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

  “I didn’t even know she’d written it. But as far as I know she was always Lolly or Dolores and she didn’t know any other Loris.” He cocked his head, studying her face. “You could always just read it.”

  “I was going to,” she admitted. “We used to have s’mores by the fire. I thought a bonfire would be a nice, symbolic way to read her last words to me. I just didn’t realize the lighter fluid was going to come out that fast.”

  He groaned. “Promise me you won’t touch the lighter fluid again. If you want to have a fire, I’ll come over and build one for you.”

  “I couldn’t ask you…”

  “What are neighbors for if not ensuring you don’t burn down all our houses?” She grimaced and he brushed her arm. “Hey. It’s okay. It could happen to anyone. I’m just glad I was here.”

  “Me too,” she whispered, looking up at him, biting her full lower lip—and he had the sudden feeling that he needed to get out of there before he did something stupid. Like fall into the liquid softness of her eyes and never find his way out again.

  “I should go,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. From the smoke. It was only from the smoke.

  “Thanks again,” she said softly, taking a step back, the distance seeming to release them both. Though from what he couldn’t have said.

  “G’night, Maggie.”

  “Good night, Ian.”

  He climbed into his truck and glanced back, tossing up a wave when he saw her standing there, haloed by the floodlight and looking like a refugee from a sixties film set. She lifted her hand, returning the wave, and he put the truck into gear, pressing down the strange feeling that he was driving away with something unsaid. He didn’t know what he would say anyway. She was Maggie Tate. Even if she continued to defy his expectations. And movie stars didn’t stay in Long Shores.

  * * * * *

  Maggie watched Ian’s truck’s taillights disappear down the drive, feeling more useless than ever. Thank God Ian had been driving by when he was. When she’d seen those flames leap into the air, all she’d been able to think was stop, drop, and roll—which wasn’t exactly helpful in a bonfire situation. She’d tried to grab the garden hose first, to douse the flames, but as soon as she’d seen it lying coiled in the grass next to the house, she’d known it wasn’t nearly long enough to reach so she’d run inside and grabbed the comforter off the bed instead, sending the clothes she’d sorted earlier flying in every direction.

  Cecil had yelped and barked around her feet, slowing her down even more when he tried to escape out the door as she opened it. She’d shoved him back inside, closing the door on his yelps, and run outside to see that the fire seemed to have grown another ten feet while she was inside. She’d run toward it with the comforter, hearing the headlines echoing in her head.

  Movie star starts massive wildfire! Maggie Tate destroys Oregon town!

  And then Ian had appeared. Like salvation in human form.

  He’d caught her, stopping her momentum so fast her feet had lifted right off the ground—and she’d been so grateful to see him her knees had nearly buckled when he set her back down. He’d taken charge of the situation. Calm. Steady. And in what felt like hours, but must have only been a few minutes, he’d had the fire extinguished and was making jokes to make her feel better.

  She wandered back into the house, glancing down at the letter in her hands.

  When she opened the door, Cecil bounced around her ankles, barking a frantic greeting and popping up on his hind legs to put his front paws on her knees. “It’s okay, baby,” she assured him, sinking down at the faded daisy table. “I’m okay.” As soon as her thighs provided a level platform, Cecil leapt onto her lap, squirming and crawling all over her until she wrapped her arms around him.

  The letter sat on top of one of the painted daisies and Ian’s words seemed to echo in her mind. You could always just read it.

  Lolly’s final message to her. If that was even what it was.

  Shoring up her courage, she opened the envelope quickly, pulling out the stiff, crackling stationary. She flipped the sheets open, reading the first sentence before she could lose her courage—and realizing almost immediately that this wasn’t a deathbed message. It had been written years ago. Even before the rift that had distanced her from Lolly. Back when they were still talking. Back when she’d invited Lolly to her first movie premiere---and she hadn’t come.

  Lori,

  I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it on Tuesday, but I’m sure this is just the first of many fancy movie premieres for you. I hope you received the flowers and you know how proud I am, but I simply couldn’t go. Your father and the children were visiting this last week and when I realized that you hadn’t told him you’d been cast in a movie, let alone that it was having a big red carpet premiere, I didn’t know what to say to him. What would you have me say? How was I to explain flying down to LA to see you in the middle of his visit?

  I wish you would talk to him, Maggie May. I know there were times he wasn’t the father he should have been to you, but he is trying so hard now. If you could see him with your brother and sister, just give him a chance, I know he would love to have a relationship with you. You’re so unreasonable where he’s concerned. I know your feelings have been hurt over the years, but he loves you, even if he isn’t always the best at communicating that. I hate that you aren’t speaking when I love you both so much.

  I hope your premiere went well and that the movie is a huge success. I can’t wait to see it when it comes to the Long Shores Screens. I’m sure your grandparents were there to cheer you on, but know that I was there in spirit too, and so proud.

  Love,

  Lolly

  Maggie stared at the letter, her finger tracing the familiar swirls and loops of Lolly’s handwriting. She didn’t remember the flowers Lolly had supposedly sent, but there had been so many bouquets that day. From her agent. From the production company. From the costar she was dating and from her grandparents—who hadn’t been able to make it out from Texas after all because of her grandfather’s blood pressure acting up and sending him to the hospital.

