The River Valley Series

by Tess Thompson

  Chapter 1

  2016

  A cold front moved into River Valley two days before Thanksgiving. The Oregon sky lowered and turned the color of smoke. As Gennie and Stefan Spencer filmed their final take of their final scene, Gennie knew snow would fall before the hour turned. She could smell it in the air. It would be heavy and dense, like the snow in Wisconsin. She shivered, pulling her sweater tighter as she and Stefan walked to their trailers. It was all done. A wrap. Tomorrow she would go home to Los Angeles. That fact made her want to fall on her knees and weep.

  “I’m freezing,” she said.

  “Here. Take my jacket.” Stefan shrugged out of his leather jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “I hate snow.” The collar of his jacket smelled of his cologne: bourbon with a hint of vanilla. The scent made her ache with longing. Don’t cry. Don’t let him see how much it hurts to let him go.

  Stefan wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “What kind of talk is that for a Wisconsin girl?” Around them, crew members shouted to one another over the sounds of drills and hammers as they dismantled the imaginary world. If only the world they’d created with the set and the actors and the well-written script were real. She wished she were more like the heroine she played in the film, brave and ready to fight for love no matter the cost.

  “I haven’t lived there since I was sixteen. California’s my home now.” An edge crept into her voice. She couldn’t stop it. “I never have to worry about snow in Malibu.”’

  “Malibu at Christmas? Blasphemy.”

  “I know. You want to get back to your forest.”

  “I do. Being here has only made me realize how much I miss home.” Stefan’s primary home was on a large piece of land in British Columbia, Canada. It was beautiful there, he’d told her, like River Valley, with its mountains and rivers and a billion stars.

  “Come home with me for the holiday weekend,” he said. “It’s only four days. We can fly your mother up too. My mother would love to meet you both.”

  She shook her head. “I thought you understood. I just can’t.”

  “I don’t understand. I won’t ever understand.” He stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans, pulling the fabric tighter over his muscular thighs. Dressed in a flannel shirt and work boots, he could have been part of the crew instead of the lead actor. Except for his sensitive ice-blue eyes and soft, full lips, the man exuded testosterone. A man’s man, she had thought the first time she’d met him.

  “Stefan, please, let it go.” She brushed a flake from the end of her nose. Stupid snow.

  “I don’t get it.” They reached the steps of her trailer and stopped. His jaw was set, and his eyes were darker under the gray sky. “It’s just a few days, Gennie. An invitation from your good buddy Stefan.” She suspected he meant his words to sound light and teasing, but a bitter edge crept into his tone. She frustrated him. Join the club. She frustrated herself.

  “Don’t. Not today. Not on our last day together,” she said. “Please, can’t we just have fun tonight?”

  His features softened. He thrust his shoulders forward and rubbed his hands together. Looking up at the sky, he let out a deep sigh. In that breath, she felt him letting go, distancing himself and accepting the inevitable. His defeat made her sad. Was she forever doomed to hurt the people who loved her? “Yes,” he said, “we can just have fun tonight. I’ll pick you up in a few minutes for the party. Ben just texted that everyone’s already there.”

  “Bella’s probably three shots in by now,” Gennie said, trying to be funny. It fell flat. Their usual banter felt unnatural with their departure looming.

  “I’ll change clothes and clean up a little. Is thirty minutes enough time?”

  “Yes.” She reached for his hand. “I’m sorry, Stefan.”

  “As am I.” He pulled his hand away and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.

  “There are things, Stefan. Things in my past that hurt me…that I can’t seem to move past. I know it’s impossible to understand, but it’s the way it is. I’m not available, emotionally or otherwise. You deserve better.” Large, soft flakes fell, catching in Stefan’s brown hair, creating a frozen doily over his head. Gennie tilted her face to the sky. A flake landed in her eyelashes.

  “It doesn’t change how I feel about you. It doesn’t mean that it’s not killing me to let you go.”

  She flinched, knocked momentarily senseless by his stark honesty. “It’s better this way. For you. You should trust me on that.”

  “I got it, Gennie.” He tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and flashed a false smile. “Get inside and change into something warm. I’ll buy you a hot toddy when we get there.”

