by JoAnn Ross
Only one man had ever possessed that much power over her.
She’d told Chad from the beginning that marriage wasn’t in her plans. Neither was love. She’d had both those fantasies sucked out of her growing up. She’d made her own way, happy with casual relationships. To be honest, if they hadn’t spent so much time apart, she and the poster boy for narcissism probably wouldn’t have lasted two months. The only thing different was that she was usually the one to walk when things started looking as if they were edging toward something serious. Rather than trusting a man with a relationship, she preferred to count on herself.
Having dropped out of school at sixteen after a life-altering event she’d locked away in a far corner of her mind, she’d worked with her hairdresser mom for a year, sweeping up hair, cleaning the salon bathroom, dusting the product shelves and occasionally touching up a client’s makeup. It was then she’d discovered that she enjoyed helping women feel happy and good about themselves, women like her and her mom who couldn’t afford to go to fancy salons.
Which was why, after earning her GED, she’d followed in her mom’s footsteps and attended cosmetology classes at Clearwater Community College. Hearing from one of the instructors that there was a lot of money to be made in Los Angeles, after receiving her degree, she’d bought an old clunker and made her way south down I-5. She’d ended up spending too many nights in that old car, and it had cost her time and money she couldn’t afford to transfer her license from Washington to California, but eventually, she’d gotten a job in a quirky West Hollywood salon where both she and her thrift shop vintage clothes fit right in.
She’d been content for the next few years, making friends and enjoying the laid-back SoCal lifestyle, and although that song about it never raining in California hadn’t turned out to be totally true, there was a lot more days of sunshine than where she’d grown up.
She’d just turned twenty-one when a producer, scouting the salon for a shooting site for his 1950s film, had signed her to work as an assistant to help with hair and makeup. Because, since she looked as if she’d stepped out of a midcentury time capsule, she obviously had the era’s style down pat.
She’d spent every spare minute learning her trade, eventually landing jobs on TV shows and the occasional movie or miniseries, that had, this year, resulted in her Emmy nomination as a key makeup artist in the Outstanding Makeup for a Limited Series or Movie (Non-Prosthetic) category. While the Creative Arts Awards might not be included in the big prime time Emmy extravaganza show, they were held in the very same theater as the one everyone was more familiar with. Win or lose, the highlight of her night, indeed, her life, was being able to fly her mother to Los Angeles to be her date.
Gloria Wells had not led an easy life. Jolene’s father had been—there was no sanitized way to put it—a professional criminal and binge drinker. He’d grown and sold marijuana before it had been legalized, cut and sold timber from federal lands, illegally harvested oysters and clams that he then sold to Seattle restaurants and markets, and finally, while drunk, he’d decided it would be a good idea to take his S&W .38 to Port Angeles and rob the state liquor store. The episode had ended with him being incarcerated in the Clallam Bay Corrections Center. Six months later, he’d been killed when a huge tree limb from an old-growth Douglas fir had crashed down on him while he’d been clearing winter debris from hiking trails on a trustee prison work crew.
Jolene and her mother had always been a team. Despite the bullying from classmates who’d mock her for wearing clothes their wealthier parents had donated to the thrift stop, despite her father’s criminal behavior and alcohol-sodden binges, despite never knowing when the police might be back knocking on the door, Jolene had never doubted that her mother, who seemed more like an older sister than mom, had always loved her. Gloria had lost her own parents when she’d been a teenager, which had led her into the arms of Jake Wells. Which, in turn, had resulted in her getting pregnant at sixteen, and becoming the married mother of a newborn at seventeen.
Realizing that she’d never be able to count on her husband for steady support, Gloria graduated from high school and had managed to attend the community college, often taking Jolene to class with her when couldn’t find anyone willing to babysit in exchange for highlights or a trim. After getting her degree, she began cutting hair in their trailer outside town.
