Sunrise: Movie Star, Fake Relationship Romance (Chasing The Sun Duet Book 1)

by Kaci Rose

  "This place gets swamped in season. So when the locals need something, we will call the shop owners and come in before they open or after they close to avoid the crowds. Many of the stores on this historic row, like the pharmacy, have been here for over a century and are still run by the same families that started them," Lin says as we walk into the pharmacy, and she grabs a basket.

  I pull my hat down a little farther and just watch as she pinpoints which aisles to go down for medicine and first-aid supplies before going to check out.

  "Miss Lin! How are the projects on the inn going?" the old man behind the counter asks.

  "Good. We are just prepping for this storm. How are you doing, Joe?" she asks.

  "I'm good. You know Daniel only has one more year of school before he comes home. He's excited to take over the place. He will be here this summer to help with the crowds, so make sure to stop by and see him," Joe says.

  "Joe, really is everyone so desperate to set me up they are moving on to the younger generation now?" She shakes her head.

  "We just want to see you happy. Both you and Brynn deserve it after everything the two of you have been through. Just promise you will stop by and say hi, and I won't push anything more," Joe says.

  But it makes me wonder what they have been through that was so hard and that makes the town feel responsible for making sure they are happy. Was it her parents' passing? I want to ask, but I don't want to push either.

  "Who's that?" Joe lifts his chin toward me as he bags Lin's things.

  "Oh, he's staying at the inn and wanted to see the town. I figured I could use someone to carry my bags." Lin smiles.

  "Well, you should tell him it's rude to wear a hat indoors." Joe huffs.

  "I tried to tell him, but you know these younger kids they just don't listen," Lin says with a huge smile as she walks away. "Later, Joe, stay safe!"

  I take her bags from her and smile.

  "You are a troublemaker." I laugh.

  "Keeps it interesting to push them sometimes." She shrugs.

  We head another block down and round the corner to a little produce stand. She pulls out the list Brynn gave her and starts pulling open the tote bags she was carrying.

  "Finishing the shopping the flying kiwi stopped yesterday?" I joke.

  Lin laughs. "Exactly."

  She makes quick work of grabbing strawberries and some other fruits before checking out.

  "Let's put these in the car and then hit the grocery store and post office before we head back," Lin says once she finishes.

  Just as we load the bags into her car, her phone rings.

  "Hello?" she answers, and a moment later, she rolls her eyes, then holds the phone out to me.

  "It's for you," she says as I take the phone from her.

  "Hello?" I ask.

  "Hey, man," Wren says. "So I just got off a call with the studio."

  "What did they say?" I ask, but something in his voice tells me it didn't go the way he wanted.

  "Well, they want you to show that you are more stable and settled down. Basically, they want you to drop the playboy tag and become more family-friendly," he says.

  "I've been trying to do that for that last year, and they expect me to do it overnight now?"

  "I have a few ideas, but I just need you to stay there and keep your head down. I have a meeting with another studio in a few days, so let's just see what they say, okay?" Wren says.

  "Fine. What choice do I have?" I say and hang up.

  As I pass the phone back to Lin, her hand touches mine, and we both freeze. The anger and irritation I felt just moments ago vanish and are replaced with a desire to get her even closer.

  She clears her throat and steps away.

  "Everything okay?" she asks.

  "Yeah, just my manager pushing my buttons. Let's get this shopping done so we can get you back to the inn," I say.

  The rest of the shopping goes like before. We shop, she talks with the locals, no one pays me a bit of attention, and then we load everything into the car.

  By the time we head back to the inn, I realize what it is to have a normal life where I'm just another face on the street. And I think I like it.

  Chapter 7

  Linly

  Ever since the night our parents died, Brynn and I have hated thunderstorms. They bring back all the horrible memories from that night. That's why we're huddled on the back porch of the Sunrise Inn together after dinner to watch the storm and wait for it to end.

  Neither of us will be able to sleep, and we feel safer together. We are all each other has left after all. Wrapped in a blanket Brynn's mom made, we're sitting on the wicker couch on the porch staring out over the water. The back porch is so deep we are able to stay dry no matter which way the wind blows.

  A flash of lightning followed by a loud crack fills the air, and we both jump. I wish we could go back to the days when we wanted to go run on the beach when it rained. We thought the summer showers were like magic cooling us off after the hot summer heat. Now they seem more and more like a curse used to scare us.

