Dear Reader,

There are times when everything seems to be going well.

Don’t be frightened. It won’t last.

I got the idea for this story during one of those rare moments when I arrogantly thought I could accomplish one of my goals. It was at that exact moment of total self-satisfaction when life stepped in and slapped me with a ripe tomato…thank you very much.

I like to think I can roll with the punches, but most of the time it’s more of a heavyweight championship. When goals come too easily, it makes me uncomfortable. I tend to crave the challenge, or else, what’s the point?

That’s why I brought Mya and Eric together. It seemed only right that they should battle it out and come to the only reasonable conclusion…well, I can’t tell you that conclusion here. You’ll simply have to read the book.

Please come visit me at www.maryleo.net. We’ll talk more.

Enjoy the tomatoes.

Best,

Mary Leo

So there they stood, arms locked around each other like they were old friends, buddies, soul mates, or even lovers.

To the world they were just another kissing couple at the airport.

However, Mya had a different take on the whole thing. Hers was more of the startled variety. Such as, when out of a crowd of people, a stranger calls your name and you try your best to recognize this person.

Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, but it should have been for all the contact she’d had with Eric over the years. Let’s see, the last real memory Mya had of him was when they were seven years old and he had just thrown a huge bucket of water over her sand castle. Of course, she had retaliated by wrecking his sand castle by bulldozing it with her sweet little feet.

She had seen pictures of him at various stages of growth and accomplishment, but who can keep up with all that changing? She was too busy with her own life to worry about Eric’s—he had just been the boy who tormented her and whom she loved to torment back.

Now Mya didn’t know what to say—which absolutely, positively never happened to her. Yet here she was in the arms of Eric Baldini, who, for some odd reason, made her pulse quicken and, for a brief moment, seemed enormously sexy.

A Pinch Of Cool
Mary Leo

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A Pinch of Cool is Mary Leo’s third novel. She’s had careers as a salesgirl in Chicago, a cocktail waitress and Keno runner in Las Vegas, a bartender in Silicon Valley and a production assistant in Hollywood. She has recently given up her career as an IC Layout Engineer to pursue her constant passion: writing romance.

Mary now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and new puppy.

I’ve been blessed to have known

quite a few extraordinary women in my life,

but none of them have impressed me more, been

as plucky, made me laugh, guided me, inspired

me, shown as much courage, and ultimately been

as cool as Katina Resann. This book,

my flamboyant friend, is dedicated to you.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

1

“MOM, DON’T CRY . I hate it when you cry,” Mya Strano said into the phone. Her mother had called bright and early on a Monday morning in April, just to chat, but there had been very little chatting. Just that silent thing mixed in with heavy sighing and runny-nose sounds, which only meant one thing. Tears.

“Who said I was crying?” Rita Strano spluttered.

Denial, that was the key. Always a clue to her mom’s true emotions.

“I can hear it in your voice.”

“A person can’t hear tears.”

“Believe me, Mom. I could hear your tears in my sleep.”

“How you talk.”

It was one thing to hear a friend cry, or see a coworker cry, or watch tears stream down Cher’s face in a movie. Why is it that she never got a red nose? Some people have all the luck. But when your own mother cried, it was almost surreal. Like, it couldn’t possibly be happening. Not to my mom.

Mothers weren’t supposed to cry, at least not on the phone to their daughters. The whole mother-daughter system wasn’t set up for such episodes. It threw the world off balance, blew the stars out of the sky, and made twenty-six-year-old daughters want to hurl themselves down flights of stairs for lack of knowing what to do to stop it—a completely unstable act, but acceptable given the extreme circumstances.

“Okay. So maybe I’m upset.” Ah, an admission. The first step in the order of things. “But who wouldn’t be? We’ve made that network more money than anybody else and just because we’re slipping a little…”

The knot in Mya’s stomach began to unwind, and she could forgo the stair hurling. A ray of light had beamed in through the tunnel of despair, or something equally as metaphorical.

“Mom, how far are you slipping?”

Mya gazed at her light gray cubical walls and waited for the answer. This might take a while. The walls were littered with local fashion ads, mostly from SoHo, upscale restaurant logos, and pictures of New York street vendors. She especially liked the street vendors. Some of those guys were really cute in an entrepreneurial sort of way. There was something sexy about a guy who depended on his ability to pitch to make his living that was exciting to her. Not that she’d go off and have an affair with one of them. Not really. Okay, there was that one artist in Times Square who hocked those cute little cigar-box purses—so totally out now—but he didn’t count. He was actually an intellectual, caught up in society’s intolerance of the struggling artist.

All right, so she fell for the line, and until she came to her senses, they’d had a great time together…that one night, when he gave her all the purses, then left for Toledo to take over his father’s plumbing business. But that was ancient history, when she’d first arrived in the city. Something like that could never happen again, she told herself as her feet rested on a recently delivered carton of I Heart N.Y. T-shirts.

“Minor details,” her mother finally said.

“What?” Could her mother now hear her inner musings? Had she gone psychic?

“Stay with me, dear. Our ratings should be minor details to the network. We still get a ton of fan mail.”

Oh, yeah, crying mothers. “Mom, the network doesn’t care about fan mail. They only care about ratings.”

“Fickle bastards.”

Mya sat back in her Aeron—ergonomically chic chair. She thought she should simply get used to these mom-tears. They weren’t for anything catastrophic like a relative dying or a mile-long meteor heading for earth, although, to her mom, low ratings ranked right up there with a good blight, or the ever popular imploding sun.

Mya’s mother, Rita, and Franko Baldini, Rita’s long-time business partner and sometimes lover, were the stars of a network cooking show, La Dolce Rita. The show had been on the air for nine straight years. Lately, however, the show was hitting a dry spell, and her mother seemed to get all weepy about it almost every time Mya spoke with her. Only this time Mya was determined to do something, despite her mother’s inability to accept help.

“Mom, tell me what I can do for you.”

“You can be happy you’re not on TV. It’s a competitive, young world and I’m getting too old for it. You get one lousy wrinkle and they want to take you off the air.”

Her mom let out a long sob. It was simply too much. Mya wished she could be there to cheer her up, but Rita lived in Los Angeles and Mya now lived in New York City, a move she was beginning to…she couldn’t even think it…okay, a move she was beginning to regret. God, now I’m going to start crying.

She sat up straight and reined in her tearful thoughts. “That’s not true. Look at Emeril. He has wrinkles.”

“He’s a man, dear.”

“Okay, so Emeril’s not a good example, but age has nothing to do with your ability to cook and entertain.”

“Tell that to my producers. They probably want to replace Franko and me with a couple of teenagers in tight miniskirts and purple hair. I bet they’re even talking to Paris Hilton. Maybe if I dye my hair blond, and get a face-lift and wear designer clothes—”

“That’s it,” Mya announced after taking a swig of her raspberry-mocha low-fat latte. Her mother had come up with the perfect way for Mya to help.

“You want me to get a face-lift?”

“Not you, silly. The show. La Dolce Rita needs a face-lift and I’m the girl to give it one.”

“But how—”

Mya felt that rush of excitement she lived for. She absolutely loved to plan, and do, and make over. It was her passion to find the latest trend and bring it into focus. Actually, it was her job at NowQuest, a trend analysis boutique in the ultra-cool, significantly hip SoHo. Mya was addicted to cool in a way that only another trend spotter could understand. She woke up each morning and skimmed four big-city newspapers, watched MTV and the Style Network for countless hours, read hundreds of magazines, traveled with a small video camera, her laptop, a Polaroid, a picture-taking cell phone and started up conversations with strangers—hence the T-shirts and cigar-box purses—just to see what they were thinking. Mya was an information omnivore and reveled in every aspect of it.

