One Thing I Know

by Kara Isaac

  Donna and Lucas writing a book together. It would definitely solve one very large problem. But would it create even more?

  Lacey glanced up at the screen where Lucas and Donna were wrapping up their session. “There’s one other thing that I wanted to show you.”

  “What’s that?”

  Lacey was tapping on her phone. “Just give me a couple of seconds to find it again. Here it is.” She held her phone out to Rachel. “I know how much you hate being in the limelight, so I thought you’d probably want to know about this.”

  Rachel glanced down at the phone and felt her knees give way. It was a photo of her and Lucas together at the gala. On the Facebook page of one of the country’s largest gossip sites.

  • • •

  CALIFORNIA WOMEN were not his thing. He’d suspected that at the gala and now knew it for a fact. Security guards. There had been six of them stopping screaming women from stampeding the stage at the end. It was more nuts than a Snickers bar.

  Lucas blew out a breath as he reached the door to the green room. He’d made it to the end of the first quarter. Chicago and San Francisco down, six more stage shows to go.

  “I don’t understand why you’re freaking out. It’s just a photo. Your name isn’t even on it.” Lacey’s words hit Lucas as he opened the door.

  Lucas stepped into the room. Lacey and Rachel were huddled together on the couch. Rachel was holding a phone, her body almost folded in half over it. Lacey’s hand kind of hovered over Rachel’s shoulder. As if she was trying to work out whether to make physical contact or not.

  “Is everything okay?” Lucas closed the door behind him. Donna had gone to sign some books for her adoring fans, so she might be a while.

  Rachel’s head jerked up. “Fine.” But she dropped the phone and it skittered across the floor toward Lucas. He leaned down and picked it up to find him and Rachel staring at him.

  It was a photo of the two of them snapped at the gala on some Facebook page. Paparazzi style, from someone’s phone, judging by the angle. Him leaning toward her, Rachel laughing. He scanned the short blurb about Lucas Grant and some “mystery woman” being spotted getting cozy at the gala. He’d had far worse and far more inaccurate.

  He studied the photo. It was a nice image. They looked very together. And he had absolutely no idea how he felt about it. Just like he wasn’t sure whether he’d been wretched or relieved when Brad had phoned at the most inconvenient moment ever last night.

  “It’s a great photo. I should share it on the station’s Facebook page. Put up how much money we raised.” Maybe if women thought he was seeing someone, that would help quell some of the insanity currently unraveling at these things.

  “No!” Rachel’s exclamation was so vehement he almost dropped the phone.

  Lacey held her hand out to him as she stood. “I agree with Rachel. Part of your charm is that you’re an eligible bachelor. If you get asked about the photo, it would be best if you say she’s just a friend.”

  “How about ‘no comment’?” He took one last look at the photo as he handed Lacey back her phone. Memorized the Facebook page so he could look it up later.

  Rachel stood. “Look, I’m sure you get photographed with random women all the time, so this probably isn’t a big deal to you, but it is to me.”

  Lucas’s hackles rose at the insinuation that he was some man-about-town with a different woman every week. “Firstly, completely untrue. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you know that, because you wouldn’t have invited me on this if I were. Giving a platform to a playboy wouldn’t exactly be a good fit with Donna’s brand.”

  Rachel at least had the grace to look slightly ashamed, her cheeks pinkening. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that you have a public profile. I don’t. And I’d really prefer to keep it that way. So I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t share it.”

  Lucas wasn’t sure whether his ego should be dented or not, but one look at Rachel’s folded arms and hunched shoulders told him she was deadly serious. This wasn’t some weird female game where she wanted him to share the photo and was just playing hard-to-get.

  “Fine. We can be ‘just friends.’ ” He put bunny ears around the last two words, and that at least got a hint of a smile out of her. Their gazes tangled, and if it weren’t for the fact that Lacey was watching them with undisguised interest, he’d have closed the gap between them and tried to uncover what it was about this photo that bothered her so much.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Breaking his gaze away from Rachel, he turned to open it. On the other side, a heavyset man stood holding a large bunch of flowers. His weathered face spoke of years in the sun and his bushy gray mustache belonged in a good, old-fashioned western.

