“Very funny,” she said, already reaching a hand toward her shorts’ pocket, which was, in fact, buzzing. “I asked Kyra to let me know when they were close.”

Pulling out her cell phone, she held it up so she could read the screen. The text read, Amset air in HaRrin funjom.

They looked at each other. “I don’t understand it. But I know who sent it.” Maddie Singer’s thumbs and her iPhone were often incompatible. She claimed she’d been a lot more comfortable with her smartphone before it got so smart.

Avery peered down at the screen again to check the time. “I was so into the bookcase, I forgot to order the pizza.” She swiped at her T-shirt. Fresh shavings sprinkled to the floor. “I know I’ve got the delivery number in here somewhere.”

Many of the meals she and Deirdre had shared with Chase, his two teenage sons, and his increasingly frail father had been delivered. Few of them had required silverware. She began to scroll through her contacts.

“I have it on speed dial,” Chase said. “But Deirdre took care of dinner.”

“Deirdre?” she asked. “Deirdre ordered pizza?” Deirdre had returned almost two years before and continued to claim that all she wanted was to be Avery’s mother. But none of her efforts to build a mother/daughter bond had included a willingness to lower her epicurean standards.

“Not exactly. I think the appetizer is a liver pâté of some kind. The main course is pompano en papillote.”

Avery groaned. “I don’t know why your dad gave her that apron and those cooking lessons for Christmas.”

“Hey, there’ve been four males living in this house for way too long for me to see a downside to a home-cooked meal of any kind. And he was smart enough not to give them to you,” Chase said.

“Ha. Deirdre always has an angle. She took mothering lessons from Maddie in Miami. Now she’s trying to become Betty Crocker. If she thinks she can turn her reappearance in my life into some kind of Brady Bunch reunion show, she’s crazy.”

“I agree that she has a lot to make up for. No one’s ready to pin the Mother of the Year medal on her chest. But she did throw herself in front of a bullet for you,” Chase pointed out.

This was still almost as hard to believe as it was to dismiss. “Well, all I know is Maddie and Kyra have been on the road for eight hours with a toddler. Greeting them with ground-up goose livers and fish cooked in a paper bag is ridiculous.” Avery hurried through the newly widened doorway and into the family room.

In the kitchen Deirdre was arranging crackers around a mound of pâté. Jeff Hardin sat at the kitchen table, his walker within easy reach. A bowl of fancy nuts and an opened bottle of red wine sat breathing on the counter.

“There.” Deirdre slid the plate of hors d’oeuvres closer to Jeff and untied her apron. She wore a periwinkle blue silk pantsuit that looked as if it had been dyed to match her eyes. She was built just as small and big-breasted as Avery, but the cut of her tunic top downplayed the D cup that dwelt beneath it. A pair of strappy sandals gave her an extra couple of inches.

Avery wore a pair of Daisy Dukes, a chopped-off Do Over T-shirt, and an ancient pair of Keds. Which just went to prove that the apple could fall far from the tree if it tried hard enough.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Deirdre said, giving Avery the once-over. “But there’s time if you want to shower and change.”

That had been Avery’s plan until Deirdre brought it up. “I’m good. Thanks.”

With a snort of laughter Chase reached in the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. “Dad?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Chase handed his father a beer, then opened one for himself. He slathered pâté on a fancy cracker and popped it in his mouth. “Mm-mm.”

Deirdre beamed at him. Avery gritted her teeth and went to the pantry.

“Where are the Cheez Doodles?” she asked, scanning the shelves.

Deirdre raised an elegant eyebrow. “I believe we’re out.” She said this with a regretful tone that was no more convincing than Avery’s French accent. “But if you put them on the shopping list I’ll—”

“Forget to buy them. Again.”

“They turn everything they touch orange. There’s no telling what they do to your internal organs,” Deirdre said.

“I’m thirty-six years old. My internal organs belong to me. And you showed up on the scene way too late to influence my taste in food.”

Deirdre rubbed her arm where the bullet had gone in.

Avery rolled her eyes. “She does that every time I even think about disagreeing with her.”

“Which is pretty much all the time,” Deirdre said.

“My Cheez Doodle habit is my own business,” Avery pointed out.

“That’s true. But I think ‘habit’ is the operative word.” Deirdre’s chin jutted forward. Her hands fisted on her hips.

It was like looking in a freakin’ mirror.

There was a strangled laugh and Avery turned her attention to Jeff and Chase.

“Sorry,” Jeff said, smothering his smile. “I just never can get over how much you resemble each other when you square off like that.”

“Well, I think orange dye on a woman is kind of sexy,” Chase said. “Add a little sawdust and . . .” He managed to shrug and leer simultaneously. “I’m a goner.”

Jeff guffawed.

“Fine. Laugh all you want.” Avery settled on a bag of mini pretzels. Which was a poor substitute for the air-filled cheesiness of her favorite snack. She was munching the little twists when the doorbell rang. “I’ve got it.” She strode to the front door and pulled it open. Kyra stood on the front porch with Dustin in her arms. Maddie stood beside them. She was already hugging Maddie when she spotted movement on the sidewalk.

“Hallo, Avery!” The voice was loud. The accent British. The tone overly familiar. The tabloids had gone crazy over Kyra from the moment they’d discovered she was pregnant with Daniel Deranian’s child. It had only grown worse since Dustin was born. “Are Deirdre and Chase inside?”

The photographer was tall and lanky. A pack of paparazzi jostled one another behind him. They looked completely out of place on the modest, tree-lined street. Like a pack of wolves hunting sheep in a grocery store.

