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  “Boy, if that’s your hopeful face don’t let me see discouraged.”

  “Charlee,” he said, “I’m on the verge of losing everything.”

  “That’s gotta suck. Especially when you were on the verge of finding yourself.”

  He frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “When you were up in the air you were a completely different person. Relaxed, calm, confident. Now the old Mason is back. Anxious, controlling, argumentative.”

  “I’m not argumentative.”

  “You’re arguing right now.”

  “This isn’t arguing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Charlee, I still don’t think you get it. If we don’t stop Blade Bradford from winning and it comes out after the fact that our accounting firm cheated, the Gentry name will be destroyed. In a business like ours reputation is everything. Companies will pull their accounts. Our stock value will plummet. The scandal will affect not only my family, but also all the people who work for us, or do business with us. You saw what happened to the stock market after Enron and WorldCom and Tyco.”

  “Your family has that much influence on the U.S. economy?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Oh.” She paused a moment. She knew Mason was rich and powerful. She had no idea he was that rich and powerful. Her secret lingering hope that things could work out between them all but evaporated. “Well, then walk faster.”

  “I’m glad you appreciate the gravity of the situation.”

  “So,” she said, a few minutes later, “what would happen if, say, Blade did win and you and your grandfather just kept your mouths shut?”

  “You mean cover up the accounting discrepancy?”

  She slanted a glance over at him. “It seems like the easy way out.”

  “You mean just let Cahill and Bradford get away with their scam?”

  “It’s what most people would do.”

  Mason shook his head. “Let’s concentrate on getting to L.A. so I’m not faced with that temptation.”

  Two hours later they finally reached the highway. Mason was so wound up about the time slipping away from them that Charlee thought she was going to have to put Valium on the top of her “I want” list behind food, sweet tea, and a long cool shower. The Valium was for him, not for her.

  They hurried to the edge of the road.

  It was empty. Not a vehicle in sight.

  “Shall we?” Charlee inclined her head toward L.A. and tried not to limp. Her heels felt as if her leather boots had flayed the flesh to the bone. The only consolation, she hadn’t been wearing Violet’s ankle strap stilettos for the trek.

  “You’re hobbling,” he said.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Guess those boots weren’t made for walking.”

  “Ha, ha. Normally they are very comfortable. They’re rubbing blisters because I don’t have on any socks. Violet apparently doesn’t believe in them.”

  He stopped walking, turned toward her, and motioned with his index finger. “Come here.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m going to give you a piggyback ride.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Don’t be so damned stubborn, woman. You can barely walk.”

  “Mason, I’m no little thing. I weigh a hundred and thirty-five pounds.”

  “I don’t care. Get over here.”

  “You say you don’t care now…”

  Before she could finish her sentence he stalked over and slung her unceremoniously over his shoulder.

  “Hey, wait, stop it. Put me down.”

  “Only if you agree to let me give you a piggyback ride.”

  “Okay, all right, I’ll do it.”

  They trudged along the shoulder of the road, Mason carrying Charlee on his back, her bare legs wrapped around his muscled waist, her skirt hem flapping as he walked. She felt guilty, but man-o-man did her feet ever feel better.

  Minutes passed, then half an hour. No car. No truck. Not even a motorcycle.

  “Why don’t we take a break,” she said, fretting about his back.

  He stopped and let her slide gently to the ground. “Where is this godforsaken place?” he asked. “I didn’t think anywhere in America was this deserted.”

  “It’s just a bad time of day. The later it gets the more likely it is someone will come along.”

  “Charlee, we’re still three hours outside of L.A.”

  “Okay, let’s not get off on the time issue again.” Or I’ll have to strangle you with my bare hands.

  “Listen.”

  They stopped walking and cocked their heads.

  “Sounds like an engine.”

  “Quick, stick out your thumb.”

  “Better yet, I’ll strike a pose,” Charlee said and imitated Claudette Colbert from It Happened One Night. It helped that she had on a skirt so short Barbie could have used it for a hanky.