  We're both staring out over the water so intently that neither of us sees Kade approach from the other end of the porch. When he plops down in the chair next to us, we both jump and squeal.

  "Slacking on the job, aren't you?" he jokes.

  His eyes bounce from my face to Brynn's and back to mine before he sits up and the smile on his face drops. That was the wrong thing to say, and I know Brynn won't let it go.

  Brynn snaps at him before I can stop her. "You are the only one here, and it's after nine o'clock. What do you expect us to be doing?"

  Kade fidgets in his seat a bit before meeting my eyes. Is he nervous? There is no way this playboy is nervous around two small-town girls scared of a thunderstorm.

  "You're right. I'm sorry. I was trying to lighten the mood," he says, then settles into his chair. "You girls okay there?" He nods his chin toward where we're huddled under the blanket without an inch of space between us.

  "We're fine," I say, and turn to look back out over the water.

  We aren't fine, but there is no way this Hollywood playboy cares or would even understand why we hate storms. He's all glitz and glamour where the real world can't touch him, and his actions don't have consequences that can't be bought off.

  We sit quietly, and when another flash of lightning is followed by another crack of thunder, we both jump again. I know Kade sees it, but he doesn't say anything. Only when it happens again does he speak.

  "Back in LA, I loved the thunderstorms. They would calm me and drown out all the noise of the city until all you could hear is the rain pounding on the roof and your window. You wouldn't be able to hear the traffic, the people, and the sirens anymore. I'd always try to make sure I was home when it would storm like that so I could sit and just think. It was the only time I felt like I got to escape LA."

  He pauses when another flash of lightning fills the sky, and a crack of thunder fills the air.

  "Here I got that same feeling just listening to the waves. It's so quiet all the time that the storm seems to shake things up, and it just seems bigger than anything out in LA," he says.

  I look at Brynn, who mumbles, "That's kind of poetic," under her breath. It was so low that I doubt Kade heard it. I don't know what gets into me, but the story just starts to pour out of me, and Brynn doesn't try to stop it.

  "Our parents were best friends. They grew up together, went to school together, opened these inns together, and had Brynn and me around the same time. They did everything together. Five years ago, just after the season ended, they went out on a fishing trip together. Just for the day," I say. The lightning flashes again, taking me back to that day.

  Brynn and I had been so excited to have the house to ourselves for the day. Our parents didn't live at the inn. We had houses on the island next door to each other. She came over to my house, and we opened a bottle of her mom's wine, ordered our favorite takeout, and rented some movies to watch. We cybe
r stalked Jasper on his new job and just did what two best friends would do with a day to themselves.

  We had no worries. We were both single and relaxed. She and I were planning our next steps in life after getting our business degrees online, we talked about going into Wilmington to get a job at an inn or bed and breakfast there to learn the business before coming home to work with our parents. We wanted to bring in new ideas. How quickly everything changed.

  "A storm came out of nowhere. It wasn't on the radar, nothing. It doesn't happen here very often, but we've seen it before. We thought our parents were just at the docks waiting for it to calm down before driving home. Probably sitting on the boat drinking beer and laughing about the day. Frying up whatever they caught for dinner. They did that often," Brynn says.

  "Only we fell asleep, and the next morning, they still weren't home. A search party found the boat capsized right out by the lighthouse on the rocks at the other end of the island, and within forty-eight hours, they had found all four bodies. Two washed up on the shore and two not far from the boat," I say.

  "That was the storm that washed out the bridge?" Kade whispers.

  "Yes," I say and wipe my eyes. "The whole town rallied around us. We are both only children and didn't have any other family. We were twenty years old and now owners of the inns, but we had to sort out our parents' whole lives, the funerals, everything." I rest my head on Brynn's shoulder.

  Planning the funeral was numbing for both of us. Our parents had life insurance, and they made sure everything was set up and taken care of. They had bought burial plots at the cemetery on the island. They were as prepared as possible, making the process a bit easier because we didn't have to make so many decisions.

  The days leading up to the funeral are a blur for both of us. Jasper's parents actually stayed and helped us with a lot of the arrangements. Their son might have broken Brynn's heart, but they still saw her as family.

  "The press in nearby towns was relentless trying to get a story from us. The two girls orphaned in the phantom storm on Hummingbird Island. I'm sure you can still find it online. Some reporter who wanted to make a name for himself wrote it like a haunting horror story for Halloween." I shake my head.

