“So, what now?”
Her former sassiness had vanished, probably at the same time she’d realized they were stranded here with the tide coming in.
“Now we walk.”
“Back to the fishermen’s cottages?”
“Someone there should be able to give us a tow.”
She worried her bottom lip with an eye tooth. “But your car…”
Waves tumbled over the outcropping of rocks where they’d stood fishing, moving steadily closer to where rock pools met beach.
“The tideline looks as if it doesn’t come up this high. The car will be fine.”
“So, we’ll find a friendly fisherman and be on our way.”
Glen shook his head. “Even if we get a tow, we won’t get past the reef until the next outgoing tide.”
Which was hours away. Hours. Away.
Savannah swiped her knuckles across her mouth, and he couldn’t help following them like a dog tracking a bone.
“Nate will never let you live this down.”
“We finally agree on something.” He moved away from her, brushing the sand from his tee shirt and shorts. “You’d better grab your shirt. It’s starting to cool down.”
Because if Savannah met an old fisherman in only her swimsuit and cut-off jeans, they could be out of a ride when the guy went into cardiac arrest.
Chapter 5
They followed their tire tracks, gulls wheeling overhead, silvery waves hissing and retreating on the beach. The light changed hue from hazy blue to warm gold as dusk grew closer.
Glen tried to see, hear, and smell everything at once in case he needed to incorporate a beach scene into his book—at the same time remaining hyper-aware of Savannah at his side. She’d said little since he’d locked the car and they’d set out along the beach. He ran a hand through his hair, grimacing as grit drifted out and sprinkled onto his shoulders. Shower and cold beer were at the top of his to-do list once he got home.
“That was nice, what you did for Drew today,” he said finally.
She faltered, breaking the rhythm of their steps along the sand. “I’m kind of clumsy.”
“Not that clumsy.” He grinned over at her. “You threw the snapper like a rugby ball.”
“Drew would’ve been devastated if you and his dad saw him cry over the fish.”
“You acted convincing enough to make him believe it was an accident.”
“I’ll be sure to remind my director of that award-winning performance next time he lists all of my flaws.” She flicked her ponytail over her shoulder.
“I’m sure you don’t have many flaws in front of the camera.”
“That’s when all my flaws show up—at least, according to Julius Santiago. Ten pounds looks like twenty on the big screen. And without Botox, I can just pass for a college freshman, while Hayley Snow could be mistaken for a high school freshman. Damn—bitch alert.” Her neck muscles corded, straining as she shook her head. “Santiago is the best. I’m sure he made the right decision for the movie.”
Glen moistened his lips, which had strangely glued together. He was probably risking his life, but— “You’re saying Santiago replaced you because he thought you were…?” He chickened out, waving a hand vaguely at her.
Any man who didn’t need coke-bottle lens glasses could see Savannah was explosively sexy.
She stopped dead, fisted a hand on her hip and jutted her chin. “Too old and fat? Yeah, that’s exactly what he said, except his words were coated in Hollywood sugar, which didn’t, by the way, make the truth any easier to swallow.”
“The guy’s a moron, and so is his skewed idea of the truth.”
“He’s an experienced director who’s won a number of awards in the industry.”
“Doesn’t make him any less of a moron. But I don’t have to tell you you’re neither over the hill nor in need of a diet.”
Her lush mouth flat-lined and her breathing sped up. He kept his hand clenched at his side when it dearly wanted to tug his shirt away from his neck. Shit. No one liked hearing the four-letter D word.
“I’m not fishing for compliments,” she said.
If telling her she wasn’t old or overweight was the only compliment Savannah expected from him, Glen was off his game more than he realized.
“I’ve been offered the chance to audition for a new sitcom shooting this summer,” she added.
Ah. So she’d been reading a new script on her lounge chair the past two days.
“Not a movie?”
She slanted him a thin-lipped smile that didn’t warm her eyes. “How the mighty have fallen. The only movies I can expect a part in now are the ones that go straight to DVD. My best chance is getting a spot on this sitcom and working my way up the ladder. That’s why I’m here—to prepare for this audition.”
