Born to Be Wild (22 page)

Jack twisted in the air to land on his side and rolled. He lay on his back and mentally checked his parts. Fine, he was fine, nothing broken or maimed. But still, it was probably wise to lie here for a little while, breathe in the nice ocean air, clear his head, like that was possible, curse her. He cocked an eye open to see Mary Lisa standing over him, hands on her hips. “Are you all right?” She smacked her palm to her forehead. “Of course you are, you're indestructible. If a missile brought you down, you'd chew on it like a cigar, and jump up again. Isn't that right?” She kicked a clot of sand on him. “Don't you pay attention to where you're running?”

He didn't say anything, just lay on his back watching the moonlight play over her face and streak through her red hair, most of it free of her ponytail, curling wildly around her face. Then he closed his eyes.

“You aren't hurt, are you?” She fell on her knees beside him and slapped his face, not all that lightly. “Come on, stop faking. You're as bad as Puker. Open your eyes. Tell me I'm an idiot again. Give me more orders, you do that so well. Open your eyes, or at least wiggle a finger.”

He opened his eyes again and grinned up at her. Then he started laughing, so hard he nearly choked himself. “I can't believe you came dancing back to the big bad man. Not smart, but then you've loaned your brain out, haven't you?” Fast as a snake, he grabbed her arms and pulled her down on top of him.

He was aware in a sliver of his brain that there wasn't any more laughter or hoots or advice coming from the back deck of Mary Lisa's house. There was nothing but silence, the sound of the waves breaking gently onto the sand maybe three feet from his head, and the moonlight splashing down, haloing Mary Lisa's head.

She pushed up on her elbows and stared down at him. “When you first came to Goddard Bay, we used to call you the Big Bad Wolf. You were always strutting around, looking all sorts of tough and hard, a real chick magnet, the Big Bad Chief of Police. I know, it's not very original, but there you have it.”

“Strutting around?” He grabbed her hair and pulled her face down to his. She stretched out on top of him and felt her nerve endings hum, knew her blood was flowing through her thick, heavy and sweet. She felt wonderful and wanted more.

Suddenly, she jerked back. “Good grief, this is nuts. What are we doing? You've come to L.A. and, look at me—lying on top of you and I'm not all that eager to move and that really should bother me, on some level.”

He laughed. “What level is that?” He lightly chopped her elbows to land her back on top of him. He put his hands in her hair, pulling her down, and it wasn't much of a pull because she wanted it too, wanted to feel him against her again, maybe even wanted the waves to flow gently over her toes, make them sizzle, she was that hot.

She pulled away again, and said close to his face, “You know this is crazy. You don't even like me. And you know what else? I haven't decided if I really like you either.”

“Now, that's good to hear.” And he began kissing her again, and his hands molded on her hips and he was moving her against him, slow, then faster. He pulled forward, then back, and Mary Lisa couldn't believe the wild urgency roaring through her. She pressed down against him as much as he let her, felt the hard slide through his jeans, felt his hands raising her away, driving her mad, then pushing her hard against him again.

She came, fast and hard and loud. He grabbed the back of her head with one hand and kissed her hard, taking her hoarse cries into his mouth. He was so close himself, he was heaving with it, nearly bursting, but—

“Oh my,” she whispered into his mouth, beyond herself. “Oh my.”

“Yes,” he said, and he kept kissing her, both hands molding her hips now, pressing her against him, for him this time, not her. But he had to stop, knew it, or he'd come too, and that wouldn't be smart—

They both froze at the voice filled with irony, a familiar voice, way too familiar. Mary Lisa twisted to look up into John Goddard's face. She felt dazed, limp, incredibly energized, all at the same time, and she felt every hard square inch of Jack's body beneath her and never wanted to move.

“Well, John,” she said, pleased she could talk, quite relieved that she sounded all sorts of normal, “if this doesn't beat all.”

And he knew, of course, from those vague eyes of hers, the flush that he could see in the moonlight, the pain on Jack's face, knew exactly what had happened. “I was thinking along similar lines myself.”

Jack let her go. He wanted to curse and weep with the loss of her against him, the deep ache in his groin. She climbed to her feet, straightened her clothes, slapping off the sand, and grinned at him. “Well, hello, John. Long time no see. You know this big guy sprawled down there, grinning like a fool? Well, he's not really grinning, is he?”

“Hi, Mary Lisa. Yeah, I know this guy. My question is what are you doing lying on top of him on the beach?”

“I was running away from him, and he caught me. He was pissed because I did something useful.”

Jack shook himself, got slowly to his feet, tested out that all his moving parts were, thankfully, in good working order. “Actually I was pissed because she stole my line.” He managed to grin now, and buffeted John Goddard's shoulder with a good deal of strength, a guy greeting, which, in Mary Lisa's study of life and men, could mean best friends or worst enemies—but guys. “Hey, Pitty Pat, what brings you down to this neck of the woods?”

“As in here on the beach, watching you trying to get your tongue down Mary Lisa's throat?”

Jack thought about how very fine it had felt, how incredible it had felt when she came and shuddered and quaked and he'd felt every quiver, tasted every moan out of her beautiful mouth, and slowly he nodded. “Yeah, I guess that's about right.”

