Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  Granted, he’d screwed things up with her, but he’d been about to try to fix that until another fateful night years ago, when time and tide had literally shifted and...

  Nope. Not going there.

  “Okay. If you’re not really into her, which I’m still not entirely buying because there sure as hell was something going on there, the redhead wasn’t the only fox there. Like that cute brunette who had the sexy librarian glasses, pinned up ponytail and pencil skirt thing going on.”

  “Chelsea Prescott is a librarian.”

  “So I overheard when she was talking about cataloging romance novels with your sister. Who’d have thought the Dewey Decimal system could be so sexy?”

  “Life isn’t all surfing and sex.”

  Aiden’s mind, distracted by an unbidden memory of Jolene Wells stripped down to a thong and a barely there lace bra, had him automatically falling back on that sex and surf line he’d repeated so many times. Just to yank his partner’s chain because they both knew that despite his laid-back attitude, Bodhi had been the sharpest and most successful undercover cop in the unit. Aiden had often thought that was because bad guys never bothered to look beneath the stoner surfer act he was able to slide into like a wet suit.

  “Maybe life would be better if it was all about surfing and sex,” Bodhi shot back, on cue. “Seriously, though, Mannion, have you considered that part of your problem is that you need to get laid?”

  “Maybe I don’t have a problem. And maybe I don’t need to get laid.” He hadn’t even thought about sex until that damn wedding. When a certain bedhead-tousled redhead started invading his dreams. Despite leaving him hot and bothered, they were an improvement over the nightmares that had driven him deep into the bottle.

  “Said no guy ever. There’s also the fact that you also told me how your dad worked his tail off to save you from landing in corrections.”

  It had been a long night on a stakeout down the street from a major gun dealer’s house, where they’d stunk up the car with takeout from a food truck.

  “So?”

  “So, maybe you owe him.”

  “What, did you learn that guilt card from watching my sister while we were out at the farm?”

  “It worked, didn’t it? She got you to sober up for two days in a row so you could go to that wedding where you and the redhead connected.”

  “We didn’t say a word to each other.”

  Jolene had seemed as eager as he’d been to avoid any memories of that night. Not that he hadn’t thought about her. A lot. Especially when, during those long, lonely nights as a Marine sniper when he’d spent hours lying as still as a stone waiting for a shot and she’d filter through his mind. Memories of her pressed up against his body, even though she’d only ever let him get to second base, had helped keep him determined to get home alive.

  On the way home from basic training, he thought back on all those rom-coms his sister made the family watch when it was her turn to pick a film for movie night and had, for a fleeting moment, considered holding up a boom box outside her window, like John Cusack in Say Anything.

  Or, he could make a fool of himself by serenading his girl from the high school bleachers, like Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You. He couldn’t overcome his fear of heights to climb up a fire escape like in Pretty Woman because one, he didn’t have a fear of heights, and two, there was only one fire escape in Honeymoon Harbor, and that was on the courthouse.

  With all those things going through his head, before leaving for basic training, after stupidly breaking up with Jolene, he’d been headed to the beach, where he’d heard she was at a party. That wasn’t his first choice, because if he was going to make a fool of himself, he’d rather do it in private. But if he could talk her into taking a walk, or even better, a midnight sail with him, he’d do whatever it took to make things right. Be honest about his feelings and, although it was selfish, and looking back, Aiden realized that they’d been way too young to be thinking about forever-afters, to ask her to wait for him.

  “I noticed the zone of silence between you both. Which only made it more obvious something was going on.”

  “Maybe to you. Because you’ve got this ghostly superpower thing going on.”

  “That’s true. But others noticed, too. Your sister and that red-haired bride were talking about it.”

  “You eavesdropped on my sister?”

  “I was just kind of hanging around and overheard the conversation. And by the way, you never told me your sister was so hot.”

  “She’s marrying my best friend. And besides, a player who goes through women like tequila shots isn’t allowed to say anything about Brianna. Not even when you’re dead.” Aiden dragged a hand through his hair.

