Almost Home

by Debbie Macomber, Cathy Lamb, Judy Duarte, Mary Carter

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"Whale Island" by Cathy Lamb
Family secrets and imposing friends are making Chalese feel like an outsider in her very own home on beautiful Whale Island. But it's only when a shocking revelation makes her feel truly lost that she opens her heart to the possibilities the past offers - including a chance at love with the last man she expected…

"Queen of Hearts" by Judy Duarte
Her high school reunion is coming up, and advice columnist Jenn Kramer couldn't be dreading it more - until she lays eyes on Marcos. Jenn hardly noticed him when they were kids, but now he's all grown up…and how deliciously he's changed…

"The Honeymoon House" by Mary Carter
It doesn't get more romantic than Andy Beck's cottage on Martha's Vineyard. But love is the last thing on his mind - he just wants to get the cottage ready for his best friend's honeymoon. At least that's the plan, until he finds the gorgeous Maid of Honor ransacking his house - in the most irresistible way…

"The Marrying Kind" by #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

High school sweethearts Katie and Jason haven't seen each other in ten years - and now she's walked back into his life. With one look, the love they shared comes flooding back - only now the odds seem stacked against them. But when something's meant to be, all bets are off…

Release date: July 13, 2012

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

I could not believe I was going to climb up on Stephen’s roof in a black burglar-type outfit so I could spy on him through his skylight.

“I have gone over the edge,” I muttered, adjusting my black leather knee-high boots. “I’m completely whacked. Brain-fried. Crazed.”

“Our mission,” Brenda whispered to me before we scurried onto the roof, the stars our only witnesses to this sheer stupidity, “begins right now. One for all, all for one, and don’t leave a wily woman behind!” She shimmied her hips, then stuck both thumbs up, her black gloves cutting through the cool night.

My sister Christie and I smothered our laughter.

“Never give up, ladies!” Christie ordered as she pulled a black-knit hat over her blond hair and down her face, her green eyes twinkling through the eyeholes. “Never surrender! Never accept defeat!”

“Women unite!” I said as we high-fived each other.

Brenda fiddled with her night-vision goggles then grabbed the gutter and shimmied her way up the roof. Her agility was impressive, as she’d had a number of strawberry daiquiris.

I yanked my black-knit hat over my face, pulled the eye and mouth holes into the appropriate places, tucked in my black curls, and followed her, trying hard not to laugh. If I laughed while I was climbing I might wet my pants.

“I’m a spy!” Brenda whispered as she climbed. She hummed the James Bond theme song. She has a full head of curling reddish hair, now hidden by her full-face black-knit hat, a huge mouth, huge eyes, and a biggish nose. Men went wild for her. “A sexy spy!”

My laughter broke free, and I had to cross my legs. Don’t wet your pants! Brenda was wearing black leather pants and a black motorcycle jacket, like me. My sister was wearing a black cowboy hat over the face-hiding knit hat, which was so hilarious, and a black coat that wouldn’t close over her stomach because she is gigantically pregnant with twins. Normally she is the size of Tinkerbell. Now she is the size of a small bull.

“Chalese is not a sexy spy,” I said about my sorry self as I grabbed the gutter to hoist myself up. “Chalese has been dumped. Damn that snaky Stephen.” I hadn’t even liked Stephen. But I didn’t appreciate being dumped. Nothing is worse than being dumped by someone you dated because he was there, a breathing male, and you desperately hoped he was more than he was but you had to quit lying to yourself in the face of overwhelming evidence of his jerkhood.

A voice inside my blurry head said, Since you believe him to be a jerk, why are you on his roof in the middle of the night dressed like a burglar?

Why? Because the three of us, me, Brenda, and Christie, together, are lethal. Daring. Truly ridiculous. And a little drunk. Although Christie is stone-cold sober. She never drinks when she’s pregnant.

But, really, there was no harm in seeing whom Stephen was dating, even if I had to do it via a skylight. I didn’t care, not at all, but knowledge is power. “Knowledge is a daiquiri,” I intoned as I scrambled up, my black gloves offering a little traction. “Strawberry daiquiri, lemon daiquiri, peach daiquiri …”

Stephen’s roof was flattish, so our climb to the skylight was not too perilous, even in my fuzzy state. I hummed the Rocky fight song, stopping to pump the cool night with my fists, like Rocky did in the movies.

