Homecoming Hearts Series Collection

by HJ Welch

  That had to change as of now. No more men, at least for the time being. Ashby needed to work out who he really was. What his passions were. What made him happy. It might take him a month, a year or even longer. But he was determined that he was going to start treating himself as whole outside of a couple.

  There was nothing quite like that first breath of fresh air after stepping off a plane, whether the flight had been one hour or twenty. He smiled as he inhaled deeply, then turned to his lovely redheaded attendant. “Thank you,” he said, giving her a quick hug. She giggled again.

  “Aw, shucks, hon,” she said, swatting his arm. “You have a great vacation now.”

  He waved her goodbye then trundled onwards with the other weary passengers. It was midafternoon local time, but back home it was already creeping up to bedtime. He yawned and vowed to get a coffee as soon as possible. He’d much rather have a soothing cup of tea, but that would absolutely send him to sleep in the taxicab when he needed to stay alert and reset his body clock.

  Once he’d reclaimed his suitcase and poured several sugars in his mocha he stepped out of the small airport into the snowy evening and immediately gasped in horror. It was bitterly cold, and he suddenly wished he’d changed into his thermals in the bathroom beforehand. The wind burned his face and he hastily dropped his suitcase to the ground and carefully placed his coffee beside it to rummage through its contents for extra scarves, a pair of gloves and a hat.

  Slightly better protected, he zipped the suitcase back up with trembling hands and clutched his coffee to his chest like it might keep his heart beating if the cold tried to freeze it solid. “Bugger me,” he said emphatically, stamping his feet and startling a middle-aged American couple as they walked past.

  Evening was settling, so no wonder it was getting colder. If he stayed still much longer he was going to turn into an icicle. So he rallied himself and dragged his enormous suitcase over to the taxi line and tried not to shiver apart as he waited for his turn to slide into a car.

  “Oh, thank god,” he said as he was enveloped by the cab’s blissfully warm interior air. The driver secured Ashby’s suitcase in the back of the car then scurried around to get behind the wheel. “It’s a bit chilly out there, isn’t it?” Ashby commented with a laugh.

  The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror like Ashby had lost his marbles. “It’s snowing,” he said, like Ashby might not have noticed.

  Ashby chuckled quietly to himself as they pulled away from the curb. “It certainly is.”

  At home, he would have been alarmed by such weather. London may have survived the Blitz, but an inch of snow could cause utter bloody chaos. And where Ashby had spent most of his childhood growing up in Singapore, they didn’t even have seasons. It was always just warm. So he couldn’t help but press his nose to the window and look outside in wonder at the swathes of snow.

  “You on vacation?” the cabbie grunted in a more-or-less friendly manner. He looked at Ashby in the rearview mirror again. There was a small dreamcatcher swinging from it with beautiful topaz blue stones woven into the design.

  Ashby beamed at him. It tickled him that there were so many different words Americans used. He’d have to try and pick up as much of the lingo as possible and blend in. It wasn’t his first trip to the States by far, but he’d forgotten a lot of the little intricacies of daily life here.

  “I’m on holiday – vacation – yes,” he said. “I’ve never been to Wyoming before.”

  The truth was he’d never been skiing before. He’d been to the Alps plenty of times growing up, but he had just indulged in the social side of things. He was always too afraid to fling himself down the side of a mountain. But he felt silly admitting that to a stranger.

  Maybe this would be the holiday that changed his mind, though? He was here to find himself, after all. He needed to be brave and try new things.

  “You’re staying at the Grand?” the cabbie asked.

  His voice had a bit of an accent to it that Ashby couldn’t trace. But he spoke English very well, so Ashby admired him as much as he did anyone who attempted a second language. Unlike his mother, who spoke seven languages fluently and could immediately pick up phrases in any other she pleased, Ashby was hopeless. He could barely say hello in anything other than English.

  “Um, yes,” he replied. “I think that’s what it’s called. It should be the only resort in that region.”

