Texas Magic Read online

  Caroline’s left brow shot up and she looked at A.J. “That’s her new title? Since when?”

  A.J. chuckled and shrugged. “If that’s what she wants to call herself, it’s fine with me.”

  Pepper clapped her hand. “We all need titles. How else will our audience know what our roles are on the show?”

  A.J. and Caroline exchanged a smile. The only thing that was certain was that Pepper was born to be in the public eye, and that was one of the things that was going to be a huge bright spot on the show. Unlike herself. Caroline had another wide-awake nightmare of freezing up or falling down or dropping a cake as the camera was turned on her. Okay, so it wasn’t going to be live TV, but these reality shows thrived on exploiting the sensational. Because, let’s face it, no one wanted to see the ho-hum. They wanted the Sturm und Drang.

  Lord knew Caroline had had enough Sturm und Drang in the year that she had helped her sister plan her wedding. Now that it was finally her time for love, was it so bad that she didn’t want it to unfold in the midst of a three-ring circus?

  Even worse...now that she had fallen in love with Drew, what if Harris Merriweather ended up having legitimate dirt on him? Her stomach knotted. She had to clear this up once and for all.

  “I need to visit the little girls’ room,” Caroline said. “Pepper, come with me. A.J., would you mind waiting here for Sydney?”

  “Not at all,” A.J. said. “But hurry back. The minute y’all walk away she’ll probably show up.”

  “In that case,” Pepper said, “let’s start walking.”

  Once they were out of A.J.’s earshot, Caroline cut to the chase. She was tired of writing it off one minute and fearing the worst the next.

  “Okay, so, the other night when we were meeting with Carlos and Lindsay, you mentioned something about your father warning you away from Drew.”

  Pepper sighed. “Oh, that? I’m sorry if that upset you— Have you been worrying about that since then?”

  Caroline reached out and nudged her arm. “Of course I’ve been worrying. I...I’m really beginning to have feelings for him.”

  The early-evening sun poured in through the glass atrium, casting everything in a warm, golden glow. Even so, Caroline shivered.

  Pepper shrugged. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry you’ve been worrying. I probably shouldn’t have said anything because after I thought about it... My father is a businessman. When things don’t go his way he gets...upset. He tends to see the worst in people. I really have no idea why he said it. Maybe he was put off by something Drew wrote about him or Texas Star, which seems plausible, if you think about it... We could go up and ask him if you want?”

  Another chill zinged through Caroline. The thought of descending upon Harris Merriweather uninvited made Caroline think of Dorothy and company approaching the great and powerful Oz. Only the glimpse behind the curtain might just prove to be more than she wanted to know about Drew.

  Still, sticking her head in the sand would not make the truth disappear.

  Suddenly, what she needed to do became crystal clear.

  “I need to ask Drew,” she said.

  Pepper nodded. “That would probably be the best place to start. There are always two sides to a story. And somewhere in the middle is the truth.”

  Caroline chuckled. “You’re absolutely right.”

  In the past, “truth” meant getting close. Getting close meant risk of rejection. Even thinking about it made a fear so large swell up inside of her it nearly swept her away. But in the time it took Caroline and Pepper to finish their business and get back to where A.J. was still waiting—alone—Caroline had a new resolve.

  She had to talk to Drew.

  A.J. glanced at her watch. “I wonder what’s taking Sydney so long? Pepper, should we use your influence to go up there and break her out of jail?”

  “Hell, no,” she drawled. “This is as close as I want to get to the mouth of the Texas Star beast. Daddy might try to put me to work up there or...something else. Look at what happened to Caroline when she got stuck in the family business flytrap.”

  They all laughed—even Caroline, despite the fact that Pepper’s attempt to be funny had actually struck a little too close to home for comfort.

  Because even though she was putting on a good-natured face over her discomfort, Pepper’s comment sparked a legitimate concern in Caroline.

  Pepper motioned to an arrangement of chairs and small tables set around a planter. “Come on, let’s go over here and sit down and wait for her.” They all went over and took a seat.

  “I know they’ve said the premise of the show is they simply want to follow us around and tape us as we work—a-day-in-the-life sort of thing—but any show that’s worth watching is based on conflict. That’s what keeps people glued to the tube.”

  She paused, letting her words sink in a moment, hoping they’d already been pondering the same thing that had been niggling in the back of her mind since day one, when the possibility for the show even presented itself.

  Nobody spoke. Her two friends simply sat and stared at her expectantly as if they wanted her to continue.

  “I don’t mean to be the buzz kill, but I really worry about how the producers are going to...come up with that conflict.”

  Continued blank stares.

  “No, think about it,” Caroline continued. “Haven’t you seen those Real Housewives shows? Come on, admit it, you know you’ve seen at least one episode.” When they still weren’t saying anything, Caroline waved away the analogy.

  “All they do is fight. And if there isn’t something real for them to fight over, it seems like they create something. I guess I’m a little concerned about not letting this affect our friendship. The three of us, especially. We’ve known each other all our lives. I wouldn’t hesitate a minute to sacrifice a life in the limelight to ensure that nothing comes between us.”

