Don't Look Down - Jennifer Crusie

by Don't Look Down (StMartins) (v1. 0) (lit)

  "This is true." Lucy looked at Daisy. "Meant to ask. Animal of the Month?"

  Daisy relaxed a little. "She picks an animal every month to learn about." She sighed. "Some are better than others. The Month of the Platypus wasn't pretty."

  "People should not feed gators," Pepper said, still looking at her book. "Bryce should not feed Ding Dongs to him. Moot will attack."

  Lucy was distracted by the image of Moot dragging Bryce away under the bridge. It was strangely plausible; Bryce was exactly the kind of guy who'd get eaten by an alligator while feeding it snack cakes.

  "Let me see the sticker book," Daisy said, reaching across the table.

  "It has cool stuff," Pepper said as Daisy took it. "There are all these stickers and then pages to stick them onto."

  "Sounds excellent," Lucy said. Good job, Wilder. Who knew a Green Beret would know about stickers? Now, if he only knew how to rescue depressed, drug-addled sisters…

  "Like it says she has winged sandals," Pepper said over her root beer, "but I like the boots better. They're like your boots, Aunt Lucy. Sort of. You should paint a white stripe up the front."

  Lucy looked down at her snakeskin boots. "No. No white paint on snakeskin."

  "I have red rubber rain boots," Pepper said. "Can I paint a white stripe on those?"

  "Yes," Daisy said.

  "So," Lucy said to Pepper, "why don't you go back and take a nap while your mom and I—"

  "Time to go," Daisy said and stood up, sliding the sticker book back to Pepper.

  "We just got here," Pepper said, outraged, but Lucy took one look at Daisy's stubborn, drowsy face and gave up for the night.

  "It's hours past your bedtime," Daisy said to Pepper. "You can play in Aunt Lucy's camper all afternoon tomorrow if you want."

  "No," Pepper said, "I have to be on the set. To bring Aunt Lucy apples. Because Stephanie is worthless."

  "Pepper!" Daisy said.

  "Okay," Pepper said with a dramatic sigh. "Can I take the Wonder Woman stuff with me?"

  "Yes," Daisy said, not meeting Lucy's eyes. "Hurry up."

  Pepper packed all her stuff back in the Jax Comix bag, checking first to see that there wasn't anything else in there.

  "What are you looking for?" Lucy asked.

  "I thought there might be another comic book," Pepper said. "I can read those."

  Well, if she couldn't save Daisy tonight, she could at least give Pepper something to look forward to. She took the bag from her and read the stamped address. "I think this place is pretty close. Captain Wilder said he had an appointment someplace nearby, so he must have found it on his way there. How about tomorrow morning, we go look at this place and get you some comics?"

  "Just you and me?" Pepper's face lit up.

  "Just you and me, baby," Lucy said, relieved to be doing something right. "If that's all right with your mom."

  "Yep." Daisy yawned. "First call isn't until one, so I'm sleeping in."

  "Thank you, Aunt Lucy," Pepper said, her voice thrilled. "And then I can show Crafty and Estelle in wardrobe and Mary Vanity what I got."

  I have to get this kid into school so she can play with somebody under twenty, Lucy thought and then looked at Daisy's strained face. And I'm going to save you, too, you dumb-butt. "I'll pick you up at eleven," she told Pepper, who hugged her and then climbed out of the trailer, the Jax bag clutched to her chest.

  Daisy paused in the doorway. "Luce—I'm sorry I asked Connor to call you."

  Lucy went very still. "You asked Connor to call me? I thought he'd sicced you on me when I told him no."

  Daisy swallowed. "Connor wanted to just finish the shoot. Do it himself. But I told him he'd run into big-time union trouble, what with everyone bailing out after the director died; that he needed a real director. I told him he should call you."

  Lucy frowned at her. "Why would you tell him that? You don't care about this movie, nobody here does."

  Pepper's voice floated through the night air. "Come on, Mom!"

  "I just wanted to see you," Daisy said, trying to smile. "And he did, too. He's never stopped loving you, Lucy."

  "That would explain the ten thousand women he has undoubtedly slept with since I left," Lucy said.

  "Come on, Mom," Pepper said.

