by Beth Ciotta
Bookman chuckled. “No vibrate option, Sinclair?”
“Ha-ha, Professor. Glad you think this is funny.”
“Lighten up. It could be worse. You could be stuck in the Puritanical sixteen-hundreds. Instead, you’re smack in the heyday of hedonism. A nation obsessed with booze and sex.” The smile in his voice was evident. “I would’ve thought this kind of thing was right up your alley.”
“Nobody knows who he was. He came out of nowhere.”
“Kiss my—”
“So what’s Izzy like?”
“Ditzy. Horny. Pretty much the same.” He recalled the misery straining her ghostly face, made more miserable-looking by the grimy window. He shook it off.
“Grace?”
He envisioned the pixie wildcat, all big eyes and bed-mussed hair. A hundred descriptions crossed his mind. He picked the one Bookman could relate to. “Interesting.”
“I’ll bet.”
“That’s not me in the picture.” He cut the connection. Grinding his teeth, he punched the speed dial for the office. Dead air. He started to get nervous. He’d taken the weekend off. He’d already checked in with his mother. No one would miss him till Monday.
Nobody but his exhibitionist, fly-by-night lover, Barbie.
Suddenly he didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“WE’LL KEEP HIM and call him Julius,” Izzy said with excitement.
“Izzy, he’s not a pet.” Grace wondered about her friend sometimes. They’d known each other for almost fifteen years, and Grace still marveled at Izzy’s ability to live in a perpetual fantasy world. To her, life was a never-ending adventure of chasing kicks and giggles. Of course, Grace recalled, that’s why she and Mick had let Izzy tag along when they were kids. They could always count on her for a good time.
Izzy continued fanning herself with a giant peacock feather as she lounged on the chaise. “Julius and Isadora. Doesn’t that sound so Continental?”
“It sounds ridiculous. Julius Caesar. I can’t call him that,” Grace said. “Folks would cast a kitten.”
“Who could laugh at that scrumptious sheik? Besides, we have to call him something.”
“Ace.”
“Ace?”
“He looks like a pilot.”
“Just because he’s wearing a leather jacket?”
“An aviator jacket. Didn’t you notice the gold wings pinned to his lapel?”
“I wasn’t looking at his lapel.” Izzy snickered. “Maybe it’s not his jacket.”
“Why would he be wearing someone else’s jacket?”
“A pilot, huh? Wishful thinking?”
“Instinct.”
Izzy cocked her head. “Ace and Isadora. Izzy and Ace. Hmm. Not as snazzy as Julius and Isadora, but it’s the man who rings my bell. I don’t care if his name is Homer.”
Grace rolled her eyes. Left up to her friend, these two would be engaged by the end of the week. Izzy was on a quest for happiness. Happiness that hinged on the man at her elbow. She was in between elbow props right now, and Grace wished her the best. Izzy could have all the men in the world as far as she was concerned. This time, however, Grace felt a strange magnetism toward the man. The way he had flown out the window like an uncaged bird. The raw nerve. The sheer disregard for gravity.
She could use a man like Ace. Crazy or fearless—both worked in her profession.
She paced the Oriental rug. Like Pop Pop used to say, no need to look up a duck’s ass. She didn’t need to know where Ace had come from. She just knew what she saw. Potential. And what she’d felt. Excitement.
It was crazy, really. But when they’d locked hands, when she’d helped him to his feet, she’d felt a zap. A strange tingle shooting up her arm. An electrical connection. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but it had kicked up her pulse three notches.
Izzy sipped bootleg hooch from her silver flask. “He can stay next to my room.”
Grace shoved her hands into the pockets of her trousers and chewed her lower lip. She shouldn’t care where he slept, or with whom. But Izzy’s suggestion didn’t sit right. Perhaps it was concern. For Izzy. Ace was a possible lunatic. Crazy in the sky wasn’t the same as crazy in the bedroom next to her friend. “You don’t even know him.”
“What’s to know?” Izzy counted on her fingers. “He’s handsome. He knows how to have a good time. He doesn’t remember a girlfriend, let alone his own name.” She ticked off her thumb. “Did I mention he’s handsome?”
