Take It As It Comes — Ann Jeffries

Pragmatic Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Officer Anita Kidd, a child born to her underaged mother who had repeatedly been raped, has faced more challenges at age twenty-one than most people face in a lifetime. First, her mother was murdered, and her body burned when Anita was eleven. Then her maternal grandmother died when Anita was a sixteen-year-old college student. Finally, she and her younger brother were separated and forced into the Child Protective Services system until she aged out at eighteen. Nevertheless, Anita has waged a legal battle for custody of her brother, but was running out of money to pay her lawyer and save her only home. So, in addition to her day job as a county cop, she takes on a part-time job singing and playing her guitar with an up-and-coming band at a new Rodeo Drive hot spot.

When Miguel Menendez-Gaza was six, his mother, Anna, and nine-year-old sister, Angelique, literally walked or hitch-hiked from their small town in Peru to Washington, DC. When they arrived, they found that Miguel's father had been murdered and burned in a boarding house fire. If it weren't for a group of law students, he, his mother, and his sister might have perished in a blizzard in the capital city. Now Miguel is twenty-four, a multimillionaire, the recipient of several Academy Awards for his movie roles, current high-fashion modeling appearances for the top clothing designers, and recurring roles in both daytime and nighttime television dramas. As if he weren't busy enough, he's starting to do something with his musical talent and aspirations.

When Anita and Miguel met at a music rehearsal, it was all over but the shouting. Their voices blended like Ashford and Simpson or Peaches and Herb. Yet, someone from their past is trying to silence their sweet sounds.