CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

The ritual of eating dinner together in the kitchen, amid paper bags and plastic-topped cups spiked with straws, was a novelty to Sandra. She hadn’t done this in years; it made her feel like a teenager again.

Then she helped Jean-Luc bathe the twins and tuck them into bed. She didn’t even mind reading aloud in Fluff Nose’s voice.

How astonishing that these squirmy, independent little creatures turned into clinging vines the moment there was a mention of lights-out. Chanel positively stuck to Sandra, her little arms as tight as stretch straps.

“I’ll be here in the morning,” Sandra promised.

“Really? Honest? Cross your heart and hop till you die?”

“I won’t go anywhere without telling you.”

At last the children settled down. Firmly, Jean-Luc escorted Sandra out of the room.

“Maybe I should sit with them until they fall asleep,” she protested as they reached the living room.

“You’ll spoil them,” he said. “Besides, if they get used to being coddled, what will they do when you’re gone?”

“What did they do when Nora left?” she asked.

His expression grew shuttered. “Cried,” he said tersely.

“It must have been awful. How long ago was that?”

“Three years.”

That was half the kids’ lifetimes ago, Sandra thought, and did some mental arithmetic. Malcolm had died about a year before the twins were born; they hadn’t even been conceived yet.

Had he known of his grandchildren, Malcolm would never have disinherited them. He certainly wouldn’t have signed a will with such a harsh provision, preventing her from helping the little guys. Since she blamed his harshness at least partly on Rip Sneed, it was all the more reason to hunt that weasel to the ends of the earth.

She settled onto the sofa, surprised at how worn out she felt. What had she done today, after all? There hadn’t been a charity fashion show to organize, or a promotional campaign to design for Just Us, or even a meeting of any of the boards of directors on which Sandra served.

She wondered if anyone missed her. Other than Belle, she doubted it.

Might as well be ruthlessly honest with herself. To the high and mighty of Los Angeles, it was Sandra’s money that counted. Without it, she was just a high-spirited no-longer-quite-so-young woman who’s dropped out of college.

Her fling as Queen of Society had been fun while it lasted. Today had been fun, though, too.

“Tell me something,” said Jean-Luc as he angled across an overstuffed armchair. “Why do you wear those fancy hats?”

Sandra decided to be frank. “After I married Malcolm, I felt as if I vanished into the woodwork when his friends were around.”

“The hats made you feel bigger?” He watched her from beneath half-closed lids.

“Exactly. Then I discovered that hats could be a form of communication. Romance, humor, even satire. No one took them seriously, so I could comment on anything.”

Leaning against the pillows, she smoothed out the designer sundress she’d found in a trunk. Nora had good taste, Sandra had to admit. Expensive taste.

Jean-Luc had been frowning ever since he collected her and the kids at the park, but now his expression warmed. “The newscasts always focus on them. I remember the Gulliver’s Travels hat you wore to the University Regents’ Awards dinner with Dad.”

“I loved those cute little Lilliputians.”

“Did you?” he murmured. “That book also satirized intellectuals who lose touch with reality. Are you sure you weren’t tweaking the Regents a bit?”

Sandra grinned. “And nobody figured it out. I got away with it!”

His smile transformed the hard lines of his face. Had he been sitting closer, she would have instinctively reached out to touch him.

It wouldn’t be the first time today she’d had the urge to run her hands over some portion of that powerful masculine body. The man was delicious.

Briefly, Sandra contemplated marching across the living room—if one could march so short a distance—and perching on his lap just to see what happened. Technically, she knew what would follow. Emotionally, however, she couldn’t understand why she found the prospect fascinating.

While Jean-Luc was handsome, Los Angeles was full of good-looking men. Besides, in Sandra’s experience, the mating act had a great deal more appeal to males of the species than to females.

Although she had loved Malcolm, their marriage hadn’t involved any blaze of passion. In retrospect, she could see that she’d simply fallen into the relationship. That wasn’t surprising. She often fell into things, and sometimes onto them or over them.

She had definitely stumbled into Jean-Luc. Together, they would achieve their mutual objective of nailing Rip Sneed to the wall and then stumble off into the sunset, separately.

Why did she keep wondering how Jean-Luc’s mouth would feel pressed against hers? Why did she imagine him throwing her across the bed?

When he spoke, it startled her. “Didn’t the age difference between you and Dad ever bother you?”

Guiltily, Sandra wondered if he could read her thoughts. Well, of course he couldn’t

Nor would the man be thinking along the same lines. As far as Jean-Luc was concerned, Sandra believed, she remained his unwanted stepmother, the fortune hunter who had stolen his father and his inheritance.

“Because he was forty years older than me?” she said. “Malcolm was very handsome at sixty. Distinguished.”

“But when you were thirty, he would have been seventy,” Jean-Luc pointed out. “By the time you turned forty, he would have been—”

“At our wedding, I couldn’t imagine turning thirty.” Pensively, she added, “I still can’t picture myself at forty. I suppose it’s inevitable, though, unless hard work kills me.”

“Hard work?”

“You think watching children is easy?”

“No,” he admitted. “I’m aware that it isn’t.”

She sighed. “We simply have to recover the money. Otherwise, one of these days, I might have to start slinging burgers again.”

“You did that?”

“Once upon a time.”

If the line on Jean-Luc’s forehead grew any deeper, he might require stitches. “How are we sleeping tonight?” he asked abruptly.

The subject was not unexpected, but Sandra hadn’t come up with any brilliant solutions. The couch was simply too short and lumpy. She had contemplated bunking with Chanel and putting Chris with his father, but doubted either of the twins would sleep well. As a result, neither would the grown-ups.

“We’ll have to bundle,” she said.

“Bundle?”

“It’s an old custom from the colonial days. We did a special section in Just Us once on bedtime fads and follies over the centuries,” she said. “We both wear our clothes, and we put something down the middle to separate us, like a rolled-up sleeping bag.”

“If I had a sleeping bag,” he said, “I’d sleep in it.”

“We could roll some of your ex-wife’s clothes and put them between us,” she said. “That would be appropriate symbolism, don’t you think?”

He regarded her with what was obviously reluctant admiration. “And people don’t think you have a brain in your head.”

“They may be right.” Sandra shivered, remembering the lecture he’d delivered on the way home about the possible contaminants in the pond. “If the kids and I come down with the creeping crud tomorrow, it’ll be my fault.”

“I’ll remember that,” he growled. “You look exhausted. Let’s go build a symbolic wall, shall we?”

To her disappointment, he headed down the hallway without taking her arm. Although it might be tempting fate, Sandra wished he would touch her, just a little.

*

Two aspirin and three cups of coffee barely got Jean-Luc through the next day. He ached all over, and the one place where he didn’t feel stiff and sore, he just felt stiff. Years ago, when he and Nora had slept in that bed, she’d complained about how small it was, but he hadn’t noticed. Young and supple, he’d enjoyed the chance to snuggle against his wife.

Now he understood how difficult it must have been for her. Nora, he’d later realized, hadn’t enjoyed bodily contact. He had the opposite problem with Sandra: he wanted contact, ached for it and dreamed of it, but he knew it was vital to avoid it.

They’d wadded up his ex-wife’s clothes, the ones that Sandra didn’t think she would ever use, and stuffed them into a trash bag to form a divider. During the night, the bag had changed shape and the clothes had migrated, forming disconnected lumps instead of a unified barrier.

To make matters worse, Sandra was a restless sleeper. She murmured, she sighed, she rolled and she arched. It was the arching that had nearly done him in, especially when the movements pressed her soft places against his increasingly hard ones.

Jean-Luc had finally dozed in the early-morning hours, only to experience a sweaty dream in which he cornered Sandra in a hayloft. One garment at a time, she had stripped away her clothes and then his. Just as he was poised to consummate their passion, the alarm went off.

All day, while he changed spark plugs and oil until his skin gleamed with grease, fantasies of Sandra tormented Jean-Luc. He recalled the edge of her mischievous smile and the way her navel seemed to wink as she stood in the pond. It was a wonder he didn’t scald or scar himself.

His life would be better after she left. Or it would be horribly, miserably empty.

In desperation, he trained his thoughts on his absent cousin. Where was Marcie, and what was she doing? He tried several times to call her, but she wasn’t picking up.

When the last customer had collected her car, he locked the garage and walked next door to the ramshackle building where he’d built the prototype helicopter. There was nothing more Jean-Luc could do until he secured the rights to the material, but it thrilled him to look at it.

The spare building wasn’t large, despite containing both the Uplifter and his welding equipment. The point, after all, was to build a bird that could nest in the average garage.

Jean-Luc’s throat tightened as he unlocked the side door and fumbled for the switch. Both his validation as an inventor and his children’s economic future lay in this musty building.

Overhead lights crackled, bathing the crowded space with a flat glare. Workbenches, welding torches and other equipment surrounded the star of the show.

The little chopper perched proudly on the cement floor, its metallic surface gleaming. It was as beautiful as ever, Jean-Luc thought as he moved toward his creation.

About the width of an average car, it could carry roughly six hundred pounds—three average adults or two adults and two children. While no substitute for the family van in terms of hauling stuff around, the vehicle should primarily be used for long-distance commuting.

The retractable rotor was set flush into the top. Wheels underneath enabled the vehicle to taxi from its landing site into a garage or parking place.

It was far from perfect. The craft’s lightness made it unsafe to fly in high winds, but Jean-Luc was doing preliminary design work on a slightly larger and heavier version.

Yet unless he secured the rights to the material, he would remain one of those backyard inventors whose dreams of glory turned to dust. Malcolm would be proved right.

What would Sandra say if he offered to take her aloft? It surprised Jean-Luc that he’d rather not find out. Suppose, like his father, she assumed he was wasting his time on pipe dreams? That he didn’t have the talent to build anything both innovative and practical?

Lots of people feared flying in helicopters and small planes. Even if Sandra refused to go up, it wouldn’t necessarily mean she mistrusted his invention. But it would bother him, nevertheless.

Anyway, he was too tired to take the bird out. Grumpily, Jean-Luc retreated into the small, gritty bathroom to shower. While he usually cleaned up at home, he didn’t care to appear in front of Sandra in his filthy state.

As he washed, he thought over the developments of the past day, or rather, the lack of them. If Rip Sneed wasn’t caught soon, he might sneak out of the country. Maybe he’d left already.

Furthermore, if Marcie didn’t turn up, it might mean she was in trouble. Jean-Luc and Sandra needed to consider seriously how to proceed.

He dried off, threw on a clean shirt and jeans, and headed for home. As he drove, an image of yesterday’s discovery at the pond flashed through his mind. Whatever Sandra had done with the kids today, he hoped it didn’t involve her being half-naked in public. Or private, either.

Outside the apartment, Jean-Luc spotted a familiar beat-up Toyota and felt a surge of relief. For good or for ill, Marcie was back.

She might have come to inform them that Rip Sneed fled beyond their grasp. Or, conversely, that they had their hands on at least part of the money, and Sandra could leave. He didn’t know which prospect alarmed him most, but he was glad his cousin was safe.

Upstairs, the apartment door stood open. Since that was the only way to get cross-ventilation, it didn’t surprise him, but the sound of raucous laughter was unexpected.

Jean-Luc mounted the stairs quietly. He felt a childish impulse to check out what was going on before anyone spotted him. Slipping into the doorway, he peeked inside.

The laughter emerged from the hallway, out of sight. So did the tootling of an imitation kazoo. It sounded as if Sandra was trying to play the Grand March from Aida by blowing through her fists.

A series of clangs and thumps joined the fanfare. And here came the parade.

Sandra appeared first, hands forming a mock trumpet in front of her lips. Beneath a cloche hat with a teddy bear pinned on, she wore a gold-sequinned 1920s-style flapper gown that Nora had purchased for an outrageous price. Catching sight of Jean-Luc, she winked and passed by without breaking stride.

Behind her walked Chanel, banging a spoon against a xylophone. She wore a pink Sunday dress and, on her head, a fake-flower-bedecked file folder, hole-punched and laced with ribbons that tied under the chin.

The third marcher was Ruthanne Grover. He’d never seen his neighbor wear anything but baggy pants and tank tops, except maybe at Christmas, when she changed into a glittery red-and-green T-shirt.

She had donned a braid-trimmed knit suit, also from Nora’s stash. The demure shell and jacket hid the odd angles of her figure and gave her a businesslike air. It reminded him that Ruthanne had once been a secretary, before a combination of asthma and back trouble reduced her to temp work.

A makeshift pillbox hat, probably cardboard, had been covered with striped contact paper. Atop Ruthanne’s head it looked, well, less silly than it sounded.

Fourth in line came Marcie. She sported a short jacket over a hip-skimming dress of lavender silk that highlighted the color of her eyes. Her stick-straight black hair was gathered to one side in a French braid. The blue towel that turbaned her head only partly dampened the sophisticated effect.

The last in line was Chris, beating a toy drum and wearing his soccer uniform and a baseball cap. He looked like a normal little boy, thank goodness.

The parade was wending its way toward the kitchen when Marcie noticed Jean-Luc. “Oh, hi!” His cousin blushed for the first time in his memory. “How do you like our fashion makeover?”

Ruthanne swung toward him, flustered. “I hope you don’t mind…these clothes…I mean, they used to belong…”

To Nora, he finished silently. And he’d kept them all these years in a trunk, telling himself that Chanel might wear them when she got older. But in truth, he hadn’t been able to look at them even long enough to sort and dispose of them.

The discovery that the woman he loved only wanted his money had burned bitterly. He’d also been reluctant to stir up his anger at her for abandoning the children.

He’d buried those feelings deep in a trunk. Seeing Sandra in a few garments hadn’t bothered him, perhaps because those particular items held no strong memories. That wasn’t true today. He could picture Nora quite clearly in the sequinned dress, dancing with him at a nightclub. She’d intended to wear it to Malcolm’s house as soon as they were invited.

As for the lavender dress, she’d bought it when she got hired to sing in a nightclub. Only later had he realized that she’d selected it to attract a new husband.

Today, Jean-Luc felt only an echo of his old resentment. He was even grateful that Nora had been too self-centered to take these precious children when she left.

“I don’t mind,” he told Ruthanne sincerely. “Do whatever you like with them.”

“Doesn’t everybody look lovely? Except Chris. He’s handsome.” Sandra’s voice wafted from the kitchen. “Marcie has glorious eyes! And you never told me Ruthanne was a secretary. I may be needing one.”

“They look terrific.” However, Jean-Luc couldn’t focus on anyone but his new wife. She carried off the gold flapper dress with an elegance that Nora could never have matched.

The difference was that Sandra’s grace fit her naturally. She transcended fashion. She had style.

Ruthanne said a reluctant farewell and departed. While the children continued marching and generating noise, Marcie and Sandra whipped up a dinner of canned chili and corn. Then the three of them settled the children in bed.

The grownups adjourned to the living room. “Maybe you’d better tell us why you’re here,” Jean-Luc said. “Have you found something?”

“Yes and no,” Marcie said. “There’s good news and bad news. I decided we’d better discuss it in person.”

“Shoot.” He hated beating around the bush, especially with such high stakes.

“Sneed doesn’t seem to be in Vegas any more.” Although Marcie had changed into jeans and a tweed jacket, her hair was still twisted into the thick off-center braid that gave her an almost exotic air. “The good news is, it doesn’t appear that he gambled away the money.”

“How do you know?” Still in sequins, Sandra lounged in a corner of the couch like an old-time movie star.

“I have a friend who works security for one of the casinos. He asked around.” Marcie produced the photo that Jean-Luc had sent her of their target. It was a good likeness of Rip, bald with thick eyebrows. “No one’s seen him, and I doubt he’s easy to miss. Especially if he gambled away fifty million dollars.”

Jean-Luc conceded that things could be worse. Or was he jumping to conclusions?

“If that’s the good news,” he said, “what’s the bad news?”

“He got thrown out of a motel because there were too many people coming and going,” Marcie said. “They included a cameraman and a couple of sleazy-looking women who claimed to be actresses.”

“How interesting,” said Sandra.

“The day after he left, two scary guys showed up, asking for him.” Marcie sighed. “The way the manager described them, you wouldn’t want to run into them in a dark alley. This is a sorry turn of events, in my opinion.”

Sandra tilted her head. “I don’t understand. What does it mean?”

“Somebody else is after him, too,” Jean-Luc replied. He was sitting near the window, and at the mention of the two thugs, he shifted farther away in case someone fired a bullet through it.

He’d been watching too many gangster movies. He hoped that was the problem, because otherwise the children might be in danger.

“He stole someone else’s money, too?” Sandra demanded. “How could anyone be that greedy?”

“I don’t think he stole money. More like—territory.” Marcie cleared her throat. “How much do you know about the mob?”

“He’s poaching on the mob’s territory?” Sandra’s hands fluttered. “Goodness! But for what? Not drug smuggling, surely.”

“The camera and the women bring to mind…” Jean-Luc hated to finish the sentence in the presence of a lady. Two ladies, he amended, although he’d always considered Marcie one of the guys.

“X-rated videos,” his cousin finished for him. “No, worse. Pornography.”

Sandra’s jaw dropped. “Rip Sneed has been using my money to exploit women?”

Apparently she was less troubled by the salacious nature of the possible videos than by the impact on the actresses. Jean-Luc’s opinion of her rose yet another notch.

“It’s possible,” said Marcie. “This brings up an additional consideration.”

“And that is?” Jean-Luc was growing increasingly impatient to get his hands on the thieving scumbag.

“I realize it may take the police a long time to track Rip, and the odds of their recovering the money aren’t very good,” said his cousin. “On the other hand, Mafia goons aren’t likely to shoot them while they work, either.”

His wife leaned forward anxiously. “We can’t put you in the line of fire.”

Jean-Luc certainly wouldn’t risk his cousin’s being shot down. Damn that weasel Sneed! “You’re withdrawing from the case?” he asked.

“She has to,” said Sandra. “She’s done more than enough already. Thank you, Marcie.”

Although clearly she was right, despair closed in on Jean-Luc. If he didn’t come up with a few million dollars by the end of the month, he’d lose the chance to build his helicopter.

It wasn’t worth risking Marcie’s life. But it might be worth risking his.

“I’ll take over from here,” he said. “Just give me everything you’ve gathered on Sneed.”

Marcie’s eyes widened. “You’re going after him? You could get killed.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Sandra. “We’ll clear up this nonsense with the mob the sensible way. I should have thought of it before.”

“There’s a sensible way to deal with the mob?” Jean-Luc stared as if she’d just proposed they bomb Las Vegas from his helicopter.

“Hal ‘The Iceman’ Smothers.” Sandra dug an address book from her purse. “You’ve heard of him. The man who built that new hotel.”

Of course Jean-Luc had heard of the most notorious hitman in Las Vegas. Smothers was periodically investigated in gangland murders, but the accusations always fell apart. “What about him?”

Sandra flipped through the book. “I’m sure Octavia Smith knows him. She used to be a starlet in the thirties and then she married a studio chief and now she’s the grand old lady of the Hollywood aristocracy. Her daughter’s been married about five times, to practically everybody. I think Hal Smothers was Number Three.”

“I’m not letting you confront this man,” Jean-Luc said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Sandra. “But I could set up a meeting for you, if you like.”

