It took over an hour to get everything in place. They’d ended up moving the furniture until it was just right, but the result was something Trent was beyond proud of. The movers left and Karri headed into the private kitchen to make dinner.
“It’s been a real pleasure, ma’am,” Trent said, holding out his hand.
Skye’s smile fell. “You can’t leave yet.” Trent looked around to see if something was out of place and Skye laughed. “No, everything is perfect. It’s just that this has been really nice. And maybe I’m overstepping. I don’t even know if you have a girlfriend, but I was hoping you’d stay for dinner. I have to thank you for your hard work.”
Trent didn’t know how to respond. Was she flirting?
“No girlfriend and I’d love to stay for dinner.”
“I’ll tell Karri to make an extra,” she said as she grabbed his hand and led him to the living room. “I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”
A minute later she was back and sat down on the couch next to him. Trent couldn’t believe how fast time flew and before he knew it, Karri was telling them dinner was ready.
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Trent.”
“Are you leaving?” he asked Karri, who nodded.
“I help coach a local lacrosse team. Skye and I played in college and we have practice tonight.
They said their goodbyes and he followed Skye into the kitchen. “How about we eat outside?”
“Sure.” Trent picked up the bottle of wine and his plate of food. He then followed Skye through an opened glass door to a pool patio that overlooked the cityscape.
Trent had been nervous, but he and Skye got along as if they’d known each other for years. She told him stories of growing up on a farm and he told her about the pirates of Shadows Landing. Hours went by. The sun had long since set yet they were still talking and laughing.
“When do you leave?” Skye asked as they reclined by the pool.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“So soon? Then we better make the most of tonight.” Skye bit her bottom lip and suddenly looked nervous. “I thought I was brave, but I’m not. I was going to kiss you.” Trent’s breath stopped and he forgot how to breathe. “But I chickened out. I’ve never been the type to make the first move. Am I crazy thinking that there’s something between us?”
“I thought I was crazy for thinking there was,” Trent admitted as he lifted his hand and brushed his fingers against her cheek before sliding his hand to cup the nape of her neck.
“Then let’s be crazy together,” Skye whispered. She tilted her face up and offered her lips to him. Trent didn’t hesitate to accept her gift.
In fact, he took everything she offered. She’d been right: there was something between them. Something that made her feel like home to him. Something that when she stood up and held out her hand, he knew he’d take it and never look back. Something that left them both calling out each other’s names multiple times that night. Something that was so strong that his heart had been irrevocably taken by Skye.
It wasn’t the morning sun that woke Trent. It was the feeling of not being alone in the giant house. Trent opened his eyes to see Skye sound asleep next to him. There was another sound and then footsteps coming toward them. Trent pulled the sheet over Skye’s nude body and jumped into his clothes as the door opened.
“Who the hell are you?” Trent asked as he put himself between the man and Skye.
“Lenny Daniels, Skye’s manager.” He was a little past middle-aged and had gotten a lot of Botox and probably some other work done over the years. He was fighting a losing battle against age, but he wasn’t waving the flag of defeat yet. “I think the better question is, where did she find you?”
Trent looked back at Skye. He didn’t like that Lenny had just walked into her room. Manager or not, he was still a man and she was still naked. Trent gestured with his chin to take it outside. Lenny made a face but moved out into the hall as Trent grabbed his shoes and met him.
“I’m Trent Faulkner, the furniture maker.”
“Figures. Skye loves her blue-collar men. Come with me.”
Trent followed the man who was in excellent shape, but even so, probably in clothes thirty years too young for him. Not that Trent was a fashionista, but the skinny jeans with loafers and no socks just wasn’t a good look.
They entered an office and Trent kept his eyes on Lenny as he pulled open a drawer and handed Trent a piece of paper. “Our standard NDA. I need your phone to make sure you didn’t take any pictures.”