They continued walking, rounding the curve of rocks into a long, straight stretch of beach. In the distance, a thin trail of smoke oozed out of a chimney from a beach house set a short distance in front of the imposing dunes. A fisherman’s cottage. Nearly there.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and pictured Savannah, in her award-nominated role as a teenager with terminal cancer, hamming it up in front of a live studio audience. Nup, it didn’t sit right.
Though watching her wrestle with Daisy in the mud had been damn funny.
“You’re moving into comedy?”
“My agent says the show’s rumored to be today’s version of Friends, but with kids.”
“Really?”
“Worked for Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox.”
A rough sound of dismissal rumbled out of his throat. “But what about what you’re working on in Auckland? The casino show.”
She paused, sending him another one of those sideways glances. “You’ve watched it?”
A shimmer of hopeful expectation in her tone made him roll his taut shoulders, dig his hands deeper into his pockets. “No. I heard a couple of staff discussing it. I don’t watch much TV… sorry.” About as diplomatic as he could be.
While Savannah’s ego probably didn’t need any more boosting from adoring males, he wasn’t a complete and utter insensitive bastard.
Years ago, Jamie and Erin dragged him to a re-showing of Savannah’s award-nominated film. He’d squirmed during the one hundred and thirty minute feature, his heart working overtime, pounding against a ribcage that felt chiseled from granite. It’d been an uncomfortable experience—partly due to pride in her abilities, partly due to regret at the way things had turned out, and partly out of simple horniness at how damn beautiful she’d looked. For his own sanity, he’d refused to see any of her other movies.
She laughed, but the thin edge of hurt rang through the sound. “I guess formulaic New Zealand soaps aren’t your thing?”
“Afraid not.”
They walked another minute in silence.
“So, what’s the part you’re auditioning for?” he asked.
Savannah made a small sound in the back of her throat, a dull-pink flush appearing above her shirt collar.
“Charlotte Malone. She’s a college dropout with the same IQ as her bra size—with a heart of gold, of course.”
“Of course.”
Savannah dragged a strand of toffee-colored hair across her lips and out of her mouth, forcing Glen to wrench his gaze away and concentrate on placing one foot in front of the other.
“She drops out of college to play mom to her brother and sister—a teenage boy with attitude, and a pigtails-and-freckles seven-year-old. Yeah, it’s not razor-honed wit and originality by any stretch—but it’s a starting point.”
“You’re confident you’ll get it?”
“If I can lose twenty pounds by the time I fly out to audition.”
Glen’s gut flipped in a sickening tumble. “Twenty pounds? You’ll be skin and bones.”
She shrugged, her eyes front and center, jaw sharp enough to split logs on. He kept pace, a chill working its way down his spine. The whole low-fat-milk-droo
ling-over-his-muffin-eating-tofu-sausages made sense now. It also made him feel a complete ass when he knew first-hand, thanks to his baby sister, about the horrors of eating disorders.
“That’s a lot of weight to lose in a short amount of time,” he said quietly.
“Twenty pounds is to show the producers I’m prepared to work my butt off for the role—literally work my butt off.”
She flicked a glance down with a grimace, and he followed her gaze. Wasn’t anything wrong with her butt, so far as he could tell.
“If I get the part, I’ll have to maintain that weight for the duration of the series. In sitcom worlds, college students don’t come in sizes above a six.”
And lose all those delicious curves he couldn’t keep his eyes off? No-no-no-no. Glen gave himself a mental bitch-slap. Her curves—or lack thereof—were none of his business.
“I need to nail it,” she said. “Go hard or go home.”
Determination gritted her tone, layered over a hint of doubt that maybe she didn’t have what it took. She’d had that same edge in her voice the night a teenaged Savannah looked him dead in the eye and announced she’d be famous one day. He’d believed her, regardless of the fumes wafting off her breath that were potent enough to fail a breathalyzer test from ten paces.
She wasn’t the only one on intimate terms with the demon of self-doubt.
