By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

The mother of a teenage daughter and head of a talent agency, recently widowed Kate Rose is still tormented by the past--the betrayal of the lover who fathered her child and an unfulfilled marriage--until Jake Talbot reenters her life after seventeen years.

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

A Moment Long Ago…

The church sat on a rise at the forgotten end of town. White clapboard siding encased it, and five cement stairs capped by a railing that hung drunkenly amidst blistered, chipped paint stood out against a threatening sky so black it made the hair on Katie Tindel’s arms rise just looking at it.

She squeezed Jake’s hand to reassure herself, shivering, huddled within his navy blue and gold letter jacket. “It’s so dark,” she whispered.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” He grinned, bright teeth gleaming, blue-gray eyes dancing with excitement.

She caught the fever, smiling back. Jake threw his arm around her, and they ran up the stairs to the slanted porch, crowding together as a blast of lightning lit the sky, followed by a thunderclap that nearly deafened.

Jake’s lips parted as they watched together. Katie could feel his heart racing next to hers. Her thoughts ran in a jumble of happiness through her mind.

Glancing down at her, Jake leaned forward and kissed her with lips that were cool and dry and curved with the beauty of this special time for them.

Rain poured. Buckets of it. A shimmering silver curtain that enveloped them both. The electric scent of ozone in the wake of another zap of lightning brought a sense of exhilaration that was inexplicable to anyone but those whom it touched.

Katie was not immune. She ran down the cement steps, lifting her arms to the heavens and her face to the rain’s torrent. Jake laughed, ran after her, swept her up and carried her back to the church’s front doors. He fumbled for the handle, still carrying her. Katie kissed his face, all over. The doors swung open, the lock picked by Jake earlier that morning. Just a small bit of breaking and entering—all for a good cause. Nothing the good Lord could blame them for, for this was their day. Their destiny. Their untouched future.

The church was empty. Abandoned. A For Sale sign swung forlornly at the end of the lane, nearly obscured by the current downpour. But it didn’t matter. This, too, was their church. Their private place. They would lock up later, but for now Jake managed to pull the doors closed behind them while Kate’s arms surrounded his neck and she held on for dear life.

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

“I love you more,” he answered automatically.

It was a game they played. They had played it all through this last year of high school, and now with graduation just around the corner, their love had reached a new level, a new distinction. The physical side had yet to be breached. They had waited for the right moment, and on this April night with a symphony of rain surrounding them they planned to pledge their love to each other solemnly and permanently, in a church, a secret “marriage” that his parents would never really allow.

With long, ground-devouring strides Jake carried Kate toward the altar. His steps were hollow. The room swirled with drafts from cracks around the windows. One pane was blocked by plywood; some caring citizen’s attempt to keep the church from becoming the home of vagabonds and thieves.

The pews sat straight and rigid at attention—Jake and Kate’s only witnesses. Setting her on her feet in front of the altar whose maple base was carved in a relief of autumn leaves, Jake cupped Kate’s face in his cool, strong hands. They stared at each other, lost in their love.

“Look in the pockets of my jacket,” Jake urged, and Katie dug inside to discover two white candles, two tiny crystal candlesticks, a book of matches and a Bible. Solemnly, silently, she handed the rich booty to her “husband-to-be,” and Jake set the candles upon the altar, striking the match and lighting the wicks with a tiny gold and blue flame.

A wisp of smoke and the scent of candle wax. Kate slowly shed Jake’s jacket and stood beside him in a short white satin gown studded with seed pearls in an all over design of rosebuds. She had saved her dimes and nickels all school year from the job she had taken at a local restaurant. College was a dim thought, distant and indistinct. Her love for Jake was bright and real, and she had searched long and hard for the perfect dress, finding it unexpectedly in a boutique that also sold used clothing. The dress had a history; the saleslady said it had been owned originally by a wealthy woman who had purchased it for her daughter’s coming out party. The daughter had spurned the dress, and the mother had shoved it to the back of a closet. Finally she had rediscovered it and sold it second-hand. Kate had walked into the store the day it was draped across an antique rocker in the store’s window. It still cost a small fortune. She had put down twenty-five dollars to hold it and paid off the rest over time.

Now, today, she wore it proudly as she stood beside Jake. His rain-soaked shoulders were broad beside hers. Glancing down at her own drenched feet, she silently bemoaned the destruction of her cream pumps. But it was worth it.