When men began showing up at all hours, after getting back from fishing, or after their shifts at the old mill, rumors began to swirl around Honeymoon Harbor that Jake Wells’s wife was doing tricks out of the trailer. That had never been true, but it hadn’t stopped people, mostly former mean girls who’d grown up to be mean women, from talking.
Still, Jolene’s mother brushed off the talk and worked long hours barely supporting them by cutting and coloring hair without having paid for the state license that she couldn’t afford. And no, she hadn’t paid sales tax either, since she’d run a cash-only business.
As soon as Jolene landed her first job in LA, she starting sending money home, despite her mother’s objections. While the West Hollywood salon might not charge Rodeo Drive prices, the customer base was loyal and with tips, Jolene was able to make more in a week than her mother made in a month.
Once she’d broken into Hollywood’s entertainment echelons and began negotiating pay even above the pay scale set by the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild, she was able to help her mom upgrade to a manufactured home, with an extra bedroom where, now duly and legally licensed, Gloria had opened a salon. Because her mother was every bit as talented as many of the hairdressers Jolene had worked with over the years, the salon had thrived, allowing her recently to sell the house, and use the profits, along with a small business loan, to hire Seth Harper, Brianna’s fiancé, to remodel the old lighthouse keeper’s house into a new salon and day spa.
Although Jolene had never returned to Honeymoon Harbor, instead paying for her mother to fly to Los Angeles once or twice a year, right before leaving for Ireland, Gloria had asked her to return home to help pick out colors for the building. And she’d asked if Jolene would be willing to do the wedding makeup for Kylee Campbell, Mai Munemori and Mai’s mom.
Although Jolene and Kylee Campbell had never been all that close, two things they’d shared were their artistic creativity and their outsider status. That was why, as much as she hated going back to Honeymoon Harbor, Jolene had reluctantly agreed. But she’d refused to charge for her work, declaring it her wedding gift to the couple.
While she might not believe in love for herself, it had been impossible not to get swept up into the romantic moment when the two women had exchanged vows in the backyard of their darling restored Folk Victorian home beneath an arbor of white wisteria.
Mai’s mother, who’d flown in from Hawaii (Kylee had tragically lost hers in a car accident her first year of college) had carried Kylee and Mai’s adopted daughter up the aisle immediately after the vows had been exchanged. At four months, baby Clara looked adorable in a white lace gown. The ceremony was part wedding, part christening and 100 percent perfect.
Except for one thing Jolene hadn’t counted on. Aiden Mannion, the last person on the planet she’d expected, or wanted to see, had been there. He’d changed from the last time she’d seen him so many years ago. He’d bulked up, his biceps like boulders beneath his suit jacket, and his shoulders seemed broader, wider, although that could be that he seemed to be standing at attention most of the time. His face was leaner, accenting a stubborn jaw and shadowed with what seemed to be either sadness or exhaustion. Lines he hadn’t had before fanned out from eyes that had deep circles beneath them.
But despite all those changes, those vivid blue eyes had, for an instant when they’d met hers, turned intense and dangerous. They’d also sent her hormones spiking in a way she knew had brought heat into her cheeks. Unfortunately, blushing was the bane of a redhead’s existence. Then the shields came down and he turned away, walking
off in the opposite direction. Apparently he’d been no more eager to see her than she’d been to see him. That had admittedly stung.
She reminded herself that the woman seated in the backseat of this limousine headed to Beverly Hills was no longer that young messed-up teenager she’d been that night Aiden, Honeymoon Harbor’s bad boy, had rescued her from her own stupidity. Which was embarrassing enough. It was what had come after...
No. Don’t think about that. She was strong, confident and had been an Emmy nominee, dammit. She’d come a long way from the girl who’d provided constant fodder for gossip. The wounded girl who’d humiliated herself that fateful night.
And damn. Here she was, thinking about it again. Thinking about Aiden Mannion. And those hot, dangerous eyes.