  A.J.’s eyes flashed. “I can promise you that I will not allow anything to come between us. If it makes you feel better, before we sign the contracts, I will make sure we have it in writing that our friendship will not be fodder for conflict.”

  Caroline did not want to burst her friend’s bubble, but she wasn’t so sure the producers were going to be very receptive about letting the talent dictate the direction of the show.

  But for the sake of not starting a real-life argument, she said, “Okay, so the conflict doesn’t come from us as friends and coworkers. Where is the conflict that keeps the viewers watching going to come from?”

  “Oh, Caroline, you’re so dramatic.” Pepper sighed and picked up the shopping bag she had been carting around. “I think you’re going to be a good source for drama and conflict.”

  Caroline clucked her tongue, taking issue with the backhanded...compliment? Really, it was more of an insult. This was precisely the type of thing she did not want aired on camera. She looking like the stick in the mud, while Pepper tossed barbs for comedic effect.

  No, this wasn’t going to work at all.

  Pepper continued as if she had not just verbally upbraided Caroline. “I was going to wait until we were having drinks, but Sydney is so late. Where is she? I’m going to have to leave here pretty soon. But anyway, as a token of our friendship, annnd in celebration of this new opportunity, I have a present for you. Well, I have one for me, too, actually. They’re for all of us. So that we match...”

  She opened the shopping bag and handed Caroline and A.J. shirt-size boxes.

  “Open them,” she insisted. “They’re Celebrations, Inc. aprons. I had them specially made for us. For the show.”

  Before anyone could remove the paper and ribbon from her box, Caroline spied Sydney exiting the elevators on the other side of the lobby.

  “Oh, good, there she is,” she said.

  Pepper stood up and waved. “Sydney! Here we are.”

  That’s when they noticed that Sydney was crying, and that two uniformed guards, their arms full of boxes, were escorting her toward the door.

&nbs
p; Chapter Ten

  The layoffs were yet another piece to the puzzle of the Texas Star story that Bia was piecing together. Although Drew had completely removed himself from that project, he was still editor of the Journal and therefore responsible for the rest of the content of each week’s paper.

  Bia had taken to giving him vague reports apprising him of where things stood: we’re getting hotter or colder; thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the progress.

  He trusted her reporting instincts and her judgment, but so far she had not indicated that she had found anything substantial enough to write about.

  As Drew lived day by day in the safe haven he’d created of Texas Star don’t ask, don’t tell, he was falling more in love with Caroline every day.

  For some reason she was hesitant about the Celebrations, Inc. television opportunity. When she asked for his advice, he told her he thought she would be a natural on television and that he thought she should seize the opportunity.

  “But I’m so stiff on camera,” she lamented. “I just don’t know if it can work. I guess I’m afraid of embarrassing myself and letting my friends down.” And what if she was such a weak link that she ended up being voted off the island? Okay, she was mixing up her reality TV metaphors—what it all boiled down to was she didn’t want to risk the rejection.

  “And how could you do that? I don’t see how it would be possible for you to embarrass yourself or let your friends down. Everyone has faith in you. They want you to be a part of this project. They need you to be a part of this project. I think you need to go for it.”

  “It’s just weird, thinking about your life playing out on TV,” Caroline answered. “I mean, think about it. It could even involve you. It will involve us. Do you want to make cameo appearances on the show?”

  He hadn’t thought about that. But the fact that she was thinking of the show in the context of him, that he was now a real part of her life, felt good. It felt solid. They felt solid. But then the damned dark shadows of the implications of what if set in. What if Bia’s story took off? What if Coopersmith & Bales were involved?

  What if they weren’t?

  What if this was just his way of covering his own insecurities? That maybe, in fact, he wouldn’t want his life to play out in the public eye? One of the things he loved the most about being a journalist was that he was the one who investigated others. He turned the spotlight on people and places and corrupt corporations with sketchy business practices and stonewalling reflexes. Other than his byline that appeared with the story or his credit listed on the paper’s masthead, he remained largely anonymous. His person did anyway, even if his name might be known or cursed by scores of people who were unhappy about what he wrote about them. Just because Caroline was going to be on television didn’t mean he had to be, too. Maybe that was the biggest double standard of all—that he was pushing her to do something that he himself was uncomfortable doing.

  * * *

  But Caroline wasn’t fully on board with the opportunity. Yet he was subtlely nudging her in the direction of the show. It was a position that most people would gladly rearrange their lives to take advantage of—and whether or not to trade in her old job at Coopersmith & Bales seemed precisely to be Caroline’s dilemma.

  She had reminded him that to be available for taping and the production schedule and the various appearances that the show’s publicist was planning for the show, she would need to take a leave of absence from her job at C & B. But then something shifted. It had almost seemed like she was beginning to consider the possibilities.

  Because the other night when Drew had been over at Caroline’s helping her bake an order of vanilla bean cake with a chocolate raspberry mousse filling for a Celebrations, Inc. event, she had said, “My father still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that I won’t be accepting the senior partner position. He’ll flip when he finds out I’m quitting altogether to do this.”

  Drew had smiled. “So, it sounds like you’ve made a decision?”

