On the Market (The Ballard Brothers of Darling Bay Book 1)

by Rachael Herron

  It was his own damn fault. He’d walked himself into the trap. Maybe he’d sensed that Felicia was bait at that first kiss—maybe that’s why he’d thrown himself over the balcony to get away from her.

  Her job was to get the goods for Natasha.

  He wondered what Felicia got paid. Undoubtedly she was the highest-paid actress who wasn’t an actress in Hollywood.

  Had she even wanted the house?

  Had she made up the dream house she’d told him about?

  The thought that she might have lied about even that, from the very beginning, was unbearable.

  Liam pulled out the keys and gripped them so hard he set off the emergency alarm. He punched at the buttons to silence the noise.

  The night they’d spent together. They’d struck the contact clause from his contract, but what about her contract? Did she get a nice big bonus for sleeping with him?

  Liam got out of the car and looked up into the blackness. Darling Bay was socked in tonight, and he could hear the foghorn mourning in the distance. It would’ve been a perfect night to walk her back to the Cat’s Claw, to wrap his arms around her, to kiss her good night and promise her his tomorrow. And the next one, and the one after that.

  He reached down and picked up a stone. Then he hurled it at the stop sign, something he’d told Timbo not to do again and again. It hit the dented sign with a satisfying thwack.

  And if he hit it a thousand more times, if he crushed it with a boulder, it still wouldn’t erase the word he should’ve heeded the first time he saw her: STOP. Stop hoping, stop dreaming, stop wishing he was someone else, someone different, someone better. He’d been getting along just fine.

  Alone.

  He’d just go back to being happy that way.

  Somehow.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  After two eighteen-hour days, Felicia had tidied most of the legal problems. The Allens had needed diligent finessing, but their show would be better than ever now that Mrs. Allen was not only pregnant with a child that wasn’t her husband’s, but that she was willing to talk about it on camera.

  Felicia put her head back, and looked up at the ceiling. Her office was well appointed with elegant furnishing in dark blues and browns that had taken two design committees to decide upon. She spent more time here than she’d ever spent in her place. Truthfully, her condo had never felt like home. If anything, this office—full of books and scripts and awards and changes of clothes and her favorite prints on the walls and the couch perfect for napping on—was the only place she felt at home in LA.

  And her office was a hundred percent different from the treehouse, with its ramshackle flooring and tilting walls and the smell of resin and bark and wind. The only place she’d ever felt truly at home.

  She wanted to go back to Darling Bay.

  To Liam.

  She looked through her missed phone calls, and there were a lot of them. She’d put her phone on silent for the last five hours while she finished up the last of her work. If she hadn’t, nothing would have gotten done. And in the back of her mind, she hoped that if he couldn’t get through to her, that would be the time he called. He would finally return one of her texts or one of her emails.

  But there was nothing from him.

  It was almost midnight, way too late to call anyone. Too late even to text. Her heart clunked in her chest, sounding like the broken wind chime on Liam’s porch. Tired, and tied up in knots.

  Why hadn’t he called her back?

  What if something was really wrong with Timbo? Wouldn’t Liam have been able to find a minute or two to shoot her a message? Isn’t that what most people would have done?

  But what if he didn’t want her to come back? The brave part of her heart wanted to roll into the shape of a fiddlehead fern, tucked away and safe from pain.

  There was a sharp rap at her door, and Natasha stuck her head in. “All done?”

  “Yep.” Felicia scrambled to grab her purse, to make it look as if she’d been about to head out. “On my way home to grab a few winks.”

  “You really saved my ass on this. I owe you.”

  No, she didn’t. Natasha paid her debts with bonuses, money that could be tracked, favors with receipts. Natasha owed Felicia nothing except a glowing letter of reference if she….

  If she quit? The idea flitted through her head for the first time. It was a disloyal thought, but it was one she wanted to pull out and look at later, when she was alone. Quitting wasn’t something she ever thought she would do. This job had meant everything to Felicia. When had that changed? When had she changed?

