Hot Shot
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
From San Francisco society to a sunbaked Greek island, come share a deeply romantic adventure, bursting with vitality-and discover the unforgettable woman called Hot Shot, a glorious heart-stopping love story with characters as bold as the invention that brings them together-and changes America forever.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Hot Shot
© 1991
To Bill Phillips, B.E.E., M.S.E.E.,
who, in 1971, told me of a time when ordinary people would have computers in their homes.
He told me other dreams, too.
PROLOGUE
For three terrifying days in 1958, the bride was the most famous child in America.
Eighteen years later, Susannah Faulconer once again felt like that panic-stricken seven-year-old. As she began walking at her father's side down the white runner that had been laid in a rigid path through the exact center of the Faulconer gardens, the heirloom pearl choker that encircled her throat seemed to be cutting off her breath. She knew the sensation was irrational since the choker wasn't the least bit tight and she had worn it many times, beginning with her debutante ball when she was eighteen. There was no reason for her to feel as if she couldn't breathe. No reason for her to experience such an overpowering urge to rip it from her throat and fling it into the crowd of well-dressed guests.
Not that she would actually do such a thing. Not proper Susannah Faulconer.
Although she was a redhead, people didn't tend to think of her that way, since her hair wasn't the fiery red of a slick Clairol ad, but a patrician auburn that conjured up images of a gentler time-a time of early morning fox hunts, tinkling teacups, and women who sat for Gainsborough. Beneath a Juliet cap, she wore her hair swept neatly away from her face and simply arranged at the nape of her neck. The style was a bit severe for a bride, but it somehow suited her. Instead of an elaborate wedding gown, she wore a tea-length dress of antique lace. The open mandarin collar revealed a slim, aristocratic neck encircled by the lustrous five-strand heirloom pearl choker that was giving her so much difficulty. Everything about her bespoke wealth, breeding, and an old-fashioned sense of constraint out of place in a modern twenty-five-year-old woman.
A hundred years earlier, Susannah Faulconer would have been considered a great beauty, but her finely chiseled, elongated features were too subtle to compete with the bold cover-girl faces of the seventies. Her nose was thin and long but exquisitely straight; her lips narrow but beautifully arched. Only her eyes had a modern look about them. Wide-set and well-shaped, they were a light gray. They were also unfathomable, so that occasionally during a conversation, the person with whom she was speaking had the uncomfortable sense that Susannah simply wasn't there, that she had withdrawn to a place no one else was permitted to see.
For the past hour, the cream of California society had been arriving for the wedding. Limousines swept up the tree-lined drive and into the cobbled motor court that formed a crescent in front of Falcon Hill, the Faulconer family estate. Falcon Hill looked very much as if it had been part of the hills south of San Francisco for centuries, but it was barely twenty years old-built in the posh community of Atherton by Susannah's father, Joel Faulconer, not long after he had taken over control of Faulconer Business Technologies from his own father.
Despite differences of age and sex, there was a sameness about the guests who sat in the carefully laid-out rows of lacy white wrought-iron chairs. They all looked prosperous and conservative, very much like people accustomed to giving orders instead of taking them-all except the beautiful young woman who sat toward the back. In a sea of Halston and Saint Laurent, Paige Faulconer, the bride's younger sister, was conspicuous in a maroon thrift-store dress from the thirties draped at the shoulders with a funky, pink marabou boa.
As the music of the processional swelled, Susannah Faulconer turned her head slightly and spotted the cynical smile on her sister's pouty mouth. She resolved not to let her old conflicts with Paige spoil her wedding day. At least her sister had decided to attend the ceremony, which-after everything that had happened-was more than Susannah had expected.
Once again she was conscious of the tight pearl choker. She made herself forget about Paige and take in the beauty of the gardens instead. Marble statuary carved in Vicenza, and sparkling fountains purchased from a chateau in the Loire Valley, gave the gardens an old world look. Dozens of urns containing rose bushes heavy with white blooms had been strategically placed throughout the greenery. Gardenias floated in the fountains, and festoons of white ribbon blew gently in the June breeze. Everything was perfect, exactly as she had arranged it.
She concentrated on Cal, who was waiting for her beneath the pristine white canopy that had been constructed in front of the largest of the stone fountains. With his upper-crust good looks, Calvin Theroux reminded her of the men in magazine ads for expensive Scotch. At the age of forty-two, he was one of the most influential men in the Faulconer corporation. Despite their seventeen-year age difference, she and Cal were considered to be a perfect match. They had everything in common. Both had been raised in prosperity-she in San Francisco, he in Philadelphia. They had gone to the most exclusive private schools and moved in the best circles. Of course, Cal hadn't been kidnapped when he was seven, but then, neither had most people.
The choker tightened around her throat. She heard the distant sound of a riding mower and imagined her father's displeasure when he realized that the gardener at the neighboring estate had chosen this particular hour on a Saturday afternoon to cut the lawn. He would be annoyed that she hadn't thought to send the neighbors a note.
Cal's arm brushed against her own as she reached the altar. "You look beautiful," he whispered. The suntanned creases at the corners of his eyes deepened as he smiled.
