Love Me Sweet (A Bell Harbor Novel) (6 page)

Grant held out his glass, feeling the first hint of genuine warmth since he’d sat down. “How is Mom doing? I mean, really doing? She seemed mostly OK when I went to the house.”

“She is OK. She’s not allowed in Mason’s jewelry store anymore because she swiped a watch from there last fall. I think Scotty leaving town for basic training had her rattled. But other than that, she’s managing.”

“She’s still gambling, you know.”

Tyler cocked an eyebrow. “I said she’s managing, I didn’t say she was cured. She has a new psychologist that Evie got her set up with, and things are improving. I suspect meds are involved.”

“Meds to make you stop stealing?”

Tyler shook his head. “No, antianxiety meds. Apparently it’s stress that makes her take stuff, so the more on an even keel things stay in her life, the better she does. Carl balances her out nicely. He’s so mellow he’s like a walking Xanax.”

“Yeah, Carl seems all right.” Grant took another drink and flipped open the menu left by the waitress. His gaze scanned the list of items but his mind had moved on to the next topic. “So, let’s talk about you, now. Tell me about this woman who swept you off your feet.”

Surely this would be the part where Tyler explained about the pregnancy and the obligation, maybe even shared his doubts about building a successful marriage. Only he didn’t. Instead, his brother’s face lit up like Christmas morning and Grant laughed out loud. Tyler practically had cartoon hearts circling his head.

“Wow. That good, huh?”

“Absolutely. Evie’s the best. She’s a plastic surgeon, beautiful, funny, a good sport, thank God. We met last summer when she gave me stitches.”

“Last summer? So this all moved pretty fast.”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed again, and Grant lifted his hands in mock self-defense. “Hey, I’m not making a judgment. I’m just saying that’s not a very long time to know each other.”

“You’re totally making a judgment, but go ahead. Once you see her, you’ll get it.” His voice was mild, almost smug. Was Grant being patronized by his little brother?

“When I see her? Why? Because she’s pregnant?”

God! He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Damn it. Now he’d have to wash that other foot down too, but Tyler just shook his head as if Grant was the one to be pitied.

“You’re a jackass, and no, she’s not pregnant, but we plan to adopt just as soon as we can.”

Grant coughed on a sip of his drink. “Adopt? Adopt . . . children?” He continued coughing, choking on his aversion to domestication. Tyler seemed far more amused than concerned by this.

“You all right over there? Need to put your head down?”

Grant took another big, painful swallow of his drink instead. “No, I’m good. It’s just a lot of new information all at one time, you know? I mean, my little brother, a husband and a dad? It’s not . . . it’s just not where I’m at in my life at all.”

Tyler’s smirk was good-natured. “You should come on in. The water’s warm. Maybe you could marry that little roommate Mom has you shacking up with. Carl says she’s cute.”

It wasn’t manly to feel light-headed, but Grant couldn’t help it. Maybe it was from the coughing fit. Maybe it wasn’t. “She is cute, and she does yoga. Lots of yoga.”

There was only so much yoga a person could do before it transitioned from being soothingly meditative into being mind-numbingly monotonous.
Delaney had passed that point an hour ago. S
he was antsy as hell stuck inside this claustrophobia-inducing house. The snow
was driftin
g up past th
e windowsills, blocking what little light there was outside, and the baby hats were proving far trickier to make than the online video suggested. Oh, and her roommate seemed a little too interested in her silk panties.

This morning he’d bumped up against her in the kitchen, pretending to reach for something. Yeah, he was reaching for something all right. Her boob. She’d nearly let him catch it too. In spite of his Scruffy McScruff beard and his unkempt hair, she
had
noticed those tasty bits of his in the shower. But fooling around with Grant, the cinematographer/landlord who wasn’t really her landlord but who had the power to kick her out at any moment, was a terrible idea. She was already on the run from the damage Boyd had done. The last thing she needed was a romantic entanglement in Bell Harbor—especially a romantic entanglement with a man who made
videos
for a living. That would be an epic disaster.

She needed her rent money back soon, like tomorrow, or she needed to kiss it good-bye and move on without it, because she couldn’t stay here. Grant Connelly might be a little lazy in the grooming department, but he was sexy, in a rustic way. Too sexy, and definitely too available. And if the paparazzi somehow found out she was living here with a man, it would be all over the interwebz in an instant. That would be a disaster on an even grander scale of epicness. So as soon as the weather was decent enough to drive, she was leaving. Not to go back home. She wasn’t ready for that, yet, but she’d at least head south toward warmer climates.

