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Somebody to Love
Kristan Higgins


New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Kristan Higgins is back with a hilarious and heartwarming new story about a rich girl who discovers that a little hard work may be just the thing she needs….After her father loses the family fortune in an insider trading scheme, single mom Parker Welles is faced with some hard decisions. First order of business: go to Gideon's Cove, Maine, to sell the only thing she now owns—a decrepit house in need of some serious flipping. When her father’s wingman, James Cahill, asks to go with her, she's not thrilled…even if he is fairly gorgeous and knows his way around a toolbox.Having to fend for herself financially for the first time in her life, Parker signs on as a florist’s assistant and starts to find out who she really is. Maybe James isn't the glib lawyer she always thought he was. And maybe the house isn't the only thing that needs a little TLC….“Higgins will charm readers once again with love and laughs.” — Booklist on My One and Only







New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Kristan Higgins is back with a hilarious and heartwarming new story about a rich girl who discovers that a little hard work may be just the thing she needs….

After her father loses the family fortune in an insider-trading scheme, single mom Parker Welles is faced with some hard decisions. First order of business: go to Gideon’s Cove, Maine, to sell the only thing she now owns—a decrepit house in need of some serious flipping. When her father’s wingman, James Cahill, asks to go with her, she’s not thrilled…even if he is fairly gorgeous and knows his way around a toolbox.

Having to fend for herself financially for the first time in her life, Parker signs on as a florist’s assistant and starts to find out who she really is. Maybe James isn’t the glib lawyer she always thought he was. And maybe the house isn’t the only thing that needs a little TLC....


Praise for the novels of New York Times

bestselling author Kristan Higgins

UNTIL THERE WAS YOU

“Higgins…employs her usual breezy, intimate style,

which is sure to engage her fans.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Higgins has a knack for sweet

but not syrupy romances peppered with humor

and populated with colorful characters.”

—Booklist

MY ONE AND ONLY

“A funny, poignant romance.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

ALL I EVER WANTED

“Higgins has a special talent for

creating characters readers love.”

—RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars

THE NEXT BEST THING

“A heartwarming, multi-generational tale of lost love,

broken hearts and second chances.”

—BookPage

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Winner—2010 Romance Writers of America RITA® Award

“Cheeky, cute, and satisfying, Higgins’s romance

is perfect entertainment for a girl’s night in.”

—Booklist

JUST ONE OF THE GUYS

“Higgins provides an amiable romp

that ends with a satisfying lump in the throat.”

—Publishers Weekly

CATCH OF THE DAY

Winner—2008 Romance Writers of America RITA® Award

“A novel with depth and a great deal of heart.”

—RT Book Reviews, top pick, 4½ stars


Dear Reader,

I never wanted to write about a millionaire heroine. And I haven’t. But there are some characters who’ve really stuck with me…characters who feel like they have more to say, more to do. Parker Welles was one such character. You might remember her from The Next Best Thing, Lucy’s blunt and good-natured best friend. For some reason, I just wasn’t able to forget Parker, who seemed so content to be on her own, raising her son, writing those sappy children’s books.

I also couldn’t seem to get over Gideon’s Cove, Maine, the setting for Catch of the Day. So many of you wrote to me, wondering what happens to Maggie and Malone, and I’m very flattered that you loved them enough to want to see them again! I wondered, what if I took away Parker’s money and career and sent her up to the coast of Maine, to a little town where she doesn’t know a soul? What would she do? How would she handle things? Could she spend the summer reinventing herself and create a happy life for her son? And what if the man sent to help her out is the last guy whose help she’d want…James Cahill, her father’s attorney.

James has watched the Princess, as he calls her, from afar for some time now. Perfect Parker has never needed anything from him…until now…and James is determined to make her see him in a new light.

Somebody to Love is a story about discovering your true worth, and finding out what you can do when your back is against the wall. And it’s also about who we truly are, despite outward appearances, and what we really want. Home. Love. A future. What more could there be?

I hope you’ll love Parker and James, and if you’ve read Catch of the Day, I hope you’ll have fun seeing Gideon’s Cove again.

Enjoy the book!

Kristan


Somebody to Love

Kristan Higgins






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Acknowledgments

As always, I am so grateful for the lovely friendship and tremendous dedication of my agent, Maria Carvainis, for her unwavering efforts on my behalf. Many, many thanks to my wonderful team at Harlequin: Keyren Gerlach, Tara Parsons, Margaret O’Neill Marbury and Michelle Renaud, the incredible gang in Marketing and Digital, all the lovely sales reps and especially Donna Hayes, who makes running a

huge corporation look easy and does so while wearing incredible shoes.

Much love and thanks to the endlessly capable Kim Castillo of Author’s Best Friend and to the brilliant Sarah Burningham at Little Bird Publicity, ever cheerful, ever helpful, ever lovely, both of you!

For their input, thanks to Huntley Fitzpatrick, Shaunee Cole, Kelly Morse and Karen Pinco. You guys are fun, smart and gorgeous, all of you. To the merry band of writers better known as CTRWA, thank you for the love and support. Love and thanks to Jackie Decker, my BFF and sister-in-law (the Holy Rollers and Ark Angels were her ideas, so blame her). Thanks to my mom for telling us the story of Mickey the Fire Engine so many times when we were small…the thrill has yet to fade! Huge thanks to my brother-in-law, Brian Keenan, Esq., for his input

on legal issues (any mistakes are mine, all mine). Claire Shanahan Bacon named Beauty, Parker’s dog, and the dog’s personality grew from there. Maura Fehon was my lovely and hardworking summer intern—thank you, honey!

I am very blessed to be able to claim so many writers as dear friends, but this time around, thanks especially to Robyn Carr, Susan Andersen, Jill Shalvis, Cindy Gerard, Joan Kayse and Elizabeth Hoyt. And thanks especially to Robyn for letting me steal a certain salty expression Lavinia uses. You’ll know it when you see it.

Thank you to my two wonderful kids who only grow more delightful, and to my sainted husband, who is the love of my life, even after all these years…especially after all these years.

And you, dear readers, for the letters and notes which bring me such joy…thank you from the bottom of my heart.


This book is dedicated to my daughter Flannery,

who is my treasure, my joy and my heart.


Contents

CHAPTER ONE (#u81016719-26f4-5360-aa07-b8ad7bf93a20)

CHAPTER TWO (#ud15df1d6-c753-57e4-ab0c-8275836c3a02)

CHAPTER THREE (#u77a9e56d-3914-5105-ada5-382284f374d9)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u7aa75267-cb87-5e47-8c8e-b605aa4b1c4e)

CHAPTER FIVE (#uce045fd5-b874-5fc4-ab61-895325aa3056)

CHAPTER SIX (#ueb14bd75-1610-5cad-a34b-279b94cf4c7f)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u272407a1-4956-5846-9d86-35704ebf1f77)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u7ae9bca0-02c0-5487-845c-0fcfad95f30b)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE

“AND WITH THAT, the six Holy Rollers—Golly, Polly and Molly, Ike, Mike and Spike—took off their magical roller skates for the last time. Their job on earth was done. They’d earned their beautiful, sparkly angel wings and could stay in heaven forever…and ever…and ever. The end.”

Parker Harrington Welles suppressed a dry heave, closed the book and tried not to envision smothering the fictional angels, no matter how much she would’ve enjoyed it.

Don’t kill us, Parker! squeaked the imaginary voices in her head, their voices helium-shrill.

I can’t kill you. You’re immortal. Unfortunately. One of the huge downsides of writing the series—the little pains in the butt talked to her. Another downside—Parker talked back.

Seven or eight little hands shot up in the air.

“Please write more Holy Rollers books, Miss Welles.”

I’d rather bathe in my own blood, kid, thought Parker. “No, sweetie, the Holy Rollers are in heaven now,” she answered. “This is the last book in the series. But you can see them in a movie this summer, don’t forget.”

Today at her son’s preschool, the Holy Rollers, a book series so sickeningly precious it made The Velveteen Rabbit look like a chapter out of Sin City, was officially done. Though they had made Parker moderately famous in the world of kiddie lit, had been translated into sixteen languages and had print runs in the gazillions, there was no getting around the fact that their author hated them.

Hate is such an angry word! chorused the child angels. We love you, Parker! Honestly, they were a Cartoon Network version of a Greek chorus, always popping into her head with unwanted advice.

“Did you write Harry Potter?” was the next question, this one from Nicky’s friend Caitlin.

“No, afraid not, honey. But I love those books, don’t you?”

“Sometimes I get the Warm Fuzzles, just like the Holy Rollers,” Mariah said, and Parker nearly threw up in her mouth. Had she really invented that term? Had she been drinking at the time?

“Are you rich?” Henry Sloane asked.

“Well,” Parker answered, “if you’re asking if I make a lot as an author, the answer is no. All the money I get for the Holy Rollers goes to a charity called Save the Children.”

“That’s for kids who don’t have enough food,” Nicky said proudly, and Parker smiled at her son. It was the one good thing about the book series. Parker didn’t need the money, so right from the get-go, she’d donated all proceeds to the charity, which took away some of the nausea.

“But you live in a mansion,” Will Michalski stated with authority. “I’ve been there. You have twenty-nine bathrooms.”

“True enough,” she said, a twinge of discomfort flashing through her.

“It’s a mansion. It’s a castle! I want to live there when I grow up!”

“Are you going to write another book?” asked Amelia.

Excellent question. Parker might not love the Holy Rollers, but new ideas hadn’t exactly been pouring out of her. “I hope so.”

“What’s it about?”

“Um, I’m not quite sure yet. But I’ll let you know, okay? Any other questions? Yes, Ben.”

After another half hour, as the questions dwindled into what color wings Golly should have, the teacher finally stepped in.

“Miss Welles has to get going, I’m sure,” she said. “Kids, can you say thank-you to Nicky’s mom?”

“Thank you, Nicky’s mom!” the kids chorused, then rushed her, hugging her legs, the payoff for reading The Holy Rollers Earn Their Halos out loud.

“Am I staying with Daddy this weekend?” Nicky asked as they walked to the car.

“You sure are,” Parker answered. She stroked her son’s dark hair. Ethan’s weekend had come awfully fast, it seemed. She gave her son a kiss, then bent to buckle him into his booster.

“I can do it myself,” Nicky said.

“Right. Sorry, honey.” She got into the driver’s seat and started the car.

A weekend alone. Parker tried not to sigh. She really needed to find another idea for a series. The Holy Rollers had been born as a spoof, sure, but they’d been her job for the past six years. Aside from staring at a blank computer screen and possibly watching a Gerard Butler movie or three, she had no plans.

“You should sleep over, too,” Nicky suggested, practically reading her mind. “We could have popcorn. Lucy said she’s making me a cake.”

“The woman can bake, that’s for sure,” Parker said. “What kind?”

“My favorite kind. With the frosting and the coconut. I can eat seven pieces, she said.”

“Did she, Nicky?” Parker cocked an eyebrow. Truth wasn’t a strong point for her little guy these days.

“I think so. She maybe said five. But it was a lot.”

Nicky continued to chatter about the joys that lay ahead of him for the weekend: eating cake; a sail on Ethan’s boat; more cake; sleeping with Fat Mikey, Lucy and Ethan’s cat; possibly taking a bath with Fat Mikey; having cake at midnight; and finding the pirate’s cave that Mackerly, Rhode Island, supposedly possessed. Like his grandmothers, Nicky had been born with the gift of chat.

As she pulled onto Ocean View Drive, Parker frowned a little. The preschooler’s comment about living in a mansion had struck a nerve. Lately, she’d been thinking of moving, concerned over the idea that Nicky would be thought of as the rich kid. It hadn’t helped her; trust funds were hard to get past for a lot of people. But Grayhurst had been in her family for four generations, built by her great-great-grandfather at the turn of the century, and though she’d grown up in New York City, Parker had moved to Mackerly permanently after she’d gotten pregnant. She had a lot of happy memories of childhood summers—tea parties with her three cousins, learning to sail with her father. Ethan lived in town, and she’d wanted Nicky to grow up knowing both his parents, even if they’d never been married. But two people, living in a mansion in which they really only used a few rooms…it didn’t feel right.

The place was gorgeous, though, she thought as they pulled into the driveway. Silhouetted against the aching blue of a June sky and bathed in the golden sun of late afternoon, the gray stone building looked like a stately grande dame gazing out contentedly over the acres of manicured lawns, flower beds and mature trees. Frickin’ huge, but beautiful.

Ethan and Lucy, Parker’s closest friends, were already here, holding hands as they sat on wide front steps that led from the driveway to the enormous entryway. Ethan jumped up to open her door as she pulled in.

“Daddy!” Nicky yelled, scrambling out of the car.

“How’s my guy?” Ethan asked, scooping him up.

“So,” Lucy said, “are congratulations in order?”

“I am officially done with the Holy Rollers. Let the good times roll.”

“Good for you, Parks,” Ethan said, kissing Nicky’s cheek. “You proud of Mommy, Nick?”

“Yup. What’s for snack? Is cake for snack?”

“No cake till after supper,” Lucy said. “Unless your dad decides otherwise.”

“Decide otherwise, Dad!” Nicky commanded, cantering ahead.

“Parker, do you have plans tonight?” Lucy asked. “I figured the boys could have some time alone, and we could hang out.”

Saved! “I would love that! We can break open some of my father’s wine and gossip about Ethan’s flaws all night.”

Lucy reached for his hand. “He’s driving me crazy. I’m thinking marriage was a huge mistake.”

“My God, it’s like you’re reading my mind,” Ethan said. “Shall I call an attorney?” They grinned at each other.

“Guys, I just ate, okay?” Parker said, cocking an eyebrow. The tiniest swirl of envy threaded through her. Lucy and Ethan were crazy in love, and yep, Ethan was the father of Parker’s child. It wasn’t as freaky as it sounded. Or maybe it was, and Parker was in denial.

“We brought the itinerary for our trip,” Ethan said, standing back to let the ladies go in first. “Figured you’d want a copy.”

“Great!” Parker said firmly. “I’m dying to see it.”

Her friends had gotten married in February, but they hadn’t had a honeymoon yet; instead, they were taking Nicky to California as soon as preschool finished. San Francisco, Muir Woods, Yosemite. After that, Ethan would be occupied with the reopening of his restaurant, so the timing seemed perfect.

It was just that it was for three weeks.

Three weeks without her boy.

“Daddy!” Nicky galloped back and grabbed his father’s hand. “Come see my room! I cleaned it yesterday. Mommy made me. She said it was a sty. Where pigs live. I found Darth Vader’s head!” He tugged his father up the curving staircase.

Parker and Lucy went through the house to the kitchen, Parker’s favorite place in the house. “I brought us sustenance,” Lucy said, holding out a bag. “White-chocolate macadamia cookies.”

“Satan, get thee behind me.” She took out a cookie—heck yeah, still warm!—and took a bite. Bliss. “Do you know I’ve gained eleven pounds since last year? You hit thirty-five, and bam, all those things you ate in your twenties launch themselves onto your ass.” Parker raised an eyebrow as Lucy laughed. “You’ll see.”

“I already see,” her friend said. “So what? You’re a size eight now? The horror, the horror.”

“Oh, I hit double digits some time ago. Let’s never speak of it again.”

“You bet,” Lucy said.

Marriage agreed with her, Parker thought. Lucy’d had it rough; widowed before her first anniversary years ago. Jimmy, her husband, had been Ethan’s older brother; Ethan and Lucy had been college friends; the shared loss brought them closer together. About six years after Jimmy died, Ethan and Lucy had finally hooked up.

And somewhere in there, long before Ethan and Lucy had anything romantic together, he’d dated Parker for about two months. The guy had been great on paper, save for one minor detail: he’d been in love with Lucy. Parker always thought it funny that more people hadn’t seen it. She broke up with him—it wasn’t terribly hard; they’d already seemed more like old pals than anything—then found out six weeks later that she was pregnant. They’d shared Nicky from the beginning.

