by Jackie Black
Tonight, Lissa wore a lavender wig that matched her eyes, the usual dark eye makeup she adopted to help conceal her features, purple lipstick and blush to match the purple boa she had recovered from Jay, a revealing lavender camisole top and a calf-length dark purple tight skirt with a slit up to her thighs. She also wore lavender bobbysox and red-sequined high heels.
Passing a mirror in the narrow hallway leading to the stage, Lissa caught a full-length glimpse of herself, shuddered, and quickly averted her eyes. Jay appeared by her side at that moment and caught her reaction to her appearance.
Grinning, he threw an arm over her shoulders and gave her a hug. “You look smashing, love,” he teased her, knowing she despised her appearance.
“I’d like to smash something all right,” Lissa muttered, and then grimaced as she got a look at Jay’s costume.
He was in a tight leopard-skin outfit tonight, and though Jay was naturally thin, he was also wirily fit. The costume he wore showed off his muscles.
“Ah . . . ah . . . ah!” he held up an admonishing finger at seeing Lissa’s grimace and waved it in front of her face. “You know the old saying: if you can’t say something nice—”
“Then I won’t say anything at all,” Lissa responded, a slight smile appearing on her purple lips when Jay feigned hurt feelings.
Jerry Madison joined them then, the only one of the group who dressed relatively conservatively in jeans and a red T-shirt that had drummer framed by two drumsticks written across the front of it. Jerry explained that the logo was for the benefit of those in the audience who weren’t familiar with band instruments and needed help identifying what he did.
Jerry was, in fact, the most basically conservative member of the Freaky Foursome, excluding Lissa, of course. A devoted husband and father, he said he playec^ with the band because he was good at it, he needed the money for his family, and he had been friends with Danny and Jay since grade school and didn’t want to let them down.
“Hi, guys,” he said calmly, his dark eyes passing over Lissa’s and Jay’s weird costumes without expression. “You seen Danny yet?”
“He’s working on the amplifiers,” Jay explained. “This place is too small to blast ’em full force. Gotta tone it down.”
“Thank goodness.” Lissa nodded. She had always hated being in an audience where the entertainment threatened to deafen one permanently, and becoming a member of the Freaky Foursome hadn’t changed her view.
Danny joined them a few minutes later, his handsome face taut with the tension he always displayed before a performance.
“Everybody set?” he asked, inspecting his group with blue eyes that contrasted sharply with his dark hair and coloring and added to his physical appeal enormously.
Lissa nodded along with Jay and Jerry as she performed an inspection of her own on her brother. Tonight, he wore a a yellow sweat- band to hold back his black hair and a yellow T-shirt under one of the many white Italian-style jackets he owned. His long, muscular legs were encased in skintight blue jeans and he wore elaborately embossed cowboy boots.
“Keep the volume down,” Danny instructed them tensely. “The audience won’t be all that young, probably, and with the size of this place, we’ll blast them out of their chairs if we play the way we normally do.”
Since this gig was a personal favor for a friend of Danny’s and the recompense would barely cover expenses, Jay and Jerry weren’t all that concerned with whether their performance went over big with the audience or not. But Danny couldn’t abide the thought of giving less than his best to any audience, and the rest of the group knew he would ream them out royally if they didn’t perform up to standard.
The four of them came onstage to the sound of swelling applause, and as usual, Danny’s wide grin charmed the women in the audience, as did his husky, sexy voice when he said a few words of introduction.
Lissa stood at a standup microphone adjacent to Danny with one hand on her jauntily cocked hip and the other hand holding her tambourine at her side, while she grinned at the audience, too, though whoever was working the lights was blinding her and she couldn’t see anything other than a bunch of silhouettes sitting at tables grouped around the stage. Not that she really cared to see the faces of those gaping up at her. Unlike Danny, who seemed to receive some psychic charge from interacting with the audience, Lissa always felt uncomfortable with being on display for the first few moments of a performance, at least until she settled down to do her job. Therefore, she was completely unaware that there was one member of this particular audience who was in something of a state of shock at finding himself at yet another performance of the Freaky Foursome.
