Serena sighed. “I didn’t have time to think much about you down there. I was so busy all the time, trying to survive.”
The wall around his heart crumbled a little. She’d probably worked so hard to make her life better that she missed out on a chance to enjoy what she had.
“The competition was fierce, but I did it, Tracen. You would have been so proud of me.”
He reinforced the crumbling section of wall. She’d gotten what she wanted, and that’s all that really mattered to her. “Good for you, Serena.”
“Where’s our waitress?” Serena had lost interest in him already. She twisted her head toward the bar. “Is Gigi still running this place?”
Tracen didn’t have the energy to respond. Serena didn’t care so much about Gigi as she cared about her service.
The front door to the restaurant slammed open, catching his attention. Jor-El ran in, shining with sweat and panting. He spotted Tracen and maneuvered clumsily through the obstacle course of tables and patrons.
Tracen braced himself. No doubt the boy would talk about Emily.
“Hi, Jor-El,” he greeted as the kid screeched to a halt in front of him.
“Tracen.” Jor-El looked back and forth between Serena and him. “I overslept. I was hoping to catch Emily before she started filming. She left me a message last night, saying she wants to take me and Mom to the California Mountain Unicycle Weekend. Can you believe it?”
A lump formed in Tracen’s throat. First of all, how did Emily even know of such a thing? And second — second — how completely amazing for her to make such an offer. She did want to use her money and fame to bless others.
Serena giggled. “Mountain unicycling? That sounds ridiculous.”
Jor-El’s enthusiasm turned to irritation. “Unicycling is a sport. Emily said she’s even seen people jump on a trampoline while riding a unicycle. I bet she could do it.”
Tracen bet she could too. There wasn’t much Emily couldn’t do. Too bad he wouldn’t be around to watch her do it. “That’s great.”
Jor-El nodded, shaking away his frown.
Serena studied the kid with a confused expression. “How do you know Emily Van Arsdale?”
“She’s my friend.” Jor-El looked to Tracen, as if wondering why he hadn’t already explained. “I honestly haven’t seen her much since she’s been here. But we talk on the phone sometimes.”
Serena gaped. “Emily must really put up with a lot from her fans.”
Tracen sat up straighter, ready to defend the kid who was also his friend. But Jor-El didn’t need his help. Somewhere between the time Emily arrived and their current conversation, he had learned to stand up for himself.
“Do you know Emily?” Jor-El demanded.
“Actually, I just met her.” Serena tossed her hair, beaming at the memory.
The boy’s eyes darted to Tracen’s, suspicion reflected there. Tracen cringed, expecting Jor-El’s next question.
“And how do you know Tracen?”
A smug smile curved Serena’s lips up. “I’ve known Tracen a long time. In fact, he’s even asked me to marry him.”
Ten years ago. A different Tracen. It didn’t even seem real anymore. But that didn’t matter to Jor-El.
The kid backed away, horror blackening his face. “No.”
Tracen reached out to stop the kid. He couldn’t grab him before Jor-El tripped over a purse strap, but he wasn’t down long. He sprang right up like he’d landed on one of the trampolines at Boise State. “Hey, man,” Tracen called after him, standing for a better chance at drawing the kid’s attention.
No matter. Jor-El was already to the lobby, racing down the steps to the basement, which would lead out the back door. Which would lead to the river. Which would lead to Emily.
Tracen slammed a palm to his forehead before dropping back to his seat. “That was stupid, Serena.”
Serena’s amber eyes widened with innocence. “I didn’t mean to imply that we are engaged right now. He asked how I knew you. Gee, that boy is volatile.”
She had no idea. As for volatile, he had something building inside that would likely explode if she tried any more stunts like that.
But maybe it was for the best. Emily would think he left her for his former fiancée, thus preventing him from repeating his previous mistake of thinking he could keep the dynamic actress to himself. He’d started out with the intention of trying to get Emily to stay in Sun Valley, but if he truly loved her, he should let her go.
