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Authors: Elizabeth Adler

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BOOK: One of Those Malibu Nights
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The only positive news Sunny had were the postcards Mac sent her daily. At least she believed they were from him but since there was no signature she couldn’t be absolutely sure. Except she knew nobody else who would be FedExing pictures of Surfrider Beach, and Zuma, and Paradise Cove with the anonymous message “From Malibu, with Love.” Sunny was saving those postcards. She planned to stick them in her Memories book to look at when she was old and gray. And also, unless she could get Mac to the altar soon, still single.

Her room looked as though a typhoon had hit it. Her method of unpacking was to take everything out of the suitcase and toss it over chairs and the bed, then sort out whatever she needed from the various piles. Her apartment was kept mostly in the same state of chaos. It was a leftover habit from her college days when it had seemed the easiest—and quickest—method of getting dressed, and it drove Mac crazy. To compensate she would point out her kitchen to him, immaculate as an operating room, and where she would
cook him delicious meals—plus she always did the dishes afterward. Food was her first passion. The second was clothes, as evidenced by the shopping bags from Rome’s boutiques scattered around the room. The third was her Harley chopper, but that unfortunately was back in L.A. Rome was a city full of Vespas, and they were definitely not the same thing.

She picked up the phone, got Mac’s voice mail one more time, slammed it back down again and lay back on the bed contemplating her coral-pink toenails and her life.

Of course her name was not really Sunny. That’s just what Mac called her. Her real name was Sonora Sky Coto de Alvarez. Quite a mouthful, as she was only too painfully aware. In fact she was truly grateful to be designated as Sunny. At least it let her off the hook of constantly explaining those names, which were the direct result of having a hippie-style mother who’d communed with nature as well as with the spirits, in the desert around their adobe-style ranch outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sunny’s mom was still dreamy and offbeat beautiful and still prone to wearing floating shapeless garments with long strands of crystal beads, and often flowers in her smooth blond hair. Yet, oddly enough she’d always been a terrific mom, even if her daughters did have to spend nights with her out in the desert, communing with nature while keeping a nervous eye out for rattlers. Mom didn’t even think about things like snakes. Her mind was on a higher plane, one that sadly Sunny and her sister never reached.

Their feet were more firmly planted on this earth. As kids they loved riding horses, chasing boys and raising hell. Later, they’d graduated to riding motorcycles, chasing boys and raising hell. That is until their father took them in hand, straightened them out and packed them off to college, where he hoped real life would not deal them a killer blow between the eyes after the gentle ministrations of their otherworldly mother.

Sunny’s papa was something else again. Handsome? You don’t know what that word means if you haven’t seen her dad. He’s Mexican, with that polishedtan skin, thick silver-gray hair, soft brown eyes and a trim mustache. Kind of like Howard Keel used to look in
Dallas
. Astride his black thoroughbred he was the epitome of the Mexican ranchero.

He’d thought Brown was the perfect college to tame a Harley-riding, boy-mad eighteen-year-old, and true, it had opened up Sunny’s world to a kind of life she had never seen. But she’d missed her family, and she’d cried thinking of her beloved
abuelita
, her Mexican grandmother, and of the tamales, cooked the way only Abuelita knew how to cook them. The tamales were a Christmas Eve staple at the ranch and everyone from the workers and the cowboys and the local families gathered to enjoy them, along with a large amount of tequila and Corona beer and Mexican music and dancing.

Of course Mom also cooked the traditional turkey, albeit in her usual haphazard way. Sometimes it wasn’t quite done
and had to go back in the oven for an hour or two; and sometimes it was too well done and Papa said you needed horse teeth to get through it. Either way it was fun.

At college it hadn’t take long for the golden-limbed raven-haired Latina in black biker leathers zooming around on her Harley to get noticed. Soon, she was cooking tamales and handing out the Corona at her own parties. By the time she graduated, magna cum laude, with her proud parents and her sister beaming in the audience, Sunny felt almost ready to tackle the world. But before that came the Wharton School and a master’s in business.

Later, she’d found herself a job in Paris, working for a fragrance house. After a year there she moved on to Bologna and a job with the Fiat corporation. Then back home and on to California, where she’d opened her PR business, which was doing very nicely, thank you.