“I love you,” he whispered, turning toward her, taking her hands in his.

“I love you more,” she answered on a breath.

Swallowing, Jake took a small, crumpled paper from his pocket, and Kate listened as he “married” her with words of love and commitment. Her own avowal came straight from the heart, not merely memorized, but felt from the soul. They stared at each other in the silence that followed, candlelight flickering eerily over their faces.

She gazed at his strong jaw, the darkening of beard, the beauty of eyes a dusky blue that was almost gray. His brows were straight, his mouth unusually sensual in such a masculine countenance. A shock of hair fell over his forehead, the only boyish quality still left in Jacob Talbot’s face.

He kissed her, and his lips felt soft, yet strong and determined. He loved her. He loved her. She could still scarcely believe her good fortune. She was poor and struggling and he came from wealth, but it didn’t matter. He had chosen her and she had chosen him, and the world was theirs for the taking.

Outside again, the candles snuffed, their ceremony complete, they stood on the porch and listened to the rain. Four weeks till graduation, and someday, somewhere, a real marriage sanctioned by church and state.

But today they owned each other’s hearts.

In unspoken agreement they ran for Jake’s car, laughing madly. As if the heavens were teasing, a deluge of precipitation pummeled the car, covering the windows with the visibility of a carwash.

Their plan was to drive twenty miles to the outskirts of Portland and rent a room at a motel. People knew them in their little suburb of Lakehaven far too well—at least they knew Jake. Talbot Industries was a huge Portland concern, and the fact that Jake’s parents lived in the community west of the city, on the way to the coast, meant only that the local residents knew the Who’s Who of their town even better.

But now in the steamy intimacy of Jake’s sports car, a bit of high school rebellion and fantasy intervened. When he leaned forward for another kiss, Katie suddenly knew she wanted to make love to him here and now, with rain curtaining them from the outside world. It seemed more romantic. Juvenile, perhaps, but something to remember for years to come and chuckle about in old age.

And when she whispered her desire in Jake’s ear, he grinned hugely, a flash of white that was his trademark—a smile as bright as Hollywood.

They relit the candles and placed them on the dash. Climbing into the backseat, Jake laid his jacket on the leather tuck and roll. The scent of vanilla wafted from the candles and mixed with his cologne as Jake made love to her awkwardly and tenderly, both of them giggling as they whispered their vows again and again, conscious not to rock the candles from their crystal candlesticks.

It was only much, much later, when her dreams had turned to dust and she was left alone, that Kate realized the tragedy of sharp memory. Yes, she remembered their lovemaking. Yes, it was etched forever in her mind. But it was painful and stabbing instead of soft and romantic, and it could never be forgotten, for those first awkward moments together, followed by lovemaking in more conventional places, had produced a child. A daughter. April. Named for the month she was conceived and a wedding that never was. April, her lovechild. Hers and Jake’s.

The daughter he had never learned he had sired.

Today…

“Try this one,” the saleslady suggested, holding out a gilt and faux crystal atomizer for Kate’s inspection. She spritzed a cloud of perfume somewhere near Kate’s wrist. The scent rose up like fragrant mist from a lake, a soft, sweet faintly musky aroma that reminded Kate of something sad and long ago.

Jake Talbot…a forgotten wedding…gentle misery.

“No thanks,” Kate murmured, swallowing.

It had been years. Eons. Several hundred lifetimes since she had seen or heard from him, yet reminders crept in like cold fog swirling around her. She would be doing something mundane and normal—like shopping—and then it would happen. Some memory would surface, swimming to the forefront of her mind to torment and hurt.

Yet why should it hurt now? she asked herself as she left the perfume counter and stumbled blindly through the store. Since Jake’s defection she had lived a whole new life. She was no longer naive Katie Tindel. She was Kate Rose. Married, widowed and mother of a seventeen-yearold daughter whose dusky blue eyes reminded her of Jake, but whose sweet and slightly devilish character reminded her of herself.

Okay, that wasn’t quite fair. Jake had been devilish, too. They had found each other in high school, and kindred spirits had bonded. But then he had left. Abandoned her. And she had been forced to grow up fast and discover the new life she was meant to have.