It didn’t take more than thirty seconds to arrive at his answer. “I would like,” he said. “Very much.”

He hoped nobody noticed the knot blocking his throat. Surely it would loosen up, one of these years.

 

 

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

 

Jean-Luc landed the chopper on the helipad atop the Ice Palace Hotel in Las Vegas. He’d made the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile trip in under two hours.

Score one for the Uplifter.

A shiver of apprehension ran up his spine as, working almost by instinct, he retracted the rotors and taxied the bird to the refueling station. He scarcely noticed the admiring gazes of the heliport crew; he was too busy wondering what he was going to say to the reputed hitman he was about to meet.

Mrs. Octavia Smith had been delighted to hear from Sandra. With one figurative crook of her finger, she’d arranged the appointment for the very next morning. There hadn’t been time to dwell on what might happen, until now.

Jean-Luc didn’t picture himself as an action hero. Despite his excellent physical condition from racquetball and swimming at the gym, he had no illusions about his abilities as a fighter.

On the other hand, he hadn’t come here to duke it out with Hal Smothers. Especially not in light of the man’s nickname. “The Iceman” was supposed to describe the way the man liked his drinks, but it more likely referred to his habit of leaving corpses behind on his climb to the top.

As Jean-Luc emerged into the desert sunshine, the staff pelted him with questions. Where’d he get the bird? How much did it weigh? How fast could it move, how much had it cost, and what was it made of?

“Trade secrets,” he responded to everything, and secured directions to Hal Smothers’s office, leaving the men to gas up the bird for the return trip.

An elevator carried him to the top floor of the hotel, which was reserved for executive offices. An attractive woman in a designer suit greeted Jean-Luc with a professional smile and escorted him down an oak-paneled hallway.

They crossed a plant-filled atrium in which parrots—bred in Petaluma, California, the woman informed him—squawked merrily beneath a glass dome, which, she said, had been custom-made in Pennsylvania. Just beyond it lay a dining room where a liveried staff was setting out champagne fountains and an ice sculpture of Cupid.

“Special doings today?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” said his escort. “Just the usual luncheon for our executives. Mr. Smothers believes in nothing but the best. The champagne fountains were imported from…”

Jean-Luc stopped listening as they rounded a corner. He was too busy staring at the antechamber to Hal Smothers’s office.

It might have been mistaken for an ancient temple. Beneath the soaring ceiling, larger-than-life-size marble statues lined the walls in a series of niches. Twin rows of chiseled pillars stood like sentries down the center, leading to oversize double portals.

“All the marble was quarried in Georgia specifically for Mr. Smothers,” said the woman. “It was transported here in his private jets.”

“Impressive,” Jean-Luc said, although he was struck more by his host’s ostentation than by his taste. But then, the son of Malcolm Duval had grown up in surroundings nearly as luxurious as these.

At the far wall, his companion announced him into an intercom, and the double doors swung open by themselves. “Mr. Smothers will see you now.”

Jean-Luc stepped inside. The doors shut behind him with a thud that reverberated through his bones.

“Mr. Duval!” On the far side of a giant space filled with ornate antique furnishings, Hal “The Iceman” Smothers arose from behind a desk the size of an aircraft carrier. He was a squarely built man, not quite as tall as Jean-Luc, with a thin white scar above his right eyebrow.

“Pleased to meet you.” Jean-Luc strode across the patterned carpet and shook hands. At a gesture from Smothers, he eased into a tapestry chair considerably smaller than the one occupied by his host.

“I heard on the news about what happened to your stepmother.” Despite Hal’s bland expression, his brown eyes were watchful. “Isn’t it awful? You can’t trust lawyers these days.”

“Especially not Rip Sneed,” said Jean-Luc.

“Naturally, I would like to help you catch the rat.” Hal assumed an affable smile. “I would do anything for your stepmother. She’s a lovely woman. Beautiful, beautiful. How is she, by the way?”

Jean-Luc had promised to say nothing about their marriage, in order to spare Sandra from prying questions once they split up. “She’s holding up well. I didn’t realize you knew her.”

“Not personally.” When The Iceman spoke, his cheekbones appeared razor-sharp. “I’ve seen her at the theater. Always wondered why Mrs. Duval—Sandra—didn’t marry again. I suppose she didn’t need to. But that’s changed now, eh?”

“Excuse me?” Jean-Luc struggled to maintain an impassive air. Hearing his wife’s name on this man’s lips offended him.

“A classy dame like that needs a guy with bucks to take care of her,” said Smothers. “Now that she doesn’t have money of her own, think she might be interested?”

His boldness startled Jean-Luc. Did the man expect Sandra to marry him sight unseen, for his money?

He reminded himself that he’d had a similarly jaundiced view of her motives in marrying Malcolm until he got to know her. On the other hand, the very idea of Smothers’s flat-knuckled hands touching her smooth skin, or those unreadable eyes gazing at her bare body, filled Jean-Luc with loathing.

With a start, he realized he was jealous. Pulse-poundingly, teeth-gnashingly jealous. What on earth was wrong with him?

“I’m afraid she’s too upset about this Rip Sneed business to think about romance,” he managed to reply.

From here on, he reminded himself, diplomacy would be vital. He had to watch his phrasing, since Smothers always hotly denied any connection to the mob.

“You, er, want somebody to go after this guy?” Interest flickered across the man’s face. “You think Sandra would be impressed by something like that?”

“Somebody already is after this guy,” Jean-Luc said. “Possibly someone of the criminal persuasion. Right here in Vegas.”

“Really?” The gangster’s eyebrows rose into peaks.

“My stepmother is afraid he might get wiped out before we learn where he’s stashed the money.” Jean-Luc tried to weigh every word, but it was proving difficult. He kept hearing the note of lust in the man’s voice as he pronounced Sandra’s name.

“So she would want this someone to back off?” Smothers said.

“Mostly she would like to know what Rip Sneed’s involved in,” Jean-Luc said. “And who, other than her, might want to kill him.”

“She thinks I would know a thing like this?” He sounded on the verge of taking offense.

“Not you personally,” Jean-Luc backpedaled. “But you’re an influential man. No doubt you have a keen interest in keeping Las Vegas clean. So maybe you’ve heard something through contacts.”

“The lady wants information.” Smothers grimaced. “And I have none.”

“Nothing at all?”

“As far as Vegas is concerned, Rip Sneed is not even a wart on a frog’s ass,” the man said. “If someone is trying to kill him, it must be a personal feud. Or a man who wants to impress your stepmother. Such a thing I can imagine.”

Jean-Luc uttered a long sigh. He believed Smothers was telling the truth; the man looked disappointed that he couldn’t help. “Well, I know she’s grateful that you agreed to see me.”

“Tell her any time she wants to visit, I will comp her the honeymoon suite,” said Smothers. “Free room service, the works.”

“I’ll tell her.” Jean-Luc arose. Smothers rounded the desk to shake his hand, and accompanied him to the door.

The man was buttering him up, he noted. Already the hunter was laying his traps for an impoverished Sandra Duval. As if Jean-Luc would ever let her marry this mobster!

He wasn’t really jealous, he told himself. He just had an obligation to protect his stepmother while she was vulnerable.

*

Sandra was glad she’d volunteered to temp as receptionist at the garage during Jean-Luc’s absence. It wasn’t so much that she’d needed a morning away from the children, who were darlings but exhausting, or even to be sure the customers understood that the boss would return later to lavish care on their vehicles.

Mostly, she intended to be present when he got back so she could see for herself that the Iceman hadn’t shot him full of bullet holes.

Why, oh, why, had she ever trusted Rip Sneed? Why hadn’t she taken charge of her own finances, regardless of Malcolm’s instructions? She would never forgive herself if something bad happened to Jean-Luc when there was nothing more at stake than money.

The notion startled her. Fifty million dollars wasn’t just money, it was a fortune. For another thing, she had no idea how to live the rest of her life without it.

But she had no idea how to live the rest of her life without Jean-Luc, either.

“Excuse me?” Sandra said aloud to the empty garage, where an Oldsmobile and a pickup truck sat dripping oil onto the cement floor. “Excuse me, who had that thought?”

A motor home dozing by the entrance refused to confess. Neither did the calendar on the wall, which, with a touch of Duval class, featured a cubist painting of a naked woman.

She peered into a cracked mirror stuck on the door of the cluttered office. “Did you think that?” Sandra demanded of her horror-stricken image. “Are you nuts? Of course you’re going to live the rest of your life without what’s-his-face.”

She couldn’t bring herself to speak his name, as if the garage had ears and might repeat the story when he returned. It would be a disaster if Jean-Luc ever figured out that she was infatuated with him.

Infatuated. Now, there was a reassuring word. It described the intense but fleeting devotion of teenagers. Her feelings, too, would pass.

A whirr from outside caught her attention. With a surge of anticipation, Sandra hurried out of the garage.

Sunlight whitewashed the summer sky. In the glare, a tiny point descended toward her, delicate as a hummingbird. It was strange to think that this toylike apparition had flown that great big man all the way to Nevada and back.

The chopper swooped down smoothly, with no jerks or hops. That meant Jean-Luc hadn’t been injured, Sandra reassured herself. Maybe a black eye at the worst.

Oh, dear. What if Hal Smothers was now their enemy? Think positive. Perhaps he’d handed Rip Sneed over to them, signed, sealed and delivered.

The Uplifter settled onto the driveway. Sandra jumped as a garage door churned open in the next building. It hadn’t occurred to her that Jean-Luc would carry an automatic opener, just as in a car.

The blades retracted and the diminutive chopper rolled into the hangar, giving her a glimpse of the man inside. His face was partly averted as he concentrated on parking. She could read neither success nor failure in his expression. However, he appeared to be alone. No trussed-up lying, thieving counselor.

Sandra dusted off her hands and went to meet him. She’d put on a pair of Armani pants and a checked shirt tied under the bust to reveal a bare midriff. Thank goodness for Nora’s extensive wardrobe! Even the boots fit, although she didn’t see the point of work shoes with high heels.

“Welcome back,” she called.

Jean-Luc killed the motor and swung out of the copter. “What do you think?” He gestured at the bird.

“It’s terrific. Especially because it makes so little noise.” At its loudest, it was no worse than a luxury car. “I’m sure there’s a tremendous market.”

He gave a tight nod. “But I haven’t got a gopher’s chance in a flood of ever putting it into production.”

As he spoke, he pulled off his jacket and tossed it to Sandra. Unknotting the tie, he cast it toward her as well and began inspecting the whirlybird.

“That sounds like bad news.” The jacket’s tweedy, masculine scent went straight to Sandra’s head. She tried not to inhale too deeply.

“Hal Smothers doesn’t have a clue who or where Rip Sneed is.” Jean-Luc spoke from a crouching position, checking the underside of the copter. “Whoever’s after him, it isn’t the mob.”

“He actually admitted that?”

“Not in so many words. But we made ourselves understood.” Jean-Luc stood, impatiently brushing back an errant lock of hair. The gesture left a streak of oil on his forehead.

He reached for the first button on his pristine white shirt. “Be careful!” Sandra’s warning arrived too late. Grease already smeared the collar.

Sunk in thought, Jean-Luc didn’t appear to notice. He flung the shirt her way and strode toward the rear of the building.

The arrogance of the man! But Sandra couldn’t sustain her annoyance. With his torso bare, she got a splendid look at those broad shoulders and the wide rib cage, tapering to a narrow waist and hips.

Classic, with just the right degree of bronzing. She wondered how he would respond if she walked over and blew lightly down the spine, from his nape to the tantalizing point where naked skin vanished beneath the belted slacks.

She never had time to find out. With a snap, the belt flicked out of its loops. At least the man had the sense not to throw it at her; he chucked it atop a nearby coat-rack.

With a delicious sense of naughtiness, Sandra realized that a combination of distraction and habit had made Jean-Luc forget her presence. The man was changing into his work clothes without a thought for who might be watching.

She intended to take full advantage of the opportunity. He’d changed in the bathroom ever since they got married. She had a right to an eyeful; she was his wife.

Besides, she’d had to endure two nights of sleeping inches away from him. It was remarkable how many places a person could touch, and how much one could learn about masculine anatomy, simply by a bit of strategic tossing and turning.

Sandra felt like an adolescent. She was insatiably curious about Jean-Luc. Much as she’d adored Malcolm, she’d never been intrigued by his body.

Jean-Luc was another matter. Facing away from her as he stripped off the slacks, he was a picture of unconscious allure. Take those clinging black underpants, for instance. How did they mold so tightly to his butt that she could make out every curve and inlet, yet remain comfortable?

She could almost feel their muscled hardness beneath her hands. The best position for that particular contact would be with him poised over her in bed, butt in the air, preparing to thrust into her with that essential, fascinating but still hidden portion of his anatomy.

With a sigh, Sandra watched him step into his work jeans. They were so caked with grease that they could stand upright by themselves. The show was over.

“What do we do next?” she asked. “Give the case back to Marcie?”

Jean-Luc paused in the middle of shrugging into his T-shirt. He turned sharply, his gaze flickering as if he’d just become aware of her presence. “Give it back to Marcie?” he repeated.

“Now that we know the mob isn’t involved,” she said.

Frowning, he looked from her to his work clothes, then back again as if wondering how he’d changed without noticing. Then he gave it up for a more productive line of thought. “I’m sure she’ll work on it as her schedule allows. In the meantime, I’ll arrange a meeting with Stan O’Neill.”

“Who’s he?”

“My friend who co-invented the material. I’ll have to work out some other arrangement for the rights.”

Escorting her out, Jean-Luc flicked off the lights and closed the workshop. In the garage, he popped the hood on the Oldsmobile and began probing its innards.

Sandra didn’t actually see any further oil or grease spray onto him. It just magically appeared, on a bulging bicep, on the back of his hand, across one cheek.

Soon he was covered with brownish-black blotches and a healthy sheen of perspiration. The combination provided a virile tang.

An image of how he’d looked moments ago, naked except for those minuscule black underpants, tantalized Sandra. Her eyes could still trace the bulging muscles beneath the T-shirt and the inviting twitch of his rear end as he shifted positions beneath the hood.

How could the man be so gorgeous even when sweaty and soiled? Or, perhaps, especially when sweaty and soiled. If the place hadn’t been semi-public, and his mind obviously occupied elsewhere, she’d have been tempted to suggest they close up shop for the day and consummate their marriage.

To feel temptation did not require one to yield to it, Sandra reminded herself. There was a great deal to be said for self-control.

At the moment, she couldn’t remember what that great deal was. But she knew it would snap into her mind the moment she left his presence.

While Jean-Luc was occupied in hooking the car to a monitoring device, she went into the office and called Ruthanne with a request to pick her up. When she returned, she surveyed the stained and cluttered garage, and wondered when it had begun to look like home.

Home. What was happening to her mansion right now? What strangers were digging through her possessions and muddying the rooms?

Rip Sneed was more elusive than ever, and her chances of recovering her possessions were receding by the minute. Who could tell how long she and Jean-Luc might be stuck with each other?

The way things were going, they couldn’t even afford a divorce. “Jean-Luc?” she said.

“Hmmm?”

“What if we never get the money back?”

He plugged something into something, cursed, and came up sporting another layer of oil. “We will. One way or another.”

His mouth twisted grimly as a beat-up sedan chugged into the driveway, the engine spluttering and misfiring. Another customer. Another tedious job.

Surely he couldn’t bear to be stuck in this garage for the rest of his life. He had something to prove to himself, and to the memory of his father, Sandra reflected. More than that, his soaring imagination belonged in the clouds.

She had never stopped to consider what she wanted from life. It hadn’t been necessary, with Malcolm turning up when she was only twenty, offering a life beyond her wildest dreams.

She wasn’t ready to decide what kind of future she wanted now, either. Somehow, things would work out.

But Jean-Luc was intensely aware of what he wanted. Turning the Uplifter into a commercial success was his dream, and the only way to give it to him was to recover her money.

So far, Sandra had been a passive participant in her temporary husband’s schemes. Better start thinking about how to change that.

Thoughtfully, she went outside to wait for Ruthanne.

 

 

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Chanel had been worried all morning that Sandra wouldn’t return. Chris kept bugging her to play Monopoly Junior, but she wasn’t interested.

When Ruthanne said they were going to Daddy’s garage to get Sandra, Chanel gave Fluff Nose a hug and burst into tears.

“Hey, what’s with the waterworks?” Ruthanne bent down creakily. “Here’s a tissue, sweetheart.”

“I thought she wasn’t coming back,” Chanel said. “Like Mommy.”

“Oh, honey.” Ruthanne patted her head. “Sandra’s not like…Well, I mean she wouldn’t…Not that she can stay forever.”

“She can’t?” Chris asked.

“I don’t think so,” Ruthanne admitted as she helped the children put on their shoes. “She and your daddy are trying to get back some money that was stolen. Then you’ll be rich! Won’t that be fun?”

“Can we have the latest game system?” Chris said.

Chanel whapped him with Fluff Nose. “Who cares? I don’t want to be rich! I want Sandra. She makes me laugh. And stuff.”

Ruthanne took on a sweet, sad expression, like a Raggedy Anne doll. “I’m sure she’d like that, too, honey, but grown-ups can’t…I mean, things may look simple but…Well, let’s not leave her standing on the sidewalk. She’s so pretty, someone might hire her to be a movie star.”

For the rest of the day, while Sandra helped them bake cupcakes and stage a party with paper hats for the stuffed animals, Chanel kept thinking about ways to keep her around. She thought about it through dinner. She thought about it at bedtime.

When the lights were out, she climbed up to Chris’s bunk. “Let’s talk about this money thing,” she said.

He sat up and hugged his knees. “When we get our new game system, I don’t want you using it for girl stuff.”

Boys were so dense! “It’s about Sandra,” she said. “We have to convince her to stay.”

“How?” asked her twin.

“If you watched girl movies, you’d know the trick is to make her fall in love with Daddy.” That was obvious to anyone with half a brain. They might both be six, but he acted a whole lot younger.

Chris pulled the covers around his chin. “How would we do that?”

Chanel loved to watch romantic movies at Ruthanne’s. “People always fall in love at parties. Let’s convince Sandra to throw one.”

“Like today?” Chris asked. “That was fun.”

“Not for stuffed animals! A party for grown-ups. Where they can dance.”

“Will there be ice cream?” he said, beginning to take an interest.

“And music,” she confirmed. “Mostly dancing, like I said. Oh, and drinks. That’s important too.”

“What kind of drinks?”

Chanel tried to remember what the people had been drinking in the movies. “They have these round glasses on sticks. They drink stuff that’s kind of tan colored.”

“Like orange drink?”

“Orange drink is orange!” Seriously, how did her own brother get so dense? “Like ginger ale!”

“Ginger ale makes grown-ups fall in love?”

“Only if they’re dancing.”

“What flavor ice cream?” he asked.

Chanel knew he would never stop asking until he heard the answer he wanted. “Vanilla.”

“My favorite!” said Chris. “Okay, let’s tell Sandra we want a party.”

“Let me think about it some more.” Chanel climbed down. “We have to do this the right way.”

“With chocolate syrup,” said Chris.

*

On Saturday morning, Sandra awoke with the sense that she absolutely had to find a way to make things happen. It was a wonderful feeling.

Ever since last Tuesday, when she’d lost all her money and turned thirty-two on the same day, the world had been rocketing out of control. Not any longer.

