The Real Thing (The Bouquet Catchers Book 5) Read online

  But he’d learned that parenting a mini-genius was about strategy so he started with the most obvious argument. “Nine is too young for a cell phone.”

  “Dad. Everyone has an iPhone.”

  “Only at St. Vincent’s. That isn’t the real world.”

  “It’s my real world.”

  Which only made him wonder if he was irreparably warping his daughter by giving her the best education in the Pacific Northwest. Academically, she couldn’t be thriving more, but the social aspects were going to give him ulcers before she even got to middle school.

  Ian’s parents had always been financially comfortable. He’d grown up in an upper-middle class neighborhood of Seattle going to an upper-middle class public school that sent a respectable number of kids each year to the Ivy League and Stanford. But Long Shores didn’t have that kind of tax base and the schools couldn’t compete. The education Sadie was getting at St. Vincent’s was undeniably better—it wasn’t even close—but the snobbery level also was in its own league.

  “Saturday is your day with Nana,” he reminded Sadie, pivoting. “She’ll be disappointed if she comes all the way down to Long Shores to see you and you’re in Seattle all day.”

  “So if Nana says it’s okay, I can go?”

  He saw the trap too late. “I did not say that.”

  “But if your primary objection is disappointing Nana, then shouldn’t it be her decision?”

  “Why do they start teaching you debate in fourth grade? Don’t they realize how cruel that is to parents?” Though if he was honest, Sadie had been able to beat him in arguments since she was six, and her smile said she knew it. “Is it a day game?”

  “No, but Lincoln’s parents have, like, a condo up there.”

  “At what point were you going to tell me that this baseball game involved spending a night in Seattle?”

  She smiled sweetly. “You said I could start having sleepovers.”

  “I meant in Long Shores. Where you are five minutes away and I can come get you at three in the morning if you get sick or just want to come home.”

  “Dad.” She rolled her eyes so dramatically he didn’t even have to turn to see it. “I’m not a baby.”

  “You’re my baby. And I don’t know Lincoln’s parents.”

  A speculative gleam lit her eyes. “How well do you need to know them?”

  “To take you across state lines? Well enough to describe them to a police sketch artist.”

  “Ha ha.” She pulled her knee up on the bench seat between them, the half-healed scab from the last time she’d skinned it peeking between the hem of her uniform and her knee-high socks. “If I had a cell phone, Lincoln could text me their photos. And a complete background check.”

  “You’re nine. No cell phone.”

  Sadie continued to make her argument for the entire fifty-five minute drive back to Long Shores, proving she had definitely paid attention in her debate class—though he wasn’t sure which she wanted more, the cell phone or the baseball tickets.

  “We have tickets to a game next month,” he reminded her for the third time as they pulled into the gravel drive leading out to the house.

  “But these are better,” she argued—then they passed the mouth of Lolly’s driveway and Sadie’s head snapped around, her gaze locking on the pink convertible parked diagonally across the space. “Whose car is that? Is someone at Miss Lolly’s?”

  He would have been relieved to have her drop the argument, but pressure tightened his chest at the idea of Sadie’s curiosity fixing on Maggie Tate.

  “Someone has come to clean out Lolly’s house and get it ready to sell.”

  Sadie continued to gaze behind them even after the trees blocked the view of Lolly’s house. “It’s so sad,” she said dramatically, her expression mournful. “Thinking of all Miss Lolly’s treasures going away.”

  Ian snorted. For a second she’d almost had him. Sadie had loved Lolly and he worried sometimes how she was processing things, even a month after Lolly’s death, but that wasn’t grief so much as greed he saw on his daughter’s face. “You don’t need any more treasures. Nice try.”

  “I could help…”

  “Sadie.” The idea of Maggie and Sadie together sent an unexpected spike of panic into his chest, making his voice harsher than he intended. He cleared his throat, trying for a more measured tone. “I don’t want you bothering the people in that house. Leave it alone. It’s none of our business.”

