New Year's Wedding. Muriel Jensen

Entertainment news paid a lot of money for the inside skinny about celebrities. There’d been enough technical people and assistants at the shoot that one of them was bound to find the money appealing.

      Unused to being so disliked so quickly, Cassie fought for composure. She met Diane’s condemning brown eyes calmly. “They may have had the story, but it wasn’t accurate. I guess that comes from speculating instead of getting the facts.”

      “What are the facts?”

      Grady came to stand between them and handed Cassie the cup of coffee. He frowned at his mother. “Cassie is a guest here for a few days, and I’d appreciate it if you would be polite. You know, like you taught me to be?” He added that last with emphasis.

      “It’s all right,” Cassie insisted, transferring the cup to her left hand and offering her right to Diane. The woman did look like a grassroots sort of mother, the kind who would see that you ate from the food pyramid, got your eight hours of sleep and were polite to your elders. And would kill any predators that came near you. Cassie had dreamed her entire life of having such a mother.

      “If she saw me acting like a crazy woman on television, she probably fears for your safety.” She sent Grady a wry grin then smiled at his mother, who looked a little surprised but still suspicious. “I assure you I’m a very sane, ordinary woman who’s been working too hard for too long. I snapped.” Everything inside her shuddered as she remembered that moment, but she struggled to look like the normal woman she insisted she was. “I had just learned my brother and sister, whom I hadn’t seen since I was a toddler, were in Texas, and I sort of lost it while trying to finish the shoot before I could join them.”

      His mother shook her head. “Shouldn’t you have gone to be with them instead of agreeing to work?”

      “I agreed to work just hours before my father called me with the news. That shoot was expensive, and all those people were away from their families during the holidays to get it done. It would have been selfish of me to leave them all there and ask them to come back again later. To incur all that expense a second time.”

      Diane granted her that with a reluctant “True.”

      “So I was anxious to get it done quickly while still doing a good job, but the designer had insisted on false eyelashes and the makeup artist was having trouble with them and I was tired and antsy and sort of lost it.”

      “Sort of?”

      Cassie ignored that and went on. She was glad she’d missed Stars at Night’s report on her behavior. “We were having a wonderful time in Texas until the press descended. I had to get away or ruin the holiday for everyone. Grady helped me get away out the back, drove to the airport and...” She spread her arms as she looked around her at the comfortable kitchen. “Here we are. You have a lovely son.”

      From behind her, Grady questioned, “Lovely?”

      His mother studied her as though she were a lab rat. She answered grudgingly, “He is a nice boy.”

      “Boy?” Grady again.

      * * *

      CASSIE HAD HAD a nervous breakdown? That surprised Grady. Or maybe that information was just wrong, considering it was Hollywood gossip. Except for the occasional moody withdrawal, Cassie seemed very together. Though she had appeared a little tense on the plane.

      Grady frowned at his mother, though he understood her bad manners. She loved him. She wanted what was best for him. She just had trouble understanding what that was or that it was up to him and not her.

      “We’ve had a long day, Mom. Thanks for coming to welcome me home.” He wanted to add, “You can go now,” but was hoping she’d take the hint.

      Instead she pointed toward the living room. “Your aunts and I had a lucky streak in Reno, so I bought you a little something to thank you for driving us down. It was delivered this afternoon.”

      “You did? What’s that?”

      “An armoire for your television.”

      Cassie spotted it through the open door into the living room and took off to investigate, probably anxious to escape the tension in the kitchen. He didn’t blame her. He tried to follow her but his mother caught his arm.

      “What are you thinking?” she demanded.

      He struggled for patience. “About what?”

      “About that girl!”

      “She’s not a girl. She’s a woman. A very nice woman.”

      “A nice crazy woman. And what do you think she’s doing with you?”

      He growled. “I explained all that. She’s here for Ben’s wedding to her sister.”

      “Oh, Grady.” His mother put a hand to her head as though it throbbed. “She’s using you to escape reality. Apparently she freaked out because she can’t deal with her life.” She lowered her hand and rolled her eyes. “Has to be hard, right? Millions of dollars in income, on the cover of magazines, dating super jocks and movie stars, and when she doesn’t get what she wants—like the cover of Sports Illustrated—she has a tantrum. Do you really need that? I mean, given what happened with your last—?”

      “Mom,” he interrupted firmly. “Her sister is Ben’s fiancée. Jack’s been trying so hard to put his family back together since he came home from Afghanistan. Now they’re all going to be together for the wedding on New Year’s Day and Cassie is staying with me until she goes back to work. It’s going to be a happy family time for all of them, and no one is going to spoil it. Got it?”

      “Sort of. What I don’t get is what a supermodel is going to find to do in Beggar’s Bay. With you.”

      He tipped his head back in exasperation. “I wish you’d stop saying that as though I have no right to be in the same world as her.”

      She blinked, maternal concern alight in her eyes. “I meant that she doesn’t have the right to be in the same world as you.”

      He was still annoyed with her but put his arm around her. That was mother-love. A supermodel who made millions and was known the world over wasn’t good enough for Diane Nelson’s son. “I’m a trained police officer, Mom. If she decides to run off with my savings or try to kill me in my sleep, I can take care of myself.”

      “Don’t be smart. You know how you are.”

      “I’m not sure I do. How am I?”

      She opened her mouth to answer then fluttered her hands, seemingly at a loss for the right words. “I don’t know. You’re always everybody’s problem-solver.” Then she followed the direction Cassie had taken to the armoire. He took a cup of coffee and fell in behind her, stopping beside Cassie, who stood several feet back, admiring the gift.

      He made every effort to mask what he felt. It was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen. It was seven feet high, with doors two-thirds of the way up and two drawers at the bottom. It was painted to look rustic in a flat, medium blue, and was covered in colorful, primitive-style floral designs. It looked like a gaudy weed among his simple furnishings.

      His mother asked from the other side of Cassie, “Do you like it?”

      He poured coffee down his throat. “It’s wonderful, Mom.” He was grateful she and his aunts hadn’t tried to disconnect his television to put it inside the cabinet. When he’d moved into this place, they’d connected his set while he was helping move in the sofa and, for reasons no one could understand, he got Korean television.

      Cassie took a step forward and ran her fingertips over one of the painted flowers. “This is milk paint, isn’t it?” she asked his mother.

      “It is. And these are lion-mounted ring pulls, right out of the early nineteenth century. A little much for this piece, but some folk artist might have saved it off a more elegant dresser. I have a small but interesting folk art collection.”