“What’s going on, Chalese?” my sister hissed from the ground below, her voice coming in from the walkie-talkie on my hip.

I giggled and held my walkie-talkie to my mouth. “I’m not Chalese! I’m a spy! A secret agent! I am on a serious mission!”

Why are you talking about a mission? Why aren’t you home reading a romance novel?

Brenda burped. She says it’s her best quality. That is patently not true. Her best quality is writing screenplays for major motion pictures that make women alternately laugh and cry like banshees. She’s living with me until she smashes through her writing block.

Christie said, “Copy that, Ms. Bond. All right, 007, carry on.”

I carefully—as carefully as I could with two strawberry daiquiris under my belt, well, three, actually, but who’s counting—scuttled over to Brenda, who was peering through Stephen’s giant skylight, quiet as a tiny drunken mouse dressed all in black with night-vision goggles.

I could see the butcher-block island in the middle of the kitchen. “Mission fuzzy,” I whispered.

Brenda put her black-gloved hands over the skylight to angle a better view. “Command center, I report zero activity.”

I leaned on the skylight a smidgen, balancing most of my weight on the roof. I could smell Brenda’s perfume, sultry and earthy.

I gasped.

Brenda said, “Holy Tomoly.”

It was Alanna. Alanna Post.

I had known Alanna the Man-eater for years. I avoided her at all costs. She was perfect. Blondish hair, highlighted just so, curling under right at her shoulders. Heavy, but annoyingly perfect, makeup. Thin. Oh, I hated how thin she was! Probably a size six. Designer clothes. And always, always, a condescending sneer or raised eyebrow to make it clear that she thought I was a chubby spider beneath her feet. An awkward orangutan with a poofy butt.

And there she was in Snaky Stephen’s house, the doctor that I was going to dump anyhow! I leaned over the skylight, scooching toward the center, then hissed, “It’s the female praying mantis.”

Why are you spying on Stephen on his roof? What about that romance novel? How about getting down?

I gurgled as Alanna the Man-eater slipped off her dress. Underneath, she was wearing a red negligee, black fishnet tights, and black heels.

This I could not have! Stephen had dumped me a month ago. I hadn’t even slept with him, and already he was getting in the flesh with Alanna the Man-eater?

“She has deplorable taste!” Brenda whispered. “If I had an outfit like that on, I would have added a halo and tail.”

“That patronizing witch,” I muttered. “Did I ever tell you Stephen has a flabby bottom?”

We leaned over for better viewing angles.

“Those boobs!” Brenda said, dismayed. “They have to be fake. No one has boobs that upright, do they?”

“No one should have boobs that bouncy-ball perfect, even if they’re fake. It isn’t fair. It’s against the sisterhood of women, the Society of Decent Females.”

Brenda and I scooched a bit more onto the skylight. Alanna had stretched out in front of the fire on the fake thick white fur. If I was wearing that red getup my stomach would be slouching over like a bag of red flour, with the wrinkles etched through my thighs doing little for my sex appeal.

“I wanna be up there, I wanna be up there,” my sister whined from the ground. “Why don’t I ever get to do any of the fun stuff with you two?”

“That’s easy,” I snapped. “It’s because you’re always pregnant, Fertile Myrtle!” Christie had three kids at home with her husband, Cary, the nicest man on the planet.

“Well … well … well!” she sputtered. “Poop!”

I sucked in my breath as Stephen with the flabby bottom stepped into view. He paused when he saw Alanna the Man-eater. I could see his shock. I pushed my feet hard into the roof so I wouldn’t fall off of it.

I’m thirty-five, and I’m climbing on roofs to spy on my ex-boyfriend. What’s wrong with this picture?

“I have got to use this in my next movie. Do you mind, Chalese?” Brenda asked, pushing her night-vision goggles on top of her head.

“If I said I did, would you not use it?”

“Silly lady. I’d use it anyhow.” She winked at me.