The minister cleared his throat and began. "Dearly beloved…"
She knew she was doing the right thing by marrying Cal. She always did the right thing. Cal loved her. He was mature and thoughtful, and he would be a perfect husband. But the knot of misery that had been growing inside her refused to ease.
"Who gives this woman to be married to this man?"
"I do." Joel Faulconer's strong, handsome features were softened by the intense expression of fatherly pride that lurked about his mouth as he transferred her hand from his own arm to Cal's. He stepped away, and she could hear him taking his place in the second row of chairs.
The sound of the lawn mower grew louder.
Her maid of honor took the bridal bouquet, and Susannah's hand slipped discreetly to her neck. She looped her index finger just over the top of the Bennett family choker and eased it away from her skin. Cal was listening intently to the minister's words and didn't notice.
"I, Calvin James Theroux, take thee, Susannah Bennett Faulconer…"
The noise of the mower had grown so loud that others had begun to notice. Cal's nose twitched as if he had just caught a whiff of something unpleasant. Susannah stood quietly, her eyes steady, her mind unsettled.
And then she realized that the sound wasn't coming from a mower at all but from something else entirely.
She sucked in her breath and all the blood drained from her head. The minister was talking to her now. She couldn't concentrate. The noise was coming closer, moving around the side of the house and heading directly for the gardens. Cal turned to look, the minister stopped talking. Susannah could feel her skin growing damp beneath her breasts.
And then it happened. The peaceful gentility of the Faulconer gardens was shattered by the loud, vulgar roar of a big, black, twin-engine Harley-Davidson motorcycle shooting into view.
The bike barreled across the manicured lawn and cut past a statue of Andromeda. The rider's cry rang out
over the noise of the engine, a primitive, atavistic cry.
"Suzie!"
With a choked exclamation, she spun around. The pulse at the side of her throat began to throb.
Her father leapt to his feet, knocking his chair askew. Cal curled his hand protectively over her wrist. The bike came to an abrupt stop at the far end of the aisle runner she had so recently walked along. Its front wheel crumpled the pristine fabric.
No, she thought. This isn't real. It's only a nightmare. Just another nightmare.
"Su-zie!"
He wore a black leather jacket and blue jeans that were taut across his thighs as they straddled the motorcycle. He had the dark, snapping eyes and high flat cheekbones of a full-blooded Comanche, although he was more Mediterranean than Native American. His skin was olive, his mouth thin, almost cruel. The breeze blowing off San Francisco Bay caught his shoulder-length black hair and tossed it away from his face. It blew long and free like a flag.
"What's the matter, Suzie? Forget to send me an invitation?" His voice rose over the roar of the Harley, and his dark, mesmerizing eyes speared through her skin.
A murmur went up from the guests, an expression of outrage, astonishment, and horrified delight at being present to witness such an outrageous scene. Could this person be one of Susannah's friends? None of them could imagine it. One of Paige's flings, perhaps, but certainly not Susannah's.
In the background, Susannah was dimly aware of her maid of honor muttering "Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod" over and over like a mantra. She found herself holding onto Cal's arm as if it were her lifeline. She tried to speak, but the proper words wouldn't form. She began to pull at the choker, and her long, aristocratic fingers shook as she attempted to free it from her neck.
"Don't do this, Suzie," the man on the bike said.
"See here!" her father shouted as he tried to disengage himself from the row of wrought-iron chairs and the rope garland that cordoned off the seats.
She was so anguished that she couldn't even think about the embarrassment she was suffering in front of her guests, the personal humiliation of what was happening. Stay in control, she told herself. No matter what happens, stay in control.
The man on the bike held out his hand toward her. "Come with me."
"Susannah?" Cal said behind her. "Susannah, who is this person?"
"Call the police!" someone else exclaimed.
The man on the Harley continued to hold out his hand. "Come on, Suzie. Climb up on the back of my bike."
The Bennett family choker gave way under Susannah's fingers, and heirloom pearls tumbled down onto the white cloth that had been laid for the ceremony, some even rolling off into the grass. It was her wedding day, she thought wildly. How could such a vulgar, untoward event happen on her wedding day? Her grandmother would have been prostrate.
His arm slashed the air in a contemptuous gesture that took in the garden and the guests. "Are you going to give cocktail parties for the rest of your life, or are you going to come with me and set the world on fire?"
She pulled away from Cal and pressed her hands over her ears-a shocking, awkward gesture from proper Susannah Faulconer. Words erupted from her throat. "Go away! I won't listen to you. I'm not listening to you." And then she began moving away from the altar, trying to separate herself from all of them.
"Follow me, babe," he crooned. "Leave all this and come with me." His eyes were hypnotizing her, calling to her. "Hop on my bike, babe. Hop on my bike and follow me."
"No." Her voice sounded choked and muffled. "No, I won't do it."
He was a ruffian, a renegade. For years she had kept her life under perfect control. She had done everything properly, followed all the rules, not stepped on a single crack. How could this have happened? How could her life have careened out of her control so quickly?