  “For the record, my playing days are over and I didn’t say I wanted to do her. Sorry,” he said as a storm moved across Aiden’s face. “Wrong choice of words and I apologize if you thought I disrespected your sister.”

  “I didn’t just think it. You damn well did. And if you were real, I’d have knocked you on your ass.”

  “I was merely pointing out that she’s got a cool blonde Hitchcock vibe going for her. The kind that makes a guy want to muss her up a little.”

  Which, dammit, had Aiden thinking of Seth messing her up on a regular basis. There probably wasn’t enough Clorox in the state to wash that image out of his head.

  “Correction. You are not allowed to so much as think of my sister. Period.”

  “Fine.” Bodhi lifted his hands. “Am I allowed to at least say that I didn’t exactly eavesdrop on she-who-must-not-be-named, but the way she and her friend kept looking over at Jolene, then back at you, then her again, like they were watching a match at Wimbledon, was a clue that I wasn’t the only one curious about whatever backstory you two were hiding.”

  “There is no story.”

  Not one he’d ever tell. He suspected Jolene would be even less likely to. It was ironic and crummy that by going to the damn wedding he hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place, he’d probably taken away from her enjoyment of it. Because if there was one person on the planet Jolene Wells undoubtedly never wanted to ever see again, it was him.

  “What the hell are you doing here, anyway, Bodhi?” It was not the first time he’d ask the question. He’d yet to get a decent answer.

  “Hanging with you.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you’ve been sent here to earn your wings by getting my life back on track—”

  “It’s a Wonderful Life was fiction. At least I think it was. But I’m not interested in getting any wings. And no, I wasn’t sent here to fix your life, as fucked up as it is right now.”

  Bodhi frowned and scratched his blond goatee that he’d taken to wearing a few months before he’d gotten blown away by that AR-15. “Even though you might as well have been the guy who died, given how you’ve been hiding from life out here, I sure wouldn’t mind seeing you headed in a new direction that’ll make you happy.”

  They’d been partners long enough that Aiden could tell when Bodhi was holding back. He also knew that for all his beach bum vibe, the guy was as tough as steel and impossible to drag anything out of until he was ready to share. So, he could wait him out. It wasn’t as if he had a helluva lot else to do with his days.

  “You’re not real, either. You’re just a hallucination.” He’d gotten a concussion when a round of shots against his chest protector had knocked him off his feet onto the pavement. Headfirst. It made sense his brains would’ve been scrambled.

  “Would a hallucination tell you to get laid?”

  Not only had Aiden not been thinking about sex, he hadn’t missed it. Until that moment he’d spotted the one woman he had no business thinking about walking across a summer garden, her full skirt swinging like a bell, and felt both his gut and groin tight
en in a totally inappropriate way.

  He’d wondered, at the time, if she’d come back to town for good. Although he’d originally planned to return to the house as soon as the vows were exchanged, instead of cutting out, he’d wandered through the crowd who’d lined up to get plates dished up by Italian chef Luca Salvadori, who’d catered the event, listening to gossip that had been amped up to eleven by news of a hometown girl being nominated for an Emmy.

  Not being an awards-show watcher, except for occasionally tuning in to the CMAs, Aiden hadn’t even known there was a category for makeup. But he was glad that Jolene had managed to escape Honeymoon Harbor, where she’d been a target for those spray-tanned, bleached mean girls and a subject of what he knew to be bald-faced lies about sexual conquests from guys who would never deserve a girl like her.

  Although Bodhi was right about them circling each other on the fringes of the gathering, there’d been a moment when their eyes had met, causing a rosy color to bloom in her cheeks. Undoubtedly from embarrassment at what had happened the last time they’d been together. That was enough to tell him that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. For more than one reason.

