Lovers and Strangers (The Hollywood Nights Series, Book 1)

by Candace Schuler

  Jack was beginning to form a very unflattering picture of Faith's father. "Did he beat you?" he asked savagely, feeling his gut twist at the thought of anyone hurting her.

  "No. Oh, no, of course not," she said quickly. Vehemently. "My father is a stern God-fearing man, and he disciplined all of us when he thought it was necessary, but he never beat us. Not the way you mean."

  Jack wondered if she realized that she hadn't had to ask who he meant before she answered the question. "But he hit you, didn't he? Spare the rod, spoil the child?"

  "Well , yes, but—" she paused, pressing a hand to her chest. Her father was three thousand miles away and he could still cause her chest to tighten with anxiety. "My goodness, how did we get on this subject?" she said, distressed by the ugly look in Jack's eyes. She could see pity there. And disgust. It made her feel small and insignificant. "It's really not very interesting."

  "Everything about you is interesting," Jack said, surprised to realize he meant it sincerely. For some inexplicable reason, he found the subject of Faith McCray fascinating in the extreme. And it scared the hell out of him.

  "No." She shook her head. "No, trust me. It isn't. I really don't want to talk about it anymore." She curled her hands into fists on her lap. "Please."

  "All right," Jack agreed instantly, willing to do anything to erase that pinched, unhappy look from her face. Wanting, too, to back away from the intense attraction he felt for her—and from the anger that welled up at the thought of anyone laying a hand on his angel. "We'll talk about something else. How 'bout those Dodgers?"

  Faith blinked. "Dodgers?"

  "They keep playing the way they're doing, they're bound to make the play-offs this year."

  "Play-offs?"

  "If the injuries don't knock them out of the running, that is. Lasorda's pitching staff isn't as deep as it should be." He pointed at her plate with his chopsticks. "Are you going to eat that pork dumpling?"

  "Ah... no," she said, taken aback by his abrupt change of subject. "No, I'm not going to eat it." She pushed the plate toward him. "It's all yours," she said, watching as he reached across the table and deftly pinched it between the ends of his chopsticks.

  Her expression softened as she watched him carry the tasty little tidbit to his lips. Her own lips turned up in a small, secret, very female smile.

  "What?" he said, looking up to catch her staring at him as if he were Prince Charming and her very own brilliant baby boy all rolled into one.

  "You're an awfully nice man, Jack Shannon." She smiled at him with her whole heart in her eyes. "I don't think you want anybody to know it, but you are."

  Jack felt the dumpling lodge itself in his throat. He had to swallow again—hard—before he could answer her. "No, I'm not," he said, holding her gaze with his. "I'm not a nice man at all. If I were a nice man I wouldn't be here with you now."

  Her gaze wavered a bit, but she didn't look away. "Why?" she murmured, steeling herself to hear him tell her she wasn't a nice woman. She'd heard it before.

  "Because you're as innocent as a baby and I'm old enough to be your father, that's why."

  "Oh, no, I-"

  "I turned forty-three last month, Faith," he said, cutting off whatever argument she was about to make. "And you're only twenty-four. I know that for a fact because Tim told me it was on your job application. That's nearly twenty years difference in our ages."

  "Nineteen," Faith said, shaving off the year he'd added. "And I'll be twenty-five in September, which means there's really only eighteen years between us. My father was almost ten years older than that when I was born." She smiled with sweet triumph. "So you're not nearly old enough to qualify for the position."

  "Don't bet on it, Angel. It was the sixties, remember, the era of 'free love' and 'do your own thing.'" His eyebrow slid up, sardonic this time. "And I was always a precocious little bugger."

  Faith took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes. "Well, we have more in common than I thought, then," she said brightly, trying to make a joke of it even though it still hurt to think about. "Because so was I."

