Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) (12 page)

Summerbury Beach in mid-January was not only
not
the scene from her childhood, it was like some icy, bitter, foreign planet. But she still loved it.

“Not exactly beach weather,” Ben called across to her over the rush of the freezing wind blowing off the ocean. He hunkered into his black wool trench coat, his scarf wound around the bottom half of his face and his ears. Jo had tried to convince him to wear one of Nick’s thick, down jackets—like the one keeping her snug now—but he’d refused. Now he looked every bit like a New Yorker as far out of his element as it was possible to get.

“Are you kidding?” she teased, holding her arms out and tilting her face to the dismal gray above. “This is perfect. We should have brought beach chairs and a wake board.”

“Ha, ha.” He shook his head, hugging himself tighter.

Jo fought the urge to step closer to him and do a little hugging herself. Bit by bit throughout the early afternoon, the sizzling, sexy, and sophisticated man she’d met in Manhattan had returned. That would have thrown her senses into a tizzy on its own, but now that she’d had a glimpse of the vulnerable and very real man under the suave exterior, it was all she could do not to drop her panties where she stood.

Which was so utterly out of character for her—not to mention frighteningly inconvenient—that it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She had work to do, a house to save. Now was not the time to play.

“All right, tell me again why this was a good idea?” Ben asked. She’d been able to convince him to borrow a pair of Nick’s thick gloves, but he still rubbed his hands in front of him as they walked, his breath puffing out in silvery clouds.

“Because this might be the one place on earth where no one gives a crap about Broadway politics or book advances.” She intended the comment to be funny, but the truth of it hit her like the icy, salt spray whipping off the water.

He twisted to look at her—smile lines crinkling his eyes—and let out a rumbling laugh.

Do not fall in love. Do not fall in love. Do not fall in love
.

“We were going to play a game, weren’t we?” he said.

“Were we?” She played coy, not knowing what else to do. How exactly
was
one supposed to conduct a normal friendship with a man who’d made her toes curl less than a week ago?

“Who has the worst problems,” he said. “We determined that I get to go first, so here goes.”

“I’m ready.” She encouraged him with a casual smile, but braced herself to hear some dark secret that would make her look like an even bigger fool than she already was for letting herself be seduced.

“The producers who were going to finance my next show have not only reneged on their deal, they’ve made it their mission to stop anyone else from funding the show I want to mount.” He nodded, eyes pointing straight forward. Though his cheeks were pink from the wind, the humor had seeped out of his expression. “Your turn.”

“All right.” Jo burrowed her hands deeper into her pockets and swayed closer to him, her feet sinking into the cold sand. “Because my books aren’t selling as well as they used to, my publisher is only willing to advance me ten thousand dollars on the next one. Aside from the fact that advances aren’t paid in one lump payment, it’s not even enough to cover the bill to have the tree—”

“Stop, stop.” He raised a hand, then just as quickly thrust it back under his arm. “That’s more than one thing. It’s my turn again.”

Silly though it was, Jo giggled at being called out for overstepping her complaint threshold. She swayed closer still to him as they walked.

“I am now a pariah amongst my former colleagues because they all think I sold people out, and that I’ll do the same to them, when, in fact, the opposite is true.”

Jo slowed her steps. An uncomfortable ache spread from her gut to her throat. Was this nothing more than a game, or was Ben using it as a way of working out something he didn’t want to face?

Great. Fantastic. Throw the deep-seated need to provide emotional support and comfort to the already smoldering pile of lust that Ben represented. She couldn’t let herself feel responsible for him. Sure, he was hot, but the internet and Diane agreed that he was a classic bad boy. They might be great in novels, but in real life, they left you with scars.

I will not be that girl who gets snowballed by sex appeal
, she swore to herself.

“What do you mean ‘the opposite is true?’” she asked. Well, there went that resolution.

“No.” Ben shook his head. “We’re not done with our game yet, and it’s your turn.” He edged closer to her, surprising her by slipping his arm through hers as they continued up the curve of the beach.

Then again, what could be the harm in letting herself escape reality for a little bit? The man was in trouble and needed a friend.

“Okay. I have writer’s block. Like, serious, bang your head against the wall, writer’s block.”