Mercy, he loved her. And that’s why he was going to lose her. She deserved so much more than he could offer.
****
EMILY LEFT THE CREW behind her as she dried off in the sun. They wouldn’t be able to shoot the take again until she stopped dripping. Plus, she couldn’t see The Point when she hid behind the grove of trees. Which meant she’d be able to get Tracen out of her mind, right?
Never.
Though he would be focused on the other woman right now. A woman he’d apparently never stopped caring about. Had he really broken up with Emily because Emily was leaving? Or was it all because Serena was returning?
If she couldn’t trust him to speak the truth during their last conversation together, then how could she believe anything he’d ever said to her? Had she imagined being close with him because that’s what she wanted? He’d never really repeated her sentiments. She figured it was because he didn’t like to talk about his feelings. The joke he’d made about her needing to like his last name — that could have been nothing but harmless flirtation. But she couldn’t have imagined the passion in his kiss.
Would he be kissing Serena like that soon? Her stomach grew warm at the thought. Warm and constricted, as if she’d have to vomit to get rid of the feeling.
“Emily.”
Oh, joy, Jor-El. His appearance usually made her smile, but today she had no energy to give. She’d left him the invitation to visit her in California on his mother’s answering machine. That’s when she’d been thinking Tracen would want to come with him, as well.
She dredged up a smile from deep within. “Hi, Jor-El.”
The boy didn’t seem as excited as she thought he would be. He stopped about five feet away and studied her.
“Do you want to go on the mountain unicycling trip this fall?” she asked out of politeness.
Jor-El took a step forward. “That’s nice of you to offer.”
He sounded so formal. Maybe he couldn’t believe she actually wanted to spend more time with him. “You and your mom could stay with me for a vacation. We could do whatever you’d like. Disneyland. The beach.” It would help distract from the haunting loneliness sure to follow her.
“You’re really going back?” Jor-El clasped fleshy hands together.
That’s what was worrying him? The sweet kid missed her already. “Just for a little while. Then I’m going to live up here with my mom.”
Jor-El didn’t move. Maybe he wanted her to keep making comic book movies after all. How could she explain her future to him when she didn’t even understand it herself?
“My mom needs me. Kinda like your mom needs you. Making movies was fun while it lasted, but—”
“Did you tell Tracen you’re coming back?”
Emily’s breath caught at Jor-El’s words. Why did they have to talk about Tracen? The man who made her want more than what her life could offer then refused to share it with her.
She looked down. “Yes.”
Jor-El rushed forward and grabbed her arms with clammy fingers, the crown of his head reaching to her nose. “Then why did he ask another woman to marry him?”
The ground shifted under Emily’s feet. A boulder rose up to cradle her in a sitting position as her legs turned to Jell-O.
Tracen couldn’t have proposed to Serena already. “What are you talking about?”
Jor-El crouched in front of her. “There was a skinny woman eating lunch with him. I asked her how she knew Tracen, and she told me that he’d asked her to marry him.”
Emily swayed in the breeze yet was unable to inhale any of the air that surrounded her. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening.
Jor-El’s face began to fade as feelings of abandonment and betrayal threatened to drown her. But she fought back, rising to the surface as if Jesus were holding out His hand to help her walk on water. Just like Peter in the Bible, she had to separate her feelings from fact.
The first fact was that Jor-El had gotten his information from Serena and not from Tracen. Second, maybe he’d misunderstood. Yes, Tracen had proposed to Serena, but it had been a long time ago.
Jor-El’s voice broke through her haze. “Emily? Are you okay?”
She focused on him now — his flushed face, hair slicked back with sweat, uncertainty in his squinty eyes. Scooting over on the rock, she motioned for Jor-El to join her.
“Tracen broke up with me this morning,” she explained, her voice sounding even despite the way the admission left her insides jagged and raw.
She’d been dumped before, but she’d always been able to shrug it off. With Tracen, she’d expected so much more — more than an ultimatum. But perhaps it was all an excuse. An escape.
