Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1)

by Farmer, Merry

“But do you really love him?” Yvonne twisted in her chair to keep facing Tasha as she crossed the room.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I do,” Tasha answered. She stopped when she reached the screen door. “My ex was a jerk who crushed my self-esteem. I felt like a fool for dating him without noticing how awful he was for so long. Spence brought me back. I couldn’t believe that this amazing, famous guy could like me, but he does. He told me he loved me earlier. I didn’t think anyone ever would again. I’ll always love him for that.”

  “Ah,” Yvonne said as though she understood. “So it’s not Spence you love, it’s the way he makes you feel. Well, that makes things easier.”

  She turned to face forward in her chair once more, but Tasha cut her off.

  “No, no that is not what this is. I actually love him. Him. Not how he makes me feel or who everyone thinks he is.”

  She sucked in a breath at her own revelation. Blast. That was not the sort of emotion she was looking for to sort this whole thing out. Yvonne must have agreed with her. She turned to face Tasha once more, a sad, pinched look where here smugness had been.

  “Oh dear,” she said.

  That was it. That was all she had to offer. Tasha pushed out a breath and shook her head. She couldn’t handle Yvonne and her machinations anymore. She couldn’t handle being in her beautiful dream house with her gorgeous dream lover for another second. She threw open the screen door and marched out into the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, heading down to the beach. The days were already beginning to feel just a little shorter. Reality was closing in. She could either be run over by it, or she could face it head-on and embrace it, no matter how much it hurt.

  “Where’s Tasha?” Spence asked Yvonne when he came downstairs. He couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep after sex, like some stupid male cliché. He’d had a nice rest though, nice enough to feel secure in pouring his heart out to Tasha in earnest.

  “She’s walking on the beach,” Yvonne answered from her chair in the living room, reading a book. “Just left about fifteen minutes ago.”

  He didn’t like the flatness of her tone, or the thin arch of her brow as she dragged her eyes away from the page and up to meet his.

  “Was something wrong?” he asked.

  She took far too long to answer. “I may have underestimated the situation.”

  Tension sizzled along Spence’s skin and his stomach clenched. He marched through the living room and out onto the porch. The afternoon light was rich with hues of gold and orange. It was low tide, leaving a fat stretch of sand that met calm waves, hugging the shore with a wet sparkle in the slanting light. The air was crisp with salt and a hint of a chill now that August was getting old.

  Tasha was about halfway up the beach, walking fast. Even from the distance of the porch, Spence could see that she had her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. That didn’t bode well either. He jogged down to the yard, then down the steps to the beach, fighting the urge to sprint all the way up the beach to her.

  By the time he caught up with her, about two thirds of the way to the pier, his heart was beating in his throat. The sweat dripping down his back wasn’t entirely from jogging.

  “Hey,” he called out to her.

  Tasha gasped and spun to face him. It was bad. Very bad. Worry had tightened her mouth and painted fine lines around her eyes. She looked at him like he was the last person she wanted to see right then, like he was an unwanted intrusion into her thoughts.

  “Spence,” she said after too long of a pause. “What are you doing out here?”

  Play it cool.

  “I woke up and you were gone. Yvonne said you’d gone out for a walk. I thought I’d join you.” He thought he’d join her for a lot more than a walk. Now, however?

  “Oh,” she replied, then turned to keep on walking. She was still hugging herself.

  “Can I join you?”

  “Sure.”

  Silence. They walked on, side-by-side, not touching. The waves rushed and rolled to their right. He swung his hand close to her arm, hoping she would unwind and take it, but she didn’t. The walk was going to kill him, but he had no idea why. He couldn’t let the silence go on.

  “So what’s wrong?” he asked, praying that she would actually tell him.

  She shrugged, brushed a strand of hair from her face, chewed her lip.

  Damn.

  “Whatever is bothering you, I’d like to help you with it,” he tried again. “I’d like us to work things out together.”

  She squinted, rolled her shoulders. What the hell was he doing wrong?

  “Tasha, please stop.” He stopped himself and reached out for her elbow when she walked on.

  At last she paused and turned back to him, letting her arms drop. “Spence,” she said his name on a long exhale, then pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “This isn’t going to work.”

  She met his eyes head-on, like a slap in the face.

  He took a deep breath. No need to panic. Yet.

  To fight his fear, he shrugged. “Okay. I can tell Yvonne to go home. I can tell Duke and Mitch to go home too. It’ll be just the two of us for the rest of our vacation, like it should have been from the beginning.”

  She winced. He clenched his jaw. Come on. How was that possibly the wrong thing to say?

  “And then what?” she asked.

  Uh oh.

  “Then what what?”

  She sighed and shifted her weight. The waves washed up to within feet of her flip-flops.

  “After the summer is over. What then? I’ll tell you what.” She stopped him before he could come up with something. “I’ll go back to my classroom—a place I really like and where I’m good at what I do—and you’ll go back to your intense filming schedules and your exotic location shoots and red carpet galas, that’s what.”

