by Cate Cameron
“Well, if you must know, they parked in the wrong place so I had to beat them up to teach them a lesson.”
Josh nodded slowly. “Bet they don’t do that again.”
“I’m really glad you’re here, Josh.” It was true. She just needed to fight through the awkwardness. “I like my house, but I love you. If you don’t like it here, we can go somewhere else. To your apartment or to a hotel or something—whatever you want.”
He stared at her. “This house is incredible, Ash. I mean, I’m glad I’ve got the apartment as a backup, like if you’re busy or something, but overall, why the hell wouldn’t we stay here?”
She froze, then smiled awkwardly. Possibly she’d been building this up a little more than she needed to. “I beat up the flowers so you wouldn’t think I was trying to be fancy,” she blurted out.
He nodded slowly, then grinned. “So, you’re insane, is what you’re telling me.”
“Crazy in love,” she amended. “Hey, want to see the master suite? There’s a soaker tub . . .”
“Yeah,” he said, and his gaze roamed over her body as he said, “I want to see everything.”
* * *
JOSH lay back on the padded deck chair and looked out over the city as the sun set. He had a cold beer in his hand, the breeze was gentle and just a little salty as it blew in from the ocean, and Ashley was cradled between his legs, leaning back against his bare chest as he reclined. “Maybe I just haven’t been doing cities right,” he mused. “Maybe I like cities just fine, if I do them this way.”
“That would make life a lot easier,” Ashley replied, and she ran her hand down his thigh encouragingly.
“Probably at some point I’d need to leave the house, though.” He needed to think about that. “I was wishing for a gun when I was driving over here tonight, that’s for sure. I hate traffic.”
“I could get you a driver,” she said, rolling over and leaning her chin on his chest, carefully keeping her distance from his collarbone. “Or maybe a helicopter.”
“It’d be a bit weird to pull up at the barn in a limo,” he said. And now that he was on the topic, he supposed he should ask the question that had been bothering him. “Don said he was glad I didn’t turn out to be useless.”
“Well, yeah, I guess he would be glad. You were okay doing work with your arm in a sling?”
“I took it out when I had to.” It had hurt like hell, but he’d survived. “But I don’t think that was the part he was worried about. I’d told him about that on the phone before I came down.”
“Oh,” she said.
Just one syllable, but it was all he needed. “There’s a lot of people who want a job like this, right? A chance to work in showbiz? And I don’t really have any experience with the movie side of things. And he’d never even met me or seen me work with a horse before today. And I know Rocky has the right look for the movie or whatever, but it’s not really that hard to find a scruffy brown horse with donkey ears.” Yeah, that was all the evidence Josh had gathered through the day, combined with Don’s close scrutiny as he’d worked. “It seemed like maybe Don wouldn’t have hired me, if he’d had the choice.”
Ashley sighed. “Okay. Look, I’ll tell you everything I know. I promise. But will you promise to remember the part where he’s glad he hired you, now that he’s seen you work? Because that part’s important, Josh.”
“What’s the other part? Did you get me the job, Ashley?”
“No!” She made a face before adding, “Not directly. I was just . . . I had a bad week, last week. I was missing you, and wondering if I’d made the right decision, and I was kind of going through the motions at work. I didn’t have the same intensity I’d had before.” She sighed and kissed his chest, just over his heart. It was pretty hard to be mad at a beautiful woman who was kissing him like that. “I didn’t know you were coming. I actually—you haven’t talked to Kevin lately?”
He frowned. “No. I sent him an e-mail, told him we got in okay. But I haven’t talked to him.”
She sighed. “I went up there Sunday. Flew back to L.A. the same day, just about went crazy waiting for you to show up yesterday and most of today. I was going to quit and come live with you, and I was sad about the movie but it was going to be a hell of a lot better to be with you and without a job than without you, with a job. So that’s what I was going to do. I didn’t know you’d called down and asked about the job and I sure as hell didn’t know you’d got it, or I never would have wasted a day flying up to Vermont and then turning around and flying back.”
“You were going to—” he started, but she put a finger over his lips.
“Wait. I want to talk about that in a minute. I want to clear this up first.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his lips moving around her fingers.
“I think Don called Lauren, the director, to see just how bad she wanted Rocky. And I think maybe she wanted to help me out. She definitely seemed pretty pleased with herself when I showed up at rehearsals Monday, and I know she was happier with my work. So, it wasn’t me. But she knew I was missing you. I think she put in a good word.”
He nodded, and didn’t say anything. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it.
But apparently Ashley interpreted his silence as something a bit more decided. “It’s the way stuff is done down here, Josh! Probably up in Vermont, too, but definitely down here. You get chances based on who you know and who’ll speak up for you, but once you’ve got the chance, that’s when you have to earn your next chance. And if you don’t like that, maybe you need to ask yourself if you’d be just as upset if a guy helped you get a job. Because it’s just sexist if you’d take a favor from Kevin or somebody, and not from me!”
“Slow down,” Josh said. “Take it easy. I don’t think I’m too worried about it.”
She froze and looked up at him suspiciously. “Really? Because I might have another couple arguments lined up if you want them.”