  Daisy shook her head and went out the door, and Lucy watched her take Pepper's hand and cross the parking lot to her car.

  You told him to call me because you wanted me to save you, she thought. Big sister to the rescue again. So why won't you tell me what's wrong? She slumped back in her chair.

  It was her fault. She should have kept a closer watch on Daisy, checked in more often with Pepper. She'd been all caught up in her own life, her career, and hadn't thought—

  Well, that was then, this is now. Tomorrow, she'd talk to Gloom, find out what he'd learned talking to the crew, find out what Daisy was taking, solve whatever mess was driving her to take it, talk her into getting Pepper into school…

  And she'd have to thank Captain Wilder for the Wonder Woman doll, too. Big day, she thought.

  Then she got another root beer and sat down to read the script.

  By the time Wilder recrossed the bridge, his hangover had turned into exhaustion despite the hair-of-the-dog beers in the diner. Or perhaps it was just Crawford and the fucking CIA suddenly showing up that had drained all his energy. Whatever the cause, he went back to the Westin to the room Bryce had gotten for him adjacent to his own, grateful to be away from both the CIA and the movie set. Those people were crazy.

  But at the door he paused, his hand halfway to the knob that still had the do not disturb tag hanging from it. Someone had been in the room. The telltale piece of clear tape he'd left on the lower-left corner of the door had been broken. Either someone had fucked up and entered by mistake or someone was waiting in there to fuck him up or someone had gone through his stuff, which would just plain be fucked up. His left hand snaked behind his back and he pulled out his Glock automatic pistol, making the decision to fight not flee.

  He twisted the knob and entered low and fast, duckwalking, back pressed against the wall, moving to the right, weapon extended, sweeping with the eyes, finger on the trigger. The room was dark, shades pulled tight, but there was someone in there, he could smell… fuck, perfume. Who? He'd caught that scent before. On the set.

  "Is that a gun?"

  Althea. Wilder slowly rose out of his crouch, as his eyes became accustomed to the dark, the weapon suddenly feeling very heavy as he dropped his hand to his side. "Uh. Yeah." That sounded lame, so he told himself, You're in control. You're the one with the gun, for Christ's sake.

  He turned on the light.

  She was in his bed, the sheet up to her neck. Had she looked under the bed and found his backpack? He hoped not. She shifted and he smelled perfume again. Perfume had not been in his plans, either.

  She smiled at him and ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip.

  Well, plans were made to be changed. They'd taught him that in Ranger School. "Improvise, Ranger," the Ranger instructors had screamed at the starving, sleep-deprived students. But they hadn't covered this kind of ambush.

  Still, Wilder thought as he returned the gun to the holster in the middle of his back, an ambush was an ambush. And the U.S. Army Ranger School-approved solution was to assault right into the enemy force with overwhelming power and take control of the situation. Anything else meant being stuck in the kill zone.

  Althea half sat up, and the sheet slid, catching on her breasts. "What kind of gun is it?"

  Wilder swallowed, frozen. He was in the fucking kill zone. The RIs would have flunked him.

  "A Glock." Had that come out wrong? He tried to replay what he'd said, but his brain wouldn't back up, it was going fast-forward.

  "A what?" Althea placed a long, thin hand over her chest as she leaned forward, exposing her side and confirming that she wasn't wearing anything.

  "A Glock Model 20."

  "Can I"—Althea's voice went
an octave lower—"touch it?"

  Oh, fuck. They might as well get his body bag now. He drew the gun. Some semblance of sanity made him eject the magazine and then pull back the slide, ejecting the round in the chamber and pocketing it before he extended the weapon to her.

  She reached with the hand that had been holding the sheet, and— he was so screwed—it dropped to her waist, exposing her breasts. She took the gun from his frozen hand, cradling it with both of hers.

  "Tell me about it." She brought the gun closer to her. "I saw you and Bryce talking all night. Talk to me."

  "Uh," Wilder said, trying to think of something besides breasts.

  "What he did with the knife today. That was stupid, wasn't it?"

  "Bryce. Well." Breasts. Right here. "You know. No harm, no foul."

  "He could have cut someone."

  "But, hey, he didn't." Wilder was starting to sweat.

