He smiled, and it went all the way to his bright blue eyes. His dark hair and gray of his suit really offset those eyes and gave him a very Clark Kent quality.
Wayne flicked on the camera, and we entered the kitchen where three children sat around a table made for six. Heidi was up to her elbows with cooking eggs and bacon and buttering toast. The children didn’t seem at all fazed by the three newcomers.
“Wayne, get some video of her cooking and feeding the children, and then let’s leave them to their breakfast, okay?” Wes was already entering the zone, his tone all business and action.
Heidi flittered around the kitchen in her robe, dishing out breakfast, feeding the baby a bottle and some type of thing she referred to as a biter biscuit, and shuffled away. Her movement was like poetry in motion. A practiced sonata. Seemingly out of nowhere, she prepared two lunches, one for her son who was school-age and another for her husband. Next to the lunch she placed the boy’s backpack and school necessities. Then it was a to-go coffee for David who left his plate on the table after scarfing down his meal to rush upstairs and finish getting ready.
Once father and son left together, Heidi proceeded to clean up the entire breakfast. After all that, she ate only a slice of toast. A meal fit for a king for her family, yet she only had time enough for a dry slice of bread and a sip of coffee.
“Gotta get Lynndy and Lisa ready for a playdate and Gymboree.” She gestured to her toddler who I surmised was about three and the baby only six months old or so.
For the rest of the day, we followed Heidi around. Her life was exhausting. She definitely did not give me the grand idea of wanting to bust out a bunch of mini-me's and start my own basketball team. Wes, on the other hand, was enamored with her, loved how efficient and selfless she was. He made sure that the best shots were captured—the sweet moments between mother and child, husband and wife—with an excitement I had previously only hoped he’d have today.
When we went back to the house after picking up her son from school, she set about doing homework with him. The math alone for a third grader was outrageous. Nothing like what I’d had at his age. Thank God I had someone like Wes who could take care of these types of things with our future children.
Wait. What? Did I just think about spawning a child with my movie-making surfer and not exactly hate the idea? Oh, Jesus. I was in deep. Kids had never entered the equation when I’d been with other men previously. At all. Based on the gleam in Wes’s eyes as he held baby Lynndy, kids were definitely part of his future plans. Hell, if I didn’t watch out, he’d have me married, barefoot, and pregnant before the year was up.
Wes looked up as I was watching him play with the baby. His eyes were the color of the most exquisite emeralds. Yeah, babies made him happy. Shit. I’d give him a kid just to have him look at me with that same love and wanting.
I shook my head and got back in the game. This type of discussion needed to be had after a couple rounds in the bedroom, while we were drunk and after we were feeling all romantic and cheesy.
Finally, after the kids went down for a nap and the eldest took off on his bike, Heidi meandered to her backyard. When she opened the slider, I was stunned stupid. It was like a magical hidden away secret garden complete with little angel statues, a babbling small brook, luscious greenery everywhere and flowers… My God… The flowers were in pots in sections of the yard and by the trees. They were all different colors and varietals. I lost count of how many different areas there were.
“Wow.” Wes blew out a slow breath. “This is incredible.”
Heidi heard every word and beamed as bright as the glint off the ocean at high noon. “Thank you. Let me give you a tour. It’s shaped in an oval so you can walk around it. I know it’s not huge or anything but”—she shrugged—“it’s what we can afford, and I love it.”
Wayne was filming as I walked next to her, asking her about her methods, why she’d chosen the different plants so that the segment wouldn’t be super boring. She lifted up a big basket that held gardening gloves and clippers. There was an extra pair of gloves next to them, which she handed to me, and I promptly put them on. We moved around the circle path and came to a corner that was dense with roses. Every beautiful color you could think of.
“This is amazing, Heidi.” I inhaled the flowers’ mingled scents, breathing the aroma as far into my lungs as possible.
Heidi showed me the ones to cut and where so that we had a couple dozen long-stemmed roses. Then we went to another section and clipped some smaller flowers she said were annuals. One was a vibrant purple she called a “Spirit Merlot Spider Flower.”
