Just a Summer Fling (19 page)

He stared at her for a moment, then demanded, “You been busy?”

“Busy? Char’s leaving tomorrow morning, so, you know . . . running lines . . .”

“But you found time to make a few phone calls, right? Make a few invitations?”

Oh. She’d known he’d find out, eventually, but she hadn’t anticipated it happening quite so fast. Still, it wasn’t a big deal. “Yeah, a few. I mean, it was my fault you lost the clients, so, you know . . . I thought I should even the playing field. David McArthur isn’t the only person with some pull.” He was still just staring at her, and she started to get nervous.

“It’s not a big deal, Josh. And I’m sure it didn’t work for everyone. If they’re actually in the industry, they probably care more about David. He’s big on the production side, and I’m just an actor. But for some of them? The ones who aren’t in the business? They care more about actors than producers. And at The Splash, I noticed that people were interested, but they were too shy or too polite to actually come up and talk to us. I know it’s weird, but . . . I’m a celebrity. I’m not saying it makes me a better person or important or anything, but it can be a useful tool. So yeah, a barbecue. It’s, like, three hours of my time! That’s all. I made a few phone calls, said I was thinking about putting something together for you and some of your clients, and would they be interested?” She’d been pretty proud of her smoothness, at the time. “That’s all. Seriously, it’s not a big thing.”

“Not a big thing.” He nodded as if the words were sinking into his brain. “Yeah. Just a barbecue. Just a game you’re playing. Is there a reason you didn’t mention it to me?”

“I wasn’t sure it would work!” She’d done a good thing, done him a favor, and he was getting mad at her about it?
“I thought it would be a surprise if it worked, and I could just forget about it if it didn’t. My God, Josh, what the hell happened? Why are you pissed about this?”

“Why am I pissed about you trying to take over my business?”

“Are you mental? You think I’m trying to take over a handyman business in backwoods Vermont? Seriously?”

The hurt only showed on his face for a split second before the anger came back, but that tiny glimpse was enough to drain Ashley’s resentment completely. “I’m sorry—” she started, but Josh was already backing away.

“My life isn’t your hobby, Ashley. Stay out of it.”

And that was all. He turned and strode back to the truck, climbed in, slammed the door, and was gone in a swirl of gravel. Ashley walked to the door and stared after him. It took her quite a while to notice that Kevin and Charlotte were still sitting out there, and they were both watching her through the screen.

“You want to come sit down?” Charlotte asked carefully.

Ashley had no idea what she wanted. Less than five minutes earlier, everything had been good. Now? It was like her life had exploded, and she was definitely feeling shell-shocked. She stumbled out onto the porch and collapsed into one of the big wooden chairs. “You heard that?” she asked.

Charlotte nodded. “Hard not to.”

“Did it make any sense to you? I mean, I was doing him a
favor
!”

“Without asking him.” Charlotte sounded sympathetic rather than judgmental, but it still stung to hear her pointing out the same thing Josh had.

“What if I’d asked him, and then it hadn’t worked? I would have gotten his hopes up for nothing!”

“I doubt it,” Kevin said. When Ashley stared at him, he shook his head. “I don’t think he’d have wanted you to do it.”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s his business.” Kevin looked at her, then at Charlotte, and he sighed. “It’s partly the man/woman thing, I guess. I mean, macho pride or some shit. I know it’s not the way we’re supposed to think, but it’s pretty hard to avoid the attitude. A guy like Josh, working his ass off for every penny, and a woman like you, rolling in cash? And money you made, not something you married into or inherited. It’s probably a bit hard on his pride.”

“Not you, though,” Ashley said. “You and Char, that’s okay for you?”

“Well, I’m totally shameless. It makes things a lot easier.”

Ashley had to agree that it would. “So, what, he’s supposed to work his ass off, and then lose a lot of business because of a reporter chasing
my
stupid story, and I should just sit back and knit or something? Just ignore the whole thing?”

Kevin glanced at Charlotte as if trying to decide how much further he wanted to go. She apparently either gave approval or gave nothing, because he sighed and then said, “You really want that part in the movie, right? That cowboy thing?”

“Cow
girl
,” Ashley corrected as soon as she’d caught up to the topic shift.

“Okay, whatever. So you complain to Josh about it, and he agrees that it’s unfair that people aren’t even giving you a chance. Right?”

“Okay,” Ashley said cautiously.

“So then, say, you got an audition, and you went down and you got the part, and then you found out that Josh had pulled some strings—just for clarity, understand that Josh has no fucking strings to pull, but pretend that he did—to make that happen.” Kevin watched her for a moment, then asked, “How would you feel about that?”

