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  “Bitch.”

  With a laugh, Darlie veered away.

  Within twenty-four hours, a tabloid printed a grainy picture of the two girls’ affectionate embrace with the headline:

  ARE HOLLYWOOD’S SWEETHEARTS ACTUALLY SWEETHEARTS?

  Darlie and Cate’s Secret Romance

  Within the speculative article, with suggestions that the two actors had fallen into more than friendship during the filming of Absolutely Maybe, Charlotte offered a quote.

  “I support my daughter, whatever her lifestyle, whatever her orientation. The heart wants what the heart wants. And my heart only wants Caitlyn’s happiness.”

  She swallowed it; what choice did she have? But it cut in ways she couldn’t explain.

  And when she flubbed her lines in a key scene five straight takes, she felt something break.

  “I’m sorry.” Tears pushed through the crack, began to rise in her throat. “I just need to—”

  “That’s lunch,” McCoy announced. “Cate, let’s have a minute.”

  She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. She couldn’t, wouldn’t cry and be one of those overemotional, oversensitive actors who couldn’t handle a smackdown.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again as he moved to where she stood on the rapidly clearing kitchen set.

  The set looked like she felt, she realized, total chaos. Which was the damn point of the scene she kept screwing up.

  “Have a seat.” He pointed to the floor, lowered to it himself, sat cross-legged.

  Thrown off balance, Cate hesitated, then sat with him on the floor. “I know the lines,” she began, “I know the scene. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “I do. You’re somewhere else, and you need to be here. Your head’s not in it, Cate. It’s not just the lines, you’re not giving me the heart, the frustration, the pent-up anger that leads to the blow. You’re walking through it.”

  “I’ll do better.”

  “You’ll need to. Whatever’s pulling you out, I need you to get rid of it. And if you’re letting that bullshit tabloid garbage get to you, you need to toughen up.”

  “I’m trying! She blubbers about me on Hollywood Confessions, I have to toughen up. She blubbers on Joey Rivers, toughen up, Cate. Celeb Secrets Magazine does a cover feature on her blubbering? Don’t think about it, Cate, just toughen the hell up. And on and on and on.”

  She pushed to her feet, threw up her arms. God, she wanted to throw something, break something.

  Break everything.

  “And now this, after weeks of being hounded, this? I can’t even have a friend? Someone I can actually talk to without that being tossed in the sewer? And what if I were gay, or Darlie was, and we weren’t ready to come out? What kind of damage would that do to someone if they were still trying to figure out who they were?

  “I know this kind of shit happens, okay? Toughen up? Goddamn it. My whole life is behind the walls of my grandfather’s house and this lot. I have no life. I can’t go out and get a pizza, or go shopping, go to a concert, the damn movies. They won’t leave me alone. She makes sure of it. Because I’m still her goddamn golden ticket. That’s all I ever was to her.”

  She stood, fists clenched, angry tears still streaming, breath heaving.

  His gaze still on her face, McCoy nodded. “Two things. The first as a human being, a father, a friend. Everything you said is right. And you have a right to be sick of it, tired of it, pissed off by it. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not decent.”

  He patted the floor again, waited until she—with obvious reluctance—sat again. “I haven’t said anything about Charlotte Dupont to you. Maybe that was a mistake, so I’ll say this now. She’s despicable. Every way, every level, every angle, despicable, and I’m sorry for what happened to you, what’s happening to you. You don’t deserve it.”

  “Life’s not about deserve. I figured that out really early.”

  “Good lesson,” he agreed. “But I hope she gets what she deserves. I’m more concerned with how somebody got that picture than the content. I want you to know I’ve had some strong discussions with security.”

  “Okay. Okay. I shouldn’t have taken all this out on you. It’s not your fault.”

  “Hold on. Second thing—and this is from your director. Use those emotions, the frustration, the rage, the fuck this shit. That’s what I want to see. Go grab something to eat, get makeup to deal with your face, then come back on set and give it to me.

