Susan Johnson - Hot Streak

“Mom, Mom! Look at all my presents!” Carrie danced and hopped in delight, her eyes filled with joy. “Wow, wow, wow, wow!”

It was impossible not to share in her daughter's elation, impossible not to marvel at the pride and doting affection in Carey's expression. After all the years of Bart's blatant indifference as a father, a warm pleasure filled her heart. Maybe the reporters weren't so far wrong when they chose bizarre terms like love nest and love child. Carrie was their love child, conceived in love and adored. And with Carey in her home, busy with the girls and Allen and Jess in picking up the packages, his teasing making the girls giggle and laugh, maybe it was a love nest, indeed.

And a second later he was beside her, reaching for her hands and pulling her up from her chair into the curve of his arm. “I'll never be able to thank you enough for giving me Carrie,” he whispered, his mouth brushing her cheek, “if I live into the fifth millennium.”

“I'm happy you're her father,” Molly said, lacing her arm around his waist.

“Not as much as I,” Carey murmured, feeling complete and whole for the first time in his life.

“Can I open them now?” Carrie screamed, disturbing her parents' idyllic moment. Carey turned with an immediate, “Yes,” while Molly simultaneously answered, “After you blow out your candles.”

“Yes, after you blow out your candles,” Carey amended with a wide smile. “Now let's get this special nine-year-old's birthday show on the road.” With a quick squeeze he released Molly. “Come on, Mom, our birthday girl's impatient.”

Allen and Jess politely attempted to excuse themselves in the event they were intruding, but were coaxed to stay. The candles were lit on the cake, Happy Birthday was sung with boisterous cheer, and nine candles were blown out with a pinch to grow an inch.

After a consenting nod from her mother, wrappings were feverishly torn off and Carrie squealed, oohed, and aahed as she opened her presents. Carey had been calling orders into New York for days, not to mention the shopping he'd had Allen handle for him here in town. She received enough frilly dresses and play clothes to open a store, red cowboy boots with her initials embossed on the sides, a string of miniature pearls and tiny pearl earrings in an unusual golden shade (to match her hair, her dad smilingly remarked). There was also a baby doll from France with real hair, complete with doll wardrobe in its own matched set of Hermиs luggage.

“Are you too grown up for baby dolls?” Carey inquired with an indulgent smile.

“Nope,” Carrie replied, cradling the lifelike doll against her flushed cheek. “I've always wanted a brother or sister.”

The portable compact disc machine with earphones was greeted with an ecstatic cry of delight, and the carrying case with a dozen discs was quickly perused. “How did you know all the cool bands, Dad?” Carrie asked.

“Even us old folks know one or two hot tunes, sweetheart,” Carey replied, his hand covering Molly's on the lace-covered table, his dark eyes filled with delight. Last week he'd controlled his impulse to bring in a band from L.A. for her birthday, knowing Molly preferred a smaller celebration.

Molly had bought Carrie the canopy bed she'd always wanted, complete with ruffled buttercup-yellow bedcover. She'd slipped a picture of it into a card saying: Delivery tomorrow, Happy Birthday from Mom.

“Oh, Mom!” The swoon in her voice was reflected in her expression. “Thanks, thanks, thanks. It's exactly the exact one I've always wanted. Exactly!” And Molly realized how little control “parenting” had on the power of the gene pool. Her daughter viewed the world with unrepressed enthusiasm, which she as a mother had neither bequeathed nor imbued in her. Turning to Carey with a smile, she said, “She's like you.”

Smiling back, he seemed to understand. “I know,” he said.

And when their daughter saw the documents tied with pink ribbons making her the owner of her own two-year-old Arabian horse, the birthday proceedings came to an instant standstill, only to explode a moment later.

“My own horse, my absolute own horse! Where is she? When can I see her? Who's going to teach me to ride? Mom! Look! Look!”

“A horse. How wonderful,” Molly said to her daughter, who was waving the papers in front of her face. When Carrie raced away to show them to Allen and Jess, Molly turned to Carey and said, “A horse?” in an altogether different tone of voice. “Here, in the city?”

“No, darling, it's up at my father's farm.”

“Do you still race?” She had forgotten about his love of horses.

“Occasionally,” said the only man in twenty-seven years to win the triple crown in steeplechase.

“Your dad can teach you to ride,” Jess said, “and Leon can help out.”

“Leon's my dad's trainer, Pooh,” Carey explained. “He's the best teacher in the world. And as soon as you can, we'll go up north and see your horse.”

“Mom… did you hear? When can we go?”

Allen and Carey exchanged glances.

“Whenever your Mom says the word,” Carey replied, “we'll head north.”

“Can Lucy come? It's summer vacation. Lucy, your mom will let you, won't she?” and in a quick succession of rapid fire dialogue between the young girls, it was agreed Lucy's mother might be amenable.

Molly merely smiled and said, “We'll see about going, darling.”

The rest of Carrie's presents turned out to be riding gear: boots, a jacket, jodhpurs, a silk shirt, and a small velvet hat.

Carey thanked his lucky stars he'd selected a horse for one of Carrie's gifts; it gave him an excuse for suggesting a trip north and means for taking them to safety without alarming Molly. And his daughter was proving to be a great help in his plan.

She gathered up all her riding equipment and announced, “Lucy and I are going to try all this on now, and then we're going to learn how to ride. Right, Dad?” And in her inimitable fashion, assuming the world would recognize her onward motion as its own, she added before she and Lucy ran from the room, “I can hardly wait!”

Allen looked at Carey.

