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  “You can’t get through her shields?” Gennie asked. “She’s that psychically locked?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Gennie chuckled. She shared a wry look with Mimi. She patted James on the shoulder.

  “What?” he asked. “What’s so amusing? Do you know what I’m supposed to do now?”

  “Of course,” Gennie said. “The answer is simple, bro. If you can’t do it the easy Prime way, you’re going to have to do it the mortal way.”

  “The what?” He had no idea what his mortal half-sister meant. “How?”

  “Call her,” Mimi said. “On a telephone. Don’t be a movie star. Don’t be a vampire. Be a man.”

  “Court her,” Gennie said. “The way a man courts a woman.”

  ###

  The flight was delayed. All Thena wanted was to get out of Los Angeles, and the flight was delayed. Thena didn’t resent that Carla’s flight to New York had gotten off just fine, but she did wish it was her winging her way back to her quiet refuge from the manic world. Well, you did what you could with the time you had.

  Thena took her laptop out of the carryon, with the intention of getting some work done. She was not going to finish watching the James Wilde movie she’d downloaded. Though she couldn’t stop the stray thought that maybe he was naked in Under Everest. Better to check her email using the airport’s WiFi than find out.

  She went through her inbox, answered some, sent a message to her farm manager who was picking her up at the airport. Then she clicked over to the junk file to check if there was anything not spam among the ads for generic Viagra and announcement of winning international lotteries.

  One subject heading read: Hello Athena Sophia, We met at Lunch. The address was JamesS at a provider she didn’t recognize called crowtwin. Her heart leapt with excitement, as there was only one James she’d met at lunch yesterday. Had James Wilde emailed her? Why would he?

  How had he gotten this email address? It wasn’t the one listed on her website or her business cards. The email was in the junk file. She ought to dump it.

  She opened it despite the warning in her head and on the computer screen.

  Thena,

  I meant to call you last night, but it was after 1 before I knew it. Thought you might not appreciate being woken up. And it was too late to send flowers by then too. Thought you might prefer knitting yarn. Call me before you leave. No, text me. We like to keep it quiet on the set.

  James

  He left a phone number at the bottom the message.

  Thena checked the departure time on the board behind the gate counter. The time had been moved up another hour. Too bad she had time to consider her options on this.

  Maybe his mother had taught James Wilde to send thank you cards and he was just being polite. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe he was messing with her mind. Why would he do that? Why would he want to talk to her in the first place? She wasn’t some hot young thing he wanted to have sex with. She was at least ten years James Wilde’s senior.

  The logical part of her brain kept going on and on about why she should blow off his suggestion to call him. In the meantime, her hands got out her phone and her fingers punched in the number in the email. She worried about it being the right number, as her hands were shaking when she called.

  The word Hi! popped up on her screen.

  Thena wasn’t used to texting, but she was thankful she at least had a phone with a teeny little keyboard. She typed, Mr. Wilde? Is that you?

  James. Jimmy, if you want. Course it’s me. Sorry about last night. Business.

  What about last night? Why was he sorry? What was the matter with the man? Had he mistaken her for someone else?

  She answered, That’s okay.

  Good. What RU doing?

  Late flight. Stuck at airport. U?

  Stuck waiting 2. More waiting than acting here. U fly into St. Louis?

  Yes.

  Any airport closer?

  Uh—Poplar Bluff? Small airport there.

  Gd 2 know.

  Thena wondered why. She smiled at the silly thought that perhaps James Wilde meant to come for a visit on his private jet.

  Saw UR knitting had Aran stitches. My family from Aran Island.

  Thought UR from Dublin.

  Fake bio. Like my privacy.

  Me too. My family from Greek Island.

  Blaise sounds Irish.

  My mom’s family Greek. Grandpa’s a bishop.

  There. That should be a turn-off to a wild Irish playboy.

  Greek. Explains UR first name.

  Didn’t say he was priest of Zeus. We’re Orthodox.

  I’m a pagan myself. Worship the Moon Goddess.

  Uh huh.

  No. Really. We’ll talk abt tht later.

  O-k-a-y.

  She asked, Which Aran Island? Thts yarn heaven, U know.

  You haven’t heard of it. Told U my family knits.

  What U mean haven’t heard? Only 3 Aran Islands, right?

  No. Don’t try googling, U won’t find it. Which Greek island?

  Okios. U wouldn’t have heard of it.

  UR right. Knit me something.

  What?

  Pls?

  Mittens? A scarf? Hmm, maybe not for CA.

  Make me a jumper.

  What was odd about this texting conversation wasn’t so much that she was having it with a celebrity—unless she was being punked for some reason—but that it was so—sort of—getting to know someone normal. Not that she expected some cheesy come with me to the casbah sort of thing from the man, but—

  U want me to make U a sweater?

