by Kait Nolan
“I wish I knew. She didn’t even come home to pack. Just called to tell me she was going.”
Panic was starting to claw its way up Reed’s throat to strangle him. “When’s she coming back?”
Christoff hesitated. “I don’t know that she is. She was really upset.”
All the starch went out of him, and Reed sank down onto the porch step. Cecily couldn’t be gone for good. Surely she’d come back when he explained.
But how could he explain when there was no way she’d take his calls? She’d probably delete any voicemails or messages or emails from him entirely unread. So unless someone got through to her, explained…she’d go on to…anywhere else that wasn’t here.
All because of a woman who wasn’t even real.
What have I done?
Chapter Eight
Cecily came to wakefulness like a diver rising slowly from the deep. Her body ached and her skull felt stuffed with cotton. But she could hear the rhythmic wash of the sea, and that soothed something soul deep. When she opened her eyes, her face was stiff with salt from dried tears.
The guest room she’d stumbled into near midnight the night before was awash in light that bounced off the white and blue beach cottage decor. Definitely not Dinah’s usual style, but Cecily supposed her aunt couldn’t be picky when looking for a fully furnished rental, and beach chic was de rigueur in Hilton Head. She slid out of bed and padded over to the window, parting the curtains to look out at the beach.
Pale blue sky bled into silver tipped water far off on the horizon. If a boat had been moored at the little dock, Cecily would’ve stepped into it, raised the sails, and kept going until she found some solace. She was, after all, a sailor’s daughter. But that wasn’t practical or feasible. Today was a new day, and she would have to face the thing she’d just run six hundred miles to escape.
Reed Campbell, the man she’d been ready to change her life for, had betrayed her. And she had to decide what was next.
The fist around her heart gave a vicious squeeze.
Okay. Soon. But not yet. She was still in an hour-at-a-time mode. For the next hour, priorities were shower, hydration, and caffeine.
And then she remembered she had nothing but the clothes she’d been wearing and what had been in her car when she bolted.
Great job planning there, Cecily. It occurred to you to stop and get a new cell phone so Reed can’t reach you, but not to pick up a toothbrush and clean underwear?
She’d have to go into town later and pick up the basics.
Settling for cleaning her face with a couple of the makeup wipes from her purse, she revised her order of priorities to put caffeine first and headed for the kitchen. As she passed the other spare room, she could hear Dinah’s fingers tap tap tapping away on the keys of her laptop. Cecily had been welcomed last night with open arms and no questions, but she knew better than to interrupt now to thank her. The writer at work was an intense creature. Dangerous when provoked.
Dinah kept coffee on until noon, so Cecily found a mug and poured herself a cup before settling into the window seat of the breakfast nook. To keep from falling into a brood, she began mulling over the issue of Tony Becker’s canceled book signing. Reed would be out a significant chunk of money. Regardless of their personal issues, she had no desire to see Inglenook fail or the community suffer. Was there some way to turn the marketing at this late date?
“Jesus, honey, you look worse this morning than you did last night.”
Startled, Cecily looked up, realizing the half cup of coffee in her hands had gone cold. “Yeah, well, sixteen hours of sobbing will do that to you.”
Dinah crossed the room, her bare feet soundless on the tile floor, and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She plucked the mug from Cecily’s hands and shoved the bottle into it. “Drink.”
“Yes ma’am.” Dutifully, Cecily took a slug.
“What’s his name?”
“How do you know it’s a man?”
“Please. I write romance for a living. I know that look perfectly well. I put it on my heroines’ faces on a routine basis—usually with a fair amount of malicious glee. Besides, I just talked to your mother yesterday, so I know everyone in the family is fine. Spill.”
“And if I’m not ready to talk about it?”
“Then you crashed at the wrong house. You had last night to keep the trauma to yourself. Now you purge it.”
Cecily pouted. “If I’m going to be spilling my heartsblood, can’t you at least bribe me with pancakes?”
Dinah’s lips twitched. “I suppose I can take that much pity on you.” She began moving around the room at lightning speed, and Cecily wondered that the two pencils sticking out of her messy strawberry blonde bun didn’t fall.
She took another fortifying glug of water and let the whole story spill out, from their long flirtation, to the weekend at the lake, to how they’d finally gotten together. By the time she got to the damning texts, Dinah slid a plateful of golden, fluffy pancakes in front of her with a bottle of real maple syrup.
“So, let me get this straight. You’re head over heels in love with this guy—”
“I never said I was in love with Reed.” Her stomach flopped like a beached fish at the thought.
Dinah rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did. You just didn’t use those exact words. Anyway, you’re in love with him, and at the first real test of your relationship, you cut and run?”
“Excuse me? He cheated on me. Or, no,” Cecily corrected, “apparently he cheated with me since it seems she was with him first.”