Sonny Strotherton sat at a table beside Frank Mathers trying very hard to look relaxed so that Frank wouldn’t suspect how much conflict he was experiencing at seeing the Vixen again. In her wild costume, she looked as ridiculous as she had the first time he’d seen her, but now Sonny started unconsciously looking past the makeup and the clothes and inspecting Lissa’s excellent figure.
While he was deciding that it was a shame to encase such a beautiful frame in such an unflattering costume, he was also hoping she wouldn’t sing the one song that he still sneaked downstairs to play even while telling himself he was going completely round the bend to do so.
Concentrate on the exterior, Sonny, he told himself somewhat grimly as Lissa and Danny started singing one of their duets. Forget the voice and forget the words of that damned song. Otherwise, you’d better start thinking about lookjng up a shrink^ and getting straightened out!
As was true in most families, Lissa’s and Danny’s voices were capable of blending into an incredible match of complementary tones, and as Sonny sat in the audience and listened more intently than he would have preferred to, he was struck again by how talented these garish- looking performers were. But though Sonny heard two voices, he had eyes for only one of the singers. It bewildered him that he could actually be attracted to such a bizarre-looking woman, and he set about studying the Vixen with the intense concentration of a scientist faced with a problem that had no logical solution on the surface, but must have one somewhere if he could only discover it.
But there was nothing to see, if one discounted the svelte lines of Lissa’s figure which the costume she wore couldn’t disguise, except a revolting exterior that in Sonny’s opinion shouldn’t have appealed to any man other than a complete maniac. So why did his brain insist upon remembering how lovely her eyes were up close and the impression of innate dignity he’d gotten at seeing the Vixen backstage when he’d had Maggie with him?
Frank noticed Sonny shaking his head in bewildered self-disgust and misinterpreted the gesture to mean that Sonny didn’t appreciate the entertainment in the least. Grinning, he leaned closer and lifted an elbow to jab Sonny in the ribs. Sonny winced and glared at Frank, who only grinned wider.
“Forget you’re a biueblooded member of the Boston nobility for a change and loosen up,” Frank whispered. “Don’t be such a stuffed shirt, Sonny boy. These guys are good.”
Sonny hated to be called Sonny boy, but he didn’t reveal his inner feelings to Frank. Instead, he merely shrugged and returned his attention to the stage, trying to pretend his eyes weren’t being pulled there as though they were attached to a magnet.
The performance was three-quarters over, and Sonny was beginning to feel relieved, since it looked as though the Vixen wasn’t going to sing the song he’d dreaded to hear, when two things happened simultaneously. The inept lighting technician made another mistake and turned the lights full on the audience, revealing Sonny to Lissa’s heretofore uninterested gaze, and Danny announced that Lissa would now sing, “You’re the Only Man for Me.”
Both Sonny and Lissa immediately tensed up, Sonny because he was trying to gird himself to resist the particular appeal of that particular song, Lissa for no reason she could adequately explain to herself at first. But as the group played through the introduction, she quickly decided she was only reacting to surprise a
t seeing someone she’d met before. And it didn’t help that this particular someone was handsome enough to make almost any woman give him a second glance.
As Lissa automatically starting half-singing, half-speaking the first words of her song, she remembered how the man in the audience had reacted the last time she’d sung it, and an imp of devilment seized her. She waited, looking everywhere but at Sonny, until the chorus came up. And then, as she had done once before accidentally, this time she deliberately returned her gaze to Sonny and sang the words, “You’re the only man for me . . . the only man for me,” directly to him, putting everything she had into her voice and look, before she looked away from him again.
When Sonny had surfaced from the gut-wrenching impact of what Lissa had done, he became aware that Frank was gazing at him with an odd look on his face.
If Sonny had ever blushed in his life, he couldn’t remember it. It was therefore infuriating to feel his face heating up with embarrassment under the onslaught of Frank’s curious gaze. Fortunately, the man in charge of lighting for the performance had by now corrected his error and the audience was once again bathed in dim anonymity while the stage was blazing with light.