  “Hey, son. Do you mind if I come in there? I want to surprise Donna when she’s done with the signing.”

  “Um . . .” The guy didn’t look dangerous, but you never knew these days. For all he knew, the guy could be a stalker or some other brand of weirdo. “Can I ask what your business is with her?”

  A brush of warmth lit up his side as Rachel squeezed between him and the door frame. “Rob!” She grinned at the man and Lucas felt irrationally jealous. “I thought that was your voice. Come in!”

  She looked up at him and her smile took on a hint of teasing. “You can let him in, Mr. Rent-A-Guard. Rob’s Donna’s husband.”

  For a second Lucas got distracted by her full, smiling lips that were so close to his that a lean on his part and a tilt of the toes on hers and they would meet.

  “Lucas?” Rachel tilted her head at him.

  “Right, sorry.” He stepped back and opened the door wider as the man—Rob—gave him a knowing look.

  “Much obliged that someone is watching out for my wife.” He clapped Lucas’s shoulder with a meaty hand as he entered the room. “Lacey. Lovely to see you again.”

  Lacey looked up from her phone and flashed him a quick smile. “You too. Donna shouldn’t be too far away and I hate to be rude, but I just need to make a couple of calls before she gets back.” She had her phone to her ear and was opening the door on the opposite side of the room before she’d even finished the sentence.

  “Do you want a water? Coffee? Something to eat?” Rachel had stationed herself by the catering table and already had a mug in her hand.

  “Coffee would be great.” Rob settled himself onto the red couch and placed the bouquet beside him.

  Rachel picked up the coffeepot and tipped it over a mug, but just a dribble came out of the spout. “Let me just go refill this. It’ll just take a couple of minutes.”

  “Don’t w—” Rachel was gone before Rob could stop her, and Lucas was left alone with him.

  The man leaned back in his seat. “So, you must be Lucas. My wife is quite the fan. Apparently you have an excellent credit score.”

  What?

  Rob chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure my face probably looked very similar when I discovered how thoroughly my background had been interrogated before we’d even been on our first date.”

  “How did you meet?” Lucas settled himself into one of the chairs as he made a mental note to call Ethan later and see if he knew anything about a background check.

  “My sister is a huge fan. A couple of books ago, Donna was in town for a signing. Laurel was desperate to go but broke her ankle a couple of days before. Somehow I got shanghaied into going to the signing for her.”

  “Was it love at first sight?” Apart from the mention at the TV studio, Lucas didn’t think he’d ever heard Donna talk about her husband.

  “It was for me. I was expecting some kind of skinny Botoxed East Coast type and when I got to the front of the line, I found Donna with a grease stripe right up the front of her jacket. Their car had gotten a flat on the way to the signing and the driver was some millennial who’d never learned how to change a tire so Donna did it.”

  That sounded exactly like something Donna would do. “And then?”

  Ro
b took a stroll to the food and helped himself to a donut. “She signed the book. Gave Laurel her best wishes. So I went back and bought another book and joined the line again. Got it signed to my other sister. Then the third time I got it signed to my cousin, and she cracked a smile and asked if I’d run out of sisters.”

  Lucas’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. Brad. He sent the call straight to voicemail. “Sorry, go on.”

  Somehow in the space of him checking his phone Rob had demolished the donut, sugar coating the tips of his mustache. “Donna didn’t smile as much back then. She was very professional. That smile felt like a medal, so I summoned up the courage to ask her if she had dinner plans. She did. Then I asked if I could take a rain check for the next time she was back in Texas.”

  Lucas had to give the man credit for persistence. He probably would have cut his losses at the second sister if he wasn’t getting any hint of interest in return.

  “Want to guess what that got me?” Rob picked up another donut and a bottle of water, then wandered back to the couch.

  “I’m going to guess it wasn’t a yes.”