“Brenda,” I snapped, “how do you think I feel seeing myself in your movies? All the dumb things we’ve done? Everything stupid I’ve said in my life since we were kids streaming out of some actress’s mouth?”

“Think of it as being famous without the fame. You’re never mobbed by paparazzi, are you? There’s something to be said for that, sweetie. And you don’t need to hire bodyguards.”

I grunted and tugged at the eyeholes in my hat. Brenda and I wrote wild, crazy, thrilling, romantic stories, sometimes with talking animals, when we were kids. She went on to write screenplays, and I went on to be a children’s book writer and illustrator. Who knew we’d end up clinging to a roof?

We moved onto the skylight a smidgen more when the Man-eater stood up.

“Can’t he see the piranha beneath the makeup?” I asked.

“Nope. He’s a man. All he can see is the negligee and bra cup.”

“Men are beasts.” I growled for effect, slashing the air with my claws. Brenda growled back at me, gnashed her teeth.

It was at that beastly second that I heard a crack beneath my hands, then another one.

My face froze in terror.

“Oh no. Move slowly,” Brenda panted. “Slowly.”

I felt the crack beneath my knees. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. This couldn’t be happening. The skylight was not breaking, was it? What was I doing on top of a skylight anyhow?

I watched the alarm in Brenda’s eyes grow to free-flowing fright as another crack ripped through the night. My mouth went dry as stone, and my body started to shake.

“Back up, Chalese!”

I tried, I did, but panic turned my bones to liquid.

Another crack. As Brenda and I locked mortified gazes, the skylight shattered completely, the noise deafening, and we went smashing through it, our fall broken by Snaky Stephen’s butcher-block counter below.

Brenda swore. I screamed. Then she screamed. I swore.

We landed hard, on our knees, but I did not hear any bones crack, any heads splitting open, any limbs disengaging. A piece of glass conked me on the head and splintered.

I groaned. Brenda moaned.

I heard the Man-eater screeching and Stephen yelling “What the hell? What the hell?”

Perhaps he wouldn’t recognize us with our black-knit hats on? Our black leather biker jackets? Our leather pants?

The Man-eater was still at it with her high-pitched, earsplitting howls.

I turned to Brenda and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Ya think, Sherlock?” she whispered back.

We scrambled off the counter, averting our covered faces, hoping we could slink right out of that house. I’d pay Mervin Tunnel to come in and clean up the mess tomorrow. He’d keep his mouth shut; he owed me a favor anyhow.

We had almost limped our way to the kitchen door, glass trailing in our wake, when I heard Stephen say, incredulously, “Chalese, is that you?”

 

Crashing through a skylight like a drunken angel was not the worst part of my week.

Stepping on the scale and noting that, yes, all by myself, I had bravely packed on an extra fifteen pounds was not the worst, either. Nor were the two zits on my cheek, as the zits will undoubtedly complement my hot flashes.

Resisting pressure from Gina Martinez, my friend the pet communicator, who was pestering me to stage a “pet rescue” of a horse she was convinced was “depressed and anxious,” was not on my list for Most Terrible Part of the Week.

Knowing that my next children’s book was already late and I was nowhere close to being done with it had my nerves hyperventilating, but it had not made the list.

Also not on the list was Brenda’s dance on top of a bar in town singing the Pretty Woman theme song. That I went up there with her does not need to be mentioned, except it was one more humiliating thing in my life that I have done, especially since I cannot sing.

The worst part of my week was when the reporter arrived.

It was the morning after the skylight incident. I limped out of my car after collapsing on the sofa at Christie’s for the night, and Aiden Bridger was there, at my yellow house, on my white front porch, one of my slobbery dogs, Mrs. Zebra, in his lap. I was dressed all in black, with a truly pounding hangover and scrapes on my face that made it appear I’d been attacked by a temperamental rat. My long, black, curling hair resembled a dead pelt on my head.

He had that gorgeous, roughed-up, been-around-the-block appearance. He was super tall, a human skyscraper with a lanky build and longish thick brown curls, and I knew that he was gonna be a problem, and not simply because my body about lost all its breath as I took him in. He was … all man. A manly man. A manly muscled man.

