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“You’ve been feeling all right, though? I could take you to the ob-gyn if you need—”
“It’s nothing. I just haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Are you warm enough at night? Or too hot? I can get you more pillows, or different ones—”
“I’m fine. Really. It’s just the baby.” And being in a new, unfamiliar place. She was grateful for the plush guesthouse she’d been installed in, but nothing about her situation made her feel at home. “I just need—” space. To be alone. To do something on my own without being criticized or questioned “—to rest.”
“You know it’s absolutely no trouble at all for me to drive you around,” Winnie reiterated. “I only work part-time at the bank these days, and I can get time off. Or Kaylee can drive you, if you need.”
She caught Kaylee’s scowl, but didn’t react to it. “Thank you.”
She’d only ask either of them if it were absolutely necessary to go out. The truth was, as restless and bored as she was alone in the guesthouse, it was almost preferable to spending all her time with Winnie. Riley’s mother was sweet, but her hovering was getting on Kat’s nerves.
Not to mention that she got the feeling Kaylee was jealous of all the attention that her mother lavished on Kat and her unborn grandchild. It would explain her attitude.
But, more than her own space or anything else, Kat wanted some of her independence back. The guesthouse gave her some privacy, but it wasn’t enough. Being around the Jacobsens all the time was beginning to stifle her. She felt trapped by kindness—asking Winnie to borrow her car would only get her chauffeured around, while asking to arrange a rental car felt greedy, somehow, even ungrateful.
Maybe she was. Maybe she had to be, for the baby’s sake if no one else’s. If she didn’t get out on her own soon, she’d go stir-crazy.
Back at the guesthouse, she opened her laptop and discovered yet another email from Jamie. It was the eighth one in four days, asking where she was, how she was doing, whether she could take pictures of where she was to reassure her she wasn’t in a rat-infested gulag. Her requests for photos were getting progressively more demanding. The latest message had been telling.
At least let me know you’re not dead. I’m your friend—can’t you even spare me a minute to say hi?
Jamie was not happy with her. But her demands smacked of something more than curiosity, as if she knew something.
As much as it pained her to turn away from her friend, she deleted the email without replying.
The guesthouse landline phone rang. She picked it up swiftly, hoping it was her mother.
“It’s me.” Riley’s voice was stiff, and tired, too. A thrill went through her, followed by a tumbling in her belly. She hadn’t thought she’d missed him, but she had. “I wanted to call and check up on you.”
He could’ve phoned four days ago when she’d first moved in, but he hadn’t. Of course, he was busy. She calmed down and told herself it was a courtesy call, nothing more. “Things are fine. The guesthouse is lovely and your family’s been very kind. I haven’t met your brother yet, though.”
“Has Kaylee been...cooking?”
She stifled a rueful laugh. “She has.”
Riley muttered an oath. “I’m okay with her fruity hippie-dippy crap most of the time, but she doesn’t have a lot of sense when it comes to other people’s nutritional needs. One time she put a pile of wilted spinach topped with raw almonds in front of each of us and told us it was ‘a paleo dinner.’” She could almost picture his shudder. “Tell me honestly, is she feeding you okay?”
“She cooks a lot of fish for me. For the baby. I mean, it’s not the shrimp feast we had in Hawaii—”
Riley groaned. “Oh, man. Wish you hadn’t mentioned those—I haven’t eaten yet today. Those kebabs were the best I’ve ever had. I haven’t found their equal, like, anywhere.”
She smiled as warmth flowed through her. The night they’d met she’d taken him to a roadside stand because nothing on the tiki bar’s menu had struck her as particularly good or authentically Hawaiian. “You’re lucky I knew the owner of that food truck. Those kebabs aren’t on his regular menu. He made them especially for us.”
The brief trip down memory lane was followed by stilted silence. The ease with which they’d slid back to that night was almost unsettling.
“Kaylee’s cooking is fine, really,” Kat continued, clearing her throat. She needed to veer away from those happy memories—they felt dangerous. And she also didn’t want to be the cause of strife in the family. She wouldn’t gripe to him about free food and shelter. Riley, however, seemed to pick up on her underlying discontent.
