“Thanks.” She tried for a smile, failed.
“Do you need another hug?”
“Please.” She fell against him and he gathered her close. His shirt smelled like fresh laundry, his skin like sunshine, and beneath that, a rich, more masculine scent.
He smelled good. Too good. It was weird how good he smelled and how much she liked it.
“Hey, how’s your girlfriend?”
He winced. “We broke up.”
“I’m sorry.” Except she wasn’t. Did that make her a bad person? And why did the thought of Mike being girlfriendless send a tingle through her body?
“Don’t be. It wasn’t right. We mixed like ketchup and caviar.”
“Oof.”
“She was the caviar, by the way.”
“I suspected.” Gia grinned at him. “Salty as fish eggs?”
“Now that you put it that way . . .” His grin widened. “Kinda. A little salt goes a long way.”
“You need a potato woman. Nothing goes better with ketchup than french fries. Sweet and tangy. The perfect condiment.”
“I’ll put that at the top of my dating profile. Desperately seeking potato woman.”
“Don’t you dare tell your dates that. Every woman wants to be treated like she’s caviar, even if she is a spud at heart.”
“What about you?” Was it her imagination or did his voice lower? And why was he staring at her mouth? “Do you like to be treated as if you were caviar?”
Gia gulped, licked her lips, felt her pulse notch up. Was he flirting with her? Or just trying to take her mind off Grammy? “Well, not me, of course. I’m no caviar. French fries are my favorite food.”
“With lots of ketchup as I recall.”
Holy smokes, he was flirting. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was a huge paradigm shift. “You’re out of touch, Straus. Lately, I’ve taken to dunking my fries in wasabi.”
“You’ve gone rogue,” he said. “I blame Japan. Stick around. We’ll soon get you back in a Moonglow state of mind.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
They stared at each other and goose bumps zipped up Gia’s arms.
“Your sisters?” he asked. “Are they coming home?”
“Madison’s on her way. Shelley . . .” Gia shrugged. “Who knows?”
“How are you holding up?” His gentle tone and tender eyes unraveled her.
To keep from tearing up again, she started chattering. “I’m good. Things were going really well for me until this. The kite store is up and running. I have an apartment downtown but took on a roommate to afford it . . . but this changes everything. I should move back home and help Grammy recover.”
“Your grammy wouldn’t want you to give up your life for her. Not even to keep peace between your sisters. Besides, she’s got Darynda.”
“Darynda’s not family.”
“She and your grandmother have been best friends for fifty years.” Mike put a palm over his mouth to stifle another yawn. “Kinda the same.”
“I’ve spent so many years trying to smooth things over, I don’t know if I can stop.”
He put both hands on her shoulders, looked her square in the eyes. “You can’t please everyone, Gia. At some point you have to please yourself or your life will never be your own.”
Uncomfortable with his chiding look and the idea of putting her needs before her family, Gia slapped her palm against her forehead. “Look at me prattling on. You’re exhausted. I’m so rude.”
“You? Rude? Never. That’s Madison’s territory.” He chuckled.
“Maddie’s not rude, she’s just—”
“Controlling?”
“She has high standards.” Uneasy at talking about Maddie behind her back, Gia shifted her weight.
“I guess it works for her. High standards got Madison on TV. Nothing gets past your big sister.”
“Except the past.”
“So what will happen when she and Shelley—”
“Who knows?” Gia shrugged. “I try not to think about them if I can help it. Hurts too much.”
“About your grandmother . . .” His eyes overflowed with sympathy. “This is serious stuff.”
“She will make it.”
“If you have anything to say about it, I’m sure she will.” He nodded, but the expression on his face said he thought Gia was fooling herself. “I meant what I said, Short Stack. Not to sound like a Toy Story theme song or anything, but you’ve got a friend in me. If you need anything, anything at all, just call and I’ll be there.”
Chapter Three
Madison
BIAS: The bias grain runs on a forty-five-degree angle to the selvages and has ample amounts of stretch, so it is less stable than the lengthwise and crosswise grain.
GET TO GRAMMY, fix this thing. Madison Clark massaged her throbbing temple. Don’t get a migraine, dammit. Don’t get a migraine.
She sat in the back of the town car staring out the window as they oozed down the newly repaved highway heading southwest from Houston to Moonglow Cove and trying not to spin worst-case scenarios. People underwent brain surgery every day and survived. Grammy was a tough old bird, she’d pull through.
But Madison couldn’t shake the forbidding sense that her life was about to change in a fundamental way.
The gloominess had been creeping up on her for months. Lately, it had even invaded her job as she introduced guests, faked smiles, injected her voice with false enthusiasm; pasting and gluing and stapling, creating crafts, making beautiful spaces, coaching viewers on how to pretty up their lives.
As if she had all the answers. Despite having achieved the lofty dream she’d fought so hard to win. Despite having built an orderly, controlled, and glamorous life. It seemed she was standing outside herself from a great distance and looking down at her world, absolutely numb.
Absentmindedly, she fingered the crystal star necklace at her throat. Sighed a bone-deep sigh of loss and longing.
More sorrow was in store. No escaping.
Madison unzipped her purse and reached inside for her cell phone to text Gia for an update on Grammy. Her fingers brushed against the piece of paper and her heart skipped a beat. Quickly, she stuffed it to the bottom of her purse. She should have destroyed the paper, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go.
Not yet.
Her fingers kept searching for the phone, but she found instead the bottle of Xanax her doctor prescribed after her first panic attack.
She opened the bottle; shook out one pill, stared at it, then for good measure, shook out another. The last thing she needed was another panic attack. She uncapped her water bottle and popped the pills into her mouth.
Madison caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror. Eyes, hollowed and stark, stared back at her.
“Don’t judge,” she muttered and swallowed the Xanax. “I gotta deal with Shelley.”
“You say something, miss?” The bulky middle-aged driver met her gaze in the mirror. He smelled of cheap cologne and expensive salami, and he had a loose, lived-in face and a foreign accent she couldn’t quite place.
Ukrainian maybe?