  They peered into the distance, waiting. Heat waves shimmered up from the ground like gasoline fumes, wriggling and crinkling and blurring the edges of reality.

  Finally, an aging flatbed truck chugged into view over the rise. Charlee wriggled her leg provocatively. Mason stuck out his thumb.

  Please stop, please stop, please stop.

  The truck putt-putted leisurely over the asphalt. A smiling dark-complexioned woman sat behind the wheel, three hound dogs lolled on the front seat beside her. She waved at them and pulled over.

  Mason and Charlee raced to the truck.

  The woman gave them a dazzling smile and said something in Spanish. They shrugged. She pointed to the back of the truck stacked high with crates of strawberries. Apparently she wasn’t about to dethrone her dogs for hitchhikers.

  Who cared? It was a ride.

  “Gracias, gracias,” they repeated and hurried around the truck, ready to hop in the back among all those delicious-smelling strawberries.

  Only to be stopped by an unexpected but totally wonderful surprise.

  There, curled up in each other’s arms, looking just as grime-ridden and road-weary and hungry as Mason and Charlee, sat their grandparents.

  CHAPTER 20

  Charlee flung herself into her grandmother’s arms. “Maybelline! You’re alive.”

  All four of them started hugging and laughing and talking at once with no one getting a word in edgewise. Charlee glanced over at Mason. He winked at her and gave the time-out gesture. “Okay, all right. One at a time. You start, Gramps. What happened?”

  The attractive older man who shared a remarkable resemblance to Mason said, “Actually, the story starts with Maybelline. If she hadn’t intervened, I might never have found out that Blade Bradford, his wife, and Spencer Cahill were rigging the Oscars.”

  Maybelline looked at Charlee with a happy glow in her eyes that she had never seen there before.

  She’s in love with Mason’s grandfather. The thought hit Charlee out of the blue and when Nolan squeezed Maybelline’s hand and smiled at her, she knew not only was it true, but that Nolan loved her grandmother in return.

  Her stomach gave a funny little boot to her heart. Charlee slid a sidelong glance at Mason and her stomach kicked harder. Were she and Maybelline going to end up with dual broken hearts after all this was over? The women from the wrong side of the tracks falling for the guys far out of their league?

  “Have some strawberries.” Maybelline passed around an open crate of the juicy ripe fruit like the perfect hostess. “Angelina told us to help ourselves.”

  Charlee grabbed a handful of strawberries, leaned back against a stack of crates, and nibbled them politely instead of wolfing them down the way she wanted. Mason was sitting on the opposite side of the truck with Maybelline and Nolan sandwiched between the two of them.

  Silly as it seemed, Charlee missed sitting next to him. For the past four days they’d been side by side almost constantly.

  “It all started forty-seven years ago,” Maybelline bega
n, “when I first came to Hollywood, met a charismatic actor, and thought I’d fallen in love.”

  Charlee shifted her gaze to Nolan. He shook his head, denying he was the actor in question.

  “It was only later, after I got pregnant with your father, Charlee, that I discovered the man was already married.”

  “Blade Bradford,” Mason guessed.

  “Yes,” Maybelline admitted.

  “How come you never told me this before?” Charlee asked her grandmother.

  “I was ashamed. Embarrassed that I’d been taken advantage of. I never told anyone. Not even Elwood.”

  “You had nothing to be ashamed of,” Nolan said gruffly.

  Maybelline smiled at Mason. “Your grandfather was wonderful. In fact, he stopped me from flinging myself off the HOLLYWOOD sign.”

  Her grandmother had once tried to kill herself? Charlee struggled to imagine her tough-minded granny as a young and vulnerable girl and finally gave up. The years had erased all traces of the naive innocent she had once been.

  But then she caught Nolan looking at Maybelline. In his eyes, Charlee saw that young, troubled girl. How little she really knew about her own grandmother.

  “Anyway, fast forward to the future,” Maybelline said to Mason. “My son Elwood, who much to my unhappiness has always had trouble controlling his impulses, got in deep with gambling debts. He shoplifted cigarettes in order to get thrown in jail to avoid his creditors.”

