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Lucy’s shoulders hunched. She dropped her eyes. “Link is a good person. I love him.”
“Avoiding the ques-tion.” Krista sang the words, but gently.
“We’re…definitely in a bad place.”
“Yes or no, Luce?”
“Kris….” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay. I don’t know how we can get past what’s happening.”
“Now we’re getting some—”
“But I know we can if I can just figure it out.”
Krista resisted rolling her eyes. But okay, she’d pushed plenty hard enough. Her runaway mouth had done its thing again. Like an alcoholic or a depressed person, Lucy had to get to that place of wanting to change by herself. All Krista could do was nudge occasionally—hard enough to get Lucy thinking but not so hard Lucy panicked and cleaved unto Link like mortar unto brick. “Okay. I’m done meddling. I’m sorry. I just want you to be happy.”
“I know. I will be when we work this out.” Lucy lowered her tensed shoulders and shook her head, forcing a cheerful expression. “You, on the other hand, are hopeless.”
“Me?” Krista blinked innocently.
“Because you can’t look past a hot body.”
“Mmm, no.”
“Or a cocky attitude.”
“Ooh, you got that so right.”
“Or the huge initial adrenaline rush of lust.”
“Hit me, baby, one more time.”
Lucy laughed and Krista grinned in response, wishing the subject of Link could put that smile on her face.
“See? Hopeless!”
“But at least I’m still out there trying for what I really want. If it doesn’t show up soon, I’m happy playing for a few more years.”
“Happy? Was that not you grumbling and moaning into your noodles two months ago when Robby stopped calling?”
“Oh. Yes.” Krista heaved a wistful sigh. “Robby the Wonder Dick.”
“Mmph.” Lucy slammed down her water glass and covered her mouth to swallow carefully. “Krista.”
“Yes?”
“Someone might hear you.”
“Who’s going to hear me? And even if they did I’m sure they’d be happy for me. Getting skillfully laid is a very good thing.”
“Shhh.” Lucy glanced around, beet-red.
Krista took pity on her. “No one is listening. And you know I go into every relationship hoping I’ll get it right this time. You’re just too fun to tease.”
“Like when you told me I was adopted because my skin smelled wrong?”
“Ha! What about when you told Mom I was planning to throw red socks into a white load of wash and I wasn’t?”
“Who added Shep’s kibble to my party snack mix for Home Ec?”
“Who squirted disappearing ink on my white prom dress the second my date rang the doorbell?”
“Truce!” Lucy held up her little finger, crooked. Krista did the same. They locked pinkies and grinned.
“I just want everything to work out for you.” Krista disengaged her pinkie and squeezed Lucy’s hand.
“I know.” Lucy looked dejectedly down at her barely touched curry. “I’ll think of something.”
“Well, in the meantime, eat. You’re losing weight—and you have none to lose.” Krista picked up her fork and shoveled in some more pad thai. She, on the other hand, could still eat heartily while being carried off by a tornado.
Lucy glanced up at Krista, then back down at her plate. She pushed her food around again with intense concentration it didn’t deserve. “Um…Krista?”
Krista put down her fork. Uh-oh. This was going to be something big. “Yeah, hon?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s this guy at my office….” A blush bloomed on Lucy’s cheek.
Krista’s eyes shot wide. “Omigod! Tell me. What’s happening? He’s into you? You’re into him?”
Lucy kept her eyes down, but her cheeks were rapidly leaving pink behind in favor of red. “I guess…yeah. I’m so confused. It’s…I’m so confused.”
“Well, so what’s happening?” Krista tried to sound calm, but she wanted to give herself a huge high-five. Yes! A possible escape route from being trapped in Lincoln hell! “Has he asked you out?”
“Yes. I can’t go, of course. But he…I mean, he sort of makes me—”
“Ooooh. He does?”
Lucy jerked her head up, frowning. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“Hot. Crazy. Ready to tear your clothes off at the merest glance from his endless, fathomless, fire-starting eyes.”
“Yeah.” Lucy whispered the word and a big fat tear slipped out of her eye. “That.”
Krista’s heart melted. “Oh, honey, don’t cry. This is not bad. This is…wonderful. I mean—wait. Sheesh, what am I saying? Complicated is what it is.”
“I know. I know.” Lucy pressed her napkin to the corner of her eye. “This morning he asked me if I wanted to have a drink with him after work.”
“And?”
“I said no. Of course I said no.”
“But…you wanted to say yes?”
A tearful nod.
“Oh, boy.” Krista took a deep breath, torn between sympathy and excitement that this might be the shove Lucy needed to move on to greener pastures. From there maybe onto the stage or screen where she belonged, where she’d make “stars” like Aimee into more of a parody than they made themselves.
“You know, Lucy, this might be a sign. I know I’m not in a position to give expert advice on anyone’s love life. But if a man affects you that strongly…and considering that your relationship with Link has stalled out…Well, when someone makes you that crazy, I think you need to go with it.”
“But I barely know him.”
“You gotta start somewhere.” She searched her brain for more arguments. Something had to click with Lucy. “You must be curious about him, aren’t you?”