“Here’s the thing. Somebody has to fly out to Vegas for a client, so I’m thinking I’ll volunteer, but I’ll start the fact-seeking odyssey in L.A. with you and Franko. It should only take me about a week, maybe two at the most to get your show all hipped up.” A new set with a hot band, and maybe some guest appearances. “My head’s already whirling with ideas. I’ve got a buildup of vacation hours, so my boss won’t care. Then I’ll hop on over to Vegas, get our client all happy, take in a show or two—a girl’s gotta have fun—and fly back here with my research. How’s that?”

Her mother didn’t respond. Not really. It was more in the form of someone trying to get over a crying spell, with that breathy sound kids get when they want your attention. Apparently, her mother needed a bit more coaxing.

“Mom, you know you want me to do this.”

“Will I have to dye my hair pink?”

“Only if you want to, but pink hair is way out. A deep auburn might be nice, but I’ll check it out and let you know. It might be the Diane Keaton look, or maybe that was last year. We may add some sassy highlights just to give it that extra drama.”

Silence.

“Mom? Are you there? You can cook for me every day if you want. Fattening foods, like rice pudding with real cream and a pound of sugar. I’ll even gain some weight for you. C’mon, Mom. Let me at least pitch the ideas to you. If you don’t like ’em, you can hire some new agent to needle your producers, but please let me try.”

Mya glanced at the Hello Kitty clock on her desk. She had exactly ten minutes to get to a meeting about that very Vegas client, and she hadn’t even looked at her notes yet.

More silence.

“Mom. Say something, please.”

Mya pulled out her notebook on Blues Rock Bistro, the client whom she and her entire company were trying to convince to change their image in order to open a Las Vegas hotel and casino. So far, Blues Rock was interested, but they still hadn’t signed on the bottom line.

She skimmed her notes while her mother spoke. “If you really think you can help, then who am I to stop you?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Maybe you’re just what we need to get our ratings back into the top ten.”

“Great!” Mya opened her calendar on her ultra-thin laptop screen and skimmed her appointments. Her days were booked solid, but her evenings sucked. Not one real date. “I can be there a week from Thursday.”

“I have a meeting with the producers this Friday. I’d love it if you could be here for the meeting. I’m feeling especially vulnerable these days and I couldn’t take it if the meeting didn’t go well. I think I need all the support I can get.”

Like that is even remotely possible. How on earth did her mother expect her to be there by Friday? And with a presentation? She couldn’t possibly—

More sniffling.

“I’ll fly in this Thursday afternoon, but you have to agree to let me do this my way, or it won’t work. Actually, I’ve always wanted to—”

“Sounds fab, dear. I’ll send a limo to pick you up at LAX. Just phone me with the details. See you Thursday, sweetie. Bye-ee.”

And just like that, all was right in the world of daughters and mothers. There would be no hurling today.

THURSDAY, AT EXACTLY twelve noon, Mya strapped herself into the comfy leather window seat on Jet Blue’s A320 Airbus. She loved to fly Jet Blue. It was by far the coolest airline on the planet with its private in-flight TV shows and roomy aisles.

There was something grand about the thrust of a jet engine. Sexual. Erotic. Titillating. Am I horny or what?

Anyway, she liked the sound of it. The power of being propelled through the air above the earth. The wonder of looking down over the ocean and the city beneath her feet. Or maybe she was just excited about the whole concept of getting a mini-vacation and getting the hell out of the city for a while. It’s not that she didn’t love New York, she did, on Sundays and most holidays, but Mya Strano was a California girl at heart, and nothing could change that.

Okay, so there were a few things she liked about the city. Her upscale apartment in the Village, her coffee shop on the corner, not to mention the fabulous nightlife and the fact that her friends were some of the coolest people in Manhattan, or so they said.

And the men she had admitted to dating, she’d kept the street vendors on the DL, were so perfectly cool that occasionally she’d have to break up with them just to see if the separation genuinely hurt. Most of the time, it hadn’t. Not really.

Not that she hadn’t actually felt emotion for a few of them. She had, but most of the guys hadn’t been able to feel any real emotion in return. Which would have been fine if she were a rock, but seeing as how she had flesh and bones and a beating heart, she wanted something a little more emotionally satisfying.

At least that’s why she had broken it off with totally cool, and totally full of himself, Bryan Heart. He was by far the hipster of all hipsters. The Brad Pitt of her fashion-obsessed world, but after he told her that he couldn’t let himself fall in love with her until it was cool to be in a relationship, she had to end it. The irony was that as he walked away, he told her not to worry, because as soon as relationships were back in again, she’d be first on his call-back list.

That was over a year ago and she was still waiting for his call.

So, all right, she had a thing for radically cool guys.

Could be worse!

But that wasn’t her only problem with living on her own and running with the in crowd. The transition from one coast to another had been an almost insurmountable task.

It was probably the one thing in Mya’s nearly perfect life that somewhat confused her. Of course, she blamed this malady on the weather more than anything else. Mya wasn’t used to all that cold, and wind, and snow, sleet, ice, rain and outrageous humidity that could melt a girl’s skin right off her sexy little body. She was more the sunshine and occasional earthquake kind of chick, and all that other stuff was way over the top.

The thing was, Mya wasn’t a quitter. Not ever. Nothing deterred her when she was on a quest for success.

Two years ago, Mya had decided that twenty-four was way too old to be living at home and living off of Mom, so she packed up her stuff to make her way in the world. Start her own life. Find her passion. Make her mark.

Anyway, that world was New York City, where she landed the absolute coolest job a girl could have. On a scale of cool dream jobs, it had to rank number one. But that was two years ago. Now, she missed her family, and the beach, with all those cute surfer-type guys, and maybe a little of that California nightlife, and well, maybe she just needed to go home for a while. To let her mother dote on her. Cook for her.

All right, so she missed being pampered. Who wouldn’t with a mother like hers? Rita was one of those fifties moms who cooked a real breakfast every morning and darned socks. And let me tell you, my socks can use some darning.

But what was even better than darned socks and sunshine was the fact that she was flying home to help her mother fix a problem that Mya was crashingly certain she could solve.

Mom and Franko were on a downward spiral to oblivion. When Mya had checked, their ratings were falling right through the proverbial floor, and Mya was only too happy to turn that trend around. She was the queen of finding the tipping point, and loved the challenge of searching out the latest cool, then applying it to a struggling business. Mya knew about cool from the moment she started coordinating her own Care Bear outfits while she was busy learning how to walk. It was only appropriate for her to recreate her mother’s show and add some raw wow! to the pot.

Mya spent the entire flight to L.A. in her own little world of au courant. She had her laptop purring with ideas for the set, their clothes, the food and the whole feel of the show. She cross-referenced various reports on popular cooking magazines and interviews with top chefs and various well-known foodies. Then she added a couple of opinion reports from teenage hipsters, and data from Vegas strippers—they were the latest trendsetters.

She momentarily flashed on erecting a pole in her apartment, but then thought how pathetic it would be if she never had the opportunity to use it. She’d have to hire somebody to have it taken out and even her neighbors would know that she had no sex life. Of course, she could probably find a cute street vendor to do a pole dance for her, then she could keep it.

Could I be more of an embarrassment to myself?

Never mind all that, Mya had a keen eye for cool no matter what the venue.

There was only one little pesky problem on Mya’s overflowing plate of things to do…her boss, Grace Chin, a delightful woman, who should have been happy for Mya.