Leaning close, Frank inclined his head toward the stage and whispered, “Do you know her?”
“Of course not!” Sonny snapped under his breath, and immediately wished he hadn’t protested so strongly. Frank’s sly grin seemed to indicate he was unconvinced. Sonny was therefore grateful when Frank came back with a whispered comment that denied this conclusion.
“I guess she’s just taken with those aristocratic good looks of yours then,” he joked, and Sonny merely shrugged one shoulder in a bored fashion by way of reply.
Inwardly, he was anything but bored, however. He was physically aroused, mentally incredulous that his body was reacting to the little vamp up on the stage in such a stupid, uncontrollable manner, and emotionally, he was completely at sea. In all his predictable life, he had never felt out of control. Now he did, and he hated the feeling. Hated it and feared it and yet couldn’t seem to win back the self-possession he had maintained for as long as he could remember.
By the end of the Freaky Foursome’s performance, Sonny was absolutely furious . . . and just as absolutely determined to put a stop to whatever was going on that was causing him such unbearable discomfort.
Frank, apparently, was prepared to stay at the table drinking and talking until the club closed. Sonny had no intention of doing anything of the kind. He considered using a trip to the men’s room as an
excuse to do what he had in mind, then rejected the idea since Frank might come with him.
“Frank, I’ve got to go call Maggie and make sure she’s all right,” he said as he got to his feet. “Order me another Manhattan, will you?”
Before Frank could reply, Sonny walked away as rapidly as possible without breaking into an all-out run, and when he was in the club’s lobby, he headed backstage, only to be stopped by a burly man in a tuxedo.
“Nobody’s allowed back here,” the man grunted at him, and from the look in the man’s flat gray eyes, Sonny quickly , decided it would be useless to try to brush past him.
“I’m a friend of the Foursome,” he said with casual aplomb as he fished in his pocket for some money.
The man who barred his way watched Sonny take the cash out of his pocket, and there was a slight flicker of interest in his eyes, but his reply was still uncompromising.
“That’s what they all say,” he growled.
Sonny paused, then shrugged. “Will you at least take a note to ... ah ... the Vixen, then?” he asked, extending the roll of bills toward the man. “I’m sure she’ll see me.”
The man reached for the money and stuffed it in his pocket without saying anything while Sonny again fished in his pocket and found a pad of prescription forms with his name imprinted on them and a pen.
Quickly, he wrote, “My daughter Maggie and I met you backstage at the charity concert you gave in Boston recently. May I see you for a few moments?”
He gave the note to the bouncer who took it reluctantly, and gave Sonny a hard stare.
“Wait here,” he grated and disappeared through the door behind him.
Lissa was seated before the mirror in her dressing room in a white silk wraparound robe taking off her lavender wig when she heard a knock on her door. Thinking it was one of the group, she called out, “Come in,” and started running her fingers through her natural hair. The wigs always made her scalp itch. She froze when she saw the hulking form of the club bouncer appear in the mirror as the door opened and quickly forced herself not to turn around.
“Yes?” she said, putting a note of annoyed impatience into her tone.
“Got a note for you,” the bouncer announced in his normal gruff tone as he came into the room. “Some fancy-dressed admirer of yours, I guess.”
Lissa reached up over her shoulder to take the note and blanched when she saw that it was written on a prescription form. After scanning the words on it rapidly with her eyes, she felt panicky and cursed her idiotic sense of humor which was about to result in disaster for her if this Dr. Strotherton ever found out who she was.
“No, I don’t . . she automatically started to say that she didn’t want to see the man who had written this note, but then she heard footsteps outside the dressing room and some instinct told her that Dr. Strotherton hadn’t waited for her permission to come backstage and see her.
Ducking her head, Lissa grabbed the lavender wig she’d tossed onto the makeup table, quickly dragged it on and started tucking stray wisps of her black hair underneath it while she watched her mirror with anxious eyes. Just as she’d feared, Dr. Fenwick Strotherton’s image appeared there almost immediately.
