Chapter Thirteen

Maggie rushed down the steps like she was fleeing the scene of a crime—and she should know, she’d played not one, but two different bank robbers.

Something about being in that room with Ian had felt entirely too intimate, like he could see right through her—and she wasn’t entirely sure he was going to like what he saw if he did.

She shouldn’t have asked about Sadie’s mom. She’d just been thinking about what Sadie had said the other day and the words had fallen out of her mouth before she knew they were coming. And then to find out that Sadie had lied… not that she could blame her. Maggie had lied about her parents more times than she could count when she was a kid. Her dad wasn’t just in the military and didn’t care if he saw his daughter when he came home, he was a spy who was saving the world from nuclear war. Her mother wasn’t in rehab, she was working with Doctors Without Borders in Africa and couldn’t come back because she didn’t want to infect her beloved daughter.

She wasn’t sure her friends had believed any of it, but Maggie had enjoyed the lies. There was something safe about them. And easy. So much easier than real life.

Her grandmother had looked the other way, for the most part. She’d known exactly why Maggie needed the stories. Sadie must have her own reasons for the lie. Sometimes a girl just needed the safety of a story, and Maggie had no intention of calling her on it.

She opened the door to Lolly’s house, releasing Cecil who streaked out into the yard. He circled back to dance around her feet, barking frantically, and she crouched to his level, ruffling his sweet, furry ears. “You wanna go to the beach, baby?” He wriggled with sheer delight to see her again, overjoyed by the simple fact of her presence, and Maggie smiled, bending down so he could lick her face before straightening with a chuckle. “C’mon, Mr. DeMille.”

He knew the path to the beach, her smart baby, and he led the way, his tail held high like a flag as he pranced along. He’d just crested the final dune when he suddenly streaked onto the beach, barking his I shall decimate the intruder bark. Maggie jogged the last few steps and came to the top of the dune in time to see Cecil reach Allison’s big droopy dog Edgar and frantically circle him, barking his most ferocious bark.

“Cecil, be nice!” Maggie called.

Sadie had been farther down the beach, closer to the water, but she turned at the commotion and waved, a ball-thrower held loose at her side. “Hi, Cecil! Hi, Maggie!”

Mrs. Summer waved as well and all three of them converged on the dogs. Cecil was still trying to dominate the much larger dog with his bark while Edgar seemed puzzled by the noise.

“Yes, Cecil, we all see how big and fierce you are. Now, shush,” Maggie scolded. Cecil did not shush, but he did at least reduce his constant barking to constant growling, interspersed with an occasional bark to remind Edgar who was boss.

“Does Cecil play fetch?” Sadie asked as she raced up. “Edgar just watches me throw it and can’t seem to figure out what he’s supposed to do.”

“He loves fetch,” Maggie assured her.

“Can I throw it for him?” Sadie bounced on the balls of her feet, tilting back the ball thrower. Cecil went into his ready stance and Maggie glanced to Mrs. Summer for confirmation.

“You two go on,” Mrs. Summer said as she sank onto the sand and waved a hand at her granddaughter. “You wore me out, young lady. Lori can chase after you for a while.”

“Really?” Sadie asked eagerly and Maggie grinned.

“Sure,” Maggie confirmed. “Just watch for when he gets tired. He’ll go until he collapses if you let him and then you have to carry him home and he’s heavier than he looks.”

“Roger.” Sadie saluted and flicked the thrower, releasing the ball to arc through the air toward the water.

The tide was part way in, but the beach was still wide enough that the ball would have to roll for fifty yards across the smooth, hard-packed sand before it got wet. And Cecil would never let that happen.

He tore off after the ball, his ears flapping wildly as he ran it down. Edgar didn’t seem interested in the ball, but he gallumped eagerly after the flying fluffball that was Cecil. Cecil cornered the ball, bracing it between his paws so he could pick it up—the yellow tennis ball stretching his jaws and sticking out the front of his mouth as he scampered back proudly, Edgar trailing after.

“Good boy, Cecil!” Sadie exclaimed, racing down the meet him, and Maggie followed along, watching as Sadie threw the ball again and raced up and down the beach with an energy Maggie wasn’t sure she’d ever possessed.

After a few throws, Cecil began to pant and Sadie started rolling the ball gently along the sand rather than flinging it through the air while Edgar wandered off to investigate a stick. They’d ended up down the beach, still in sight of the house, but well out of earshot.

Sadie glanced over at Maggie. “Why does Nana call you Lori?”

She shrugged. “It’s my name. Or it was. I was named Dolores, after Aunt Lolly, but my mom called me Lore and my gran always called me Lori.”

“So why did you change it?”