  It was the only anything in that region. There were a few tiny towns if you drove out for half an hour or so, but other than that, the site was self-sufficient. Exactly why Ashby had chosen it. He needed to go somewhere free from distractions.

  The cabbie didn’t say any more after that. He just turned up the radio a little and Ashby continued to gaze out the window at the falling twilight as he sipped his coffee. He’d never been on holiday alone before. He’d always gone with family, friends, or, in the past two years, Gordon. Gordon liked booking everything and taking charge of the passports, wrangling Ashby like a sheep that needed herding. He often joked that Ashby could never go anywhere without him.

  Ha! Well, Ashby would show him. He’d managed to get across a whole ocean on his own, find his own hotel, book everything online. He hadn’t gotten lost or slipped up once.

  That was, until they pulled up outside the supposedly Grand Resort.

  Ashby looked out through the window at the dimly lit lodge. Several of the light bulbs over the main entrance were out and what little illumination there was allowed Ashby to see the peeling paint and cracked sign above the door.

  His mouth slowly dropped open. No wonder this place was famed for its quietness.

  No bastard had visited it since 1998.

  3

  Trent

  Trent walked down the brightly lit corridor with a sense of dread weighing him down. His legs felt hollow and his hangover was making his stomach roll and his hands shake. He’d really blown it this time.

  His manager worked for an agency that represented actors in film, theater, television and anything else in between. They had some pretty big names on their books, most of whom had their portraits framed along the very corridor Trent was trudging his way down. He stopped at the print of his own face, his expression mischievous. The cultivated bad boy who ladies wanted to bed and men wanted to be.

  Well, he wasn’t so much bad boy now as borderline deviant. Thank fuck Dez Starr hadn’t wanted to press charges. It made him look like the bigger, better man if he dropped his claim. But that didn’t mean Trent wasn’t still in a whole load of shit.

  He knocked with a sense of trepidation.

  “It’s open,” the gravelly voice snapped from beyond the wooden door.

  Trent sighed and turned the handle, letting himself in.

  Barry Barsky was a heavy-set man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a razor-sharp eye for detail. As was usual when he was awake, he was puffing on a cigar, the smoke from which had permeated every nook and cranny of his office, despite the supervisor giving him countless reminders that this was a no-smoking building.

  Barry pointed the smoldering cigar at Trent as he closed the door behind him.

  “Sit,” he barked. “Now.” His voice sounded like a cement mixer after so many decades of destroying it with smoking. The man was a cockroach though, or at least Trent had always affectionately thought so. He’d be here long after the apocalypse took the rest of the world out. There was no destroying Barry Barsky, god love him.

  Although it felt some days like Trent was doing his best to try.

  “What the actual fuck?” Barry rasped as loudly as his voice would go.

  He jabbed the cigar toward Trent again, little flecks of ash drifting down onto the overloaded desk. Trent wasn’t sure how he got any work done when his computer was buried under so many files and contracts and magazines. One of which he picked up and thrust into Trent’s face. He winced at the front page, which showed a split image of him punching Dez and then him being led away by the cops in cuffs.

>   “The guy’s a jerk,” Trent mumbled into the back of his knuckles as he rested his elbow on the chair’s arm.

  Barry slammed the magazine back down again and blinked his big blue eyes at Trent. They stood out from behind the gray-black whiskers that encompassed the rest of his face. If it wasn’t for the two-thousand-dollar suit, he could have passed quite nicely for anyone’s lovable but slightly crazy unemployed uncle.

  “A jerk?” Barry repeated. “Of course he’s a jerk. This is Tinseltown, everyone’s a fucking jerk. You’re a jerk, all these guys are!”

  He flung his arm out and indicated the many framed photos he had on his wall of all the talent he’d represented over the years and the A-list directors and producers he considered buddies. Four walls dominated by Barry shaking hands with Hollywood’s best known from the last three decades.

  Trent had yet to make it onto one of these particular walls. Barry was still unconvinced he had what it took to be a real name. And as it turned out, he was probably right.

