— SIX —
R
YAN was already in a pretty good mood when he got outside and found Holly strolling up the lane, carrying a thermos and two cups. The shy smile on her face as she stopped a few feet short of the deck filled him with a curious warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Hello there,” he said with a grin.
She flashed him a brilliant smile and held up her offering. “I thought I’d take a chance and see if you wanted tea.”
“Sure.”
She sat down on the steps and he joined her, leaving a foot and a half of space between them for decency sake, but he wanted to be a lot closer. She wasn’t in running gear tonight—she wore dark jeans and an oatmeal coloured sweater. Her hair was braided and hung halfway down her back, and he had an overwhelming urge to tug the elastic band off the end of the braid and work his fingers through her silky strands.
After watching him get settled, her eyes bright and curious the whole time, she pointed her finger at his chest. “You’re…happy.”
He laughed. “I know, it’s an unusual state of being for me.”
“That’s too bad.” But she looked at him like she knew just how precarious joy could be.
“You too?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have anything to complain about. Not like you. You’ve got a lot on your plate.”
More than she probably knew, although maybe Pine Harbour gossip had drifted to the film set. Even if it had, the last thing he wanted to talk about was the sad reality of his life. “You look like you’re in a good mood, too. Better than yesterday.”
“Yeah. Yesterday was drama-city. Today wasn’t so bad. And now we’re having tea,” she said with another smile, handing him a cup of…not tea.
He took a tentative sniff. “What is this?”
“Chamomile. Good for sleep.”
“Interesting. In my world, tea is black. Maybe green if I’m eating sushi.”
“Well, in my world, I need to be up every morning at five, so this is what I drink at night.” She winked at him and took a sip.
“Five? Damn, that’s worse than the Army. Or kids.”
“It’s all I’ve known for a long time. I do love sleeping in, but it rarely happens.”
He took a sip of the flowery liquid. It was hot, that was something. “Tell me something fun about your job.”
She pressed her lips together, the corners fighting to turn up.
“What?”
“You don’t need to make small talk.”
“I’m being polite. Wait, no.” He laughed, then groaned. “I’m not great at this being social thing. I mean, I’m genuinely curious about what you do.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “You really want to know?”
“I do.” He grinned. “What was the most entertaining thing that happened today?”
She made a pained face. “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this.”
“Cross my heart.”
“The director and his wife, who is one of the lead actors, had a screaming match over lunch about how they don’t have any emotional intimacy in their marriage.”
“You’re kidding me. In front of people?”
“The entire cast and crew. She’s lovely, but he’s a piece of work.” She gave him a wary side-eye. “Do you want to hear more?”
Ryan groaned. “No, not even a little bit.”
“Tell me something fun about your kids.” She sipped her tea, then swiped her lower lip with her tongue, leaving her mouth wet and shiny.
He stared at her mouth for a moment, then lazily drifted his gaze back to her bright eyes. He didn’t really want to talk about his kids all of a sudden. Somehow they were closer now than when he’d first sat down.
She stared up at him, slowly blinking. Once. Twice.
“Maybe you don’t want to talk about anything at all,” she finally whispered.
“That’s probably true.” He cleared his throat, pushing away his thoughts about her mouth. “Maybe I need some more tea.”
— —
Holly’s cheeks flushed as Ryan turned and stared into the darkness. That had been a stupid thing for her to say. She must have read him wrong, thinking that he wanted to kiss her.
“I’ve got lots of tea,” she said, desperate to pretend she hadn’t just hit on him—and been rejected. At least he hadn’t gotten up and run inside.
She took his mostly-full cup and added a bit more from the thermos, then turned and settled her back against the newel post where the railing met the stairs. She wanted to show him that they could still keep talking and she wouldn’t launch herself at him.
“So all those people down there—” He gestured toward the cottages. “Are they all too tired out from being crazy all day to hang out at night? I never hear wild parties. Isn’t there a movie star staying in that house with you?”