Today she intended to put her mind to solving their problems. One way or the other, they had to recover the money so Jean-Luc could manufacture his helicopters. And she could return to reading aloud to seniors—she’d called in her apologies on Friday—and funding apartments for homeless families.

Surely she’d be allowed to play with the twins on occasion, too. Not often. Three or four times a week, maybe.

Riding on a wave of optimism, Sandra had faith that nothing lay beyond her scope. It might help as a first step, she conceded a few minutes later, if she could finally manage to make toast without burning it.

The trouble was that Jean-Luc’s toaster had died and she had to broil bread in the oven. One second on the wrong side of done, and it was Scorch City.

While Jean-Luc was dressing and the kids tiptoed around the apartment, giggling and whispering as if planning something, Sandra melted margarine in a large frying pan and fried the bread. Voilà! Not only unburnt, but prebuttered as well.

“Breakfast!” she called.

Everyone gathered around the table. Watching them eat, Sandra heard the air humming with their thoughts. We all have such busy minds. It was fascinating to observe.

Jean-Luc wore a half frown, his lips moving as if he were rehearsing a speech. She suspected he was preparing what to say to his friend Stan, who had agreed to meet him at the garage today.

The kids kept poking each other, catching each other’s eye and nodding as if trying to spur the other to say something. It was Chanel who spoke first. “Do you like ginger ale?” she asked.

Sandra had learned that the children usually had a serious reason for even the silliest question. “It’s not my very favorite, but it’s on my top-ten list of soft drinks,” she replied solemnly.

“How about dancing?” asked Chris.

What was the connection between ginger ale and dancing, and why were these two whispering and giggling? “With the right partner,” she said cautiously.

“How about Dad?” asked Chanel.

Jean-Luc emerged from his fog. “I haven’t danced in years. Why?”

The little girl started to speak, gulped, and snatched Fluff Nose from her lap. With the dinosaur in front of her, she squeaked, “Let’s throw a party!”

“You’re attending one today, remember?” their father said. “One of your little friends is having a birthday. Josefina, isn’t that her name? We bought a book for her and wrapped it last weekend.”

Chanel and Chris exchanged looks of near panic. “Not that kind of party!” Chris said.

“The grown-up kind with ginger ale,” added his sister.

“Excuse me?” Jean-Luc stared at them blankly.

Chanel appeared on the verge of tears. Although Sandra had no idea what had stirred such emotions, she picked up the cue. “We should do that.” On the other hand, how did one plan a party in an apartment the size of a teacup? “Let’s discuss it later.”

The children finished eating and hurried from the table. Their father watched them go with a bewildered expression. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” Sandra said. “But parties are great for boosting morale.”

He made a grumbling noise. If he’d been holding a newspaper, she was sure he would have rattled it. “I can just see it. You, me, Ruthanne, Marcie and Hal Smothers, waltzing around the living room.”

“Why do you mention Hal Smothers?” she said.

“Well, we’d have to invite someone to help with the boy-girl ratio,” Jean-Luc muttered. “And he’d probably come.”

The man wasn’t making any sense. “Why?”

“Didn’t I tell you he’s got the hots for you?”

“It must have slipped your mind.” The scariest hitman in Las Vegas had a crush on Sandra? She’d never even met the man, unless you counted the time after an opera when he elbowed her out of his way while racing for the exit. Or for his next target.

“He considers you fair game now that you’re broke,” Jean-Luc explained. “Let me see, how did he put it? ‘A classy dame needs a guy with bucks to take care of her,’ or words to that effect.”

He excused himself to prepare for the helicopter ride he’d promised Stan, who had a pilot’s license and wanted to try the craft for himself. Sandra readied the kids to go to their friend’s house, but ideas were yammering so loudly in her brain that she scarcely noticed what she was doing.

The news that The Iceman took an interest in her created numerous possibilities. Not that she had any intention of contacting that thug.

But if he didn’t consider her beyond the pale, maybe she wasn’t as much of an outcast as she’d believed. Come to think of it, when contacted with a request, Mrs. Octavia Smith had been delighted to help. Maybe some of Sandra’s other friends hadn’t abandoned her, either.

As she brushed Chanel’s hair and washed Chris’s face, she thought about pals and parties and old-fashioned occasions where everyone brought food. The same God had created caviar and hot dogs, orchestras and boom boxes.

It wasn’t so much that Sandra missed her old high-flying ways, although they did produce a certain nostalgia. Nor was she overly concerned about amusing the kids, since throwing a party for grown-ups was probably an idea picked up from some TV show.

But it was possible that among her wealthy acquaintances might be one with a passion for aviation and a few bucks in venture capital floating around. Well, a few million bucks.

She ought to organize the event right away. Belle and Octavia could help.

As she walked the kids two blocks to their friend’s house, Sandra smiled at everyone she saw, including a teenage boy who nearly fell off his bicycle and a woman with three squalling toddlers who stared as if Sandra must be out of her mind.

She had a lot to accomplish but no doubt of success. The world was once again a happy place.

*

It had been years since Sandra had ridden a bus. This one smelled of diesel fuel and stale food. It jounced over every pothole with bone-crunching fervor.

Toward the front of the bus, a Hispanic lady was reading to her two children from The Runaway Bunny. An old man dozed on one of the benches, his snores ripping and snuffling in sync with the vehicle’s movements. Across the aisle, two teenage girls in exercise outfits kept sneaking glances at Sandra.

She wore the lavender dress and short jacket that Marcie had modeled for the parade. The decorations had been removed from her white silk hat and replaced by strategically glued plastic figurines of Snow White and the seven dwarfs, borrowed from Chanel.

It was, Sandra supposed, an odd outfit to wear to a garage, but she did want to impress Stan O’Neill. Without his cooperation, the whole project would be lost.

Jean-Luc had called a short time earlier to report that his friend was dying to meet her. She’d finished the last of her phone consultations with Belle, changed clothes, and here she went.

She tugged an overhead line, setting off a small bell. The driver gave her a nod in the rearview mirror and pulled to the curb.

Brakes creaked. The old man sputtered and snorted in a rhythm vaguely reminiscent of the opening bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The teenage girls sighed as Sandra arose, smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt and sauntered down the aisle.

She was passing the Hispanic family when the mother finished the book. Snuggling against her, the little girl told her mom, “I’ll always be your little bunny.”

The strangest thing happened. It was as if a giant fist closed over Sandra’s heart and gave it a squeeze. She could barely pay attention as she finished traversing the aisle and went down the steps.

For some reason, the little girl brought Chanel and Chris to mind. Overlaid on the buildings around her, Sandra saw their curious eyes and morning milk mustaches.

Above the honk of a horn and the drone of a distant airplane, she heard Fluff Nose squeaking. Over the scent of exhaust fumes, she smelled the potent mix of baby shampoo and teddy-bear fur.

She missed them. It was incredible, crazy, inexplicable. Of course Sandra liked these children—who wouldn’t?

But now, unbelievably, she worried about them. Were they having a good time at the party? Would they remember to wash their hands before eating? What if the party broke up early and someone tried to call and couldn’t reach her?

She gave herself a mental shake. The children had gotten along just fine without her for six, nearly seven years. They weren’t about to disintegrate because she spent a few hours away.

After walking half a block, she found that the garage was locked for the weekend but the hangar next door stood open. The Uplifter had been left outside after its outing. No sign of Jean-Luc.

From the bird, a man with a round face adorned by freckles and thick glasses sat with the side door open and his feet sticking out. Sandra strode toward him, hoping her high heels gave her hips a feminine sway. A light breeze ruffled the silk of her hat.

“Stan O’Neill?” She extended her hand. “I’m Sandra Duval.”

The man stood up so abruptly he bonked his head on the curving door top. He didn’t seem to notice, despite having a reddish crew cut that provided zero padding. “Oh! It’s such a pleasure to meet you. Such an honor, I mean.”

“Are you all right?” He’d raised a loud thud and possibly a lump to go with it.

“Fine. Everybody says I have a hard head.” A few inches taller than Sandra, he stared at her with undisguised awe. “You’re such a vision!”

“You aren’t seeing two of me, I hope?” Double vision might signal a concussion.

“No, just the one. You’re even prettier than on television. I’ve never seen that hat before. Is it new?” he gushed.

Good heavens, the man kept track of her hats? Didn’t he have anything better to do? “Just a little something I threw together. Is Jean-Luc around?”

“He went to crunch numbers.” The redheaded man gestured her into his former seat in the copter. “We’re trying to figure out a way to persuade my partners to accept shares in his company in lieu of money up front.”

“That’s an excellent idea.” But not enough of one, Sandra thought as she sat down. Even if the men contributed the rights to their material, that left the need for start-up capital.

“Tell me about this…this…what do you call it?” She reached out and tapped the metal exterior.

Stan stood straddle-legged, hands clasped behind his back. “It’s, uh, Cybermolecular Hypertonic Substrate, or Chyps for short.”

“Chyps?” said Sandra.

“With a Y.” Stan radiated eagerness to please.

“Wouldn’t you prefer something more descriptive?” Success depended on image, and the right image depended on the right name, in Sandra’s opinion. “Chyps sounds like a snack food.”

Stan chewed on his already well-gnawed lips. “But I like it. People love chips. Besides, all the clever names I could think of were already taken.”

“Then Chyps it shall be.” Sandra adjusted her position demurely. “How did you come up with it?”

“I was in my lab…” He launched into an explanation that involved two fellow researchers and an unexpected chemical reaction.

“And that’s how it happened,” Sandra murmured. “A sizzle, a funny smell, and you’ve changed the future. Just like Sir Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin.”

Stan grinned so hard his freckles danced. “You’re so sharp! I can’t believe I’m really talking to Sandra Duval. You know, you’re stunning in person. Why, your skin looks like velvet.”

This was growing too personal. “Mr. O’Neill,” Sandra said, hoping to inject a note of formality by using his last name, “I hope you and your partners will come to my party next Saturday afternoon. Everything is finalized except the location.”

“Me? Invited to a Sandra Duval party?” He stared at her as if he hardly dared believe his luck.

“Due to my reduced circumstances, everyone is bringing a dish,” she said. “What’s your specialty?”

He responded without hesitation. “I make pretty good fried rice over a Bunsen burner.”

“That should be interesting,” she said.

Sandra sensed Jean-Luc’s approach without turning. It was like feeling a ripple in a force field. Or so she imagined. Not that she’d ever encountered a force field.

Swiveling, she relished the lean length of the man. He was marching toward the copter, absorbed in a sheet of paper. Not until he had nearly reached them did he look up.

His stride broke, and a dazed expression crossed his face as if he couldn’t figure out what she was doing there. Then he bestowed a crooked smile on her. “Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. I’ve been running some numbers.”

“Stan told me.” She restrained the urge to walk over and slip her hand into his. No one was supposed to know they were anything other than stepson and stepmother. Besides, that really was all they were, in the long term.

“I think we can work this out.” Jean-Luc handed the sheet to his friend.

The man scanned it, blinking owlishly. “It will do fine. Well, I’m not sure, but it should. It’s just that the guys have a tendency to get greedy, and there’s so much money to be made. Have you told Sandra about the possibilities?”

“It’s worth billions,” Jean-Luc said simply. “But all I’m asking is one tiny piece of the rights. They’ll still be able to sell the rest to corporations and governments.”

“Insulation. Miniaturization. Medical applications,” Stan filled in. “The list is endless!” He clutched the paper, not seeming to notice he was wrinkling it. “Well, I’d better be going. Thanks for the ride, J-L. Sandra, I’m looking forward to your party.”

“I’ll text you with the details.”

With a handshake and a wave, he loped off. Jean-Luc emerged from deep thought to say, “What party?”

Sandra took a deep breath. “You remember the children’s request?”

“Yes, but I get the impression you aren’t just having a few friends over for ginger ale.” Where a few moments before Stan had jiggled and fidgeted, Jean-Luc stood like a rock. Not a very happy rock, either.

“Well…” She might as well confess. “I called my housekeeper at her home. Thank goodness she removed my personal papers and computer for safekeeping.”

“She had the foresight to preserve your data?” He tilted his head thoughtfully.

“Alice was simply following my emergency evacuation plan.”

“You had one?” Jean-Luc appeared to be struggling to keep up.

“In case of an earthquake or volcanic eruption or some dam breaking in the mountains,” Sandra said impatiently. “Anyway, I had Alice—the housekeeper—send the guest list from my birthday party to Belle at her office.”

“Belle?”

“The editor at my magazine. Also my college roommate.”

“Glad to hear you keep your friends.”

“We’ve rescheduled it for next Saturday,” she said. “Belle and Octavia have notified everyone, and a lot of them are coming. The only thing we haven’t decided is where to hold it.”

“At this rate, you’ll be back to normal in no time.” She could have sworn a trace of sadness darkened his violet eyes, but why should he feel bad about her resuming old friendships?

“Not quite, but things aren’t as desperate as I feared,” she said. “Belle’s husband, Darryl, knows a lawyer who’s agreed to represent me on a deferred-fee basis. He’s blocked the foreclosure of the magazine and my house until the embezzlement is sorted out. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“You could return home now, if you wanted,” her husband said slowly.

“And set the press on my tail?” It was the best explanation she could devise for delaying. She could hardly admit her reluctance to leave him and the children.

With a shrug, Jean-Luc changed the subject. “You seem comfortable sitting in the bird. Care for a ride?”

Sandra didn’t need any encouragement. “I’d love one.”

He scrutinized her. “You’re not going to panic?”

“In your experience, do I panic easily?” she demanded.

“Not that I’ve noticed, but I haven’t give you any reason to,” he said.

“Other than kidnapping me?” she retorted.

He grinned. “Good point. Let’s go.”

Sandra had been expecting some preliminaries. An inspection of the aircraft. The ritual of donning a helmet and perhaps a space suit. “Right now?”

“Without further ado,” he said.

“Okay.” She swung her legs into the copter and fastened her seat belt.

Jean-Luc closed and locked her door and went around to the pilot’s side. A moment later, the motor sprung to life.

Suddenly, in a dark rush of doubts, Sandra wondered what on earth she had let herself in for. When she was younger, she’d leaped at the chance to scuba dive with Malcolm. Skiing in Switzerland had been a breeze.

But now she was vaulting into the sky in a Uplifter that resembled a fishbowl. Not much bigger than one, either. And it was constructed of stuff invented accidentally by three guys who’d nearly blown up their lab.

Sandra gripped the armrest as if hanging on for dear life, and kept her mouth firmly shut. She would sooner spin into the great beyond than let Jean-Luc know she didn’t trust his greatest invention.

 

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

Caught by a gust of wind, the chopper dipped abruptly, and Sandra’s stomach lurched. They were only a few feet above the driveway, and she calculated she could bail out without suffering more than a broken ankle.

A glance at the pilot showed him relaxed but alert as he lifted them further from Mother Earth. He worked those controls with cheerful intensity, as if flying a video game.

She’d ridden in a helicopter once before, island-hopping with Malcolm, but she hadn’t paid attention to the dashboard or control panel or whatever the proper term was. How could anyone keep track of that many dials?

A swooped upwards eliminated any question of jumping. Not that Sandra had seriously considered it in the first place.

Below them, the town dwindled. She felt isolated and tiny, buoyed by a bubble of air, rocked by every breath of wind. A primitive instinct demanded to know what in heaven’s name was holding them up.

“Nervous?” Jean-Luc asked.

“A smidge.” When she tried to loosen her grip on the armrests, her hands refused to cooperate. “We are kind of defying gravity.”

“It’s all a matter of lift.” He shifted a lever and they zoomed forward. “The shape of the wings makes the air flow over it in a way that creates less pressure above the wing than below. Therefore, we rise.”

“Obviously,” Sandra said.

He chuckled. “It’s the same principle that makes the wind blow.”

“It was on the tip of my tongue to say that.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Perhaps not, but the way you explain it, anyone can understand the principles of flight,” she teased. “People should have thought of it long before the Wright Brothers.”

“They did,” he said. “The Chinese wrote about it as early as 300 A.D., and Leonardo Da Vinci sketched a design for a helicopter. Models were built as early as two hundred years ago.”

“I don’t recall anybody whirlybirding around in the Victorian era,” Sandra said skeptically.

“That’s because the engines were too heavy,” Jean-Luc said. “Helicopters weren’t practical until the gasoline engine came along.”

As they angled south across the town, Sandra’s fear ebbed. It might have been his confident tone as much as his words, but she found she actually enjoyed the freedom of movement.

There was no one else around, not at their level. Above and in the distance, she spotted a jet heading for Ontario International Airport, a dozen or so miles to the north. Below, she made out buses, cars and trucks chugging along on their earthbound way.

Here in midair, she and Jean-Luc reigned supreme. No roads restrained them; there were no speed limits or Highway Patrol cruisers. They were creatures of the light, eagles soaring into the limitless vastness.

Below them, canyons unrolled. A canopy of trees spread across the land, reminding Sandra of how this entire region must have looked fifty years earlier. To the west, she glimpsed the suburban sprawl of Orange County, but here they were still in the land of the mountain lion and the coyote.

Okay, she couldn’t actually see any mountain lions or coyotes. But she could see a lone wolf, the one-of-a-kind airborne variety. Jean-Luc.

To watch his expression as he piloted the craft was to feel the joy radiating through him. His shoulders hadn’t looked so broad and powerful since the day he abducted her in the limousine. He held his chin high, and a smile played around his lips as if he were making love to the universe.

She watched his muscular arms and strong hands guiding the controls, and a shiver of desire ran through her. Sandra could feel those arms encircling her, and picture the eagerness illuminating his face as he swept her into the bedroom.

There, her imagination failed. It was impossible to reconcile the pleasantly routine experiences she’d had during her first marriage with the fantasies that sent heat coursing through her body now.

“I have to watch our location closely.” He studied a computerized map on the instrument panel. “There are some military aircraft installations with restricted air space, and we’re nearing the flight path for John Wayne Airport.”

How dare anyone else encroach into their domain? Sandra mused. But honestly, she had no right to this indignation. She’d just discovered the joy of flying today, and only because of Jean-Luc. The sky hardly belonged to her, yet she felt as if she owned it. As if they owned it, together.

“Are we heading anywhere in particular?” she asked.

“I thought I’d take a sweep over the beach house,” he said. “To see if there’s any sign of occupancy.”

“But Darryl’s lawyer put everything on hold,” she reminded him.

“All the more reason why Rip Sneed might be hanging out there,” he said. “There’s no risk of the bank sending anyone down, even if they have figured out that it’s part of your holdings.”

“You’re right.” She couldn’t bear the thought of that weasel in her dear little house.

They hovered above the rooftops of Newport. Along the beach, the copter’s round shadow moved over the sunbathers. She read fascination on people’s upturned faces, although from this distance she might be inventing it.

“There it is.” Jean-Luc pointed toward the driveway where she’d stomped on his foot last Tuesday. Less than a week ago, Sandra thought in amazement.

No cars were parked in the driveway. After an initial pass, Jean-Luc returned and they landed. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said as he hopped out.

He returned with a handful of flyers and junk mail. “If anybody’s home, they aren’t picking up the mail,” he said, and they popped back into the air.

“It’s perfect,” Sandra said.

“Excuse me?” He steered above the coastal bluffs, toward Corona.

