Falcon's Flight (2 page)

Her own green eyes darkening with emotion, Leslie reached across the table to grasp her friend’s hand. “I don’t want you to worry about me, Marie. I promise you I’m perfectly all right.” A spark of amusement flickered in Leslie’s eyes. “You have enough to occupy your time keeping up with that three-year-old dynamo son of yours, not to mention the dynamo’s father, without adding me to your list of concerns.” The gleam in Leslie’s eyes took on a devious glow. “How is Tony Sr., by the way?”

“Tony Sr. is fine.” Marie Ferrini frowned her impatience. “And don’t change the subject. I
am
concerned about you.” Her full lips tightened. “You look beat. You need a break from the pressure.”

“I know,” Leslie said. She took a sip of the hot coffee in the cup before continuing. “I have four more performances, then I’ll be finished with the play.” “You’ll be missed,” Marie said warmly. “Your reviews have been terrific. ‘Not since the magnificent Kathryn has a beautiful redhead so graced the boards,’” Marie said with a flourish, quoting the praise of one usually acerbic critic.

“Umm,” Leslie murmured and smiled with satisfaction. “I’m grateful for the good reviews, but I know when it’s time to bow out.” Her smiled faded. “It’s getting stale. I no longer
am
the character, I’m merely
playing
the character.”

Marie’s nod conveyed understanding; an actress herself, she could easily understand her friend’s waning enthusiasm. Leslie had been performing her current role for ten months without missing a single performance. Since the play was about the sympathetic relationship between two women helping each other deal with the devastation of divorce, Leslie was onstage for almost every scene. There was also the added factor of Leslie’s emotional involvement with the role, as she had suffered through the same form of devastation as the character she played. Marie silently cursed Leslie’s former husband for the damage he had inflicted on the actress.

Consigning Leslie’s ex-husband to the hell she believed he richly deserved, Marie smiled brightly. “So, what are your plans?” But before Leslie could answer, she added chidingly, “1 hope you’re not even thinking about another long-running play!”

Shaking her head, Leslie drew a long cigarette from a gold-toned case and lit it before responding. “No, I’m not.” She exhaled sharply, then continued, “I’m thinking about a long-running vacation.”

“You need it,” Marie observed, frowning as she watched Leslie puffing nervously on the cigarette. Though Leslie’s personal experience with divorce had added depth to her portrayal of the demanding role, the cost had been high to her physical and mental health. In Marie’s opinion, Leslie was very near the breaking point.

“I know.” Leslie crushed out her cigarette, then immediately lit up another. “Although doing the play was exhilarating, it was also exhausting. I’m tired.” Her mouth curved in a wry smile. “But I feel restless, unsettled, oddly dissatisfied....” Her voice faded, and she sighed.

Marie gave an echoing sigh. “I’d say it’s time you took a vacation. Have you considered a cruise?” she asked.

“No.” Leslie grimaced. “While I like looking at the ocean, I have no desire whatever to be either in it or floating on top of it.” Her lips smoothed into a smile.

“I will be seeing the ocean, though. I’ve reserved a room at a casino hotel, and I’ll be leaving for Atlantic City the day after my swan-song performance.” “You’re going to the seashore in October?” Marie’s incredulous expression drew a soft burst of laughter from Leslie. “My plan is to make a splash at the tables, not in the ocean,” she chided.

Marie didn’t join in with Leslie’s laughter. Her lips turned down in a deepening frown. “Didn’t you spend three entire nights gambling in Las Vegas while you were staying with your cousin Logan in Nevada last fall?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” Leslie replied calmly. “Why?”

“Well...” Marie drew the word out.

“Well what?” Leslie asked, lighting yet another cigarette.

“And didn’t you make several quick trips to Atlantic City since then?” Marie went on doggedly.

Leslie smiled sardonically. “More than several----

So?” she asked, impatiently.

“Sooo.” Marie wet her lips, then blurted out, “I just hope this gambling thing isn’t becoming compulsive with you.”

“Compulsive?” Leslie looked stunned for an instant, then the delightful sound of her husky laughter filled the air. “Oh, Marie!” she gasped. “What would I do without you?”

“I have a sneaky suspicion that you’d manage very well,” Marie retorted, flushing with pleasure.

