The Fiance Thief (20 page)

Sitting up again, she saw that Alec was still absorbed in whatever he was doing. Clutching the blanket to her, she reached down from the bed and silently dragged one of her suitcases across the carpet. Her eyes strayed to her “comfort clothes”—bicycle shorts and a wildlife T-shirt in XL. She knew she should be trying to impress Alec with her new wardrobe, but after the tumultuous events of the day, she had a craving to be plain old Claire for a few minutes. She could at least wear this until it was time for dinner.

She dressed in bed, and although she made as little noise as possible, she thought it was strange that Alec was so completely engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t seem to sense any stirring in the room at all. Not sure what to say to him, she settled for clearing her throat as she walked across the room. He didn’t hear her. She tried again, just two feet away from him, but still got no response.

“Alec,” she said firmly. Expecting him to be startled, she saw he was so into whatever it was he was doing that the sound of her voice didn’t even phase him.

He looked up at her and smiled, typing a few words even as he did so. “Did you sleep well?” he asked, turning back to the page. “You look great.”

“I don’t think you looked at me,” she said.

“Short tight black pants, shirt with some kind of endangered species you probably think we should save,” he said, his eyes still on the text and his fingers still moving across the keyboard. “Hang on till I get to a stopping place.” He went for another thirty seconds, then quit. Half standing up, he leaned over and gave Claire a full kiss on the mouth, then sat back down again and resumed work.

I’d better sit down, too, she thought. As Alec typed, she tried to sum up what seemed to be a truly bizarre situation. Alec appeared to be putting the manuscript of her story into his laptop. Shoved to one side of the desk was a collection of cheese, chocolate, cola and wine, all of it unopened.

“Are you about to have some kind of feast?” she asked him.

He looked up again. “Oh. You mean all this stuff? I got it out, but then I got sidetracked. Have some.”

“Thanks.” She got a couple of wineglasses down from the small cabinet over the refrigerator and found a corkscrew there, too. “Would you like to do the honors?”

“What? The corkscrew? Oh, sure. Just a sec.” He reached another stopping place, then quickly uncorked the wine and handed it back to her. “Do you mind pouring? I want to get as much of this in as possible before dinner.”

Claire spoke slowly, trying to figure it all out as she talked. “As much of my story put into the computer as possible. Because…because why?”

Alec held his finger on the page to mark where he’d quit. “It’s running next week, in the slot I had for the Miranda interview. That means it’s got to go to production by Monday. I don’t think it needs much work, though.”

“You don’t think it needs much work? To run in next week’s issue?”

He pointed at her with the finger that wasn’t marking his place. “I like how it isn’t all Harlan Edwards. But one thing I think you need to do is make it more obvious that
this corporation guy, Blalock, knows what’s going on and is just stonewalling you and everyone else.”

He sounded serious. He didn’t sound like he’d agreed to consider running her story, but like he was really burning the late-afternoon oil to get it into shape. This was more than odd. This was fishy.

“Alec,” she said. “I know why you’re doing this, and you don’t have to.”

“Doing what? Putting your story in this week’s paper? If you think I’m just doing it because I’m in love with you, that’s not it.”

“Oh.” That hadn’t been what she was thinking, but hearing him deny it was pretty crushing anyway. “No, what I meant was…”

Sneaking in a few words as they spoke, Alec continued, “I’d be doing it even if I wasn’t in love with you. It’s a great story.”

Claire sneaked a longing glance at Alec’s tape recorder. If her horse and carriage turned into a pumpkin after she left here, she’d at least like to have some proof that those two remarkable phrases had come out of Alec’s mouth. “What did you say?”

“I’m in love with you. This is a great story.” He grinned at her wickedly. “Which part sounds too good to be true?”

Both, she thought to herself, but she said, “Alec, you think that if you act enthusiastic about this, I won’t judge you for your story on Miranda. I don’t anyway. Go ahead and write your interview with Miranda. I know it’s going to move a lot of copies.”

“Damn right it will,” Alec said, turning back to her story. “It’s going to be a really hot story. I got great quotes from her.”