The formula for divorce number three. Besides, I want him, Grace thought. Again she felt that foreign twinge. Again she ignored it. She must’ve done some good deed. Ace was a gift from above. A physically fit stranger with a flair for the dramatic. Possibly a pilot.
Thanks to Tuck Cagney, no one who knew her would fly with her. Ace didn’t know her. He didn’t know anyone. “He’s perfect,” she muttered.
“And how!” Izzy plowed on. “Talk about a gentleman. He wouldn’t even let us help him pick up his loose change. He insisted on personally scooping up every one of the coins he dropped. How sweet.”
Sweet? Grace’s gut warned otherwise. Still, unlike Izzy, she hadn’t met a man she couldn’t handle. “He didn’t drop those coins. He flung them into the air like a madman. Nor did I think it was ‘sweet’ when he yelled, ‘Don’t touch those!’ two inches from my ear.” Although, having no wallet and no cash might explain his bizarre attachment to a few measly pennies. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He was high-strung, mysterious, strange. While maybe someone more normal would make a safer house guest, “normal” didn’t describe death-defying stunt performers. Better still, as Izzy had pointed out, the man was a certifiable eye-catcher.
To herself, Grace admitted that even she, though usually unaffected by pretty packages, had noticed his physical attributes. That seductive mouth and athletic build. Even more important, he had charisma. That was the electrical current. That’s what she’d felt. Charisma.
Wait until Joystick got a look at him. He’d see Ace’s movie-star mug as big bucks. Ladies would fork over mucho simoleons to swoon over him as he plummeted to earth, then posed for photographs. Yessiree, once Joystick got a load of her new partner, he’d offer her twice what he’d offered this morning plus top billing. Joystick Jackson’s Flying Circus, the eastern seaboard’s number one air show. Take that, Tuck Cagney.
Izzy sighed and fanned herself. “That man’s the bee’s knees. And he’s mine. All mine.”
“He might be someone else’s,” Grace pointed out. “He might be married.”
Izzy swung her feet to the floor and sat up. “Nope. No ring.”
“So what?”
“So my sheik antennae read available. My antennae are never wrong.”
Grace snorted.
“Hardly ever.”
James strode into the living room. Grace and Izzy looked past him.
“Don’t get your knickers in a bunch,” he said. “He’s fine.”
“Swell,” Izzy said. “Where is he?”
“Still in the john.” James plopped into a chair and snatched up the morning paper.
“What’s he doing in there?” Grace asked.
“What do you think?” James turned to the second page and skimmed.
“For ten minutes?”
“Maybe he forgot to go until now,” Izzy said. “Or forgot how . . .”
James chuckled. “I don’t think amnesia works like that, sis. Not that I know a whole lot about it.” He looked over the paper at Grace. “How about you, dollface?”
“I know you don’t forget what comes naturally. And don’t call me dollface. You know I hate it.”
“Still upset you weren’t born a man?” he teased.
“Still upset I wouldn’t let you put your hand in my pants?”
They stuck out their tongues at each other. Since she didn’t have any siblings, Izzy had shared hers. Except for the one time Jimmy had tried to play doctor, Grace knew hers and James’s relationship was as close to a sister-brother bond as she would ever get.
James smiled. “I’m glad you’re back home, Grace.”
“Me, too.” Though she couldn’t force a smile. The newly crowned leper of the air circuit, she’d come home to Atlantic City to lay low and initiate some long-needed repairs on the farm. Old white paint was lifting and curling like ribbons from the wood shakes. Rain leaked through the barn roof every time it rained, warping the loft boards. After her grandfather’s long deterioration and eventual death last year, she’d up and run away with the air circus. Home wasn’t home without Pop Pop. But now that she’d dragged herself back, reputation in tatters, she could no longer neglect her duties.
She’d hoped the hard work would keep her mind off her grandfather. Instead, every chore summoned a memory. She and Pop Pop building the front porch swing or oiling the rusty barn door. She and Pop Pop running through the pasture, flying kites. Pop Pop taking her to her first air circus. Everything reminded her of the gruff man who’d raised her. Hence her frequent visits to Laguna Vista. It was hard to be sad in Izzy’s fantasy world.