“Pretty complex name for such a dainty thing.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
The baby monitor on her hip squawked, and she stopped, lifted it to her ear, and we both waited. I held my breath. I didn’t know why. It just seemed like the thing to do. When no additional sound came, she clipped the walkie-talkie looking thing back on her hip and continued.
“These are Bells of Ireland.” She clipped four long sections where they stood approximately two feet tall. “See the chartreuse color?”
I nodded.
“It will look awesome with the pink and yellow roses. And smell?” She held the plant close to my nose.
A lovely hint of mint teased my senses. “Smells awesome. Like mint.”
After walking through the entire space, we brought our baskets full of what I thought was a ton of greenery. She set them on the kitchen counter and taught me and the audience how to correctly snip the thorns and where to cut for the longest chance of keeping the blooms alive. She went on about the benefits of treating the water and vases. However, what she did next made me see that this segment was really going to hit home.
From a long drawer she pulled out multi-colored wrap. Then she took the rubber bands she’d removed from her store-bought veggies and wrapped the flowers in the colored paper and rubber bands. Then she took some ribbon and covered the ugly bands.
“What are you going to do with them?” I asked, thinking perhaps I’d get to take some of these beauties home to Ms. Croft. She’d love them!
“Well, every week I take a few bouquets I’ve made to the convalescent hospital down the street. There are several patients there who don’t have much family, and a simple arrangement of flowers could go a long way towards making their week bright.
I’d met a lot of wonderful people this past year, but none quite like Heidi Ryan.
At the end of the day, I turned to Heidi where we stood in front of her home. Her husband had just come home from work. He pulled the woman he very obviously loved into the comfort of his arms and gave her a kiss on the cheek. They nuzzled for the cameras, which was awesome, and then he lovingly asked what was for dinner. To which she replied, “Whatever you’re making!”
Laughing, I turned to the camera where Wayne held it a few steps from me. “Thank you, Heidi Ryan, for opening your home and sharing a look into the daily routine of a stay-at-home-mom I think deserves the title of Super Woman and for walking us through your stunning garden. The work you do in your home with your family and in your community should be commended. We here at the Dr. Hoffman show applaud you. I’m Mia Saunders, and I’ll see you next week on another round of Living Beautiful.
* * *
I spent the next day with Wes and the editing team, splicing the perfect snippets until I had just the right content for the fifteen-minute segment.
Wes pointed at a section on the screen and told the editor where to move the frame to zero in on particular things that would be unique to highlight. Baby Lynndy’s chubby little hands reaching for her mommy, or the way David looked at his wife as if no one in the room existed but her when she served his breakfast. How Heidi doted on little Lisa during her gym lesson.
With confidence and patience, Wes educated me on why those tiny moments were gold and made all the difference. At playback, he was not wrong. Then again, I wouldn’t have questioned him in the first place. H
e made movies and wrote scripts for a living. A fifteen-minute segment on a daytime show was a cakewalk to a man of his talent and experience, yet he committed to this project with me the same way he did a two hundred million dollar big budget film. I admired him and fell a little bit more in love with him for that.
A squeak and the sound of the door smacking against the wall behind it broke all three of us out of our concentration. Drew Hoffman entered the bland room at the headquarters of Century Productions all boisterous and loud, not at all concerned that the three people within were focused intently on the footage in front of us.
On him like a cheap suit was a blond popsicle stick with outlandishly large boobs. I knew how big they were because they were practically falling out of a skimpy lace-trimmed camisole. If she moved too far to the left or arched her back even a scant inch more, a definite nip slip would occur.
“Hi, Doctor Hoffman. We’re just getting the segment ready for your team to review later this evening before tomorrow’s segment.”
“That’s why I’m here, darling.” Drew’s tone was lascivious, and the blond wooden peg that was stuck to his chest curled her finger into his hair.