  Chapter 5

  There was a party going on when they arrived back at the Wilshire Arms. A makeshift buffet had been set up on a couple of the glass-topped patio tables in the courtyard. There were big bowls of dips and chips, a large aluminum tray full of finger-size empanadas and burritos from the Mexican take-out restaurant down the street, a tray of spiced chicken wings and appetizer-size baby back ribs from a local barbecue joint and another tray piled high with little triangles of spanikopita and tiny filo-wrapped cheese tarts from the family-owned Greek place located behind the apartment building. A deli tray of cut-up vegetables sat, practically untouched amid the high-fat, fast-food feast, while a jumbo-size cardboard tub of Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies was already half-empty.

  The bar was set up on a third table, with four cartons of cheap wine, a metal washtub full of crushed ice and beer, and several large bottles of soft drinks and designer water. A hodgepodge collection of Dixie cups, plastic drinking glasses and cocktail napkins filched from various local establishments, was stacked conveniently beside them.

  Music was being provided via a long orange extension cord snaking out of one of the windows of a ground floor apartment. It was attached to a multidisc CD player turned up full blast. Jack recognized the song playing as Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not To Come." It had been at the top of the charts back in 1970.

  For a moment, Jack felt as if he had stepped into a time machine. The music was the same. The laughter. The beautiful young people, so many of them Hollywood hopefuls, chatting and dancing and flirting, flitting in and out of the shadows cast by the flowering plants and the overhanging balconies above the courtyard.

  The ageless Madame Markova was there, looking much the same as she had twenty-five years ago, in her full gypsy skirts with her thick white hair pinned up in a drooping Gibson girl bun, deep in conversation with a young man wearing a cropped mesh T-shirt and a navel ring. Carl Mueller, the building super, was quietly watching everything from a shadowed corner, just as he had always done.

  Jack half expected to look up and see his brother and their two roommates, Zeke and Ethan, up on one of the balconies overlooking the courtyard, laughing uproariously as they tossed potato chips and lewd suggestions at the girls below. But the balcony was empty and silent.

  Zeke Blackstone was a famous director now, twice divorced and living in the South of France with his current mistress. Ethan Roberts was a respected actor with a beautiful trophy wife, two perfect yuppie kids and political aspirations. And Eric was dead.

  He had died during a party very much like this one.

  Jack thought for a minute that he wasn't going to be able to stand it. For just a split second, he was deathly afraid he would break and run, just like he had before, after the police had informed him that his brother had committed suicide. And then Faith reached out and touched his arm, breaking the spell and bringing him back to the present.

  "A party," she said, the delight evident in her voice.

  Jack turned his head and looked down at her. She was gawking like the small town hick she'd accused herself of being, trying to take in everything at once.

  "Don't tell me you've never been to a party before," Jack said, but he knew by her reaction that she hadn't. Her father, he thought, had a hell of a lot to answer for.

  "Church socials," she said, her gaze still darting from point to point, trying to see everything there was to see. "My cousin Mary Ruth's sweet sixteen slumber party. And a few wedding and baby showers. But never anything like this." She looked up at him, excitement shining in her eyes. "It looks like such fun, doesn't it, Jack?"

  It looked like a giant headache in the making to him but he smiled and agreed. "Are you just going to stand there and watch, or are you going to join all this—" his eyebrow slid up "—fun?"

  "I wasn't invited."

  "This isn't a private party, Angel. It'd be inside someon
e's apartment if it was, not out here in the courtyard. Trust me," he said drily, "if you live here, even temporarily, you're invited."

  At least, that had been the rule when he'd lived here before. Looking around, he didn't think the rule had changed. The two doors to the interior hallways had been propped open, tacitly inviting revelers to wander in and out of any open apartments at will. Not, he realized with some surprise, that anybody was actually doing all that much reveling. By the partying standards of 1970, this was a pretty tame gathering.

  There was laughter and music and the slightly manic flirting that went on whenever unattached young men and women gathered. But no one was throwing water balloons or furniture off of the balconies. No one was puking his—or her—guts up in some potted plant. No one was practicing any of the more erotic positions of the Kama Sutra in plain sight. There was no pall of smoke, from tobacco or anything else, hovering over the gathering. There were no love beads or peace signs, no screaming psychedelic colors or strobe lights, no Nehru jackets, no tie-dye, no elephantine bell-bottom pants. And no one, as far as Jack could tell, was more than slightly high on anything more lethal than light beer or wine coolers.