As if seeing something in Grace’s eyes, Izzy cleared her throat. “Go upstairs and get some of Jonas’s clothes,” she ordered James. “Put them in the blue room.”
James glanced sideways at her. “Why?”
“You can’t expect me to take Ace out on the town dressed the way he is. He looks strange.”
“He is strange,” Grace said. “Perfect for my act.” Perfect timing.
James arched his eyebrows. “Who’s Ace?”
“Julius,” Izzy said. “Grace thinks he looks like a fly-boy.”
“Why? Because he’s wearing a leather jacket?” He shook his head. “Women.”
“Well, we have to call him something,” Izzy said.
“Why don’t we call him a cab?” James snapped.
Grace snorted. “Hardee-har-har.”
“I’m serious. What’s he doing here, anyway? We don’t know his name. He doesn’t know his name. You’re not taking him out on the town, Izzy.” James pointed to Grace. “And you . . . what do you mean ‘your act’? You can’t be thinking . . .”
“I know what she’s thinking.” Izzy clapped her hands and squealed. “We just got back from a meeting with Joystick Jackson. He offered Grace a spot in his show. He thinks people will pay to see her fly with a partner again. He thinks they’ll want to see if she . . . but no one will . . . She’s thinking about using Ace.” She stumbled over her words, a faint blush tinting her cheeks, then turned a full grin on Grace. “He’ll look devastating behind the wheel.”
A last-ditch recovery. Grace grimaced. Joystick hadn’t mentioned that his interest in her was ticket sales for potential gore. No wonder he’d seemed eager to hire her when no one else would. When Joystick and Izzy had disappeared into the makeshift hangar, she hadn’t thought it was to talk. Then again, she didn’t doubt Izzy could talk through her own funeral. She let it roll off her. Even though it stung her pride, flying in Joystick’s circus gave her a chance to prove the accident wasn’t her fault. She was a damn good pilot. “For the umpteenth time, Izzy, you steer a ship with pedals and a stick, not a wheel. And you wonder why I won’t let you fly my Jenny.”
James gawked at her. “Yet you’re willing to put her in the hands of a stranger?”
“He’s not going to fly her. But if he did, he could handle it.”
“Says who?”
“My gut.”
Izzy smiled at James. “Grace’s gut is even more dead-on than my antennae.”
Grace pursed her lips. That was precisely why she’d decided to trust her instincts. Izzy mustn’t sleep with Ace. The man had heartbreaker written all over him.
James frowned. “I’m not going to let you do this.”
Grace stuck her fists on her hips. “I didn’t ask your permission.”
“We’re taking him to the police.”
Izzy crossed her arms. “No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are.”
“We’re keeping him.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are.” Izzy stalked to James and challenged him with a fixed glare. “The rest of the family isn’t due down at the shore for another two weeks. There’s plenty of room. He can stay in the blue room.”
“The room next to yours?” James tossed the newspaper aside to go nose-to-nose with his sister. “Dad and Jonas may not be here, but I am. And I’m telling you what they would. When pigs fly.”
Grace arched an eyebrow. “Told you so.”
“You’re screwy if you think I’m turning Ace over to the gumshoes,” Izzy said. “They can’t track a rumrunner in broad daylight. How are they going to find a man’s memory?”
“Maybe somebody’s looking for him. Maybe they filed a report.”
Izzy’s eyes widened. “Maybe he’s on the lam,” she whispered, eyes brightening.
James looked at Grace. “I could use some help here.”
“I told you, I have plans for him.” She tapped her finger on her chin. “But someone should keep an eye on him at night.”
“That’s not helping,” James said.
“Thank you,” Izzy said.
“What are we supposed to do with him?” James asked Grace.
“Keep him busy. He can take over Tuck’s job. Until he remembers who he is. Besides, you could use an adventure, Jimmy. You said it yourself yesterday. Things have been duller than a butter knife for days.”
“Ace did fly out the window,” Izzy said. “He is perfect. I can take photographs with my new camera while you teach him some tricks. I’ll look devastating in khaki.”
