The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel)

by Ward, Susan

  Even in the near darkness, he could see how her eyes sharpened with pain and regret.

  In an attempt to pull clear from her emotions, she remarked pointedly, “You’re a very odd reporter. I never met a one who didn’t sit there scribbling away mechanically, as if he were taking down a shopping list while I spilled my guts.”

  He rolled onto his side and gave her that smile of his, which melted her heart. “The scribbling will come later. Every journey is taken one step at a time. A story is no different. And neither is a life.”

  Krystal came awake with a start, and for a hopeful moment thought that last night had just been another nightmare. Then slowly, she became aware of her surroundings and realized that it had not been a dream at all. The steady breathing beside her was Devon’s, the pillows she laid on were the Millers’, but the danger she was in was her own.

  Why was she still here with him, and why hadn’t she run?

  He had pulled the rug from beneath her life, and yet hardly a night had passed that she found herself waking up next to Devon as though it were the most natural thing in the world, that she should drift off to sleep with him near. Everything about herself, her feelings for Devon, were baffling.

  She had talked for hours about everything, about nothing, watching Devon’s gemmed eyes as he absorbed her words. She had told him more about herself than she had ever told anyone. More than she had shared with Morgan. More than she would have ever dared let Nick know. A thousand meaningless, long-forgotten details of her life, which had interested no one before Devon.

  Why had Devon wanted them from her? Why had they bubbled upward for release and felt so right to be put in his care, these bits and pieces about who she was that had never mattered to anyone?

  She sensed a change in his breathing and knew he was awake.

  “What time is Fritz dropping Katie off?” Devon asked.

  “He’s not. Maggie is taking her straight to school today. But I don’t have time to work with you this morning. I need to get down to the store.”

  His expression was friendly. “I was thinking more along the lines of breakfast. I imagine you could use some time to catch your breath before we continue.”

  He sprang easily to his feet, and it was then that she dared glance at him. He looked amazingly fresh faced for someone who had spent nearly the entire night awake—and far too handsome, with his hair lightly tousled, a lingering drowsiness softening his features.

  It was a mistake to even consider staying for breakfast. She didn’t know what the things she had told him last night would mean to the story he would write, but she knew their danger to her. It had felt as if they had been two ordinary people, in an ordinary world, slowly lowering the barriers that would pull them into a single place, together. It had brought her one step closer to this man and she didn’t want that at all. There was nothing to be built with these feelings she had for him.

  Devon was in the kitchen and she could hear him rummaging around. Shrugging, she left the comfortable cocoon of pillows and blankets and joined him in there.

  “You can make the coffee if you want to.” He reached beneath the counter for a skillet. “Does an omelet sound good to you?”

  She knew what he was doing. It was make-do talk to put her at ease after the long, emotional hours opening up to him. He was a sensitive man to realize so effortlessly her need to strike an emotionless key, and let all that had happened just sit for a while.

  She almost wished that he wasn’t such a kind man, that he had come at her tooth and nail with his questions in hand. Maybe then some of the feelings that continued to swirl in her heart would lessen in force. But each little new thing she learned about Devon only deepened the emotional trap she was in.

  “An omelet sounds better than good. I don’t usually take the time to cook for Katie and me. It’s cold cereal for breakfast in our house.”

  His smile was non-demanding. “The coffee beans are in the refrigerator. The grinder is under the cabinet.”

  She watched him adroitly beat eggs and arched a brow. “You don’t need to go to all this trouble. I was expecting instant and toast for breakfast. There’s no reason to fuss on my account.”

  A teasing glint rose in his eyes. “Not a chance. Someday when I’m back in Los Angles and my nieces bombard me with questions about meeting you, I don’t want to tell them that I had Krystal Stafford to breakfast and only served her toast.”

  He was just teasing her, and usually she enjoyed it. But for some reason, this struck a raw chord in her. Would that be all she was to him when this was through? Another of his colorful anecdotes? She knew very well why it had to be, but she didn’t like it one damn bit.