“Says a girl you don’t know in a series of text messages that you didn’t even stick around to talk to him about. Come on, Cecily, this is not the kind of shero you are. At the very least you should’ve had the moxie to confront him.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you by not being as brave as the women in your books.”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous. You’re every bit as brave as they are. But that’s not the point. You don’t come to me to sugar coat things. You come because I’ll tell you the hard truths. And the truth I’m hearing is that cheating doesn’t fit at all with the actions of the man you’ve described to me. In my experience, when things seem out of character, it’s because I don’t know the character as well as I thought I did or there are circumstances I wasn’t aware of. In your case, I’d say because of that fiasco in college and the fact that you hide who you are and don’t let yourself get close, you don’t know everything there is to know about Reed.”
“You’ve just made my point. I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who’d cheat.”
“You’re misunderstanding me entirely. I’m saying there’s more to the story.”
“I don’t know how else it can be interpreted, Aunt D.”
“You need to talk to him, if for no other reason than to call him out. You’re not going to find out any other way.”
Cecily shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to him. Not yet, anyway.”
“Don’t you want to find out that you’re wrong?”
“I’d be ecstatic to find out I’m wrong. But I thought I was wrong about Jefferson, too, and we see how that turned out.”
“Jefferson was a complete ass and you’re well rid of him.”
At this late date, Cecily could hardly argue differently. “At this point, I just want to go to my interview in San Francisco at the end of the week with as clear a head as possible. I don’t want things with Reed cluttering up my mind.”
“And you really think not dealing with this is the way to a clear head?”
“It’s the only way, right now.”
Dinah narrowed her blue eyes and pursed her lips in disgust.
Cecily laid down her fork. “Okay, you know what? Fine. I’ll make you a deal. The author we set up the signing for canceled at the last minute—it’s too late to pull most of the publicity, but it’s not too late for me to change the who. I’ve got remote access to everything. You go to Wishful in Tony Bec
ker’s place. You meet Reed and get your own feel for him. You’ve got good instincts, and I know you’ll pull no punches. If you still think he deserves a chance to explain, then I’ll talk to him after my interview.” Her notoriously reclusive aunt would never agree to that.
Now those narrowed eyes took on an intrigued gleam. “You want me to go do a last minute signing at your boyfriend’s bookstore?”
Cecily huffed. “He’s not—”
“Fine.” Dinah held up her hand like a traffic cop. “When is the signing scheduled?”
She gaped. Dinah was going to go? “Day after tomorrow. Seven P.M. at Inglenook.”
“Okay. Get me the address.”
As she picked up her fork again, Cecily reflected that absolutely nothing was going as she’d planned.
~*~
“Reed, you need to see this.” Brenda looked grave from her position hovering in the doorway to his office.
“Cecily? Is she all right?” God, what if she’d been so upset, she’d gotten into an accident and that’s why she hadn’t called him back?
“I don’t…it’s not…just come here.”
He abandoned his latest attempt to contact her and followed Brenda to the computer at the counter. She had all their social media accounts open side by side on the screen.
“Why does it say Dinah McClure is doing a signing here?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you did.”
“Well, she’s not, so we need to take it down. It’s bad enough Becker had to cancel. If people think somebody as prestigious as Dinah McClure is taking his place and show up to nothing, they’re gonna be pissed.”
“That’s the thing. They do think that. See, the streams are blowing up. Everybody’s telling everybody. There are people coming all the way from Jackson to attend the alleged signing. The only person in the romance community who might stir up an even bigger fuss would be Nora Roberts.”
“Have you checked Dinah McClure’s social media to see if there’s any corroboration?”
“She’s a well-known recluse. She doesn’t do social media. We’re on our own for this and I can’t even reply on our streams to tell them she won’t be here.”
“Why not?”
“All the passwords have been changed. I’m locked out of the accounts entirely.”
He frowned. “Are you sure the caps lock key wasn’t on? Maybe you exceeded the number of incorrect logins.”
“I know the passwords, Reed. The only way we could be locked out is if Cecily locked us out on purpose. I think you need to face the fact that she’s done this in retaliation.”
“No. No way would Cecily endanger my business because she’s angry at me. She’s not a vengeful sort of person.”
But what other explanation could there be? The passwords didn’t change themselves. The social media content didn’t spontaneously morph from a midlist author to one of the biggest names in publishing. In five hours, they were going to be besieged by customers who would think they’d pulled some kind of bait-and-switch.
Reed felt a little sick.
“I’m sorry things turned out like this. I’m sorry I pushed you into doing something that led to her walking away.”
He sighed, shoving both hands through his hair. There was no sense in staying pissed at Brenda when the blame lay squarely on his own shoulders. “It’s not your fault. There were a dozen points I could have done things differently and didn’t. That’s not on you. Let’s just deal with this however we can."
“What are you going to do?” Brenda asked.
He shook his head. “Hell if I know. Make signs? Put up fliers? Norah might be able to put something out on the city’s social media. But it won’t get everybody. Cecily’s too damned good at her job for us to undo this.” And maybe that had been the point. To give him some kind of crisis to deal with so he couldn’t possibly come after her right now. Not that he had any idea where to go.
“Undoing it would rather defeat the purpose.”
Reed blinked. In her vintage dress and pearls, the woman on the other side of the counter was vaguely reminiscent of iconic Donna Reed. But Donna Reed had never given off that aura of sardonic amusement.
“Can I help you?” he managed.