“That’s real?” He glanced sideways at her, the tension around his eyes diminished.

“Hey, no fair. We’re swapping sorrows here. Commentary can wait until later. Next problem please.”

He laughed. It was far too easy for her to lean her weight against his as they walked in step with each other, sand giving way beneath them. Almost like they were friends. Almost like they were more.

“Fine.” He faked a sigh. “I’ve spent my entire life working my fingers to the bone to land myself a career doing the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do—in spite of incredibly vocal opposition from every side—only to have it taken away from me in the blink of an eye, right when I thought I had it all.”

Silence followed that admission. They reached the end of the beach, right below a long set of wooden stairs that lead up to the back lawn of a stately Victorian house on a cliff overlooking the winter waves. Ben was as tense as a tiger when they stopped. Jo caught herself hugging his arm as if the force of her caring could banish all his problems.

And that way lay madness.

She let go of his arm and turned to face him. “Tell me about it,” she said with a dramatic sigh.

The gloom in Ben’s eyes flashed to a smile, albeit a weak one. “Why didn’t we become accountants or dentists or mechanics?”

She barked a laugh, shaking her head. “Because we would have died slow and painful deaths, strangled by the regret of unfulfilled dreams.”

A thick pause swirled between her. Ben watched her with the aching intensity of a man who knew she was right.

Before she could blink, he drew his gloved hands out of his pockets and raised them to cradle her face. He stepped closer and brought his mouth to hers, kissing her with a flash of passion that was hot enough to melt every icicle hanging from the concrete boardwalk behind them. The heat of his lips was nothing to the strength of feeling behind his actions as he teased his tongue along hers.

This was no playful, post-coffee, role-playing kiss. Jo’s heart melted like wax, dripping shamelessly into the parts of her soul that were bound up with fear. His body pressed eagerly against hers, and even though their coats dulled the power of that touch, the meaning behind it was unmistakable. Beyond the undeniable urge to be naked and underneath him as soon as possible, she felt herself slipping, falling, tumbling into every nightmare of foolishness that she avoided writing about because of how cliché they sounded. This was what would destroy her, not writer’s block, not bills she couldn’t play. One kiss and she was lost.

When Ben finally leaned back, his hands still cradling her face, his body still flush with hers, he relaxed. “That warmed things up.”

Jo wasn’t sure how her arms had made their way around his back, but she hugged him as if he was keeping her from drowning. “Ya think?” she answered, breathless.

Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea
. She needed to push him away, tell him her life was too complicated to get involved with someone whose life was in a tailspin. If she didn’t focus on her career right now, she’d lose it, her house, and her self-respect. People depended on her. She couldn’t be foolish, she couldn’t think of herself, she couldn’t—

“All right, how about we play a different game on the way back,” he suggested. His hands dropped to her shoulders, then around her sides to her back until they stood hugging, face-to-face.

“What game?” Why was it so hard to push him away and tell him thanks, but now was a bad time for her to be distracted by a relationship?

Worse still, what if this
wasn’t
a relationship?

“We’ve gone over the things that suck in our lives right now. Time to list the good things we have. I’ll go first. I was lucky enough to have you walk into my life at exactly the moment I needed someone.” He grinned, nipping forward to steal a kiss.

Jo wanted to howl. Not fair. Not even remotely fair. Her knees were jelly, her heart was butter, and nothing she could possibly do could keep her from falling stupid in love with him.

She blinked up into his eyes.
You utter bastard. How dare you
?

“Go on. Your turn,” he prompted her.

She took a deep breath, letting the icy air swirl into her lungs, willing it to travel up to her head to clear things out. No go. Not gonna happen. Giving up, she turned to head up the beach, sliding her arm through his.

“I’m incredibly fortunate to have a rock-solid, supportive, good-hearted man in my life.”

A wave of thick tension rolled off of Ben. Oh my God, was he jealous? He couldn’t be.

“My brother, Nick,” she added with a grin.

Ben relaxed. No. It wasn’t fair. Ben being jealous over the potential of her having another man in her life was as bad as him showing her his vulnerable side. He was checking off each box of what made a woman fall head-over-heels in love.