“Hello. You must be Chalese.” He stood up, and Mrs. Zebra rolled off his lap and whined. She has no loyalty. If I was ever robbed, she would slobber on the robber. “I’m Aiden Bridger from the Washington Review.”

I knew who he was. Oh boy, did I know who he was.

With one look at him, I knew I was toast, too.

Why? Not because he was cursedly, dangerously hot, but because that he-man reporter could blow my quiet, private life to Kingdom Come. Everyone would know who I was now, and who I was in my other life, and the scandal would be revived again, the shame, the humiliation, and I’d have to deal with all the other bubbling, sordid, sad memories and secrets.

That, definitely, was the worst part of my week.

And, somehow, the best.

“I’ve told you I don’t want to talk to you.”

I grimaced as I limped up the porch steps and tried to glare at him without salivating. Why did he have to be so yummy-rugged and full of such glorious testosterone? That wasn’t fair.

“Yes, I know.” For a few long seconds Aiden stared right at me. His eyes were greenish, and he had long lusty eyelashes. The corners of his mouth tilted up, then back down again.

“What happened? Were you in an accident?”

“No.”

“Did you fall?”

Pause. “Not really.” I glanced away from those bright eyes and reminded myself that men are cagey, deceptive beasts and hairy vermin.

“Did someone hurt you?”

I did not miss the outrage in his tone, the beginning of incredulous fury. My heart didn’t miss it, either, but I told my heart to shut up.

“No, no man would ever hit me, because they know I’d flatten them into a kidney-smeared mass of flesh. I don’t want to talk about it.”

He exhaled, his hands on the waistband of his jeans. “Can I help you? Are you hurt in other places, too?”

Can he help me? Geez. That one little question stopped me right up. How often had a man said “Can I help you?” to me and really meant it? Not often.

“I don’t need help Mr. Bridger. I’m perfect. One hundred percent. Fine. Dandy. Do I seem weak? Some damsel in distress who needs an effeminate white guy with skinny thighs charging up on a white horse for a pathetic rescue?”

“No, ma’am, you don’t.” He grinned. “And I did not bring my white horse anyhow or my skinny thighs.”

I immediately stole a peek at his legs. Long, muscled, not skinny, powerful. Big mistake.

My breath caught and I glanced longingly at my front door, wanting to escape from He-Man here. I had saved every penny and had this house built in a farmhouse style seven years ago. It was small, fifteen hundred square feet, but there were no walls in the downstairs, so it felt bigger. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and my studio, flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling windows and two skylights. I did not want to think about skylights.

“You have a very nice home,” he said, quite serious.

And you have very nice hips. And your shoulders aren’t so bad, either, under that beige, outdoorsy jacket you’re wearing. And sheesh. That jaw. Even the scar above your eyebrow turns me on. Oh, do shut up, Chalese. To distract myself from the prince’s thighs, I said, “Thank you.

“Your view is incredible.”

“It calms my nerves.” You, however, have set my nerves on fire.

“I’ll bet.” He laughed, low and rumbly. “I think it would calm anyone’s nerves.”

My yellow home sat on five bucolic acres on Whale Island off the coast of Washington, with a view of the ocean and two neighboring islands through towering pine trees. The pine trees acted as a natural frame for the moving, changing post-card. I watched sailboats and rowboats glide in and out of a small harbor as I worked.

“I’m detecting a longing note in your voice,” I said. “Do your nerves need calming?”

“Uh, yes. More than I can tell you at this time.”

I nodded. We smiled at each other. Couldn’t help myself. My smile hurt my aching face.

“The deer think they own the place,” I rattled out to fill the silence. “The raccoons have almost formed a union, there’s so many of them. The squirrels have raucous, argumentative family reunions on my back deck, and the birds are bossy and rule the sky.”

He shrugged. “Deer are possessive, raccoons should be unionized, squirrels never get along, and birds always have to see what’s going on in everyone’s lives because they’re nosy. Didn’t you know that?”

Oh no. A he-man with a sense of humor.

He gazed around, his eyes stopping at my seriously dilapidated barn and then the building with the heated kennels for various abused/stray dogs I had taken in over the years until I could adopt them out to happy homes.