  "Tell me about the gun." Althea cradled it in her slender hands, the muzzle pointing, well, damn, toward her face, her mouth. He'd just handed his gun to someone. Fuck. His buddies at the Special

  Warfare Center would be kicking his ass up and down Bragg Boulevard if they knew.

  Althea now had one hand cradled around the pistol grip and the other one on the barrel. Stroking it. Not subtle, but Wilder didn't care.

  Maybe his buddies wouldn't give him shit. Not if he told them who he'd given the gun to and under what circumstances. LaFavre would be buying him beers. And wanting to hear about it. Not that he would ever tell. There were some things you just didn't talk about. Wilder hated guys who talked. Which was just as well because right now, he was having a hard time forming words.

  Althea brought the gun closer to her body, between her breasts, still stroking it, and Wilder made no pretense of not staring. Everything he wanted to see was now in one tight shot.

  "Tell me about your gun," Althea said again.

  Wilder swallowed. "It holds fifteen rounds of ten millimeter. That's the diameter of the bullet."

  "Is that a big bullet?"

  Just throw a knife in my throat and have it over with. "It's a good-sized round. Most people carry nine millimeter." He was still staring at her breasts and the gun. "So I went one larger. Like Spinal Tap. You know, the amp turns up to eleven."

  Shit, he was showing his age. Get out of the fucking kill zone.

  "It's got an integrated laser sight built into the recoil spring guide assembly, uh, there—" He pointed, his hand less than six inches from the gun and her breasts. He was definitely sweating. "—Just below the barrel."

  "Oh, you mean the red dotty thing you see in the movies?"

  "Yeah. Touching the trigger activates the laser."

  "Can I do that?"

  Touch the trigger? "Sure. It's safe. I've taken the bullets out." He forced his mind to focus. Had he cleared the chamber?

  Althea turned the gun in her hands. She put her finger on the trig-aer. A red dot appeared on the far wall. She pointed the gun at Wilder. The dot was on his chest. "Neat."

  Never point a weapon at anyone unless you're going to shoot him. Wilder bit back the words. It would be bad timing. And he had told her it was safe. And he had taken the round out of the chamber, right? Shit. He tapped his pocket and felt the magazine and extra round and resumed breathing.

  ''What was that double-tap thing you talked about?"

  Wilder put two fingers to his forehead. "When you shoot someone, you always fire twice. You want them to go down permanently. So this is the spot."

  She nodded.

  "You know, the gun is only half the equation." He reached out and retrieved it from her. She looked slightly disappointed and he got a much better look at her breasts. He knew they weren't real, but so what? They were here. In his bed.

  He took the magazine and round out of his pocket. He pulled the slide back and put the round in the chamber, letting the slide go forward. Then he put the magazine in. A round in the chamber, not approved for police departments or gun clubs, but Wilder had never been a cop or a member of a gun club.

  "I load the rounds myself," he said as he put the gun back in the holster.

  "Why?"

  "They're hot loads."

  Althea laughed and he was mesmerized by the way that made her breasts jiggle. "And what's a hot load, Captain Wilder?"

  The way she said his name reminded him of Armstrong. Well, why the hell should he give a shit what Armstrong would think? Bryce said she was doing that asshole Nash. Bryce was doing the makeup girl. Nobody had any morals in this place. When in Rome…

  Althea leaned back on the pillows, her nipples pointing up at an im-possible angle, straight at Wilder, her version or designating a target. She had him, he was resigned to it. She might even know something about Finnegan.

  She smiled at him.

  Although now was not the time to ask. Well, if he had to take one for the team, so be it. He'd been worse places and in worse situations. Plenty of them.

  "J.T.?" she said. "Hot load?"

  "Hot loads. They're, um, designed for max muzzle velocity, able to punch through body armor, and then disintegrate inside the body for maximum damage." Geez, he sounded like some lame-dick instructor on the range at Bragg.

  "Oooh."

  Was that a coo? He'd heard the term; he wasn't sure he'd ever heard the reality.

  "Maximum damage." Althea leaned forward. Her breasts jiggled but they didn't droop. It wasn't natural but at the moment Wilder didn't give a shit. "Where did you learn that?"