Emily focused on the river rushing by. She used to consider its whitewater a form of entertainment and adventure. But now with the way it hurried past, not caring what devastation it might bring in its haste, the rapids seemed cold and cruel. Fitting that Tracen made a living from them.
Might as well tell Jor-El the whole story. Get it all out. “The woman with Tracen is his former fiancée. But it sounds like they’re getting back together, huh?”
It must have been what Tracen wanted all along. He certainly wouldn’t have the height issue with Serena the way he’d had with Emily. Though the woman had seemed kind of flighty. How could Tracen ever trust her again?
Emily watched Jor-El slump even lower, as if he were a blob of butter melting in the sun. Poor guy. He hurt for her. Probably because he understood her. His own father had abandoned him.
Slinging an arm around Jor-El’s shoulder, she hugged him to her. He squished like a pillow. Which is what gave her the urge to bury her face in him and cry.
Jor-El’s beefy arm lifted behind her back. He cleared his throat. “I’d marry you, Emily, if I were fifteen years older.”
Such sweet acceptance.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her throat clogging with humility. “That means a lot to me.”
His childish proposal meant everything to her. Since he was the only man left in her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“DON’T LOOK NOW,” CHARLENE COMMANDED, SPINNING Emily’s makeup chair away from the window of the trailer. “Giant jerk at twelve o’clock.”
Emily’s stomach blended the fruit she’d had for breakfast into a smoothie.
Rafting scenes were over, so she hadn’t been expecting to see Tracen on location anymore. But she’d still hoped, despite the ache that intensified like the beeping of a metal detector anytime he came near.
She craved his attention the way she craved chocolate milk shakes. And she still drank one of those occasionally, even knowing it would cause diarrhea and vomiting.
Emily couldn’t help ripping the protective plastic cape from her shoulders and bolting to the window. So much for the nonchalance she’d been planning to portray. Her heart plummeted when all she could find was Jack Jamison attempting to hit on the costume designer.
“Where, Char, where?”
A treacherously long fingernail jabbed the air in front of Emily’s nose. “He’s up the hill in the little shack where they store all the rafts.”
Emily’s pulse pounded through her veins as she squinted the direction Char pointed. No sight of Tracen. He must be hidden behind the stack of blue rubber rafts. “That’s three o’clock, not twelve o’clock,” she admonished her fellow spy.
“Either way.” Char’s indignation led to one of her protective mama lectures. “But girl, if we’re gonna talk about time, then it’s time you stopped acting like a stray puppy and turn back into the wildcat America fell in love with.”
Emily didn’t care about America’s love. “It’s only been two days, Char. Much more time is needed.” If she were going to get over him. She still couldn’t resign herself to the idea that Tracen would let her go.
Two days without Tracen meant two sleepless nights in bed reliving every moment they shared together. He’d invited her to spend a holiday with his family. He’d been so protective when she knocked herself out on the mechanical bull. Then there was the kiss with the kindergartner on her back at Frenchman’s Hot Springs. If she remembered nothing else, that kiss would be enough to keep her believing Tracen’s feelings for her had been real.
Maybe he hadn’t entirely meant the ultimatum he’d given her. But with the way she’d stormed out of The Point after Serena arrived, he hadn’t had a chance to apologize. Oh, who was she kidding? Serena was what he really wanted — always wanted. Still…
“I’ve got to go talk to him, Char.”
Charlene blocked the door with her body before Emily could get to it. “Not on my watch.”
Emily sighed. Char was trying to keep her from getting hurt, but she’d rather know for a fact that Tracen didn’t love her than to let him go without a fight. “This might be my last chance to see him.”
“There you go, sounding all needy and desperate. That’s not how you get a man,” Char admonished. “And if the idiot raft guide doesn’t see how special you are, then you shouldn’t want him.”
Char was right — the part about Tracen being an idiot was right anyway. The part about Emily not wanting him couldn’t be further from the truth. But the makeup artist didn’t need to know that. “You’re right, Char. Now can I go outside and run my lines with Jack?”