“There’s nothing like having people who support you no matter what,” he said.

“Don’t you have anyone like that?” If only she could get him to talk about himself….

Ben shrugged. “Yvonne.”

Now it was Jo’s turn to see green. She gritted her teeth.
Come on, Jo. Act like a grown-up
.

“That’s who I was talking to when you came upstairs at the house,” he explained. “She’s a talent agent, although that’s a bit of an understatement. She’s got her fingers in a lot of pots. She represents Spencer Ellis and Simon Mercer, who I also consider friends. That’s Spence’s house, you know. Sand Dollar Point.” He twisted enough to gesture over his shoulder at the Victorian on the cliff.

“Oh.” Jo blinked, the simple fact knocking her out of her thoughts. “Actually, I think I knew that. I didn’t know you were friends.”

Ben nodded, then shook his head. “I’m not sure if we are. Not after what just happened.”

“I’m sure he’ll back you up.”

Ben let out a breath. “Maybe. Though to be honest, it kind of feels like you’re the only friend I’ve got right now.”

Bam. There it was. The death blow. Whatever resistance Jo might have had was gone. Yep, might as well admit it. She was in love.

Goddammit.

Chapter Nine

The drive back to Jo’s house was far, far more enjoyable for Ben than the middle of the night drive to her place to begin with. The two of them laughed over stupid things—stories of Jo’s childhood spent at the beach, his first visit to Sand Dollar Point, things normal people talked about. He should have taken her up to Sand Dollar Point to meet Spence and Tasha, but the fact of the matter was that he didn’t want to share this strange, peaceful, magical space she’d brought him with anyone.

Not even himself—or that version of himself he’d left in New York. That man wasn’t the one who’d kissed her.

He’d kissed her. Not some sultry prelude to bedroom gymnastics, designed to lure her into forgetting everything else. No, this kiss was spontaneous. It’d crept up his spine as they played their game, as she reacted to his whining with sympathy miles beyond what he deserved. This kiss was not because he wanted something, it was because he needed to kiss her, needed that moment of connection. He was used to wanting women, but needing Jo tapped into something that invigorated and terrified him.

“Ben?”

He blinked, sucking in a breath and looking away from the white-frosted scenery slipping past, focusing on her. “Hmm?”

She breathed out a laugh. “I thought I lost you for a second there.”

He chuckled. If she lost him, he would be lost for good. And was that such a bad thing? “Just thinking.”

“About New York?” The gentle probing of her honest eyes was enough to convince him he was still drunk.

Ah, New York.

He squirmed, trying and failing to find a comfortable position. “It’s only that when you work for something for so long, you don’t expect to have the rug yanked out from under you.” And when you’ve spent all that time enjoying the company of every beautiful woman who wants a piece of you, you don’t expect to fall for the one who doesn’t want anything.

That’s assuming he was actually falling and instead of rebounding from the potential end of his career.

Cheerful thought.

“So what exactly does it take to build a career in theater anyhow?”

Ben shrugged, adjusting his seatbelt. “I was always involved in theater at school. I had a few parts in high school shows. I loved it enough to major in theater at a university with a nationally recognized program. From there, I moved to New York and started taking every job that came my way, making the right friends, moving up in the ranks.”

Jo nodded. “Were you always interested in directing?”

He laughed. “No, believe it or not, I started out as an actor.”

“An actor?”

“But as I quickly discovered, I am not that good of an actor. I’m far better at telling other people what to do.”

She laughed outright. “I can believe that.” Her sideways look raised his temperature a few degrees.

“Can you?”

“You forget. I’ve seen you at your best and your worst, and we’ve only know each other, what, five days?”

Anxious slivers shot down his spine. “And?”

Jo shrugged. “And I can see how you would be very good at manipulating p—” Her mouth hung open and red splashed her cheeks. “I mean,
directing
people.”

Ouch. Although God knew he deserved that censure.

He nodded. “Directing is manipulation, to a certain extent. It’s essential to be able to communicate what you want your actors to do and say and feel. The same goes for tech, and the audience, really. It’s all about having a vision, knowing how to execute it, and having the command to realize it.”

