Love in the Heartland

by Diana Currie

  Maddie smiled and paused for five seconds to let the suspense build. “Circumcised.”

  “I knew it,” Holly shouted.

  Maddie laughed out loud. “See, we can still talk about him. In a way, it’ll be even better because you won’t have to spend hours pondering the endless online gossip trying to figure out what is true and what’s just a rumor. You can get the truth straight from the source. Like I happen to know where he is right now; that he didn’t go down in a fiery plane crash this morning.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Holly sighed. “So, seriously, when do I meet him?”

  “Are you ready today? His plane landed in Amarillo this morning. He’s staying here with me all weekend.”

  “Are you shitting me? I need to go home and change my clothes!”

  Maddie was about to say there wasn’t time when both girls heard the front door open and close. “We’re back,” Joe announced.

  Holly looked at Maddie with wide eyes and mouthed, “we?”

  Maddie smiled and stood up. “Remember how we used to talk about how nice and down to Earth we thought he was? Like Nathan was the kind of actor who would never let the fame ruin him? We were right. He’s totally cool, you’ll love him.”

  Holly stood up and smoothed her hands down her jeans and ran to check her face in Maddie’s mirror. “You look perfect as usual,” Maddie scoffed. “Come on.”

  Nathan and Joe were helping themselves to beers from the refrigerator when Maddie came into the kitchen with Holly walking shyly behind her. Maddie had to step aside and stand against the wall to force Holly out of her shadow. When Joe saw the girls arrive he patted Nathan’s shoulder supportively and slipped out of the kitchen as quickly as he could. Holly stared up at Nathan like a deer in headlights and Maddie wondered if Holly hadn’t fully believed her story until that moment when she laid her own eyes on the celebrity.

  Nathan took another sip of his beer for courage and said to Maddie, “Hey baby. Your dad is quite a character.”

  “I want to hear all about your trip, but first I want to introduce you to my best friend,” Maddie said holding back her laughter. She didn’t know how Nathan ever managed meeting his fans if they all acted the way Holly was acting. She had turned pale white like a ghost and was mumbling incoherently to herself like a schizophrenic.

  Nathan smiled his perfect celebrity grin, not fazed by Holly’s odd behavior at all, and shook her hand. “You must be Holly. I’ve heard so much about you.” She shook back, staring into his brilliant green eyes.

  And then she fainted.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “What about some smelling salts?”

  “Smelling what… do you even know what smelling salts are?”

  Maddie looked down at Nathan and shook her head, pressing her lips together to keep from laughing. “Like what my mom uses in the bath tub maybe? The strong smell would revive her.”

  Nathan raked his hand over his face in exasperation. He’d experienced women reacting to him in many different ways. Shock, excitement, hysteria, but this was a new one. “I can’t sit on the kitchen floor holding her all afternoon. We should move her to the couch so she wakes up somewhere safe.”

  A giggle finally escaped Maddie’s lips. “Maybe you’re right. If she wakes up in your arms she’ll just pass out again.”

  Nathan carefully lifted Holly up and carried her into the Sherratt’s living room where he gently placed his overwhelmed fan on the couch. “Should we call a doctor?”

  “Do you think she hit her head when she fell?” Maddie replied.

  “No, I caught her in the air. I meant because she’s still unconscious.”

  “Well, she’s breathing, but now you have me worried,” Maddie said as she knelt beside her best friend where she lay like Sleeping Beauty. “Holly. Holly?” she called while shaking her shoulders lightly.

  Nathan pulled his phone out and began typing ‘smelling salts’ into Google when Maddie sighed loudly in relief. He glanced down and saw Holly’s eyelids were starting to flutter. She was waking up. Part of him wanted to back up and slowly exit the room to give the girls some privacy and not make the situation worse by his mere presence. He could only imagine the embarrassment Holly must be feeling.

  “Is he still here? He didn’t leave, did he?” Holly asked in a panic. Her eyes darted around the room until she found Nathan standing behind the couch.

  “Holly, are you okay?” Maddie demanded.

