LITMIR.BIZ

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my visit short.”

      They all shrugged aside her apology, assuring her they understood.

      The announcer’s voice rang out. “If the lady ropers would gather in the center of the stadium, it’s time to announce the winner of the competition.”

      Keira grabbed Patrice by the arm. “Come on, I can’t wait to see Lucy’s face.”

      Patrice, Keira and her parents walked back to the stadium while Patrice’s brother Luke led Billy One Star to his horse trailer where he would rub him down before putting him inside for the trip home, a ranch on the outskirts of Albuquerque.

      Luke, twenty, was a junior in college but lived at home where he was being groomed to run the ranch when his father retired. The Suttons had been cattle ranchers in New Mexico since the late 1800s when an ancestor of Patrick’s, an ex-slave also named Patrick, had left Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in search of a better way of life. He’d married a fellow Louisianan woman and soon there were Suttons spread out over New Mexico. However, because of a scarcity of blacks Sutton offspring were obliged to marry Native Americans and Mexicans. Patrice’s father had quite a bit of Native American blood. Her mother hailed from South Carolina and was African-American. She had met her husband when she had taken a trip to the Southwest with girlfriends following her college graduation. The handsome rancher had swept her off her feet, and she had never returned to South Carolina to live.

      Patrice closed her eyes as she relaxed against the airplane’s seat. Keira had gotten her to the airport with ten minutes to spare. Luckily, she’d had no bags to check. Blanca had worked her magic, and her transition from terminal to airplane had been flawless. She smiled. It had been fun competing in a rodeo again. She had not dreamed she would actually win the competition. Keira had been happier than she was when she was handed her trophy. The sour look on Lucy Lopez’s face had confirmed what Keira had said about her: she indeed had a bone to pick with Patrice.

      Patrice was having none of that, though. After all, Keira was Lucy’s sister-in-law. For Keira’s sake, if not for anything else, there should be peace in the family. Patrice had stepped up to the microphone and said, “Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here today, and I’m thrilled to have won. However, I think I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the wonderful women who also competed in the event, especially Ms. Lucy Lopez, who has been citywide champion for years now.” She offered Lucy her hand in congratulations. Lucy shook it, an astonished expression on her pretty face.

      As Patrice left the stage, she overheard one of the other women say, “That was sweet of her.”

      “We’re related, you know,” Lucy had said nonchalantly.

      “Oh, yeah, how?” asked the woman, surprised.

      “Her sister’s married to my brother, Jorge, the doctor,” said Lucy proudly.

      Patrice had left feeling a bit hopeful about the future relationship of her sister and Lucy. Later, when she had told Keira about it, her sister had said, “That was just her public face. She still hates me. The test will come at the next family gathering.”

      Family dynamics, Patrice thought. They’re so complicated.

      Trevor Kennedy, or T.K., McKenna sat on the deck at his house in Malibu ostensibly watching the sunset but actually thinking of Malcolm, his baby brother, who had been killed in a car crash only a few months ago. Malcolm had lived with him. T.K. had given him a job as an assistant in order to keep an eye on him. Malcolm didn’t have any administrative duties. He simply accompanied T.K. wherever he went whether it was to the studio, to an appointment, or on location when he worked on a film. T.K., thirty-six, had been three years older than Malcolm, but it seemed that he was many years older because Malcolm had been mildly mentally deficient. His condition had been an accident of birth. He had experienced a lack of oxygen during his delivery. To someone who didn’t know him well, his mental state wasn’t very noticeable. Malcolm had been a healthy, happy man with a good heart and a great sense of humor. Where his mental deficiency showed was in his relationships with people. He was so easygoing, so trusting, oftentimes people took advantage of his naivety. If he saw someone who needed a meal, he would give him money to buy food. If he knew someone who needed money, he would empty his pockets. Many times he had been tricked out of money or possessions by unscrupulous so-called friends. When it came to women, Malcolm, who had been very shy, was like putty in their hands.

      This was what was troubling T.K. right now. Malcolm had been dating a woman named Aisha Jackson before his death. After he’d died, Aisha claimed that she was three months pregnant with Malcolm’s child.

      T.K. and his parents, Rose Kennedy McKenna and David McKenna, were not about to miss the opportunity to know Malcolm’s child if it were true, so from that point on, they took care of Aisha. She moved in with Rose and David, and it was agreed that after the baby was born a DNA test would be performed to confirm that Malcolm was the father.

      T.K. had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that Aisha was lying, but until the baby was born, he had no way of confirming his suspicions. Some part of him hoped he would be proven wrong. He would like to be an uncle to Malcolm’s child. However, he’d encountered too many opportunists since fame had swept him up in its clutches to not be cynical.

      His cell phone rang, and he looked at the display. It was his friend and business partner, producer Mark Greenberg. “Hey, Mark.”

      “You will be able to make the meeting in the morning, won’t you? I’d like to see you two together to see if you jibe.”

      T.K. smiled at Mark’s use of the word jibe. In lots of ways, Mark was old-fashioned. Although he lived and worked in L.A., his sensibilities were that of a small-town Jewish boy from Hoboken, New Jersey. T.K. liked that about him.

      “We’ll only be working together, not getting married,” T.K. joked. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

      “Did you get the chance to watch those movies I sent over?” Mark asked skeptically.

      “I did,” T.K. answered, surprising Mark. “The camera definitely loves her, and she can actually act.”

      Mark laughed. They often joked about the recent crop of actresses who were beautiful but vapid and couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag, as Mark had put it.

      “Yes, yes,” he said now. “Patrice Sutton has it all—looks, talent and just a touch of fearlessness. I like her.”

      “I can tell,” T.K. said, laughing softly. “What exactly do you mean by fearlessness?”

      “Her agent phoned to confirm that Patrice would be at the meeting, and you’ll never guess what Ms. Sutton was doing today.”

      T.K. hated it when someone wanted him to guess anything. He laughed. “Don’t keep me in suspense!”

      After Mark told him, he laughed even harder. “A sistuh?”

      “That’s what I said,” Mark told him. “It was as unbelievable as it would have been if it were one of my sisters or cousins. I can’t imagine one of those princesses in the dust and dirt chasing after a calf on horseback and jumping off said horse to throw the calf to the ground and tie its legs together. My nana would have a stroke.”

      “I can’t wait to meet her,” T.K. said sincerely.

      Mark laughed. “It should be interesting.”

      Chapter 2

      The same driver who had picked Patrice up at the airport last night drove her to Mark Greenberg’s office in downtown L.A. Friday morning. The day was fairly clear, and the temperature was in the high seventies.

      As she climbed from the backseat, the driver—a good-looking, tall, broad-shouldered brother with a nice ’fro and a goatee—offered her a hand out of the car. Patrice couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses as she accepted his help, but she saw his head tip downward when her skirt hitched up. He smiled. “Would you like me to wait, Ms. Sutton?”

      Patrice

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