Catch a Falling Star

by Jessica Starre

  Catch a Falling Star

  Jessica Starre

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Jessica Starre

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-6663-1

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6663-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 123rf.com

  Dear Reader

  Dear Reader—

  When I was asked to launch the Crimson Romance imprint, I knew exactly what kinds of books I wanted to publish—the kinds of books I love to read. Heroes and heroines from all backgrounds and walks of life. Smart, sympathetic characters you can’t help but root for (even if they’re sometimes a little misguided!). I wanted compelling stories—fresh, new ideas but also new takes on beloved classic storylines, like renewing lost love and reforming that bad-boy hero. Books in all kinds of subgenres—contemporary, romantic suspense, historical, paranormal, and spicy!

  Most of all, I wanted stories that would touch your heart with every single happily ever after.

  If you love romance like I love romance, you’ll love Crimson Romance.

  Enjoy!

  Jennifer Lawler

  Editor, Crimson Romance

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  To my daughter, the real Jessica, because I love her and think she’s beautiful

  Contents

  Dear Reader

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance

  Special Offer for Woman’s Day Readers

  Also Available

  Chapter One

  Someday, Brianna’s ship was going to come in. Maybe not today or this week, but someday. And then …

  And then she would probably be bored out of her skull, so never mind.

  Brianna sighed and looked at the stack of beautifully embossed invitations on her desk. Speaking of boring. Mrs. Curtin required that all of the invitations be addressed in handwriting even though the job of spewing out address labels would have taken a computer about seventy-two seconds. There was even a font that looked like handwriting, but when Brianna had suggested it, she thought Mrs. Curtin might have a heart attack.

  She picked up a thick, cream-colored envelope and a ballpoint pen (she had drawn the line at using a fountain pen) and cursed herself for having neat handwriting. She noticed Heidi, the receptionist, wasn’t being enlisted in the envelope-addressing corps. Heidi had the world’s sloppiest handwriting. There, a life lesson. Must learn to be sloppier.

  “Ms. Daniels?” That was Heidi now, peeking her head around the doorway of Brianna’s cubicle. “Mr. G’s on line one.” She spoke reverently, as people tended to do when referring to Mr. G. G for Gorgeous, G for Gentlemanly, G for Generous, G for Get Real, Brianna.

  She gave Heidi a thumbs-up and picked up line one. “Mr. Gustafson?” She sounded breathless, like she’d run up a flight of stairs. He couldn’t help it that he had this effect on her, and surely he noticed, but fortunately he never commented.

  “Brianna? Good. How are you?”

  Mr. G had an insatiable appetite for small talk. There, see, a flaw. If only it were enough to crush her infatuation. Unfortunately, she found it endearing.

  “Fine,” she said. “And yourself?”

  “Very well, thank you.” That went on for a few minutes, while Mr. G asked after her younger sister (“I would love to meet her some day; she is such an inspiring young lady.”), her two dogs (“Dakota is the, er, rambunctious one, yes? And Jasmine is the little one. How is Jasmine?”), and her ancient Ford Escort (“Did you get the brake pads replaced? And the brakes stopped their squeaking?”). She wondered if he had all that noted in his smartphone or if he just naturally remembered minute details about everyone he met.

  Her hopeful heart suggested maybe he likes you but she squelched that speck of naiveté immediately. Matthias Gustafson, a well-respected patent attorney, had inherited enough family wealth to run a small country. He did not think about kissing Mrs. Curtin’s administrative assistant, no matter how much Brianna might wish he would.

  Once he had been assured that all was well, he worked his way around to the point of his call. “I believe Mrs. Curtin has been in touch with you regarding my donation for the silent auction?”

  The Cooper-Renfield Museum’s annual fundraising gala — for which Brianna was now addressing invitations — had a silent auction component that caused their benefactors to compete viciously to donate the most expensive item and thus get top billing on the program. The things rich people dreamed of. She liked Mr. G but he was definitely one of those unfathomable rich people.

  She reached across to her computer and joggled the mouse, clicking on the folder titled M. Gustafson. Let’s discuss this over coffee, she could say. Let me buy you a drink after work. But those words would stay firmly unspoken because she really couldn’t deal with rejection right now. And reality being what it was, rejection was what she’d get. It would be nice, it would be kind, it would be gentle, but it would be rejection.

  “Got it right here,” she said. “Let me see … wow.” She hadn’t had a chance to review the file before and was just now seeing what he was planning to donate. Not a Ming dynasty vase like the social climbing riff-raff, but a Yuan dynasty porcelain plate with lotus design. Much rarer and more important. “Oh, look at that photo! It’s beautiful. I can’t believe you’re getting rid of it!” Which was not what you said to someone Mrs. Curtin had just spent six months softening up in order to put the touch on him. Oops.

