by Elise Faber
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Elise Faber
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BY ELISE FABER
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
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Copyright © 2020 Elise Faber
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-76-0
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-75-3
Cover Art by Jena Brignola
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Epilogue
Meet Cute
Love, Camera, Action
Love, Camera, Action
Also by Elise Faber
About the Author
One
Maggie
My cell vibrated just as the minister declared, “You may kiss the bride.”
Slipping out of my chair as Eden and Damon locked lips, but before they vacated the altar, I sprinted down the aisle and toward a tree, hustling behind it.
Only five people were currently not on Do Not Disturb.
Eden—who was currently otherwise occupied.
Three additional equally important clients. All of whom were either in attendance—and Pierce and Artie were not likely to be on the phone as they watched the bride and groom get hitched—or on the opposite side of the globe—and Talbot was probably sleeping.
The last was my father.
Who never called unless something was on fire, someone was bleeding out, or an asteroid was heading toward the planet.
I glanced at the screen, not realizing how much I’d been hoping it was Talbot with some earth-shattering crisis until I saw “Dad calling” flashing across the surface. “Shit,” I muttered, swiping a finger and bringing it up to my ear. “Hi, Dad. Everything okay?”
“It’s not Dad.”
Hot then cold. Goose bumps on my arms. The past shoving its way firmly into my present because his voice was ice, and it broke my heart.
Aaron.
My ex Aaron.
My ex because I’d left.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Your father fell,” Aaron said. “He’s in the hospital.”
“What?” I gasped, my head falling back against the tree, my heart pounding. “What happened?”
“He decided he had to shovel the driveway—”
“What?!” I repeated like an idiot. “But I hired someone to come and do that—”
Cold infiltrated the airwaves. “Except that someone didn’t show up, and your father decided he couldn’t wait for me to come over and do it.”
So many things wrong with that statement.
Why the company I’d hired hadn’t shown up, why Aaron would still be seeing my dad, why my father would think it was a good idea to go out and shovel his driveway at sixty-nine years old after surviving four heart attacks.
“Is he okay?”
“He needs surgery,” Aaron snapped. “A hip replacement.”
I gasped. “Oh, my God! I—”
Cheers erupted from the audience behind me, Damon and Eden probably making their way down the aisle.
“Never mind. I can tell you’re busy. I shouldn’t have called,” Aaron said, still cold, still so similar to how he’d sounded when I’d told him I was leaving—moving to L.A., leaving Utah behind. So different from how he’d sounded when we’d been together. But I’d made his warmth disappear as easily as freshly baked cinnamon apple bread around my father.
My father.
Shit.
Eyes burning at the thought of him all alone in the hospital. “I’ll be on the next pl—”
Another cheer, voices coming my way.
“Enjoy your party, Mags.”
I’d been about to say I would be on the next plane home, but Aaron hung up.
And I was left with silence in my ear, a worried and aching heart . . . alone but somehow still surrounded by people.
Alone, but not.
That was fitting.
Sighing, I shoved my phone into my pocket, and went to retrieve my coat and purse, thankful I never left home for any big event without my go bag. Then I bypassed the bride and groom, not wanting to spoil their special day, jumped into my car, and headed to the airport, buying a ticket on the first flight to Utah.
To Aaron—
No. To my father.
Only my father. Because Aaron was strictly in the past. We were over. There wasn’t a future for us.
I’d made certain of it.
But as the plane soared across the sky, closing the distance between present and past, I was having a hard time remembering why I’d made certain of it.
I missed him.
And I’d . . . never stopped loving him.
Two
I realized pretty quickly that I was unprepared for Utah weather.
Maybe that was because I was in a spaghetti strap dress that revealed more thigh than it covered, or maybe it was because my coat was not Rocky Mountain winter warm.
It had been near eighty in southern California at the wedding.
Lovely. Clear skies. A warm off-shore breeze.
Part of the reason I’d gladly traded Utah for California.
Warm weather for the majority of the year. No snow. No tornados. Yes, the odd earthquake. Yes, a regular fire season, with smoke sometimes clouding the horizon.
But I could also wear a mini-skirt in November, so really, I couldn’t complain.
My feet, on the other hand, were complaining mightily.
Thankfully, I kept a go-bag in my trunk for just this type of occasion—my clients could create a lot of trouble with very little effort, and I needed to be prepared to jump on a flight at a moment’s notice. So, even though I hadn’t had time to change before running for the plane, and even though I definitely hadn’t wanted to fight with the tiny bathroom on that plane, teetering in heels and trying to peel myself out of the dress, I knew that once I found a decent place to change, I’d been good to go.