My home, and this island, had been the perfect hiding place for me, my mother, and my sister.

And now, after one award, Mr. Bridger here was going to ruin it. “Mr. Bridger …”

“Aiden.”

“Mr. Bridger,” I started again, trying to sound firm through my throbbing headache. “I have already told you I am not interested in doing an interview with you or your newspaper. Any questions from the media always go through my agent. I believe I forwarded you Terry Rudolph’s number already?”

“Got that,” he said softly, still staring at me.

“And?” I raised my eyebrows at him and pushed a stray curl off my face. At least I wasn’t wearing my black burglar cap that covered all my face except my eyes and mouth. I brushed my leather pants with my hands. Gall.

“And what?” He smiled at me then, his intense gaze never leaving my face. I was doomed, doomed. He was even more yummy smiling.

“Shurx …” I tried to speak, could not find words. “Anr … Bix …” I cleared my throat, studied my red Adirondack chairs, the hanging flowers, the wind chimes tinkling over my porch. “And you should leave. Good-bye, Mr. Gorgeous.” I turned away, my kneecaps feeling like they were cracking, then froze.

Oh, please, I begged myself. Please tell yourself you did not say ‘Good-bye, Mr. Gorgeous.’ I hadn’t, had I? My body prickled with pure mortification.

It was his laughter that confirmed it.

“Damn,” I muttered. “By damn, damn. I did say it.”

I did not turn around. “Mr. Bridger, please go. I don’t want an article written about me, not now, not ever. I’m a private person, have a private life, and I want to keep it that way.”

“I understand that. Privacy is one cool thing.”

I did not turn around to look at him, because my acute embarrassment was causing a hot flash. Hot flashes at thirty-five years old. Gimme a break. My mother had had them early, too. And her mother. My mother called them her “skin boilers.” Her mother called them “the devil’s heat spells.”

I called them my “sweatfests.”

“Ms. Hamilton, it’s going to be announced very shortly here that you’ve won the Carmichael Children’s Book Award. Our paper had a contact on the committee, and we want to get the story written on you first. You’re already famous under your pen name. Your books are famous. They’ve sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and yet no one knows anything about you.”

“I would bet, Mr. Bridger, that you know a thing or two about me, isn’t that correct?” I could feel my spine tingling, that old fear of discovery flaming around me. “After all, you found me, you know my name.”

“I know your pen name is Annabelle Purples but very little else. Certainly not enough to write my article.”

“There will be no article.” I shook my head. Glass tinkled to the porch. “Nada. None.”

I saw the alarm on Aiden’s face. “You had glass in your hair. Are you all right?”

“Absolutely splendid.” I was exhausted. My body ached, I had dried blood on my legs and hands, my hangover was merciless, and I’d hardly slept. First thing this morning I’d paid Mervin to repair Stephen’s skylight. Brenda and I had done our best to clean up the kitchen after making a serendipitous call to Christie to tell her to stay out of the house.

The Man-eater in her red negligee had been furious, scathing, degrading. Stephen hadn’t been much better. I believe the words “pathetic … jealous … criminal” had left his mouth. I had promised him a better skylight, immediately installed, and a cleaning woman to fix the rest of the mess in exchange for his not calling the police.

The Man-eater had smirked at me when we’d left. “Get over it, Chalese. Be a mature woman and leave us alone. Stephen doesn’t need a jelly maker who is always doing stupid stuff and is obsessed with animals for a wife. He doesn’t want you.”

I’d scuttled out like a humiliated cockroach after Brenda told the Man-eater her negligee was “uninventive, boring staid” and that Stephen had the face of an “uptight, constipated prune.”

“No, thank you very much, Mr. Bridger.” I put my key in the lock. “Good-bye.”

“Okay. Got it. But you’re hurt, aren’t you?”

“I’m Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah fine. All is well. Calm and collected.”

I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. He was trying not to laugh. “It has occurred to me that you’ve had quite a night. Were you at some biker event? A women’s wrestling contest? A costume party where everyone had to wear leather?”

