by Nina Lindsey
If the press found out who he was, they would bombard him with unwanted attention. Not only did Callie not want to be the one to blow his cover, she really didn’t want to share him with anyone else just yet. Least of all a mob.
Even if Jake wasn’t a celebrity, she wouldn’t have told her family about him. Her mother and Aria would shriek like banshees and perform a celebratory dance over the fact that she was seeing an actual living, breathing man. Rory would tell her it was about time she was getting some. They’d all want to know about the date.
Callie wasn’t willing to share a single detail with anyone. Especially not three women who were on her case about being “controlling” and responsible.
And yet, if she left them on their own for longer than a week, it’d be a disaster.
“Speaking of tacos, Mom mentioned doing a taco bar for our Wednesday night dinner,” Rory said.
Callie looked at her coffee. She hadn’t missed a Wednesday night dinner since they established the tradition a year ago. They all made an effort to plan their schedules around dinner at Eleanor’s on Wednesday nights.
A heavy sensation settled in her gut. Her book proposal was apparently outdated, which meant she had to start from scratch. She didn’t know if she understood what the Cambridge editor had even been talking about. Her mother was “bitching” about her. Her sisters wanted her to get out of town, probably because they needed a break from her. A big trip to New York had taken over her high-tea plans for Eleanor’s birthday. Everyone knew about the hamsters except her.
“Actually, I’m not going to Mom’s on Wednesday.” Drawing her shoulders back, Callie leveled her gaze on her younger sister.
Rory blinked, her mouth opening and closing. Hah. Nice to see tough-as-nails Rory speechless for a change.
“Why not?” Rory asked.
“I have to work on my book.” The lie came without effort, since it was usually Callie’s honest excuse.
“You can’t do that earlier?”
“No.” Turning her back, she pushed open the double wooden doors of the kitchen. “Guess you’ll have to eat tacos without me. Maybe you should make them hamster-sized.”
She strode into the kitchen and let the doors slam behind her with a satisfying thud.
Chapter 9
Jake ran, his lungs burning and muscles aching. Sweat trickled down his temples. A cold morning wind blew in from the ocean. The only sounds were his hard breath, the seagulls circling and squawking overhead, and the push-and-pull rhythm of the waves.
As the rental cottage came back into view, he slowed to a walk. He dragged in gulps of air, letting his heartrate slow and his breath even out. He worked out regularly with a trainer at the gym, but the treadmill and weight-lifting couldn’t compare to the exhilaration of running on the beach just after dawn.
After showering and changing, he grabbed his camera and headed back outside—this time to take video of the birds diving over the churning whitecaps and the waves crashing against the rocks. He climbed the wooden steps to the boardwalk, a historic seaside stretch of shops, restaurants and carnival rides alongside Pelican Beach.
The boardwalk had been built as a resort in the early twentieth century and continued to be both a popular tourist attraction and a local hangout. Jake had many memories of spending weekends there with his buddies.
He’d had his first kiss on the carousel with Annie Watkins. A shocking thrill of excitement had ricocheted through him before his horse and Annie’s horse had bobbed in opposite directions and broken their split-second kiss.
But not even the thrill of his first kiss ever could compare to his first kiss with Callie Prescott. Just remembering it sent electricity crackling through his veins. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all night, and that made him feel like a kid with his first crush. The pleasure of it diluted his angry frustration over the publicity shitstorm and the Fatal Glory mess.
Not until now had he realized how much he just wanted to feel good again. As long as he didn’t forget that his time here was limited, he could enjoy all the heady anticipation and excitement of his attraction to a woman he’d once thought he would never see again.
He paused to take more photos and video, appreciating the charcoal-colored desolation broken by the sun’s glow. At dawn, the shops and game booths were shuttered, the still carnival rides—roller coasters, Ferris wheel, Tilt-a-Whirl—silhouetted against the reddish sky. Birds fluttered around the railings, seeking scraps.
Jake walked past the souvenir shops and restaurants, descended the steps on the other side, and headed into the neighborhoods sprawled out beyond the harbor where the fishing boats docked. His family had first moved here when he was ten, and back then, this had been the more low-income area of town.
He came to a halt. Across the street was a modest blue ranch house with white trim and a picture window overlooking the front yard. A kid’s bike, plastic car, and garden hose cluttered the grass.
Jake lifted his camera, then stopped just short of taking a picture of the house. He turned away.
What had he expected to feel? He hadn’t seen the house in fifteen years. Three years after they’d moved in, his father had left. Months had passed before Jake realized that he wasn’t coming home.
But on that day, he’d turned from a boy into a man—one who’d made a vow to take care of his mother and sister in the way his father hadn’t. Though he’d succeeded beyond what he’d ever thought possible, something inside him still believed he’d give up all his success to have had a good father. One who had known how to treat and care for his family. One who’d stayed.
He started the trek back to the cottage. His youth had been his first big performance—he’d kept up his role at school as the well-liked popular kid, while coming home every night to a drunk, deadbeat father and an exhausted mother.
After his father left—both to Jake’s relief and fear—his mother had found a minimum wage sewing job with a sail-making company. Jake had taken on two part-time jobs to help, but they’d struggled.
