Read One of Those Malibu Nights Online

Authors: Elizabeth Adler

One of Those Malibu Nights (32 page)

BOOK: One of Those Malibu Nights
10.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Her eyes were that deep turquoise blue that searched the depths of a man’s soul. Mac felt their pull, saw her beauty. Her gentleness.

“You’ll manage,” he said, kissing her on the lips.

He stepped back and they looked into each other’s eyes one last time. Then, “Goodbye,” she said, taking the dog’s leash and walking outside to the car.

Neither she nor the dog looked back.

C
HAPTER 66

Allie went to see Ron at the downtown jail before she left for France. They met on either side of a glass partition and Ron was wearing the regulation orange jumpsuit. She thought he looked tired and sad.

“Why did you do it, Ron?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Because I could, I guess. It was just a game to me. Demarco was the one who took it seriously. Enough to kill for.” He shook his head again. “Those poor girls.”

Their eyes met through the glass partition that separated them.

“You look wonderful,” he said. “Like my old Allie Ray.”

“I’m going back even further than that,” she said. “Back
to Mary Allison Raycheck. No more movies. No more Hollywood. I’m putting the houses up for sale.”

“Malibu as well?”

She nodded.

Looking relieved, Ron said, “Just save my trains, though.”

“I’m going back to France.”

He looked startled. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. Maybe forever.”

Their eyes met through the glass wall searching for the truth that somewhere along the line had gotten lost.

“Will you write to me?” he asked, and Allie promised she would.

The next day Allie and the new dog, Frankie, were on a flight to France.

Back at the Manoir, Petra welcomed her with kisses and cups of tea, and Robert Montfort welcomed her with open arms.

Later, Petra accompanied her to a
notaire’s
office in Bergerac and within a couple of weeks Allie found herself signing the documents that made her the new owner of five hectares of land with a two-bedroom, one-bath dwelling, a bunch of rickety farm buildings and a broken-down barn. The garden was still a riot of weeds, the rain bucket still stood under the
drainpipe to catch the rainwater, and dragonflies still danced over the pond. Of all the splendid homes she had owned, Allie had never before felt this thrill of ownership.

Petra said she would be sad to see her leave the Manoir but glad that she was to be a permanent neighbor.

“I’ve gotten used to having you around, love,” she said, dabbing her teary eyes with a pink silk scarf that just happened to be handy. “And don’t you worry about the garden,” she told her after inspecting it with critical blue eyes. “We’ll have that knocked into shape in no time. To tell you the truth I think it looks just gorgeous as it is. Old Madame Duplantis lived here for as long as anyone can remember, until she went to stay with her only daughter in Bergerac a couple of years ago. It’s been empty ever since.

“It’ll need a bit of tarting up inside, though,” she added, noticing the peeling flowered wallpaper and the rustic kitchen, which consisted of a small two-burner stove, a stone sink with a scrubbed wooden draining board, a table covered with red-flowered oilcloth and a couple of cupboards. It did have a nice stone-flagged walk-in larder though. Good, Petra told Allie, for keeping cheeses and eggs cool, as well as fresh veggies.

Robert came too, with an architect friend, who planned on knocking out a couple of the interior walls to open up the space, and who also redesigned the kitchen and the only bathroom. He mentioned that eventually Allie might want to think about renovating the barn. He had no doubt she
was going to need more room. The work on the cottage would take a couple of months, they said, which made Petra laugh.

“Think more like six,” she whispered to Allie. “You’ll be stuck at my place for a while yet.”

Meanwhile, there was a tired-looking old vineyard at the back of the property, a mere three hectares, but Robert said the land wasn’t bad, and he could get it cleared and replanted for her.

Allie was thrilled. All of a sudden, she was a new homeowner and a future winemaker. And Robert Montfort’s eyes were telling her things she half liked, half didn’t.

A few weeks later Allie and Robert were having a picnic on the grass near her pond. The sound of hammering and the whine of tiles being cut had stopped for the day and they were finally alone. Robert uncorked the wine and poured her a glass.

“To us,” he said, smiling.

“To us, Robert,” she said, but she turned away from him as she said it.

“Mary,” he said, making her smile this time because he still refused to call her Allie. “I never knew Allie Ray,” he’d said. “Only
Mary.”

“I want you to know how much I enjoy having you here,” he said now.

She was watching the dog, Frankie, wading at the edge of the pool, searching like Dearie had, for frogs that jumped easily out of his way, sending him into a barking frenzy of delight.

“I feel like this is my true home,” she said.

“But yet you go back to California all the time. It’s as though you can’t keep away.”

“From Ron, you mean?”

“Ah, yes. The husband.” He reached for her hand. “Promise me you’ll let me know when there’s any change in that.”

“Yes,” she said. “I promise.” But in her heart, she already knew what her answer would be.

C
HAPTER 67

Allie was in court every day of Ron’s trial on tax evasion charges. She sat there, her blond head held high, immaculately dressed as always and alone except for her attorneys.

Mac and Sunny saw her briefly outside the courtroom. She came into Mac’s arms, hugging him as though she never wanted to let go.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Friends have not exactly been swarming. Not with Ron’s disgrace and all the scandal, even though it was really Demarco who was the true criminal.”

The trial resumed and they went back to watching. Mac was sorry he couldn’t go every day, but his show was back on again and he was busy at the studios until late. Sunny and Sheila kept her company though.