She took another cookie out of the bag and ate it. “Holy halos, these are good. Shoot me if I eat another. Where’s the itinerary? It’s color coded, right? Tell me it’s color-coded.”

“Of course it is,” Lucy said, unfolding a three-page spreadsheet.

“So you’ll be in San Fran for three days?”

“Four.” Lucy pointed. “See? San Francisco’s in pink.”

“Of course.” Parker bent over the paper, grateful for Lucy’s organizational skills. She’d know where her son was every minute.

Ethan came into the kitchen and helped himself to a cookie. “Parker, what are your plans while we’re away?” he asked. “Got anything lined up?”

“Oh, I might bop out to Nantucket and see some old pals out there. Go into the city. Maybe visit my mom. You know.” She reached for another cookie.

The truth was, she hadn’t made any solid plans. The idea of having her son four thousand miles away made her want to sleep at the airport, in case something went wrong. Which it won’t, the Holy Rollers assured her. Lucy and Ethan are the best! Plus, it’ll be good for Nicky to see what a healthy adult relationship looks like!

Take a bite, Parker thought. So she hadn’t been in a relationship since Ethan. So she’d yet to go on a second date with anyone in five years. So what? She tended to attract emotionally unavailable men, anyway. Married men, engaged men, sociopaths, that sort of thing. Better not to date at all. The fact that she’d spent a lot of time watching gritty TNT dramas and eating Ben & Jerry’s should not be construed as jealousy. It was more like a filling of the gap.

A gap that would now be uninterrupted for three weeks.

When Ethan broached the vacation idea back in March, it had seemed like a fabulous idea…Parker, on her own, free to do whatever she wanted—sleep past 5:00 a.m., for example, as Nicky was like a rooster about mornings. Find that elusive new idea for a book series. Just because Parker had been born with a trust fund didn’t mean she wanted to build a life around shopping for handbags.

But as the spring progressed, she did nothing. What if something happened with Ethan’s restaurant, and the trip had to be canceled? What if a new book series came to her, and she was on fire to write it, the way she’d heard other authors describe? She should probably stay home, in case something came up.

It didn’t. And now with ten days to go, the time alone seemed to loom like a mine shaft. She didn’t even have the Holy Rollers to keep her busy, and the fact that this even caused a twinge was deeply disturbing.

“I was hiding! No one found me! I beat you all.” Nicky charged into the kitchen with Elephant, his favorite stuffed animal.

“Nicky, you can’t hide without telling us, remember?” Parker said. “It’s not a game that way.”

“But I always win,” her son pointed out.

“He has a point,” Lucy said.

Parker grinned and knelt down. “Kiss me, mister. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Bye, Mom! Bye, Lucy!” He bolted out of the kitchen.

“That’s my cue. See you, girls. Have fun tonight.” Ethan kissed Parker on the cheek, then went out to the foyer with Lucy, where Parker presumed he would kiss her goodbye a little more intensely.

For a second, she wondered if Lucy was here out of…well…sympathy. Once, she, Ethan and Lucy had been three single friends. Now, instead of three, it was two and one.

So? Get a boyfriend, Golly advised. Since the release of the final book, it seemed to Parker that the Holy Rollers were aging in her imagination. They were depicted in the books as being about eight, but here Golly was already trying on mascara.

“Right. A boyfriend,” Parker answered. “I need that like a stick in the eye.”

She headed down to her father’s beloved wine cellar, complete with a stone tasting room—fireplace and all. Thousands and thousands of bottles, including the bottle of Château Lafite supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. Or not. Harry was quite a liar.

She hadn’t seen her father for a while now; the last time was when he’d held a wine-tasting dinner down here with a few sycophants from Wall Street, his omnipresent personal attorney and one of the Kennedy clan, who was up for reelection. Her orders were to bring Nicky down to be introduced, then bring him back upstairs. And stay upstairs with him. Not that she’d have stayed even if asked. Which she wasn’t.

Well. Here was that nice 1994 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Harry had bragged about. Eight grand a bottle, far less than the 1996 vintage. Surely Harry wouldn’t mind if his only child and her best friend drank that, right? He had a whole case, after all. She wouldn’t tell Lucy how much it cost. Lucy was a little scared of Harry. Most people were.

Parker went back upstairs, uncorked the wine and let it breathe a little. Got out some goat cheese and grapes, some of those crumbly crackers. It was so great that Lucy had decided to hang out. Maybe too great. You’ve got to fill these empty hours somehow, Spike said.

“Hush,” Parker said. “You’re dead to me. Go. Fly off to heaven.” She poured two glasses of the wine and set the cheese plate on a tray.

“Who are you talking to?” Lucy asked, coming back to the kitchen.

“Spike.”

“Oh, dear. Well, listen. The books were very, um…entertaining. And they did a lot of good for a lot of kids. To the Holy Rollers.” Lucy clinked her glass against Parker’s.

“May they rest in peace,” Parker said, taking a healthy sip of wine.

Six years ago, Parker had been sitting in the office of a Harvard classmate, hearing for the fifty-seventh time that Mickey the Fire Engine, the children’s story she’d written, wasn’t good enough.

“I’m sorry, Parker,” George had said. “It’s a little familiar.”

Familiar? Mickey was wonderful! And really, what the heck? She had a double degree from Harvard in literature and ethics. Half of her graduating class seemed to be writing romance novels; Parker had fifty-six rejections to her name. Make that fifty-seven. Mickey was full of sincerity and good messages—having a purpose, commitment, courage, second chances. With all the schlock that was out there, it was hard not to feel bitter.

“Got anything else?” George asked, already glancing at his watch.

“Yeah, I do,” Parker said. “How’s this? A band of child angels are sent to earth to teach kids about God. Right? They haven’t earned their wings, though, so they roller-skate everywhere—they’re the Holy Rollers. Do you love it? All they eat is angel food cake, and they live in a tree fort called Eden, and whenever a regular kid is up against a tough moral decision, in come the Holy Rollers and the preaching begins.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s The Crippled Lamb meets The Little Rascals meets The Exorcist.” She sighed and stood up. “Well, thanks for your time, George. Good to see you.”

“Hang on,” he said.

The next week, she’d had an offer and a contract, and she and Suze, her old roomie from Miss Porter’s School, had come to Grayhurst to celebrate, eat whatever Harry’s chef felt like cooking them, swim in the indoor pool and laugh at life’s ironies. The second night, they’d gone to Lenny’s, the local bar, and there was Ethan Mirabelli, who’d flirted with them equally, despite Suze being gay and built like a professional wrestler. When Ethan had asked for Parker’s phone number, Suze had given her a heavy elbow to the ribs, her way of indicating approval. And the rest, as they say, was history.

Parker and Lucy took their goodies into the front room and were laughing over Lucy’s in-laws’ propensity for dropping by during certain intimate moments. “It’s like they know,” Lucy said. “Honestly, some days I think they have the apartment bugged.”

“They might,” Parker agreed. Her phone rang, and Parker glanced at the screen “Oh, speaking of difficult parents, it’s my mother. I bet she has a husband for me.”

“Goody! Put her on speaker so I can hear, too!” Lucy clapped like a little kid.

Parker clicked on. “Hi, Mom.”

“Darling, I have someone for you!” Althea Harrington Welles Etc. Etc. sang out.

Parker pulled a face for Lucy. “Hooray! Don’t even worry about us meeting—just start planning the wedding.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, haven’t you heard? Anyway, his name is…oh, well, I don’t remember. But his last name is Gorman, as in Senator Gorman from Virginia? His father. Those charges were dropped, by the way. Isn’t it exciting, sweetheart? I’m thinking The Caucus Room for your engagement announcement party, the National Cathedral for your wedding, reception at the senator’s home on the Chesapeake. It’s stunning. I looked it up on Google Earth.”

“Just tell me when to show up in the big white dress.”

“Can I be matron of honor?” Lucy whispered.

“Definitely. Mom, Lucy’s here.”

“Lucy?”

“My best friend?”

“I’m aware, dear. Hello, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Mrs.—um…Althea,” Lucy said.

“Lucy, maybe you can make her take this seriously. She’s so obsessed with that child, she hasn’t noticed she’s getting old! Honestly, my only daughter, never married.”

“It’s awful,” Lucy concurred, grinning. “I tried to fix her up with my mute assistant at the bakery, but she said no to him, too.”

“I’d rather date Jorge than a senator’s kid,” Parker said. “His tattoos are amazing. That one of the crucifixion? So lifelike.”

“Fine. Make fun of me, girls. Oh, did you see my Facebook? I’m auditioning for Real Housewives out here. Maury thinks it’s a great idea.”

Parker mimicked a scream, then said, “That’s great, Mom. So you think you might come visit next month?”

“I’m not sure yet. Maury has this thing. How’s Nicky?”

“He misses you,” Parker said, playing the guilt card.

“Well, you kiss that beautiful boy for me, all right? And seriously, sweetheart, think about the Gorman heir. I hate to think of you in that hideous old house, all alone except for your toddler.”

“He’s five and a half, Mom.”

“Oh. Well, when does one stop being a toddler? Anyway, it’s not my point. My point is— Oops! Maury’s ringing in. Kisses to my grandson! Nice to hear your voice, Lisa. Bye, Parker! Talk soon!”

“Bye, Mom.” Parker sighed. “More wine, Lisa?”

Lucy laughed. “I like your mom.”

“I’d like to see her more, that’s for sure,” Parker grumbled.

Just as they’d finished their first glass of wine and were debating on whether to Google the Old Spice man or Ryan Gosling, they heard the crunch of tires on the long gravel driveway. “Think Nicky forgot something?” Lucy asked, going to the window and pushing back the silk drapes. “Eesh! It’s your father. And his entourage.”

“Oh, bugger and damn. Do we have time to hide?”

“I think I’m allowed to hide,” Lucy said. “You probably have to say hi.”

“Don’t you dare go anywhere,” Parker ordered.

A flare of nervousness—her trademark reaction to Daddy Dearest—flashed through her stomach. Almost automatically, she smoothed her hair and glanced down at her attire. Since she’d been at Nicky’s school as Parker Welles, Author, rather than Nicky’s Mom, she’d dressed up a little…beige silk shirt, ivory pencil skirt, the fantabulous leopard-print shoes. Good. A little armor.

She joined Lucy at the window and looked out. The driver of the limo opened the back door, and Harry Welles emerged into the sunlight, followed closely by Thing One and Thing Two, his minions.

Technically, Grayhurst was Harry Welles’s home, though he lived in a sleek and sterile duplex on Manhattan’s East Side. He only came to Rhode Island to impress clients or when he couldn’t avoid a family event. He was the third generation to run Welles Financial, once a conservative financial-services firm, which Harry transformed into the kind of Wall Street playah that was often picketed by students and teachers’ unions. He never traveled alone—flunkies like Thing One and Thing Two were part of Harry’s makeup.

The three men came up the walkway and into the house, Thing One and Thing Two trailing at a respectful distance behind him, like castrati guards in a harem.

Her father scanned her, unsmiling.

“Hi, Harry,” she said, keeping her tone pleasant. “How are you?”

“Parker. I’m glad you’re here.” Her father glanced at her friend. “Lucy.”

“Hello, Mr. Welles. Nice to see you again.”

Harry took a deep, disapproving breath—well, it seemed disapproving. “I have something to discuss with you, Parker. Is Nicky here?”

“He’s with his father this weekend. But I can run over and get him.” There was that pesky, hopeful note in her voice. If you don’t like me, at least like my kid, Dad.

“No, that’s just as well. We need to discuss a few family matters.” He looked pointedly at Lucy, who smiled sweetly and, bless her heart, didn’t move a muscle. Harry’s eyes shifted back to Parker. “How’s Apollo?”

“Still alive.”

“Good.” Pleasantries finished, he strode down the hallway. “Join me in the study, please,” he added without looking back.

“Miss Welles, your father would like you to join him in the study,” said Thing Two somberly. The man held a long and meaningless title at Welles Financial, but so far as Parker could tell, his job was to echo her father and occasionally slap him on the back in admiration. He fell into step behind Harry, keeping six or seven paces behind.

“Parker. Always lovely to see you.”

And then there was Thing One.

It was his customary line, usually delivered with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, and she hated it. Yes, Thing One was attractive—Harry would never hire an ugly person. The whole cheekbones and perfect haircut and bored affect…okay, okay, he was hot. But he knew it, which detracted significantly, and that line—Parker, always lovely to see you—blick. Add to the fact that he was a Harry-in-the-making, and his appeal went down to nil.

Thing One didn’t work for Welles Financial; he was Harry’s personal attorney, having replaced the original Thing One a few years ago—why change a perfectly good nickname? He lived somewhere here in Rhode Island and did things like…well, Parker really didn’t know. Occasionally she’d have to sign a paper he brought by. Otherwise, he seemed fairly useless, glib, smug and so far up her father’s butt she wondered how he could see daylight.

“Thing One,” she murmured with a regal nod. Miss Porter’s hadn’t been for nothing.

“It’s James, since you can’t seem to remember. I also answer to Mr. Cahill.”

“Thing One suits you so much more.”

He gave her a sardonic look, then turned to her friend. “Hello, Lucy,” he said. He’d met her at a number of Nicky-related events—God forbid Harry come alone. “Congratulations on your wedding.”

“Oh, thank you,” Lucy said, looking a little surprised that he knew. Parker wasn’t. Harry was hardly a doting grandfather, but he did keep tabs on Nicky’s life. Or had his people keep tabs, as the case might be.

“After you, ladies,” he said. He looked somber. Parker was more accustomed to seeing him in full-blown slickster mode, kissing up to her dad, glad-handing whoever was around him. A small quiver of anxiety ran through her gut. Something was…off.

As they walked down the hall, Parker rubbed the tip of her ear. It was itchy. Stress eczema, probably, brought on by dear old dad.

Harry never did any real work in the study. So far as Parker could tell, he used it to impress and intimidate his colleagues. The room was beautiful, though, filled with first-edition books, Tiffany windows, a state-of-the-art humidor and a desk the size of a pool table. Harry sat in his leather chair now, his thick gray hair perfectly cut, his suit Armani, his eyes cool. Around his arm was twined Apollo, her father’s pet ball python.

Yeah. You are your pet, right? Apollo was maybe four feet in length—Parker didn’t spend a lot of time looking at him, as he gave her a hearty case of the heebie-jeebies. Nicky, though…in case living in a mansion wasn’t cool enough, he loved to impress his friends with Apollo, whose glass cage, it must be noted, was always locked. Didn’t want to have a python slithering around the house, no indeed. The gardener was charged with feeding him and cleaning his cage.

“It’s so Dr. Evil,” Lucy whispered, giving Parker’s hand a squeeze. She went to a window seat and curled up there, nearby, but at a distance.

“So, Harry,” Parker said, that nervousness flaring again. She sat in one of the three leather chairs in front of the desk. Things One and Two stood to one side, like soldiers at a funeral. “How are things? Are you here for the weekend?”

“No. And things have been better. Is my grandson almost finished with school?”

“Yes. Then he’s going to California with his dad and Lucy.”

Harry glanced at Lucy. “Glad to hear it.”

“Glad to hear it,” echoed Thing Two, scratching his stomach. Parker waited for Thing One to chime in, too, but he remained silent, his arms folded.

Harry gazed at his pet, then kissed the snake’s head. Parker tried not to flinch. That snake would make some very attractive shoes. Otherwise, he was her rival for Harry’s attention. Well, hardly her rival. Apollo was ahead by miles. Her father looked at his minions. “Gentlemen, have a seat.”

Thing One and Thing Two obeyed, taking the seats on either side of her. She glanced at Lucy, who gave her a nervous smile of solidarity. There was definitely something in the air, and for the life of her, Parker felt a little bit as if she was about to be sentenced.

She wasn’t far off.

“Well, there’s no easy way to say this,” her father said, stroking his snake.

“No easy way,” Thing Two murmured.

Harry didn’t look up from the snake. “We’re broke. You have to move.”


CHAPTER TWO

JAMES C AHILL, also known as Thing One, closed his eyes. Granted, Parker Welles was not his favorite person, but even so. Hearing it put so baldly…uncool. Her friend gave a little squeak. Otherwise, there was silence.