Jess looked at Carey.

Molly looked at Carey.

“It was a real nice party, wasn't it?” he said with a smile.

W hile Ceci and his team were inside their plane, reassessing their options in a mission gone bad, Sylvie von Mansfeld's private jet touched down on a nearby runway at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. The man she'd sent ahead to locate Carey met her as she descended from the plane.

“Come along,” she said, and walked briskly toward the Mercedes limousine parked conveniently near. “You can give the address to the driver,” she added, stepping through the chauffeur-opened doorway into the car. After listening to Egon's recital of Rifat's handiwork, she had ordered a bullet-proof car, though she had little faith in such precautions. Sylvie was not only a bold woman, but a fatalist, as well. Men like Rifat didn't strike terror in her soul as they did in Egon's. She'd always been able to manipulate men, and even Shakin Rifat was a man under his formidable reputation.

When the investigator she'd hired attempted to join her in the backseat, she indicated with the merest nod that he should sit up front with the driver. When one's family owned the second-largest munitions works in the world, one learned the rudiments of authority in the nursery. And Sylvie had been born to command. “I'm in a hurry,” she said to her driver. “This man will tell you where to go.” And, leaning back into the plush seat, she crossed one leather-clad leg over the other, closed her eyes, and mentally rehearsed her dialogue with Carey.

Egon had received a phone call two days ago-a call from one of Rifat's minions, warning Egon not to leave the villa. Since then Egon had fallen off the wagon and started taking heroin again. Devious by necessity, he'd obtained the drugs without leaving the premises. Now Sylvie was here to try to talk Carey into coming back to help him. No one else could reach Egon when he was on drugs, and she knew a phone call to Carey would have been unsuccessful. He'd been adamant last time that it was his last time.

Should she plead, demand, reason? How best to approach Carey? she mused. A few years ago she would have been more certain, but he wasn't the same Carey Fersten any longer. He was serious, noticeably serious, a quality that hampered her familiar overtures. Thank God he cared for Egon. If all else failed, she'd resort to tears. Rasinsky had praised her dramatic weeping scene in the small Balzac film they'd done years ago. Now what were those lines… As she recalled first one phrase, and then another, the sentences began falling into place.

“He needs you, Carey, now more than ever. He's alone, desperately alone and in despair. If you don't care, I'm afraid this time he's going to slip away.” The words began tumbling through her mind, with the pauses for effect, the exact moment the first tears welled up into her eyes, the gulping swallow to stanch the flood of weeping.

Her eyes opened, and she smiled.

Why hadn't she remembered the Balzac play sooner?

A llen and Jess had excused themselves and left, promising to send a car sent round at six the next morning. Although Molly hadn't been persuaded yet, Carey was hoping she'd understand the need for precautions. The girls were in Carrie's room, listening to the new disc player, while Carey and Molly sat at the dining room table, smiling at each other over the shambles of the birthday cake and discarded wrapping, feeling like serenely contented parents.

“I always knew,” Molly whispered.

“No you didn't.” A lush smile accompanied the disclaimer.

“Well, I wished for it.”

“Not as much as I.”

“She even smiles like you.”

“Like us.”

“It's us, isn't it?” Molly wiggled her hand under his to feel the warm connection.

“Till the rocks melt with the sun.” His large hand engulfed hers.

“You always liked Burns.”

“I liked you a million times more.”

“Only a million?”

He grinned. “Greedybear.”

“For you.”

“Good.”

“Good, kiss me.” And as their lips touched in a lingering silkiness, the pealing of the doorbell broke into the confines of the dining room.

“Don't answer,” Carey whispered, his breath warm on her mouth.

“I always answer.” And she tipped her head away.

“Why?”

“Why? Politeness, I guess.”

“Not a good reason.”

“This is Minnesota.”

“An explanation, but not a reason.”

“You're too blasй for me, darling.” But after Molly went downstairs to answer the insistent ringing, she wished she hadn't.

A dazzling woman stood in her doorway. From the shouts of the paparazzi, there was no question that this was Sylvie von Mansfeld, Carey's ex-wife. And when Molly's eyes swept back from the jostling photographers to the luscious young woman, she was appalled and amazed. The young woman, was, if possible, more opulent in person than in any of the provocatively posed ads for her movies. Above medium height, very slender, wearing tight leather pants with a matching electric-blue silk shirt, she displayed a resplendent voluptuousness that would stop men in their tracks. Gazing at her, Molly was filled with horrified admiration.

“Carey,” Sylvie demanded in only slightly accented English, abruptly curtailing Molly's astonishment, “I wish to see him.” And before Molly could reply, Sylvie had swept past her and was running lightly up the stairs.

Molly lagged behind, since she had to shut the door against the flashing cameras. She was in time, however, to see Sylvie run to Carey, throw her arms around him, and burst into tears.

Standing awkwardly stiff, Carey's eyes met Molly's over the gamin curls of his ex-wife. “Excuse us for a minute,” he said, and walked her out on the terrace.

Molly heard his low, murmuring voice. Almost immediately Sylvie's strident, rapid tone broke in, this time in German. After that, Molly lost track of even the bits of audible conversation because Carey also shifted into German. Seconds later, a harsh “No!” from Carey was decipherable. Undeterred by the powerful refusal, Sylvie forged on in a curt rush of words. And then there was more weeping.

Feeling as if she were intruding, Molly walked into the living room. But even a room away, the sound of their voices drifted in, lowering occasionally so she only heard the murmuring inflection, rising as suddenly so each word was audible although the meaning was lost to her in German.