A digital flash went off. Avery fell back a step.

“Come on, Kyra, luv!” the Brit coaxed. “Just one clean shot and we’ll be on our way.”

“That’s Nigel and he’s lying,” Kyra said with a shake of her head. “Last week in Atlanta I was at a drive-through waiting for Dustin’s Happy Meal when I heard his voice on the speaker. I hesitated for just a second, because you don’t hear all that many English accents at a fast-food place and I’d already paid for our food. A whole herd of them jumped out from a bush right next to the cashier’s window.”

Another flash erupted. Avery looked up and the flash went off again. She had a brief vision of what she was—and wasn’t—wearing.

“Avery. Darlin’,” Nigel urged. “If you can just get her to turn around for . . .”

Avery grabbed Kyra’s free hand and pulled her the rest of the way into the foyer. Maddie tumbled in after her. Avery shoved the door closed behind them.

“I’m so sorry,” Kyra said. “I don’t even know where they came from. I didn’t see anybody tailing us down from Atlanta. Although there was this really homely woman wearing what looked like size-thirteen shoes in the stall next to me at the rest stop.” Kyra sighed. “That’s how bad it’s gotten. I’ve been reduced to checking out feet in stalls! But I thought we were safe. I didn’t even think about wearing a disguise. Plus there was no way I was making an eight-hour drive in a burqa.”

Dustin rubbed his eye sleepily. One side of his face showed signs of contact with what must have been a corduroy car seat. His dark curls looked smashed from sleep.

Chase and Deirdre came into the foyer. Maddie set down their overnight bags. “I need to get Dustin’s booster seat and Pack ’n Play out of the car.” She squared her shoulders and turned back to the door with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner about to face the firing squad.

“I’ll get them.” Chase took the minivan keys and offered a mock salute. “Cover me! If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, send reinforcements.”

“If I had a gun I’d gladly cover you,” Kyra said. “I don’t know how to get rid of them. I just keep praying that a real celebrity will show up to distract them.” She propped Dustin up in the crook of her arm. “I mean, where are Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan when you really need them?”

Chapter Two

In the kitchen Kyra set Dustin in Jeff’s lap, and the little boy stared gravely up at him. Dustin had his father’s Armenian coloring and movie star looks but a solemnity that was all his own. Chase made it back intact, set up the Pack ’n Play in the guest room, and joined them at the kitchen table, where wine had already been poured and plates were being dished up.

Deirdre stood next to her chair eating up the praise for her pompano, which had emerged from its paper bag moist and delicious. Avery nibbled at hers tentatively, reluctant to admit just how good it was. It was impossible to sit at a dinner table with Deirdre and not think about all the meals she and her father had soldiered through after Deirdre had left. She could still remember how careful they’d been not to look at Deirdre’s empty seat at the table; the echoing silence without Deirdre’s tales of the days spent on the interiors of the spec homes her father and Jeff Hardin were building at the time; how much she’d missed the tidbits from the Hollywood gossip magazines that Deirdre practically inhaled—a form of forewarning neither Avery nor her father had recognized until after Deirdre had emptied her closet and drawers, stuffed it all into her car, and left without a backward glance.

“Do you have any idea who the Florida Keys house belongs to?” Chase asked.

“No. And I still can’t believe they won’t even give us an address until we get down there,” Avery said.

“Believe it,” Kyra said. “Lisa Hogan and her crew are all about injecting as much angst as possible into the proceedings.”

“We’re lucky they even told us we were going to be in the Keys,” Maddie said. “We’re supposed to rendezvous at Mile Marker 82 tomorrow at four P.M. to get the rest of the instructions.”

They ate for a while in silence. Even Dustin seemed to love the fish, which he ate both scooped on his plastic spoon and with his fingers.

“Have you been back to Bella Flora?” Maddie asked Avery.

Avery set down her fork as all eyes turned to her.

They’d arrived for a final Christmas together at Bella Flora knowing only that the house had sold. On Christmas Day they’d discovered that their mystery buyer was Dustin’s movie star father and his equally famous—and very pissed-off—movie star wife, Tonja Kay.

“We went by when we were out on the boat once or twice,” Avery said.

“If Tonja Kay lays a hand on Bella Flora I won’t be responsible for my actions,” Kyra promised. The movie star had threatened to rip apart the first floor of the 1920s beauty to put in an indoor pool. An idea that was tantamount to putting a McDonald’s in the Taj Mahal. Or ripping out the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and replacing it with mirrors.

“I’m sure she was just joking,” Maddie said, although none of them had seen any evidence that Tonja Kay actually possessed a sense of humor.

Kyra shook her head. “Nothing that woman does would surprise me. She thinks that just because she’s a movie star she can get away with anything.”

“Lots of celebrities do,” Maddie said. “But I’m sure there are some less ‘entitled’ celebrities out there. It’s probably like how no one bothers to do stories about teenagers who help little old ladies across the street or volunteer in soup kitchens. The vandalism and acting badly make much better copy.”

“Right.” Kyra’s tone was skeptical. But then, she’d been thrown off her first movie set at Tonja Kay’s insistence. And they’d almost lost Do Over when Kyra had refused to let the movie star add Dustin to the Deranian-Kay menagerie permanently.

“Did everything look . . . okay?” Maddie asked.

“There were No Trespassing signs all over the place, and I think they’ve installed a security system. But there’s no way to protect that perimeter without screwing with the view. I can’t picture even Tonja Kay walling off one hundred fifty feet of prime waterfront,” Avery replied. “I didn’t see any signs that anyone had moved in.”

“Had they made any . . . changes?” Maddie asked.