Countdown to

Breaking Point

6/22/05

20 days (and counting to Breaking Point, in stores on July 12th)

Quote of the day:  

"I'm here to call in the favor you owe me," she told him. "I need a ride into Parwati for a sick child, the boy's mother, and myself."

Jones didn't bat an eye at the thought that he owed Molly a favor, even though she herself believed nothing of the sort.  She hadn't helped him when he was sick because she'd expected to get something in return.  Her world didn't work that way, but his did, and she used that now to little Joaquin's advantage.

"I can take you tomorrow," he said.

Molly shook her head.  "This child needs to get to the hospital now."

"Now."  He took a drink from the water bottle he wore clipped to his belt, his eyes never leaving her, as if she were some kind of poisonous snake that might attack if he dropped his guard.   -- Molly land Jones from OUT OF CONTROL.

Molly & Jones 101

Note from Suz: The book was OUT OF CONTROL.  The main plot featured Navy SEAL Chief Ken "WildCard" Karmody and New York lawyer and heiress, Savannah van Hopf.  The two main characters had met years ago, when they both were in college.  But now Savannah had received a phone call from her uncle in Jakarta, Indonesia, asking for help -- and a suitcase filled with money.  Too nervous to make the trip on her own, she approached the SEAL -- whom she hadn't seen in years, and who probably wouldn't recognize her.  After all, she was only a freshman who'd had a crush on him -- and he was dating one of the most popular seniors.  

Hijinx, of course, ensued.  But in the long run, Kenny and Savannah make the trip to Indonesia -- only to be abducted at gunpoint right in the Jakarta airport.  They eventually escape their captors and flee into the jungle on remote Parwati Island.  

Because they have all that money in their possession, many different groups of people (including terrorists, gun runners and various rebel forces) begin searching for them.

Meanwhile, on Parwati Island, a volunteer from a Heifer Project-type organization named Molly Anderson is starting a friendship with an American ex-pat known only as Jones.   He gets ill and she nurses him back to health -- but only after he manages to boot his lunch on her running shoes.  

Later, she goes to him for help when a little boy needs a ride in his airplane to a distant hospital.  (See quote of the day, above!) 

Jones is tall, dark, mysteriously scarred and dangerous, and only wants to be left alone.  

Or so he claims.  

The first two scenes that features Molly & Jones in OUT OF CONTROL are from Molly's point of view, and we learn that she's undeniably attracted to the man.  

The following excerpt from OUT OF CONTROL is the first time I let the readers inside of Jones' head...

Jones was at the bar in the Tiki Lounge, nursing a beer when Molly came in.  

He didn't try to hide, but he didn't try to catch her attention either.  He didn't even look directly at her in the cloudy mirror behind the bottles of hard liquor.

Maybe she was here because she was thirsty.  Maybe if he ignored her, she'd order a rum and something with lots of ice, and take it out onto the veranda where the other tourist types sat and watched the sun set over the harbor.

And maybe Ed McMahon was going to come in next and announce that Jones had just won ten million dollars in the American Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes.

Why not?  This was turning into a night of unexpected visit.  Jayakatong Tohijaya -- Jaya for short -- had left just moments ago.  Jaya was an Indonesian entrepreneur who'd recently joined forces with the rebel leader Badaruddin, a self-important military wannabe asshole who had his biggest camp of followers on the island just north of Parwati, and waged an ongoing war with not just the government but also the Zdanowicz brothers, gun and drug runner assholes who operated out of Jakarta.

Suz:  Writer alert!  The above paragraph is exposition.  I'm using this opportunity to give readers a sense of the Wild West feel of the area of Indonesia where Jones and Molly live.  Also, these people Jones mentions --  Jaya, Badaruddin, the Zdanowicz brothers -- all play a part in the upcoming story. (This scene is relatively early in the book.)

You know, I always thought of OUT OF CONTROL as being my version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" -- there's an element of zaniness to all the different groups (with their own crazy agendas) who are trying to find Ken and Savannah and the suitcase of money.  Kenny (the book's SEAL hero) sees it that way, too.  He rarely feels that he and Savannah are in serious danger.  He's a SEAL, he can hide in the jungle without being found forever...

