by Mary McBride
“Oh, good,” Holly moaned. “That's great. That's just wonderful. I can use my bonus to change my name after this low-budget bio—written, directed, filmed, narrated, produced and all the popcorn you can eat provided by Holly Hicks—gets laughed at all over the industry.”
“I've got confidence in you, kid.” Mel looked at his watch. “You better get going now or you'll miss your plane.”
If Hicks' Law had been consistent, Holly's plane would have crashed somewhere between Newark and Houston. The worst thing that happened, though, was when she spilled some coffee on Mel's laptop. Its screen fluttered and blipped for a few seconds. Holly's heart stopped. But then both the screen and her heart resumed their normal rhythms.
She'd been using the computer in an attempt to watch the footage of the assassination attempt. The tape had sat on her desk for four weeks, during which she'd merely stared at its black plastic casing, telling herself she'd view it tomorrow. Or tomorrow. Today, however, she'd run out of tomorrows. She had to watch the tape in order to figure out how to fit it into her piece—whether to use it as prologue or to feature it chronologically in Cal's life story.
One of the guys in Technical had transferred it to a CD-ROM for her this morning and she was determined to use part of her two-hour flight to watch it. When she'd spilled the coffee, she was already on her fourth attempt.
Each time it was the same. She'd watch the gaggle of press and onlookers gathered outside the hotel door, then the door would open and out would come those stern-faced men in gray suits with their little yellow Secret Service pins on their lapels and their earpieces planted firmly in their ears. First came two, and then came Cal. Each time she saw him come through that door just ahead of the President, her heart would start beating harder, a lump would lodge in her throat, and a feeling of dread would settle in her chest like a lead weight. Each time he came through the hotel door, Holly would hit the computer's pause button, freezing Cal's image on the screen.
He looked so competent, so totally in control, so hard and impervious to harm. He looked…God! He looked as if bullets would bounce right off him. But because Holly knew what was coming in a matter of mere seconds, because she knew that Thomas Earl Starks was lurking in the parking garage just outside the camera's view, Cal looked vulnerable, too. She could almost discern the color of his eyes, almost feel his body, all that hard muscle and hot blood and the myriad textures of his skin. Focusing on him so closely, she almost couldn't breathe.
And each time she reached that precise, heart-stopping moment in the film, she'd go back to the beginning because she couldn't bear to see what happened next. It wouldn't have surprised her if she'd somehow spilled the coffee on the computer on purpose, hoping to short out the CD-ROM drive to prevent any further viewing of the film.
She finally closed the laptop and put it back in its case, telling herself she'd better stop thinking about Cal last September, and start thinking about herself this July. What with losing her narrator and her cameraman, her maiden voyage as a producer was beginning to look a lot more like the Titanic than the QE2.
Walking from the jetway into the gate area, Holly couldn't help but glance at the concrete post where she'd first seen Cal. Not that she expected him to be there this time, of course. Not that she even wanted him to be there. Still a little tic of disappointment pulled at her lips and she had to remind herself all over again just how angry she was at him for making her believe he cared about her when he was still obviously in love with his wife.
As she slogged to the car rental counter with her luggage, Holly kept waiting for the I Hate Texas, Anywhere But Here blues to hit her. But strangely enough, she didn't recoil a bit from the sight of Stetsons and string ties and Tony Lama boots. There was even something sweetly familiar and vaguely comforting about the y'alls and the yeps and nopes she picked up from passing conversations.
Much to her amazement, she didn't even want to slug the cowboy at the car rental counter when he smiled and said, “What can I do for you, little lady?”
Traffic was blessedly light and the closer she got to Honeycomb, the wider and more beautiful the sky became with long slashes of orange and brilliant pinks. She turned onto Main Street just in time to see the neon lights blink on at Ramon's and the numbers on the bank's thermometer dip from triple to double digits.
It was eerily like coming home.
And when Ellie Young came down her front porch steps and threw her big soft arms around her, Holly almost cried for joy. She'd never had a sister, but this was how she imagined it would be, coming home to one.