  “It doesn’t match the new decor,” he said blandly, which she thought might be a joke but she didn’t dare laugh in case she was wrong.

  “So generous of you,” she said, trying to backtrack from her mistake, and that made him laugh, so maybe she didn’t do it as smoothly as Mrs. Curtin did. “It’s for the tax deduction, isn’t it?” she added, because what the hell. She was never going to be Mrs. Curtin so why bother trying?

  “I get a tax deduction?” he asked, like Matthias Gustafson might not know that. Ha. He might be generous but he knew all the angles. He’d probably invented some of them. Nothing got past Mr. G. />
  “We’ll send you the paperwork after the auction,” she said. “Now, let’s just see … looks like Anne Trainor — do you know her? She’s one of our assistant curators. Anyway, she’s scheduled to pick it up on Tuesday at your home. Ten A.M. Will that work?”

  “That’ll do. Someone will be here.”

  Someone will be here. A minion. Brianna wished she had a minion. As far as she knew, and she knew pretty far, Mr. G did not have a wife and lived alone in that giant mansion on the outskirts of town. Not in the Hanover section with all the nouveau riche, their McMansions squatting on tiny lawns. He possessed an estate with extensive grounds. Just the thought of how much maintenance must be involved made Brianna lightheaded. But of course Mr. G had minions for the maintenance.

  “Wonderful. Then we’re all set?” she asked. Not that she was in a hurry to hang up. She could listen to his whiskey voice all day. But then she would never get any work done. Although maybe work was overrated as a source of personal fulfillment.

  “Very good. Thank you, Brianna.”

  Her heart fluttered the way it always did when she heard her name on his lips, and she hung up the phone before she did something stupid, like ask him if he enjoyed Bogart movies and did he know the art house theater was sponsoring a retrospective this weekend?

  • • •

  Natalie Johnson sat on the front porch swing and rubbed Jasmine’s head. Jasmine was their little mutt, a black dog with short legs and an indolent attitude. People always thought she was the best-behaved dog ever but the truth was she was just too lazy to get into any trouble. Natalie and Brianna had gotten her when their malamute, Dakota, turned out to be more high-spirited than two busy women could deal with. (“Dakota needs her own dog,” Brianna had said.) Dakota was in the fenced backyard, probably plotting ways to take over the world, and almost certainly digging up the azaleas, but Jasmine had wanted to come out front with Natalie. Jasmine had always liked Natalie best and Natalie had felt the same about her, just the way Dakota and Brianna were bonded. And it was a good thing for Dakota that Brianna was sappy over her, because Brianna really, really hated having to replant the azaleas.

  Natalie lifted her face to the breeze. September was one of her favorite times of year; it held the crisp promise of fall after the heat of summer. Then came fall itself, which she adored. Although she also loved spring. Summer and winter, too. All of them, really, the rainy days and the sunny ones, windy ones and calm. Every morning she walked to the bus stop on the corner to wait for the bus that would bring her to campus, and she just stood there taking in the day, whatever kind of day it was.

  For a long time she had not known if there would be another fall or another spring. And now they came, one after the other, a gift, a great gift. Maybe there would be a lot of them. Maybe so many she would get tired of them.

  But she didn’t think she would.

  A textbook lay open on her lap. She should be studying because she needed to graduate and get a job and help Brianna with the bills. Brianna was her stepsister, though they never thought of each other that way, sisters through and through they were, after what they’d endured together. But this afternoon, Natalie was having a hard time focusing on advanced accounting practices.

  Every time Natalie came out to the porch swing, like now, she saw the peeling paint on the front porch rails. She hadn’t said anything to Brianna because then Brianna would get out the paint scraper instead of working on her plans for Once in a Lifetime. And if Natalie got out the paint scraper, it would result in the same thing. Brianna wouldn’t let her do it by herself and it wasn’t like she could do it on the sly. It was a big porch. It would take a lot of time. And there was no question of hiring it done; the budget didn’t run to that.

  And then there was the lawn, looking ragged, and every time Natalie said, “Why don’t you show me how to use the mower?” Brianna always said, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it this evening.” So Natalie had stopped asking because she didn’t mean Brianna should drop everything and do it, but that was how Brianna took it.

  And not to mention the notice from the bank, which Brianna did not know that Natalie had seen.

  What they needed was a prince.

  Natalie would never say such a thing to Brianna; the sentiment would probably give her a heart attack. But she could think it secretly.

  “Hey!”