  “She asked for a copy of my driver’s license and took a photo of it. Then gave it back to me and said someone would be in touch. Which I thought was code for me having just triggered some kind of security flag and that ‘someone’ would be the police.” He twisted open his water and took a gulp. “Four months later, I got a call from Rachel saying Donna was going to be in a town about fifty miles away and asking if the dinner invite still stood.”

  The door opened and Rachel stepped in, pot of coffee held out in front of her. “Ah, Rachel, perfect timing. I was just telling Lucas how Donna and I met. Do you want to tell him what Donna came armed with to our first date?”

  Rachel shook her head as she poured a cup of steaming coffee. “You do it. You tell the story much better.”

  “Was it you?” That wouldn’t surprise him. Donna taking Rachel to dinner to vet Rob was exactly the kind of thing he could imagine.

  Rachel placed the coffeepot back on the table. “Not me. Though I wish I had been there.”

  “Close. It was one of those big folders. Filled with information about me. She knew things about me that I had forgotten. Here I was all love at first sight, while she had a PI verifying my land taxes were all paid up before I was allowed a first date.” Rob leaned back his head and roared with laughter.

  “You didn’t think it was a bit extreme?” By which he meant extremely terrifying.

  Rob shrugged. “Sure. But people often do things that seem extreme to protect themselves or the people they love. You just have to be willing to persevere to find out what sits underneath.”

  Well, it had sounded like her first husband was a piece of work, but hiring a PI? “So now she recommends doing background checks on all potential dates?”

  Rachel arched an eyebrow at him. “Not at all. Just some due diligence. You’d be surprised at how a little bit of digging can often save a whole lot of heartache. Donna wrote a whole book on it. You might want to think about reading it.”

  Now that she mentioned it, he vaguely recalled an early book along those lines. But how was he supposed to do any digging at all when the woman didn’t have so much as a Facebook page?

  Lucas stood and walked over to Rachel as she tipped creamer into the coffee. “I hear I have an excellent credit score. What’s that worth on the Dr. Donna scale?” He murmured the words and watched as his breath lifted a strand of her hair.

  If he’d hoped that that was going to throw her off kilter, he was sorely mistaken. Instead she just gave him the smug smile of someone who was already a step ahead. “I wouldn’t go that far. Now, Rob had an excellent credit score. Yours is just okay. Though with the size of your mortgage, you might want to think about some income protection insurance.”

  For the second time in five minutes, Lucas was lost for words.

  There was a snort from the couch. For a second he’d forgotten about Rob. “Looks like there’s a folder with your name on it, too.”

  He looked at Rachel. “Is there?”

  She flashed him a grin, and he knew what Rob meant about it feeling like a medal. “I couldn’t possibly comment.”

  - 23 -

  “Hey.” Rachel stuck her head in the door of room 401.

  “Hey!” Anna slapped her magazine closed and lifted her feet off her husband’s bed. She was alone. “Welcome back. Where did you just come from?”

  “Sacramento.” Rachel stifled a yawn. “How’s Cam doing?”

  Anna ran a hand down his pale bare arm as she stood. “No real change. Some of the brain swelling has gone down, but,” she shrugged, “apart from that, still just hoping and praying. Want to chat for a while?” She gestured to the other easy chair in the room. “Or are you going to see your dad?”

  Rachel slipped through the door and closed it behind her. “Actually, I came to check on you.” She held out the Panera bag in her hand. “I brought you this in case you hadn’t had dinner.”

  “Thanks.” Anna took the bag and peeked inside as she settled back into her chair. “I had something earlier, but this will be perfect for later.” Closing the bag, she placed it on the table next to Cam’s bed. “Soooooooooo . . .” She drew the word out and looked at Rachel with a raised eyebrow.

  “So?”

  “You’re on tour with Lucas Grant. You didn’t mention that in your texts.”

  Her two pitiful, stilted, and awkward texts. “I’m not on tour with him, Donna is.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “Irrelevant detail.”