  “Okay, yeah. See you in a few.” She went inside, closing the door behind her. Despite the warmth of the trailer, she kept Stefan’s jacket on, wrapping it close to her body. These last months had been the happiest of her career, but it wasn’t just because of the work. It was Stefan. She loved him. Who was she kidding? She was in love with him. Stefan had climbed the tower she’d encased herself in and gotten to her.

  They must part now—before either of them fell deeper. In the end, it would cause them less pain. Do not think about it. Keep moving, like you always do. She would leave tomorrow for the next stop in her nomadic life. Keep running as fast as you can. Don’t look back. She did one film after another, without time off in between. There was always a new place to see, new people to meet, and a new story to fall into, so her own story faded from consciousness. She buried herself in the work, in the character’s life. This was the only way to outsmart the pain.

  She must get ready for the party. All this brooding could wait until tomorrow. She shrugged out of the jacket and moved to toss it onto the table.

  She gasped. A vase with a dozen red roses sat on the dining table. Oh no. What was the date today? Her stomach lurched as she realized it was two days before Thanksgiving. Every year, Murphy sent roses on the anniversary of the day he attacked her. They were a reminder to remain silent because he was still out there. No matter how famous she’d become, he could still get to her if he wanted. He could still hurt her mother. She rushed to the door and yanked it open and called out to Stefan. “Stefan, wait.”

  Almost to his trailer, he turned around and sprinted back toward her. When he reached her, he put his hands on her upper arms, searching her face. “What is it?”

  She pointed toward the interior of her trailer. “Flowers. On the table.” Her teeth chattered. “Destroy them.”

  He let her go and stepped inside the trailer. She stumbled down the steps to wait for him in the open air. She tilted her face to the sky, letting the snow fall upon her, into her lashes and her hair and the bare skin of her face and hands. The flakes, each different from the one before, did not melt when they reached her skin. Ice cannot melt on ice.

  Stefan exited the trailer carrying the bouquet, then called out to one of the crew members. “Can you get rid of these, please?”

  She walked back up the stairs. Stefan’s footprints were on the steps, indentions in the snow.

  Stefan returned. “They’re gone.”

  “I can still smell them.”

  He went to the cupboard and rifled through the contents. Blair, her assistant, always stocked it with the items Gennie liked: rice cakes, bottled water, raw almonds, Vanity Fair magazines. It surprised her when Stefan pulled out a bottle of air freshener. “Says it smells like a pine forest. Will that do?”

  She nodded and sat at the table, wiping away the condensation from where the vase had left a watermark. Who had delivered the flowers? Probably some production assistant because Blair was on a plane to see her mother for the holiday. Blair knew to intercept them, so Gennie didn’t have to see them. She’d never asked Gennie why. She probably figured Gennie had a phobia about roses. Many celebrities had strange quirks that were indulged by the people who worked for them. Money and fame had a way of making the ridiculous seem normal. It was all a matter of pe
rspective.

  On the first day they had worked together, Gennie instructed Blair not accept any bouquets of flowers, especially not roses. “Throw them out or send them home with someone,” she’d said. Blair, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, had simply nodded and scratched the instruction into her notepad.

  Stefan sat across from Gennie, cocking his head to the side. “Who sent those?”

  “A crazy stalker, I guess.”

  “The card said happy anniversary. Has this happened before?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I mean, yes, it’s happened before. It’s probably harmless.”

  “You wouldn’t have reacted the way you did if this was nothing but a harmless fan sending flowers. Dammit, Gennie. After all these months, you still can’t trust me? All these secrets of yours—don’t you ever get sick of them? Jesus, it’s me, not some acquaintance. We’ve spend almost every waking hour together for the past three months!” His hands were clenched at his side, veins bulging in his muscular arms. An image of a lion floated before her, roaring and shaking his mane. Stefan was like a lion, majestic and pretty, but dangerous too. She suspected that in a split second if someone or something threatened her, he could become violent.

  She rose from the table, stepping backward toward the dressing area, the pulse at her neck fluttering fast. “I don’t want to talk about this any longer,” she said.