I also knew from experience that the heels didn’t come off before then.
Because if they did, they wouldn’t make it back on.
And—cue shudder—I was not walking through the airport in bare feet.
The fasten seatbelt indicator flashed back on, the flight attendant making the announcement that the plane’s descent was coming, and we would soon be on the ground.
I was going to be back on the ground in Utah.
Good lord.
I’d moved to Los Angeles ten years ago, only returning to the state for my dad’s birthday, for Christmas, to help him after his heart attacks, and . . . that was it.
Campbell, Utah had been my youth. A great place to grow up—safe, with good schools, perfect for a single dad to find a close-knit community to raise his daughter. It was just . . . I’d always dreamed of more, of bigger places with bright lights. I’d dreamed of the ocean and endless sunny days. I’d . . .
Dreamed.
I’d lacked many things growing up—simple affection, an “I love you,” an “I’m proud of you,” but I’d most especially been lacking a loving, supportive environment. Oh, we’d had food, I’d had place to sleep, but I’d never had tenderness. And a little girl who’d lost her mom had needed tenderness.
Not to be.
He’d ordered me to move back to Utah many times over—no clue why he’d even want me there after the way he’d treated me—but I also knew I would never go back. I loved my job, my clients, and the big community of non-judgmental friends who’d become my extended family in L.A.
I didn’t want to be back in Utah.
I wanted to be in California, my toes in the sand, the breeze tangling my brown hair, making it feel a lot sexier and more exciting than just plain brown, and I wanted my dad to move there with me.
I’d been on him about the change for years now.
A fresh start for both of us. Sun and the ocean to wash away the past. A chance for us to have some something real.
Plus, no snow to shovel. No driveways to slip and fall and break a hip. No—
Ranch. No open fields. No horses in the back pasture or grassy hills in the distance.
That was the part of Utah I missed.
Fresh summer peaches, juice dripping down my chin that I had wiped away with my forearm when I was younger, juice that was kissed away when I got old enough to sneak off with boys.
With one boy.
With Aaron.
Ugh. I didn’t want to go down this mental rabbit hole, but it was hard to forget the boy, the teen, the man who’d been my first . . . everything.
First kiss. First time. First love. First—
The plane’s tires hit the runway with a sharp bump, jarring me out of my thoughts, but unfortunately not before the final word crossed my mind.
Heartbreak.
That I’d caused.
“Shit,” I muttered, drawing the attention of my seatmate, who smiled indulgently.
“Not the smoothest landing,” the woman said as the airplane taxied.
“No,” I agreed.
We departed the plane. I skipped baggage claim in lieu of a rental car, since my go-bag was carry-on sized (yeah, I was that good at my job, at prepping for unknown events ahead), and with a snort at my inner ego, I went to the rental counter to pick up a generic silver sedan that would take me into Campbell.
Well, to the hospital just inside Darlington’s borders that served this area.
The Tri-Valleys was a cluster of three towns sandwiched between two mountain ranges, the fertile hills and valleys—there was a reason for the community’s name after all—making for vast expanses of grazing areas for cattle, along with the odd bison and fields of wheat and barley.
It was small. It was close-knit.
It was painfully confining.
And I was back.
“Yay,” I grumbled, navigating out of the airport’s loop and heading east, toward the borders of Wyoming and Colorado, where the ground turned less desert and more tree-filled, over the small mountains that dropped me into the Tri-Valleys. Quiet, and like many small towns in middle America, fairly forgettable, with only the occasional blip in the news.
A high school team won the State Championship.
A local woman hit it big with a TV show on a food channel.
A drug bust made by a local officer.
Normal lives, knowing all the neighbors, main streets that were filled with only two lanes of traffic. A town who knew each other’s schedules and routines, who baked casseroles and started meal trains after funerals or babies or illnesses.
They cared.
Of course, they also occasionally cared too much, were too nosy, always had an opinion and a judgment because they had plenty of time on their hands.
“Yeah, like Hollywood is any better?” I muttered to myself, navigating through the off-ramp, knowing in my heart of hearts it wasn’t. People were just as nosy, just as judgmental. They just had more money, had bigger egos, and generally didn’t show up on my front porch with a homemade casserole in hand.
I turned right, taking the road that would lead me to the county hospital, and frowned when I had to squint slightly. Tucked into the valley and with the setting sun behind me, it was getting dark fast.