  “How many nieces do you have?” It seemed a safe topic to Krystal.

  Devon’s face brightened up, as it always did, when he thought of his family. “Eleven, with number twelve imminent. The Howard men seem only capable of having daughters.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “I don’t want to bore you. I have a habit of going on about them.”

  Why didn’t Devon want to share his stories with her now? Why did he now think she’d be bored? She loved Devon’s stories!

  She was smiling to hide her hurt. “I won’t be bored.”

  Devon gave her a reluctant look and then laughed. He talked about his family with an honest affection while he continued to cook for her, and she found herself listening, in rapt attention, to the perfectly ordinary pieces that had created this perfectly unordinary man.

  When breakfast was finished and they were sitting over coffee, Devon’s warm eyes smiled at her and he said, “There, now you know the entire Howard family history. I warned you that I have a habit of going on.”

  “It must be wonderful to have so many people who love and care about you.”

  Her face clouded over with sadness. Devon’s mood was quiet and cautious.

  “Your father loves you, Krystal. I met your father, before I came here to find you.”

  Surprise was clear on her face.

  “My father gave you an interview? How on earth did you manage that? My father hasn’t given an interview in ten years!”

  “I didn’t interview him. I met him. I was at Sunrise West Records doing background on you. It just happened.”

  The lie tasted bitter in Devon’s mouth. Just happened. None of this had just happened. Morgan had arranged it. As Morgan had arranged this. As Morgan was carefully arranging her return to Los Angeles.

  He fought the voice of his conscience that reminded him he hadn’t told her everything yet. As he went through his mental defense of why he was doing that, the reasons rang too hollow even to him: he hadn’t told her because he wasn’t certain that Morgan could pull together the deal to bring her back; he hadn’t told her because he didn’t want to add to the disappointments she already carried in her heart; he hadn’t told her because he didn’t want her to disappear back into her life with Morgan before the interview was finished; he hadn’t told her...

  Who are you trying to fool, Howard?

  He hadn’t told her because he had spent a lifetime looking for this woman. He wanted her to himself, wanted the way she made him feel, if only for a little span of time. He was grateful that Morgan hadn’t given him the go-ahead to explain the option to her of returning to LA. Grateful that he had this time to love her, even if she wouldn’t let him show it, and even if she would never tell him she loved him, too.

  “They miss you, you know. They’re all there for you, Krystal, when you’re able to go back to Los Angeles.”

  She nodded, unable to speak. He hated how sad she looked, how forlorn. He’d do anything to take that look from her eyes. Even give her back into Morgan’s keeping—if Morgan ever got around to coming through with what he’d promised. Damn. A month had passed since Morgan had told him that the deal with the authorities was almost set.

  Yesterday, he had called Derek Roy at the paper, wanting to know where Krystal’s life stood before he opened up
the issue of an interview. He’d worked out a code with Morgan, so they could maintain contact without direct contact. Morgan was to call Derek, tell him that he would consent to an interview, if everything was okay. This signal they’d worked out so all could be handled quietly, with minimal pain to Krystal. What was taking so long? Hadn’t she paid enough of a price?

  “I need to go, Devon.”

  She was on her feet before he stopped her. “Wait. Just let me get something for you, Krystal.”

  She stood in the kitchen staring out at the bright sun of the day that had no luster now, listening to Devon’s footsteps disappear upstairs. When he returned, in his hands was a large, manila envelope.

  “I’ve been waiting to give this to you until I had a chance to explain why I was here,” Devon stated. “I know what the drill is when you go underground. I’ve interviewed other women who’ve escaped into the Network. I know you had to destroy anything you had, pictures, letters that might betray who you are. So I brought you these. Just in case I did manage to find you. I doubt you should keep them, though. I don’t know how your keeping the guitar and the picture of Morgan didn’t betray you.”

