Almost Perfect: A Sweet Small Town Opposites Attract Romance (Back to Silver Ridge Book 1)

by Claire Cain

  Why hadn’t I offered?

  “Did you need any help?” Mia Morrison asked from behind the circulation desk, her belly giant in front of her.

  I’d heard Mom say it was twins this time.

  “No, thanks, Mia. All set here.”

  “Okay. Have a good one!” She waved and returned her attention to the computer in front of her.

  “You too.”

  Maybe that exemplified why my first response hadn’t been to insist on going with her. Yes, I’d traveled and seen some of the world. But my life was here. Going with her would be a step outside what I’d imagined for myself, and in this moment of crisis, I hadn’t even realized I should offer.

  Exiting the library, I didn’t notice the man on the sidewalk between me and my truck until he stuck the microphone in my face.

  “Wyatt Saint? What’s it like to sleep with Miss Mayhem?”

  I froze, solid ice mid-stride. Normally a non-violent man, I mentally wrestled the urge to punch this man into a choke hold, then mumbled, “No comment.” My body jumpstarted and I continued walking, careful not to touch the guy or even make eye contact.

  “Seriously though, man. What’s it like banging the most hated woman in America?”

  “No comment.”

  “What made you fall for her? Was it the money, the reputation as a matricidal maniac, or the fact that she cheated on the most beloved popstar in the world?”

  Oh, this guy wanted a beating. Actually yeah, genius, he definitely wants a beating so he can sue you and get a headline. I shored up my resolve. Another ten feet to my truck and I’d be able to shut him out. “No comment.”

  “Did she get you hooked on anything? Did she—”

  I grabbed my door and swung it open, narrowly missing him. “No comment.”

  The door slammed, and I cranked the engine. I wouldn’t peel out of here how I wanted, but I’d never wanted to get away from someone so fast.

  Where did he get off asking things like that? The questions were biased and sensationalized. They were simply wrong.

  The engine warmed for a minute before I carefully navigated out of my spot, leaving the man standing in the empty space next to where I’d parked, talking into his phone and staring at me.

  The frantic, rushed, almost panicked feeling I got when he sent the barrage of questions at me had jolted me into a weird stress response. If I wasn’t generally a tight-lipped person, I might’ve slipped up, even just to deny or ask where he got his information. But none of that would help Calla. Having the ability to quote me in any way would only fuel the fire.

  She’d handled this kind of thing constantly for years. This was likely not even a fraction of the stress and irritation she’d endured at the hands of the press. A fresh wave of admiration for her strength washed over me. I wanted to hold her. Help her. Do anything to protect her from all of this. But she didn’t need me to do that for her—she could do it herself.

  Yes, she could handle it, but I wished she didn’t have to. I wished we weren’t less than twenty-four hours into this new, fragile territory between us.

  And the reality of the situation—the firestorm of bad press and how directly it affected her—made a boulder settle on my chest. Apparently, that fire was going to get a lot worse before it got better. If it ever got better.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Calla

  Rad Bickman’s name flashed across my phone’s screen, and just seeing those letters sent a bolt of rage through me. Rage, and an all too familiar smack of heartache, a small reminder of what all of this meant for me. Not just my publicity, the stories people were telling, but my life.

  Jenna’s eyes grew wide when I showed her. Her hand shot out and grabbed for the device. “Let me have it. I want to talk to that—”

  I held it out of her reach—handy that she was petite and she had no prayer of getting it this way. “Not a chance. He’s not talking to anyone. My lawyers are on it, and they’re the only ones who are going to deal with him.”

  I didn’t even want to say his name, let alone think it. Reading it was bad enough.

  Rad Bickman. Manager. Controlling Jerk. Possible accessory to murder.

  No, he hadn’t forced my mom to overdose, but he’d led her down the path. He hadn’t actually been the one to give my mom drugs—that’d happened on and off over the years all the way back to my teens and the modeling phase. But it ramped up when he introduced her to a man he called his best friend. Candy could never resist a charismatic, wealthy man like Chet Thandy.