In the end Perrin was given a hefty fine and sentenced to jail for a year. A nice white-collar open jail known as The Farm, the same place other famous wheeler-dealers had done time. Mac had no doubt that when they deleted the months Ron had already served, plus time off for good behavior, he would be out in much less than that.

A few months later he bumped into Allie again. Like him, she was a visitor at The Farm. She told him she flew in to visit Ron every two weeks. “Regular as clockwork,” she added with a grin. She also told him that she’d had an offer from a well-known French director to be in his next film. “Just a small film,” she said, “not one of your Hollywood productions. And I won’t be starring, that’ll be some young French girl. I’m looking forward to it,” she said, surprising him. “After all, I’m a good actress,” she added, and of course Mac agreed.

“Ron will be out in about six months,” she said. “We’re getting back together.”

Mac’s brows rose in surprise and Allie said, “Like all good criminals while in jail, Ron has repented his sins and promised to give up his ‘bad ways.’ Whatever that means,” she added thoughtfully. “Anyhow, he’s coming to live with me and Frankie at my little vineyard in France. I’m still helping Petra at the Bistro and Ron and I are planning on stomping our grapes together,” she added with a happy laugh.

“Allie.” Mac looked serious. “Why?”

“So, okay … it’s because I love him,” Allie said simply. “I always have. And now I’m sure he loves me.”

She gave him a happy smile, then twirled in front of him. “What do you think? Does it suit me?”

She had taken to wearing chambray shirts and Levi’s and no makeup, and Mac thought she looked like the pretty small-town girl she’d always been at heart. And her large turquoise blue eyes could still melt a man’s soul.

“I think you look great,” he said.

EPILOGUE

The Colony homes are mostly empty in winter, when their owners flee all of ten miles inland to the more temperate climate of Beverly Hills. But Mac loved it then, even more than in summer. He loved it when it was gray and wild and lonely, when the waves surged at his little house demanding entrance and the wind rattled the shutters and blew smoke down the chimney.

It was kind of cozy here tonight, though, in the master bedroom, with a Bach CD playing and the fire lit and the curtains closed and the wind whipping the waves into storm force outside, and the candles flickering in the ever-present draft. Sunny was wearing his old green cashmere sweater and a pair of white sweat socks and nothing else. She was snuggled up beside him in bed, keeping a watchful eye on
Tesoro, to whom Pirate and Mac had reluctantly granted visitation rights.

The Chihuahua had paced for the last hour, back and forth, back and forth. When she wasn’t pacing, she was tugging at the curtains with her tiny paw and peering mournfully outside, tail drooping, ears back, the very picture of an unhappy exile. Meanwhile, Pirate sat on his haunch, his one eye following her every move.

Patient, Mac thought, that’s what my dog is.

“Trust me,” he said to Sunny, “I know Pirate. He’s just biding his time. Like all men, he’s waiting for that right moment to make a move.”

Gazing at his Sunny, he wondered again why women always wanted to get married. Weren’t the two of them perfectly good the way they were? Anyhow, he wasn’t sure he was up to the job of being Tesoro’s father. Plus Pirate wouldn’t take too well to having a bossy female permanently around, infringing on his hard-come-by territory. Like him, Pirate had come up in life the hard way. Tesoro was like her mother, a lady—and you had better not forget it. Besides, two females in one small Malibu house? He sighed. It was simple math. Two into one just didn’t go.

Tesoro finally settled at the very foot of the duvet, making it clear through the angle of her whiskers and her tipped-back ears that she was not about to move a single inch.

But then they spotted Pirate’s black mutt nose sniffing
over the end of the bed as he crawled sneakily closer. Pirate lay down next to Tesoro, nonchalantly making like he hadn’t noticed her, though Mac could see a flinch waiting on his face in case he had to use it.

Sunny and he looked at each other, then back at their dogs lying side by side. Twenty … thirty long seconds ticked by. They held their breaths.

Pirate glanced at Tesoro, then slowly, hesitantly, he lay his mutt head across the Chihuahua’s tiny aristocratic paws. His eye watched her hopefully. Another ten seconds passed. Tesoro slid Pirate a sideways glance then burrowed her head into the duvet, flicked her mini-tail over her nose, adjusted her ears back to normal and closed her eyes. Peace reigned supreme in Malibu.

“So that’s it,” Sunny said with a sigh of relief, cozying up under the duvet.

“That’s what?” Mac asked, burying his face in her fragrant neck, ready to devour her.

“There’s no excuse anymore. Tesoro and Pirate are best friends. They are sleeping together on our bed and nobody is killing anybody.”

“So?”

“So there’s no excuse for not marrying me.” She turned her face to his.

“Maybe a wedding on the beach,” Mac said, kissing her pouty mouth, clasping the soft cashmered length of her against him until he felt every heartbeat, every pulse, every
throb of longing. “Yeah, a moonlit wedding with just a few good friends. And the dogs of course.”

“What?”
she said.

“Sunny,” he whispered, in between kisses.

“Mmmmmmm?”

“Marry me,” he said more firmly.

“I do,” she said, and then they were tangled up in the sheets, laughing and crying together. Outside was a stormy moon and the slur of the ocean hitting the shore.

It was just one of those Malibu nights.

But this is where we came in.

BOOK: One of Those Malibu Nights
10.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Covered, Part Three by Mina Holt, Jaden Wilkes
Once Upon a Summer by Janette Oke
Anything but Love by Celya Bowers
Shattered by Elizabeth Lee
Death of a Domestic Diva by Sharon Short
Cape Storm by Rachel Caine
The Way Back by Carrie Mac
The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse
Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum by Prosapio, Stephen