The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(16)

It’s the same philosophy that’s gotten us through being our own version of normal as three parents taking care of Bridget for the past thirteen years. I can’t argue without being a bigger dick than I’ve already been today.

Tomorrow’s a new chance to be a dick, though. And it’s not really “being a dick” when I’m trying to do my best for my family.

Shiloh and Ridhi got married when Bridge was two, a while after Shiloh and I got divorced, and yes, I truly do like seeing my ex-wife happy, because that makes my kid happy.

Or at least, not unnecessarily unhappy.

The idea of Bridget being subjected to the same scrutiny Shiloh got while growing up as the closeted bisexual kid of a Hollywood star? Seeing things written about herself in newspapers that made her question who she was and her own self-worth?

And knowing that Shiloh’s far from the only person to have ever had her life interrupted by publicity like that?

That does not make me happy.

I take a glance at the ceiling, which appears free of bats today, then look down at Shiloh, too, seated in the front-right-corner row of the theater, which fits maybe two hundred people. It’s small. Intimate. And the acoustics are top notch.

“As I was saying,” Estelle says with a glare at Carter as she stands center stage in dress pants, heels, a custom-fit blouse that probably cost more than my annual electric bill, and enough bling around her neck and hanging from her ears to make a pharaoh jealous, “since Whitney Anastasia in Pink Gold and I have so very much in common—”

“Didn’t she stumble into Tickled Pink while on a road trip after losing a child?” the older gentleman of the family interrupts. Michael, Shiloh told me his name was. The father of the younger generation, son of the devil on the stage. Don’t know anything about him.

Don’t want to.

I’ve met enough of his kids to judge him. And yeah, Phoebe is the only one I’ve truly met, and she’s enough.

Estelle’s glare could solve global warming. “I have lost a child.”

“George Lightly isn’t dead,” Ridhi whispers to me. “He’s in prison for tax fraud.”

I grunt. Not much else to say about that.

“Gave up on your child,” Michael throws back. “And you didn’t order his kids to come here, when they’re much worse. How’s that helping your soul?”

Estelle does that thing with her eyebrow that Phoebe tried to do to me not an hour ago. “God doesn’t believe in lost causes, dear, and that cause is clearly lost. Take this for the opportunity it is for you.”

“Do we have to watch that awful movie again?” the middle-aged woman asks. Phoebe’s mother, I presume, since no one else appears to be the right age. She’s sitting nearest the back of the theater, and we can see her trying to connect to the internet on her phone.

“Once we get this place cleaned up and a new projector installed in here, yes,” Estelle replies. “In the meantime, I’ve invited Shiloh Denning to share a few words with us. Her mother was Ella Denning, executive producer and star of Pink Gold. Welcome, Shiloh.”

Estelle turns and does a rich-lady clap in my ex-wife’s direction, glaring at the rest of her family until they all start clapping delicately too.

Shiloh shoots a look at us in the booth. Lights are out in here, so she can’t see us, but she undoubtedly knows we’re here. Question isn’t if we’re here. Question is how many of us there are.

She turns a smile that looks like her own mother’s to the Lightly family. “We’re so glad to have you here in Tickled Pink. We were founded as a logging town in the 1840s, and our biggest claim to fame, as I’m sure Estelle has mentioned, is that my mother was born here, which is why Pink Gold was filmed here as well. She worked closely with the scriptwriters to make sure Tickled Pink was captured accurately, and we had a run when I was little when tourists would—”

Carter Lightly yawns loudly.

Estelle Lightly uses her eyeballs to grind him into a paste. “Pay attention. You need this most.”

“Nobody cares about some prehistoric movie,” he replies.

Shiloh smiles brightly at him. “We figured that out quickly when the postpremiere crowds died away and left us with a Ferris wheel that we couldn’t afford to finish instead of visitors sticking around to turn us into the next Hershey, Pennsylvania, or Wamego, Kansas. You know, home of The Wizard of Oz? And that’s an excellent example of how you never know exactly what life will throw at you. My mother used to say all the time—”

“That Tickled Pink is the path to heaven,” Estelle interrupts.

“‘Tickled Pink can show you the path to heaven,’” Willie Wayne corrects softly on Ridhi’s other side. “Can’t even get the quote right.”

Can’t see Shiloh’s nostrils flaring, but I’d bet they are. She doesn’t have a lot of patience for tourists who don’t respect the spirit of Tickled Pink, either, even if she’s more open to having them back to help the local economy. “Actually, I was going to quote another of her favorite sayings. ‘It’s not what life gives you but what you give back.’”

Estelle nods. “Life’s thrown me for a loop, and I intend to loop the hell out of that life. Quite literally. Starting with improving each and every one of you, whom I’ve clearly failed.”