Page 113 of Threat of Danger
The only thing that came from Zelda was a happy little sigh.
Jess felt as if she was standing on top of a very tall building, about to take a leap. For once, she didn’t have to remind herself to restate and reframe. She felt no fear, only love and joy. Her heart fluttered in her chest. She breathed in courage, and she pushed away from the ledge.
Epilogue
THE LA NIGHTwas balmy, not a cloud in the sky. The latest dance music filled the air, the wrap party at El Cid on Sunset Boulevard in full swing.
Standing to the side, Jess took a break from mingling with the production crew and the actors and actresses. People were finally letting go of the stress from the long shoot and were having fun, an umbrella cocktail in nearly every hand. Jess leaned back against Derek’s hard chest, and his arm came around her middle as he snuggled her even closer.
He nuzzled the soft spot behind her ear. “Best wrap party I’ve ever been to.”
“Not that you’re biased or anything.” Jess grinned as she watched Pam beaming at Eliot by the garden bar.
Eliot had set up his Taylorville stunt school/training camp more than a year ago, so every few weeks he spent a few days in Vermont. Pam’s firm did the accounting for his school. At Jess’s suggestion, Pam had joined a day of training—not that Jess was matchmaking or anything. At the end of the ten-mile run, Pam hadn’t thrown up on Eliot’s shoes. She’d fainted into his arms. The rest was history. When Eliot was in LA or off on a shoot, Pam usually joined him on the weekends. He was moon-eyed in love, and so was Pam.
On the other side of the pool that reflected the light of a hundred floating candles, Jess caught sight of Kaylee, home on one of her infrequent visits from the University of Maryland, where she was majoring in criminal justice. She was aiming for the FBI, and nobody who knew her had any doubt that she’d get there.
Jess had invited her to the party, and Kaylee had brought a boyfriend, which was a surprise, although not an unpleasant one. At least for Jess. Derek kept flashing the Navy SEAL death stare at the guy. Brad had been forced to sleep on the couch the night before. Things weren’t looking up for him for tonight either.
He was brushing his lips over Kaylee’s in the shadow of a palm tree. Kaylee looked at him as Jess imagined she used to look at Derek back at around Kaylee’s age. Probably still did. God, how pitiful. She needed to practice her poker face.
Behind her, Derek growled, which meant he too was watching the young couple.
“She’s nineteen.” Jess patted his arm around her waist. “You know that, right?”
“She’s still my baby sister. Loverboy lays a hand on her, he’d better be prepared to lose it.”
“Lighten up, old man. Your book was just made into a movie, and Hollywood’s top stuntwoman knocked it out of the park. How about we focus on celebrating instead of chaperoning?” She turned in his arms, the hem of her turquoise silk dress dancing around her ankles.
Derek’s gaze captured hers, his expression turning mournful. “They don’t have a single private nook here. I checked already.”
She shook her head, trying not to melt from how hot he looked in a tuxedo. She seriously needed to get used to that. She couldn’t gape at him slack-jawed every time they attended a Hollywood party. “You know, thereareother ways to celebrate.”
“None of them are worth a damn.” His palms came up to cradle her face.
She didn’t have time to so much as blink before his lips descended on hers. He kissed her until her toes curled in her Jimmy Choos.
“If you put it that way,” she said, embarrassingly breathless. “We could leave early. It’s not like I’m the star of the movie.”
“You’re always the star to me. My guiding star.” He kissed her again, this time with a promise of a very private celebration to come when they reached home.
“Let’s go tell the kids that we’re leaving,” he whispered into her ear.
She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t want to interrupt. Let’s text them.”
Leaving now. Take your time. See you at Rose and Zelda’s for breakfast.
The previous month, Rose and Zelda had moved to LA too. Most of Rose’s friends were already doing the snowbird thing and spending half the year in Florida anyway. She’d sold the farm, declaring she was ready for some sunshine nearer to her daughter, where she could run an effective campaign for grandbabies. She and Zelda bought a ground-floor condo near the water and went for long walks on the beach every day. They seemed younger each time Jess saw the two women.
Jess didn’t have some big, teary mother-and-daughter-reunion scene with Rose, but she was OK with that. They’d simply been taking steps toward each other. They’d built a pretty good relationship over the past year.
Her family had gathered around her, Jess thought, as she drove home, Derek relaxing in the passenger seat. She’d once thought that they all had abandoned her. Yet life was never that black and white. She’d grown up a lot since she was eighteen. They’d all changed. They’d all had losses, and some of those losses had been staggering. They were all rebuilding.
She pulled into the driveway, shut off the engine, and reached to the back seat for the silver stilettos she’d taken off for driving. Before she could put the shoes on, Derek was at her door, opening it. He simply leaned in, scooped her out, and carried her up the walkway to the front door.
The way his strong arms felt around her never got old. Jess leaned against his wide chest and sighed, contentment settling into her and relaxing her muscles.This.This was what she wanted.Forever.
Inside, he flipped the switch, and light flooded the spacious living room. Most of the furniture was California modern, but they’d found space for some of her father’s antiques. As a gift, Derek had had the grandfather clock repaired for Jess’s last birthday. Their home was a comfortable mixture of their present and their past.