  Natasha was staring at her, her head tilted to the side. Felicia realized she hadn’t answered her. “You don’t owe me a thing, you know that.”

  “You okay? You seem a little off.”

  “Just tired. So I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Before you go, would you mind looking at the diary cam we just got from Liam?”

  “You’ve been talking to him?” The pain that had been lurking behind Felicia’s left eye got sharper.

  “Anna has. I took a look at it, and I’ve got to be honest with you, I was hoping for better. From what you told me, I thought we’d get something dirtier, something juicier from him. What he sent was a little too sweet for my taste. Made my cavities hurt. But what do I know? I’m so tired I can’t see straight. We did a test viewing, and the audience loved him, so you can’t ask for more than that.” Natasha shot her a look she couldn’t parse. “They didn’t like you much, but that’s okay. You’re not the reason they’ll tune into the next episode.”

  “They didn’t like me?” For some reason it stung. She’d never wanted to be in front of the camera, but once she’d gotten there, she’d hoped she would be okay. Acceptable.

  “Just watch it before you go home. Let me know in the morning what you think.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  No one was in the editing bay, which was just as well. Lily and Gomez tended to be so proprietary over their work they wouldn’t let anyone else even push a button. Felicia had started in editing a long time ago. Things had changed, but not that much. It felt good to be in the edit chair again.

  Maybe she should never have climbed the management ladder.

  If she hadn’t, maybe she’d be married with babies, living in the Valley in a brand-new four-thousand square foot house that smelled like new carpet and room fragrance spray.

  If she hadn’t, would she ever have found her way to Darling Bay?

  She found the segment from Anna, and hit play.

  Liam’s face filled the screen. The look of him hit her like a punch to the stomach. She’d missed him. She’d been gone for less than a week. She shouldn’t miss anyone this much. A smile spread across her face as she listened. She couldn’t help hoping—desperately—that he’d mention her, that he’d been missing her, too.

  But his face was serious, his eyebrows drawn together, his lips thin. Did he look pale? “Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about what home means to me. I love my house. You’ve seen it, that old Victorian with my office in the front, and a messy kitchen and living room in the back. Timbo’s bedroom is upstairs, and mine is down the hall. It’s a good place, and I’m happy to have it.” Liam’s gaze went downward as if he were holding something just out of sight of the camera. “But a house doesn’t matter, does it? What matters are the people who make our lives worth living.”

  Felicia’s heart pounded harder. People like him made life worth living. Liam—he was the reason she needed to get back to Darling Bay. Not the treehouse, even though she yearned for it. Yearning was just an intense want. She could handle that just fine. She’d watched television and yearned for her own fantasy come true all her life.

  What she couldn’t handle for much longer was this need. She needed to be with Liam like she needed air.

  What if she quit?

  What would she do next?

  She knew almost without thinking. If she quit, she’d cash out some stocks and
build a portfolio of clients she might be able to work for remotely, and she’d move to Darling Bay permanently.

  Liam. How could she miss a person she hadn’t even known existed until less than two months ago? Feeling silly and small and hopelessly excited, Felicia bit her bottom lip and kept watching.

  Liam looked straight into the camera. He was getting so much better at that. “Sometimes, I guess I wondered if I was unlovable, because my parents left. But me and my brothers, we had Bill. He loved us better than our own flesh and blood ever could have. He adopted us, and we took his last name. We’ll always be the Ballard Brothers, and I’m pretty excited to announce right here and now, that the adoption paperwork for my foster son Timbo has gone through. Real soon he’ll be a Ballard boy, too. Love always get its way, even if it goes a roundabout way to get there. Sometimes it takes someone important letting you down to make you see who’s still there, who’s really important. And we Ballard men don’t need anyone but ourselves.”

  Something cold and heavy sunk into the pit of Felicia’s stomach.

  He knew.