Okay, back to Jones.

Jaya was no fool, he hadn't joined Badaruddin's private army because he wanted the beret-wearing, camouflage uniform-clad self-awarded general to become Indonesia's dictator.  No, he simply could make more money and have access to better modes of transportation while working as the general's right-hand man.

Jaya had come right over and sat his skinny butt down next to Jones.  He'd heard--island gossip was faster than the digital internet--that Jones's plane was down, that a vital part of the engine had burned out during the afternoon's frantic rush to the hospital.

Suz:  This info -- that Jones is now stuck here -- is news to the reader.  

Jaya had even known--somehow--exactly what part Jones needed to fix the Cessna.

And he had a way to get his hands on that very part.

For an exorbitant finder's fee, Jaya would deliver that part to Jones sometime between tomorrow morning and early next week.

They'd struck a deal, and Jaya had skittered off into the night, on a quest to find insulin shots for a guest of the general's.

But now Molly appeared.  She sat down, of course, on the stool Jaya had recently vacated, of course, and ordered a glass of tropical juice.

Jones took another slug of beer, still not looking at her.  But he could see her too well.  His peripheral vision had always been too damn good.

Molly Anderson.  She'd recently tried to rebraid her thick reddish brown hair, but she was the kind of woman who moved too quickly ever to achieve real tidiness.  Bits and pieces of her hair had escaped, some curling wildly in the humidity, some clinging damply to her neck and face.

It was a face that wasn't even really that pretty.  It was too broad, with a too generous mouth that would have been sensuous if she'd bothered to wear lipstick.  Which, as far as he knew from his days of living in her tent, she never did.

Suz:  We know from being in Molly's head during those two previous scenes that she spends a lot of time thinking about the days when she nursed Jones back to health.  She's also told us that when he recovered, he simply disappeared.  Some time later, he dropped off a thank you gift, but he didn't give it to her in person.  He's been avoiding her ever since.  

So now we know that Jones hasn't forgotten those days he spent, sick as a dog, either.  And look at the words he uses to describe it.  He doesn't say "staying in her tent."  He says "living."  Interesting choice of words, huh? <g>  

Her eyes were pretty enough--a light, almost golden brown.  But they had laughter lines around them, showing her age.  She had to be closing in on forty, fast, and she'd lived, if not hard, then certainly enthusiastically.

She was wearing the same drab green T-shirt and the cargo shorts that came down nearly to her knees that she'd had on during the flight to Parwati.  Leather sandals on her feet.

Pink nail polish on her toes.  It was such a contradiction to the lack of lipstick, it fascinated him.  He refused to let himself so much as glance at her feet again.

Suz:  Man, he's into punishing himself, isn't he?  My goal with this scene is to make the reader ask, "What's up with this guy?  He's clearly attracted to this woman.  Why is he so intent upon keeping his distance?"

"Joaquin's going to be okay," Molly said.  "You were right, Mr. Jones.  It was an allergic reaction to black market penicillin.  His mother gave it to him, thinking it would clear up an infection in his foot."

He shrugged, still hoping rather futilely that she'd get a clue and leave him alone.

The bartender put a tall glass of juice in front of Molly, and she thanked him, then nearly drained the glass in one long chug.

With her head tipped back, she looked as if she were inviting vampires to dinner.  All that pale skin, that long, elegant throat.

Jones was probably the only man in the place who wasn't staring at her.  Terrific, now he had to worry about one of these lowlifes following her out of her.

No, he wasn't going to think about it.  That was her problem.  He'd made up his mind weeks ago not to think about her anymore.

Suz:  I tried to make it obvious to the readers that, despite what he said, Jones was going to worry about her.  He does worry about her.  He's already emotionally connected, despite his telling himself that he's not!   (Classic Han Solo behavior...)

But when she put the glass down, and drew a line in the frosty condensation on the outside with one of her long, elegant fingers, he had to force himself not to remember her hands, so cool against his forehead and face as he lay, feverish, in her bed.

"I heard about your plane," she continued.  Of course she had.  Everyone on the island had heard about his plane.  "That you burned out the something or other and have to wait two weeks for the part to come in from Jakarta.  I'm so sorry."

