Falling Star (53 page)

"Some." She smiled but he remained
somber.

"Let me tell you the one thing that does make
sense." He stared at her and the stillness of his gaze made her
heart stop. "Giving us a real shot. Not some half-assed, now on,
now off kind of shot, but the real thing." He paused. "You know,
Nats, you're a big part of the reason I did what I did
yesterday."

She made her voice light, though her heart
dangled on his answer. "You're sure this time?"

He moved a step closer, his face serious.
"Absolutely sure. And believe me, despite my performance in recent
months, I am capable of knowing what I want."

She watched him. What to believe? How not to
believe Geoff? "I may be a fool," she told him, though she didn't
really think she was. "But I do believe you."

"There's only one fool here, Natalie." He
shook his head, a grimace twisting his features. "The man who
didn't see what was right in front of him."

The canyon was silent, as it had a funny way
of being when Natalie's life was turning on a dime. She watched as
Geoff came a few steps closer, then stopped and grinned that long
slow beguiling grin with the tiniest hint of mischief.

"Guess I haven't lost all my charm," he
said.

"No." She grinned back. "Guess you
haven't."

He walked the last few steps along the stone
pathway and very softly, very slowly bundled her into his arms. His
voice came in a whisper that answered a deep call in her own soul.
"Would you believe me if I told you I love you, Nats?"

How not to believe Geoff? Especially when he
kissed her, there in front of the house where she'd lived ten years
of her life, some happy, some sad, all a struggle somehow, but
leading her still standing to this place in time.

It felt like an eternity before she pulled
away. "Is it too hot to build a bonfire?" she asked.

He laughed. "Why in the world would you want
to do that?"

"Because I've got some letters I want to
burn. In boxes in the study closet." She edged past him to unlock
the front door. "It's a long story but kind of the anchor
equivalent of throwing crutches off a cliff."

Natalie led him into the house. "And you know
what else? We have to find a really good charity. Because I've got
a million and a half bucks I've got to donate."

But before she could make it to the study
Geoff again pulled her into his arms and smothered her in yet
another kiss. Not an agent kiss, not anything remotely resembling a
peck-on-the-cheek kiss, but a let's-get-started kiss. One that even
in hardened, love-tired Los Angeles had a better-than-even shot of
producing a happy finish.

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Continue reading past the brief
acknowledgments for an excerpt from Diana’s novel
To Catch the Moon
,
a Top Pick of Romantic
Times.

Falling Star
is a grown-up version of
the stories I scrawled as a child on the big white pads of paper my
father brought home from his office. In those days I cut up the
pages, stapled them together, dreamed up a title, and drew the
cover. The grown-up process isn't so very different, save for the
fact that I have been blessed throughout with a great deal of
help.

I first thank my parents, Helene and John
Koricke, who made it quite clear that what I could dream, I could
do.

I thank my critique partners: Tracie Donnell,
Danielle Girard, Sarah Manyika, Ciji Ware, and Bill Fuller. I am
very grateful to Rhonda Freshwater of Freshwater Design for her
fabulous cover art. Chicago divorce attorney Bonnie L. Alexander
provided expert advice, and editors Audrey LaFehr and Jen Jahner
helped transform a manuscript into a book. I will always be deeply
thankful.

Last, I thank my husband Jed, who didn't
flinch when I floated the notion of abandoning my LA anchor job to
write novels. His boundless support, confidence, help, and
encouragement gave wings to this venture (both times around) and
validated my belief that a wise woman waits for the right man. I
waited so long I found a treasure.

“Wow! In
To Catch
the Moon
,
Ms. Dempsey’s talent shines with
vibrant characters in a fluid narrative rich in detail. Events move
quickly with ever increasing tension to a satisfying conclusion … “
The Romance Readers Connection

A stylish and sexy page-turner about the
pursuit of truth—and the power of temptation …

Star prosecutor Alicia Maldonado needs a
high-profile case to rev up her career, and gets it when a
candidate for California governor is murdered. Charismatic TV
reporter Milo Pappas shows up to cover the nation’s top story—only
to find himself even more intrigued by the beautiful assistant D.A.
than by the courtroom drama.