Now, thinking back, she still shuddered at the pain. Even before she had learned of her pregnancy, Jake had left her. He had taken off right after graduation for a trip to Europe, promising to call, write and bind them together legally. A real marriage, he had assured her. But then he had disappeared, and when Kate realized she was carrying his child, she couldn’t live on dreams anymore.

Pregnant and lost, she had shown up on Jake’s parents’ doorstep. She hadn’t known what to expect, certainly not a warm welcome, but neither had she anticipated the Talbots’ frigid antipathy. Desperate to contact Jake, she would have walked through a lion’s den to find him.

Unknowingly, she came pretty darn close when she met with Marilyn and Phillip Talbot that afternoon in late June. Her hand was lifted to knock when the door was suddenly thrown open, as if her presence had been expected and entirely unwelcome .

“Yes?” asked his perfectly groomed, tough-eyed mother.

Though Kate had been introduced to Marilyn Talbot once before, the woman chose not to remember her. Swallowing back the news that had forced this meeting, Kate said in a small voice, “I’m Katie Tindel. We met once before. I’m a friend of Jake’s.”

Marilyn had a snob’s knack of looking down her nose. In heels, she was a couple of inches taller than Kate, and she used her height to her advantage. “Jake’s not here,” she stated firmly.

“Will he be back soon?”

Marilyn’s lips pursed. Kate braced herself for the bellow of rejection she expected to blast her. She had known from the onset of her relationship with Jake that his parents would never accept her as his girlfriend. She wasn’t in their league, and though Jake had scrupulously avoided the issue, playing light on his parents’ disinterest in his girlfriend, Kate had easily picked up the vibes. She wasn’t good enough, and that was that.

But now she was pregnant, with their grandchild. She desperately wished for Jake to magically appear, but it was not to be.

“I really need to see him,” she choked out.

“You’d better come in,” Marilyn invited stonily.

This was more than Kate had expected. With trepidation she crossed the threshold and followed Jake’s mother along the thick oriental carpet runner that flowed into a mahogany-paneled den at the south end of the Talbot minimansion.

It was late afternoon, a rather wintry June day, which wasn’t unusual for Oregon in the least. Summers started late, sometimes in the middle of August, but Septembers and Octobers were generally warm and gorgeous.

On this day rain pounded outside, and a maple tree limb slapped against the paned windows, its green leaves tragically ripped from the branch or shredded with each successive beat. Kate stared at the tattered leaves through a haze of self-involvement. She could scarcely keep her mind on the words issuing from Marilyn’s mouth.

“You’re very young,” Jake’s mother kept insisting. “It’s silly to think there’s anything between the two of you that would have any true meaning. Do you understand me? I’m not trying to be cruel.”

Maybe not. But it sounded cruel. Beneath the polished voice lay an anxious desire to cut Kate out like a cancer. Kate was too intuitive to miss the real message.

“Jacob’s in Europe for the summer,” she went on, shocking Kate to her toes.

“I thought he was just supposed to go for a couple of weeks. He said he would call if things changed!”

“I’m sorry.”

Kate couldn’t take it all in. “When—when did this happen?”

“As soon as he got there. He had wanted to—get away.”

Untrue! Kate’s inner voice cried. He had never wanted to go in the first place! Marilyn was lying, forcing her will on both of them, dividing them like a knife.

Jake’s mother sat primly on a peach-colored, velvet, wingbacked chair, her hands folded in her lap. Kate glanced her way and saw the clasped white knuckles which belied her composure. Tension was thick enough to almost see. Indeed it felt as if a mist had entered the room.

“What’s your name again?” she asked with a faint gesture of apology. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”

“Kate Tindel,” she whispered. The room was cold. No, it was hot. Dear Lord, was she going to pass out?

“Miss Tindel, Jacob has responsibilities to his family. Surely you know that.”

“I just want to talk to him,” she said from far, far away.

“I understand, but it’s just not possible. He’s gone.” She shifted in her chair, and just when Kate thought things couldn’t get any worse, Phillip Talbot’s large frame filled the open doorway. He was the epitome of a patriarch: broad chest, bulldog chin, steel gray eyes and hair streaked with silver. His mouth was hard and unsmiling, and Kate shrank inside her own skin. Marilyn, with her poise and haute couture, was bad enough; Phillip Talbot was pure iron.