Insulted wasn’t even touching what Trent felt. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, right,” Lenny said sarcastically. “And all the men before you wouldn’t ever do that because, what? You’re in love with Skye? Get real. She’s a celebrity and you’re a nobody. She doesn’t love you. She enjoys the worship your kind gives her. Now, sign the nondisclosure and you can be on your way.”
Trent shook his head. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t just a number. They’d connected. “I want to talk to Skye.”
Lenny looked at his watch and then back up at Trent. “Your time is up. It’s sad you don’t see that. Sign it and leave before things get awkward. Enjoy the night you had with America’s Sweetheart and know I’ll sue you for every penny you have if you ever tell anyone about this night.” Lenny paused and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. You probably think what happened was real. You think you had a connection. You didn’t. This is just Skye’s way. You are just the next in a long line of normal guys who have fallen for the glitz and glamour of it all.”
“Then why should I sign it? Why shouldn’t I go out and tell everyone she pretends to be this small town girl to get laid?” Trent asked, his heart hardening with every word Lenny spoke.
Lenny looked at him sympathetically and pushed forward the paper with a pen lying on top of it. “Because deep down you care for her and don’t want her hurt. I’m sorry.”
Trent looked down at the paper. Had it all been fake?
“Did she tell you she grew up on a farm? That she sought solace at the reservation in college because there was just something about family that gave her peace? That she never does this? That she never feels this way about a man after just meeting him?”
Trent listened to Lenny’s words and his heart broke in two. He silently picked up the pen, signed the paper, and walked out. He never wanted to hear from Skye Jessamine ever again. He was a fool for falling for her. Even more a fool for thinking someone like her actually saw him for who he was and adored him for it. Trent hardened his heart. He was a fool no more.
1
The smell of fall was heavy in the air. Even in Shadows Landing, South Carolina, Trent could smell the season’s arrival. The leaves were changing, the air was less humid, and grills were fired up for tailgating before football games. He’d spent last night in his workshop, building a new piece of furniture for his new line that was about to be picked up for national production. It had been months . . . shoot, almost a year at this point, but Skye Jessamine still haunted every minute of his life.
She had a movie coming out in a month and her face was on every magazine cover, her voice on every radio talk show, and her picture on every billboard. Then there were the TV talk shows, the interviews, and the ads running for the movie. Trent felt as if he literally couldn’t escape her.
And there were her texts. Still, even after all this time. Trent received a text from Skye once or twice a week. Thinking of you. What are you up to? He’d never responded, yet she’d kept texting. Sometimes she’d tell him about her day or send a funny selfie. He hated to admit it, but he looked forward to each text she sent. He’d eagerly look at his phone only to feel the betrayal of being just one of many.
Karri had even come a couple of weeks after he’d left California without so much as a “see ya.” She’d brought a gift basket full of all the things he’d told Skye he loved. Bourbon, books, even a tool he’d been thinking about getting. Trent had looked at Kar
ri and shoved it back at her.
“I don’t understand,” Karri had said to him.
“You don’t need to buy my silence. I won’t sell my story,” Trent had said back to her as if he wasn’t in pain.
Karri had looked at him questioningly then. “Look, just talk to her. Please. She’s my best friend and I’ve never seen her like this.”
“Like what?” Trent had asked.
“In love.”
Karri had spun around and left. The gift basket was at his feet as she drove away. Had he been wrong? Was Skye in love with him? He’d pulled up her text and stared at it. All he’d need to do is type and send two letters— “hi” and he knew she would reply.
Instead of texting her, Trent googled her. She’d released a new interview and desperate to hear her voice, he’d watched it. Then he’d heard her say she was leaving to film in Europe.
“What kind of impact does all this travel have on your personal life?” the interviewer had asked.
“What personal life?” Skye laughed and memories of their night together flashed before him. “No, but seriously, I don’t have time to date. Right now my career comes first.”