However, Grace hadn’t reacted quite the way Mya had expected. It was more of a reaction in the category of popping a vein when Mya had told her she was combining a vacation with her business trip to Vegas.

No worries. Mya had both the new client’s research and her mother’s revamp succinctly under control and ready for total buzz liftoff.

MYA WAS ALMOST GIDDY about five hours later as she stepped off the plane and made her way over to Baggage inside LAX. She lifted her checkered orange-and-pink French luggage off the baggage carrousel with absolute abandon and walked right out the glass doors and even though it was raining, she knew it wouldn’t last. That was the thing about L.A., the rain only had a bit part.

Mya actually hummed that old song about how it never rained in Southern California, as she happily pulled her bags over to the side to wait under the overhang for the limo her mother had promised to send.

Not to worry.

Hum. Hum. Hum. It was only a matter of time before the limo driver would pull up looking for her. He might even hold up a sign with her name written on it, and she would be whisked away in the back seat of plush luxury, humming as the driver maneuvered the crowded streets of one of America’s finest cities.

Hum. Hum. Hum.

Mya stared at the endless stream of gnarled traffic trying to get past security and cops while the rain continued to fall. A chill swept over her. For a brief instant, she wished she’d been smart enough to pull a sweater out of her bag, but the instant passed when she saw a limo heading right for her.

Right on time…well…almost, but who cares?

Mya began to pull her luggage up to the curb when the limo stopped a few yards away and the driver got out.

“I’m over here,” she called, while waving her arms. She now stood out in the rain. She thought maybe the driver couldn’t see her. After all, the airport was extremely busy, so she began to walk toward him. Just then, a Chinese family of four approached the limo and the driver opened the back door.

“Wait! That’s my car!” she yelled, but no one paid the slightest bit of attention to her. When the family was safely tucked inside, and all the luggage, red Samsonite, was loaded in the trunk, the driver hopped back in the front seat and drove away…in Mya’s limo, no doubt.

The question of the moment was: How could the driver mistake a Chinese family for Mya? Could he be that stupid?

Okay, so apparently that wasn’t my limo, but where is it?

She told herself to relax. Take a deep breath. Slowly let it out. Count to ten, or twenty, or one million. Something. Anything to relax.

She rolled her luggage back under the overhang and waited.

So, maybe her plane was a little early getting in, which would explain why her limo hadn’t arrived yet, plus getting through all that security stuff had to take a long time.

It started to rain harder and Mya, wearing nothing but a sleeveless sundress, purple ankle socks and brown heels started to shiver.

There’s no shivering in California.

She pulled a long strand of golden-red hair off her face, and wrapped her arms across her chest for some warmth. All right, perhaps it was raining a little more and a little longer than she had expected. Not something to worry about. Her limo would arrive at any moment, and the driver would probably bring a warm towel for her to dry off with.

Could happen.

She pulled her cell phone out of her cigar-box purse. Hey, with some fifty purses to choose from, a girl’s gotta find one she likes, even if they were so last year.

She phoned her mom’s cell.

No answer. She wanted to leave a message, but her mother had never figured out how to retrieve them, so why bother.

Mya had left precise flight information with her mother, even faxing the itinerary as a backup. She just didn’t understand where that damn limo could be.

She called Franko.

Of course, there was no answer. He didn’t like cell phones so he never had it with him. She pictured his poor little lonely phone stuck in a drawer somewhere just ringing and ringing.

“Okay, I’ve reached my crazy point,” she said out loud.

After waiting a good twenty minutes, with the rain still coming down, and no limo in sight, total frustration took over and Mya decided to simply take a cab.

Just as she was about to call her mom and tell her the new plan, she noticed an old beat-up van idling off to the right. There was something white taped up to the side window. When she looked harder, her name was scribbled in big black letters on a piece of white paper.

Now what?

Her mind whirled with scenarios. Maybe things were worse at home than she’d thought. Maybe her mother had lost all her money in some bad cooking deal and the only thing she could afford was a used van. A white used van, with Georgia plates.

“No wonder she’s always crying.”

The woman in the obviously warm raincoat standing next to her threw Mya a nasty look and moved away.

“Fine,” Mya called after her. “You should move away from me. I’m even scaring myself.”

Mya knew she was having ridiculous thoughts, but the van had her name on it. That in itself was ridiculous.

She didn’t quite know if she should actually approach the van, or stay as far away from it as possible, but she was desperate to get home and out of the rain. She decided to check it out, just in case her mother was inside, hiding from a potential press scandal.

She gingerly stepped out from under her shelter and into the rain again, hoping this was worth it. She walked right up to the Georgian treasure, and looked inside. It actually had a foul odor wafting out through an open side window. She backed away, holding her nose.

Whoa! Mom, what have you got in there?

The van was even worse than she could have imagined. Her mother couldn’t possibly own it. There wasn’t any stove.

Mya peeked in a side window, putting her face right up to the glass, but she didn’t see anybody. Empty cans and jars, clothes and some very expensive-looking professional video equipment littered the inside. There were only two bucket seats in the front. Everything else had been ripped out.

Wait.

Somebody or something moved in the very back of the van. She couldn’t make out if it was man or beast because the lighting wasn’t quite right. She cupped her hand around her eyes to shield out any backlighting.

That’s when a white flash of huge teeth, attached to a head the size of an adult bear, growled and leaped right at her. Mya jumped back, screamed and fell right out of her Miu Miu heels, landing in a nice warm puddle.

“Damn!”

“Voodoo, sit,” a male voice said from behind her.

“Excuse me?” Mya said.

The crazed animal inside the van immediately sat down, but the barking didn’t stop.

Mya wanted to run for her life, but her cute little shoes sat right in front of the dreaded van. She refused to leave without her new shoes. They pulled her entire outfit together.

“I was talking to my dog,” he said as he stood in front of her offering his hand to help her up.

“I knew that,” she told him, trying for some calculated sarcasm.

She didn’t want his help. Instead, she stood up all on her own, and even though she was now entirely drenched, with a very wet bottom, she still had her dignity. Kind of.

“That animal is vicious,” Mya shouted. “He should be put down. Destroyed. What’s the matter with you leaving him in there to scare somebody to death?”

“He’s very protective of his home. He must have thought of you as a threat,” the Voodoo owner offered.

Mya could barely see him. Her bangs covered her eyes, but from what little she could make out, he looked somewhat familiar. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to figure out where she’d met him before.

“Me? A threat? To whom?” she asked.

“To me?”

“To you! Somehow I think it’s the other way around.”

“Why? I wasn’t the one who was peeking in windows. They have laws for that you know.”

He had a point, but Mya was never going to admit she was actually looking for her mother in that junk heap.

The rain eased to a drizzle, and when Mya finally got a good look at him he was almost cute, with golden-chestnut hair—somewhat curly—and piercing gray-green eyes and a slight grin on his lips. He had a fairly large nose with a slight roundness to the tip, but it fit his boyish face, and if he were cleaned up, he might actually be handsome…in that nerdy, street vendor sort of way. The man desperately needed a shave. Not that facial hair was bad. As a matter of fact, it was coming back in, but it had to be kept neat under the chin. His wasn’t. And his hair could have used a trim, much too long, with ringlets surrounding his face and ears. Of course, he had an amazing build under that wrinkled blue parka he wore, but who’s looking.

SO THE GUY was a hot nerd. It’s not like she was going to start dancing around a pole or anything. Oh wait, she didn’t have a pole…yet.

“I wasn’t peeking in your window,” Mya corrected.