  Suspicion slithered down his back. “Did Yvonne say something to you?”

  “Yes. I mean, no,” she said. “Nothing I hadn’t already thought of myself.”

  “I wish you’d share those thoughts with me. I wish you’d been sharing them with me all along.”

  “Do you?” she looked up at him with twisting doubt in her eyes.

  “Yes.” He threw his arms up. “I do. I stopped myself every time I saw that look come into your eyes because I wanted to give you the space to come up with whatever you needed to come up with on your own.”

  She let out a breath. “I appreciate that,” she said, as meek as she was genuine. “But it wouldn’t have changed things.”

  “Are you sure?” How could he be losing this battle when he hadn’t ever had a chance to fight it?

  “I am.”

  “Well, I’m not,” he went on. “I’m not even sure what we’re fighting about or if we’re fighting in the first place.”

  “We’re not fighting,” she said.

  Coulda fooled him.

  “Look, when I came upstairs earlier while you were napping, I got carried away.” It was the understatement of the century. “I wanted to talk to you about how I feel, about where I think we’re going. But you were so beautiful, lying there, half in dreamland, half here.”

  “That’s the point, Spence,” she said with sudden vehemence. He tensed. “That’s exactly the point. I’ve been in dreamland all this time. Sand Dollar Point, this whole summer, was my dream. And it’s been a great dream.” She stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. “I never should have slept with you this afternoon. I’m sorry if I led you in the wrong direction. But the last couple of days have driven the point home that it’s time to wake up. The dream is about to be over.”

  At last, something concrete that he could latch onto.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. He reached for her, tugging her into his arms. “I don’t want it to be over, and nothing says that it has to be. I love you, Tasha. I’ve loved you for almost as long as I’ve known you.”

  “Spence.”

  “And I know that you have feelings for me. That should be all that m
atters.”

  She wriggled to loosen his hold on her. He let her go. A wave swept to within inches of their feet.

  “Maybe it should be all that matters,” she said, “but right now, I don’t see how. You’re right,” she went on before he could get anything in, “I do love you. It’s crazy, but I do. It’s new, it’s unformed, but I’m sure it’s love.”

  “Then let’s just be together,” he said, reaching for her again. He wanted to hold her close, let his body warm hers, give her his strength and his heart.

  “I would if I could,” she said. “If I thought for half a second that it would work, then I would move heaven and earth to be with you.”

  “Then we can make it work,” he argued. His heart continued to pound as if he was still jogging.

  “How?” she insisted. “How do you make a relationship work when the people involved live such different lives so far apart?”

  “What if we weren’t far apart?” he asked. If Yvonne was holding up her end of the bargain, he might just have a chance. “What if I told you that my condition for filming Second Chances is that they choose a location here in Maine? What if I told you that I want to buy this house from the Cavanaros, if they’re ready to sell?”

  “You….” Her mouth hung open. She stared at him, hope sparkling in her eyes, but only for a moment. She closed those eyes and shook her head. “Filming in Maine is one thing, but it’s just a pilot. I know you said there was a strong chance it would be picked up for a whole series, but what if it only lasts a few episodes? What if it gets canceled, or what if there’s a huge lag between filming the pilot and filming the rest of the show and you jet off to Serbia or someplace for a movie? What would we do then?”

  “What if your school district transferred you to Texas? Or what if you were hit by a bus and ended up in a wheelchair?”

  She folded her arms and fixed him with a flat stare. “Those are not real life scenarios. Neither is this.” She turned and started walking back to the house. “It’s best if we just break things off now, before anyone gets hurt.”

  “It’s too late for that,” he said, charging after her, wanting to kiss her and shake her at the same time.

  “Then I’m sorry,” she said. At least she matched her pace to his as they walked together. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to break up with you.”

  “In spite of the fact that you love me?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Tasha.” He stopped and heaved out a breath. How could she be so cruel?

  At least she stopped and turned back to him. “I don’t know what else to do, Spence. I can’t live your life and I don’t think you’d be able to live mine.”

  “What do you mean, my life and your life?” Either way, he didn’t think he would like the answer.

  She gave him another one of those stares that sent a spear of helplessness straight through his gut. “Love only lasts if the two people in love have anything in common. You live a fancy, fast-paced life, I teach children.”

  “And I told you, I admire you for it. I think what you do is wonderful.”

  “And I like your work,” she argued. “But what about the rest of it? Do you really want to be seen out at important Hollywood events with a woman who doesn’t know her Minolta Blancs from her Hush Puppies?”

  “Manolo Blahniks,” he corrected her. An instant later, he registered his mistake and winced. “Those sorts of things don’t matter,” he insisted as she walked on down the beach.

  “Don’t they?” She shook her head. “They do, Spence, and you know it. Can’t you imagine all the things that people will say about me if I go out in public anywhere fancier than Summerbury with you? Can you imagine the snide comments about how fat Spencer Ellis’s nobody girlfriend is and how Spencer Ellis’s girlfriend doesn’t know how to dress and Spencer Ellis scraped the bottom of the barrel for that one. It would make the things that Brad said to me look like greeting cards.”

