Cheating at Solitaire (18 page)

—from 707 Ways to
Cheat at Solitaire

randpa calls him Twirp," Cassie was saying. "That means small, contemptible person,"

she explained to Lance as Julia eased down the hall toward the nursery. She could see Nick sleeping peacefully in his crib and Lance standing beside him with Cassie mounted firmly on his back. "At first, I didn't want a little brother," Cassie went on. "But I know women have longer life expectancies, so it's okay that I'm older."

"Five going on forty, huh?" Lance said softly as Julia appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, yeah," she whispered back. She took Cassie from Lance and felt the little girl's arms and legs wrap around her. "Whatcha doing, girlie?" she asked her niece.

"I'm explaining how to be a sister, because Lance doesn't have one."

"Oh?" Julia asked, eyebrows raised. "That's very nice of you."

Julia carried Cassie toward the door. She felt Lance place his hand on the small of her back and guide her around the array of toys that Cassie had left, like a trail of breadcrumbs, to follow.

Don't we look like a little family,
Julia thought, but she didn't protest as they eased down the long hall.

"Lance knows Shrek!" Cassie squealed.

Julia cut him an inquiring look.

"Well," he fudged, "I know a guy who works as Mike Myers's stand-in."

For Cassie, and by extension Julia, that was close enough.

"There you are!" Caroline shouted as she suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. She leaned over and fought to catch her breath. "I ought to be a size two, as many times a day as I go up and down these things," she said to no one but herself. Then she straightened, looked at Lance and Julia, and exclaimed, "His agent is here!"

Instinctively, Julia tightened her grip on Cassie, as if she were going to have to get the children to safety before the shots started to fly.

"You didn't let him in, did you?" Lance asked.

"No," Nina said, appearing behind Caroline. "He's at Myrtle's."

Caroline hadn't been exaggerating when she said she could stand in the upstairs playroom and keep an eye on Crazy Myrtle. As Julia peered through the telescope, she could see straight into what must be Myrtle's formal living room, where Richard Stone sat with the older woman, enjoying a cup of tea. At least Julia thought it was tea. It could just as easily have been human blood.

"Oh, she's enjoying this," Caroline said, sounding bitter. When a buzzer sounded from deep within the house, she bolted for the stairs. "Whites are done."

"Caroline," Julia said, "can't that
wait"

Caroline wheeled. "Julia, the sun is going to come up tomorrow, whether my family has clean underwear or not." She took a step down the stairs. "I'll be right back."

With Caroline gone, Lance was next in turn for the telescope. "How's Harvey?" he asked, and Julia had to remind herself that Lance had never even met Harvey; she fought to remember that only a few days before, she had never met Lance.

"He's better," Julia said, reflecting on the quick call she'd shared with Francesca after she'd said good-bye to Abby. "He'll be in rehab for a while, but things look good."

"Great," Caroline said over the heaping pile of sheets and towels she had dropped in the center of the playroom floor.

"Mom will be glad to hear African violets haven't lost their healing power."

Caroline plopped down on the floor and started folding like a pro. Lance joined her, and Nina shifted into place for telescope duty. Julia watched Lance with the laundry. As he neatly tucked the corners of a fitted sheet into one another, she thought,
He actually knows what he's doing.

"You really didn't have a sister?" she asked.

He grinned. "I bake, too."

"So what did your new editor say when you told her about the lost Veronica?" Caroline asked as she segued from sheets to hand towels.

"Well . . . " Julia started.

"You didn't tell her," Caroline said, sounding completely unsurprised. "Julia, you're going into business with her. She's taking a chance on you. You can't let—"

"She doesn't need to know. Abby Warner is used to dealing with the nonfiction big boys—

corporate CEOs, prime ministers, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trust me, she's not going to give someone with Veronica White's sales history the time of day."

"If you say so," Caroline chimed.

"Maybe we're reading too much into this," Lance said. "Richard Stone's not going to care what type of books you used to write."