“Oh?” He stood there staring at her from his six-foot-something vantage point, his arms folded up tight across his chest. Glaring.

All right, so she had a thing for tall guys, seeing as how she was a mighty five foot five, but they had to be tall, cool guys, and this one totally lacked the cool part. He would simply never do.

She immediately stopped herself from staring. “Well, all right. Maybe I was, but not the way you mean. I was merely trying to see who was inside.”

“And the reason being?”

Did he ever stop with the questions?

He was enough to infuriate her normally calm disposition. She folded her arms across her chest as well.

“You have my name taped to your window. I suspect you were mistakenly sent here by my mother.”

“Holy shit! Mya? Mya Strano? It’s me. Eric. Franko’s son. Eric Baldini. Don’t you remember me?”

That evil little boy had grown up, and now he drove a piece of junk and owned a killer dog and as incredible as it seemed, he was there to give her a ride home.

Holy shit!

2

SO THERE THEY STOOD , arms locked around each other like they were old friends, buddies, soul mates or even lovers. To the world humming around them they were just another kissing couple at the airport, with one of them either going or coming.

However, Mya had a different take on the whole thing. Hers was more of the startled variety. One of those times when out of a crowd of people a stranger calls out your name and you try your best to recognize this person who says he or she knows you.

Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, but it should have been for all the contact they’d had over the years. Let’s see, the last real memory Mya had of Eric, they were seven years old and he had just thrown a huge bucket of water over her sand castle, completely destroying it, on a beach in Malibu. Of course, she had retaliated by wrecking his sand castle by simply bulldozing over it with her sweet little feet.

Yes, and over the years she had seen pictures of him at various stages of growth and accomplishments, but who can keep up with all that growing and changing? She was too busy with her own hormones and accolades to worry about Eric’s, the boy who tormented her and she loved to torment back.

Eric had moved to Georgia, now the plates make sense, with his mother after his dad and mom had divorced. Even when it had come time to say goodbye to him, which was actually at this very airport, she had stuck out her tongue in defiance. No hugging. No tears. Not even a handshake. Not that seven-year-olds are known for shaking hands, but they could have done something. He could have done something. They never even touched…of course, there was that time out by the green shed when they were playing double-dare, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She was too busy hugging a childhood memory.

Oh wait, she suddenly remembered that they did hold hands in the airport, for a moment, but that didn’t count. They were merely both playing with his ticket when their hands touched. A natural accident.

She had been silly with joy when he moved away. At least for the first few weeks. Then she had missed their arguments and missed having him around to play with. She’d gotten used to all that bickering, all that toy-throwing. She had even tried to convince her mom to let Eric come and live with them, but Eric’s mom wouldn’t let him even fly out to visit his dad.

Mya didn’t know what to say, something that absolutely, positively never happened to her. Even when she was born, her mother said she came out of the womb mumbling and cooing. Yet there she was in the arms of Eric Baldini, who, for some odd reason, made her pulse quicken, and for a brief moment, seemed enormously sexy.

How odd.

“I…I need my shoes,” she mumbled once he let go of their embrace.

He leaned over and her world spun a little as she watched him. Almost as if she’d just been passionately kissed. She took a step back and tripped over her own feet and fell down again, hard on the cement. Now her butt hurt and the fall caused her to bite her own lip. This falling thing was getting entirely too wacky.

When she looked up at him, the rain had completely stopped and the sun surrounded his body, making him appear almost angelic. She half expected to hear birds chirping and a choir singing, but instead a cop said, “There’s no loitering. You’ll have to move on.”

Eric held out his hand. This time she took it. He held her shoes in his other hand. “We better get out of here before he has us towed away. You’re bleeding.” He touched her lip and a tingle shot through her. She sucked her bottom lip inside her mouth and tasted her own salty blood.

“Is it bad?” she asked looking into his eyes.

“No. It stopped.” He smiled. Definitely less nerdy when he smiled. He’d actually grown up into a really handsome man.

Who knew?

“Where’s your stuff?” he asked looking back toward the doors.

An absolute terror swept over her as she slipped her soaking wet shoes on her soaking wet feet. “You don’t actually expect me to get in that thing with that crazed dog and that obnoxious smell do you? And just what is that smell, anyway?”

He opened his mouth.

She held up her hand. “Wait. I don’t want to know. The dog is bad enough.”

“Voodoo? He’s a puppy dog once you get to know him.”

The sun was beginning to dry her clothes, but she had to admit, she was still cold and getting very tired. All she wanted was to go home to Mom’s.

“My mother actually sent you to pick me up?”

He nodded, grinning.

“My mother, who knows I have an unnatural fear of animals with teeth larger than mine, and hate dirt of any kind…that mother sent you?”

“Technically, my dad asked me, but he was calling on behalf of your mom.”

So, they were both in on this little deal. Already they’re trying to fix us up.

Mya thought about her options.

There weren’t any.

Not really. She had no choice but to take a ride from a cute nerd, to whom she was strangely attracted, and had once thrown an entire box of crayons at, hitting him squarely in the head (she wondered if he remembered that). And who came with a man-eating bear of a dog inside a beat-up van.

It could be worse. It could still be raining.

WHEN ERIC’S DAD HAD PHONED HIM to pick up Mya, he pictured a completely different woman standing outside of baggage claim. He honestly believed she would be rather large. She’d been a chubby little girl who stuffed food in her mouth all day long, had short curly hair—Rita always seemed to cut Mya’s hair in strange ultra-short styles—and weird glasses. Mya had worn glasses back then and whenever they’d fight, he would call her Four Eyes, of course.

But the girl in the floral dress with the strawberry hair down to her tiny waist, and a face that could bring the dead to life, wasn’t exactly what he was prepared for. Nor was he prepared for her fear of dogs. Not that most grown men hadn’t walked the other way when Voodoo was around, but her fear was borderline hysteria.

He opened the back of his van and tried to secure Voodoo in his cage, while Mya waited with her luggage on the sidewalk.

“This won’t take but a minute,” Eric told her, but the dog was ornery and wanted to give Mya a friendly welcome nudge. Mya stood as far away as she could. “He wants to say hello,” Eric told her.

“Hi,” she said, waving from her safe vantage point.

“I think he wants to smell you before you get in the van.”

Mya’s left eyebrow went up. He suddenly remembered how she could move each eyebrow independently. When they were about five or six, he thought she was an interplanetary alien because of it, but then he was a big fan of Star Wars.

“You can still do that.”

“Do what?”

“That thing you do with your eyebrows.” He tried to move his eyebrows independently, but couldn’t.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah. It’s not like it’s a common thing.”

“What else do you remember?”

“That you liked peas and spinach. What kind of kid likes peas and spinach?”

“You used to snitch butter out of the fridge and chew on your dad’s vitamin E caps and make yummy sounds.”

“I had a thing for oil.”

It started to rain again, and she still wasn’t in the van.

“You have to let him smell your hand or he’s going to be restless the whole way.”

“Aren’t there enough smells in that van already? Why does he need mine?”

“Dogs like to know who’s around them.”

Mya slowly made her way up to the open door with her hand held out, but he could tell that she was ready to pull it back at any moment. He took hold of it, and she moved up closer. He liked the feel of her skin next to his.

Calm down. There’s no hope here. She’s way out of your league.

Voodoo stuck his nose up to their hands and took a couple long sniffs, but to Eric’s surprise, Mya didn’t pull back like he had expected. Instead, they stood there for an awkward moment holding hands…just like they did the day that he left when they were seven.

