Before she could answer, Max stepped in, literally, moving between them. "Don't mind me. I'm just a spectator."
Matt's expression still interrogated Temple.
Might as well get it over with, she thought. Ready, aim, fire.
"This is ... Max Kinsella."
Max stood there grinning, his arms folded over his chest, but not concealing nearly enough of the obscene shirt.
Temple finished her unwelcome duties. "Matt Devine is the new neighbor in eleven." Not Temple had to give Catholic seminary discipline an A-plus. Matt didn't turn a gilded hair.
"You left before I moved in," he said calmly to Max, extending a hand.
Max uncoiled enough to shake it. "You're Temple's martial arts guru, I hear." He glanced her way.
"She never had much interest in breaking her fingernails before."
"That was before," Matt answered, perfectly cordial and perfectly calm, "she was assaulted by some nasty thugs."
Temple winced, but not at the memory of the attack.
That was nothing compared to the spot she was in now: caught between two men who didn't know one another, each suspecting he had good reason to distrust/resent/hate (take your pick) the guts of the other.
"Listen," Temple said, trying to be the good hostess and keep he guests from dismembering one another. "That was a happy accident. Every liberated female should learn how to defend herself.
Woman doth not live by Mace alone."
Max flashed her a knowing glance, but was not deterred.
"So you're a martial arts instructor?" he asked Matt
I'm a martial arts student," Matt corrected with his usual modesty.
Max did the Mr. Spock thing with his left eyebrow, and Temple ached to try her latest knee jab on him.
From the corner of her eye, she saw that Midnight Louie had bestirred himself and found his own mysterious way down. He sat in the shade of the palm tree, where he disciplined one apparently dirty paw. Things must be at a sad pass when even Midnight Louie was worried enough to play chaperone.
The silence prolonged past the comfort barrier as the two men regarded each other. Ooh, Temple hated being in the middle of unspoken man stuff! Why couldn't they just behave in a civil, amenable manner, instead of getting stiff and suspicious, with all the usual ugly undertones of possession and trespassing?
The tension in the air was still as electric as Max's shirt. Each man had taken upon himself the role of protecting Temple against the other. Didn't they get it? She didn't need protection against anything but the two of them!
"So when did Temple get mugged?" Max asked Matt.
Was she not supposed to be here, or something? Temple wondered. "A few weeks ago," she answered.
"It wasn't just a mugging." Anger tightened Matt's voice into a vocal cudgel. "It was a beating, a bad one. The creeps were looking for you."
Max forgot the other man and turned toward Temple with an expression Temple had never seen on Max's face: horrified.
"Temple? Are you all right?" From the urgency of his tone, her attack might have occurred just yesterday. She nodded quickly, but his questions continued. "Who were they? When--?"
"We kind of thought," Matt put in, "you might know who they were, since they sure knew who you were."
Max ignored him, thank God. He stepped closer to Temple, suddenly casting her in his shade. His hand lifted her face, as if searching for visible wounds.
"I'm sorry," he said, sounding it. "I didn't expect that. That's why I left, to--"
The intimacy level was like old times, just her and Max, and no one else in the whole, wide, wacky world. Matt wouldn't understand the power of such a pull. He must be thinking. . . .
"Yoohoo!" Electra Lark's fruity tones came caroling toward them from the Circle Ritz. "Max Kinsella, is that you in the King-Kong-in-Honolulu disguise? Come on, let me look at you, you devilish stranger, you."
Electra did what Temple could not do, what only a woman over sixty could do. She ran up and enveloped Max in a muumuu hug that competed with his shirt, then broke away to give him a piercing inspection.
Temple let the breath she had been holding ease out slowly, so no one would notice.
Matt, however, had. She watched his fists unclench.
Electra had rushed outside so fast she was panting. She was also patting at her pixie-length hair, dyed today a wholesome persimmon color.
