LITMIR.BIZ

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      Ivy shrugged. “Nobody cares except the police. Shay received divorce papers from somewhere in Mexico a few weeks after he left, but that was over six years ago. The creep could be anyplace by now.”

      “Who was the other woman?”

      “Are you ready for this? It was the local librarian. Everybody thought she was so prim and proper and she turned out to be a mud wrestler at heart.”

      If it hadn’t been for an aching sense of the humiliation Shay must have suffered over the incident, Mitch would have laughed at Ivy’s description of the librarian. “Appearances are deceiving,” he said.

      “Are they, Mitch?” Ivy countered immediately. “I hope not, because when I look at you, I see a person I can trust.”

      “Why did you tell me about Shay’s past, Ivy? You were dead set against it a minute ago.”

      Ivy lifted her chin and began methodically removing frilled toothpicks from the sections of her sandwich. “I just thought you should know why she’s…why she’s shy.”

      Mitch wondered if “shy” was the proper word to describe Shay Kendall. Even though she’d wept in his arms the night before, on the bench of a rickety backyard picnic table, he sensed that she had a steel core. She was clearly a survivor. Hadn’t she picked herself up after what must have been a devastating blow, found herself a good job, supported herself and her son? “Didn’t Rosamond do anything to help Shay after Kendall took off with his mud wrestler?”

      Ivy stopped chewing and swallowed, her eyes snapping. “She didn’t lift a finger. Shay makes excuses for her, but I think the illustrious Ms. Dallas must have been an egotistical, self-centered bitch.”

      Mitch considered that a distinct possibility, but he decided to reserve judgment until he had the facts.

      After they had eaten their club sandwiches, Mitch drove his sister back to Reese Motors and her job. One hand on the inside handle of the car door, she gazed at her brother with wide, frightened eyes. “All those things in your books, Mitch—did you really know all those terrible people?”

      He had hedged enough for one day, he decided. “Yes. And unless you want all those ‘terrible people’ to find out who and where I am, you’d better learn to be a little more discreet.”

      Tears sparkled in Ivy’s eyes and shimmered on her lower lashes. “If anything happened to you—”

      “Nothing is going to happen to me.” How many times had he said that to Reba, his ex-wife? In the end, words hadn’t been enough; she hadn’t been able to live with the fears that haunted her. The divorce had at least been amicable; Reba was married again now, to a chiropractor with a flourishing practice and a suitably predictable lifestyle. He made a mental note to call and ask her to let Kelly come to visit for a few weeks.

      Ivy didn’t look reassured, but she did reach over and plant a hasty kiss on Mitch’s cheek. A moment later she was scampering toward the entrance to the main showroom.

      Mitch went shopping. He bought extra telephones in one store, pencils and spiral notebooks in another, steak and the makings of a salad in still another. He reflected, on his way home, that it might be time to get married again. He didn’t mind cooking, but he sure as hell hated eating alone.

      Shay carried a bag of groceries and several sacks containing new clothes for Hank’s trip with Garrett and Maggie. She resisted an urge to kiss the top of her son’s head after setting her purchases down on the kitchen table.

      “How was work?” he asked, crawling onto a stool beside the breakfast bar that had, like the picture windows in the living room, been something of an architectural afterthought.

      Shay groaned and rolled her eyes. “I spent most of it being fitted for costumes.”

      Hank was swinging his bare feet back and forth and there was an angry-looking mosquito bite on his right knee. “Costumes? What do you need costumes for? Halloween?”

      Shay brought a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and other miscellaneous items from the grocery bag. “Something similar, I’m afraid,” she said ruefully. “I’m going to be doing four commercials.”

      Hank’s feet stopped swinging and his brown eyes grew very wide. “You mean the kind of commercials Mr. Reese does? On TV?”

      “Of course, on TV,” Shay answered somewhat shortly. “Mr. and Mrs. Reese are going to be away, so I’ll have to take Mr. Reese’s place.”

      “Wow,” Hank crowed, drawing the word out, his eyes shining with admiration. “Everybody will see you and know you’re my mom! I betcha I could get a quarter for your autograph!”

      A feeling of sadness washed over Shay; she recalled how people had waited for hours to ask Rosamond for her autograph. She had signed with a loopy flourish, Rosamond had, so friendly, so full of life, so certain of her place in a bright constellation of stars. Did that same vibrant woman exist somewhere inside the Rosamond of today?

      “You’re thinking about your mom, aren’t you?” Hank wanted to know.

      “Yes.”

      “Sally’s mother says you should write a book about Rosamond. If you did, we’d be rich.”

      Shay took a casserole prepared on one of her marathon cooking days from the small chest freezer in one corner of the kitchen and slid it into the oven. She’d been approached with the idea of a book before, and she hated it. Telling Rosamond’s most intimate secrets to the world would be a betrayal of sorts, a form of exploitation, and besides, she was no writer. “Scratch that plan, tiger,” she said tightly. “There isn’t going to be a book and we’re not going to be rich.”

      “Uncle Garrett is rich.”

      “Uncle Garrett is the son of a world-famous country and western singer and a successful businessman in his own right,” Shay pointed out.

      “Rosamond was famous. How come you’re not rich?”

      “Because I’m not. Set the table, please.”

      “Sally’s mother says she had a whole lot of husbands. Which one was your dad, Mom? You never talk about your dad.”

      Shay made a production of washing her hands at the sink, keeping her back to Hank. How could she explain that her father had never been Rosamond’s husband at all, that he’d been the proverbial boy back home, left behind when stardom beckoned? “I didn’t know my father,” she said over the sound of running water. In point of fact, she didn’t even know his name.

      Hank was busily setting out plates and silverware and plastic tumblers. “I guess we’re alike that way, huh, Mom?”

      Shay’s eyes burned with sudden tears and she cursed Eliott Kendall for never caring enough to call or write and ask about his own son. “I guess so.”

      “I like that guy with the blue car.”

      Mitch. Shay found herself smiling. She sniffled and turned to face Hank. “I like him, too.”

      “Are you going to go out with him, on dates and stuff?”

      “I don’t know,” Shay said, unsettled again. “Hey, it’ll be a while until dinner is ready. How about trying on some of this stuff I bought for your camping trip? Maggie and Garrett will be here Saturday, so if I have to make any exchanges, I’d like to take care of it tonight.”

      The telephone rang as Shay was slicing cucumbers for a salad, and there was a peculiar jiggling in the pit of her stomach as she reached out one hand for the receiver. She hoped that the caller would be Mitch Prescott and then, at the nervous catching of her breath in her throat, hoped not.

      “Shay?” The feminine voice rang like crystal chimes over the wires. “This is Jeannie Reese.”

      Mingled relief and disappointment made Shay’s knees weak; she reached out with one foot for a stool and drew it near enough to

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