He glanced at the princess. She didn’t move for a second, then tucked her hair behind one ear, the tip of which was growing red. Otherwise, she just sat there, her profile to him. She crossed her legs. Said legs were flawless—long, smooth, perfect. Not that he was allowed to look at them—she’d put him in his place quite a while ago, and yes, she was being informed of her financial ruin, but man, those legs were incredible.

“Broke?” she said, then cleared her throat.

“That’s right,” Harry answered, petting the snake. “You’ve heard of broke, I assume?”

Now, James knew that Apollo was some kind of security blanket for Harry; easier to break the news to his only child if he had something else to look at. Their whole vibe was always wicked uncomfortable; James hated having to go to Welles family events, but if Harry invited him, he’d come along. It was the least he could do, given what Harry had done for him. Didn’t make things fun, though.

Parker took a deep breath, her breasts rising under her silky shirt. Nice. Focus, idiot. The perils of being a straight guy in the room with a beautiful woman. Even one who loved putting him down.

“What happened, Dad?” she asked, her voice more gentle than James had ever heard it. And “Dad.” He couldn’t say he’d ever heard her call him anything but Harry in the six years he’d been working for the guy.

Harry shifted Apollo to his other arm. “Just a bump in the road. For now, there’s no more money.”

“No more—”

“James, fill her in.”

“James, why don’t you fill her in?” Vernon echoed, parrotlike.

Right. Time to earn that salary. “Okay, well, it’s a little complicated,” he began.

She gave him a razor blade of a look. “Try me. I’m a Harvard grad.”

So much for her soft edges. And God forbid he forget that her blood ran crimson. James himself had gone to Boston University; once, he’d flirted with a Harvard girl and told her he went to BU. “Where’s that?” she’d asked, because if you went to Harvard, other schools didn’t exist.

She had, however, gone home with him.

“Magna cum laude,” Parker added.

“Should I kneel?” he asked. Harry snorted, and Parker’s mouth tightened. Not cool. James hadn’t meant to make it seem as if it was boys vs. girl here. Even if it kind of was.

Parker’s friend cleared her throat. “Um, Parks, you want me to, uh, get started on dinner?”

“I’d rather you stayed,” Parker said. Her tone was locked into rich-girl drawl. “Please continue, Thing One.”

Yes, Majesty. “It seems that Harry got mixed up in an insider-trading deal.”

She looked back at her father, who was stroking his snake. “Oh, Harry.”

“Let him finish,” Harry said, not looking away from Apollo.

James shifted in his seat. “Harry made a sizable investment in a company on which he’d had inside information—”

“I know what insider trading is,” she said.

“—and that was obviously unethical, but more to the point, the results weren’t what the information promised.” Okay, here came the hard part. “To cover the losses to investors, your father needed to, ah, liquidate certain assets.”

She blinked, and James felt a pang of sympathy for her as realization dawned in her eyes. “Which assets, Harry?” she asked, her voice calm.

Harry looked at the python. “Your trust fund.”

She looked at her hands, her mouth tight. “Granddad set that up for me.”

“Well, I’ve been managing it most of your life,” Harry snapped. There was a pause, and the grandfather clock in the corner ticked ominously. “Nicky’s, too,” Harry added in a softer voice.

James couldn’t help but wince. It had to hurt, hearing your father had sold you down the river. Your kid, too.

“You stole your grandson’s trust fund, Harry?” Her voice was harsher now.

Harry’s lips pressed together. “I’m the administrator of the Welles family trust, Parker, as you’re well aware. I liquidated it temporarily.”

“Liquidated it temporarily,” Vernon echoed, smiling like an idiot. James had almost forgotten he was here.

“How temporarily?”

“Yo!” came a voice. A shaggy-haired guy wearing overalls stood in the doorway. “Hey there, gang, sorry. Is this the Welles place?”

“It is,” Harry said.

“It’s awesome, man! Really nice! So, like, we’re the movers? Gonna start in the game room, okay?”

“Billiard room,” Harry muttered.

The mover laughed. “Totally! Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the candlestick! Dude, is that a snake? Nice! Okay, better get going. This place is frickin’ huge! See you later!”

Parker’s mouth was open. “They’re taking stuff already? I— Wow, Harry. You don’t mess around.”

Her face was pale now, and James wished he could, well, make this easier for her somehow. “Parker, anything that you bought for you or Nicky or the house is yours. Everything else, I’m afraid, falls under Harry’s assets, which the Feds have seized. The investigator is aware that you’re living here, and you have a little time to, ah, pack.”

“My God.” She squeezed her little finger and glanced at her pal, who was frozen.

“It’ll be okay,” Lucy murmured automatically.

Harry cleared his throat. “Obviously, Parker, having these vultures pick over our belongings is not my choice. I’ll get everything back.”

“Really,” she said faintly.

“Eventually. I’m a little…constrained for the immediate future.”

“A little constrained indeed,” Vernon said.

That was one word for it. James rubbed his forehead. Wicked headache coming on.

“So.” Parker shook her head. “About my trust fund, and Nicky’s. Don’t you need my signature to just…empty it? There must be something left.”

Nope. There was nothing, and Harry had only needed James himself to file the paperwork. Poor planning on her part, that was for sure. At any time since her eighteenth birthday, she could’ve taken full control of that money. When her son was born, same deal.

She never had.

“Your signature wasn’t required,” Harry said. “Nor was your consent.”

“Your consent was not required,” Vern said, nodding cheerfully. There was a crash and a curse from somewhere in the house.

Parker took a deep breath “Wow, Harry. So it’s gone? That was a lot of money.”

“Yes, Parker!” Harry barked. “I’m sorry to say you’ll have to make do for a while. Until I can recover some losses.”

“How long will that take, do you think?”

Again, Harry’s eyes sought out James.

Shit again.

“That’s undetermined right now,” James said. “Your father is being sentenced Monday morning.”

Parker’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Dad.” Twice in one day. “Can I do anything?”

“Like what, Parker?” he asked.

“I—I don’t know.”

“I’ll be fine. I have a great team.”

“A great team!” Vernon agreed.

Lucy got up from the window seat and went to Parker’s side. Took her hand. Good girl, James thought. Parker would be needing her friends, and so far as he could tell, Lucy here and the Paragon of Perfection otherwise known as Ethan Mirabelli were her closest. Or so it seemed from those dreaded family events he’d attended.

“It’s really nothing,” Harry said. “I’m not even sure I’ll have to serve any real time.”

James was sure. Oh, yeah. Harry was looking at somewhere around five years. His case wasn’t the clusterfuck that some Wall Streeters had been involved in of late, but it was a clear-cut case. And after Bernie Madoff and the Occupy movement, there wasn’t a judge in the country foolish enough to go easy on a case like this.

“As I said, you’ll have to move,” Harry added. “I’m hoping you’ll take Apollo.”

You know, James had to wonder sometimes what the hell was wrong with Harry. He loved the guy, yeah. But he was a pretty big idiot around his daughter. And yep, here it came.

Parker’s voice hardened. “Take Apollo? You’re worried about your snake, Harry? How about your grandson? The one you robbed? Where should I take your grandson, Harry?”

“I’m sure his father would take him.”

“I’m not living away from my son!” she exclaimed. Her ears were burning red now.

“You can both live with us, Parker,” Lucy said. “We’ll figure something out.”

“No! Lucy, thank you. But no. Harry, Ethan and Lucy just got married. I’m not moving in with them! What about your apartment? You could sell that and—”

“Parker,” James said as gently as he could. “The SEC has seized all your father’s assets. The apartment, this house, the place in Vermont…everything.”

She glanced out the window. “There goes the Steinway. Holy crap.” She swallowed, then looked at James, her expression bleak. “When do I have to be out?”

“They’ll leave your rooms for last,” he said. “You have till the end of the month.”

“This month?”

“This month,” Vernon confirmed.

She squeezed her pinkie again. “Okay,” she said, biting her lip. “Well, that’s… I was actually thinking it might not be a bad idea to move to a smaller place.”

“Smaller place. Not a bad idea,” Vernon echoed, and James resisted the urge to duct-tape his mouth shut.

“Let me go call Ethan, okay, Parker?” Lucy said.

“Okay,” Parker said distantly.

“Look,” Lucy said more firmly. “You’re not alone in this. Okay? I have some money put aside, and you’d do the same for me. We’re family.”

Harry made a rude snorting noise.

“Shut up, Harry,” Lucy snapped. “You should be grateful she has friends when her own father does this to her.”

Score one for Team Lucy.

“Thanks, Luce.” Parker said. “But it’s fine. I’ll be fine. But sure, go call Ethan. Fill him in.”

Whereupon the Paragon would no doubt charge up the driveway on his white horse and rescue the mother of his child. Which, no doubt, Parker would love. James sighed.

Harry was staring at the python, and James thought, not for the first time, that if he gave his daughter as much attention as he gave the snake, things would be a lot less chilly in the Welles family.

“So my trust fund’s gone,” she said. “The stock market’s not too bad these days. How’s my portfolio doing?”

Harry still didn’t look at her. “Anything you had through Welles Financial is now unavailable.”

“Unavailable?”

“I’ll get it back, Parker!” Harry snapped. “You have what’s in your checking account at the moment. Do you have anything in savings?”

“No! You told me the stock market was better than…well, what am I saying? You’re a felon. I took advice from a felon. Good God. I guess I should’ve stuffed some cash into the mattress.” Parker gave a shaky laugh.

Clearly the news was catching up with her. She ran a hand through her long hair, the strands falling back into place. Smooth, silky hair that— Been there, worshipped that, his conscience chided.

“I can believe you took my money,” she said. “But I can’t believe you stole Nicky’s. That’s really low, Harry. Even for you.”

“It was necessary,” he barked.

“For what? For covering your ass?”

James held up his hands. “Okay, okay, let’s just…let’s try to calm down. This is a lot to take in. Your father made a mistake—”

“How much did you lose, Thing One?” she asked abruptly.

James hesitated.

“Oh. I get it,” she said, and if looks could kill, James would be lying in a bottomless puddle of blood right about now. “So you knew. Well. Do go on.”

“You have six thousand dollars in your checking account, and since that’s in your name only, it’s free and clear.”

“I have to make a phone call,” Harry said, unwinding his pet and putting him back in the case. “Vernon, come with me, please. I need the information on the drug-company stock. Parker, James can fill you in on the rest.”

“There’s more? Are you going to beat me with a rubber hose, Thing One? I can’t wait.”

James waited till the study door closed, leaving him alone with Parker. And Apollo.

Nope, not alone. The mover was back. “Okay if we start on the dining room? Packing up that china’s gonna take a while. It’s really nice! Expensive, I bet.”

“Go for it,” Parker said. When he was gone again, she looked at James. “Is Harry really going to jail?” she asked, and James had to say, it wasn’t the question he imagined she’d ask.

“Yes. He went to the D.A. and confessed this morning, so that’s why it hasn’t been in the news yet. Monday morning, though…”

She gave him an odd look. “He confessed? That doesn’t seem like him.”

James looked at his hands. “Yeah.” There was that ticking noise again.

Parker sighed. “So, all this other stuff…Granddad’s boat and the paintings and Grandma’s china…it doesn’t belong to us anymore?”

He turned to face her. “Anything in this house that you personally bought stays with you—your clothes, artwork, your car, anything you bought for your son—but the rest will go to refund what Harry’s clients lost.”

“So I have no savings, no portfolio, no trust fund, and we have to move. Is that it in a nutshell?”

“Harry was able to secure another five thousand in cash for you.” James reached into his briefcase—a gift from Harry—and handed her an envelope, which she took automatically. “You have some jewelry that’s yours, right?”

“I guess so,” she said. James knew exactly what she had, as it was listed on the insurance forms. Nothing spectacular—some aging pearl necklaces, a few antique stickpins from her grandmother. All in all, maybe worth another couple grand. Parker wasn’t the type to drape herself in diamonds or redecorate or buy a sports car—she drove a Volvo Cross Country that was a good five or six years old. She didn’t even travel that much. She was more like the Welles family of yore—quieter, old-money New England wealth.

Harry was the new breed—make sure the world knew how much you had by spending every cent.

And even though she’d handed him his nuts on a platter a few years ago, he couldn’t help feeling really shitty about the whole situation. “I know this is a lot to take in,” he said gently, and she cut her eyes over to him. Yikes.

“I suppose there was no way you could’ve given me a heads-up, Thing One.”

“No. I’m sorry. Attorney-client privilege.”

“Hope that lets you sleep at night.”

“Moving on,” James continued, “you do own the house in Maine.”

“Which house in Maine?”

Rich people. Honestly. “Your great-aunt Julia Harrington left you a house when she died six years ago. Ring a bell?”

She frowned. “Oh, my gosh, right. I was just about to have Nicky when she died. Where is it? I never did make it up there.”

James kept his expression neutral. How do you forget about inheriting a house? “The house is in Gideon’s Cove,” he said, handing Parker the folder. “North of Bar Harbor.” He knew the town…or he did once. His bachelor uncle owned a bar up there, and James had spent a couple of summers with him as a teenager.

“So I could sell that, right?” Parker asked, her expression brightening a little. “Sell the house and have a nest egg?”

“You could,” James said. He didn’t know which house was hers, though he had a copy of the deed. If he remembered, Shoreline Drive had some nice places on it.

“Fine.” She was quiet for a minute. “I’ll go up there when Ethan and Lucy take Nicky on vacation, slap on some paint and get it listed with a real-estate agent.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. His own experience was that life was rarely that easy, but for her sake, he hoped it was.

“You reminded her about the house?” Harry asked, striding back into the room.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

“Good. Parker, James knows the area. He’ll go with you and check out the property.” Right. She’d love that. God save him.

“He’ll go with you,” Vernon agreed.

“No, he won’t,” Parker said. “But thanks all the same, Thing One.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Harry said sharply. “You’ll need help.”

Parker turned to James, her eyes about as warm as Apollo’s. “Thing One, my father is so very kind to offer your services, but no thank you.”

“Fine,” Harry said. “Do whatever you want. You always do. We’ll be in touch.”

“Harry,” she began, standing up. There was the pinkie squeeze again. “Are you sure I can’t do anything for you?”

“I’ll be fine.” He flashed her a toothy smile that was so far from sincere it made James wince. Then Harry strode back out, looking every bit the master of Wall Street he used to be, Vernon murmuring on his heels.

And James, he well knew, was expected to follow. He stood up, then turned to Parker, who was staring at the snake. “I’m really sorry about all this, Parker,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

She gave him a look they must’ve taught her at her fancy prep school. I’m sorry, and you are…? “Save the ass kissing for my father, Thing One.”

Sigh. Some people never changed. “I mean it.”

“So do I.”

Okay, enough with the princess act. “I am good for some things,” he said. “As you might remember. Carpentry is one of them.”

“Really. How fascinating. Bye-bye, Thing One. And tell my father I’m not taking that snake.”

James stood there another minute, torn between guilt—his favorite pastime—the desire to help her in some way and the fact that he could see down her shirt a little bit from here. Fantastic view.

You don’t take anything seriously, do you? his father’s voice demanded in his head.

Hard to deny. “I loved the last Holy Rollers book, by the way,” he added.

“Then your IQ is even lower than I thought.”

He couldn’t help a smile. Parker looked away. “Call me and let me know what happens on Monday,” she said.

“Will do.” He picked up his briefcase and turned back to her. “See you in Maine.”

She shot him an icy look. “Not if I see you first. The gun laws are pretty clear about intruders on private property.” He said nothing. “Go, Thing One. Your master awaits.”

James obeyed. There was nothing else he could do.

For now, anyway.


CHAPTER THREE

IN THE TWO WEEKS since her father’s bombshell, Parker thought she’d done a pretty good job of holding it together. She was a mother…you don’t get to walk around cursing like Job or crying. And Lucy had been amazing that first weekend, helping her through the initial shock, going through the house, determining what could reasonably be called Parker’s as the movers tagged and wrapped her family’s belongings.

