by Kait Nolan
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you should know she’s in Wishful.”
Damn it. She wasn’t here. Reed took a breath. “No ma’am, she’s not at the moment. I was hoping you’d know where she is. It’s rather urgent that I locate her.”
“Urgent enough that you’d take a chance that she’d be here?” That seemed to intrigue her.
“Christoff and Norah suggested I try it. She’s not taking my calls at the moment. Or, apparently, anybody else’s. We’re getting worried.”
“Norah Burke?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s about to be my cousin by marriage.” Why he said that, he had no idea, except that it was instinctive to talk connections and who his people were.
“Why don’t you come with me?” she suggested. “Hilary, I believe you have things well in hand here?”
“Yes, Mrs. Dixon,” said the woman in the black skirt.
“Have some coffee sent to the sunroom, please. And find Frank.”
Hilary nodded.
Reed followed Cecily’s mother to another room facing the expansive view of gardens behind the house. Out the wide windows across the back, he could see a massive tent set up on the lawn. Tables were being set up beneath it by more of the bustling staff.
“I’m interrupting something. I apologize for the intrusion and for stopping by unannounced.”
Mrs. Dixon waved that off and took a seat in one of the padded wicker chairs. “Please, sit. Have you been traveling all night, Mr. Campbell?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He sat and gestured outside, trying to buy himself a little time to think. “What is all this?”
“A fundraising gala for the Hero’s Help Alliance. We were hoping Cecily would come home for it, as the organization was her brainchild.”
“A bit late for that, isn’t it?” Reed asked, then wanted to bite his tongue as her brows rose.
“I beg your pardon?”
Well, he was in it now. “Y’all pretty neatly cut her out, so why would she want to come back and have her biggest failure thrown in her face?”
Mrs. Dixon looked truly shocked. “Failure? The Alliance wasn’t a failure.”
“She thinks it was. She thinks she let the whole family down because of what that—” Reed managed to cut the profanity short. “Of what her ex did.”
“We don’t blame her for the actions of that asshole.” This came from the doorway.
The speaker was a tall man with silver shot hair the same dark shade as Cecily’s. Her father, Reed figured. Beside him, a tall, willowy girl looked Reed up and down in blatant curiosity.
“She thinks you do,” Reed said quietly. “She’s spent the last few years working her tail off to become the best in her field because she wants to feel worthy of the family name again.”
Mr. Dixon stepped into the room. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
Reed rose and offered his hand to the other man, but before he could speak, the girl interrupted, “You’re him.”
“Sorry?”
“Bookstore guy. The reason she doesn’t want to leave Mississippi.”
“Blair?” he guessed.
She nodded.
“I’m Reed. And at the moment I’m the reason she did leave Mississippi. But she’s got bad information, and I have to talk to her. Do you know where she is?”
Blair shook her head. “I haven’t talked to her in several days. But when I did she was happy. What did you do?”
He absorbed the accusation as another woman came in with a coffee service. “Not what she thinks I did.” In his pocket, his phone began to ring. He pulled it out to check the read out and saw it was the bookstore. “I’m sorry, I need to take this.” Reed hit answer. “Is she back?”
There was a hesitation on the other end before Brenda said, “No, she’s not back. That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Then whatever it is can wait.”
“No it can’t. Did you get Dinah McClure to agree to a signing here?”
Reed blinked. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Because all our social media accounts say that she is. The streams are blowing up. Everybody’s telling everybody. There are people coming all the way from Jackson to attend the alleged signing. Tonight. The only person in the romance community who might stir up an even bigger fuss would be Nora Roberts.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. Have you checked Dinah McClure’s social media to see if there’s any corroboration?” Reed was aware of something shifting in the room behind him, but couldn’t stop to analyze it.
“She’s a well-known recluse. She doesn’t do social media.”
“Well, she’s not coming, 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 furious.”
“I can’t take it down,” Brenda said.
“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 woman.”
