by Jackie Black
THE VIXEN'S KISS
Jackie Black
Contents
Title
Contents
Excerpt
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Copyright
“YOU’RE GIVING ME DOUBLE MESSAGES,” SONNY SAID GRIMLY.
“Which do you want me to believe, Lissa? Your words when you tell me you don’t want to be involved, or the way you respond when I touch you?”
“Sonny, I admit that when you kiss me I go a little crazy. But there are reasons . . She caught herself and looked away guiltily.
“I’d like to hear those reasons,” he said quietly. “I’d like to know what’s more important than what happens when we touch.”
“I can’t explain!”
“Lissa ... is there someone else?”
“No!” she burst out, much too quickly to sound convincing. Sonny sat back and looked at her in silence. Lissa knew she had hurt him. But surely it was better if Sonny thought there was another man in her life. Then he would never need to know the true secret she was keeping . . .
Chapter One
Amid the usual cacophony backstage, Elizabeth Farrell sat in front of a cracked mirror carefully smoothing white makeup over her face while she mentally went over a catechism of chemical formulas she was determined not to let slip from her memory.
“Five minutes, Lissa!” Jay Baker reminded her as he reached behind her to grab a purple feather boa she’d promised him he could borrow for that evening’s show.
Elizabeth nodded absently as she picked up a black eyeliner pencil and began to outline her huge violet eyes in a bold, garish design that Jay paused a second behind her to admire in the mirror.
“Far out!” he said with a grin. “What color wig are you going to wear with that getup you’ve got on?”
“The orange one,” Elizabeth answered, frowning slightly at having to break her concentration in order to answer the irrepressible Jay.
“Exquisite!” Jay brought his long, graceful fingers, the nails of which were longer than Elizabeth’s and painted purple to match the boa he’d borrowed, to his mouth and kissed the tips of them before flinging the imaginary caress in Elizabeth’s direction. “You’ll knock ’em dead!”
“Uh-huh,” Elizabeth again answered absently, and as Jay glided away, she resumed her mental exercises while she deftly finished applying the makeup which concealed her delicate, patrician features from the crowds of people who attended the Freaky Foursome concerts.
Finished with a minute to spare, Elizabeth stood up and gave her outlandish costume a last glance in the mirror before she grabbed up her tambourine and hurried to join the other three members of the Freaky Foursome—her brother, Danny, and his two lifelong friends, Jay Baker and Jerry Madison—at the entrance to the stage.
Danny turned and inspected his sister with a frown. “You’re cutting it too close, sis,” he whispered hurriedly, barely audible to Elizabeth over the introductory remarks of the show’s host. “I know this is a charity gig, but that’s no excuse.”
Elizabeth gave her brother a level look, reminding him silently that the only reason she was there at all was to help him out, that she’d been helping him out for almost a year now, which was far longer than she’d ever intended to replace his lead singer, and that she was becoming increasingly impatient to go to medical school rather than make a spectacle of herself onstage for her brother’s benefit.
Danny had the grace to look a little sheepish as he shrugged and whispered, “Soon, sis . . . soon. I’m auditioning prospects tomorrow.”
Elizabeth was beginning to have grave doubts about Danny’s promises to audition female singers to take her place. Why was it her brother never permitted anyone else to be present at these so-called auditions he said he held? True, he was the leader of the group, and as such, he was entitled to pick the other members. But it seemed to Elizabeth it would have been helpful—and perhaps a great deal faster —to have the opinions of the rest of the Foursome.
There was no time to dwell on her doubts, however, as the local band that was backing them up that night began to play an introduction and Danny pulled her onstage to the accompaniment of swelling applause.
Automatically, Elizabeth fell into her role and began the skipping, slinking gyrations that went with the music while she rattled her tambourine in time with the heavy beat. Danny ran to the keyboard, Jay twirled himself completely around and around, making the purple feather boa he’d borrowed from Elizabeth swirl dramatically with his movements while he stroked his bass guitar for all it was worth, and Jerry seated himself behind the drums and began the intricate backup rhythm that made almost everyone in the auditorium want to dance.
Dr. Fenwick (Sonny) Strotherton III was one of the exceptions. It wasn’t only his personal aesthetics that were appalled by the costumes and behavior of the four performers on the stage who were producing a sound that jarred his nerves and his ears. It was the influence the group had on his twelve-year-old daughter, Maggie, that really disturbed him.
Sonny took his duty as his little girl’s sole parent extremely seriously, and he had worried during the two years since he’d lost his wife as a result of an automobile accident that he couldn’t raise Maggie alone as well as he wanted to. There were so many other influences on children these days, after all . . . such as groups like the Freaky Foursome.
His worries escalated as Maggie grabbed his arm with one hand and pointed at the female member of the group onstage with the other.
“Look, Daddy, look!” she shrieked. “That’s the Vixen! Isn’t she fantastic?!”