AFTER THE SMELL INTRODUCTION with Voodoo, a black pit-bull–bulldog mix with a head the size of a beach ball and teeth way too big to think about, and he was safely inside his black metal cage, Mya sprayed almost her entire bottle of Nanette Lepore around the foul-smelling van. Peach and cranberry permeated the air. Then, while Eric loaded her luggage right behind the front seats so Mya could keep track of it, she gingerly hoisted herself up into the passenger’s seat. When everything and everyone was safely tucked inside, the trio was on their way home.

This ought to be good.

“You look so different,” Eric said while he merged into the swarming traffic.

“Growing up will do that to you,” Mya answered, not wanting to actually sit back in the faded gold cloth seat. She had no idea what kind of muck might be attached to it and didn’t want whatever it was stuck to her bare back. She leaned slightly forward and held her obviously chewed seat belt out so it wouldn’t touch her dress.

“No. I mean your hair’s a different color, no glasses and you’re, well, thin.”

Mya turned to face him. “Are you saying I was fat? ’Cause I was never actually fat. I was simply big-boned.”

“And you changed that?”

“I grew out of it.”

“Oh.” He stared at her for a moment, then back at the street, then back at her. “And your nose. I can remember you had a real—”

Okay, so Mya had had a nose alteration when she was nineteen. Nothing major. Just some tapering of the width and a little off the tip. It’s not like she had her whole nose reconstructed or anything drastic. And so what if she did have a nose job. Was that some kind of crime or something?

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on your driving?” She forgot what she was doing and sat back in the chair, instantly feeling something sticky on her back. She leaned forward again.

Too late.

“Aw, what’s on this seat?” she whined.

“Voodoo drools a little. It’s the bulldog in him.”

“He drools on your seats?”

“Only that one. It’s where he usually sits.”

Okay, I think I’m going to be sick.

She sneezed.

“Sorry, but the heater doesn’t work. I’ve got a sweater in the back somewhere,” Eric offered.

She could only imagine what a stinking, wet, hairy mess his sweater would be. The thought made her shiver out loud. “I don’t really think I need it. Thanks.”

They drove out of the airport in silence, while Voodoo literally snored like a mad bull in his cage. The mere sound of his raspy throat reminded her of those vicious teeth of his.

She sneezed again. Perhaps she was allergic to something inside the van. Oh, hell, she didn’t even want to think about what it could be.

Once they were on the crowded freeway and headed to her mom’s house, she decided the least she could do was make some polite conversation. After all, the man was giving her a ride home. “So, what about this weather?”

He chuckled. “We haven’t seen each other since we were kids and that’s the best you can do? You want to talk about the weather?”

All right, now he made her smile. “Okay. What are you into these days?” She thought she’d use some of her interviewing techniques.

“That’s a start. I’m into a documentary. What about you?”

“I do trend analysis. In more familiar terms, I’m a trend spotter.”

“Oh yeah? I heard about that. Seems like it would be a cool job.”

So, he isn’t so nerdy, after all.

“I like it. Matter of fact that’s why—” And just as she was about to give him the skinny on her very important reason for being there, he suddenly got off the freeway miles from her mother’s house.

“Tell me you know a shortcut, ’cause this isn’t the best of neighborhoods to have something go wrong with this van of yours.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just need to do some taping.”

“Here? What could you possibly be taping here? A drug bust? A murder? What?”

“I’m working on my MFA in film.”

“You’re still in school?”

“Yeah. I graduate in June. I’m on spring break.”

“This June. Like in three months?”

“Yeah. Cool, huh?”

“Yeah.”

But Mya wasn’t so sure it was cool. When he first told her he was working on a documentary she assumed it was for some big studio and it would be for something serious, like world peace and he might be up for an Oscar, and she could go to the awards in a Prada gown and get interviewed by Joan Rivers. Then she’d get discovered and land the starring role in the next Tom Cruise movie and they’d fall in love and…

But he’s a film student!

He drove his van down side streets and straight into one of the more sketchy and bleak-looking areas of L.A. So maybe this was serious and she had misjudged him. Maybe he was doing something important about the downtrodden, the desperately poor and the hopeless in our society.

She looked at him with newfound respect. “What’s your documentary about?”

“Bars.”

Huh?

“Like in taverns?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not serious.”

Okay, don’t judge. Maybe it’s the decadence of the bars. Now that might be an angle.

“Why not? The saloons, taverns and bars of America made this country what we are today. They helped shape us. More historic events took place in saloons than any legal building in the whole of the U.S.”

She stared at him, not quite sure she had heard him correctly. “You’re not serious.”

“You said that already.”

“I’m assimilating the information.” She turned to face him. “Let me get this straight, your premise is that saloons helped shape our country?”

“Damn straight. I’m heading up to Gold Country next. And a couple days ago I was in Tombstone. ‘The town too tough to die.’ I went to the Birdcage Theater where the prostitutes had their own rooms around the poker tables. Did you know that Wyatt Earp married a prostitute? He met her in that very saloon. How’s that for tavern trivia?”

She was coming around. “Actually, that’s kind of interesting. I didn’t know that.”

This could be good.

She thought she might get to the Oscars after all.

He stopped the van in front of a run-down tavern. Two bad-ass older guys, with lots of tattoos and gold chains, sat on the front stoop, giving them the look. You know, that look that said, “What the hell are you two doing here?”

Mya locked her door.

“Aren’t you going to come in with me?”

“Where?”

“This is one of the oldest saloons in L.A. Just look at that architecture.” He bent over to check out the view from the front window.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“But Voodoo is going to need a walk, and I need to film this. Maybe you can walk him for me. Believe me, nobody will bother you with Voodoo.”

“Voodoo will bother me.” She wasn’t stepping one foot out of the van. She had grown accustomed to the smell and wanted to stay right where she was, thank you very much.

“He gets upset when he has to go.”

“Go where?”

“Piss. He needs to take a piss.”

“And you expect me to walk him?”

“Yeah. If you would. Please.”

He smiled over at her, but it was a fake smile. One of those pasted on things that used to drive her crazy when they were kids and he’d want to play soldier and she wanted to play anything but.

Voodoo started barking. Nothing too loud, only it had a guttural sound that made her nervous just being in the van with him. She didn’t know what she was scared of most, Voodoo or the two guys on the stoop.

Eric continued to lure her as he jumped out with his handheld professional-looking camcorder. “I don’t know if you should stay in there.”

“Why?”

“Well, sometimes Voodoo—”

Suddenly the odor that she had gotten somewhat used to intensified.

“Ohmigod!”

She opened the door and leaped out of the van so fast the two guys sitting in front of the store stood up to watch. Eric filmed the whole thing.

Fine!

“What did you feed him? That’s awful!” Mya hissed.

“Are you okay, lady?” one of the guys yelled from the stoop.

Mya turned and said, “Fine. I’m fine. Thanks.” She pasted one of her own fake smiles on her face.

“Like I said, when he’s gotta go, my boy’s gotta go.”

Mya followed Eric to the back of the van while he opened the doors. “Just get the dog out here, and don’t take too long taping in there, ’cause I’m not going to last too long out here. This whole thing is insane.”

“Great. I’ll only be a couple minutes.”

Eric freed Voodoo from his cage. The dog already wore a body harness with a thick black strap to hold him. He completely ignored Mya and jumped on the ground and headed for the nearest tree. The two scary guys slowly stood up and made their way into the tavern. A woman crossed the street as soon as she spotted the dog and a teenage boy hightailed it up the sidewalk.

Voodoo was like walking with a visible grenade. Everybody wanted to get out of your way.

So much for tattoos and mean looks.

“Here,” Eric said, handing her the leash. “You better hold on with both hands. He’s very strong.”