There were reasons it wasn’t the same. Her career
frustrations hadn’t come about because of anything Josh had done, after all, so there wasn’t really any justification for him to try to rebalance an equation that he hadn’t thrown off in the first place. But maybe Ashley needed to argue less, and find the truth from the parts of the story that
were
the same. “I’d be disappointed,” she confessed. “Hurt, maybe, that he didn’t have enough faith in me to let me do it on my own.”

Kevin nodded slowly. “And the thing is—” he started. Then he looked at Charlotte and stopped talking.

“No,” Ashley said. “Keep going. I might as well take all the medicine at once.”

Charlotte slowly nodded her permission toward Kevin, and he said, “The thing is, it’s not even a long-term solution. It’ll work for now, maybe. While you’re around to offer barbecues or whatever. But after you leave, Josh doesn’t have those bribes anymore, and he’ll have lost a lot of his credibility, you know? He won’t be an honest handyman who does good work at good rates; he’ll be the guy who got a lot of clients because he was sleeping with an actress.”

“That’s bullshit. He’ll do good work for them and they’ll want to keep him!”

“He did good work for them before, and they fired him quick enough.”

Ashley tried to marshal her thoughts. “But why does it have to . . . I mean, I know I can’t stay here forever. But—”

Kevin’s voice was unforgiving. “You’ll go home. That’s what summer people do. You come, you stir shit up, and you leave. We spend the winter tidying up your messes, and then the weather gets warm and you all come and start it all over again.”

Ashley wanted to argue, but she couldn’t think of what to say. When her phone rang, she grabbed it, hoping to see Josh’s name on the call display, then smiled sadly and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hi, Adam.”

“I just had lunch with Aliyah Bentham, the casting director for the Lauren Hall project.” Adam sounded triumphant. “I showed her the pictures you sent me, you looking all grubby with that ugly brown horse. I told her how hungry you are for the part, and she wants you to audition, Ashley. She wants to give you a chance.”

She should have been elated, totally over the moon. Instead, she felt sort of numb. “That’s great,” she said, because she knew it was what he wanted to hear. “But I thought they’d already set up auditions?”

“They did. I put some pressure on for you, persuaded them to add one more name to their list. But you need to get your ass down here fast. They’re sticking you in early, tomorrow at four in the afternoon. I called the airlines and got you on the first flight tomorrow morning. You need to be at the Burlington airport at six thirty local time.”

“Thank you. But . . . is there any chance of . . . does it have to be so soon?”

“I thought you were working on the script up there? Aren’t you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. It’s just not a great time. Personally.”

“
Personally?
Shit, Ashley, you said you wanted this. I put myself on the line for you. I told them you were ready to try something more challenging, said you were completely in love with the part—”

“That’s all true,” she said quickly. Miserably. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll fly out tomorrow. Thanks, Adam.”

“No problem. I’ll e-mail you the flight details, and I’ll meet you when you land. We can go to your place and figure out wardrobe, or shop if we need to.”

They hung up, and Ashley lowered the phone. It was all catching up to her. Everything she’d wanted to leave behind when she came up for her vacation was back. “You’re on the six thirty flight tomorrow morning, right?” she said to Charlotte.

Charlotte nodded. “He got you an audition. Ashley, that’s great. I know this is—it’s not great timing. But, come on, Ash! Lauren Hall! This script! It’s incredible.”

Ashley made herself smile. “Yeah. It is. I’m excited, really. It’s just . . . I’m just tired.”

They didn’t argue with her, which was nice, and they didn’t try to keep her on the porch when she said she wanted to go inside.

So she went to her bedroom and had to talk herself out of making the big gesture. Josh needed some space. She’d screwed up, again, and this time it was worse because she really, really should have known better. Good intentions were important, but common sense would be nice to have, too. In its absence, she supposed she’d have to keep muddling along as well as she could; she’d just have to try to be honest with him, and see where that got her.

Twenty

JOSH DIDN’T GET
the message until the next morning. He supposed he’d been outside the night before when the call came, and when he’d come inside he’d been . . . well, he wasn’t going to say he was wallowing in frustration, but he hadn’t followed most of his usual nighttime routines, like checking messages. So he saw the blinking light in the morning and made himself a cup of coffee before pressing the play button.

It was hard to stay calm when he heard Ashley’s voice. “Hi, Josh. I have no idea if you want to hear this. If you want to hear anything from me. But I wanted to give you a call. I’ve got to go back to the city for a few days. I’m leaving in the morning, pretty early. But I wanted to . . . I don’t know. Before I left, I wanted to . . . to apologize, I guess.” She sounded sad, not defensive. He set his coffee down and just stood there in his kitchen, listening to her voice.