  “Pay her back. Pay the assholes back, and give it to me.”

  She gave it to him, kept her head in the character, toughened up. And during the following weeks of production, made a decision.

  She waited. An actor knew the value of timing. Besides, Christmas was coming, and this year, Christmas meant returning to the house in Big Sur for a big Sullivan clan celebration.

  She’d avoided going back easily enough with work, school, her family’s need to shelter her in Ireland, then L.A.

  But this year, schedules meshed, and her grandfather’s real joy at the prospect of holding a kind of full-scale holiday reunion gathered such steam she couldn’t find the heart or the will to spoil it.

  She’d never told anyone but her therapist that every nightmare she suffered started at that house with the ocean crashing, the mountains looming.

  But if toughening up remained the goal, she had to face it.

  Just like she faced learning to drive on the right side of the road—mostly practicing on the back lots—and going through the gates to Christmas shop. Yes, it involved a decoy, a disguise, and a bodyguard, but she got out.

  In any case, Christmas in Big Sur had to be more festive and less plain weird than Christmas in L.A. with the Santa Ana winds blowing in the hot and dry. Sweltering Santas in open-air malls, fake trees tipped with fake snow, shoppers in tank tops didn’t bring on images of dancing sugarplums.

  Next year would be different, she promised herself.

  But for now, she packed for the trip and put on her shiny, happy face. And kept it on as she strapped in for the short flight.

  “We’ll get there first.” Lily scrolled through the schedule her PA had put on her phone. “That gives us all time to catch our breath before the invasion.”

  Shiny, happy face, Cate thought, perfectly described Lily’s. “You can’t wait to see Josh and Miranda, the kids. I know you miss them.” Timing, Cate thought, and segues. “You’ll see a lot more of Miranda and her kids when you’re in New York. A whole year.”

  “A year if the play doesn’t bomb.” Lily fussed a hand over her artistically knotted scarf. “If I don’t bomb in it.”

  “As if. It’s going to be awesome. You’re going to be stupendously awesome.”

  “That’s my sweets. I wipe at flop sweat every time I think about it.”

  “My G-Lil never flops.”

  “Always a first time,” Lily muttered and reached for her Perrier. “It’s been years since I did live theater, much less Broadway. But the chance to do Mame? I’m just crazy enough to go for it. Workshops don’t start in New York for six weeks, so I’ve got time to get my pipes and my pins in shape.”

  Before Cate could launch, Hugh leaned across the aisle. “I heard her pipes in the shower this morning. They’re in fine tune.”

  “The shower ain’t Broadway, my man.”

  “They’ll eat out of your hand. After all . . . Life’s a banquet.”

  Lily gave her rolling laugh. “And most sons of bitches are starving to death. Oh, speaking of banquets, Mo texted me this morning and said Chelsea’s decided to go vegan. We’re going to have to see what the hell to feed her.”

  Since she’d lost the window, Cate went back to biding her time.

  If her throat went dry on the drive from the airstrip, she knew how to hide it. She used her phone as a shield, as if reading and sending texts. The perfect way to avoid making conversation, or looking out at the sea as they traveled the winding road.

  Since a second car had load
ed up the luggage—and the mountain of gifts—she could and would busy herself unpacking as soon as they got to the house.

  Her stomach lurched when they made the turn onto the peninsula. She put her hand over the hematite bracelet Darlie had given her for Christmas. A grounding stone, Darlie claimed, to help against anxiety.

  If nothing else, it brought her friend close and helped Cate hold steady when the car slowed for the gate.

  It looked the same—of course it looked the same—the beautiful and unique house cantilevered on the hill with its pale, sunlit walls and archways, its red-tiled rooflines. So much glass, open to the views, the roll of green lawn rising, the big doors under the front portico.

  Christmas trees flanked the doors, rising out of red urns. More stood on the terraces, and lined like soldiers along the bridge. Still more shined behind the generous windows.

  Sun shot down from a pale, winter blue sky, drenching the house, the trees, and striking the snow-laced mountains, turning them into a sparkle of shadow and white.