Jones finally looked at her.  Because of her, he'd missed his appointment, lost more money than he could believe, and pissed off some very dangerous men in the process.  He was stuck in this shithole until tomorrow--and that was the absolute best case scenario.  It could well take Jaya a full week to get that part.

And she was sorry.

The real stupid thing was, she was sorry.  Most people didn't mean it when they said it, but Molly Anderson did.

How did she manage to be so goddamn beautiful all the time?  Her eyes, her face--they just seemed to shine despite her lack of cosmetics, despite the fact that she wasn't conventionally pretty, despite the wrinkles and lines.  Or maybe because of them.  Jones couldn't figure it out.

"I know you've been seriously inconvenienced," she was telling him, "but if it weren't for you, Joaquin would have died.  So finish your beer.  I'm taking you to dinner."

Oh no.  No way.  He was absolutely not going to have dinner with Molly Anderson.  "No, thanks."

"Mr. Jones, I refuse to take no--"

"Look, we're even now."  His voice came out louder and edgier than he'd intended.  He took another pull on his beer and when he spoke again, he managed to sound more matter of fact, more like his normal bored but deadly self.  "By flying you down here, I paid you back.  I don't owe you anything else."

Molly laughed and he had to look away.  He pretended to be fascinated by the picture of the Playboy Playmate of July 1987 that was pinned up behind the bar.  Faded and tattered around the edges, she hadn't aged quite so well as Molly.

Suz: Oh, Jones, Jones.  You are so fighting a losing battle.  You're looking at a picture of a naked woman and what do you do?  You pay more attention to the condition of the paper it's printed on, because you're still thinking about Molly.

"I want to treat you to dinner," she told him.  "That means I'll pay.  Honestly, I don't expect anything else from you."

"You wanna bet?"  He turned slightly on his stool to face her.  "You don't want to take me to dinner.  You want to go out with some watered-down, defanged version of me.  And I'm telling you right now, I no longer have an obligation to act like some goddamn choir boy around you.  We're even.  You still want to have dinner with me?  Fine.  But you've been warned.  You're going to be getting way more than you bargained for."

He looked directly into her eyes, and let her see that he wanted her, that when he looked at her, when he thought of her, he thought of sex, pure and raw, primitive and pounding.  Him hard inside of her, her face flushed with desire as she clung to him.  No finesse, no promises, no emotions--just a good old-fashioned banging.

But he should've know she wouldn't scare easily.

She didn't look away, didn't blush, didn't rush out of the bar, scandalized.

No, she just stared right back at him, a slow smile spreading across her face.

"Well," she said.  "You're mighty sure of yourself, aren't you, Mr. Jones?"

Suz:  This was where, as a writer, I totally fell in love with Molly.  She was so genuinely amused by Jones -- and she knew exactly how to handle him, exactly what to say.  She was such a fun character to write.  Boy, did sparks fly whenever she was with Jones...

He let himself look at her wide mouth, imagining just what she could do with lips like that.

And she laughed, rich and thick and throaty, genuinely amused.

"What do you think is going to happen?  That during the hour or so that we have dinner, I'm going to find you so irresistible that I'm going to beg you to come back to my room so I can have you for dessert?" She actually licked her lips, the witch.

And he was the one who started to sweat.

But then she leaned forward so that he had to look into her eyes, not at her mouth anymore.  "Get over yourself.  Even if you showered and shaved, it's not likely I'm going to succumb to your vast charms tonight--although I have to admit, your chances would be greatly improved.  I do so prefer a man who doesn't stink."

This was not the way this scenario was supposed to play out.  She was supposed to run away.  He was supposed to sit right here at this bar and have another five, six, seven beers until he was too drunk to care about the hard-on she'd just given him.

Molly slipped down off the bar stool.  "So cut the macho crap, get off your butt and come have dinner."

Jones finished his beer and stood up.  Let her see what she did to him.  Maybe that would give her pause.  "You've been warned."

"Yeah, yeah," she said as she led the way out onto the street.  She glanced at him, glanced down and smiled.  Again, she was genuinely amused.  "I'm terrified."

* * * *

That's all for now!  Be sure to come back for tomorrow's installment in the Countdown to Breaking Point!

See you tomorrow!