The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel) Read online

  “Is that really her, Devon?” It was Kara’s voice behind him.

  She settled against his back, peeking over his shoulder, since there seemed no other way to get a view with the way Devon was hovering over the screen.

  “She looks very different than I imagined she would. Did you know she was turning herself in, Devon?”

  Devon didn’t answer her. Kara doubted he had even heard her. She suddenly became aware of the tension in his body as she pressed against him.

  Angela gave a sharp, harsh laugh. “God, who the hell is she trying to fool with this Little Orphan Annie, lost waif act?”

  “What makes you think it’s an act? Those sharp reporter instincts of yours?” Danny teased, slipping an arm around her.

  “My female instincts. No one spends weeks locked away in seclusion with that...” Her red painted nail tapped Morgan’s image on the screen “…and comes out looking like a vestal virgin unless she plans to. Oh, she’s shrewd. Very shrewd. It has to be a publicity angle. Look at them. Even the vultures in the crowd are eating her up. Ten bucks says she’ll break down crying and makes a scene.”

  “That lady won’t cry,” Marc put in. “She’s holding her head too high. Staring them all in the eye. Another ten bucks says she kisses Mr. Rock Star for the cameras instead.”

  “You’re on,” Angela laughed, slapping Marc’s outstretched hand. Shaking her head, she said to Devon, “Unbelievable, Devon. They pinned your hide in prison for five weeks when the authorities knew very well it was all going to end as another media farce.”

  Kara felt Devon’s shoulders, which were already like granite, tighten even more. She made a worried search of his face.

  “Cuffs!” Jerrot cried in disbelief. “Those idiots just gave her more than a million dollars’ worth of publicity could have bought. I bet that’s the picture that will be on the front page of every newspaper in American tomorrow. Why doesn’t everyone just make nice, let the poor woman go, since that’s all they’re going to do anyway, and let us get back to the damn game!”

  “Jerrot, you had better kiss the game goodbye,” Angela piped up, smiling over her shoulder. “This kind of story is like gold to the networks. The public is going to eat her up. She disappeared two years ago with a look that could have made a centerfold weep jealously, and now she’s resurfaced, reinvented as America’s new little darling. Unbelievable. Devon, you spent four months with the woman. That can’t really be her! This is a sham, isn’t it?”

  Devon rolled his shoulders and said nothing. Seeing Krys step off that plane, her hand linked with Morgan’s, hit him in his center like a blow. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk.

  No one noticed amid the fast-moving conversation that Devon had slipped from the room the instant after Krystal Stafford disappeared from the cameras into the squad car.

  No one but Kara. She watched him from the doorway of his kitchen for several moments without speaking. His expression was so bleak, and she remembered how he had stared at the TV, and how tense the conversation in the room made him.

  It was suddenly all very clear. Devon was in love with her, with Krystal Stafford, of all women. She wondered why it had taken so long to put the pieces together.

  She had long suspected that he had had an affair with her. Jordan had laughed at her, at that speculation. Devon and Krystal Stafford were about as unlikely a pair as any he could conceive.

  Had the unlikeliness of it been the reason why they all missed what she now realized had been there in Devon’s writing for them all to see?

  She didn’t know whether to laugh joyfully or cry. Finally, the last holdout against love among the Howard brothers had fallen. And of all the people to have taken the plunge in what was surely the most complicated set of circumstances, it was Devon. Her pleasant tempered, uncommonly intelligent, rational brother-in-law.

  Maybe it was just an affair? Maybe she was making too much of this? She thought, perhaps just being a hopeless romantic.

  The look on Devon’s face cut off those thoughts. She didn’t know Krystal Stafford, couldn’t imagine whatever it was that had happened between them, and what Devon meant to her, but Kara knew Devon.

  It hadn’t been meaningless for him. He was in love.

  There were more reporters camped out at the federal building when Krystal arrived. More questions. More furiously snapping cameras. Her name screamed so many times she thought it would drive her mad.