The bouncer saw it, too, and with a ferocious scowl on his ugly face, he clenched his huge hands into fists and swung around to face Sonny.
“I told you to wait!” he said in a menacing tone as he started lumbering in Sonny’s direction.
It was clear to Lissa that the goon had every intention of braining her unwanted visitor if she didn’t stop him and she quickly did so.
“It’s all right!” she said hastily as she continued to tuck her natural hair under the lavender wig. “I’ll see him!”
The bouncer stopped and gave her a look of disgust over his shoulder. “Make up your mind!” he muttered, and with another scowl at Sonny, who had every muscle in his body tensed in order to parry the blow it looked like the bouncer had been about to deliver, the bouncer lumbered out of the room and shut the door behind him.
While Sonny relaxed his muscles and returned his gaze to Lissa, Lissa glanced quickly in the mirror to satisfy herself that she had hidden every strand of her natural hair under the wig. Uttering a fast, silent prayer of gratitude that she hadn’t been caught flat out, she stood up and turned around to face Sonny with a nervous smile on her lips.
“Well . . . hello . . . she said, almost wincing when she heard how awkward she sounded. Her natural poise was in complete disarray.
“Hello.” Sonny nodded, his blue gaze wary as he inspected her, thinking the robe she wore was a hundred-percent improvement over her stage attire but her face and hair were still a mess. “Sorry I burst in on you like this, but 1 was afraid that hulk would take the tip I gave him and pocket it without giving you my message.”
“Oh ... no ... ,” Lissa quavered and clenched her hands to try to get a stronger grip on her panic. “He gave it to me,” she managed to finish in a more normal tone, though her smile was still a little stiff.
Sonny relaxed slightly, let his mouth curve into a smile and took a step forward. Lissa just stopped herself from taking a step back when she realized she would end up trapped against the makeup table.
“How’s your daughter?” she asked quickly as she casually moved to one side, away from the makeup table. “Is she keeping up her grades?”
Sonny was pleasantly surprised that the Vixen even remembered Maggie, or himself for
that matter. Then he clamped down on the pleasure as he remembered what he’d come here for.
“She’s doing fine,” he answered in a level tone.
As Sonny spoke, he let his eyes roam Lissa’s body in a way that made a wary shiver of pleasure trace her back. She quickly decided that if she wasn’t careful, she could end up in trouble with this man. He was entirely too appealing for his, or her, own good, and for an instant, Lissa felt downright resentful that she had to find a way to get rid of him as quickly as possible. But she wasn’t really the Vixen—she was a woman who wanted to become a doctor in the city of Boston . . . where this man already practiced.
“I’m glad.” She nodded, taking another sideways step to put even more distance between herself and Sonny. “And it’s nice to see you again, Dr. . . . uh . . .” She glanced at the note he’d sent her as though she didn’t remember his name and immediately felt amused when she noticed for the first time that his Christian name was Fenwick.
“Strotherton,” Sonny said in a wry way that Lissa liked. ",Sonny Strotherton.”
Forgetting her purpose for a moment, Lissa looked at him in a solemnly teasing way. “Not Fenwick?” she inquired gravely.
Sonny grimaced. “That’s a family name,” he admitted, “which, if I ever have a son, will hopefully end with my generation. I would never curse one of my children with such a handicap.”
His mention of having a son provoked Lissa into inquiring, “And how does your wife feel about having another child when Maggie must be . . . what . . . about twelve?”
Sonny smiled at her in a way that made Lissa’s heartrate speed up.
“I’m a widower,” he said simply. “I meant I’d like to have more children if I ever marry again.”
“Oh.” Lissa just managed to keep her sudden upswelling of relief from reverberating in her voice as she became caught up in the invitation in Sonny’s beautiful blue eyes and almost got lost there. Some stray wisp of self-preservation asserted itself fortunately before she forgot entirely that she needed to get rid of Sonny Strotherton . . . fast!