  “I remember that,” Charlee said. “I thought it seemed really weird at the time since he doesn’t smoke, but he told me he’d planned on selling the cigarettes.”

  Maybelline sighed. “While he was in lock-up he met some guy who told him he could help him locate his biological father. Elwood got all excited. Not about the thought of meeting his father, but because it was another person he could put the bite on. I discovered all this after the fact of course.”

  “Let me guess,” Charlee interjected. “Elwood blackmailed Blade Bradford.”

  The truck hit a bump and they all went sliding into each other. They righted themselves and Maybelline continued with her story.

  “Elwood sent Blake a letter demanding five hundred thousand dollars or he threatened to go to the National Enquirer with what happened forty-seven years ago. But Elwood got more than he bargained for. In the blackmail letter, he was talking about his illegitimate birth. But apparently Blade thought he was talking about how he and his wife and father-in-law had rigged the Oscar votes so he would beat out Nolan for best actor.”

  “And Elwood’s threats couldn’t have come at a worse time,” Mason said. “Considering how Blade was up for another Oscar again this year.”

  “Exactly.”

  Mason ate a strawberry and glanced at Charlee over the top of her grandmother’s head. He had to fight the urge to drag her into his arms, kiss those rich, berry-stained lips and make all sorts of wild promises to her that he feared he could not keep.

  “And,” Nolan added, “unfortunately enough, Spencer Cahill stumbled across the records from 1955 and he was putting the squeeze on Blade’s wife to put in another fix.”

  “So,” Maybelline told Charlee, “this was when Cahill got involved and sent hired guns after your father with the intention of rubbing him out.”

  “We’re quite familiar with Sal and Petey and what they’re capable of.” Charlee shook her head.

  “Elwood had no knowledge of the Oscar fix until he went to confront Blade in person and tell him to call off his goons. He found Blade in the process of shredding documents. He and Blade had a fight and Elwood stole some of the documents. He didn’t really understand what he’d uncovered but the date was 1955, so he brought a copy to me.”

  “Your grandmother knew I’d purchased controlling interest in the accounting firm for nostalgic reasons and she rightly supposed I had no idea I’d been cheated out of the Oscar in 1955. She called and asked me to come to Vegas and help her sort this out,” Nolan told Charlee.

  Then turning to Mason, he said, “I took the half mil from the company fund not only because I was going to pay Elwood’s blackmail fee to keep him quiet about what had happened, but to get the family to send you after me.” He grinned. “I knew they’d send you and not Hunter.”

  “You wanted me to come after you?”

  “Of course. I needed help and I couldn’t do this alone but I had to keep things quiet. Couldn’t risk any of this leaking out.”

  “Why didn’t you want them to send Hunter?”

  Nolan laughed. “You’ve got to get over this second-son-in-the-Gentry-family syndrome, Mason. It held me back for too long. Kept me from my first love.” He gazed tenderly at Maybelline. “Besides, Hunter couldn’t find his ass in the dark with both hands.”

  Mason had to laugh too. “I can’t take the credit for finding you. Charlee’s the bloodhound.”

  “I’d say you make a pretty terrific team,” Maybelline said.

  This probably wasn’t the time to burst their bubble and tell them that he and Charlee had found them purely by accident.

  “Where’s the money now?” Mason asked.

  “I stashed it in a safe deposit box in Vegas,” Nolan said.

  “In the meantime,” Maybelline said, “Elwood gets another visit from his creditors. He goes back to Blade, convinces him he’s on his side, and offers to kidnap us and hold us hostage until after the Oscars are over.”

  Nolan continued the story, telling how Elwood had taken them to the vacant studio lot outside Tucson, how they’d escaped but been recaptured by Blade and Elwood working together after the camper broke down. He told them about being held prisoner in the abandoned mine shaft, how they’d found a false bottom in the floor, tunneled their way out, and hitched a ride to L.A. with Angelina.

  Mason and Charlee then related everything they’d been through.