I slipped off my sunglasses as I navigated the winding road, wishing I’d left my contacts in because the switch from prescription sunglasses to prescription regular glasses while driving was never easy, but it was levels of difficulty higher when it was someone as blind as me doing the change. My eyes had been aching from the dry airplane air and had needed a rest, so I’d made the swap from my usual contacts to glasses, and then the sun had been blinding until I’d turned off the highway.
Now it was dark, and I was using an elbow, a knee, and one hand to drive, the other fumbling to retrieve my glasses holder from my purse, open it, and get them on my face. I should have just pulled over to the side of the road.
But I hadn’t.
And anyway, while these roads were winding, they were also empty. A shortcut locals took to bypass the often congested stretch of highway—
“Shit!”
I swerved as I navigated a corner, my glasses settling on my nose just as a truck came around the bend, going the opposite direction.
Their horn blared.
Deserved, I knew, since I’d been crowding the center line.
I waved, wrinkled my nose to slide my glasses firmly in place, and put both hands back on the wheel.
“No more shenanigans, Allen,” I said. “It’s shameful to the family name.”
The scold was murmured aloud, but it echoed in my brain, drifting through in my dad’s voice, bringing two things.
Guilt.
Awareness.
Guilt for leaving. Guilt because he was in the hospital. Guilt that he was alone.
Awareness . . . that there was a truck following very closely behind me.
Quite possibly, or perhaps, quite likely, the same truck who’d just honked at me.
Fear chased awareness down my spine, those headlights shining more brightly as the sun went down in my rearview, the bumper very close to mine, the large silhouette obvious when I glanced behind me.
Male. Big.
But I couldn’t make out his face, and when I went to pull over on the shoulder, to slide to the side to let him pass, the truck just slowed behind me.
“Shit,” I whispered, maneuvering back onto the road.
What should I do?
Drive to the police station? To the hospital like I’d planned? To the center of town and hope that even though the sun had now set there would still be a few people around and this guy wouldn’t turn ax murderer, just because I’d almost side-swiped him?
I mean, I got that I’d almost side-swiped him, but that was just it. Almost.
A horn. A middle-finger. Move on.
Not follow me to town.
Which, thankfully, I could see up ahead, a few lights dotting the hills in the distance. A strip of them straight ahead, signaling the cute little downtown area, a gathering of bright lights to the right, highlighting the squat, modern hospital building.
Police station, hospital, or downtown?
My eyes flicked to the mirror, saw the truck was still behind me.
“Shit.”
I didn’t turn right to the hospital.
The sheriff’s office was only a few streets down. Hopefully, whoever was behind me would see that I was heading that direction and get scared off.
But the closer I got to the station, the closer the truck seemed to get behind me.
Two more intersections.
One.
Then the sign for the Tri-Valleys Sheriff’s Department came into view.
I breathed in a sigh of relief, turned right into the parking lot, and my anxiety calmed when I saw lights on in the lobby, people milling about.
A flash behind me.
I pulled up to the front of the building, grabbed my purse, and yanked at the handle, but the door opened before I could shove it wide.
My scream bubbled up in my throat—
“Don’t.”
Cold then hot. Terror dissolved to mist.
Aaron.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Three
Aaron
I’d known it was her.
Even in the waning sunlight, even though I hadn’t seen her in years, my body had reacted the same way it always did.
Pulse skipping.
Cock twitching.
Hands itching to touch.
Luckily, the physical response was easy to ignore.
Because I remembered the emotional crater she’d left behind with painful clarity. Fuck, but this woman had broken my heart.
“A-aaron?” she stammered, glancing up at me.
“Want to explain why you almost side-swiped me?”
Her chin lifted. “Want to explain why you tailgated me the entire way here? If I’d had to slam on my brakes—”
I stepped closer, some deep, hidden part of me I liked to imagine no longer existed revealed itself, exposing my yearning for her. For so long I’d pretended that need had just poofed off like smoke the moment she’d packed her car and disappeared into the sunset. It hadn’t, and that secret piece deep inside reveled in seeing the fire in her eyes. In inhaling her scent, peaches and cream with a hint cinnamon, spice she had inside and out.
Life.
She’d always been so full of it.
Even though now she was older, her body curvier, a sprinkle of lines just visible at the corners of her eyes. Her glasses hid them for the most part, but I knew her face better than my own, could easily catalogue what had changed—