The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men (15 page)

“I've got to leave immediately. We'll have to discuss this later.”

“Great. No problem. Sure.” Where did fugitives head for these days? Bogotá? Berlin? Belize?

“In two, maybe three days,” Vince said. “I have to head to L.A. this afternoon, but I'll be back as soon as I can. Then we'll finish our talk.”

She'd be on a plane tomorrow, if she could find her passport in the boxes she'd yet to unpack after her move from luxurious condo to one-bedroom family-owned suite. “Oh, well, I'm not sure—”

“Then we'll finish our talk.”

And she
would
talk with him again, she thought, her heart sliding toward her lap. Though she'd let a man down easy a hundred times before, at the moment, she couldn't afford to let Vince down at all. The fact was,
she had to spend more time with him to get what the SEC wanted. An hour ago, she'd been happy about that, right?

“And next week I need a date for the hospital's masquerade ball,” she said. There was an open spot at Johnny's table now that Nash had refused her.

Remember? She'd been happy about that, too.

A
s day turned to darkness, Charlie reached for the bag of crushed ice on the table beside his patio lounge chair and placed it over his eyes. The blepharoplasty he'd undergone to remove his drooping upper lids and the puffy bags below his eyes seemed to be taking the longest to heal.

Or maybe it was just another excuse not to look at himself in the mirror. He'd had to trim his nose hair today.

Again.

And there were some gray whiskers mixed in with the blonde on his chin. He could shave them from his skin, but that didn't erase them from his memory, though hell, that would likely be going soon anyway.

Maybe then he'd forget about Jemima. About the touch of her mouth beneath his, about the scent and
the warmth of her young, nubile body so close to his. He was goddamn in love with her, but how could he do anything about those feelings when he was going through this disgusting midlife, male willies thing? The losers in
Sideways
had depicted the dissatisfied, aimless feeling, and Bill, too, in
Lost in Translation
. Fine films, but a hell of a way to actually live your day.

He couldn't even suck down whiskey or pinot noir, thanks to the pain meds.

Here he was, successful and wealthy by anyone's standards, but still less than happy. Growing up, he'd figured he'd be married by the age he was now, with a kid or two to reexperience childhood with. Instead, he was forty-something with a face-lift, desperate to retain his muscular, twentyish physique. Where was everything he was supposed to have learned by now—prudence, patience, kindness, temperance, perspective?

Where the hell was wisdom?

Through the partition separating his bungalow's patio from Jemima's, he heard her sliding glass door open, shut. Then footsteps, light, quick, definitely Jemima's. A rustle as she settled herself into her own lounger.

Behind the ice, he squeezed his eyes shut tight. Pretend she isn't there, he told himself. You're an actor, this should be easy.

That's the way he'd decided to handle his unwelcome emotional state. It wasn't there. Just like Jemima wasn't there.

If he could pretend he was a Korean War–era submariner in
Over His Head,
which had garnered him a Golden Globe less than five years before, then he could act as if he'd never been attracted to Jemima Cargill. He could ignore her very presence.

The youngster-to-ignore's voice floated through the flimsy partition. “Who stars in
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
? Tom Cruise?”

He wasn't going to answer. Let her think he wasn't there, or asleep. But, Jesus.
Cruise?
How could she think Short Stuff had the comedy chops for that, despite his launching pad of
Risky Business
? Ever since, Tom had been overcompensating for his halfling stature with Navy jets, race cars, and samurai swords, not laughs.

“Or is it Pee Wee Herman?”

Charlie bit his bottom lip, willing himself not to respond. But Pee Wee Herman! “Matthew Broderick,” he bit out, not able to let another second of celluloid misinformation go unchallenged. “Son of the late James Broderick, who played Alice's husband in 1969's
Alice's Restaurant,
who was also in
The Group
and
Dog Day Afternoon
. He played the father in the TV series
Family
from 1976 through 1980.”