  She’d stopped mixing the cake batter that she had been stirring, her spoon poised in midair. “I suppose I need to talk to my father so that we can come to a meeting of the minds before his retirement party next week. And there’s something I need to talk to you about, too.” She looked down at the bowl of batter as if gathering her thoughts

  “Sure,” he said. “Ask me anything.”

  He purposely tried to keep his voice light, because she looked as if she were struggling with something. He braced himself, but still managed to keep his smile in place.

  “The other night when we were at the catering offices meeting, at that first meeting with Carlos and Lindsay, Pepper mentioned that there might be some bad blood between you and her father, Harris Merriweather.”

  Who in Texas didn’t have bad blood with Harris Merriweather?

  But he couldn’t say it quite so baldly to the best friend of Harris Merriweather’s daughter.

  “I don’t know if you’d call it bad blood so much as you’d call it a difference of opinion as what is newsworthy and what’s...let’s see how can I translate what Mr. Merriweather called it without offending your sensibilities.”

  He winked at her. Caroline was a strong woman. She could handle it, he simply didn’t care to use that particular brand of language in her presence.

  “I believed it was something to the tune of bull hockey.” He smiled and shrugged. “Well, there was definitely bull in the sentiment. One thing you need to know about me is if I do my job right, I’m not always going to please everyone. If I tried to do that then there would be no fair and unbiased news to report. Does that make sense? But other than falling out of favor with Harris Merriweather, I can assure you that I don’t have a criminal record and I work very hard to keep my bad habits down to a manageable roar.”

  She laughed, and her cheeks seemed to radiate a new, rosy glow. “Well, in that case, will you be my date to my father’s retirement party?”

  “I would be honored,” he said. “Look, something just dawned on me. I have a hunch that once you get everything ironed out with your father and you make him understand that this is important to you—or more so, that a career at Coopersmith & Bales is not what you want—I believe you’ll loosen up on camera.”

  He walked over and put his arms around her. “The camera loves you, and so do I.”

  * * *

  In passing, when Caroline happened to mention that her father was retiring and the party was coming up soon, Carlos and Lindsay had latched onto the idea that the party, which would take place at the Regency Cypress Plantation and Botanical Gardens just outside of Celebration, would be the perfect place to film the first episode of the pilot.

  The stately old estate had been a working sugar plantation in the early-nineteenth century. Since then, it had become a much sought-after venue for special occasions—and the first location for the new television show that would feature Celebrations, Inc.

  Carlos and Lindsay had offered to approach her father about it, but Caroline had curtailed that in a hurry. It was time she talked to her father. This was as good a time as any. She just needed to bite the bullet and do it.

  She had made a lunch reservation at Manuel’s, and to her relieved surprise he made himself available. Of course, she had said she wanted to talk to him about her future with Coopersmith & Bales, and she thought he was probably holding out hope for a positive outcome. That made her nervous.

  You’re thirty-three years old. It’s time you started living life on your own terms. Those terms include leaving the darkness of the firm, taking your place in the sun as you costar in a reality television show and introducing Drew to your father.

  The thought unleashed the butterflies in her stomach. She realized the butterflies swooped more at the thought that she would be telling her father about Drew—that he was someone special in her life.

  When was the last time she had told her father that she was serious about a man? Never. She never had.

  That Drew would be by
her side at the retirement party and from there on after in her life made her feel stronger than she had ever felt before.

  Maybe it was the confident way she presented everything: her decision to leave, the television opportunity, that she was finally fully and soundly head-over-heels in love. But for the first time she felt like her father actually heard her.

  He sipped his water, studying her over the glass. “You and this catering company you’ve invested in are going to be on television?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yes, we are. We start filming in two weeks.”

  He nodded as he looked at the menu, and for a moment, she wondered if he was still listening or if his mind had wandered off to wherever it went when he tuned her out.

  So she looked at the menu, too.

  “What’s the shooting schedule like?”

  Oh, he’s still listening.

  “It’s going to be tight. The plan is to shoot the pilot and then if the network is happy with it—and it gets good reviews from the areas where the pilot is test marketed—we will jump right into taping a first season.”

  Again, he nodded rather absently as he stared at his menu. He didn’t say another word until after the server took their orders and refilled their water and iced-tea glasses.

  When they were alone again, he said, “So, are you giving me your two weeks’ notice? Is that why you asked me to have lunch with you today?”

  “In a sense, I guess I am. Of course, I will type up a formal letter of resignation tonight and file it with the human resources department.”

  Inwardly, she was kicking herself for not having thought to bring a letter of resignation with her. That would’ve made it more formal. More final. But at least he was being nice.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me opportunities like this don’t come along every day,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?” She wasn’t quite sure what he meant. Please don’t start lecturing me about foolish, impulsive moves. She knew a reality television show wasn’t a career move that would last a lifetime or serve as a stepping stone to help her reach bigger and better things, but it was important to her. She just wished he could see for once that sometimes the impractical things were worth it if they were important enough. She was just gathering her thoughts to tell him that she would be self-sufficient. She wouldn’t ask him for money or even expect him to give her her old job back at Coopersmith & Bales. She understood that this decision was binding.