“I’d never heard of a movie star with a name like Dolores Terchovsky. Margaret was my middle name, after my gran—though everyone called her Peg—and I always liked the name Maggie. There was this song your dad used to sing, Maggie May, and I thought Maggie Tate sounded like someone glamorous. So I changed it.”

Sadie cocked her head. “Are you glad you did?”

Maggie arched a brow. “Are you thinking of changing your name? Sadie Summer has a nice ring.”

“I guess.” Sadie shrugged. She rolled the ball again, sending Cecil scampering after it, but this time when he got it, he flopped down on his belly in his frogger pose, the ball trapped possessively beneath his chin. Sadie slanted a sideways glance at Maggie. “You aren’t wearing your Dodgers cap anymore…”

“I can’t figure out where I left it. I think it got lost in the chaos when I started going through Lolly’s closet. Speaking of which, I brought some stuff over for you. Some of Lolly’s vintage stuff. I thought maybe you and your friends might like it.”

“Yeah? Is there any Mariners stuff? Cuz you could keep some of it and wear it to a game. My friend Lincoln’s family is going next Saturday and she said I could invite you if I wanted. They have, like, really good seats too.”

Maggie flushed, feeling an unexpected little surge of pleasure at the invitation, even though she couldn’t accept. “That’s a really nice offer, but I’m afraid I can’t go. I’m trying to lie low.”

Sadie slumped, but tried to cover her disappointment with a wise nod. “I get it. You don’t want to blow your cover.”

“That and I don’t think it would be as much fun as you think, having me there. My presence has a tendency to turn normal events into a crazy spectacle.”

Sadie dragged her feet through the sand, leaving grooves in the smooth surface. “Is it weird? Being famous?”

“Sometimes. You sort of get used to it and it becomes normal, and then something will happen to remind you that it isn’t normal.”

Sadie spun the empty ball-thrower through the air. “Did you always know you wanted to be famous?”

“I don’t know about always. I always liked acting. And I remember the first time I got the lead in a play in high school. My costars were so nervous opening night—one of them even threw up in the dressing room—but I couldn’t wait. I wanted to be out there so badly. And when the audience applauded—I think that was when I decided I wanted to be famous. I wanted more of that feeling. Like I was on top of the world.”

Though it hadn’t felt that way in a long time. The high of the applause had been a little lower every time. She’d needed more to get the same hit, until even thousands of fans screaming her name outside a red carpet hadn’t been able to give her the same rush, to make her feel good enough, if only for a few minutes.

She bent down, scooping up Cecil and cuddling him against her chest as they turned back toward the houses. “What about you?” she asked Sadie. “Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?”

“A singer,” Sadie said with absolute authority. “Or the first female shortstop in the major leagues. Or a marine biologist. Or a vet.” She glanced sideways at Maggie. “Though being an actress could be cool. I could get really good seats to Mariners games.”

Maggie laughed. “It’s important to have priorities. Though I don’t get to go to many baseball games. And for a long time I couldn’t even afford the lousy seats. Most of us don’t succeed right away. You have to want it really badly because there’s this whole tide of rejection coming at you and you have to keep swimming against it until you make it—and some people never do.”

“But you did.”

“Yeah, but then it becomes hard in a different way.”

She missed that tide. That struggle. At the time, she’d hated it, the uncertainty and the desperation—but now all she could think of was the hunger she’d had.

When was the last time she’d wanted anything that badly? Her life had become too easy. Which was a poor little rich girl problem if she’d ever heard of one, but it still ate away at her. The pointlessness of her life.

“You have to know why you want it,” she told Sadie. “With anything in life. Figure out what’s driving you to get there and if getting there is really going to give you what you think you need.” She shifted Cecil in her arms. “Maybe you want to be a sports reporter to always have the best seats to the games.”

Sadie wrinkled her nose. “That’s what Dad said, but he just wants me to be anything but a singer.”

“He does?”

“Oh yeah.” The words were heavy with meaning.

Maggie glanced up at the house—and, as if conjured by their conversation, she saw Ian coming down the stairs toward the beach.

He’d wanted to be a singer/songwriter once. Had that dream gone so horribly wrong that now he wished for anything else for his daughter? It felt wrong that there was such a huge gap between the boy she’d known before and the man walking toward her. She wanted to know everything that had happened to him in the last fifteen years, but he seemed so closed off to her.

Indifferent.

And wasn’t that always her Achilles heel? She’d never been able to resist the men who looked right through her. The ones who made her feel like if she were just a little more impressive, a little prettier, a little richer, he would want her. If she were just a little better, she would be enough.

It didn’t take a therapist to diagnose her Daddy issues, but that didn’t make her any less susceptible to them.

She needed to stay away from Ian. She was off men, remember?

But that didn’t stop her heart from beating faster as he walked toward them down the beach.