A gentle smile replaced the laughter on Leslie’s soft lips. “Dear friend, I assure you that I’m in no danger of becoming a compulsive, wild-eyed gambler.” Sobering, she crushed out her cigarette, then swallowed

the last of her now-tepid coffee. “The money I spend in the casinos means nothing to me—as you know.” Her elegant eyebrows peaked questioningly.

Marie had little choice but to nod. All of Leslie’s friends were aware of her attitude toward money, and they had all benefited from it in one form or another. The only value money had for Leslie was the pleasure she derived from it, whether spending it on herself or lavishing it on her friends in gifts or outright loans. On being chastised or teased for her lack of thriftiness and failure to prepare for the future, Leslie’s response was always the same:
Life is really very short, and there are no pockets in a shroud.

Like most humans afraid to face the fact of her own mortality, Marie despaired of Leslie’s attitude and continued to squirrel away every extra dollar against the nebulous mirage of tomorrow. And she continued to frown at Leslie’s imprudent life-style.

“Don’t glower at me,” Leslie pleaded, unsuccessfully hiding a wicked grin. “Will it relieve you to know that I really haven’t gambled away all that much money?”

Though Marie’s expression was blatantly skeptical, she again nodded her head.

“Well, I haven’t,” Leslie said with flat emphasis, her grin fading. “Believe it or not, I win quite often and break even as often as 1 lose.” She lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug that caused her glorious mane of deep red hair to ripple like a living flame. “I’d judge I’ve spent about as much as it would cost for a good analyst—” her soft lips curled cynically “—and I’ve had a lot more fun.”

“An analyst!” Marie exclaimed, her eyes wide with alarm. “I didn’t know you were thinking about consulting an analyst.”

“I’m not,” Leslie said soothingly.

“But you just said—”

“I said that I derive more enjoyment from time spent in the casinos than I would lying on a couch telling my sad tale of woe to an analyst,” Leslie clarified.

Marie sighed. “I simply don’t understand you, Les.”

“I know.” Leslie smiled. “But don’t worry about it; I understand me perfectly.”

“But are you sure you’re not just kidding yourself?” Marie argued. “Don’t most addicts claim that they really don’t need their fix?”

“Oh, I never said I don’t need it,” Leslie replied at once. “I do need it, and I know it.”

“But—” Marie began.

“But it isn’t the gambling I need,” Leslie said, interrupting the other woman again. “It’s the escape that I need.” Her lips tilted up as Marie’s curved down in a frown of confusion. “It’s the ambience of the casinos, the atmosphere,” she explained. “For some inexplicable reason I forget everything else while I’m there, whether I’m actually playing or merely drifting around observing others at play.” She laughed softly. “I’m probably not explaining this very well, but while I’m there there is no pressure, no stress, no sense of time either running out or closing in. While there, I feel unencumbered....” She hesitated a moment, then murmured, “Free.” Leslie’s green eyes glowed as she smiled at Marie. “I have no idea how long it will last,

but for now the casinos are my boit-hole, my hideout. And yes, I do need that escape.”

“And you don’t consider it a weakness?” Marie studied her friend carefully, for the first time noting the taut lines of strain bracketing her fantastic eyes and the vulnerable look about her sculpted lips. She felt a pang when those vulnerable lips parted to release a weary-sounding sigh.

“You’ll never know how much I appreciate your concern, Marie,” Leslie said, her eyes brightening suspiciously. “But for now, my periodic escapes are the only thing keeping me strong.”

“Then go to it!” Marie urged intensely. “And to hell with the cost!”

Leslie’s laughter burst around them like a sudden shower of shimmering sunlight. The advice was completely out of character for her frugal friend, and as such it was all the more warming to hear. Grasping her hand again, Leslie smiled directly into Marie’s serious brown eyes. “Thank you, friend,” she murmured around the thickness closing her throat.

“For what?” Marie’s voice was also husky.

“For your support, even though you’re not convinced that I’m doing the right thing.”

Five days later, Leslie tossed her luggage into the midsize car she rarely got the opportunity to drive and paid a small fortune to garage, and put her defensive-driving lessons into practice weaving in and out of the congested Manhattan traffic. Once clear of the city, she loosened her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and relaxed to enjoy the relatively short run to Atlantic City.