  “Miss Lolly was our friend.”

  “And we miss her, but we already have things to remember her by. There’s nothing for us over there. Understand?”

  Sadie sighed with enough drama to give him an unnerving glimpse at what her teen years held, but at least she let it go as he pulled into the garage, though she gave him a hopeful glance as he threw the truck into park. “If I were at a baseball game, I wouldn’t be tempted to watch the activity at Miss Lolly’s place…”

  He groaned, ruffling her hair. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

  She rolled her eyes before leaping out of the truck and he watched the most important thing in his world tromp up the steps into the house.

  If only he could look into the future and be sure he wasn’t screwing her up with every choice he made. If only he could be sure and stop worrying about her for five minutes. Ian slammed the car door and followed his world into the house.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Maggie stood in the middle of Aunt Lolly’s living room, waiting for the grief to hit her.

  She’d been waiting all afternoon and still…nothing.

  She’d been scared to go inside the house. Mel had texted her the lawyer’s address and fifteen minutes—and one selfie—later she’d had the key in her hand. The lawyer had gushingly offered to help her with absolutely anything she needed, so Maggie had asked for directions to the nearest grocery. If she was really going to do this, she would need a few staples—starting with dog food for Cecil B. Demille.

  He could subsist on drive-thru chicken nuggets for one day, but her baby needed real food if they were sticking around.

  She’d been recognized almost instantly in the supermarket. Not as Lolly’s niece, but as the great Maggie Tate.

  No one other than Ian and the lawyer seemed to remember that she’d ever spent time in Long Shores as a child—though why would they? She hadn’t met many of the locals during those summer trips, spending most of her time at Lolly’s or on the beach—and in recent years Aunt Lolly probably hadn’t bragged about her niece’s fame and fortune since they weren’t exactly on speaking terms.

  The people at the market had been sort of sweet, nervous to approach her, but so eager to brush up against her fame. She’d beamed and played Maggie to the hilt, flirting indiscriminately and taking selfie after selfie. She’d sworn each person to secrecy, begging them not to post the photos online or spill her whereabouts, making them feel special that they knew that she was taking a little break from it all in their town and reminding them that no one wanted the paparazzi descending in force.

  She could only hope her pleas would work. It only took one blabbermouth to ruin the whole thing. If the paps showed up, she’d have to do it Mel’s way—with bodyguards and publicists providing a buffer between her and the world.

  She’d been famous a long time. Isolated a long time. Nearly a decade inside that bubble. It was heady stuff, doing her own shopping. Picking out dog food and treats for Cecil, and a pre-packaged organic salad and a vitamin water for herself. Paying for it all herself—thank God her credit card hadn’t expired too.

  It was fun. Even if she had been stared at the entire time and stopped fourteen times for photos.

  After the grocery, she’d headed back to the house. It had stopped raining and the clouds were even starting to clear when she arrived at Lolly’s place. A few scattered streaks of sunlight hit the house, but sadly, it didn’t look any better than it had in the dismal rain.

  Had Lolly needed money? Was that why the paint h
adn’t been refreshed and the porch had that not-so-subtle leftward lean?

  Maggie stared at the house, cataloguing all the things Lolly had let fall into disrepair and feeling guiltier with each one, until Cecil crawled into her lap and wriggled there, impatient to get out of the car.

  “All right, baby. Let’s do this.”

  She opened the car door and Cecil leapt to the ground, immediately scampering around the edges of the driveway, sniffing all the new smells. She gathered the single grocery bag, her purse, and the key the lawyer—Ed—had given her. She really ought to remember his full name, but he’d kept repeating, “Please, call me Ed,” so that was all that stuck in her mind.

  She was still wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she left her house in LA—leggings and a comfy sweater. She’d spent last night at a B&B in Napa which she’d spotted a sign for along the road. Thankfully they hadn’t commented on her lack of luggage, but pretty soon she was going to need new clothes or she would start to smell.