Until the lightning bolt of Hollywood success had changed their lives forever.
Guilt pushed at his chest. Countless actors would have sold their souls for even a fraction of the success he had. He hated feeling as if he were being ungrateful for wanting something different.
His phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket. A text from Richard popped onto the screen.
Jake ignored it. Both he and his agent had a crap ton of leverage in the negotiations—yeah, the studio could hire another actor to play Blaze Ripley, but the fans wouldn’t react well, and they’d have to do a whole campaign just to get a new actor accepted in the role. Jake had originated the character, and even outside of a film set, he was more likely to be called Blaze instead of Jake.
So, even if they did solve the script and director issues, why the hell was he waffling over signing on for a seventh Fatal Glory movie? Why did the idea of stunt training and green screens leave him feeling flat rather than excited and eager?
And why had he been thinking so much about his damned father lately?
He went back into the cottage. As he copied the photos from his camera to his laptop, his phone buzzed again. The name Marina Waters flashed on the screen. Jake hadn’t talked to his Fatal Glory co-star in weeks. He accepted the call with pleasure.
“How’ve you been, Marina?”
“Great, but worried about you.”
“I’m fine. How are the rug-rats?” Affectionately, he remembered the days when Marina brought her two young children to the Fatal Glory set, and they’d played things like Candy Land and Patty-Cake in-between takes.
“Simon’s a bee in his upcoming kindergarten play, and he’s decided he’s a method actor, so he buzzes around the house all the time.” She laughed. “Mandy is just into everything, as toddlers are. It’s crazy and wonderful all at the same time.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I won’t keep you, Jake, but I called to le
t you know I’m opting out of Fatal Glory 7.”
“It’s a ridiculous script, I know.”
“It’s not just that. They sent me a rewrite where they kill Petra off in the first five minutes.”
Jake frowned. “What? The version I read has her trying to figure out what happened to Blaze.”
“Well, they changed it.” She sighed. “I didn’t like the direction of the story to begin with, but this just clinched it. Even worse, they want her to die in an alien attack while she’s naked in the bathtub. I mean, what the hell? Stupid as the alien thing is, if there were an invasion, Petra would run right into the fight. She wouldn’t be taking a bubble bath. But they want my boobs hanging out while I scream and get stabbed by an alien tentacle. Probably less than four minutes in.”
Anger clenched his jaw. “I’m sorry, Marina. I didn’t know. I’ll talk to them.”
“No, don’t. I can’t work with that director anyway. If that’s how they’re going to end Blaze and Petra’s love story, I don’t want any part of it.”
“Neither do I.”
“I’m really sorry because you know I love working with you and the crew. If Dan were directing again, and we had a great script, I wouldn’t care how small my part was. But I hate what they’re doing to the story.”
“I’m not going to let them do this, Marina. No way.”
“My hero.” A smile entered her voice. “Look, I gotta go. Simon needs me to help him practice his stinging. Stay in touch, okay?”
“I will. Thanks for calling.”
As soon as he ended the call, Jake left a message for both Richard and Pete, the know-it-all young director who was taking over the Fatal Glory franchise. Jake wouldn’t do the movie if they killed off Petra at all, much less while she was in the bathtub. A four-movie romantic storyline arc that finally gave the characters a hard-earned happy ending would not end that way.
Wishing he could talk to Callie about this, he put his camera in a case, put on his fake glasses, and headed toward downtown. He was still guarded about his lack of a disguise, but even if someone did think he looked familiar, they wouldn’t imagine that Jake Ryan was back in Bliss Cove. At least, without either a film crew or an entourage. Or both.
He’d thought he would be self-conscious without the wig, worried even more about being recognized, but instead he was more at ease. He even felt at home, comfortable, like his time here wasn’t nearly the prison sentence he’d thought it would be.
Or maybe Callie had something to do with that. Just the thought of her made his blood run hot. No surprise there—she was a beautiful woman, and he was as intrigued by her body as he was by her sharp mind and musical laugh. But beneath the desire was a strange feeling—the anticipation of seeing her again and wanting to be near her.
Something almost like happiness.
He pulled open the door of Sugar Joy and breathed in the scents of fresh-baked croissants and coffee. The place was packed with a morning crowd, conversation and clinking silverware rising into the air.
From behind the counter, Eleanor waved him into the kitchen.
“Come in,” she invited. “I have your special order ready to go.”
Jake followed her through the swinging wooden doors to the kitchen, where two bakers rolled out dough and slid pans into the industrial ovens.
“Have a seat.” Eleanor indicated a stool at a wooden table and walked to a nearby coffee-maker.
Jake sat, not sure if he should be grateful for the privacy of being away from the crowd or wary of Eleanor’s intentions. He took off his glasses and set his camera on the stool beside him.
“Can I get you a croissant or muffin?” Eleanor poured a mug of coffee and set it in front of him along with a plate bearing two Chaos Cookies. “You can take the cookies with you.”
“No, that’s okay.” He bit into a cookie and groaned with pleasure. “You need to market these worldwide.”