  They were there, in his hands, and with fingers that trembled she lifted them from Devon’s grasp. Nothing he could have brought her would have been more treasured. How the devil had Devon managed these? Pictures of her father, her stepmother, stepsister and stepbrother.

  Laughing, crying, she stared down at them, these photos which brought their beautiful faces clear to her eyes, photos not from a newspaper, but family photos. She could tell.

  “How did you get these?”

  It was too soon to let her know Morgan’s part in all this, so he shrugged.

  “Thank you, Devon. No present could be as dear to me.”

  Tears were in her eyes, but now they were happy tears.

  Devon looked a little embarrassed now. “I have something else for you. I don’t know if I should give it to you. There’s a bit of a story behind it.”

  Those gleaming blue eyes of hers, staring expectantly at him, were his undoing. Reaching into the envelope, he pulled from it the shiny, gold unicorn locket. He knew she recognized it instantly, watched in pleasure as she opened it to read the inscription inside that he knew by memory.

  “To Krystal, my unicorn,” she whispered. She looked up. “How? How did you get this? My father gave this to me before I left for college.”

  Devon looked both awkward and mischievous. “If I tell you, do you promise not to turn me in?”

  She laughed. “Turn you in?”

  “My intentions were honorable, Krystal. I didn’t think of the consequences at the time. This one woman I interviewed told me of all the things she had left behind, the only thing she regretted was that she didn’t have this silly little clay frog her father had given to her as a child. Such a stupid thing to miss, she told me, and yet the tears in her eyes were real and painful, and so heartbreaking. It was the only thing she had had of her father, since he had died when she was very young.”

  “Devon, how did you get this?”

  His expression was so wonderfully contrite. “I think, in legal terms, it’s considered grand theft. It was laying there, in the studio your dad was working in. I picked it up, out of curiosity mostly, and then when I read the inscription...Krystal, it’s the only thing I’ve ever stolen in my life. I was shaking all the way out of the studio, thinking someone is going to catch me and how would I ever explain this. If you explain it to your old man, maybe he’ll go easy on me, Krystal. I just thought you might want something.”

  She didn’t let him finish. She pulled him into her arms and gave him a hug he felt all the way to his heart.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Devon smiled and watched Krystal as she turned the locket in her hand. Her pleasure over this keepsake was unmistakable. She had it with her always, whenever they found time alone to work on the interview, away from Katie and anyone else they couldn’t risk learning the truth.

  She was lying in the hammock in her backyard, rocking gently, her beautiful face rosy from the heat of the sun. They were seven days into the interview and she was only halfway through the chapter of her life with Nick Stafford. As horrible as these details of the early days of her marriage were, Devon knew it wouldn’t compare with what would follow.

  He watched her over the notepad, since she’d refused to let him make tapes, a notepad which he only occasionally remembered to scribble on, as Krystal put it. Devon knew that notes weren’t really necessary.

  Everything she told him seem to take life inside of him. Every smile, every laugh, every tear brought the truth into clearer focus in his heart. They went through the pretense of maintaining separateness, but they were more intensely, more personally involved than either of them seemed ready to admit.

  Devon felt a pillow hit him in the head, and it pulled him from this thoughts. He looked around to find Krystal’s bright eyes smiling at him.

  “Hey you, you’re not scribbling. If this is your job, why do I do all the work?”

  How long had he been staring at her in dumbstruck fascination? Too long, he was sure. Smiling, he said, “My work comes later. Right now, kiddo, this is all I do. Sit and listen.”

  She gave him that look again, the look she always gave him before she taunted him about how he must not be a very good reporter, because he never did it the way the others did. She often used humor to hide her true emotions or insecurities.

  God he loved it when she was like this, playful and mischievous and so damn seductive.