Except he knew she could be when properly provoked. She’d gone after Norah’s asshole ex to garner a confession and taken on Annelise purely to put her in her place. She’d said herself she had an overdeveloped sense of justice. He’d just only been aware of it in conjunction with protecting the people she cared about. Still, he couldn’t imagine her trying to tank his business.
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 ten 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.
Brenda’s voice was small. “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 a hand 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?” In the background, he could hear the shop bell jingle as someone opened the door.
He shook his head, not that she could see. “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 was too damned good at her job for them 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. Except here he was, over a thousand miles from home.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Reed Campbell,” a muffled voice said.
Brenda made some kind of eep and began to stammer. “I…um…he’s…here.”
There was a rustle and then the new voice came on the line. “Mr. Campbell?”
“Yes? How can I help you?”
A rich chuckle rolled. “Oh, Mr. Campbell, the correct question is how I can help you.”
“Who is this?”
“Dinah McClure.”
Reed actually pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it, as if that would allow him to see into his bookstore. “Am I being punked?”
“Far from it. I am here for both rescue and reconnaissance.”
Did anything this woman said make actual sense?
Evidently copping to his cluelessness, she spelled it out for him. “Cecily sent me to rescue your signing.”
“Is she a
ll right? Where is she? I need to talk to her.”
“Calm 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?
“Now if you’ll come on in to the store, I’ll be happy to talk more with you about all this while I sign stock for tonight’s reading.”
Aware of everyone’s gaze on him, he struggled to pull himself together. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’m in Greenwich.”
“Are you now?” Dinah purred. “Are you still at the estate?”
“I—yes.”
“Put me on speaker,” she ordered. “I want to say hi to Juliet.”
“Who?”
“Cecily’s mother, darling.”
The world had gone absolutely mad. But Reed did as she ordered.
“Jules?”
“Hello, Dinah,” said Mrs. Dixon.
“Hey Aunt D!” Blair called.
Aunt? This woman was related to Cecily?
“Dinah,” Mr. Dixon said.
“Oh wonderful, the gang’s all here,” Dinah said. “I assume Cecily hasn’t called.”
“She hasn’t,” Mrs. Dixon said.
“Never does when she’s licking her wounds. She’s fine. Well, not fine, but safe.”
Everybody looked at Reed. He felt like an idiot sitting here with his phone on speaker and most of Cecily’s family staring him down. “Look, Ms. McClure—”
“Dinah.”
“Dinah, I don’t know what Cecily told you—”
“Plenty.” There was a wealth of things unsaid in her tone.
No doubt. “She has everything 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, while your lovely shop keeper here is handing me those books—my publisher has overnighted more, by the way—you tell us 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.” Her pleasant tone held an underlying message that said I take no shit so don’t lie to me.
He’d come prepared to tell Cecily everything. To grovel, as necessary. Looking around at all the expectant faces, Reed realized these were the gatekeepers, and if he stood a chance in hell of getting to talk to her again, he’d have to start with all of them.
He took a breath. “It all started because I hate confrontation…”
Chapter 11
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 distractability 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.
“Tell us about your time at Helios,” Nina Winslow invited.
Easy peasy.
“It’s one of the most coveted internships in Chicago. The one all the first year grad students hear about almost from day one. Once I got there and began working under Norah Burke, I understood why.” Cecily told them about the various accounts she’d worked on, the contributions she’d made to the team. She waited for the fizz of accomplishment, the rush she’d felt working on those projects, but the whole thing felt like a recitation of someone else’s life. Coming back to corporate marketing was going to be pretty jarring after what she’d been doing in Wishful.
Gavin Sheppard consulted his notes. “I understand you left Helios before your internship was complete. Can you tell us why?”
Because I blackmailed Norah’s ex into retracting the smear campaign his father started against her. Yeah, no, she couldn’t mention that.
“Norah left Helios in January and relocated to Wishful, Mississippi. We have an exceptional working relationship, so I felt that my apprenticeship would be better served by continuing to work with her, rather than switching horses midstream, as it were.”
