First Star I See Tonight

  He looked at her as though she’d developed a hole in her brain, and the bed came back up. “Deidre Joss is not my perfect woman.”

  How could he not see what was so clear? “She is! She’s smart, successful, beautiful—the kind of woman who’ll always have your back. And she’s crazy about you. She’s also nice. A decent human being.”

  “It’s official,” he declared. “You are out of your mind.”

  “You’re thirty-seven years old. It’s time.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re trying to break up with me and fix me up with another woman, both at the same time? Do I have that right?”

  “Not any woman. You and Deidre are a matched set. I’ve seen the way you act when you’re together. You could easily fall in love with her if you’d give it half a chance. It might not be clear to you what you should be doing with your life, but it’s clear to me.”

  “Go ahead,” he said with something close to a sneer. “Tell me. I know you’re dying to.”

  “All right. You need to get out of the nightclub business. It’s wrong for you. Buy some land. Plant it. Grow crap. And settle down . . . with the right woman. Someone who’s as . . . as dazzling as you are. You need someone spectacular. Someone brainy and gorgeous and successful, but grounded, too. Like you.”

  He spoke with almost a sense of wonder. “This is so mind-numbingly fascinating. So tell me . . . What do I do about the fact that I might be maybe”—his gaze wavered ever so slightly—“falling a little bit in love with you?”

  A sob threatened to spill right out of her. Somehow she managed to alter it into a harsh, unfunny laugh. “You’re not.”

  “You know that, then.”

  She did. As surely as she knew anything. A little bit in love. As if there were such a thing. She would not cry in front of him. Never. “You’re a champion. That’s in your blood. It’s the mind-set that’s made you great. But this is life, not a game. And instead of throwing up a smoke screen, think about what I’ve said. About you. About Deidre. About everything.”

  This made him furious. “What happens with us, then? After I’ve hooked up with Deidre, that is.”

  “Nothing happens with us.”

  “Don’t you want to be pals?” The rough sweep of his arm made him wince, but he didn’t seem to care. “Get together now and then to have a couple of beers? Go to a strip club? Poker night? Just us guys.”

  She couldn’t take any more. “I’ll wait in the hall until Jonah gets here.”

  “You do that,” he said.

  ***

  I might be maybe . . . falling a little bit in love with you. Love either was or wasn’t. She knew that now. For the first time since she was a kid, she cried. All the way to her apartment—big, blubbery tears that sloshed down her cheeks and dripped on her jacket. Tears that came from a well with no bottom.

  She’d waited too long to fall in love. That was why this was so hard. She should have fallen in love for the first time when she was a teenager, like any normal girl. And a couple more times after that. If she’d done things the normal way, she’d have practice dealing with heartbreak, but she’d had none. That was why her world had fallen apart.

  The Sonata’s front wheel climbed the curb as she turned into the alley behind Spiral. She had to pack up her things, but she couldn’t go inside with her nose running and tears everywhere. She couldn’t let anyone see her so broken. She backed up and drove blindly to the lakefront. When she got there, she stumbled across the grass to the lakeshore path.

  The wind was sharp off the water. It cut hard through her sweatshirt, but her tears kept running. All the tears she’d never let herself shed over the years were escaping at the same time. Tears for a mother she couldn’t remember, a father who had loved and resented her, and an ex-quarterback who’d stolen her heart when she wasn’t paying attention.

  She started to run. There weren’t many joggers on this part of the path, and a few snowflakes scuttled in the wind. November would be here in a couple of days. And then winter. A cold, Chicago winter. She ran faster, trying to outrun her misery.

  A woman clad in trendy athletic gear and pushing a jogging stroller was running toward her. As the woman came closer, her pace slowed, and then stopped. “Are you all right?” she asked as her baby slept peacefully in the stroller.

  Piper knew how crazed she must look. She slowed long enough to acknowledge the woman’s concern. “My . . . dog died.”

  The woman’s ponytail swung. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Piper started to run again. She’d told another lie. She’d never been a liar, but now she’d become a pro. All those lies.

  “I go by Esme. Lady Esme, actually. Esmerelda is a family name. . . . The fact is . . . I’m your stalker.”

  She spun around and yelled after the woman. “I broke up with a man I love with all my heart, and he will never, ever love me the same way, and I hurt so bad I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  The only indication that the woman heard was the way she raised her arm from the handle of the jogging stroller and waved.

  Piper gazed out at the lake, her hands in fists at her side, her teeth chattering, icy tears on her cheeks. She had to find a new self. A self who was indestructible and who would never, ever again let this happen to her.

  ***

  A week passed. Piper was gone. It was as though she’d never been there. The cleaning staff had scrubbed his blood off the apartment wall and put the furniture back where it belonged. Coop had walked in there once and couldn’t go again.

  The image of Piper standing in front of him with a gun shoved to her head was seared on his brain. At that exact moment he’d understood. It was as if a gust of wind had swept away the fog that had obscured the truth he should have recognized long before. But instead of coming out with it right away, he’d screwed up bad at the hospital. He hadn’t said the right thing, which was ironic, considering his reputation for working a good sound bite. Years of having microphones shoved in his face had taught him how to divulge exactly what he wanted to, precisely as he intended. But when it came to saying the right words to Piper, he’d fumbled in the worst possible way, and now she wouldn’t take his calls.

