Jan was catching me up on who was still in town and who had moved or passed away. I was listening until we passed the park in the town square, then her voice faded out. Memories flooded back to me. Colton and I sitting on a blanket. Me having my first kiss.
Movies in the Park was a tradition in Wishing Well. On Saturday evenings during the spring and summer, weather permitting, the entire town gathered in the grassy area of the town square for a cookout and when it got dark a movie would be projected up on the side of City Hall, the tallest building in town. Colton and I had our first “date” on one of those nights. I was eleven, he was thirteen. I told my parents I was going to Movies in the Park with Jade, but I met Colton, who’d asked me to be his girlfriend the Monday before at school. They were showing Back to the Future. He seemed so much older than me then. I remember being so nervous that he was going to kiss me and I wouldn’t know what to do.
But then he did, and it was perfect.
I was rambling from sheer nerves and he cupped my jaw. I remember even then that I’d loved the feeling of his calloused fingers brushing against my smooth skin. His mouth turned up in the lop-sided grin that had always made my heart melt and he said, “You can keep talking if you want to but I’m going to kiss you now.”
I giggled nervously and said, “I’m not going to talk if you kis—”
The next thing I knew his lips were covering mine and I stopped talking. He held my face in place and his mouth was so soft, yet strong. He didn’t move at first, just let me get used to the feeling. Then he slowly brushed his lips against mine, back and forth, before pulling first my lower and then upper lip between his own with gentle suction. His kiss was soft and caressing and I remember quivering beneath the sweet tenderness.
“Are you interested in that?” Jan’s words shattered my memory like a hammer smashing a frame of glass.
I blinked at the invasion. “What?”
She waved her hand in front of my face. “Did I lose you there, hun?”
“Sorry.” I smiled. “I kind of zoned out.”
“No worries!” She unlocked the door beneath the Wishing Well Realty sign. The sign included a tag that read: Turning Your Wishes Into Reality Since 1985. “Can I get you a water, sweet tea, soda pop?”
“Water would be great.” I looked around the office and just like everywhere else in this town, it looked exactly the same as I remembered it. The summer before I moved away, I worked part-time cleaning offices for Old Man Spratt’s buildings. Being back here was like stepping into a time capsule.
She grabbed two bottled waters and pulled a file from a filing cabinet as we sat at a small conference table.
“Okay, so since I didn’t know you were coming back, I leased the main house out for a month,” she informed me as she flipped open the file.
“What?” This wasn’t the news I was expecting to hear.
Her head lifted. “Did I lose you again?”
“No. I heard you, I just don’t understand.”
“I rented out the farmhouse. But it’s at a premium rate.”
“When do I have to be out of there?” I was torn, the premium rate part sounded great. The being homeless not so much.
“Well, I’m doing the walk-through tomorrow and handing over the keys Sunday. But you don’t have to leave the property.”
“Um…” My head turned slowly from side to side. “I can’t live there with a family.”
“No, don’t be silly, I’m not suggesting that.” Jan laughed as she waved her hand in dismissal.
When she didn’t expound, I prompted, “What are you suggesting?”
“Oh, well now, it’s not a family and I only rented the main house. The back house and the barn are all yours.”
“Oh, okay.” This actually might be really good news. I could still live on the property and bring in a rental income. Maybe the tides were turning and things were starting to go my way. “That sounds great!”
“Perfect!” She clapped her hands together.
“Wait, you said it’s not a family?” The house was so big, one of the largest in Wishing Well, I couldn’t imagine that a single person would need or want all that space.
“Nope. It’s a production company.” Jan turned the file so that it was facing my direction and pointed at the top. “See. Spotlight Entertainment. They’re going to be shooting a show right here in Wishing Well with the McCord boy.”
Maybe the tides weren’t turning after all. “So the production crew will be staying there?”
“Oh no, honey, the production crew are all staying at the Come On Inn. The contestants are going to be staying at the farm.”
“What?” I heard her, although now there was also a high ringing sound in my ear.
“You know…the girls that’ll be trying to ‘claim Colton.’” She made air quotes with her hands before snorting with laughter. “Get it, because that’s the name of the show.”
“I got it.” I nodded.
I got it all right. My Papa Duke’s house was going to be filled with women that were all dating Colton and I was going to get a front row seat. The tides were definitely turning, into a tsunami-sized wave that just landed on my life.
Bella: 3 Colton: 1
Chapter 9
Colton
“A corkscrew never pulled a man out of a hole.”
~ Papa Duke
“Hmph,” I grunted as I tightened the last lug nut on the spare tire I’d just put on.
Sweat dripped down the back of my neck as I stood. The mid-day Texas sun was unrelenting. After grabbing the handkerchief that I always carried in my back pocket I wiped my brow and neck and exhaled loudly.
There were just days when nothing went right, and today was turning out to be the mother of all of those days.
All week, I’d been counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds until I could get back to Wishing Well, get back to Bella. Last night I’d barely slept because I was so excited to be so close to the finish line of the marathon that the past seven days had been. This morning when I’d gotten to the airport everything seemed to be smooth sailing. I got through security in record time, I was in the first group to board and they announced that they were on schedule.