  "The town took their time repairing the bridge to keep them at bay, but once it was fixed, they still camped out on our doorstep for months, all the way into Christmas. Finally, the inn managers who had worked with our parents suggested we close the inns for a few weeks after New Year's to do some repairs. The insurance money and life insurance money had just come in. They agreed to oversee it, and we got out of town for a bit," Brynn says.

  "That's when you put in the hurricane windows and storm shelter," Kade says more as a statement as he connects the dots, but I answer anyway.

  "Yes. We rented a cabin in Tennessee for three weeks, and when we came home, the press left us alone. We took the rest of the off-season to start a new marketing campaign to ensure visitors that the inns would be run the same, and the outpouring of support was amazing. We have been booked solid for every season since. This off-season was the first time we had a break to do much work. Then you showed up," I tell him.

  "So that's why we don't like thunderstorms. Ones like this take us back to that night. We can't sleep and stopped trying to. Sitting here together is the only way we can get through it," Brynn says.

  "I can relate to the press. They are the worst and know no boundaries. They have no morals. Most people would let you mourn in peace, but not the press. Anything for a story," he says as his eyes turn to us.

  But his eyes stay on me, and I can see in them the understanding and a kindness I wasn't expecting. I would have guessed he thrived off the press and the publicity. That he ate it up and wanted more. His words don't sound like the playboy Brynn and I had him pegged as.

  "So, what's your backstory?" Brynn asks, thankfully changing the subject.

  "Ah, I grew up on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. I did acting in school, and at my high school play, one of the girl's uncles was a talent agent who hounded my family and me for months to sign me. Though I had just turned eighteen, my parents begged me to finish the last few months of school. I did, then I went with him to Hollywood. I got lucky and was picked for a TV show with my first audition, and it's been a whirlwind since."

  He pauses. "I miss the calm and slow way things are back home. I used to thrive off the job, and scripts, and landing the next big part, but it's starting to lose its shine. I can't tell Wren that, though. He doesn't seem to believe me when I do tell him."

  "Maybe you should get a new manager," I say.

  He smirks. "Wren is one of the good ones. He is straightforward, works hard, and pushes his clients hard, but is a huge playboy. I've seen some of the best actors get screwed over by their managers, and I have no interest in going down that road. I'll stick to Wren even if he pushes a bit too hard. He always has my back, and that's rare in this field."

  "Even if he ditches you for some girl at the airport?" I smirk.

  He shrugs. "Not the first time and I doubt it will be the last."

  The storm appears to be calming down, but none of us seems to have any intentions of moving anytime soon.

  "Is Wren the guy from the play?" Brynn asks.

  "No, that guy got too greedy during one of the auditions, and Wren stepped in and told me what he was doing. I fired him and hired Wren. I had been acting for about three years when I met Wren. He was the one who really amped up my career," Kade says.

  The rain slows, and there hasn't been any thunder. Brynn pulls her phone out and checks the radar on the weather app.

  "The worst has passed, so I'm going to head to bed." Brynn stands.

  I follow her and fold up the blanket for her to take with her. She hugs me tight.

  "Open up and have a little fun. Kade is perfect for it," she whispers in my ear, shocking me to the point I don't even move when she pulls away.

  I shake my head and turn to Kade.

  "She never fails to shock me, that one. You are heading up or want to hang out here for a bit longer?"

  "I think I’m going to go to bed. I like getting up early to see the sunrise here," he says and stands.

  He looks at me like he wants to say more, but no matter what Brynn says, I have no intention of being another notch on his bedpost.

  "Good night, Kade," I say and walk inside without looking back.

  Chapter 8

  Kade

  The storm seems to have changed everything on the island. When I wake up, it's calm and quiet, and the air even smells different. It smells less like the salty sea air and more like it used to after a long rain on my parents' ranch.

  As I head downstairs for breakfast, I can't help but think of last night. Sitting out on the porch with the girls while they told their story gripped my heart. A few times, the emotion was so thick, I was happy for the dark because I was holding back some tears. No one should have to experience such pain, especially at such a young age.

  I find both girls in the dining room with food and coffee on the table. They both wear matching serious faces, but they stop talking as soon as I enter the room.

  I grab some cinnamon rolls and a cup of coffee before sitting with them.

  "What's wrong?" I ask.

  "Ah well, the storm washed out the bridge," Lin says.