“Maybe I will.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “So how did it go?”
She’d never let him get away with playing dumb, so he took another bite of cookie to stall for time. “Good. Uh, great, actually. We had a nice time.”
Eleanor leaned her elbows on the counter, curiosity sparking in her expression. “Where did you go?”
For some reason, he didn’t want to tell her about the movie theater. His hesitation made no sense—the Vitaphone was a town institution, and it wouldn’t have been a surprise that he’d taken Callie there. But the memory of sitting in the old seat with her at his side, their elbows bumping on the armrest, the clean scent of her filling his head…
Yeah, he wanted to keep that to himself.
“We went to the Mousehole.” At least that was true. “Talked about her work and mine. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Did she have fun?”
“I think so.” He frowned. “Are you going to debrief me every time I see her?”
She had the grace to look abashed. “I just want to make sure you’re…er, holding her interest.”
His frown deepened. “You think I can’t?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.” Irritation shot down his spine, and he lowered his voice. “I’m only an actor, but I do know what the Peloponnesian wars were about. I’m capable of having a conversation with a Harvard PhD Classics professor.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t.” Eleanor’s brow furrowed. She reached across the table and squeezed his arm. “I just meant that she’s preoccupied with so many things that a simple date might not be enough for her.”
“A date, huh?” Jake straightened and folded his arms. “You told me the other day there’s no way Callie and I can date.”
“I meant that as a figure of speech.” She lifted her hands. “I like you a great deal, Jake, but trust me when I tell you I’m not pushing you to be my daughter’s boyfriend. I want Callie to have some fun, not get her heart broken.”
A twinge went through him. “And I’d break her heart.”
“Not intentionally, of course. But you’re leaving at the end of the month, so it’s best all-around if you just stay good friends.”
She was right.
Jake took a swallow of coffee, ignoring the regret pushing at his chest. He’d let his guard down last night. He’d forgotten that he was playing a role.
“Thanks for the coffee.” He grabbed a paper bag from the counter and put the cookies inside. “I’ll take these to go.”
“I really didn’t mean to offend you.” Eleanor bit her lip, her face lined with worry.
“You didn’t.” Jake thought he should be thankful to her for getting his head out of the clouds and his feet back on the ground, but he couldn’t muster up any gratitude.
He hitched his camera over his shoulder and started back to the front of the bakery just as the dividing doors opened. A tall older man with steel-gray hair entered, and Jake stepped aside to let him pass. The guy held up his hands in a “Pardon me” gesture before peering more closely at Jake.
“Has anyone told you you look—”
“Henry!” Eleanor’s voice rose in pitch. She rounded the table and grabbed the man’s arm. “I have some questions about your last flour order.”
A crease appeared between his eyes. “My flour order?”
“Yes, you know, the one with the new stone-ground wheat you told me about.”
“Oh, that flour order.”
Eleanor tugged him toward the office, giving Jake a smile and a wave. “Good to see you…um, buddy. Come back soon!”
Henry shot Jake a puzzled frown before allowing Eleanor to drag him to the office. Ducking his head, Jake walked back outside. He tugged a baseball cap from his pocket, put it on, and pulled the brim low. Again he slipped on the heavy black-rimmed glasses that helped conceal his identity.
He had to remember he was playing a role. He could still be himself and have a good time with Callie, but these warm fuzzy feelings had to go.
Maybe he shoul
d write a speech or something. It’d be a good opportunity to rehearse, so to speak, and reinforce the line he had to keep between his attraction to her and his knowledge that he wasn’t telling her the full truth about her mother setting up their date.
Deflecting a stab of guilt, he continued walking. As an actor, he’d made a career out of lying and pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Why should he approach hanging out with Callie any differently? Yeah, it was harder than a part in a movie, but it would be good practice for the day a director hired him for a substantial, interesting role.
Not that Jake expected that role to land at his feet anytime soon, even if the role of Tom Dillon in Truth had resonated to his bones. Still, Richard was right—Conrad Birch wanted a real actor to play the role. Jake wouldn’t be considered a “real” actor with Blaze Ripley dogging him at every turn.
But would that dream ever die?
Chapter 10
For the next hour, Jake walked around town in disguise, taking photos and video of things that had changed and things that had stayed the same.
He photographed the wrought-iron balconies on the Mariposa Street buildings, the marquee and façade of the Vitaphone theater, and the portico of the Hotel Casa Grande, which had once been the only hotel in Bliss Cove.
Then he returned to Starfish Avenue to peruse the shops. Life and circumstances turned on a dime in Hollywood, so it was comforting to find that the central part of downtown was mostly as he remembered it.
He paused in front of a bookstore window displaying recent fiction hardcovers alongside a Help Wanted sign. The name Title Wave Books was etched on the glass.
Jake pushed open the door, and a little bell announced his arrival. A stubble-faced, dark-haired man in his thirties was stooped over the front desk. He glanced up without a smile.
“Morning,” Jake offered.
The guy nodded and returned to studying a newspaper crossword puzzle open on the counter. Taking off his cap, Jake studied the books stacked on the front tables.