It wasn’t until ten minutes past the time that we were supposed to have taken off that I started to get the feeling things weren’t exactly “on schedule” as previously promised. Once forty-five minutes passed, the rumblings around the cabin had turned from sporadic grumblings to full-on vocalized complaints.
Finally, after an hour we were informed that there was an electrical issue with the plane and we all needed to exit and make our way to terminal seven to board our new flight. Apparently none of my fellow fliers were experiencing the same urgency that I was because everyone disembarked at a snail’s pace. It was all I could do not to yell, “Go! Just go!” I wasn’t normally an impatient person but this past week it was like I was crawling out of my own skin. It felt like a magnetic force was pulling every cell in my body home. To Bella.
On the way to our new, not-electrically-challenged plane I was stopped by a mother and daughter who asked if I would take a picture with them. They’d been huge fans of Fairytale Love and said that they were rooting for me to find my true love on Claiming Colton. I posed for selfies with them and signed their Kindle covers, which was a new one for me but definitely better than some body parts that I’d been requested to sign. The entire time I was smiling and going along with their predictions of what kind of woman I would end up with, but what I really wanted to do was tell them that I’d already found my true love. That role had been filled.
Two layovers later, I arrived at DFW. Only six hours later than my original flight was scheduled to land. The one break I’d gotten was that my luggage was there before I was, so I hadn’t had to wait around in baggage claim. I thought things might be looking up and headed to long-term parking. Then, about twenty miles outside of Wishing Well, I got a flat tire.
I threw my flat in the bed of my truc
k when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and answered it as I secured my lug wrench and jack in my toolbox. “Hey Mia, I’m about twenty minutes out, but like I said I have a stop I need to make before I—”
“Colton I really need you to come to set as soon as you get in town. We’re already behind schedule,” Mia interrupted me, her tone was stressed and overwhelmed. “Cast and crew are here. Everyone is ready to go. We’re just waiting on you.”
I’d been working with Mia for years. She’s been a part of the production on every show that I’ve done. She started as a PA and has worked her way up. She’s always been accommodating, professional, levelheaded, and easy going. In that time everything that could go wrong had. Equipment not working, cast and crew being difficult or just not showing up, the entire production getting food poisoning on a fairly deserted island, etc. She was the poster child of calm, cool, and collected.
All day I’d been keeping her apprised of where I was and what my modified ETAs were. I’d told her since I left for this trip that I needed at least an hour when I got back in town before I’d be ready to shoot anything. As much as I wanted to tell her that everyone would just have to keep waiting, I knew that I couldn’t. It was unprofessional and inconsiderate. Two things that I always tried my best not to be. Even if it did mean postponing seeing Bella.
I hadn’t even got a chance to tell her anything about the show. Chances were she knew. Not much stayed secret in Wishing Well. Not that it should matter to her. She was married and had a family. I knew I was being ridiculous, but something didn’t sit right with me dating women in front of her. I at least wanted the chance to tell her what was going on. I wanted her to hear it from me, why I was doing the show, and it had nothing to do with wanting to find love.
“Alright.” My jaw tensed and I could feel a headache starting at my shoulders and spreading to the back of my head. I rubbed the base of my neck. “I’ll go straight there.”
“Thanks, Colt. I’ll text you the address.”
“K, see you soon.” I was lowering the phone when I heard her speaking and I put it back up to my ear.
It was just in time to hear her finish her thought. “…I’m worried.”
“You’re worried?” I had no idea what she was talking about. Did she think that the numbers would be bad? On my pre-press tour people seemed like they were excited, but maybe she knew something I didn’t.
“Yes.” She lowered her voice and the background noise that had sounded like she was in a crowded room now quieted. “I’ve been distracted this past week with…well my own stuff, and things have been crazy trying to pull this all together, so I haven’t really been checking in with you. You sound like you’re…I’m not sure, just off, or distracted. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Mia had enough to worry about. She didn’t need to add my issues to the list. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure, I can see if I can push back—”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll see you soon.” I hung up before she had a chance to dig any deeper with her concern shovel. If she was able to break the surface of my emotional ground, I was afraid of what she would unearth.
Bella and I had been estranged for years, a few more hours weren’t going to hurt. That wasn’t strictly true. They were going to be painful as hell for me, but I didn’t think they would do any more damage to our tenuous, non-existent relationship. And even if they did, there was nothing I could do about it. I’d made a commitment and I needed to honor it. I couldn’t do that if all I was thinking about was Bella. For the next few hours I needed to be present and be in the moment.
I jumped back in my truck with renewed determination to try to focus on the show and put the beautiful blonde that had stolen my heart in second grade, out of my mind. Or at least shift her to the back burner until I could do something about it.
Just as the engine roared to life a ding sounded indicating I’d received a message. Looking down I saw that it was from Mia sending me the address I needed to go to. 815 Willow Lane. I did a double take, certain that I must be reading it wrong.
What the hell…?
