She ended up with a happy hour with Consuela in the guesthouse kitchen with Consuela instructing, approving (or clucking her tongue), and guiding her through a process that didn’t seem nearly as anxiety-ridden as she’d expected.
Consuela nodded (approval) at the loaves of bread cooling on the rack. “You do well making your own. It’s . . .” She paused to think. “Therapeutic. That’s a good word.”
“It is for me.”
“Next time, you make the tiramisu the night before. It’s even better. Now, be sure you set a pretty table. He will bring you flowers.”
“I’m not sure about that. It was a casual invitation.” Before I really woke up, she thought.
Consuela folded her arms. “He will bring you flowers if he is worthy. If they’re short, you put them on your pretty table. If they’re tall, you put them there.”
“I was going to go out and get some.” At Consuela’s fierce stare, Cate felt her shoulders hunch. “But I won’t.”
“Good. When he makes you dinner, you take wine. When you make for him, he brings flowers. It’s correct. You have sex with him?”
“Consuela!”
The housekeeper waved away Cate’s laughing exclamation. “He’s a good man. And muy guapo, sí?”
Cate couldn’t deny Dillon was very handsome. “Sí.”
“So I’ll put clean sheets on your bed, and there you can put your own flowers. Pequeña,” she added, using her hands to indicate small size. “Bonita y fragante. You go cut from the gardens while I change the sheets.”
Experience told Cate that arguing with Consuela wasted time and breath and never resulted in a win. She went out to the gardens with her directive of pretty and fragrant for a small bedroom arrangement.
Baby roses, freesia, some sprigs of rosemary seemed to hit the mark—and met with Consuela’s approval. And Cate pleased her by wrapping a loaf of fresh bread in a cloth and making it a gift of appreciation.
By the time she had her sauce simmering, Cate realized she’d spent the bulk of the day not thinking about the bombshell Michaela had dropped that morning.
So a good day, she decided as she set that pretty table. A good day at home, a good day just being Cate. She put some music on, opened some red wine to let it breathe.
Looking around, she caught herself nodding like Consuela. It made her laugh at herself as she went up to fulfill the housekeeper’s last directive. She needed to change into something pretty, but not fancy, to make herself very attractive, but not too sexy.
She opted for a blue shirt, soft in both color and texture, stone-gray pants that cropped just above the ankle. She added dangles to her ears for pretty, and Darlie’s bracelet for luck.
As she braided her hair—low, loose—she went over the conversation she needed to have with Dillon. The honest, she thought, the practical, and the realistic.
Because he was a good man, she mused as she went down, slipped on an apron. And she had lousy luck with men—good and not-so-good.
The knock came promptly at seven. When she opened the door she saw he held flowers. Sunny yellow tulips.
“I see you’re worthy.”
“Of what?”
“Of the dinner invitation, according to Consuela’s standards. The flowers,” she explained. “And they’re just perfect. Thanks.”
When she took them, he surprised her by framing her face with his hands, by kissing her first on the forehead, like a friend. That simple choice stirred her heart even more than the warm and lingering kiss that followed.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be up for this. Making dinner,” he added as she walked away to get a vase for the tulips. “But by the way it smells in here, I guess you were.”
“I’m fine. How’s Red?”
“Pissed. Mostly pissed. I can’t tell you how much of a relief that is.”
“You don’t have to. More pissed than hurt’s a big relief.”
“Yeah, and still.” Restless, he wandered to the glass wall, back again. “I was around when Gram changed the bandage, so remind me to avoid getting grazed by a bullet. It’s damn nasty.”
“Has he seen his doctor?”
“Gram didn’t give him much choice there, so yeah. It actually is just a graze. His truck wasn’t so lucky. It’s toast. So more pissed off there.”
“And he didn’t know the man they identified.”
“No. None of us did.” He looked at her, into her eyes in that steady way he had. “How are you?”