  Rachel crossed the small room and settled into the chair Anna had offered. “I didn’t realize he was a thing outside of Wisconsin.”

  “Well if he wasn’t, he sure is now. One of my friends shared a clip of him at one of the Q-and-A things, and wow.” Anna fanned herself. “Plus I may have also found a few other videos on YouTube.”

  Rachel swung her legs over the arm of the chair and just looked at her.

  “What?” Anna gave her wide eyes. “Lacey mentioned he’d been added to the book tour, and I happen to have a lot of time to internet-stalk quasi-celebrities at the moment. So is he as great in person as he seems on screen?”

  Rachel tilted her head and stared at the ceiling for a second. Lucas’s stunned face when she’d told him he needed income protection insurance was still making her smile two days later. He’d spent all of the previous day trying to find out what else she knew about him.

  It had been way too much fun to confess that the income protection thing was entirely a guess based on the statistics of American men under forty being chronically underinsured.

  “Oh no. Is he a jerk?” She looked back to see Anna’s face had fallen.

  “Nope.” Rachel sighed. The woman’s husband was probably dying. The least she could do was distract her for a few minutes. “He’s even better in person. Unfortunately.”

  “Tell me!” Anna’s face looked just like it had when she was twenty years old and demanding all the details from a date. Always Lacey’s, though, not Rachel’s. She leaned back and studied Rachel. “Are you two . . .”

  “No! It’s probably nothing. Definitely nothing.” Or it would be, if she could stop replaying in her head the shared looks that seemed to have enough electricity to start a wildfire.

  And that was before the photo now crawling across the Web that made them look like a couple. And not just some couple posing for a photo at a charity gig, but a captured-unawares-completely-into-each-other couple. Seeing herself look so happy was terrifying.

  Thank goodness Lacey had managed to help cover her complete overreaction.

  “C’mon, Rach. Puhlease.”

  Rachel focused on the highest light. Squinted until it danced and spun. She didn’t even know how to do girl talk anymore. But what did it matter if she told Anna? She’d already proven she could keep secrets.

  “It’s all stupid. Nothing could ever happen. He lives in Wisconsin and I, well,
clearly don’t.” She wriggled her shoulders against the chair. Wisconsin. All she knew about the state was that it produced a lot of cheese.

  “Mah, details. So how did he get to be on the tour?”

  Rachel bit her bottom lip. She couldn’t lie to Anna, but she couldn’t exactly tell the truth, either. “Through Donna. She goes on his show to promote her books. He has a sports show but gets heaps of women callers asking for relationship advice. Lacey and Donna were smart enough to work out how to spin it into something big.” She couldn’t tell Anna how deep the deception had become. Couldn’t risk their teetering friendship on the chance Anna’s religion thing was more than desperate platitudes.

  Anna propped her head up on one hand. “And?”

  And whenever she was around him, all she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms and experience what it felt like to feel safe. “And . . .” Rachel shrugged, tapping her palms against the spongy seat. “I don’t know. He’s nice, and he’s funny and he seems like a decent guy, and Lord knows there aren’t any of those beating a path to my door.”

  “Does he like you too?”

  “No!” She paused at the memory of the way his eyes captured hers, then lingered, when they’d had dinner. Until she’d taken one bite and turned into a gasping, wheezing, snot-producing machine. “Maybe. Possibly. I don’t know. We had dinner. Donna was supposed to be there and she set us up, but he didn’t make an excuse to leave.” She was kidding herself. The guy was probably just hungry. Or too scared to leave and get on Donna’s bad list.

  “Have you kissed?” Anna punctuated her question by pursing her lips and making sucky sounds like she was thirteen, not thirty.

  “Of course not!”

  “All power to you then, because if some guy looking like Lucas crossed my path, I’d lay one on him, and I’m a married woman.”

  Rachel’s cheeks flushed just at the thought. She put both hands against them, trying to cool them down.

  “Aha!” Anna’s voice held a note of triumph. “So you have thought about it.” It was a statement.