Page 44 of Close Match
“Excuse me?” I don’t know how I’m supposed to take this. No one’s ever said anything like this to me before.
“From Monty to me and Charlotte. We saw you and…wow. I just realized Elle was on stage too.” He looks dumbfounded. “It was our anniversary. Char wanted to seeMiss Me. Monty spent a fortune on them.”
“They’re less expensive now,” I offer, slightly embarrassed.
My father rolls his eyes. “Of course they are. You’re not starring in it. But what I’m trying to say is, yes, Char hogged the binoculars, but I did get to look through them. How did I not recognize…?”
My heart breaks for him. My father is analytical and is trying to figure out how even if he didn’t recognize me, how he didn’t know my mother. I pick up the phone I never put away and unlock it. Pulling up the phone app, I scroll quickly to a picture of my mother and I hugging each other’s arms from opening night. Simon has his arms wrapped around both of us. We’re all beaming because Bristol took the picture. My smile is bittersweet, and my eyes fill with tears as I trace my mother’s face. “Would you have recognized us?” Mom and I are in heavy stage makeup, and both of us have wigs on. I hand my phone back to my father.
Putting what’s left of his sandwich down, he takes my phone after wiping his hands. For a few minutes, he stares at the photo, two weeks’ worth of memories living and dying in his eyes. If I learn nothing else in the next few months, I know this: my father did have feelings for my mother during their affair. It was wrong from my mother’s standpoint. It ended up hurting people. But for the person who was created from it, it’s small comfort.
His voice interrupts my thoughts. “Since you showed me the article earlier, that’s exactly what I remember from when Char would let me have the binoculars. Do you have a picture of the two of you without all of…this?”
My throat tight, I reach over and pluck the phone from his hand. Within seconds, there’s a selfie of Mom and me at my condo laughing. You can see her beautiful hair, lightly made-up face, and unforgettable smile. Without a word, I hand it back to him. With just a table separating us, I can see his eyes flare. “I…I take it you would have recognized her?”
The answer’s already evident by the moisture in Ev’s eyes. He gives her picture another long look before he hands my phone back to me. “Will you excuse me for just a moment?”
“Certainly.”
My father stands and walks around the perimeter of the restaurant. I put away my phone, my lunch forgotten. Opening myself up to Ev has opened all of my wounds from the last few months.
My head is in my hands, so I don’t realize he’s back until I hear him ask, “You mentioned a studio space. What size do you need?”
Grabbing hold of the reprieve with both hands, I explain the reason for the large amount of space I dance in. “I have to be able to do multiple spins and jumps without injury. I plan on having someone send me workouts while I’m away.”
Ev shakes his head, trying to absorb everything I’ve just told him. “How many hours a week does that entail?”
“When I’m in a performance? I do only one day of full classes. When I’m not—like now? I’d normally go in three or four days a week to keep at peak level. On off days I run about five miles for endurance.” At my father’s shocked look, I try to explain, “I have to be ready for the next role. It could come up at any time.”
“Do you have another role in mind?”
I shake my head. “No. There’s not even a project that interests me at the moment.” And I frown a bit at that. The offers Sepi keeps bringing up are singularly uninteresting. I wonder briefly if she’s trying to ease my way back onstage.
His face reflects his shock. “My agent’s sent me several things, but nothing’s piqued my interest. This…it’s more important for me to get to know you, to figure out who I am and who I come from.” And since I have no idea who I am without the spotlight, it is going to be an interesting journey.
Tentatively, his hand reaches across the table and squeezes mine. “If I haven’t said it enough, thank you for agreeing to come down.”
“I hope it will be worth it.”
His hand clenches harder. “I already know it is.”
Twenty-Six
Montague
I’m leaning against the paddock fence when I hear Ev’s SUV drive up.
She’s here.
Unfortunately for Lynn Brogan, I’m not in the best of moods after having had the kind of nightmare that sends me straight to the bourbon bottle in my suite of rooms. In the light of day, I can reason with myself it was a crazy mash-up of my last case as an NCIS agent combined with my worry for Ev that placed Ev in the center of the room pulling the trigger of the gun on himself instead of that last victim I was trying to help save. But instead of being one of our team in the immediate circle who was splattered with the victim’s brain matter like it was the actual night it occurred, I was one of the ones who thundered up the stairs seconds too late, looking accusatorially at those in that tight circle. The circle compromised instead of Mom, my former partner Shaun, and another agent.
And the agent closest—like I was that day—when she turned to face me was Linnie. But her lips were painted a deep glossy red, her head tilted as if she was trying to ask me something.
I woke up sweating, cursing, and turned on. If I thought I wanted to punch a hole in the wall of my room before, it was nothing like what I wanted to do last night.
Yanking my Nationals cap off my head, I flip it around backward and twist it so it settles correctly on my head. My heart rate finally settled back down to something resembling normal, and I was able to pass out sometime before my alarm went off. Rolling to the side of the bed, I mentally prepared myself to face the day. Then I remembered what day it was. Even coffee, bacon, and my mother’s blueberry rolls couldn’t brighten my morning. I decided I’d be better off mucking out some stalls to improve my mood while my mother and Ev went to retrieve Linnie from the airport on their own.
My focus still on the horses, I don’t see them move when the delicate crunch of gravel alerts me to someone coming up behind me. So it’s not a surprise when my mother announces, “Did you work out whatever was causing you to be a snot this morning?”