"Are you kidding?" Julia asked. "This is fresh wood for the fire. This keeps the headlines on the front page a few days longer." She looked out the window at Myrtle's house and the decaying subdivision and fought not to say,
This is how my career might end.

"What happens when he
reads
it?" Nina added sheepishly.

Caroline's hand flew to her mouth. "He's going to notice."

"I noticed as soon as I saw the picture," Nina agreed. "Lance fits the description exactly. That's why I thought it was true!"

"What aren't you telling me?" Lance demanded. Caroline and Nina stared at each other, then Nina gave Caroline a "go ahead" nod, and Caroline said, "It's about you." "Caroline!" Julia cried.

But Nina picked up the novel and began to read over Julia's protests: "Philippe's arms, still sore from the long journey, hung loosely by his side while the wind blew through his
dark brown
hair.
His
gray eyes
squinted against the rising sun. His
chin ..."

"So, there are some similarities," Julia jumped in, stopping Nina.

"Similarities?"
Nina turned to Lance, thrusting the book into his hands. "The hero looks like you.

Exactly
like you. Twelve years ago, Julia wrote a romance novel about a man who looks like you," Nina finished. Then, keeping the same tone she'd had before, she said, "I'm hungry," and she and her
GIVE LANCE A CHANCE
T-shirt disappeared down the stairs.

Lance looked at the book again. "How many of these did you write?" he asked.

Julia answered, "Eight."

He studied her, then asked, "Did they sell well?" She had to laugh a little. "Yeah," she said.

"They did
really
well."

"There's nothing wrong with what you wrote," he said. "There's nothing wrong with who you are." "I'm not her," Julia stated.

"Yes, you are. Isn't that what this crisis is about? And what I m telling you is that there's no shame in that."

She struggled to believe Lance, but she knew too well that he world wasn't that idyllic. Veronica White died the day Candon Jeffries took Julia to lunch at the Ritz. A card turned over.

Everything changed. She had traded one life for another, and to be the person she was
now,
no one could ever know who she'd been
then.
"No one can know about these books," she said simply and solidly, steadying herself for the arguments that would come next. But she felt Lance's hand on her arm and knew the topic was closed.

"Something's happening," Caroline spoke from the telescope. A moment passed while Lance and Julia crowded around. "Yep. There he goes."

Together, they watched Myrtle's front door open and Richard step onto the front porch. He shook the woman's hand and turned to leave, walking with a slight bounce in his step through the underdeveloped area between the unfinished houses across the street.

Lance eased away from the window. "Crazy Myrtle doesn't know what she's got yet. Or, if she does, she's smart enough not to share it with Stone, and hold out for someone bigger. And
be
certainly doesn't know what she's got."

"How do you know that?" Julia asked.

"Because he wasn't carrying anything. If that manuscript I what you say it is, no way in hell does Richard Stone walk on without it."

"We could steal it," Nina said from the doorway. She was eating a cherry Popsicle, and the juice ran, like blood, down her hands. It made for an ominous scene.

In unison, they all yelled "No!"

WAY #92: Lose yourself in a good book.

Life's best adventures are often as close as your nearest bookshelf. Tour Europe with the
Count of Monte Cristo. Dance at a bal with Mr. Darcy. Hunt down the bad guys with
Stephanie Plum. Amazing things can happen when you read.

—from 707
Ways to Cheat at Solitaire

The fire crackled, and her house felt warm. Julia stretched her legs across the couch, trying to focus on a back issue of
Publishers Weekly,
but she kept looking down at Lance, who lay on the floor beneath her with his feet near the fireplace, reading Veronica White's first book. Either he was a very slow reader or he was very thorough.
Slow. Definitely slow. Nothing there to savor,
she said to herself, the way a highway patrolman says "Nothing to see here, folks." Yet that didn't change the fact that a man was lying on the floor, reading her deepest secret, literally. To make matters worse, every few pages he'd moan.