“Ooh, I like your new girl. She’s sexy. With all those curves, I’ll bet she tastes like birthday cake. Can we play with her, Doctor, please, pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top?” The woman cooed, her pink, glossy lips puckering on each consonant. Blondie shook her chest in front of his face making sure to jostle them in a way that was clearly practiced and had worked many times before, and I noticed Drew’s eyes seemed to dive into her ample cleavage.
And that is the exact moment Wes turned his chair around and stood up. “Excuse me? Have we met?”
Drew’s eyes widened, and a note of recognition crossed his features as he assessed Wes. “Weston Channing the third, famous movie writer…” Hoffman said, awe clear in his tone. “What brings you to our humble neck of the movie biz?”
Wes tipped his head toward me and locked an arm around my waist. “You’ve hired my fiancée,” he said, as if it explained every unanswered question in Trivial Pursuit.
Um…fiancée? I looked down at my bare finger. Wes noticed the move and cringed but kept quiet.
“Your fiancée? Mia…” His mouth opened and closed as if he were thinking about what to say next.
Instead, Blondie beat him to it. “Awesome! Oh my God, I like love, love, love your movies. And you’re so hot!” The bimbo clinging to the good doctor shimmied in her spiked heels. Though the only thing that jiggled were her implants. The rest of her lacked an ounce of fat. If we shook her harder, her bones would have likely made a rattling sound that matched the peanut-sized brain rolling around her head, but that’s about it. She held out her hand. “I’m Brandy, by the way, but, you know, the normal way, B-R-A-N-D-Y,” she spelled out.
The normal way? How the fuck else did you spell Brandy? I sighed, and my grip around Wes tightened. He cough-laughed into his fist. He knew me too well. I grinned but stayed silent.
“Oh my God! We should totally, like, double date! That would be so, like…” She twirled a lock of her hair, which on better inspection proved actually to be extensions. I rolled my eyes and waited for the light bulb to turn on so she could finish her thought. “I don’t know, like the best pair of shoes in the world!”
I sucked in a harsh breath that only Wes noticed because Brandy and Dr. Hoffman were too busy checking out Wes. I didn’t blame them. I could easily spend all day looking at his body. He was the most decadent eye candy. “Sorry, guys, but in order for me to get this to you tonight, we need to work the rest of the day. Wes is helping out since he has some time off,” I said.
Dr. Hoffman opened his mouth, and something in him tightened. “That’s right. I read in the news…horrible what happened to you and that beautiful actress.” He shook his head and the hairs on my arm started to stand tall. “You survived most of a month in captivity with Gina DeLuca, right? Half your team was wiped out by radicals. Fucking savages.” His remarks seemed genuine, but didn’t fix the instant wall of fire that stood beside me.
No, no, no, no. Everything had been going so well. Wes stiffened further.
“Uh, yeah. Glad to be home. It was good meeting you, Dr. Hoffman and Brandy.” He shook both of their hands like the professional he was. “Unfortunately, we need to get back to work.” On that note, he sat down. The editor handed him a pair of earphones, and Wes locked his eyes on the screen.
Conversation closed. I waved noncommittally at the duo, sat down, and repeated Wes’s steps exactly. Eventually, Dr. Hoffman said something, and the door closed. shutting us back into our world of stay-at-home-moms and living beautiful. I put my hand to Wes’s rigid back. I could almost feel the tension pumping off him like a living, breathing animal hiding just under the surface. At first, he shook when I touched him, but as I slid my hand up and down his back and asked him questions about this or that on the screen, he began to relax once more. When we turned the segment in, the executive producers loved it on the spot. We went back to the editing room, grabbed our stuff, thanked the editor, and moseyed into the catacomb that was Century Productions.
I thought we’d dodged a bullet. Unfortunately, I was wrong. So damn wrong.
Chapter Eight
For the entire week, we’d managed to avoid all contact with the press. The only time Wes had left the house was to go with me to the Ryans’ shoot, which was in bumfuck, Egypt, as far as the Hollywood media were concerned. Unfortunately, it looked like someone at Century Productions—the doctor, the producers, or maybe Brandy-spelled-the-normal-way—had tipped them off. They must have thought it would look good for Wes to be seen coming out of their offices with someone associated with the celebrity doctor. So it made sense why Dr. Hoffman and his supermodel wife were standing right outside the office doors when we attempted to leave. The moment we stepped outside the door, the flashes were staggering.