“Ah! Matthew of
The Music Man
and
The Producers,
and husband of Sarah Jessica Parker.”

“Right.” Now that she wasn't wallowing in total ignorance, he could relax and return to pretending to be comatose.

“I met Sarah Jessica Parker at a
Vanity Fair
thing last year.”

Whoop-de-do.

“She seemed really in love with her husband and their life with their son,” Jemima said, her tone admiring. “And they say actors can't have it all.”

“I thought you had decided to give up the acting life.” He had to comment, didn't he? The last thing she'd told him was that she was going to quit the business. Not that he'd actually believed he'd get that lucky.
The trough that was midlife was full of waves that could lift a man up and then drop him down just as deep.

“At the moment, I don't feel like letting anything—or anyone—chase me away from what's already planned.”

That sounded ominous. If there was one thing he'd learned in his years—middle age had to be good for
something
—was that flexibility was paramount. There were times to advance and times to retreat, and he wanted her—please God—to be retreating from him and any more ideas she had about touching him or kissing him.

He cleared his throat. “Listen, Jem, about the other night.”

“I'm not talking about the other night.”

Okay. Good. But it begged the question, and he was so effing lousy at playing half-dead bodies. Every director he'd ever had had whined that he couldn't hold his breath worth a damn. “So what
are
you talking about?”

“Oh, my brother Nash just stormed out. He's been haranguing me all afternoon, convinced my fan is stalking me again.”

The sound that came out of Charlie's mouth sounded like a wounded seal. He took a deep breath and tossed the ice pack away from his eyes. “Jemima, please explain.”

It wasn't sweet, but it was short. She had a teenage fan who, months ago, had started hanging out near the studio where she'd been working and then at her home. Her mother had gone ballistic, the kid had been taken into custody, evaluated, and set free. Except now, the young man was missing.

“I trip on the street, Nash gets a bizarro fax, and suddenly he sees the boogeyman behind every palm tree.”

Charlie felt as if he were pushing through Jell-O as he rose from his lounger. She was young, he told himself, trying to think calmly through his panic. Inexperienced. Not well-versed in the wacko ways that Hollywood fame could warp people who wanted to grab a piece of it for themselves. Women sent him used lipsticks, worn panties, worse.

He had friends who'd found fans in their bushes, in their kitchens, in their beds. Models' faces had been slashed, actresses murdered.

He wrapped his fingers around the edge of the partitition and tried to sound calm. A mature man could sound calm, couldn't he, even when fear was squeezing the breath from his body?

“You've got to take these things seriously, Jem.” His heart rate was seriously jacked up, that was certain. Where the hell was his buddy Larry in all this? As her agent, how could Larry possibly have let one of his most valuable clients gallivant around Southern California with a nutcase on her tail? Charlie was going to have to track the man down and kick his careless ass.

“I have taken it seriously. We've talked with the LAPD and the Palm Springs police, and today I contacted the most reputable threat management firm in Hollywood. I'm okay, Charlie. There are signs, a distinct set of signals, that point to potential problems. Their assessment is that my fan is not dangerous to me. He's just on a trip away from home.”

“They told you that?”

“Obviously they don't know exactly where he is and
what he's doing, but yes, they told me in their opinion he isn't a threat to me. I believe it, they believe it, everyone believes it except Nash.”

Without even meeting the guy, Charlie decided he loved Nash. “I think you should listen to your brother.”

“He wants me to go away with him somewhere in Europe. Heidelberg, maybe? Krakow? I had to shove him out of my bungalow and lock the door.”

“You should leave with him.” Damn it! She had to take every precaution. She was too precious, too young, too…loved to lose.

“What? I can't just take off, not when I'm supposed to report to the set soon.”

“Go to Europe. Trust Larry to track the kid down in time.” He'd say anything he must to keep her safe.

“And maybe not. I have this movie I've agreed to do. I'm not giving that up.”

Charlie hardened his jaw. “The movie with Mack Chandler.”