  “There’s a difference between jerks with Emmys and jerks standing in lineups,” Barry griped. “You feel me, kid?”

  Trent grumbled again and folded his arms.

  Barry sighed and leaned back in his gigantic leather chair, bouncing on the springs. “Look,” he said, his voice gentler. He puffed on the cigar. “I’m not an idiot. I know what the date was. I can guess the kind of thing that prick Starr said. But you can’t let him get under your skin.”

  Trent just shrugged.

  Barry huffed. “Okay, look, I put out the Elsie Hadden fire. Turns out she’s not even pregnant. She just gained a couple of pounds and a so-called gal-pal ran to the press thinking she had a scoop after she caught her drinking a soda instead of vodka for once.” He rolled his eyes. “Some friend. No idea why they picked you to pin the bump on. But, whatever, it’s over.”

  “Thank you,” Trent muttered.

  Barry toyed with his cigar for a few moments, flicking it against an already full crystal ashtray. “You wanna talk about it, kid?”

  “No,” Trent said immediately.

  Barry sighed. “Well, if you don’t want to talk to me, you might have to talk to someone. Anyone. This shit was already getting out of hand before you got charged with assault.”

  “Dez dropped the charges,” Trent countered. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” Barry told him firmly, taking another drag. “For the past two years you’ve been drowning in booze and women, and it’s not working.”

  “I’ve always done that,” Trent argued.

  He tried for his signature cheeky grin, but Barry’s expression remained stony, so he dropped it. Seriously, though. What was the big deal? He’d been Below Zero’s ‘bad boy’ when they were in the band, and that reputation had got him his first few film roles without even trying. Everyone knew he was a daredevil and did all his own stunts. After The Fixer had come out over Christmas, he was tipped to be the new Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, Jason Statham.

  He’d almost hoped that the incident with Dez might be good press if they could spin it right. But obviously, Barry wasn’t seeing it like that.

  “It was cute in the beginning,” Barry said, shaking his head. “But that was before you started showing up on set drunk or hungover or somewhere in between. Before you picked fights with sound operators-”

  “That guy was a lecherous prick,” Trent interrupted.

  Barry continued as if Trent hadn’t spoken, “-and before you broke the heart of every girl you came into contact with. Actresses, runners, makeup artists. For fuck’s sake, TJ. No one is stopping you from having sex. But, come on. Are all these girls so terrible you can’t stand to look at them again the morning after?”

  That was harsh, but Trent couldn’t bring himself to argue. He’d tried to make it work with dozens of women over the past couple of years. But every time he’d talked himself out of it, sabotaging a good thing before anything could get too serious. He knew he was doing it. He just couldn’t seem to stop.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asked Barry, probably with a bit more growl than was necessary.

  Barry wasn’t where he was in this industry by being Mr. Nice Guy, though.

  He leaned forward on his elbows, cigar still expertly balanced between two fingers even as he clasped his hands together. “I want you to admit that you’ve never gotten over your mom’s death. And rather than deal with the shit with your dad, your toxic fury has seeped out into every other aspect of your life until you’re in danger of destroying the lot.” He took a long, slow drag on the cigar. “Am I close?”

  “Fuck you,” Trent mumbled, looking down into his lap. There wasn’t any real venom to his words, however, and he knew Barry wouldn’t take it that way.

  Barry waited to speak until Trent pushed his hair back and glanced up at his manager again. “Kid,” he rasped, his gravelly voice even heavier than usual. “You know there ain’t a fire I can’t turn into a bake sale. But I’m tired of this fucking shit. You’re going to implode, and the sorry truth is I kinda like you. I’d rather not wake up one morning and read that you’ve OD’d or are serving life for killing some asshole in a bar fight.”

  Try as he might, Trent couldn’t help but be touched by Barry’s concern. He managed to twitch the corner of his mouth into a smile that he hoped conveyed his appreciation.

  “So?” he prompted.

  “So,” Barry said, resting his cigar on the tray. He laced his stubby fingers together and rested them on his rotund belly. “I’m giving you a break. Three months. You don’t have anything major planned until then, and you need to go get your head screwed on straight.”