Mary Lisa smacked Jack's arm. “Talk about unprofessional. Well, you hardly did anything that I noticed all that much. Well, maybe some things, but—so, what are you doing here, Pitty—John?”

“So he told you he calls me Pitty Pat?”

“Yeah, I did. I also told her you call me the Goon Leader.”

“I want to know what Pitty Pat means.”

John shook his head. “Not in this lifetime. I flew down here this afternoon for an overnighter, to see how you are, see what Jack here has accomplished. Apart from getting you on top of him on the beach, of course, and—well, never mind that. Your father sends his love, practically ordered me down here since you won't let him come down himself.”

“That was very nice of you, John. I really should call my father. We have some good news for him. The guy's gone, left L.A.”

Jack looked at her like she'd lost her mind.

“What?” Mary Lisa turned on him, hands on her hips. “Why are you looking at me like I'm the village idiot?”

Jack loooked her straight in the eye. “Stop trying to pretend everything's okay now. You don't really believe that guy's gone any more than I do, any more than Daniel does. The tide's coming in. I need to get my stuff before the water does. Then let's go back to the house. John needs to hear what's going on.”

John looked more bemused than pissed, Mary Lisa thought as they walked back to the house, which relieved her greatly. John said, “I've heard bits and pieces from Lou Lou and Daniel already, and this old guy, Carlo, offered to give me surfing lessons.”

Mary Lisa rolled her eyes. “You already met Lou Lou and Daniel? And made friends with Carlo? How long have you been here, John?”

“Not that long. I was watching with the rest of your friends from your back deck when Goon Leader here tried to catch you. You looked really graceful, Jack, going airborne like that. Like a ballerina, and you landed soft and rolled. That was well done. Oh, by the way, there are a lot of gorgeous women in your house, Mary Lisa.”

“All Jack lacked was a tutu when he did his grand jeté. Yeah, this place is loaded with both gorgeous guys and girls.”

Jack grinned at her as he rubbed his left shoulder, rotated it a bit. “Did you see Little Miss Ego come flitting back because she thought I was mortally wounded?”

“Little Miss what? Ego? You call
me
Little Miss Ego?” She'd watched Chico do it a dozen times, and she'd tried it twice as often herself that afternoon. She presented her side, rose onto her toes, and lashed out at his side with her left leg. It wasn't badly done, but she held back a bit because, she supposed, her insides still felt so gooey and fluid, and Jack grabbed her ankle before it landed in his belly and flipped her. She went down, and he snagged her wrist to pull her up again. He stared down at her. “So that's why you had such bad muscle cramps on Friday. Some martial arts instructor has been beating the crap out of you.”

She'd lost her kicking shoe. She jerked away from him, picked it up and shook it at him. “Next time I won't hold back, Jack Wolf. Next time I might get you but good.”

“Why were you holding back?”

His voice was sexy and deep and she wanted to jump on him and kiss his face off and kick him at the same time, the jerk, but all she could do was stand there, without a word to say, because John was standing only two feet away, watching them.

John said, his head cocked to one side, understanding in his eyes, “Er, can we go back to your house now, Mary Lisa? Jack, you'd best move fast and rescue your boots before the waves drown them. You need any help, old man?”

Jack laughed at that.

“What's this? That wasn't all that funny, Jack. Why are you encouraging him?”

“An old joke,” Jack said.

“I'm one month older than Goon Leader,” John said.

“It still wasn't very funny,” Mary Lisa said; she turned and began to walk back up the beach and paused to pick up Jack's boots. He saw them in her hand as she began trotting toward the surf, whistling.

“No!” He stopped between her and the water, panting, his arms out, like a basketball guard. “No, not my boots. Please, Mary Lisa, they're new.”

“They're beautiful. I wouldn't hurt them. You, however, are another matter entirely, but I guess that will have to be later.” She laughed, dropped his boots on dry sand, and ran back to her house, up the deck steps to her friends.

BORN TO BE WILD

Sunday Cavendish faces the man who's her father. She studies him, says slowly, “You're even more impressive in person than on TV.”

Phillip Galliard, in his fifties, tall, with silver wings in his dark hair and Sunday's blue eyes, is immaculately dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and black shoes. He inclines his head toward her. “Thank you.”

Sunday looks around his lavish office. “You're certainly not a monk, are you?”

“No, not in any sense. This, though,” he says, waving his arms around the office, “is for show. People expect it. Years ago, my office, my home, my car reflected my own tastes—functional and spare are good words, I suppose. I never had a thought for anything outside of God's works. I was what I was and I didn't think it could matter. But it did. My staid surroundings did not go over well. People who wanted to believe what I preached also wanted me to be different from them somehow. They wanted to see me as special and so my surroundings had to be special—I suppose few in the modern world want to follow a man who looks like a beggar. I learned that the TV people, all the sponsors who make my work possible, wanted the trappings even more than my followers did. They wanted glamour and obvious signs of wealth. I think they were right—my audience grew, and it helped people to believe me, entrust their money to me.”