Behind her stood safe, steady Cal Theroux, her twin, the man who kept the demons away. Before her stood a street-smart hustler on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Impulsively, she turned away from both of them and looked toward her sister, only to see the frozen shock on her face. Paige wouldn't help her. Paige never helped.
Susannah clawed at her neck, but the pearl choker was gone. She felt the old panic grip her, and once again she found herself being drawn back to the horror of that spring day in 1958-the day when she became the most famous child in America.
The memory washed over her, threatening to paralyze her. And then she grew aware of her father freeing himself from the row of chairs, and she summoned all of her strength to shake away the past. She had only an instant, only an infinitesimal fragment of time to act before her father took control.
Calvin Theroux stood to her right, promising love, security, and comfort. A messiah on a motorcycle stood to her left, promising nothing. With a soft cry, proper Susannah Faulconer chose her destiny.
BOOK ONE. THE VISION
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
– Goethe
Chapter 1
Susannah's real father wasn't Joel Faulconer, but an Englishman named Charles Lydiard, who met Susannah's mother when he visited New York City in 1949. Katherine "Kay" Bennett was the beautiful socialite daughter of a recently deceased New York City financier. Kay spotted Lydiard on the afterdeck of a friend's yacht, where he was leaning against the mahogany rail smoking a Turkish cigarette and sipping a Gibson. Kay, always on the lookout for handsome unattached men, immediately arranged an introduction, and before the evening was over, had fallen in love with Lydiard's finely chiseled aristocratic looks and cynical world-weary manner.
Kay was never the most perceptive of women, and it wasn't until a year after their marriage that she discovered her elegant husband was even more attracted to artistic young men than he was to her own seductive body. She immediately gathered up their two-month-old daughter and left him to return to her widowed mother's Park Avenue penthouse, where she threw herself into a frantic round of socializing so she could forget the entire unsavory incident. She also did her best to forget the solemn-faced baby girl who was an unwelcome reminder of her own lack of judgment.
Charles Lydiard died in a boating accident in 1954. Kay was in San Francisco when it happened. She had recently married Joel Faulconer, the California industrialist, and she was much too preoccupied with keeping her virile young husband happy to dwell on the fate of a disappointing former husband. Nor did she spare any thoughts for the three-year-old daughter she had left her elderly mother to raise on the other side of the continent.
Susannah Bennett Lydiard, with her gray eyes, thin nose, and auburn hair tightly confined in two perfect plaits, grew into a solemn little mouse of a child. By the age of four, she had taught herself to read and learned to move soundlessly through the high-ceilinged rooms of her grandmother's penthouse. She slipped like a shadow past the tall windows with their heavy velvet drapes firmly drawn against the vulgar bustle of the city below. She passed like a whisper across the deep, old carpets. She existed as silently as the stuffed songbirds displayed under glass domes on the polished tables.
Her Grandmother Bennett was gradually losing her mind, but Susannah was too young to understand that. She only knew that her grandmother had very strict rules, and that breaking any one of them resulted in swift and terrible punishment. Grandmother Bennett said that she had already raised one frivolous child, and she didn't intend to raise another.
Twice a year Susannah's mother came to visit. On those days, instead of walking around the block with one of her grandmother's two elderly servants, Susannah went to tea with Kay at the Plaza. Her mother was very beautiful, and Susannah watched in tongue-tied fascination as Kay smoked one cigarette after another and checked the time on her diamond-encrusted wristwatch. As soon as tea was over, Susannah was returned to her grandmother, where Kay kissed her dutifully on the forehead and then disappeared for another six months. Grandmother Bennett said that Susannah couldn't live with her mother because Susannah was too wicked.
It was true. Susannah was a horribly wicked little girl. Sometimes she touched her nose at the dinner table. Other times she didn't sit up straight. Occasionally she forgot her pleases and thank-yous. For any of these transgressions, she was punished by being imprisoned for not less than one hour in the rear closet. This was done for her own good, her grandmother explained, but Susannah didn't understand how something so horrible could be good.
The closet was small and suffocating, but even more terrifying, it held Grandmother Bennett's old furs. For an imaginative child, the closet became a living nightmare. Dark ugly minks brushed at her pale cheeks, and gruesome sheared beaver coats rubbed against her thin arms. Worst of all was a fox boa with a real head forming its grisly clasp. Even in the dark of the closet she could feel those sly glass fox eyes watching her and she sat frozen in terror, her back pressed rigidly against the closet door, while she waited for those sharp fox teeth to eat her up.
Life took on dark, frightening hues for such a small child. By the time she was five, she had developed the careful habits of a much older person. She didn't raise her voice, seldom laughed, and never cried. She did everything within her limited powers to stay out of the terrifying feral depths of the closet, and she worked so diligently at being good that she would probably have succeeded if-late at night when she was sound asleep-her body hadn't begun to betray her.
She started to wet herself.
She never knew when it would happen. Sometimes several weeks would go by without incident, occasionally an entire month, but then she would awaken one morning and discover that she was lying in her own urine. Her grandmother's paper-thin nostrils wrinkled in distaste when Susannah was brought before her. Even Susannah's wicked mother Katherine had never done anything so odious, she said.
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