Nobody's Business (Nobody Romances) (18 page)

Sort of like what Summer planned often these days. Except
she usually wound up dining alone. Brad's late nights at the
office occurred frequently. Too frequently for her to ignore the
warnings that screamed in her head.

No. Don't go there.

Her gaze dropped to her bare feet where Helen, the nail
technician, rinsed off a gritty lemon-scented paste and revealed
silky smooth skin beneath. Summer forced another smile in
Laurel's direction and held up two fingers as if to say, Give me
a couple of minutes. "So did Lyn reciprocate those googly
eyes?"

"She tried to play it cool, but couldn't quite pull it off. Especially when he asked to see her again on Friday. I think it's safe
to say our Lyn is finally out of mourning."

Muffled fumbling resonated through Summer's phone and
then Lyn's shout, "Never mind all that. Ask April why she's
calling, Sum."

Okay. "I have to admit, my curiosity is piqued. What's up,
April? I'm guessing you didn't just call to tattle on Lyn."

"Umm ... no." Uncertainty crept into April's tone. "How
are you, Sum?"

Uh-oh. Summer heaved a disgruntled sigh.

Helen looked up with startled eyes and held up the nail polish
applicator. "Not right?"

Summer waved a hand and flashed a thumbs-up at the
dark-haired woman. "No," she whispered. "The color's fine.
Perfect. Really."

Unlike the rest of her life.

But if April opened a conversation with idle chitchat hesitation, whatever she intended to say probably wouldn't sit well.
Which explained why she had Lyn there for backup.

Summer stiffened in the black leather massage chair, despite the "magic fingers" attempting to knead tension from her
shoulder blades and lower back. "I'm fine, I think," she replied
with caution. "At least, so far."

Laurel must have caught Summer's sudden change in mood
because she leaned forward, brows arched questioningly.

Summer waved her off. "What am I missing here, April?"

"Well, I ... umm, I wanted to ask you-no pressure, mind
you-but I was just sort of wondering . . ."

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Summer had no idea what reaction
her outburst had on April, but Helen snapped up so quickly, she
smeared strawberry margarita nail polish across two of Summer's toes. "Spit it out."

"Iwaswonderingifyoumightwanttohelpmeplanmywedding." The statement came out in one breath, one long word. Unintelligible gobbledygook where all Summer heard for sure was "I"
and "wedding."

"Could you say that again, please?"

"Wouldyouhelpmeplanmywedding?"

A tiny thrill rippled through Summer, but she forced herself to remain calm. "Once more, April. And this time, take a
breath or two in between words."

Instead, April laughed. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. You really want
me to squirm before you give me an answer."

"No. I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly."
Because inside her, a little girl was screaming, Yippee! A wedding! But the cynical, more adult Summer needed confirmation before she allowed the little girl free rein of her emotions.

"Yes, you are," April replied, her smile evident in the return
to her natural cadence. "Look, you and I both know if I run this
show on my own, it's gonna turn into a fiasco. Ordinarily I
wouldn't care. What I mean is, if it were up to me, I'd do a
quickie ceremony, little house party afterward, nothing fancy.
But, since Jeff and I met through Taking Sides, the show wants
to broadcast highlights. Everything from the planning to the
ceremony and the reception. I managed to draw the line on letting the talk show's audience choose my wedding gown. Still,
this wedding has to be bigger than I can manage. And perfect.
And I'm soooo far from perfect. As you often remind me."

"April .. " Lyn's cautionary chastisement came through
loud and clear, meaning they must have switched to speaker
phone for the big moment.

"Relax, Lyn. Summer knows what I mean. Anyway, Sum, if
I'm Princess Chaos, you're the Czarina of Control. You know
exactly what to do and when to do it. Nothing would dare to go
wrong on your watch. If I place the details in your hands, I
know you'll make sure that everything runs smoothly. Just like
your wedding. No doves, mind you." Panic laced that last directive. "No birds at all, in fact. I mean, I'm not entirely certain
what exactly I want yet, and of course Jeff will have some say
as well. .."

While April droned on and on incessantly, Summer pulled
the phone away from her ear.

"What's up?" Laurel asked in a whisper.

"My sister just asked me to plan her wedding."

"April? The one you said doesn't like you?"

"I never said she didn't like me."

Laurel arched a cryptic brow.

Okay, well, maybe she had. But that was then. Before April
had tossed her this very precious lifeline. "We just don't see
eye to eye that often."

"And you think you'll see eye to eye on wedding plans?
How do you know she won't become Bridezilla?"

"April?" Summer whispered back. "Puh-leez. There's nothing `Zilla' about April." That had been her problem for years:
lots of drive, no backbone.

"I don't know," Laurel replied airily. "All that fame, the reporters following her everywhere? You don't think she considers
herself better than everyone else?"

"April?" Summer snorted. "No way."

After Taking Sides and Jeff had entered her life, April had
become a different woman. The new and improved April. But,
thank God, her ego-or lack thereof-had remained the same.

"Summer?" April's faraway voice drifted out of the phone.
"Are you there? Did we lose you?"

She fumbled with the cell, putting it back to her ear. "I'm
here. I'm just ... stunned, I guess."

"Stunned in a good way?"

"Yes, I think so." In fact, the more Summer considered the
prospect, the more she liked it. She needed the distraction,
and maybe in spending more time with two people so wildly
in love, she might find the formula to put her own marriage
back on the till-death-do-us-part path. Otherwise ...

No. She wouldn't consider the alternative.

"I love the idea," she said with forced enthusiasm. "I'll give
you and Jeff the perfect wedding day to send you off into your
happily-ever-after."

And hopefully, she could find a new happily-ever-after for
herself at the same time.