"I'd know you anywhere, you rascal," she told Max. "What a fab surprise. I'm sure you want to inspect the Hesketh Vampire, to make sure that I'm not abusing it. Say, that is one slick motorcycle.
Come on back to the shed, and I'll show you how I've got it bedded down."
Max laughed at her excitement, but eyed Temple over Electra's spikey waves of magenta hair.
"We haven't had much chance--"
"Go ahead," Temple said. "We'll talk later. I want to run up and change anyway."
"No lesson today?" Max asked sardonically.
"Not in martial arts," she answered flatly enough that it stung.
"Max!" Electra urged. "Shake a leg. It's been so long and I know you have a million questions."
He allowed himself to be led off, recognizing Electra's unspoken promise to fill him in on what had happened since he left. Now was Temple's chance to bring Matt up to date. Divide and conquer.
She turned to him.
"Let's go in."
Matt was no readier than Max to move. His head had followed Electra's fading chatter as she and Max vanished around the cedar fence. Now he turned back to Temple.
"Aren't you afraid he might disappear again?"
She shrugged. "No such luck for any of us, I fear. Okay. It's my turn to say, 'Shake a leg,' before both of mine collapse."
He fell into step with her as they edged into the unfiltered sunlight by the pool.
"Did Electra do that on purpose?" Matt asked. "Distract him, I mean?"
"I sure hope so. You guys were getting difficult. I wish you hadn't told Max about my . .. attack."
"I only told the truth."
"And you only wanted to make him feel guilty."
"That's what I've been trained to do," Matt said wryly. "Not really. I've been trained to make myself feel guilty, so it's nice to have a chance to foist the emotion off on someone else, someone who deserves it."
"Maybe."
Matt held the door open for Temple. She scraped through on the obnoxiously loud sandals.
Inside, the dim back hall's familiar tranquility was as soothing as a massage. Temple sighed.
"When did he show up?" Matt asked.
"Just now. On my patio." She laughed at Matt's politely appalled expression. "He's a magician. He thrives on sudden entrances."
"And exits."
"Ouch." She sighed again. "I guess we have a lot to talk about."
"I guess you do."
They were silent in the elevator, Matt noticing without comment when Temple pressed the button for the fourth floor only. His floor, not hers.
The deserted late-afternoon halls glowed with the ever present electric sconces necessary to a circular building, where daylight only enters the perimeter living quarters.
"How do you feel about this sudden resurrection?" Matt asked as they followed the curved passage to the cul-de-sac ending at his front door.
Temple had to consider. "Happy that Max's alive. Furious that he seems to think he can pop in and out of my life without fuss or folderol. Confused. Worried. Molina wants to interrogate him about a murder case."
"Really." Matt leaned against the wall beside his door, his face shadowed by the building's equivalent of an overhead porch light.
"I didn't tell you." But I have to now, she thought. "Molina dug up some . . . disturbing omissions in Max's past; disturbing because I didn't know anything about them."
"Does that change how you feel about him?"
"No...only whether I was smart to rely on feeling." She leaned against the opposite wall, hands behind her back. "It does cast a pall
on the past."
"Yes. Why? Molina would say I should suspect him of being a thief or an international terrorist.
One thing's for sure: something made him leave, and I hope it wasn't me."
"He wouldn't be back if it was. But isn't that the real question?"
"What?"
"Why is he back? Why now?"
"Yeah, why now? And why didn't I think to ask?"
"Maybe you were a little off-balance."
"Maybe I was balancing on one foot, on one spike heel on a beach ball. Lord, when he walked through that French door in that unbelievable getup--"
"He doesn't usually dress like that?"
"No! Max is a conservative dresser, really. Slacks and sweaters in low-key colors that won't distract from his personal act. I've often suggested he could be a little more . . . imaginative."
"It worked."
Temple began to smile, then sobered quickly. "No, I only wish he had gone off the deep end simply as a fashion statement. But he said it himself this afternoon: loud is the best disguise."
"Sounds like he's back on the scene prematurely. Can you figure out why?"