  The premiere hadn’t been as big and fancy as the letter implied. It was a smaller budget film without any major stars in the cast, but they’d still had a little red carpet event where Maggie had played at being the star.

  It had been an act then. No one had known who she was as she posed on the red carpet. The photographers hadn’t been shouting her name; they’d been asking one another who she was, her name passed around like the press sheets the publicist had handed out.

  The film hadn’t done much. It’d had a decent life in DVD since then, but at the time it hadn’t even made back its limited budget. It certainly hadn’t made it to the two screen “multiplex” that was the only movie theatre in Long Shores. But it had helped Maggie get her next job. And the one after that—which had helped her land the Alien Adventuress gig. And the rest was history.

  It was all history.

  Just like the bullshit with her father.

  Maggie flipped back to the first page of the letter, running her finger over the words Lolly had crossed out. Words about what a great dad her father was capable of being. To her half-siblings. Not to her.

  Lolly had known that. She’d seen the disparity, but she’d always wanted Maggie to give her father another chance. Always badgering Maggie to open herself up for another blow to the heart. Lolly hadn’t been able to let it go. And eventually that repeated insistence that she had to reach out to her father again, that she had to give him another shot, had broken their relationship.

  Just another thing she had to lay at her father’s door.

  Maggie gathered up Cecil and stood, leaving the letter behind on the table. The bedroom was still covered in the contents of Lolly’s closet, so she curled up on the couch instead with Cecil tucked beneath her chin. He wriggled until he was comfortable, settling with a soft puppy sigh as Maggie stared into the empty fireplace, her mind continuing to retrace th
e letter.

  Why hadn’t Lolly sent it? Why tuck it into the back of the closet and leave it there for years? Had she forgotten it was there? Or had she wanted Maggie to find it when she was going through the house? Why? What possible good could it do? Unless she was meddling from the grave, still trying to push Maggie toward the father who had proven again and again that he didn’t want her.

  She’d wanted Ian’s life. That perfect nuclear family with the beach house, the perfect type-A mom, and the laughing, larger-than-life dad. But her father only seemed capable of being that guy for his other family. His do-over.

  And Maggie was done letting him hurt her. She was done, damn it. So she closed her eyes and refused to cry over what might have been. She would go through more of Lolly’s stuff in the morning and if there were any more letters she would just burn them. She was done.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ian woke up Saturday morning smelling of wood smoke. He’d taken a shower last night, but that campfire scent seemed to linger in his skin, ensuring his first thought, even before he opened his eyes, was of Maggie.

  She was walking chaos, bursting into his life and wreaking havoc just by existing. The best thing he could do was steer clear.

  Last night, there’d been a moment by the fire. A sort of stretching tension that had crackled with possibilities. Almost as if he could have leaned over and kissed her. But he was glad he hadn’t. The last thing he needed was an ill-advised fling with a hot mess movie star.

  And she was a hot mess. The hot part was absolutely undeniable, but so were the cracks in her façade, like a stiff breeze could shatter her into a thousand pieces.

  He had Sadie to think about, and his mother. He had plenty of his own problems to worry about without worrying about her. So Ian shoved the movie star from his mind and padded out of his bedroom in search of his family.

  The house was too quiet, no high female voices or even the sound of baseball on the television or the music that usually floated through the house. Ian grabbed a cup of coffee and found his mother standing on the deck with a cup of tea, watching Sadie playing with Edgar on the beach below.

  “Morning,” he greeted her, his voice still scratchy with sleep and smoke.

  His mother turned, the furrow between her brows telling him that this wasn’t going to be a lazy, low-stress Saturday conversation. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, but he had the distinct impression she was biding her time before saying whatever was obviously on her mind.

  “Well enough.”

  She nodded, letting the words land for a beat before spitting out, “I’m sorry about last night. I never meant to undermine you with Sadie. It’s your call. I’ll tell her—”

  “You were right.” Her mouth snapped shut and Ian covered his grimace with a sip of coffee. “I didn’t want her making friends with the kids at that school with their trust funds and their helicopter parents, but those are her classmates. When we made the choice to send her there, those kids became her peer group. I need to trust that we can keep her grounded even if her best friends are vacationing in Aspen and Greece.” The parent email loop he’d gotten on when Sadie enrolled in St. Vincent’s had been eye-opening. It seemed to be as much about a not-so-subtle competition to name-drop the most exclusive brand names and vacation spots as it was about organizing parent volunteers for school events.

  “Sadie is the most grounded kid at that school,” his mother assured him.

  “I’m not sure that sets the bar very high, but thank you for the vote of confidence.”

  “I shouldn’t have given you a hard time,” his mother continued, obviously not done with her mea culpa. “I know you always put Sadie first. Too much so.”

  His eyebrows popped up. “Now I’m too good a father?”

  Her eyes softened. “I just worry about you.”

  “Don’t. I’m good.”

  “Are you?” his mother challenged. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

  “Since when has dating made anyone happy?” he asked, with a dry grin.

