The Thrill of It All (16 page)

Still, he had to make her understand why he didn’t wait for her to leave him.

Between the Caruso offices and wherever the hell she was heading was the turnoff for the wilderness area they’d visited the day before. At the last second, she surprised him by taking it, the back end of her car fishtailing.

“Shit!” He shot past, then braked. Cursing again, he shoved the Jeep in reverse, then forward, his gaze trained on her speeding car and the rooster tail of dust she was kicking behind her. She had a hell of a head start on him now—and she was barreling toward unforgiving desert that didn’t house a single sign of civilization.

In minutes he went from pissed to near-panicked. But then he found her car where they’d parked yesterday, and then he found her footsteps, and then, finally, he found her. In the distance he saw her moving along
Devil’s Torch, the name of the path leading to the top of Devil’s Peak. Though the area was rarely visited, the Boy Scouts had established and maintained a decent route. It wasn’t much more than a moderate hike—unless, that is, you were wearing a skirt and city sandals and were without a hat and water.

Or common sense.

To hell with explaining himself and why he was marrying Ashley. Felicity better have a good reason for this stunt!

With a water bottle and the ball cap he kept stashed in the Jeep, he set off after her. When he reached the trailhead, he could see she was moving steadily upward, making decent progress. But any second could mean a turned ankle—a sprain or a break—not to mention the rattlers and scorpions that would find nothing between their teeth or stingers and her sweet, soft skin.

His anxiety rising, he abandoned the idea of following her along the switchbacked route, and hurried toward the perpendicular slab of rock that would be his shortcut. Getting up it meant he could intercept her well before she made it to the top of the peak.

He clapped the ball cap on his head, shoved the water bottle in the waistband at the back of his jeans, then bent to dust his hands in the powdery dirt at his feet. Without a chalk bag it was the best he could do.

He took a moment to study the slab’s features, his gaze leapfrogging from one likely hold to another. Then he bent his knees and jumped. As if it had been eighteen hours instead of eighteen months, his fingers
crimped down and the toes of his running shoes wedged into a crack. Just like that, he was once again playing kissy face with warm, solid rock.

It smelled like he remembered—salty and clean—and he closed his eyes a moment, savoring the scent. Then he reached up for his next hold. Climbing in his Nikes sucked, but he was concerned for Felicity’s safety, not his own.

That became his focus during the climb, the particular fear that he stared down this time. In minutes, he lifted himself over the slab’s lip, just as Felicity came around the next bend in the path.

Catching sight of him, she
eeked,
her feet stuttering to a stop. But her slick leather soles lost purchase on the loose dirt and her legs went out from under her. She landed with a plop on her butt.

“You okay?” he asked, flexing his fingers as he advanced on her. The muscles in his forearms burned like a bitch, but now that Felicity was safe, he relished the way the blood was pumping through his body. Only one other activity made him feel more alive.

She pressed her knees together and pulled down on the hem of her stretchy skirt. “H-how did you get up here?”

“You saw me. I climbed.” He held out his hand to help her up.

She ignored it, scrambling to her feet on her own. With her bulging purse secured under her arm, she approached the trail edge and peered over. Her eyes were wide as she glanced back at him. “You don’t have any equipment!”

“Neither do you, dollface.” His temper reigniting, he whipped out the water bottle from his jeans and waved it back and forth. “
Never
go traipsing through the desert without this.”

When she didn’t respond, he moved toward her. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Instead of answering, she grabbed the water bottle from him and used her teeth to pop open the stopper. Then she squeezed the bottle, and the thick stream of liquid caught her unawares. While she got some of it down, a mouthful or two dribbled over her bottom lip to her chin and from there ran down her neck.

Her tongue came out to swipe at the moisture on her lip. “I thought you didn’t climb anymore.”

His gaze dropped from the wetness of her mouth to the now-transparent spot the dampness made in the thin knit at the throat of her white shirt. “I don’t climb anymore.”

She unfastened the buttons right over that wet mark. Lifting the clinging fabric away from her skin, she glanced over the edge of the path again. “That sounds like a good idea to me, since it appears you can’t be bothered to take even the simplest safety precautions.”

He snorted, and forced himself to stop staring at the pulse he could see thrumming at the notch of her throat. “Safety precautions aren’t guarantees.”

She shot another squirt of water into her mouth. “I suppose that’s the point, though, right? You want risk and you don’t want guarantees. That’s why you climb—or
used
to climb.”

“Sorry, but it’s my turn for questions, dollface,” he
said, swiping the water bottle back. “Why are you out here?”

