“Oh,” I said, unlocking the door and pulling it open. “Sure. Um, come in? Is she arriving tonight? She wasn’t totally clear about it.” I stepped back, and the two men stood for a moment in the open doorway, their eyes taking in everything.
The chicken.
The darkened house.
Gran’s screeched curses coming from the back room as her raid got underway.
And me, holding a handgun.
Chessy interrupted the silence with a loud squawk and tiptoed close to the black boots of one of the men, clucking and circling his feet in a strange kind of examination.
The bigger of the two men frowned at me, his dark skin creasing as his eyes landed on the weapon in my hand.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “It’s just…you know, it’s late, and… so is Juliet coming tonight?” I shoved the gun into the back of my pants like I’d seen guys do on television. It was extremely uncomfortable and made the waist of my jeans very tight.
“An hour behind us,” the other guard said. “Is this a chicken?” He peered down at Chessy, who glared up at him, indignant to be questioned.
“Yeah,” I affirmed. “So, how can I help you?”
The first guard, Chessy’s guy, finally seemed to relax a bit. He held out a hand. “I’m Jack. This is Christian.”
“I’m Tess,” I told them.
“Thanks Tess. We’ll just check the house and the property line, if that’s okay. Just getting a sense for points of potential entry to the property. What’s security like here?”
“Um...” I tried not to reveal that me, my gun, and my attack chicken were the extent of it. We didn’t worry too much about security.
“Exterior security of any kind? Property fence?”
“No.”
“So you have a gun. And a chicken.” The tiniest of smiles crossed the man’s face.
“And some goats and horses. A couple wild turkeys run through now and then…” I trailed off, realizing too late that Jack wasn’t really looking for a rundown of our livestock situation.
“Just secure the weapon please,” Jack said. “And Ms. Manchester said bunking here on the property wouldn’t be an issue?”
I tried not to let my surprise show. Juliet had invited two security guards to stay at the house, and hadn’t bothered to mention it to me? “Sure, that’s no issue. So… the two of you.”
“There’ll be four of us. And then Ms. Manchester and Mr. McDonnell.”
A little spike of excitement made my stomach jump. Ryan McDonnell was coming here.
With Juliet.
The excitement turned to a clump of hard annoyance. I knew my sister was coming home. I didn’t know she was bringing five additional houseguests with her. But I was a Southern girl, and I let that information sink in and absorbed it with a smile. “Well, of course that’s just fine,” I told them. “The more, the merrier. I’ll just open up the east wing and get some rooms ready for y’all.”
I waved the men into the house to do whatever it was they needed to do as I rushed to finish making something for Gran to eat and then headed for the part of the house we generally kept closed off. It would be dusty and dank, but the sheets would be clean.
Once Gran was eating and drinking her Manhattan in the kitchen, the two men finished up their rounds and appeared in the doorway. Chessy was hot on the tail of the one she’d chosen for herself, Jack.
“All set Miss,” Jack said. “Ms. Manchester should be here soon.”
I watched the two men head for the front door and then I began to sit across from Gran to eat, but the gun down my pants made it all but impossible. I’d almost forgotten about it as I’d rushed around the house. I pulled it out and set it on the table, where Gran eyed it curiously but went on eating.
“What the fuck was that all about?” she asked, a mouthful of pasta barely masking her profanity.
“Juliet is coming. Tonight.”
“Ah.” The great thing about Gran was that she could accept just about anything without letting it faze her. “Planning to shoot her?”
I rolled my eyes at my grandmother and sipped at my own whiskey. Juliet had a way of stirring things up. Part of me welcomed the change in pace, and part of me resented her assumptions that we’d just mold to her needs, change our schedules and do whatever it was that America’s favorite star required.
I washed our plates at the sink and looked out over the back yard.
The water looked smooth and calm as it flowed down toward the Chesapeake past the long gentle slope of Gran’s backyard in the shimmering light of the moon. It was peaceful and serene, and as I went through our nightly routine, I pushed myself to feel the same. My life might not be exciting—especially if you were to compare it to my sister’s—but it was mine, and it was good. I was happy.
At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
Chapter Three
Ryan
Juliet was on the phone almost the entire car ride to a place I could only assume was located somewhere between outer Mongolia and the moon, based on the length of time we’d been driving since landing in DC. This wasn’t a part of the country I was familiar with, and once we’d gotten south of the beltway, I was legitimately lost.
I’d checked messages, snoozed and even played a few rounds of Candy Crush as Juliet fielded calls from all directions—her agent, the producer of her next film, and her ex-husband, giving me a pretty in-your-face reminder of how impressive her career was compared to mine.
“I guess I should call my sister,” she said after a while, dialing another number on her phone. “Tess,” she said into the phone.
I glanced at my watch, a little worried that it was already almost one AM. Was her sister generally up at this hour?
“Yes, I know,” she was saying. “I’m sorry about the short notice. And the hour. And about the security guys.” She apologized for about four more things and then rolled her eyes to me and made a mouth sign with her hand, opening and closing it over and over before returning her attention to the phone. “Tess, I hear you. And I would have totally given you more notice about Ryan and the guards. It’s just … things have happened really quickly.” Now she shot me a look that was clearly an apology to me. Her full pink lips pressed into a line as her blue-gray eyes widened and she gave a tiny shake of her head.