  He put up his hands. “Fine. I know my place.” He stood. “I’ll pick you up in a few minutes.”

  “Fine.”

  His brow wrinkled. An awkward silence hung between them for a few seconds. Please, let it go.

  “Wear your dancing shoes,” Stefan said. “Tommy’s band has something special planned for us tonight.”

  After he left, her throat ached from trying to keep the tears at bay. She didn’t want him to know he made her want to cry. He’d never been angry with her before, and she felt shaken. She sat for a moment, taking in deep breaths, like her therapist had taught her, to control the panic attacks.

  Her phone buzzed with a call. It was her mother. They talked every day without fail. It would be good to hear her voice and to remember that she waited for Gennie in Malibu, their refuge. It was all she needed. Her mother and their view of the ocean. Everything would be fine.

  They drove toward town without speaking. Stefan seemed at ease driving in the heavy snowfall, despite the way it covered the windshield as fast as the wipers could clear it. The XM radio, set to the ‘90s station, played Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me.” On the screen, the year 1996 was in parenthesis next to the name of the song. “Will you turn it to something else?” she said, tugging on the shoulder strap of her seat belt.

  “No nineties music?” He raised his eyebrows, teasing, as he moved the dial to a contemporary music blend. “But it’s a representation of our youth.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How old were we in 1996? Fifteen?”

  “That’s right.” She pretended to be interested in something outside the window.

  He fell silent. She could almost hear the questions he wanted to ask, even though he knew the unspoken rule. Do not ask Gennie about her childhood. If he asked too many questions about her past, she went mute.

  They crossed the valley. The hay fields, yellow when she had first arrived in River Valley, were now white with the dusting of snow, as were the surrounding mountains. They passed the road where Annie and Drake Webber lived; their huge house sat perched on the side of the mountain, hidden in the trees. She and Stefan had spent countless nights there, most recently to celebrate the marriage of her best friend, Bella, to Ben Fleck.

  As they entered town, River Valley’s welcome sign informed them of the population—still 1425. Stefan gestured toward the sign. “You think they’ll change the sign when Annie has her baby?”

  Gennie smiled. “Maybe. We should ask Mike.”

  Stefan chuckled, slowing the car as they entered the city limits. “As the town’s self-appointed mayor, Mike would change the sign using White-Out if he had to.” They both smiled. Mike Huller and the group of new friends they’d made were on a crusade to reinvent the town from a dying timber community to a thriving tourist destination. Thus far, they’d managed to add a gourmet restaurant, Riversong, the River Valley Lodge, and the Second Chance Inn, where some cast and crew had stayed. All of this in addition to a high-tech call center, formerly run by Ben. According to Annie, the chef at Riversong, the town was a completely different place than it had been three years ago when Lee Tucker and Mike first opened Riversong. Happy to leave corporate life, Ben was in the process of opening a fly-fishing shop. Bella was launching a makeup and skin care line, which would be headquartered in River Valley. Gennie had agreed to help finance it and be the “face” of Bella’s dream.

  It had snowed at least two inches in the thirty minutes since the first flake had fallen. Main Street had not yet been cleared of snow and looked quaint and pretty under the blanket of white. There were few cars on the road, with several abandoned curbside. “These Oregon folks don’t know how to drive in the snow,” Stefan said. “Good thing you have a Canuck to get you around.” He slowed the car to under ten miles an hour as they inched their way to the inn.

  Gennie barely heard him. Children peppered the sidewalks of Main Street, throwing snowballs, building snowmen, and pushing one another on sleds. She averted her eyes, fussing with the radio, but the familiar pang came. The baby would be twenty now, no longer a child. Gennie pushed the thoughts away.

  Stefan drew her hand away from the dashboard and held it in his. “You want me to put on one of your country stations?”

  “Never mind. Everything’s agitating me.” She shrugged, searching for a way to explain her odd behavior. “I need a drink.”

  “Almost there.” He squeezed her hand and then let it go to twist the knob on the radio. “Here, how about one of the news stations? I have no idea what’s happened in the world in the past several days.”