  And Chet apparently couldn’t resist a beautiful woman with connections to famous people, even if his friend had that already. Chet didn’t last long as a boyfriend because I’d convinced Candy that his treatment of her wasn’t okay. That conversation had kicked off the estrangement, but it’d been the deepening dependency that’d exacerbated it. I’d sent her to three different in-patient programs over the years, each one mildly successful until she fell right back in with the people who had the same old habits she’d tried to shed.

  Grief clutched my heart in its fist. “It’s stupid, but all of this is making me miss her.”

  Jenna circled me in her arms and squeezed me close. “I’m sorry. She could be so fun and loving.”

  “She really was sometimes.”

  It came and went, but all that was gone completely when she was using. It was just one facet of the heartbreak before she was even gone.

  “What can I do? Besides go kick that betraying bastard Rad’s butt?” She sliced a finger across her throat in threat.

  I chuckled, relieved I still could. Reading the article that broke just hours after I’d landed in LA, not even twenty-four hours before I planned to sit down with Danita Carl and have my say, had come as a shock.

  A shock and a slap across the face. If I’d thought I could have Wyatt and live happily ever after, Rad’s actions served as the brutal reminder of what I’d known but had done my best to ignore. Giving into how much I cared for Wyatt, letting myself believe I could have him without consequence, was idiotic. It was too much to hope for, and I was seeing the insanity, the fallout, play out in front of me.

  So much of it had seemed too outlandish for people to believe—he’d claimed I was an addict and dealer, that I’d hooked my mom on opiates and used them to control her. That I had her dealing for me, so I’d gotten a whole ring of semi-famous people addicted.

  Then he’d gone for the kill. The article had put it this way: The unnamed source also had information about May O’Neill’s cheating on Bri Williamson. He said, “I know she cheated on Bri, because she did it with me.” When asked if he could corroborate any of his claims, the man gave this response. “You don’t have to believe me, but I can tell you every word of her lyric tattoos that wrap around her ribs. She’s never let them be shot close enough, and the script is hard to read, but I know the words. Does that tell you enough?”

  And that had tipped me off. I’d suspected Rad, especially since he’d been borderline enraged with me when I’d left LA weeks ago and told him we needed to rethink things. The last few years had shown me maybe he wasn’t the right person to put at the helm of my empire, and now he’d confirmed that in spades. The time in Utah only firmed my resolve, but this?

  Yeah, no.

  In some ways, he’d given me a gift. I’d felt so put upon—so much like the bad press was public opinion I couldn’t influence, and didn’t care to. And there was truth to that—whatever this interview did, it wouldn’t solve all my problems. But it gave me focus and determination I hadn’t had in years.

  And it had all come from Rad. He’d shown his hand with that interview, and I couldn’t tell if he’d meant to or not.

  Because only a small handful of people knew those tattoos were lyrics, and one of them was dead. Another, now, was Wyatt. Jenna also knew, and then Rad. He’d been there during a conversation with Candy about them just after I’d had the second one inked. She’d argued I’d done enough pandering to the label, that I had a stro
ng enough brand to come out with my own stuff. It was one of the last conversations we had that didn’t devolve into her asking for money or me begging her to try another treatment program. She’d been adamant I had it in me—it was so much like the early years with her saying we could do more, have more, I’d rejected it outright. I’d known the label didn’t want singer-songwriter Mayhem. Rad only reinforced my assumption by downright refusing to risk my future on my own, untrained writing.

  And then, he went on to support the label’s song lists that led to two failing albums. Enough of him!

  That conversation had replayed in my mind daily while in Silverton, every time I sat down to play and write. It was like Candy was nudging me toward it, a weird combination of her early faith in me and my grief over losing her compelling me to get the words and notes down.