To give herself a minute, she set the flowers on the island as Consuela had directed. “Wine?”
“Sure.”
“How am I?” She considered as she poured for both of them. “Pissed, not mostly, but definitely pissed. First at what happened—worse, what could have happened to Red. And knowing it might have happened—a strong maybe—because of what he did for me years ago. For me, for my family. Add in frustrated, uneasy, and just plain baffled that anyone could and would carry such . . . is it hate? Resentment? Just a deep-seated need to, what, even the score?”
She handed him the wine. “It’s not my mother.” He just looked at her—that way of his again—said nothing, so she shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t think she’s capable of hate or all the rest. It’s just it’s not her way of evening the score. Running me and the family down, finding subtle ways to do that while putting herself in the limelight. That’s her way.”
“And this doesn’t do just that?”
“I—Oh. Wait. Hadn’t gone there.” Taking the wine with her, she walked over to—unnecessarily—stir the sauce. “No, I don’t think so. It’s possible, of course, what Michaela believes will leak, and then it’s all splashing everywhere again. She could get some miles out of that. But Denby was killed months ago. It’s too long for her to draw things out. She needs quick gratification.”
“You don’t really know her though. You haven’t seen or spoken to her in years.”
“But I do.” She turned back to him. “Know your enemy, and trust me, I understand that’s what she is. So I’ve made a study of her over the years. She’s a narcissist, innately selfish and self-serving, has a child’s need for immediacy and, well, shiny things. And has a complete lack of self-awareness, which is only one reason she’s a mediocre actor. She’s vain, she’s grasping, she’s a lot of unattractive things, but she’s not violent.
“If I’d died during the kidnapping, she’d have played the grieving mother, but she wouldn’t have felt it. She’d have believed she felt it, and that it wasn’t her fault. She believed none of that would hurt me, or not enough to matter. She can’t see past her own needs. Killing people doesn’t serve her needs, and takes too many risks, takes too much time and effort.”
“Okay.”
She tilted her head. “Just like that?”
“I’m going to say this, then maybe we table it so it doesn’t suck all the air out of the night.”
Lightly, he laid a hand over the one she used to rub her bracelet for calm.
“I’m not much on hate. It doesn’t get you anywhere, and tends to eat more at you than the other person anyway. But I carved out an exception for her a long time ago. I’m fine with that. But everything you just said fits into my opinion of her. So okay.”
Turning her hand under his, she linked fingers with him. “She’s not my mother in any way that matters.”
“No, she’s not. I guess I’ve got one more thing to say on it. I need to look out for you, and I need you to let me. You, Hugh, Lily, hell, Consuela. Toss in your dad when he’s here.”
She eased back, just a step. “That’s a lot of looking after.”
“We all do what we do. I figured I’d be subtle about it.”
Now she smiled. “Sneaky?”
“That’s a word,” he agreed. “But why don’t we be up front, you and me?”
“Up front’s less complicated in the long run.”
He brought the hand he still held up to his lips to brush them over her knuckles. “Your family matters to
me and mine. You matter. Looking out for you just follows.”
“Your family’s connected to that night, if that’s where all this comes from. How about I look after you and yours?”
“No problem there. Looks like we’ll just have to spend more time together.”
“That is sneaky.” She got out the salad bowl, drizzled on the dressing she’d made, tossed it. “Let’s eat.”
Once they’d settled in with the salad, with hunks of bread, she decided to start the next conversation. “So, Consuela, who supervised, instructed, and eagle-eyed the making of dessert—”
“There’s dessert, too?”
“There is. In any case, she wanted to know if we’d had sex.”
He choked, grabbed the wine. “What?”
“She says you’re a good man, and very handsome. And as she’s one of my real mothers, she’s really fond of you, I’d say she felt entitled to ask and advise. Just a warning the subject may come up the next time you visit her.”
He honestly couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t want to. “Appreciate the heads-up.”