Glen squinted at the horizon and fought a surge of empathy. An offer of representation from a literary agent wasn’t in the same league as scoring a role in a hit sitcom, but he had his own agenda, his own needs. She’d blasted into his life only three days ago, and already his rigid schedule was disintegrating, because while she wanted to nail her audition, he wanted to nail her.
And if his below-par acting skills could convince his heart that sex was the only aspect of his distraction with Savannah, he’d get his damn book finished.
***
They made it to the cottage without bloodshed. Savannah heaved out a sigh. A good sign.
She patted the three dogs greeting them with yips and frenzied tail wagging. Glen walked ahead to speak to an elderly man with a bucket in one hand who’d appeared around the side of the house. The man laughed, slapping Glen’s shoulder before nodding behind him to the parked tractor.
Glen gestured her over and introduced her to Robbie, who offered her a toothy smile and a wink.
“No worries, love. You’ll join us for some kai while you wait for the tide to turn. Got a beauty cray and some tuatuas.” Robbie shook the bucket.
Claws skittered on the plastic, and Sav jumped, uttering a little squeak.
Robbie chuckled. “Yeah, he’s a frisky one all right. C’mon in, the missus will put the kettle on.”
They followed Robbie into the cottage, which was small but surprisingly cozy. Warmth enveloped the combination living and kitchen areas, thanks to an old-fashioned woodstove. The three dogs trotted over to their beds by the fire and slumped down as if they’d been for a hard run. A silvery-haired woman chopped vegetables at a counter beside the woodstove, and she laid down her knife with a welcoming smile.
“Got stranded, did you?”
“Yeah,” Glen replied. “And I’ll be hearing about it for the next ten years, at least.”
The smile he offered the woman caused Sav a little twinge. Charming, guileless, sincere. She hadn’t seen that smile on him before, just a wary or sarcastic shadow of it.
“Josie, this is Nate’s mate, from the city,” Robbie said. “Nate’s the bloke who’s with the pretty chickie and her little boy up on the hill a ways—”
Josie cut off her husband with a timeless glance of spousal exasperation. “I know who Nate is. And it’s Lauren, not some pretty chickie. She helped out with the Women’s Refuge fundraiser we organized a few months back.” The older woman’s sharp brown gaze zeroed in on Savannah. “And I’d recognize you anywhere. You’re Savannah Payne.”
Once, being recognized by a complete stranger would’ve filled her with a delicious thrill of accomplishment. Now, the thrill was often dampened by hollow dread. She could usually count down from recognition to judgment in three, two, one…
She braced her bare feet on the wooden floor then froze, tingles racing up and down her body. Glen had moved to her side, her peripheral vision revealing a tense, ready-for-anything stance. As if in a small way, he offered support and strength. Crazy thought.
Savannah arranged her mouth in an easy grin. “Yep, that’s me.”
Robbie looked from his wife to Savannah and back again, his brow furrowing. Not Josie. She knew all about Savannah—and more than just her acting career. It was written in the small tightening of muscles around the other woman’s mouth.
Then her lips relaxed, and her brown eyes creased into soft wrinkles. “It’s not every day a movie star turns up on our doorstep.” Josie gestured to the large couch bracketed by two armchairs. “Sit yourselves down, while I put on the kettle. We’ll have a cuppa, and then Robbie will boil up that crayfish for supper.”
“We wouldn’t want to impose…” Savannah said.
Both Robbie and Josie laughed.
“Nah, it’s no bother,” said Robbie. “We usually end up with unexpected guests once or twice a month when someone gets stuck. More in the summer.” He patted the back of the couch. “Take a load off. Gingernut won’t bite.”
Glen and Savannah sat on the couch, side by side, since the last third of the cushion was monopolized by a large orange tabby cat.
“So, movie star, eh?” Robbie lowered himself into an armchair, the seat with a man-sized permanent groove in the cushion and a stack of rugby magazines beside it. “Don’t see many of those around here. Or was Josie pulling my leg?”
Uncomfortably aware of the warmth emanating from the man next to her, Savannah angled her body away from Glen into the couch’s arm. “I don’t think of myself as a movie star.”