  I had more thinking to do about all that, but for now? Rad would get his turn. I’d tell Danita everything, and I did plan to make it clear to him, since I knew he’d be watching, that I knew it was him.

  And in the meantime, I’d lean on Jenna, bless her.

  “You’re doing it. Just being here with me.”

  Jenna had texted me as soon as the story came out and said she was on her way to me if I was in LA. I’d arrived home to an empty house, my driver and security all welcoming enough and pleased to see me, but generally, the space was bereft of anything comforting.

  Well, and it was missing Wyatt. But I’d been doing whatever I could not to sink into the deep dread-and-doom feeling clawing at me about him. I couldn’t face that and all of this, too.

  “Are you wishing I was a certain strapping Saint?” She pinned me with her striking green eyes and a raised brow.

  “Of course not. I miss him, but I’ve missed you. I’m grateful you could come.”

  She’d been with me for the last day, and I couldn’t verbalize how thankful I was I hadn’t just been sitting here alone. Kristoffer had been in constant contact, but he worked from home and had no reason to come see me. He’d even asked if I wanted company and I’d refused him.

  “If I were you, I’d be missing him, though. He sounds great.”

  She’d let me off the hook about Wyatt, not demanding details.

  “He really is.”

  Thinking about him hurt. Everything hurt a little right now, like I was walking around with an emotional sunburn. The sting of Candy’s death renewed with all the discussion of her addiction and my hand in it, whether accurate or not, paired with being betrayed by someone I was supposed to trust completely—even though at this point, it didn’t come as a surprise—left me raw.

  But thinking about Wyatt, because I couldn’t actually avoid him, hurt in a weirdly good way. It hurt in a clutching, achy way that begged to see him again. Like wiggling fingers after they’d warmed from numbness—the pins and needles welcomed because they signaled the digits still worked. They could still feel.

  My thawed-out heart knew what it wanted, and the distance from him wasn’t it. The cruel part was that this whole situation drove home why being near him just wouldn’t work. Having him would mean the detonation of everything else, and probably ultimately blowback on him. We’d kept his name out of the interview, but only by the skin of my teeth. The last thing Wyatt wanted was to have his name splashed across the media and his life invaded.

  “What are you thinking there? Because I can tell, even as little as you said, that you’re not using this as a little mountain escape fling.” Jenna snuggled into the couch and blanket she had. The woman could be in the middle of the desert in July, and if she was trying to relax, she’d need a blanket to do it.

  I heaved a sigh. “I want him.”

  Her eyes widened, huge. “Wow.”

  I nodded, the admission crashing down around me. I loved him, and I wanted to keep him. And that doomed feeling I’d been pushing away closed in.

  I wanted Wyatt, and the minute I let myself fully sink into that these last few days was the minute everything that was bad became worse. I might’ve been surprised by Rad’s betrayal on some level, but the acceptance of my soul-deep desire for Wyatt—not just physical or even emotional, but everything about him—should’ve tipped me off.

  If life had shown me anything, it was that the minute I started wanting something in that way, in that yearning, desperate way, was the minute it all went to hell.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Wyatt

  I watched as Calla adjusted herself in her seat for the first time. The initial minutes of the interview with Danita Carl, super famous talk show host and apparent lover of live tell-all interviews, had eased in a bit, reminding viewers of who Calla was, as though anyone didn’t know, and the loss of Candy O’Neill a little over a year and a half ago.

  And then came the direct questions.

  “Did you give your mother drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Did you give anyone drugs?”

  “Never.”

  “Did you attempt to intervene with her drug use?”

  “I helped her check into three different in-patient programs and participated in those programs to whatever level was recommended. And I made numerous attempts to get her to go back toward the end.”

  Question after question, straight and to the point. I had to admit, I appreciated Carl’s short, clear questions for this part because it left no room for equivocation or interpretation. But this next one was the first that made Calla respond physically.