  Maybe she could get Mel to ship a suitcase to her.

  Cecil B. Demille trotted over, parking himself at her ankles and gazing up at her adoringly—Cecil could always be relied upon to be adoring, but she couldn’t just stand there forever. She was dragging her feet, reluctant to go inside.

  Maggie forced herself to climb the porch steps, pull open the screen door, and slide the key into the lock. She braced for impact, expecting the memories to hit her like a wall, but when she stepped into the kitchen, holding the door open for Cecil to scamper inside, it was just…quiet. Dim. A little dusty.

  The house had never been much. The front door opened straight into the kitchen where a wicker basket overflowed with boots and shoes and a line of hooks on the wall held jackets and hats. The appliances were all vintage seventies yellow. The Formica countertops were peeling at the edges and the paisley wallpaper had faded so much the yellows and oranges looked more like cream and gold. The same circular table with daisies painted on top sat beneath the room’s one window with three mismatched chairs clustered around it.

  How many times had she and Lolly sat around that table? Though there had only been two chairs then. Who had been eating with Lolly lately? Ian? His wife? Maggie hadn’t checked for a wedding ring earlier. Not that she needed to be thinking about his marital status. She was off men, damn it.

  She wandered through the arched doorway into the living room. It was the heart of the house, with all of the other rooms opening off this one. Lolly’s bedroom jutted off to the left, barely big enough to fit a double bed, with its low ceiling and dark wood paneling that made it feel like a cave. The three piece bathroom sat next to Lolly’s room, with more vintage colors—this time Pepto-Bismol pink on every surface. And then to the right, stairs led up to the loft where Maggie had slept during those long ago summers.

  The roof was low up there. Even before she’d grown to her full height, she hadn’t been able to stand upright without hitting her head on the slanted ceiling. Back then her mattress had lain directly on the floor and an old milk crate had been her bedside table, a battery-powered lantern her only illumination since there was no electricity up there.

  She eyed the steep steps, but didn’t climb them. It was hard to imagine the loft might have changed, not when everything else in the house was a time capsule.

  The same dark blue couch faced the same soot-blackened stone fireplace. The same coffee table sat in front of it and the same bookcases lined the walls, overflowing with paperbacks stacked two and three deep. The titles may have changed—she’d never paid that much attention to Lolly’s collection—but everything else was exactly as it had been the last time she was here. Even the TV and the VCR—an actual VCR—were the same as they’d been fifteen years ago.

  Maggie sank down on the couch, waiting for the tears, but nothing came. She hadn’t cried since she’d heard Aunt Lolly had died. Shouldn’t she have cried? Was something broken in her?

  She could have worked up the tears—she’d always been able to cry on cue, but that seemed wrong. Disrespectful somehow.

  Cecil leapt onto the couch beside her and padded into her lap, claiming his place. She stroked his silky ears, crooning something nonsensical, comforting herself as much as him.

  What was she doing here?

  She didn’t know the first thing about fixing up houses, and it didn’t feel like her place to do so.

  Why had Lolly left her the house? They hadn’t spoken in so long. Had her death been sudden? It was possible the will hadn’t been updated in fifteen years. Just an oversight.

  Maggie hadn’t been brave enough to ask Call Me Ed for details. She’d been too busy playing the great Maggie Tate, flirting and charming everyone. The act wasn’t exactly conducive to serious conversations.

  Maybe she should go back to LA. Forget the whole thing. That would make Mel happy.

  She looked around Lolly’s living room, sliding into a mental game she played when she didn’t know what to do.

  If this were a movie…

  She might feel hollowed out and empty inside, but she knew how she would feel if this were a movie. She could play that role. One of her acting coaches, back when she was first starting out, had called her an instinctive actress. She’d been insulted at the time, thinking he was saying she was stupid, that she wasn’t thinking while she was on stage, but she’d learned years later to go with her gut. To follow the hunch and let the scene take her. The magic happened when you thought less and trusted more—trusted your instincts. Trusted your scene partners. Trusted the director and the script. It was the only kind of trust Maggie had ever been good at.