  The muscles were painfully tight in her throat, she could barely breathe, and yet through the pain of this humiliation, she felt pride. Christine Dillon was stronger than Krystal Stafford had been.

  Krystal Stafford could never have managed all this with quiet dignity, stepping forward into the waiting squad car, her composure intact. Christine Dillon had learned to take care of herself, manage the complicated puzzle of her life without Morgan, without anyone there standing between her and the unpleasantness.

  It’s going to be all right, Krys, she told herself. You found your way to the safety of Coos Bay and managed to build a life out of nothing. And just as confidently, you can take back the life in LA that Nick Stafford took from you.

  The deal John Hunt had made spared her a prison sentence. It did not spare her being booked and processed, then held in a dingy concrete cell for four hours before an appearance in front of the judge. Or the necessity to stand quietly before his stern lecture on her defiance, before he would announce the terms of her release.

  Seated beside Colin, her manager, as they drove away from the courthouse, Krystal wondered what miracle had brought Nick to the point of dropping the kidnapping charge and at last letting Katie go. It was more than rehab, more than the need to make amends to his victims, which was a required part of his recovery program.

  He was still Nick. What didn’t she know, what hadn’t Morgan told her? Colin explained it now that they were alone. It was Morgan.

  Morgan, who had given Nick a chance to record again when the record companies had refused to touch him. Morgan, who had guaranteed the production costs with his own label if Nick proved another failure. And Nick was still Nick in so many ways. Five months in the studio, with barely anything to show for it, and costs running into the millions already.

  How would she repay Morgan? But repay him she would. It was her debt. Krystal Stafford could stand on her own two feet now. She was through being a victim. Through being afraid. Through letting others fight her battles for her.

  Staring out the window, she was alarmed to find more reporters covering the street in front of her Laurel Canyon home. She noticed the newly constructed, ten-foot wall with an iron gate surrounding her home, and a high tech security system.

  Morgan? No, Colin explained, her father. So her father still wasn’t ready to trust Nick, either.

  Why had she come back to this? It was insanity. Like prison again.

  As she climbed from the car, the press trapped twenty feet away shouted more questions at her, their furor even more frenzied.

  Then she was there, inside the bright and expensive California decor of her living room, which seemed an unfamiliar, intimidating stranger after her simple cottage in Coos Bay. It was untouched since her departure two years ago, in a way that she was not.

  There were friends and family crowding the rooms. They buzzed around her, eager to welcome her home. Krystal smiled and stared at it all with stricken eyes.

  This was not home. Home was Coos Bay. The quiet peace she had found there. Devon. Not this sea of strangers who could do nothing to alleviate the sadness in her heart.

  All around her, in hushed whispers, the gossip raged. Gossip about her. About Morgan. About Devon.

  Morgan watched it with his great, dark eyes and said nothing. Colin rushed about, eagerly planning Krystal’s comeback, proudly proclaiming that she’d be bigger than ever, and pressuring Morgan to go on tour with her.

  Krystal listened to them all and said nothing. Listened as they tried to work together the disjointed pieces of her life. No
matter how they wove the fragments together, they seemed strange and unfamiliar to her. But tried they did. If Krystal could not make sense of it, how could they, who knew nothing of it at all?

  She took a sip of her drink and caught her reflection staring back at her from the widow. She was still dressed in the simple white shirt and jeans she’d worn from the plane. She was the odd figure in this gathering of casually elegant, confident and beautiful people. Would she ever fit here again?

  The news coverage continued on and off throughout the day, until Krystal disappeared into her home with Morgan and her manager.

  Devon watched it all in silent misery, hiding behind an expression of calm curiosity, saying nothing as the others continued with their rampant speculation about Krystal.

  He excused himself when the legitimate news coverage ended.

  A few minutes, later Kara followed him from the room. She found Devon on the back patio, his face tilted up toward the setting sun, reclined in a lounge chair. If she didn’t know him, she would think him the picture of laziness. But she did know Devon. He was troubled by his thoughts and emotions.