“But while we’re on the subject, there are some things I didn’t take time to talk about last night because I was more interested in getting you in bed.”
“Also appreciate that.”
“You matter, Dillon. You and your family have always mattered to me. You matter, all of you, even more since I’ve come back. The time I’ve spent at the ranch with you, with your mom, with Gram, with Red, too? It’s helped me come home, feel home. And I know how you feel about my grandparents. I’ve seen it for myself.”
Not exactly a speech, he considered, but he’d bet good money she’d practiced that delivery, like she practiced her voice-overs.
He couldn’t quite decide if that irritated him or touched him, so he opted—for the moment—for neutral.
“They’re a big part of my life.”
“I know it. We need to promise each other, and mean it, that whatever happens with us we won’t push those parts of our lives away, or make it hard for each other to keep them.”
He shifted from neutral into genuinely baffled.
“Why would we do that?”
“People get hurt, get angry when things go south. Relationships, for me, always end up a mess.”
He decided to steer her in just that direction, and eat more bread. “It sounds like you’ve had the wrong relationships.”
“Maybe, but the common element would be me. Up front,” she repeated. “I’ve tried relationships with men in the business, and it gets complicated and falls apart. I’ve tried with someone out of the business, same thing.”
“Yeah, so you said.” Since he didn’t intend for either of them to drive, he added more wine to both glasses. “Not very specific.”
“Okay. The first, I loved him. I loved him the way you love at eighteen. Giddy and dazzled and without restrictions. He was a good man. A boy really,” she corrected. “An actor—musical theater. So talented. And kind, sweet. One night when he walked me to a cab, as he always did, waited until I drove away, two men jumped him. They put him in the hospital.”
“I read about it. I was in college.”
“God knows it got plenty of play. So you know they used my name, the fact I was white and he wasn’t to beat him unconscious. His family blamed me. How can I blame them?”
“How about because it wasn’t your fault?”
“It wasn’t about fault. I was the reason, or the excuse, or, hell, just the MacGuffin.”
“What’s that?”
“MacGuffin? It’s a plot device, and it’s often something that seems important, but just isn’t.”
“But you are,” he told her, “important.”
“Not necessarily to the two men who put Noah in the hospital.” Picking up her wine, she studied it, saw through it to that brilliant fall day on the terrace of Lily’s condo with New York shining.
“He couldn’t forgive me, not then, so it ended.”
“He’d had a rough time he didn’t deserve. But for Christ’s sake, Cate, what was there to forgive you for?”
“MacGuffin.” She lifted one hand, drank some wine with the other. “A handy device to put a twenty-year-old dancer in the hospital, to sell tabloids, to give the internet something to buzz about awhile.”
“He was wrong, stupid wrong.” Anger, sudden and hot, sharpened the words. “And don’t claim it’s easy for me to say. It’s like if I blamed the shopkeeper for my dad getting shot, or blamed the women Dad died protecting. It wasn’t their fault. It was the fault of the man with the gun.”
“You’re right, and still. Noah and I ran into each other not long before I came back to Big Sur, and we resolved things. I’m grateful for that. It took me a long time to want someone again, to trust someone enough between those points in my life.”
She rose to clear the salad. “I’m going to plate the pasta because I’m fussy about the presentation. It’s my signature meal.”
“Fine with me.”
“So. I met this man through a friend of one of my cousins. Law student, brilliant mind. Definitely not in the business, which I’d sworn off of. I’d dated once or twice between, but no heat.”
She tossed, lightly, pasta and sauce as she spoke. “But something clicked with him, maybe because he didn’t care about movies or TV or any of it. He didn’t even own a TV. He read, extensively when he wasn’t studying. Mostly nonfiction. He knew about art, went to galleries. Sophisticated, erudite.”
“I’m getting the picture,” Dillon told her. “Snob.”