Mya grabbed hold, wrapping the strap around one of her hands for extra strength. She figured as long as the creature didn’t really look at her, she would be all right.

Eric went off happily taping the tavern, and even went inside, to apparently talk with the guys, while Mya held on to Voodoo.

Okay, she could do this. There was no reason to be scared of this animal. Eric had said he was a puppy dog, and he had done his smelling thing, so he was used to her scent.

Walking Voodoo didn’t have quite the same feel as walking a schnauzer, or even a golden lab. Having Voodoo on the end of your leash was like walking a tiger. You went where he led you, and at the moment that meant a tiny patch of dirt in front of a scrawny stick of a tree a few yards away from the van.

As soon as he found his spot and marked it with his pee, he proceeded to take a dump. Mya looked away, wondering if there was a law in this neighborhood about cleaning up the mess. Of course, there was no way that she would even consider picking up whatever rot that dog emitted from his foul body.

Suddenly there was a tug on the leash. Mya turned to check him out and watched as Voodoo tried to cover his dump with his hind legs. He sent leaves, grass and his rotten whatever all over the place, with some of it landing on the parked pick-up truck next to him. And as if that wasn’t enough, he lifted a leg and peed on the back tire.

“Oh, my God!” was all Mya could say as Voodoo ran from the crime scene with Mya in tow. He headed right back to the van. But there was somebody yelling at her and obviously chasing them from behind. Mya was not about to look back; besides, she could barely keep up with Voodoo’s pace. But whoever was chasing them sounded very male, very big and enormously angry.

Eric suddenly appeared in front of the tavern, took one look at the situation and hurried to the back of his van. He opened one of the doors just as Voodoo leaped inside. Mya followed, tumbling in on top of him, then hitting the floor with a thud. There was something wet and yellow under Mya’s hands. She desperately tried not to notice, but it was almost too much for her to assimilate. She told herself to relax, as long as it wasn’t acid, she would be fine.

Eric closed the door, ran around to the front, jumped in and took off squealing as if they had just robbed that tavern and they were on the lam in some crazy movie.

Bonnie and Clyde and Voodoo.

When Mya looked up, Voodoo was staring right at her, obviously excited and waiting for a pat on the head for being such a good dog. She couldn’t even think of touching him.

Then, as if he could hear her thoughts, he shook his head and saliva slapped her right in the face.

She sat up, wiped the spittle from her cheek and calmly proceeded to remove one of Eric’s obviously expensive video cameras from its case. A very nice Panasonic DVCPRO Camcorder, to be precise.

This should get me home.

ERIC DROVE THE VAN while Mya scooted herself to the front. She knelt down behind him and said, in a matter-of-fact voice, “If you don’t take me home right this minute, I’ll throw your frickin’ camera right out the frickin’ window.”

Eric glanced at her through his mirror. Sure enough she was holding his best camera up for ransom. It reminded him of when she threatened him with his boom box.

The girl still had spunk, he had to give her that.

“I know you’re a little upset, but—”

“A little upset! I’m a whole lot upset and if I don’t get out of this stink-mobile pretty soon, there’s no telling what I might do.”

Eric remembered the time she had thrown his favorite Transformer down the toilet, then flushed and grinned at him as the water washed over their feet from the overflowing bowl. They were both grounded for an entire month, but Mya never seemed to care about the punishment once she was on a track of getting even.

Yeah, so maybe he had shaved Barbie’s head bald, and maybe it had been her favorite doll, but he couldn’t take all that incessant chattering all the time. The girl never shut up. Mya had been a vindictive child, but was she actually capable of throwing his camera out the window just because she wanted to go home? He gazed at her face once again through his mirror. She held the camera up next to the open passenger window.

Damn straight she was.

“All right. You win. I’ll take you home, just put my camera down. Gently.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth and you won’t make another stop at an even worse tavern?”

“You have my word.”

“And what’s that good for these days?”

“Whatever you want. Dinner? A movie? My head on a platter.”

“My mom’s house is all I’m interested in at the moment. I’ll take your head another time, thank you very much.”

“We should be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Fine!”

Mya put his camera back in the case. Eric was somewhat relieved, but now he knew she still had that ornery streak. Part of him thought it was cute, but the other part of him thought he needed to watch his step. The girl could blow at any minute.

Eric watched as Mya stepped over the console and sank into the front seat. Her dress slid up her legs all the way to her red-and-white polka-dot panties and Eric flushed.

Don’t get excited. She hates you right now.

“And could you please call off your dog,” Mya said as Voodoo’s head came poking through the center of the two seats.

“Down boy,” Eric commanded. “Sit, you old dog, you.”

Mya threw Eric a wry glance. Eric responded with a shrug.

“You guys are all alike,” Mya said as she adjusted her dress around her fine legs.

“It’s what we live for.” He smiled at her, thinking that she’d see the humor, but she didn’t smile back.

When Eric had volunteered to pick up Mya Strano from LAX, he’d never expected some hot-looking chick in a skimpy dress and legs that never quit. He also didn’t expect her to be so East Coast. So with it. So New York. Oh, sure, he knew she’d been living in the Big Apple, working at some job her mother couldn’t really describe, but he never imagined she would be a complete knockout. This whole trip back to L.A. could turn out to be very interesting.

Voodoo blew air through his closed lips, making a vibrating sound, and sighed. Eric reached back and patted him on the head.

WHEN THEY FINALLY PULLED UP in her mom’s driveway, Mya couldn’t say goodbye fast enough. “Well, I guess that’s it, then,” she told him, sticking out her hand for a not-so-friendly handshake. He took it, but as soon as he did, she slipped her hand out and turned to walk up the driveway.

There will be no hand-holding this time, buddy.

“Let me help you with your bags,” he said as he pulled the handle up on the largest suitcase.

“No thanks,” she insisted, almost ripping it out of his hand. She wanted to do everything herself from now on. She was home now and didn’t need him for anything. Ever! “I’ve got it. It was so nice seeing you again. Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime…in the next twenty years.”

She walked up the driveway hoping that he’d start his engine and drive away, but he didn’t. She turned around and waved. Maybe he didn’t get the hint. He always was a little slow at the uptake. “So, bye then. Have a safe trip up to Gold Country.”

She turned around again. This time she headed straight for the side door, opened it with her key and pulled her suitcase inside. She turned one more time as she stood in the doorway and waved. But he just stood there, waving back, all full of smiles.

She closed the door, locked it and gave it a few pats as if that was her final statement on the subject.

“And to think for a moment there, I thought he was cute. Must have been temporary insanity.”

Mya left everything by the kitchen door and walked into her mother’s ridiculously large and totally upscale English Tudor house.

“Anybody here?” she yelled. “I’m home.”

Home. There’s no place like home.

It didn’t matter that her mother wasn’t there, nor Grammy, nor Franko. What Mya really needed was a shower and a bed.

She made her way through the kitchen, decorated with walnut cabinetry and large Mexican tiles on the floor. Nothing had changed in the last ten years and Mya liked it that way. When she walked through the traditional dining room and up the wooden staircase to her old bedroom, she took comfort in knowing that no matter what went on in the outside world, her mother’s house was always the same.

Mya gently knocked on her grandmother’s bedroom door just to make sure she wasn’t there. Grammy’s hearing wasn’t as good as it used to be, so Mya thought she’d give her another holler. But Grammy didn’t answer.

Then she found her old room down at the end of the hall. It looked exactly like the day she’d left it, two years ago. She was absolutely thrilled to be in her own room.