  Trent frowned at him and pulled at a loose thread from one of the rips in his jeans. “What am I supposed to do until then?”

  Barry raised a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “Go home,” he said, like it was obvious. “Go back to Wyoming and talk to your dad. Scream, hug, I don’t give a shit. Get some fresh air and give your liver a damn break. Stop for a fucking minute.”

  That sounded horrendous. Trent narrowed his eyes at Barry and wondered if there was any way he was going to be able to wriggle out of this.

  “You’re not wriggling out of this,” Barry drawled, deadpan.

  Trent huffed and flopped back in his chair. “I haven’t got anything to say to my dad,” he said, pulling at the thread on his jeans again. “He’s the one who wants to hide up in the mountains in that god-awful hotel.”

  “You make it sound like The Shining,” Barry said. Trent raised a signature eyebrow at him and glowered. Barry held up his hands. “Hey, what do I know? It’s not my fault your old man lives in the last place god ever created. If he lived in the Hamptons, would you have gone and hashed this out with him already?” Trent shrugged. “That’s what I thought.”

  “So, I’m supposed to spend three months at a ski resort?” Trent grunted.

  Barry shook his head, rolling his cigar around in the tray. It had gone out. “If it takes that long. If you’re singing kumbaya and making father-son fishing trip plans after a month, I’d say you could come home. But I don’t think that’s likely, do you?”

  Trent rubbed the stubble on his chin. Three months was a quarter of the year. He’d only just made a big name for himself. Fixer 2 wasn’t a done deal. “You want me to sit on my ass and let the contracts go by?”

  Barry chuckled. “Kid,” he admonished. “Like I’d let you go cold. You can still do interviews over the phone and audition by tape if something juicy comes up. But you’ve got that goofball football-player-turned-spy film shooting in the summer, and Fixer 2’s in the bag.”

  “Yeah?” Trent said, his hope rising.

  Barry picked up his dead cigar and box of matches. “Yes. But only if we can reform your image. No more asshole TJ Charles. Lovable scamp, yes, great. Dickhead who doesn’t care who he hurts around him is a much harder sell.”

  Trent chewed his lip. Forget his public image. He didn’t want to become that person for
real. He was tired of letting people down and breaking hearts. “Okay,” he said.

  Barry smiled as he relit the cigar then puffed out a couple of clouds of smoke. “Good boy,” he said. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll meet a nice local girl to calm you down. A bit of stability would do you the world of good.”

  Trent hated to admit it, but his heart ached at the thought. It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked most of the girls he’d hooked up with. Hell, he even thought he might have loved a few of them. But he was no good being in a couple. He always felt stifled after a while, scared that if he committed he’d just end up disappointing them.

  But who knew? Maybe Barry was right. Maybe the Grand Resort, Wyoming, was where he’d meet the true love of his life.

  He doubted it, but it was a nice thought.

  4

  Ashby

  For a split second, Ashby considered asking his driver to turn around and take him somewhere, anywhere else. But he looked a little closer at the resort and decided that, really, it wasn’t that bad.

  In fact, it had probably been utterly charming once upon a time. But it had obviously been a while since anyone had shown this place some TLC. That didn’t mean it was bad. The reviews had been good, after all. It was just a bit run down.

  Ashby was here to get away from his usual life, and that included the trappings of ridiculous wealth he’d known his whole life. He wanted somewhere peaceful, and if that meant his lodgings were less than luxurious, he could manage.

  “It’ll be like camping,” he said to himself as he bundled back up in his scarves. His driver had already gotten out of the car to fetch Ashby’s suitcase. So he glanced at the meter to get the right money out before he braved the snow again, adding a generous tip. “I’m sure everything will be fine once we take a peek inside.”

  His driver thanked him for the cash he handed over, then hopped straight back in the car to escape the cold. Ashby took a moment to absorb the Grand Resort in all its glory before the wind got too much for him to bear.