Amber Affairs Read online

  Two

  Josh considered how many ways he could explode. He made a living at detonating objects in films and books—but shattering from a barrage of emotions, that was a new one. He’d have to work out the details later. He still couldn’t unclench his fists or he might leak fury.

  The girl of his teenage dreams stood there telling him she didn’t exist? That his entire adolescence had been a fallacy?

  “A construct?” he asked, holding back his temper. “Like a robot? I don’t think it was a robot I made love to. And robots don’t run and hide the instant a friend turns his back. What the hell happened?” Damn, he hadn’t thought all that pressure was still in there.

  Looking like a riotous sunset with surprisingly colorful hair and Gypsy clothes, she stepped back. She’d always been sensitive to his moods.

  His anger still simmered. “I came back from the horrible Romania shoot and you were gone! I almost called the police to ask them to dig up the lot to see where your body was buried.”

  He could remember the day he returned to the Jack and Ginger set as clearly as if it were yesterday—it had been completely dismantled. The production crew had gone. And Ginger had vanished as if she really had been a fantasy construct. He’d seriously imploded.

  She stared at him as if he were the AI. Then she blinked, and the Ginger face returned—the mind-melting, dimpled smile of the imp who’d captured the hearts of teen America, not to mention his. Outrageous as Orphan Annie or Pippi Longstocking on screen, she’d been as tragic as Judy Garland off-screen. He’d dreamed of that smile far longer than had been good for him.

  “Watching the cops bulldoze the lot might have been interesting,” she admitted with that devastating smile. “But I wasn’t there and would have missed the fun. I don’t have a TV.”

  Her dismissal of his very real terror raised the horrible rage of his nerdy adolescent years. But Josh had learned confidence since then. An old teenage crush didn’t have power over him any longer.

  With the half-smile that once slayed his teenage audiences, he returned her indifference. “That’s a pity. Cable streams great film these days, anything from fairy tales to superheroes, none of that pathetic crap we did.” He waited to see if her eyes might light with recognition of some of his work.

  They didn’t. “I hope you went on to better things,” she said softly, in her real voice, not the fake upbeat Ginger one. “And I’m very sorry I wasn’t there when you returned. I thought you’d left for the career you deserved. You really didn’t need me holding you back.”

  Damn, and there was the caring sprite he’d known behind the façade, the good-natured mediator who’d understood him and had prevented him from killing people, or at least, his career. “You were the only thing keeping me sane at that point,” Josh admitted, against his will. “But you’re right. Dell was a prick, and his show had run its course. Looks like we’ve both successfully moved on. Did you have to murder your mother to do it?”

  She blinked again, not in fake-Ginger mode but in what appeared to be astonishment. Score one for him. This time, a genuine dimpled smile brightened her translucent redhead's complexion. “In effect, almost. I hired a lawyer, got emancipated, took charge of what was left of my money and contracts, and moved on without her.”

  “And I couldn’t find you as Ginger James because you changed your name?” He’d spent nearly all his Romanian pay trying to prove Dell, their producer, or Crystal, her mother, hadn’t killed her and buried her on the set. The show’s bigwig lawyers must have really suppressed the scandal of genial Ginger suing her voracious mother.

  His teenage dream offered a soft, plump hand. “Amber Abercrombie, my ridiculously real name.”

  He shook hands without thinking these days, but her soft hand. . . wiped away years.

  “If my mother had an ounce of compassion in her dragon bones, she would have told you what happened. I should find it hard to believe she and Dell told you nothing, but I’m afraid it’s not difficult to imagine them chuckling up their sleeves and letting you rage. I’m really sorry I put you through that. But I was only sixteen and just didn’t think it would matter.”

  The Jack and Ginger Show had started when they’d been in grade school, an homage to old comedy-drama shows like Lassie or Andy Griffith. It had lasted well into their adolescence and probably should have ended sooner if everyone concerned hadn’t needed the money.

