Infamous (18 page)

“We’re looking for some kind of laser setup,” she told him, taking a long sip from her glass. “No paintballs in an historic building.”

“Of course,” he said, as if I hadn’t told him that already.

“We’re also looking to do this ASAP,” she said. “The writers and Henry and I are in the middle of a battle to the death about what really happened.”

“I can tell you what really happened,” A.J. said. “But I’m thinking right now’s probably not the best time.”

She smiled at that. “Good call. It’s definitely better to wait until the harsh light of day to try to crush my girlhood fantasies about Silas Quinn.”

“Try?” A.J. said as he crossed the kitchen to set his now-empty glass in the sink.

She shrugged as she turned to face him, as she set her own glass on the counter.

A.J. took that for the invitation that it was, and he reached out and reeled her in. And then he kissed her.

I started to sing.
“Hello, young lovers whoever you are …”

He ignored me, so when I finished the verse and chorus, I switched to a more rousing, upbeat number.
“Oh, the farmer and the cowman can be friends …”
I supplemented the song with some hand claps and even stood up and added boot stomps and something that might’ve passed for dancing. I made it good and loud, damn near bellowing at the top of my lungs. But it wasn’t until I improvised my own version of a fiddle solo—“Diddle liddle liddle liddle,
liddle
liddle liddle! Dweep, dweep, reet, reet, diddle liddle liddle liddle liddle!”—that he lifted his head.

By then, I was starting the bass solo, “Bom, bom, bom, bom …” which required me to stand still and pretend to
pluck the strings of some big old standup instrument, so I actually saw what happened.

The kid stopped kissing Alison and he opened his eyes and looked down at her uplifted face. Her eyes were closed and she looked as if his kisses had transported her to someplace wonderful. But then she opened her eyes and she smiled up at him, and I shut the hell up, because I knew, just from the look on A.J.’s own face as he met her gaze, that he finally understood exactly what I’d been trying to tell him.

Alison was the one.

And sure enough, “God damn it,” he whispered.

She laughed, but she knew what he meant. “This is going to be a mistake, isn’t it? An enormous one.”

A.J. nodded. “I have to go,” he said. “Because I really like you and … I think maybe it’s mutual, and …”

“Very.” She nodded, too, her eyes soft as she reached up to push his hair back from his face. He closed his eyes at her touch.

“I don’t want to screw this up,” he told her. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“And vice versa,” she pointed out, nodding her agreement.

“I think we should take some time,” A.J. said. “And figure out, you know, what exactly this is, before we …” He laughed. “God, I want to …”

And then the fool didn’t step away from her. Instead, he kissed her again. And again.

And again.

It was getting too damn hot in there as all of their careful resolve started to melt before my very eyes.

So I reached out and braced myself and, with a deep breath, put the palms of both my hands on A.J.’s shoulders.

Zzzzt
.

Even though I was prepared for it this time, it was still startling as hell.

And of course, A.J. had no idea it was coming. “Holy shit!”

He stepped back from Alison, and she stepped back from him, and they both stood there, breathing hard and wide-eyed as they stared at each other.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“What was
that?”
Alison asked. “Oh, my God, were we just … electrocuted?”

“Whoopsie,” I said. “I didn’t realize she would feel it, too.”

“Um,” A.J. said.

But she seemed okay with her theory. “This house was wired by a lunatic,” she told A.J. “Right after I moved in, I called the landlord because I blew a fuse, and he had to go into the crawl space that’s under part of the house and I peeked in and … I think we just got an electric shock from the refrigerator.”

“This house has a crawl space?” A.J. asked. “Because I didn’t check in there. If you want, I’ll do that tomorrow. I’ll look at the wiring, while I’m at it.”

“Check the crawl space …?” She was confused.

“For snakes,” he said.

And she started to laugh. “I actually forgot about the snake. Oh, my God. Will you …” She made a face and said the rest, fast: “Help me search my house for snakes before you go? Please? I promise this is not just a ploy to get you into my bedroom.”

He laughed. “I can’t even begin to respond to that,” he said, “so I’m just gonna go with the short answer—yes. Let’s make sure there’s not another snake in here.”

And with that they went through the little house. Living room, Alison’s tiny office, bathroom. Although it took them awhile, because they were holding on to each other’s hand while they did. And they both seemed far more interested in looking at each other than looking for a snake.

At least A.J. knew enough not to kiss her again.

“Snakes head for heat,” I told him, and he passed that information along to Alison. “Which is why they might crawl into a sleeping bag or a bed. Keep the AC at a warmer setting so it’s not so cold in here tonight. Another trick would be to plug in a heating pad and leave it on the bedroom floor. ’Course, you should be sure your smoke alarms work, just in case it malfunctions and causes a fire. You’re not any less dead if the cause is smoke inhalation instead of snakebite.”

She had a heating pad in her bathroom cabinet, and A.J. helped her set it up.

While they were there, back in her bedroom—which absolutely was a dangerous place to be, considering the sparks these two made just from looking at each other—Alison yanked back the blanket and the sheet, as if afraid of what she’d find lurking there.

It was a whole lot of nothing.

Except there they now stood, staring at that big old empty bed—where they both clearly wanted to be.

A.J. made himself turn away first.

Then Alison flipped the covers back up. “I made sure there were snakebite kits in the first-aid station,” she told A.J. as he led the way back to the kitchen, their fingers intertwined again. “I’m going to put my cell phone in the pocket of my pj’s and … I’m going to be fine.” She laughed then. “Huh. I wonder if … Were you touching the refrigerator before?”