James glared at them.
Izzy looped her arm through Grace’s. They both smiled.
He threw up his hands. “Fine.”
Izzy squealed.
“But he’s not staying in the blue room.”
Chapter Four
“ISADORA VAN BUREN Caesar. Izzy Caesar. Mrs. Julius Caesar.” Or, as Grace preferred, “Mrs. Ace.”
Izzy sat at her vanity, applying fresh makeup and auditioning her next new name. They all sounded good to her. Although at the time, Mrs. Buddy Valentine and Mrs. Max Mueller had sounded good, too.
Her unlined face crinkled at the thought of perfect love gone wrong. She’d been married and divorced twice in the four short years after skipping out the boarding school door. She was an embarrassment to Mother. A disappointment to Daddy.
When Daddy had threatened to cut her off if she married again without his consent, she’d decided to be more careful. Now three years later and twenty-four years old, she was tired of test-driving potential husbands. Something told her Ace would not disappoint. What’s more, something told her she’d be married, finally, for always and forever, by the end of the year.
Just like that her spirits soared. Smiling, she lined her eyes with kohl powder, caked her lashes with black mascara, then puckered her mouth to apply more Tease-Me red lipstick. She imagined kissing Ace. Imagined his hands on her . . .
She’d bet her diamond brooch he knew what to do with a woman.
The thought made her dizzy. She sighed as she recalled his heated touch at dinner. She’d sat next to him, their fingers brushing and locking throughout most of the meal. Granted, Ace had been swatting her away beneath the table, but she loved that he was playing hard to get. Such a gentleman. Once, while returning her hand to her own lap, he’d accidentally brushed her garters. Oh, the thrill that had zinged through her! So what if she’d hiked up her own skirt? The result had been the same—Ace’s hand between her thighs.
Ah, yes. The r
omance had begun.
She just hoped Grace didn’t slow the process by distracting Ace with too much work. Not that she’d ask Grace to change her plans. Her friend was in a bind. Ace was the perfect solution. Besides, Grace had enough troubles, what with being all alone in the world and, now, thanks to Tuck Cagney, looking like an incompetent aviatrix in that world’s eyes. Flying was everything to Grace. Were it not for Mick’s plans, Izzy truly would feel just awful for their poor friend. But Mick, bless his scheming soul, had it all figured. He was going to save Grace. He just had to be sneaky about it, as she wasn’t the kind of girl who went in for knights on white chargers.
She rolled her eyes. Grace didn’t possess a romantic bone in her body. That was probably why they’d been friends for so long. They’d never fought over a man. Lucky for Grace, Mick didn’t care about her rough-and-tumble nature. He loved her just as she was. Always had. Yessiree, Mick was the man for her. Mick knew it. Izzy knew it. Together, they’d convince Grace. It was, after all, for her own good. In the meantime, Izzy mused, if she could ease her friend’s misery by sharing Ace, so be it. Grace could have him during the day, so long as she got his nights. No one could accuse her of being selfish.
Light-headed with anticipation, she brushed her sleek ebony bob, then rose from the vanity to admire her slinky image in the mirror. She’d tried on three dresses before settling on her backless, pale blue Chanel. The ankle-length satin gown left little to the imagination. Risqué, her mother would say. Perfect, Izzy thought. She’d be the center of attention at Mick’s. Not that this was unusual. Tonight, however, she knew going in who’d she be with going home.
She grinned at her sexy reflection. Flawless skin . . . big eyes . . . lithe body. Poor Ace didn’t stand a chance. She’d ply him with giggle juice. Seduce him. And with any luck, jump his bones in Mick’s coat closet.
The beginning of a lifelong relationship.
RUFUS STOOD AT the arched window of the west tower. Sweat beaded his hairline. He’d opened the window, but no breeze found its way inside. He tugged at his shirt collar, hoping to relieve some of the steam—compliments of no air conditioning, Izzy’s bootleg cocktails, and Jonas’s three-piece suit. It was creepy wearing a dead man’s clothes. Even creepier knowing that the same dead man regularly stood in this exact spot. Eighty years in the future.