"No. He said it was dangerous for him to hang around."
"For him, or you?"
"For both of us, I guess. That makes Molina's suspicions pretty feasible, doesn't it?"
Matt nodded soberly. He hadn't even cracked a smile when she'd laughed at Max's new look. In the artificial light his expression was almost morose.
"Matt, you've been asking me how I feel, but what about you?"
"What do you mean?" He leaned away from the wall, as if putting up his guard.
"Only that you must have assumed what I finally did: that Max was history. Now he's demonstrably a current event. Doesn't that make you wonder about... us?"
"Us." He repeated the word flatly. "It didn't seem necessary to think about an 'us' until he showed up again. Temple, I've got to respect your previous commitment. You and Max may not have been married, but you were a couple, presumably sincere about your mutual involvement.
Since Max is back now, I wish you both the best of luck. I think you ought to work at patching things up. Whatever the reason for his absence, he obviously hasn't forgotten you."
"Very . . . true. Very wise advice, Contact Man. So that's it? Some bland platitudes and patient good counsel? That's how you feel about it? That's all?"
"Hey, don't get upset--"
"Why shouldn't I get upset? Every man I know seems to take his coming and going in my life as no big deal. Is there some sort of maturity bug going around? You sure didn't act like Mr. Cool downstairs."
"I'm just trying to do the best thing--"
"The best thing is to be honest, and that includes with yourself as well as me. I sure don't know where I stand with Max, and I would go really bananas if I can't know where I stand with you."
He suddenly leaned back against the wall, letting even his head seek its unwavering support.
"Guilty. Again. No, I'm not thrilled that he's back. I don't think he deserves you. If he hadn't run off, you wouldn't have had to play a punching bag for some apes who are still at large. He didn't see you after that; I did."
"Matt, maybe you're not just mad at Max."
"Who else?" he asked, frowning.
"How about your father--your real father who left your mother and left her open to your abusive stepfather?"
"I don't care about him!" He seemed surprised by his own admission.
"Maybe you do," she said. "And maybe you care about me."
"You." He pushed himself away from the wall. The light was behind him and she could hardly see his face, but she could feel the anger he had barely controlled with Max. "Of course I care about you, Temple," he said in a lower voice. "You're my guardian angel in this strange, new, secular world I've entered. When I saw him, knew who he was, what claims he had on you ... I saw all those ugly emotions I've always loathed rushing forward like an invisible army. It's what I've always been afraid of--fury and rage, fear, anxiety and abandonment. I felt like I'd been left bleeding and naked in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip."
"Matt--" She moved to him, and he caught her arms like a man in desperate need of human contact, but still determined to hold her at arm's length.
"Temple, I realized then how much you've pulled me into the real world I've got to enter if I'm to leave the past behind. I realized then, when it was too late, how I really feel about you."
"Yes?"
They were facing each other, the light washing their faces on one side only, so bright it was blinding, and casting the other side in shadow.
It was one of those rare moments of intense personal truth. Both their voices had sunk to a whisper.
"Temple--" Matt sounded truly bereft, "I think I... I think I need you."
Well. Not quite the revelation she had expected, but heartfelt nonetheless. What had she done?
Led him just far enough ahead so that he would fall without her support? She had been more successful at reaching him than she thought, she realized, and such breakthroughs always have a price. What she owed Max, and what she owed Matt, couldn't, would never, fall neatly into separate compartments. And she would probably never be content with a compromise.
While these conflicting thoughts jostled in her mind, Matt abruptly drew her close and kissed her square and hard on the mouth. He had come a long, long way, thanks to her, and now the guilt was on her head.
How did she feel right now? That she had everything she had ever wanted, and it was all wrong.
Max back, and she not sure she wanted him that way. Matt committing commitment, and she regretting that she had brought him to a brink she might no longer be willing or able to cross.
