Home to You

by Robyn Carr

  Thanks to Paul Wojcik for sharing your experiences in the United States Marine Corps, and to Richard Gustavson, RN, with twenty-three years in the Navy Reserves. I thank each of you for reading the manuscripts and for offering your invaluable technical input.

  Kris Kitna, Chief of Police, Fortuna, California, thanks for valuable information on local law enforcement, not to mention help with details about hunting, fishing and firearms.

  Kate Bandy, the best assistant a writer can possibly have, my dear friend of many years, thanks not only for reading copy and offering suggestions, but especially for accompanying me on an exciting research trip to Humboldt County. Without you there I would have floundered...or slipped off a mountain.

  Denise and Jeff Nicholl—thanks for reading first drafts, taking exhaustive notes and answering a million questions. Your friendship and support during the whole process mean the world to me.

  Many thanks to Nellie Valdez-Hathorn for her help with my Spanish. Other early readers whose input was critical included Jamie Carr, Laurie Fait, Karen Garris, Martha Gould, Pat Hagee, Goldiene Jones and Lori Stoveken—I’m deeply in debt to you for your comments and suggestions.

  Huge thanks to Clive Cussler, Debbie Macomber and Carla Neggers for reading and commenting on Virgin River. To take the time, with your busy schedules, is a monumental compliment.

  Huge thanks to Valerie Gray, my editor, and Liza Dawson, my agent, for your commitment to helping me craft the best series possible. Your hard work and dedication made all the difference—I’m so grateful.

  To Trudy Casey, Tom Fay, Michelle Mazzanti, Kristy Price and the entire staff of Henderson Public Libraries, thank you for the monumental support and encouragement. I’ve never known a more hardworking and motivated group of public servants.

  And finally, thanks to Jim Carr for your loving support. And my God, thank you for cooking!

  I wish I’d known years ago that you could!

  WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES

  Brenda Novak

  To Pierce Rohrmann.

  Your many talents and drive never cease to amaze me. Thanks for your hard work on my behalf, your brilliant ideas, your endless support, your wit and generosity—and last but not least, thanks for picking me up, dusting me off and shoving me back into the fight whenever I try to escape. LOL. You make one heck of a BFF!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from No One but You by Brenda Novak

  One

  She was ruined. She’d become anathema—the Jerry Maguire of the Los Angeles public-relations biz. And it’d happened almost overnight.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  Gail DeMarco turned away from the phone she’d just hung up to focus on Joshua Blaylock. Dressed in a pair of skinny black jeans with long-toed shoes, a designer jacket and rectangular-shaped glasses, her personal assistant hovered at the corner of her desk, a hopeful yet worried expression on his face. Like her, he’d been hoping they could pull out of the nosedive she’d caused by making one impetuous call, and then a number of thoughtless statements, three weeks earlier. But she could tell Joshua had overheard enough to understand what her other employees didn’t grasp quite yet. They hadn’t just lost a few important clients, like Maddox Gill and Emery Villere; they’d lost them all. Big Hit Public Relations had fallen from its lofty perch at the top of the PR food chain to crash and burn at the bottom. And it was all thanks to one man. Simon O’Neal, the hottest male lead in the movie business, had flexed his superstar muscles and brought down her company so quickly and easily Gail could hardly believe it. She kept thinking she’d wake up to find that their feud was all a bad dream—or that others would see Simon as the train wreck she knew him to be and side with her instead. But America loved him. He was their new James Dean. He was screwing up right and left, but he had the most loyal fans in the world, fans who were as fascinated by his self-destruction as his talent.

  She should never have told him she’d no longer work for him. One client after another had deserted her ever since.

  But any self-respecting public-relations professional would’ve grown tired of Simon’s antics. He’d done everything she’d specifically asked him not to, created so many media nightmares, and that made her, as his personal publicist, look as bad as he did. How was she supposed to represent someone like that?

  “Hello?” His smile gone, Joshua snapped his fingers in front of her eyes.

  Gail forced back her tears. For more than a decade, ever since she’d graduated with a degree in advertising and public relations, then interned for Rodger Brown and Associates, she’d devoted herself to building her company. She had no husband, no kids and very few friends, at least in the L.A. area. Her ambition hadn’t allowed time for that. There was only the group of childhood friends in Whiskey Creek six hours north. She saw them every couple of months. But by and large she’d left both family and friends to make her mark in the big city. Here, her employees were closer to her than anyone else. And now she’d have to let them all go. Even Joshua.

  “That was Clint Pierleoni.” She groomed her voice into a careful monotone to keep it from cracking.

  He blinked rapidly, as if he was tempted to cry himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d broken down in her office. He was always getting upset over one man or another. She usually consoled him, actually enjoyed living vicariously through him since it’d been so long since she’d had a love life. But today she had no words of comfort because his pain was her pain, too.

