Burning Up (15 page)

Screams from the Loop-o-plane and Scrambler on the other side of the midway floated on the air, and her stomach growled when she caught a whiff of cinnamon sugar from the elephant-ear booth. “Man, I just realized I’m really hungr—”

“How ’bout getting some
real
action going in that tank,” a loud voice suddenly demanded. “Let’s see the MTV diva perch her little butt up there.” Macy sighed.
Congratulated yourself too soon, didn’t you, girl.
Andrew Mayfield and a few of his coterie, including—oh, goody—Liz Picket-Smith, had muscled their way to the front of the line.

Jack started to rise, but she put a hand on his arm to stay him. “Ooh,” she said, giving Andrew a big-eyed look. “You think my butt is
little?
”

The crowd laughed.

Scowling, he yanked a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and slapped it down on the countertop. “You’d be happy to accommodate me, I’m sure. Because this
is
for charity isn’t it?”

Gabe caught the belligerent tone and looked over to see the same joker Angelini had chased away from Macy’s table that night at the Red Dog. “Shit.” Hauling the suspenders to his turnout pants up over his bare shoulders, he strode over to the booth. “We got a problem here?”

“No problem,” the man snapped. “I’ve got a hundred bucks here for the fire department’s cause. Just give me that bucket of balls over there and keep ’em coming. But I want
her
up there on the platform.”

“She volunteered her time, Mr.—”

“Mayfield. Andrew Mayfield.”

He said it as if Gabe should know his name. And Gabe had heard the name somewhere, but couldn’t quite put a—aw, balls. Bud had mentioned it the night of Lenore’s impromptu dinner following Ty’s baseball game. He’d asked that Adam guy something about being one of those fools who’d believed Mayfield’s lies back in high school. What the hell kind of history did Macy have with this jerk, anyhow?

Not having time to ferret out an answer, he shoved the question aside. “Mr. Mayfield, Ms. O’James volunteered her time to work the booth. She didn’t sign up for the tank.”

Rising to her feet, Macy essayed a delicate shrug.
“I’ll do it.” She winked at the crowd. “Some guys just gotta get their kicks where they can, ya know?”

Gabe swore to himself, but signaled Johnson over to take her place at the booth. “You sure?” he asked in a low voice as he escorted her to the tank.

“No. But what’s the worst he can do—get me wet? And like the man said, it’s for charity. I will give you my snood to hold, though.” She reached back to unhook the combs of the short black band that anchored the fishnet bag holding her hair. She handed it to him. “It’ll never be the same if it gets soaked.” Then she kicked off her shoes, climbed into the tank and perched on the platform. Crossing her legs, she struck a pose, grinning at the crowd when they cheered.

A softball hit the target and dropped her in the tank.

Surfacing a second later, she tossed her hair, which had lost its forties style, out of her eyes. “Good aim,” she said dryly, and climbed back onto the platform.

She’d barely sat before a second ball hit the release trigger and dropped her back into the tank.

And so it went until the bucket was over half-empty. No sooner did she regain her seat than Mayfield knocked her back into the tank. Her clothes dripped and clung and her face began to grow pale beneath its light tan, but she continued to smile and toss off one-liners, talking to the crowd, ignoring Mayfield.

And except for one time when she said, “Here,
I’m sure his pitching arm can use a rest,” and did a cannonball from the ladder into the tank, she kept climbing back up onto the platform.

A couple of direct hits later, Gabe was stone-faced and feeling grim. He was ready, in fact, to go stuff the remaining balls up the guy’s ass. Holding on to his composure, however, he strode over to Mayfield but merely picked the bucket up and handed it off to his closest crew member.

“Hey!” Mayfield protested.

“Fun’s over,” Gabe informed him flatly.

“Yeah, buddy, Jesus,” a nearby spectator muttered.

“What a jerk,” said somebody else.

“Jerk, hell. Guy’s an asshole.”

“What is the matter with you?” a woman said indignantly, stepping forward to speak directly to Mayfield.

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” someone called from farther back in the crowd. “Ms. O’James was right—the guy
does
have to buy his thrills.”

“By abusing women?” another demanded.

Mayfield whirled around. “What are you talking about, abusing?” he snapped. “I’m playing the same game the rest of you have been playing.”