She wants to smile, but holds it in. He's charming, she recognizes it, but she's not about to let him see that. “You know my mother never told me about you.”

“I'm not surprised. She told me she wouldn't.”

“Look, I don't know you. Why, all of a sudden, do you want to know me?”

“Well, now, that's a long story…”

He looks at her, his expression troubled—

“Clear!”

The shine was off Norman's face three minutes later when Todd Bickly, the stage manager, shouted, “Okay, go!”

Sunday gives her father a sneer. “A long story? As in complicated? It seems simple enough to me. You decide you don't want me and Mom, and you leave. She never wants to see you again, understandable after you cut out on us. You never contact us. She remarries and I have a step-father, not much of one, but at least he was there, at least until we got rid of him.”

“You mean after he tried to molest your half sister.”

“All he did was try.” She waves her hand at him. “Now that I'm grown, I'm successful, I've got money, you suddenly pop into Los Angeles, announce to my mother that you're back, and you want to see me. I've been thinking about why you'd do that, Mr. Galliard. I've decided all this display of wealth is a sham. You need money, don't you?”

Her father walks behind his desk, picks up a glass, and pours water into it from a crystal carafe. He drinks deeply, sets down the glass. He turns to face her. “You look like me. I've watched you over the years, Sunday, seen your photos in European magazines, read in the business sections of newspapers about how you're running a huge corporation. You fascinate people, you know—you're so very young, and yet you've managed to squeeze both your mother and your half sister off the board, you even landed one of your mother's lovers in jail when he tried to hurt her. You're on top now. You're so very young and yet you're on top of everything.”

Sunday laughs. “I guess my mother didn't tell you about her latest attempt to ruin me, to climb back to control the board with my half sister at her side, did she?”

“No, she'd hardly tell me that, would she? What did she do?”

“She bribed one of my staff to drug me, and had me carried to a sleazy motel where she arranged for some mob guy to be staying. When the press got there, it looked like I was shacking up with a lowlife right out of
Pulp Fiction
. She wanted the board of directors to turn leadership back over to her. Susan would have been her CEO.”

“That couldn't have been pleasant for you.”

“I won't forget that headache for a long time, that's for sure. As for the rest—” Sunday shrugs and gives him a cold smile. “It's the cost of doing business with the likes of my mother.”

“You're making light of it, but it was an evil thing for her to do.”

Sunday shrugs again, looks bored. “You married her. You must have guessed what she was capable of.”

He shakes his head. “Not really. She was young then, so full of possibilities.”

“Maybe she wouldn't have become what she is if you hadn't run out on us. Maybe if you'd stayed married, I wouldn't have a half sister who'd shoot me if she had the guts.”

He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn't, only shakes his head.

“And you want to know what else,
Reverend
Galliard? For revenge against my half sister, I was thinking about sleeping with her husband, a real winner, that guy. Would that have sent me right to hell?” She gives him a patently false smile. “I was going to cut him off at the knees, of course, once I was done with him. But then you came along. You saved me from wasting my time on him.”

She stops, stares at him. “I can't believe what just came out of my mouth. You're good, you know that? You're really good. A preacher, a shrink—you're good at both.”

He looks at her steadily. “Maybe you feel on a gut level that you can trust me. No, don't say you'd rather trust the devil. I hope to show you it's true.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I don't even know you.”

“I never wanted to leave you, Sunday, never, but—”

“Yes, there's always a ‘but,' isn't there? You know what, Reverend Galliard? I don't want to hear it, although I'm willing to bet your delivery would be worthy of you.” She waves her hand around his office. “I bet you've come to love your trappings and your Italian loafers. I'll bet you'd do anything before you gave them up. Good luck saving all those souls in exchange for their worldly goods.”

She flicks a finger at his suit. “Versace, right?” She turns on her three-inch black heels and walks out.

He doesn't move, stands staring after her—

“Clear! Good scene, Norman, Mary Lisa. Just great. You're on again right after lunch, Norman.”

Clyde came bounding onto the set. “Not bad, guys. We're off to a good start. I gotta tell you I wasn't sure when Bernie sold me this story line. But it's going to grab our viewers. And it's completely fresh, we'll be working it for months.”

Mary Lisa patted his arm. “I'm glad you're pleased, Clyde. So am I.”

Clyde was already trotting back to the booth where the director stood watching them, toasting them with his cup of black coffee.

“The powers that be are happy. Good for us.” Mary Lisa smiled at Norman Gellis, newly arrived to play her father from
ATWT
—
As the World Turns
—and patted his arm. “Welcome aboard.” What an incestuous business the soaps were. Norman had run out of enthusiasm for his character on
ATWT
and so they'd killed him off, shot by his jealous wife when he'd come home from a hunting trip late at night. Mary Lisa thought Norman Gellis was perfect for the role of Reverend Phillip Galliard, Sunday's long-absent father. He was an experienced, accomplished actor, and he'd played off her very well in their initial scene. Amazingly, his eyes were nearly the same color as hers, and she actually resembled him quite a bit. Was it all a coincidence, or had the producers planned to bring him over all along?