“Welcome, Holly. Welcome back. Lord, it's good to see you.”
“It's good to be here,” Holly said, realizing how sincerely she meant it as she tightened her embrace around the big woman. “It really is good to be back.”
“Lemme help you with these bags,” Ellie said, opening the back door of the car and hauling out a suitcase.
“I can't wait to see my old room,” Holly said.
“Oh. Well, now…” Ellie set the suitcase down on the driveway. Her welcoming smile turned sour and upside down. “We've got a couple little problems here.”
“Problems?”
“Uh…yeah. Seems I've got another guest, and she insisted on the Rose Room. Just wouldn't take no for an answer.”
“Oh.” Holly tried not to let her disappointment show. It was just a room, for heaven's sake. A room with memories she ought not to revisit. It was probably for the best, not seeing it again or sleeping in the bed where she'd slept with Cal. “That's okay, Ellie. Really. I don't mind so much. So who's this other guest?”
“Well, now, that's the other problem,” Ellie said.
“Excuse me?”
“It's Diana Griffin. Cal's wife.”
Chapter Eighteen
Early on the morning of the Fourth of July, not long after dawn, Cal opened his eyes. When he realized what day it was and how long this day threatened to be, he promptly closed his eyes again and tried to program himself back to sleep. He'd only slept a few hours the night before after driving back from Houston.
Special Agent in Charge Mike Squire was one of those dinosaurs who didn't believe in email, conference calls, or any other forms of twenty-first-century communication when it came to one of his operations. He wanted to be eyeball to eyeball with his men before a job went down, so Cal had had to return to the field office in Houston on the afternoon of the third to go over final instructions for the raid on Hec Garcia's print shop.
It was standard operating procedure to inform if not include local law enforcement, but given the rather parochial nature of Honeycomb's finest and considering the fact that Sheriff Bates was still on vacation in Alaska, it was decided to bypass the customary nod to the local authorities and to inform Deputy Jimmy Lee Terrell only after the operation had succeeded.
Which it would, Cal thought sleepily. Tonight at nine or so, right after the fireworks started at the high school, he and Agents Reed and McGovern would kick in the door of Ye Olde Print Shoppe, locate the stash of threaded paper plus any counterfeit bills that might be there, and then proceed to locate and arrest Hec. If it went according to plan—and Cal could see no reason why it shouldn't—the whole operation would be over before the final blast of fireworks blazed across the sky above the high-school football field.
He drew his forearm across his eyes to block out the rays of the rising sun coming through the parted curtains. His only concern about the upcoming operation was his own performance in it. He could actually feel a butterfly or two in his stomach, a sensation so alien to him that he wondered if maybe he wasn't coming down with a virus or food poisoning or something.
What the hell was he worried about? During his career in the Secret Service, he'd been in situations a hundred times more complicated and dangerous than what was going down tonight, and he'd never blinked so much as an eyelash beforehand.
When he'd worked undercover in Miami and it came time to make the bust on the heavily armed compo
und where the Colombians were cranking out credit cards as a little side business to the drugs, he hadn't thought twice about being the first guy over the fence and through the front door. Same for the bust on the Mob in Jersey in '99. He could list dozens of special ops that hadn't cost him the loss of a good night's sleep or a minute of anxiety.
Even when he was a kid, he never thought twice, much less once, about jumping into a fight or taking any sort of physical risk.
That was it, of course. He was thinking now, and not just twice, but over and over again, worrying himself sick. What if he forgot something or got confused tonight? What if his knee froze at a critical moment? What if he fucked up? What if he lost control of the situation, something he'd never ever done?
Get your mind on something else, Cal told himself. Think about sex. That was always a guaranteed distraction. Only now, in the past month, any thoughts he had of sex were no longer faceless or generic. They were of Holly. Her wild hair and her warm skin, the fragrance and taste of her, the way her supple little body conformed to his, and how their separate bodies had learned so quickly to give and take and blend into one single scorched and blissful being.