Gabe gave him a hard stare. “Everyone else has been playing in the spirit of fun. They haven’t continuously knocked their target into the tank before she can even regain her seat from the
last
time she was knocked in. I don’t know what your problem is,
but there’s nothing fun-minded about what you’re doing here.” He looked at Solberg, who was holding the bucket of balls. “Tally up what’s left in there. We’ll refund Mr. Mayfield for his unused balls.”

“That’d pretty much be the two he’s packin’ in his pants, Chief,” a male in the crowd drawled.

“Keep the money.” Red-faced, Mayfield about-faced and shouldered his way through the crowd. His posse, Gabe noticed, had already melted away when it became apparent that no one else was finding Macy’s predicament as amusing as they did.

He went over to the tank where Kirschner was helping her out. Grabbing a towel he looped it around her shoulders and looked down at her. “You okay?”

Bringing the towel up from her shoulders, she bent to wrap it turban-style around her hair. There were shadows in her eyes when she came upright once again, but she met his gaze, raised her chin and gave him a cocky smile that probably only he, standing so close, could tell cost her.

“Of course,” she said, and shrugged. “Great day for a dip.”

O
KAY, THIS IS GETTING OLD
.
Gabe stalked over to Savage’s Airstream the next morning but didn’t pound on the door as his impulse urged. Because that would be fricking nuts. Man, what was it about Macy, anyway, that turned him into a… Hell, he didn’t even know what to call the behavior he’d been displaying ever since clapping eyes on her. But it felt dangerously like his teenage self, and if he was smart he’d turn right around and get the hell away instead of chasing after her like a randy seventeen-year-old.

Currently, however, intelligence didn’t rank right up there on his atta-boy meter. But he did knock on the lintel like the grown-up he was when Macy wasn’t part of the equation. Melodic acoustic guitar drifted through the screened door.

“It’s open,” the Irishman said from the dimness within and continued playing. He looked up as Gabe opened the screen and entered the compact trailer. “Hey,” he said, setting aside his guitar. “Do you believe that mentaller yesterday? A bigger bollox never put his arm through a coat.” Waving a hand toward the galley, he offered Gabe a cup of coffee, then returned to his topic when it was refused. “Bloody good
thing you stepped in when you did, Chief, because I was seconds from belting that ball-bag.”

“I have a feeling we would have had people lining up for the opportunity to beat the crap out of him if we’d let them. The guy was an ass.”

Jack’s face went grim. “You don’t know the half of it, mate.”

No, he probably didn’t, which didn’t exactly improve his mood. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You know where Macy is?”

“I think she took the boys to the baths.”

He had to think about that for a second. “The pool, you mean?”

“Yeah.” His brow furrowed. “Or, no, wait, that’s tomorrow. Today she’s headed over to check out a place she wants to use for the kickoff video for Aussie’s
Vitamin G
album.” He shot Gabe a wry smile. “I don’t know how she does it, man. When we first sat down to talk about the video, I was locked on the title song for our first release. Then before I know it, instead of making ‘G’ a bleedin’ deadly drinking song if I do say so myself, she’s got me talked ’round to making ‘Yesterday’s Gone.’ That song’s a departure for us—less rock, more…well, not country, exactly, but a story ballad, y’know? I sure as shite never considered it for the launch song. Macy, though, she’s got this grand way of visualizing exactly how a song should look on video, and I’m telling you, if we pull off feckin’
half
of what she envisions, it’s going to be powerful.”

Gabe knew he should care, but he was back to itching to run her to ground. “So where is this place?”

“Got me.” Jack shrugged, picking up his guitar again. “She called it the old—what the hell was it? The Klemp—the Klim—”

“The old Kilimner place?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Jesus, the joint’s about one hot breath from falling down. She shouldn’t be anywhere near it.”

“Then you’d best go rescue her before she gets hurt, hadn’t you?” Jack gave him a knowing smile and laughed when Gabe immediately turned on his heel and headed for the door.

Gabe heard him pick up the music where he’d left off before the screen door even slapped shut behind him.

Twenty Minutes Earlier

M
ACY HIKED ACROSS
two sagebrush-dotted fallow fields to reach the old Kilimner place. She’d borrowed Ty’s backpack to carry her water bottle, digital recorder and a notebook, sketch pad and pencils.

Driving would have been faster, but it felt good to stretch her legs in the fresh air before moderate morning temps gave way to the less-forgiving afternoon heat. She loved the warmth of the sun on her shoulders. And the scent of the rolling wheat fields paralleling the ones she trekked, with their combined aromas of the shorn summer stubble and the green
haze of barely sprouted winter wheat, had her drawing in deep, appreciative breaths.