“No. I don’t think I want them. I’m okay with it.”
“Really?” she asked again.
“You’re making me paranoid. Should I not be okay with it?”
“No, you should be! It’s a very good sign that you are! And I bet Don loves you. You’re so good with horses, and you’re strong, even with only one good arm, and—”
“Okay,” he interrupted. “I get it. I’ll be useful.” He would be, he decided. He’d make Don love him and be grateful for Lauren’s interference. He’d take this pity job and turn it into an opportunity. Ashley was right. This job was just his way to show that he deserved the next job. He wasn’t quite where he wanted to be, but he was with the person he wanted to be with. He’d have to make the rest of it work, somehow.
* * *
ASHLEY watched the sun sinking and let herself think about keeping her mouth shut. Josh was willing to live in L.A., he had a job, and he wasn’t miserable at the house. Maybe Ashley didn’t need to make the sacrifices she’d thought about.
But as she thought about it and realized she didn’t have to change, she didn’t feel relieved. She felt disappointed. She wanted to change, she realized.
“I’m going to tell Adam not to book me for anything after this project,” she said.
She felt Josh’s chest tense a little. “What does that mean?” he asked. “You won’t be working?”
“Not right away.”
“You don’t have to do that. I mean, not for me. If that’s why you’d do it, you don’t have to.”
“It’s not for you. Well, it’s related to you, but it’s for me. I want—” She paused and tried to make sure she had the right words. “I want to finish this project, and I want to act my ass off. But after that? I don’t want to go back to making whatever movie pays me the most and makes me look prettiest. You know what I realized? What I figured out I really like about acting?”
“The publicity a
nd invasion of privacy?”
“Well, that’s lovely, too, of course. But no. What I really love is the chance to be someone else. I was on Mayfair Drive from the time I was seven until I was eighteen, and that whole time? I got to have two lives. Maybe even three, if you count the public ‘me’ as separate from the real me. But I got to be a whole other person. Amanda Anderson was fictional, sure, but when I was playing her, I believed in her. That’s what I love about acting; it lets me experience things I never would on my own.”
Josh nodded his understanding. “Okay. So . . . you still love that, right? Why are you talking about giving it up?”
“Oh, I’m not giving up acting!” She grinned at him. “But I don’t have to be in movies. I mean, if there’s a great role, fantastic, I want to do it. But I could get just as lost in a part in a community theater or at a drama school. And maybe I don’t always want to get lost anymore. Maybe I want to stay in this life a little more often, now that I’m getting it set up just the way I like it.”
He was watching her closely, and she could see him trying to determine how sincere she was and how much she’d thought about what she was saying. She smiled at him. “I want to go back up to Vermont in the fall, and I want to see what it’s like there without summer people. I want to see the snow, and the way everything greens up in the spring.” As soon as she said it, she knew she was on the right track. “You remember when you said that English riding is all about forward movement, but a Western rider has to be prepared to go in any direction? I want to . . . I want my life to be Western. Not always charging forward, racing around and looking for the next jump. Sometimes I want to go sideways, or even backward. I want to spin around. You know?”
“You’ve spent a lot of time going forward,” he said, and she knew he was trying to understand.
“I’ve been acting since I was tiny, doing it professionally since I was a kid. I loved it, but I’ve had a career. I still want to act, but I don’t need to be obsessed about it. Meryl Streep lives in Connecticut—did you know that? She takes a couple jobs a year, if they’re right for her, and the rest of the time she’s at home. Being a mom, worrying about apples—whatever. She’s just living. That’s what I want to do. With you.”
She twisted around and propped herself up on her elbow so she could get a better view of his reaction. He looked unsure. “I could still do movies,” she said. “But only when it works. For us. If I could book jobs in the winter, that’d be great, right? So you could work up there when it’s busy and maybe I could start a little theater company and we’d put on plays for the summer people. And you’d come down here with me in the winter, maybe. I could keep this house—”
“You should definitely keep this house,” Josh agreed.
“And maybe we could build a place up north? For the two of us? It’d be nice if it was on the lake, but it doesn’t have to be. Maybe there’s somewhere on your property we could build, near the stream. Daisy loves that property, right?”
“You can’t plan your whole life around a demon dog,” he said reluctantly.
“I’m not. I’m planning it around you. Around us.” She watched him as he heard the words, and smiled. “I know. It’s scary. It’s scaring me, too. We haven’t known each other that long. This is all new. But I want to do it. I want us to fight for it.”
He looked out at the city lights for a while, then down to their entwined fingers. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I want that, too.”
So they sat there in the darkness, and they were together. When they looked up, they saw stars. Not as many as they could see in Vermont, and not as bright, but stars all the same. Ashley thought of ancient seafarers being guided safely home, and she remembered how she’d felt like she was floating in space when Josh had taken her to the stream. Floating, but with her feet firmly anchored to Josh. It had happened quickly, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real. He was her constant now. Her earth. And she was his star.
KEEP READING FOR A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT
LAKE SULLIVAN ROMANCE BY CATE CAMERON . . .
Hometown Hero
COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!