  Imagining a camera zooming in on her from the kitchen doorway, she gazed around the room at Aunt Lolly’s things. She stood, cuddling Cecil close, her baby wiggling slightly before settling, a comforting weight in her arms. She walked over to Aunt Lolly’s bookcase, feeling that camera following over her shoulder as she ran her fingers gently over the spines of the books. Romance, mystery, book club picks, sci-fi. Lolly had been an eclectic reader and there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the way the titles were shelved.

  She turned toward the door to the screened-in patio, stepping through with Cecil still curled in her arms. The shot would cut there, another camera picking her up for the exterior footage. Maybe they wouldn’t even be filmed in the same location or on the same day. Interior: soundstage. Exterior: on location two weeks later. The magic of cinema.

  The covered, screened-in back patio had always been the best part of the house. The way it tripped into nature. They’d use a wide shot to capture it all, to give a sense of scope. The trees. The sunshine. The fire pit.

  The interior of the house had always felt a bit like a cave—dark paneling, low ceilings, small windows—but the porch was all light. It was still chilly out and she cuddled Cecil close, until he squirmed to be released and she set him on the cement floor, watching as he darted beneath the glider to investigate. He must have bumped the glider because it began to rock gently back and forth.

  Maggie’s breath caught, a memory she hadn’t remembered she had popping into the front of her brain—Aunt Lolly in that glider wrapped in a ratty old plaid blanket, idly rocking it with one foot on the ground, her entire being focused on the book in her hands, late afternoon sunlight slanting across the patio and a glass of lemonade abandoned at her elbow. She looked young in the memory. Ageless.

  Cecil barked suddenly, jolting Maggie out of the illusion. He raced to the edge of the patio—and right through a Cecil-sized gap in the screen, barking his excitement as he broke free and pelted across the back of Aunt Lolly’s property.

  “Cecil!” Maggie unlatched the screen door and ran after him. He was probably just chasing a squirrel, but he didn’t know the area. He could fall in a hole, fall in the ocean…

  She looked ahead to see what he was rushing toward, and for the first time noticed a figure rustling the branches at the edge of the path. For a fraction of a second her brain shouted bear
! before she realized it was just a little girl in a brown hoodie and a blue baseball cap.

  She stood at the edge of the path that led down to the beach, frowning uncertainly as Cecil pelted toward her—fifteen pounds of barking fury.

  “Don’t worry,” Maggie called, slowing to a jog now that she no longer feared her baby was going to run headlong into a pit. “He’s friendly, just excited.”

  The girl knelt down as Cecil reached her, giggling as he danced in circles. He wagged frantically, the tenor of his bark shifting from excitement to the ear-splitting decibels of euphoria.

  “Hush, baby,” Maggie soothed as she came to a stop in the small clearing at the edge of the overgrown path. Cecil scampered over to her, thankfully cutting off the glass-shattering happy yelps, and then rushed back to wriggle around his new friend.

  “He’s so tiny.” The girl giggled as Cecil licked her hands. “What kind of dog is he?”

  “Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.”

  “Cool.” The girl grinned up at Maggie, revealing a pair of dimples as deep as divots in each cheek. “My nana has a dog, and she brings him when she comes on the weekends, but he’s huge.”

  Maggie smiled back. “Cecil thinks he’s huge. Don’t let on that he isn’t—he’d be crushed.”

  “His name is Cecil?”

  “Cecil B. DeMille, yeah.”

  The girl’s attention kept returning to the dog, petting him whenever he would stay still long enough, but at that she glanced up again. “Like Sunset Boulevard?”

  Maggie’s eyebrows popped up. “You know Sunset Boulevard?”

  “Miss Lolly loved old movies. My favorite is His Girl Friday.”