Sonny allowed his morose gaze to rest on the woman his daughter admired so much and concealed a wince. Since they were seated only a few rows back from the stage, and his eyesight was excellent, he had no trouble seeing the garish white face decorated with slashes of orange lipstick and rouge, the eyes that were so boldly accented in black makeup that they seemed to leap out at one, and the spiky orange hair that looked as though it had been styled by a food processor.
Sonny let his eyes travel lower and concealed another wince as he took in the costume the Vixen wore. She had on a black top that would have done a prostitute proud, a very short orange-and-black- striped satin skirt, black patterned hose, black high-heeled shoes, and she wore a vivid yellow feather boa around her neck which trailed down her back almost to her ankles. Sonny wasn’t even aware that the figure the costume adorned was excellent. He was too put off by the exterior to notice.
All in all, the woman was a mess as far as Sonny was concerned, but to his daughter, Maggie, the Vixen obviously was a role model to be admired and emulated. He’d had to threaten his child with the loss of everything she held dear in life in order to persuade her to dress decently and wash out the orange streak she’d painted in her hair before coming to this concert. And if the concert hadn’t been a fundraiser for the new electron microscope his hospital needed desperately, Sonny wouldn’t have consented to come at all, much less bring his daughter. But Maggie had threatened him with everything he held dear in life if he didn’t bring her along, and Sonny, telling himself he needed to be broadminded and try to become more tolerant of what appealed to his daughter, had given in.
He regretted it now. While Maggie bounced up and down in her seat in time to the music, Sonny ground his teeth, s
tared at his daughter’s new role model with loathing, wondered for the millionth time why his child had to be so hard to raise, and prayed for a quick end to this miserable excuse for a concert. As far as he could remember, he hadn’t made life so difficult for his own parents.
The first song ended, and the spotlight moved to Danny behind the keyboard. Grinning widely, he grabbed up a guitar and joined Lissa and Jay center stage.
“Thank you . . . thank you, everyone.” Danny spoke into the microphone, his grin showing his beautiful white teeth. He wore a wide red sweatband around his head to hold back his long, thick black hair, and his costume, while more sedate than Elizabeth’s or Jay’s, was still slightly offbeat. He had on a black T-shirt, a white linen Italian-style jacket, black leather pants, and white loafers without socks.
“Some of the nonmedical people in this crowd may be wondering why a group such as the Freaky Foursome is doing a benefit for a hospital,” Danny continued, and a ripple of laughter echoed from the audience.
Elizabeth, however, immediately grew anxious, hoping her brother wasn’t going to say anything that might reveal to the audience who she was. She had worked hard to maintain her personal anonymity while helping her brother out. It was hard enough for a female to be taken seriously in the medical community without having it become known that she was the famous Vixen of the Freaky Foursome.
Sonny wasn’t listening to the young man at the microphone. He was sunk in gloom over the way Maggie’s eyes never left the Vixen.
“But those of you who know that my father was a physician here in Boston understand my group’s desire to help the hospital get the electron microscope it needs,” Danny continued, glancing blandly at Elizabeth, who immediately let out her breath with relief, because Danny had said my father rather than our father.
There was a raucous cheer from the tuxedoed men and elaborately gowned women in the audience, as well as from their young, well- bred offspring, and Elizabeth smiled, pleased by the reaction.
Her attention was caught briefly by the contrasting expression of one man in the audience, however. Though he was very attractive, his features were twisted into a scowl and he hadn’t cheered with the rest of the people. Elizabeth was disagreeably amused. Here was one man who didn’t seem to appreciate the Freaky Foursome’s charity. But perhaps he wasn’t a physician, which might explain his lack of enthusiasm.
The young girl beside him, however, was looking at Elizabeth with an enthralled expression, and Elizabeth automatically gave the girl an especially warm smile, which made the youngster open her mouth in ecstatic shock that her heroine had actually noticed her and smiled at her!
“Anyway,” Danny went on as Elizabeth saw the young girl tug at the hostile man’s sleeve and speak urgently to him, which only made his scowl turn into an outright glare, “we’re here, and we hope you made all the money you need from ticket sales. Now the Vixen will sing ‘You’re the Only Man for Me,’ the song that’s climbing the charts these days.”
With an inner sigh of resignation, and a brief sense of regret that her talent for singing was interfering with the rest of her life, Elizabeth stepped to the microphone and swayed while the band and the other members of the Foursome played an introduction.
Then, starting in a low, sexy voice that would rise up and down the scale with effortless ease during the course of the song, Elizabeth husked the opening words into the microphone: “I lie awake all night remembering ... my heart and body find no peace or ease. I want a man who loved me once with everything . . . then left me lonely when I somehow failed to please.”
Without in the least planning it, Elizabeth’s gaze became snared with that of the man who had been glaring at her earlier as she half- sang, half-spoke the next words . . .
“Oh, Lord, what do I do . . . how do I make him see . . . that he’s the only man for me . . . the only man for me.”
