as Ashley entered the kitchen, a drowsy Anna P. half-asleep in her arms.

For her part, Felicity had retreated to the sink and shoved her hand into the sudsy water as if trying to wash away his touch. “Did you need something, Ash?”

“I was hoping you two were getting to know each other better,” she said, smoothing her hand down the little girl’s back.

“We were just getting to that getting-to-know-each-other part, weren’t we, Magee?” Her expression unreadable, Felicity turned toward him. “I understand you were a friend of Simon’s. Are you a climber, too?”

“I was.” At the thought, an ache in his ankles joined the throb at his elbow, but he managed to match her polite tone. “Simon and I were climbing partners the last several years.”

“Ah.” Knowledge sparked in her eyes and her voice slowed with speculation. “I had a long dinner with Simon once. I think he told me about you.”

Magee stifled a groan. Simon had been famous for telling the best stories about other people at their worst. “But now you,” he interjected hastily. “What is it you do? Something in television, right?”

“GetTV. I host a couple of their bestselling shows. You’ve probably heard of my
All That’s Cool Afternoons?”
When he didn’t respond, her eyes widened. “
Girl Stuff Saturday Mornings?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know GetTV.”

He might as well have slapped her. “Everyone knows GetTV! Salon.com calls it a cross between e Bay and MTV’s
Cribs. Time
magazine pronounced it the hottest thing in reality TV.”

“Sorry, I don’t know it. What is it again?”

“An electronic retailer.” When he continued to just look at her, she made an impatient gesture. “You know, so people can shop while watching television. You do know what shopping is?”

Her snotty tone bugged him. What was her problem? Was she offended by some story Simon had told on him, or just pissed at that heat sizzling between them? That wasn’t his fault—that was an equation as simple as XX + XY. “Listen…”

“You know men, Felicity,” Ashley said, jumping in. “They’re not the most enthusiastic shoppers.”

“Oh, really?” Her cousin’s lip curled. “Because in my experience some of them have been
overly
enthu
siastic. No matter what the product is, they just have to have it.”

Oh, yeah, Felicity was trying to blame him, all right.

“Ashley, I don’t think your cousin understands men at all,” Magee said through his teeth. “It’s true that under certain circumstances a man might not refuse a free sample—who would, especially when the salesgirl insists by pressing it into his hand!—but that doesn’t mean he wants a second taste, let alone the whole enchilada. It isn’t that good.”

“Salesgirl insists! Are you claiming you were
forced
to…to…”

“Is GetTV selling a line of Mexican food now?” Ashley asked, her eyebrows drawing together.

Felicity answered her cousin, but her gaze was narrowed at him. “As a matter of fact, we’ve had great success with our food products. We’ve never had to beg anyone to take a sample because everything at GetTV is top-quality.”

“Is that so?” Something new on a nearby countertop snagged his attention and he reached over to snatch up a mangled piece of statuary. “Well, if you bought this from GetTV, dollface, you got taken.”

In a flash, she rushed over to grab it from him. “That’s a Joanie.
My
Joanie. I won it last night for being voted Host of the Year.”

“Sorry, but it looks like the booby prize to me. Couldn’t they have polished it up for you?”

She glared at him. “It
was
polished. It was
perfect.
But then it was tossed around in the trunk during the accident.”

“Accident?”

At Ashley’s voice, both Magee and Felicity whipped their heads toward her. Magee had almost forgotten the other woman was in the room.

“Mom didn’t tell me you were in an accident,” Ashley said.

“Oh. Uh. Uh, it’s really not worth mentioning,” Felicity stuttered out. “No harm done, except I’m stuck here until Uncle Billy makes some repairs. Which, at his usual snail’s pace, means I won’t be heading back to L.A. until tomorrow morning, I suppose.”

She was just passing through!
Magee breathed out a silent sigh of relief. Once he made it through the next few minutes, then he’d never have to see the pain-in-the-tail chick again. Ashley would agree to a quickie Vegas wedding, he was sure, so he wouldn’t even have to endure a reception line that included her cousin’s congratulatory kiss.

“Tomorrow?” Ashley shifted Anna P., her eyes widening. “But Felicity, what…what about Ben?”

Ben?
“What about your brother, Ash?”

Her cousin spoke right over him, gripping that ridiculous statue in both hands as if it was a talisman. “Come on. So he hasn’t called or come home for a week. Maybe if it was another twenty-one-year-old we should worry. But it’s Ben, Ash.
Ben
.”

Magee relaxed, because he wasn’t too worried about week-gone Ben, either. The kid had a good
heart but a soft head, and at twenty-one he had likely gone off with a girlfriend or gone on a camping trip and merely forgotten to let anyone know.

But if Ash was anxious…“Is there something I can do?”

“No, Magee,” she said, darting him a guilty look.

Felicity shot him a suspicious one. “We have a passel of relatives around here with nothing better to do than be on the lookout for Ben. Why involve me, Ashley?”