“Take your pick. I get a high out of riding motorcycles, wrestling has its appeal, and I do have wacky friends who might be inclined to have a leather party. Adios, Mr. Bridger.”

“I’m good at putting bandages on.”

“I’m sure you’re good at a lot of things,” I drawled, then snapped that traitorous mouth shut. “I mean I’m sure you have many talents.” Darn. I yanked at the door. Must escape from Mr. Gorgeous!

“And I’d really like to help you get that glass out of your hair. Please?” His voice was soft and manly and would taste so good hearing it close to my ear. “It’s against my chivalrous, princely nature to let a damsel in distress, or a damsel with glass in her hair, fend for herself.”

“This damsel is one tough woman and does not need a man in her life to cope or live or be happy or get glass out of her hair. And this is what I know about princes—the prince is probably gay, I’d have to deal with his supercilious mother, the queen, I don’t admire men in tights, and if I want a horse I can buy myself a whole damn stable.”

“You didn’t buy into the whole fairy-tale thing as a kid, did you?”

“No. Why should I? The most interesting things in those stories were the talking mirror that told the truth, the dress-sewing mice, and an apple that could put someone to sleep with one bite. I was also fascinated by the vengeful witches, whom I admired.”

“Already you’re fascinating to me, definitely not a damsel in any distress at all. Perhaps you should ride up on the charging horse.”

“I’m boring. I’m dull. Trust me. I write and illustrate children’s books. I take care of stray and abused animals found on the islands and try to find them homes. I hang out with my sister, who has been almost constantly pregnant for six years, and my childhood friend, Brenda, who is a menace. I take walks. That’s it. That’s all.”

I opened the door to my home.

“Ms. Hamilton, I’m sorry.”

I turned around. The motion killed me again. My back felt like it was splitting. “Why are you sorry?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to write this article. I’m going to stick around Whale Island for a while, talk to people, get a feel for the mysterious children’s writer who is going to be even more famous next month when the award is announced. You’ve been assigned to me, and with you or without you, I have to write it.”

My air got stuck in my lungs. I figured it was my past drowning me. I felt a tightening in my shoulders. I figured it was my instincts pushing me to run. My secret would be blown to smithereens. A flood of memories came pouring on in, cameras and furious people, newspapers and reporters, crushing us, shouting, demanding answers.

“People want to know the authors they love. You write kids’ stories with these fully developed animal characters, and you’re always addressing the problems we have—environmental, social, animal rights, racial issues, politics. You have books that address loneliness, sadness, not having friends, but you use animals to get your point across in a way kids can relate to. It’s brilliant.”

I leaned my forehead against the door, then banged it lightly a few times. I took the he-man heartthrob reporter in one more time. He meant what he said. He was going to write the story with or without me. Maybe if I talked to him I could throw him off the scent, the article would be brief, six people would read it, and that would be that.

“Mr. Bridger, you are a pain in the butt.”

He nodded amicably. “Been called worse.”

I left the door open. I had to. I didn’t have a choice.

The prince with the powerful thighs followed me in.

 

“Let me get this straight. No one on this island knows that you are Annabelle Purples, is that right?”

I let my eyes wander around my home before answering that truly problematic question. The décor was blue and white, with lots of glassworks, pottery, and paintings made by artist friends on the island. Plus stacks of old books, quilts, and three framed pictures of Greece, a country I had promised myself I would visit in this lifetime.

I bit my lip, then nodded at Mr. Gorgeous. “That’s right. No one knows except my mother, my sister and her husband, and my friends Brenda and Gina, who has hair all the way down to her rear. Sometimes she sticks real flowers in it. She’s a hippie.” I wrung my hands, my nervousness unnerving me. “You didn’t need to know that.”

He blinked. “I respect hippies. But so I’m clear here, the other islanders think you sell jams and jellies and take care of stray and abused animals?”

“That’s right again. My, aren’t you sharp.” I had shown him a storage room that held the jams and jellies I slaved over in between writing books. Each label read “Wild Girl’s Jams and Jellies.”

“And you want who you are to stay secret?” Aiden leaned toward me across my rattan coffee table, the sunlight streaming through the room.

