wife), it had been hard going. When Savannah came home the first time, dragging Johnny like an abandoned cat, Nora had immediately taken him in. Their bond remained fierce, like a mother tiger with her cub, like Johnny’s with Savannah, and Nora felt lucky to share that.
He didn’t even try to wiggle out this time. “Sure, I love her,” he said. “What’s not to love?”
Nora blinked. “You love me, too. Admit it.”
“Yep. I do, angel.” He used her favorite endearment, still without smiling, and Nora’s inner alarm system went on alert. Despite this enjoyable brunch, Savannah was conspicuously absent today, and Johnny hadn’t bothered to explain why. “Savannah would have liked to hear me say that,” he added.
“Is she all right?” Nora asked. “Feeling well, no problems now that she’s expecting?”
Johnny frowned. “She’s a little under the weather. Especially in the morning. Apparently, it’s my fault.”
Nora smiled but she couldn’t bear for Savannah to be ill. “The women in our family don’t get morning sickness. She shouldn’t, either. I’m joking, of course. I do worry about her. Still, she has plenty to do with the Larson job I gave her to design their family room and sun porch. The contractors haven’t exactly been cooperative.”
His green eyes brightened. “You wouldn’t admit to having morning sickness if you were hung over the bathroom bowl like a Christmas ornament every day. And I bet you’d be wearing your best three-inch heels with a string of pearls.”
She couldn’t help answering his faint smile. “So true.”
Johnny moved the jewelry box closer to his plate. But he left it there, and leaving him room, Nora attacked her eggs Benedict. At the luncheon with Starr, or for the past two days, she hadn’t been able to eat a bite. Today she felt ravenous. She knew Johnny didn’t easily accept gifts—or love, at one time. She didn’t know anyone, however, who needed it more.
“So,” he said, addressing his vegetable frittata, “what’s new with you? We didn’t have time the other night to talk. But Savannah told me you’ve lost some more clients.”
Nora sighed. And thought of Starr Mulligan. “Starr keeps horning in on the rest of my people. I’m sure she’s feeling the pinch, too, with so much hurricane destruction everywhere, but this morning my first phone message was from a woman in Royal Palms. I’ll see her late this afternoon. Starr and I are battling over the chance to redecorate her ten-thousand-square-foot home. Do you have any idea how much money I’d lose if I don’t win this job? Which, yes, I do need.”
Johnny named a figure. Very close to accurate, in Nora’s estimate.
“How did you know that?”
He shrugged. “I listen to Savannah. She’s considering your latest partnership offer in Nine Lives. Royal Palms would be pretty good dough, Nora. Better than the first screenplay I sold to Wade Blessing for his initial Razor Slade film.”
“You can’t be serious. You earn a ton of money.” Wade Blessing, the actor, was Hollywood’s newest Arnold Schwarzenegger—before he decided to save the state of California from the governor’s office. Wade’s continuing action films about a mercenary with a heart of gold could be too graphic for Nora’s taste, but that didn’t matter to Johnny’s bottom line.
“I said the first one. Wait until Wade sees my new script.” He grinned. “I’m gonna hold him up like a stagecoach bandit.”
A few months ago, after Johnny had walked out on Kit Blanchard and she had turned to Wade on the rebound for a while, the two men had suffered hard feelings, but they had since repaired their friendship.
“I thought you were writing something different.”
“That, too,” Johnny murmured, looking embarrassed. “It’s what Stephen King calls a ‘toy truck’ project. Just for me right now.”
“Johnny, it will be a movie. Tell me. When it gets released, the whole world will see it. How private can that be?”
He looked even more uncomfortable.
“Yeah. I know. But that’ll be Christmas a year from now at the earliest. I figure I’ll be too busy changing diapers to notice the public reaction. Or the reviews. I don’t want to talk about it. Wait until wide release.”
When Johnny picked up the jewelry box, obviously as a diversion, Nora held her breath. Embarrassed in turn, she fussed with her napkin, waiting for him to at last remove the wrapping paper from the gift. Would he like it?
“I may have overstepped my bounds with Starr,” she admitted, returning to their earlier conversation about her own career to distract herself. “We had a run-in recently, and I may have made an impulsive remark or two about that potential client I mentioned, Geneva Whitehouse.”
“Earl Whitehouse’s wife?”
Nora felt a twinge of unease. “Yes. Do you know him?”
“Only by reputation. He’s a pretty big developer in this area. He built a few of the houses in my compound at Seaview. Didn’t you do some work for him a while back?”
“Briefly,” Nora said, not wanting to discuss Earl Whitehouse, who, despite his stellar standing in the community, was not one of her favorite people. “We were talking about Starr. She and I seem to bring out the worst in each other. Now I wonder if at our monthly business luncheon this week she decided to retaliate for what I’d said.” Had Starr’s pointed reaction to Nora’s hot flash been exactly that? Payback?
Johnny gauged her expression. “Then why not cut her some slack? You might even come to like her.”
Nora doubted that was possible, but she didn’t say so. And maybe he was right. She and Starr had struggled with each other long enough, and it was up to Nora—always the ready helper—to take the first step. Then she saw that Johnny had removed the paper, lifted the top of the box and pulled out the gift.
“Uh, Nora.” He choked up, and she saw him swallow. “This is for me?”
“It won’t suit anyone else, angel.”
He slipped the eighteen-karat gold signet ring on his finger. And stared at it. The fine script flowed across its surface, caught the light streaming through the restaurant windows and shone on the one simple word. Five letters that Nora had hoped might mean the world to him.
Johnny’s voice was thick. “Sometimes you break me up.” Then his gaze met hers, and his smile beamed. “Thank you. You sure know how to get a guy.”
The gold ring’s inscription read simply: Daddy.
Riding on a wave of euphoria long after her brunch with Johnny, Nora decided to take his advice to see Starr that afternoon before Nora met with Geneva Whitehouse. With luck, they, too, might reach some kind of rapprochement.
First, Nora swung by Nine Lives, Inc., where she found a pile of mail waiting on her desk. Her longtime client, Leonard Hackett, one of her most lucrative accounts, was also in her office. Typically, he didn’t look well.
Most of the mail was routine, with the exception of an invitation to a charity dinner in Fort