  “What would you say to your mother now, if you could?” Danita leaned toward Calla from her cushy seat.

  Calla swallowed and cleared her throat lightly. “I’d tell her I’m sorry—so sorry for the way things went. I’d tell her I wish she could’ve found love, because I know she always wanted that. And I’d tell her I love her. However messed up things got, I always did and still do.”

  My heart clutched. How did she handle this? She and her mom hadn’t been close, but her grief was fresh. To many, it might seem like anything past a year, you should be ready to move on. But Calla had only just begun to deal with the implications of her mom’s life and death. All of this was so close to the surface, and yet she sat there composed and speaking clearly.

  It was amazing. She was amazing. And in other ways, it chilled me. I couldn’t fully understand why, but the cold sensation lingered in my gut as the interview continued.

  Danita nodded. “And May, you’ve said definitively you didn’t kill your mother. That the two of you were estranged and that you’d begged her to seek treatment. But do you blame yourself?”

  “What the hell?” Warrick shouted at the TV from his place next to me on the couch.

  “Real gem, this one,” I grumbled.

  “In many ways, yes. I’m not here to point fingers, so I’m not going to tell you the trail that leads to her death. But I know it. Every person who supplied her, including the man she was in a relationship with when she first started using, were industry people. Had I not been in this world, she wouldn’t have been exposed. Of course, she might’ve become addicted some other way, but in reality, that’s what happened. So yes, I do blame myself.”

  Her eyes stayed on Danita, but the camera had moved in close. No waterworks, no sniffling, but the press of her lips told me she’d locked down all emotion. She’d keep it at bay no matter what.

  Good for her. There was nothing wrong with crying, and if she wanted to cry in front of millions of people on TV, she should. But knowing Calla, she wouldn’t want that to be the story here. Her reputation as Miss Mayhem was of a tough, boundary-pushing artist. Seeing that person cry on TV likely wouldn’t compute for critics or fans.

  Her costuming for the day was subdued. She looked nice with less edge than Mayhem outfits usually had, at least the ones that made the news. She wore a black dress with one slash of skin across the stomach, spiked black heels, and makeup more like Calla and less like Mayhem. Her hair was simply down and smooth.

  She looked stunning, but not too polished so she appeared hardened
or impervious. She’d mentioned that her whole team—publicist, stylist, and other people whose roles I didn’t quite know—had consulted on what to wear. They’d run through question after question rehearsing answers so she’d be ready for anything.

  She’d explained the team had agreed she should go pared down today. That seeming less provocative and more penitent was the goal. The idea that she needed to seem penitent at all made me want to spit. She hadn’t killed her mother, and the rumors to that end were pure and utter crap. If she were truly under suspicion, wouldn’t the police be involved?

  My attention returned to the screen where Danita was finishing her next question.

  “—so you can see why your time in Utah has seemed like running away. What do you say to people who suggest you were hiding out in the mountain town of Silverton?”

  Calla’s lips spread into a polite smile. “I’d say that, first, it isn’t really any of their business. But because I know the point of this interview is to be open, I’ll also say that in some ways, I was.”

  Danita’s brows jumped on her forehead. “You were hiding out?”

  “I was running away. Or, sure, hiding out. But not because I’d murdered my mother.”

  “Then why?”

  “The last few years have been very challenging. Obviously, my mother’s death affected me deeply. In the midst of things, I handled it the only way I knew how—by working. But my work suffered, not surprisingly. My last few albums haven’t been the quality I expect of myself, and I know fans have been disappointed. Paired with the rumors about me and Bri, and that I was at fault for my mother’s passing… I needed a break.”

  The woman across from Calla nodded with understanding. “And why Utah? Why some sleepy little ski town where no one would know you? That might be what people find most suspicious.”

  Calla laughed and gave a hint of a wry smile. That look sent a bolt of relief through me. I’d be yelling at the women to shut up and leave me alone by now, but Calla handled each little nudge like a pro.