I rolled my shoulders inside my black leather motorcycle jacket. Even my elbows hurt. “Now you’ve been right three whole times. You’re a freakin’ genius.”

“Because you’re a private person?”

“Yes.” And I have something from my past to hide, but no need to split hairs, right? “Privacy is good. Like air. Like cheesy pizza. Like having working intestines.”

He paused to consider that bit of wisdom.

“Why?”

“Why what?” My golden, one-eyed cat, Racy, curled around my legs, and I stroked her back.

“Why the secrecy? Aren’t you proud of who are, what you’ve accomplished?”

Proud of who I am? For years I had wanted to crawl in a hole with the worms and wiggle my way farther into the dirt, I was so ashamed. “I’m glad that kids like my books.” That was true. If one kid, one place on Earth, learned something from my books, learned to read better … Well, that was more than good enough for me.

“They love your books, but you didn’t answer the question. Aren’t you proud of yourself?”

Proud of myself. No. I didn’t even really understand what “proud of myself” would entail. “Want some more coffee?” I stood up. Aiden didn’t stand. He leaned back in my plush blue-striped chair and linked his hands behind his head.

Why did he have to ooze such masculinity in my pretty messy family room?

“Nice try, Chalese. Why are you dodging the question? And for the third time, can I help you get the glass out of your hair? It’s making me nervous. I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt again. You could step on it later and cut your foot ….”

“I’m not dodging it, and stay out of my hair. Why would I let a stranger paw through the glass in my hair anyhow?” I felt the vague zip of a caffeine headache. “I want coffee. I am going to perish without it. In fact, I want to take these clothes off and get in the shower and wash my hair because it’s a wreck.” Oh, hell. Had I said that? Had I said “take these clothes off”? I stalked to the kitchen, my black leather boots thumping on the wood floor.

Aiden said something. I was tempted to keep marching, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What?”

“I said your hair is fine to me.”

My face grew hot, so did my neck, and my forehead broke out in beads of sweat. Hot flash. Oh, why? Why now? I grabbed the coffee pot and shoved it under the faucet, then fumbled for a bag of coffee beans. I attempted to pour the beans into the grinder, but the beans spilled all over the floor. I grabbed a broom. Aiden grabbed the dustpan. “You don’t have to help.”

“I want to help. I’m drinking the coffee, right?”

When that was cleaned up, I tried to pour the beans into the grinder with my trembling hands again. Same experience. Beans everywhere. My internal thermometer shot up eight hundred degrees, and I sweated.

I wanted to cry. I stopped, gripped the counter, and turned away.

“Hey,” Aiden said, his voice quiet, reassuring. “It’s all right, Chalese. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” I squished my eyes shut and wiped my forehead. It wasn’t nothing.

“Chalese, I’m not trying to wreck your privacy. To be honest with you, if I don’t write the story, someone else will at this point.”

I put my cool, wet hands to my flaming face. That was true. That award was gonna rip me out into the open like a hunting target.

I turned away from him and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “Can you write the article without using my real name?”

“Use your pen name, Annabelle Purples, instead?”

“Yes.”

“No. I can’t.”

“Why not?’

“Because it’s not your real name, Chalese.”

Chalese Hamilton isn’t my real name, either. The need to cry ballooned up again. So unusual for me. I’ve been burying my tears forever.

I felt the inside of me crumbling. I made a muffled sound against my hand.

“Chalese, please,” Aiden said, his voice soft and warm. “I’m sorry. I am. Let me take you out to breakfast—”

Whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by the doorbell.

Sniffling, I hurried over to the door, glad for the reprieve. Perhaps it was a Martian and I could go to Saturn with him and be used for alien experiments.

The second I opened the door to a human, not an alien, I wished I hadn’t.

I wished I’d skipped out the back door, toward the fields, or to the ocean. Or to my boat at the dock, always waiting to take me on a little jaunt with the whales that circle our islands on their migration journeys.

“Chief O’Connaghey,” I squeaked, dread filling my stomach. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Hello, Chalese!” He grinned at me, almost proudly. “It seems we have a problem again. Yep. Another problem.” He whistled. “This one is a doozer, sugar. Where’s your co-conspirator? She here?”

