“Uh—thanks,” Cydney said, her voice stiff with nerves.
The woman leaned around the front of the table, read the signs and smiled. “How very nice to put a little help desk right here.”
Two more customers asked if she worked here. When Cydney said no, they gave her a well-what-are-you-doing-here-then look and walked away, annoyed. A portly man with a handlebar mustache told her the whole Kansas City metropolitan area was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning until midnight. The streets, he said, were flooding. Oh good, Cydney thought, I won't have far to go to drown myself when this is over.
She was doodling in her sketchpad, drawing a stick figure of Gus on his knees begging her for sex for, oh, say the next three years. The least he deserved for dumping her and prancing off, when a drop of rain plopped and smeared her pen strokes.
Wonderful. I'm sitting under the one single leak in this whole huge store, Cydney thought, until she glanced up and saw Louella and Mamie, standing in front of her sopping wet and smiling.
“Oh Louella! Oh Mamie!” She leaped up, around the table, and hugged them. “You made it!”
“Wouldn't a missed it!” Mamie said. “Even wore m'teeth.”
“Look, Mamie.” Cydney lifted her book. “Here's your jelly.”
“Well ain't that clever.” She smiled, flushing with pleasure. “I'll see to it you git a jar ever'time you do one o' these here things.”
“You'd best sit down and get ready to write.” Louella shrugged out of her raincoat and smiled. “There's plenty more comin' behind us.”
Mayor Figgle and Cloris and her sisters. Roylee and Sarah Boyce. The Elks from the Lodge. Half of Crooked Possum at least. Cydney's throat closed at the sight of them lined up smiling in front of her table. Her eyes filled with tears. Goddamn happy tears she had to keep blinking away so she could see to inscribe their books.
Louella filched a stool from Terence and sat next to her, handing her books as she needed them. Mamie trotted back and forth from the cafe, serving cappuccinos and lattes and a cup of Earl Grey to Cydney.
“Why don't I see your parents?” Louella whispered to her.
“I faxed Dad and left a message on Mother's machine here, but I'm not sure if they're fighting in Cannes this week or Kansas City.”
“Are they married yet?”
“No. Domino and Misha are. Mother and Dad visited them in Paris.”
“I can't believe your parents would miss your first book signing.”
They didn't. In they swept at eight o'clock. Rain-soaked and craning their necks for a glimpse of Cydney. Georgette's hair was a sleek shade of silver to match Fletch's mane. “We
must
coordinate,” she'd said.
“Darling!” Georgette kissed her over the table, tucked her hand in Fletch's arm and beamed. “Our daughter the author, Fletch.”
He kissed Cydney and winked. “Thought we'd forget, didn't you?”
She didn't see Bebe and Aldo come in, but she heard them a few minutes later when eighteen-month-old Arthur Fletcher Munroe let out a squeal. Cydney peered through the crowd and saw him, clapping his plump little baby hands on Fletch's cheeks. Bebe caught Cydney's eye, smiled and waved at her with Little Artie's cap while she smoothed his blond hair.
The sight of the baby, the light of her life, made Cydney's heart swell. Who needed fantasies when reality was so sweet?
But fantasy walked into the Romance section at 8:17, all six feet and two inches of him, tall, dark and drop-dead handsome with an armful of long-stemmed peach roses. Gus went down on one knee beside her, laid the roses in her lap and grinned.
“How's this for dreams come true?”
“Perfect.” Cydney sighed and wound her arms around his neck.
She yelped when Gus swept her to her feet, and laughed and clutched the roses as he bent her over his arm and kissed her. Mamie whooped, the Elks cheered, her parents applauded and Louella stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
The loudest whistle Cydney had ever heard, so shrill she thought it was a siren. She turned her head toward the rain-speckled glass and realized it
was
a siren. She could see the flicker of rotating red lights on the rain-streaked glass.
“Look, Uncle Cyd!” Bebe pointed at the window. “It's Mother and Sheriff Cantwell!”
It was still raining pitchforks and little dogs, but Gwen's Armani trench coat was bone dry. She took her camera out of its case and looped it over her neck, her revoltingly perfect hair swinging precisely into place.