  “Yeah, I just fainted. No big deal.” She sat up and smoothed out her hair as if nothing had happened. “So, Nathan… I’m a huge fan of your work, as Maddie might have mentioned. I still can’t believe that you’re dating her. This is amazing. How long are you in town? Do you mind if I ask you some questions? There are so many things I’ve been dying to know.”

  Nathan and Maddie exchanged a quick glance. Nathan asked with his eyes if Maddie thought Holly was really okay. Maddie shrugged with an apologetic smile that reminded him that he had been warned she was eccentric. He laughed to himself and decided to just go with it. He slid down onto the couch at the opposite end of where Holly sat. Maddie followed his lead and settled into Joe’s old armchair across from them.

  “I think I can handle a few questions. I’ll be in town until Monday morning. When Maddie leaves for school I’ll be heading back to L.A.” Nathan answered.

  “That’s not very much time. Not much time at all,” she mused. “You have to get back to filming the new movie though, right?”

  “Yep. We’re all done in Louisiana so it’s back to sound stage work next week.”

  “That is so cool. What is Katie Owens like off screen?” Holly wondered.

  “Um, she’s very nice. She’s a good friend.”

  “Did you ever date her in real life? Be honest now.”

  “No, we never dated,” Nathan replied and glanced over at Maddie. They hadn’t talked much about Katie since becoming a couple. He hoped that she knew there was nothing to worry about with his costar.

  “Didn’t you kiss her outside that club last month? There were pictures… you were standing next to a limousine,” Holly pressed like she was trying to jog Nathan’s memory. Her reminders were unnecessary; that night was crystal clear in Nathan’s mind.

  “I remember it,” Nathan said curtly. “That was the night I realized I needed Maddie in my life for real. I flew here the next morning to make her my girlfriend.” Maddie blushed when she heard that. Sometimes it was still difficult for her to believe this was all real too.

  Holly’s eyes bulged a little. “Wow,” she sighed dreamily. “So, tell me… what size shoe are you?”

  Nathan smirked but tried to otherwise hide his amusement. “Um, a twelve and a half.”

  Holly whistled slowly. “Was there any truth to the rumor about you and the Love Spelled Backwards director?”

  “No. That was a complete fabrication.”

  “Do you really eat cereal with beer in it?”

  Nathan laughed. “No, that journalist misunderstood me. I was trying to say that I’ve been known to drink beer as my beverage in the morning, not in place of the milk that goes in my cereal.”

  “I’ve been wondering that too,“Maddie giggled. “I was going to watch you very closely tomorrow morning to see what you ate.” Nathan rolled his eyes.

  “Wait, where are you staying? The Hilton?” Holly asked confused.

  Maddie cleared her throat subtly. “No, he’s staying here.”

  “Here? Papa Sherratt approves of that?”

  “I’m a grown woman,” Maddie retorted, slightly offended at being made to feel like a teenager instead of a twenty-five-yearold adult.

  Holly momentarily forgot all of her follow up questions about their sleeping arrangements when something much more important popped into her head. “Oh my God, I forgot!” she shrieked. “You’re still missing! No one knows where your plane landed!”

  “Pardon?”

  “Your plane. It didn’t land in Los Angeles. TMZ thinks you crashed i
n the desert somewhere. You better call Melissa so she can get the word out that you’re alive,” Holly said seriously.

  “And your mom,” Maddie added.

  Nathan took a minute to let that sink in; the plane crash story, not the fact that Holly somehow knew the first name of his agent. He couldn’t go anywhere without being followed and the one time he managed to get away the media found a way to turn that into a story too! He sighed loudly. “Okay, excuse me for a few minutes,” he said pulling his phone out and dialing his parents’ house in Wisconsin. He realized people probably were worried when he saw there were twelve missed calls on his phone in the past few hours. He’d silenced the ringer when he left with Joe that morning and had forgotten to switch it back.

  When Nathan left the room, Holly wrapped her arms around herself and squealed like she’d seen a mouse. “How can you stand being so close to him without flipping out?” she asked Maddie.

  “It gets easier the longer you know him. I was nervous every time he called me the first couple months,” Maddie admitted. “It took a little time for my brain to register him as a regular person.”