I was beginning to wonder if this whole thing had been a mistake. “Go for it!” My agent had said. “It sure can’t hurt your career!” He’d told me. But agreeing to pose as Juliet Manchester’s boyfriend was something that might have begged a bit more thought.
Except my career was sinking, and being linked to Juliet—even for a minute—could yank me out of the murk of obscurity and back into view of the directors and producers who seemed to have written me off after my last three action films flopped. And that was without even mentioning the fiasco that was Charade of Stones. I’d been on that show for five seasons, my star power growing the whole time, until the writers lost their minds and ended the series by killing off half the main characters and casting the others into obscurity, pissing off every loyal viewer they’d gained in previous seasons. For some reason, the actors were all paying the price for that ridiculousness.
Now, riding in the back of a town car with Hollywood’s darling and preparing to pretend we were intimately involved at some family shindig had me thinking I’d just accepted a fairly challenging role.
There was a reporter from Hollywood Entertainer magazine coming down to attend the event and document Juliet’s ‘real life roots’ or something, and a new love interest was the one piece her team believed was missing. I’d been in the right place at the right time—or maybe the totally wrong place at the wrong time—and they’d asked me to play the part. So here I was, with the moonlit shadows of hulking trees and barns flying by on either side of me and … “Was that a horse and buggy?” I asked, sitting up straighter. It was dark out, but the moon was full, and as we sped by the horse and carriage, I thought maybe my tired mind had imagined it.
“Oh yeah, this is Amish country,” Juliet said, sliding her phone to her shoulder for a moment to answer me.
“Amish country,” I repeated, feeling farther from home than I had since I’d been on location in the Solomon Islands for my last epic failure.
“Hey Ryan,” she said, finally putting down her phone and leaning back to look at me. “Thanks for this. I mean it.” She smiled, but her eyes stayed sad, distant. “The divorce was such a complete disaster … I mean, I guess no divorce is a good thing, but everyone just seems to know everything about mine …” her voice faltered, and I felt the same sympathy I’d felt the night when she’d asked me to meet her at her house to propose the idea. Juliet was a good person. I could help her out.
“It’s okay,” I said, dropping a hand to take hers on the seat between us. She actually flinched at my touch, which didn’t do a hell of a lot for my ego.
After a second she relaxed, leaving her hand where it was. “Sorry,” she said. “Just a little tense.”
We’d put on a pretty good show in the airport at LAX, and again at Dulles, but Juliet was stiff and rigid. I wasn’t sure how convincing our act was going to be, but it was my job to make it work. And I liked Juliet. She was a superstar, but beneath the trappings of fame and glamor, I thought she was a good person. And she’d been treated like shit.
If Juliet—and about a million tabloid reports—was to be believed, her marriage had ended in a pretty spectacular disaster. The husband-banging-the-personal-chef-on-the-kitchen-counter kind. Toss in a little bit of stealing millions from your famous wife, and you’ve got a picture of what supposedly happened there.
I wanted to do what I could to help show her fans that she’d come through it all without a scratch, even if that clearly wasn’t true. Her ex was a leech and a cretin, and he’d siphoned off half her money before she’d walked in on him on the kitchen island. He’d gone straight to the media to play the victim, and they’d caught a few candids of Juliet clearly distraught, leading to a frenzy of tabloid coverage alleging everything from a nervous breakdown to a long-hidden drug habit.
Her shiny new “relationship” with me was a big first step to showing the world she was fine, even though I doubted it was true. When she gazed absently out the window, Juliet’s shoulders slumped and the lines around her eyes showed evidence of long sleepless nights.
I found myself wanting to help, even though I didn’t have a personal stake in Juliet’s life. I didn’t like to see people hurting, and if I could help in some way? I would.
“We’re almost there,” she said, nodding at the passing fields and barns, as if she’d spotted some landmark that to me looked just like everything else we’d seen.
“You ready?” I asked her, our eyes meeting and some kind of understanding passing between us.
My heart went out to her—she looked so sad. Part of me wished I felt something else, that I was interested in her, that my body responded to her obvious sex appeal the way the rest of the red-blooded male population of the United States—and the rest of the world, for that matter—seemed to. But Juliet Manchester, though gorgeous, didn’t do it for me.
There was something too shiny, too perfect about her. And I wasn’t looking anyway. I’d dated Hollywood starlets, and even regular women I’d met along the journey to becoming Ryan McDonnell. But nothing had ever felt real. I’d always had the sense that each relationship was built for the purpose of one or both people getting something out of it. Every relationship I’d had felt just like this one—forced, a business transaction. This was just the first time the cards were on the table at the outset.
No, if I were looking, it wouldn’t be in Hollywood. Some day I’d have enough financial security to leave all that and figure out who the hell I actually was. I’d find someone real and live in a place where people didn’t base their estimation of your worth on what your last film grossed or what your address was. For now, that’s the life I’d chosen—and it paid well enough most of the time to help me set up a better future. But this weekend, I had a role to play.