  "Uh, Fort Bragg. Special Forces training."

  She touched her lip with her tongue. "I bet you've seen a lot of action."

  Wilder swallowed. "Some."

  She shivered a little and that looked good, too. "Where?"

  "Iraq," Wilder said, trying to remember. "Afghanistan." Here.

  "Oh." She blinked at him. "Dangerous places. Are you working now?"

  "I'm on leave," he said.

  She smiled. "So what else do you have? I liked the gun."

  Damn. Wilder mentally ran through the weapons he had strapped to his body, trying to figure out how he could get his clothes off without revealing them all.

  "J.T.?"

  "A man has to have some secrets," he told her, and turned out the light.

  Lucy was halfway through the script and completely confused when Connor knocked on the door of the camper and opened it. She dropped the script and it slid off the table as he came in, smiling at her, his bulk filling the camper.

  "We're good to go tomorrow," he told her, collapsing into one of the chairs. He looked beat, lines around his eyes, gray smudges under them, his five o'clock shadow making him look like a Hollywood bandit. "Late start, easy day. Nothing to worry about."

  "Good," Lucy said, trying to stay businesslike. It was too much like old times, both of them bone tired way past midnight and Connor smiling at her.

  Except that there was something wrong with the shoot. And something wrong with Daisy.

  "Why aren't you back at the hotel?" he asked. "No reason for you to still be here."

  "I was reading." A script that makes no sense. "Connor, what's going on here?"

  He sighed. "We're trying to finish a movie, love. By contract it has to be done by six a.m. Friday, so we're pedal to the metal."

  "No, we're not," Lucy said. "I've seen the shooting schedules. We're not even doing full days. And this stuff that we're shooting doesn't make sense. The crew is uninvolved, the actors don't care, and my sister… there's something wrong with Daisy, Connor. She's taking something, some prescription—"

  "You're overreacting," Connor said, sounding as tired as Daisy. "As far as the movie goes, name me an action movie made in the past twenty years that's made sense. Don't worry about it, just finish shooting it. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be done."

  "Then why'd you get me to finish it?" Lucy said, exasperated. "You know I don't do 'good enough for government work.' If you just wanted it finished, you could have gotten any
hack."

  He smiled at her. "I wanted to see you." He leaned forward. "Look, I know we got off to a bad start today, but it doesn't have to stay that way. I really wanted you here, Luce. I want you back."

  "Oh, Connor," Lucy said, shaking her head, but he held up his hand.

  "Just hear me out, babe. I didn't appreciate you when I had you, I was young and stupid and not ready to settle down, you should never have married me. But now I'm older and I'm tired and I just want to sit on a deck someplace with a good woman and watch the sun set over the ocean. This is my last job, I'm retiring after this, finding one place to stay, one woman to stay there with."

  Oceanfront property? Expensive fantasy, Lucy thought, but that didn't mean it was a bad one. Except that he must have been making a hell of a lot of money if he thought he could pay for it. Or he was working one of his schemes. Was that what was dragging Daisy down?

  "And you've always been the best woman I've ever known," he went on. "Daisy said you weren't with anybody. She said you hadn't really had anybody serious since me. And I thought that maybe you still—" He swallowed hard. "I was better when I was with you. Things went better. You made my life better. You were the best time I ever had, Lucy. And I think maybe I've been looking for you ever since." He stretched his hand across the table and took hers, and she fought a sudden urge to pull it away.

  "Connor. Listen—"

  "I know." Connor let go of her hand. "Too much too soon." He grinned at her. "That's your specialty, rushing in too fast to fix things, and now here I'm doing it. But I have four days, well, three now, to show you that I've changed."

  She bit her lip. "Look, I drove down from New York today, and then shot all night, and I'm worried sick about Daisy, so this is not the time—"

  "I know, I know." He stood up and held out his hand. "Come on.

  I'll take you back to the hotel and you can sleep on it and then we'll talk tomorrow."

  She took his hand and let him pull her up. "I'll drive the camper. I need it to take Pepper to the comics store tomorrow."

  He smiled again, his face softer than she'd ever seen it. "You're great with her. You should have kids of your own. Maybe that's something we should talk about, too."