"I'm sorry," he was saying, "that wasn't fair. I did that badly--"
"No! No." Temple threw her hands up in the air, then threw her arms around his shoulders. She embraced him the way Electra had welcomed Max back, sort of.
"No matter what happens," she whispered fiercely in his ear, "we will always be friends."
The fadeout from Casablanca it was not.
Chapter 3
A Fight for Love and Glory...
Winking neon from the sign outside cast pink and blue stripes into the large, darkened room. Pink for girls, blue for boys. The garish pastel light lashed many pale, motionless faces, but each time it struck Temple's cheek she blinked.
Still, the rhythmic wink of obscenely cheery neon had a hypnotic effect she found peaceful. She edged down the seat so the lucent tattoo beat across her knee instead of her face, slightly dislodging a bench partner in the process.
"Sorry," she whispered in automatic apology, though doing so was ridiculous. A Las Vegas wedding chapel, particularly one as eccentric as the Lovers' Knot, was not really a church.
Yet the silence remained profound, the atmosphere oddly serene. Pulsing neon flashed like heat lightning on the lattice archway at the room's front. Silk flowers intertwined the slats.
Temple appreciated the comfortable, well-stuffed bulk of the woman on her left. Her face under a broad-brimmed straw hat was unreservedly lumpy as well as quiet. A rhinestone beauty mark on the woman's cheekbone gleamed like a frozen tear.
Sitting among the congregation, staring at the blinking bars of light like a slot-machine junkie, made Temple feel like Goldilocks. She had found a "just right" place to be.
The side door creaked, then admitted an expanding bar of or-dinary incandescent light. Temple jumped like an experimental gerbil, then huddled against the commodious woman beside her, almost dislodging the hat.
Sorry, she didn't quite whisper aloud. She seldom found it necessary to make herself smaller than usual.
Whoever had opened the door wasn't about to stop with a quick glance around. Footsteps ground over a floor gritty from dozens of rice-strewing.
Temple watched the shadow explore the room's fringes, feeling as stupid as a kid playing the game of
"statue" and forced to hold stock stil
l, or maybe feeling more like "It" in a game of hide and seek that she was much too old for. The longer she kept her presence quiet, the more idiotic she would look if she were discovered.
Still she said nothing, and moved no more than her neighbors.
The shadow paused by the dark hummock of the organ.
Temple bit her lip. Surely Matt hadn't come down again, perhaps seeking the same ersatz solace that she did?
The shadow, sure-footed, reached the room's ceremonial center, just an empty space meant for two, or three at most. It stopped dead center in the arch, head sweeping left and right like a spotlight.
"What on earth--?" Electra Lark's voice interrogated herself. "I never finished the Erica Kane figure that's supposed to go there. And poor old Sophie's hat has slipped."
She came scurrying down the center aisle, not about to be fooled by a living body among all these mannequins of her own making.
"It's me." Temple sat forward. The bracketing soft-sculpture people collapsed into each other behind her.
"Temple! Oh, my great-aunt Gilda's garters! You nearly scared the frost out of my hair. I thought it might be a burglar, or some sort of sex fiend."
"Just your local PR person," Temple confirmed in a foolish found-out voice.
Electra lifted the woman dubbed Sophie into the pew ahead, and then took her place on the seat, settling some papers on her lap.
"I was looking for you, I admit, but I'd given up and decided to see if everything was ship-shape here.
What are you doing in the chapel?"
"I thought it would be quiet."
"So it was," Electra said, chuckling. "No wedding's scheduled for a week. Now, listen. I told Max he could house-sit the Kellers's condo while they're in Nova Scotia."
"Oh, Electra! That isn't fair. My condo is half his."
"He hasn't exactly been paying his half of the maintenance and mortgage lately, has he? Besides, Louie might not make him real welcome."
"Louie is not the issue."
"I know, dear. Obviously, you two need a little time--"
Temple snorted in despair at Electra's understatement.
"Anyway, the upshot is that Max wants nothing to do with the Circle Ritz. Says it's too public for him.
Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle Page 2