When her cousin gazed back without a word, Felicity closed her eyes and sighed. “Okay, fine. Don’t answer that.”

Apparently Magee had missed something in that last exchange. “I don’t get it. Why should it be you?”

“Because being irresponsible is what the Charms do,” Felicity answered. “Meaning they’re high on plans and low on results.”

Ashley shifted Anna P. so that the angelic face of the snoozing little girl was facing her cousin. “But you’re the different one, Felicity,” she said softly. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

Felicity’s gaze was on her cousin’s daughter, and she didn’t look like the same woman who’d been spitting nails at Magee a few minutes before.

“I’m the one who doesn’t belong,” she said softly. Then she shook herself and focused on Ashley again. “Okay, okay. I’ll do what I can, but only until Uncle Billy makes my car drivable.”

Magee’s instincts, the ones that had earned him the
Lucky Bastard nickname, were jabbed awake when Ashley turned to him. “And you can do something, Magee. You’ll help my cousin, won’t you?”

“
No!
” He glanced over at Felicity, who’d yelled the same word at the same time. Anna P. squirmed, crying out in her sleep, and Magee quieted his voice.

“Listen, Ashley, I would, you know I would, but Felicity and I don’t really know each other—”

“Just for today,” Ashley said. “Simon would want you to.”

That ended the discussion. At least for Magee.

But it didn’t stop him from muttering at Felicity once Ashley left the kitchen to put Anna P. down for her nap. “You can still say something. Tell her the same thing I did. Tell her that we don’t really know each other.”

If looks could kill, she’d just shoved him off the summit of Yosemite’s El Capitan. “But I do know you,
Michael Magee
. I remember that Simon told me plenty about his climbing partner…including the nickname you were given for your many amorous adventures.”

Oh, hell
.

She crossed her arms, tapped one toe. “Let’s see. It went like this, I think. The more difficult the location, the more chance you might be discovered, the better you like doing it, isn’t that right…”

He sighed, waiting for it.

“…
Thrillbanger
?”

Felicity grabbed a baseball cap from her old closet, then jammed it over her hair as she followed Magee
down the crumbling cement walkway. Over her shoulder, she waved at Aunt Vi, who was standing in the doorway and smiling at them through a curling rip in the screen.

At the end of the walk, he held open the door of his beater-mobile for her, and Felicity stopped short, surprised by the passenger seat that hadn’t been there the night before.

“For Anna P.’s car seat,” he explained, apparently reading her thoughts.

She spied the padded contraption now stowed in the cargo area, where last night—Hastily diverting her thoughts, she slid onto the seat and let Magee shut the door behind her.

Okay, he could display good manners. And perhaps he’d been kind to Ashley and Anna P. But didn’t Felicity know for a fact that he possessed some dangerous Pied Piper qualities? Look at what happened last night! She’d acted completely out of character, and the culprit wasn’t his so-called “survival rush” or even that out-of-body weirdness that she wasn’t going to think about.

No, now that she knew Magee was the infamous Thrillbanger, she could squarely place the blame for that near-sexscapade on him.

She scrutinized the man as he walked around the car to the other side. Same wide-shouldered, lean build. Same who-needs-a-stylist inky-colored hair. He was dressed even more casually today, in another pair of jeans, beat-up hiking boots, and a faded T-shirt that said—oh, sheesh!

I’m

Unreliable

Irresponsible

Immature

Undisciplined

Inefficient

Disorganized

Inconsistent and

Unmotivated but

I’m Fun!

She was willing to bet that meant he didn’t have a job, let alone a whiff of ambition. While that might make him fit right in with the Charms, she’d make darn sure he wasn’t planning on leading the family down some thorn-filled primrose path. Though she doubted she had a prayer of finding Ben by morning, her good deed, she decided, would be to instead discover enough about Magee to warn Ashley and the rest that they should steer clear of him.

Magee ducked into his seat and glanced over to catch her looking at him. She quickly transferred her gaze, pretending an avid interest in Aunt Vi’s house.

His head followed hers. “How long since you’ve been back to the ancestral home?” he asked.

Ancestral home? Felicity looked up at the ram-shackle farmhouse. It was shaded by two sparse Cali
fornia pepper trees, their branches of thin leaves and clusters of pinkish berries brushing against the second-floor windows that had been boarded up as long as she could remember.

The first Charms had come to the area in the late 1800s, taken in by the advertising of a Palm Springs hustler who’d stuck oranges and grapefruits on the spines of the Joshua trees, then photographed them. Lured by the get-rich-quick promises, her great-great-grandfather had rushed from the Midwest to buy some acres of his very own sand, without considering whether arid dunes could truly support flourishing citrus groves.

“I’m not ‘back,’” Felicity corrected, shaking her head. “I’m visiting.”

Though she hadn’t intended visiting, either. She’d intended on breezing through and permanently locking the door to her past even as she continued speeding out of town.