Delaney took a long, hot shower, trying to wash her troubles away, then plopped down on her bed wearing an LA Lakers sweatshirt and her pink flamingo pajama pants. Her outfit wasn’t stylish but it was comfortable. That was one advantage of hiding from the world and
not
being on a reality show. She could wear whatever the hell she wanted with no fear that one of the two dozen cameras in her house would catch a shot of her scratching her ass in saggy pants.

When she’d agreed to do a season of
Pop Rocks
, she’d had no idea what she was signing on for. Parts of it were fun, of course. The money was definitely nice, along with the invitations to movie premiers and parties, but the complete sacrifice of her privacy was a downside that far outweighed the positive. Maybe she’d feel differently if Boyd hadn’t released that video, but the truth was, she didn’t like people in her business. She liked privacy, and she wanted hers back.

She opened her laptop and set it on her legs. It took a moment to boot up, but soon she was clicking over the keys, surfing for a new hideaway location. That was another advantage of running away from home. She could go anywhere she wanted.

As long as no one recognized her.

And she could find a place that wasn’t too expensive.

And no one needed to see her identification.

And it wasn’t so far from here that her rattletrap car would never make it.

Come to think of it, maybe she should just stay in Bell Harbor.

A wave of homesickness passed over, pricking pins into her heart. She set the computer on the bed and took her phone from the nightstand to call her sister.

“Hey, how’s the frozen tundra?” Melody asked without saying hello.

“Frozen. How are things there?” She settled in against the pillows.

“Insane as usual. Roxanne says you’re just doing this for attention, Mom is putting all her nervous energy into driving us crazy, and Dad says if you come back home, he’ll introduce you to George Michael.”

“Since when does Dad know George Michael?”

“Since never, he’s just trying to trick you. Oh, but I do have some good news. Our producers have agreed to start taping the next season of
Pop Rocks
without you. We’re all pretending like you’re out scouting locations where Mom can open another soap boutique.”

Delaney should feel relieved, but the victory was oddly hollow. “Is anyone buying that story?”

“I don’t think so. Rumors abound, but so far no one has suggested that you’re cowering inside of an abandoned lighthouse in Michigan knitting baby hats.”

“I’m not cowering.” She was totally cowering. “But what kind of rumors are we talking about? Stuff that’s worse than the truth?”

“Oh, the usual celebrity stuff. That you’re in rehab. You’re off getting breast implants to show off in the next video. That kind of thing. Sorry, Lane.” Her sister had a habit of apologizing for things without actually sounding the least bit sorry. “You might want to shut down your Facebook account, though,” Melody added.

“Why? What’s on there?” She seized the computer again and her fingers flew over the keyboard, bringing up her page.

“Just stupid stuff,” Melody answered. “Mean stuff. It’s just the haters being ignorant.”

Delaney gasped as she saw the screen. Post after post of comments filled it, some with still shots of Delaney leaning over Boyd’s lap. The images were blurry, so blurry you could hardly see her face, and if not for the quarter-sized hummingbird tattoo on her shoulder blade, she might have doubted it was her. But it was her.

Who says it’s hard to get a-head in Hollywood?

Why master-bate when you can Master-son?

Delaney Masterson sure knows how to pop rocks off.

“Oh, my God, Mel. These are awful.” Delaney’s eyes began to water.

“I told you not to look, Lane. Just delete the whole page.”

“But even if I delete it, these pictures are still out there.” Her lungs felt full of sharp rocks as she tried to breathe. “Why are people so mean?”

“They’re just jealous,” Melody answered.

“Nobody is jealous of me for having a sex tape.”

“No, but they’re jealous because of who our parents are and because we have a TV show. People think we have it easy because now we’re getting famous. They don’t understand the struggle is real.”

Delaney set the laptop next to her and punched at the pillow behind her, trying to get comfortable although dread made that impossible. “It’s so unfair. We agreed to live our lives out in the open for the sole purpose of entertaining people and then they turn on us.”

“I know, but unfortunately, in the absence of any defense from you, the trolls will keep attacking. If you came home, head held high—uh, sorry. I mean, well you know what I mean. Stand up for yourself.”

