Switched At Birth. Christine Rimmer

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СКАЧАТЬ you, but they won’t wait forever.”

      “Myra, I finally have some time off and I’d really like to enjoy—”

      “Exactly. Wasted time. You can’t afford that. You’re not getting any younger. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say to a twenty-seven-year-old woman, but that’s Hollywood. And you pay me to give it to you straight. If you don’t keep making the right choices, you’ll end up last year’s hot commodity. What about Devious Intentions?”

      “No. Really. I’m not ready to—”

      “Well, then get ready. I’ve discussed this with Rafe.” Rafe Zuma was Madison’s manager. “We agree, Rafe and I. It’s perfect for you, the exact right next step after Heartbeats and To the Top...” There was more. Lots more. Myra was a world-champion talker.

      Suppressing a sigh, Madison tuned her out.

      The cottage came with a nice pair of field glasses. Snatching them from a pretty cast-iron table as she went by, she strolled toward the back of the wraparound deck, interjecting the occasional “Um,” or “I understand,” whenever Myra paused for a breath or suddenly put a question mark at the end of a sentence. At the back corner, Madison leaned on the railing and traded her sunglasses for the binoculars.

      In the past two glorious, peaceful days, she’d had plenty of time to study the occupants of the other house. In residence were her hunky landlord, his wife, a pair of cute kids and an older guy who was most likely the landlord’s dad.

      She adjusted the binoculars, bringing the house next door into focus—the rear of the house, to be specific. In the last two days, Madison had been giving the field glasses quite a workout, mostly from her current vantage point.

      And no, she wasn’t bird-watching. She was observing the landlord, who had a workshop area back there under his house, a workshop with a wide, roll-up door. Right now, that door was up. On the concrete slab just beyond the open door, the landlord was busy measuring and sawing and hammering.

      Did she feel guilty for using his own binoculars to peep at him? Not really. Yeah, okay, it was invasive of his privacy, not to mention pretty juvenile, but what red-blooded, straight woman wouldn’t stare long and often at a guy who looked like that?

      He was tall and sinewy and beautiful, with thick brown hair that tended to curl in the moist Oregon air and just the right amount of beard scruff. He was also very handy with a large number of manly tools. He even wore an actual tool belt, wore it low on his hard hips.

      Right now, he had his shirt off, displaying a cornucopia of gorgeous, lean muscle, the kind a guy didn’t get at a gym. Lucky for him, he was married, or she just might consider asking hunky Mr. Fixit if he would do her a big favor and help her check off number one on her list of birthday goals.

      Madison snorted out a silly laugh just at the thought. As if she’d ever make a move on a stranger, even a single one. She could work a room like nobody’s business and she had no false modesty about her talent as an actress or her pretty face and nice body. In public and on set, she was supremely self-confident.

      But when it came to love and romance in Hollywood, who could blame a girl for being wary? Relationships imploded as fast as they began and it really was hard to know if a guy liked you for yourself or for what you could do for him. She didn’t need the potential heartache, so she’d more or less relinquished the field on the sex and romance front—relinquished it right out of the gate. She worked hard and constantly. She became casual friends with her costars. But as for love, well, she didn’t really have time for love, anyway.

      Or she hadn’t had time. Until this year.

      This year, no matter what, she was making time. Making time to make time.

      That brought another snort-laugh from her, which had Myra demanding in her ear, “What is so funny?”

      “Nothing, Myra. Absolutely noth...” The word died unfinished as a random gust of wind lifted her wide-brimmed hat right off her head. “Crap.”

      She made a grab for it. Too late. The hat sailed over the railing. She set down the binoculars—and knocked her dark glasses off the railing in the process. The sunglasses plopped to the sand below and the hat wheeled off toward the ocean, vanishing from sight.

      “Madison,” Myra badgered in her ear. “What is going on there?”

      Madison looked down to see how her favorite sunglasses were faring and found herself staring directly into the wide, wondering eyes of Mr. Fixit’s little girl, who had been playing with her brother between the two houses while Madison peeped at their dad.

      The little girl gasped. “Princess Eliza!” she cried and clapped her small hands with glee. “Princess Eliza, it’s you!” Princess Eliza was the central character in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Wild Swans.” Eight years ago, Madison, had played Eliza for Disney.

      And that little girl? She was the cutest thing ever, with a riot of curly dark brown hair only partly contained in two braids. She wore denim overalls and a pink T-shirt. A jumbo-sized neon-green Band-Aid took up serious real estate on her left forearm. She beamed up at Madison, who beamed right back, not even caring that she’d just been recognized.

      “Madison, you with me?” shouted Myra.

      “Myra, sorry. Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” The agent was still talking as Madison ended the call.

      “I’m coming to see you!” The little girl waved madly. Madison waved back at her. “I’m coming right now!” And the child took off at a run.

      Laughing, Madison pulled the device from her ear and her phone from her pocket. She whirled and headed for the main deck again. Resetting the phone to silent page, she dropped both it and the Bluetooth receiver on the cast-iron table as she passed it.

      At the same time, the kid ran around to the steps on the other side of the deck and started up them. “I’m here, Eliza,” she called. “I’m here to see you!”

      “Coco, stop!” Her brother followed after her. “That’s not Eliza!” he shouted. “Eliza isn’t real.”

      “Oh, you just shut up, Benjamin Killigan.” The little girl paused in midstep and turned on her brother. “You don’t know nothing.”

      “Anything,” the boy corrected her. “And you know you’re not supposed to bother the tenant.”

      Coco whirled away from him and ran up the remaining steps. “Eliza!” She reached the deck and raced for Madison, arms outstretched, pigtails flying.

      Madison held out her arms. The little girl flew at her and landed, smack, against her middle.

      “I’m Colleen.” The child gazed up at her through shining blue eyes. “But everybody calls me Coco.”

      “Hello, Coco. My name is Madison.”

      “See?” crowed the boy as he skidded to a stop a few feet away from them. “She’s not Eliza.” He was a year or two older than Coco, with straight brown hair, serious brown eyes and a T-shirt with Stand back! I’m going to try science! printed on the front.

      Coco let go of Madison to turn and deal with her brother. “Is so.”

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