by Jackie Black
It was not the best performance the Vixen had given by any means. But while Danny Farrell was thoroughly displeased by his sister’s lack of attention and the mistakes she made, Maggie Strotherton couldn’t have been happier, and her applause was long and loudly enthusiastic when the Vixen took her last bow.
Chapter Fourteen
The moment they’d dropped off her friends and she and her father were alone in the car, Maggie rushed into speech.
“Oh, Daddy, I can’t believe it!” she chortled. When Sonny frowned at her, not understanding what she was talking about and not really in a mood to learn, she chattered on. “You didn’t know, did you? I wonder why she didn’t tell us? If she had, I’d never have acted badly to her. I’d have welcomed her with open arms!”
Sonny then realized that Maggie had discovered Lissa and the Vixen were one and the same, and his expression tautened.
“No, I didn’t know, Maggie,” he said harshly, “but now that I do, I’m very grateful Lissa and I are through.”
Maggie stared at her father in dismay. “Oh, Daddy, you can’t mean that!” she protested. “Are you mad at her because she didn’t tell us? But she must have had a good reason, Daddy, if you’ll just let her explain! Listen, let’s call her when we get home. I want to tell her .
Maggie broke off and drew back at the look on Sonny’s face. She’d never seen him look like that, and she didn’t like it at all!
“Maggie, I don’t want to talk about Lissa Farrell or the Vixen!” he grated in a voice he’d never used with her before. “It’s over, and that’s all there is to it! Now, hush!”
Maggie’s mouth was open in shock, but she quickly closed it. Her father’s manner was such that it didn’t even occur to her to disobey him. But as she huddled in her seat close to tears, she realized her Dad hadn’t forbidden her to talk to Lissa herself. He’d just said he didn’t want to talk about her.
Maggie’s tears quickly dried up as she began to think. Soon, she was hiding a smile, which faded as she glanced over at her father’s harsh expression. Her own expression grew resentful as she wondered why it was parents never did anything right! First, her Dad had tried to foist Lissa Farrell on her when she didn’t want to have anything to do with her, and now he was depriving her of a chance to have the Vixen as a stepmother! It just wasn’t fair!
After the concert, Elizabeth didn’t even bother to remove her makeup and costume, nor did she wait to receive the dressing down she knew Danny wanted to give her. Instead, she grabbed her coat and headed straight for the stagedoor where she had the attendant find her a taxi.
Forty-five minutes later, she was sitting on the edge of her bed staring at the phone, wondering what was the use of putting herself through the pain of calling Sonny. For him, it was over between them. She knew that as certainly as though he’d told her so.
But he’s still due an explanation, and I deserve the chance to give him one, she thought leadenly, and dialed his number.
Sonny and Maggie were just coming through the front door when the phone began to ring. Sonny ignored it. If it was a patient, his answering service would pick it up.
Maggie, however, raced to the kitchen and grabbed the wall phone. “Hello?” she said breathlessly.
“Maggie,” Elizabeth said with false calm, “this is Lissa. May I speak to your father?”
Maggie heard Sonny come into the room, and she glanced at him doubtfully. “Just a minute,” she said to Lissa, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Daddy, it’s Lissa,” she said innocently. “She wants to talk to you.”
Sonny tensed his jaw and gave his daughter a hard look. “Well, I don’t want to talk to her, Maggie,” he grated. “Tell her that.”
He turned and walked away, and Maggie grimaced at his back before lifting her hand away from the mouthpiece.
“Lissa, he won’t talk to you,” she almost whispered in case Sonny hadn’t gone far and could hear. “He’s really mad, Lissa,” Maggie said breathlessly. “I’ve never seen him like this.” She rushed on before Lissa could reply, demanding, “Lissa, why didn’t you tell us you were the Vixen? I would have been thrilled!”
Elizabeth grimaced. “I know you would have been, Maggie,” she answered with that false calm in her voice again. “But I was only the Vixen for a while, and I won’t be the Vixen again after tonight. I was only helping out tonight because the new Vixen couldn’t be there.” Maggie’s expression was confused. “But weren’t you the Vixen who gave me her autograph?”