  He wasn’t ready to forgive her desertion, but he was an adult now. Josh beat down the physical thrill her touch had always engendered and released her hand. “Man, suing your mother and walking out on the show took guts. Good to meet you at last, Amber. If we must give your mother any credit at all, she picked a name that suits you.”

  Now that he’d cleared his addled brain of tempests, he could admire the thick layers of silky copper falling over her shoulders. He remembered how her pale blond hair had naturally waved—until Dell had ordered it cut and spiked, to suit the tomboy Ginger character. “Is the red natural? It’s perfect.”

  From what he could tell in the dim light, her cheeks colored, and she ran a nervous hand through her luxurious mop. “Mama used to bleach it. She said men liked blondes, and that Ginger shouldn’t really be a ginger because no one liked redheads.”

  “Oh yeah, that makes perfect Crystal sense. Damn, I’m glad you escaped the hag. Did you come straight here after you escaped Dell’s hell?”

  He studied the set she’d built for herself. It was pure Ginger—Amber. Colorful, coordinated, feminine, intriguing. . .and that was just the shop. She’d draped herself in amber and gold beads that hung down over a frilly, off-the-shoulder gold blouse that set off the plump breasts he’d drooled over as a kid, sometimes literally. They’d grown up together. Her plumpness had always been a part of her, just as his lack of height had been. Size had never been an issue when they turned to each other for sanity.

  Shutting down his lust, Josh noted her skirt was in the autumn colors she’d loved but no one had allowed her to wear. As tomboy Ginger, she’d been forced to wear denim and mud brown all the time, even off camera, in case a photographer caught her. She’d despised jeans. Instinctively, unobtrusively, he tilted his camera and snapped this colorful glory, hoping one of the shots would come out.

  Covered in dangling gold and copper bracelets, her creamy bare arm gestured at her rainbow-hued shop. “I’m not hiding from my mother. She knows where I am. I was born in Hillvale. She grew up here but fled when I was just a kid. The town always fascinated me, and the rent was cheap, so I decided to settle here and learn more about my other talent.” She waited, almost defiantly.

  Josh wanted to drag her from the shadows, into the sunlight of a café where they could drink coffee and talk about dreams as they once had. But he’d been young and stupid back then. He was an adult who knew what he wanted now. Marriage would bring him one step closer to a dream that obviously no longer interested her.

  “You’ve elevated tarot cards and Ouija boards to a career?” he asked, trying to sound upbeat and not incredulous.

  “My abilities are not perfect, by any means, but I’m good. I have repeat customers. And this town suits me.” Her melting smile and dimples disappeared. She picked up and shuffled a pack of well-worn cards sitting on the counter. “Shall I prove myself to you again? A simple spread, past, present, future.” She held the cards for him to shuffle.

  “Just like old times?” Warily, he took the deck, shuffled and divided it into three stacks the way she’d taught him all those years ago.

  He was oddly eager to see how she did what she did, now that he was no longer a superstitious youth. He’d been older than her, but she’d always pretended to be wiser with her card tricks. Of course, she’d kicked the crap out of him the first time he’d tried to kiss her. The fight for supremacy had been pretty damned fair since he couldn’t kick her back. He hid a smile at the memory.

  She flipped over the top card on the first stack and nodded. “The Hierophant. You were always a student,
always learning new things and eager to know more. Did you go on to college?”

  “I did, haphazardly, between acting jobs. Not exactly the normal college experience, but I now have a useless degree to hang on my wall. How about you?”

  She shook her head. “They don’t give degrees in being a psychic. My degree is in hard knocks.” She flipped the top card from the middle stack and frowned. “The Hanged Man, two major arcana cards in a single draw—you’re giving off some really powerful vibrations. This is not a good card to draw on the eve of a life-changing event like marriage. From what I’m reading from you, you feel as if you have no other choice. I’m picking up a sense that you’re still into negativity, you’re entangled in a pattern of negative behaviors, relationships, thought patterns. . . There’s no love here.”

