Amber Affairs

by Patricia Rice

  Josh nodded. “Thank you for clarifying what’s possible. I’m in over my head when it comes to what you call Lucy abilities. I noticed your Lucy sticks lit up during the séance. Is there any way of producing that outcome again? I’d like to work them into the script.”

  Lucy sticks. Leave it to Josh. Amber watched as everyone held up their walking staffs. The crystal in all the ones that had been at the séance still held a faint glow, as did hers. She’d thought it was an after-effect of a powerful spirit. . .

  “Could Willa’s spirit be inhabiting the crystals?” she asked in trepidation, remembering how the crystal ball had lit up.

  “Very possible,” Tullah agreed.

  Oh damn. Amber shut her eyes and tried to imagine herself in another time and place, but Josh’s pain and anger pushed at her too hard. He was set on closure, which might require this dreadful exhibition. She needed safety, which required staying the hell out of the public eye.

  She saw no way this could end happily.

  Josh could still read Amber’s body language as if it were yesterday. She was shutting herself out. He totally understood.

  He’d tried keeping her out of his mess, but as long as he stayed here, he’d never succeed. If he left, he’d never find Willa’s killer—the one who could be targeting Amber now. He could not live with that, so he had to find a way out, even if she hated him for forcing this on her. At least she’d be alive.

  He winced at the thought of Amber’s beautiful spirit lighting crystal balls and doorknobs as the Lucys claimed Willa was. He had to be insane to believe this lot of weirdoes and their superstitions, but Amber believed them, and he believed in Amber. He wouldn’t have survived childhood without her wisdom. She’d kept him from killing Dell when Josh had discovered the camera in the restrooms. She’d discovered where Dell hid his porn and let Josh set fire to it instead. And then she’d warned him when Josh’s drunk father had tried to make deals with Dell or his toadies. She knew things.

  So he probably should listen to her now, except Amber had one very large flaw—self-doubt. She didn’t believe she knew things. She didn’t believe she was beautiful. She didn’t believe audiences loved her. She’d never known anything except criticism since birth, and she’d wrapped that doubt around her like a protective cocoon.

  He hated to cut open her defensive shield and leave her exposed like a frail, wet butterfly, especially in front of her mother and Dell. Left to himself, he’d take the easy path and let the police handle everything. If he ended up in jail, so be it.

  But to keep Amber safe, even if she hated him, he had to stir himself from the easy path and take the risks he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.

  He had to pray that he wasn’t exposing himself as a ginormous fraud, but full speed ahead had always been his problem, not self-doubt.

  “As I said, I’ll need your help in formulating this show to suit your various talents,” he continued. “Valerie, Amber, and I are the ones with the most acting experience, so I’ll have to write the script mostly for us.”

  He couldn’t read the reaction of the tall woman in the black veil, but Walker had promised to have his wife talk with her aunt, the former actress. At least, Val didn’t stomp out.

  “Harvey’s our musician. He says he can read the audience and fine-tune the music to suit their mood, so we’ll mostly need him backstage. That leaves the rest of you for walk-on parts, if that’s okay.”

  Amber ominously said nothing. Most of his listeners nodded and murmured among themselves. Taking a deep breath to stay focused, Josh dived in.

  “We need to keep this simple. Dinner theaters are usually mystery farces. As a memorial, they’re not typical, but we’ll sell it as my gift to Willa. I’ll donate the script rights to non-profit organizations. Since many of the audience will be theater people, they’ll understand that. Lots of local theater groups are non-profit.”

  Amber’s eyes opened. He was reaching her somehow.

  “I understand Hillvale has a non-profit foundation formed to develop the museum and promote local arts, so I’ll write the script to incorporate the town, in case you ever develop a theater company.” There, she was squirming, but she was thinking.

  “At the moment, I’m envisioning an old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes type script, except the all-knowing detective will deal with ghosts and psychics as well as the usual witnesses. I’ve been taking character notes since I got here, so I already have roles representing possible real-life suspects. I’m hoping Val will consider playing the part of Willa’s ghost.” He waited and caught a thoughtful nod from the woman in black. An actress who seldom spoke was a new experience, but he wrote fantasy. He’d adapt.

  “The detective needs a sidekick who keeps a running dialogue on who is what and acts as a sounding board.” Here was where the shit hit the fan. Josh braced himself. “I’d like to add a different spin and make the detective female and the sidekick male. My intention is to hit the conscience of the guilty so our psychics can find them. If the audience is to grasp that the ghost is Willa, I need them to relate to the detective’s passionate search for justice, and that works better with a female in the part.”

  Amber’s mouth fell open. She shut it abruptly, but Josh knew he’d sucked her in. This was classic Jack and Ginger, only in adult format. He’d always been Ginger’s sidekick, even though he’d received star billing—simply because he was male. She was by far the stronger actor. They’d both known that. On his own, Jack would simply have been another smart-mouthed brat. Ginger had been the one who made their audience cry and shout and believe justice was served when they turned adult worlds upside-down with their mischief.

  She shouldn’t doubt her ability to handle this role with one hand tied behind her back.