Ethics demand that Alicia and Milo keep their
relationship strictly professional. But that’s easier said than
done when passion ignites …

REVIEWS:
“As a reader, it is always a
treat to find a ‘new to me’ author to add to my ‘must buy’ list and
Ms. Dempsey is definitely among the top of that list!” Melissa
Freeman, The Romance Readers Connection

Chapter 1

Alicia Maldonado exited the Monterey County
district attorney’s office into the high-ceilinged, red-tiled entry
hall of the courthouse, nearly empty on a Saturday afternoon. Her
arms full of case documents, she let the DA office’s heavy glass
door slam shut behind her and strode toward the stairs that would
carry her to the third floor and the superior courts, where
prosecutors like her spun tales of true crime to persuade juries to
render just punishment. Which worked most of the time, but as
Alicia knew all too well, not always.

Three in the afternoon and outside the
courthouse it was chilly and overcast, a December wind whipping
down the streets carrying with it the unmistakable whiff of manure
that indicated farm work was close at hand. To the east rose the
Gabilan Mountains, the Santa Lucias to the west, two formidable
ranges that stood sentry over California’s Salinas Valley, trapping
heat in summer and cold in winter and farm smells year-round.
Sometimes the valley was a beautiful place, Alicia knew, especially
in spring when the rich soil gave birth to endless fields of
blue-white lupins and wildly cheerful orange and gold California
poppies. But Salinas itself, the county’s little capital seat,
wasn’t exactly a picture postcard. It was too dull, too dusty and
flat, too much a throwback to the 1940s. And as a street-corner
Salvation Army Santa tolled his bell trying in vain to improve his
take, it was too poor to do much about it.

Inside the courthouse, Alicia mounted the
last flight of stairs and hit the third-floor landing, where a
Charlie Brown Christmas tree strung with multicolored lights held
rather pathetic pride of place. She met the eyes of Lionel Watkins,
a burly black janitor who was as much a courthouse fixture as she
was and had been for so long he was nearing retirement He paused in
his mopping to shake his head when he saw her. “You at it again?
And on a Saturday?”

“Will you let me in?”

“Honey, don’t I always? Even against my
better judgment.” He leaned his mop handle against a lime-green
wall, a discount color found only in county buildings and VA
hospitals, and without further instruction made for Superior Court
Three, Alicia’s good-luck courtroom. “You always win,” he said. “I
don’t get why you bother to practice.”

“I win
because
I practice.”

“You win because you’s good.” They arrived at
the courtroom door. On the opposite wall hung a hand-lettered sign:
ONLY FOUR MORE SHOPLIFTING DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS. Apparently the
sign had been hung on Tuesday, since numbers eight through five
were crossed out. Lionel selected a key from a massive ring and
poked it at the lock. “At least Judge Perkins is long gone on his
Christmas vacation.” He swung the door open and gave her a
quizzical look. “So when you gonna run for judge again? Third
time’s the charm, they say.”

Annoyance flashed through her, cold and fast.
“I have no idea,” she snapped, and pushed past him into the
darkened courtroom. He raised the overhead lights, chasing the
shadows from the jury box, which even empty seemed strangely
watchful. Alicia turned back around and forced her voice to soften.
“Thanks, Lionel. What’ll I do when you get your pension?”

He chuckled. “Find some other soft touch.”
Then he was gone, the tall oak door clicking softly shut behind
him.

Alicia dumped the file for case number
02-F987 on the prosecution table, then loosed her dark wavy hair
from its plastic butterfly clip and gathered it up again atop her
head, a neatening ritual she went through a dozen times a day,
whenever she stopped one task and began another. She shed the black
jacket she wore over her jeans and white turtle-neck. The jacket
was getting that telltale shiny veneer that came from too many dry
cleanings. That was a worry. Clothes were expensive and her budget
beyond shot.

