Maxine (Donatelli Series)

by SUE FINEMAN

Catherine tapped on Henry’s open office door. “I hate to bail out on you, but my father had a bad fall. I’ll have to stay with him until he’s able to bellow at the staff without ending up in the hospital again.”

  “How serious is it?”

  “His girlfriend of the month said they had to put in an artificial hip. His leg is broken, too. She wasn’t too clear on the details.” Her father had always managed to pick brainless bimbos, but this one was over the top. She thought they were getting married.

  “Keep in touch, and we’ll expect you back as soon as the crisis is over.”

  She handed him the folder with her notes. “I haven’t interviewed any of the girls yet, but I did interview the fireman. He’s handsome and personable. He doesn’t live with his mother, but she lives down the street, and he’s supporting his unemployed, divorced brother. I’d planned to look for other candidates, but I ran out of time.”

  Henry scanned her notes. “Looks like you’ve gotten quite a bit accomplished. What about the location?”

  “I thought I’d ask Cara Andrews if we could use her estate.”

  “That would bring in viewers, but if it doesn’t work out, we’ll find another place.”

  She pointed to the sticky note on the inside of the folder, where she’d listed her email address and cell phone number. “I’ll have my laptop with me, and my cell phone.”

  Catherine walked out of the office wondering who would be put in charge of the project. Probably Mitzi. She was the only one who could screw up a simple concept, and if she messed this up, they could both be out the door.

  Days like this she wondered what she was trying to prove, living in a place she hated and working around the clock with a bunch of people she didn’t like. Mitzi looked down her nose at her, and Scooter acted as though Catherine were a brainless twit. The only one who treated her with any respect was Henry, and that was probably because he knew she was Catherine Anne Timmons, of the Timmons Hotels family. If her father hadn’t sold the hotel business, she wouldn’t be working for Henry.

  Her co-workers didn’t know that she’d someday inherit enough to buy her own production company, and she wasn’t about to tell them. At work, she was simply Cat.

  <>

  Catherine heard her father’s voice before she reached his room. He was complaining about something, as usual. “Hello, Father.” She plopped her bag on the wide windowsill and stood beside his bed. “Fawn called me. Where is she?”

  “At the house. It’s been weeks since I’ve heard from you.” There it was, the disapproval she’d come to expect. She’d only been home four or five times since he’d sold the hotel business, and she’d never invited him to LA. It was impossible to have a civil conversation about anything with the hotel business hovering between them like a giant over-inflated balloon that could burst at any second. “How are you feeling?”

  “Crappy. This bed is a torture device.”

  It wasn’t just the bed. His eyes reflected pain.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Catherine. I don’t like Fawn staying in the house alone. She’s been talking about redecorating. Says the house lacks color.”

  “Uh oh.” Her father’s style was understated elegance, and nobody dared change a thing without his approval. He liked a peaceful place where he could enjoy his sculptures and watch the clouds roll in over the blue Pacific. Someday the Timmons estate would be hers, if he didn’t sell it like he’d sold the hotels.

  The nurse came in with a pain shot and soon Father’s eyes closed and his breathing deepened. While he slept, Catherine drove home. Fawn was right about one thing. He’d never get up and down the stairs at home. Either they had to find him a convalescent facility or she had to figure out a way to put a bedroom and bathroom downstairs for him. Even then, he’d need full-time nurses until he recovered.

  The big iron gates swung open, and Catherine drove up and around the hill to the top, to Father’s elegant two-story Spanish style mansion, part of the Timmons family estate.

  Fawn was a bleached blonde with perfect features and a figure to die for. She resembled countless other women who’d been in and out of this house since Catherine’s mother left.

  After introducing herself, Fawn held out a paint chart and pointed to chrome yellow and Chinese red. “What do you think about using this in the foyer, Catherine? I learned how to do that faux finish, and this is the perfect place for it. What about a yellow background with a little red sponged on top?”

  She had to be kidding. “Listen to me, Fawn—”

  She pointed to a patch of hot pink. “I picked out this color for the dining room.”

  Catherine held up her hand in the universal signal for stop. “Whose house is this?”

  “Walt’s, of course, but when we marry—”

  “Did he ask you to marry him?”

  Fawn’s perfect chin lifted a little. “Not yet, but he will. Every man I’ve ever been with has proposed to me.”

  Sure they had. The woman may be beautiful, but her two brain cells rattled around in an otherwise empty skull. “Don’t touch anything,” Catherine said slowly.

  Fawn’s chin came up. “Walt will let me do anything I want. He loves me.”

  Sure he did. “What happened? How did he fall?”

  “We...uh...were on our way upstairs and he had a dizzy spell.”

  Catherine cocked her head and stared her down. “Why did he have a dizzy spell? Had he been drinking?”

