Margie McCormick jumped up and ran out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Mary Lisa stood stock-still, listening as Margie gunned her pretty white Boxster and roared out of the driveway.
“Well, hello, Hollywood.”
She turned to see Jack Wolf walk into the living room from the kitchen.
She wasn’t surprised he was here, in her house. She didn’t think she could be surprised by anything now. “What a mess. Do you know I never even realized, never even considered Margie or Jeff when I bitched and whined about the plotline? I thought only of myself. Aren’t I a fine human being?”
He picked up a bright red pillow from her sofa and threw it at her. He threw it hard enough that she almost stumbled back when it hit her in the face.
“That’s my fast pillow, you twit. You should see my curve. You will if you keep playing the pitiful martyr. What I heard was all about her, didn’t you see that? There’s only one Sunday Cavendish, Mary Lisa. Everyone roots for her, they care about what happens to her, can’t wait to see what she does next. And Sunday is you, not Margie. I noticed she’s skinnier than you are. Don’t any of you ever eat?”
“You saw me chow down the fish and chips.”
“It was probably your first solid food in two weeks.”
“This is ridiculous.” She threw the pillow back at him, but he snagged it out of the air, tossed it back and forth from his left to his right.
Throwing the stupid pillow reminded her that her muscles still throbbed and ached despite an hour in the hot tub the previous night and as many stretches as she could tolerate. She was sure her bones had grown longer.
“Don’t you dare throw your curve pillow at me.”
“Oh yeah? What would you do if I knocked you right over?”
She gave him an evil smile. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, you bully. I’ll call my sister Kelly and invite her down to stay with me.”
In a flash he had a hunted look. It was so unexpected she laughed and followed through. “Where’s my cell phone? Oh yeah, there it is.” She managed to grab it up off the coffee table.
He grabbed her, lifted her easily off her feet, and took her down on the sofa, sprawled on top of her. He wrestled the cell phone from her hand, tossed it across the living room. “That’s a dirty threat, Mary Lisa.”
He was heavy. She felt every single portion of him. His nose was two inches above hers. She felt his warm breath on her cheek. “Dammit, you are a complete pain in the ass.” He dipped his face down, stared at her mouth, then jerked away from her as if he’d been shot.
He walked to the front door, stopped, turned back. “I can’t leave. You’re alone. With your oblivious brain, you’d probably take a long lonely walk on the beach. Or, hey, you feel so guilty about what that idiot woman said to you maybe you’d shoot yourself.”
“Nah, this is what I’m going to do.” She managed to heave herself up onto one elbow, then grabbed a pillow and threw it at him as hard as she could, but it wasn’t much of a missile. He grabbed the pillow out of the air, tossed it from his left to his right, back and forth, grinning down at her. “That was paltry.”
If her muscles were fit for anything more, she would have leaped to her feet and rammed him. Her arm that had made the paltry throw throbbed and knotted. All she had were words. “You can leave. I won’t be alone for long. Lou Lou has asked some people over tonight. I think she’s decided it would make me feel better. She asked me to invite you, but please feel free to back out. Please feel free to remove your butt from the premises.”
“No, not until other people come.” But he was looking at that front door like he wanted to slam through it.
She managed to sit up on her sofa, swing her legs to the floor. “How long were you eavesdropping in my kitchen?”
That brought his head up. The jerk grinned at her. “Do you like the bad-boy look?”
“That’s only on the surface. You’re all huff and puff, afraid of my little sister.”
“Any sane man would be afraid of Kelly, Pitty Pat included.”
“Go away, Chief Wolf. Or is Margie right? Did you change your name so people would take you seriously and hire you as a cop?”
“You found me out.”
“Go away.”
“Believe me, I would certainly like to. The thought of hanging back with a beer, maybe watching a ball game on TV instead-”
“Or you could always go all the way back home.”
The big clod stood in the middle of her living room and laughed at her. Then she knew he was looking at her mouth.
She grabbed her empty mug, intending to flatten him with it, but the sudden movement hurt everywhere. She felt a sudden spasm in her arm, dropped the mug, and let herself fall back into a chair.
THIRTY-FOUR
Irna Phillips created and wrote some of the most successful radio soap operas in the 1930s and 1940s, including The Guiding Light, which premiered in 1937.
“What’s wrong? What did you do?”
She rubbed the muscle frantically. He slapped her hand away and began massaging her arm, deep and hard. She moaned, rocked back and forth on the chair.
“What did you do to your arm?”
“Just a cramp.”
“I can see that. It’s your biceps.” He continued massaging, lightening up a bit. “Make a muscle for me.”
“Are you nuts? No, no way. It’s all right.”
“Make a freaking muscle, would you?”
She made a freaking muscle, held the whimpers in her throat as he massaged. To her surprise, it helped.
“Okay, now loosen. That’s it-flex, loosen, flex, like that. It’s hard to tell which you’re doing, you’ve got such skinny little arms.”
“My arms are fine, you macho jerk.”
He stared down as she held her arm. “Did you overdo it with weights at the gym?”
“No, I wasn’t at the gym.”
“Then what did you do? It had to be over the top to make your biceps cramp up like that.”
Mary Lisa pictured herself in a graceful profile, sending her leg out smoothly at Chico to land her foot solidly in his gut. She pictured him grabbing his belly and keeling over onto the ground. Two weeks. Two more weeks and she could do that. “Too much shopping. Trying on all those shoes is tough on the arms.”
“It’s interesting,” Jack said slowly, watching her stand up, still cradling her arm, “you’re a good actress, I’ll give you that, but still you’re not convincing playing the spoiled prima donna.”
She didn’t know what else to say, and it was infuriating. She stomped off toward her bedroom, still holding her arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I think I’ll go surfing with Carlo. If he’s not around, there are usually lots of cute young guys to help me out.”
She slammed the door.
“Yeah, right, give it a try, see how many of those horny teenage boys even know what a massage is.”
She growled through the door. He heard it. He was pissed and horny, a miserable combination, and he guessed she knew it. He’d almost kissed her when he’d flattened her on the sofa. Almost. He’d managed to stop himself in time. He thanked the Lord he had gotten ahold of himself. He was here to help find out who was terrorizing her, not-well, he didn’t want to think about that. He walked to the kitchen, got himself a bottled water from the fridge, rubbed it over his forehead. He sat down on the sofa, saw the soap script, and picked it up.
He was still reading it ten minutes later when Mary Lisa, wearing a cover-up over a swimsuit, paused a moment when she saw him. “The mail is due soon. Perhaps you’d like to read that too.”
“Nah. You’ve seen one electric bill you’ve seen them all. Hey, this is pretty cool. I like this scene between Sunday and her father. Except-”