“The security team arrived a little while ago,” Juliet said. “My sister didn’t sound very happy about them scouting the property and poking around the house.”
I shrugged. “Necessary evil, I guess.” Juliet was a star of the caliber that attracted stalkers and other crazies, so I understood a little bit why we had two burly men in a car behind us and two ahead of us already poking around the house where we’d be staying.
With Juliet’s sister and grandmother, apparently. I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t just stay in a nice hotel nearby, but I was beginning to think it had to do with the totally isolated nature of this place.
Juliet nodded absently. “Once we get settled, it should be just family and stuff until the magazine crew comes out tomorrow. They’ll pop in for the party too.”
“And are we a couple where your family is concerned?” It would be easier if we didn’t have to pretend when the cameras weren’t around.
She wrinkled her nose and seemed to think about this. “The fewer people who know we’re pretending, the better, I guess.”
Great. The pressure just doubled—there’d be no chance to take a breath, let down my guard.
“Is that okay?” she asked, sounding sincerely sorry.
“It’s fine, Juliet. That’s what I agreed to, right? I save your image, you save my career.”
She smiled and laughed, but it was a practiced response. “We’ll see what we can manage on both counts.”
“So this is your sister’s house?” The car had turned between the tall brick posts of a wrought iron fence and was headed down a long gravel drive between two fields of what looked like corn. “Is your sister a farmer?” I angled my head at the crop, shadowed and eerie in the moonlight.
Juliet laughed. “No,” she said. “She runs a river adventure shop, actually, teaching people to kayak, stand-up paddleboard, do yoga on the river, that kind of thing. There’s a family that lives across the road here that farms the property. And the house is really my Grandmother’s, but my sister lives here and looks after her.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“It is,” she agreed, though something in her voice was hesitant. “Granny’s kind of a handful.”
The woman was about to turn ninety. I doubted she could be too much of a handful.
“So it’s like a farm? Animals and stuff?”
Juliet laughed, something wistful in the sound as she leaned back into the seat and stared out the window. “Used to have. She loved horses, but can’t care for them now. She still has chickens, some goats…”
“Pigs?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine a farm without pigs. I’d seen the Wizard of Oz, after all.
Juliet’s face lost its smile. “No, and definitely don’t bring up pigs around Gran.”
“Seriously?” I asked. Juliet sounded strangely alarmed and I needed to understand why.
“She hates pigs. Like really hates them.”
“Who hates pigs? They’re so cute. Look.” I pulled up a gif of a pig waving a pinwheel out a car window. “Cute.”
“Not cute. She thinks pigs are possessed by the devil.”
Gran did sound like a handful, I decided. “Huh.”
“Something about being attacked at the Achilles tendon by one at some point.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so another “huh” escaped me and I turned my attention back to the windows.
After a moment, a huge two-story brick house came into view, lit up against the darkness, with wings reaching out on each side of the main structure. There were huge trees towering over the smaller wings, casting parts of the enormous structure into shadow. A fountain stood in the center of the circular drive, surrounded by a lawn that rolled around the property and spread out beyond. The whole place was lit up like a national monument. I guess maybe because they were expecting us.
On one side of the house, the lawn reached down a hill and I thought there might be water
back there, shaded by trees hanging at the bank.
“It’s incredible,” I said, my voice holding a reverence I hadn’t intended. I’d seen plenty of waterfront property, but this wasn’t Malibu. There was something much more stately and reserved about this kind of luxury, about the way it was tucked quietly back here along the shore of a river. I’d never had known Maryland had houses like this or that Juliet had grown up in one. Not that I knew much about Juliet.
“It was a plantation originally,” she explained as the car pulled to a stop in front of the house. “The original house was actually built in early 1700, and it’s evolved over the years. The British took over the property during the War of 1812 when they blockaded the Chesapeake,” she was saying, but my attention was no longer on Juliet’s words or on the hulking historic house before us. It was laser-focused on something else. Someone else.
A woman had just stepped out the front door and stood on the front steps, watching our car with wide eyes, dark hair cascading in waves around her face as the lights caught her in their glow.
Juliet stopped speaking, following my gaze out the window. “And that,” she said. “Is my little sister. Tess.”
Tess. Everything I didn’t feel when I looked at Juliet jumped to attention when I spotted her sister.
The weekend had just become a whole lot more interesting.
Chapter Four
Tess
Gran had gone to bed by the time two dark cars pulled into the driveway. Juliet had called an hour ago, so I’d been watching for them, unsure how to feel about seeing her with my ridiculous celebrity crush. I bit a nail as I stepped out onto the porch to greet them.
My sister slid from the back seat of the car looking every bit the movie star she was. I hoped everything was going to meet her standards. The security guys had looked around the property for God-only-knew what, and asked me questions about our alarm system (nonexistent), our security perimeter (also nonexistent) and our emergency evacuation CONOPS (seriously? Once they explained what a “CONOPS” was—a concept of operations, in case you’re wondering—I explained that was also nonexistent).
Happily Ever His: Movie Stars in Maryland, Book One Page 2
