applause.
“And we’re clear!” called the director.
I relaxed and automatically turned to see if Mason was still there.
He was. But he was looking at me with his head tipped slightly to one side, like Myrtle when I say the word food. Or the word eat or the word hungry or any word remotely related to a meal.
He’d just seen a Rachel de Luca he’d probably never met before. The public one. And now he was going to berate me for it throughout an entire lunch. This should be pleasant. Not.
* * *
Mason had never seen the side of Rachel he’d witnessed on that stage. He had read her books—the last three, anyway—and he’d skimmed the others. They were pretty much all the same—all about positive thinking and creative visualization and everything happening for a reason. He would probably have read more, because the message was so uplifting and empowering, if he hadn’t known that she didn’t believe it herself. Not a word of it.
It was the one thing he’d never liked about her. God knew he liked everything else about her a little too much. But that she was selling this spiel to the masses when she didn’t believe in it felt a little too cold, too calculating. It was a side of her that he found hard to take.
But today, just now, he’d seen a hint of something else. She might say she didn’t believe the stuff she wrote about. She might even think she didn’t believe it. But she wanted to. She had practically emanated a glow on that soundstage when she was going on about her positive thinking message. He was beginning to think it might not be an act at all.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
She’d kept the mask in place as she’d said her goodbyes to her hostess, and the entire time she’d signed autographs for the respectable-sized group who’d gathered outside on the sidewalk, despite the fact that it was cold and starting to snow. Then the crowd fell away as they walked up the sidewalk to find a place for lunch.
“It’s a great time of year to be in the city,” he said.
She nodded. The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was all lit up, and every store window was decked to the nines. “I wish I could stay, but I’ve gotta get home to the kids.”
“Kids? Don’t tell me you got another dog.”
“No, Myrtle’s plenty. My niece Misty is dog-sitting, though.”
“At your place?”
She nodded.
“You’re a brave woman, leaving a seventeen-year-old alone in your home overnight.”
“Amy’s staying over, too.”
He grinned. “I don’t think your assistant is going to be much help, unless it’s to buy the booze for the inevitable party.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” she quipped. “Amy may be all Goth-chick on the outside, but she’s super responsible, and besides, she hasn’t forgotten that I saved her ass a month ago.”
“We saved her ass a month ago.”
“Well, yeah. You helped.”
He laughed and meant it. It had been a while since that had happened. “Why only one twin with the dog-sitting? Is your other niece a cat person?”
“My sister and Jim took Christy with them for a two-week Christmas vacation in the Bahamas. She got the time off school but had to take her assignments along and promise to bring them back finished.”
“And Misty didn’t go?”
“Misty had the flu. Or at least she convinced my gullible sister that’s what it was. Frankly, I think it was more a case of not wanting to leave her latest boyfriend behind. The priorities of love-struck teens never fail to make me gag.” She did the finger-down-the-throat thing to make her point.
“I’ve missed the hell outta you,” he said, smiling at her gross gesture as if she were a supermodel posing in front of a wind machine. Then he added, “And your little dog, too.”
“She’s missed you, too.”
But he noticed that she didn’t say she had.
“Corner Deli?” she asked.
She’d stopped walking, and it took him a beat to realize she was suggesting that they should eat at the establishment whose wreath-and-bell-bedecked door they were currently blocking. He opened it. It jingled, and she preceded him in. They joined the line to the counter, ordered, and then she picked out a table to wait for their food. She headed for the quietest table in the crowded, noisy place. “Ahh, New York,” she said. “The only place where you can order a twenty-five-dollar sandwich that will arrive with a pound of meat and two square inches of bread.”
“And it’ll be worth every nickel.”
“Hell, yes, it will.” She was sparkling. Her eyes, her smile, told him she was as glad to see him again as he was to see her, whether she was willing to say it out loud or not. “So how are the nephews? I’ll bet this is a hard time for them.”
“It’s rough. Their first Christmas without their dad. It’s hard on all of us.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s my first holiday without my brother, too. I think that’s probably why Sandra wanted to get away. It’s too hard.”
“It’s rough. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if they knew the truth about Eric.” He looked at her as he said that. It was one of about a million things he’d been dying to talk to her about.
“No, Mason,” she whispered. “No one would be better off knowing their father, husband or son was a serial killer. No one. Trust me on this.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s been eating at me. Keeping that secret.”
“You did the right thing.”
God, he’d needed to hear her say that again. He didn’t know why, didn’t need to know why. It was a relief, that was all.
“They must have that new baby sister by now, though, right? Marie was out to here last time I—”
“Stillborn,” he said softly.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, Mason. I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“You should’ve called.”
“What good would that have done?”
She blinked real tears from her eyes. “Poor Marie. First her husband and then her baby. I’d ask how she’s doing, but...” She just shook her head.
“Yeah, she’s having a hard time of it. Keeps saying she’s being punished.”
“For what, for heaven’s sake?”
He shook his head. “She’s