He couldn't think about sex without thinking about Holly. Maybe he'd never be able to separate the two. She had worked her way into his head as thoroughly as she'd worked her way into his heart. Damn her.
No way he could get back to sleep now. He levered up and swore out loud.
Holly was probably back in town now. He thought that Ellie said she expected her on the third. He'd be glad when all this fucking hero stuff was in his past.
“Cal?” his sister called from the other side of the door. “Are you awake? Can I come in?”
Ruthie barged through the door before he even had a chance to answer. She looked ticked, which seemed to be the way she greeted every day lately, but this morning she looked a bit more ticked than usual. She looked downright pissed.
“That woman's in town,” she said, crossing her arms as she stood at the foot of the open sofabed. “She had the nerve to come here, looking for you, but I wouldn't let her set one foot inside. I think she meant to stay here. Can you imagine that? Dooley drove her back to Ellie's place.”
Cal rubbed his eyes, then ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay. I'll take care of it. She's my problem, Ruthie, not yours.”
“I'll be so glad when you're done with her, Cal.”
“Yeah, well, it shouldn't take long. How much can they film in Honeycomb? A day or two and all this hero business will be over.”
“I figured that's why she was here. The bitch. Standing all sweetness and light at my front door, acting like she's family and trying to talk herself inside.”
“I'll take care of it,” he said again, surprised at the hostility Holly had evoked in his sister. It hadn't been a love match, but they'd seemed to get along well enough last month if he remembered correctly. Of course, remembering wasn't exactly his strong suit these days. “I thought you liked Holly,” he said.
“Holly who?” Ruth snapped.
For a second Cal wasn't certain they were engaged in the same conversation. Jesus. He half suspected that Ruthie was trying to gaslight him. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep that was scrambling his head so badly this morning. All of a sudden he couldn't even think of Holly's last name.
“Holly,” he said. “You know. The producer from New York. I thought you liked her.”
“I do,” Ruth said, shrugging. “Well enough, I guess. Why would you even ask?”
“Oh, I don't know. Calling her a bitch was a pretty good clue that…”
“I wasn't talking about Holly.” Ruth rolled her eyes heavenward while she clucked her tongue in supreme annoyance. “Judas Priest, Cal. I was talking about Diana.”
“Diana?” He sounded even more baffled than he felt, if that was possible. “My Diana?”
Ruth snorted. “Yeah. Your Diana. But not for long, I hope.”
Holly woke up early. Hells Bells, she'd hardly slept the night before what with listening for sounds coming from Diana Griffin's room. The fact that she didn't hear anything didn't mean there wasn't anything going on in there, though. She knew only too well how that big soft mattress on the antique walnut bed could muffle sounds of passion.
Oh, God. At least she hoped so, although it didn't make much difference now, she supposed. Ellie would have been the only one who'd heard them, and Holly doubted very much that her hostess was going to pass that juicy bit of gossip along to the woman who now resided in the Rose Room across the hall.
Holly remembered this room from her earlier stay, and she clearly remembered why she'd chosen the rose-papered suite over this one, with striped wallpaper throughout the room. The dark green stripes on the cream background would take a sickening pitch every few panels. It was particularly bad on the south wall, the one at which Holly was forced to stare as she lay sleepless in bed.
Even good old reliable Rufus had let her down last night. She couldn't summon up her cameraman no matter how hard she tried. Maybe he was on strike, she thought. Maybe he didn't want any part of this low-budget production for Hero Week. Hell, neither did she anymore.
Cal laid rubber pulling out of the driveway at Rancho Allegro and had the T-bird up to ninety in a matter of seconds, but the closer he got to town, the more he came off the accelerator. It had occurred to him that he should probably be heading in the other direction. Not toward Honeycomb, but away.
His suspicion was confirmed for him when he pulled into Ellie Young's driveway and saw her coming down the front steps with a look on her face that seemed to say “Well, you damned fool. Just what are you planning to do with these two females?”