  “I still can’t believe you kept this a secret for so long! Why not tell people? Don’t you want every bottle blonde in Hollywood to know he’s spoken for?”

  “I try not to let the jealousy eat me alive, but it’s hard sometimes. You know more than anyone how closely Nathan’s life is chronicled. I don’t want to be a pulled into all that so we decided not to publicly announce our relationship.”

  “But you are part of it; it’s only a matter of time until the paparazzi figure out that Nathan flies to Amarillo every other weekend. Or do you not plan on seeing him again for a while?” Holly asked.

  “I’m going to Beverly Hills for spring break. We’re going to hang out; he wants to introduce me to his friends and I’ll get to meet his brother.”

  “And you don’t think you’ll be photographed?”

  “I’m hoping not. Nathan said the media will always assume the women he’s seen with are sleeping with him even if we’re careful not to touch. He’s been seen out with Melissa and Lupe before. Lupe, the petite Hispanic woman, is his housekeeper by the way,” Maddie said with a big smile.

  “The woman who Perez Hilton was convinced was Nathan’s Latina lover is his housekeeper?” she replied giggling.

  Maddie laughed too. “Yep, she’s married with like four kids. They were grocery shopping when the cameras caught them in the parking lot.”

  Holly shook her head in disbelieve. “I’m still in shock, I think. You are one lucky bitch! You’re living out the ultimate fangirl fantasy! Every one of us will be watching you in awe and envy wishing we were in your shoes. So make us proud, Madeline Sherratt.”

  Sandy came downstairs a few minutes later and invited Holly to stay for dinner. Not wanting to ever leave Nathan Foster’s presence, she happily accepted. Meanwhile, Nathan finished explaining to his mom that he was alive and then texted Melissa, Hank, Garrett, Tyler, and Gavin messages with the same assurance. When he returned to the living room, Holly was prepared with another round of questioning. Nathan was patient with her but really wished he could sneak away with Maddie instead. She felt the same, but wanted Holly to get her time in now. She had no plans of sharing Nathan with anyone else for the remainder of his trip. Two days was far too short a time to begin with and so much of the day was already spent with other people interrupting their privacy.

  The three of them chatted about Hollywood and the EVOL movies while Sandy made dinner. Maddie wanted to know more about the people she would be meeting while visiting L.A. so Nathan told them about some of his actor friends and shared a few stories about what it was like moving there with just a suitcase and a dream. The two women were in awe as he spoke about his life, both past and present, but in very different ways. Holly felt like she was getting an exclusive behind the scenes look at her favorite celebrity. She was in awe. For Maddie, the conversation brought her closer to the man she cared for deeply and was quickly falling in love with. She wanted to learn everything there was to know about Nathan.

  Dinner with Joe and Sandy was interesting. Again, everyone wanted to hear about Nathan’s life in Hollywood. One of the things he liked about Maddie was that she lived outside the bubble of Los Angeles. She didn’t view the world or herself the same way as most of the actresses he knew. She was pure of heart and family oriented. He loved the slow pace life in Amarillo and wanted to forget about the City of Angels and all the temptations within it that very nearly destroyed him.

  After his hosts got their fill of celebrity trivia, Nathan asked about life in Texas. Amarillo was very different geographically from his other safe haven, Madison, Wisconsin, but it provided Nathan with the same clear head and taste of reality that he needed once in a while. Joe had already showed Nathan the gun range in town but promised on his next visit to take him out to Cadillac Ranch.

  “What’s Cadillac Ranch?” he asked as everyone was finishing their meals.

  Joe leaned back, placing his hands over his full stomach. “A work of damn art, that’s what it is.”

  “That is a matter of opinion,” Sandy retorted rolling her eyes at her husband. “It’s a rusty eye sore if you ask me.”

  Maddie smiled at Nathan who suspected the Sherratt’s have had this argument many times before. “Back in the seventies these guys put a bunch of old Cadillacs in the ground sticking up vertically. It’s kind of a mix between architecture and roadside tourist attraction. Over the years people have photographed them and visited the spot since you can see it from Route 40.”