  Her blue eyes twinkled. “Admit it. You haven’t been doing this for fifteen years. You don’t have a Pulitzer. You probably don’t even work for a real newspaper. It’s probably some trashy rag tabloid. It was dumb luck that you found me. You’re a rookie. A hack!”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a brat?”

  Her eyebrows wiggled upward and downward playfully. “I’m a star, darling. If you were a good reporter you’d know that, and how lucky you are that I’m not making you jump through hoops for this.”

  That remark definitely deserved retaliation. With the tip of his foot he gave the hammock a hard push beneath her butt, and watched as she flipped out of it onto the grass.

  She pushed herself up in a rush, shoving the hair from her laughing face. She was not at all any of the things he had expected her to be.

  “I suppose you thought dumping me on my backside would have a humbling effect.”

  Devon shifted his gaze to his notepad. No, Krystal, I just wanted to touch you. That’s all I ever want to do when I’m with you. Touch you. Kiss you. Make love to you. Why won’t you let me love you? Is it Morgan? Do you still love him? Is that why you won’t let me cross the line, is that why you pretend that what’s happening between us isn’t happening?

  Shrugging, Devon asked, “Did it?”

  She shook her head, her hair dancing. “No. I’m beyond being humble. Do you want to see why?”

  He knew why. She was the most remarkable woman he had ever known. Like a magical crystal that changed color each time he turned it in the light.

  “I thought you wanted to work today,” Devon said, feigning exasperation with her.

  Her eyes were playful, silly. “I can show you, you know.”

  He fought the smile twitching his lips. “If I let you show me, can we get back to this long enough to make some real progress?”

  She sprang to her feet with the grace of a cat. It was as if so much had been bottled up inside of her that now, ever since her secret was shared between them, she could let it all go. It bubbled out in rich, fascinating waves.

  “Give me a minute,” Krystal whispered, and he watched, fascinated, wondering what mischief she was up to now.

  She turned her back on him, pulled free the tie from her ponytail, and did a quick flip of her hair so that it framed her face in way that looked as if she’d just climbed from bed. He noticed a sudden change in how she held her body, how she mo
ved. Even before she turned back around to him, he knew what she was doing; she was showing him Krystal Stafford, the star.

  Her clowning continued, even while her deep, throaty voice surrounded him. Devon watched, spellbound, this woman who was larger than life, even in cutoff jeans and an old t-shirt, singing in her backyard.

  When she finished, her expression was comical, her eyes dancing with laughter. “Well, aren’t you going to clap? That one used to bring them to their feet in the old days.”

  Krystal did a quick search of Devon’s expression and the smile slowly slipped from her lips. She had thought to make him laugh. Only Devon wasn’t laughing, and for the world she couldn’t imagine what she had done to take the humor from his eyes.

  What Krystal didn’t know is that nothing before today had ever made Devon more potently aware of the external issues between them. What inner blindness had made him forget who this woman was?

  She was Krystal Stafford. People paid hundreds of dollars for seats to hear her sing. They fought to get close to her, to touch her. She came from a world Devon would have been invited into only reluctantly, at best, if she were still in LA, still a young, rising star of such promise.

  Recording star, turned fugitive, and reporter. That’s what they were. No matter how he tried to work the pieces together in his mind, they wouldn’t assemble in any pattern that wasn’t, even for a hopeless romantic like Devon, a touch absurd.

  That they were thrown together in this most unlikely circumstance, allowing this amazing chemistry without the barriers of who they were standing between them, didn’t change the unlikelihood of trying to make something out of it. He had been a fool to forget that—even for a moment.

  “You’re remarkable,” he said quietly, his eyes sharp on her face, searching her as if he had never truly seen her before. “Do you know that?”

  She didn’t want Devon to think she was remarkable because she knew how to turn into Krystal Stafford, the performer. She had known that sort of adoration for years, and it had left her feeling empty and incomplete, as if no one could see that there was more to her than that facade onstage, that there was a living, breathing human being inside of her who wanted reassurance and acceptance, as well.