  “What time is it?” Mason asked, after they’d finished their stories. “The Oscar ceremony starts at seven.”

  “But the Oscars drag on for hours,” Charlee observed. “We can make it.”

  “Unfortunately, best supporting actor is one of the first nontechnical awards given out,” Nolan said. “The sooner we get there the better.”

  “We have to get backstage,” Mason continued. “Tell the presenters there’s been a discrepancy. We can do major damage control if we can make it in time to stop the Oscar from being awarded to Blade.” His eyes met his grandfather’s.

  “I know.” Nolan nodded. “If we don’t stop it beforehand, they’ll think our family was in on the fix.”

  Maybelline consulted her watch. “It’s five-thirty now and at the rate Angelina is driving, I’m afraid we’re still a good two hours out of L.A.”

  They parted company with Angelina in Palm Springs and Mason’s grandfather rented a Ford Explorer. Nolan drove hell-bent for leather, but the closer they got to L.A. the thicker the traffic grew. By the time they arrived at the Academy Awards venue, it was twenty minutes after seven and the place was swarming with security and media.

  “How the hell are we going to get in?” Nolan gloomily asked him.

  Mason pulled the crumpled tickets Pam Harrington had given him from his back pocket. “I’ve got it covered. Once Charlee and I get in, we’ll identify ourselves, explain what’s going on, and send someone out after you two.”

  “Sound plan.” Nolan nodded. “Go, go, go.”

  Mason and Charlee tumbled out of the Explorer and rushed the red carpet.

  After running a gauntlet of security checkpoints where the guards simply couldn’t believe these two dirty, bedraggled wayfarers held VIP invitations to the lavish event, they finally stepped inside the theater lobby at seven forty-five.

  Don’t let us be too late, Charlee prayed.

  An usher came forward, nose curled in distaste at their clothing, to escort them to their seats.

  “We’re not going to be sitting down,” Mason started to explain but then Charlee spotted a tuxedoed Elwood leaving the men’s room. She gr
abbed Mason’s arm and whispered, “There’s my father.”

  Charlee glared at Elwood. He looked like a convict caught scaling the prison walls at midnight in his underwear.

  “Dad, you freeze right there,” she growled.

  Elwood raised his palms in a defensive gesture. “Now, baby girl,” he said, “don’t go jumpin’ to conclusions.” A split second later he turned tail and raced toward the theater.

  “I can’t let him get away,” Mason said and sprinted after her father.

  In ten long-legged strides, Mason tackled Elwood in the archway.

  “Sirs, sirs,” the usher chided. “No roughhousing at the Oscars.”

  Elwood threw a punch but Mason blocked it.

  Then her father tried to head-butt Mason. He simply grabbed Elwood in a headlock and the two men went down in a heap of windmilling arms and legs.

  “Dad, stop it!” Charlee yelled. “It’s over. You’re busted.”

  “You really don’t want to mess with me, buddy,” Mason growled through clenched teeth. “I’d love to plow my fist into your kisser for the way you’ve treated Charlee alone, never mind blackmailing my grandfather.”

  “Stop fighting. Stop it right now or I’ll get security,” the usher cried.

  Several elegantly dressed people seated near the entrance craned their necks to take a gander at the brawl, which was obviously more interesting than the thank-you speech of the guy who’d just accepted the Oscar for best theatrical lighting.

  “And I want to thank my first grade teacher, Miss Dingleberry, and Phil, the guy who used to drive the Popsicle truck on my block, and my dentist, Dr. Purdy,” the P.A. system resonated the award-winner’s droning, endless speech.

  Elwood flinched at Mason’s cocked fist. “Don’t hit me, man. It wasn’t anything personal against your grandfather. I had debts to pay.”

  “It was pretty damned personal to Charlee. Imagine, her father is a blackmailing scumbag who kidnapped his own mother for money.”

  Elwood slanted a shamefaced look toward Charlee. “I was in trouble. I owed the wrong guys money. They set my apartment on fire.”

  “You’re always in trouble.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Sorry, honey, but you understand, don’tcha?”