  She wished, God she wished, that she couldn’t see—so clearly—the girl she’d been, so young and trusting, walking with her mother across that rising lawn on a cool winter morning.

  Her grandfather leaned over, kissed her cheek, and used the moment to murmur in her ear.

  “Don’t let her come here. This isn’t her place. It never was.”

  Deliberately, Cate put away her phone. She spoke clearly, her eyes on the house. “When she woke me up that morning, when she took me out to walk, it was the last time I believed she loved me. Even at ten I’d hardly ever felt it from her. But that morning I believed it. I always knew the three of you loved me. I didn’t have to believe because I knew.”

  She pushed open her door the minute the car stopped, got out quickly. The air hit her face—a strong breeze. She thought it tasted blue, like the ocean. Cool and blue and familiar.

  She hadn’t appreciated—what child could?—the engineering feat behind the design of the house, the way it jutted from the hill, its layers and tiers and angles both organic and elegant.

  “I count at least two dozen Christmas trees.”

  “Oh, there’s more.” Lily shook her hair back. “I ordered one for every room. Some are just little things, some are as big as Jack’s giant. I had one hell of a fine time planning all this.” She held out a hand. “Ready to go in?”

  “Yeah.” She took Lily’s hand, and went inside.

  Cate decided her grandparents had hired an army of elves to deck the many halls, from the soaring tree in the main gathering room to the trio of miniatures on the windowsill of the breakfast nook. The house smelled of pine and cranberry, and looked like a Christmas card.

  In the gathering room a second tree—a family tree, Cate realized—held bright red stockings. She smiled at the one with her name embroidered across the white top.

  “What with Josh married again and bringing in a second family, and babies starting to pop out here and there, we’ve got too many of us for hanging stockings on the mantel.” Hands on her hips, Lily surveyed the room. “Hugh came up with the family tree concept. I like it. It works.”

  Like Lily, Cate studied the room, with its trailing greenery, fat berries, gold-dusted pine cones, the towers of candles, pyramids of poinsettias.

  “Just a simple Sullivan Christmas.”

  Lily let out her big, from-the-gut laugh. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. I’ve got a couple things I want to check on. You go ahead up, sweets, get settled in. We’re in Rosemary’s rooms now. You’re in the one we used to stay in. You remember where it is?”

  Not the room she’d used as a child, Cate thought. Not the one her mother had taken her from on the worst day of her life.

  “Sure. G-Lil.” On a sigh, she moved in for a hug. “Thanks.”

  “We’re exorcising ghosts here, just the dark ones. This is a good house, with plenty of love and light in it.”

  Exorcising ghosts, Cate thought as she went upstairs. Well, that was her plan, too, so she’d get on board Lily’s Christmas train.

  Home from college on winter break, Dillon fell easily back into ranch routine. His dogs, thrilled, followed him everywhere as he filled troughs, hauled hay bales.

  Or sometimes when he just stood, looking out over the fields to the sea.

  Everything he loved was here.

  Not that he didn’t like college. He did okay there, academic-wise, he thought as he listened to the chickens cluck madly while his mother spread their feed. He even got why what he learned—at least some of it—could make him a better rancher.

  He liked his dorm mates okay, too. Though at times the air was so ripe with weed he got high just breathing. He liked the parties, the music, the long, rambling beer-and-weed-fueled discussions.

  And the girls—or one girl in particular right now.

  But whenever he came home, all that seemed like a weird dream, and one that bogged down his reality.

  When he tried to imagine Imogene here, gathering eggs or baking bread for the co-op or digging in with him over the books, or even just standing with him, like this, looking out over the fields to the sea, he couldn’t do it.

  It didn’t stop him from remembering how she looked naked. But he had to admit, he didn’t miss her as much as he’d thought he would.

  “Too much to do, that’s all,” he told the dogs as they watched him with adoring eyes. He picked up the ball they’d pushed at his feet, gave it a good strong toss.