  “No, he took... The Viagra was his idea, not mine,” she said quickly. “I didn’t know it would make him dizzy or I wouldn’t have given it to him.”

  Given it to him? She gave him a prescription drug? “Did he know?”

  “Of course he did,” said Fawn, but her eyes shifted. The bimbo was lying, and Catherine was livid. Fawn had caused the fall as surely as if she’d pushed him down the stairs. Father was in the hospital, in pain, and Catherine had walked out on an important project, all because of this stupid woman. If she’d wanted a young, virile man, she should have looked elsewhere instead of giving a sixty-eight-year-old man a drug that wasn’t prescribed for him.

  Catherine carried her bag upstairs, and as she walked past her father’s bedroom, she glanced inside. Fawn had rearranged Father’s bedroom furniture. Pointing to the room, Catherine said, “Put everything back the way you found it, and I mean everything. I’ll go speak with the cook about dinner, and then we’re going to have a nice long talk.”

  “The cook quit yesterday and the maid the day before. The only one left is Sanchez.”

  With a deep sigh, Catherine asked, “Can you cook?”

  “Me?” squeaked Fawn.

  “Never mind. I’ll cook. You move furniture and clean up in here.”

  Fawn crossed her arms. “I don’t clean.”

  “If you think I’m going to clean up after you, think again. Listen to me.” Catherine couldn’t deal with this now, and she didn’t want this idiot in the house. “Put everything back the way it was and pack your things. You’re leaving.”

  Fawn stared her down, and what little patience Catherine had left melted away. She grabbed the phone and called the security company. “I need help evicting a woman from the estate.” Father could deal with her when he recovered.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Oh, yes you are. Pack your things and go back where you came from. Call in a couple months or so, after my father recovers. If he’ll even speak with you after what you did to him, you can ask if he wants you back.”

  Fawn’s face darkened and her eyes narrowed with rage. “I’ll tell him what you did.”

  “Fine. Tell him whatever you want. After he recovers.” Catherine practically spit the angry words. In six weeks, Father wouldn’t even remember her name.

  Fawn’s hands fisted by her side. How dare that bitch throw her out? Catherine acted like she’d pushed Walt down the stairs on purpose, when all she wanted to do was help him hold an erection long enough to make love to her. How was she to know it would mak
e him dizzy?

  Just over three weeks ago, she and Walt spent their first night together at the Hilton, and then he asked her to come home with him. She never dreamed she’d be living in a mansion overlooking Santa Barbara and the Pacific Ocean. It was by far the nicest house she’d ever lived in, but it needed color. She’d planned to convince the old man to marry her, then put her stamp on this house and make it her own. She wanted to paint the walls something bright and cheerful and replace those ugly sculptures and stuffy tapestries with abstract paintings, but it wouldn’t happen now. His stupid daughter was forcing her to leave.

  She packed quickly, so Catherine didn’t get a good look at the things she put in her bags. By the time she finished packing, the guard with the security company had arrived.

  After the paramedics took Walt to the hospital last night, Fawn emptied his wallet. Seven hundred and fifty-two dollars wasn’t much, but she could hock the jewelry she’d taken from his bedroom. You’d think a rich man would have more money and jewelry in the house, but if he did, she couldn’t find it. She’d moved the furniture in the bedroom looking for a hidden safe, but she didn’t find one. There wasn’t one in the study, either. There had to be one somewhere in this house, but she wouldn’t find it now.

  Maybe she could come back in a few days and search again. Walt would be in the hospital for a few days, and she had the gate opener from his T-Bird in her purse. The only problem would be Sanchez, who lived on the property. She’d tried to get Walt to fire him like he’d fired the cook and maid, but Walt wouldn’t do it. He said Sanchez did his job and didn’t cause any trouble.

  The security car followed her down the hill and into Santa Barbara, and then the car turned around and drove back toward the hills.

  Fawn headed for the nearest pawn shop. Better get rid of the jewelry now, before Catherine the Bitch found it gone.

  <>

  After the security people escorted Father’s bimbo off the property, Catherine tried to figure out where to put her father when he came home from the hospital. At one time, he’d talked about putting an elevator in the house, but he never had, and aside from the maid’s apartment, all the bedrooms were on the second floor. She could have someone carry him upstairs, but he’d be stuck up there for weeks and the nurses would be running up and down stairs taking care of him. He needed a bedroom on the main floor.

  She walked into the maid’s apartment. If the wall could be removed between the bedroom and sitting room, she could turn that into a bedroom for him. With the orange Formica walls in the dinky shower and old fixtures with dings and cigarette burns, the bathroom looked like it had been transplanted from an ancient gas station. It had to come out. A wheelchair wouldn’t fit through the door anyway.

  Catherine sighed deeply, wondering how she could get the work done before Father was released from the hospital. Cara’s husband owned a construction company. Maybe he had someone he could send down to do the renovations. She needed to speak with Cara about the show anyway.