Claire remembered her earlier conversation with Chris. “Listen, did you…”

He continued talking, “But you’ve got this quote from Senator Johnson in here, back when he promised to
something about the dumping. He’s going to be in town on Thursday, so maybe we can get some publicity for the paper if we tie that in with his visit. The Miranda thing is an evergreen, something that won’t date if it isn’t published right away.” Rifling through the pink papers, he turned to her and said, “Pictures.”

It took her a second to hop on board his train of thought. “You mean do I have any? A few.”

“Well, we can always cut out of here early tomorrow and go up to the sites.”

Claire knew she was hearing more than she deserved to hear. Looking this particular gift horse in the ivories was a bad idea, but she couldn’t help herself. “Well, maybe you could run them both.”

“Two big scoops in one week and nothing in the next?” He shook his head. “We want to give readers the impression that this isn’t a fluke, that we’re going to come up with great stuff every week.”

Thinking she’d wait until later to remind him that he hadn’t previously given two shakes about those readers, Claire said, “You see, I was kind of hinting to Chris that I was going to tell Christine something no one else knew about Miranda.” She took a truffle from the plate. “By the way, how did that part of the interview go? I expect she denied it, but that’s okay. I mean, Trent Daniels will certainly back us up.”

“Give me five seconds, and I’ll be done with this. I’m a crackerjack two-fingered typist.”

Claire waited, watching him type his story. “That got it.” He turned and took a chunk of cheese from the plate. “Can I have a sip of your wine?”

She gave him a sip, and he said, “Now what were you saying about Chris? Was it about him asking me to play badminton on the stairs a while ago?”

“Not exactly,” Claire said. “I let him think I was going to say something big about Miranda tonight during the
interview. Now, I’m not stupid. I know it will get cut out. But if Chris is in the room, he can report the story anyway. Secret revelations about ruthless screen heroine.’ Something like that. But if you wait to print your story, it means you’ll get scooped by the tabloids.”

Alec’s face held a troubled look, one she couldn’t read. “First of all, I don’t consider those papers my competition.”

Claire stared athim. “You mean you don’t care if they get the story first?”

“I’m not doing that kind of story. I’m doing an in-depth profile of a local actress. It won’t include any mention of what you told me.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Now whose horse is wearing platform shoes?”

Alec busied himself with configuring his modem and dialing into the paper. “You asked me not to mention it.”

“I changed my mind,” she said.

“So did I,” he told her. The silence that followed was broken by the sound of the modem dialing and connecting.

“Tell me why,” Claire said, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. “Did she sweet-talk you out of mentioning it? Did she whisper in your ear that little old her would just be devastated if people thought she was anything less than a paragon of virtue? You said yourself it was just a college play.” She hated what she heard herself say next. “How many kisses did it take to change your mind?”

“I can’t believe you would say that after what just happened here,” Alec said, standing to face her. “I felt sorry for her, okay?”

“Sorry? Sorry that last month she was on the cover of two magazines rather than five?”

“She might have gone out there to make you jealous. She might have even considered making a play for me. But she didn’t. Once she realized that my mind was on you and
nobody but you, she considered me a sympathetic ear. She let her guard down around me. There was no spark between us, Claire. I promise you that. And she was honest enough to let me see that she’s eaten up with envy over you. Even somebody as emotionally dense as I am can see that’s why she made off with Scott.”

Someone keep him away from the self-help books, Claire thought to herself. Pop psychology was not his forte. “Why would she be jealous of me?”

“A thousand reasons. Because she grew up thinking how much prettier and smarter you were.”

Claire was amazed. “Did she tell you that?”

“Yes, she did,” Alec said. “She’s also jealous of how talented you are, as a writer and as an actress.”

Claire grew suspicious. “You’re telling me all this so I’ll change my mind about what to tell Christine.”

“It’s your secret,” Alec said. “I can’t tell you not to reveal it. If it had been mine, I would have written about it years ago.”

“That’s the point,” Claire said hotly. “I’m tired of forgiving and forgetting. The fact remains, she got mad at me because I had lunch with her boyfriend, and she thought she’d make a play for you in turn.”

Alec shrugged. “If that’s the way you see it. I see someone who looks in the mirror every day and wishes she were more like you.”