“For my birthday party!” She clapped her hands. “There’s hardly any furniture in the house, so it can hold lots of people. And the children could play on the beach.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and then he said, “Also, Newport is a prestigious address. Your friends will feel comfortable.”

Maybe he hadn’t intended a dig, but Sandra felt her hackles rise. “My friends aren’t snobs.”

“I didn’t say they were.”

“There are lots of down-to-earth people coming, like the staff of Just Us, and the people from Darryl’s magazine, too.” Belle’s husband edited a monthly for single men. “Your apartment is too small, but if you’d rather, we could hold the party at your garage. Of course, it’s a bit limited in kitchen facilities, but Stan did say he cooks rice over a Bunsen burner.”

“I forgot that you invited Stan.”

“And Ruthanne and Marcie. Jean-Luc, this is a party for all our friends.”

The corners of his mouth quirked, and she guessed his prickly mood had passed. All he said was, “You hardly know Stan. ”

“He’s your friend, and that’s enough for me,” she pointed out. “You can invite whoever you like. Tell them to bring a dish to share. We’re low on grocery money.”

They had left the coastal regions and were passing above the canyons. “You’re telling me that Mrs. Octavia Smith plans to bring a casserole?”

“She’s thrilled about making blintzes,” Sandra informed him. “She said she hasn’t done that since she was a bride. It’ll be fun!”

“I’m convinced,” said Jean-Luc.

*

The excitement had begun building inside him the moment he closed the door to the helicopter with Sandra inside. She respected him enough to trust her life to his invention. And he planned to impress her.

Even as he concentrated on his flying, Jean-Luc remained acutely sensitive to her body language. He felt her tension, and knew when it eased. He felt her gaze caress his arms and chest, and understood that she was aroused.

Because he was, too. Not just physically, but in ways he couldn’t name. It was as if they were tuned to the same frequency.

He’d never felt anyone else’s emotions this keenly, except those of his children, and he definitely didn’t think of Sandra as a child. She was all woman, every shiny inch.

He didn’t merely want to take her to bed. He wanted to explore her, and stimulate her, and laugh with her. He yearned for long, languorous days beneath a tropical sun and even longer nights beneath a ceiling fan, with the nearby pounding of the surf forming a counterpoint to their love-making.

He had to do something before he became obsessed. He was very close to that state already.

Once they landed at the garage, he let Sandra out of the chopper before rolling it into the hangar. After killing the engine, Jean-Luc sat behind the controls for a moment, trying to figure out an excuse to avoid going home with her.

A long evening awaited, and tomorrow the garage would remain closed all day. How was he to spend two nights and an entire day in her presence without taking her in his arms and doing something they’d both regret?

He had to avoid her. Although it might be unfair to both Sandra and the kids to leave them alone, it was the right decision.

Emerging from the garage, he handed her the keys. “Take the car. I’ll catch a bus later.”

Blue eyes blinked at him. “But the shop is closed on Saturday.”

“I need to check out the chopper,” he said.

“It’s that delicate?” she asked. “I mean, your average purchaser won’t be able to provide a daily tune-up.”

Jean-Luc could hardly tell her the truth, that the copter didn’t require attention. “I’ve tested the prototype thoroughly, but it is still new,” he improvised. “I’m keeping a close eye, looking for flaws. Also, I’m planning to incorporate some design changes before we go into production.”

“Really? What kind of changes?”

Was the woman deliberately putting him on the spot? he wondered, until he remembered that she had a fifteen percent investment in his company. “I intend to make it even more user-friendly.”

Since she was watching him expectantly, Jean-Luc went to his drafting table and brought back a blueprint. He showed her a couple of engineering changes that would give the craft improved stability and maneuverability.

Sandra studied the plans closely. “Will you have to build another prototype?”

“I was planning to wait until I had the funds to hire some…” He blinked a couple of times as her suggestion hit home. Of course. He could build another prototype now. That would provide an excuse to spend tomorrow here, and every evening next week. “You’re right.”

“About what?” she asked.

“I’ve been intending to delay until I can pay a crew to help me,” he said. “But even if Stan lands me the rights, I’ll still be scrabbling for money. I should get started on the new prototype right away.”

Dismay flashed across her face. “You work so hard as it is.”

“I’m building a future for my children,” Jean-Luc said. “You’ll benefit, too.”

A long sigh escaped her. “I thought at least we’d have this weekend to, well…” She shrugged. “You’re right. If you think the children can stand your absence, this might be the best thing.”

“It is.” Instinctively, Jean-Luc reached for his work clothes. He was on the point of unknotting his tie when he remembered that he’d been through this routine before.

Come to think of it, Sandra had been standing right there watching him undress the other day. How could he have forgotten himself like that?

He wouldn’t be so careless again. “You’d better relieve Ruthanne with the children. I’d hate for her to think I’m taking advantage of her.”

“The children!” Sandra’s jaw dropped. “They’re not at Ruthanne’s, they’re at that birthday party! It was supposed to end half an hour ago.”

“You’d better hurry,” muttered Jean-Luc, although he hated to see her go.

Clutching the keys, Sandra started for his car. Halfway there, she turned and made a gesture as if starting to say something, but it turned into a wave.

For a self-indulgent moment, Jean-Luc lingered, watching her slim figure undulate across the parking lot. That lavender dress looked better on her than it ever had on Nora. But then, a lot of things did.

With a mental straightening of the shoulders, he swung toward the hangar.

*

It was Tuesday night when Sandra awoke around 1:00 a.m. and heard noises in the living room. Her heart lurched into her chest, until she realized it was Jean-Luc.

She’d hardly seen him since Saturday. He’d spent all day Sunday and part of Monday gathering parts for the new helicopter. Today, he must have begun the actual construction.

During his forays, he’d acquired an army-surplus sleeping bag, which he unrolled in the living room and slept on at night. He’d said that this way he could come in late without waking her.

She missed him. The kids missed him, too. Still, she could hardly ask him to stay home when his work was essential.

Besides, she had a sneaking suspicion that her presence was part of his motivation for staying away. Sandra had great faith in women’s intuition, particularly her own. And it told her loud and clear that Jean-Luc’s masculine desires were working overtime.

Maybe he would feel the same way if sharing an apartment with any attractive woman, Sandra mused as she eased out of bed and ran a brush through her hair. From what little she knew of men, their desires were easily provoked, even by pictures in magazines.

She had no reason to believe Jean-Luc was any different. Also, with his fierce independence and his dislike of the wealthy world his father had inhabited, he surely had no desire to make their relationship a permanent one.

Neither did she, Sandra told herself as she belted a silky bathrobe over her nightgown.

She moved softly out of the bedroom and into the hall. Jean-Luc had left the living room dark, but had turned on a light in the kitchen.

He stood silhouetted in the doorway, drinking a can of soda. She could see the outline of his muscular torso and, when he shifted position, light gleamed across the bronzed surface of his skin.

A volcanic burst of desire swept through her. She measured the distance to him, the few steps it would take before her hands touched those slim hips and the slinky fabric of her robe brushed his bare chest.

She had a distinct image of him catching her by the shoulders and slowly sliding to his knees, his mouth trailing along her breasts. Her nipples hardened at the thought.

Where did these feelings come from? Why did she experience them so intensely around Jean-Luc? She’d never felt this way when she was married, and certainly not since then.

Would it be terrible if she yielded? Sandra felt almost certain that Jean-Luc wanted her as much as she wanted him. Other people had affairs and then went their separate ways. Why couldn’t they?

Because once we pass the point of no return, we can never go back to being friends.

Nor could they continue being a real husband and wife. The differences between them were too deep-rooted.

The ultimate pain wasn’t worth a few nights of pleasure, Sandra admitted with a twist of sorrow. Still, it took all the strength she possessed to retreat down the hallway and return to bed, alone.

The vision of Jean-Luc standing against the light, stripped to his primal male essence, branded her thoughts and, for the rest of the night, her dreams.

*

On Saturday, Jean-Luc arranged for Sandra and the kids to ride to the beach with Ruthanne so they could set up in advance of the party. He wanted to get in a few more hours of work on the prototype before joining them.

The craft had gone together with remarkable speed. He’d had to buy parts for the engine and interior, but fortunately he’d stockpiled plenty of the special light material in advance.

One of its key advantages was that, when sprayed with a chemical destabilizer, it became pliable for about half an hour, making it easy to cut and shape. Once the final form was achieved, a coat of fixative hardened it permanently.

With the main structure and shell complete, he was busy installing the motor. Although the craft wasn’t yet ready to fly, Jean-Luc felt good about what he’d accomplished.

By the time he checked his watch, it was nearly noon, the hour when the party was scheduled to begin. Guiltily, he realized he was late.

In the back of the hangar, Jean-Luc scrubbed the oil from his face and arms as best he could and changed into a clean shirt and jeans. He wished he dared fly the bird to Newport, but there might not be room to land. Also, with a large number of cars parked in the area, he’d risk having the craft dented.

Not that he was in a hurry to get there, aside from his promise to Sandra and the kids that he’d attend. Parties had never been Jean-Luc’s favorite scene, and he doubted this one would be an exception.

Heading down the freeway in his sport-utility vehicle, he pondered again the mystery of his attraction to Sandra. It couldn’t simply be a matter of her natural beauty; sexual chemistry was more complicated than that.

Why should the fluttering of her hands, a gesture he had found annoying when he saw it on television, now inspire a primitive desire to protect her? Why should her mischievous sideways glances fill him with the urge to kiss her senseless?

Today might be the cure, Jean-Luc reflected. Seeing Sandra in her milieu, among her socialite friends, should destroy any lingering belief that she and he could ever feel at home together.

Morning fog kept the beach traffic light for a summer weekend, and he reached Newport in about an hour. The street leading to the beach house, however, was filled curb-to-curb with luxury cars.

Jaguars. Ferraris. A classic DeLorean. Rolls-Royces, Lexuses, Cadillacs. Despite his skepticism, Jean-Luc stared in awe at one huge, gleaming 1930s Bugatti that must be worth millions.

There appeared to be nowhere to park, and Jean-Luc was bracing for a long, tedious search as he swung past the beach house. Then he spotted an open space on the private turnaround, roped off with streamers and labeled: “Reserved for Mr. Duval.”

For him. What a sweet thought.

A Strauss waltz was playing from the house, and he could hear happy shouts from the beach. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, he supposed as he parked. It must be hard for people to act snooty with sand in their shoes.

Jean-Luc angled between tightly packed cars toward the house, which fluttered with colorful windsocks. The aroma of barbecuing reached him, and then he heard a little voice cry, “Dad! Hey, Dad!”

Chris raced from the house with Chanel right behind. The children wore bathing suits and hats with cartoon-style rabbit ears jutting upward.

“Hi, kids.” He crouched and scooped them into his arms. Snuggling them close, Jean-Luc realized he’d hardly seen the twins this week. “Are you having fun?”

“We’ve been waiting for you.” Chanel spoke in her own voice. She hadn’t hidden behind Fluff Nose for quite a while.

“Yeah, you’re late,” said Chris. “Better hurry. You haven’t had any ginger ale yet.”

Jean-Luc started to laugh. Who could figure kids out? For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why they were eager for him to drink ginger ale. “Let’s go find Sandra.”

They agreed enthusiastically.

As they neared the house, he spotted a group of well-dressed people on the beach. For a minute, he couldn’t figure out why they were standing around stiffly, until he noticed the croquet sticks.

A tall, sleek woman, whom Jean-Luc recognized as Nita Fryberg, the head of a movie studio, whacked a wooden ball. It dribbled a few inches in the sand and stopped, arousing a chorus of jovial catcalls from her fellow players. The woman grinned.

A couple of surfers in wet suits loped by, staring at the scene in disbelief. Jean-Luc knew how they felt. Among the scantily dressed sunbathers, the croquet players appeared like a tableau from another world.

With one child tugging each hand, he entered the house. The airy rooms swayed with music, and in the living room a Japanese man in a three-piece suit performed a formal waltz with a model who had graced a recent cover of Just Us. Two teenage sitcom stars, ears plugged with their own music, were performing hip-hop dances to difference rhythms.

When he glanced into the dining room, he could barely see the table for all the food. A buxom redhead with a baby on her hip scooped guacamole from a bowl, tasted it and ordered a dark-haired man to add more garlic salt. The couple fit the description of Sandra’s friends Belle and Darryl, but the children didn’t give Jean-Luc time to stop and introduce himself.

They tugged him into the den. There, he found that someone had unrolled a large sheet of black plastic, marked it into squares with the help of contact paper, and turned the room into a giant checkerboard.

Party-goers wearing red or black baseball caps were the checkers. The real fun involved those who’d been stacked together on a single square, including Mrs. Octavia Smith and a rap star with braided hair.

It appeared to Jean-Luc that the two of them were holding a private rhyming contest. Judging by the dowager’s animated expression, she was having no trouble keeping pace.

“Where’d Sandra go?” Chris asked.

“She was here a minute ago.” Chanel clutched Jean-Luc’s other hand as if afraid he might vanish.

He’d missed them, too. With a tightening in his throat, he realized how much he’d missed Sandra as well. Where was she?

“I’ll bet she’s outside,” said Chris, and out they went, plowing through the guests.

Behind the house, Jean-Luc caught sight of her near a built-in barbecue. Sandra stood between Marcie and Ruthanne, all of them shading their eyes and gazing toward the ocean.

She wore a short pink skirt and a silver stretch top that quivered every time she breathed. On her head, a sombrero dripped with beach paraphernalia: a knotted piece of driftwood, seashells, a candy-bar wrapper, a child’s plastic sandal with a broken strap, and a scrunched beer can.

“It’s a dolphin.” Sandra pointed out to sea.

“It’s a surfer,” said Marcie. “He’s kind of cute. Look at his rear end.”

“Don’t you think…I mean, the curvature…has to be a submarine, wouldn’t you say?” murmured Ruthanne.

“Maybe we’re being invaded,” said Sandra.

“By cute surfers with tight butts?” Marcie added hopefully.

“It’s a seal,” Chris said in disgust “Come on, you guys.”

Three faces turned toward him, the expressions shifting from argumentative to welcoming as they spotted Jean-Luc.

“Hello there.” Sandra’s tone was sultry. How did the woman manage to make him feel as if they were alone in a boudoir, despite the surf crashing, the croquet players cheering and his entire family watching?

“Oh!” said Marcie. “Hi, Jean-Luc.” Unlike the others, his cousin didn’t seem happy to see him.

“Bad news?” He hadn’t talked to her for a few days, and wasn’t sure she’d had time to make any more inquiries about Rip Sneed. A private investigator had to put paying clients first, after all.

“No news, and that’s bad news,” sighed Marcie. “The man’s given me the slip again. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Jean-Luc hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on what it would mean to Sandra if she was left penniless. Fortunately, he no longer believed her to be helpless and friendless.

Judging by the enthusiastic turnout at this party, she would quickly find a place among the elite of Los Angeles. Besides, she owned fifteen percent of his helicopter company. With Stan O’Neill’s help, it might not be too long before that represented a decent nest egg.

“Oops!” Sandra hurried to flip hamburgers and salmon on the grill. “I nearly forgot about those.”

“Well-done is safest, anyway,” advised Ruthanne. “Let me watch them. Honest! I like keeping busy.”

“Thanks.” As Marcie drifted off to check out some men playing volleyball down the beach, Sandra joined Jean-Luc and the children. “It’s good to see you.”

“You guys ought to dance,” said Chanel.

“Should we?” Sandra raised one eyebrow at Jean-Luc. “With my stepson? Would it look right?”

“I’m your stepson!” retorted Chris.

“Then we should dance.” Linking her arm through the little boy’s, Sandra escorted him into the house.

Jean-Luc followed with his daughter. “May I have the honor of this dance, Chanel?”

“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it.” A solemn little face frowned up at him. “You’re supposed to dance with Sandra.”

He would like nothing better. But Sandra was right. It would be impossible to put their arms around each other and sway to the music without revealing to everyone how they felt.

How they felt? And how was that? he demanded silently.

“Well?” said Chanel. Jean-Luc discovered they had reached the living room.

Mrs. Octavia Smith, having abandoned the checkers game, was twiddling the dials on the boom box. A moment later, out burst the head-splitting rhythms of a group that almost certainly had Smashing or Crashing or Bashing as part of its name.

“That’s more like it!” crowed the dowager, and gyrated alongside the rap singer who had shared her checker space.

Pulling his daughter to a clear spot, Jean-Luc danced alongside her. Reluctantly at first, Chanel began to wiggle, then hop around. Nearby, Chris and Sandra caught hands and spun in a circle.

They were all out of breath when Belle slipped plastic stemmed glasses into their hands. “Thanks, but what’s this?” Sandra asked.

“Ginger ale. I’m following instructions.” With a wink at Chanel, Belle retreated.

“You’re supposed to drink it,” said Chris.

“I didn’t think we were supposed to pour it in our ears,” Sandra answered.

Jean-Luc broke out laughing. Maybe it was the raucous music or the fizz of bubbles against his palate, but he hadn’t felt so carefree in a long time.

Or so close to falling in love. He longed to fly Sandra to the stars, and the way he felt right now, he wouldn’t need a helicopter to do it.

Everything could be worked out. Everything would be worked out. Why had he wasted most of his life taking a dark view of things?

Then, across the room, the sunlight reflected off a thick pair of glasses. The man ducked his head and revealed the odd-looking crew cut that Stan O’Neill had worn since he and Jean-Luc went to high school together.

The co-inventor of his favorite new material had arrived. But from the grim expression on his face, he badly wished he was somewhere else.

 

 

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

 

Sandra watched in dismay as the joy vanished from Jean-Luc’s eyes. A moment earlier, he’d resembled a kid on Christmas. After one glimpse of Stan, he scowled as if he’d just seen Santa Claus crash into a chimney.

As he strode out, she shooed the children toward the back door. “You guys see if Ruthanne’s got your hamburgers ready.”

“Why?” demanded Chris.

“Your daddy has business to discuss,” she said firmly. “And so do I.”

Reluctantly, the children obeyed. Sandra’s heart wrenched as she watched them trudge off. Then, with a sense of impending doom, she went to join Jean-Luc.

He and Stan had retreated onto the blacktop, standing between cars where the other guests couldn’t hear them. “I’m sorry,” Stan was saying as she approached. “I really did my best.”

Jean-Luc shifted toward Sandra, his violet eyes hooded. “His partners insist on auctioning the rights to the highest bidder. All the rights.”

“When?” she asked.

“A week from Monday.” Stan shrugged apologetically. “They couldn’t see accepting shares in a helicopter company that has no capital and no immediate prospects of raising any.”

“What if we found other partners?” Sandra wished she could talk privately with Jean-Luc before voicing her ideas, but Stan was edging away as if eager to leave. “There are a lot of prominent people here. Some of them might be interested.”

“No,” Jean-Luc said.

“Why not?” asked his friend. “It’s a reasonable idea.”

“If I thought these people believed in me, that would be one thing.” The words came out so taut they vibrated. “But they would only invest in my business to indulge Sandra. I’m not a charity case.”

She wanted to thump his thick skull. “Once the rights are gone, it’s over, Jean-Luc. Sooner or later, you’ll prove this was a good investment. Why let pride get in your way?”