Just when she was wishing she could have her memories erased, a new text dinged. From, of all people, Chad.
Sorry. I feel like shit. The news wasn’t supposed to get out til I talked with u. Hope ur okay. We agreed, no strings, right?
“Right,” she muttered, shaking her head. See, this was why she didn’t allow herself to get emotionally involved. Because of guys like Chad Dylan. Who, before he’d taken on those two first acting names, had been—wait for it—Norman Bates. Seriously, what kind of sadistic parents would stick their kid with a name like that? And how could he have possibly survived the inevitable schoolyard taunts and end up with an ego the size of Jupiter?
“My GPS says left,” the driver, who must have thought she was talking to her, said.
“Sorry. I was talking to myself.”
“I do that a lot.” Charlene smiled up at Jolene in the rearview mirror. “Casualty of spending so many hours alone in this car.”
“Do you like your job?”
Personally, Jolene had always considered the California freeway system to be one of the lower circles of hell. Which was why she always was so grateful whenever she could score a ride.
“I do, surprisingly enough. I get to choose my hours, that lets me be home with my kids when they get up in the morning and go off to school.”
“You have kids?”
That was, she’d always thought, a downside to her nonmarriage vow. She enjoyed her friends’ children and would love one or two of her own someday. Her boyfriendless, homeless life might be in flux right now, but the one thing Jolene was certain of was that she wasn’t ever going to get married, and single motherhood wasn’t anything she wanted to tackle. How could she ever manage being a mother in her line of work? It wasn’t as if she could put them in boarding for however long she was working on a movie.
“Three. Two boys and a girl,” Charlene answered. “Though I’m speeding too fast toward an empty nest. My twins are in middle school, and my oldest is a junior in high school going on thirty. I’m going to curl up in a wet puddle of tears when she leaves home. I don’t even want to think about coming home to an empty house once the twins leave.”
“So you’re not married?”
“No. In the cliché of all clichés, my investment banker husband took off with his secretary. They’re currently enjoying the good life in Bali, that, surprise, surprise, doesn’t have an extradition treaty because he also absconded with a lot of money he’d been socking away in offshore accounts.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.” Didn’t that story make her own breakup seem insignificant? Like whining about a head cold to someone with terminal cancer.
Charlene’s black-suited shoulders lifted in a shrug as she turned onto Santa Monica Avenue. “Don’t be. Best thing that ever happened to me and the kids.” She glanced up in the rearview mirror again. “Seems like we both lucked out. You earlier than me. You escaped the mess and expense of a divorce.”
One of the things Jolene had always enjoyed about her job was that she was able to work in the movie business, while staying beneath the radar. Which was why she’d never dated any actors, until Chad, who not only thrived on the paparazzi, but would initiate coverage. Early in his career, when he was down in the part of the credits when most people would have left the theater or clicked off the TV, he’d make a call to certain friendly, and hungry paps to let them know where he was going to be.
The first time it had happened, they’d gone to a movie in Westwood, standing in line for their tickets like everyone else. When they’d come out of the theater, they were met by a loud, buzzing swarm of two dozen photographers.
“They’re like wasps,” he’d told her on the drive back to his rented house, because heaven forbid he ever been seen at her lowly apartment. Even with its 90210 zip code. “If one or two know you’re going to be there, the rest show up.”
“You called them?” Jolene wasn’t naive. She knew such things were done. But she’d never heard anyone admit it.
“Sure. Everyone does it,” he assured her. “In fact, my publicist is working to get me a paying yogurt gig. All I have to do is get myself photographed eating a lot of a certain brand of yogurt. Enough Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube hits, and I’ll be able to move out of the Valley.”
“You can make that much? Just from having your picture taken while living your normal life?”
“You may have been in the business longer than me, sweetcheeks, but if you’re on my side of the camera, yeah, it’s like what studios used to pay publicists to do for their stars. If you play your cards right, and get enough hits, fans, followers and likes, you can shoot up to the top. Look at the Kardashians.”