“Yes, but—Wait a minute, how do you know about Larry?”

Tightening his fingers on the partition's post, Charlie took a breath. “You mentioned your agent's name one time or other.”

“I did not.”

Charlie tried thinking fast. But he was too old—or too worried. And anyway, he'd do
anything
he must to keep her safe. The decision was just that easy. That quick. He didn't even bother with a deep breath.

“Because,” Charlie said, “as a matter of fact, Larry's my agent too.” Sans hat, Ray-Bans, and scarf, he walked around the partition.

And presented Mack Chandler's new and improved face to the woman he'd tricked into intimacy.

As he'd expected, Jemima reared back in shock, her small hand rising to her throat.

He gave her Mack Chandler's
People
magazine's Most Beautiful People smile and dropped Charlie's put-on Aussie accent. “Hey, baby. Surprise.”

She'd gone statue-still, so he marched forward to give her a better look at him. “I can't take credit for the idea. It was Larry who thought of us getting acquainted outside the set.”

Her agent, Larry Michaels. Their mutual agent. Charlie had known the guy since he'd first come to Hollywood. Larry had been the bartender at the Beverly Hills hotel where Charlie had waited tables. They'd shared a house for a time. Charlie and Larry were the same exact age, the same temperament, and apparently, the samely stupid when it came to dealing with Jemima Cargill.

When she'd confessed to Larry her nervousness over working with Mack, the other man had come up with the “great” idea that the two of them could get to know each other off the set. “Strike up a friendship,” Larry had advised. “Charm her before she knows who you really are.”

So Charlie had covered his scars and bruises with hat and glasses and scarf and tacked on the Australian accent he'd developed for a straight-to-video flick he'd done before
Honey Hunt
. Then he'd gone out of his way to meet Jemima—which hadn't been too hard, since Larry had managed to make sure the two of them had been assigned neighboring bungalows.

It had all seemed like a good idea at the time.

But what a disaster.

Jemima was such a little thing that she took up less than two-thirds of her chaise. He dropped down to
the empty cushion beside her slender thighs and put on another smile again. Most of the swelling was gone, and he was sure he was recognizable as Mack Chandler. As she continued to stare at him, though, a flutter of concern batted around his gut. “Uh, what do you think about the face?”

Her next action didn't quite answer the question about his features, though it made it perfectly clear what she thought about
him
. She slapped him, brisk and hard, across the left cheek.

He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, tasting blood. “Christ, you're strong,” he complained.

But it was all talk. He welcomed the sting, as he welcomed the burning glare she was now training his way. Jemima Cargill would have other costars, other movies, other chances for Oscar fame. Her talent would not be hidden away. But
she
would be hidden away now. He was certain that unmasking himself as Mack Chandler would send a woman as young and tender as Jemima Cargill to Heidelberg or Krakow or wherever it was her big brother Nash wanted to take her.

As far as Charlie was concerned, it was a happily ever after. The reality equivalent of the hero on the horse cantering off into the sunset. Alone, naturally.

“I don't want to see you again,” she said.

“Of course not,” he murmured. “I completely understand.” Okay, he'd miss her, but he'd worry about that some other time. Now Jemima was the one to focus on. Jemima who would be going far, far away.

Relief flooded him, lightening his heart. He was free in the knowledge that sweet, beautiful Jemima Cargill would stay safe. He was free of his costar, and now free to forget about this unfortunate attachment. He figured he'd never lay his eyes on her again.

She leaped off the lounger, in a move that reminded him just how much litheness he'd lost in the last twenty years. “I don't want to see you again,” she hissed.

“Of course not,” he repeated. “I completely understand.”

“Until,” Jemima continued, “the first day we report to the set.”