  The voice of the newscaster came through the speakers. “Wisconsin Senator Rick Murphy was interviewed today on the CBS morning talk show about his bid for the presidency.”

  “Well, that’s not a surprise,” Stefan said.

  “Turn it off, please,” she said.

  He obeyed, but not before shooting her a questioning glance.

  Stefan was correct. Murphy’s announcement wasn’t a surprise. He’d hinted about the presidency for years. The man’s everywhere. I can’t get away from him. It would only get worse if he won. She might have to move to Europe.

  As Stefan pulled into their parking spot behind the inn, he looked at her, alarm in his eyes but his voice soft. “You all right?”

  “I don’t want to hear anything about the Murphy family.”

  “Really? Aren’t they considered American royalty? And Wisconsin? Your home state? I thought you’d be proud.”

  “Not everyone from Wisconsin likes them. Can we just go inside?”

  “Hang tight. I’ll come around and get you.” He got out, letting a gust of cold air inside the car. When he reached her door, he opened it and offered his hand. She stepped down, feeling apprehensive, like a hooved animal on ice.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t slip,” Stefan said.

  She didn’t answer as they crossed the parking lot toward Riversong. “I should’ve grabbed a hat.” She meant to say it lightly, but it came out sounding like a petulant child.

  “You hungry?” he said this in the same teasing, gentle voice as earlier. It was their joke. He’d taken to silently handing her protein bars when they were on set if her blood sugar plummeted and she seemed tired or cranky.

  “Kind of. This weather.” The awful snow was in her nose and on her skin and in front of her eyes. She was empty, depleted. Desolate.

  As they entered the warm and cozy restaurant, packed with all their new friends and the cast and crew, including their lovely cost
ar Cleo Tanner and her husband, Seattle police detective Peter Ball, the emptiness decreased. Bella was at the bar, wearing a tight red dress that barely covered her round, firm bottom, with a line of tequila shots in front of her. She screamed and waved them over.

  “Finally. We thought you two would never get here.” Bella grabbed Gennie and forced her into a hug. She caught a whiff of lime and tequila on Bella’s breath. “We started in on the drinking without you two.” Bella wore her dark, wavy hair in a stylish, short bob. She was chic and cool—the type of woman other women secretly took their cues from about what to wear or read or see. Gennie knew the makeup line would be a huge success because of it.

  Ben, his dark blond hair wet from either the shower or the snow, slapped Stefan on the shoulder. “How does it feel, old man, to be done with the film?”

  “Honestly? I wish my time here didn’t have to end.” Stefan took a shot glass of tequila and raised it toward Ben and Bella. “Cheers. I’m going to miss the heck out of you guys.” He tossed back the shot. “Gennie, you want one?”

  “No, thank you.” She smiled at Stefan. “I leave the hard stuff to Bella.”

  “Well, somebody has to do it for heaven’s sake.” Bella was trying to stop cursing and had recently started using heaven in place of its more offensive counterparts. It sounded stilted and strange coming from her sassy mouth.

  Cindi, Riversong’s bartender, poured Gennie a glass of chilled white wine. “Here you go, Miss Genevieve. I made sure to have it nice and cold like you prefer.” Cindi was one of the only people who called her by her formal name, which seemed counterintuitive given Cindi’s plain way of speaking. Regardless, Gennie found it endearing.

  She thanked her and took a dainty sip as she watched Cindi fluff her hair with her fingertips. Recently, Bella had convinced her to shorten it to a layered bob and color it a dark blond instead of various shades of yellow that did not exist in nature. Bella had changed her makeup, too, replacing Cindi’s predisposition for blue eye shadow and purple eyeliner with attractive shades of browns. All of which resulted in a transformation from the persona of a zany, small-town bartender to a sophisticated socialite. Regardless of appearance, Cindi was still a gun-toting, foul-mouthed, small-town woman who men feared and women secretly admired. No one messed with Cindi, especially after the news of her taking down a madman with a single bullet from her shotgun had circulated through River Valley. “Well, shoot, I’m gonna to miss the socks off you, Genevieve Banks. You’ll come visit us, won’t you?”