I’d experienced fame and some serious paparazzi encounters with Anton while in Miami, but this was a far cry from a handful of cameras and smarmy men with fat bellies hanging over their belts with their beefy fingers clicking a million miles a minute to capture the worst possible image for their smut mags. This was a convention of media personnel. A fucking feeding frenzy.
“Weston, what was it like being held by terrorists?” one screamed.
“Did you kill anyone while you were there?”
“Where did they hurt you?”
“What did it feel like watching Trevor die in front of you?”
“Did they hurt Gina, your girlfriend?”
“Who’s Mia Saunders to you?”
Dr. Hoffman approached the crowd with his wife. She went from stupid bimbo to top paid supermodel trophy wife in less than a breath, standing by his side, clutching his bicep.
We were standing behind them, looking for an out.
“Now, now, shush. Our friend Mr. Channing and his fiancée, Ms. Saunders, deserve a little privacy after what they’ve been through, don’t you think? Have a little decency.”
Fiancée? The word rolled like a wave through the crowd of media mongrels, whispered, spoken, and yelled at so many decibels, it was impossible to keep up. This was not at all how I anticipated anyone finding out I’d be marrying Wes. I didn’t even have a ring yet.
“Dr. Hoffman, Dr. Hoffman, are Mr. Channing and Ms. Saunders on your show talking about his captivity?” a reporter screamed at the top of his lungs.
The doctor smiled wide. Motherfucker. Douchebag. He loved this additional press and planned it for sure.
“Now, now, Ms. Saunders is an employee on my show. She will be doing a segment every Friday. You all should watch. It’s brilliant, especially because her fiancé helped her with it.”
“Is that true, Mr. Channing?” The sharks went wild. “You’re already back to work after a dozen of your men were killed?”
That was it. I grabbed Wes by the hand, and we pushed our way through the crowd and ran. Ran for our lives. So m
any photographers chased us it was hard to see the forest through the trees, or in this case, the parking lot where my bike, Suzi, sat.
I jumped on her, revved her up as Wes plopped my helmet on my head and looped an arm around my waist.
“Don’t go home. Just drive, baby,” Wes growled in my ear, holding me tight. “Just drive.”
I was so going to marry this man. Period.
* * *
That night, Weston woke with a startling cry. This time, he shook the bed, and both of us came awake startled. He was panting as I turned on the light and popped out of the bed, not knowing what I’d find or if I should stay within arm’s reach. His eyes were black sunken-in holes. Both nostrils were flaring, and a snarl curled his lips. He stared at me as if I were his next meal and he hadn’t eaten in days. No. Weeks.
“Wes…” I slipped off my nightgown, allowing the fabric to skim down my body and pool at my feet. I didn’t even bother with underwear since the nightmares. He ripped every pair right off me, sometimes resulting in welts at each hip where he pulled them away.
The man I loved was not in himself at that moment. He’d been doing well and hadn’t had a dream for two days. I figured they’d be back, but was hoping for more than a two-day respite.
“Need you,” he growled.
“Why?” I tickled the tips of my breasts for his benefit more than mine. Though it wasn’t a hardship. My hair was loose and hung down my back in ebony waves the way he loved.
His teeth clenched, and I could have sworn I heard a low hum, a warning at the back of this throat. “Mine,” he grated.
I shook my head. “Nope, not good enough. Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” he said instantly, but it wasn’t with a tone that said hearts, flowers, and walks on the beach. Wes told me he loved me in myriad ways. Sweet, tender, soft, desperate, and more, but not in that tone. I wouldn’t accept it. This raging inferno was not the man I loved. This man was a broken replica of someone, but this was not him. His mind was lost in a hut in a compound that had been decimated by the American military.
Calendar Girl: October: Book 10 Page 8