Even in her distracted state, memory swirled. She recalled Jake relating the exploits of his black sheep older brother, Phillip, Jr., who was six years Jake’s senior. Kate had never met him, but Phillip’s wild ways and lack of responsibility had nearly gotten him thrown out of the family. As she watched Phillip, Sr., flank his wife, placing one hand on her shoulder as they both faced Kate—the enemy—Kate silently sympathized with Phillip, Jr., for running wild.

“Miss Tindel,” Phillip, Sr., said to Kate, booming out her name with a familiarity that sent her nerves into overdrive. Clearly he had heard Marilyn address her before he had walked in the room. “Jacob is in Europe for the summer. After that, Harvard.”

“Harvard?” She felt like a parrot, repeating everything, but it was all so foreign, so wrong! Jake didn’t want to go to Harvard; that was his parents’ wish. He wanted to stay in state, so they could be together.

“The point is, he’s not coming back.”

“You mean, he’s going directly to Harvard after his Europe vacation?”

“He’s not coming home at all,” Phillip declared bluntly.

Kate wanted to cry. Her lips quivered, and she waited for the nightmare to end. They were serious. Jake was gone, and she knew without asking that they wouldn’t tell her how to contact him.

Her heart beat at her temple. She should tell them. There was no other choice. They needed to know she was carrying his child.

“I’m pregnant,” she said at the same moment Phillip Talbot informed her, “He’s with his fiancée.”

Kate blinked twice. Her mouth gaped open. A roaring in her ears. She saw the flicker of annoyance cross Phillip’s face the instant before her knees gave way and she collapsed in a dead faint.

Later she realized she hadn’t truly voiced her condition. The words had just reached her lips, about to be spoken, when Phillip Talbot, Sr., announced that Jake was with his fiancée.

Fiancée! The word had a dreaded ring to it. Kate hated this unknown witch as soon as she learned the woman existed. She instantly envisioned some man-stealing, coldblooded vixen with long, red fingernails and lips that curved into a sneer rather than a smile.

But her hate was infantile and useless, an emotion she could indulge in because what she really felt was hurt and fear. Jake had hurt her. Crushed her. Stolen her faith in love and happiness. She was scared right down to her socks because she was eighteen, pregnant and with no family she could depend on.

A girl she knew had taken an apartment on the outskirts of Portland. Kate had already been spending more time with her than at home, and after that meeting with the Talbots she moved in with her lock, stock and barrel. Her parents never knew she was carrying Jake’s child; she never told them. They said goodbye to her when she gathered her meager belongings, and their only subsequent contact with her was when Kate initiated it.

“You got a letter,” her father mentioned to her on the phone later that fateful summer. “A couple of ‘em. From Switzerland and some other Europe place, I guess.”

Jake! Kate’s initial thrill was instantly snuffed. A “Dear Jane” letter, no doubt. “Burn them,” she bit out in a tight voice. She slammed down the phone, shaking all over, agonizing over what words he may have written. In a fit of emotion she drove to her parents’ house that evening only to find her father had taken her at her word. Jake’s letters were ashes. Well, so be it. It was better not knowing. When she left Lakehaven that night she didn’t return for a long, long time.

But it was all so long ago…

Now, with a blast of August heat hitting her square in the face as she stepped out of the air-conditioned department store to the street, Kate watched gooseflesh rise on her arms. Memories of Jake still had the power to undo her. Ridiculous, but true.

Sweat dampened the armholes of her sleeveless, taupe linen dress as Kate walked determinedly through afternoon Portland shoppers. She clicked the remote lock for her vehicle, a Mustang Saleen, a sports car nearly as ridiculous as the one she and Jake had first made love in so many years ago.

Only hers was midnight blue, not black. She smiled grimly to herself as she climbed inside. These small things counted mightily.

Heat sweltered as she maneuvered into traffic and waited for the air-conditioning to blast away the stuffiness inside her convertible. Too much money, but Ben had bought it for her and she hadn’t demurred. That’s what happened when you married for money instead of love.

Not fair, she told herself. She hadn’t married for money. She had married for—desperation. Pregnant, alone and a burden to parents who had never cared about her in the first place, Kate had taken a job at Rose Talent Agency that August as a part-time receptionist. The owner of the business, Ben Rose, was refreshingly, if bluntly, honest.

“You’re pretty and you look like you might have a few brains inside that head of yours,” he had assessed her. “You don’t have to do much. But wipe that sadness out of your eyes. This is a happy place.”