  “If anyone can instill guilt in our audience, it’s Amber,” he said. “A pragmatic detective doesn’t inspire passion. But Amber knows how to play the role of an outraged woman seeking justice for a friend.”

  The Lucys began clapping enthusiastically—all except Amber.

  “My mother and Dell will be in that audience, won’t they?” she asked flatly over the applause.

  “You’re not afraid of them,” Josh said, knowing it wasn’t people but publicity that she feared.

  “There will be photographers, if only from Willa’s crew,” she argued, as she always did.

  “We can limit them, if you prefer, but if the point is a memorial, then the event probably should be Hollywood-worthy.” He tried to gauge the level of her panic, if he should give up the whole idea.

  “I choose my costume and share the directing chair.” She got up and walked out, through the kitchen.

  The back door slammed in the silence. Josh swallowed his anger, fear—and hope—and ran after her.

  Twenty-four

  The June night was spectacular, with a million stars in a cloudless black sky. Insects hummed in the trees, and the air was silky warm. Amber had missed her afternoon appointments in this turmoil. She hadn’t realized it was so late.

  She hugged her bare arms, feeling the flab, fighting her panic. She’d just agreed to put herself in front of an audience expecting to see boyish, adolescent Ginger!

  Humiliation on that scale should have a price.

  Maybe she could make Josh promise to find her audio jobs if she survived the mortifying laughter and whispers. If she had to lose the safety of her anonymous nest, she should learn to negotiate. It wasn’t as if she had an agent.

  She was shaking too badly to think straight. She wasn’t poor lost Ginger, she reminded herself. She was Amber. . .

  She didn’t feel strong, witch or otherwise.

  But underneath all her fear, she knew he was right. They had to catch the killer.

  When Josh finally arrived, stood behind her, and wrapped his arms along hers, she knew one answer anyway. She had no power over him. She’d loved the wretch far too long to not offer anything he asked. She was a wimp. So many things she should have done over these last lost years. . . i
nstead of curling up and sucking her thumb.

  “It’s beautiful up here,” he murmured, apparently studying the sky as she had been. “If we could pretend we were the only people on the planet, what would you do?”

  “Perish, probably,” she said with tartness. “I couldn’t grow an ear of corn much less a stick of butter.”

  He laughed. “Okay, so I’m the romantic here, got it. Do you hate me totally?”

  “Yup, always have,” she agreed. “I always let people I hate walk all over me. It’s compulsive.”

  He snorted against her ear. “Right. That’s why you dumped Crystal and Dell on their bums and told adoring audiences to take a hike and created your own world. Got that.”

  “Since when did you start writing your own scripts?” she asked, still working on her nonexistent resistance.

  “Always have. Just never get to use them. I am apparently a shit scriptwriter, but this one is so clear in my head, I could probably sit down and write it tonight. I’m a good director, you know. I may know bupkis about money, but I know how to make even a cheap production look good.”

  She leaned into him, taking his strong embrace for granted. Josh had always been there for her. She was the one who’d left. “I don’t doubt your directing ability. I doubt your ability to rein in your enthusiasm for your script to allow me to do what I need to do. So I get to direct me. If my fat ass is about to be shown all over the internet, then it will be my choice of how it appears.”

  He ran his big hands down her sides to said ass and turned her around so she faced him. She couldn’t read his eyes in the dark, but she’d always been able to feel Josh inside her head. She didn’t need his words, which was the truly scary part of their relationship. She didn’t know how much of that he understood.

  “Fat is in the eye of the beholder. I happen to be very fond of your cushy ass,” he said, running his hands over her posterior, lifting her against him. “And I’m in a better position than you are to know how you look from every angle. I’ll show you the photos I’ve taken and prove it. I don’t want you just for this stupid production. I want you.”

  His seductive hands sent shivers through all her soft places. It was impossible to resist when he bent to kiss her. It had been so very long since she’d been held. . . And he’d been a boy then. She’d never really known a man’s embrace.

  Amber slid her arms around his waist and offered her mouth. If she quit blocking him, if she opened herself up to him. . . she could feel the truth of his need. She knew that his desire was honest. She held Josh’s soul in her hands.

  For them, it had never been just about bodies. It was hard to climb over that painful hurdle of being used in her head, but if she let him seduce her with his kisses and his hands, her head went away and her instincts knew what to do.

  She might never have a better opportunity to escape the prison she lived in.

  “Promise me, you’ll see Zeke safe, no matter what happens?” she demanded, her fears for her nephew outweighing all the rest.

  “You really think I wouldn’t?” he asked, sounding shocked. “Nothing will happen to him or you on my watch.”

  And he meant that—from his position of power and command. He didn’t know what it was like to be helpless.

  She needed to crawl from under her rock and learn not to be a victim.

  Josh sensed Amber’s surrender, and he took her mouth with as much gratitude as passion. He might be walking off a cliff, but knowing Amber didn’t hate him yet was a parachute that buoyed him. If he was very lucky, he might show her how beautiful she was and maybe she’d forgive him for destroying her security. Someday.

  They didn’t bother returning to the gathering but climbed in his car and drove up to the studio. The merrymaking of the wedding party carried through the clear air. It seemed a violation of universal laws to know that two women had been brutally murdered in this place where so many people came to be happy.