“You can tell me where to set up to sign stock. We’ve got a few hours, and I’d like an opportunity to check into my B and B to freshen up before the reading.” She tapped over-sized sunglasses against her palm and arched an expectant brow.
“I’m sorry?”
Beside him, Brenda slapped blindly at his arm, her eyes wide, her jaw working to form words, but not managing.
“What?” he asked her.
She shot him an exasperated look before pulling herself together and stepping forward into what Reed imagined was the role of hostess she’d so often played during her marriage. “Ms. McClure, we’re so happy to have you. I’m Brenda Walker.”
McClure? This is Dinah McClure?
While Reed’s brain continued to malfunction, Brenda asked, “Would you prefer to work at a desk or in the lounge area in a comfy chair?”
“Either’s fine. I’m not fussy. Although I could really use some coffee if you happened to be able to scare some up. And call me Dinah, please.”
“Thank you, Dinah. We can certainly arrange that. Reed, why don’t you gather up Dinah’s books to sign, while I get her settled on the sofa and start a pot in the kitchen?”
Because he could think of nothing else to do, Reed did as he was told. He thanked God that she was one of their most popular authors, so she had an entire shelf dedicated to her titles on any given day. Grabbing a large box from the back, he emptied it and brought the lot of them over to where the older woman had settled on the sofa, legs primly crossed.
“I apologize for not having a greater quantity of your latest in stock. There wasn’t time to get an additional order in with the last minute changes.”
Dinah’s lips twitched. “I imagine not, since you evidently didn’t have any idea I was coming.”
Reed didn’t know what to say to that.
“So polite. You’re not even going to draw attention to the fact that I ambushed you. Go ahead and ask. You want to know what the hell I’m doing here.”
“Well, the thought did cross my mind. We are a fair piece off the beaten path for authors of your caliber.” Or for any authors, truth be told. “But we’re always happy to accommodate our authors.”
She threw back her head and laughed, a great bawdy roar that made Reed instantly like her. “Oh, you’re not who I’d have written for her, but I like you, Mr. Campbell.”
“Um, thank you?”
“I am here for both rescue and reconnaissance.”
Did anything Dinah said make actual sense?
Evidently copping to his cluelessness, she spelled it out for him. “Cecily sent me to rescue your signing.”
Reed shot to his feet. “Is she all right? Where is she? I need to talk to her.”
“Sit down. She’s safe. As to all right, that’s a far more subjective question.”
He sank back into a chair and scrubbed a hand over his face. Okay. Okay, that was a start. And the fact that Cecily had—even when furious with him and hurt beyond belief—sought to help him with his business, had to mean something. Didn’t it?
Aware of Dinah’s gaze on him, he struggled to pull himself together. “I’m sorry, how do you know Cecily?”
“She’s my niece. I was married, for a time, to her uncle, Walter.”
That definitely wasn’t something that’d come up in discussions about her family. “You’re close?”
“Close enough it was me she ran to when she left here like the hounds of the Baskervilles were on her tail.”
It wasn’t exactly judgment in her tone, but Reed felt his defenses rise nonetheless. “Look, Ms. McClure—”
“Dinah.”
“Dinah, I don’t know what Cecily told you—”
“Plenty.”
No doubt. “She has everyt
hing wrong. I’d never, ever hurt her deliberately, and if she’d just talk to me, give me a chance to explain, I can clear all of this up.”
“I suspected there was more to the story than she knew. She was far less inclined to hear it than I. Hence the reconnaissance portion of my mission. So, how about you start handing me those books—my publisher has overnighted more, by the way—and tell me your side of things. If, by the end, I’m satisfied that you deserve her instead of to be castrated without anesthesia, we’ll talk about what I can do to help you fix this.” This was accompanied by a shrewd gaze that said I take no shit so don’t lie to me.
Reed handed her the first book. “It all started because I hate conflict…”
Chapter Nine
Why hasn’t Dinah contacted me?
The same question had been circling through Cecily’s mind for hours. The sleepless night she’d had in the wake of the book signing was written beneath her eyes. It’d taken all of her considerable skill with cosmetics to mask the exhaustion and mime bright-eyed enthusiasm for her interview at Verdant.
Unfortunately, her distractibility wasn’t as easy a thing to cover up. She’d gone through the entire tour in a daze. The only thing she’d successfully absorbed was that Verdant was a competitive workplace that rewarded innovation. That and they had nap rooms. Like Google. It’d taken every shred of self-control she possessed not to beg for the opportunity to crawl into one before facing the panel interview with all five partners. Instead, she’d ducked into the restroom to check her phone one last time.
Still nothing.
What did Dinah’s silence mean? That there was more to the story? That Dinah was on the fence? Or that the news was bad and she didn’t want to deliver it before Cecily’s interview?
Put me out of my misery already!
But Dinah’s telepathy was clearly on the fritz because no answer was forthcoming by the time Cecily had to join the partners in the conference room. She bought herself a little more time to pull herself together by accepting the offer of coffee. But all too soon, she took her seat at the head of a conference table overlooking the vast, glassed-in atrium at Verdant, surrounded by all five partners of the firm.