“Because this is who I am,” he snapped. “I refused to be my father’s pet poodle, and I won’t be yours, either.” Clamping his jaw shut as if afraid he would say too much, he marched away down the beach.

“Oh, dear,” said Sandra.

“He’s always been like that.” Stan blinked owlishly. “I kind of admire him.”

“I do too, except that he’s messing up his life.” As he’d done before, with his father, Sandra reflected. Still, she didn’t entirely blame Jean-Luc for his independent spirit.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Stan said.

“Don’t give up yet,” she said, although she didn’t have the foggiest idea of how things might be changed. “Please stick around and have some food. There’s plenty.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much appetite.” With an apologetic smile, Stan departed.

Leaning against a car, Sandra tried to decide how to proceed. If she had been the only person involved, she would have gone without hesitation to her guests. To her, this seemed a perfectly legitimate business opportunity, not a charity case.

But Jean-Luc disagreed, and she had no right to go behind his back. If she did, she would alienate him just as Malcolm had.

The idea squeezed her heart. To lose him forever, even as a friend, would be unthinkable.

If only she could locate Rip Sneed! Yet by now, she doubted he had any money left. What had he done with it all, anyway?

Marcie approached hesitantly. “It didn’t work out with Stan, did it?”

“No. And Jean-Luc won’t accept help from my friends.”

“He always was stubborn.” The detective pushed a wedge of dark hair behind her ear.

“Is there anywhere you haven’t looked? For clues, I mean?” Sandra asked.

“Nowhere that I can think of.” She blinked in the bright afternoon light. “Except this house. I left that to you and Jean-Luc.”

Sandra felt a stir of irrational hope. “We didn’t do a very thorough job. We left in kind of a hurry.”

“Sneed did live here,” Marcie murmured. “On the other hand, I kind of snooped around while we were decorating this morning. Force of habit.” She had arrived an hour early to help. “With such an open design, there aren’t any real hiding places.”

“Did you look behind things?” Sandra asked. “Like the refrigerator or the washer and dryer?”

Marcie nodded. “I always check there. I mean, even when I’m not supposed to.”

“You peek behind your friends’ refrigerators and washers?”

“You’d be surprised what turns up,” Marcie said, as they strolled toward the house.

“Like what?” asked Sandra. “Besides lint.”

“Lost socks.” Marcie grimaced. “Pieces of fossilized candy. I found a plastic bag with three baby teeth behind Jean-Luc’s refrigerator once.”

“That must have been a thrill.”

Loud music and guests demanding attention swarmed around them as soon as they reached the front door. People were eager to set out the food and had questions about practically everything, from what utensils to use, to which bowl of potato salad to uncover first. Goodness, did they have to act helpless? Sandra mused, slightly irked until it occurred to her that she used to do the same thing.

Jean-Luc returned and quietly helped to serve the food. His features were frozen into a polite mask that discouraged conversation.

Had he given up his dream? Sandra didn’t think he would yield this easily. The shock of this latest disappointment must have numbed him.

Today was Saturday. They only had until a week from Monday to work things out. By the time he recovered his initiative, the rights might be sold.

For the next few hours, Sandra’s brain refused to stop buzzing. How had Rip lived here without leaving any more hints about his activities? Or was she missing a disguised clue in plain sight?

The food got eaten, games were played, people swam in their clothes and declared it a marvelous innovation, and there was much dancing and drinking of soda pop. Through it all, Jean-Luc wandered like a robot, playing the role of dutiful host without an ounce of emotion.

“He’s rather cold, isn’t he?” murmured Octavia as she prepared to leave. “I do think it’s kind of your stepson to put you up until you get your home back, but he doesn’t seem very sociable.”

“He’s having an off day,” said Sandra. “Thanks very much for coming. And for all your help.”

Ruthanne volunteered to take the children home early. They were growing cranky, perhaps because their father refused to dance any more. For some reason, this seemed to disappoint them, particularly Chanel.

At any other time, Sandra would have probed for the cause of the little girl’s unhappiness. But today there was too much at stake, so she allowed Ruthanne to take them home.

With the crowd dwindling, she wandered to the master bedroom and sat on Rip Sneed’s former bed. Sandra closed her eyes and tried to think like a ratsoid slimeball thief.

It did no discernible good. But when her eyelids fluttered open, she caught herself staring at the small bookshelf.

Why had Sneed bought a copy of the novel Prizzi’s Honor and the script of The Godfather? The man seemed obsessed with the Mafia, yet Hal Smothers had assured Jean-Luc that there was no connection.

Idly, Sandra noted the other titles. My Life in the Mafia. La Cosa Nostra. Organized Crime in America.

She picked up the stack of scripts. Beneath The Godfather lay the screenplays for several other gangster-related movies, plus one with no title on the cover.

She flipped it open. Typed on the first page was the name Mafia Odyssey, followed by “First Draft.”

More from curiosity than because she expected to learn anything useful, Sandra began to read. Within a few minutes, she no longer noticed the noises from the beach or the rock music throbbing in the living room.

She was caught up in the harsh and ungrammatical world of a small-time Mafia hitman named Vic Massey. She couldn’t stop reading as the cold-blooded Massey stalked a union organizer, only to discover at the fatal moment that he had just killed his own niece.

From that point, however, the story weakened. Massey’s attempts to atone for his vicious act seemed artificial and unconvincing. She knew it was supposed to be a tragic moment when the now-reformed killer turned himself in to police, but she didn’t believe in his transformation. The early part of the script had been so good that she felt let down.

Was this a true story or an invented one? What did it have to do with Rip Sneed?

She reviewed the clues Marcie had uncovered. Sneed had paid money to several small entertainment-related firms, possibly for movie or video projects. He’d had people coming and going at his motel room, including a cameraman and several sleazy-looking women who claimed to be actresses.

He’d rented a series of storefronts. In the script, two of Massey’s victims were shopkeepers.

Was it possible Sneed had invested in a legitimate production company and not some X-rated enterprise? Since he’d obviously been fascinated by the Mafia, it was no wonder this script appealed to him.

But why had two rough-looking guys been searching for him in Las Vegas? Had he stolen the script, or promised more money than he could deliver? If he had been filming a movie, what had happened to it?

To get answers required locating Sneed. While it seemed unlikely that Sandra could recover her millions, it had become a matter of pride to find out why she’d been cheated and where the money had gone.

After his bitter disappointment today, Jean-Luc was so touchy that he might nix the idea of renewing the chase. She decided not to mention it to him. That way she avoided open conflict.

The tricky part, of course, was how to succeed where Marcie had failed. Pressing her lips together, Sandra stared out the window for inspiration.

On the beach, the croquet game had wrapped up. An assortment of lingering guests, including a couple of editors from Just Us, had thrown caution to the winds and were building a sandcastle.

It was a huge sprawling thing with turrets and towers, and onlookers had gathered to stare. Directing the project was Nita Fryberg, who had famously risen from production secretary to chief of a major studio.

Several times in the past, Nita had pointed to Sandra’s successes in organizing charity events and shows, and suggested she had a natural talent for producing. Although flattered by Nita’s urging to take classes in the field, Sandra hadn’t believed she possessed any such talent.

She still wasn’t convinced. However, reflecting on Nita’s suggestion sparked an idea.

Maybe the way to find Rip wasn’t through computer records and motel registrations. If he was producing a movie, someone in Hollywood—a casting director, an actor’s agent, a location scout or a designer—might know where to find him. Should a big honcho like Nita put out the word that she was looking for Rip Sneed, an answer would come back faster than a speeding stunt man.

Tucking the script beneath her arm, Sandra hurried out to have a few words with her friend.

*

“Too bad the ginger ale didn’t work,” Chanel told her twin. “We’ll have to try something else.”

Chris scrunched his face. They were sitting on the floor of their bedroom with stuffed animals piled around them like a fort. “That was a mess. Dad’s really mad at us.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why’s he grumpy?” demanded her brother.

The last two days had been miserable. Dad had spent Sunday pacing around the apartment like a lion in a cage. This morning he’d gone off to the garage with a hard, angry look, as if he hated returning there.

Sandra seemed twitchy today, too. To reorganize the kitchen, she’d taken out all the pots and pans and moved them around over and over.

Whenever the phone rang, she jumped, and when it turned out to be nothing important, she resumed clanging the pots and pans. Once she dropped the entire silverware drawer with a bang that nearly made Chanel wet her pants.

“Maybe he’s grumpy because there were too many people at the party,” she said.

“No, there weren’t.” After a moment, Chris added, “Too many for what?”

“For falling in love.” She wrinkled her nose as she summoned an image of what she’d seen in movies. “Those stories where people are dancing, they end up alone. On a patio in the moonlight or something, where they can kiss.”

“Then what happens?”

“Then they wake up in bed together.”

“Daddy and Sandra always wake up in bed together,” Chris pointed out.

“No, they don’t. Not anymore.” Here was a complication that Chanel hadn’t considered. “Not since he bought the sleeping bag.”

“I think it’s cool. I wish he’d let me use it.”

They stopped at a tap on their door, which was followed by Sandra’s face peering into the room. Reorganizing the kitchen had left her hair tangled and a streak of dirt on one cheek. “I have to go downstairs to get the laundry. Are you kids okay here for a minute?”

Chanel jumped to her feet. “I’ll help you.”

Her twin kicked her in the ankle. “What’re you, crazy? You hate laundry.”

Chanel drew herself up until she felt tall and adult. “Shut up,” she said, and trailed Sandra out.

Anybody but her brother could see that Sandra was expecting an important call. Chanel was determined to find out what it was.

They were in the laundry room folding towels when the phone rang. Sandra stuck it to her ear and said “Hello?” while it rang again, then remembered to swipe and repeated, “Hello?”

She was nervous. Why? Must be a big deal.

With the phone tight against her ear, she listened for a while, then gave an excited hop. “Nita, you’re wonderful! Really? In L.A.? But did you find out what… No, no, that’s okay.” After another minute, she said, “Sure. I’ll hang loose until I hear from you.”

When she finished, she was quivering like a cat ready to pounce. “What was that?” asked Chanel.

“Grown-up stuff,” Sandra said.

The little girl frowned as she wound a pair of socks together. She’d eavesdropped enough to know that her father and Aunt Marcie had been searching for a bad man who’d stolen money. When they caught him, Sandra would move back to her own house.

The one at the beach? Chanel wasn’t sure.

“Are you going to call Daddy?” she asked.

“What?” Sandra dropped the T-shirt she was holding and had to shake it out again.

“Don’t you plan to tell him you’ve found the bad man?” said Chanel.

“We haven’t, not quite.” Sandra paused, as if turning something over in her mind. “I think you and Chris and I need to have a talk.”

“Okay.”

They carried the laundry upstairs. When Sandra informed Chris she had important information to discuss, he was so fascinated he even helped sort his own socks.

She explained that the runaway lawyer who’d stolen from her was apparently in Los Angeles. By the end of the day, her friend hoped to have his address.

“We still don’t know where my money is,” Sandra said. “I’ll have to face him in person.”

“You and Dad?” asked Chanel.

Sandra pressed her lips together while she weighed her response. “I’m not sure he’d approve of how I’m doing this. Your dad prefers to handle things his way.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Chris grumbled.

Sandra laughed as she folded a pair of jeans. “I can’t blame him. I’m like that, too.” Then she frowned. “I don’t mean to keep secrets with you guys behind his back. You should always be honest with your father. But this is my problem. I’ve relied on your dad for too long.”

“He’ll be happy when you get the money back, won’t he?” Chanel asked.

Instead of answering, their stepmother lifted a pair of Chris’s Winnie-the-Pooh underpants into the light and turned them at an angle. “I don’t understand why your underwear has a pinkish cast. Is that the trend these days?”

“It didn’t used to be pink,” said Chris.

A guilty look flickered across Sandra’s face. Reaching into the laundry basket, she fished out a red towel. “Hadn’t this been washed before?”

“I think it’s new,” said Chanel.

Sandra sighed. “You don’t really mind pink underwear, do you?”

Chris shrugged. “I guess not. Nobody sees it, anyway.”

Who cared about his crummy underwear? Chanel thought impatiently. “When will you face this bad man?”

“Tomorrow, I hope,” Sandra said. “Now, what would you guys like for lunch?”

After she went to fix macaroni and cheese, Chanel tugged her brother into their bedroom. “We have to act fast!” she said.

“Why?”

How could he be so dense? “Because when she finds this man, she’s leaving. We have to make sure she and Dad fall in love tonight!”

“That’s crazy,” Chris said. “We tried your idea and it didn’t work.”

“They need to be alone.” Chanel could see where she’d gone wrong before. “Like have a romantic dinner together. Without us.”

“Where will we be?”

A brilliant idea struck. “Downstairs at Ruthanne’s,” said Chanel. “And get this! We’ll have to take the sleeping bag.”

Her brother didn’t look impressed. In fact, he looked confused. “But we always sleep on the couch when we’re there.”

“Tonight, we insist on the sleeping bag,” she said. “That way Dad has to sleep with Sandra.”

Chris grunted. “No, he doesn’t. He could sleep in our beds.”

“Oh, honestly!” Chanel made a clucking noise. “They’re too short. Besides, I never saw a movie where the people wake up in bunk beds. Come on, let’s go get Ruthanne to help.”

Chris sniffed the aroma of macaroni and cheese. “After lunch.”

Chanel gave in. But she was already planning what Ruthanne could cook for Sandra and Dad’s romantic dinner: bean-and-cheese burritos with canned corn, chips and salsa.

You couldn’t get more romantic than that.

*

When Jean-Luc arrived home, he was tired of being mad at the world. He would sell the damn prototypes, and that would be the end of it.

Eventually, he’d develop some other invention. It might not be as exciting as the helicopters, but thank goodness he had the garage to support his family.

Not Sandra, though; not in the manner to which she was accustomed. While she’d been a good sport, he didn’t expect her to live a lower-middle-class existence forever. It had become obvious at the party that she retained plenty of influential friends and was capable of making her way in the world.

Jean-Luc refused to dwell on how much he’d miss her. They’d made a bargain, and she’d kept her part of it. He refused to be a sore loser.

There would never be a woman like her in his life again. He’d believed once that he was in love with Nora, but he could see now that he’d been infatuated with an image, mostly of his own projecting.

Sandra was different. She was funny and bold, capable and spontaneous, warmhearted and tough. Whenever she entered a room, it was as if someone turned on the lights.

He trudged up the stairs to the apartment, trying to frame what he would say. As he opened the door, he waited for the accustomed rush of children, but they failed to materialize. Then he noticed that the kitchen table had been brought into the living room and set with a cloth and a pair of candles in saucers.

“In here!” Sandra called from the kitchen.

“Are we expecting company?” As Jean-Luc caught sight of her, he stumbled to a halt.

She was wearing the gold-sequinned 1920s gown, with a black turban wrapped around her head. Draping herself against a chipped counter, she posed with a golden fountain pen in her hand, in the manner of a cigarette holder.

“Make sure you remember the details to tell Chanel.” Sandra’s eyes danced with mischief. “She insisted on this outfit.”

“Is this a game you and the kids are playing?” Jean-Luc guessed.

“Beats me.” Sandra dropped her pose to punch a button on the microwave. “Whatever it is, Ruthanne’s part of it. The kids selected the menu and she fixed the dinner. They’re staying over at her place, in your sleeping bag.”

“I hope this isn’t what I think it is.” Jean-Luc couldn’t believe Ruthanne would be attempting to throw him and Sandra into each other’s arms. Surely his neighbor didn’t believe that one night together would convince the star of Los Angeles society to spend the rest of her life in a two-bedroom apartment.

“It’s kind of sweet, don’t you think?” Sandra thrust a basket of chips in his direction. “This seems to be the first course. Or maybe I am.”

He searched for an equally flippant reply, but the words stuck in his throat. The way the golden fabric molded itself to Sandra’s figure was interfering with his rational thought processes.

“Isn’t that uncomfortably tight?” he asked.

“No, it’s stretchy.” She was lifting a ceramic bowl of corn out of the microwave when she caught his gaze. He could have sworn he saw a small tremor run through her. “Would you rather I took it off? It never occurred to me this dress might have some special meaning for you and Nora.”

“Nothing about Nora has any meaning for me.” He moved toward her. “That dress never existed until you put it on. How do you get into that thing? It looks like it’s sprayed on.”

“There’s a zipper in the back.” Sandra’s breath caught as she set the bowl aside.

Jean-Luc stopped inches away. He knew it would be the most natural thing in the world to take her into his arms and unfasten that zipper. He couldn’t think about anything but the soft, rounded swell of her breasts beneath the clinging fabric, and her scent, like a bouquet of spring flowers.

From the way her lips parted and her eyes brightened, he knew she was having the same reaction. They were both grown-ups. Why shouldn’t they act on their impulses?

He swallowed hard. If he made love to Sandra, he wouldn’t just want her for one night, or one week. And he knew he couldn’t keep her.

“Maybe—” His voice got stuck, and he had to clear his throat before continuing. “Maybe we should eat.”

Disappointment touched her face, then vanished so quickly he wasn’t sure he’d really seen it. “Sure.”

He ached to grasp her hips and pull her close. Instead, Jean-Luc grabbed the bowl of corn and carried it into the other room.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TEN

 

 

What had just passed between them in the kitchen? Sandra asked herself as she sat in the living room eating a burrito without tasting it, which wasn’t easy.

On the table, two stubby candles set on mismatched saucers cast a pool of light across Jean-Luc’s face. His eyes burned a deep purple, and his high cheekbones cast dangerous shadows. His gaze kept searing her, and then pulling away.

He didn’t appear to be tasting his burrito, either.

A minute ago, she could have sworn Jean-Luc had wanted her in the most intensely masculine way. And she’d wanted him with a surge of feminine heat that astounded her.

Was this why the books and movies made such a big deal out of sex? She’d never understood it when she was married to Malcolm. Basically, she’d figured the scripts were written by adolescent males with overactive imaginations.

Thinking about scripts reminded her of the one she’d found at the beach house, and how it had led her to discover Sneed’s whereabouts. Nita had called an hour ago with an address, which Sandra would check out tomorrow.

She ought to tell the man sitting opposite her. Maybe later. Right now, she hated to spoil what was left of their mood.

The irony was that she’d attended many a dinner party with French cuisine, crystal candelabras and tuxedo-clad string quartets. They’d never come close to being as romantic as this evening patched together courtesy of a pair of six-year-olds.

The room was quiet and intimate. Through the partly open curtains, she had an unspoiled view of the star-spangled sky, as long as she didn’t look down toward the parking lot.

She relished replaying the scene in the kitchen, when Jean-Luc had stalked her with that delicious sense of menace teetering on the edge of wantonness. If only he had taken her up on the offer of removing the dress, right then and there.

What harm could it do to explore these unfamiliar sensations with Jean-Luc? Surely once in her life she had a right to burst into flames and self-destruct.

A low sigh made her realize he must be thinking along similar lines. Then he grabbed his plate and carried it into the kitchen, leaving a void.

“What’s for dessert?” called her husband, his voice rough with frustration.

“They forgot about dessert,” she responded.

“The kids forgot about dessert?” He reappeared in the doorway. “Are they ill?”

“They didn’t forget about their own dessert, just ours.” She piled her plate atop the serving dishes and took them into the kitchen.