  “You guys are still here?” Devon said, not opening his eyes. “I expected you to be long gone like the rest of them by now.”

  Kara settled beside him on the chair. “If you can believe it, I can’t pull Jordan away from the set. Other than the news and occasional sporting event, I’ve never seen him watch the darn thing. But there he is, like a junkie eating it all up. He’s watching an entertainment magazine show—of all things—with such rapt attention you would think the stock market had just crashed.”

  Devon’s only reaction was a slight smile.

  She ruffled his hair. “You were in it, looking very Robert Redford-like, I might add. Krystal Stafford certainly has captured the heart of the media, hasn’t she?”

  To her shock, anger flashed in Devon’s gemmed eyes. “That remark wasn’t the least bit subtle.”

  “This is the first time in twenty years I ever thought I had to try to be subtle with you,” Kara pointed out softly. “Excuse me for not doing it well.”

  Feeling chagrin for behaving like an adolescent jerk again, Devon shook his head to clear his mood, then bent her an apologetic smile.

  “I should have stolen you from Jordan years ago when he was behaving like a fool and I had the chance. You’re a wonderful woman. Have I ever told you that?”

  Devon pulled her down on the chair, holding Kara against him in brotherly affection.

  “I’ve been sitting out here trying to figure out how I can find a woman just like you. Got a clone tucked away?”

  Kara poked him in the ribs, not letting him sidetrack her with flattery. “I think what you’re really trying to figure out is how to find a leggy, blue-eyed, blond singer.”

  There was no point in pretending with Kara. She could read him well.

  “Smart, too. That is exactly what I’ve been wondering,” Devon admitted quietly.

  He looked at the cordless phone he had foolishly taken with him from the house, as if he could simply pick up the damn thing and get Krys by phone. One didn’t simply thumb through the phone book to call a star.

  With no chance of finding her private number any other way, he attempted to get it from her former recording company, and was surprised that they even answered this late on a Saturday night. He had known it was a longshot, that he could hope to reach her in this manner, but he had to try.

  He’d been transferred all through the building until he had been told quite simply that he was not on the approved list and they could not release her number to him, but if he’d like to leave a message they would forward it with the hundreds she’d received today. It would go from her secretary to her manager to her personal assistant.

  Pride, stubborn and foolish perhaps, but pride nonetheless, kept him from reducing himself to a scrap of meaningless paper passed around through her handlers, having not even a slim hope of reaching her.

  “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Kara asked softly. “It’s been written on your face all day. I don’t know how we all missed it. It was there, in your articles and columns, just like it is in your eyes.”

  “Why shouldn’t you have missed it? It’s crazy, isn’t it? Devon Howard and Krystal Stafford. Don’t try to pretend it doesn’t seem preposterous to you, Kara. I’ve spent half the day imaging Jordan laughing himself into a coma over this. Don’t you think I know how absurd a couple we must seem?”

  “It’s not absurd, Devon. Unexpected is a better word. You’ve always been a very careful man with your personal life. Quiet and private. You hated the circus that surrounded you after Croatia. I don’t think whatever happens with a woman like Krystal Stafford will be quiet and private. She must be a remarkable woman to have made her way into that heart of yours. You fight so hard to protect it, Devon.”

  “I didn’t have a chance from the first minute I saw her, Kara.” It felt good to talk, and Devon found himself saying, “I wasn’t even expecting to like her, when I went to Coos Bay. I planned to go there, get the interview and be done with it in a week, maybe two. I thought I’d find a spoiled superstar diva, just like too many I’ve interviewed over the years, self-centered, narcissistic, and full of vulgarity instead of wit. I imagined myself leaving skid marks in the road when it was finished.

  What I found was a beautiful woman surrounded by children dancing in a studio to the music of Vivaldi, who spent her days playing in the grass with her daughter. That woman who stepped off the plane in LA this morning is the Krys I know and fell in love with in Coos Bay. It wasn’t an act. It wasn’t a sham for publicity. It’s who she is.”