“I’ll talk to Mom. She only lets Kaylee cook so she feels relevant.”
Ouch. Was that how siblings usually talked about each other?
She said carefully, “You don’t have to. I’m really easy to please.”
God, that sounded wishy-washy. But she’d rather choke down more lemony fish than have someone tell the already querulous Kaylee that Kat didn’t like her cooking.
“This isn’t about you,” Riley said. “It’s about the baby.”
Right. The baby. Never mind the woman carrying her. She stuffed down her resentment and asked him pleasantly, “How are things on your end? You sound stressed.”
“Busy. I’ve barely had a moment to breathe.”
“Not a good busy?”
“Hrmmph.”
He’d made that exact sound the first time they met and she’d asked him if everything was all right. The sound somehow conveyed the cheerlessness of gritty sand blowing across a gravel beach on an overcast day. She supposed it matched the glower he so often sported on movie posters.
“There’s something you need to know,” he admitted reluctantly.
He told her about the press junket and the questions surrounding her identity. Then he told her about the reporter, Charlie Durst. “Sam’s doing her best to turn people away from the story, but you need to watch out for Durst. He’s sneaky. He’s been known to go around in disguise and crash celebrity weddings and parties.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for guys in trench coats with big fake mustaches and rubber noses.”
He chuckled. She was glad she could still make him laugh.
“You sound like you need a Shirley Temple.” She couldn’t seem to keep away from the memories, no matter how dangerous.
Riley’s soft laughter eased the tension strung over the phone line. “You might’ve made me a fan for life if you hadn’t told me what it was.”
“What’s in a name? A mocktail by any other name would be just as fruity.”
“You could’ve lied.”
“It was a pink drink with a cherry and an umbrella in it. Your ego didn’t dent when I set it down, and no one else knew it was virgin. Anyhow, it helped, didn’t it?”
“I think we both know the drink wasn’t what helped me get through that night.”
Warmth blossomed in her belly. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the easy way they’d flirted their first—and only—night together.
“So have you been out? Seen anything of my hometown?” Riley asked.
“Not much. Your mom’s driven me to the grocery store and the ob-gyn’s office to make an appointment, but...” She hesitated. “I was wondering...if it’s not too much trouble...if I could get a rental car.”
Silence on the other end of the line. “Why do you need a car?” he asked slowly.
It wasn’t a straight-out no, but his probing tone made her defensive. “Your mother’s been great, but I don’t want her taking time off work to chauffeur me around all the time.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you driving yourself around,” Riley said.
“I’m fully licensed in five states, including California. My driving record is clean. Not a single parking or speeding ticket.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know this city very well. The roads can be tricky and the freeways are nuts.”
“Riley, I’ve driven through all kinds of weather conditions all over the place. I even have a truck license.”
“Still. I’m not sure you should be driving around.”
“Why? Because I’m pregnant?”
Silence. She chewed her lip. Maybe he wanted to control her movements and ensure she didn’t simply drive away, or go to meet some journalists or something. He should’ve known by now she wouldn’t do that—why would she jeopardize her meal ticket?
“I don’t need anything fancy,” she added, in case it seemed as if she was asking him to buy her a Mercedes. “Just something to get me from point A to B. There’ll be a lot of appointments...”
“All right,” he said, sighing. “I’ll call and have someone drop something off tomorrow.”
She pursed her lips. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Kat...” he began tentatively.
Her breath stalled in her lungs—she didn’t know what she was waiting for, what she was hoping to hear. She didn’t even know if there was something she wanted to hear from him. “Yes, Riley?”
“Take care of yourself. I’ll be back in Modesto on Sunday.”
Disappointment filtered through her. She nodded stiffly. “Okay.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_94f7c540-b3ee-5bbb-9ff9-e0935a90c2c1)
“WE HAVE TO find out who she is.”
Jamie peeked up from her desk as Limelight Whispers’ editor-in-chief, Lance McVeigh, paced behind his enormous desk, his thinning straw-yellow hair forming a wild halo around his head. A pattern of coffee-ring stains linked across the wood-veneer tabletop like caffeinated chain mail. Two open packages of cigarettes lay atop a small stack of file folders. Lance had been trying to quit all year.