The magic had vanished. The harsh overhead light did nothing to restore it, either. That, she supposed, was all to the good.

Jean-Luc pulled a box of mix from a cabinet. “Let’s make fudge.”

Sandra regarded the box in wonder. “We can do that? Without melting chocolate squares in a double boiler?”

“You haven’t cooked in a long time, have you?” he observed as he switched on the oven.

“My mother used to make fudge,” Sandra recalled. “I never did. Bad for the figure.”

“You worry about things like that?” He rummaged through the recently reorganized cabinets until he produced a mixing bowl and utensils.

“Like what?” She couldn’t concentrate, not with his hard, taut body moving past her toward the refrigerator. This kitchen was much too small for two people, unless they planned to do something licentious.

“Weight,” he said.

“I am waiting,” she said.

He stopped with an egg in one hand and a spatula in the other. “For what?”

“This.” She stood on tiptoe and zeroed in on his mouth. Her lips grazed his, and she eased closer, into his warmth, and tasted him. It was a small movement, hardly even sexual, but a firestorm raged along Sandra’s breasts and shot up her thighs until she became shockingly aware of just how much more of him she craved.

Jean-Luc shuddered but remained unmoving. “We shouldn’t start what we can’t finish.”

She managed a small pout before retreating. “It was fun while it lasted.”

Swiveling, he smashed the egg against the rim of the bowl so hard he annihilated the shell. Fortunately, most of the contents fell where they were supposed to.

Sandra watched him work, fascinated by the muscles shifting beneath the shirt as he stirred the mix and added water. She knew what his back looked like stripped to the skin, from that day at the garage. She was more than ready to strip him again.

Good manners required that she honor his decision not to pursue the matter. With a keen sense of loss, she stood there, merely observing.

He was stirring so hard tiny specks of chocolate powder misted the air. Sandra inhaled the aroma. Tonight everything blended together: her desire for Jean-Luc, the aroma of chocolate fudge and the scent of wax from the candles in the other room.

If they did it on the kitchen floor, would it count? She supposed that depended on who was counting.

He turned toward her, lifting a wooden spoon coated with batter. “It’s got raw egg in it. Want to live dangerously?”

She sneaked forward and took a lick. He gave her a crooked smile and nibbled at the spoon. He was eating more than his share, Sandra decided, and leaned forward to get more.

Their mouths met at the spoon. Fudge streaked his hand and something gooey stuck to her cheek. Then she found his mouth against hers and his arm around her waist, and her hands gripped his unyielding buttocks.

The spoon ended up on the counter, and he was eating fudge from her cheek, and she was unbuttoning his shirt. It happened too fast, but she needed him so badly, Sandra didn’t know how to slow down.

A groan arose from Jean-Luc as he lifted his head to gaze at her. “There’s so much we haven’t resolved.”

“Who cares?” she said.

As if he felt the need to pour everything out before proceeding, he blurted, “I’m going to sell the helicopters to whoever buys the rights to Chyps.”

“Chips?”

“You know, the material. I’m moving on with my life, Sandra. Can you accept me that way?”

“You can’t sell them.” This was not the time to talk about this, but heaven forbid Jean-Luc should do something foolish and irrevocable tomorrow while she was off buttonholing Rip. “Don’t give up yet.”

His mouth tightened. “That’s what matters to you the most? Getting the money back?”

“The helicopters are your dream.” Surely he knew her well enough to understand that she wasn’t a gold digger. Or was that still what he believed? “That’s what I thought.”

He pulled away, and cold air rushed in. Sandra felt goose bumps sprout along her arms.

“I’m selling them,” he said. “It’s time you stopped picturing me as Malcolm Duval’s wealthy son and stomached the fact that I’m a guy who runs a car repair shop.”

“Which one of us is having trouble with that picture?” she demanded. “It isn’t me, Jean-Luc.”

“It certainly isn’t me.” Opening the oven, he shoved the fudge inside.

The man was understandably angry and disappointed about his invention, but he had no right to blame her. As for his assumption that she only cared about the money, it hurt more than she could express.

Maybe that had been true of her, or at least partly true, when they first met. She enjoyed being rich. But it wasn’t a matter of greed or envy or social climbing.

Twelve years ago, Sandra had gone in the blink of an eye from near-poverty to wealth beyond her dreams. With millions at her disposal, fantasies came true, reality took a powder and she no longer had to bother about the tedious details of daily living.

A person could get used to that kind of life and never look back. But that was before she’d experienced a man like Jean-Luc. Without realizing it, her priorities had changed. Only, how could she make him understand that?

The trouble was that they didn’t really know each other. They’d never had a chance to develop trust or closeness. Now that lack had blown up in their faces.

Sadly, Sandra went to change into jeans and a blouse. For now, the best thing she could do was to keep her part of the bargain. She would recover whatever she could from Sneed, or at least get some answers. If there was any money left, she’d share it fifty-fifty with Jean-Luc.

Whether he chose to spend it on helicopters or something else was up to him.

*

Medieval torture chambers, Jean-Luc had once read, came equipped with racks, whips and iron cages. If the jailers had also devised a lumpy couch, their collection would have been complete.

Even worse were the dreams. Sandra, sensuous in a glittery dress, undulated before him. Her lips whispered sweet nothings and her fingers beckoned. But Jean-Luc was flying a helicopter and every time he leaned toward her, they made a plunge that threatened to dash them into the side of a mountain.

He woke up in a mood so foul that he avoided speaking to Sandra for fear he would further damage their relationship. That was, assuming they still had a relationship.

Last night had left him with the impression that she’d rejected the possibility of living without the hope of vast wealth. She’d vehemently opposed selling his prototypes, hadn’t she?

But whenever Jean-Luc tried to pin down exactly what she’d said or what her attitude had been, he couldn’t. The memory of her standing on tiptoe and kissing him blotted out everything else.

He was so distracted that he ate fudge for breakfast, which set his stomach churning. Then he reached work before he realized he hadn’t stopped downstairs to check on the children.

Over the next few hours, he forced himself to concentrate on spark plugs and fan belts, because carelessness around automobiles was a good way to get hurt. He tried not to think about the anger mixed with sadness in Sandra’s eyes last night, or about the new helicopter sitting nearly finished in the hangar next door.

It was around eleven o’clock when the phone rang for the third time. He’d been letting voice mail pick it up, but either there were a lot of people who needed to talk to him, or someone had urgent business.

Wiping his hands on a rag, Jean-Luc grabbed the phone. “Duval Automotive.”

“Jean-Luc? Thank goodness!” It was Ruthanne. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

Fear hit him like a thunderbolt. The kids. He hadn’t even looked in on them. “Is somebody sick?”

“No, but you may be when you hear this,” said his neighbor. “I found out why Chanel was so eager to get you and Sandra together.”

“Why is that?” He’d scarcely been aware that his daughter was thinking anything of the kind.

“To keep Sandra from leaving. Apparently she located that man. Rip Sneed. This morning, before I knew about it, she borrowed my car and…Well, she said she had to run an errand. I think she went to see him.”

Jean-Luc experienced a surge of bitterness at the discovery that money meant so much to Sandra that she would take off after Rip at the first opportunity. But mostly he felt concern for her safety. If she cornered the man, he could be dangerous. “Did she say where she was going?”

“Somewhere in L.A.” Ruthanne sighed. “Chanel was planning…she said she was arranging for you two to fall in love. To prevent Sandra from leaving after she caught ‘that bad man.’ ”

How had Sandra tracked him? Maybe she’d persuaded one of her many rich friends to hire a private detective. But it didn’t matter now.

The woman he loved might be in danger. Even if they couldn’t spend their lives together, even if she’d never love Jean-Luc for himself, he had to protect Sandra.

“Put my daughter on the phone,” he said.

A moment later, a squeaky voice said, “Hi, Daddy.” Under stress, the little girl had reverted to hiding behind Fluff Nose.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said. “Listen, it’s important that I reach Sandra.”

“She said you’d be mad.”

“Is that why she didn’t tell me?”

“She said you like to do things your own way,” piped the dinosaur voice. “Are you mad at her, Daddy?”

Mad, and worried, and wishing he could kick himself for being so stiff-necked. No wonder Sandra had gone off by herself, the way he’d angrily rejected any suggestion of her help. He would never forgive himself if she got hurt. “No, honey. But this is very important. Who told her where the bad man is?”

“A friend of hers. I think her name is Nita.”

Nita Fryberg? He’d seen the studio executive at the beach party, but what did she have to do with Rip Sneed?

Abruptly, he understood the brilliance of Sandra’s plan. She must have decided to track her target through the film community.

It was a terrific idea. If he hadn’t been so stubbornly insistent on plowing ahead with blinders on, he might have tried that route himself.

“Thanks, honey,” he said. “May I talk to Ruthanne?”

“Yes. Call us when you find Sandra, okay?”

“You bet, angel.” He was still adjusting to the fact that, as the kids grew out of early childhood into school age, they had a right to be kept in the loop on family matters.

“I love you, Daddy,” Chanel said.

His heart melted. “I love you, too.”

“And Fluff Nose?”

“And Fluff Nose.”

He secured Ruthanne’s willing agreement to watch the kids, and explained to Chris what was happening. Then Jean-Luc grabbed a sheet of paper, scribbled Closed Due to Family Emergency on it, and stuck it on the garage door.

Inside, he juggled the phone, a bar of soap and a change of clothing as he called Nita’s studio and argued his way through an army of underlings until he reached her.

“It never occurred to me she’d go there alone,” Nita admitted as she provided him with the address. “Should I call the police?”

“I’ll go there right now. If it becomes necessary, I’ll call them myself.” Much as he’d appreciate the extra precaution, Sandra’s name on a police log would arouse unwanted press attention. A lot of it.

“Let me know what happens, okay?” the studio chief said. “Sandra’s a very special lady.”

“I agree. And I’ll be in touch.”

The location was, not surprisingly, a motel. It was located in a seedy section of East L.A., not the sort of neighborhood a woman should be driving around alone.

Worse, she’d set her sights on a man who had everything to lose. He’d already robbed her. What else was he capable of?

It would take over an hour, and possibly much longer, to get there by car. At midday on a Tuesday, the traffic shouldn’t be heavy, but there was always the chance of an accident fouling things up.

He had to get there fast. That meant flying the Uplifter.

Under ordinary circumstances, Jean-Luc wouldn’t have risked taking his prototype into a bad neighborhood. But these circumstances weren’t ordinary.

Luckily he’d equipped the chopper with a computerized map of the Los Angeles basin. It would enable him to pinpoint the motel from the air.

Hurriedly, he rolled the bird out of the hangar and got it airborne. Pushing to well over one hundred miles per hour and taking a direct route, he could be on the scene in less than twenty minutes.

He was following the 91 Freeway due west when it occurred to Jean-Luc that he hadn’t brought a weapon. He hoped he wouldn’t need one.

*

The small store across the street from the motel bore a sign: “Groceries—Lottery Tickets—Beer.” Iron grillwork guarded the windows and graffiti covered the façade.

Flanking the store sat two aging houses, also with grillwork on the windows. Their front yards were landscaped with rusting cars and old tires.

Sandra counted three potholes on her way into the parking lot of the horseshoe-shaped motel. These raised from Ruthanne’s sedan a cacophony of bangs, creaks and groans.

How ironic that Rip had embezzled fifty-three million dollars only to end up in a place like this. She might have felt sorry for him, if it hadn’t been her fifty-three million dollars. Now she’d been forced to drive to this seedy motel, and in a borrowed car, no less.

Grimly, Sandra parked in front of Room 4. She considered fetching a wrench from the trunk but decided that, if she were forced to murder the little creep, she didn’t want the act to appear premeditated.

It was her intention to tap lightly on the door. But as she approached, some primitive instinct seized Sandra, and before she knew it she was pounding away and screaming, “Get out here, Rip! Come out before I drag you out!”

Surprisingly, no windows popped open in adjacent units and no one appeared from the manager’s office to check out the ruckus. Shouted threats of bodily harm must be par for the course in this dump.

From inside the unit, she heard a scurrying noise that sounded like rats running for cover. Or, more likely, one great, big bald rat.

A scraping noise informed her that someone must be opening a rear window. Rip was escaping!

Without stopping to think, Sandra threw her weight against the door. It bounced but didn’t give.

Where would he go? He couldn’t flee very far without his car, and surely he must have left it nearby. But where? Her sedan was the only vehicle directly in front of his unit.

Marcie had mentioned thugs pursuing him in Las Vegas. Rip must have prepared for a hasty retreat by parking in a less obvious spot. Behind the unit? If so, he’d be starting the engine any minute now.

She pounded on the door once more. Her efforts had no noticeable effect, except, finally, to bring a woman out of the unit beside it. “Hey! What’s going on?”

“Hi! I’m Sandra Duval!” She clasped the woman’s hand as if they were old friends and shook it firmly. “Would you mind terribly if I cut through your room? I’m trying to catch the man who stole my money!”

“Uh…oh, you’re the lady on the news!” said the woman. “Go ahead.”

Sandra raced into the unit. In the double bed, a dark-haired man gasped and dived under the covers. The place smelled like sweat and dust, but, miraculously, someone had left the rear window open.

The screen sagged. One good push and it parted company with the frame. “Sorry about that,” Sandra called as she flung one leg over the sill. “Send me the bill, would you?”

“I hope you get your money back!” cried the woman. “Go get him!”

Grateful that she’d worn pants, Sandra dropped into the service alley. The narrow graveled passage, which ran between the motel and a cinder-block wall, might be wide enough for a vehicle to pass but there was no space for parking.

A crunching noise drew her attention to the right, in time to see a roly-poly figure vanish around the corner of the building. “Wait!” A burst of adrenaline powered her after him.

Rounding the corner, she saw Rip’s body waddling at full speed toward a van parked on the street. If he escaped again, he’d head for points unknown. She might never catch up with him.

Thanks to her fury and regular sessions at the gym, she was gaining on her target, but he had almost reached the van. Sandra scooped up a handful of gravel and flung it at Rip.

“Ow!” At the sidewalk, he swung to face her, his heavy brows beetling together like two centipedes trying to make love. “Stop that!”

“You stop!” she yelled.

With a snort of defiance, Rip hustled around the van. She heard the beep as he unlocked it. Even as she circled toward him, Sandra registered that she couldn’t get there quickly enough.

She reached the driver’s door and jerked as hard as she could, to no effect. The engine sputtered to life—and then died. For once, luck was on her side.

The motor whirred again, then subsided to a faint clicking. Inside, Rip burst into a torrent of curse words, which were nearly lost beneath her own shouts to come out and face her like a man.

It was hard to believe that she, Sandra Duval of the Music Center breakfasts and charity balls, was howling like a banshee in the middle of a street in East L.A. But this was also the woman who, given an unwanted kiss by a boy in junior high school, had chased him down the hall and whacked him with her backpack until he begged for mercy.

Inside the van, Rip subsided and sat staring out the windshield. They were at a standoff.

That was when she noticed a pair of rough-looking men approaching along the sidewalk. They were huge, like two of the San Gabriel mountains out for a stroll.

Inside the van, Rip must have twisted the key again, because she heard a put-put-put noise. Then there was nothing but his heavy breathing, alternating rhythmically with her own.

Rip was locked safely inside. She was standing out here with two broken-nosed, bad-complexioned thugs bearing down on her.

Sandra sidled around the front of the van. Maybe the men didn’t want her. Maybe they were just after Rip.

No such luck. “Mrs. Duval?” growled one of the mammoths. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“You owe us money,” snarled the other.

“I’ve never seen you before,” she said as they parted company and advanced, one on either side of the van.

“That’s not the point. You owe us.” They kept moving.

Sandra gauged her chances of making it back to the alley. Nil. Besides, what good would it do to disappear behind a building with these two goons right behind her?

For the first time that day, she felt a quiver of fear. They were closing in on her. What did they plan to do, snatch her purse? Turn her upside down and shake out her pockets?

She didn’t intend to stay here and find out. With a lunge born of desperation, Sandra stampeded toward Ruthanne’s car. Maybe she could get inside and run them over. But the men were gaining, her ankles hurt and the breath squeezed painfully inside her chest.

She noticed a buzzing overhead. Traffic helicopter, maybe? But it purred like a Mercedes easing from the heavens, and suddenly it appeared in the parking lot, rotors whirling.

Jean-Luc had come to rescue her.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

Cutting the motor, Jean-Luc sprang from the Uplifter onto the pavement. Sandra doubted that any conquering hero had ever looked so dashing.

“I’ve called the police,” he announced to the two startled thugs. “But if you’d like to mix it up with someone your own size, try me.”

He wasn’t actually their own size, not in sheer bulk, Sandra thought, and he was outnumbered. But she meant to help.

And so, surprisingly, did Rip. He’d sneaked out of the van and approached behind her pursuers.

“This is my fault,” he said. “I can’t let Sandra get hurt because of me. Physically, I mean.”

“It’s a little late to discover you have a conscience,” she snapped.

One of the thugs held up his hands placatingly. “We weren’t gonna hurt anybody. We’re actors. This guy owes us money and we thought he was working for you, Mrs. Duval.”

“Not in this lifetime!” she said.

Rip let out a resigned breath. “Come inside and I’ll pay you. I’m down to my last million and I’m trying to conserve it.”

“Down to my last million, you mean,” Sandra muttered, but she refused to stand here and argue. Mostly, she yearned to retreat to the shelter of Jean-Luc’s arms, and that was what she did.

When he pulled her close, she could feel him glowering over her head at the other men.

“Look, mister,” one of them said, “How about canceling the 911 call?”

“I lied,” Jean-Luc said. “I didn’t spot you guys till the last minute.”

He really had put himself in jeopardy. Sandra felt a wave of regret at not trusting him more.

“How did you find me?” she asked as they went into the motel with Rip and the actors.

“You can thank your friend Nita.” Inside the room, he stared around. “This is amazing.”

The tiny space was packed with electronic equipment. While Sandra couldn’t identify all of it, there was a synthesizer that must have cost a fortune, and enough film-editing equipment to launch her own studio.

Wonderful. Maybe she could take Nita’s advice and become a producer, after all. She had the gear, thanks to Sneed.

He paid the actors electronically. After confirming that they’d received the money and apologizing again to Sandra, they departed.

Rip handed Sandra his laptop and the key to the room. “I guess this is yours now,” he said. “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Du—”

He stopped, staring at Jean-Luc as if he’d just recognized him. “Oops,” he said.

“Remember me?” Jean-Luc growled. “The guy you cut out of my father’s will so thoroughly that Sandra couldn’t give me a plugged nickel if her life depended on it?”

“Uh, how did you get involved with this?” stammered Rip.

“We’re married.” There was no point in keeping the secret any longer, Sandra decided. It was sure to come out anyway. “What’s mine is also half his.”

The last bit of wind went out of the lawyer and he collapsed into a chair. “What do you plan to do to me?”

“Let’s start with an explanation.” Only when Sandra lowered herself onto the edge of the bed did she realize how exhausted she was. Her legs ached and her hands were raw from pounding on doors. “I found a screenplay at the beach house, something about the Mafia. Were you shooting a movie?”

Rip nodded dully.

“Who wrote the script?”

Wordlessly, he pointed at himself.

Unexpectedly, Sandra felt a twinge of respect for the man. The writing had been powerful and absorbing. Maybe the guy actually had talent—or was this another trick?