  In the car, he kept his hand on Amber’s knee, fearful the spell might break if he didn’t touch her. As they traversed the stairs to the studio, she daringly caressed his ass the way he had hers, and his libido shot into rocket mode. Josh locked the door behind them and ripped her loose shirt over her gorgeous hair.

  Her bra was a wonder of delicate lace and practical construction. His Amber loved femininity inside and out. She grabbed the front of his shirt as he caressed her breasts.

  “Naked,” he muttered against her lush lips. “I need you naked. After seeing you in black underwear, I have fantasies to fulfill.”

  She laughed softly and unbuttoned his shirt. “Don’t we all?”

  They stripped, strewing their clothes across the floor as they stumbled toward the big bed behind the blanket room divider. Josh tossed her onto the mattress. “I wanted to be your hero and do that when I was sixteen, but I had no strength,” he told her, dropping down beside her.

  It was dark, but he thought she might not be ready for light yet. He could feel her supple flesh just fine, and the sensuality of touch was all that mattered. She was the sexy porn star who featured in his midnight fantasies. It had been so damned long since she’d taken him to the stars. . .

  “I’m a wuss, so macho displays back then wouldn’t have gone over well.” She ran her hands over his shoulder and chest. “I think I’m braver now.”

  He kissed her in all the places he’d dreamed about. “You were never, ever a wuss. You have a rock solid streak of stubborn steel for a spine,” he insisted between kisses. “You just hide it beneath all your exquisite softness and fluffy façade.”

  “Maybe the steel has rusted from disuse,” she suggested, sliding her hand lower.

  He caught her hand before it went too far. “I’m on the brink of explosion already. This time needs to be about you. Let me polish your steel.”

  “There’s that romantic again,” she laughed, but she slid her hand upward again. “Me wants to touch, though.”

  “You were always a hands-on kind of person.” He kissed the sweet peach of her cheek and caressed the lushness of her breasts. “Damn, I don’t know how long I can hold out. Let’s hope you don’t need too much polish.”

  He leaned over and suckled at her nipple, and she cried out with such joy that he almost came undone from the music of her voice.

  No matter how scarred her psyche, her body was ready. And this was Josh, whose mind synched with hers so very well that Amber could get high just on his joy. He touched her with reverence and a passion that enhanced hers. She might be embarrassed by the size of her thighs as he lifted them and kissed her between her legs, but she sensed his intense desire. Just the subtle touch of lips and tongue, and he sent her over the brink into ecstasy.

  He had condoms in the drawer. After that, it was all easy. They fit together like two parts of a puzzle. He shook her world. And she wept when it was over because she knew nothing could be so beautiful ever again.

  “You are such a baby,” he said with laughter, hauling her head to his shoulder. “It’s a good thing I’m used to your tears or I’d be insulted.”

  She pinched the thick hide over his ribcage. “It’s a good thing I know you’re not laughing at me or I’d crush you.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” he murmured against her ear, caressing her side in a manner that proved she had curves, even if they were ample. “There have been times these past years I haven’t been able to tell when I was acting and when I wasn’t. You make me real.”

  Which told her a lot about his relationship with Willa. He was a romantic. He needed love as much as he needed sex. Willa hadn’t provided. That didn’t mean Amber could either.

  “Obviously, I spoiled you for stick-thin models. Now you know your penchant for a real woman, you can go back to LA and look past the skinny.” She said it in the same way she always told him she hated him, but what she really felt was a deep, abiding sadness.

  He kissed her forehead. “I deserve that. Give me time, please. I’m a stranger in a strange land right
now.”

  She nodded. He wasn’t the only one.

  They made love again in the early dawn light, but Amber refused to share a shower with him afterward. Feeling was one thing. Seeing all her jiggly flesh. . . Not yet, not while she still had dreams of exercising back to muscle, at the very least. Which might mean never, she knew. Since she expected Josh to leave, she could leave him with some illusion.

  She had to put on yesterday’s clothes, which reminded her that her cottage had been violated, and she didn’t know if she could ever go back again. Feeling stronger this morning, that made her mad instead of weepy. She might only have a few more days of her comfortable hide-out left, once Josh exposed her to the world. She wanted it back.

  With no brush to untangle her hair and no pins to hold it, she held the mess back with the sparkly gold scarf she’d worn around her neck yesterday. “I need to ask the Lucys to spiritually cleanse my house,” she announced when Josh stepped out of the bathroom still drying his hair and only half-dressed. “I have to go home.”

  Damn, but he had muscles on top of muscles these days. Washboard abs. . . Not being able to relish all that masculine glory in the light was her own fault.

  “What’s involved in cleansing?” he asked in concern. “I gather not mops and buckets? And do you need to go there now?”

  She pursed her lips and thought about it. “Maybe not right now. I need Cass and Mariah, at least. We burn candles and sage and follow a ritual. I’ll need a new ghostcatcher. I’d rather be able to walk back in and feel as if it’s new and clean and no evil had ever touched it. But I want to have Sunday breakfast with Zeke before I open the store. Kids need traditions and structure to feel secure.”