  If there was illegal drug use or wild sex going on, he decided, it wets happening behind closed doors. The free-for-all era of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" was obviously as dead as the proverbial doornail. At least, at the Wilshire Arms, it was.

  "Welcome to the politically correct nineties," Jack muttered, wondering if the slight tug of nostalgia he felt for the wilder days of his youth meant he was turning into an old fogy.

  And, if that was the case, did the gut-tearing lust he felt when he looked at Faith McCray make him a dirty old man?

  "Faith. Faith, honey, there you are." Sammie-Jo came hurrying up to them from the other side of the courtyard, the hem of her short tank dress leaving her long legs bare to midthigh. "Where on earth have you been all day?" she asked, reaching out to put her hand on Faith's arm. "I was beginning to think you'd gone and got yourself lost or something." The smile she gave Faith was full of friendly curiosity. The narrow-eyed look she aimed at Jack was loaded with all the suspicion of a Victorian chaperon. "You haven't been cleaning apartments all this time, have you?"

  "No, of course not," Faith said, smiling at her friend's concern. Sammie-Jo had been worrying over her like a mother hen ever since she moved to Los Angeles. "Jack..." Faith looked up at him, her smile turning soft and sweet as she said his name. "Jack and I went to lunch."

  Sammie-Jo's glance narrowed even more as she watched Jack Shannon return Faith's adoring smile with one of his own. It was just a shade too intimate and... wolfish to suit her. "Lunch?" she said archly, making a show of looking at her watch. "It's nearly seven o'clock."

  "I guess we lost track of the time," Faith said, still gazing up at Jack as if he were Brad Pitt's better-looking brother.

  "I'll just bet you did," Sammie-Jo muttered under her breath.

  Faith turned her head to look at Sammie-Jo. "I'm sorry if you were worried about me," she said, "but I'm fine."

  "For someone who's been hit between the eyes by a thunderbolt, maybe," Sammie-Jo mumbled.

  "What?"

  "Oh, don't mind me, honey. I was just talking to myself." She slipped her arm through Faith's. "Come join the party," she urged, giving it a little tug. "Brian Fossey in 3-E just got a gig in a two-part TV movie so we're all helping him celebrate his good fortune. Plus, he sprang for the wine."

  "Jack?" Faith said, resisting the pull on her arm.

  "You go on and join the party," he urged, giving her a little nod of encouragement. "I'm going to head on inside and see if I can get some work done."

  "But-"

  "This isn't my kind of party, Angel," he said in a bored voice. "You go with your friend and have a good time."

  Sammie-Jo stood there for a minute, gazing after him as he turned and sauntered away, unable to believe what she'd just heard. After looking at Faith as if he wanted to gobble her up like a sweet Georgia peach, Jack Shannon had all but patted her on the head and told her to go play with her little friends.

  Sammie-Jo snapped her jaw shut. "Well, what was that all about?" she said, turning to look at Faith.

  Faith was standing there, staring after Jack Shannon as if he'd just broken her heart clean in two.

  Sammie-Jo's eyes narrowed into fierce slits. "What'd he do to you this afternoon?" she demanded. "If he did anything to you, I swear, I'll—"

  "He says he's too old for me."

  "—cut off his-What?"

  "He said he's too old for me," Faith repeated, still staring forlornly at his retreating form. "He says I'm as innocent as a baby and that he's old enough to be my father. I tried to tell him I wasn't but—"

  "Was this before or after he seduced you?"

  That brought Faith's gaze back to Sammie-Jo. "He didn't seduce me," she said indignantly. "He wouldn't."

  "Well, maybe he hasn't," Sammie-Jo said grudgingly. "But he wants to. Bad."

  "Oh." Faith's face lit up with something like hope. "Do you really think so?"

  Sammie-Jo shook her head in amazement. "Don't you have any sense of self-preservation at all? The man is absolutely right, you know. He's way too old for you. In experience, if not actual years," she added, flicking an assessing—and appreciative—glance at the long, lean body of the man in question. "And you're as innocent as a little curly-headed lamb."