“Yes.” Lissa sighed. She was on the verge of tears. “Listen, Maggie, I’m tired and upset,” she said, hanging on to her control. “If your father will let you talk to me, I’ll take you for a Coke someday soon and explain everything. Meanwhile, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Okay, Lissa,” Maggie said, wide-eyed with confusion, but still excited that the Vixen was actually talking to her like this!
“I know it will be hard not to tell your friends about this, but I’d like it very much if you’d keep this our secret for now. Will you?”
“Sure!” Maggie said enthusiastically, thrilled to be having a secret with the Vixen.
“Thanks, honey,” Elizabeth said tiredly. “I’ll talk to you soon.” After hanging up the phone, Elizabeth lay back on her bed, covered her eyes with her arm, and let the tears flow silently down her face.
Maggie raced upstairs to find her diary, thinking that for once, she had something really exciting to write in it. This was the best birthday she ever remembered having! But it would have been an even better birthday if her dad would stop being so mad just because the Vixen hadn’t told him who she really was. Parents could be so silly!
Thirty minutes later, as she was scribbling away in her diary, Sonny came into her room, and in a voice wearier than Maggie had ever heard him use, said, “Good night, honey,” and he bent to kiss her forehead, then straightened and started to walk away.
Maggie couldn’t hold back on asking permission to talk to Lissa. “She wants to explain, Daddy,” she finished making her request in an anxious, sober voice. “Please let me see her.”
Sonny stared at his daughter thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head, and Maggie’s heart plunged at the look she saw in his eyes.
“There’s no point in it, Maggie,” he said in a voice Maggie knew better than to argue with. “Let it go.” He started out the door, then paused and looked at Maggie again, and now his expression was pained and angry. “And for God’s sake, Maggie, do me the kindness not to play any of your Foursome albums when I’m home! I’ve heard enough of that junk to last me a lifetime!”
Sonny turned and walked out, shutting the door of her bedroom with such a bang that Maggie involuntarily jumped. Her lower lip trembled, and tears came to her eyes for a moment, before a stubborn expression replaced them and she began to glare at the closed door of her bedroom instead.
“Parents!” she muttered scornfully. “And they keep telling us that we’re the ones who are too immature to run our own lives!”
A week later, as Elizabeth drove to a shopping mall to meet Maggie and give her an explanation, she wondered wryly why Sonny had agreed to let his daughter meet with her. Didn’t he fear that a worthless tramp like the Vixen might corrupt his offspring?
She quickly turned her mind away from Sonny, however, as she had been having to do for the last week. Thinking of him brought her nothing but such intense pain, she couldn’t bear it, and she was unutterably grateful that she had her studies to keep her mind otherwise occupied.
Of course, this meeting with Maggie would be almost as painful as seeing Sonny himself, but it couldn’t be helped. Maggie had been calling her practically every day asking to see her.
When she arrived at the restaurant, her first glance at Maggie’s ice- blue eyes, so like Sonny’s, assured Lissa that she hadn’t been wrong in thinking this interview was going to be painful. She didn’t look at Maggie any more than she could help it as they greeted one another, then bought soft drink
s and sat at a table.
As Maggie waited with wide-eyed curiosity for Lissa to begin, Lissa took a deep breath and got what she had to say out as rapidly as possible, tactfully leaving out the part about Sonny coming to her dressing room in New York that time. She was grateful that Maggie listened carefully and didn’t once interrupt. When she was done with her explanation, she looked at the girl and shrugged. “So now you know why I didn’t want you to tell anyone about me, Maggie. But I won’t hold you to it if you’d rather I didn’t. That’s a lot to ask of you, I know.”
Maggie thought a moment, then shrugged herself. “Yeah, it’ll be kind of hard not to tell my friends, but I think you’re right, Lissa.”
Lissa looked at Maggie with surprise and the girl grimaced. “Well, my dad didn’t like the Freaky Foursome even before he got to know you, so I guess a lot of other doctors like him would be just as stuffy about it.”
Elizabeth smiled ruefully. “That’s what I’ve always been afraid of,” she said unnecessarily. Then she changed her smile to a special one for Maggie and added, “Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate your understanding.”