  Spence stopped, dumbstruck. “Is that what you think people would say about you?”

  She spun to face him, a wave rushing over her toes. “Isn’t it, though? Isn’t that the kind of thing you people say about anyone who hasn’t reached your same A-list status?”

  Bam. Like a bullet in his heart. There it was.

  “You haven’t changed at all,” he said, well aware of how cold he sounded.

  “What?”

  He ran a hand through his hair, huffing out a mirthless laugh. “You haven’t changed the way you see me one bit.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She crossed her arms.

  Exactly the way she had on the day that they’d met. The day that Jenny had shouted at him about celebrity entitlement and she had fallen to pieces because he ruined her vacation.

  “All this time, I thought that you saw me as an actual person. I thought that you could see past the image and the roles to the real me. I thought that’s who you loved.” He was a fool.

  “No,” she groaned, rubbing her face. “No, you’re misunderstanding me.”

  “Am I?” The words were bitter on his lips.

  “I know who you are, Spence,” she argued. “You’re a great guy. You’re warm and affectionate, and you’re really good with kids. But your job is what it is.”

  “Right.” He rested his hand on his hips and stared out into the ocean. “My job is being a shiny, fabulous dickhead who cares about things like status and popularity.”

  “That’s not what I mean either,” she sighed, then growled. “Why can’t I get this out right?”

  “Because what you’re trying to tell me is bullshit,” he answered. “You can try to sound all noble and pretend that you’re breaking up with me so that neither of us get hurt, when what you’re really doing is running away from taking any kind of chance.”

  “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are,” he argued. “You just said it yourself. The insults you imagine that people in my profession would hurl at you would be worse than anything that Brad ever said to you.”

  She hesitated, dancing from one foot to another as a wave slid close to her. “That doesn’t mean….” She stopped and frowned.

  “Tasha, I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt, but I was not the one who hurt you,” he said, taking a half step closer to her. “Don’t use what I do for a living as an excuse to walk away from what could be a good thing, what could be the best thing either of us have ever had in our lives.”

  “I’m not—”

  “And don’t, for one second, let that douche Brad hold your heart hostage any longer. You’ve held onto that for long enough. Let go.”

  “Don’t you tell me to let go, Spencer Ellis,” she hurled at him as he marched right past her, eyes on the house.

  “Why not?” he tossed over his shoulder. “Afraid of what will happen if you do?”

  “No,” she protested, but he could hear the uncertainty in that single word.

  He kept walking, too frustrated to look back, though he could hear her footfalls crunching in the sand right behind him. It all came back to the same things, every time. Someone got hurt, and so for the rest of their lives they blamed the next person to come along who put them in the same position of vulnerability. He could see clear as day what was going on with her, he just couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  “I don’t want to fight,” she said, several feet behind him.

  “Neither do I,” he answered without looking back. He didn’t want to fight the ghost of Brad either.

  “I’m sorry,” she went on.

  “So am I,” he replied. Sorry that anyone had ever hurt her or made her feel like the things she loved and was good at made her less of a woman. She was wrong, plain and simple.

  So where did that leave him?

  The answer smacked into him like one of the waves rolling out in the sea. It left him exactly where he was when he began. He loved her. Loved her so much he was furious at her for not letting herself love him back.

  Well,
he wouldn’t take no for an answer, not when Tasha’s heart was on the line. One man may have done a number on her, but he was damn sure it would never happen again. All he needed to do was prove to her that his love was true, that he wasn’t going to step all over her like Brad had, and that he would never, ever let anyone talk down to or about her. And he would do it the best way he knew how—like a star.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’re up to something.” Yvonne confronted Spence a couple days later as he got off the phone with Sam Echols, who owned the ice cream stand on the pier.

  She came across him in a less-traveled corner on the south side of the porch. With Tasha sitting on the second floor porch reading—or possibly just staring out at the ocean thinking, like she’d been doing last time he checked on her—he’d had to find a secluded spot to make the calls and do the work to carry out his plan.

  “Of course, I’m up to something,” he told Yvonne. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

  Yvonne crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the porch railing. He had given her his answer about Second Chances, she had made the call to the producers and given them his terms, the producers had reacted favorably to those terms. And yet, Yvonne was still here.

  “All right, let’s hear it,” she said.

  Spence shook his head and slipped his phone into the back pocket of his shorts. “Oh no. I’m not telling you anything.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m hurt,” she replied. She might have been, a little, too.

  Still Spence kept his mouth shut. He moved to lean against the railing beside her. “All I’ll say it that I was never one to go down without a fight.”

  Yvonne arched an eyebrow. “This is about Tasha, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, lips pressed in a tight line. “And it’s none of your business.”

  She shifted to rest her backside against the rail, staring into the house through one of the open living room windows. “You know, I found and rented this house for you because I trusted you when you said you needed to get away from the game for a while. I trusted that you knew what you were doing, and that if you had a little time, the clouds would lift and you would find a way to be happy.”