Not a lot was Parker’s outright. Her Mac, of course. A few pieces of furniture, a couple of paintings, a few little things for the house—a vase, some throw pillows, nothing tremendously valuable.

“You know I’ll help with money,” Lucy’d said at least fifteen times. “I have Jimmy’s life insurance, and—”

“I appreciate that,” Parker said. “But you know what? It’s okay. It’s shocking, sure, but Ethan’s got a nice bit tucked away for Nicky’s college, and I can flip the house in Maine and have a little money and write some more books. Or get a job doing something else.”

She smiled firmly, trying to forget that she’d A) ignored her father’s advice to major in economics and had instead double-majored in two such ridiculously unemployable fields that she actually woke up covered in a cold sweat one night—English was bad enough, but Ethics? Ethics?—and B) she hadn’t had a new idea for a book series since the hideous Holy Rollers had been conceived. It was such bad timing that she’d given the little suckers their wings and halos. She could’ve milked them forever.

But honestly, after the initial shock, it was a little hard to feel as if a great injustice had befallen her. For thirty-five years, she’d had more privilege and wealth than ninety-eight percent of the world. When she’d watched the footage of the Occupy Wall Street gang, back before she was broke, she couldn’t help thinking they had a point.

And now the point had been made. Now, she was normal. Better than normal, according to Lucy—she had a little over eleven grand in her bank account, no debt and a house on the coast of Maine. By Paris Hilton standards, she was destitute; by normal-people standards, sitting kind of pretty.

“I’m going to miss coming over here,” Lucy said as she folded a sweater. “Guess I’ll need to find another friend with a mansion.”

Parker smiled, appreciating Lucy’s attempt to keep things light, not to mention her help at packing. Lucy was very organized. “Good luck with that.”

“How does Nicky seem to be doing?”

“Well, you know how he is. One minute, he thinks it’s great that we’re moving, the next he forgets why we’re packing. I don’t think he’s really wrapped his brain around the idea that we won’t be coming back to live here. But I was thinking of moving anyway. It’s easier than explaining why my father’s in jail.”

“He told Ethan that Grandpa Harry was in a time-out.”

“Yeah, that’s how I put it. He had to go away and think about playing by the rules and being greedy.” She winced. “Nicky still took it pretty hard. But Harry’ll probably be out on good behavior and all that in a couple years.” Years. Crikey.

“And how are you doing with that, Parker? I know you and your father aren’t really close, but still.”

“Yeah. But still.” She gave Lucy a quick look. “I don’t know. I feel bad for him on the one hand. On the other, he deserved it. Then again, I’ve lived off family money all my life, and I never really looked at where it came from. So anyway, it all belongs to the Feds now.”

“It must be hard, though.”

Parker swallowed. It was hard. The people from the SEC had been here last week, and they’d let her keep a few sentimental things—a model of a duck that her grandfather had carved, the little white vase her grandmother had let her fill with flowers from the garden. “Well, I did snag a few bottles of wine from the cellar.”

“Priorities.”

“Exactly. And it was nothing really expensive.”

“So tell me about your cottage in Maine. Am I wrong to think Bush compound? Sort of like this place, but with gray shingles?”

Parker snorted. “I don’t know. I only met my great-aunt a couple of times. You know my mother, always dragging me off to a new stepfather. When we did see family, someone was always having a nervous breakdown. There were no picnics, no bonfires, no uncles who dressed up as Santa. One of my few memories of Aunt Julia is that she told me to start smoking or I’d get fat. I was probably about thirteen at the time.” She gave Lucy a rueful smile.

“Jeesh, Parks! How come you’re so normal?”

“I’m probably not,” she admitted, tossing some socks into her suitcase.

“So you barely see your relatives, but you inherit their summer homes.”

“Yes. It’s our own form of guilt and family obligation and to make up for decades of bitterness, alcoholism and neglect.”

“Weren’t you curious about the house?”

Parker shrugged. “Well, I was nine months pregnant when Julia died. Then that colic—remember? I could barely say my own name for six months. The truth is, I kind of forgot about it.” Parker zipped up a suitcase. “I did a Google search of the address, but all I got was a spot on a map; no satellite pictures available. Apparently I have a second or third cousin up there, according to my mom. I left a message on what I think is her machine.”

“Well, it’s great that you’ll have someone close by.”

“I know. I did see pictures of the town, and it’s really pretty, Luce. Like a postcard…lobster boats and pine trees. And I do know the house has a water view, so how bad can it be?”

“Right. I bet it’s beautiful.”

“So I’ll zip up there, spend a little money, flip it, zip back down here, find a place for us to live, and we should be all set before Nicky starts kindergarten.” She folded a cashmere hoodie. “It’ll be fun. It’ll be good for me.”

“And what about a new book series? Think you’ll get some writing done up there?”

The million-dollar question. “I hope so. I figured my father’s crimes would hurt sales, right? But no. The opposite, and now my publisher is all over me for another idea before the notoriety fades. Can you believe that?”

“Well, that’s good, I guess. That you’re wanted.”

“Yeah.” It was good; it was just a little disheartening to picture writing another sappy series, rather than that elusive, noble, touching Charlotte’s Web kind of masterpiece she’d been hoping to pull off. Attitude is everything, the Holy Rollers chided. “I’m really excited to get started.”

That’s better! the HRs cheered. They’d aged to about twelve and giggled a lot these days.

“So I was thinking,” Lucy said, shooting her a little smile. “No kid for three weeks…you should have a fling.”

Parker snorted.

“No, no! It’d be great! A summertime romance with some hot sailing dude or a fisherman. I’m thinking George Clooney in The Perfect Storm—”

“His character dies.”

“You can do a little swimming, eat some lobster, do whatever else they do in Maine, but live a little, Parker. Find a summer hottie and get it on, girl! What do you say?”

“I cannot believe I’m hearing this from you, of all people. Princess Purity turned pimp.”

“Listen, you’re the one who admitted to watching Neil Patrick Harris’s Emmy speech eight times.”

“I’m up to eleven, actually. And I’m convinced I could turn him straight.”

“Yeah, okay, we all have that dream. But a fling would be great, Parks! Come on. Who was the last guy you slept with, Parker?”

“No comment.”

“Oh, crikey! Was it Ethan?”

Parker winced. “Nope. No, it wasn’t.”

“It was. Oh, my gosh. Ethan, who is now married to your best friend.” Lucy grabbed another sweater and folded it. “That’s both sick and sad.”

“Please stop pimping me. It’s so unlike you.”

“Right. Remember that singles thing you made me go to last year? Who was pimping whom?”

“What’s pimping?” Nicky burst into the room.

“Yes, ladies, what is it?” Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s a grown-up thing,” Parker said. “It involves, um, baby making.”

“Gross,” Nicky said.

“Exactly,” Parker agreed, looking at Lucy with a smile.

Fling, Lucy mouthed.

“Daddy couldn’t find me,” Nicky said, jumping on the bed and rolling amid Parker’s clothes like a puppy. “I was in the pantry, and he couldn’t find me.”

“I didn’t know we were playing, Nick,” Ethan said. “You’re supposed to answer when I call.”

“Okay. Sorry.” Her son began trampolining on the bed. “Guess what, Mom?” Bounce! “Daddy says—” bounce “—our plane leaves—” bounce “—in four—” bounce “—more—” bounce “—hours!” He jumped off the bed with a thud. “And I might get some peanuts from the waitress.”

Parker’s throat tightened. She ran a hand through Nicky’s hair, which was still baby-soft. Don’t change too much while you’re gone. “You’ll have so much fun, sweetheart.”

“I know it. You should come, too.”

“Well, I’ll be up in Maine, so I’ll have a vacation, too. And Daddy will bring you up there when you get back. It’s really pretty. We can eat lobster. Maybe go sailing.”

“Okay. Kiss Elephant.” He held up his stuffed animal for a smooch. Parker obeyed, then gathered her son in her arms, breathing in his salty little-boy smell.

“I love you, Nicky,” she whispered.

“I love you, too, Mommy,” he said. Then he wriggled out of her arms, seeming to see her suitcases for the first time. “We won’t live here ever again?” he said, his voice quavering.

“No, honey. I’m sorry.”

“Then I want a house just like it.”

“We’ll have a smaller place. Like Daddy and Lucy’s.”

“I want this house. I’m gonna come back here and live!”

“Nicky, pal,” Ethan said, “this house is really big. It’s meant for lots and lots of people. But the new house will be yours and Mommy’s. And you can help pick it out, right, Parker?”

“Definitely.” She gave Ethan a grateful look.

“I want it to be purple.” Nick folded his arms across his chest.

“I love purple,” Parker said.

Ethan glanced at his watch and gave her an apologetic look. “We really should get going.”

This was it. Three weeks—twenty-three days, if one was counting, and Parker definitely was—without her son. She picked him up again and held him tight, relishing his strong little arms around her neck. “I love you, Nick. I’ll call you every night. And we can use Skype.”

“I’ll call you every night,” Nicky said. “And every morning. And in the daytime, too.”

“Anytime you want,” Ethan said. “Lucy, can you take Nicky down to the car?”

“You bet.” Lucy hugged Parker. “Love you.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Fling.”

“Sure,” Parker said. “You guys have fun, okay? It’s the trip of a lifetime.”

“Bye, Mom! Elephant says bye, too!”

“Bye, Elephant! Bye, Nicky! I love you!”

Then Lucy took Nicky by the hand and led him down the long hall. Don’t worry, Parker, chimed the Holy Rollers. No one can replace you! You’re the mom!

“Parker.” Ethan took the shirt she was folding—and folding and folding, apparently—and put it on the bed. “I know this hasn’t been easy. And you’ve been a rock. But I know it’s been…a lot.”

His eyes were so kind and nice that Parker could feel her own filling. Dang it. “It’s a little overwhelming,” she whispered.

“I know. But you’re not alone in this. I love you, Lucy loves you, you gave my parents their only grandchild, and they think you walk on water. You have all of us.” He kissed her forehead. “Especially me.”

Not for the first time, Parker wished things had been different with her and Ethan. The guy was damn near perfect. “I do know that, Ethan. And I appreciate it. Things aren’t that bad, really. It’s just been…fast. But I’ll flip the house up there and we’ll be fine.”

He looked at her another minute. “Okay.” He squeezed her shoulders and let her go. “I’ll call you when we land.”

“Thanks.”

“Have fun in Maine.”

“I will. I really will. It’ll build character.”

“You have plenty of character.” With that, he hugged her again and left. A minute later, she heard the echoing thud of the front door closing.

Alone in an eight-thousand-square-foot house.

Once, when she was seven, she’d roller-skated down the big hallways and into the vast kitchen, where Bess, the cook, had given her a slice of rhubarb pie. Most of the year, the Welles family—Althea, Harry and Parker—had lived in New York, in an apartment on the Upper East Side, but Grayhurst had always felt more like home. When she was very small, her grandfather had still been alive, and she had some cherished memories of a man with a deep voice who smelled like Wintergreen Life Savers. For a few magical weeks each summer, they’d come here and be together, Harry around for dinner, Althea making sand castles on the beach. Her three cousins, all girls, would come over to play, and they’d spy on the grown-ups, and make forts in the endless rooms of Grayhurst. Her dad had taught her to sail, and she and Althea played tennis after dinner.

But when she was ten, her parents divorced, and summer was never the same. Harry became a stranger, and Althea married Clay, the first of Parker’s stepfathers, less than a year afterward. Per court order, she’d visit Rhode Island for a week or two in the summer, sometimes foisted off on her aunts, then spending a torturous few days alone with Harry, who’d work most of the time. Then it would be off to whatever summer program was the in thing that year—a summer at sea, another at the Sorbonne, one in Scotland with other daughters of rich people. And don’t get her wrong. She’d had some great times, seen some beautiful places.

But those summers here, at Grayhurst, before she realized what kind of man her father was, before her mother had become a serial trophy wife…those summers had been the best. Her fifth birthday party had been here, and there’d been a white pony. When she was nine or so, she’d had a sleepover, and the gardener had rigged up a screen in front of the indoor pool, and Parker and five friends had bobbed around on inner tubes and watched Jaws.

And this was where she’d brought Nicky home after he was born. She’d rocked him in her grandmother’s Morelock chair and looked out at the sea. How could she not love the place where she learned how to be a mother?

Now Nicky’s beautiful room would be someone else’s. The dining room where they’d once tied a rope and played Tarzan, the topiary in the back where they’d had so many lunches, the back parlor where she and Lucy had spent many a girls’ night, laughing until they cried…all someone else’s.

Well. Self-pity wasn’t going to get her car packed up. The moving truck was coming to take her clothes and most of the stuff to storage—Nicky’s bunk bed, the big white sofa she had in her office, the collection of Holy Rollers books in their many translations. The photo albums and framed pictures of Nicky’s artwork.

All her life, Parker knew, she’d had the cushion of not just a trust fund, but the security of being a Welles of the Rhode Island Welleses. John Kennedy had once sailed his boat here and stayed for dinner, as he and her grandmother were childhood friends. E. B. White had played tennis on Grayhurst’s courts with her grandfather.

Now, for the first time, Parker was truly on her own.

It was oddly thrilling.

She’d use what she needed to spiff up the house in Maine and turn a cushy profit—what, maybe a couple hundred grand? Not bad for a woman who was broke.

And you know what else? Maybe Lucy was right. Lady Land had been long ignored. Maybe a little summer romance would be a good thing. Heck yeah! She had twenty-three days on her own. Might as well live a little.

But now, she’d go downstairs, uncork a bottle of her father’s cheapest. She’d take it out onto the back terrace and enjoy Grayhurst’s view for the last time. And maybe, since no one else was around, she’d have a good cry. And skate down the halls one more time.


CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER EIGHT HOURS in the car, Parker finally saw what she was looking for: a white sign surrounded by pansies and the words Welcome to Gideon’s Cove, Population 1,411. “Finally,” she muttered, slowing the car. Maine was flipping enormous, and one didn’t really understand how enormous until one had to drive the entire length of the thing. But she was here at last. Hopefully, in a few moments, she’d be opening the door of her inheritance, pouring a glass of wine and running a hot bath. You deserve it! cheeped the female Holy Rollers, who were much more in tune with this kind of thing than the boys.

“You said it, sisters,” Parker muttered. She’d been talking to them the entire drive. Just one more reason to be grateful she was here.

The downtown of Gideon’s Cove consisted of a tiny library, two churches, a town hall and about four storefronts. A bar with a neon Bud sign in the window. There was a cheerful little diner; it seemed to be the only restaurant in town. Parker grimaced. It was cute, but not exactly a tourist mecca—no T-shirt stores, no ice-cream shop, no fried-clam shack. How robust could the real-estate market be in a town with 1,400 people?

The road ended at the harbor parking lot. Parker pulled into a space and looked out at the view. Okay, yes, it was beautiful here. The cove was edged with a ragged line of gray rock and pine trees, the water a deep cobalt accented by choppy waves. A small fleet of lobster boats—six or eight of them—bobbed in the darkening blue of the evening. Beyond the cove was the Atlantic, and clouds tinged with pink and lavender rested on the horizon.

Gorgeous. And somewhere close by was her house.

The Harringtons had been wealthy, too—not like the Welles family, but sedately comfortable. Althea had gone to Bryn Mawr and grew up in Westchester; Aunt Julia had been from the Boston side of the family, and had lived in a musty but respectable town house. Parker had only visited a few times, so her memory was dim. A house on the coast of Maine…surely it had potential.

Unfortunately, her GPS didn’t acknowledge the existence of Shoreline Drive. Wouldn’t hurt to find someone to ask.

Parker got out of the car, her lower back creaking a little, stretched and inhaled deeply. Then gagged. Bugger! What was that smell? Sure, Gideon’s Cove was a fishing village, but there was fish…and then there was this. Briny, fishy and rotten, thick enough to practically taste. It must have had something to do with the corrugated-metal building past the harbormaster’s building.