Maggie smiled back, then her gaze became curious again. “Well, I don’t really understand, you know.” When Lissa raised her brows in a questioning manner, Maggie shook her head. “Listen, Lissa, if I could be the Vixen, I sure wouldn’t trade it in to be a boring old doctor! That’s crazy!”
Elizabeth’s smile broadened, then she began to laugh, the first time she’d done so all week.
“Maybe I am crazy, honey,” she agreed. “But I don’t think so. I’ll leave music to my brother, Danny, and stick to my studies. I’m a lot happier that way and so is he.”
At that, Maggie looked eager. “Can I meet your brother, Danny, sometime, Lissa?” she begged. “And the rest of the Foursome,” she added quickly. “The new Vixen, too?”
Elizabeth nodded her head firmly. “Anytime they’re in town, and your dad says it’s all right, you can not only meet them, I’ll have you over for dinner,” she agreed. “But right now,” she added wryly, “I’ve got to do some studying or I’ll never get to be a boring old doctor.”
The two of them laughed together and a few minutes later they parted with a hug at the entrance to the mall. As Elizabeth walked away, she was feeling a lot better than she’d expected to and for the first time, she began to believe what Darla kept telling her . . . that her life would one day be peaceful and pleasant again, instead of filled with the loneliness of losing the first man she’d ever loved.
When Sonny came home that night, he was depressed, as was usual for him these days. After his anger at Lissa had faded enough that he could think straight, he’d been able to admit to himself that it was his contemptuous attitude toward the Vixen from the moment they’d met that had prevented Lissa from telling him the truth about herself. And because of that, and, of course, her prior relationship with her singing partner, she hadn’t wanted to get involved with Sonny, but he had insisted, thinking he could win her away from the rival he’d suspected existed. But the rival had won.
Sonny didn’t know why Lissa hadn’t told him straight out about the other man, and he still doubted she could love that man wholeheartedly when she’d responded to him, Sonny, the way she had. But maybe rock singers were accustomed to juggling more than one relationship at a time. Or maybe the other man had objected to her desire to be a doctor instead of his singing partner. Sonny wondered if the man had won on that score, too.
As he opened the back door and came into his house, the sound of Lissa singing “You’re the Only Man for Me” greeted his ears, and he was abruptly furious with Maggie. Damn it, hadn’t he asked her not to play that album when he was around? She knew he normally got home about this time!
Sonny strode to the family room and paused in the doorway. Maggie was sitting on the floor in front of the stereo set with her back to him, listening intently to the music.
“Maggie!” Sonny barked and when Maggie jerked and turned to face him, he strode toward her, making no effort to conceal his anger. “Didn’t I tell you not to play that music when I’m home?” he demanded. “Can’t you do one single thing I ask?!”
Maggie stared at him open-mouthed, and though Sonny felt guilty for taking his mood out on her, he was too worked up to apologize yet.
“Turn it off!” he said impatiently, gesturing at the stereo. The song was grating on his nerves like a buzzsaw, and he knew his whole evening was completely ruined. He would spend it hurting like hell.
Maggie got a stubborn look on her young face, but she obeyed, and when there was once again silence in the room, Sonny grated out “Thanks,” and started to turn away and go upstairs to change clothes.
Maggie froze him in his tracks by resentfully saying, “Well, it’s not my album, Daddy. I found it down here when I was looking for something else. I don’t know where it came from ... do you?”
Sonny gritted his teeth, wishing to hell he’d remembered to ditch the album when things had blown up with Lissa.
“Well?” Maggie said, getting to her feet and facing him in almost a challenging way. “Who bought that album, Daddy? Somehow I don’t think it was Mrs. Mullins. She goes more for stuff like Liberace.”
Sonny took a breath, about to tell his daughter to mind her own business. Then he hesitated. He’d been taking his bad moods out on her more than she deserved lately, and it was time he stopped doing that.
“I bought it, Maggie,” he said shortly, and as he turned away and started walking to the door, he added before Maggie could ask anything, “and I have no intention of telling you when or why, so drop it, okay?”