  Josh shrugged, hiding his discomfort at her accuracy. She was even better at seeing through him than she’d been when they were kids. “Love is about as reliable as those cards. Willa and I understand each other, and that’s what matters.”

  And they were marrying because they didn’t believe they could succeed any other way—negative thinking maybe, but pragmatic.

  She shot him a glance from beneath her long lashes but mercifully, didn’t argue. He remembered her youthful self arguing passionately about love and life and what was important, but back then, arguing was all they could do because they had no control over what happened to them. As adults, they had the freedom to act on their beliefs instead of talk about them.

  She flipped the top card of the last stack. Even Josh recognized the skeletal knight—Death. She paled, and he waited with interest to see how she interpreted it. If he remembered rightly, the death card was a metaphor. Translating the metaphor required considering the other cards—and Amber’s own psychic interpretation.

  “Don’t put a lot of money in this wedding,” she said, shuffling the cards together again.

  The finality in her voice gave him cold chills. Josh shrugged it off. “Most of it is coming out of the publicity budget for the next film. Why don’t you come up to the lodge and have dinner with us? You can meet Willa before she turns the entire town into Wedding Central.”

  Her smile stayed gone, and Josh felt its absence like a cold north wind.

  “I wish you happy, Josh, but no one here knows me as Ginger, and I want to keep it that way. If we appear in public together, someone is likely to add two and two.”

  After those damned cards, her rejection had him bubbling and foaming, but he’d never been able to yell at Ginger/Amber. She was like a cuddly puppy who did the most awful things and got away with them because she was so damned cute. To him, anyway. To Dell and Crystal. . . They were inhuman monsters who’d never met a puppy they wouldn’t crush.

  Perversely, he refused to give her up now that he’d found her again. After what she’d put him through, she owed him a few hours of company. “Okay, no public reunions, got it. Do you still swim? I can persuade the lodge manager to let us have the pool for a private session. It’s enclosed with darkened windows for night use. I need to keep up my exercise schedule and you were always good at challenging me.”

  They’d had some of their most spectacular fights in the swimming pool—and even better make-up sessions afterward.

  Her big turquoise eyes widened, until she lowered her long lashes to hide them. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your bride should be the one challenging you.” She stepped away, almost into the curtain divider behind her.

  “Willa won’t go in a pool, says it wrecks her hair. The pool closes at ten and opens at six. It’s the only way I can wind down, so I have permission to use it after hours. Ten at night or five in the morning?”

  This time, she glared at him. “We are no longer teenagers pretending we can make ourselves acceptable by playing in water. I haven’t had a need to swim for fourteen years.”

  “You should be over the fat shaming thing by now!” He knew Ginger. She’d always had to be pushed into revealing attire. What the hell was he doing pretending they could turn back time?

  “Don’t be absurd. I like exactly who I am—anonymous, amiable Amber, without a bathing suit to my name because there is no ocean and no pool.” She yanked the cards away to shuffle them.

  Josh relaxed now that he had a familiar reaction. Ginger had always been ambivalent about everything. She just needed nudging to pry her from her comfort zone. “Swim naked. Swim in your nightgown. It will be just us and I won’t care. Bring dry clothes to change into and it’s all good. Where do you live? I’ll send a car for you just before ten.”

  She looked as if she wanted to hit him, and he was practically dancing in anticipation. No one had ever challenged him the way Amber had. He could almost see her as Amber now—much more colorful than spiky-haired blonde Ginger, way more voluptuous, and all grown up—telling him to take a flying leap off the tallest building or daring him to.

  “A fancy car on my small-town street would call more attention than dancing naked on the square. Are you not hearing me?”