She’d met Mac at a press party for his TV show. He told her he’d noticed her across the room. “How could I miss you, in that outfit,” was what he’d actually said.

It was winter and she had on a tiny white miniskirt, her tough-girl motorcycle boots because she’d driven there on her Harley, and a black turtleneck. She was all long golden legs, sexy curves and tumbling black hair. She was always careful about drinking and driving and was sipping lemonade when he’d come up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Swinging round, she found herself looking at this rugged guy in jeans and a T-shirt, whose deep blue eyes
were taking her in like she was the best thing he’d seen all night.

It’s him
, she’d thought, thrilled.
The man I’ve been waiting for all my life
. Of course she was smart enough not to tell him that and it was true, they were total opposites: Mac, dragged up by his bootstraps from the streets of Boston and the Miami crime scene to the PI and TV personality he was now. And she, the wild child brought up on the ranch, beautiful and brainy and ditzy, but with the determination to be her own woman.

In fact life seemed set fair, romance-wise, until she’d invited him for dinner at her smart high-rise apartment in Marina del Rey, a few miles from his home in Malibu. Even her home-cooked tamales were no match for that first disastrous encounter between Tesoro and Pirate.

Let’s face it, Sunny thought, sighing, Pirate was willing to be friends. Tesoro was not. And rather than have his dog harassed, Mac had departed, leaving the tamales uneaten. “Next time I won’t bring the dog,” he’d said, shielding Pirate from the marauding Chihuahua.

And that was how things now stood. She went to his Malibu house without Tesoro. He came to her Marina apartment without Pirate. “And never the twain shall meet” was Mac’s motto. Which of course left them in their current uncertain limbo.

Sunny checked the time. It was after midnight in Malibu and Mac still wasn’t home. She should get off this bed
right now. Get out there in the vibrant bustling streets of Rome, pick up a charming handsome Italian and let him sweep her off her stilettos.

Heaving a sigh that this time came from her gut, she decided that she would call Mac no more. The hell with the diet. She could practically smell sugar and cinnamon as she ran her hands hastily through her long dark hair, pushed her feet into black patent sandals and headed for the door.

The phone rang. She swung round, staring at it.

It rang again. Of course it wouldn’t be
him
. How could it? Hadn’t she been calling him for the past hour, damn it?

She picked up the phone.
“Pronto?”
she said sulkily.

C
HAPTER 4

“Sunny?” Mac said.

“This is Sonora Sky Coto de Alvarez.”

Mac felt a sudden frost in Malibu. She was giving him the full-name treatment. He was in real trouble. Only thing was, he didn’t know why.

“You sound so Italian,” he said. “Maybe I should be calling you Signorina.”

“How would you know I’m not already a Signora now? Neglected as I am by you.”

He grinned. “Okay,
Signora
, who popped the question?”

“Certainly not you. Where were you, Romeo? I’ve been calling for the past hour.”

“Would you believe the beach? Just me and Pirate. Gazing
at the stars and wondering whether you were looking at the same stars, all those miles away in Rome.”

“Huh. Some story. Anyhow, it’s breakfast time here. There are no stars, except the ones out at Cinecittà Studios, where I expect to be spending the day surrounded by the cream of Roman manhood.”

Mac’s grin widened. “Don’t let it go to your head, honey. Hang out with me and I’ll introduce you to the cream of Malibu manhood.”

“Like yourself, you mean? Thanks, but I can do without it.”

“Listen, Sunny, something odd just happened … .”

“Don’t even bother to tell me.” She sank back onto the bed, legs crossed, dangling one black patent sandal on the end of her toe, contemplating it as though it were the only thing of interest in her life.

Her indifference permeated the telephone miles, registering like the knell of doom in Mac’s brain. “Aw, come on, Sunny, honey…”

“And don’t call me by that ridiculous rhyming name.”

It was Mac’s turn to heave a sigh. “Okay, so you don’t even want to know that somebody took a shot at me.”

Unbelieving, she swung the sandal back onto her foot, uncrossed her legs and stood up. She was heading out that door right this minute. Espresso and sugar buns awaited.

“I’ll bet it was a woman,” she said.

Mac was genuinely astonished. “How did you know that?”

“Just call it feminine intuition. And I have no doubt you deserved it.”