He turned slightly, rested his elbow on the floor and
hit
head in the palm of his upturned hand, and read aloud: "Isabella's hands, small and narrow but fiercely strong, gripped the horse's reins as if she were holding on to life itself. Her] blood ran hot beneath her cool, pale skin, and the pounding of ; her heart matched the pounding of the horse's hooves. . . . "

He climbed onto his knees and inched closer, putting his elbows on the couch beside her, crowding into Julia's space. He read on: "Isabella's mind outran the Thoroughbred as she leapt in space and time between her desperate flight on the runaway stallion and the strange figure she had seen the night before, the silhouette that seemed to call to her, a ghost from another lifetime."

"You're an excellent reader," Julia said dryly as she tried to snatch the book away, but he was too quick and too strong. In a flash, he was on the edge of the couch, with Julia pinned to the cushions behind him. One large hand was pressing against her collarbone while the other held the book far away from her flailing arms. Heat burned from his fingers through her T-shirt, and he continued to read, despite her constant jabs and lunges. He read louder, drowning out the sound of Julia's cries.

"The mud-soaked road didn't slow the stallion's hooves."

"Lance,
give me the ..."

"Her thin nightgown flew violently in the night wind, her unruly auburn hair as wild as the horse's mane."

"I want that..."

Lance brought the book to her lips, silencing her. "Just how thin was that nightgown?" he whispered.

She stammered. Lance laughed out loud. She gasped and struggled harder, but Lance lifted the book and continued to read.

"A bolt of lighting stretched across the sky," he exclaimed as if he himself had been struck with electricity. "The horse leapt from the road, chasing the thunder, and before Isabella knew what was happening, she and the horse were gone, as if transported to another world."

"Very nice, Lance," Julia said, finally prying his hand from her and straightening herself on the couch. She turned and planted her feet on the floor beside him. "You get an A-plus. Now you can stop."

She tried to stand, but he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her nearly into his lap.

"Wait." Both arms were around her then, squeezing her tight. "This is my favorite part," he whispered near her ear and read on.

"The man in whose arms she lay seemed half angel and half demon, too strong and brave to be a mortal man. She looked up into his hard, gray eyes and felt herself shudder. He held her in strong arms that seeped warmth through her thin gown and brought her another, deeper kind of runaway emotion."

Lance lowered the book and shifted her effortlessly against the arm of the couch. He stared into her with those same eyes, smiled with that same mouth, and said, "I like your stuff, Veronica."

He held her there a moment too long. Then he shifted, and she felt his weight pressing down on her and realized how warm and soft a hard, strong man could be. "Tell me, Ms. White, where do you get your ideas?"

"That's it!" Julia snapped, lunging for and grabbing the book, but she found herself sprawled across him.

Lance twisted, trapping her beneath him on the couch.

"What would Isabella have done there?"

"Let me go!" she cried, but the harder Julia fought to regain control of the situation, the wider Lance smiled.

"This is a pretty good workout," he said. "You're cute when you're scrappy."

Her hair was as wild as the rest of her, and Julia literally couldn't see straight. She lay, tangled in a web of arms and legs, and said, "You are enjoying this way too much!"

"You started it, Veronica."

"Don't call me that!"

They scrambled and tumbled to the floor, and as soon as Julia was able to right herself, she grabbed the book and scampered behind the sofa, using it as a barricade between them. "Hey,"

Lance said. "I was reading that." He climbed onto the sofa, so she stepped back, toward the kitchen, farther from his reach.

"I know you were reading," she said. "I
heard
you."

Then, with more agility than Julia thought humanly possible, Lance sprang over the back of the sofa and plucked the book out of her hands. As he walked past her to his old place on the floor, he used the book to slap her on the butt. She jumped, but he

nonchalantly sunk to the floor and continued to read by firelight. After a long while, she saw a smirk rise on his lips, and without looking at her, he said, "You are very talented, Veronica."

Julia couldn't get to her cell phone fast enough. "Get your night-vision goggles ready," she said when Nina answered. "We're going in."

WAY #33: Utilize professional resources for professional tasks.