W
ith Vince Standish out of town for a few days, Eve was determined to enjoy her life, such as it was. You had to take your pleasures where you could find them when you were a flat-broke, mob boss's daughter with the SEC on your tail. She attended two charity luncheons on her newspaper's press pass, went to tea with a bunch of women with bright clothes and a kick-ass attitude from the Red Hat Society for an upcoming freelance piece for
Palm Springs Life
magazine, and strolled through the El Paseo shopping district, leaving quickly before being tempted to charge something at one of her favorite boutiques.

When you were a flat-broke mob boss's daughter with the SEC on your tail, you could take some pleasures, but you had to restrain your lust.

And wasn't that just plain damn depressing?

After her frustrating window-shopping trip, Eve returned to the Kona Kai as dusk settled into the Coachella Valley. Low-lying landscape lights glowed along the walkways, and she tried to brighten her mood along with them.
Come on, Eve,
she chided herself.
What happened to the happy-go-lucky Party Girl?

Even an enthusiastic tomcat greeting from ragged-eared Adam couldn't lift her spirits. He trotted at her heels as she paused on the way to her suite and unlocked a storage closet that Bianca had given her access to. Though Eve had liquidated most of her furnishings at a high-end consignment store, there were boxes of personal items that she'd stowed away for that time when she once again really had a place to call her own.

Which, for all she knew, would be at Martha Stewart's former stomping grounds, Camp Cupcake.

Morose thoughts continued to flow like sludge through her head as she stacked two cartons into her arms and shoved two others out the door with her feet. It wasn't quick work to move them in that same manner toward her suite, but she had no plans for the rest of the evening anyhow. Nothing to distract her from feeling sorry for herself.

Oh, hurray.

A few feet from her door, long arms reached around her shoulders to pluck the boxes from her hands. Then they froze, leaving her in the circle of a strong, masculine embrace, a man's hands cupping hers.

A man. Hah! It was Nash, of course, as she'd known from the instant she'd felt his heat at her back. Against her breastbone, her heart took up an insistent beat.

“Call off your killer cat,” he said into her ear, his breath hot too.

“Adam,” she said pleasantly, glancing down at the vigilant tom. “Sick 'em.”

Nash's biceps gave her a squeeze. “Bad, ungrateful girl,” he murmured, lifting the boxes over her head as he took a cautious step back.

Relieved woman—until now. Though she'd known Nash had been around the spa the past few days, shadowing Jemima—okay, so she'd asked—Eve hadn't run directly into him. A piece of good luck, she'd thought, considering the fact that the last time she'd seen him she'd somehow ended up with tears—tears!—on her face.

But now he'd turned up again like the proverbial bad penny—just like the return of her own bad luck.

Without bothering to check that he was following, she shoved the boxes that were on the ground the remaining distance to her front door and unlocked it with her card key. Then she booted them across the threshold and held the door wide for Nash. He deposited the cartons he was carrying onto the coffee table in the living area, then cast a glance toward the door she still held open and the forbidding feline guardian that stood just outside of it.

Nash jerked a thumb in Adam's direction. “Sorry, darlin', but I'm not leaving until he does.” And he plopped himself onto the corner of her couch.

Eve scowled at him. She scowled at Adam. Neither one seemed to care the least about getting into her good graces.

And to think that's what she'd once liked about the cat.

And Nash, too.

But the truth was, his company, as unwelcome as it might be, was preferable to that of her own dark
thoughts. So, still wearing her scowl, she shut the door, then puttered about the room, turning on lamps, rearranging the boxes, then finally opening a bottle of sauvignon blanc in order to pour out two glasses.

Without a word, she handed one to Nash, though he probably would have preferred a Bud. She didn't want him getting that comfortable. He wasn't going to be here too long.

He stayed as silent as she was, which she tried to ignore as she settled on the carpeted floor beside the boxes and applied herself to opening the first. Not that she didn't take furtive glances at him through her lashes at the same time. Nash wasn't usually quiet—at least not around her.