She chuckled without humor. She could barely
afford to maintain a decent wardrobe. How was she supposed to pay
for a campaign? Especially now, when nobody would put up a dime for
a woman considered damaged goods?

Oh, she’d had her golden-girl period, when
some of the top people in her party thought she was the next great
Latina hope. She knew how they spoke of her: well-spoken,
beautiful, star prosecutor, pulled herself up by her bootstraps,
determined to win political office and do a good turn for the
forgotten many who, like her, came from the wrong side of the
tracks. It was PC to the max and a great story, or at least it had
been until she lost. Twice. Then the bloom was off the rose. And
off her.

She threw back her head and gazed at the huge
wall-mounted medallion of The Great State of California. It baffled
her no end how she’d managed to go from promising to stalled in the
blink of an eye. Now she was a thirty-five-year-old shopworn
specimen with a dead-end career and no man in sight, at least none
she wanted. That was sure a prescription for a merry Christmas and
a happy New Year.

Enough already! Get over yourself and
practice the damn opening statement.
“You’re right,” she
muttered. Before long it would be Monday, nine in the morning, and
she’d have to go to work persuading the jury to convict. She dug
into her pile of papers for the yellow legal pad on which she’d
scrawled her notes. But it wasn’t there.

Damn, she must’ve left it on her desk. She’d
have to go back and get it. She made tracks out of the courtroom
and back down to the DA’s office, where she punched in the numbers
on the code-pad door to buzz herself in.

She was partway down the narrow cubicle-lined
corridor to her office when she realized that the main phone line
kept ringing. It would ring, get picked up by voice mail, and ring
again. Over and over. Somebody wanted to reach somebody, badly.

She marched back to the receptionist’s desk
and picked up the line. “Monterey County District Attorney.”

“It’s Bucky Sheridan.” One of Carmel PD’s
veteran beat cops but not the brightest bulb. “Who’s this?”

“Alicia. What’s up?”

“I gotta talk to Penrose.”

She had to laugh. As if DA Kip Penrose were
ever in the office on a Saturday. He was barely there on weekdays.
“Bucky, you’re not going to find Penrose here. Try him on his
cell.”

“I have. All I get is his voice mail.”

“Well, he’s probably got it turned off.” That
was standard procedure, too. “Anyway, what’s so desperate? What do
you need?”

Silence. Then, “We got a situation here,
Alicia.”

She frowned. It was at that moment she
realized Bucky didn’t sound like his usual potbellied, aw-shucks
self. “What do you mean, a situation?’

“I’m at Daniel Gaines’ house. On Scenic, in
Carmel.”

“
The
Daniel Gaines?” Something niggled
uncomfortably in her gut. “The Daniel Gaines who just announced
he’s running for governor?”

“He’s not running for anything anymore.” By
now Bucky was panting. “He’s dead.”

To Catch the Moon
is
available from all major retailers of e-books.

Continue reading for an excerpt from
Diana’s newest release, the lighthearted mystery
Ms America and the Offing on Oahu
.

A Ms America Mystery (#1)

Being a beauty queen can be murder …

Ms Ohio Happy Pennington finds out it’s not
all sequins and silicone when she competes on Oahu for the Ms
America crown—the first national title of her life.

When her fiercest competitor tumbles dead
out of the isolation booth during the televised pageant finale,
Honolulu PD gets to thinking Happy might have killed her.

What’s the only thing a beauty queen worth
her sash can do? Nab the real killer—even if that means tangling
with snarky rival contestants, a local who claims to be Hawaiian
royalty, a brooding helicopter pilot, and a pageant emcee who’s hot
enough to die for …

CHAPTER ONE

I know it’s hard to imagine a woman getting
offed by a tube of lipstick, but I’m here to tell you, it can be
done.

I wouldn’t have believed it until the night
I saw it myself. It was the same night I won the coveted crown of
Ms. America, or should I say, was given the crown, since the woman
who was poised to emerge triumphant got iced instead.