A few more breaths, and the smell wasn’t quite so repulsive. The wind was stiff and salty, so at least there was that. And though it was a beautiful evening, no one seemed to be around. Seagulls hovered on the breeze, and waves slapped against the white hulls of the boats. The wind shushed through the pines. Farther away, Parker heard some music, a baby crying. Mostly, though, it was quiet.

Aha. There was someone—a man motoring in from one of the lobster boats. He pulled up to the dock, jumped neatly out and tied off the boat, then came up the ramp toward her. Perfect. A local who could give her directions. “Hi,” Parker called, waving in case he missed her.

He stopped in front of her, then nodded.

Oh, Mommy! The word fling jumped rather forcefully to mind. She glanced at his left hand. No ring. Perfect. Lucy had urged her to have a fling, and the gods of Fling had sent this guy. How was that for convenience? Black hair. Light blue eyes. Laugh lines. Welcome to Gideon’s Cove indeed.

He didn’t say a word. Just looked at her. Perhaps he was mute.

“Hi there,” she said again, sticking out her hand. “I’m Parker. I’m visiting for a few weeks.”

He nodded again and shook her hand briefly, his hand strong and calloused. “Malone.”

Dead sexy, just the one name. “Nice to meet you.”

He didn’t answer. Which was fine—he didn’t have to speak. He could simply stand there, looking hot. Okay, but yes, it was going on a little long. So. How to proceed? Truth was, Parker was a little—very—out of practice on the boy-girl front. Too bad Fling Material didn’t say, Hey there, blondie, welcome to town. Let me buy you a drink and show you around! Maybe we could have a fling, because I find you very attractive.

Yeah, no. He didn’t seem to be the talking type. But he hadn’t left, either. “So,” she said. “Right. Well, I’m looking for my aunt’s house. Julia Harrington. She lived on Shoreline Drive.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Do you happen to know where that is?”

“Ayuh.” He said nothing more for a second, then, realizing perhaps more was required, cleared his throat. “About a mile out of town, that side of the cove.” Malone pointed. “Take a left out of the lot, then a quick right, and there you are.”

His voice was rough, and he dropped his Rs even more than they did in Rhode Island. It worked. “Thanks,” Parker said, her voice perhaps a little breathy. Go ahead, ask him out, Spike advised. He’s a guy. He’ll say yes.

Her ears were itchy. “Well, um, I’m sure I’ll see you around. Small town and all.” That was not asking him out. “And thank you, Malone was it? Malone.” Still not asking him out. “So…I’ll see you around?” Jeesh. So out of practice.

But no, no, looky here. He was smiling a little. Heck yeah! Maybe she wasn’t so bad at this after all.

“Good night,” he said.

Nope. She did suck. She would’ve said good-night, but he was already walking away.

That was terrible, the Holy Rollers said in disappointment. They were right. She was very bad at asking men out. This hadn’t always been the case, but it was sure true now, wasn’t it? Tall, Dark and Silent had simply appeared, all tousled and manly with those rough and calloused hands that, come on, probably knew their way around the female anatomy, because really. How many gay lobstermen were there?

“All right, settle down,” she told herself, getting back into her car. Talking aloud, the writer’s affliction. “Let’s get home before we start jumping the locals.”

Home. That had a nice sound to it, yes indeed.

Julia’s house was at 97 Shoreline Drive, and Parker drove slowly, checking the numbers on mailboxes and doors. The road wasn’t much wider than a driveway. There were a few very nice houses—two Victorians, a Greek Revival—but they grew smaller and more sparse as the road curved with the rocky shoreline, leaving behind the snug little town surprisingly fast. The last house was 66 Shoreline Drive; otherwise, there was nothing, other than a decrepit little shed that appeared to be about to fall into the ocean.

Hang on a sec. The road led to a small peninsula that jutted out into the cove, and Parker glimpsed a clearing in the pine trees. Heart rate kicking up a few levels, she wound down the road, then slowed to a stop. This had to be it; it was the end of Shoreline Drive. An iron gate barred the driveway, flanked by stone posts and a small, tasteful sign—Welcome to the Pines at Douglas Point. Number 66 was a ways back; this had to be 97.

Heck yeah!

She turned off the engine and got out of the car. Lucy had joked about the Bush compound, but Parker wasn’t sure the Bushes could afford this place. The house was gorgeous. Smaller, much smaller, than Grayhurst, but absolutely stunning. The driveway led up through the pines to what had to be a fifteen- or twenty-room stone house. Slate-shingled roof. Iron lampposts. Though the light was fading from the sky, Parker could see mullioned windows galore, huge beds of white and red impatiens, hydrangeas, mountain laurel and ivy…the place was like a park! Good Lord, in ten minutes, she could be inside, wine and bath a reality!

“Thank you, Aunt Julia!” Parker breathed. She couldn’t wait to see what it looked like. Was it furnished? She had an air mattress, just in case, but given how well kept the outside was, she’d bet it was full of solid old furniture. Maybe there was a caretaker; it sure looked that way. Weird that she owned the place and had never been sent a bill or anything. Then again, maybe her accountant had taken care of it. Still, she should’ve known if someone was on the payroll.

Whatever. She wasn’t complaining. You know what? She’d have a party before she sold it. Nicky could wear his little tux, and she’d wear that ice-blue Vera Wang, and they’d send out invitations—Parker Harrington Welles and Nicholas Giacomo Mirabelli warmly request the honor of your company for the weekend at the Pines at Douglas Point, Gideon’s Cove, Maine.

“Okay, okay, let’s get inside,” Parker muttered. There was a code box; she flipped it open. State-of-the-art. Getting back into the car, she reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the envelope Thing One had given her the day he told her she was broke. There was the deed, there was his business card, there was a key…but no code. Dang it! She pulled out her phone and found Thing One on her contacts list. It went right to voice mail. The one time she actually needed something from him, and he was unavailable.

“Hi, Thing One, it’s Parker. I’m here in Gideon’s Cove, and I have the key, but I don’t have a code for the gate. Would you please call me as soon as you get this? Thanks.”

Her irritation with her father’s minion faded as she looked back at the house. It was so pretty, and far less imposing than Grayhurst. Good Lord, she could get at least half a mil for this place, probably much more, and hey, maybe she could even hang on to it and rent it out—

“Problem?” came a voice, and Parker jumped and whirled around. It was Fling Material—um, Malone—sitting in a somewhat battered pickup truck, and ten minutes apart hadn’t diminished his appeal. Unless he was stalking her, which, though a flattering thought, was somewhat terrifying.

“Oh, hi again.” She held her phone up to her ear. “Just talking to my lawyer,” she lied, in case he was a serial killer. “But I found it fine, thanks. See you around. Have a good night.”

“You’re at the wrong place.”

Parker blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Julia Harrington’s is back there.” Malone nodded behind him.

“Where back there?” Parker asked.

“That little place you just passed.”

Parker looked back down the road. There was nothing except the shed. She glanced at Malone. He nodded.

No. That couldn’t possibly… Oh, no. Uh-uh. Her stomach twisted abruptly.

That wasn’t a house. It was a shack. A falling-into-the-ocean hut.

“That?” she squeaked.

“Ayuh.”

No. No, no. That house had boards over the windows. It was…crooked somehow. It couldn’t have been more than five feet from tumbling down to the rocky beach below. Square-footage wise, it wasn’t really a house at all! It was the size of her bedroom back home.

Odd little noises were coming from her throat. She swallowed and turned to the lobster guy. “You sure?”

“Julia Harrington’s?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure, then.”

Bugger! Bugger and damn. Parker took a deep breath, then another.

“You need anything?” Malone asked.

“Um…a different house?” He didn’t respond. “No, I’m…fine. It’s okay. Thanks for checking, though.”

He nodded and put his truck in gear.

“Wait! Malone, is there a hotel in town?”

He shook his head. “Used to be a bed-and-breakfast, but it burned over the winter.”

Well, tie her to an anchor and throw her in an ocean full of hungry sharks.

“Good night, then,” Malone said, then was gone, his taillights disappearing around the corner. Good news was, he hadn’t murdered her. Bad news was…oh, crap! This beautiful house wasn’t hers, and that…that…tenement appeared to be.

Parker got back in the car and sat for a minute. It’s a fixer-upper! chirped the Holy Rollers. “Easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You’re imaginary. You won’t be picking up a hammer and helping, will you?” She threw the car in Reverse and backed out the driveway. “I really wanted you!” she called back to the Pines. Yes. She wanted a house with a name. Call her shallow, but bugger, she did not want to live in a shack, even for a few weeks.

Ninety-seven Shoreline Drive was on the ocean side of the road; the hill was steep as it rose from the harbor, and it was clear why there weren’t many other houses around—most of them had probably fallen victim to storms over the years.

The shack sat on cement pilings, a two-foot gap between the earth and the house. No basement, clearly. She walked around the house slowly, the grass up to her knees. Were there mice in there? Probably. She shuddered. She hated mice. Her father liked to dangle them over Apollo’s cage before dropping them to their doom.

Upon further inspection, she saw that the shack was, or had once been, an actual house, like something Nicky would draw–a square box with a triangle on top. The gray shingles had warped, pulling away from the side of the house like eyelashes, and great shards of paint peeled from the once-white trim. The roof was patchy and battered, complete with crumbling chimney, but at least there was some form of heating, she guessed. All the windows were boarded, and the aluminum screen door was off its hinges, leaning against a rusting front door. Clearly people had tried to break in over the years—there were dents all around the door handle, and the small windowpane was broken.

A cluster of lilac trees was in full bloom. “Good sign, right?” Parker asked, her voice a bit unfamiliar. The HRs agreed that yes, it was indeed a positive indicator.

There was a wooden stairway down to a small dock, but it was nearly full dark now, and Parker was not about to break her neck figuring out whether or not the stairs were sound.

“Bite the bullet,” she said aloud. “Time to go inside and view your inheritance.”

The key Thing One had supplied fit fine. Had he known this was her house? Had Harry? Think they might’ve given her a hint at what lay ahead?

Parker turned the lock, which slid open after some wiggling. The door was warped, however, and stuck fast, so she shoved harder, using her shoulder. Once, twice, three times, and bam, it opened.

Pitch-dark inside. She groped on the wall for a light switch and got lucky. Someone had turned on the electricity—or it had never been turned off—and a harsh yellow light momentarily blinded her.

Permanently blinded might’ve been better.

Parker closed her mouth, then opened it to swear, then realized that she didn’t know a word bad enough.

Aunt Julia had been a hoarder.

Faded boxes and stacks of crumbling newspapers lined the hallway so there was only a tiny path leading into the house. The smell was so thick and dry Parker choked. There was so much crap everywhere, it was hard to take in—pots, pans, candlesticks, yellowing plastic containers, paper plates, old fabric, swollen paperbacks, a set of encyclopedia, plastic dolls. Cripes! And this was just the hallway! Parker lifted her gaze to the cracked plaster walls visible above the hoard to the cracked plaster ceiling. God. The place was a wreck. She tried to take a calming breath, choked and pulled up her shirt to cover her mouth—or muffle her scream, she thought darkly. It’s only stuff, Spike said. Check it out a little. See what you got.

Good advice, good advice. To her left was a bathroom, the door open. Pepto-Bismol-pink tub spilling over with…stuff. But there was a sink visible, and a toilet, thank the Lord. First things first.

You’re not really going to pee in there, are you? asked the female Holy Rollers. When was that last cleaned?

“Where else should I go?” Parker answered. “Outside?”

A girl had to do what a girl had to do, especially after two coffees on the way up. Still, the horror of the situation was not lost on her. An eyeless doll lay in the bathtub, just in case the place wasn’t creepy enough. The toilet flushed, but when Parker turned on the faucet to wash her hands, nothing came out. Fine. She had Purell in the car.

Across from the loo was a bedroom, she guessed—too much junk to open the door all the way. Praying no bats were currently living inside, Parker poked her head in. There may have been a bed, but it was hard to tell with all the boxes. Clothes, some still on their hangers, lay abandoned and forgotten. Shoes, hats, a box full of ceramic kittens, bags of yarn, books, macramé plant holders.

A second bedroom held more of the same.

She sidled down the hall, trying not to touch anything, toward what proved to be one big room, the kitchen on one side, what had once been a living room on the other. Another single lightbulb hung from a wire in here—still worked, showing piles of plastic bins filled with old clothing, more newspapers, sewing bric-a-brac. There was a fishing pole on the counter, couch cushions in front of the refrigerator, which looked to be from 1950, rounded and hulking. The oven was green, its door hanging open as if in a scream—Parker could totally relate. More boarded windows that probably overlooked the sea.

Sometimes it’s darkest before dawn! the Holy Rollers chirped, patting her shoulder, and Parker envisioned herself backing over them with the Volvo. Platitudes were not going to help. A fire—a big one—might.

How was she going to have Nicky come up here? How was she going to sell this place? Until this moment, Parker hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on a real house. This was all she had to her name, other than the $11,202.57?

Oh, crap, she was hyperventilating. And who knew what she was breathing in?

“It’s okay,” she said aloud. “We can do this. It’s bad, yes, sure, but that’s okay. This will be really fun. We can do this.”

She could. She was a strong person. Right? She could lift heavy things, and she’d cleaned bathrooms and stuff before. Not that she really had to—there was always the housekeeper or cleaning service—but she’d done it. Zillions of people cleaned out garages and stuff, and she would, too. It would be deeply satisfying. Yes. Maybe she’d write a book about that, sure. Learning Life Skills Really, Really Fast.

Good. There. She was calmer now.

Suddenly, there was a fluttering of wings, and Parker screamed and ducked. A bird! In the house! A mourning dove, a glorified pigeon. “Get out!” she yelled, causing the bird to panic. It flew back and forth, hitting the walls, thudding sickeningly. “Stop!” she yelled. Bugger, it was coming at her! Parker covered her head and twisted and turned down the little path, bumped into a dressmaker’s dummy, the bird fluttering right over her head, that horrible, panicked trilling…gah! It hit her in the head, its feathers hideous, its little talons…

Then Parker was outside. Hunched over, she dashed to her car, got in and slammed the door, panting wildly. “Bugger!” she yelled.

Little Pigeon loved the lady’s hair. It was so cozy there! With a smile, he dug his little claws into her scalp and hunkered down.

She was still shuddering. Good thing she’d just gone to the bathroom, or she would’ve wet herself.

As her breathing calmed and the shaking of her limbs quieted, Parker made a mental list. Her eyes burned with tears, but that was stupid. Crying wasn’t going to help. Tomorrow, she’d see about…well, hell. Getting a Dumpster, to start. And some giant rubber gloves, and maybe a hazmat suit.

Tonight, however…tonight, she’d be sleeping in the car. She had her comforter packed in the back, along with a few bags of groceries and her suitcase. She’d eat some Wheat Thins and sleep here.

She cracked the windows. It had turned chilly—of course, they were what, fifty miles from Canada? But the air felt clean and pure, and Parker sucked in great lungfuls, that faint tang of fish nothing compared to the closed-up stuffiness of the house.

And the stars were brilliant, blazing overhead in a clarity Parker had never seen before. The waves sloshed against the shore, and across the cove, the lights of the town glowed and winked as if welcoming her.

She’d make this work. She had twenty-three days to make this work.

But, even though she tried hard to keep such thoughts at bay, she couldn’t help remembering that a month ago, she’d stayed in a suite at the Peninsula Hotel in New York City with her son. Her publisher had taken them to dinner to Nobu to celebrate the release of the last Holy Rollers book, and after that, she and Nicky had gone up to the Top of the Rock, just the two of them, so he could see the view.

Tonight, she was sleeping in her car.

It was almost funny.


CHAPTER FIVE

THOUGH HE VISITED the great state of Maine at least six times a year, crossing the Kittery Bridge never failed to make James feel as if someone had hammered a nail in his eye. Ever since he was twelve years old, Maine had been a place to escape from, not Vacationland, as the license plates proclaimed.

Dresner, his hometown, was not on the agenda. Rarely was, even though—or because—his parents still lived there. The town had grown up around a paper mill that had long moved operations to some third-world country, but the bitter tang of chemicals still hung over Cahill family events.