“I’ll try.” Kate was grateful.

“Don’t try, do it.”

He cushioned that remark with a quick smile. Charm was not Ben Rose’s strong point; but he was magnetic in his power, and people turned to him as Kate soon learned.

She also learned that he liked her a little more than she felt comfortable with. Was this how he treated each new, feminine employee? No, she found out from the two women who also worked there. Ben was notoriously standoffish with the “help.” They both found it highly amusing that he was smitten with Kate, but Kate was in a quandary about how to proceed.

And then…he asked her to marry him. Boom!

It was after hours. Kate had worked at the agency a month to the day. It was September, and the agony of her secret pregnancy gnawed at her like a beast from within. Soon she would have to take some steps. Soon…But what?

She was seated at her desk, staring at the appointment calendar open to the date—September 5. A year earlier, Jake had first kissed her on September 5.

Ben Rose’s slightly gnarled hand came into view. His hands showed his age, though he scrupulously dyed his hair a light brown that looked natural even when the gray showed through a bit.

She stared at his hand, so carefully placed in front of her line of vision. With a magician’s flair he suddenly lifted his palm, and on the teak desk top glimmered a gold band studded with diamonds.

She glanced up, quizzically. He stared her down.

“The sadness is still there,” he said. “I’d like to help take it away, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said without a moment of thought. This time the words passed her lips.

His brows lifted. He considered. He was not, as Kate had believed, put off by the idea. He gave his quick smile and said, “I’ve always wanted a little girl.”

And Kate broke into heartbreaking sobs to which Ben pulled her into the comfort of his arms. He stroked her head with the tenderness of a father, something she had never really known. Her own father was a selfish man who had resented having another mouth to feed besides her mother. It was the unspoken rule that she leave home right after high school. She hadn’t told either of them about her dilemma.

She married Ben two weeks later, a quick ceremony in front of a judge. No candles, no church, no breathless romance. Kate would have none of it, which suited Ben Rose just fine.

So Katie Tindel became Kate Rose, and April Rose was born in January. Ben balked at the name. “April Rose is like Holly Tree, or Candy Barr! It’s terrible.”

“Her name is April,” Kate insisted, for that was when she was conceived. “She can go by Tindel.”

“No!” He nearly had a coronary over the idea. “I want everyone to know she’s my daughter. She’s no one else’s. Do you understand?”

Kate understood implicitly, though she wasn’t sure she liked the idea all that well. Ben wanted everyone to think April was his daughter, and if people believed she came into the world a few months too early, well, that was their problem. In time they wouldn’t care; they might not even remember.

So April arrived in late January and was christened with a moniker that never bothered her. She was sweet and lithe and blase and possessed a smile as bright as Hollywood—just like Jake’s. Sometimes it made Kate’s heart break a little to be reminded of her first love, but there was nothing to be done about it. All that showed of Kate in April was a peeking dimple and light brown hair shot with streaks of gold. Her eyes were Jake’s grayish blue ones. They gleamed with mischief and strength of personality. And there was no telling April Rose much of anything, Kate learned as her daughter grew up. She was her own person—to a fault!

Thinking of April reminded Kate that her daughter was supposed to show up at the talent agency this afternoon. In a strange parallel, April was working as a part-time receptionist at the talent agency as Kate had when she was still a teenager.

Life is a circle.

Hurrying, Kate parked the car in her designated spot in the one-time warehouse’s underground lot. The elevator doors were open, and she pushed a button for the third floor. With a jolt and chug the old machinery lifted her upward. The bell dinged and the doors slid open, and Kate hurried down the newly redone oak floors to the heavy green metal door with the bold black and gold lettering that announced, ROSE TALENT AGENCY.

Grabbing the handle with both hands, Kate jerked hard. With a rumble the door reluctantly gave way, revealing the warehouse loft that had been converted into offices in Portland’s once tawdry, now tony, northwest industrial district. It was her agency, and as she crossed the sanded and stripped hardwood floor, she didn’t know whether to groan or smile at the wildly ringing phones and her assistant Jillian’s bouncing, frizzy curls as she answered three lines in a row, “Rose Talent, please hold and someone knowledgeable will be with you in a heartbeat!” Unorthodox was the word to describe Jillian, but she was also loyal, efficient and a tornado in three-inch red pumps.