  Perfect woman! U know what a jumper is.

  Am a long time knitter. Can read British patterns.

  Course U can! UR brilliant! Black pls.

  Not black. U want me 2 go blind?

  Never! Gray, then.

  Sure.

  Will send U yarn from home. Gotta work. See ya.

  The call ended. Thena stared at the screen. She saved the conversation.

  ###

  Gennie looked up from reading the saved conversation on James’s phone. He’d handed it to her when he came into his trailer on a break.

  “You want her to knit you a sweater?” she asked. “That’s not very romantic.”

  “It seemed like it at the time,” James said. He got up from perching on a chair arm and started pacing. Not that there was that much room to move in the narrow space. “To me it was romantic. Hopefully to her. Any conversation with Thena’s romantic. Did that sound trite?” he asked as her eyebrows rose almost off her forehead.

  Gennie shook her head. “You only met the woman yesterday—but you are so sincere, so smitten. It’s cute.”

  “Your mother is bonded to our sire. Ask her what it felt like the first time she met her Prime bondmate.”

  “Hell, no! She’ll go on for hours with the story about how this handsome man rushed out of the shadows to save her from a rapist then carried her to the emergency room in his brawny, bronzed arms and kissed her gently on the forehead promising that he would make her want to love again and how she— No, I don’t want to go through that story again.”

  “It’s romantic. They’re romantic. They’re happy.”

  “They are,” Gennie said.

  “I don’t recall his having brawny bronzed arms.”

  “To Mom he does.”

  “Athena is perfect to me.”

  Gennie gagged at his besotted attitude. He didn’t blame her. But she was sympathetic as well. “You did good, bro. Keep up the good work. Keep up the courtship.”

  His soul screamed that he go to Thena Blaise. His body ached for him to be with her. When they were together he could gently work his way through the shields she’d built against him.

  “How much longer is the shoot? When can I get some free time?” he asked Gennie.

  Gennie consulted her tablet. “You can squeeze in a few days at the end of the month. Sorry.”


  James groaned. He wouldn’t abandon his responsibilities, but it was going to be hard.

  He took his phone back and called Athena’s cellphone. He growled when it immediately rolled to her voicemail. It was going to be a long couple of weeks.

  ###

  “Sorry about your having to wait so long,” Thena told Ed Cole as they met by the baggage claim carousel.

  He took her bag from her. “No problem.”

  Ed and his wife Carol lived in the second house on Thena’s six-hundred-acre property. Between them and a couple of teenagers who helped out part time, the farm ran quite well, the livestock were happy, and she got to spend most of her time writing.

  “You okay?” Ed asked as they walked out the sliding exit doors.

  Hot, humid air blanketed Thena. It felt good after the desert air of Los Angeles. “Good to be home,” she said. “Of course I’m okay.”

  “You look....” he shrugged. “Sad? Lonely?”

  How did one look lonely? “I may be a bit—distracted,” she said. “How’s everything at home?”

  “The Sheep Mother chased off a coyote.”

  Sheep Mother was a llama that made a crusade of guarding the two dozen ewes and lambs she shared a pasture with. No one messed with her idiot wool factories. Llamas had quite a nasty kick.

  “Good for her.”

  “Angie Finn’s dad’s being an asshole again. I told her she could stable her horse in our barn.”

  Angie was one of the high school kids who helped out around the place. Her father was—well, he wasn’t dealing well with a bad divorce was the kindest thing Thena could think about him. He’d started making trouble for everybody in the county, especially his own kids. Thena had had to go to civic meetings and even to court after his claims that she was an animal hoarder and that her farm wasn’t zoned for the exotic animals she kept.

  “Why are we keeping Angie’s horse?”

  “Cause he’s trying to sell it to pay child support. It’s not his horse to sell.”

  Thoughts of Hollywood and movie stars—a movie star—had faded to the back of Thena’s mind by the time they reached the car. Her life might not be glamorous—except for the occasional publisher’s party during a book launch—but it was interesting.

  She took the passenger seat in the front of her Cadillac Escalade and got out her iPhone as Ed handled driving through rush-hour traffic. It was a weekday, she told herself. There might be a message from her agent, or someone else she needed to communicate with.

  Sure enough, there was a voice mail from James Wilde.

  James Wilde’s lilting yet deep Irish-accented voice said, “Got to go to a movie premiere. If you see me snuggling up with a girl on a red carpet tonight, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Thena held the phone out in front of her, looking at it as thought it were possessed. “What the f—?”

  She switched to texting and sent, Why wld I see U on red carpet?

  And why would she care about him snuggling some beautiful girl? And why would he care that she cared? Which she did, didn’t she? The man made her head hurt. Literally. With a spike of jealousy that brought on a headache. For a nasty second her head actually felt like it was trying to crack open.