As she quickly turned her eyes away from the man’s handsome face and continued the song scanning the rest of the audience, Elizabeth couldn’t help feeling pleased that he had stopped glaring and was now looking both puzzled and moved by her performance. She supposed he hadn’t thought a group like the Freaky Foursome could make good music. And though making good music was not really her goal in life, she was human enough to feel good about having dented the man’s preconceptions.
The concert was long, and despite the fact that the group wasn’t getting paid for it, they gave their best and were gratified by the reception they received from the dignified audience. They knew there had been a lot of controversy about asking them to perform this benefit—some of the more staid members of the medical community would have preferred a symphony. But the fundraising wisdom of the young manager of the hospital’s development office had prevailed, and he was having his judgment borne out as the audience thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment.
After their last number, and three curtain calls, Elizabeth was exhausted. She was grateful that there would be a three-day hiatus before the group had to be in New York for a recording session. That would give her a good night’s sleep in her own bed, then time for some uninterrupted study of her father’s medical books and journals.
Unaware that the man and his young daughter she had noticed in the audience were starting a monumental argument over her, Elizabeth slipped backstage, where she and the rest of the group spent the next fifteen minutes receiving congratulations.
Usually, by now, Elizabeth would have wiped off all traces of her makeup, changed clothes to something light-years away from the style of her costume, donned concealing dark glasses and a scarf and been working her way unobtrusively through the crowd backstage to the exit. It helped that she didn’t have to carry anything with her. One of the guys always took care of the tambourine and costumes so that there was nothing she had to carry that would identify her as a member of the Freaky Foursome.
But she was trapped tonight, and she endured the avid stares of the civilians with good humor, grateful that none of them was anyone who had known her father or her and Danny. Just when she thought it was ending, however, the hostile man and his daughter showed up. And whatever the father thought of her singing, it was obvious from the way he was looking at her that he still found her makeup and costume disgusting.
“Vixen!”
It was also obvious to Elizabeth that the daughter didn’t share her father’s low opinion of her. The awe in her young voice when she’d called out Elizabeth’s stage name was laced with sheer adoration.
Elizabeth automatically smiled at the girl, though she was made slightly uncomfortable by the child’s admiration, and she made ready to do what she could to make sure her influence on the girl would be positive.
“Hello, there,” she said as the girl dragged her father up to her.
“Hi,” the girl responded reverently, her eyes wide and admiring as she looked Elizabeth over. Her dad was looking Elizabeth over as well, but Elizabeth saw nothing resembling admiration in his scornful ice-blue eyes.
“May I have your autograph, Vixen?” Maggie Strotherton inquired in an awed tone as she held up a little book and pencil.
Elizabeth stared down at the pretty blond girl whose eyes were the same shade as her father’s and hesitated. Normally, she made it a rule never to give autographs. For one thing, she felt like a fraud since she wasn’t the original Vixen. For another thing, her handwriting was abominable, just as her father’s had been, which embarrassed her. And the clincher was that her handwriting was also recognizably abominable. Elizabeth had a superstitious fear that one day, no matter how much she tried to conceal her real identity, her handwriting would trip her up.
“Well, I don’t usually give autographs . . . ,” she started to say, but when the look in the young girl’s eyes immediately became agonizingly disappointed, Elizabeth stifled a sigh and reached for the book and pencil.
“What’s your name?” she asked the girl gently, and noticed that her gentleness was making the father frown with puzzlement again.
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br /> “Margaret Strotherton,” the girl answered, her face lighting like sunshine at having Elizabeth make an exception in her rule about autographs for her. “But make it to Maggie,” she added hastily. “That’s what everyone calls me.”
Elizabeth smiled and almost said, “They call me Lissa,” but bit back the words just in time. Then she had what she considered a great idea and paused before signing the book the child had given her.
“Maggie, are you a good student?” she inquired in a serious tone.
Maggie Strotherton’s expression showed her surprise at the question, as did her father’s.
“I guess so,” she shrugged, speaking as though it didn’t matter.
Elizabeth looked at the father, raising her brows, inviting his opinion.
Sonny Strotherton noticed for the first time that if one ignored all the makeup and looked directly into the Vixen’s eyes, they were a lovely shade of violet . . . and they had an intelligent expression in them as well.
“She’s an excellent student when she puts her mind to it,” he responded dryly, tearing his gaze from the Vixen’s unexpectedly beautiful eyes to give his daughter a parental glance that clearly showed his impatience that she didn’t always “put her mind to it.”
Elizabeth’s smile broadened and her gaze expressed humorous understanding. Catching her look, Sonny felt confused again by the conflict between her appearance and her manner.
Elizabeth returned her attention to the girl.
“Well, Maggie, I’ll make an exception to my rule and give you an autograph on one condition,” she said in a serious tone.
Wide-eyed, Maggie Strotherton nodded vigorously. “Anything!” she declared with adolescent fervor. “I’ll do anything you say, Vixen!”
Elizabeth controlled a wince at that declaration. The effect she had on young people in her role as the Vixen was another reason she wanted out as soon as her brother could find a replacement for her.