LITMIR.BIZ

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it up eagerly.

      “First class,” Cleo reminded him.

      “It’s as good as done,” Zane said, glaring at Nash and shaking his head. As in, don’t do that again. Human food wasn’t good for a dog, and that meant Slim wasn’t going to have it.

      Fifteen minutes later, he’d gone online, purchased Cleo’s one-way, first-class ticket, in seat 3B, and zapped a copy to her in L.A.

      “Who was that?” Nash asked conversationally. By then, he and Slim had been outside and then returned.

      “That,” Zane answered, logging off and shutting the lid on his laptop, “was Super-Cleo. She can bend steel with her bare hands, leap over a tall building in a single bound—and she’s faster than a speeding bullet, too.”

      No sense adding that she was as wide as she was tall, with ebony skin and gray hair that stood out around her head like a fright wig. A person had to meet Cleo to comprehend her, and even then, it took some time.

      She yelled and flapped her apron when she wanted the kitchen to herself, and she had a tongue sharp enough to slice overripe tomatoes clean as the oft-mentioned whistle, but she also had a heart as expansive as the big Montana sky.

      Nash’s brow furrowed. Now that he’d showered and put on clothes that wouldn’t get him beat up on the school grounds, he looked his age, which was an improvement over his former parody of a fortysomething homeless person in need of psychotropic drugs.

      “This Cleo—is she your girlfriend?” he asked suspiciously, an indication that his previous experiences with girlfriends, probably his father’s, had been memorable for all the wrong reasons.

      Zane laughed again, partly because he was amused at the idea of Cleo as his main squeeze, and partly to hide the stab of sympathy he felt for Nash in that moment. “Nope,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Cleo and I are definitely not romantically involved.”

      Nash looked relieved, and a bit sullen. “I guess we’ll have to buy another bed, then,” he said. “Because from what I gathered, she doesn’t seem like somebody who’d want to sleep on an air mattress.”

      “You’re right about that,” Zane confirmed, with a chuckle. “If we know what’s good for us, we’ll have all new appliances, including a washer and dryer, before she gets here.”

      Something changed in Nash’s face, an indefinable shift that might have meant he was beginning to trust this hairpin turn in his life and luck—or simply that he was mentally reviewing some felonious plan B, like burning down the house in the dead of night or committing murder with an ax.

      Or both.

      “Do I really get to stay here?” the boy asked, very quietly.

      Zane had to swallow before he answered. “Yep,” he said. “You really get to stay here.”

      “Zane?”

      “What?”

      “Thanks for not calling me ‘Studebaker,’” Nash said. “Or Edsel.”

      “No problem,” Zane replied, hiding a grin. “Do you run into a lot of that?”

      * * *

      “SOMEBODY TOLD MRS. BEAUMONT,” Clare accused, on Monday morning, standing in Brylee’s office at Décor Galore, hands on hips. “And she told my mom and dad, so now I not only don’t get to go on the bus trip, but Luke’s in trouble, too.”

      Brylee, sitting behind her computer, straightened her spine. “Really?” she asked, pretending innocence.

      Fat lot of good that would do.

      “I thought the top of my dad’s head would blow off when he found out Luke was nineteen. He’s already tracked him down and told him to stay away from me if he doesn’t want to go to jail or become a candidate for reconstructive surgery. Or both.” She paused, but only to suck in a furious breath. “If that wasn’t humiliating enough, Luke told Walker he’d written a song that would be a sure hit if Mom recorded it. He wasn’t interested in me, he’s just starstruck, that’s all. He said straight out that he was just trying to meet Casey Elder and pitch his stupid ballad to her. All of which means, he was using me, the whole time!”

      “I’m sorry, honey,” Brylee commiserated. “But isn’t it better to know the truth, painful though it may be?”

      Tears sprang to Clare’s eyes. She bit her lip and nodded in reluctant agreement. “But what if nobody ever likes me because I’m me? What if all that ever matters to anyone is that I’m Casey Elder’s daughter?”

      Brylee pushed back her desk chair, stood and went to put her arms around her niece’s shoulders. “Oh, baby,” she said, choked up. “Lots of guys will like you—even love you, I promise—and it will be because you’re you, Clare Elder Parrish, not because your mom is a superstar.”

      Clare clung to her aunt, and a shuddering motion of her shoulders indicated that she was crying, even though she didn’t make a single sound.

      And that broke Brylee’s heart, because Clare was so trusting. How long would that last, though?

      “This hurts,” Clare said, face buried in Brylee’s shoulder. “I thought Luke liked me for myself,” she despaired. “I should have known this was really all about Mom, and what a legend she is, and not about me at all.”

      “Of course it hurts,” Brylee responded, remembering how she’d felt after Hutch Carmody called off their wedding. She’d hurt plenty then, even knowing, on some level, that Hutch was right—they were all wrong for each other. She’d left that little church in Parable, a spurned bride in the wedding dress of her dreams, with her heart in pieces, her pride in tatters. “But things will get better, sweetheart. I promise.”

      Clare sniffled. “That’s what Mom said,” she admitted.

      “Your mom is one smart lady,” Brylee assured her niece. “When the right guy comes along, he won’t care who your mother is, or your dad, either. He’ll be interested in you, period. But don’t try to hurry things along, Clare—take time to grow up, to become the woman you want to be, to pursue your own goals. That way, when the time to fall in love for real comes, you’ll be ready.”

      Clare drew back, gazed earnestly into Brylee’s eyes. “Do you really believe that?” she asked. Of course Clare knew about the Hutch disaster—everyone did.

      Brylee was wounded, though she was fairly sure Clare hadn’t intended that. With one broken engagement behind her, though, was she any kind of authority on love and marriage? Hardly. Still, she was intelligent, and not entirely dysfunctional. “Yes,” she said honestly. “I believe there is someone for everybody—but we need to be open to the fact that this person might not be the one we’ve been expecting.”

      It was impossible not to think of Zane in that moment, although Brylee would have preferred not to, for sure. She’d believed that Hutch Carmody was the man for her and, since he’d fallen head over heels in love with Kendra Shepherd, she, Brylee, was just plain out of luck. She’d missed the last bus, so to speak.

      Now, she’d begun to wonder if the whole heartbreaking experience of being dumped at the altar hadn’t been a good thing. Hutch was happy with Kendra, and vice versa, and they were building a family together.

      But was there a man out there for her—one she was meant to love with her whole heart, and share her life with?

      Zane Sutton, perhaps?

      Ridiculous. Of course not. She had nothing in common with the man. Nothing at all.

      Except, of course, for an undeniable inclination to rip the man’s clothes off his perfect and very masculine body and have her way with him on the spot.

      “Am I going to feel better anytime soon?” Clare asked plaintively.

      Brylee smiled and kissed her niece smartly on the forehead. “Trust

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