The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Emma took Francine up on the offer and walked into the parents’ lounge to the buffet. She picked up a plate and studied the selection of food, but nothing appealed to her. As she debated the selections created by one of the hottest chefs in Hollywood, someone stepped up to the buffet beside her. Emma glanced up and felt her heart do a little skip.

“Hi,” the man said. When Emma didn’t speak or turn away, but stared at him, he smiled curiously at her. “Sorry . . . have we met?”

Alas, only briefly. But it had been a moment Emma had never forgotten. Cooper Jessup looked just as tall, sexy, and robust as he’d been when she’d met him in Costa Rica a couple of years ago. His hair was dark and wavy, his eyes the shade of the fog that rolled in off the ocean. He met all the criteria of her secret desires—he made her blood rush. That made him kryptonite, dangerous to be around.

“Yes, we’ve met,” Emma said, remembering herself, and extended her hand. She was almost afraid for him to touch her. “Costa Rica. The Marty Weiss birthday party,” she reminded him. “I’m Emma Tyler, with CEM.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he said, and took her hand firmly, shaking it. “I thought you looked familiar. That birthday party was bananas, wasn’t it?”

“Totally,” Emma said, and smiled a little. Cooper was a founding member of Thrillseekers Anonymous—a boutique company owned by four longtime friends, all men who loved physical activity. They’d come to Hollywood as stuntmen, had developed a stunt-training and stunt-choreography business, but had wanted more. Their love of extreme sports had morphed into the idea to stage extreme, heart-stopping sport outings for the rich and famous.

Everyone around town knew about TA because their clients were the A-listers that they all aspired to be. TA had developed a clientele by guaranteeing complete privacy for their outings—they had the means and know-how to evade the most ardent of the press corps. Rumor had it that TA took sheiks to surf monster waves, and dropped movie stars from helicopters to ski down rocky, snow-covered slopes. They zipped across ancient gorges with industry power hitters and climbed remote rock faces or drifted down the Amazon River on a raft with film crews. There was no sport, no daredevil activity that the four of them would not try.

So Emma had heard.

She also knew that on occasion, they were asked to do something out of the ordinary, something that was not really about extreme sports, but about the wives and children of their most lucrative clientele. Such as Marty Weiss’s birthday bash on a private island off Costa Rica a couple of years ago. He was a rich businessman from Chicago, whose wife had given him the pop star Audrey LaRue and a jungle birthday theme for his sixtieth. TA had hired CEM to help plan it all. Emma had been called down when the local staff agency couldn’t fill all the service slots they’d needed.

“Cooper Jessup, you are holding up the line!” A woman’s head with stylish red hair appeared just around Cooper’s arm. She eyed Emma suspiciously.

Emma knew her, too. She was Jill Jefferson, an actress on the popular sitcom The Crowleys.

“Hi, Jill,” Cooper said, and smiled at her. “Do you know . . .” He winced apologetically and gestured to Emma.

“Emma.”

“Emma,” he repeated. “We worked together in Costa Rica.”

“Costa Rica?” Jill asked, smiling as if that amused her, and looked at Emma again with an expression that seemed accusatory, as if she suspected Emma had engineered a trip to Costa Rica to be with Cooper.

“Thrillseekers Anonymous hired us to help with a birthday party there,” Emma said.

“Ah!” she said, and smiled. “I’m Jill.” She extended her hand with a desperate-to-be-recognized air.

“Yes, of course, I know you,” Emma said, giving her what she wanted. “We’ve met.”

“We have?” Jill asked, knowing very well, Emma suspected, that they’d met at Haley Rangold’s wedding shower. Haley was Jill’s costar on the sitcom and the true breakout star. And Jill? Emma bet Jill would be one of those perennial actresses, always finding work, never finding true fame.

“Haley Rangold’s wedding shower,” Emma reminded her.

Jill laughed. “Oh my God! It was my horrible karaoke, wasn’t it?” she asked, and put her hand on Cooper’s arm to gain his attention, to turn his gaze away from Emma. “Haley made me do it,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “She kept insisting. It must have been really awful, because it became a clip on EW Online. Tell him how bad it was,” she urged Emma.

“I didn’t hear the karaoke,” Emma said truthfully.

“You must have!” Jill said, laughing, her gaze fixed on Cooper. “I’m sure everyone in the neighborhood heard it.”

“I heard your toast.”

“My toast! Did I toast Haley?” Jill asked with a playful roll of her eyes. “I’m always toasting her on the show. She insists.”

“Not that toast.” Emma hadn’t heard any toast to Haley at all.