“No, he . . .” Then she laughed. “Well, yeah. He was, now that you mention it. Anyway, I put off having sex with him for about six weeks, I guess, and he seemed patient about it, willing to give me time. When we did sleep together, it was good.”
“Good,” Dillon repeated with the faintest of smirks.
“Well, it wasn’t the angels singing, but good. He didn’t care about the publicity when it came because he didn’t pay any attention to it. He thought it was all low-class. He didn’t think much of actors either—and I was doing voice work by then—but I was okay with that.”
“And then?”
“Fresh Parm? It’s yours.”
“Sure.”
“And then,” she continued as she grated. “We’d been together about three months, talking vaguely about moving in together. I’d need a place with space for my studio—which didn’t take much. That’s when it started to go south. No way was I going to put some stupid soundproof room into his apartment, or any apartment. It was high time I gave up that ridiculous hobby anyway. It wasn’t like I needed the money. When I objected, as you might imagine, he hit me.”
“He hit you,” Dillon repeated, very quietly.
“A solid backhand right across the cheekbone. Just once because once was all it took. I didn’t panic,” she murmured, thinking back. “I can panic in stressful situations, but I didn’t. It was more like a wake-up call. So.”
She shrugged that off. “He apologized, profusely, as I was walking out the door. He’d had a terrible day, he lost his temper, he loved me, it would never happen again.”
She brought the pasta with its fresh basil and Parmesan to the table. “No, it wouldn’t, because he’d never get the chance. I went home, took a selfie of my face in case. Which was handy, as he kept texting or calling, even coming by my apartment or showing up when I was out.”
“He stalked you.”
She knew tenors, pitches, pacing when it came to voices, and recognized a different kind of anger than before. This was iced fury, and definitely more dangerous than the quick, hot blast.
“Close enough. I went to the two detectives who’d investigated Noah’s attack. I showed them the selfie, explained things, asked if they could, at least initially, just have a discussion with him, warn him off. If it didn’t work, I’d file charges. It worked.”
She rolled pasta onto a fork. “Try it.”
He did. “I see why it’s your signature
dish. It’s terrific. He didn’t bother you again?”
“No. But about two years later, the female cop—she’d made lieutenant by then—she came by to see me, and to tell me he’d been arrested for battering his fiancée. She wanted me to know I’d made the right decision, and to ask whether, if it became necessary, I’d testify. I said I would, but God, I’m glad it wasn’t necessary.”
She ate some more, decided it really was terrific. “Which brings us to the third and last if you want to hear it.”
“I do.”
“Justin Harlowe.”
“Yeah, I read about that, too. A lot of bullshit about that.”
“Bullshit’s what it was. We did click, and for a good stretch of time. He’s talented, can be funny, is definitely charming. We had a lot in common, and he was riding high at the time, as his series was a hit. He didn’t mind the publicity. Why would he, and half of it revolved around him anyway. He didn’t much care for the Catjus shipping name, but he’d joke about it. We enjoyed each other. I didn’t love him, but it was close. I felt good with him, and for a while it felt good to be able to talk to someone about the business. Someone who understood the demands, someone who actually appreciated voice work because he did some himself. Then . . .”
She shrugged. “The ratings dipped, and the feature he’d done over the season break wasn’t getting good buzz. I didn’t blame him for being moody—it’s a bitch. Then I found out he was sleeping with his costar from that feature, and had been for months.”
After winding more pasta, she wagged her fork. “Which, when confronted, he blamed on me. I hadn’t been there for him, I wasn’t supportive enough. I didn’t like sex enough, name it. Toss in, it’s only sex, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“If it doesn’t mean anything, you’re not doing it right. You dumped him.”
“I did, but made the mistake of agreeing to keep it private while he was dealing with the series. It just didn’t matter to me, but it did to him. It mattered enough that my mother got wind, talked him into taking some whacks in the press. Getting ahead of things by claiming he dumped me because I was jealous, demanding, crazy, and so on.”
She picked up her wine. “So, three strikes.”
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