LITMIR.BIZ

      T HE BIG TOWN CAR purred along the curving road that headed up the bluffs toward Lyndon’s home. There hadn’t been a chance in hell that he would have fit into Paige’s sporty little BMW, and his Cadillac was currently the worse for wear. Hiring a car and driver had merely been pragmatic, and if she enjoyed the luxury of being able to admire the city instead of watching where she was going, that didn’t make her a bad person, did it?

      Santa Barbara perched between the steep backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains and the blue of the Pacific. In the sun that burned through the coastal morning overcast, the ubiquitous terra-cotta roofs gleamed.

      One of the comforting things about Santa Barbara was that little changed. Forget about Spanish Revival, the city was original Spanish, right down to the two-hundred-year-old Franciscan mission tucked away in the heart of town. In most places, a major tourist attraction would be surrounded by shops and restaurants. In Santa Barbara, the mission and its accompanying greensward sat in the midst of homes and quiet streets, even as it had been surrounded by adobes in the eighteenth century.

      The mission was one of her earliest memories, walking down the stairs from the Favreau estate, holding hands with her father and mother. The original mansion had been built on the bluffs overlooking the mission perhaps a hundred years before by Lyndon’s oil-magnate grandfather. Then the stock market crash of ’29 and the thirties had hit, decimating the Favreau family fortunes. Lyndon’s father had sold off the main house and most of the land, retaining only the mother-in-law’s cottage that he’d built in the twenties—if any ten-thousand-square-foot home could properly be called a cottage.

      Only one reminder of the long-ago glory days remained—the gate in the wall between the two properties. Once, it had been open so relatives could come and go. Now it was just a locked door between Lyndon’s house and his neighbor’s.

      He stirred as they drove up to his estate. “That’s what caused it all.”

      “What?”

      “The sign.” He pointed.

      “You got into a car accident because of a sign?” Paige stared at her grandfather.

      “I was distracted,” he muttered, turning to look out the window. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

      And there it was, a white placard on the verge before the neighboring estate that said simply: Coming Soon, The Burlesque Museum.

      “The next gate,” Paige told the driver and stared at the sign as they passed. No date, no specifics, just the words guaranteed to give her conservative grandfather fits.

      “Don’t worry about it,” she said dismissively. “They can’t do it around here. It’s zoned residential. I mean, there’s the mission and the Museum of Natural History, but—”

      “But those don’t involve strippers,” her grandfather ground out. “I grew up in that house. My grandfather is spinning in his grave right now. Traffic, cars parked on the street, hoodlums. I won’t stand for it. The neighborhood won’t stand for it,” he insisted, his mouth firming. “That woman is not going to get away with this.”

      “What woman?” Paige punched the security code into the keypad and the big gates rolled back.

      “Gloria Reed, that’s who.”

      “Gloria Reed?” She frowned. “Your next-door neighbor?”

      “Her and her fool museum idea. This accident was all her fault. She pulled out right in front of me.”

      “Wait a minute—you ran into your neighbor? ”

      “I wouldn’t have run into her if I hadn’t been surprised by that blasted sign,” he defended. “She just put it up without warning. And she always comes out of her gate too fast. That woman is a menace. Shameless,” he added as they pulled into his estate and drove up to the house. “Why, here she is in her seventies and she’s taken up with some long-haired kid who looks like a criminal.”

       My grandmother just got knocked around in a fender bender.

      Paige closed her eyes. “Long-haired kid?”

      “Appalling for a woman her age. He looks young enough to be her son. Her grandson, even.”

      “I think he is,” she said faintly. The car pulled to a stop before the front door.

      “How would you know?”

      “I think I met him last night in the emergency room.”

      “She was hurt?” Sunlight slanted across his face to show a flash of mingled surprise and guilt as the driver opened the door.

      “They kept her overnight, like you.”

      Lyndon opened his mouth, then closed it. “Her grandson.”

      Paige nodded and got out of the car.

      “Well,” he said as she helped him get into the wheelchair the driver brought around for him. “Well,” he said again, then was silent until they got inside.

      “Do you want to lie down?” Paige asked after the driver left.

      Lyndon rose from the wheelchair with a wince. “No bed for me yet. I think I’ll just sit down in my easy chair for a while.”

      “Chest hurting?” Paige asked.

      His answer was a shrug; she knew he’d rather grin and bear it than complain.

      “How about if I go get your medication?”

      “I’ll be all right. Just get me an aspirin.”

      “Granddad, I think there was a reason the doctor gave you something stronger. He said you’d be hurting. Don’t you think you should at least take the meds today? Your last dose from the hospital must be wearing off by now.”

      “I’ll be fine.”

      “I think I’ll go get the prescription filled anyway,” she said, ignoring him. “Let me get you settled and then I’ll just nip out for a minute. I need some things for the next couple of days anyway.”

      “I don’t want to be any trouble to you, sweetheart.”

      “Granddad, you and Nana practically

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