  She punched in the phone number in Gig Harbor, Washington, and Cara answered. “Cat, it’s so nice to hear from you.”

  A baby cried in the background. “Can you hold on a minute while I get the baby?”

  “Sure.” Interesting that with all her wealth, Cara didn’t have a nanny for her baby boy. She and Nick took care of him themselves.

  A minute later, Cara came back on the line. “Max doesn’t like wet diapers.” She had a smile in her voice. “So what’s happening with you? Any new men in your life?”

  “God, no, and that’s the way I like it.”

  “You’ll change your mind when you find the right guy. So, how’s the job?”

  “That’s one reason for this call. I came up with an idea for a new television show, a reality show with a spin.” She explained the concept to Cara.

  Cara laughed. “I love it.”

  “There’s just one little problem. We need a place to film the show. I’d use my father’s house, but he’d never go along with it. It isn’t a good time anyway. He fell last night and broke his leg and hip.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “It’ll be a long time before he can use the stairs. I thought I could turn the maid’s apartment into a bedroom for him, but I don’t know any carpenters, and I hate hiring someone I don’t know.”

  “Nick’s cousin is at my estate. I’ll have my pilot fly him in tomorrow. Tony can handle whatever you want done. He did most of the finish work on my house, and it’s beautiful.”

  “Great. Tell him to let me know when to expect him, and I’ll pick him up at the airport.”

  Shifting gears, Catherine asked, “Cara, would you be interested in renting out your estate for a month?” Cara Andrews Donatelli was one of the richest woman in the world. Her family estate near San Francisco was fully staffed, but it sat empty most of the time, since Cara and Nick and their baby lived near his family in Gig Harbor.

  Silence from the other end told Catherine her friend was surprised by the request. “I’d have to clear it with the staff first.”

  Interesting that she’d ask her staff before making a decision, but Catherine understood. Although all the original art work had been moved to the museum, there were still a lot of valuable things on the estate.

  “I’d want everyone run through a security check, and I’d want you there to keep an eye on things.”

  “Absolutely. It won’t be filmed until June. Father will be chasing a new bimbo around the bed by then.”

  “You know, Tony might like to be the bachelor on your show. He’s thirty-four, lives with his mother, and you won’t find a better looking guy anywhere. You can interview him when he comes to remodel your house. If you don’t think he’s right for the show, that’s fine, but give him a shot at it. He’s a great guy, and he’s had lousy luck with women lately.”

  “Sure, okay.” It was a small concession. If Tony wasn’t right, she wouldn’t use him.

  “One of the women he dated was so obsessed with him, she wouldn’t leave him alone, so he’s spending a few months in California.”

  If this guy checked out, it could solve two problems. He could remodel those rooms, and he could find the love of his life on Blind Love.

  As if anyone could find love on a television show.

  *Thank you for previewing this excerpt of Blind Love. Look for it on Kindle and Nook soon.*

  Books by Sue Fineman

  On the Run

  On the Lam

  On the Hunt

  On the Edge

  The Mitchell Money

  Ginger’s Grief

  Maggie’s Man

  Gran’s Guilt

  BIO SHEET

  Sue Fineman

  Sue’s Blog

  Sue Fineman lives in a small town in Washington state with her husband of forty-eight years, a tiny poodle with no tail, and a scruffy rescue dog who wags her tail all the time. Her three grown children are nearly old enough to join AARP. She also has one adorable grandson and multiple grandpuppies and grandkittens. At one time she and her husband took in foster kids, but that was when they were younger and had more patience. These days her husband manages to try Sue’s patience on a daily basis, but she’s decided to keep him anyway. She doesn’t want to start over training a new husband.

  She’s been a secretary, technical writer, real estate agent, and foster mother to five children. Always an avid reader, she began writing in her mid-fifties, when she quit her day job. Sue has written over two dozen books in the past fifteen years.

  To contact Sue, send an email to suepalmerfineman@nwi.net. To read her blog, go to http://suefineman.blogspot.com/.

  Author’s Note

  I hope you enjoyed reading Cara and Nick’s story. The cover photo is of Gig Harbor bay, taken by my son several years ago, when my family still lived in the pretty little town. Gig Harbor is about an hour south of Seattle, across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge from Tacoma. I wrote Maxine a few weeks after a moderate earthquake shook the area, damaging roads a
nd some of the structures in the Gig Harbor area. I hope they never have an earthquake as strong as the one in Maxine, but the area has several fault lines, and I’m sure there will be more shaking.

  There are four books in the Donatelli series. Blind Love is Tony’s story. Tony’s sister, Maria, is featured in The Inheritance. The youngest sibling, Alessandro, is featured in The Inn at Dead Man’s Point.

  For other books by Sue Fineman, check my blog.