It looked like Bella just got moved to the front burner and I’d be having a much harder time keeping my new goal not to think of her, because Mia had just texted me to go to her house.
Chapter 10
Bella
“Only a fool turns their nose up at a good meal, a good day’s work, or a good woman.”
~ Papa Duke
“How are you feeling, ladybug?” I tilted the phone so that I could see Sadie’s face on the screen. I’d love to have this conversation with her inside the back house, but I had no service in there, so I had to go outside to talk to her.
It was especially inconvenient today because it was the first day of filming and there were trucks, cameras, and, of course, the women that would be competing on Claiming Colton. All week, I’d done my best to put him out of my mind, and it hadn’t been easy considering everywhere I went there was a reminder of him. There weren’t many places that didn’t have some memory of Colton in this town.
Not that reminders of Colton were limited to Wishing Well city limits. I was staring at the biggest reminder of him right now: his daughter.
Sadie sighed, “I’m fine, Mom. And yes, I’m taking my medicine.”
I didn’t even try to deny that that was my next question. “Are you having fun?”
“Yes! So much fun! Oh, Look at Sofia Purrgara’s new shirt!” She exclaimed as she leaned down and when she straightened she was holding the cat and it was wearing a shirt with a picture of Joe Manganiello’s face on it with the words I Purrfer Wolves under it. “Grandma Thea helped me sew it when we were at her Stitching Sisters sewing club.”
It was adorable and I laughed at first, but then something occurred to me. That show wasn’t age appropriate. “Wait, you’ve never seen True Blood have you?”
“Oh my god, Mom!” Sadie rolled her eyes so hard, I was surprised they didn’t get lodged in her sockets. With a dramatic sigh she said, “No. I’ve never seen it.”
“Okay, sorry.” I found myself apologizing more and more for just being a parent. It seemed like everything I did annoyed or frustrated Sadie these days. “I was just checkin’.”
“You’re always ‘just checkin’,’” Sadie used the southern accent that she liked to pull out whenever she was imitating me.
Ah, the joys of motherhood.
“Coming!” Sadie turned her head and shouted. “Gotta go, mom. Grandpa is going to bring me to his poker game at the VFW.”
My in-laws had a more exciting social life than I did.
“Okay, be good. I love you, ladybug.” I felt tears forming in my lower lids. I missed my little girl.
“I will, mama. Love you!” Her face grew larger as she leaned forward and kissed the screen before it went black.
My fingers reached out and touched the screen where her face had just been. My entire body ached with missing her. I’d been trying to use this time to myself for good. I’d been a mom since I was sixteen, and since Sadie was born I’d rarely had a day to myself, much less a week or months. I was finding out I wasn’t very good with all this time on my hands.
Thankfully, I’d stopped by The Tipsy Cow and spoken to Bryson a few days ago and he hired me on the spot. My first day was tomorrow. At least I’d have a job to go to where I actually had to talk to people. As a server, interaction was kind of a requirement.
“What?! Is she okay?!” Mia James, the producer of Claiming Colton yelled into her phone as she rounded the back of the main house looking frazzled. “How soon can you get someone else out here?”
My plan had been not to have any involvement in the show or the leasing of the property, but Jan had been unable to do the walkthrough, so I’d ended up doing it. Mia told me that she’d actually planned on asking me to be on the show, but she noticed that I was wearing a ring. I’d only had it on because I’d been taking a picture of it to sell on eBay and it looked better on a hand than
lying on a table.
“Are you serious?! You can’t be serious!” I didn’t know her well, or at all, but from the feeling I’d gotten from her this was very out of character.
I’d witnessed several interactions with the women and the crew today that would’ve sent most people plummeting over the edge, but she’d remained even-keeled. Even when one of the ladies that was going to be dating Colton had yelled at her and started crying because she was going to have to—gasp!—share a bathroom.
From what I’d seen, two of the women seemed sane, the other ten were bat-shit crazy. Or, at the very least, they were pretending to be bonkers so they’d get more attention. Either way, the jealousy I’d felt when they’d started arriving with their perfect size-two figures and flawless skin was gone like the wind. I almost felt sorry for Colton. Almost.
It was strange, but as much as I wanted to hate him for everything I’d gone through…I couldn’t. Not because I hadn’t given it the old college try, either. I had. But the truth was, he’d done what he needed to do and so had I. And I had the best gift in the entire world, my ladybug.
Sure, things hadn’t been easy for me. But, even before I’d come back here and heard his voice, felt his touch, and looked into his hypnotizing eyes, I hadn’t hated him. I’d missed him. Loved him even. That was the hardest part of all of this. I still loved him. I used to try to force myself to hate him, dislike him, or better yet, feel nothing for him. I’d prayed, hoped, and wished that I would be numb. But like my Papa Duke used to say, if you make a wish and get a quarter then all you’ve got is twenty-five cents.
“There’s no one?” I watched as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth. “And that’s not until tomorrow. There’s no one that can come today? I’ll pay double, no triple the day rate.”
Claiming Colton (Wishing Well, Texas Book 5) Page 7