“They’re not actors.”
“Of course they are... Don’t frown, it’ll give you wrinkles.” Which was akin to leprosy in Hollywood. He reached over and rubbed a thumb on the lines that had furrowed on her forehead. “It’s just part of the celebrity industrial complex.”
“But you’re not exactly a celebrity.” As soon as she’d heard the words come out of her mouth, Jolene had known she’d said the wrong thing. But instead of getting annoyed, he’d flashed his light-up-the-screen boyish grin and returned his hand to the leased Porsche’s steering wheel. “But I will be. That’s what those paps with the cameras are for. It’s how it’s done, baby.”
Apparently the publicity worked. It wasn’t long before he’d gotten the role of Father What-a-Waste, and she’d found herself showing up on the cover of tabloids and carrying pepper spray because having a camera flash in your face in a dark parking garage could be freaking scary.
They were driving past The Regent Beverly Wilshire, that had served as the Pretty Woman hotel, and was bejeweled with holiday lights. Rodeo Drive had also rolled out the red carpet for holiday shoppers with red ribbons adorning the trees, poinsettias and a bazillion white lights.
“Uh-oh,” her driver murmured.
“What’s the problem?”
“We’re blocked off.”
Jolene could see that for herself. Her heart and stomach sank when she viewed the police roadblock and the flashing lights of the phalanx of police and bright red fire trucks.
CHAPTER THREE
CHARLENE PULLED OVER and they both stared at the three-story building. The flashing red, blue and white lights reminded her of the aluminum Christmas tree and color wheel her mother had bought for two dollars at Goodwill. When she’d been eight years old, Jolene had found the revolving colors wonderfully festive. Tonight they were anything but.
“What floor are you on?”
“The third,” Jolene said, staring up at the gaping hole leading into her apartment. Because it was the top floor, she’d laughingly told friends who’d helped her move in that she was now living the Beverly Hills penthouse style.
“Oh, damn. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” Fire hoses were spraying huge streams of water into the windows, but while she was not a firefighting professional (though she had done the makeup for a few episodes of Rescue Me that included creating fake burns on a victim’s face and arms), she could tell that the entire floor was toast. Burnt t
oast.
Could this day be any worse?
“I’ll be right back,” she said, opening the car door.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Charlene said.
She made her way toward the crowd of people huddled together, watching the action. Many, she suspected, were looky-loos, drawn by the lights and sirens. Others she recognized as neighbors from the building.
A police officer stopped her at the wooden barricade. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “But no one’s allowed in right now.”
“That’s my apartment.” She pointed to the corner, though smoke was pouring out of all the windows on that floor. “I just wanted to ask a question.” Which, now that she was closer, she realized was not the time while everyone on the scene was working hard to save the building.
Just then a firefighter in yellow turnout gear and a helmet who was talking on a radio came walking toward her.
“Hey, Jolene. I thought that was you,” the woman who’d moonlighted as an expert on one of those Rescue Me episodes Jolene had worked on, greeted her. Her badge revealed she’d worked her way up to captain. “I remembered you telling me you lived here and was wondering on the way to the call if you still did.”
“I do. Did,” Jolene corrected. “I guess it’s bad up there, huh?”
“The good news is that the fire detectors worked, and everyone got out. The bad news is this building still hasn’t upgraded to sprinklers, so I’m afraid you’re looking at a total loss.”
Although there was nothing humorous about this situation, a laugh escaped. “It figures.”
“Yeah. I heard about your breakup when we were watching ET before the call came in. I’m sorry for your shitty day.”
Didn’t it just figure that she, Chad and Tiff had already made Entertainment Tonight. Jolene laughed again because it was better than crying. “It’s just stuff. I haven’t lost anything that can’t be replaced.” Including her cheating boyfriend. “The important thing is that everyone’s safe. Do you have any idea how soon I can get in?”