Her mouth closed into a soft line. They reached her driveway, and as she slowed and turned the car, she peeked at him. “What vision do you have right now?”

Sitting curled up by a warm fire, his arms around Jo. Listening to the crackle of burning logs and the tinkling of snow blowing against the windows. Feeling the heat of her body as he slowly undressed her, savoring each inch of skin. Kissing her until he lost his soul in the sweetness of her untainted view of the world. Finding a new version of himself to be.

He blinked and sucked in a breath. When had he turned so maudlin? Years. He’s worked
years
to win the life he’d lost. Where was his fight? Where was his hunger?

“I want to take Broadway and the world by storm.” He gripped the handle of the passenger door, jaw tense. There had to be someone left in New York who he could call, someone who could stop him from turning into something he didn’t recognize. “I want to find producers for
Last Closing Time
and make every critic and nay-sayer who doubts whether I deserved my award admit they were wrong.”

He should have felt that call to action much more deeply than he did. Instead, the words seemed like unrehearsed lines that he hadn’t delivered quite right. Where was the emotion? Where was the passion?

“I admire your ambition.” Jo sent him a weak smile as she pulled her car into its parking spot and cut the engine. There it was, sitting right there beside him. “I hope I can do the same thing.”

Their conversation hung suspended on a cloud of tension as the two of them climbed out of the car. The sun was well on its way to setting, even though it was barely supper time. If it was possible, the winter air had grown even colder. It held a faint scent of snow and a whisper of promise. Ben shut his door, then jogged around to Jo’s side, tucking his hands under his arms. He would much rather have scooped Jo into his arms for another lingering kiss.

“To tell you the truth,” she went on as they tromped across the drive and around to the kitchen door over frozen gravel and chips of ice, “I feel a little guilty for ditching work for a whole afternoon.”

“Everyone needs a break now and then,” he argued. Isn’t that the essence of what Yvonne had told him about taking a vacation?

“Ha.” She purposely bumped into him. Her body was rigid with anxiety. “Don’t let my mother’s spirit hear you say that. She used to say that the only way to get anything in this world was to work hard, and if she didn’t see me working hard on my own, she would find something for me to do.”

“And is that where you developed your drive to succeed?”

Jo made a sound somewhere between a growl and a laugh, and unlocked the kitchen door, leading him inside. He’d hit a nerve. The mother nerve. Plenty of women he knew had one, but that didn’t make him any better prepared to deal with it.

“Mom was right,” Jo went on, stomping her snowy, sandy boots on the mat in the mud room. “Mom was always right. That’s just what she did. And thank God for it, otherwise I would have lost this house a long time ago.”

“It’s a great house.” Ben stomped the snow off his own shoes, venting his frustration as he did. What a pointless, useless thing to say. Of course it was a great house. Jo wouldn’t have been squeezed so tight if it wasn’t.

The warm kitchen—the scent of soup still in the air—seeped through the frozen parts of Ben in spite of the crawling feeling that he was behaving like a worthless freeloader to a woman who needed a knight in shining armor. God only knew he knew what it felt like to be close to losing it all. He’d made his fair share of jokes about filming
Second Chances
in the back end of nowhere to those people he’d thought were his friends in Broadway circles, but a stronger argument that this was, in fact, the good life was all around him. If Jo lost this, it would hurt her more than him losing his career.

“Give me your coat,” Jo said, shrugging out of her own. “I’ll hang them in the closet.”

“No, I’ll do it. You’ve done so much for me already.” And it was about time he gave back more than a few orgasms. He peeled off his trench coat and took Jo’s down coat—the single least sexy piece of clothing he had ever seen, but one he still managed to be turned on by when she wore it—and crossed out of the kitchen to the hallway.

“I’ll throw something together for dinner.” Jo’s voice followed him to the hall.

“That sounds lovely.”

He chuckled as he reached the hall closet. Dialog like that would never win top reviews, but it was as pervasive and homey as the smooth wood of the worn floors under his feet and the decades’ worth of family pictures on the wall opposite him. And truth be told, he liked it. He felt comfortable in Jo’s house in a way that he never had in more than twenty years in Manhattan. He’d forgotten what comfortable even was. He couldn’t let Jo lose this.