Last night, James had stayed at his sister’s, set his phone to go off at five-thirty, since Gideon’s Cove was another two hours away. Whether or not Parker wanted his help—and she didn’t—she was getting it.

Gideon’s Cove had been a cute town back then. There’d been a diner, he remembered, and a pretty girl about his own age who waited tables…he’d hung around, hoping she’d notice him, but she’d had a boyfriend, it turned out. Still, he’d managed to lose his virginity with a very, ah, generous woman about a decade older than he was. Chantal. Very nice woman. Just the thought of her had James grinning. Yep. All guys should get started out that way.

Speaking of women he’d slept with, it occurred to James that he hadn’t called Leah. Not that they had an actual relationship…a hookup now and then, but still.

James pulled over on the side of the road and took out his phone. One missed call—Parker Welles, the screen said. Cell-phone service was spotty up here, so no surprise there. The surprise was that she called him at all. He listened to the message, frowning. He didn’t know anything about a security system or code. When he’d called his uncle to tell him about his plans, James asked him if he knew the Harrington place. “Ayuh,” Dewey had said. “Needs a little work. I’ll make sure the electric’s on.” Nothing about a security system.

Well. He’d be there in an hour. He could figure it out then. Besides, making Parker wait had its own appeal. And he did owe Leah a call.

“Hey, Leah, it’s James.”

“Hi there, stranger! How are you doing?” she said, her cheerleader-style exuberance making him hold the phone a little farther away from his ear. She was cute, but best in small doses, which explained why they only saw each other about once a month.

“How are you?” he said.

“I’m awesome! What’s up? You wanna get together this weekend?”

“Well, actually, I’m in Maine right now, and I’ll be here for a while. Six or eight weeks. Figured I’d let you know.”

There was a pause. “Oh,” she finally said.

It was impressive, how much could be packed into a two-letter word. They must teach it at woman school. “Yeah. So, just wanted to say bye and have a nice summer and all.” James pressed his thumb against his eye socket, bracing for the relationship talk.

“What about…you know? Us?”

Ah, mooseshit. Was there an us? Because he’d seen Leah, a very pretty redhead who liked to play pool and flirt, maybe six or seven times since they’d met at a wedding on New Year’s Eve, and if there was an us, it was pretty anemic. There was him, and there was her, and the two of them intersected at a bar once in a while, which generally led to more intersecting in bed, which had always seemed like enough.

Until this moment.

“Well, I have to be in Maine this summer,” James repeated.

“For Harry?”

“Yep. So I figured I’d call, tell you I wouldn’t be around. And after the summer, I really don’t know where I’ll be jobwise.” There. Mission accomplished.

“You want some company up there? I love Maine!”

Mission not accomplished. James sighed and closed his eyes. “Well, I’ll be busy, Leah. And it’s far. Way up the coast. But it’s been fun hanging out. Good luck with everything.” He winced. He didn’t mean to sound like a dick. They just taught it in guy school.

There was a lengthy pause, then a sigh. “Fine.” Another pause. “Where are you staying?”

“A town called Gideon’s Cove. Harry’s daughter has some property up there.”

“Harry’s in jail, right?”

“Yeah. But his daughter needs a little help. Real-estate stuff.” James never liked talking about what he did, just in case what he didn’t do came out. Well, I sit in my office a lot. Shot thirty-nine Nerf baskets in a row one day. I was really stoked.

Another pause. “Well, try to have fun,” she said, her voice a little brighter. “And thanks for calling, James! That was so thoughtful.”

Atta girl. Leah was sweet. Not tremendously bright, but good-natured and fun. It’d been really easy, hanging out with her. And easy was good so far as he was concerned. “You take care, Leah.”

“You, too, James. Give me a call when you’re back, if you feel like it.”

“You bet. Take care,” he repeated.

There. His condo was sublet for the summer. Leah had been informed. Stella, his secretary, had told James not to worry; she’d been about to quit anyway and become a jujitsu instructor. The guys he played basketball with on Saturday mornings had taken him out for a beer as a farewell. No point in telling Mary Elizabeth about work…she pretty much only cared if he brought her a present.

His parents could wait.

So. On to Gideon’s Cove to see Parker. Maybe she’d be glad to see him.

Right. And the ice-skating in hell was fabulous this time of year. But she was Harry’s daughter, and James owed him more than he could say.

Six years ago, James had been stuck on the tarmac in L.A., where he’d interviewed for a job—one of 204 prospects, apparently. He’d been out of law school for a year and had yet to get a job offer, and panic was setting in. His father was sixty-two and business was slow; his brothers were just getting by. The law was supposed to have been a sure bet for James, a guaranteed decent salary, and making money had always been the goal.

At any rate, James had been upgraded to first class—the girl at the desk had liked his “smies,” whatever those were. James was enjoying the extra four inches of legroom when a man sat in the seat next to him, growling about the inconvenience of having to fly commercial. Harry Welles, legend of Wall Street, in the flesh.

A guy who probably had a whopping-size legal department.

James introduced himself, made wry comments about the joys of air travel, spent his last hundred bucks on a bottle of champagne—which Harry had declared cheap swill—got the guy to laugh and a few hours later found himself with a job offer. Not a corporate position, though. Harry’s longtime personal attorney had announced his retirement; would James like the job? On retainer for personal and family business, no other clients in case Harry needed him. It would be mostly real-estate dealings, as Harry owned a couple dozen corporate buildings, maybe some trust and estate planning. When Harry had named a salary, it was all James could do not to hump his leg. For that salary, he would’ve done anything. He needed money, a lot of it, and fast.

So James had become a glorified clerk, turning his attention to getting through loopholes so Harry could build a bigger boathouse, changing the terms of the lease on a commercial building. He set up a trust fund for Harry’s unborn grandchild. Paid off Harry’s occasional mistress. And became, it seemed, Harry’s closest friend.

It was odd; Harry had colleagues and clients and employees, he had connections, but he didn’t seem to have friends. And though James knew Harry had a daughter, he never talked about her. But from that first day on the airplane onward, Harry seemed to anoint James as the chosen one. He’d summon James to the city, take him out for dinner, tell tales of his early career. Took him to ball games. Slapped him on the back and told him he was doing a great job, even though the work was mindless and dull. One night, when Harry’d had too much to drink and James was seeing him back to his huge apartment in the city, Harry had said, “If I had a son, I hope he woulda been like you, kid.”

Strange, given that Harry had only known him a few months. And stranger still that for all the time he’d spent with Harry, he’d never heard him talk about Parker. James knew she existed, of course. But she was never discussed.

And then, on the eighth day of the sixth month as Harry’s attorney, when James had sunk eighteen Nerf baskets in a row and was in a heated mental debate between roast beef or turkey avocado, his cell phone rang. It was Harry. “James, my daughter had her baby. Can you swing by the hospital with the paperwork?”

“Hey, congratulations, Harry! Boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

“What’s his name?”

“Hang on. Mona! Did my daughter tell you the baby’s name?” There was a pause. “Don’t know. Can you get over there?”

“Sure! Absolutely.”

“Great. Tell my daughter I’ll get up there when I’ve got some free time. And I’ll see you here in the city next week. Knicks game, don’t forget.” With that, Harry hung up.

James stared at the phone. Granted, his own parents weren’t perfect, but they wouldn’t miss out on seeing a new grandchild. Parker was Harry’s only child, and this was her first baby, as James knew from the trust-fund paperwork.

Ten million dollars at birth, another ten at age thirty.

So much money, it felt fake to a kid from a blue-collar mill town in Maine.

And so James, then twenty-five years old, had taken the papers to the hospital for Parker’s signature. Uncomfortable about Harry’s apparent lack of interest, he stopped at a toy store and bought a stuffed animal, a large gray rabbit with floppy ears. That’s what people did for babies, after all. He was an uncle, and even though he wasn’t close to his brothers’ kids, he knew enough to send a toy on birthdays and Christmas.

He got to the hospital, found the maternity floor, went down the hall to room 433, and there was Parker Harrington Welles. She was all alone, holding what looked like a large burrito with a blue cap, and her face was so soft with wonder that James literally stopped in his tracks. Kinda fell in love right then and there.

Then she looked up, and there was no kinda about it.

“Hi,” she said quietly, a question in her eyes. Right, because he was a stranger, and she’d just given birth.

“Uh…hi.” His mouth was suddenly dry. “Um…I’m James. James Cahill. I’m your father’s attorney?” And you sound like the village idiot.

She blinked, and her face went completely blank. She looked back down at her baby, who made a little squeak. “So you’re the new Thing One.”

“Excuse me?”

“You replaced Sol?”

“Yeah. Yes. I replaced Sol. Uh, I have some papers. For you to sign. For the baby’s trust fund.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Congratulations, by the way. Um…cute baby.” Not that he could see anything from the doorway, but that was what you said to women who’d just popped a kid.

She adjusted the baby’s cap, then looked at James. “I take it my father’s not coming.”

Ouch. “Well, he—he wanted to, but he’s stuck in the city.”

Her face didn’t change, but for one second, something flashed across her eyes. Her beautiful eyes. Crap, he was like a twelve-year-old with his first crush. But man, her eyes were beautiful. Blue or green, he couldn’t tell from here. Didn’t matter. She was gorgeous. Long, straight blond hair, perfect mouth. Even in a johnny coat, she was frickin’ glorious.

Then a guy brushed past him, going instantly to Parker’s side, and reached down to touch the bottom half of the burrito. “How’s he doing?” he asked, and Parker smiled up at him. The father of the baby, clearly.

“Still sleeping,” Parker said. “Your parents were great, by the way.”

“You won’t be saying that when they show up four times a day,” he answered.

“Well, I think they’re sweet.”

“And they think you walk on water. Thanks for the middle name. That was really…” The guy’s voice choked up, and it was only then that he seemed to notice James, standing there like a lump.

Parker nodded at him. “My father’s attorney.”

James stepped forward and offered his hand, which the guy shook. “James Cahill. Congratulations.”

“Hi. Ethan Mirabelli. New dad.” He grinned broadly, clearly delighted with his title.

“Mr. Welles sends his best and says he’ll be up as soon as he can. He’s, um, very sorry he couldn’t make it.” James swallowed. Lying for the boss. Yikes.

“Really. He said that?” Parker asked coolly.

“Yes.”

She wasn’t fooled. Gave him a knowing look, then touched her baby’s cheek.

James suddenly remembered the bag in his hand. “Oh, here. For the…little one.” He passed it over to the dad, who pulled the rabbit from it and smiled. “It’s bigger than he is,” he said. “Hey, Nicky, look. It’s a bunny.” The baby slept on, unimpressed.

“What can I do for you, Thing One?” Parker asked.

“Right.” He approached the throne—there was definitely a regal sense about her—and held out the papers. She passed the baby to the guy, Ethan, who immediately kissed the tiny head.

James cleared his throat. “Sign here, and then initial here… .” Her hair smelled so good, all clean and flowery. Don’t go there, idiot, his conscience advised. Right, right, he agreed. Her skin was perfect. Beautiful hands.

She signed with brisk efficiency and didn’t look at him when she gave the papers back.

“Lucy was wondering if she could come by,” Ethan said.

“Absolutely,” Parker answered. “I already told her that.”

“You’re not too tired?”

“Are you kidding? I feel like a superhero.” She grinned up at the baby’s father.

“You are a superhero,” he answered, smiling back.

A nurse came in. “How’s it going, Mom?” she barked.

“Great,” Parker answered.

“Good! I need to check those stitches, then I’ll leave you in peace.”

The dad went over to the chair, murmuring to the burrito.

James, idiotically, didn’t move. He was having trouble thinking. Those eyes were so…the whole face, so…

“Thing One? I’d rather not have you see my episiotomy,” Parker said. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

Shit. “Right, no. Sorry. Congratulations, you two,” he said and, with that, got out of there. Went home and did a Google search, saw her books. Ordered a bunch. Sent them to Mare. Got a pleasant thank-you note from her about a month later. Thank you for the rabbit you gave Nicky. It was very thoughtful. Best, Parker Welles.

Harry didn’t visit his grandson until the baby was three months old. He asked James to come with him, stayed at Grayhurst for forty-five minutes, then informed Parker that he and James had a business dinner. “You sure you don’t want to stay a little longer?” James had murmured in the great front hall as they put on their coats. Harry had held the baby for approximately thirty seconds.

“My daughter’s a little intense,” Harry had said tightly. “Baby’s a good-looking boy, though, don’t you think?”

“Oh, definitely,” James answered. Thus ended the conversation, and while James was curious, he knew better than to bite the hand that fed not just him, but Mary Elizabeth, as well.

From that point on, Harry began sending James to family events. Even when Harry did show up, he’d call James and ask him to come, as well. No matter how much James tried to subtly protest, to hint that family was family, Harry was insistent, and so James ended up at quite a few Nicky-related events—christening, birthdays—always on the edges, always uncomfortable.

Parker would greet him and say goodbye. That was about it. She was civil, though she continued to call him Thing One, and after a while, James adopted a somewhat wry attitude at those dreaded family gatherings. He worked for Harry, the end. But he’d watch Parker, see that she made her kid’s birthday cake herself, clearly adored him, made sure he thanked James for whatever gift he’d brought. She treated Ethan’s family warmly, even though she never did marry the guy. And she worked for a living, writing those books, giving all that money away. Not your typical trust-fund baby.

And then there was that one time—

“Watch it, idiot,” he said as a driver with Massachusetts plates blazed by at an easy ninety miles an hour. “And you, idiot,” he added to himself, “should really think about something else. You’re here to help Harry’s daughter flip a house. No more.”


CHAPTER SIX

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a family of chipmunks who found a lovely, clean place to live for the winter. They climbed inside and got all snugly and fell asleep. Then, alas, someone started their home, which was actually the engine of a car, and they were pulverized in their sleep. But they went to animal heaven, so it wasn’t a total wash.

The Holy Rollers sighed with deep satisfaction. “Save it,” Parker muttered, putting aside the red notebook she always carried in case inspiration struck. Chipmunk puree would probably not sell, no matter how much her publisher wanted a new series. As for herself, she would not be recommending an overnight in a car anytime soon. Not comfy, no, sir. She’d woken at the horrible crack of morning and had been, quite honestly, avoiding going inside the house again. But it was now 7:14 a.m. Couldn’t pretend she was working on a story, couldn’t avoid the day ahead of her.

She checked her phone; too early in California for Nicky to call her, of course—it was still practically the middle of the night there. Thing One hadn’t bothered calling her back, she noted with irritation. Of course, he’d probably found another job by now, since Harry was in jail.

The thought that Harry was actually in prison gave her pause. She’d called him twice so far; both times, the conversation had lasted less than three minutes. Harry was as busy in prison as he’d been on Wall Street, it seemed. No time for that pesky daughter of his. He had, she admitted, asked after Nicky. At least there was that.

At that very minute, her phone chimed, startling her so badly that she dropped it. Harrington, L., the screen said. “Hello?”

“Yeah, hi,” said a horrible voice. “Is this Pahkah?” For a second, Parker thought it was the guy from last night—Malone—but of course, he wouldn’t have her number.

“Excuse me?” Parker said, running a hand over the back of her head. Her hair was matted.

“Ah you Pahkah?”

“Oh! Um, yes. I’m Parker.” Man. That was some accent.

“This is Lavinnyer Harintin.”

Lavinnyer…aha! The caller was her distant cousin! Lavinia Harrington.

“Hi!” Parker said. “Right! How are you?”

“Word has it you’re here in town,” Lavinia said.

“I am. I got in last night.”

“Where’d you sleep?”

“Um…in the car.”

Lavinia laughed, a dark, horrible sound that ended in a hacking cough. “Is that right? Quite a shit-nest you gawt there, isn’t it?”

Parker tried to smile. “That’s a pretty accurate description.”

There was a sucking sound…Lavinia had to be smoking, and with a voice like that, had been smoking three packs of Camel cigarettes a day since the age of four months. “Welp,” she said, exhaling, “you wanna meet sometime this week? Seems like we should lay eyes on each other.”