It occurred to her that she hadn’t missed L.A. once since she’d come home.

Maybe because, despite her last two years of high school, this
was
home to her. If someone had suggested that when she’d first come back she probably would’ve laughed in their face. But as long as Uncle Bud and Auntie Lenore lived here, it would likely always represent love, safety and stability to her.

Not that she regretted the time spent away. She’d made a good life for herself in California. L.A. was everything Sugarville wasn’t—something she’d particularly appreciated as a young adult. She’d grown into a person she could be proud of there.

But until this summer she hadn’t realized that she’d never quite felt the same connection to it that she did to this sleepy little farming community.

That had been driven home yesterday in the midst of being continuously knocked into the tank. Andrew had done his damnedest to make her feel small or inferior, or whatever it was he’d intended—and to a degree he had succeeded. The sheer rapidity of being dumped in the water over and over again had shaken her right down to her foundation. It had literally stripped her of her armor and left her feeling naked and exposed. At first it was only sheer contrariness that had kept her climbing back onto that platform when she’d known damn well that she’d be knocked right off it again.

But before Gabe had put an end to the dunk-o-rama, she’d begun to catch glimpses of the crowd. And she’d noticed that no one except Mayfield’s usual Idiot Brigade appeared amused by her predicament. They’d looked, in fact, royally pissed on her behalf, an impression that had proven true the minute Gabe commandeered Mayfield’s bucket of ammo. Then, when she’d returned to the booth, dozens of people had gone out of their way to be neighborly. Several former classmates had been in the throng and all except one had mentioned the reunion, going out of their way to say they hoped to see her there.

Maybe she should reconsider her stance against going to the damn thing.

The wind was beginning to kick up when she cleared a slight rise and found herself almost to the Kilimner place. She got her first good look at it.

“Crap,” she muttered, discouraged by its condition. It was much more dilapidated than the last time she’d seen it.

A self-deprecatory laugh escaped her. Because big surprise, considering how many years ago that had been. All the same it was disappointing. She was looking for a run-down farmhouse for Jack’s video, not a place this far gone.

Hoping the interior might be more usable than its exterior, she climbed two steps to the creaky front porch. When she found the door unlocked, she pushed it open, laughing when it groaned like a cheesy sound track in a bad horror flick.

She stepped inside, sneezing at the cloud of dust she raised. In the bright wash of sunlight that poured through the open doorway and murkier light filtering through grime-encrusted windows, she gazed around.

It actually was in better condition inside than out. And maybe…just maybe—

She pulled out her recorder and notated possibilities as she subjected the first floor to a thorough, inch-by-inch inspection. When she reached the door to the cellar, she opened it but couldn’t bring herself to go down the dark steps. It wasn’t as if she were a big ’fraidy cat or anything, she assured herself. The cellar simply contained nothing she’d need for the video. Then she grinned and turned back to the kitchen.

Because a scaredy-cat was exactly what she was when it came to spider-infested cellars.

A spot in the kitchen floor felt spongy beneath her left foot and she was squatting to examine the entire surface for its ability to bear weight when the front door suddenly slammed. “Hello?” She surged to her feet, her heart thumping in her chest. “Is anyone there?”

No one answered, and the porch boards didn’t give the telltale squeak she’d heard when she’d crossed them. Blowing out a breath, she gave her shoulders an impatient hitch. It was probably just the wind.

All the same, she went over, reopened the door and poked her head out. No one was in sight, and
the overgrown drive showed no signs that a car had recently been anywhere near it. Besides, what were the odds that two people would choose the exact same time to hike to the same dilapidated old building? Zippo, that’s what.

Shrugging aside the slight uneasiness that remained despite her logic, she went upstairs to check out the second floor.

The doorknob to the front bedroom twisted loosely beneath her hand, and she had to press it in and jiggle it a couple times before it finally engaged. Stepping into the room, she gave it a quick inspection.

And decided that while the farmhouse interior could be made to work with a great deal of elbow grease, why bother? She’d thought if this one turned out to be just right, it would be cheap and convenient for her friend. But the convenience factor went down the tubes if Production needed to find another place for the exteriors she envisioned, so they might as well look for everything they needed in one package. It would save a lot of time and energy for everyone.