“I am standing up for myself by choosing to not add more fuel to Boyd’s infamy. As soon as this is no longer news, I’ll come home.”

“In that case, you’d better get more yarn, because you’ll have plenty of time to make baby hats.”

“Don’t count on it. Knitting is way harder than it looks, but honestly, even if I wanted to come home, I’m stuck here under an avalanche of sno—”

The lamp next to her bed flickered and went out, leaving her in the gray shadows of the room. “Shoot. My light just burned out. I’ll call you back later. I have to figure out if there are any extra light bulbs in this place.”

“Do you
know
how to change a light bulb?” Melody’s familiar teasing made Delaney more homesick than ever.

“No, but maybe there’s an app for that. I’ll call you later.”

She set the phone back on the table and got off the bed. It was getting dark outside, the sky a hazy, deepening gray. Just light enough to see that it was snowing. Still snowing. Always, always snowing.

Delaney walked into the kitchen and flipped the switch. Nothing. No lights. Somehow she must have blown a fuse. She’d seen the electrical box in the basement when Donna Beckett was showing her around. Hopefully there was an app to explain to her what to do with it, because it was getting darker by the minute.

She opened the door to the dank, cobweb-filled basement, but before her slipper-clad foot hit the first step, the muffler of her decrepit car rumbled outside the kitchen window and relief was like a warm blanket tossed around her shoulders. Grant was back. Feminism notwithstanding, she was clueless when it came to home maintenance, and sending him down into the basement seemed like a much better idea than going down there herself.

She was waiting in the kitchen in the dim light when he stepped inside, and she nearly yelped in surprise. Because the Grant Connelly who walked into her kitchen just then was not the same one who’d left earlier that day. His hair was cut short, very short, and the beard, the Scruffy McScruff rattiness that had been the one thing tempering her temptation, was gone. Completely gone.

What remained was one fine, fine-looking man.

Chapter 6

“HI,” HE SAID, STOPPING SHORT
when he saw her.

Probably because she was standing right in his way, mouth gaping.

It’s not as if she’d never seen a good-looking man before. Of course she had. Beautiful men were everywhere in Beverly Hills, but who would’ve thought such a remarkable specimen had lurked beneath Grant Connelly’s junglemania facial fur?

“You cut your hair.”

Grant smiled and Delaney felt her lashes batting in Pavlovian response. There were dimples. Faint ones, but dimples just the same.

“Yes, I did. My brother said I looked like a homeless crackhead. I think it was his way of saying he missed me.”

Delaney giggled spontaneously and pressed a thumb to her lip.

He stared at her for a second, then held up both arms. Bags dangled from each. “I bought clothes too, because apparently what I was wearing wasn’t acceptable enough to impress his fiancée either.” He stepped around her and put the bags on the kitchen table. He reached over and flipped the light switch. Nothing.

“I think I must’ve blown a fuse or something. The light’s out in my bedroom too,” Delaney said.

He shook his head. “It’s probably not a fuse. Power is out all over town because of this storm. I’ll check, though.”

He was down the stairs and back up before Delaney had sufficient time to snoop in those bags. She’d seen enough to know that one was a suit, though. A charcoal-gray suit. It was probably for the wedding, and he’d probably look pretty good in it, even though the quality wasn’t particularly great. And she should probably stop thinking about how he’d look wearing it, because that was making her just as flustered as she’d been when catching him in the buff in the shower.

He came back into the kitchen. “Yep, power’s out. No telling when it’ll go back on. Could be a cold night so I guess I’ll start a fire.”

“A fire? Have you got wood?”

A curve played at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, yeah. I got wood.”

The door slammed before she realized what she’d said.

Two trips outside, an old newspaper, and some matches was all it took before the fireplace crackled with flames, and Delaney realized having a rugged outdoorsman as a housemate might be the first lucky break she’d had in a long time. He’d found a couple of lanterns and a few candles in the basement, and now the living room glowed with light and warmth—and hormones bubbling just under the surface, like maple syrup waiting to be tapped.

“Did you have dinner before the power went out?” he asked as Delaney wrapped a blanket around her legs and sat down on the sofa.

“No, did you?”

“Nope. But I’ll trade you a beer for a peanut butter sandwich.”

“Done.”

Just a little friendly barter. Nothing sexual about that.