But this time he sat back on her cushions, muscular, mile-long legs out in front of him, a thoughtful expression on his face as he gazed about the room. She'd kept a dozen crystal wineglasses in the hopes that one day she'd entertain again, and the delicate flute looked even more fragile than normal in his wide, tanned hand. Poor, defenseless glass, so easily crushed.

Except Nash would never be so careless or aggressive. She thought back to a few minutes ago on the Kona Kai path. He'd surrounded her with his maleness and with his heat, yet she hadn't spooked. She
should
have spooked, but since that night in the dark bathroom, it was impossible to see him as a physical threat. He'd encouraged her to visualize butterflies, for goodness' sake!

“What have you been doing the past few days?” she asked over the mild screech of tape pulling free of cardboard.

“Sticking close to Jem, natch. But she thinks I'm about as handy to have around as a back pocket on a
dress shirt. Still, I've told her I won't leave until her ‘fan' turns up back in his La-Z-Boy at his mama's house or until Jem reports to the set of her latest movie. The producers have promised top-notch security there. What with a costar as blazin' as Mack Chandler, they have to keep a close eye on things.”

“In the meantime, the close eye on Jemima is you.”

“You're not saying that with enough sympathy. Now she's locked up all right and tight for the night, studying her script, she says, but today she made me go with her on one of those celebrity home bus tours.”

His disgusted tone made her laugh—and made her suspect that his disgust was exactly why Jemima had hauled her brother along on the tour in the first place. “What, you didn't enjoy the sites?”

“It's misnamed. It should be the dead celebrity and/ or relocated celebrity home tour. I now know where Dinah Shore and Cary Grant once lived. Where Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher honeymooned, where Eddie Fisher and Liz Taylor honeymooned, where Liz Taylor and Mike Todd honeymooned, where Liz Taylor and Mike Wilding honeymooned. I was holding my breath to find out where Liz Taylor and Kevin Bacon spent their bridal night, but apparently that was one degree of separation too many.”

Eve choked back another snort of laughter. Admit it, she'd missed the big man. It had been her best idea all day to allow him inside. Feeling herself relax, she took a swallow of wine.

“So what's with the depersonalized zone?” Nash asked.

She looked up.

He made a circular gesture with his glass. “This
looks a lot like the room I have here. More hotel room than home.”

She shrugged off the unsettling observation. Unsettling, because the sterility of the surroundings had begun to bother her, too, and was exactly why she'd retrieved the boxes from storage. A few photos and personal things would make it feel more homey—and make her feel it was less likely she'd be sent to prison sometime soon.

She shoved that last thought away. “I only moved in here about a month ago. Sold my condo and came here until I, uh, find something else.”

The lie usually spilled easily from her lips, but now she had to force it out. Maybe fibbing to The Preacher gave it extra weight.

“But great minds think alike and all that,” she continued. “Because I'm adding some personal touches as we speak.” For a moment she dug around some folded fabric she'd added as cushion in the box. Then with a flourish, she pulled out a frame. It slid free of its spongy wrapping protector.

Oh,
she thought, feeling her lips curve.
It's this one
. A framed 8 × 10 photograph of the family, circa six years old for Téa and Eve. They stood side by side in lace first communion dresses, with matching organza veils attached to white velvet headbands. Téa, wouldn't you know, looked properly pious, gloved hands folded at her waist, while Eve appeared ready to pinch Joey, who was grinning at the camera with a look that said, “I'm not wearing any itchy white lace and I'm never gonna!”

Behind the three girls, Bianca wore a serene expression and a jade green Chanel suit, while their father
took up the rest of the photo with his dark good looks and the obvious force of his exuberant personality. He had one hand on Bianca's shoulder and the other on Eve's, and his smile seemed to embrace all of them. She remembered the warm glow of being with him, even as she wondered for the thousandth time how her pasty Nordic DNA had managed to overwhelm her brunette Mediterranean half.

“
He
looks like a movie star. Your father, obviously.”