“Hold that pose,” she said, and fired a dozen shots before she'd let Gus release Cydney and stand her up.
“That was some entrance, Elvin,” he said to the Sheriff.
“Prob'ly gonna get chewed by the local boys, but what the hey,” he said with a shrug. “I wasn't gonna miss this.”
“I've got a list.” Gwen swung her camera aside, came up to the table and plucked a sheet of paper out of her pocket. “One for the Secretary of State, one for the Vice President, one for the King of Spain, one for the Prince—” Gwen stopped and frowned at her. “Close your mouth, Cydney. Sit down and start signing.”
It took her till 8:45 to autograph books for all the people on Gwen's list. Terence brought two empty boxes, packed the books and followed Gwen, starry-eyed, to load them in Elvin's cruiser.
“See you at the restaurant, darling!” Georgette called from the far side of the room with Fletch. “Nine-fifteen sharp. We have a reservation.”
“We'll be there, Mother.” Cydney wagged her fingers at Georgette, swung around in her chair and faced Gus. “Did I pass my Trial by Fire?”
“With flying colors.” He smiled and kissed her.
“How cool, Uncle Cyd!” Bebe gushed up to the table with Aldo, and Little Artie on her hip, his head on her shoulder, sound asleep. “The store guy said you sold
three hundred booksl”
“Way to go, babe!” Gus gave her a high five.
The smack woke Little Artie. He raised his head and blinked, his cheek red and wrinkled from Bebe's sweater, yawned at Gus and smiled.
“Give kisses and go to Daddy,” Bebe cooed to the baby.
Little Artie opened his mouth and slobbered on Bebe's pursed lips. She laughed and passed the baby to Gus.
“Guess what, slugger?” He bent his head and rubbed noses with his son. “Mommy's a star.”
Artie gurgled, laid his head on Gus' shoulder and smiled at Cydney, his long dark lashes drifting shut over his father's gray eyes.
“Mommy is pooped,” she said, stretching on her toes to kiss Artie.
“Mommy has a congratulations party to go to,” Gus said. “See you at the restaurant, darling!” he piped in the dead-on imitation of her mother he'd perfected over the last two years. “Nine-fifteen sharp!”
Artie giggled, rubbed his face in Gus' shoulder and went to sleep.
“We'll see you there, Uncle Cyd. You, too, Uncle Gus.” Bebe and Aldo waved and headed for the door.
Cydney thanked Terence, who now thought her name was Goddess by the glow in his eyes, picked up her flowers, her purse and her jelly and limped out of the store with the baby snoring on Gus' chest.
“My feet hurt,” she complained. “Why do my feet hurt?”
“Sitting too long.” He cradled Artie with one hand and pushed the door open with the other.
The rain had stopped. The pavement gleamed in the late midsummer twilight. Cydney took a step and winced.
“I want to go home,” she moaned. “Why can't I go home?”
“Because you only have one first book party,” Gus said, as she slid past him through the door. “You can go home anytime.”
Oh yeah, I can, Cydney thought with a smile, with the man of my dreams, the man who married me twice.
Read on for a sneak peak at
STAR STRUCK
The next delightful romance by
Lynn Michaels
Coming from Ivy Books
Early Summer 2003
The Bunny Hop was an opening weekend tradition at the Belle Coeur Theatre. When the musical revue ended, the Bunny Hop music—”Da-de-da-de-da-de, Da-Da-Da, Da-de-da-de-da-da, HOP-HOP-HOP”—blared out of the speakers on the walls.
Lindsay Varner cheered with the rest of the audience as dancers costumed like 1950s bobby-soxers twirled onto the stage. They performed the steps so everyone could see them, then formed a line that danced off stage into the audience. The seats emptied as everyone joined in, Lindsay included, laughing and hopping between Aunt Dovey and Uncle Ezra.
Lindsay couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun in a theater. Certainly not since her mother, Vivienne, realized that Lindsay in her pink tutu and ballet slippers was her ticket out of Belle Coeur, Missouri, and a bad marriage.