“How do I know you didn’t steal it?” she demanded.

Rip drew himself up indignantly. “I registered three drafts with the Writers’ Guild. You can check for yourself.”

“You’ve been planning this for a long time, haven’t you?” Jean-Luc said coldly.

Rip gazed at them with droopy sadness. “It’s been my dream to make this movie. I thought I could do it on a low budget, but not low enough for me to afford. With all that money passing through my hands, how could I settle for poor-quality lighting and cheesy sets?”

“How long has this been going on?” Sandra demanded.

“Seven years.”

She gasped. “You didn’t even wait until Malcolm was cold in his grave!”

Rip fiddled nervously with the switch on a machine. Fortunately, the power was off. “I always intended to repay it. I figured you’d never miss a few hundred thousand dollars, and then I’d turn a profit and replace the money.”

“A few hundred thousand would never have been enough to make a movie.” Jean-Luc stood with arms folded, glaring down at the attorney.

“Okay, a couple of million,” Rip said. “But the costs kept multiplying. It was partly Malcolm’s fault!”

“Oh?” Sandra was beginning to suspect the man’s inventiveness in justifying himself surpassed even his creativity as a screenwriter.

“I asked him to invest in the production, but he refused,” Rip said. “Because I had to do it piecemeal, it took so long that I lost my leading actor. I had to reshoot everything, and that cost a bundle.”

“And before you knew it, you’d embezzled more than you could possibly repay,” Sandra finished for him.

Rip hung his head. “It became an obsession. I wanted authentic locations. I insisted on ideal lighting, on capturing the perfect shot. I did multiple retakes of every scene.”

For most purposes, fifty million dollars would be an overwhelming amount. But even without a big-name star, it could easily cost that much to film and edit a movie, especially when you had to reshoot parts.

“I don’t suppose you’ve finished it,” said Jean-Luc.

The lawyer peered at them hopefully from beneath his heavy brows. “I do have a rough cut.”

“But you can’t get a distributor because you’re on the lam,” Sandra guessed.

“Actually…” Rip scraped the toe of his shoe across the meager carpet. “I showed it to a distributor, but he said it’s not commercial enough. Don’t get me wrong! It’s great! A couple of film festivals are interested and I think I could wangle a streaming deal.”

“You might cover some of what you spent,” Sandra conceded. “But far from all of it.”

His shoulders sagged. “Sorry.”

“Well.” She gazed around the room. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The rough cut.”

“And the original footage. With all the outtakes,” added Jean-Luc.

“I’ve got a copy of the rough cut here.” Rip patted his laptop. “The other stuff is in storage.”

Sandra stared at him. Rip began to fidget. Finally he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys.

“Here. The van’s yours.” He handed her a slip of paper as well. “There’s the address where the rest of my stuff is stashed. But what will you do with my movie? You can’t just throw it away!”

“I’ll tell you after I watch it.” She regarded his array of equipment. She’d prefer to see his rough cut on a decent display. “Jean-Luc, can we use your helicopter?”

“Of course.” He regarded her quizzically. “Where are we going?”

“To my screening room, of course,” Sandra said.

*

Years had passed since Jean-Luc visited his father’s mansion. He’d never expected to go there again, and certainly not in his own helicopter.

Sandra said little during the short flight except for making a brief call to reassure Ruthanne. Rip clung to his seat while his face turned picturesque shades of green.

He did babble once about having taken helicopter shots of a scene in Honduras. Then he’d spent the rest of the day throwing up.

As they approached the rear lawn, Jean-Luc surveyed the sprawling house, the pool and pool house and the sweeping driveway for any sign of guards. He was surprised not to spot any.

“I told you, Darryl’s lawyer put everything on hold,” Sandra told him. “They’ve got my regular security service patrolling.”

“What about motion sensors?” Jean-Luc kept his eyes on the emerald patch toward which they were descending.

“Something was always setting off false alarms, so I had them removed,” she said. “There are perimeter sensors in the house, which I can deactivate. It would be easier if Alice was here, but they’ve sent her home.” She glared at Rip, who cringed. He’d developed a talent for groveling.

Jean-Luc wondered what Sandra had in mind as far as the film was concerned. Even though she’d liked the script, he found it hard to believe Rip had created anything more than a travesty best seen on late-night television hosted by a woman in a fright wig.

They landed with scarcely a bump. No alarms went off and no guards raced toward them with bayonets.

He and Rip trailed Sandra toward the house. Afternoon sun glorified the rose garden and the spray of orange-and-purple birds-of-paradise by the pool.

She unlocked the rear French doors and punched a code into the security box. “They didn’t change it, thank goodness.”

Rip clucked his tongue. “As a lawyer, I would have advised them…”

With an effort, Jean-Luc refrained from shaking the shorter man. “I wouldn’t be offering anyone legal advice, if I were you.”

Rip apparently saw the wisdom of this.

Inside, Sandra led them through one vast room after another. Although he’d lived here during his teen years, Jean-Luc scarcely recognized the place. For one thing, it had been redecorated. For another, he’d always regarded it as little more than a way station.

As they marched past oversize couches and exquisite paintings, wet bars and sculptures and banks of multi-paned windows, he was surprised to realize that he felt no resentment. He had expected that he would, after living for years in a tiny apartment.

His boyish resentment had faded. He understood now that he was at least half-responsible for his estrangement from his father. Also, a palace like this simply transcended comparisons.

You could tuck a middle-class home in a corner and never notice it. There were so many bathrooms, he wondered if anyone kept count. The kitchen, glimpsed through a doorway, had enough steel counters and islands to service a hotel.

One great chamber opened into another until they reached the viewing room. A half dozen banked rows of swivel chairs faced a huge screen.

“Anyone hungry?” Sandra slipped behind a concession-style refreshment stand. “I could make popcorn.” He heard a refrigerator door open beneath the counter. “Oh, good, there are soft drinks and a nice stash of candy bars.”

He hadn’t eaten lunch, Jean-Luc realized. “I’ll take a chocolate bar.”

“Ditto,” said Rip.

A few minutes later, they settled down to watch the rough cut. Without professional titles or a finished sound track, it felt at first as if they were watching a home movie.

“The score is completed; it just needs to be edited for the final mix,” Rip assured them. “I hired this terrific composer from Slovakia, and we did the recording in France. You wouldn’t believe the orchestra he put together!”

“I’d believe it,” Sandra said grimly. “Not to mention what you spent on it.”

“We’d should probably not go into that,” mumbled the lawyer.

Within minutes, Jean-Luc forgot where he was and who he was sitting with. The downward spiral of cold-blooded killer Vic Massey, the shocking moment when he discovered he had killed his own niece, and his stumbling attempts to recoup his humanity were riveting.

Only the ending left him dissatisfied. Vic’s decision to surrender to the police didn’t seem wrenching enough.

The last bleak image faded. There were no closing credits and no music to soften the blow.

“Well?” demanded Rip as Sandra flicked on the lights. “What do you think?”

“It has potential,” she said, “but it needs a final twist.”

The bald man sat up indignantly. “Surely you’re not suggesting a happy ending!”

“He needs to make more of a sacrifice when he surrenders,” she said. “Or die in a hail of bullets.”

“Spare me the cliché!” Rip was clearly offended that anyone would dare to critique his masterpiece.

Suddenly Jean-Luc knew what the film needed. “He’s just awakened to his own human potential, and we should witness that. If he falls in love and has to sacrifice his chance of happiness, he’s giving up the only thing that ever meant anything to him.”

Sandra clasped her hands together. “It’s perfect!”

“It’s not perfect, it’s sappy.” Rip scowled at them.

“Far from it. You want a transformation? Well, love changes the way you view the world.” Jean-Luc swiveled to meet the lawyer’s gaze. “It lifts you above yourself and puts everything into a new perspective.”

“That’s right,” Sandra said. “Suppose your hero finally experiences a selfless emotion. He loves a woman who needs him—maybe she’s facing a serious illness, and he wants to be there for her. But she’s gone on the lam with him, and she can’t get the medical care she needs unless he turns himself in.”

The resentment vanished from Rip’s face. “In dramatic terms, that might work.” While the concept of love was apparently foreign to him, he recognized an effective plot device. “I shot some scenes involving Vic’s girlfriend, but I didn’t use them because I didn’t see where they fit. I could write a few more scenes and hire the same actors.”

“You wouldn’t need any expensive special effects,” Sandra pointed out. “They’d be intimate scenes that could be shot at low cost.”

The lawyer nodded excitedly. “I’ll write it to fit in with what I’ve already got. It just might work.”

“There’s a little problem here,” Jean-Luc said.

The other two turned toward him, question marks in their eyes.

“Can we trust you?” he said. “How do we know you won’t run off again with as much of Sandra’s property as you can get your hands on?”

Rip clasped his hands over his heart. “This film is my baby! My true love! I’d do anything to save it. All I ask—I beg you—is that you don’t turn it over to someone else. Let me finish it.”

Sandra leaned on the arm of her chair, her delicate chin resting on the palm of one hand. “You said I’ve got a million dollars left. I’d have to stake the whole thing on the reshoot. But you know, why not? It may be the best investment I ever make.”

Jean-Luc wasn’t sure about that. Still, no doubt her friend Nita would preview the rough cut, out of curiosity as well as friendship. If she liked it, they might get a distribution deal.

But right now, he had to deal with something more urgent, an insight that had struck him when he discovered Sandra was missing and in danger. He’d been pushing it away all day, but it must be faced.

He’d fallen in love with her. It violated their bargain, and it defied common sense to think they could build a future together.

As he’d told Rip, love changed the way a person saw the world. Right now, Jean-Luc’s world was spinning off its orbit.

*

There wasn’t a moment to spare the rest of the afternoon and evening. By nightfall, Sneed’s equipment, score and film were locked away at the studio and Nita Fryberg had promised to view the rough cut that night.

Sandra was almost certain the lawyer wouldn’t take off again. He had too much to gain by sticking around, and the likelihood of her bringing criminal charges would diminish greatly if he delivered a salable film.

Nita had agreed to meet with Sandra and Jean-Luc first thing in the morning to announce whether her studio would distribute the film. At Sandra’s suggestion, Jean-Luc had called Stan O’Neill, and, based on this new information, he’d persuaded his partners to reserve the helicopter rights to their material.

Yet her husband showed little reaction to the good news. Perhaps he simply couldn’t believe it yet.

She hoped he wasn’t angry at her for taking matters into her own hands. The worst thing that could happen, right when they were on the point of winning the day, would be to lose Jean-Luc’s friendship.

He didn’t act resentful, just distracted. She hoped it was one of those moods that would be forgotten by tomorrow.

Ruthanne had been happy to babysit, agreeing there was no point in their returning to Corona when they had to be in town early. They would stay over at the mansion, and Sandra would finally get to wear some of her old clothes. Since she’d kept several of Malcolm’s suits for sentimental reasons, Jean-Luc could also dress in style.

“You don’t suppose the bank will haul us off to jail in our underwear for trespassing, do you?” he inquired as they ate a late-night snack in the kitchen. The housekeeper hadn’t had time to dispose of any but the most perishable foods, fortunately for them, since they’d missed dinner.

“I’m hoping they’ll be reasonable,” Sandra said. “Rip promised me a complete accounting of where everything went, and what is owed to whom. While he borrowed against the house, a lot of what he spent was from the sale of things I owned outright, like stock in your father’s company. That means I don’t have to repay anybody.”

“You lost your controlling interest in Dad’s company?” Jean-Luc said.

“Are you saying you would care?” Sandra replied, hoping for a clue to what the man was thinking.

He shrugged. “If all goes well, I’ll have my own company soon. I just hate to see you deprived of your inheritance.”

“Mostly I want to keep the magazine and the house.” Then something occurred to her that she’d missed, in all the excitement. “Do you know what today is?”

“No. What?” Jean-Luc downed the last slice of melted Brie on a cracker.

“It’s our anniversary,” Sandra said. “We’ve been married exactly one week!”

He grinned. “Got champagne?”

“Tons,” she said.

They fetched a bottle from the climate-controlled cellar. Since it hardly seemed romantic to drink it in the kitchen, they went outside by the pool to enjoy the balmy evening.

Overhead, the stars danced and flirted. The buildings and the estate’s high fences blocked out the rest of the world, so she and Jean-Luc reigned over their own private planet, lords of all they surveyed.

Come to think of it, from the time she’d married Malcolm, the house had always been full of servants who knew things that she didn’t and performed tasks that she couldn’t. Now, when she no longer owned the place, it felt more hers than ever before.

Beside her, Jean-Luc stretched out on a chaise. The moonlight turned his eyes to silver and the sculpted hardness of his body into a classic Greek statue.

One thing she had always admired about ancient Greek statues was that they didn’t wear clothes. “Want to go skinny-dipping?” Sandra asked.

He turned, startled. “Are you serious?”

His question forced her back to reality. “I guess not. We could put on swimsuits.”

“I doubt the bank left the pool heater on. We’ll freeze.”

She made a face at him. “You’re the most unromantic man I’ve ever met!”

One eyebrow quirked, or at least she thought it did. It was hard to tell in the dim light. “Oh, I can be very romantic. What about my little speech to Rip on the redemptive power of love?”

“Mere words,” she said.

“Do you know the code to the pool house?”

“Of course.” They rose, and she opened the doors and turned off the alarm. Jean-Luc scooted inside and disappeared into the dim recesses.

Soft music with a Latin beat played through hidden speakers onto the patio. The melody made her body sway. When Jean-Luc returned, she asked, “Are we going to dance?”

“Just come inside,” he said.

Puzzled, she complied. The pool house was larger than the entire apartment in Corona, with a wet bar on one side and, in the center, a huge sofa that curved around a glass table. In the soft light from a recessed fixture, she saw that he had pushed aside one section of the couch and was dragging the table away to clear the carpet.

Sandra hoped he was creating a dance floor. She wanted an excuse to slip her arms around his shoulders. She ached to inhale the tang of aftershave mixed with motor oil and rest her head on his shoulder. After tomorrow, who knew whether they’d ever again be alone together?

“Lie there.” He pointed at the carpet.

She bit back the impulse to tell him that, if he was trying to be romantic, he was doing a lousy job of it. “Well, since you put it so nicely, all right.”

She kicked off her shoes and stretched out, cupping her hands behind her head and staring at the high ceiling. One of Malcolm’s decorators had proposed having it painted with Renaissance-style angels. She had been replaced rather swiftly by someone who favored a textured paint job.

The light dimmed. A low hum began and suddenly the ceiling was transformed into pinpoints of light and swirling colored clouds, a celestial vista far more dynamic than the real night sky.

To one side, a star exploded, while the music segued into a faster Latin rhythm. Waves of color rippled outwards, setting the cosmos to quivering.

“What is this?” she asked as Jean-Luc stretched beside her on the floor.

“Something I invented in high school,” he said. “I call it an astral projector. Dad failed to see the use of it.”

“What is the use of it?” she asked as a flurry of scarlet comets streaked across the sky.

“It was great for getting girls to make out,” Jean-Luc murmured.

Sandra began to laugh. The chuckle ended abruptly when he raised himself on one elbow and his mouth covered hers.

As his tongue parted her lips and his hand began stroking her shoulder, she decided that this might indeed be the man’s greatest invention.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

For so long, Sandra had held back from touching and stroking Jean-Luc that she hardly knew where to begin. Luckily, she didn’t have to make conscious decisions; her body was making them for her.

Their mouths connected with such startling intimacy that she felt as if they had completed a circuit. Electricity flowed between them.

Jean-Luc arched over her, one hand stroking her blouse upward from her pants. His warm breath tickled her bare stomach.

Yielding to temptation, Sandra cupped his hips with her hands, enjoying the tight muscles of his buttocks. The man was impossibly well-built, and absolutely delicious.

This, she realized, was how a woman was supposed to feel about the man she loved. She was supposed to relish his restrained power and to be seized by a primitive yearning of her own.

Sexual desire was the one thing her marriage had lacked. Now that she had found it, she intended to savor every minute.

Jean-Luc smoothed the blouse up around her shoulders and loosened her bra. Cool evening air teased her nipples, only to be erased a moment later by his hot, moist tongue.

Sandra gasped as he gently compressed her breasts, bringing the peaks together where he could suck each in turn. Channels of fire flashed through her body until her blood turned molten.

Somehow she managed to unbutton his shirt. The rubbing of his bare chest against hers heightened her sensitivity until she felt as if they might both fly through the room like comets.

Whatever action was going on overhead had nothing on what she was experiencing. Even the slightly rough pressure of his cheek against hers roused her to new and almost unbearable heights of longing.

With swift, sure motions, Jean-Luc eased off her slacks and panties. Her vulnerability delighted her. With anguished anticipation, she leaned upward and ran her tongue down the line from his throat to his stomach, as far as she could reach.

A wild, hoarse sound tore from his throat. It almost alarmed Sandra until she realized she had unchained a part of the man he had locked away until now.

She longed for that part of him. She wanted to entice that shielded self almost beyond endurance and then satisfy it so completely there would be nothing left but stardust.

Jean-Luc’s ability to control himself, even now, impressed her. She would have to congratulate him later, if she remembered. Somehow Sandra doubted it would seem important.

Certainly not as important as getting his belt unbuckled. “Darn this thing,” he muttered as he struggled with it.

“Let me help.” She sat up.

“Well, sure.” With a grin, he half rose over her and braced himself against the couch while she worked on the stiff leather and the defiant metal prong. Gradually she got them loose, and completed the task by unhooking and unzipping his pants.

That was when Sandra found herself face to face, so to speak, with the most tantalizing and erotic portion of the male anatomy. She had never felt much curiosity about that particular organ until now, certainly not a wish to get up close and personal with one.

But Jean-Luc’s was impressive. And for tonight, it was hers to explore.

Carefully, almost reverently, she ran her palms along both sides of it. Overhead, she heard his rapid intake of breath.

Sandra feathered her fingers along the skin beneath his shaft, and was rewarded with a gasp. Then she did something she wouldn’t have believed she would ever consider doing. She leaned closer and took him into her mouth.

The moans racking Jean-Luc were all the encouragement she needed. Acting on pure instinct, Sandra began moving her lips up and down. Her man’s guttural noises deepened into gruff cries.

She felt as if she held his essence inside her. In the ability to excite Jean-Luc, she aroused both power and, in a way, submission.

With infinite reluctance, he drew himself away. “Let’s not rush things,” he choked out.

“Oh, let’s do,” said Sandra.

He gazed at her in the faint light with an expression of wonder. The next thing she knew, she lay on the carpet and he was stroking her thighs apart.

Now it was Jean-Luc’s turn to tantalize, but Sandra didn’t need much encouragement. With a fiery ache, she craved that hard part of him inside her.

He pressed against her yielding softness, stroking her with his hardness. She heard a groan, and was amazed to note that it issued from her own throat.

As if it were a signal, Jean-Luc pressed himself slowly into her. The thick shaft came as a relief, an answer to a longing that had become almost painful.

Then he moved inside her. To Sandra, it was as if she’d never made love before. Certainly she had never experienced these rocketing thrills spreading through every nerve cell.

She reached up to grasp his buttocks. They tightened and eased as he moved rhythmically in and out of her. “Yes,” she whispered.