“That’d be great,” Parker said. Honestly, she had no idea where to start with this house, and Lavinia could probably give her some names and places.

“Wanna come to the diner for breakfast tomorrow?” Lavinia suggested.

“Sure,” Parker said. A real breakfast with eggs and bacon. Beat the two Nutri-Grain bars she’d had an hour ago.

“Know where it is? Joe’s?”

“I passed it yesterday.”

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

Parker got out of the car carefully; if she’d been stiff yesterday, she was practically crippled today.

Eyeballing the house in front of her, Parker decided it looked even worse than last night, if possible. It had a water view, yes. The cove spread out before her, Douglas Point to the north, the harbor to the south. So that was a plus, the view. The house…eesh.

Well, nothing to do but face the music. She got her toiletries bag from her suitcase and, pushing through the long grass, went inside. Her bird friend from last night seemed to be gone, thank God. She left the door open just in case.

Clearly she’d need to rent a Dumpster and buy some seriously sturdy trash bags. Almost everything in here would need to be thrown away. She winced, picturing trash stuffed in her beloved Volvo. But cleaning the house out would show her what she had to work with, at least. Maybe it could be a jewel. She really needed it to be a jewel.

She went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Right. No water. Sighing, she brushed her teeth dry and combed her hair, trying not to touch anything in the bathroom. This would be first on her list of things to scour.

She turned to leave, figuring she’d put on a clean shirt in the car, rather than inside, when she felt something at her ankle…a tickle.

She looked down. Nothing there. Just an itch, she decided, from being in this house of crap.

Nope, there it was again, right under her ankle bone. A mosquito? She shook her foot. Nothing.

Then, horribly, the tickle moved. Moved up.

“What the hell?” she hissed, shaking the leg of her jeans. If that was a cockroach, she’d die.

The tickle moved up again. Faster this time, toward her knee.

“Shit!” Parker said, flapping her pants. “Get out!”

The tickle was now past her knee…and it had a lump. It was a lumpy, warm tickle.

“Nooo!” Parker shrieked, jumping up and down. The lumpy tickle zipped around to the back of her leg, then across her ass and around to the other side, and with that, Parker ripped open her pants and there it was, a mouse in her pants. Its eyes were huge and terrified and Parker heard a scream rip through the air—her scream—and the tiny rodent—rodent!—leaped, practically flying through the air, and landed in the pile in the tub.

Parker ripped off the jeans, dimly hearing herself shrieking, and ran out of the house, through the grass and right up onto the hood of her car. “Bugger! Bugger! Jeesh!” she yelped. Her jeans were clutched in her hand. What if there were more in there? What if a whole family of rodents was in her jeans right now? Once there was a family of mice who loved to snuggle up against the warm flesh of an unwitting human. She whipped the pants against the car, cracking them against the hood again and again and again, shrieking at the remembered feeling of tiny claws. On her leg. Her skin. On her ass!

“Hey, Parker” came a voice. She kept cracking. “Parker?”

She looked up, her breath stuttering in and out of her chest.

Thing One. Thing One was here.

“Hi,” he said, as if she wasn’t murdering her jeans against the hood. “How’s it going?”

“There was a mouse in my pants.”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Lucky mouse.”

Her breath caught. Wrong thing to say. Wrong. “It’s pretty traumatic to have a rodent in your pants, Thing One,” she snapped. “Unless you like that sort of thing.”

“Oh, hey, sorry, princess,” he said, approaching her car. “Didn’t mean to make light of your tragedy.”

“There was a mouse in my pants,” she blurted. “It’s bad enough, okay? I mean, do you see that house? That’s mine! I own it! And I was doing fine, I wasn’t panicking or anything, even when that fricking bird flew into my hair last night but a mouse— I…I can’t have Nicky here! That place is infested!”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Settle down. You are aware that you’re not wearing pants, right?” Another quirked eyebrow. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She looked down at him, her throat working. She could murder him and throw his body in the water. Or she could put on her pants. She took a shaky breath. “I’m not…eager to put them back on. In case the mouse had cousins.”

“Well, here. Let me check.” Thing One took the jeans from her and turned them inside out, then shook them vigorously. Checked the pockets, too. “Nothing.”

“I saw it. It was there. It ran all the way up this leg, then across my butt, then God knows where it was headed.” His mouth twitched. Did he think this was funny? This was not funny! “It’s not funny, Thing One.”

“Well. It’s gone now.” He looked down. She suspected he was smiling. Idiot.

“It’s in the tub,” she said, giving the jeans a last shake before pulling them on. “You can go find it. Maybe it’ll crawl up your pants and we can compare notes.”

“How was your trip up?” he asked, and really, what kind of a question was that when they were sitting in front of a hovel?

“It was lovely, Thing One. This house, however, is a sty.”

He looked at the house for a long moment, then back at her. “Well. Good thing I’m here, then.”

Right. It suddenly dawned on her that he was here. A familiar face, at least. Something moved in Parker’s chest. She looked away, but no, there was the mouse-infested house. The harbor. Better. Nice view.

“All right. Let’s see what we’re up against.”

Thing One went into the house, and Parker heard a few clunks and thunks. She sat on the hood of the Volvo, her panic fading gradually into the occasional shudder. A rodent running up her leg…there was a sensation a person wouldn’t forget, right up there with an episiotomy.

Her father’s attorney emerged a minute later. Now that she wasn’t screaming, she noticed he looked…different. It took a minute to figure out why.

He wasn’t wearing a suit. First time ever she’d seen him out of— Well, this was the first time ever she’d seen him in jeans and a T-shirt, that was for sure.

Parker looked away and cleared her throat. “So what are you doing here, Thing One?”

He sat on the hood next to her. “Since I’m devoting the next few weeks to overhauling this dump, Parker, you think you could call me by my real name?”

“I seem to have forgotten it.” There. She was getting her old vibe back. Good.

He smiled slowly, his dark eyes crinkling. Dangerous, those eyes. “Again?”

“Is it John? Jason?”

“It’s James. James Francis Xavier Cahill.”

Goose bumps broke out along her arms. It was chilly. Or something. “So what are you doing here, James?”

“Your father asked me to come up.”

Right. James was an obedient pet; she’d give him that. She didn’t say anything for a minute, just pulled her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s okay.”

She’d bet her left arm James got more than three minutes on the phone with her father. She sighed. “So. This place. Did you know how bad it was?”

He shook his head. “I called my uncle this morning to ask about a security code, and he told me it was kind of a dump. I didn’t think it’d be this bad, but I can help you out.”

She really needed the Army Corps of Engineers, from the look of it. “So law school trained you to overhaul a house, Thing One? I know you’re good at emptying trust funds, but carpentry?” There. Hopefully that would erase the edge he’d gained from having seen her hysterical and in her panties.

He gave her a look of his own. “Nothing I did was illegal, Parker. Your father had the right to do what he wanted with those trust funds, because you gave him that right. You signed papers letting him have full authority over every penny. And even if I’d wanted to say something—which I did—attorney-client privilege prevented me.”

“Wow. You’re a great guy. Maybe my dad will give you a sticker.”

He ignored that. “At any rate, my father was a builder. I worked on a construction crew summers when I was in college. Do you really want to kick me out because you don’t like me?”

She felt her jaw locking. She’d be an idiot to send him away.

He took her silence as protest. “Look. Aside from hauling all this crap to the dump, you’ll need to reshingle the entire exterior. The roof needs to be replaced, the gutter’s hanging off the front, the chimney is crumbling. I’m guessing there’s dry rot under the linoleum in the kitchen, the cupboards are pulling away from the walls, and the stairs down to the dock are a death trap. The back door frame is warped. You probably need some significant rewiring, not to mention a new paint job inside.” He paused. “I happen to find myself free this summer.”

“Where would you stay?” she asked.

“Here.”

“Here? Where here? In the Harbor Suite?”

“Actually, we can get a lot of this stuff cleared out pretty fast. I already have a Dumpster being delivered today.”

He did? “How’d you do that?” she asked.

“My uncle lined one up.”

This summer was supposed to be about doing things on her own, a fresh start. The plan had been to take sheets off aging but lovely furniture and paint the sunroom. The plan was to meet George Clooney before his boat went down in a hundred-foot wave, have a fling, then welcome Nicky for a few weeks of blueberry picking and sailing.

It was not to have her father’s minion living with her.

But she hadn’t realized what she was up against. “Well, you can’t stay here. What about your uncle’s place?”

“He lives in a one-bedroom apartment over the bar. I can get more work done if I’m here.”

She didn’t comment.

“Oh, come on, Parker,” he said, his voice low and scraping. “It’s not like we’re strangers.”

She felt the tips of her ears practically burst into flame. Took a calming breath. “Fine. Stay. Thank you. You can report to Harry and ease your conscience over helping my father rob my son. I can’t say no, because I’m desperate and broke. But I don’t like it.”

“Well, how’s this?” he said, his voice amiable. “We’ll acknowledge that if the situation were different, you’d kick me out. You’ll barely tolerate me, and only because your back is against the wall and you had a mouse in your pants. Deal?” He gave her a smug smile.

Parker unclenched her jaw and glanced at her watch as she got off the hood of the car. James followed suit. “I’m going to the hardware store.”

“You can have the bigger bedroom.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I get that a lot.” There was that smile again. Parker ignored it and started the engine. “You know where the hardware store is?” he asked.

“I’ll find it,” she ground out, throwing the car into Reverse.

Not going as planned. No, sir.


CHAPTER SEVEN

WELL, SHE WASN’T HAPPY. He hadn’t expected her to be. But man oh man alive, this place was a mess. Three hours in, and James had thrown away a good ton of crap. He paused outside to wipe the sweat from his forehead and breathe in some fresh air. The Dumpster had been delivered right after she’d left, thanks to Dewey, who knew everyone. James had put quite a dent in the piles of crap in the house, starting with the bigger bedroom. The princess had slept in her car last night, he guessed, based on the comforter in the front seat. Probably wouldn’t want to do it again.

A car pulled into the driveway, and a very luscious redheaded woman unfolded herself from the driver’s seat. “Jamie Cahill! How you’ve grown!”

Holy shit. “Chantal?” Couldn’t be anyone else.

“Your uncle told me you were back. Don’t you dare say you’ve forgotten me.”

“Are you kidding? I think of you every night.”

She laughed, and James smiled. Time hadn’t simply been kind to Chantal; it was in love with her. She’d been beautiful at age twenty-five; at fortyish, she was unbelievable. “It’s great to see you,” he said. “Please, God, you’re single.”

“Sorry, baby boy. I’m married—to a much younger man, I might add—and I’m a mommy, even. A little boy named Luke, six months old. I’m nursing.” She raised an eyebrow, inviting James to look. And what was a guy to do but obey? He dropped his eyes to Chantal’s generous endowments, showcased in a very tight and low-cut blouse.

“Lucky kid,” he murmured.

“I won’t bore you with pictures, but he’s the love of my life. Okay, just one, since you begged.” She held out her phone and showed James a shot of a drooling, fat-cheeked baby. “And here’s another one. Isn’t he beautiful? Looks like his daddy.”

“Cute,” James said. All babies tended to look the same to him, but then again, he didn’t spend a lot of time staring into cribs or strollers or whatever.

“Oh, you look good enough to eat!” Chantal exclaimed. “Give us a hug.” She wrapped him in a soft embrace. And hey, she patted his ass, too, making him laugh. Still had quite the effect, Chantal. “So,” she said, releasing him, “you called Harbor Realty, and guess what I do on the side? Real estate. It’s your lucky day.”

“In so many ways,” he murmured.

“Show me what you got. In the house, not in your pants,” she said. “Which isn’t to say I don’t remember you fondly.”

“Okay. Harry Welles—you heard of him, right?”

“Another Wall Street scumbag, from what I hear.”

“Yeah. Well, he bankrupted the family, and all his daughter has left is this house. From her mother’s side of the family. Julia Harrington was her great-aunt.”

“Wow. Millionaire to shack-owner,” she murmured as they walked toward the front door.

“Yeah. So she needs to flip it as soon as she can.” He opened the door for Chantal, who recoiled.

“I’ll pass on the inside for now,” she said. “I’m guessing crappy insulation, maybe four entire electrical outlets and plenty of wildlife.”

“You’re psychic.”

“So how much money can your client spend on it? If we put on an addition, a master suite with sliders and a deck, a big bathroom with a Jacuzzi, gourmet kitchen, build a big patio into the hillside here, outdoor fireplace…we can get a gay couple in here faster than you can say, �Bar Harbor is unaffordable.’” Chantal licked her red-painted lips in anticipation.

“She has about ten grand,” James said.

“Well, shit, then.” She sighed. “There are back taxes on this place, did you know?”

“No,” James said. Crap. If he’d known that, he could’ve paid them off. Why Parker didn’t, he had no idea. Then again, she didn’t even remember that she owned the house.

Chantal nudged a piece of trash with her foot. “Julia was broke, and no one in Town Hall ever had the heart to go after them while she was alive. Sorry to say, Harry’s daughter will have to pay about fifteen years’ worth of taxes. Guess it slipped through the cracks until now.”

“What if we did a teardown?” James asked.

Chantal shrugged, pursing her full, red lips. “Nah. Waterfront property up here isn’t worth a ton, because who the hell wants to live in Washington County, right? It’s too far from everything.”

“Right,” James acknowledged.

“And this is what we call a postage-stamp lot. You can get two acres of waterfront over on Mutton Chop Bay for next to nothing. Judy Phillips has been trying to sell a parcel for three years now. Not one offer.” Chantal tipped her head and folded her arms under her chest, making her breasts swell, then glanced at James to make sure he noticed. How could he not? She winked.

“So what’s your advice, Chantal?”

“Well, her best bet for a quick sale is to make it pretty. Strip it down, slap on some new flooring, new roof, new shingles, paint the inside. Market it as a tiny jewel of a hideaway. Maybe we can get enough to cover the back taxes and give her a little nest egg besides, little being the operative word here. The place isn’t even winterized. But curb appeal, you hear? Make it adorable. You might get a family or a retired couple looking for a cheap summer home.”

“Okay. We’ll shoot for that. Thanks, Chantal.”

“You’re welcome.” She gave him a sunny smile. “How’s your family? Dewey says everyone’s doing about as well as can be expected.”

“Yep. Everyone’s fine.”

She shaded her eyes and looked him up and down. “You turned out awfully nice, James Cahill.”

“And you’re just as beautiful as I remember.”

“Aw. Give me a kiss. On the cheek, now. I’m extremely faithful to my young stud of a husband.”

“How’d he get so lucky?” James asked.

“He knocked me up. Let me know if I can help, okay? I’ll probably see you at Dewey’s, and you have my number.”

“You bet. Thanks for coming out, Chantal.”

“Nice to see you again, honey,” she said. She got back in her car and backed out of the overgrown driveway. No sign of Parker, who’d been at the hardware store for a couple hours now. Or she’d fled.

In the truck he’d borrowed from Chuck, one of his basketball buddies—who’d been more than happy to take the Lexus off his hands for the summer—was James’s own stuff. Some tools, left over from his summertime work as a construction worker, not from his father, God knew—Frank Cahill wouldn’t give James a staple, and James wasn’t dumb enough to ask. A few boxes that he’d found in Grayhurst’s attic. He wasn’t sure if Parker had meant to leave them or not, but the Feds hadn’t wanted them.

And his laptop. The old résumé would need brushing up. Unfortunately, there seemed to be more unemployed lawyers in the world than Chinese, and getting a job that paid him what Harry had…not gonna happen.

Speaking of Harry…James reached into the cab of the truck and pulled out his cell phone. A few minutes later, he had Harry on the line.

“How you doing, boss?” he asked.

“Not bad, James, me boy,” Harry said. His jocular tone told James that someone else was nearby, so Harry would be keeping up appearances. “Where are you?”

“Up in Maine. About four hours away from you, give or take.”

“I appreciate you going up there.”