  Watched them race after it, bumping each other like football players on the field.

  Imogene loved dogs. She had pictures of her fluffy red Pomeranian, Fancy, on her phone. And in fact, planned to bring Fancy back with her from winter break because she and two other girls were moving into a group house off campus.

  She rode, too, English style. Fancy like her dog, but she rode and pretty damn well.

  He couldn’t stick with a girl who didn’t love dogs and horses, no matter how she looked naked.

  He figured he’d see a lot more of naked Imogene when she had her own room in the group house.

  He tossed the ball a couple more times, then headed into the stables.

  He led horses out to pasture or paddock, then took extra time with Comet.

  “How you doing, girl? How’s my best girl?”

  When she nuzzled his shoulder, he rested his cheek against hers. Two and a half more years, he thought, and he’d be home for good.

  He took an apple out of his back pocket, cut it in quarters with his knife. “Don’t tell the others,” he warned as he fed Comet half. He ate a quarter himself, gave her the last before leading her out.

  He got a pitchfork and went to work.

  His muscles remembered.

  He’d grown another inch since he’d left for college, and figured he’d topped out now at six-one. Since he worked part-time at a riding stable, he kept those muscles in tune, earned some money, and got to hang with horses.

  When he wheeled the first barrow out, he’d fallen into the rhythm, a nineteen-year-old boy who’d finally grown into his feet, leanly muscled in jeans and a work jacket, his boots mucked and muddy.

  One of the cows let out a long, lazy moo. His dogs wrestled over the tooth-pocked red ball. A pregnant mare swished her tail in the paddock. Smoke pumped out of the ranch house chimneys, and the sound of the sea came to him as clearly as if he’d sailed a boat over its waves.

  In that moment, he was completely and utterly happy.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After breakfast, with the smell of bacon, coffee, pancakes on the griddle still in the air, Dillon had a vague plan to text his two local pals, see if they wanted to meet up later.

  It would give him time to saddle Comet, take her out for a ride, maybe check some fencing.

  The women in his life had other ideas.

  “We’ve got something we need to talk to you about.”

  He glanced over at his mother. She wiped down the counters and stove while he loaded the dishwa
sher. Gram—with the privilege of the breakfast cook—sat with another cup of coffee.

  “Sure. Is something wrong?”

  “Not a thing.”

  She left it at that.

  She had a way, Dillon knew, of saying exactly as much as she wanted to say, and leaving you wondering about the rest. Poking, prying, pleading, wouldn’t get another word out of her until she was damn good and ready.

  So he finished loading the dishes.

  Since he’d had enough coffee, he got a Coke. And since it seemed they were going to have a discussion, sat in Discussion Central.

  The kitchen table.

  “What’s up?”

  Before she sat, Julia gave him a hug from behind. “I try not to miss this too much when you’re not here. The three of us sitting here after the morning work’s done, and before we tackle the rest.”

  “I was going to take Comet out. She could use the exercise. I can check the fences. And I want to talk to you about maybe switching over to a floating diagonal system. Some of the posts we’ve got went in before I was born, and sure, it costs to put in a new system, but it costs to keep patching what’s just worn out. And isn’t as smart as it could be—environmentally or practically.”

  “College boy.” Maggie sipped her coffee. She’d dyed a couple sections of her hair for the holidays, and sported a pair of braids—one red, one green—down the side.

  “Yeah, I am, because my mother and grandmother made me.”

  “I’ve got a fondness for college boys. Especially pretty ones like you.”

  “We can talk about fencing,” Julia put in. “After you’ve run the numbers on it, come up with a cost for labor and material.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  And he hadn’t intended to bring it up until he had those numbers. He just hadn’t perfected his mother’s ability to hold back until complete.

  But he was working on that, too.

  “Good. I’ll be interested to see what you come up with. Meanwhile, Gram and I have some thoughts about the future. You’ve still got more college ahead of you, but time moves. You’ll have big decisions to make in just a couple more years.”