by Zoe York
Gran was her own woman, that was sure. She wasn’t like any other almost-ninety granny I knew, though I didn’t know many.
I frowned at her, her veiny thin hand resting on the enormous ball of her gaming mouse. Everything in front of her glowed in neon green or blue, except the screen, where her warrior elf was standing, shifting her cartoon weight and waiting for Gran to come back to the game. “How long have you been online today, Gran?”
My grandmother turned back toward me with a guilty expression before swinging her head back to the enormous screen before her. “Not very long.”
I waited. She always confessed if I stayed quiet.
“What time did you go to work this morning?” She asked, already sounding guilty.
“Nine o’clock.” I’d gone off to teach my morning stand up paddleboard yoga class on the bay, and had been out most of the day since then.
“So …” Gran drew out the word as if she was doing math in her head, figuring out how long she’d been playing World of Warcraft. “So, only since then.”
“Gran!” I stood up, trying to remember that as ridiculous as she could be, Gran was a grownup and I didn’t need to lecture her about being irresponsible or lazy. “Did you remember to eat?” It was almost bedtime already.
Another shrug.
“Oh my God, log off right now.”
“I’ve got a guild raid in ten minutes. I’ll log off after.”
“Gran, the last raid took three hours.”
“Now you understand why I’m online for so long.” She said this as if I’d just answered my own question and should now be fine with the fact that she’d been playing Warcraft for twelve hours today.
“You remember what the doctor said last week. If it’s getting in the way of you eating, you have to stop.”
She didn’t reply.
“Gran.”
Still no answer.
I didn’t like to threaten her, but there had to be a limit to how much online gaming was healthy for an almost-ninety year old woman. Right? “I’ll get the Internet shut off.”
“Tess.” She turned in her chair and gave me a frank look, her blue eyes watery and pale but clear and lucid as ever. “It’s my house.”
“That’s low.”
“If you make some dinner, I promise to log off and eat with you. Especially if you bring me a Manhattan first.”
I sighed. So what if my grandmother had a teensy gaming addiction? And an affinity for rye whiskey? She was old. She’d earned it.
And it didn’t seem so bad, really. If I wasn’t going to be the marrying type, wasn’t going to raise a family, maybe I should look more closely at getting into gaming. I tried not to hear the little voice in my head that reminded me that Gran had gotten married and had her family long before she became a whiskey-drinking online-gaming old woman.
I went to the kitchen to find something quick for a late dinner and to make Gran’s drink, staring out the window over the water of the Potomac sparkling in the moonlight as I ran water into the pot for pasta.
I was definitely not expecting the doorbell to ring at this hour, and it pulled me from my late-night dinner prep ruminations.
“Gran did you order something?” I called back to the office as I dried my hands and went to the front door. Gran didn’t answer but a raucous bout of flapping and nasal-pitched bawking came from the parlor as Chessy went scrambling for the door.
“Chessy, back,” I told her, earning me a beady-eyed glare from the fat hen, who nevertheless took a claw-footed step away from the door.
I peered out the side pane of the door onto the porch, surprised to see two extremely large men in black shirts standing outside.
“Gran,” I called, taking a few steps back to where she was undoubtedly immersed in her raid by now. “Gran, did you order football players?”
“Can’t hear you,” she called, indicating clearly that she could hear me fine. “Gun’s in the hall table drawer,” she added.
I hated it when she got that thing out, but part of me thought it wasn’t the worst idea. We were two women living alone on an isolated piece of land in an old and probably not completely secure house. I pulled the handgun from the drawer with a shiver and went back to the door. It was almost ten PM. Not the time of day when I enjoyed meeting huge visitors.
“Can I help you?” I called through the door, still not opening it.
“Juliet Manchester’s security team. Here to check the property in preparation for her arrival.” The voice that came back was deep and resonant. And a little bit scary. And super serious.
Chessy made a strange noise in response, cocking her head to one side and letting out a “hmmmm?” Chessy stepped nearer to the door and peered out the side window, looking up at the hulking man who was speaking. She made an appreciative noise in her throat, the one usually reserved for sunflower seeds and anything dropped from the lunch table.
“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 lawn 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 3
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 Manchest
er, 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.