  Natalie turned at the sound of the voice. Not a prince answering her wishful summons but a young man about her age who was pushing a mower off a flatbed trailer at Mrs. Bauer’s house next door. Mrs. Bauer hired a lawn care service, which Brianna always pretended she didn’t envy. (“Running the lawn mower is a great workout.”) Natalie saw the logo on the side of the pickup that was pulling the trailer. Carl’s Lawn and Garden. Carl’s was new. It had been something else before. She couldn’t remember what exactly, but that logo had had more red and yellow in it. The trailer had a riding lawn mower on it but Mrs. Bauer’s lawn was so small it was probably easier to use the push mower the man had picked.

  He left the mower in Mrs. Bauer’s driveway, wrestled the plywood ramp he’d been using back onto the trailer, and shut the gate. Then he jogged over to the sidewalk and said, “Hey! I didn’t know you lived around here.”

  Jasmine barked sharply and looked at her, alerting her to the presence of a stranger, and Natalie thanked her. Jasmine quit barking, snuggled into Natalie’s hip, and watched the young man warily, reminding Natalie of Brianna. What would happen if you just believed, Brianna? Natalie had asked her once and Brianna had said, So how’s that working for you, Nat? Which, really. It was working fine. Perfectly.

  Natalie wasn’t good with names but up close she recognized the young man from one of her classes … accounting. She had the book open in her lap right now.

  “Hi,” she said, and he grinned and said, “You don’t remember me.”

  “Oh, I do,” she said and tapped the book. “Professor Dryasdust, Tax Accounting 545.”

  He laughed. “I think he pronounces it Professor Dreyfus.”

  “Could be,” she said and smiled and he just stood there for a minute, looking at her. She’d had that kind of thing happen before and she took it in stride. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t remember your name.”

  “I’m Joe,” he said, and he was so totally a Joe that she smiled again. He wore his dark hair short and had a plain average face and a plain average build. Nice brown eyes. Like Jasmine, only with a lot more energy. “Joe Lombardi.”

  “Joe,” she said and held out her hand but he didn’t seem to understand why because he just stood there some more. “I’m — ”

  “Natalie Johnson,” he said in a rush. “I know.”

  She let her hand drop and felt her smile falter. She hated when people knew who she was. Oh, you’re that miracle kid. Or Yeah, we donated money to that fundraiser for your medical bills. Or I read about you in the paper.

  “I paid attention when Professor Dreyfus called the roll,” he said, which meant maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he thought she was just another college student. Then he added, “Not that I’m a stalker or anything.”

  We’ll see, Brianna would have told him, but Natalie supposed he probably wasn’t a stalker, and anyway you couldn’t live life as if you were just waiting for the next disaster to show up.

  “I’m glad,” she said, and that made him give her a sheepish smile.

  “That’s a nice dog,” he said diplomatically, and Natalie looked down at the mutt and laughed. “She is a nice dog. She can’t help how ridiculous she looks. Her name is Jasmine.”

  Joe let Jasmine sniff his hand, then rubbed her head, which Jasmine let him do, still giving him the wary look. She was that way around anyone who wasn’t Natalie. She didn’t bark, because she’d already used up her energy for the day.

  Then Joe seemed to remember he had a job to do and said, “Hey, I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” She looked at Joe and then at the ragged patch of lawn in front of
her and she put the book down, gave Jasmine a reassuring pat, and said, “Do you think you could teach me how to mow this lawn?”

  • • •

  Matthias Gustafson looked at the Yuan dynasty plate on the pedestal in the corner of his home office. He hadn’t put it there. It was an artifact of his father’s life, and not something he had any qualms about getting rid of. And not just because there was a tax deduction, as Brianna had so cheerfully suggested. He talked to Brianna several times a week and he wondered what she would say if he told her how much he loathed the plate. He thought it was possible she would understand. He didn’t know anyone else who might.

  The unhappiness, the sense of not-rightness, had been growing for a long time. He didn’t know what to do about it. The plate which he now loathed had come to symbolize his discontent: it wasn’t something he had chosen, it wasn’t something he liked, and yet it was his, a burden and an obligation.

  He moved restlessly from his office to the living room and from there to the kitchen, where he stood, irresolute. The kitchen was pristine; it was more than pristine, it sparkled. His housekeeper made sure of that. His team of housekeepers, he supposed was more accurate.

  The house was too big for one person, much too big; it was an estate. It had been too big for the three people who had lived here as a family when his parents were still alive. It needed lots of people to fill its echoing empty spaces. It needed — but it was not the kind of house you filled with children. The Yuan plate was evidence of that. He wasn’t sure what you filled it with. He had never known.

  He opened the Miele refrigerator, built-in, only the best, and stared blankly at the interior before closing the door. Sometimes he thought about baking cookies in here. Beverly — the head housekeeper — would be shocked if he made the attempt. He suspected he could strip naked and bay at a full moon and she wouldn’t break stride, but his making cookies in his own kitchen would be beyond her capacity to understand. Beverly would tell him she would do it, or she would phone the pastry chef at Le Parisien if he’d prefer.