Decision made, she left the room, but then paused as she smelled an acrid, smoky scent on the air. Going back in, she crossed to the window and pushed aside the grimy sheer, disturbing more dust in the process. Boards filled the glass-free expanse but were separated from each other by a couple of inches, and peering through a gap, she didn’t see anything that posed a threat. She hoped, however, that a neighbor
ing field wasn’t on fire. It had been so god-awful dry this summer.

Behind her the bedroom door banged shut. “Oh, for God’s sake!” she snapped, wondering where this sudden spate of poltergeist slammings was coming from. She tried to remember if she’d closed the kitchen door to the cellar but couldn’t recall.

Pulling off Ty’s pack, she retrieved her water bottle and knocked back a long gulp to wash the farmhouse’s dust from her throat. Then she capped the bottle, shoved it back into the bag’s outside mesh pocket and, swinging the pack onto her back, strode over to the door. It was time to go; her concept was a good one, but this wasn’t the place she was seeking. Reaching out, she twisted the knob.

“What the—?” She turned it harder. But it merely rattled on the rod connecting it to the knob on the other side and turned loosely beneath her grip. She tried the same press and jiggle that had gained her admission into the room.

And still it didn’t open.

“Okay. Deep breath here.” Maybe she’d turned it the wrong way. Trying it in the other direction she discovered that wasn’t the case. So, all right. Not far enough in the original direction, then.

But although the knob turned it didn’t seem to be operating the latch, and she gave it an impatient yank.

It came off in her hand, its twin hitting the floor on the other side.

“Crap!”
Now what, genius?
Whirling around, she paced over to the window, then back to the door again, where she squatted to see if there was a way to jam the rod in there and somehow jury-rig it to work long enough to get her out of this room.

There wasn’t, or at least nothing that occurred to her. Rising, she stalked away again, then stopped in the middle of the room, breathing hard, and tried to think.

Fine, then. She turned back to eye the hinges on the door. Going up on her toes, she grasped the balled head of the pin and tried to rock it free of the metal loops holding it.

“Damn!” Although rusty, it was solidly lodged, and without tools her odds of prying it out were slim.

She blew out a breath. Her odds were worse than slim. They were
zero.

As she’d noted with the other interior doors, however, the paneling was flimsy. Maybe she could kick a hole in it big enough to climb through. She studied it. It really didn’t look very substantial.

She could do this—so what if she’d never tried anything like it before? Grace had said that night at the bar that if Mattel made a doll, Macy’s would be an action figure. So it was time to actually do something to earn the grade-school teacher’s admiration.

She stepped back. Shook out her hands. Then, hoping to hell she didn’t break her foot, she braced herself and took a deep, calming breath.

And coughed.

Looking down, her heart slammed against the wall of her chest. “Omigawd. Oh. My.
Gawd!
”

Curls of smoke wafted along the door’s bottom edge, wisps drifting into the room.

“Shit!” Going over, she reached out to touch the wooden panel with the vague intention of getting an idea how near the threat was to the room holding her captive. But every time she tentatively extended her fingers to the door’s surface, she snatched them back before she could bring herself to touch it. Finally mustering the courage, she slapped her palm against the door…then blew out a relieved breath when she didn’t recoil from a hot surface.

That had to be a good thing, right?

So what now? Even if she could open the door to assess the situation she probably shouldn’t, since all she could think of was some movie she’d once seen where opening a door had caused a big, hurking ball of fire to roar into the room, incinerating everything in its path.

She could hear the faraway crackle of the fire now, and seeing smoke begin to roll more thickly beneath the door, she raced across the room to rip the sheers from both windows. Coughing on a combination of dust and smoke, she rolled them up and squatted to stuff them in the crack between the bottom of the door and the threshold. Smoke then curled through the hole where the doorknob was supposed to be, and she removed her bra. Compressing the underwiring,
she fit it into the opening, then wadded the delicate lace band and straps around it until the space was stuffed.

She drew another relieved breath when the smoke’s entry into the room began to slow. Going back to the windows, she sucked a big gulp of clear country air deep into her lungs, then wedged her fingers into the space between two of the boards and tugged with all her might. When she stepped back a few moments later, her heart pounding and her arms hanging limply by her sides, the board hadn’t budged so much as a centimeter. She’d managed to make the nails that held it in place creak slightly, but all she really had to show for her efforts was a broken nail and filthy hands.