  “They’re covered in graffiti now,” Sandy interjected.

  “That’s the cool part, Mom. Tourists are allowed to spray paint their own design or message on the cars. I can take you tomorrow, if you think you can risk leaving the house,” Maddie offered.

  “Yeah, I’d like to see it,” he replied.

  Sandy shook her head as she stood up and started clearing the table. “They moved it a few years back to allow for city expansion. I wish they’d pushed it further from the highway so I don’t have to look at it every week on my way to Wilderado.”

  Maddie chuckled as she got up to help her mother with the dishes. Nathan followed her lead, having grown up in a family where the children were accustomed to nightly kitchen duty. Sandy smiled wide; pleasantly surprised to see Nathan’s good manners. Joe began asking about dessert and Holly wondered how much longer she could hang around before Maddie kicked her out for the night.

  Once the dishwasher was loaded and Sandy had thanked Nathan for his help, he quietly pulled Maddie aside by her elbow, towing her around the corner of the kitchen and into the hall. “Do you think we can sneak away in a few minutes? I was hoping we could spend a little time alone tonight, you know?”

  “I want that too. Now that dishes are done my mom’s going to offer us cake and coffee. We’ll just have a quick cup and excuse ourselves upstairs,” she answered in a sexy tone, sliding her hands up his chest.

  Nathan frowned. Her touch felt so good, but after spending time with Joe he felt like keeping his snake in its cage for the weekend would be the respectful thing to do. He didn’t know how far Maddie wanted to go physically, but if the way she acted earlier in the day was any indication, then sex couldn’t be far from her mind. Nathan wanted to make love to Maddie very much but not with Joe and Sandy within earshot.

  “Maybe I should just sleep in Kyle’s old room. When you come to my house for spring break we’ll have more privacy,” he suggested reluctantly.

  “But I have plans for you and me, Slugger. Are you saying you’d rather wait for spring break?”

  Now Nathan knew for certain she was talking about sex. The thought of waiting another three weeks depressed him. “No, but I also don’t want to make your parents uncomfortable by sleeping with you in their house,” he said apologetically. “I want them to like me.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep a wink knowing you’re in the next room,”
she pouted sticking out her bottom lip.

  Nathan placed his hands on Maddie’s waist and knew he couldn’t stand not holding her all night either. He thought about taking her to the hotel where Stanley was staying but it felt seedy to use a hotel room for just a few hours. “Can we go for a drive after your mom’s coffee?”

  “You’re not worried about being seen?” Maddie replied.

  “The sun will be going down soon; we should be fine. I just want to go somewhere we can be alone for a while.”

  Maddie smirked. “That gives me a good idea.”

  Sandy popped her head around the corner and said, “There you two are! I’ve got a pot of coffee on and your father’s getting out the playing cards. I made a cherry cheesecake just for our guest here.”

  Maddie bit her lip and looked up at Nathan. Sandy misread the disappointment on her daughter’s face and said, “What? Doesn’t Nathan like cheesecake? I read on Cosmo.com that it’s his favorite.”

  “It’s not the dessert, Mom. Nathan and I were hoping to maybe go for a drive so we can have some privacy.”

  “You don’t want to play Uno?” Sandy asked looking hurt.

  “Tomorrow night, I promise. We only get two days together and we haven’t had much time alone yet.” Maddie knew her mother wanted to be a good hostess and in Sandy’s world playing Uno or gin rummy after dinner is how you entertain guests. Maddie had other ideas of how to entertain Nathan and none of them were things she could do in front of her parents. She hoped her mother would get the hint so she didn’t have to spell it out for her.

  “Come have a slice of cake and afterwards I’ll get your father to watch a movie. He won’t even notice you leave,” Sandy conceded with a smile.

  “Thank you, Sandy,” Nathan replied placing his hand on her shoulder. “And cherry cheesecake really is my favorite!”

  Half an hour later, Maddie threw a few things into the back of her father’s pickup truck and told Nathan she was ready to go. She wanted to make love to him and she wanted it to be special; getting forced out of the house turned out to be a perfect way for her to accomplish both.