  He knew she’d told Natasha about his backstory. Felicia felt as if she were falling off the pier all over again, but alone this time. Who had told him? Natasha herself? Anna?

  There was a break in the film, and Anna’s voice could be heard in the background. It would be edited out when the show was put together. “What about Felicia?”

  “Felicia?” Liam’s eyes were iceberg blue. “Yeah. I guess we had a good time, and I wish her the best in her new house. I have to say, I enjoyed my time in her treehouse. And, hell.” Liam leaned back and grinned at the camera. “If she’s an example of the kind of woman y’all pick for us to date, then this show is just going to keep getting better and better. I can’t wait to meet the next one.”

  Felicia hit stop.

  Stop.

  Her hopes crashed to the ground, shattering at her feet. The ice she’d seen in his eyes had frozen her blood.

  She’d done this to him. It didn’t matter who had told Liam that she’d divulged his secret heart. He knew, that’s all that mattered. Liam knew that Felicia had exposed him, and she knew he wouldn’t forgive her.

  Behind her, someone moved in the dark.

  Felicia spun.

  Natasha took a step forward into the light. “Yeah, that’s my fault. I told him that I wanted to use it on film, and he shut down.”

  “I told him we wouldn’t use it. That no one would see it.”

  “That was dumb.”

  “I was in love with him.” The pain of the words set her throat on fire. Tears would have helped, if she’d been able to remember where they lived inside her body.

  “We can get you out of the house contract. We’ll have the studio take over the rest of the paperwork, and as soon as it’s in your name, we can turn around and resell.”

  Felicia stared at this woman she barely recognized.

  “Or, if you’re willing to wait a little while…They’ve already done the renovations, and all we need from you is a quick walk-through with Aidan. Liam doesn’t even need to be there. Then the show’ll be in the can, and the second it hits primetime, the asking price will shoot up.”

  “Are you actually serious?”

  Natasha just raised an eyebrow, something that Felicia used to be afraid of.

  “You want me to go back up there? On camera?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Did you hear what I said, about love? Do you need me to define the word? Have you been here so long you’ve forgotten what’s possible? What’s important?”

  Natasha folded her arms. “Honey. I know you’re mad at me. But we can get through this. Don’t forget you love your job. This is what you do. This is who we are.”

  It wasn’t just that she felt trapped, she was trapped. Felicia was walled in by the paperwork she herself had helped draft, the contracts she’d signed of her own volition. The network’s legal team went to sleep dreaming about these kinds of problems.

  “I quit.” The two words were so simple to say, and felt so good in her mouth, that Felicia wondered why she waited so long to see them. Natasha just shook her head. “You can’t quit.”

  Panic beat in Felicia’s chest for the space of the breath, and then she realized she didn’t have to explain it to Natasha. She didn’t owe an explanation to anyone.

  Except to Liam, and he probably didn’t want to hear it. She certainly wouldn’t, if she were him.

  “I’ll fulfill my contract. I’m giving you thirty days’ notice, and I’ll film the last segment with Aidan. The house is mine to sell, not the network’s.” And she would sell it. How could she live there, remembering their night under the redwood’s branches?

  “You’re actually serious?”

  Felicia would work out the rest of her contract, but no more diary cams. Her throat was barely keeping back the tears—she just had to get out of this studio and into her sterile condo, where she could get under the covers and cry for the next three years or so.

  She picked up both her bags and put the straps over her shoulders. “His last diary cam is perfect. The audience will love it. Well done.” She walked past Natasha, whose mouth was still hanging open.

  Felicia left the lot and walked toward her car, trailing her broken heart behind her like a ripped, dirty blanket that would never keep her warm again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Liam had done his level goddamn best to get out of the filmed last walk-through, but Aidan wasn’t having it. “Me and Jake did every single bit of the work in this place while you moped and whined for the last week. You don’t have to talk to her. I don’t care if you even look at her, but you better be there with us for the reveal.”