On the other side of the desk, freelance investigative reporter Charlie “Chameleon” Durst watched him with the poise of a cat, one ankle crossed over his knee. His tailored blue suit fit his lean, angular form very nicely. He might have passed for an important investor, except that he wore white high-top canvas sneakers. She almost never saw him in his “regular” attire—the last time he’d been in, he’d worn a golf shirt, cargo shorts and black socks with sandals, as well as big sunglasses and a wig of thick black hair.
As if he knew she was watching him, he met her eyes and raised one dark eyebrow. Jamie averted her gaze and refocused on the webpage she’d been working on. That didn’t stop her from listening in, of course—the open-plan office didn’t offer much privacy.
“Until I’m reimbursed for the sources I’ve paid off, I won’t go further with this story.” Durst folded his arms over his chest.
“C’mon, Chuck. The IRS is on our asses. Everything’s gotta go through accounting. You’ll get your money, just not as fast as you usually do.”
Durst shook his head. “I need cold hard cash to get the information you’re asking for.”
“What happened to being a good journalist?”
Durst bleated a short, unpleasant laugh. “You think this is journalism? I was nominated for a goddamned Pulitzer—”
“And, oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Lance deadpanned. “But that’s not my problem, is it? I’ll remind you I’m the only one willing to believe the word of a proved liar.”
Jamie sank behind her computer, sensed her colleagues doing the same. Charlie Durst’s career had ended after he’d been caught plagiarizing numerous articles he’d written for a national newspaper about five years ago. Now he chased celebrities for a living. That Lance would mention the scandal made her cringe. She thought Charlie had paid for his mistakes long enough. It had nothing to do with her crush on him, of course.
“C’mon, Lance. I’m not made of money. Spot me some cash so I can complete the next leg of this story.”
The older man snorted. “You’re gonna need a whole lot more than a first name and speculation to get me to open my wallet.” He screwed off the cap of a bottle of antacids and popped two into his mouth. “Bring me definitive proof this woman exists and has a tie to Riley Lee Jackson. And I don’t mean the word of a couple of rent-a-cops.”
“It’s always been enough before. What’s changed? You finally grew a conscience?”
Lance glowered. “According to Legal, I can’t afford any more lawsuits.” He took a few bills from his wallet and dropped them in front of the reporter. “Bring me something good, ’cause until then you’re not getting any more than that. Now get the hell outta here.”
Durst took the cash and pushed up in one smooth motion. Jamie fixed her eyes on her screen and held her breath as the reporter walked toward her.
Just talk to him, Jamie.
He was three steps from her desk.
Say hello. Tell him you loved that piece he did last month.
Two steps.
Tell him you studied his stuff in journalism school. Tell him you did your independent study on his work.
He was right behind her.
“Mr. Durst!” She spun around, nearly crashing into his long legs. The man jumped back as she almost rolled her chair over his toes. She leaped to her feet and stuck her hand out. “Jamie Yarbo. I wanted to tell you I’m a big fan of your work.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Before or after I got shit-canned?”
Her words stalled. “I... I...”
“Sorry, I don’t let myself get an inflated ego when pretty young women throw themselves at my feet.” He winked, though there was more than a hint of self-deprecation in his eye. He shook her hand firmly. “Nice to meet you, Jamie. And, please, call me Charlie.”
Butterflies took flight in her belly. She pulled her shoulders back, intent on not letting his “pretty” comment faze her. “Would you like to go for a cup of coffee?”
He regarded her with a tilt of his chin. “When?”
“How about now?”
His smile spread. “She moves fast. I like it.”
She grabbed her purse, heart pounding. Who knew when he’d be in the office next? She rarely saw him, and this was the first time she’d had the nerve to speak to him.
They went to the café on the ground floor of the building. The food wasn’t anything to write home about, but the coffee was fresh.
As they carried their coffees to a table in the corner, she said, “I couldn’t help but overhear... Lance was really riding you hard.”
Durst lifted a shoulder. “He’s allowed to. He’s one of the few guys in town willing to pay me.”