“Well thanks a lot for that vote of confidence. Really, Sunny, I expected more from you. Y’know, like a little concern for my well-being, a touch of compassion, or at least an inquiry as to whether I might be bleeding to death from my wounds.”

“She
wounded
you?” Sunny’s knees were suddenly shaky. She sank back onto the bed. “Oh, Mac, darling, are you all right?”

Mac was laughing as he said, “Well, actually, no, she didn’t get me. But she had a darned good try, I can tell you. And it was a Sigma .40 handgun I was facing.”

Sunny gritted her teeth. “You rat,” she said shakily. “Setting me up like that.”

“How else was I to get your attention? Look, Sunny, it’s the truth.” He told her quickly what had taken place just fifteen minutes earlier, taking care to eliminate the red hair, the sexy black negligee, the spectacular body and the face like a naughty angel.

“What I don’t get,” he said finally, “is why she didn’t summon help. I mean, why was she shooting at me? Her would-be savior?”

“Perhaps she’s the murderer.”

“What murder? I didn’t see a body. But I’ll bet she was
the one who screamed. Plus she was sobbing. I saw the tears on her face. Look, babe, I’m in a dilemma here. I already called the guard at the gate. He called the house, got word from the owner, Ron Perrin—as in Ronald Perrin, billionaire investment mogul—that nothing was wrong. Said it was probably just that the TV was too loud. Now that’s b.s. I
know
what I saw. So do I call the cops? Or do I let her get on with whatever it is she’s up to and keep my nose out of their business, because it’s probably only the usual domestic quarrel and she was just making her point?”

“With a Sigma .40? Some point! If I were you, Reilly, I’d keep my nose clean and stay away where you’re not wanted. Unless of course she wants to hire you for some fabulous fee that you can’t refuse, especially now the TV show might be canceled. I mean, why work for free?”

Mac thought worriedly about it. “What if she’s really in trouble?”

“It seems to me she knew exactly how to take care of herself. And so, I guess, did Mr. Perrin. Do me a favor, Mac, you’re talking Malibu Colony. Nothing bad ever happens there, everything is sweetness and light. Just don’t be the one to make waves.”

Sunny was sitting on the bed again. The phone was clamped between her shoulder and her ear and she was wishing she had a cup of coffee and that Mac would talk about something other than business. Like them for instance.

As if in answer to her wish, he said, “I miss you like
crazy. I couldn’t take it tonight, just me, mooching along the beach with Pirate. And you not beside me, not there waiting for me, not in my bed … in my heart.”

Sunny’s own heart shifted pace to an incredulous little jiggle. “What did you say?”

“I miss you, Sunny. How about I catch the next flight to Rome?”

“Oh, Mackenzie Reilly,” she said, tremulously, “that would be heaven. I know this café with the best espresso… .”

“Forget espresso. Make a reservation at your favorite restaurant. I’m taking you out on the town tomorrow night. It’s nothing but the best for my woman.”

Sunny sighed happily. All was right in their world again. And for her, the billionaire Ron Perrin and the woman with the Sigma .40 were temporarily forgotten.

C
HAPTER 5

Early the next morning Mac strolled up the street to Ron Perrin’s house. Of course he knew all about Perrin. Who didn’t? He was a big shot who’d made his first money by successfully investing for the insurance business, and had then parlayed his investment firm into one of the Wall Street majors. And though he now seemed all power and success, the man had a past. He’d divorced his first wife amid a great scandal because of his relationship with another woman, who happened also to be married to a prominent man. Plus he had once been accused of mishandling funds, though he had emerged, at least on the court records, as clean as a whistle.

Now Perrin was CEO of a string of high-profile companies, and even more powerful. And much, much richer. He
was also married to a famous movie star, the blond, petite and beautiful Allie Ray.

As well as the Malibu house, Perrin owned a mansion in Bel Air and a desert compound in Palm Springs, a couple of hours’ drive from L.A. It was nothing but the best for Ron Perrin. He lived like the king some folks claimed he believed he was.

From the street angle, Perrin’s house in the Colony was a simple blank sheet of windowless limestone. The door was a lofty slab of unpolished steel that looked like a pewter coffin lid and without a knob or a handle of any sort. A discreet button set into the wall invited the visitor to Press.

BOOK: One of Those Malibu Nights
8.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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