She lifted her eyebrows. “I don’t owe you anything, Magee. Least of all an explanation of
my
behavior.”

“Bullshit, you—” He broke off, the anger he’d been using to disguise his guilt evaporating. “Oh, hell, fine. You’re right. I do owe you an explanation.”

“I’m listening.”

Sucking in a long breath, he glanced away from her face, then forced himself to meet her gaze. “Last night, after finding out about the gambling, when I…talked to Ashley, I wasn’t thinking about you.”

“Oh, well,” Felicity said, her voice dry. “Now I feel so much better.”

“C’mon. You can see Ashley needs someone.” He tried to reason with her. “And we both know what we had was a temporary fling—”

“Which you ended in a manner straight out of an episode of
The Jerry Springer Show
.”

She was pissing him off again. “I never claimed to be perfect,” he muttered.

“Oh, please.” She glared at him. “Imperfect is dropping towels on the bathroom floor or putting the empty ice-cream carton back in the freezer. You, Magee, are such a perfect degenerate that while you were having sex with me you got yourself engaged to my cousin!”

“I promised Simon.”

“Not only that, but—” Her mouth closed on the rest of what she was going to say and she stared at him. “You what?”

“Don’t think that it means I don’t actually care about Ashley and Anna P. I do, very much. They’ve always been like family, which is why I promised Simon before every climb that if something happened to him I would take care of them.”

Felicity’s legs folded beneath her and she sat down on the dirt, hard. “But marriage—”

“I promised that I would take care of them just as he would.” Magee dropped beside her, but he couldn’t look at Felicity’s appealing, astonished face any longer, so he transferred his gaze to the sweeping desert vista that spread out just inches from their feet. “It’s why I’m taking the job that was supposed to be his, too. He was planning on giving up climbing, so I’m giving up climbing. He was moving himself and his family to L.A., so I’m doing that. I owe him that much.”

She was silent a long moment, and then she sighed. “You owe him your life.”

His gaze jumped to hers. “Yes. You get it.”

She shrugged. “The night we watched the documentary together you made it very clear.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw Simon’s grinning face on the TV in the Bivy’s office. Brash, brilliant Simon, the best friend a man could have. There was a big hole in Magee’s chest that he was certain would never be filled. “Damn Aussie,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Felicity looked out over the view. “The night I met him, he made me laugh so hard I cried. We got to the restaurant at six, and it was after one
A.M
. when they threw us out. By that time our waiter and the manager
were sitting with us. I think the only reason they made us leave was because the cleaning crew showed up.”

Magee found himself smiling. “He could tell a damn good story.”

“I remember one about a friend who called three separate women from the summit of Mt. Whitney and told each of them he’d climbed it just for her.”

“The dog.”

She laughed.

Then they sat in silence, but it wasn’t tense or angry. Memories of Simon welled up and Magee let them, more at ease with the bitter sweetness they left behind. Probably, he thought, because he’d finally made the commitment to Ashley that Simon had wanted.

You’re such a dipstick
.

“Did you say something?” Felicity asked.

“No.” He poured a stream of water down his throat, then offered her the bottle. “Are we okay now?”

She sighed again. “I suppose I…understand.”

He let more beats of silence go by, then he bumped her shoulder with his. There was still something he wanted to know. “So tell me why you came up here.”

She shook her head.

“C’mon.” He bumped her again. “Why?”

Another sigh leaked out of her. “If you really want to know…” Her level gaze met his. “It was for a burial.”

At his shocked look, she laughed again. “Not of myself, if that’s what you’re thinking, Mr. Never-Ending Ego. I was looking for a final resting place for this.” She reached into the purse she’d set on the
ground beside her and pulled out that statue she’d defended on the first day in her aunt’s kitchen.

He took it, cupping the beat-up figurine in both hands to study it. “I can see why you’d want to put it out of its misery, dollface. It’s butt-ugly.”

“It’s not! At least it wasn’t.” She reached across to stroke a fingertip over its dinged finish. “And it
will
be perfect again. I lost sight of that for a minute. But once I get back to L.A., I’ll find someone who can tell me how to smooth it out and give it a new finish.”

“Someone like your boss Drool?” He didn’t know what made him bring the man up.

Shooting him a dirty look, she grabbed for the statue. For some reason he was feeling mean, so he leaned away from her. Half-rising, this time she lunged, and managed to wrench the figurine away. But her fingers must have slipped, because it bobbled in her hand, struck a rock, bounced up, and then it was falling—over the edge of the mountain.

