His Executive Sweetheart. Christine Rimmer

to choke on her wine. “Oh, right. Cade Bravo. Not.”

      Jane shrugged. “It’s only a guess.”

      “And speaking of Bravos…” Jillian wiggled her eyebrows. “Rumor has it Caitlin’s got a new boyfriend.”

      “Could be,” said Jane.

      Jillian giggled, a very naughty sound. “Janey. Come on. Who is he? What’s he like?”

      “Hans is his name. I’ve seen him tooling around town in that black Trans Am of Caitlin’s.” Caitlin had owned the Trans Am for as long as Celia could remember. She kept it in perfect condition. It looked just like the one Burt Reynolds drove in that old seventies classic, Smokey and the Bandit. Jane added, “Hans has come in the bookstore once or twice.”

      “And…?”

      “Sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Looks like him, too. At least from the neck down. Arnold meets Fabio. Remember Fabio? Long blond hair, major muscles. That’s Hans. Buys books on body culture and vitamin therapy.”

      “A health nut.”

      “Could be.”

      “How old?”

      Jane tried to look disapproving. “Honestly, Jilly. You’re practically salivating.”

      Jillian let out a long, crowing laugh. “Boytoy! Admit it. I’ve got it right.”

      Jane shrugged. “She always did like them young.”

      “And vigorous.” Jillian giggled some more.

      Jane gathered her legs up under her and stood. “I’ll get that other bottle.”

      Celia looked down into her almost-empty glass, thinking of Aaron again, feeling disgustingly sorry for herself. There was no escape, really, from thinking of Aaron. Reminders were everywhere. She worked for him, they came from the same hometown where everybody loved nothing so much as to gossip about his mother. And now his brother was moving in next door to her best friend….

      Jillian said, “What’s with you, Celia Louise?”

      Celia looked up from her wine glass. “Huh?”

      “I said, what’s with you?”

      She made an effort to sit straighter and tried to sound perky. “Oh, nothing much. Working, as always.”

      Jillian looked at her sideways. “No. I mean right this minute. Tonight. You’ve been too quiet.”

      “A person can’t be quiet?”

      “Depends on the kind of quiet. Tonight you are…suspiciously quiet. Something’s up with you.”

      “You think so?”

      “I do.”

      Celia put on a frown, as if she were giving the whole idea of something being “up” with her serious thought. Then she shrugged and shook her head. “No. Honestly. Just…enjoying being here.”

      “Oh, you liar,” said Jillian.

      Jane came back with the fat, raffia-wrapped bottle. “She said there’s nothing bothering her, am I right?”

      “You are,” said Jillian.

      There’s something,” Jane said. “But she isn’t telling.”

      Both Jane and Jillian looked at Celia, their faces expectant, waiting for her to come clean and tell them what was on her mind. She kept her mouth shut.

      Finally, Jane shrugged. “More of this nice, rustic Chianti, anyone?”

      Celia and Jillian held out their glasses and Jane filled them. They all sat back and stared at the fire for a minute or two while Tony Bennett sang about leaving his heart in San Francisco.

      “Good a place as any,” Jane said softly.

      Jillian sighed.

      Celia drank more wine. She grabbed a couple of pillows of her own, propped them against the wall between the fireplace and the side door that led out to Jane’s wraparound porch and leaned back, getting comfortable.

      “So, how’s the book biz?” Jillian tipped her glass at Jane.

      “The book biz is not bad. Not bad at all.” Jane’s dark eyes shone with satisfaction as she talked about her store. “Events,” she said. “They really bring in the customers. Events. Activities.” Not a week went by that she didn’t have some author or other in to answer questions and sign books. “I still have my Children’s Story Hour, Saturdays at ten and Thursday nights at seven.” And then there were the reading groups. She offered the store as a place to hold them. “So far, I’ve got four different groups meeting at the Silver Unicorn at various times during the week. Now and then I’ve been doing a kind of café evening on a weekend night, with a harpist or a guitar player, that sort of thing. They can have coffee and tea and scones and biscotti. They can read the books while they enjoy the music. Folks love it. I’m building my customer base just fine. I get the tourists in the summer months and during the winter, the locals have started thinking of the store as a gathering place.”

      Jillian said, “Speaking of speakers, how ’bout me? I am an author now, after all—more or less, anyway.”

      Jane grinned. “I thought you’d never ask. Maybe we could set something up for next month. You could talk about the column. Give a few helpful hints on wardrobe basics, tell them what items they just can’t be without this year.”

      Jillian had her own business, Image by Jillian. She showed executives and minor celebrities how to spruce up their wardrobes; she gave makeovers and seminars on dressing Business Casual. She also wrote an advice column, “Ask Jillian,” for the Sacramento Press-Telegram.

      Celia sipped her wine, growing dangerously mushy and sentimental as she listened to her two oldest and dearest friends talking shop. Really, she was glad she had come. It was just what she’d needed, to be sitting here by the fire at Jane’s, getting plotzed on Chianti.

      And also, I need truth, she thought, with a sudden burst of semi-inebriated insight. Truth. Oh, yes. I need it. I do. I need to share the truth with someone—and who better than my two best friends in all the world?

      So she said, “Well, the truth is, I’m in love with Aaron Bravo.”

       Chapter Three

       J illian, who’d been making a point about flirty reversible bias-cut skirts in light, floaty fabrics, shut her mouth right in the middle of a sentence. Jane turned to Celia and stared.

      Celia took another large sip of wine.

      “Get out,” said Jillian, after several seconds of stunned silence. A wild laugh escaped her, but she cut it off by clapping her hand over her mouth. Finally, she whispered, “You’re serious.”

      “I am. I love him.” Celia looked into her glass again and wrinkled her nose. “Maybe I’ll become a drunk. Drown my sorrows…”

      Jane reached out and snared the glass.

      “Hey,” Celia protested, but without much heat.

      Jane scooted over and set the glass on the coffee table, then scooted back to the nest of pillows she’d made for herself on the pretty lapis-blue hand-woven rug in front of the fire.

      Jillian asked, “Does he know?”

      Oh, no, Celia thought. Here come those pesky tears again….

      Well, she wasn’t having any of them. She jumped to her feet and looked down at her friends. She swallowed. Twice. Finally, her throat loosened up enough that she could tell them, “He hasn’t got a clue.”

      “Oh, honey,” cried Jillian. She reached up her arms. So did Jane.

      With a tiny sob, Celia toppled toward her friends. They embraced. It felt really good, really