“I have an idea,” he said as he strolled back into the kitchen.

Jo straightened from the sink, where she was filling a large saucepan with water. A box of spaghetti noodles sat on the counter along with a jar of sauce. Simple, homey, perfect.

“What?” She crossed to the stove and turned on the burner. She was turning him on too. Her sweater hid the curves of her backside, but that didn’t stop him from imagining what it might be like to bend her over the counter and ride her until she cried out his name in orgasmic bliss.

He blinked, banishing the delicious image. She’d asked him a question.

“You’ve been kind enough to help me with my problems,” he rushed on, the heat suffusing his face as much of an insight into his naughty thoughts as he would allow her. “I’ve got an idea of how to help you with yours.”

“Oh? You’ve got eleven thousand dollars sitting around collecting dust?” She tried to act casual, but he could see enough genuine longing for a solution that it ignited the dormant knight within him.

“No, I’ve got something better.” He moved to lean against the counter where she worked, crossing his arms. She didn’t color her hair. The observation came out of nowhere. That deep brown was all natural, and so were the strands of white. He hadn’t seen her wear a hint of make-up since he’d met her. Why that was making him hard was anyone’s guess.

She peeked at him, raising an eyebrow. “What is it?”

Maybe they should skip dinner and go upstairs and devour each other.

“It’s an old theater exercise.” He opted for reason over sex. For a change. “You need to come up with a solid plot and characters for your next book. They need to be gripping and real.”

“Right.” She drew out the word, attention focused on washing and chopping beans to go with their spaghetti.

“So it’s basically improv.” He pushed away from the counter and began looking through drawers and cabinets. “I’ll set the scene for your sultry romance novel heroine to meet her dashing romance novel hero. We’ll play the parts, speak whatever dialog comes to us, and by the time we reach the dessert course, you’ll have a whole story to go off and write in the morning.”

Jo laughed. “I’m sure I’ll have a whole story, all right.”

He answered her doubt with a grin as he pulled open a drawer and found a stash of candles. Perfect.

The next twenty minutes were spent with Jo cooking spaghetti and green beans while Ben did the best he could to create a romantic dinner scene in the dining room around the corner. He had years of experience envisioning scenery and formulating lists of props and set dressings to complete it, but usually someone else brought those visions to life. There was a certain amount of satisfaction in doing it himself.

By the time Jo finished cooking and transferred everything to serving bowls, Ben had devised a character for himself. He waited by the table in the dining room until she got curious enough to stick her head around the corner. Her intake of breath at the candlelit table, draped with a linen tablecloth he’d found in a drawer and some silk flowers that had been in the hall closet, was all the reward he needed for his efforts. Her eyes went wide and danced with excitement as she stepped fully into the room.

“You’re late, Miss Dare,” he intoned, stepping closer to her and turning on every ounce of smolder he could muster.

Jo’s jaw went slack, and she stared up at him. She blinked a few times, the pink infusing her cheeks a total giveaway to her arousal, then broke into giggles. “It’s Burkhart, not Dare, remember?”

“Not tonight,
Miss Dare
.”

She arched a brow. He was about drop character to explain the rules of improv to her when she tugged her shoulders straight, shook her head, and waved her arms to clear away her first reaction. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can do this.”

She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, settled her posture as she breathed out, then opened her eyes. They sparkled. They glowed. Ben hardened in response.

“Sorry, Mr…. Rockwell, the delay couldn’t be avoided.” She glanced at the table, then to him with heavy-lidded eyes. “You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble.”

The sultry, addictive woman that had sighed and wriggled under him as he’d thrust inside of her to the point of losing touch with the world five days ago was back. His cock jumped in reaction, and his heart thumped in recognition.

Keep it together, Benjamin
, he warned himself.
This is a game. It’s all pretend
.

“Billionaires like me don’t like to be kept waiting, Miss Dare,” he scolded her, stepping closer still.

She broke character, dissolving into more giggles. He didn’t. He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. A second too late, it dawned on him that she could probably feel his erection. Yes, the hot spark in her eyes revealed that much. The radiance of that look and the sensation that it went beyond role-playing, caused his blood to pump like an engine in his ears.