for doing this. You have no idea how much it means to my folks.”
His words brought a bit of a clench to her heart. She and Bo...they were together, but not together together. Not yet.
She supposed they were heading that way, and wasn’t fighting the possibility. Bo, whose last gig was playing the heartthrob star of a sitcom, was currently considering his options on his way to becoming one of the nation’s top stars. Their lives would be busy and exciting and everything she’d always envisioned.
But he also had family he cared about. Down-home, earthy, real-life stuff.
Suddenly glad to do this, she gave his hand another squeeze. “I’m anxious to meet them,” she said. If she and Bo made it all the way, the people she was about to meet could be her family someday.
And she’d discovered over the past year that family was what she valued more than anything.
* * *
MIKE SAW A photo of Kacey during his routine client surfing Friday morning. He’d been searching her name continuously since their Monday lunch meeting and had seen more beautiful, sexy and revealing shots of the woman than he’d needed, if his nighttime sweats were anything to go by.
The whole thing was off. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen images of beautiful women before. To the contrary, he saw them all the time in his line of work and had pretty much grown immune to them.
But these photos weren’t of a stranger. Or even just a client. They were of Kacey. Except for the one in question, they were also all legitimately posted, including the one from the night before.
It was a seemingly random shot by a journalist who happened to be having dinner at the same place as Bo and Kacey and Bo’s parents. A common occurrence in Beverly Hills.
Still, as he dressed in jeans and a cream-colored button-down denim shirt, ran his fingers through the blond mop that had once won him a “best hair” award and headed toward the computer shop outside the Lemonade Stand, he couldn’t get the vision of Kacey’s short black dress and remarkable cleavage out of his mind.
Neanderthal had been looking at that cleavage.
Kacey’s smile was directed toward the older couple holding their hands out to her.
The caption read, “New family ties in the making?”
Had she seen it?
He couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about the shot.
Unless she thought it was great...
Wait.
The thought stopped his self-talk cold. If she thought it was great, that was cool. Totally cool.
She was his friend. He wanted her happy.
And if joining Neanderthal’s family made her happy, then he was happy for her.
Period.
KACEY DIDN’T HAVE a lot of time in Santa Raquel on Friday. The studio benefit scheduled for that evening started with hors d’oeuvres at the home of one of the Rich and Loyal producers. They’d move from there to a yacht that would be taking them out to sea for a five-course meal. A new record label was providing entertainment. Tom and his partner were hosting one of the after-parties.
Ever since she’d asked Bo to be her date for the evening, he’d been talking about it.
Her hair appointment was scheduled for eleven and would take at least three hours. Getting highlights to look like they’d grown in wasn’t an easy task.
She had nails and a pedicure scheduled right after that, and then the appointment to pick up the dress she’d ordered. They’d need at least half an hour to make any adjustments, which was why she had her makeup person meeting her there. The jewelry she’d be wearing was already in her bag, as were the shoes and evening bag she’d bought for the occasion.
She loved the entire ritual. Had loved it even more when she and Lacey were doing it together.
Getting ready for the event was usually more fun than the event itself—a secret she and Lacey used to share.
Her class ended at nine, so that gave her a few minutes to stop by Michael’s office at the Stand.
She entered the building from the secure and private resident walkway. His office door faced the back door, and she was glad to see him sitting at his desk. Michael’s casually styled hair, the shoulders that filled out his shirt, eyes that could see all the way inside a person...
Not just her, everyone. The residents. People who worked for him at the computer shop. Customers. Everyone. He understood people.
“Hi.” Out of habit, she shut the door behind her as she stepped quietly into the room. These meetings had started by accident. They’d both been working with the same woman—a resident at the time—who’d been trying to change her lifestyle of drunkenness, as well as recover from beatings by her abusive live-in boyfriend.
In the end, she’d been one of their few failures at the Stand. She’d quit her counseling sessions, gone back to her boyfriend and drinking and, last they’d heard, had left the state with a fresh hospital record.
That failure—the first Kacey had witnessed—had hit her hard. She and Michael had been talking about it one day last fall and she’d recognized that part of the reason she was having such a hard time understanding the woman’s choices was because they hit too close to home. Not the violence part, but the allure of the blur, as she’d called it. When you weren’t happy, even when it seemed like you had everything you ever wanted, you drank or partied to blur out the sadness. To cover up what you couldn’t figure out...
Somehow from that conversation had come his offer to be her secret support system. He didn’t think she needed one at first. She wasn’t an alcoholic. Had no addiction problems. But she feared the allure of the blur would call her back.
Or maybe it had been the allure of the spotlight—of being someone that everyone wanted on their invitation lists...
“I can’t stay,” she told Michael now. “I just wanted to say hi. And see if you have anything new to tell me.”
She didn’t like how that sounded. Like he was working for her. Like she’d stopped by because he was doing a job for her. “Mostly just to say hi.”
She’d wanted to see him.
He was her friend.
“I’ve got nothing new,” he told her. “The only thing that showed up this morning was a photo from last night. And you look completely sober.”
He turned his computer screen around so she could see.
It wasn’t bad. She was smiling at Bo’s parents. His mother seemed delighted. She’d liked the woman. Quite a lot. She’d liked Bo’s brother, too. He was shy but smart. He wanted to go into politics and knew more about the state of the country than she’d ever