“I honestly don’t know,” A.J. said. “I was a little focused on other things.” He kissed her hand.

“Maybe it was where we were standing,” Alison said breathlessly as he turned her palm over and kissed the inside of her wrist. “What if the wiring sends electric currents up through the floor—like those sidewalks in New York City, where those dogs were electrocuted? Did you ever hear about that?”

“No.” A.J. stopped kissing her. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, all these dogs had burned paws,” Alison said. “Some even died. The current apparently went right through the concrete. But maybe that’s what happened with the snake today. Maybe it kept getting zapped from the bad wiring, through the floor.”

A.J. nodded, as if that were a real possibility. “I’ll check it out tomorrow.”

He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, but only briefly this time.

“Are you sure,” Alison started to say, but then stopped herself. “Sorry, I’m … shameless. Apparently.”

“I want to stay,” A.J. said softly, his forehead pressed
against hers. “But I have to go. And you’re not shameless. You’re amazing. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, he let himself out the door.

Alison watched him through the screen, so I didn’t say a word until we rounded the corner.

Then I said, “I’m proud of you, kid.”

“Don’t talk to me,” he said, stopping short. “Don’t follow me. I need a shower—a very cold one—and until I get it, which isn’t going to be until tomorrow morning, I’m going to be pissed off. So just … don’t. Okay?”

“She’s falling in love with you,” I told him.

And he looked at me as if I’d just suggested we play hockey using a fluffy baby bunny as the puck. “Is that supposed to
help?”
he asked, but added, “Don’t answer that. Just … 
don’t.”

So I didn’t, and he stomped away.

Alison stood in the tent, behind the cameras, and watched as the production crew took yet another shot, from yet another angle, of the initial meeting of Kid Gallagher and Melody Quinn.

Jon White, the actor playing Gallagher, was on horseback, but his horse was skittish and kept moving sideways, out of the shot. Their horse wrangler had had a family emergency, and his assistant just wasn’t getting the job done.

“Cut,” Henry Logan yelled, clearly exasperated. “Set it up again.”

The makeup head came running to freshen Winter’s drooping blond hair as the actress playing Melody moved back to her mark just inside the swinging doors of the general store.

As Alison watched, A.J. approached Jon, who was still trying to gain control over the horse. A.J. took the horse’s bridle and spoke to it, calming it almost immediately with his voice. Then he looked up at the actor, and the two men spoke. Alison couldn’t hear the words, but she could see that A.J. was relaxing Jon as easily as he’d calmed the horse.

He’d done the same to her this morning.

There had been problems with Melody’s dress that had kept Alison busy right up until the moment the AD called for quiet on the set. She’d then had a frantic few seconds to check the extras, one of whom was A.J., whom she hadn’t seen since she’d kissed him good night.

“Hey,” she’d said, and this time he’d responded with “Hey, yourself,” which had made her laugh and say, “Great, now
you’re
turning into my grandmother.”

As the words came out of her mouth, she realized that she couldn’t possibly take the time to explain. But it was okay, because he just smiled and said, “Later,” and then backed away so the other extras could have their point-oh-nine nanoseconds with her.

When she’d finally stopped running, he was working—walking down the hot, dusty street with a saddle over his shoulder.

But now the camera angle was such that he wouldn’t be in the shot. And maybe he’d use his precious moments of break to come over here, into the tent, to find her.

It was right then that A.J. turned and looked directly at Alison, as if someone—the horse, maybe—had told him that she was watching him.

He smiled, and her heart actually did a flip. What was she, suddenly in eighth grade again?

“Places!” the assistant director shouted.

And A.J. gave one final pat to the horse’s neck, one last word to Jon, and then headed toward Alison. And her heart flipped over again. And again.

“Quiet!” someone else yelled as A.J. opened his mouth to greet her. Instead, he made a face, then turned to watch the actors.

“Speed!” shouted a third voice.

“And … Action!”

The day was so hot, A.J. was practically steaming. Silently, he took off his cowboy hat. His hair was matted and wet, and a steady stream of sweat ran down the side of his face. He wasn’t standing all that close, but Alison could feel his body heat radiating right through his cotton shirt and faded brown pants. She could smell him, too—an interesting combination of his now-familiar and faintly spicy deodorant, the tanginess of his leather vest, a hint of woodsmoke, and the sweet scent of sunblock. He smelled very male—and very, very good.

He caught her looking at him and smiled.

Alison had to look away, pretending to be engrossed in the action on the set, but in truth, remembering the way A.J. had kissed her last night.

I have to go
, he’d said.
Because I really like you
. And
I don’t want to screw this up
.…

Just the fact that he’d said those words had made her want to convince him to stay.

But the problem was,
she
was the one who was screwing this up. He’d traveled thousands of miles to tell her his story—a story that, if true, would not be made more convincing if word got out that she was sleeping with him.

And word would get out.

That was just the way the world worked.

And trying to convince that same skeptical world that her interest in this man’s story had nothing to do with her attraction to him? That would be almost as hard to do as convincing the world that as a historian she would demand proper documentation and proof of everything A.J. told her, regardless of whether or not he was providing her with the best sex of her life.

And okay. Truth was, she couldn’t even convince herself of that anymore.

And maybe it
was
just several days of considering the possibility that Silas Quinn
had
lied about everything, that was making her far more open to the idea that the legend was completely wrong. But maybe, instead, it was the promise of A.J.’s kisses that was making her interested in seeing things through his subjective lens.