  Oh yeah, there was the kid who’d defied him for years. He needed closure, damn it. They’d been peas in the same pod for eight years, and she’d split without telling him where she’d gone, leaving him literally terrified that she’d died. “I hear you. I’m all ears. My car will wait for you out in the parking lot. Blue Prius, boring as hell, no one will notice it. I’ll have the driver bring you around to the private entrance. Wear black and tie on a white apron and pretend you’re a maid, if that makes you happy. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Josh slapped his hand on her glass counter and glared down at her. “You owe me, Amber Abercrombie,” he repeated the familiar catch-phrase from their show that had always got the characters into the worst trouble. “We missed out on over a dozen good years because of your cowardice. See you there.”

  Josh stalked out. Aries—angry impatience and frustration, she mentally recited. Easily stressed, hence the need to work out, but so honest and direct that she never had to worry about what he really thought. Some things hadn’t changed, including herself. Her reaction to Josh was still that strong. She wanted to swim and talk to him again. Those were some of the best memories of her life.

  She collapsed into her chair feeling as if she’d just been run over by a bulldozer and maybe a street sweeper and a train engine.

  She was shaking. She hadn’t been this out of control since she was a kid. She’d spent these last years piecing herself together, strengthening her backbone, learning to like herself again. She might look pleasant and helpless, but she would not be bullied, and certainly not by Jacko, as she’d once called him.

  Josh’s demands were startling enough—bathing suit? Was the man blind? But she could tell him to jump in his own pool without a qualm. No, that particular demand was more ludicrous than terrifying—it was the black aura of death surrounding him that terrified her. His cards were far darker than she’d dared tell him. He was blithely skipping along the brink of hell and utterly unaware of the danger.

  Josh had been her one and only friend when her mother and her producer had constantly criticized her looks, the way she dressed, her acting ability. Without Josh, she wouldn’t have survived the torment. She couldn’t abandon him again, not when he was in very real danger.

  As if drawn by Amber’s turmoil—quite possible given the psychic resonance in Hillvale’s energy fields—Cass and Mariah appeared shortly after Josh’s departure.

  One of the town’s oldest residents, self-appointed queen of the Lucys, as they called themselves, Cassandra Tolliver appeared as regal and well-kept as any aging movie star. Tall, slender, her silver hair knotted and held with a silver pick, she strolled in with her skirt barely swaying around her trim ankles.

  Mariah, on the other hand, was around Amber’s age and everything Amber was not—tall, muscled, black-braided, and swarthy, with the hooked nose of her native ancestors, a mind almost literally like a steel trap—and seven months pregnant. Her talent involved computers
, which suited her perfectly. But she also had one foot on the Other Side. She and Cass communicated mentally in ways the rest of the Lucys couldn’t duplicate.

  “He upset you, why?” Cass demanded.

  “I just looked him up,” Mariah answered for Amber. “You don’t have to tell us anything except whether we need to push him off a cliff.”

  So, now Mariah knew about Jack and Ginger and wasn’t giving away her identity. Amber relaxed a smidgeon at this goodwill from her friends. This was the reason she lived up here, where people would never tell her she was a fat airhead with no style.

  She shook her head in denial. “Joshua Gabriel won’t hurt me. He’s the one in danger. He has the death and the devil cards in his present and future, and they’re giving off very bad vibes.”

  Mariah muttered an obscenity. Cass looked concerned. “Could we send him away?” Cass asked. “We don’t need any more evil polluting the vortex. We’ve had enough death. I understand celebrity weddings might help the town, but not if it means another person dying here.”

  Amber shook her head. “Personally, I wish we could send him away, but how can I ask the town to give up this opportunity if I’m wrong? Josh doesn’t live here. I could be picking up on something that will happen in LA.”

  Mariah nodded agreement. “Willa Powell’s family is Hollywood legend. Her wedding will be the event of the year. As a destination wedding site, we can fill the town’s coffers, maybe even give us a chance to build a school.”

  Which was important to Mariah now that she was having a baby. If they wanted young people to move here, a school was a necessity. And now that she might have Zeke. . .

  “Besides, from the sounds of it,” Amber added in resignation, “the wedding is already a full-scale production in progress. How would I put a stop to that?”