  Still, as he turned away, Aiden was glad she was doing well. Better than well. He had been surprised to hear from his sister that they’d both been in Los Angeles at the same time. And not only that, she’d been living in Beverly Hills. What would he have done if he’d known? Probably nothing because what would an Emmy-nominated makeup artist from the hills want with a cop living in a downtown studio apartment that had holes in the walls from where previous renters had hung pictures, and was surrounded by city infill construction.

  He’d also been relieved to overhear Jolene’s mother tell his mom that right after the reception, Jolene was leaving for Ireland, to work on a miniseries. That meant their paths probably wouldn’t be crossing again.

  Which, Aiden had attempted to convince himself, was a good thing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  November

  Los Angeles

  FOR A WOMAN born literally on the wrong side of the tracks in Honeymoon Harbor, Washington, Jolene Wells was living her dream life. Not only did she live in the Beverly Hills Triangle—it might be a rental apartment in the flats, aka “South of the Tracks” from when the old Pacific Electric streetcar traversed Beverly Hills—but her famed 90210 zip code was the same as where Jason Priestly and Luke Perry had hung out.

  Maybe their characters were fictional, but still. And, as the leasing agent had pointed out, she was steps from Rodeo Drive. Which, while way too pricey for her budget, offered some wonderful window shopping. It was also pet friendly, not that her lifestyle allowed for as much as a goldfish. But that didn’t stop her from watching ABC7’s Eyewitness News “Pet of the Week” adoption segment and thinking maybe, someday.

  She’d also, with a lot of hard work and some Tinseltown luck that could’ve come right out of an old MGM musical script, almost won an Emmy as part of the makeup team for a six-part miniseries set in 1950s Ireland. Although, as the cliché went, it had been an honor to have been nominated, privately she still thought it sucked losing out to yet another Tudor series. How many versions of Henry VIII did the world need, after all?

  Still, the amount of press the series had received wouldn’t hurt her fledgling business, which she was getting closer to getting off the ground. She’d been making her own organic skin care and makeup going back to her early days at the salon where she’d been discovered and nearly every actress—and quite a few actors—she’d worked with, had asked to buy it.

  Unfortunately, her life had been so busy that she’d kept putting off the actual business part of the idea. But while the indoor scenes at been filmed at the same Wicklow County studio as Braveheart, the location shoots had been done in the west. During those long, winding bus drives being shuttled back and forth between the Kerry and Clare coasts, she’d had plenty of time to think. And plan. Now, she just had to figure out a doable way to implement that plan. And if heaven would send down an angel investor, that’d be the icing on the cupcake.

  Although the press gained by her nomination had caused a burst of even more lucrative film and TV offers coming in, she’d been seriously considering a change. All those movie stars had shaken Hollywood up when they’d come out with stories of abuse, but the brightness of their movie star status had overwhelmed so many of those working unnoticed in the trenches—makeup artists, hair and food stylists, wardrobe mistresses, grips, animal and child wranglers, fixers, and all the other jobs that films couldn’t reach the screen without.

  She hadn’t minded that making a movie involved hard work and long hours. She’d learned a strong work ethic from her mother. What she hadn’t expected was that the moment she walked onto a location, she’d be seen by many as new prey.

  That was why, right before leaving Ireland, she’d signed her name to a lengthy online list of women and not a few men, who’d decided to go public about the harassment behind the scenes. Behind Hollywood’s bright lights. Even knowing that might hurt her future employment opportunities, she’d decided to leverage whatever little bit of influence she had received from her Emmy nomination to speak out. Besides, who really cared about people who the guys at the top of the food chain considered easily replaceable?

  So, needing a break from those long hours an overseas location entailed, she’d decided to spend the rare downtime until the new year looking for an investor and mentor who could help her grow her start-up and get her products out into the cosmetics and day-spa marketplace. So far, the producers of Shark Tank had turned her down twice, but she’d sent in a new audition video, mentioning her Emmy nomination, so hey, maybe the third time would be the charm. It could happen, right?