Since she’d deliberately chosen the off-peak hours to make the trip, traffic was light and moved smoothly on the New Jersey Garden State Parkway, allowing Leslie some leeway to ruminate on the events of the night before.

Surprisingly, since the role she’d been doing for nearly a year had begun to stagnate for her, there had been an electricity to Leslie’s final performance that had brought the audience to their feet with a standing ovation for her as the final curtain had been lowered. She had been presented with four bouquets of roses, and numerous single blossoms had been tossed onto the stage at her feet. Laughing, crying, Leslie had taken three curtain calls and had greeted what seemed to her to be a horde of well-wishers in her dressing room afterward.

After the crowd had finally dispersed, she had barely had time to remove her stage makeup and change before being whisked from the theater to a cab and then into the current
in
nightspot, where a party for her had been arranged by the cast and crew of the production company.

Marie and her husband had been waiting there for Leslie’s arrival along with most of her other friends. There had been music and an abundance of food, a few more tears and a lot of laughter before the party had wound down in the early hours of the morning. As the group had parted company, there had been reminders called out to Leslie to keep in touch, and there had been warm handshakes and even warmer hugs and again a few more tears. And then Leslie had gone home.. .alone.

Blinking against a surge of tears, Leslie steered the car onto the off ramp, then onto the Atlantic City Expressway. With her first glimpse of the tall buildings etching the Atlantic City skyline, Leslie recalled the last few moments of the phone conversation she’d had with Marie before leaving, and an impish smile tilted her lips.

“Have fun, but get some rest, too,” Marie had admonished her like a mother hen. “I don’t want to see a single line of strain on your face when you get back.” “I’ll work at it,” Leslie had promised. Then, half teasing, half serious, she had added, “Who knows? If I just happen to run into a tall, dark, handsome devil of a man, I just might indulge in a blazing affair.” Leslie was still smiling at the memory of Marie’s encouraging laughter as she brought the car to a stop alongside the Valet Parking sign outside the Falcon’s Flight hotel.

Two

Unaware of the appreciative male glances that skimmed the length of her legs as she stepped from the car, Leslie draped her coat over her shoulders like a cloak, offered the doorman a brilliant smile along with a generous tip, then swept through the entrance and across the lobby as if she owned the hotel. Then, glancing briefly over her shoulder to see if the bell captain was following with her bags, Leslie strode into the broad, rock-hard chest of the man who
did
own the hotel.

Thrown off balance, Leslie whipped her head around as strong hands grasped her upper arms. A startled gasp became lodged deep in her throat as she gazed into the dark, expressionless face of the most intimidating male Leslie had ever had the misfortune to run into—literally or otherwise.

“I, ah, that is, I—” Leslie was very seldom at a loss for words... until now. There was something so formidable about this man that she could barely think coherently, let alone translate her jumbled thoughts into decipherable language. Instead of her usual precise speech, what stuttered out of her mouth was a garbled attempt at apology. “I am, ah, I—I’m sorry!”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m finding it rather pleasant.”

The man’s stonelike visage didn’t alter by so much as a crack. Not a hint of a smile softened the severity of his thin male lips. There wasn’t a shadow of emotion in his shuttered gray eyes to reveal his thoughts. If it hadn’t been for the fine thread of sensuality woven through his low tone and the gentle flex of his fingers into her tender flesh, Leslie would have misunderstood his meaning entirely.

But there was that thread of sensuality, and that thread drew the dangling ends of Leslie’s frayed thoughts together. As the realization that the upper part of her body was pressed tightly to his hard chest exploded in her mind, tiny flares of response ignited spontaneously throughout her body.

Suddenly feeling overwarm, Leslie blushed, then stiffened. He removed his grip on her upper arms at the same instant she moved to step back. Leslie found her voice in that same instant.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, attempting a cool response. “I’m afraid I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Cringing inwardly at the throaty sound of her normally husky voice, Leslie forced herself to meet his direct stare.

He didn’t return her smile. He didn’t relinquish her gaze. But his lips did move—fractionally.

“There is no need for an apology.” The tone of his voice was now as remote as the expression in his eyes. “I’m afraid I wasn’t watching where I was going, either.”