  The wound in his side was healing, but the rest of him was a mess. Someone knocked on his office door. This was the first time in days that anybody had bothered him. He didn’t blame them for keeping their distance. He was brusque with the customers, unhappy with the servers, and outright hostile to his bouncers. He’d even gotten into an argument with Tony because Tony insisted there was nothing wrong with the club’s HVAC system. But the air was stagnant, not circulating. So heavy with the funk of perfume and liquor it had seeped into Coop’s pores.

  He twisted from the computer screen he’d been staring at for who knew how long and directed his wrath toward the door. “Go away!”

  Jada barged into his office. “You broke up with Piper! How could you do that?”

  “Piper broke up with me. And how do you know about it?”

  “I talked to her on the phone. At first she didn’t tell me, but I finally got it out of her.”

  He leaned back in his chair, trying to be casual, even though he wanted to shake the details out of her. “So . . . what did she say about me?”

  “Just that she hadn’t seen you since the accident.”

  “And from this you deduced that I’d broken up with her?”

  “She sounded sad.” Jada dropped down on the couch. “Why did she break up with you?”

  “Because she thinks I didn’t take our relationship seriously.” He couldn’t sit a moment longer. He shot up from his desk, then pretended to adjust the shutter slats on the window behind him.

  “Is that what she said?” Jada asked.

  “Not in so many words, but . . .” He made himself go over to the small refrigerator next to the bookcases. “She’s extremely competitive. She thinks I am, too.”

  She leaned forward like a minishrink. “Aren’t you?”


  “Not about her.” He pulled out a Coke and held it up. “Want one?”

  Jada shook her head. “Are you going to try to get her back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t sound too confident.”

  “I’m confident.”

  “You don’t sound like it.”

  She was right. He snapped the Coke’s pull-tab, even though he couldn’t drink anything right now. “She won’t talk to me. She won’t answer my texts or pick up her phone.” He wasn’t exactly sure why he was telling a teenager all this, except that she’d asked, and nobody else had been brave enough.

  “You should go to her place and knock on her door,” Jada said. “She’s staying at her friend Amber’s. Or . . . you could wait by her car and then kind of jump out at her and make her listen to you.”

  “That’s okay in the movies, but in real life, it’s called stalking. I want to talk to her, not piss—not make her madder.”

  Another knock sounded on his door. “Get lost!”

  The door opened anyway. This time it was Deidre Joss. Now he’d need to be polite, if he still remembered how.

  “Bad time?” she asked.

  “Sorry, Deidre. I thought it was Tony.”

  “Poor Tony.”

  He turned to Jada. “We can talk later.”

  She hopped up from the couch. “Okay, but don’t tell Mom I yelled at you. She doesn’t like anything that upsets you.”

  “Too bad everybody doesn’t feel that way,” he muttered.

  Deidre closed the door after her. He realized he still had the Coke can and held it out. “Want one?”

  “No thanks.” She looked as cool and sleek as ever in a tidy black suit. No rumpled jeans or Bears T-shirt. No blueberry eyes. Her hair was a smooth, dark curtain instead of a crazy muddle meandering here and there.

  “How’s the injury?” she said.

  “Barely noticeable.” Unless he moved too fast. It hurt then, but he wasn’t complaining.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” She came farther into the room. “You haven’t returned my calls.” She said it without any snark, only sympathy. She was too nice. That’s exactly why he could never fall in love with her, and Piper should know him well enough to understand that. “I’ve heard from Noah’s attorney,” she said. “He’s going to plea-bargain.”

  Coop got rid of the Coke. “That’ll make it simpler.”

  “I went to see Noah to make sure he understands that once the justice system is done with him, he’ll have to find somewhere else to live. Far away from the city. Back to Mommy, is my guess.” She slipped her bag from her shoulder and set it on the couch. “I feel like an idiot. I knew he was possessive, but he made my life so much easier after Sam died that I ignored it. I came here to apologize for not being smarter about him and making you go through all this.”

  “We all have our obtuse times.” Especially him. He needed to talk to Piper. He had to explain how he’d felt when he’d seen that gun jammed to her head, but she was making it impossible.

  Deidre gave him a bright smile. “You’ll be getting a formal offer from us tomorrow. I have complete faith in your vision, and I’m looking forward to financing you. I should have trusted my gut and made this deal weeks ago, but I let Noah get in my head.”

  The time had come to say it out loud. He tucked his thumb in the pocket of his jeans, then pulled it back out again. “I’m getting out of the business, Deidre. Selling the club.” It felt good to finally put his cards on the table.

  Her businesswoman’s poker face failed her. “But you’ve been so passionate. Are you sure about this? What’s changed?”

  “It’s been creeping up on me slowly.” As slowly as anything could creep up with Piper Dove pushing her misgivings at him like a bulldozer. But Piper was right. All the satisfaction he used to experience when he walked into the club was gone. Spiral was a great place, and he’d enjoyed creating it, but he hadn’t enjoyed the day-to-day, and the idea of spending years going from one club to another had lost its allure. “I liked the challenge, liked the idea of building something from scratch, but as it turned out, that was all I liked. I thought nightclubs would be a good business for me—high risk, high reward—but I was wrong.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  He gave her the simplest answer. “I miss the mornings.”