  Kara was silent for a moment. “If that’s how you feel, Devon, then you had better get off your butt and go to her, because I’ve never wanted anything but the best for you, and I don’t think you could find a better woman for your soul mate than the one you just described.”

  “If I knew how to get to her, Kara, I wouldn’t be here,” Devon admitted grimly. “I can’t find a solution as to how break through the security wall they have around her now. I’ve spent the better part of two hours chasing down avenues from the ridiculous to the pathetic. I’d drive to her house now if I thought that I’d have a chance of getting through the security wall they’ve put around her. But I wouldn’t get any closer to her than the gate, and I’d like to spare myself the humiliation of that, at least. Especially since there is a very real possibility that seeing me isn’t something she wants.”

  She felt him tense against her. “Why wouldn’t she want to see you, Devon?”

  “I can think of two very good reasons. The first stepped off that plane with her about seven hours ago, Kara.”

  Ah, Morgan. Tidbits of the day’s news flashed through her mind. “Looks can be deceiving, Devon. You know that. People mistake us for lovers all the time. And the media does like the sensational.”

  “They were lovers,” Devon added grimly. “Much more than that, always. She went from Coos Bay to Morgan, and since she’s been back with Morgan, she hasn’t tried to contact me, not once.”

  “Well, you haven’t exactly been easy to get ahold of, Devon. You spend half your time breaking phones or unplugging them. You changed your number last week without informing any of us, and have made it unlisted, no less! You’ve not been picking up your messages at the paper, your answering machine is overloaded, and I know perfectly well you haven’t listened to any of them. Phil called us two days ago to check on you, since you haven’t seen fit to contact the paper to let them know when you plan to return to work.”

  “If the kooks and the press would stop calling, maybe I would answer the damn thing and listen to my messages!” Devon countered heatedly.

  “It’s hell, huh, being picked as one of the fifty sexiest men of the year by a popular nude magazine for women? Did you really think one of your brothers wouldn’t have told me about that? Or about the centerfold offer?”

  “Be nice, Kara. I got enough r
ibbing from my brothers for that! Danny saw how much money they were willing to pay and offered to go in my place.”

  The memory of that made Devon laugh. Kara smiled. It was good to hear Devon laugh. He hadn’t laughed in weeks.

  Rubbing her head against his shoulder, she asked cautiously, “What’s the second good reason, Devon?”

  “Hmmm?”

  Kara knew he was only pretending not to understand her. “Why she wouldn’t want to see you?”

  Devon didn’t answer for a long time. “She walked out on me, Kara, and I don’t blame her one bit. I blew it and I hurt her. She ended it.”

  She slipped her hand over his. “Whatever you did, I know it isn’t something that can’t be worked through if you try. If Jordan and I tossed in the towel every time we had an argument, we wouldn’t have survived past the first year.”

  “You didn’t spend seven years with Nick Stafford using you as a punching bag.” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a ragged sigh. “It’s not so simple, Kara. Nothing about this whole damn situation is simple. She accused me of playing with her life the way Nick did and she was right. I shouldn’t have done it. She’d spent two years without choices, and the cruelest thing someone could do is keep from her a choice that she could make. So I suppose she’s right. I’m not any better than Nick Stafford, am I?”

  “You are not anything like Nick Stafford, Devon,” Kara countered fiercely, and if Krystal Stafford couldn’t see that, then she didn’t deserve her brother-in-law. Perhaps things were better off the way they were.

  Three weeks later, Krystal and Morgan were in her living room, sitting in the center of the floor, surrounded by a nightmare masquerading as mail.

  The old Krystal Stafford would never have bothered with this copious bundle of correspondence from lawyer to accountant, accountant to manager, manger to lawyer. It would have laid untouched in her house, its location not even known to her, unless the impulse to open any of it would have struck.