  "Why does everybody keep telling me how innocent I am? Ever I since I moved to Los Angeles, people have been telling me how innocent I am. I'm not innocent. I'm not a simpleminded child, either," she added fiercely. "I'm a grown woman."

  "But inexperienced," Sammie-Jo said, thinking that the poor girl couldn't have been—wouldn't have dared to be—anything else with that father of hers. She shook her head, silencing Faith as she started to object. "It isn't anything to be ashamed of, honey. We all started out that way. It's just that I think you'd be better off cutting your teeth on someone a little less tough than Jack Shannon." She let her gaze wander over to the other side of the courtyard for a split second. "I admit, he's a tempting devil but—" she shifted her gaze back to Faith's face "—he's way out of your league. You should leave him to someone who's better equipped to handle him."

  "Like Jill Mickelson?" Faith said, looking past Sammie-Jo's shoulder to where Jack still lingered at the party he'd said he wasn't staying for, talking to the voluptuous blonde from 2-B.

  "Yes," Sammie-Jo said. "Like Jill Mickelson. Now, come on and meet some of the guys." She tucked her arm more securely into the crook of Faith's, pulling her along as she spoke.

  "But my clothes," Faith objected, using the only excuse she could think of. "I'm not dressed for a party."

  "Oh, pooh on your clothes. You're more dressed up than half the people here. And you look great in my jeans." She turned her head and tilted it back, doing a quick assessment of the fit. "Better than I do, in fact. So quit stalling and come on." She yanked gently on Faith's arm to get her moving. "Dennis Kincaid in 3-B asked me about you the other day." She grinned wickedly. "And he's as juicy and tender as they come."

  * * *

  "What is it with these kids?" Jack said, frowning down at the woman who stood beside him. "Don't they have any music of their own to listen to?"

  Jill Mickelson smiled. The sound of The Grass Roots' 1968 hit "Midnight Confessions" filled the air. "Just be glad golden oldies are in with this crowd," she said, wondering at his annoyance. "Otherwise, we could be having our eardrums shattered by Pearl Jam's latest hits."

  "God forbid."

  "Exactly." She looked down, running her fingertip around the rim of her plastic wineglass. "I haven't seen you around lately."

  "I've been busy." Jack took a sip of his beer. "Working."

  "Too busy to stop by and say hello once in a while?"

  "Jill..." he began hesitantly. God, he didn't need this. Not now. "I thought we agreed there wasn't enough there." His voice was as gentle as he could make
it. "For either of us. You said it was nice but it wasn't worth listening to another lame Jack 'n' Jill joke, remember?" he added, trying for a little levity.

  "Never mind." She waved her free hand in a negating gesture in front of her. "You're right. We did. Forget I mentioned it." She took a quick sip of her wine. "It's just that, sometimes, it gets kind of..." She sighed and shrugged.

  "Lonely," he supplied.

  "Yes. Lonely," she said and sighed again. "I wanted a freer, less inhibited lifestyle when I moved here from Boston but sometimes I find myself wondering if moving into the Wilshire Arms was such a good idea." She let her gaze scan the happy, laughing group of people. "Most of them are so young." She shook her head. "Tonight they make me feel positively ancient."

  Jack snorted in agreement. "Tell me about it," he muttered, his gaze following hers out into the crowd.

  "I notice Irina doesn't seem to have any problems relating to the younger generation," Jill remarked, and then realized she'd lost his attention. She looked up into his face, and then back at the crowd, trying to see what—or who—had caught his attention so thoroughly.

  There were two lovely young women and three equally lovely young men standing in a loosely formed circle near the makeshift buffet table. Someone else might have thought he was staring at Sammie-Jo Sheppard—she was the more obviously attractive and vivacious of the two—but he'd had ample time in the last month or so to make a move on Sammie-Jo, if he'd been interested in her. It had to be the other one, the slender young woman with the big eyes and the shy smile, who put that hungry, yearning look into his eyes.

  "I wouldn't have thought she was your type," Jill said, trying to keep the jealousy out of her voice.

  "Who?" Jack quickly turned his head to look down at her. "Irina?" he said, trying to bluff his way out of it.