  Her flight had been delayed on the tarmac at Kennedy, and now it was dark as her flight glided down its path into LAX. On an average night from the air the city looked like jewels spread out as far as the eyes could see, with the mountains supplying spots of dark contrast. But this was November, and going with the idea that there was no business like snow business, the abundance of holiday lights could undoubtedly dazzle from space.

  The moment she turned on her phone after landing, it exploded with emails and texts, but since everyone was eager to get off the plane after the delay, she decided to check them out once she got to the limo. If anything major had occurred, like World War III breaking out while they’d been in the air surely the pilot would’ve announced it.

  Her limo driver, provided by the production company (proof that her nomination was worth something), was waiting for her in the baggage area. In some towns where she’d traveled for work, the black-suited woman with a name tag reading Charlene, holding up a sign with Jolene’s last name would’ve drawn some double takes from passengers trying to figure out if she was someone famous. Here, neither one of them earned so much as a glance.

  It was only after they’d escaped the LAX traffic and were on the 405 that Jolene decided to check her messages and emails. Most were from various bloggers and entertainment reporters, none of whom she was in any mood to speak to at the moment. Scrolling down, she noticed a text from a reporter at The Hollywood Reporter with a subject line asking for a comment on the attached photo. Opening the link, she found herself looking at her actor boyfriend outside a club with an actress he’d been working on in Australia. A reboot of The Thorn Birds. A decision she found ridiculous, given that Richard Chamberlain would always be Father Ralph.

  Still, since Chad Dylan possessed the combination of egoism and insecurity she’d noticed in so many actors, she’d kept her opinion to herself when he’d gotten the callback, then won the role. In the photo the actress who played Meggie, Tiffany Rule, was showing off a diamond as big as the iceberg that had sunk the Titanic on the fourth finger of her left hand while her new fiancé, aka Father Ralph, aka Jolene’s former boyfriend, was grinning down at her as if he’d just won the Powerball.
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  “Good luck with that,” Jolene murmured. Tiffany, at twenty-five, had already been divorced twice, most recently from an A-list director who, apparently bewitched by her charms (or, more likely, Jolene thought cattily, her blow jobs), hadn’t required her to sign a prenup. After inheriting half of his considerable fortune in a surprisingly quickie divorce a mere six weeks later (which suggested he’d been a very bad boy doing something he’d wanted kept silent), Jolene suspected those very same barracuda divorce lawyers who’d gotten serial bride Tiffany her windfall were already at work crafting a prenup to ensure that she’d keep every penny when marriage number three broke up.

  Jolene wasn’t surprised Chad had been unfaithful. They’d been a couple for only four months, and for three of those months they’d been working in different parts of the world. While he hadn’t ever found time to make it to Ireland, she’d traveled once to Perth for the sheep station scenes and the second time to Kauai, that, as in the original miniseries, served as a stand-in for the remote tropical island where Meggie had her tryst with Father Ralph.

  In Perth, Chad had taken her on a romantic tour of a part of the world that was the polar opposite from her native Olympic Peninsula. But in Kauai, he’d claimed work pressures, and most of their time together had been spent with the cast and crew. Including Tiffany.

  Had she caught vibes? Well, duh. What man wouldn’t notice a hot blonde who looked like Malibu Barbie? Which was so not Meggie from the book, but knowing the casting director, she wasn’t surprised Tiffany had gotten the role. Chad had assured Jolene that even during his and Tiff’s (yes, that’s what he’d called her, which should’ve been a flashing red warning light) lovemaking scenes, he’d been thinking of her. She hadn’t believed that for a moment.

  Still, again, it wasn’t as if she’d been in love with him. Although she’d overheard the script supervisor tell the cinematographer that you could probably hear the wind blowing between his ears, he’d been cute and convenient. And, she admitted, though it might sound cold, utterly disposable. Which was why she wasn’t curled up in a fetal position on the limo floor, her wounded heart shattered.