Char moved to the side but must have been watching her because the moment Emily stepped off the steel stairs and veered toward the storage shed, Char jumped in front of her again. “Get in the trailer, girl. You can’t trick me.”
Emily kept going, detouring around her roadblock. Char grabbed her wrist. “It’s for your own good, babe.”
Emily pulled to snatch her arm away, but Char’s grip locked on tighter. The woman must have missed her true calling of playing linebacker in the NFL.
“Let me decide what’s good for me.” Emily shook her arm and yanked a second time.
Char twisted Emily’s elbow to pin her arm behind her back, then shoved her to the side of the dirty trailer. Goodness, bounty hunter would have also made a perfect career path.
Emily twisted and ducked out of Char’s hold.
The wrestling continued until Tracen stepped out of the shed and glanced their direction. The determination drained away from Emily as she realized how Tracen must see her — with a fistful of Char’s hair and a leg wrapped behind Char’s knee as if to trip the other woman. He didn’t react to their scene, though. Only ducked into the shed.
Char released her from the chokehold as Emily straightened. “Let me finish this my way,” Emily pleaded softly, the word finish echoing through her mind as if her body was nothing but an empty shell — hollow and lifeless.
Char raised both hands before walking away. “I tried,” she called over her shoulder. A premature “I-told-you-so.” But it was only because she cared so much.
Emily hesitated. She’d definitely be safer following Char.
****
TRACEN RAN HIS HANDS along smooth rubber, looking for the patches Honey had applied. He didn’t have to double-check her work. He just wanted an excuse to be down by the river again. Down by Emily.
She’d made it perfectly clear how she felt about him. And he didn’t blame her. But what if seeing him again could change her mind? He’d been wrong to try to force her to give up acting for him. It had to be her choice. And that’s why he let her go.
Circling the side of the raft, he followed the inflated tube to the outside of the open-sided shed, preparing to sneak a peek at Emily. She probably wouldn’t even know he
was there. They were both supposed to be working, after all. Separate jobs. Separate worlds. Hers so sophisticated and…
Tracen gaped at the catfight going on by Bruce’s trailer. A taller African-American woman seemed to be trying to strangle a shorter chick, but the chick was quick and agile. She ripped at the woman’s hair and wrapped a leg behind her, ready to knock her to the ground. The chick’s wild curls flipped back, and for the first time he was able to see her face. Emily stared at him with those wide blue eyes of hers.
Tracen retreated. He’d already ticked Emily off once. It wouldn’t help for him to get in the middle of her scrape with the makeup artist. He hoped she didn’t plan to go after Serena next.
Look at him. Mentally pitting one ex against the other. He should be completely on Emily’s side. He should be fighting her battles for her. Though with the way Char wrestled, Emily would have to give him CPR afterward.
Memories of how he’d demonstrated rescue breathing for Jack pushed to his consciousness. CPR might not be so bad. Thinking about it sped up the pattern of expansion and contraction in his lungs.
“Tracen?”
He whirled. Emily stood there so regally. Poised and controlled. Had she been the one to take a beating from Char? Because his stomach clenched like he’d been the one punched in the gut.
“Hi,” he managed to greet her. Now what? “Char okay?” Brilliant. Like he didn’t care if Emily had been hurt. He surveyed her body to reassure himself that everything was intact. And boy, was it.
A small smile played on Emily’s lips. She looked away, examining the rafts across from him. “She’s fine. But a little upset that I’m talking to you right now.”
That’s what the scuffle had been about? Emily’s friend had been trying to protect her from him? Shame heated his core.
He returned to checking rafts rather than face her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Emily.”
Sorry wasn’t good enough, was it? He couldn’t take back the things he’d said. Their relationship wouldn’t work. They’d been fooling themselves. Fallen in love too quickly maybe. Been too naïve.
Finding Love in Sun Valley, Idaho (Resort to Love Book 1) Page 19