He didn't have a clue.
“Morning, Cal,” Ellie called. “You're up early. Happy Independence Day!”
“Same to you,” he answered, getting out of the car and slamming the door.
Ellie wrapped her meaty arms around him, then stepped back, grinning up at him like a Cheshire cat who'd just swallowed Tweety Bird. “You're a mighty brave man, Calvin Griffin,” she said. “Which one did you come to see?”
He dragged in a breath. “My…”
Before the word wife was out of his mouth, his actual wife shot out of Ellie's front door. “Cal! Oh, God. Cal! Look at you! Just look at you!”
He probably did look different to her, he thought. The last time Diana had seen him he was in the hospital, horizontal and semi-conscious. She, on the other hand, looked pretty much the same—thin as a rib of celery, with her mane of honey blond hair and her makeup already in place at seven-thirty in the morning. But why he'd ever considered her beautiful was beyond him now.
When she hugged him, Cal was nearly overcome by fumes of Fendi. Her signature fragrance always smelled more like insecticide to him than expensive perfume.
“Sweetheart,” she cooed against his ear. “Oh, God, you look wonderful. Sexier than ever, I must say. And what a darling car. It's a Thunderbird, right? Is it yours? I just adore it.”
Christ. Had she always spoken this way? Like a human Gatling gun? Cal didn't know how to respond or what to respond to, so he just ignored everything she'd said and asked, “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No,” she exclaimed. “That would be lovely. Do I need to change?”
He stepped back a foot or so to take her in, from the tips of her lizard boots, past the designer concha belt circling her waist, to the massive chunks of turquoise strung around her wrists and neck.
“No need to change. You look very…um…western.”
“Oh, good. That was the look I was going for. Where shall we go for breakfast?”
Ellie, who had been viewing this spectacle from the other side of the T-bird, piped up. “Take her to the Longhorn, Cal. She'll like that. It's real…um…western.”
“The Longhorn,” Diana chirped. “Oh, I love that. You know Honeyville isn't at all what I expected. Well, how do we get to this Longhorn place? Do we walk? Drive? What?”
“L
et's walk,” Cal said.
“All right. Let's do. Oh, but wait, sweetheart. Why don't we invite your producer to come along with us? I'm just dying to meet her. We've spoken on the phone, of course. I gave her some terrific ideas. Let's invite her, shall we?”
While Cal stood there dumb as a post, Ellie picked up the conversational slack. “I don't think Holly's up yet,” she said.
“Yes, she is. I heard her in the shower before I came downstairs. I'll just run back up and ask her about breakfast.”
Diana disappeared as quickly as she'd appeared, leaving Cal and Ellie staring at each other across the hood of the car.
“You could leave right now,” she said, doing her best to suppress a pretty nasty grin. “I surely wouldn't blame you.”
“Well, I would leave, Ellie,” he drawled, “but then they'd have to put me on Coward Week, wouldn't they?”
“Good luck,” she said, then shook her head and added, “You know, I can't for the life of me picture you married to that woman.”
“Neither can I, Ellie.” He sighed. “Neither can I.”
How did she get here? Holly wondered bleakly as she sat across from Cal in a back booth at the Longhorn Café. How could this be happening?
That woman. Diana the Huntress. Diana the Harpy. The Devil Woman. She was part bulldozer, part pit bull, and all Harper's Bazaar with her Size 2 designer jeans, a half ton of gorgeous turquoise jewelry, and her obscenely long, blood red acrylic talons. She had barged into Holly's room without knocking, introduced herself as Mrs. Calvin Griffin and then intoned, “You must join us for breakfast. I absolutely insist.” She was so insistent that Holly finally agreed to meet them at the Longhorn just to get rid of her.
So here she was in a rear booth at the Longhorn, across from Cal, alone with him because as soon as she'd arrived, Diana had looked at her turquoise beaded watch, realized it was nine o'clock in Washington, and had rushed outside in order to make a “crucial” call to somebody on her cell phone.
