My Secret Fantasies

She pursed her lips. “I’d like to say that sounds snobby of him, but since I couldn’t handle all the extra attention the show brought to the tearoom, I guess that would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it?”

I laughed. “But it’s only natural you’d get more stargazers with a business on Melrose Avenue. How many people are going to make the trek to Northern California wine country for the sake of a reality show winner?” The more I thought about it, the more frustrated it made me. Why wouldn’t he give me a chance? “By the time I’m ready to open for business, Gutsy Girl will probably be airing with a whole new slate of contestants and I’ll be long forgotten.”

“I hope so.” My friend stared at me, her eyebrows knitting together in a way that made the diamond stud shift.

“You sound worried. If things don’t work out here, I’m sure I’ll find a good space for the business somewhere.” I knew Damien was having the guy who drove the horse trailers take a look at my SUV today to see if he could fix it, so I’d be mobile again soon. Not that I was in any great hurry to leave, given the incredible night Damien and I had spent together.

My breath hitched just thinking about it.

“It’s not the business I’m worried about.” She pulled out a wrinkled piece of pink paper from the pocket of the sweater hanging over the chair next to her. “Look.”

Curious, I unfolded the sheet and saw it was from an old-fashioned message pad printed with “While you were away...” across the top. The kind of pad Joelle stocked beside an equally old-fashioned phone near the kitchen at Melrose Tearoom.

“‘Miranda’s sister, Nina, called.’” I read the message aloud and waited for it to make sense. “As in my sister?”

Nina wouldn’t have known where I worked, unless she’d asked our parents. My mother had phoned me at the tearoom a few times over the years, mostly when she wanted to remind me of a family birthday that she thought required me to send presents.

“It’s got to be.” Joelle bent her head beside mine to read the writing again. “She left her name and everything. One of the guys busing tables wrote this down during the Friday afternoon tea service.”

Which meant midafternoon, right when I’d been walking along the highway getting sunburned by the winter rays.

“I haven’t heard from Nina in six years.” I couldn’t imagine why she’d call me now. “Unless...”

“What?”

“She could be calling to stir up trouble. Ask for money from the Gutsy Girl winnings.”

I remembered one time at the county fair when I’d saved my chore money to do the bungee jump because a cute senior boy I was crushing on, Pete Rangel, volunteered at the booth, which raised money for MS. But when I finally worked up the nerve to ask Pete for the bungee jump ticket, I realized that Nina was already at the booth and flirting with him. Amazed that she’d saved up enough money to do the expensive jump, I also discovered my own money was missing. Nina must have taken it. Worse, she’d probably snitched it when she’d fake-hugged me in front of her friends to pretend she wasn’t evil.

“The interviews with her Nebraska friends that made it on TV did say both Nina and Rick had spent a lot of money in that divorce,” Joelle reminded me.

“My money is going in my sock drawer,” I muttered darkly, still irritated about that long-ago incident. “She knows better than to ask me for anything.”

“O-kay.” Joelle rolled her eyes, unimpressed with my bluster. “What if she’s grown up since she was so awful to you back then? What if she actually had news for you—like her creep of an ex-husband was on his way to L.A.?”

* * *

DAMIEN DIDN’T MEAN to eavesdrop.

But the words still hung in the kitchen as he entered to introduce himself.

“Do you have reason to believe Rick is actively looking for Miranda?” He strode over to the breakfast bar, where Miranda sat beside a slender Latina with dark bangs and a sixties-style hairdo. The woman’s manicured red nails wrapped around a stoneware mug, and there was a big diamond rock on her left hand.

Someone, somewhere, had wanted a neon sign announcement that this woman was taken.

“That’s what I’m worried about.” The brunette turned to him and offered her other hand. “I’m Joelle Johnson.”

“Damien Fraser.” He gave her fingers a squeeze and released her, his arm finding its way around Miranda’s back. Tough to make small talk until he’d discovered whatever news Joelle had brought with her. “What makes you think this guy could be headed out here?”