Fireside Susan Wiggs (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📖

I don’t need to go down to Virginia. Let me figure out a way around that.”

“You just said it was your job.”

“You’re my job, too.”

“I didn’t ask for that,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you got it. So I’m taking you home. And don’t give me any lip about Avalon not being home, because it is. Right now, that’s your home base.”

Sixteen

“You’re crazy,” said Bagwell, practically yelling at Bo. “It’s in your contract. You have to go to Fame School.” They were at the Hilltop Tavern, drinking beer and shooting pool with Ray Tolley and Eddie Haven. It was boys’ night out and the first time he’d left AJ since the New York incident. Dino was taking AJ out for pizza and a movie tonight.

Though Bo no longer tended bar at the Hilltop, it always felt like home to him. “I don’t have to,” he said, twisting a cube of chalk on the end of his pool cue. “And it’s a precontract agreement with the Yankees, anyway. I’ve memorized practically every word. It says I’ll pursue media training, and I will.” He lined up a shot, rammed it home with lightning-quick accuracy. “I don’t know what they have left to teach me. I’ve been trying for this practically all my life. I’ve dreamed about everything, every damn minute.”

“You know what they say about dreams,” Bagwell pointed out.

“No, what?”

“They’re always better than the reality.”

“Bullshit.”

“There you go. That’s why you’re supposed to have rookie training. You have to learn not to swear, or chew with your mouth open, stuff like that.”

“I can figure that out on my own,” Bo insisted.

Bagwell snorted. “What, is there some kind of online course?” He paced back and forth near the pool table, clearly impatient to play the winner.

For the first time, Bo clearly understood why. He aimed again and missed. “I can’t up and leave.”

“Because of AJ?” asked Rayburn Tolley, lining up a corner shot.

“Yeah, exactly. I thought it would be simple. I’d take off, Dino would look after the kid. Turns out the kid’s kind of freaked out. I’m afraid if I leave, he might run away again, and he might stay gone.” He took a small sip of beer. “I can’t risk it.”

“You’re an admirable fool, that’s what you are,” said Ray.

Bo shook his head. “Don’t admire me.”

Tolley took his shot, sinking his target. “Okay, I won’t. No problem.”

Bo grinned. “You’re a real pal.”

“What about taking AJ with you?” asked Eddie Haven. “I spent my whole life tagging after my parents, and it didn’t kill me.” Eddie came from a show-business family that had traveled constantly.

Ray—who had been Eddie’s arresting officer in an old, old case—threw back his head and guffawed. “If you consider court-ordered community service ‘okay,’ then I guess you’re doing just fine,” he said.

“I’m not dragging AJ anywhere else,” Bo said. “He’s been uprooted enough.”

“I have a solution,” said Bagwell. “You can do a lot of the stuff they work on at Fame School, only you could do it here. With Kimberly van Dorn. She was a media trainer in L.A.”

Bo had been thinking the same thing. He pictured himself spending hours and hours with her, being told what to do and how to do it. The hours and hours together he could handle. Being bossed around by her…“Not a good idea. Besides, I’m told this whole thing is about meeting people. That’s the point, not which fork to use and how to order wine.”

“Is not,” Bagwell said simply. “There’s plenty she could teach you.”

Meanwhile, Ray lined up another shot, sank it.

Damn. Ray was really on his game tonight. He sank two more balls before he missed and handed the play back to Bo.

“Seriously,” Bagwell added, “there are things you need to know before you start running with the big dogs. A guy can easily be led or manipulated into saying stuff.” Bagwell knew what he was talking about. He had played exactly three stellar games with the Boston Red Sox before an injury had ended his major-league aspirations. He’d returned home to Avalon, where he went to work at his father’s small-engine repair business and play for the Hornets in summer and in the Dominican Republic in winter.

“She’ll drive me crazy. Why her?” Bo asked with a scowl. His turn again. He tapped the hole he wanted his ball to go into, and lined up his shot. He misjudged the angle and the ball hit one bumper, then wandered away, a failure.

“No need to play dumb,” Bagwell said. “We’d all do exactly the same thing in your shoes.”

Seventeen

Leaving the bank with her mother, Kim felt a sense of cautious optimism. Bo had been right; as a victim of pressure sales, her mother was entitled to recourse from the bank. Fancy that, Kim thought. Information from a guy they could trust. It had to be a first.

In consultation with a specialist at the bank, she and her mother had worked out a payment plan that would help Penelope extricate herself from the punishing, complicated loan, assuming they were very careful, and a little bit lucky.

“We should celebrate,” Kim said.

“I’m on a strict budget now, and I intend to stick to it.” Penelope snapped her pocketbook shut and headed for the car. “We need to stop at the grocery store on the way home and I’ll prove it to you.”

“We’ll stick to the budget,” Kim promised her. “We just need to figure out how to celebrate for very little money.”

Penelope nodded. “I used to take you to the St. Regis for high tea, remember?”

“I remember my shoes pinching. And the harp music was boring.”

“I never cared for it, either.” Her mother stabbed the key into the ignition and started the car.

“Yet we went all those times. I thought it was so important to you.”

“And I thought it was such fun for you. One of us should have spoken up.”

“I’m speaking up now,” Kim said. “No more