“Yes.” With her finger, she traced Salvatore Caruso's arm from his shoulder to the fingers that rested on her pristine lace. Even now, she could almost feel his touch, their warmth, that secure feeling she'd had when he was around her. Her father had rescued her from the quiet apartment and the bewildering loss of her mother and brought his inconvenient daughter into the warm bosom of his real family. God, she loved that he'd brought her home and made her a full-fledged Caruso.

“I understand you thought he was missing until recently. I'm sorry.”

Eve flashed back to the night her father's remains had been found, and the memory of the smell of the algae-choked lagoon invaded the room. Johnny had only let them see the moldy wallet that had been the initial piece of evidence that the remains found interred in the rock wall had been Salvatore's. The clammy leather had been sticky to the touch, and she'd wanted to throw it down…and hold it close.

Pressure built behind her eyes and she squeezed them shut. She wasn't going to cry. She hadn't cried over that loss or any other in sixteen years, and there was no point in weeping about it now, especially not when she'd rather smile thinking about Salvatore. “It wasn't such a shock,” she said lightly. “When a member
of the mob goes missing, right away you're pretty sure he's not merely wandering around with amnesia.”

“Still…”

Shrugging, she looked back down at the photo instead of Nash's sympathetic face.

“Tell me something about him.”

Like what? “He learned to shoot by taking target practice on bats in the summertime.” It was the first thing that popped into her head. “When he was a kid, he and his friends would sit on the curb of Palm Canyon Drive, right across from the Desert Inn, and hone their skills.”

She wondered what had made her tell him that. Was her subconscious trying to shock The Preacher with her father's mobster ways?

It didn't seem to faze Nash, though. “Yeah? My old man took target practice on the neighbor's windshields when the spirits moved him.”

Meaning his father was a drunk. A mean drunk, but one his son could still pun about. Trying not to be intrigued or impressed by the contradiction, Eve set the photo on the coffee table and shoved her hand back in the box.

Nash picked up the frame to study it more closely. “You look good in white,” he said. “How come you've never married?”

Who could love me?
Shocked by her inner voice's automatic question, she went cold all over.
Who could really love me?
And just like that, tears stung her eyes again.

“Eve?”

She didn't dare look up at him. Damn Nash. Damn him. How did he manage to do that? He was making her weak once more. Shutting some doors and then asking questions that opened up others.

There were emotions, doubts, that were better locked tight in the cold box that was her heart. She didn't want to examine what she kept in there—the fear that on the inside, she wasn't the pretty, charming Eve she'd perfected to please the Carusos. And that she also wasn't really the sexy, beautiful Eve who had control of the men in her life.

“Darlin', are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“No you're not.” He sounded kind. Caring. And then he said the most dangerous words of all. “Let me help.”

But she couldn't let him do that. Her fingers flexed, squeezing the fabric she'd packed around the items in the box.
Buck up, girl! Look out for #1!
No man, not Nash, not anyone, could help her. That would mean they would have power to hurt her as well. The only way to win, to stay strong, was to retain the control on
her
side of the line.

“Sweetheart, you're crying again.”

She had to stop him from focusing on that. Keeping her eyes cast down, she blinked rapidly, willing the excess moisture away. As her vision cleared, she noted what she was clutching in her hand. Blue-and-green plaid, a crisp white blouse.

“Come on, Eve, talk to me.” It was a beguiling voice, as old as time. Was he then, indeed, the snake in the garden? A voice that promised so much but would only pay out in heartache? “Why the tears? Just talk to me.”

Eve shut out the temptation and directed her thoughts heavenward.
Forgive me Father, for I will sin.

But what else could one expect from a Caruso?

Now she looked up at Nash, lifting the clothes from
the box. There was always one certain way for her to remain in charge. “Just feeling nostalgic, is all. I've had some good times in this school uniform.”

His eyes narrowed, then flicked from the garments in her hands to her face, then to her mouth. Even from across the table she felt the heat leap to the surface of his skin. Was she good or what?