  “Ian. I know you love Sadie and being her father, but don’t you want someone? You’re so alone out here—”

  “If you think anyone could be alone in Long Shores, you haven’t spent enough time here.”

  “I know, I know, the town loves you. But that’s not the same as really being close to someone. I know you confided in Lolly, but that kind of friendship is no substitute for a true partnership.”

  Ian hooked up occasionally with the women who came onto him when he played at the Gull, but he somehow doubted his mother would consider that a true partnership either. She might tout relationships as a necessary part of life, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to tie himself to another person. To trust them. He’d thought he had the real thing before—and Scarlett had pulled the rug out. He didn’t want to set himself up for that again.

  “I don’t see you out there splashing around in the dating pool,” he countered. When in doubt, deflect.

  “Your father was the love of my life. It’s too soon for me to think about things like that, if I ever will. Maybe once the malpractice suit is complete, I’ll have the mental space to consider what I want to do next—” She broke off as Ian looked at her sharply.

  “I thought you dropped that.”

  Her lips pursed tightly. “I stopped talking about it with you because you were unreasonable. That doesn’t mean I gave up.”

  “Mom.” He groaned. “Suing the hospital over his death isn’t going to bring him back. They did an investigation—”

  “An internal investigation. They were just trying to pacify me and keep me quiet. They’ll do backflips to prove they aren’t liable, but something went wrong or your father wouldn’t have died while he was supposed to be recovering from a routine surgery. I just want them to admit it. Is that so much to ask? I don’t care about a settlement. All I want is for them to stop lying about what happened.”

  He fought to keep his feelings off his face. “We don’t know that they lied—”

  “We don’t know that they told the truth either. At least this way we’ll know for sure.”

  Ian wasn’t sure you ever really knew what happened when a loved one died suddenly and for no apparent reason. He didn’t think he would ever really understand. But he was reasonably certain that his mother’s fixation on the malpractice suit was just a way of avoiding her grief. She was trying to make sense of what had happened, but also refusing to accept the simple fact that it had happened. She couldn’t let go of the idea that the hospital had somehow lied about who was to blame for his father’s death. As if that would make it any better.

  “This isn’t healthy, Mom. Dragging it out like this.”

  “We aren’t dragging it out. This is how these things go. And we’re actually getting close to the finish line. We’re meeting with the arbitration committee in two weeks.” She met his gaze steadily. “I’d love for you to be there.”

  He groaned. “Mom—”

  She held up a hand when he would have refused. “Just think about it. The Thursday after next in Seattle. I’d appreciate your support.” She set her tea mug on the railing, closing the subject with the gesture. “Would you mind taking that in for me? I’d like to go play with my granddaughter.”

  “Sure,” he mumbled, but she had already assumed his assent and started down the stairs to the beach.

  He picked up her empty mug, but didn’t immediately head inside, watching as Sadie and Edgar ran over to greet his mother.

  He understood why she’d been so fixated on the idea of the lawsuit at first. He’d needed someone to blame too. The back surgery had been supposed to be routine. There were risks, of course, as with any surgery, but everything had seemed to go so well. When his father had been transferred to his second recovery room, the nurses had assured his mother that everything was fine so she’d gone home to shower—and she hadn’t been there when it happened. His roommate said he’d complained of shortness of breath, and th
en he’d just been gone. Blood clots, they said. Treatable if they’d caught it in time, but no one had. His father should still be here. He should be watching his wife and granddaughter play on the beach right now.

  But that didn’t make his mother’s insistence on holding the hospital accountable any more reasonable. It wasn’t going to change anything. No one had wanted it to happen. The internal investigation had caused the hospital to update certain policies in an effort to prevent something similar from happening again. What more could they do at this point? Pay his mother for her suffering? She already had more money than she could ever spend. What good would any of it do?

  Sadie threw a stick for Edgar and Ian turned away from the picture-perfect scene on the beach, heading inside to rinse out the mugs. The last few days, everything felt like it was just a little bit off. Ever since Maggie had arrived—though maybe it had been happening before she was there and it was only her presence that made him notice it.

  The gig last night had been a dud. There’d been almost no one at the Gull, even though the weather had been nice lately and that usually brought more of the locals out. He’d headed home after only two sets, rather than his usual three, with barely enough tips in his pocket to pay for the gas to and from the Gull.

  It was lucky he’d gone home when he did—who knew if Maggie might have managed to burn down her house, or burn herself—if he hadn’t. After the fire was out, his short conversation with her had only unsettled him more. Uneasiness shifted beneath his skin, some sixth sense stirring with the awareness that something in his life wasn’t quite right. Not that he knew what it was that was wrong. That would have been too easy.

  The doorbell rang, jolting him out of the pointless navel gazing. He crossed to the entry, expecting a delivery since that was about the only reason their doorbell ever rang, but when he opened the door the great Maggie Tate was standing on his front step.

  “Hi,” he said, startled out of clever greetings by her presence.

  She’d traded the Austin Powers dress for a pair of white capri pants and a soft, faded NPR t-shirt he recognized as one of Lolly’s, but the oversized grey hoodie stayed the same, hanging loose and unzipped from her shoulders.