In slow motion, she dove for it, and he dove for her. His hands closed over her waist and heaved. They fell back onto terra firma, with him belly-up and Felicity sprawled on top.

It probably wasn’t that close a call, but try telling his heart that. It was slamming so hard and fast against the wall of his chest that he thought he might be sick. Needing something—something? needing
her
—he held Felicity so that her face was pressed against the bare skin of his neck and his was buried in her hair.

For just a second it had been the night they’d met
all over again, including the wrenching possibility of a world without her in it. When he could breathe again, he pressed a silent, imperceptible kiss on the top of her head.

“Did you save it?” he asked, his eyes closed.

“No,” she croaked out. “It was too late.”

She rolled off him and lifted her hands. They were shaking, but each held a piece of that goddamn statue—in one was the shabby-looking figure, and in the other, the pedestal it had stood upon.

Worse, though, was the tragic expression on Felicity’s face. “Broken,” she said, blinking at the tears in her eyes. “It’s broken.”

That wasn’t the only thing broken, he realized, as he held back from pulling her into his arms again. He wanted to comfort her too much. He wanted
her
too much. But the promises he’d made meant the two of them were separated forever.

T
wo days after her Joanie had nearly been lost, Felicity battled her restlessness by alternately playing with the cats and going through the drawers in her old bedroom. As she watched one of the ragged beasts leap off the faded quilt to chase another out the door, she sighed and turned to the old painted dresser under the window. With only one drawer left to occupy her attention, it was a good thing she had to meet the GetTV crew in a few hours. They’d selected a nature amphitheater in a nearby state park as the location for the live feed of her
All That’s Cool Afternoon
the next day.

Her time in Half Palm was almost up. The trouble almost behind her.

Though Ben had yet to show his face—they figured he was still hiding, unaware the heat had blown over—he was debt-free, thanks to her agreement with the Carusos and Drew’s enthusiasm for their sauces as future products for GetTV. Her production crew had arrived at the crack of dawn and Felicity would meet
them there later to prepare for the show. Once her live sell was over tomorrow, they’d shoot some preview spots in other locations in the area.

Once
that
was over, she’d return to L.A.

The dresser’s bottom drawer stuck; it always had, she remembered. She yanked, the wood-on-wood screech like fingernails on a chalkboard. Her skin crawled at the sound, and then prickled when her next yank fully revealed the contents of the wooden drawer. Photos. And the one right on top was of Felicity’s mother and father. Though the clothes they wore in it appeared strangely familiar, she knew she’d never seen it before. All her parental memorabilia, stored in a locked, fireproof box, had moved with her to USC and then every place she’d lived since.

Picking up the single photograph, Felicity eyed the remainder and judged them to be from later times and of more far-flung family members. Curious about this photo, she wandered out of her bedroom. “Aunt Vi?”

It was Peter she found first, however, with Anna P. on his lap. The little girl was pushing open the front door with the heels of her feet as the man wheeled them through the entry.

Felicity hurried over to help.

“We can do it,” Anna P. said, smiling her sunny smile at her. “Petey and I can do anything other people can.”

“You got that right, tiger,” Peter said.

He glanced up at Felicity and she saw lines around his eyes and mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. He was either in pain or hadn’t been sleeping, or
both. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Can I get you something?”

“If only you could…” he murmured, but then he smiled, a shadow of his usual grin. “However, I’ve earned my gold star for the day. Anna P. needed a ride to Grandma’s house and I obliged.”

“Mommy said I’d have more fun here. She’s doing papers and money and stuff with Magee.” Anna P. rolled her eyes as if she were fifteen instead of not quite four. “Boring.”

“Grandma’s somewhere around,” Felicity said. “Maybe out back?”

The little girl slid to the floor. “I’ll find her.”

Felicity watched her run off and then turned to Peter. “‘Papers and money and stuff’? I hope that means he’s taking charge of Ashley’s financial situation.”

“I wouldn’t know.” His gaze dropped from hers. “But, to tell you the truth, I hope not. Ashley can do her own taking-charge.”

Felicity lifted her eyebrows, thinking of gambling and huge credit card balances. “Well…”

“Not you, too.” Peter shook his head in obvious disgust. “Have you forgotten she has a degree in accounting?”

A degree in accounting
? Felicity blinked. “I—I didn’t know. I remember she was going to enroll in some classes at the community college….”

“She finished up her bachelor’s degree a week before Anna P. was born. Your aunt and I were at her graduation—Simon and Magee were on an expedition in the Himalayas.”