Mya fell across her queen-size bed with its light green silk comforter. Absolute serenity overtook her as she spread out and enjoyed the luxury of not having that monster dog breathing in her ear. Her room smelled of lilacs and roses.

How marvelous.

Mya rolled herself up inside her comforter and fell asleep, or did she?

There was that damn bark again, only this time it came from somewhere inside the house.

3

MYA MUST HAVE JUMPED three feet off the bed when she heard that bark. At first she thought she’d dreamed it, but when she heard it again, she knew the animal was close by. Which meant, of course, that Eric was somewhere close by. Was there no rest for the weary? No port in the storm? No time to recover? She rolled over and pulled the blankets up over her head.

“Honey, I thought you’d never wake up,” Rita Strano announced. She sat on the bed next to Mya and put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Mya rolled over and stared up at her mother’s always beautiful face.

Her mother’s eyes widened and an eyebrow shot up. “What the heck happened? Are you all right?”

A shot of adrenaline raced through Mya’s veins. “What do you mean?”

“Do you feel okay? You look rather…awful.” Her mother took in a sharp breath. “Were you in an accident?”

Mya yawned and stretched. Her jaw ached and her right hip hurt. How odd, she thought. “Define accident.”

“Don’t kid. Do you hurt anywhere? You look like something the dog dragged in.”

Mya smiled. Her bottom lip stung. “He did.” She was beginning to get somewhat worried over all the aches and pains.

“I don’t understand,” Rita grumbled, shaking her head.

Mya scooted out of bed thinking she needed to get a good look at herself in her bathroom mirror. She didn’t remember being in an actual accident, but then she’d read that if the accident’s really bad, a person can’t remember it. Like your brain saves you from the trauma or something. Okay, but she didn’t have any deep pain anywhere. Not really. Her lip hurt, and her hip was sore, and her ankle was a little stiff, and maybe her jaw felt a little weird, but nothing major. No headache. No nausea. No acid indigestion…no wait, she never got that. What was her mother talking about?

When Mya glanced in the mirror, she had no choice but to let out a short burst of a scream at the woman staring back at her.

Her mother came running in. “What’s the matter?”

Not only was Mya’s hair full of dried dog saliva and some kind of unrecognizable yellow substance, but her right cheek was slightly bruised, her bottom lip was swollen and her pretty floral dress was torn and just plain filthy.

“This is all your fault, Mom. You sent that…that disaster-on-wheels to pick me up from the airport. Are you trying to punish me for something?” Mya examined her bruised cheek and swollen lip in the mirror. She couldn’t believe there could be so much damage from one little fall. All right, maybe two falls. Then she remembered jumping into the back of the van, and the creepy yellow stuff, and how she had hit her face on the camera case.

“Of course not. I sent a comfy black limo to fetch you.” She hesitated for a moment. “Or did I tell Franko to order the limo?” She paused and thought for a second. “Yes. That was it. I got really busy with a Spanish blackberry torte and asked Franko to send over the limo. Oh, my! Did something go wrong with the limo driver? Did he attack you? You can’t trust anybody these days.”

“I wish the limo driver had attacked me. At least I would’ve been inside a clean car rather than a vile, stinking hell-on-wheels. It was Eric.”

“Eric attacked you?” She sat down on the closed toilet seat. “Who knew? And he was such a nice little boy. It’s that devil mother of his. I always knew she was a bad influence on that boy. We’ll send him to jail for the rest of his miserable life.”

Her mother was spinning out of control. Mya had to put a stop to it, or the police would be raiding Eric’s van at any moment…which, considering all he had put her through, might not be a bad idea. “Mom. Everything’s fine. Relax. It was nothing like that. Eric never touched me, well, except for a hug, which was way too long, by the way.”

She abruptly stopped staring at herself in the mirror. The yellow stuff was like glue in her hair and she had to get it out of there. “I have to take a shower this instant or I’ll explode.”

“That’s my girl. You need a good outlook on all of this. We’ll work it out, later, at dinner. I’m sure whatever happened between you two can be resolved.”

“Does this mean he’s coming to dinner?”

“Of course he is. He’s like a son to me.”

“A minute ago you were ready to put him in jail.”

“But now I’m not. See, it’s already working out.”

Mya pulled her dress up over her head and threw it on the white tile floor. Her mother picked it up. “Should I keep this as evidence, or should I burn it?”

Thoughts of a trial with Eric and her stained dress swirled around in Mya’s head. A long trial, with Calista Flockhart as her lawyer, and Lucy Liu as the judge. They’d fine him for a million dollars for causing Mya so much stress, but Eric wouldn’t be able to pay. She’d end up with his van. And Voodoo!

“Burn it!” she ordered. “Leave no thread uncharred.”

“I’ll get right to it. Enjoy your shower, sweetheart.”

Her mom left while holding the dress out in front of her with one hand. Mya closed the bathroom door, opened the glass door on the shower, turned on the water so it was nice and hot, stripped off her underwear and stepped under the gentle spray.

She wanted to stand there for the next hundred years and let the warm water run over her aching body. She had little aches and pains everywhere. She wondered how a simple ride from the airport could have caused all of this. She even had a bruise on her left shin.

Next time she’d take a cab or rent a car or steal a skateboard. She figured her lack of transportation judgment must have something to do with the coming-home thing. That unconscious need to be taken care of. The desire to return to the child stage, or some such madness. Why else would she have agreed to hitch a ride from Eric Baldini? The Tormentor.

Then she thought of how incredibly sexy she had felt when Eric had stared at her legs. She hadn’t been that turned on over something that simple in, well, forever. He had the best eyes, an olive-green color, and could probably be astonishingly attractive if he just dressed the part. Maybe a little product in his hair to make it stand up a little, a classic Calvin Klein shirt, and some H&M slacks. And where did he get those absolutely horrid blue shoes?

But why was she even thinking about Eric? He and his monster dog lived in Georgia for heaven’s sake. It was like swooning over somebody who lived in Brooklyn.

He may as well live on another planet!

She told herself to stop daydreaming and to think about her purpose for coming to L.A. in the first place. To save La Dolce Rita.

She needed to focus.

Now that she was safely home, she would go over her notes and present them at dinner. Turning, she let the water run down her face and belly while she lathered her hair, carefully. She turned again, rinsed and lathered it three more times, just to make extra sure the yellow goo was completely gone, along with any Eric Baldini residue.

Okay, she was back on track. Back in control.

Mya finished washing, dried off, dressed in a white Hugo Boss shirt and Ralph Lauren pink capris while she mentally prepared her speech on rules for cool. She wanted to wow Franko and her mom with her plan, and by tomorrow when the actual meeting rolled around, everyone would be prepared for the perfect pitch, Mya-style.

ERIC HAD WAITED PATIENTLY for someone to come home to let him in after Mya had locked him out. It wasn’t a long wait, maybe an hour or so. Obviously, no one had told Mya that he was her mother’s house guest for the next two weeks while his dad’s house was being renovated. He wondered how Mya would react to his constant presence after their afternoon together. Not that it was a necessarily bad afternoon. It was more in the somewhat strained category of afternoons.

At one point, he actually toyed with the idea of getting a room somewhere, but then decided against it because of his dog. Voodoo was a point of contention to most hotel and motel owners. It was just easier to sleep on a mat in the van while he traveled. However, sometimes getting a shower was something of a problem, but he hadn’t expected to have to pick up Mya at the airport the very day he arrived in L.A. That was his father’s idea, and not a very bright one. He never should have agreed to it, but his dad always could get him to do things he didn’t want to do.