  Timbo, the traitor, nodded along with Aidan. “I’ll tag her car while you’re going through the house if it makes you feel better.”

  Liam glared at Timbo. “You so much as touch a spray paint can in the next five years, and I’ll make you sleep under a bridge.”

  Timbo grinned. Since the adoption papers came through the week before, the kid had changed. He’d finally unpacked the one box he’d arrived with, putting his books and softballs and various Pez dispensers on the shelves in his room. He experimented once with calling Liam Dad, and then both of them had gone red. It would probably stick, though. Or at least, Liam hoped it would.

  Now, as the Liam pulled up to the old Maupin property, his heart clapped around the interior of his chest like a broken dinner bell. Not much noise, but damn uncomfortable.

  This was the reveal. His job was to let Felicia into her new house.

  Her new house in Darling Bay. Her new home was in his hometown, and while Liam knew he’d never move away, he couldn’t quite imagine staying, either.

  At least he’d gotten used to the bustle of the all the motion on set. He counted at least four cameramen heading toward the house, and another couple of them going inside. The boom mics swung like gigantic cat toys overhead. Anna saw him coming and raised a hand. “Have you seen what your brothers did inside?”

  “They haven’t let me look.” It wasn’t totally true—they’d wanted him to see, but he’d refused to make the drive. The only way to recover from the tsunami that had ruined his quiet, happy life was to avoid the wreckage it had left in its wake.

  “You’re going to love it. Oh, there she is now.”

  He heard car tires crunching up the driveway behind him.

  Two cameras focused on him, one on either side, and he remembered again how much he hated the feel of that gaze. The cameras were silent, and they weren’t even that close, but they represented millions of Americans, all of whom would have opinions about who Liam was. And not one of them would know that Liam Ballard was a man hopelessly in love with a woman who had betrayed him for her job.

  He would make sure it stayed that way, too.

  “So here you go, moment of truth.” God, he hated what he’d done, the sentimentality he allowed himself to feel when making this last g
ift for her. Whatever. Give it to her, let her have it, and be done with her. “Your key.”

  He handed it to her. She took the long silver chain, and stared at the key that hung from it.

  “That looks like—” Felicia’s eyes swung to meet his. “Liam. Is this my key?”

  “You’ll never know until you try it in the door.” He tried to insert a smile into his voice, since it wasn’t rising all the way to his face.

  For a second, it looked as if she’d try to push the question further, but then she turned to the door and slid the key inside. With a snick, the door opened smoothly into the kitchen.

  Aidan, Jake, and Timbo waited for her, and applauded as she made her way inside. There were more camera people then there were normal people, and Liam ducked backward quietly. This was her time, not his. He had done his part.

  A hundred feet from the driveway stood an ancient oak tree with limbs that seemed to spread forever. Where the redwood in the heart of Felicia’s house went up, this oak went out. An old wooden swing hung from a thick branch. It would be as good a place as any to wait for Timbo to be done.

  Liam sat carefully, testing the ropes for weakness. They creaked, but they held his weight.

  Wouldn’t it be nice, if a person could test the heart the same way? The ropes around his weren’t strong enough to hold the pain of Felicia for much longer. Maybe he’d go on vacation for a few weeks, him and Timbo fishing down in Catalina, or maybe a backpacking trip into the Sierras. Anything to get Liam out and away from the woman who starred in his daydreams and walked through his dreams at night. Every night.

  Sunlight filtered through the oak leaves, falling on his shoulders. The air smelled like dust and wood and warm rosemary. It would be the kind of evening that begged for a barbecue and a cold beer on a porch.

  Felicia had that porch now. It was all hers. Liam knew that Aidan had extended the second-floor porch so that a set of stairs led right up to the treehouse platform. No more rickety ladder.

  Who would sit up there with her? Who would watch the incremental growth of the tree’s trunk over the years? Who would remember what the place had looked like when it was sad and abandoned? Now it was bright and airy and perfect for a woman like Felicia.