“HE’S CALLED THREE times,” Bonita said. “I’m your roommate, not your secretary. Call him back, even if it’s just to tell him not to call anymore.”
Zara buried her head further beneath the throw pillows on their comfortably ragged sofa. If she could just stay there in the soft darkness a little longer, maybe it would all go away.
But Bonita wasn’t giving up. She lifted Zara’s feet and slid onto the couch, then let Zara’s feet fall into her lap and started massaging, her strong hands working through the calluses and tension.
“Or if he really is stalking you,” Bonita said softly, once she had Zara nice and relaxed, “you should call Terry. The company has a security department for a reason.”
Zara pulled her feet away peevishly. “I don’t want to talk to Terry. And Calvin Montgomery’s not a stalker,” she grumbled into the cushions.
“Good, then,” Bonita said. “So you can give him a call and deal with whatever it is.”
“We’ve always e-mailed before.” Zara pulled her head out from under the pillows and squinted through the late afternoon sunshine to see Bonita’s face. “That’s rude, right? If you set up a system of e-mailing, you shouldn’t just switch over to the phone because you feel like it. Right?”
“Really rude. You should call him up and tell him so.”
“I’m injured. When someone’s injured, they don’t have to talk on the phone.”
“Actually, you’re supposed to avoid looking at computer screens,” Bonita corrected. “So the phone would be better than e-mail. Maybe your friend knows that.”
“He’s not my friend. And since when are you an expert on concussions?”
“Since my darling roommate keeps getting them. And if he’s not your friend, what is he? He’s got a pretty sexy voice. Nice and low . . . I bet I could get him to moan real nice . . .”
“Yuck. Stay away from him. He’s an asshole.”
“Really?”
Bonita sounded like she was asking for the truth, so Zara took a moment to try to provide it. “I don’t know. Probably. I mean, he definitely was an asshole. But he’s been good ever since then. You know, good to Zane.”
Bonita already knew that story, so Zara didn’t have to explain what she meant. Except for maybe an elaboration on just how very good Calvin Montgomery had been to Zara’s brother. “He visits him more often than I do. He doesn’t travel as much as me, and he lives closer, so it’s easier for him. But still . . . he really stepped up. And Zane says he was good during the trial and everything, too.”
“So, you’re not returning his calls because . . . ?”
Because Calvin was part of Zara’s old life in Lake Sullivan, and she needed to keep a bit of distance from that world. She’d moved on. She’d grown up, but it was still easier to deal with it through the remoteness of e-mail rather than the immediacy of a phone call. Besides, Zara had a pretty good idea of what Calvin wanted to talk about, and she didn’t think she was ready for that conversation. Zane’s impending release was exciting, of course, but also terrifying. What if he couldn’t cope? What if Zara couldn’t give him the help he needed?
But Bonita didn’t need to hear all that angst. So Zara shrugged and said, “I’ll call him. I just haven’t yet.”
And of course that was when Zara’s phone rang. She made a face. She could just let it go to the message system, but then she’d have to either listen to the message or erase it without listening, and both options seemed a bit overwhelming right then. “One more time?” she said pleadingly.
Bonita sighed dramatically. “Absolute last time, you baby.” She leaned over and pulled Zara’s cell phone off the coffee table. “Zara Hale’s phone.” She listened for a moment, then said, “Oh, hi, Andre, it’s Bonita. I think Zara’s arou
nd somewhere. . . . Let me just try to find her, okay?”
She held the phone out to Zara, who reluctantly took it. Andre was her manager and, at least in theory, was in her corner. Not someone she should be blowing off. “Hey, Andre,” she said, making sure she sounded chipper and bright. “You just caught me—I was on my way out for a run!” She ignored Bonita’s raised eyebrow.
“Did the doctors clear that?” Andre sounded skeptical.
“Yeah, of course.” They’d said she could start phasing in her normal routine again. She was pretty sure they’d meant, like, taking showers instead of baths, and getting dressed in real clothes instead of wearing sweats all day, but maybe they’d meant exercise. She couldn’t be sure.
“Well, okay,” Andre said reluctantly. “But you’re looking after yourself, right? You’re not pushing too hard?”
“Nope. I’m pushing just hard enough.”
“Okay, good. You need to come back strong and ready. You’re a major investment and you need to make sure you act that way.”
Funny, she’d thought she might be something that wasn’t purely financial. How naïve. “Yeah,” she said. “Strong and ready. Got it.”
“Okay. So, in the meantime . . .” Andre paused, and Zara could totally picture him leaning back in his chair, stroking his goatee, ready to drop the next line as if he was some sort of master of manipulation. “We have a new opportunity.”
“Yeah? What? Not more modelling—that was a disaster.”
“No. Not in entertainment, exactly . . .”
“Oh my God, Andre, do they want me to be an astronaut? That’s so exciting! I mean, it’s a surprise, sure, but I really think I can handle it!”
He gave her his best long-suffering sigh. It was more effective in person, and even there, it had long since lost its power against Zara. “No. Not an astronaut. But something almost as inspiring, really.”
“Porn?” she guessed.
“No. You’ve made your feelings on that perfectly clear.”