For the next two days, after therapy sessions and ski lessons,
Doug would race back to his makeshift office setup. He'd
commandeered the breakfast nook as his temporary desk with
his laptop plugged in and the high-backed bench as his chair.
Once as comfortably ensconced as possible in such an environment, he'd power on and delve into his research regarding
Brooklyn Raine.

On Wednesday, he easily ignored any guilt that pricked his
conscience for digging into her private background. He'd always believed in the media's right to information. Celebrities,
in exchange for wealth and fame, had to sacrifice their desires
for anonymity.

But on Thursday, the voice inside his head shouted too loudly
to be dismissed. Lyn Hill/Brooklyn Raine shook his beliefs regarding fame to the core. A lot of her wealth, and most likely
her late husband's as well, had been poured into the Ski-Hab
program. Lyn Hill lived quietly and simply. She didn't do public
appearances, didn't court the press in any way. Her ski gear
didn't scream advertisements for any brand names. No patches
on her jacket pushed the newest energy drink or the latest innovation in thermal underwear. She didn't own a string of
slopeside condos or any major real estate holdings, except for
her bed-and-breakfast, which had a resale value far below that
of his apartment in Manhattan.

What he'd dug up should have thrilled him. Both his reputation and his promise to Ace hinged on an article that shed a
positive light on Lyn and Ski-Hab.

Unfortunately, one question eluded him. A question crucial
to any good story: Why? Why give up the sports spotlight and
dump all your money-your future-into a program for injured war veterans?

He dismissed most of the usual reasons. Obviously she wasn't
looking for positive publicity, or publicity of any kind for that
matter. He found no evidence of court-ordered community service or a need to clean up her image. She didn't seem to be involved for political reasons. So ...

Why?

Among the links he'd bookmarked he found a copy of the
interview that Ace had brought to his apartment months ago.
Now he watched it again, this time without a pharmaceutical
cocktail muddling his brain and skewing his perception.

As he studied the news item this time, with his personal SkiHab experience fresh in his mind, shivers trickled down his
spine. The Marine who talked about "ending it all" struck a
deep chord. Doug squirmed on his bench while he listened to
the wounded man's plan to steal pills or slice his wrists or just
hope that death might come for him in the middle of the night.

How close had Doug come to that ledge? Too close. If not
for the interference of his mother, Ace, and in an odd way,
Lyn, where would he be right now? The shivers increased to
an ice bath, leaving him chilled from head to toe.

Focus, Sawyer.

He paused the video, took several deep breaths, and pushed
away the dismal thoughts of his former misery. Fate had given
him the opportunity to make a new start. A start even the great
Giles Markham hadn't received. How dare he consider, for one
second, throwing that gift away?

His left hand gripped the fingers of his prosthesis. A heartbeat
later, the fake fingers on his fake right hand not only curled. They
actually felt the touch, sensed the chill that had taken over his
extremities. Amazement jolted him. Whether he wanted to accept this miracle or not, the nerve endings in his shoulder were
doing exactly what the prosthetic experts had predicted. With renewed purpose, he hit the play arrow on his laptop screen, sending the news item bursting to life once again.

"... The program was begun several years ago by a group
of local skiers when one of their own arrived home without a
limb during the first Gulf War..."

Stop.

Bingo. One of their own. One of Lyn's own? Like a brother
or a cousin? Someone who needed the special skills of a sports
rehabilitation program? He toyed with the idea, mentally flipped
it and folded it and curled it into a dozen different shapes. The
end result remained the same. A woman like Brooklyn Raine,
who'd been coached by her father and devoted to her husband,
would definitely give up every dime she had for a family
member.

Time to dig into the family background. See if he could learn
the identity of the mystery relative.

But as he clicked on link after link, frustration grew. He'd
already scoured most of the information available about
Broolyn, with no mention of other family members besides her
father.

On a hunch, he typed "April Raine" into his search engine.

And nearly slid off the bench when a page popped up with
a list of more than fourteen thousand results.

Who in the world was April Raine? Curiosity burning, he
clicked on the first link and began to read.

Once again, Doug paused at the top of the last hill on Snow
Can-Do. Slipping his goggles away from his eyes and over his
helmet, he feigned the need to catch his breath. Without the
amber tint of the lenses, the mere slip of late-afternoon sunlight seemed too bright and transformed figures into shadows.
At least a dozen skiers flew past his skewed vision, aimed for
the inevitable line to board the lift and squeeze in that final
run of the day. The wind, low but evident all afternoon, now bit
into any bared skin with icy teeth.

When his vision finally cleared, he scanned the clusters of
people loitering outside the base lodge.

On a spit of snow from her skis, Kerri-Sue pulled up beside
him. "Nope. She hasn't shown up yet."

Doug offered her a blank stare. "Huh?"

"Lyn. That's who you're looking for, right?" She grinned.
"I heard about what happened the other night. Real smooth,
bringing her dinner."

His jaw dropped. "How did you ... ?"

"Small mountain." She spread her arms wide, the extension
of her ski poles encompassing the entire vista of steel gray sky,
white snow, and green pines. "Lots of nosy residents. And Mrs.
Bascomb is the biggest gossip in the county. I'd imagine the
whole town knew about your date before you even had dessert
that night."

"We didn't have dessert," he mumbled.

A movement near the row of Adirondack chairs caught his
eye. He stared hard, hoping to discern something familiar in
the figure who stood alone among the groups of friends and families. The slightest tilt of her head, a subtle gesture of pushing a curl of hair from her face, a laugh, any of the dozens of
unique characteristics that made Lyn ... Lyn.

"You know, Romeo." Kerri-Sue poked his shoulder. "You
might want to play a little harder to get."