“I can’t—wait.” He kissed her and plunged into her again and again, that fierce part of his body driving out the last of her restraint. Suns exploded and meteors flamed through the heavens and Sandra felt grateful just to have lived long enough to discover that the world contained such pleasure.

And then there was more, a great volcanic burst of joy and hunger. She could have sworn she had melted right into Jean-Luc.

The sensations faded gradually. They lay in each other’s arms, touching from knee to hip to shoulder, neither willing to move until at last the cool night air drove them to get dressed and adjourn to the bedroom.

*

A rich swathe of sunlight bathed Jean-Luc when he awoke. He blinked, registering a profound sense of well-being combined with a hint of disorientation.

The bedroom was enormous, a bright, rambling space furnished with white-and-gold furniture. The coverings on the king-size bed glowed with the delicate colors of sunrise, picking up coordinated hues in the banks of window draperies.

In one corner, low steps descended to a nook furnished with a love seat and an entertainment center that would have sent Chris and Chanel into seventh heaven. Nearby, a curtained doorway led into a bathroom that he vaguely recalled as being of Roman dimensions.

At last he recognized the place. This had once been his parents’ bedroom, but Sandra had redecorated with soft pastels and sumptuous furnishings. The canopied bed also showed a definite feminine appeal.

Beside him, the mistress of the house lay dozing, hair curled around her cheeks in angelic abandon. The silky comforter had slid down to reveal a bare shoulder, hinting at what lay tantalizingly hidden beneath its folds.

She was a portrait of newly initiated innocence. That wasn’t possible, of course, since she’d been married before, and yet Jean-Luc could have sworn she’d experienced something new last night. He certainly had.

He’d felt at one with her in a way that had never happened before, as if he and Sandra vibrated on the same wavelength. More than that, it had been the first time that a woman’s satisfaction had meant more to him than his own.

He hadn’t realized it until now, but the disappointments and struggles of the past decade had tempered him like steel. He had become capable of loving someone selflessly and completely, and that someone was Sandra.

He wanted to build a life together, but it was important not to overwhelm her with sudden demands. He sighed. Subtlety had never been his strong point.

A small yawn drew his attention to Sandra. Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek, and her blue eyes flew open.

“Oh!” she said. “I wasn’t dreaming. Thank goodness!”

“Want to prove it?” he teased, stroking a lock of hair from her temple. “We could do it again and see if it feels familiar.”

Her laughter danced through the air. “What a lovely idea.” Then her expression sobered. “What time is it?”

He glanced at the Roman numerals on an ornate French clock beside the bed. “It’s either six-thirty or seven-thirty. Why don’t you get a digital clock?”

“Because I hate them.” Sandra leaned across him to look. “Seven-thirty! We’ve got to get dressed and meet Nita at the studio by nine.”

“Plenty of time.” He stretched, managing to catch her in his arms on the downstroke and press his face into her hair. She smelled of flowers with a trace of smog.

“It’s hardly any time at all!” Wriggling away, she hopped out of bed. Jean-Luc rolled on his side to admire her nude figure in the morning light, but she pulled on a peignoir so fast that he scarcely got the chance. “We have to make plans for the rest of the day, too.”

“Why?” he said.

“Because there’s so much to take care of.” She clucked her tongue in mock disapproval. “You do look splendid. Push the covers off your hips and give us a thrill, would you?”

“Only if you take off that bathrobe.”

She shook her head. “I need to see Darryl’s lawyer and arrange with the bank so I don’t lose the magazine. Not to mention the house. And once Nita approves the distribution deal, you’ll want to firm things up with Stan. ”

Reluctantly yielding to the inevitable, Jean-Luc arose and followed Sandra into the bathroom. “Aren’t you making a big assumption about Nita?”

“She’ll love the film. It’s quality work, the kind that wins Academy Awards. How can she refuse?”

Where had she gone? He could hear her voice, but she’d vanished around one of the curved walls of the bath enclosure.

“Even so, let’s not rush things.” Opening a drawer, he selected one of half a dozen new toothbrushes and went to work on his teeth. “We can take it one step at a time.”

The pelting noise of the shower confirmed Sandra’s whereabouts. As soon as he finished brushing, Jean-Luc rounded a corner to discover a textured glass door that provided tantalizing glimpses of her pink body as she scrubbed.

“We can’t afford to delay” came her reply. “How long do you think it will take the newshounds to figure out that I’m back? After I meet with the lawyer, we’ll call a press conference.”

“Not we. You.” If she was right about Nita, Jean-Luc wanted to get contracts drawn up for his helicopter material right away. And of course he would need to return Ruthanne’s car, and reassure the kids that all these changes weren’t going to disrupt their lives.

If only he could be sure that was true. Sandra seemed so happy to be restored to her life, he couldn’t imagine her choosing to return to a worn, cramped apartment.

Although she was fond of the children, that didn’t mean she was willing to be their mother, cramped apartment or not.

If Jean-Luc obeyed his instincts, he would wrench open that shower door, plunge into the spray and demand that she marry him. Or rather, stay married to him. They could announce it to the world along with everything else.

But he didn’t want their future together to be one more item on Sandra’s agenda. Or another item of gossip for the reporters and the public, either.

Also, if he pushed too hard, he risked scaring her off. He certainly wouldn’t have time to woo her back with reporters and film executives and lawyers buzzing around.

That didn’t mean he had to slink away, though. With a smile at his own effrontery, Jean-Luc opened the shower door and stepped inside.

“Perfect timing!” Slanting him a foxy look, Sandra ducked under his arm and stepped out. “It’s all yours.”

“You’re leaving me? You’ll pay for this,” he teased.

“If we’re in luck, we’ll soon be able to pay for everything,” she responded, and vanished in a cloud of steam.

*

“I always said you had the instincts of a producer.” Nita Fryberg smiled at Sandra over a cup of coffee at the studio commissary.

The plant-draped executive dining room, empty except for them, was crammed with posters of the studio’s hits dating back to the 1930s. Nita had insisted they come here to eat, once she learned that Sandra and Jean-Luc hadn’t had breakfast.

“You liked the film?” Despite her bravura to Jean-Luc this morning, Sandra was far from certain that Nita’s judgment would match her own.

“I hate to say it of a weasel like Rip Sneed, but the man has talent.” Even while eating scrambled eggs, Nita managed to look like God’s next-door neighbor. Maybe it was her power suit or the straight slash of hair across her neck, but Sandra suspected it was her height. Sitting down as well as standing, the woman towered. “The changes you suggested are right on the money.”

“The love angle was mostly Jean-Luc’s idea,” Sandra said.

Nita quirked an eyebrow at the man sitting between them. “Would you be interested in coproducing?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got my own work cut out for me.” Briefly, he sketched his plans for the Uplifter. “If I can secure the rights, of course.”

“Which brings us to money,” said Nita. “You’ll need an advance to get this completed and keep the wolves from the door.”

“That would be nice,” said Sandra.

“Of course, I’m hoping you’ll sign a contract with my studio to work with us on future projects,” Nita said. “We’ll be making an offer to Rip as well, but I wouldn’t ask you two to team up again unless you want to.”

“You intend to sign Rip?” Sandra asked dubiously.

“Unless you’re accusing him of theft and sending him to prison.”

“Depends,” she said. “I’m not vengeful. I’m not a pushover, either.”

“Nor would I expect you to be,” said her friend.

Jean-Luc reached for another maple-nut muffin. “All we have to do is garnish his wages and he can start paying us back.”

Nita released a bark of laughter. “I’ll leave that to you people to work out. Anyone care for more coffee?”

As they reviewed the details of their arrangement, Sandra’s brain whirled so fast she had to force herself to concentrate. So much was happening in such a short time.

The most important thing was that Jean-Luc would be able to afford the rights he needed to produce his helicopters. That was what he’d worked toward for years and why he’d agreed to help her. How wonderful that she’d been able to help him in turn.

She tried to shove personal concerns aside, but her thoughts kept returning rebelliously to last night. She’d had no idea a body contained so many nerve endings and that all of them could be activated at once.

It was as if Sandra had lived for thirty-two years in ignorance of her own sexuality. No, of more than that, because what had happened between them had transcended the physical.

She didn’t have time to think about it now. Nita was offering her financial security and a prestigious, challenging career, as calmly as if it were another serving of eggs. Security, not only for Sandra but for Jean-Luc and the children too.

This was no time for daydreaming. It was time for listening and negotiating and making dreams come true.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

On Monday afternoon, Sandra parked the Rolls-Royce in the driveway and staggered to the porch with her arms full of scripts. She was still fumbling for her key when the housekeeper, Alice, opened the door.

“I was listening for you!” explained the housekeeper, a thin woman who hadn’t stopped beaming since Sandra rehired her. “I keep pinching myself to make sure you’re really back.”

“Thank you,” Sandra said as Alice swept up the scripts and carted them away. “Just put them in my office, will you?”

“If you’re hungry, I made poached salmon with capers,” came the reply. “It’s in the fridge.”

“My favorite!”

As soon as she was alone in the marbled entryway, Sandra began to sag as the energy seeped out of her. She couldn’t believe how busy she’d been since last Wednesday.

As planned, she had held a press conference, which drew so much media to one of Nita’s soundstages that every spare inch was crammed with microphones and cameras. Over the next few days, she had granted enough interviews and photo opportunities to satisfy the press that they knew the whole story of Sandra’s disappearance—although she’d glossed over her relationship with Jean-Luc.

In view of her new contract with Nita’s studio, the bank had been happy to arrange a payment schedule for the house. The magazine had been reclaimed, and she’d given the entire staff a raise in appreciation of their loyalty. She had sent bouquets to thank Belle and Octavia for their support, and a check to repay Marcie for her time and expenses.

Rip had spent the past weekend writing new scenes, which Sandra had approved. The reshoots would begin as soon as locations could be found.

Once word of the producing contract hit the news, scripts had come pouring in to be considered for her next project. Sandra had brought home enough to occupy her spare time for a week.

Then today, a clothing company had offered big bucks to attach her name to a line of fashion accessories. She would probably agree, with the provision that she have creative control over the designs.

Just thinking about it all set the adrenaline flowing. Ages ago—before last week—Sandra would have relished being the center of so much activity, and in a way she still did. But it no longer seemed like enough.

She had talked to the children twice on the phone, or, rather, to Chris and Fluff Nose. Chanel had retreated again, and rarely spoke in her own voice.

Ruthanne had accepted Sandra’s invitation to become her personal assistant in place of the perfidious Eloise. However, they’d agreed that the new job would have to wait until the children were back in school.

Now Sandra wondered what the kids were doing. She wished Chanel were here to climb onto her lap for story time, and that Chris would demand a peanut-butter sandwich with lumps in it.

She and Jean-Luc had hardly spoken all week. They kept missing each other, playing phone tag and leaving messages. He was tied up inspecting potential manufacturing sites and working out contracts, and the one occasion when they’d connected, they’d barely had time for a few superficial updates.

She didn’t believe he was avoiding her. They’d both been sucked into a whirlwind, and eventually it would abate. But by then the emptiness inside her might develop into an abyss.

Retrieving the plate of cold salmon on lettuce with a side of marinated artichoke hearts, Sandra wandered out to the greenhouse room where she and Malcolm used to eat breakfast.

The hanging orchids and fuchsias, which had been watered automatically during her absence, fluttered like butterflies in a slight draft. Outside the glass walls, the rose garden shimmered in late-afternoon sunshine.

Sandra slid the plate onto a teak table and sat down to pick at her food. Where was Jean-Luc right now and what was he thinking?

She owed him a great deal. Not only because he’d helped restore her wealth, but because he’d opened new doors in Sandra’s self-awareness.

She knew now that she could adapt and cope without the protection of money. She had also discovered, much to her surprise, that she loved children.

Even more, because of Jean-Luc, she had learned how to love in a mature way that suited her adult self. Her relationship with Malcolm had been in many ways childish; he had showered her with attention, and she had responded with unquestioning affection.

With Jean-Luc, she had learned that loving meant sometimes taking the initiative, and sometimes stepping back. It meant being a partner in every sense. And he had awakened in her a sexual responsiveness that gave promise of enriching her life.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have hesitated to ask him and the children to move in with her. But the two of them had made a pact when they married, and he’d given no indication that he was willing to change the rules.

She felt honor-bound to go through with a divorce as soon as practical. True, they’d consummated the marriage, but they’d both known what they were doing. Now she had to let Jean-Luc go, and hope that someday he would find his way back.

Across the red-tiled floor, something black and creepy gave a hop. A shriek bolted from Sandra’s lips, but she bit back the urge to follow it with a series of screams. She wasn’t in need of rescuing by the housekeeper, and besides, it was only a cricket.

She scooted from the table and unlocked a glass door that led outside, then dropped her cloth napkin over the cricket so it couldn’t dodge away. Scrunching her face in disgust, she took the little beastie outside and released it.

There, she had set one creature free. Didn’t that cancel her obligation to be similarly noble toward Jean-Luc?

Returning to her seat, Sandra attacked her salmon with an appetite. It might take weeks or months, but she planned to corner that man and do something shocking, like rip his clothes off and hide them until he agreed to love her forever.

Well, that might not be exactly the right plan. She would mull it over until she hit on a better one.

Her spirits rising, she reached for the TV remote. It was a few minutes past five, so there should be a newscast. She dared hope that, for a change, she wouldn’t be on it.

The lead story was about the President returning from a visit abroad. Then there was coverage of a local fire, followed by a report on a group of environmental extremists who claimed redwood trees were sentient beings that communicated via their roots in a kind of Morse code.

“When we return, we’ll have today’s business news, including the auction of rights to a revolutionary new type of material that could change your life! Stay with us,” said an anchorwoman.

Sandra’s heart leaped into her throat. Did this mean Jean-Luc’s negotiations had fallen through, or was it an auction of some other rights? Would there be any mention of his helicopter company?

She could barely endure the commercials. Finally the business reporter came on camera.

“A group of inventors today netted bids that could total more than $3.2 billion when they auctioned off a variety of rights to…” He went on to describe the properties of Chyps, while the screen showed a plush showroom where men and women in three-piece suits held up cards to bid, while a bank of assistants took additional offers by telephone.

Sandra had once attended a sheep auction with Malcolm and a friend of his who owned a ranch in Colorado. As she recalled, the action had been fast and furious, the smell exhilaratingly noxious and the sheep a lot more interesting than these stuffy people.

It amazed her that companies with serious money would participate in an auction. However, she remembered that the federal government had auctioned rights to broadcast frequencies. Maybe it wasn’t that unusual.

“One buyer got the jump on everyone else,” the announcer continued. “Before the auction began, Jean-Luc Duval, son of the late aerospace magnate Malcolm Duval, treated buyers to a demonstration of just what can be done with this almost miraculous new substance.”

The hum of a smooth-running engine filled the room and the camera cut to a parking lot. As men and women in suits stood around shading their eyes, the Uplifter glided from the sky into a perfect landing. The rotor retracted, and it taxied along one lane until it stopped inside a car-sized parking space.

“How’d you like to own one of those, folks?” asked the reporter. “That would sure cut the morning commute!”

Fantastic publicity. But Sandra didn’t understand why the station failed to shut off the whirr of the helicopter motor, even after the anchor people returned. Rather than diminishing, the noise was growing louder.

It sounded as if a luxury car, or a pair of luxury cars, were descending into her back yard. Then she realized that the sound wasn’t issuing from the TV.

Through the glass wall, she saw the Uplifter and its not-quite-identical twin lower themselves in tandem. Between them was stretched a banner that read: “We Love You, Sandra.”

She couldn’t decide whether to scoot back her chair or push the table away, so she jumped to her feet and knocked everything over. Ignoring the mess, she ran out the door.

In front of her, the two birds settled onto the lawn. Inside one, she identified Stan and Ruthanne. From the other peered two tiny faces, noses flattened against the glass like waifs peering into a lighted window on Christmas.

Behind the controls sat Jean-Luc. His dark head was turned partly away as he finished switching off the chopper, and the slanting sunlight carved deep hollows in his cheeks.

When the doors flew open, the children pelted toward her. Sandra was nearly bowled over as Chris and Chanel leaped into her arms.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. She greeted Ruthanne and Stan, while Jean-Luc checked over the two Uplifters. When Alice came out and offered to take everyone on a tour of the house, Sandra gratefully relinquished her guests.

After the group vanished into the mansion, a hush fell over the yard. Sandra and Jean-Luc were alone.

The dark-haired man straightened beside one of the helicopters, and sunlight set his violet eyes aglow. He came close enough that Sandra could smell his aftershave. “I found a site for—”

“I was just watching you on the—”

They both stopped. “Ladies first,” said Jean-Luc.

“You found a site for your factory? Where?” What if he intended to move to Arizona or Nevada? Her heart was thumping so loudly, she expected him to ask what the knocking sound was.

“Ventura County.” His mouth twisted wryly. “I could get there in fifteen minutes by air.”

“From here?”

“I made a certain assumption.” He stood still, his legs braced. “About where we will live. Of course, you could say no.”

“I could?”

“In which case I would buzz your house at five o’clock every morning on my way to work,” he warned. “And fill the studio with so many flowers you’d get hay fever. Naturally, I’ll be bringing your stepchildren—excuse me, grandchildren—to visit several times a week, which means you’ll have me underfoot, too. We’re family now, Sandra. I’m not going to be easy to get rid of.” Then he added softly, “Unless you really want to.”

Through her tight throat, she could barely squeeze out the words. “I don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“Want to get rid of you.”

The tension eased from his body. “Well, that’s a relief.” He swept her into his arms so fast that Sandra’s head whirled. Or maybe she was dizzy from the intensity of his kiss, and the tingling pressure of his body against hers.

“Does this mean we’re staying married?” she asked.

He lifted his head. “Only till death do us part.”

That suited her fine. “Should we hold a press conference?”

Jean-Luc gave a shout of laughter. “Is that the only thing you can think of?”

“You know how the press gets things muddled—oh, phooey on them.” Sandra’s mind spilled over with plans and joyous possibilities. “I can’t believe it. You’ll be living here, you and the kids. I’ll have Alice stock crunchy peanut butter and we’ll get a safety cover for the pool and fix up the game room for the kids. And we’ll stay married forever and ever.”

“There’s only one condition,” he said as she nestled against him.

“What?”

“On my side of the bed, I want a digital clock.”

“Done,” said Sandra.

“And the next time I join you in the shower—”

“We shower together,” she finished as they started toward the house. “And... whatever.”

“That,” he said, “sounds like as close to heaven as we’re likely to get in this lifetime.”

It sounded that way to Sandra, too.

 

The End

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today bestselling author Jacqueline Diamond is known for her romantic comedies, medical romances, Regency romances and mysteries—more than a hundred titles! A former Associated Press reporter and TV columnist, Jackie has been honored with a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award and is a two-time Rita Award finalist. She is the author of the Safe Harbor Medical series, as well as Harmony Circle and Scoundrels in Love. Learn more at her website, jacquelinediamond.net.

 

 

Sometimes a character demands a book of his or her own. That happened with Sandra, who previously appeared as the best friend of heroine Belle in Punchline. It happened again with Hal “The Iceman” Smothers, the most feared hitman in Las Vegas (who never actually killed anyone). Read on for Chapter One of his book, Kidnapped?