She winced. Just saying the words movie star shouted a gauche look-at-me, when all she really wanted was to hide. To sit in this cozy living room and be plain old Savannah Davis for a while.
A kettle clanked on the woodstove behind them.
“She’s an actor.” Josie tapped her husband on the shoulder. “She’s on that TV show I watch every Friday night.”
Robbie’s face scrunched up. “Sorry, love. Not my thing. I’m more of an armchair sportsman.”
Savannah chuckled. “It’s not really a guy kind of program.”
Josie came around the couch and moved a big basket of yarn off the second armchair.
“Anyway”—Josie flicked a hand—“are you a friend of Nate and Lauren too? They’re good people, and Drew’s a right little cutiepie.”
“He is.” The ball of tension in her belly shrank a little at the way Josie had said actor, as if in her world, acting was just another way to earn a living, like dentistry or sales. “Nate’s my second cousin.”
“Is that right?” Josie’s eyebrows lifted.
Savannah could almost see the cogs turning in Josie’s brain, adding together the sum of her and Nate and her now ex-husband, Liam, photographed together after the incident at an Auckland bar.
Last year, Nate had flown back to New Zealand between assignments and invited her out for a drink. She hadn’t been able to turn him down without raising suspicion, and her relationship with Nate had always been a sore spot with her husband. A sore spot that on this day detonated the last, tenuous strands holding her disastrous marriage together. Liam had slammed her up against a wall, screaming red-faced and incoherently, ordering her not to leave their house.
She’d gone anyway.
Nate had discovered the bruises on her arm minutes before Liam tracked her to the bar and tried to drag her out of it. Her calm-as-lake-water cousin lost his temper, and after a short but intense scuffle, broke Liam’s nose. The following media frenzy speculated that Nate was Savannah’s lover, sprung in a booty-call by her faithful manager/husband.
Liam agreed not to lay assault charges against Nate a
nd to give Savannah an uncontested divorce if she kept her mouth shut about their tumultuous marriage. Yes, Liam had actually used the word “tumultuous”, as if they’d had a few rough patches, instead of the last few years of his escalating manipulative control and emotional cruelty. But as much as it burned her ass, she wanted out more than she cared for what the public thought of her marriage, and she’d conceded one final time to her husband’s demands. Freedom was worth it—though she hated that Nate had been caught in the backlash.
“Not many people know it,” she admitted. “Nate and I decided early on to keep the fact we’re related private.”
Josie gave her an almost imperceptible nod. She must’ve heard the rumors—as had the majority of people in this tiny country of only four and a half million. Especially since one of the trio in the scandal was a nominated contender for a women’s magazine’s New Zealand Bachelor of the Year contest, and had his own claim to fame being one of the country’s top photojournalists.
“Now Liam and I are divorced, it’s not such big news. Though I’d prefer to keep Nate and his family off the radar.”
“Won’t hear anything from us. Lauren and her little boy deserve some peace after everything they went through.” Wrinkles spread out from Josie’s eyes as she narrowed them into hardened slits. “And you too. What really happened between you and your ex is your business, but those of us who’ve followed your career from the beginning saw the light go out of your eyes a few years back. It’s no wonder your cousin reacted the way he did.”
Savannah’s throat thickened, remembering the viral photos of her wedged between Nate and her husband, blood pouring out of Liam’s nose, Nate’s expression fierce and possessive but not for the reasons the media had splashed around.
“The public chose not to see it that way.”
“Seems to me the public doesn’t really know you,” said Glen.
Truth was, most days it felt as if no one really knew her. She’d been burned by the media once too often after Liam had leaked strategic personal information to them to try to boost her flagging popularity.
So once again, Savannah adopted a smile she didn’t feel like smiling and angled her chin. “The public—those who troll trashy magazines or websites wanting to know the contents of my trash, or what my father’s address is, or the details of my sex life—can bite me.”
Know Your Heart: A New Zealand Enemies to Lovers Romance (Far North Series Book 2) Page 8