Chief O’Connaghey was about sixty years old. He and his wife, Indira, who was from India, were friends of my mother’s. He was ultrasmart. Had been a trader in New York City for decades before completely changing his line of work. His wife had threatened to divorce him because she was sick of him working all the time, and that was that.

Two weeks later they were out on Whale Island, where her family lived, and he was training to be a police officer on the mainland. Two years later, he was police chief on the island. He was kind and compassionate, the president of the Whale Island Garden Society, and ran his department with a steel hand. “No crime permitted on the island”—that was his first motto. His second motto was “No crime and we’ll all have a good time.”

“Chalese, do you want to tell me something?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I hung my head. I felt sick. Utterly ill. We hadn’t meant to crack the skylight. Anyway, it was being fixed …. I had had too many daiquiris …. Brenda always got me into trouble …. Sheesh. I could explain. Couldn’t I? No, probably not. Guilty as charged. I exhaled. Dear me, my breath should be incinerated. I heard Aiden walking up behind my smelly self.

“Chalese?” the chief prodded.

“Aiden, how about if you go out on my back deck for a sec? Count birds. Make a daisy crown for your head. Nap.”

Aiden returned my pointed stare, smiled, then stuck a hand out to the chief. “Aiden Bridger.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bridger. I’m Chief O’Connaghey. Who are you to Chalese here? I know I haven’t met you before.”

I tilted my head up toward Aiden, beseeched him with my eyes. Pleaded with him. Not yet, don’t tell anybody yet about me, about the article. I saw something flash in those green sex pits.

“I’m a friend of Chalese’s,” he declared.

“Ah. A friend of Chalese’s.” The chief rocked back on his heels. “Where do you live?”

“I live in Seattle.”

“Hmmm. Well, pleased to meet you. Now, Chalese, why don’t we have a little chat, shall we?”

“Good idea.” I scooted out the front door and turned to shut it behind me as quick as I could. Aiden was having none of it. He put his hand on the door and ambled on out. In the distance I heard a low, purring growl.

That would be Brenda in her zippy sports convertible, the top down.

“Well, now!” the chief declared in triumph. “The co-conspirator is coming to turn herself in.”

“I … uh … hmmm …” Darn that snaky stiff, Stephen with the flabby bottom. I thought we’d had an agreement.

Aiden was clearly amused.

“Aiden, please go to my back deck and try to catch butterflies or something.”

“I think I’ll stay.”

“This isn’t your business.”

“I think it is.” He grinned. My heart leaped. “Maybe this will explain the leather outfit and those kick-butt boots.”

The car door slammed, and Brenda, who had changed into a skimpy, cherry-red sundress, her fluffy hair lush and clean, big glasses covering half her face, and wearing four-inch-high red heels, skipped onto the porch, hips swinging. “I’m guilty, Chief! I’m guilty! Arrest me! It was my idea, and I forced Chalese to do it! Forced her!”

Mrs. Zebra bounded out to say hello. Brenda paused, bent to cup the dog’s face and kiss her, then was up again announcing her guilt. She dumped her designer purse and bag on the front step of my porch and held out her wrists to be cuffed, but not before she smiled brightly at Aiden and drawled, “Wellll, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? Chalese! Who! Is! This! My, oh my, you are scrumptious!”

She shook Aiden’s hand, then flipped her hair back over her shoulders and her glasses to the top of her head. As usual Brenda was wearing bright red lipstick and elegant, flower-shaped jewelry I knew well. “Scrumptious!” she declared again.

“Yes, indeedy, he is. Let’s wrap him up in a strawberry pancake and eat him,” I snapped. “A little powdered sugar, and he’ll go down fine.”

Brenda humphed at me, but then a quizzical expression crossed her face and her brows knit together. “I know who he is! He’s that terrible bulldog who wants to—”

I clamped my hand over Brenda’s lipsticked mouth. “Not now, my friend, not now.”

The chief crossed his arms. He does that when he’s analyzing confounding situations.

I released Brenda. “Personal information,” I told the chief.

Brenda glared at Aiden, hands on. . .