So Trent had put down the phone and never picked it up again . . . except to look at the news alerts. He still couldn’t stop wanting to know how Skye was doing. Now, even months later, Trent picked up his phone when it sounded with a news alert. He clicked on the article and there was a picture of Skye smiling as Hollywood’s leading man hugged her tightly to him. Love on the set of Skye Jessamine and Mason Hemming’s new movie!
Trent turned off the phone and set it down, vowing to be done with Skye Jessamine.
“Still pining away?”
Trent rolled his eyes as his cousin Ryker’s voice came from the door of his woodshop. Trent had opened the bay doors to allow the fall air in as he worked. Unfortunately, that also allowed nosy cousins to sneak up on him.
“I am working with pine. How did you know?” Trent asked innocently as he looked down at the wood he was shaping into a rustic headboard.
“I meant for the actress.”
Trent turned around and saw his cousin standing with his hands in the pockets of what had to be a handmade suit. To say Ryker, business tycoon extraordinaire, was out of place in his wood shop was an understatement. “Did you need something?” Trent asked, ignoring the question about Skye.
“Yeah, you’re late for dinner.”
Trent’s head fell back as he groaned. “I forgot. I was so wrapped up in this piece.”
“Piece of something.” Ryker was determined to push, but Trent wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “We all ate, but we’re hanging out at Harper’s. Come on, let’s go.”
Trent took off his safety goggles and stripped the gloves from his hands. “I need to shower.”
Ryker shook his head. “Gator and Turtle just got back from the swamp, so no need to worry about showering. You can’t possibly smell worse than they do.”
“Okay, but please no Skye talk.”
Ryker shrugged his shoulders and walked out, leaving Trent to shut down his shop and hurry after him.
“Did you see that article about Skye dating her co-star?” Trent’s cousin Tinsley asked the second he entered the bar owned by his cousin Harper.
The Faulkner cousins wasn’t an especially large group. There were seven of them, but the seven were quickly expanding as they married. There was Trent and his brother, Wade, who was in the Coast Guard. Wade was married to Darcy, an oceanic-treasure hunter. Then there was his doctor cousin, Gavin Faulkner, and his wife, Ellery, who ran an art gallery. Gavin’s little sister, Harper, owned the bar and her husband, Dare, was with the ATF. Tinsley was an artist and her older brother, Ridge, an architect and builder, had married Savannah not too long ago. Ryker was an only child and it showed. He liked things his way so it was good that he ran who knew how many companies. Trent knew about the shipping company but also knew there were many other companies and “business interests” that Ryker either owned a part of or ran outright. That expanding family now meant way more people to butt into his private life.
“I heard it was that Mason fella. He’s been in the news saying all these great things about her,” Gator said from the bar as he hooked a thumb into his overalls. Gator was aptly named since the mountain of a man in overalls and a worn ball cap did actually wrestle alligators.
“That’s a right good-lookin’ man if I can say so,” Turtle, Gator’s little-in-every-way cousin, said back. Women sighed in agreement. Even the men nodded their heads.
Gator took a swig of beer and set the mug on the bar. “I don’t think any man can compete with that.”
“Did you see Mason in Spring’s Redeeming Bloom?” Turtle asked, and the women all blushed and began to fan themselves. “They showed him bathing in a creek. And I mean they showed him . . . his little turtle and all.”
“It was wicked hot and not little in the slightest,” Georgina, the bartender, said, waving her hand in front of her face.
Gator groaned. “Miss Georgie, I know you’re from up there in the north somewhere, but you’ve been here long enough to start makin’ sense.”
“I said, ‘wicked’ again, didn’t I?” Georgie bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling as if she were thinking. Georgina Grey was from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Gator thought she was speaking another language. “Let’s see, Mason Hemming is finer than frog hair split four ways?”
Gator saluted her with his beer. “Now I know what you’re talking about.”
Georgina beamed with approval and Trent was ready to leave.