Felicity felt her face flush. Where had she been a week before Anna P.’s birth? She couldn’t remember. To avoid Peter’s eyes, she glanced down at the photograph in her hand. Her mother and father, in blue jeans and matching satiny flowered shirts of the seventies. Something about the clothes…

She rubbed at a sudden ache in her head.

“You don’t look as if you’ve been getting much rest either.”

“Me?” She glanced over at him, then looked back at her parents, tracing their smiling faces with her eyes. “I’m…I’m just eager to get back home.”

“You won’t be able to forget what happened to you here so easily,” he said quietly. “I remember the light best at night. Do you?”

“Yes.” Her answer was automatic. “Sometimes, right before I fall asleep, I feel it again and—” Her head came up and she stared at him.

“And what?” His gaze was steady.

“I don’t remember,” she answered quickly. “I don’t remember anything.” It was too weird.

“Maybe it would be easier if I didn’t,” Peter replied, grimacing. “I hoped if I did things right, made amends where I could, that I’d find that light right here on earth.”

She swallowed. “You…uh, haven’t?”

“Well…” He drew the word out, then a small smile curved his mouth. “Maybe…maybe in some quiet moments, I have. Magee and I like to play darts before the Bivy opens. One in ten times I let him beat me and I definitely feel the glow then.”

She had to laugh.

“Other times, too. When I read a book to Anna P. or tell her a funny story about her dad. And then once in a while I’m behind the bar and I look across the room and see Ashley. It’s as if she feels me, because she’ll glance up and meet my eyes and then…and then she
is
the light.”

Felicity’s heart squeezed and she sidled toward the kitchen, the conversation making her uneasy. “I should get you a cool drink, or get Aunt Vi….”

At that moment, Aunt Vi herself bustled into the room, Anna P. on her hip. “Get me why?”

“Well, I…” As she fumbled for something to say, Felicity’s gaze fell again on the photo in her hand. She held it up for her aunt. “I was wondering about this. I’ve never seen it before.”

Aunt Vi frowned. It made her look older, more worn than Felicity had noticed before. “It’s Ellie and Ron, of course, but I don’t remember the occasion, though it looks like it was taken in front of this house.” She pointed to the background. “And that’s their red truck. They bought it right before the trip to Las Vegas.”

Felicity’s fingers tightened on the photograph. It was likely, then, that this was the last picture her parents had ever posed for. Where had she been when it was taken? Playing robbers and cops with her cousins? Watching over the latest of Aunt Vi’s kitten-adoptees?

The phone rang and Felicity absently crossed to answer it. The voice on the other end was unfamiliar to her, and sounded muffled. “What? What are you say
ing?” she responded. “No. That’s been taken care of. Yes, it has. Believe me—”

The caller hung up.

Felicity stood frozen. “That was someone who claimed to have…that they have…” Her gaze latched on to Anna P.’s precious face and she held back her shudder. “B-e-n. They want r-a-n-s-o-m m-o-n-e-y.”

Aunt Vi blinked. “What?”

“B-e-n. R-a-n-s-o-m.”

Anna P.’s eyes widened. “Is it a secret? About a present for me?”

Felicity pasted on a smile. “Maybe. We’ll see.” The photo of her parents fluttered out of her hands and she let it fall as she rushed for her purse. “Don’t worry about a thing, Aunt Vi. I’m going to find out the problem. I’m going straight to Mr. Caruso.”

“Don’t,” Peter warned. “Let’s call Magee, think this through.”

Felicity could only think of the renewed worry in Aunt Vi’s eyes. “No! It was a business deal,
my
deal, and
I’ll
make sure there’s not a problem.” Maybe it was a mistake, though she’d believed the man on the other end of the phone. “Has anyone seen my sneakers?”

“You can’t go visit Mr. Caruso dressed like that,” Aunt Vi said.

“What?” Looking for her shoes, Felicity shifted a pile of newspapers off the couch. She was wearing old jeans and on old shirt, but Aunt Vi wasn’t one to care about clothes. “Why?”

“If it’s business,” Aunt Vi said firmly, “then you should dress for business.”

Felicity hesitated. “That sounds like something I’d tell my viewers.”

“You did,” Aunt Vi said. “On the tape you sent me last month. So take a shower. Put some nice clothes on.”

Maybe she was right, Felicity thought, looking down at her shabby clothes. She was fairly certain she hadn’t brushed her hair since the day Magee had announced his engagement.

She dashed for the bathroom. “I’ll be out in seven minutes.”

It was little more than that when she walked out of her bedroom wearing the suit she’d worn to the trade show. Thanks to a major case of nerves mixed with anxiety, her ankles felt wobbly in her high heels, but she’d managed to apply a smooth coat of lipstick. “I’m ready,” she said when she reentered the living room.