  “Don’t tell me—” he started.

  She broke in before he could get the words out. “He said it’s time for him to find another PR company.”

  “But... Clint’s been with us from the beginning. I’ve slept with Clint—after signing that form agreeing not to reveal he’s gay, of course.”

  Gail ignored the last part of what Joshua had said. She didn’t condone her employees having sex with the firm’s clients. But she’d already written Josh up for his inappropriate relationship with Clint. It seemed pointless to go over her objections again, especially at this late date. What Joshua said about Clint was true. He’d been the first up-and-coming actor to take a risk on her. And she’d done a hell of a job for him at a steal of a price.

  She’d expected more loyalty. They’d come so far together. He was bigger now than he’d ever been, and she’d helped make that happen. “He tried to explain—”

  Joshua broke in. “Explain what? That he was caving in to the pressure of the Hollywood heavyweights who’ve joined Simon O’Neal and turned against us?”

  “He’s afraid staying with us will adversely affect his career. Simon promised him a part in his next movie, and he’s positive it will disappear if he doesn’t kowtow.”

  “Simon’s
a bastard! An alcoholic bastard!”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t slept with him, have you?” For just a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would do to the almighty Simon’s career to leak that information. He’d never be able to play a romantic male lead again. But she knew what Joshua was going to say before he said it.

  “He’s yummy enough that I’d sleep with him if I had the chance. I don’t know many people who wouldn’t, except you,” he added as an afterthought. “But...he’s not gay.”

  “Right.” She attempted a shrug, even though she’d had her fantasies about Simon, too. Who hadn’t? “Too bad.”

  He leaned on his knuckles as if he was planning to reveal a big secret. “He is a womanizer, though. I bet we could come up with all kinds of dirt—”

  She waved him to silence. “Not the kind that’ll surprise anyone. His wife left him because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped. His exploits in that area are second only to Tiger Woods’s.” Even if she had the goods, she doubted she could bring herself to destroy him. She was hurt and angry, but she didn’t believe in creating bad karma.

  “So what do we do?” Josh asked.

  “What can we do?” Drawing a deep breath, she tried to sit tall in her chair, like she was used to doing when barking out orders and handling calls in rapid succession. She thrived on the adrenaline that sustained her on any given day. But her groove was gone, along with her clients.

  Sagging against her expensive leather chair, she thought about calling the actors who’d fired her. If only she could talk them into coming back...

  But it was no use. She’d already tried that. No one would cross Simon, except a few inconsequential clients who didn’t care enough about him to follow his lead, and three of them were charities she repped pro bono.

  “He’s going with Chelsea Seagate at Pierce Mattie,” she added dully.

  “No!” Joshua punched the air. “That bitch has everyone!”

  Also thanks to Simon. He’d been with Big Hit for three years, knew they were rivals, so he’d gone to Chelsea and taken almost fifty of Gail’s sixty-four other clients there, too. “Pierce will regret letting Chelsea sign him. Simon will ruin them. There isn’t a PR firm in America, or anywhere else, that can protect the image of a client so bent on self-destruction. Since his wife left, he’s worse than Charlie Sheen ever was.”

  “At least PM will die a slow death,” Joshua said, dropping into the chair across from her. “How long before we have to close our doors?”

  She pursed her lips as she glanced around her swanky office. There’d been days when she’d been unable to believe her own success. Now it all seemed to have been an illusion. “Two months?” Could she even hold out that long?

  He rocked forward. “That’s it?”

  “Our overhead is huge, Josh. Rent alone is fifteen thousand. Together with salaries for twenty people...the money will dry up fast.”

  His next words were muffled; he’d buried his face in the stylish scarf he wore under the collar of his too-cool jacket. “When do we tell the others?”

  She couldn’t bear to see him slumped over like that. He’d told her not to cast Simon aside but she’d done it, anyway. Simon had deserved to be cut from her client roster—he’d been asking for it—but he wasn’t anyone to mess with, and he’d proven that.

  Struggling under the weight of her responsibility, she got up and walked to the interior window overlooking the expansive lobby designed to impress visitors. The staff cubicles and three other offices branched off to the right. They couldn’t be seen from where she stood, but she could make out the back of Savannah Barton’s dark head as she lounged in the doorway of Serge Trusso’s office. Savannah was a single mom with two kids. Where would she go? Serge would land on his feet. He saved money, never took anything for granted. But what about Vince Shroeder, one cubicle over? He had a disabled wife. Then there was Constance Moreno, barely twenty years old. She’d come from New York two months ago and signed a year’s lease on her apartment. How would she pay the rent?

