He laughed. “Aren’t you?”
“She’s got the perky and bubbly down,” Maggie said wryly.
I wasn’t sure about that. “I do post a lot of half-naked men on social media,” I admitted. “Usually cowboys. My readers have come to expect it.”
“Exactly. As my readers expect a certain mysterious aloofness from me.”
I gave him the eye. “Yeah. Good luck with that.”
Lu let out a gasp, and Maggie swung toward her. She made her own sound of shock, so Lucas and I glanced over to where they were looking. Standing across the terrace was a woman of about seventy, although well preserved. She wore a flowing white pantsuit thing with gold high-heeled sandals and a matching white and gold turban on her head. She looked like a movie star from the seventies or something.
“Who is it?” I asked Maggie.
“Our nemesis,” she hissed.
“You guys have a nemesis?” I asked, more than a little surprised. Maggie seemed the type to steamroll over anyone who tried to get in her way, and Lu wouldn’t hurt a fly. I couldn’t see anyone not liking her.
“You had Natasha. We have Veronica Dunham.”
“That’s Veronica Dunham?” I hissed. She was only one of the most famous historical romance writers in the history of historical romance. She was more or less the American answer to Dame Barbara Cartland. In her day, she’d churned out at least two romance novels a month. Her books could be found everywhere: from airport lounges to dollar stores. She’d made a veritable fortune before disappearing from public view. She hadn’t been seen nor heard from in years. “I thought she was dead.”
“Unfortunately, she’s very much alive,” Maggie said dryly. “And she’s been talking making a comeback. She should have stayed retired.” Her tone was nearly a growl.
I glanced at Lu. “What the heck did Veronica do?”
Lu’s eyes glittered with excitement at knowing a piece of gossip Maggie was clearly reluctant to share. “She stole Maggie’s work and her first husband.”
Crikey. Just like Piper stole Natasha’s husband, Jason. I swear writers do drama like nobody else. Not even soap-opera actors.
“Good riddance,” Maggie muttered. Her gimlet eyes laser-focused on Veronica who was swanning down the steps in a way that made Natasha seem like an amateur in the diva business.
“Oh, do tell,” said Lucas languidly, back to his author persona, it seemed. “It sounds juicy.”
Juicy? “Yeah, spill. Maggie writes mysteries, not romances.”
“Ah, that’s what you think.” Lu seemed to relish her sudden moment in the spotlight. “Once upon a time, she was poised to become the Next Big Thing in romance.”
I stared at Maggie, my eyes wide with surprise. “You?” I just couldn’t see the brusque, straightforward woman writing romance.
Maggie flushed bright red. “Hey, I enjoy romance as much as the next person. And I’d have done well in it if it hadn’t been for Miss Diva over there.”
“They’d been good friends since high school,” Lu continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “We all were. But when Maggie married her high school sweetheart, the two stopped speaking.”
“Why?” Lucas and I asked together, now on the edge of our seats.
Maggie growled. Lu was downright giddy. “Because Veronica had always had a crush on him. She even tried to steal him away during senior prom. It didn’t work. Then.”
“Yeah, he waited until after we had four kids and a mortgage to play the jackass,” Maggie snapped.
Lu giggled. “It’s true! He made a right fool of himself mooning over That Woman.” She said it as if “That Woman” was a long-standing term for Veronica. No doubt it was.
“So, what happened?” I begged, watching Veronica sashay across the terrace toward a group of reps who seemed rather stunned at her appearance.
“I can’t believe Cat invited That Woman,” Maggie hissed.
“You know how Veronica is,” Lu reminded her.
“Well, Cat should have warned me.”
We all made sympathetic noises, but Lucas and I were more interested in the story. “Come on, Lu,” Lucas said, dropping his author persona and returning to the more interesting man I was familiar with, “spill...more.”
“All right!” she laughed. “Maggie and Bill had been married for ten years, and Maggie had just finished her first novel when Veronica came back into our lives. She acted like nothing ever happened. She was always bringing people expensive gifts, taking us out to lunch, throwing parties. You see, turns out she’d gone off and married some man thirty years her senior. A very rich man. When he died, he left her everything. Believe me, it was a lot.”
“Wow,” I said. “Why did she come back if she was so rich? She could have gone anywhere. Done anything.”
“True,” Lu said, “but some people get stuck at some point in their lives, and they can’t move on. I suspect that Veronica was stuck on besting Maggie. But she covered it up well.”
“Boy, did she ever,” Maggie muttered.
“What’d she do?” I asked, trying to hurry the story along. I wanted the juicy bits.
“She acted interested in my writing,” Maggie said. “So I showed her the manuscript.” Her expression darkened. “The only copy.”
I could see where this was going. And it wasn’t good. That would have been years before the advent of soft copies and emails. Likely, the single hard copy would have been Maggie’s only proof she’d written the thing.
“I’m guessing she monkeyed with it. Made it look like she wrote it,” I said.
Maggie nodded. “You’d be right.” “Veronica took it to a publishing friend in New York and got it into print under her own name before Maggie even knew what happened,” Lu said.
“Lesson learned,” Maggie bit out. “Should have kicked her narrow backside when I had the chance.”
“You should have sued her,” Lucas said.
Maggie shrugged. “I had no proof. I was out of luck.”
“And your husband?” I asked.
“Darn fool fell head over heels.” She shook her head. “Was gone before I knew what happened.” Then she grinned evilly. “Veronica made him miserable. Tried to come back. Turned him down flat.”
“Where is he now?” Lucas asked.
“Heart attack. Five years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, feeling
