and left, conking her over the head with her own vulnerability.
She should have known better. Her mother’s mantra had always been to count on herself, to be her own best friend, not to expect anyone else to make her happy. She’d operated that way until Dan. And after him, too. Somehow, he’d swooped in under her radar—so steady, so stable, so rock solid that she went for it, fell in love. Counted on him. On them.
Just thinking about it brought back the empty feeling that had scared her so much—the hollow numbness that was way too much like how she’d felt after the childhood accident. It was as if someone had shut off the lights inside. Pure dark. Echoing and empty.
Way too scary.
And now JJ was asking her to spend ten days with the man who’d pushed her into that humiliating crash-and-burn? No way. Kathleen had to get out of the tour. She’d built a wall around those memories and had no interest in putting in a window.
“Here it is!” JJ waved a magazine in the air.
“Watch it!” Moira shoved a foam cup under the ash flaking from JJ’s swooping cigarette.
JJ madly flipped pages, found what she wanted and marched it over to Kathleen. Beside another photo of Dan looking smug was a short article Kathleen pretended to read, then handed back with a dismissive sound, her fingers trembling only a little. “A tour with this guy would be a waste of my time. He’s obviously a wrongheaded jerk.” She kept her voice steady, but her knees quivered, so she smashed them together, determined not to give herself away to JJ.
“All the better to take him down a notch. Or is that a peg?”
“Notch, peg or even iota, no thanks.”
“He’s cute for a wrongheaded jerk, though,” JJ mused, studying the face Kathleen couldn’t forget. “I sure wouldn’t kick him off my tatami mat, or whatever the hell he sleeps on—a bed of nails?”
“Not my type.”
JJ considered his picture. “I bet he seethes with inner heat.”
“I doubt it. Can’t you see? He’s so cut off from his emotions he wouldn’t know lust if it gave him a lap dance.”
“You have quite the opinion there.” JJ gave her a speculative look and tapped a nail on her bottom lip.
Kathleen had overstated the case. “The point is that I’m not interested in him—as a man or as a mate on the Good Ship Book Tour.”
JJ and her instincts honed in on Kathleen’s face.
To avoid detection, she pretended to sniff the flowers, inhaling the cool green of the carnations, the thick syrup of the sweet peas, the dense musk of the roses. Flowers packed a lovely sensory wallop.
“What’s up?” JJ said. “Do you see him as a threat?”
“How could I? He’s completely wrong.”
“So, show him the error of his ways. It’ll be an experience. Experience is your whole modus operandi.”
“Now you’re giving me Latin?” she said, though JJ was right about her focus on experience. Her column in PulsePoint magazine, which had launched her career, had been called “Experience It!”
In it, she shared her views and adventures with all things sensual—food, music, art, fashion, recreation and sex. If it felt good, she’d done it…and written about it in dripping detail.
In love with the column, JJ had sought her out as a client. With JJ’s bulldog support Kathleen had zoomed to the top of the bestseller lists with her first book. Also the second. The third had wilted. And the fourth, unwritten, was in limbo. Was she bored? Burned out? Had she exhausted her topic? Her life? She refused to believe that.
“The point is that he’s a streaming comet, book-wise, Kath. Hook your cart to his tail and tag along for the sky ride.”
“Does he know about this?” Kathleen said, seizing on the hope that Dan would nix the plan from his end. She’d been the dumpee, so he’d be more embarrassed than freaked about seeing her again. He hated interpersonal tension, though, so he would surely dread the reunion. “I can’t imagine he’d want me to steal his thunder.”
“His agent said he was hesitant at first, but, being new, he didn’t understand how important a tour is in terms of publisher support.”
Hesitant, huh? She wished she’d seen his face when he heard the news. Even the Ice Man must have gasped. He obviously hadn’t revealed their past or JJ would have said something. What would people think if they knew Dr. Moderate had had an earth-scorching affair with the Queen of Excess?
For that matter, what would Dan have to say for himself after all these years? She was curious, now that she thought about it.
Then she caught herself. This was Dan. She didn’t want to face him again. “I can’t do it, JJ. Dr. McAlister and I are anathema to each other.”
“Anathema? You mean where Disneyland is? I can’t believe you’d make fun of my Latin, little miss word-a-day. Your anathema-ism is the very reason they want you. Reporters love conflict. Two appealing experts at polar extremes? What could be more delicious?”
“A million things. Can’t happen. No way.”
But JJ didn’t flinch, didn’t even shake the lengthy ash from her cigarette, and her eyes said, Yes, way. “After the lag, this is a gift, Kath. You need this.”
“What I need is a writing retreat. No phone, no Internet. Just a laptop and the beach house at Gualala.” But the idea gave her a desolate feeling, as if her writer’s heart had been swept as clear of ideas as a beach at low tide.
“You’ve been there, done that and come up with bupkis.”
“So, I need a little more time,” she bluffed.
“No point arguing.” JJ finally tapped the snake of ash into her palm and leveled Kathleen a look. “It’s happening.”
“It is?”
“It is.” JJ sucked in smoke, blew it out. That meant Herman Maxwell, her publisher, had spoken.
She swallowed hard. “I’m sunk?”
“Sinking. But we’ll turn this around.” JJ picked up her gold cigarette case, opened it and tilted it at Kathleen, as if for sustenance.
Kathleen waved it away. Things were really bad if JJ was offering her a smoke—like a prisoner before a firing squad. Which didn’t feel that far wrong.
“You need to shake things up, Kathleen. This will do that.”
Oh, yes. Dan McAlister could shake her up, all right.
She took a deep breath, gathering her strength, her determination, her sense of humor. If she had to do this tour, and it looked as though she did, then she’d make it work. Meet Dan head-on and not miss a step.
That would not be easy, since she was no poker player when it came to emotions, but she’d manage. She had too much