Kate signaled that she would be in her office, a cubicle in bright blue with a watercolor of the coastal town of Astoria adorning one wall. Jillian’s curls bobbed as she caught the first line. “Good morning and thanks for waiting. You’re a peach. What can we do for you?”

Discarding her short Eton, Kate ran fingers through her own shoulder-length, blond/brown hair. Summertime it was blonder; winter it could border on dishwater. Today it felt hot and sticky against the back of her neck, and she wistfully wished for a cool rain.

A frisson of memory made her shiver, and she glanced around superstitiously. Sometimes rain, or even the thought of it, reminded her of Jake Talbot and that silly wedding so long ago. A lifetime ago. She had been married—really married—a millenium since.

But like the musky perfume at the department store counter earlier, once in a while something reminded her. Some trick of her dormant brain. Some faint déjà vu. Then, like now, she would remember and wish she had been smarter as a teenager.

Fighting the memory, Kate hugged herself, rubbing opposite elbows briskly. Since Ben’s death she had been more susceptible to this kind of thing. Funny. But just one more dish to add to a plate already way too full.

Her phone buzzed. Through the side of her office that was a window open to the main room she saw Jillian waving madly.

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked into the intercom.

“It’s Delilah. She’s here and she’s coming your way!”

At that moment a wild-eyed Delilah Harris rushed past Jillian’s desk in a beeline for Kate’s office. Groaning inwardly Kate grabbed for the tissues placed conveniently on her credenza just as her door flew open.

“They cut me out!” Delilah wailed, throwing out her arms. “They cut me out!”

“Who did?” Kate asked.

“Those—those cheerleader people. I went in this morning and they—they—”

“Here,” Kate said, pressing the tissues into Delilah’s hand.

Delilah sniffed and dabbed at tears that came way too easily. She was an actress/model and inclined to behave as she thought actor/models should. This meant hysterics at every conceivable occasion. Kate had worked at the talent agency since she was eighteen and had learned that although talented people could be high strung, they didn’t have to act like two-year-olds.

Delilah had yet to learn that lesson.

“They brought in real cheerleaders!” she declared with affront. “Paid them nothing, and those smug little witches didn’t care! They just smiled and jumped around like frogs! It was awful.” She broke into keening sobs.

Kate inwardly sighed. Since the agency had specific prices per hour, this, too, was nothing new to the industry. When companies could cut their advertising overhead, they did. Delilah’s job was supposed to have been modeling for a catalog that displayed cheerleading uniforms, but her price was awfully high if you could get real cheerleaders for nothing.

“So, they sent you home. Did they sign the voucher for the work you did?” This was how the agency got paid.

“Yes…” Delilah valiantly swiped at some baby tears, thought about breaking into another storm of weeping, shrugged and handed Kate the copies of the vouchers with her hourly rate and signature along with Northwest Uniforms’ client representatives’ signature as well. Rose Talent Agency took twenty percent for setting up the bookings and networking with the companies that paid the best. Kate had learned her trade from Ben. His death six months earlier had sent ripples through the industry, and Kate was working hard to assure longtime customers that business would be “as usual.” So far she had met with limited success, and her husband’s once healthy business was starting to feel the pinch of slow sales. Kate had an appointment set up with her accountant because she had begun to grow nervous. Ben, for all his supposed wealth, had really owned nothing but the talent agency and the small house he had bequeathed to her and April. Now the responsibility for both lay on Kate’s shoulders, and she had the squeamish feeling there was serious financial trouble ahead unless she improved business pronto.

“I’ll talk to Northwest Uniforms myself,” Kate assured Delilah. “Did they like what you did?”

Her lips curved into a sad smile. “They said I was beautiful.”

“Well, there, then. It’ll all work out.”

“You think they liked me?” She was anxious.

Kate came around her desk and gave Delilah a big hug. “Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they? They’re just trying to cut costs. Now, go home. Pull yourself together. You’ve got an audition for Tender Farms tomorrow.”

“That cheesy commercial for Thanksgiving?” Delilah made a face. “They put a live turkey on the table and expect me to talk to it!”

“It’ll be fun,” Kate said firmly, leading Delilah to the door.

“Do they bite? What if it bites me?”

Kate looked into her big blue eyes. Save me, she thought, but said merely, “Don’t borrow trouble. Go home. Get ready. I’ll try to stop by the sho. . .