  She didn’t get it, but Piper would understand how tired he was of crowds, of yelling over music, of the smells and flashing strobes. He was sick of living so much of his life at night. He wanted clean air. He wanted more than three hours of sleep before he went out for a morning run. He wanted to do exactly as Piper had said. To “grow crap.” He didn’t know how he’d work that out, but then he didn’t know how he was going to work out a lot of things right now. He only knew he had to make some big changes.

  He gazed at his jersey hanging on the wall behind her. “A friend of mine tried to tell me this was the wrong business for me, but it took a while before I figured that out for myself.”

  “Piper?”

  He didn’t deny or admit it.

  “I called her the other day,” Deidre said. “We talked.”

  It seemed as though everybody was talking to Piper except him.

  “Do you know she thinks the two of us should be a couple?” Deidre twisted a silver ring on her finger. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

  He hated hurting women, but he owed her honesty. “I’m afraid not. And I’m sorry about that.”

  “Not all that sorry.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and gave him a rueful smile. “Once I got some perspective, I understood why I’m not the right woman for you. You need someone more . . . unconventional.”

  Interesting how all these women believed they knew what he needed.

  “I’m sorry we won’t be doing business together,” she said. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said, even though he knew he wouldn’t.

  As soon as Deidre left, he picked up his phone, stared down at it, then sent Piper another text.

  I love you. Not a little. With all my heart.

  The text went undelivered. She’d finally blocked him.

  22

  “I don’t want to meet him,” Berni protested as Piper led her into the coffee shop where they were supposed to meet Willie Mahoney in exactly ten minutes. “He’ll think I’m some old lady who’s lost her mind.”

  An apt description for the way Piper felt—old beyond her years and barely able to function. She missed Coop desperately. Getting out of bed in the morning was as much as she could handle, and only a sense of duty was forcing her to fulfill her obligation to Berni.

  She played on the older woman’s soft heart. “He’s a nice man, and he’s lonely. You know what it feels like to lose a spouse. You’re the perfect person to cheer him up.”

  “I don’t see why it has to be me. He’ll think I’m a crackpot.”

  “He’ll think you’re interesting, and you need to see him for yourself so you can put this behind you.”

  Maybe Piper could begin to put Coop behind her if only he’d stop trying to contact her, but he was too competitive to give up without a hard fight. She should have done what he wanted. She should have moved in with him and smothered him with so much affection that she stopped being a challenge. If she’d done that, he would have pushed her out the door as fast as he could. But she hadn’t done that because she wasn’t tough enough.

  She and Berni were ten minutes early, but Willie was already seated at the same back table where he and Piper had talked a week and a half ago. “That’s him,” she said.

  “You didn’t tell me he was so good-looking,” Berni whispered.

  He’d slicked what was left of his hair to his pink scalp. His dress shirt looked as though he’d tried to iron it himself, and he’d accessorized his gray trousers with what appeared to be a new pair of white sneakers. Piper slipped her arm around Berni’s waist, grateful for the solid feel of her. “I
wanted to surprise you. Let’s go.”

  Berni moved forward as though she were heading for her execution. Willie rose, and Piper introduced them. Berni charged right in. “I know you must think I’m a crazy old lady.”

  Piper couldn’t let that pass. “The first time you saw Willie he was wearing a cheesehead.”

  “That’s true,” Willie agreed as they all took their seats. “It keeps people away.”

  Berni regarded him with concern. “Why would you want to do that? People need other people.”

  “That’s what my kids tell me when they call. Once a week but they can’t be bothered to visit.”

  “You’re lucky to have kids. Howard and I couldn’t. Howard had a low count, if ya know what I mean.”

  Willie nodded sagely. “That’s too bad. Tough on you both.”

  Berni dropped her purse to the floor. “I’ll say. When Howard—”

  Piper jumped up. “I have some calls to make.” She didn’t, but she was already depressed enough without having to hear about Howard Berkovitz’s low sperm count.

  Berni waved her off.

  Piper camped outside the coffee shop, sitting at one of two metal café tables designed for warmer days instead of the city’s typical November gloom. The low-hanging gray clouds obscured any possibility of sunshine. She wondered how long it took the average person to get over a broken heart. Maybe if she tripled that time, she’d have an idea of when she might return to normal again, because right now, she was stumbling through every day feeling as though she had jagged, broken pieces sticking out of her skin.

  Her phone rang.

  “Piper, it’s Annabelle Champion.”

  Annabelle’s cheery voice made her feel marginally better. Annabelle chatted for a few minutes before she got to the point. “I’d like to meet with you about doing some work for me. The company I hired to do background checks has gotten lazy, and I want you to take over the job.”

  A month ago, Piper would have been ecstatic, but all her edges had grown soft, as if her old self had reached its expiration date. Duke whispered in her ear. “It’s no business for a girl. You shoulda believed me.”