“I understand what I did to make you angry. I had good
intentions, but I should have checked with you. And if you’d said no, I should have respected that.

“So I don’t know where to go from here, really.” She paused for so long that he checked to be sure the message was still playing. Then he heard, “I’m coming back. If you don’t want to see me, that’ll be hard. I’ll—” She laughed a little, sadly. “I’ll try not to make a fool of myself again
,
but no guarantees of that, Josh, because I really, really like you. I want to . . . I don’t know. I want to see what we can be. Together. I want to make all this up to you and make you not be mad at me and help you the way you want to be helped, not the way I think you should be helped. Yeah, I want all that. So . . . I guess I don’t know whether you care what I want. I don’t really know whether you care at all. But I want to find out.”

Another long pause, and then her voice was more businesslike. “So I’m going to try to keep myself from calling you while I’m in L.A. It’s going to be hard, but I guess I need to give you some space, right? But if you wanted to call me, that’d be . . . that’d be great, Josh. Otherwise, I’ll get in touch when I come back. A few days, probably. Okay.” Another long pause. “God, I want to say something else, even though I know it’s stupid. Like, the words are right there, trying to come out. But I think I’ve got myself under control. So, yeah. Bye.”

The message ended and Josh stared at the machine. What had she wanted to say? Not— No.
Way
too early. Plus, like she said, stupid. That wasn’t what this was about. Nobody was falling in— No. This was a summer thing. That was all.

The rest of the message had been almost as . . . what? What the hell was he feeling about it all now?

He shook his head, trying to clear it of confusion. He needed to work. Ashley was gone. She was planning to come back, but last he’d heard she’d been planning to stay at the
lake for the whole summer, so her plans didn’t always mean too much. And there was nothing he could do about any of it. To stay sane, he needed to focus on the things he could control.

His phone rang and he felt a stir of excitement, almost hope, but when he looked down it was displaying Kevin’s name. He hit the button to answer and growled, “You ever planning on working again?”

“That’s what I’m calling about. Charlotte’s gone. They both are.” He waited as if expecting some response to that, but Josh was pretty sure there wasn’t much to say about it. Eventually, Kevin said, “So, yeah. If you’ve got hours, I want them.”

“Good. I want some help with the Ryersons’ storm-watching thing. Meet me there when you get back up here.”

Josh hung up. The stars were gone. Everything was back to normal. Well, his business was blown to hell, but that was a problem, not a crisis.

Yeah, things were calming down. It was good, really. Time to get back to work, back into the summer routine. If he felt a little empty, that was just because . . . whatever. It was just how things were. It could have been worse if Ashley had stayed for longer.

He wouldn’t call her, he decided. What was there to say? It was better to have a clean break, not drag it all out.

He’d gotten off easy. He was fine, and it was good to be back to normal. He wondered how many repetitions it would take until he believed his own words.

*   *   *

ASHLEY
was exhausted, but she refused to pull over. Six days in L.A., auditioning for the role of a lifetime, meeting with people who might help her get the part, calling in every favor and activating every connection she had, and all she’d
wanted the whole time was to get back to Lake Sullivan. Get back to Josh Sullivan. She’d caught the last flight into Burlington, picked up a rental car, and started driving. She’d told Charlotte she’d spend the night at an airport hotel and had even thought she might do it, but as soon as her feet had touched the ground she’d known that the pull was too strong.

And as she approached her destination, she felt the tug even more. It wasn’t the lake that was calling to her; it was Josh. He hadn’t phoned her while she was away, and she hadn’t phoned him, but surely six days was enough time for him to have cooled down a little. Or warmed up, she supposed, considering his cold reception before she left. Surely he’d be happy to see her.

But what if he wasn’t? Maybe she should give herself one more night of hope instead of going over and having her dreams crushed right away.

The lake or the farm? Quiet peace, or—or what? That was the problem. She had no idea.

And she’d get no sleep until she found out. She turned quickly, heading out of town toward the farm. She needed to know. She needed to see Josh’s face, and let him see hers. It would work. It had to.

Her conviction carried her all the way to the junction of Josh’s driveway and the road and then abandoned her entirely.

No, damn it, she wouldn’t chicken out.

She turned off the main road and headed down the driveway. She realized how late it was when she saw the darkness of the house. No lights on. If Josh was home, he was probably asleep. Did she really want to wake him up with this?

Yes, she decided. She did. She’d flown across the continent for this man and she wanted to see him, even if it was only to give him the privilege of dumping her in person rather than over the phone.

She sat in the car for a moment, gathering her courage, then pushed the door open and pulled herself outside. The first breath of the night air reminded her of everything she’d missed about the place, and when she looked up and saw the wide band of stars overhead, she knew she was where she should be.