  Gossip shows, his answer came back.

  Don’t watch ‘em.

  Wise woman.

  Thena switched modes and called her sister Chloe. “He’s messing with my head! Do something.”

  “I’m between appointments right now,” Dr. Chloe Blaise, psychiatrist and older sister, said. “Who is he and what do you want me to do about it?”

  “I don’t want to say who. You wouldn’t believe me. A younger man. I will not become a cougar for a younger man!”

  Chloe chuckled. “Women who pursue younger men are called cougars. Men who pursue younger women are called men. Don’t label yourself with such a silly term. If you like a younger man and he likes you—he has excellent taste. And as long as you don’t have to change his diapers, go for it.”

  This was not the kind of advice Thena expected or wanted. “Stop making sense. This situation does not make sense.”

  “I take it you are returned from California. What happened out there? Did James Wilde sweep you off your feet?”

  Thena didn’t answer.

  After a long silence, Chloe said, “Oh. Oh!”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “You slept with Wild Jimmy Wilde?”

  “No!”

  “Then why did you call me? What did happen?”

  “We talked about knitting,” Thena said.

  Chloe snorted.

  Thena explained about the lunch meeting, the texting, the email, more texting. “He’s messing with me,” she concluded. “And modern technology lets him. I can’t escape him.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “He’s Wild Jimmy Wilde.”

  “Sounds to me like he’s smitten.”

  Thena’s turn to snort. She sighed. “I’d think his interest was sweet, if I wasn’t the suspicious type. Maybe he thinks I’m motherly. Whatever it is he’s up to—well, what if the media finds out? People like him can’t fart without it being broadcast around the universe. And people taking pictures of whoever he was with when it happened. I can see it now, helicopters circling over my house because I’m knitting the guy a sweater.”

  “Imagine the uproar if you should drop a stitch.”

  “There will be paparazzi jumping out of the hayloft.”

  Thena shuddered, and it was with real fear, though she tried to tell herself she wasn’t really taking this seriously.

  “Calm down,” Chloe said. “Get over yourself.”

  Thena liked her sister’s advice. She laughed. “He’ll have forgotten me by tonight. Or already,” she decided. “He’ll be snuggling a starlet—do they still call them starlets?—this evening, and all will be right in both our worlds.”

  “Why don’t you just have a fling with him?” Chloe asked. “If he calls back, I mean.”

  “I’ve never had a fling with anyone in my life.”

  It was like she’d spent her life holding her breath, holding her heart, waiting for The One. Learning to be content and productive when no One Great Love showed up.

  “And I’m not having a fling now,” she said. “Thanks, Chloe. See you soon.”

  The minute she walked in the door at home the phone rang. It was her brother Phil, the Chicago police detective. “Who is this Irish guy you’re dating?”

  “I’m not dating—”

  “Is he a stalker? Chloe says he’s bugging you online.”

  “It’s all right. Everything is fine.”

  “Who is this guy? I want to check him out.”

  She was thankful that at least Chloe hadn’t named names when she informed the family of Thena’s news. She reassured her worried brother, and tried not to think of the irony of James Wilde being a stranger to be checked out when everyone knew who he was.

  Well, he had told her his bio was fake. Maybe she should let Phil dig a lit—

  No. She would not intrude on the man’s privacy.

  After she got Phil off the phone, her mother called. “What’s this about your seeing a younger man? What is the matter with you, Athena Sophia? What will your grandfather say?”

  Nosy. Her family was just too darn nosy. And it was all her own fault for reaching out to her family in the first place. She always told Chloe everything. Chloe was a psychiatrist. She was good at keeping everyone but her relatives’ doings private.

  Thena decided it was her own fault for not having asked her sister to keep their conversation quiet. She did ask her mother to do so, after assuring her there was nothing going on between her and a younger man.

  She unplugged the landline, turned off her cell, and didn’t go anywhere near her computer for the rest of the evening. She worked in the barn. She watched a DVD and ate ice cream with the Coles.

  She did dream about James Wilde when she went to sleep, but was pretty sure her wor
ld was back to normal when she got out of bed the next morning. Just to make sure, Thena checked the sky over her house.

  No circling helicopters.

  She got a chapter written in the morning.

  In the afternoon, the FedEx van arrived with a large box. It held skeins of pewter gray wool yarn from Ireland.

  ###

  UR mom sent an email thanking me for knitting for you.

  But did she send my measurements?

  No. Gennie sent those. She says she’s UR PA?

  She’s my sister 2. U don’t have 2 be jealous—but I’d like you to B.

  OMG. Vanity thy name is Wilde.

  Yes. Tell me a secret.

  What?

  I told you my real name.