There was no use continuing this argument. Claire stood up and got her clothes together, grabbing an elegant black jumpsuit out of a suitcase. She was going to be on her best behavior at the dinner table, she decided, but that didn’t mean she had to fade into the mashed potatoes. Playing at self-confidence this weekend was leading her to believe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if that character were a regular part of her life.

“I’m going to get ready,” Claire said.

Alec shut off his computer. “Do what you have to do.”

I will, Claire thought to herself. I will.

H
ANK EXPECTED
M
ICK TO BE
at the front door, hat on, ready to go. Instead, he greeted them with a leisurely “Come in, come in. Come have a drink.

You won’t believe who stopped by,” Mick said, pointing to a plump, pretty woman in her fifties who was seated at the kitchen table.

“The former Mrs. Regan?” Hank guessed.

“That’s her,” Mick said, beaming. “She came to talk to me about our daughter Sally. Who’s this?”

Hank introduced Allie, reminding him that she knew how to get to Miranda’s.

Mick took another sip of his bourbon. “You know, I’m not in any hurry to get the boat back this evening. It can wait.”

“Oh.” Hank and Allie said with one voice. Hank took the unlabeled computer diskette out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands before putting it back. “Okay, then,” he said. “I guess we’ll head back into town.”

“Sure,” Allie said.

Mrs. Regan looked from one face to the other. “You know, Mick,” she said. “I think I’d like to go with them. I’ve heard the house is gorgeous, and it isn’t often I get to peek into the life of a real Hollywood star.”

Hank, who knew from Mick’s tirades that the former Mrs. Regan was less impressed by money than almost anyone else, silently thanked her.

Allie took the car keys from Hank’s hand and jiggled them. “Let’s go, guys. This band of intruders is about to storm Miranda Craig’s gate.”

12

“D
O YOU THINK
there’s some kind of universal distress signal for SOS?” Lissa was stretched out on the floor of the flat-bottomed boat, watching the sky as the sun crawled to sleep over the horizon.

“You mean besides jumping up and down and waving our arms?” Scott asked. He was lying beside her.

“That didn’t work very well for us, did it?” Lissa asked. In between eating cheese, drinking wine and talking, they’d made what they hoped were enthusiastic overtures at everyone who had passed by them. But the other boaters, with their smiles, waves and hoots, apparently thought they were just trying to express their feelings of solidarity and fellowship.

Scott said, “I never had any reason to know them. Signals. It shows how little you ever really know about what’s going to happen in your life.”

“I know just what you mean,” lissa said, leaning up on one elbow to look at him. “How stuff you thought was important just isn’t.”

He leaned toward her, and she waited for his kiss. Just then, she heard the unmistakable sounds of an outboard motor.

“Did you hear that?” Scott asked her. She nodded and they stood up, rocking the boat a bit as they waved and hollered at a small army green boat named
Mary Sue.

Unlike the boaters who had waved back at them, be
hurried over. Cutting off the motor, he said, “I’m Andy Milton. You folks having some kind of trouble?”

Scott explained what the motor was doing, or, more accurately, not doing.

“I’m afraid I’m a fisherman, not a boat mechanic,” Andy said, gesturing to the bucket of fish he had in his boat. “If you all want to catch a ride with me to my house, though, you can call somebody about your boat from there. Then I could give you a ride back home.”

“Actually,” Lissa said, “we were sort of expected at Miranda Craig’s. Do you know where that is?”

“Oh, sure. It’s about three-quarters of a mile down the road from my house. There’s a big to-do going on there this weekend, I heard.”

“Yes, there is,” Lissa said. “Some friends of ours are there, and they invited us to sail on over this afternoon.”

“Just hop on in here, and as soon as we drop these fish off at my place, I’ll drive you over there.”

With reluctance, Lissa agreed that they should leave their stuff in Mick’s boat. Scott helped her into the other, and they were off.

“Sit anywhere you don’t see a fish,” Andy yelled over the motor.

That was more difficult than it sounded. There were fish, remnants of fish or the definite smell of fish everywhere in the boat. Finally Lissa located a small space on the seat that appeared to be free of any kind of water-life ooze. Scott, who was apparently less picky, plopped down beside her.