“Now, I’ll grant you that Mason Hemming is someone you’d write home about,” Tinsley said to them all before turning to Trent. “However, just because the paper says they’re together doesn’t mean they are. Is she still texting you?”
“I don’t want to talk about Skye Jessamine,” Trent said between clenched teeth. He loved his family and town, really, but this was too much. “G, I’ll take a bourbon. Straight up. Make it a double.”
“That’ll wet your whistle,” Georgina said and then winked at Gator and Turtle who golf-clapped for her use of an expression they understood.
Trent took a seat with his family. Everyone stared at him. Trent let out a suffering sigh. “Yes, she texted me a picture of her on set this morning. She said it was her last day of filming. Then next month starts her press tour for her movie coming out then. She told me she’ll be in Atlanta doing press and wondered how far it was from Shadows Landing.”
“See!” Tinsley shouted joyfully.
“See what?” Trent asked as Georgina set the bourbon down in front of him.
“She still likes you,” Harper said without hesitation.
“Strange way to show it,” Trent muttered.
“It’s probably a fake relationship. I’ve read about those,” Savannah told them.
Darcy and Tinsley nodded in agreement.
“You need to talk to her. Find out what’s going on. I know God gave you some common sense. Use it,” Ellery told him and again everyone nodded in agreement.
Trent glared at her and then suddenly her face crumpled up and she burst into tears. “Sweet magnolia! I’m so sorry. These pregnancy hormones make me say the darnedest things.”
Gavin looked concerned as he pulled his pregnant wife against his side and promised Trent wasn’t mad. Now he couldn’t even be irritated with Ellery since she sat there crying buckets as she held her slightly rounded belly. What made him smile though was the look of abject fear on Ryker’s face.
“I have a call I need to make,” Ryker said as he was out of his chair and out the door before anyone could tell him he’d left his phone on the table.
“She’s right,” Harper said to Trent as everyone tried to cheer Ellery up. Harper and Trent had always been close. They both had the same no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is personalities. Then Harper met Dare and she’d changed. Not in a bad way, but the protective shell around her heart
had melted. Trent didn’t like to think about it, but most of his cousins had changed as they found love. They were happier, lighter, and more comfortable with who they were. Trent was envious because as they talked about love, he knew he’d felt it once and then lost it all in one night.
“Trent,” Harper said, getting his attention again. “You’ve never backed down from anything. You were the first one to enter a fight to protect any one of us. You never quit chasing your dreams even when every roadblock possible was thrown at you. So why are you backing down now? Let me guess, because I have some experience—it’s scary as hell. When I started the bar, it was scary to invest everything I had in it. What did you tell me?”
Dammit. Harper did know him well. “The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.”
Harper grinned. “That’s putting it nicely. I remember something along the lines of ‘grow a pair’”
“I’ll think about talking to her, okay?” Trent finally relented.
“You know you taught me that trick.”
“What trick?”
“The one where you promise to think about it but not do it.”
Trent winked at her and shot the rest of his bourbon. He could promise to think about it since thinking of Skye was all he’d been doing since California.
“Here, Ellery. Will this help?” Georgina asked as she put a Shirley Temple in front of her with extra cherries. Ellery promptly burst into a new round of tears over the nice gesture.
The door opened and Skeeter walked in wearing oversized jeans and a sweatshirt two sizes too big for his frame. He looked around, shuddered, and narrowed his eyes at Ellery. “Miss Ellery, you’ve done scared the ghosts out of here with your caterwauling.”
Everyone sucked in a breath and stared in horror as Ellery froze. Then her lips parted and a laugh burst out. “Y’all, I am so sorry. Gavin said it’d get better the farther along I get.”
Gavin leaned back and tried to look innocent. That caused the rest of them to laugh. Tinsley asked about the baby, the married couples looked at each other as if having a silent discussion about babies, and Ryker poked his head back in. He returned to the table when he saw the tears were gone.
Broken Shadows: Shadows Landing #5 Page 2