Two beers and two sandwiches later, she reconsidered. Grant was chatty, and relaxed, funny, and charming as he talked about his travel adventures. He was melting her determination to keep things strictly platonic, and everything he shared made her want to tell him her story. Her
real
story, because the lies were a burden, and that load of insults she’d seen on Facebook was a misery she wanted to unload.

But she didn’t tell him. She couldn’t. Because she didn’t
really
know him, and she couldn’t
really
trust him. She’d trusted Boyd and look where that had landed her. And at what point in a new friendship, romantic or otherwise, was it appropriate to mention that one’s sexcapades had been caught on film?

Or that you were hiding from the scandal-hungry paparazzi?

Or that your name was now a verb in the urban dictionary?

Yeah, that chick totally Delaney-d me under a Snuggie, bro.

Never.

There was never a good time for that.

“So what made you decide to become a cameraman?” she asked instead.

Grant opened two more beers and handed one to her.

“Is this going to cost me another sandwich?” she asked, taking the bottle from his hand.

“Nope. This one’s on the house.” He sat back down and pulled a pale green blanket over his own legs. “I didn’t set out to become a cameraman, I just sort of lucked into it.”

“How so?”

“Well, I left Bell Harbor after my dad died and my mom got remarried. You probably picked up on that back at her house.”

Delaney nodded and took a sip of beer.

“Yeah, so I headed to Los Angeles. I had some friends who’d moved out there and I figured I could hang with them for a while. I got hired by a little TV station, running cables and doing odd jobs and such. One day a guy asked me to hold the camera for a minute, and I haven’t set it down since. Moved up the chain, moved around stations, did a few different shows. Just about the time I was getting really sick of LA, this on-location gig came along. Once I’d tasted filming out in the wild like that, there was no going back to a studio. No regrets either. I’ve seen amazing places, worked with some incredible people.” He paused for a moment, contemplating. “Maybe that’s why I haven’t made it home very often. Up until recently, my job was pretty fun.”

“Until recently? What changed?”

He took a slow drink, as if deciding what to share. Maybe she wasn’t the only one running away from things.

“I left home at nineteen, and took my first location job at twenty-three. Now I’m thirty-one. That’s a long time to be traveling.”

That was a long time. She’d been away from home less than three weeks and it felt like forever.

“And not
all
the people were great,” he added. He looked over at her then, and she wondered if the candlelight was proving as flattering to her as it was to him, all shadows and glowing planes. He looked bedroomy and delicious. Damn. She needed that electricity to come back on before she did something regrettable.

“Like what people?” she asked. “You mean Blake?”

His gaze dropped to his beer bottle. He nodded and picked at the label. “Yeah, Blake, for starters. He’s changed a lot in the last couple of years. I’ve been with him since the first season, and in the beginning it was great. Either one of us would do anything to get an awesome shot or find the perfect angle. We knew we had to be bold, offer something different to give the show real substance. It was a team effort, but somewhere along the line Blake started to believe his own hype.”

“His own hype?” She was very familiar with hype.

“At some point being famous became more important to him than creating a quality product. Now he’s just interested in showing off his new veneers and landing sponsorship deals. The show has become about him rather than the adventure, and I can’t stand that empty celebrity mentality. If I’m filming something, I want it to be real, have some substance. I want it to count for something. That’s why I quit.” He tipped his beer to his lips and took a fast swallow, then looked back at her and offered half a smile. “How about you? You must’ve left a job back in Miami. What do you do?”

What did she do? Um, she did all the stuff he just said he disliked. She spent her days in front of a camera helping her family become famous simply for the sake of being famous, and as a stylist she produced no product, other than image—for other people trying to be famous.

“Um, I work with my family. That’s sort of a team effort too.”

“Ah, a family business? What kind?”

“Soap.” The word popped out, just like a bubble. A soapy, sudsy bubble, and it wasn’t a complete lie. She did help her mother make soap once in a while, and they did sell it from a trendy little boutique near Rodeo Drive for sixteen dollars a bar. “We own a soap company. It’s really my mom’s gig but everybody gets involved.”

He nodded. “Interesting. So, why leave the soap business and drive up here in the middle of the worst winter Bell Harbor has seen in fifty years?”