Now, as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror off the guest room, shaving off his three-day-old beard, he wondered if giving her a ride home had been a smart move. The look on her face when he hugged her said it all. The woman wanted to run, not hug. He could see it in her eyes, those fantastic smoky eyes. And that body.

He put on his only clean T-shirt, black, and a pair of shiny blue knee-length shorts. Admittedly, he didn’t look quite up to her funky standards, but at least he didn’t smell anymore. He blamed the obnoxious odor on those bottles of spicy Cajun mustard his father had forced him to lug back from New Orleans. Voodoo couldn’t leave anything alone once it was inside the van.

Of course, Eric should have cleaned it up before he picked up Mya, but Voodoo had just ripped open the plastic bottles on the way and there hadn’t been any time.

This whole thing had been his father’s idea. Eric was happily filming his saloons when his dad had called him, begging for some help with La Dolce Rita. Not that Eric had a single idea of what to do to help, but his dad insisted that he come out anyway. He never could say no to his dad. The man had a way of making everything sound exciting. Like it was Eric’s idea. And this was no exception. By the time he drove into L.A. he was feeling euphoric about the possibilities, even though he still hadn’t one single clue of what to do to help. When he had heard that Mya was on her way out as well, he’d hoped they could work together on the show, but after everything that had happened that afternoon, he was sure the show was categorically doomed.

“AH, THAT’S MY BEAUTIFUL MYA,” Rita said crisply as Mya walked into the kitchen. Rita held out her arms and Mya embraced her mother. “Do you feel better, sweetheart?”

“Much,” Mya answered while they hugged even tighter.

Rita was the kind of mom every girl dreamed of, loving, beautiful and totally her own woman. It had always been just Mya and her mom. Her dad had died soon after she was born, so Mya hadn’t ever known her real father, just Franko. Rita owned several small businesses and some prime real estate, ran their house and looked amazingly young for her fifty-three years. She just needed a little boost to that incredible look of hers.

Franko had his back to her, stirring something in the corner of the kitchen. He wore a large white apron over his casual clothes, just like Emeril. Actually, Franko looked a little like Emeril, with his stocky build and black, perfectly combed hair. But Franko had a gorgeous smile, no doubt where Eric got his smile from, that he was quick to share for almost any reason. Franko was one of those content, happy men who never seemed to worry about anything.

“Ciao, bella,” he said as he turned to face Mya, his hands in the air, beaming as if he were truly surprised to see her. Franko had come over from Italy when he was just nineteen and never really lost his fabulous accent. Thus the reason he and Rita had been so successful. She was his American voice.

Mya was surprised at her reaction to seeing him. A thrill raced over her. Franko had virtually raised her as his own daughter, and Mya loved him for it. The only thing that kept her from calling him Dad was a lack of a marriage certificate between him and her mom.

“Ciao, bello,” Mya echoed and held out her arms as well. She loved to be hugged by Franko. He made her feel safe and warm and he smelled of anisette, one of her favorite liqueurs.

“You look’a like the queen,” he announced while they embraced.

“The queen of what?” Mya asked as she pulled away from him and gazed into his smiling face. She loved his rugged Italian face, full of love and compassion, and excitement. He had a dimple in each cheek, and a broad forehead and sparkling almond eyes.

“The queen of’a my heart.”

She melted back into his embrace for a few seconds longer. “What more could a girl want?”

“A FANCY DINNER DRESS,” Grammy Strano repeated as she scooped a few more clams into her dish. The two families had gathered around Rita’s long dinner table, and Grammy was busy giving a lecture on dinner etiquette. She still wore her golden hair in a stylish page-boy, and wore pink cat-eye glasses with rhinestones embedded in the corners. She kept her weight just under slim, had silky, olive-colored skin and a smile that was contagious. “In my day, the women came to the dinner table dressed in gowns and the men wore suits. None of this shorts business.”

She sat next to Eric and gazed down at his legs, scolding him with her eyes. Then she addressed the rest of the group around the table. Grammy liked being the center of attention, and always spoke her mind. “Dinner was an event. Then after dinner somebody would sing or play an instrument.”

“I can play chopsticks on the piano,” Eric announced.

“Great! Why don’t you play it for us after dinner,” Grammy urged, as she tucked a lace hankie down the front of her silver gown. She wore one of the many dresses she had designed for various movie stars during the forties and fifties. Lucille Marie Nudi had been one of the top fashion designers in Hollywood. She still clung to the notion that a woman needed to wear a hat and gloves every time she left the house and, apparently, a ball gown at dinner.

“Ma, we don’t have a piano,” Rita offered.

“Why not? With all your money, you’d think you could buy this boy a stinking piano so we could have some entertainment once in awhile.”

Mya tried to make Grammy understand the situation. The poor woman was obviously losing her memory. “Eric lives in Georgia, Gram.”

“I know that,” she said curtly, then turned to Eric and asked, “Did you bring your piano?”

“No, but I brought my dog.”

The dog from hell.

“Does he do any tricks?”

Let me tell you about the little trick he did in front of a truck today.

“He can twirl a basketball on his nose.”

Mya sat back to listen. This was getting good.

“That’ll do. Now I can eat knowing that after dinner we have entertainment. I’ve got a nice suit upstairs in my office that I designed for Clark Gable. You can wear that.”

“It would be my honor,” Eric said, giving a little bow. If you wanted to win Grammy’s approval, all anybody had to do was agree with her outrageous ideas. Eric seemed to know just what it took, because Grammy beamed from ear to ear.

All of this sucking up was temporary and he would be leaving right after the dog show.

The dinner table was covered from one side to the other with plates of enticing food. Both Rita and Franko had outdone themselves with culinary treats: pasta with clams, cockles and mussels in a wine, garlic and butter sauce; a sweet-pepper and leek tart; penne with broccoli, anchovies and raisins; homemade focaccia with tomatoes and fresh basil; roasted leg of lamb stuffed with artichokes; a zucchini flan and several bottles of Italian red and white wines.

“I’ve got some fantastic ideas of how to recreate the show,” Mya announced during a break in the conversation. “I was thinking of a more colorful set. Something along the lines of what’s happening in modern Italy. You need to appeal to a younger audience. The nineteen to thirty-five group. We might even do some shows to target teens. We need to sparkle to appeal to the ‘now generation.’ Maybe add some reds and oranges to the set to go with the kinds of food that are easy, healthy and visually exciting. I think you need to cook some exciting entrées with more panache, more flair for the daring.

“And, Mom, I’ve planned a makeover for you. Nothing drastic, just a little younger look. You too, Franko. It’s time to get rid of your white apron for simple slacks and a printed shirt. Maybe some sideburns and product in your hair to give it that edge everyone seems to be after.”

Everyone fell silent at the table.

Probably too excited to speak.

She knew she had totally captivated them with her incredibly savvy ideas. That it wouldn’t take long for them to actually stand up and applaud or throw flowers…or maybe not.

“Maybe this is good. I don’t know, but we should hear what my Eric, he has to say,” Franko added.

“Eric?” Mya said, completely thrown off course.

“Yes, dear,” Rita said. “Eric is going to help you. Won’t it be nice with you two working together again? Just like when you were kids. I think it’s a heavenly idea. Don’t you, dear?” Rita waited for Mya to answer. Franko waited for Mya to answer. Grammy waited. Even Eric waited for an answer.

And during that moment of anticipation, Voodoo barked and something crashed in the kitchen.

At least that dog was good for something.

4

“THIS DOG, HE HAS the good taste,” Franko announced as everyone watched Voodoo consume the last bites of what had to be a perfect peach-and-raspberry tart.

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