The line threaded its way up the aisles and into the lobby where it ended in a crescendo of taped music, whistles and applause. Lindsay's sister, Jolie, creative director of the Belle Coeur Theatre, popped up the stairs onto the gallery overlooking the lobby. Her face shining and her eyes bright, she applauded the audience.
“Time now for the really big announcement I promised you!” Jolie called. “I'm so happy to tell you all that my sister, Lindsay, the delightful Jessie we all remember from that great TV show,
Betwixt and Be Teen,
has agreed to grace the boards of the Belle Coeur Theatre this summer in a new play I've written. Ladies and gentlemen—
Lind-s-a-y Var-n-e-e-r!”
Jolie sang her name out like a ring announcer at a boxing match and pointed at her, flushed and buried in the crowd of bunny-hoppers. Heads turned toward her, grins flashed and everyone applauded. Everyone but Lindsay. Jolie should have warned her.
“Go on, child.” Aunt Dovey gave her a good hard poke that knocked her forward. “Get up there and take a bow.”
Lindsay went, pasting a big bright smile on her face. She caught a glimpse of her sixteen-year-old son, Trey, in the crush, waved to him and blew him a kiss. He blew one back to her as she climbed the steps to the gallery and stood next to Jolie waving at the crowd.
“I'm going to kill you for this,” Lindsay said between her teeth without a twitch or a flicker in her smile.
“You've gotta catch me first.” Jolie slid away from her, batting her hands at the air to quiet the applause. “I can think of only one thing better than having Lindsay on stage again,” she told the audience. “And that's having her
Betwixt and Be Teen
costar on stage with her. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Belle Coeur Theatre—” Jolie paused for effect and swept her arm toward the staircase that led from the gallery up to the second floor “—Noah Patrick!”
Hoots and whistles and thunderous applause erupted. An ice cold wave of shock rushed to the top of Lindsay's head then plunged to her toes. She hadn't seen Noah since her eighteenth birthday party. She'd never expected to see him again. And she'd hoped—oh, God, how she'd hoped—that she never would.
The crowd shifted, lifting their heads and their cheers toward the stairs on Lindsay's right. She could feel her smile, frozen in place on her face, her hands like ice, her fingers icicles wrapped around the gallery rail.
Look at him,
she told herself.
Just look at him and get it over with.
The image stuck in Lindsay's head was Noah as she'd known him on
Betwixt and Be Teen,
blond, brash and beautiful. She turned her head and saw him coming down the stairs, a smile on his face as he waved to the crowd, and felt a head-spinning clash of memory and reality.
His blond hair was darker, cut to just brush the collar of the blue shirt he wore with two buttons open at the throat. His face was tanned, the Hollywood smile crinkling lines at his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He'd been slim and lean as Sam, Jessie's beloved. Now he carried more weight in his upper body. His chest and shoulders seemed a lot wider than Lindsay remembered, but he wasn't any taller. She'd always been able to look him in the eye.
Noah came off the last step onto the gallery, smiling and waving. He slid an arm around Jolie, scooped her against him, and touched his lips to her forehead. His gaze lifted past the top of her head and settled on Lindsay. He blinked, pulled away from Jolie and mouthed the word “Whoa.”
“Hold it right there, young feller!” A furious voice bellowed up from the lobby floor. “Lucille would like a word with you about Sassy!”
“Oh, shit—Uncle Ezra,” Jolie said to Noah out of the side of her mouth and gave him a push toward the stairs. “Get out of here.
Quick.”
The shove didn't budge Noah, and he wasn't about to let it. After being out of the limelight for so many years, the applause swelling up from the lobby was heady stuff. So was looking at a beautiful woman. One who actually looked back at him. It had been a long damn time since that had happened.
Holy God, Lindsay Varner was gorgeous. Tall, willowy, elegantly beautiful. The pretty teenager he barely remembered from
BBT
had grown up to be Grace Kelly in
To Catch a Thief.
She was frowning at him, which meant she remembered
him,
all right, but he could work on that.