“And what exactly have you been doing in Mississippi?” asked Derek—something. Cecily couldn’t remember his last name. She could tell he couldn’t fathom that she’d done anything of import in a place so small.
Feeling defensive on Norah’s behalf and protective of Wishful, Cecily squared her shoulders. “We waged a war and turned the tide of a town that’s been economically disadvantaged for several decades—without resorting to accepting the less than beneficial offer of GrandGoods, which would’ve irrevocably damaged the character of Wishful.” Warming to her topic, Cecily continued, “And since they got sent packing, we’ve firmly established the first phase of a long-term rural tourism campaign, while assisting individual local businesses in maximizing their potential.”
As she began to outline the specifics of the rural tourism campaign, Cecily’s new phone beeped with an incoming text. Mortification at her unprofessionalism was quickly chased away by the twin demons of hope and dread. They seemed to circle her as she muttered an apology and reached for the phone to switch it over to vibrate—and saw the text from Dinah.
Plot twist! Talk to him.
Cecily blinked at the message, her train of thought entirely derailed. What had Dinah found out? Plot twist? In Dinah’s world, that meant something wasn’t as it seemed—exactly as she’d predicted. Her aunt was no bullshitter when it came to matters of the heart. That meant that somehow, some way, there was some kind of explanation for what Cecily had seen. She couldn’t fathom what that was, but hope flared in her chest nonetheless. That meant everything could be all right. Didn’t it?
“Is everything okay?” Nina asked.
“Yes.” Cecily thumbed the phone to silent and mentally shook herself. “I’m terribly sorry. Where was I?”
“The planned roll out of Phase Two.”
“Ah, yes. Phase Two deals with the revitalization of other downtown retail space in preparation for luring small business entrepreneurs. Part of that is individual marketing plans for the existing businesses, maximizing their client base and revenues. That’s predominantly what I’ve been doing the last several months.” She began to describe some of the specific projects she’d spearheaded. As she got into the meat of those campaigns, citing befores and afters, Cecily realized that nothing she’d ever done at Helios—even while under Norah’s tutelage—had ever made her this happy.
On the heels of that epiphany, Gavin asked, “Why don’t you tell us about your vision about marketing in general.”
“I come from a family that believes in utilizing skills in the service of
others. In light of that, I love connecting on an individual level—with both clients and their customer base. That personal service is so rewarding. And I suppose my vision is of doing that in a way that’s affordable for small businesses.” Which was exactly the business plan she’d outlined for her own firm.
As she looked around the table at the faces of these movers and shakers, Cecily tried to imagine herself as one of them. She tried to see the life she’d envisioned for so long. And she simply couldn’t. The truth was, no matter how things turned out with Reed, she didn’t want to work in corporate marketing. No matter how prestigious.
“This firm is one of the best in the country. But Verdant doesn’t do small. You have a different vision, a different function, and I’m not sure I’m the best fit for that. I appreciate the honor of interviewing with you more than you can know, but I’ve got another path to follow.”
The various stunned faces around the table made it quite clear that no one had ever walked away from the opportunity of a job with their firm.
“Well, we appreciate your candor, Miss Dixon.” Nina offered her hand.
Cecily took it. “I apologize for taking up your time.”
“Not at all. Your unique viewpoint is…refreshing. And should you change your mind, give me a call.”
She knew she wouldn’t be changing her mind. Not on this. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
As they descended the spiral staircase down to the first floor, Nina asked, “Where will you be headed?”
Cecily thought of Wishful and of the confrontation waiting there. “Home.”
“Best of luck. I suspect you’ll be successful at whatever you put your mind to.”
She certainly hoped so.
The moment Nina Winslow left her side, Cecily pulled her phone back out and dialed Reed’s number from memory. It began to ring as she stepped outside. It rolled to voicemail.
Damn it. She’d expected him to pick up. What the hell should she say?
“I—Reed, it’s Cecily. I have a new number. I’d like to talk to you. Call me back.” She unzipped her purse, feeling deflated and losing some of her nerve.
A figure straightened from the wall lining the courtyard. “Hey, Peanut.”