  These people depended on her. Why had she been so determined to punish Simon, to see that he received some type of backlash?

  Gail tapped her forehead on the cool glass. “You’d better call a meeting. I’m sure they already know trouble’s brewing. It’s been dead around here. They’re out there throwing spitballs at one another.”

  “You want me to get them now?”

  She thought of Simon’s movie premiere tonight and the fact that he’d be at the after-party, probably roaring drunk but enjoying the fame and fortune that followed him everywhere. He shouldn’t get away with what he’d done. She’d been in the right, damn it. But...if she wanted to save her employees, she was going to have to humble herself and apologize, maybe even beg.

  She’d rather throw herself in front of a bus, but there was more at stake here than pride. She had a good team; they didn’t deserve to lose their jobs. “No, wait.”

  “You think something’s going to change?” he said with a telltale sniff.

  She didn’t dare hope. But she had to make one last-ditch effort to save the firm, just in case it was still possible. “Give me until tomorrow.”

  He toyed with the expensive pen set he and the rest of her staff had bought her for Christmas. “For what?”

  She turned to face him. “A Hail Mary.”

  Two

  Simon spotted Gail immediately. In a sea of silicone, Botox and spray tans, she stood out. Maybe it was her chest, flat by L.A. standards, the severe cut of her business suit with its starched white shirt or the stubborn set to her jaw. Or maybe it was her general disdain for Hollywood parties and the licentious behavior that went on, and her unwillingness to dress up and join the fun.

  Regardless, Simon had always liked the fact that she wasn’t an adoring fan—almost as much as he hated it. One would think she’d at least try to blend in if she was going to crash the party. He was fairly certain she hadn’t received an invitation.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He jerked his gaze back to the stunning blonde sitting in the booth next to him. A “hot yoga” instructor he’d met about twenty minutes earlier, her name was Sunny Something, and she was smarter than the stereotype her short skirt and low-cut blouse brought to mind. She was a nice person, too. But he was bored. These days the women he socialized with seemed virtually interchangeable.

  “Nothing.” He tossed back the rest of his drink. “Why?”

  She angled her head to see where he’d been looking but skimmed right over Gail. She probably couldn’t imagine such a nondescript woman being of any consequence to him. If not for the guilt that plagued him, he might not have given Gail a second thought. When he’d told Ian Callister, his business manager, that he wished she’d go broke and return to the small town she called home, he hadn’t meant it literally. He’d been drunk when he made that statement. But Ian had decided to take revenge for her defection, and Simon had been preoccupied and angry enough to turn a blind eye. He hadn’t even asked what Ian was up to. Part of him figured Gail DeMarco deserved whatever she got. The other part didn’t see why Ian would go to too much trouble.

  But just yesterday he’d learned that Ian had called all her clients and “suggested” they might like it better with Chelsea Seagate at Pierce Mattie. Almost every one of them had promptly switched.

  “You were frowning,” Sunny said. “Is there someone here you’re not happy to see?”

  “No,” he lied.

  “What did you say?”

  She couldn’t hear him for the music. He raised his voice. “Just getting tired, that’s all.”

  “Tired? Already?” She offered him a pout. “It’s barely ten.”

  His lack of interest was an insult to such an attractive woman. He understood that. If he were a better man he’d pretend to be e
ntertained, but he simply couldn’t fake it. Not tonight. He did enough acting when the cameras were rolling. Besides, he didn’t care if she moved on to someone more attentive. He’d been telling the truth when he said he was tired. He’d been tired since before he came, hadn’t slept in days. Every time his mind grew quiet, the regrets that tortured him returned.

  “Would you like another drink?” he asked.

  She didn’t get a chance to answer. When Gail started making her way over, he couldn’t help shifting his attention again. She’d located him, as he knew she would. She was nothing if not focused. And it wasn’t as if he could disappear into the crowd. He was always the center of attention whether he wanted to be or not.

  What would happen from here on, however, was anyone’s guess. He’d never dreamed his ex-PR agent would have the moxie to show up at an event like this, where he’d be surrounded by friends and supporters, not to mention the regular contingent of hangers-on—people who were willing to kiss his ass regardless of what he did.

  The girl had guts. He had to give her that.

  “Simon?”

  He looked up at her from beneath his eyelashes, as if he was too lazy or intoxicated to move. Maybe his temper, and what he’d said to Ian, had sparked the conflagration that had consumed her business, but he hadn’t intended for Ian to be quite so vindictive and didn’t want to take responsibility for it. Barring a few minor faults, Ian was a good manager. He’d certainly never done anything like this before. She could call Ian if she wanted to discuss the problem. It wasn’t as if she was entirely innocent; she’d vented her fury by making a series of unflattering statements that had wound up in the press.