Peter was the only one there. “Felicity, don’t go.”

She ignored him. “Where’s Aunt Vi?”

“Let me go with you. It could be dangerous alone.”

Felicity tried on a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine. I met old Mr. Caruso years ago, when I was in school. He was a teddy bear—well, not a teddy bear, exactly, but certainly not the dangerous patriarch of a Mafia family. I’m beginning to think this is all a big hoax.”

“Ask Magee if it’s a hoax,” Peter said. “Ask him who killed Johnny’s father.”

Her hands went icy, but she backed away from Pe
ter toward the front door. “Tell Aunt Vi I’ll call her as soon as I know anything.”

Then she hurried out the door, just in time to see a grim-faced Magee pull up in front of the house. He leaned over to throw open the passenger door. “Get in.”

She opened her mouth to protest and he cut her off with a gesture.

“Damn it, Felicity, you don’t have to take on the whole goddamn world alone.”

But she always had and she was accustomed to it. Still, he looked angry and stubborn enough to stop her, so she slid onto the seat.

He left a layer of rubber on the street. “Vi called me,” he spit out. “But you should have.”

“Why?” she shot back. “You’re not my shoulder to lean on. You’re not even my lover.”

“I care about you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine on my own. No big deal.”

“
No big deal?
You’re planning to confront a Mafia don in his den and you say it’s
no big deal
?”

Her hands went cold again. “Who’s Johnny? Peter mentioned the name.”

He shot her a look. “My brother.”

“And who…who killed his father?” she heard herself whisper.

He stayed silent a moment. “The Caruso family,” he finally said. “There’s no real proof, but it has all the hallmarks of a mob hit.”

She swallowed, trying to grasp it in her mind. “It doesn’t seem possible…and in any case, that was
years ago.” Her voice got stronger. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

With a curse, Magee pulled over to the side of the road and braked. “I won’t go another inch until you listen. This isn’t something to take lightly.” He ran his hands through his hair in apparent frustration.

“More than fifteen years after the murder, and the name Caruso still makes my mother break out in a cold sweat. She can hardly speak about the man who was her ex-husband or what happened to him and what Johnny saw when his father was murdered. When I first learned about it—I overheard her talking to my father—her fear scared the hell out of me, because I’d never seen her unable to handle something.”

“What did you overhear?”

He looked away, and then back at her. “At the time, I didn’t yet know how my brother’s father had died, or that he’d witnessed it. But that day the FBI had stopped by the house with some mug shots for Johnny and my mother to look at. She was shaking and crying and terrified that the mob would now come after
us
.”

Felicity reached out to clutch his hand. “Were you at risk?”

“I don’t think so, now. Professor Magee and family were too far removed from the original circumstances. And Johnny claims to this day he didn’t see who shot his father. But my mother lived with that fear for a very long time.”

And so had Magee
. “What did you do when you found out?”

He blinked at her. “What did I do?”

She nodded.

“Nothing. I was fourteen years old. I heard what my mom said, figured out what had happened to Johnny’s father, then I ran off to meet my buddy Brad in our old barn.”

“Did you tell him about it?”

Magee disengaged their hands and then turned the key in the ignition. “Tell Brad? I didn’t have the chance. We were doing some renovations and there was a two-by-four running across the rafters about twenty feet off the ground. When I got there, Brad had moved a ladder over and the first thing he did when I came in was dare me to walk across that beam.”

Felicity studied the blank mask of his face. “Did you?”

“I remember I was shaking, my knees nearly knocking together, but I wanted to.”

“And did you?”

“I did.” He pulled the car back onto the road. “And when I reached the other end of the two-by-four I wasn’t shaking anymore.”

They were silent for the rest of the ride, except for when she gave him directions to the Caruso estate. The family had been major benefactors of OLPP and had hosted several school events at their palatial home every year. Felicity remembered everything about it, including the guard in the guardhouse at the bottom of the gated drive.

When Magee braked, she slipped out of the car. “I’ll handle him,” she said, and hurried to intercept the man before he got too close. The guy was huge,
six and a half feet, maybe, and wearing a pale gray suit and matching tie instead of a security uniform. In the dark lenses of his wraparound sunglasses she saw her white face.

But, taking a breath, she donned her Sweetheart of Sales smile. Then she smooth-talked him into getting exactly what she wanted.

Herself inside.

And Magee left out.

Ashley jumped from the couch in the living room when the doorbell rang. Magee? But he wouldn’t use the bell.
Ben?