But she wasn’t confident enough to pull her overnight bag out of the trunk, she decided. She headed for the stairs empty-handed, then heard a strange snuffling noise from over beside Josh’s truck. She took a curious step in that direction and then froze as something moved in the shadows. Something big.

A bit more movement. The bulk of it, the shuffling movement—

It was a bear. A huge damn bear. Ashley’s brain froze. The bear moseyed toward her as if it shared her earlier curiosity and hadn’t been terrified out of it like she had.

Jesus. What was the rule? Freeze? Play dead? Run away? Be silent? Be loud? She was pretty sure it depended on what kind of bear you were dealing with, but how the hell were you supposed to tell bears apart? The one thing she knew was that the strangled yelp that came from her panicked throat was not on any of the approved response lists.

The bear was about five feet away from her when there was a squeaking sound from the direction of the cabin. The bear turned its head to stare at the opening door.

Josh’s voice was calm, but serious. “You don’t see any cubs, do you? Just the one bear?”

“Just one.” Ashley’s voice was trembling, but at least she managed to form words.

And Josh still sounded calm. “I’m going to let the dog loose, Ash. When she distracts the bear, you hustle up here, okay?”

Ashley made a sound that Josh seemed to interpret as agreement.

Things happened fast after that. Josh said, “Okay, get him,” and a dark blur roared toward them. Daisy was making sounds Ashley had never heard before, a strange mix of barks and growls and near-howling that was almost as frightening as the bear.

But not quite. Ashley managed to take a couple steps toward the cabin and then Josh was there, stepping between her and the animals, and he was banging two pots together like a low-rent New Year’s celebrant, and Ashley managed to peek around his shoulder to see the bear racing for the forest, Daisy hot on its heels.

“Daisy!” Josh yelled after her, but he didn’t seem too concerned. “She’s pretty quick,” he said as if he thought Ashley needed to be reminded of it. “She’s chased a lot of bears and she’s never come back hurt.”

Ashley staggered a few steps to the stairs and sank down onto them, trying to collect herself. “She’s chased a lot of bears?” she managed to ask.

Josh sat down next to her. “Vermont hazard, remember? They’re good animals, but it’s best for everyone if they stay away from humans. They’re just looking for snacks or entertainment, usually, so a bit of noise is all it takes to get rid of them.”

“I thought . . . play dead?”

“For grizzlies, maybe. Or if there’d been cubs. Cubs change everything.”

Ashley felt freezing cold on every part of her body that wasn’t pressed up against Josh. She leaned in a little harder and he wrapped his arm around her. “You’re okay,” he said softly. “I’m sorry you got scared.”

“It was a
bear
, Josh.”

“Yeah.” He kissed her temple. “There’s people who come up here their whole lives and never see one. You got lucky.”

She hoped her huff of breath would be considered a laugh; it was the best her still-tight lungs could produce.

“You’re cold. You want to come inside?”

She nodded. This wasn’t quite the arrival she’d been planning, but at least she wasn’t being turned away. “What about Daisy?”

Josh cocked his head and listened, so Ashley did the same. They heard nothing and Josh shrugged. “If she’s not barking anymore she probably figured she got the bear far enough away. She’ll be on her way home now, or else standing guard in the forest. Or maybe finding something disgusting to roll in.”

Ashley let herself be herded inside and accepted the glass of Scotch Josh poured for her. She’d just taken her first sip when Josh pushed the kitchen door open and Daisy came racing in, full of triumphant energy. Now that the bear was dealt with, she was ready to greet Ashley properly and check Josh out to make sure he was in one piece and just generally celebrate having two of her favorite people in the kitchen. And if there happened to be some treats in that magical white box that kept things cold, she’d be happy to indulge in a few of those, too.

“Not too much or she’ll puke on the bed,” Josh warned as Ashley scoured the fridge for dog snacks.

“She saved my life! She gets treats!”

“Puking isn’t a treat.”

“You won’t puke, will you?” Ashley asked the dog, and Daisy licked Ashley’s chin in reply. Not the clearest message, maybe, but Ashley figured it was good enough.

“You look tired,” Josh said when Ashley had given the dog a final cold cut and shut the fridge door. There was something he was trying to say, but he was right, Ashley was tired and she wasn’t sure she was up to breaking through his code. “And you’re still a bit shaky. You shouldn’t drive. Stay here, okay?”

“Okay,” she said quietly. But she’d been the one to leave, so maybe she should be the one to take a bit of a chance
now. “I can use the guest room, if you want. But I’d rather sleep with you.”

“I’d rather that, too,” he said quietly. The small victory washed over her like a warm wave, and she felt much steadier as he took her hand and led her down the hall.