His tone was conversational, but she knew he was thinking about her backpack full of money. Anyone would assume she was running away from something, or someone. She realized that, but it didn’t mean she could trust him with her secrets, and given his position on celebrity fame, he wasn’t very likely to be sympathetic. She definitely needed to keep the details of her life a secret. She’d move out in a few days and that would be that.

“I told you before. I just wanted a change of scenery.”

He looked around the dark room. “Not much of a view here.”

Au contraire. From where she sat, the view was just fine. This short-haired, smooth-faced version of Grant Connelly sitting in the firelight was sexy as hell, even if he was huddled under an old fuzzy blanket. Warmth coiled at the very center of her and she recognized it for what it was. Judgment-impairing lust.

She’d had a boyfriend or two over the last few years, but none worth giving her heart to, so it had been a while since Delaney had felt this, the quickening of her breath, the flutter in her chest. The longing. It could just be her general loneliness talking. Running away from all the comforts of home had left her vulnerable, and needy. Maybe Grant wasn’t that fine. Maybe his voice didn’t have that melty-chocolate quality after all. Maybe that big hand wrapped around his beer bottle didn’t mean anything other than he had big hands. Although she’d seen enough of him to know
that
wasn’t the case.

“So tomorrow is the wedding, huh?” she asked. No melty quality to her voice just then. More like a rusty hinge. She cleared her throat. “Doesn’t that mean you should be at a rehearsal dinner right now?”

He straightened his legs, his feet moving closer to hers, and picked at the label on the bottle again. “They had the rehearsal last week because of Tyler’s work schedule. It was the only time they could arrange it. So, yep, the wedding is tomorrow. I get to face all my relatives together in one big room and find out if the rest of them are as annoyed with me as my mother is.”

“Well, she seemed to get over it pretty quickly. I’m sure the rest of them will too.”

“Maybe. Want to go with me?” His eyes were back on her, dark but flickering in the romancey firelight. That dastardly, misleading romancey firelight.

Her hiccups started right on cue. “Go with you?” Hiccup.

His smile seemed unexpectedly shy, and that bud of lust deep inside her unfurled.

“Well, you don’t know anybody here,” he said. “And I thought, you know, you might like to meet some people. I’ve got two sisters who are about your age, which is . . . how old?”

“Twenty-five,” she blurted out. That lie was an easy one and probably not even necessary, but duplicity was becoming a habit.

“My sisters are close to that. Wendy is twenty-two and Aimee is nineteen.”

Twenty-two and nineteen. The target demographic for her show, and for every tabloid magazine. His sisters might recognize her, and that wedding reception could be chock-full of another cluster of people who might recognize her too.

“Wouldn’t your family think it’s kind of strange if I came with you? I mean, I’m just the tenant.”

Grant chuckled. “Strange is relative, and my relatives are pretty strange, so I think it would be fine. Actually I know it would be fine because my brother said so.”

“You and your brother talked about me?” Hiccup. The idea tingled through her limbs in a most pleasant fashion, which was ironic considering her whole purpose in being in Bell Harbor was so that people would
stop
talking about her. But this was different. Grant wasn’t talking about her and The Scandal. She was sure of that because she was certain that at the moment he had no idea who she was.

He had no idea who she was.

That
reminder smacked her in the forehead in a most
un
pleasant fashion. He was flirting with her because he knew nothing about her, and if he did, he probably wouldn’t have suggested she go mix and mingle with his family.

This is my date. Maybe you’ve seen her in action? Show them the top of your head, baby. Then they’ll recognize you.

Goddamn Boyd and his goddamn video. The whole thing left her heart stinging and sent her fledgling attraction to Grant right back into a tight knot. This is where the lying became even more complicated. She didn’t like doing it. She liked Grant too much to lead him astray with more lies, but not enough that she could risk trusting him. She’d liked Boyd all right too, and she’d be an idiot to let two beers, some firelight, and a fuzzy blanket turn into her next sexual misstep.

“Um . . . I don’t—” Hiccup. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She turned to stare at the fire, but not before watching Grant’s expression cool.

He set his empty beer bottle on the coffee table next to the couch. “OK. No big deal if you’d rather not go. I just figured you might want to get out of this house.”

“That’s nice of you, but . . .” What could she say to explain it?

He shook his head. “No worries. I’m going to get some more wood for the fire.” He stood up and tossed his blanket near her feet. It crumpled up and slowly fell to the floor, and she felt like doing the same.