Another nod.
“I’m not suggesting cheating, just a drink—to see how it feels.”
“But, Kris, this attraction is based on nothing. Link is real, I know him inside out. Josh is hormones and fantasy.”
“So what’s wrong with fantasy? When else are you going to get the chance to indulge one? You’re always so damn sensible.” Krista leaned forward. “You want to know my deepest, darkest, craziest fantasy?”
A piece of silverware clattered from the booth behind her.
“What?”
“Seeing someone that makes me that hot…and just going for it. Right then. Not even saying anything.” She watched her sister’s face brighten and she cheered silently. “Not worrying about a single consequence. Totally animal. Totally wild.”
“But that’s so dangerous, I mean it’s…nuts.” She breathed out a laugh, as if the idea was ludicrous, which of course it was…but exciting.
“Of course it’s nuts. That’s why it’s only a fantasy. But Luce, you can have that fantasy with this guy, only in a safer context because you already know he’s not a psycho.” She put as much earnestness into her eyes as she could, willing Lucy to drop the safe habit and fling herself out there. This was Lucy’s chance to escape.
“I couldn’t do that to Link.”
Krista clenched her teeth. “Have a drink with Josh, that’s all I’m suggesting. If something is meant to be between you, the attraction will only get stronger. If not, you’ll be able to get out with no guilt and no hard feelings.”
Lucy shook her head. “I couldn’t go behind Link’s back.”
“Then tell him.” Krista kept her frustration hidden. “You’re going to have a drink with a coworker, that’s not immoral. Link doesn’t own you.”
Lucy bit her lip, picked up her fork and pushed a shrimp around on her plate. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” Yes! Wow! She’d think about it! Progress. “And while you’re there, do me a favor, okay?”
“Oh, jeez, I can’t wait to hear this. What, don’t wear panties and flash him?”
“Oooh, good one.” Krista nodded approvingly. “No. Ask him if he has a brother.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I’m seriously needing some action.”
Another clatter came from the booth behind them. Its occupant leaped up. A waitress hurried over with a towel, ostensibly to mop up a spill.
Oops. Clumsy.
Krista was about to turn back to her meal when something…no, that was crazy. But yes, something…made her crane around farther for a glimpse of the man’s face at the same time his eyes made the trip to visit hers.
Eureka.
Tall, not dark but handsome, yessss, and the kind of kapow chemistry that didn’t happen very often but always, in her experience, promised something good. And did he look familiar? Maybe. Not quite. Most likely looked like someone else she knew.
Happiness.
“Water jump out of your glass?” She smiled and checked discreetly for a ring, hoping, when she found none, that her eyes were broadcasting the invitation she wanted them to be and that he’d respond. Because quite frankly all this talk of fantasy and thrills and the excitement of someone new had put her in the mood for her own adventure. Not to mention that she’d spend the next few days researching romantic holiday getaways without so much as the hint of a romance in her own life.
So how ’bout it, sailor?
Her sailor gave her a tight smile, threw a few bills on his table and walked past, then out of the restaurant, clearly destined for other, much luckier, ports than hers.
But she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that either she’d seen that man before…or that she’d see him someday again. Soon.
3
“YOU WHAT?” SETH ROSE out of his office chair, phone to his ear, trying to tell himself he hadn’t just heard what he’d heard from the lips of his stepsister. “You what?”
“I told you.” Aimee used her snippiest pouty voice, which meant she knew she’d screwed up big-time, but rather than admit it, she’d cement herself into her own version of what was right, and not even the jackhammer of logic could cut her out of it. “I sent Juice after Krista Marlow, to the hotel you said she was going to in Maine.”
“I told you that so you’d relax knowing she was out of your hair for a few days. Not so you’d send your bodyguard to beat her up.” He slumped back into his father’s chair. Giuseppe “Juice” Viegro—hired by Aimee a year ago after a creepy middle-aged man decided she’d been put on Earth to earn his love—could intimidate a sumo wrestler.
“You saw what she wrote about me. She thinks I’m some no-talent moron. Well, I’m not taking it anymore. She needs to understand what she writes about me hurts. And if Juice can intimidate her a little in the process, then I say good! She deserves it.”
“Aimee.” He used his patient-yet-threatening big-brother voice. “Does the word harassment mean anything to you?”
“Whadya think she’s doing to me?”
“It’s her job to write articles.” He closed his eyes, shutting out the portrait of his father on the dark wood wall, holding the Wellington crest as if he was lord of the manor.
“Well, it’s Juice’s job to protect me and that’s what he’s doing.”
“How is he protecting you in Maine?” Seth opened his eyes and turned his back on the portrait. His father and stepmother had raised Aimee to be this way; Seth shouldn’t have to play cleanup.
“He’s the only one I trust. He won’t hurt her, he’ll just talk to her and make her see it my way.”
“Why not pay her a nice threatening visit closer to home?”
“Juice’s family is in Maine. He volunteered when he saw how upset I was. I thought it was sweet of him.”