Maggie eyed his back speculatively. “Sure, Daddy,” she finally said, then she quickly grabbed up the album cover and followed him. “But if you don’t want it anymore, can I have it now?” she asked innocently. “I don’t have this one, and I like the picture of Danny on this cover better than I do on their other albums.”
Sonny stopped short and jerked his head around, frowning as he stared down at the cover in Maggie’s hand. He wouldn’t let his eyes rest on Lissa as the Vixen. Instead he concentrated on the dark-haired leader of the group, and was unable to stop himself from asking about him.
“Danny? This one? Let me see that.”
Maggie handed the cover to him and as Sonny grimly studied Lissa’s handsome lover, he felt his anger rising again.
“Danny’s the leader of the Freaky Foursome,” Maggie willingly explained. “Isn’t he gorgeous? You can’t really see the resemblance between him and Lissa when she’s in makeup and costume like this . . . she pointed at Lissa on the cover, “. . . but . . .”
She realized something was wrong before she glanced up at her father’s face and went abruptly silent.
Sonny was afraid to his soul that he hadn’t heard Maggie correctly, or that if he had, he had drawn the wrong conclusion from her words.
“Why . . . ,” he started to say, but his voice came out sounding so strained that he paused to clear his throat. “Why,” he then repeated, “should there be a resemblance between this Danny and Lissa?”
Maggie was puzzled. Didn’t her Dad know? But then she remembered that she’d found out Danny and Lissa were brother and sister from Lissa, and she was afraid her Dad would find out she’d talked to Lissa against his orders. After thinking quickly, however, she realized her Dad didn’t have to know she’d talked to Lissa. Maggie could pretend she’d read it on the cover of an album or heard it somewhere.
“Because they’re brother and sister, of course,” she said innocently. “Can’t you tell?”
Sonny closed his eyes, afraid to give in to the sudden intense joy suffusing him. Of course there was a resemblance between Danny and Lissa now that he thought about it! Why had he been so blind?
His eyes came open abruptly as a sudden fear hit him that it might not have been Danny who’d answered the phone that morning he’d called Lissa so early. “Does Danny ever stay with Lissa, Maggie?” he demanded.
&
nbsp; Maggie didn’t dare lie to her father when he was in this mood, even though being honest on this point was chancy.
“Sure . . . when he’s in town,” she said casually.
“Oh, my God!” Sonny felt sick over the way he’d jumped to conclusions.
Maggie was now torn between her curiosity over what was going on with her father and her feeling that she’d better get while the getting was good . . . before he found out she’d deliberately disobeyed one of his direct orders and been in contact with Lissa.
“Listen, Daddy, I’ve got to go do some homework,” she said as she sidled around him and started for the stairs. “Call me when dinner’s ready, okay?”
Sonny didn’t even hear her, and Maggie quickly headed for the safety of her room, where instead of doing homework, she perched on her bed and wracked her brain trying to figure out why her father was acting so strange!
The black Ferrari was parked in Lissa’s driveway and Sonny scowled at it. Though he knew most of what had happened was his own fault, he was furious that he’d wasted so much time and had to bear so much pain because of what Danny had implied on the phone that morning over a week ago.
Sonny rang the doorbell impatiently, expecting Lissa to open it. He was therefore taken aback when a young woman he’d never seen before opened the door instead.
“Yes?” Darla said, thinking the man outside was certainly handsome and well dressed for a door-to-door salesman ... if that was what he was.
“Is Lissa home?” Sonny asked crisply. “I’d like to speak to her.” Darla stared at him and began to put two and two together. From Lissa’s description of Sonny Strotherton, this had to be him.
“That depends,” she said thoughtfully. “Are you Sonny Strotherton?”
Sonny showed his surprise. “Yes, I am. Why?”
“Because if you are and you’re here to break Lissa’s heart again, she’s not home to you,” Darla said bluntly.
It was Sonny’s turn to stare now, but after a moment, he began to smile. “Well, I’m glad to know Lissa’s got a protector,” he said with humor, “but breaking Lissa’s heart is the last thing I have in mind.” Darla hesitated for another moment, studying Sonny’s handsome smiling face intently, before she made up her mind.