“No problem, Harry.” Playing along with Harry’s mood—because it was one of his few talents—James added, “You’ve paid me enough to go to the Black Hole of Calcutta for the summer, let alone the coast of Maine.”

Harry burst out laughing. “True enough, true enough.” He paused. “I’m trying to get in touch with some of my former associates about a job for you, kid.”

Whatever James had done to earn Harry’s affection, he didn’t know. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Well, I’ll let you know if something turns up. How’s my daughter?”

“She’s okay.” James paused. “The house isn’t worth much.”

“No?”

“No. And it’s a mess.”

Another lengthy pause. “So what’s the plan?” Harry asked. There was some noise over the PA about visiting hours.

“Well, we’ll fix it up as best we can, try to sell it.” He paused. “You doing okay, boss?”

There was a long silence from the other end. “It’s not bad,” Harry said in a low voice. “I have a lot of time on my hands. Not much to do. Plenty of time to consider my sins, right?” He gave a halfhearted chuckle.

“I guess so,” James said. “Did you get the books?”

“I did. Shogun and Moby-Dick, huh? Trying to educate me? Afraid I’ll join a gang while I’m in here?”

“Yep. I also figured you could use them as weapons if a riot broke out.”

“Good thinking. All right, I should go. I have a meeting. Take care of yourself, son. Talk soon.” With that, he hung up, sounding much like the corporate wheeler and dealer he’d been.

A meeting. That was good. One good thing about prison—Harry would have to sober up.

Well. Back to work. Parker’s room was almost clear.

He had to admit, it was more satisfying than Nerf basketball.

* * *

“O KAY, FOR MOLD KILLING, this here’s what you want, little lady,” said Ben, one of the three senior-citizen gentlemen who’d pounced the second she’d walked into the tiny hardware store.

“Mold killer. Got it. Thank you so much, really.”

“Oh, my Lord, it’s a pleasure,” Rolly said. “Pretty ladies who don’t know nothin’ about home repair…it’s what we live for.”

“You guys are angels.”

I resent that, said Spike. A totally overused word.

“You’re sweet, dahlin’,” said Stuart. “It’s our pleasure. You ever painted a room before?”

“I haven’t,” she admitted, and the men charged the paint-chip wall.

Almost three hours after she entered the hardware store, Parker left, the three guys carrying her packages to the Volvo. “Oh, Rhode Island,” said Ben, glancing at her plates. “I went to Providence College.”

“A wonderful school,” Parker said, making him blush.

“You need any more advice, we’ll be happy to help,” Stuart said.

“I absolutely will, and thanks a million, boys. Really.”

She realized she was smiling as she started the car. The guys had advised on mousetraps—the thought made her cringe, regardless of this morning’s little incident, which she’d relayed to her new pals to their howling delight. They’d shown her what she’d need: sponges, brooms, mops, bleach and lots of it, Murphy’s wood oil, razor-blade scrapers, gallons of Windex, six pairs of thick rubber gloves, two pairs of work gloves, megasize trash bags. Not only that, but the boys had a box of doughnuts from Joe’s Diner—no Starbucks up here, that was for sure—and they’d made her eat two, bless their hearts.

Parker had never been in a hardware store before. Nope. It was her new favorite place, though—all those mysterious thingies, the pleasant smell of metal and wood smoke from the stove in the middle of the store. All those solutions for her troubles.

Glancing at her watch, she saw that, at last, it was late enough to call Nicky. She pulled over to the side of the road. Cell service, thank heavens.

“Mommy! Guess what? I love sourdough bread! I hated it yesterday, and now I love it! You have to smear it with jelly. That’s when it gets good. Guess what else? We’re going to the Golden Bridge today! And some gardens…Lucy’s making me go but I want to see the jail! It’s on an island and me and Daddy—”

“Daddy and I.”

“Daddy and I are gonna go to jail like Grandpa, but I’m gonna break out! And I’m gonna bring Elephant, and he’s gonna break out, too. And guess what? I’m gonna jump in the water and swim all the way to Maine, Mommy! We’ll take you out for lunch.”

Man, her boy was the best kid ever. Parker felt a bit as if she’d swallowed the sun, so warm and bright his chirpy little voice made her feel. “Well, don’t swim yet. The house isn’t quite ready, and you have to go see the giant trees and rocks, remember?”

“I know. But I miss you.”

The vise that had gripped her heart since Nicky left tightened a notch. “I miss you, too, sweetheart.” I miss you so much I cried in the car last night. “I can’t wait for you to get here. It’s so pretty. I can see lobster boats from the house.” Well, she could if the windows weren’t boarded up. “And there’s a really cute diner where we can go out to eat.”

“Do they have sourdough bread?”

“I don’t know. I’m going there tomorrow.”

“Did you know there are earthquakes in Fran Francisco?” Nicky said.

Parker smiled again. “I did, actually.”

“I’m gonna lay on the floor—”

“Lie on the floor.”

“—and see if I can hear one. Here’s Lucy! Bye! I love you! I got you a present! It’s a necklace and it’s a rainbow.”

“Bye, baby. I love you! I’ll call you later,” Parker said.

There was a smile in Lucy’s voice. “He’s on the floor. Every time a bus goes past the hotel, he tells us to get in a doorway. Go brush your teeth, okay, pal?” she said to Nicky. “So how are you, Parker? What’s it like up there?”

“Oh, it’s pretty. It’s very pretty,” Parker said.

“And what’s the house like?”

“Well, um, it’s right on the water. It’s pretty small, very cute. It needs some work. But it’ll be great.” No need to worry her two best pals on their vacation. She’d save the stories for later, when the horror wasn’t so fresh.

“How’s the real-estate market up there?” Lucy asked.

“I haven’t checked yet. It’s on my list.” Right after I kill Snuggles the Mouse, of course.

“And how about that summer romance?” Lucy asked. “You up for that?”

Parker paused. “Well, I happened to meet a very attractive lobsterman yesterday.”

“No, sir! That’s great! Do I smell a fling?”

They chatted a few minutes more; Lucy said Ethan was in the shower, so he’d call her later. And even though Parker knew she’d be talking to her son again that day, she couldn’t help feeling a little lonely as she hung up. The three of them in San Francisco, her alone in Maine. Such were the perils of joint custody.

Well. She wasn’t completely alone. She had Thing One, heaven help her. That was going to be…difficult. It wasn’t so much that he worked for her father, or even that he hadn’t warned her about the trust-fund issues, because yes, Parker could see that legally, he was stuck.

It was that—Go ahead, this is good, advised Spike—even after all these years of her father’s neglect and vague disapproval, she would’ve given a lot to have one-tenth of the affection Harry Welles offered so freely to James. Maybe James was the son he’d always wanted. Maybe James reminded Harry of his younger self. But just once, it would’ve been nice if her father had called her up and asked her to come for dinner or play a game of squash or go to one of his single-malt nights.

Stupid, that even after all these years, she still wanted her dad. Not the man Harry had become, but the man he’d once been, who’d pushed her on a swing and let her sit in his chair at Welles Financial and answer his phone.

Well. That guy had taken a bullet to the heart when she was ten years old.

“Old news, my friends,” Parker said. She started the car and glanced across the street. Gideon’s Cove Animal Shelter, the sign said. And quite unexpectedly, she found herself turning into the driveway. There was a gray-shingled house and a small outbuilding from which the sound of barking could be heard.

“Hello there!” called a young woman as Parker got out of the car. She came over, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Can I help you?” She glanced at Parker’s Rhode Island plates. “You must be Julia Harrington’s niece. Hi, I’m Beth Seymour. Sorry. Small towns. We know everyone’s business.”

“Parker Welles. Nice to meet you.”

“You looking for a pet?” Beth asked.

“No, I just stopped. I’ve never had a pet before.” Except Apollo, if you could count that thing. She wondered briefly what had happened to it. Harry probably gave it to a minion. Or ate it.

“Come on in, since you’re here,” Beth said. Crafty woman. Parker followed. She was not going to get a dog. Or a cat—Lucy had a cat, and it was always leaping onto Parker’s lap and sniffing her lips, which Parker found quite repulsive. Why she was even standing here was a mystery.

“Pets take a lot of work. I won’t lie,” Beth said, opening the door of the outbuilding. “But the love they give you…it’s worth any price.”

Nice sale line. “So what have you got here? Not that I’m really looking.” You could be! sang the Holy Rollers. Pets can fill those giant voids in people’s lives!

“Well, we try to be a no-kill shelter,” Beth said, “but times are kind of hard, and donations have been down. We have a lot of animals, sad to say, and we’re running out of room. The vet’s coming to put a couple to sleep today, actually.”

Shee-it. Parker could picture a chunk of resolve crumbling like sand. “That’s really sad.”

At the sight of their caregiver, several dogs leaped to their feet, barking joyfully. Or savagely. Parker couldn’t tell. “This girl’s going on to her great reward today.” Beth stopped in front of the first enclosure and pointed to an orange tabby cat. To Parker’s eyes, it already looked dead, its filmy eyes half-open, fur dull and uneven. “She’s twenty-one, can you believe it? Her owner died two weeks ago. At least they’ll be in heaven together.”

It’s true, the Holy Rollers confirmed.

“This girl is the other one we have to let go.” Beth knelt down in front of the next kennel. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she crooned. “Don’t be scared.”

Parker looked in. A brown-and-white dog sat in the corner, as far away from the door of her cage as she could get, trembling. Parker couldn’t see her face, but her fur was long and feathery.

“You think she knows?” Parker asked, shoving her hands in her pockets. “She looks scared.”

“No. She’s always like this. Bob Castellano—have you met him yet? No? Well, he was behind someone out on Route 119, and they pushed the dog right out the window. Didn’t even stop! Can you believe that? She had a broken leg and two broken ribs, not to mention a bunch of cuts and bruises. She’s all mended now, but no one wants her. She’s too shy.”

“Guess you can’t blame her.”

“Yeah. She’s been with us four months now.”

“Think she’d bite? Since she’s so scared?”

“I’ve never even heard her growl. She’s too afraid.” Beth stood up and sighed. “So. She’ll be put down later on, too, poor thing. But down here, we have kittens. Christy and Will Jones are taking two of them, but there are two left. And we have this very cute little pit-bull mutt—he’s an absolute sweetheart.”

Parker didn’t move. Thrown out of a moving car, huh? Unbelievable. Well, it was one of a thousand horror stories, she was sure. She couldn’t afford a pet, no matter how sad its life had been thus far. And she didn’t know anything about dogs. She liked them, often stopped to admire one here and there, but she didn’t know how to train one or take care of it.

Even if she wanted to have a dog, she had nowhere to put the thing. Parker wasn’t sure where she herself would be sleeping tonight. Most likely, the car once again.

“I’ll take her,” she said.

Fifty bucks later—really, not so much—with another fifty in dog supplies—collar, leash, shampoo, food, heartworm pills, brush—Parker went slowly into the dog’s cage. The poor thing bowed her head and looked away as if certain Parker was about to kick her.

“Hi,” Parker said, squatting down. “Want to come home with me?” The dog didn’t move, but she didn’t flinch, either, when Parker reached out and petted her neck, working her way up to the dog’s cheeks, which were as soft and plush as velvet. The dog didn’t resist, but didn’t look at her. “I won’t hurt you, sweetie,” Parker murmured. Slowly, as if picking up Nicky while he was asleep, she lifted the dog into her arms. No resistance.

“Looks like she found her forever family,” Beth said.

The Holy Rollers sighed in deep satisfaction. Spike even wiped away a tear.

“What will you name her?” Beth asked.

Parker looked down at her new best friend. Not the most attractive dog, with her drooping ears and sorrowful face. She had a bald spot behind one ear, and one of her eyes didn’t open quite as much as the other. Her head seemed too big for her body. Parker looked at Beth and smiled. “Beauty.”


CHAPTER EIGHT

JAMES WAS FILTHY and exhausted by the time Parker finally found her way back to the house. He watched as she got out of the car, then turned and lifted something out. It was a dog, some kind of spaniel mutt, maybe twenty pounds, curled into her arms. She set the animal on the ground and clipped on a leash.

“Aw. We have a dog now?” James said.

“I have a dog now,” Parker said. “Thing One, meet Beauty. Beauty, Thing One.”

“Hi, Beauty,” James said. The dog tucked her head behind Parker’s knee and peed, not even bothering to crouch, trembling, unable to even look at him.

Parker tilted her head and gave James a smile. “You have that effect on women, I guess.”

He returned her smile. “Not all women.”

Her ears started doing that sunrise thing, getting all pink, then red. Then she popped the trunk and lifted out a bag. “I bought out the hardware store. Think you could grab a few things so we could get to work?”

“Sure.”

We, huh? She walked past him, her dog scuttling along, half-crouched, as if James was about to karate-chop her on the head. Parker, on the other hand, looked pretty damn good in those jeans, all long legs and perfect ass. And how was it that she smelled good…well, okay, sure, she smelled like dog, but also a little bit like…whatever it was she smelled like. Lemons or something. Flowers. Who knew? She smelled good, dog or no dog.

Just before she got in, her cell phone rang. “Hey, Ethan!” she said, her face lighting up. “No, I talked to them a little while ago. How are you? You did? Cool! Hang on a sec, the cell-phone service out here is horrible. Let me go down to the dock. Yes, there’s a dock, and no, it’s not what you’re picturing.”

She set her bag down and went around to the front of the house, the dog slinking beside her through the long grass.

And here was the thing. It irritated him. First of all, he’d spent the past few hours shoveling garbage on her behalf, and like some little kid who’d gotten an A on his paper, he wanted to show her. Think you could grow a pair, guy? his conscience asked. Secondly, message received. The Paragon calls, the minion can wait. Not that Ethan Mirabelli was a bad guy, based on James’s interactions with him over the years…friendly, successful, great father. That was the problem.

And third…she was down on the dock, and he hadn’t checked that out yet, and who knew if it was sturdy? What if she fell in? She was standing on it, and it hadn’t sunk, but he’d been too busy getting the water turned back on and clearing out her room to get to it.

She was laughing now. She sat on the dock cross-legged, looking every bit the upper-crust, beautiful, graceful woman she was. Oh, a little hair toss. Too bad the Paragon wasn’t able to see it.

“You’re an idiot,” James told himself. He went back inside—plenty more crap to shovel—and got to work.

But he checked on her every thirty seconds or so, just to make sure she hadn’t fallen in.

* * *

W HEN SHE HUNG UP with Ethan, Parker felt considerably cheered. The fact that he’d called made her feel less out of the loop. One thing to check in with your kid a couple times a day, another to have Ethan call her just to say hi. Maybe Lucy had told him she’d sounded lonely—and she’d tried not to, honest—or maybe, and more likely, Eth was a prince.

For about five minutes last summer, when Lucy had decided that she should marry some guy who wasn’t related to her dead husband, Ethan and Parker had thought about trying to be more than friends and parents of the same kid. After all, they laughed at the same jokes. They were both attractive. Once upon a time, they’d gotten it on with satisfactory physical results and a beautiful child. They were both single. Why not, right?

But whatever chemistry had once been between them had faded, and one kiss was enough to make them each rub their mouths with the backs of their hands. “You gave me cooties,” Ethan had said, and they’d ended up baking brownies and playing Scrabble.

It was too bad, in a way, because Ethan was pretty damn perfect. If he could clone himself and excise the part that had loved Lucy since he was nineteen years old, she was pretty sure he could be the One.

“What do you think, Beauty?” Parker asked. The dog had followed her without protest, James being the more obvious threat, but she wouldn’t make eye contact. Slowly, Parker put her hand out and stroked the dog’s cheek with one finger. So soft. “Good girl,” Parker said. “Good girl, Beauty.” The dog sidled closer to her, and a strange, sweet feeling filled Parker’s chest. She’d like to find the person who’d thrown her dog out of a moving vehicle and kick him in the nuts. Wearing her sharpest Jimmy Choo heels.

Parker looked up at the house and sighed. Time to get to work. There was Thing One, looking at her from the window— Hey! He’d taken the boards off the windows! Fantastic.




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