All the air vanished from Holly’s lungs.
That’s why you can’t kiss him
. She stared at him, stricken. “Um…”
“I know, you can’t say anything bad about them. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s okay…” Her voice was weak and ragged. It wasn’t okay, at all. But she was lonely and he was lovely and she’d just wanted to escape for a little bit. “I should go.”
“Stay.” He held out his hand, then put it down on the step between them. If she hadn’t moved over, it would have been on her knee. She felt the burning loss of that touch that she had no right to want, and wanted to cry.
Instead, she told herself to stop being a baby.
So she didn’t get everything she wanted in life. She still had more than most—even if she didn’t have anything that felt as valuable as what this man had, or what he had lost.
“Help me out here,” he said quietly, his gaze pinned on hers. “I’m out of practice. What should two new friends talk about?”
She had no idea. When was the last time she’d made a friend? Probably Liana, and that was years back. “I had cauliflower-crust pizza for dinner last night.”
He laughed at her
so-so
face. “My kids love pizza—with regular crust, I mean.”
“And you?”
“I like steak.”
“Let me guess—your kids do not?”
“Nope.” He sighed and took a few more sips of his tea. “This isn’t that bad.”
“Yeah.” But that was her life. A string of compromised choices, all because her biggest choice of all—her career—made everything else complicated.
“What would your last meal be?”
“Pasta,” she said without even taking a second to think about it. “Like, ten bowls of it, until I had a belly ache.”
He made an amused face. She wanted to twist around again and sit side-by-side. Wanted to stay late and talk about everything under the sun, but if she did that, she’d also want to kiss him.
Instead, she’d go home and dream about what his lips would feel like on hers. Yet another thing that Holly Cresinski would never taste.
“Speaking of the tea, I’m getting sleepy.” She smiled at him. “Thank you for the company.”
“Anytime.”
She stood up, and he stood as well, his arm brushing her shoulder as they walked down the steps and out to the lane.
“I mean that, Holly. I’ve got great friends, but they don’t come and visit me at night. I’m lonely, too.”
“I’m not—” But she was lonely. She just didn’t think she had any other choice.
“Then come back and keep me company, for my sake?”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
“I have to work tomorrow night, but I’ll be home Thursday. Come over, if you can.”
She hugged the thermos close to her body. “What time do your kids go to bed?”
“Eight, usually. Knock on the door if I’m not out here.”
— —
Two nights later, there was no excuse, no pre-text. Holly just walked up the lane and sat on Ryan’s porch with him, talking about nothing and everything for more than an hour.
“I can’t believe you’re surprised I like country music,” she said, laughing as he blushed a little.
“You just seem so…urban.”
“I like all music, actually. But I became a die-hard country fan when I spent a few months in Nashville a few years ago.”
“Working on a movie there?”
“No, I was between jobs at the time.” She’d been prepping for a role in a movie that got canned. “I was only supposed to be there for a few weeks, but I met my best friend there. We bonded like sisters right away, and when the job I was supposed to do fell through, I ended up staying with her for a while.”
“I never did that couch surfing thing.”
Holly hadn’t exactly slept on Liana’s couch—the singer had a six bedroom house and a separate pool house, too. “Well, I’ve never done the settled down thing, so there you go.”
“Is your life pretty nomadic?”
“They do a good job of making us feel at home on location. But I dream of working in New York, living in an apartment and walking to a theatre every day. Or even Nashville, although I only have a passable singing voice. But in another life, maybe I would have been a songwriter or something.”
“Songwriting, eh? So would that be your dream job?”
She frowned. She didn’t want to lie to him—but he was right, those weren’t realistic job options for a lot of people. “The singing thing is just a fantasy, I promise you.”
“I’m sure you’ve got a lovely voice.”
“Oh no, I sound like a strangled cat. Totally tone-deaf. How about you?”
He shrugged. “My kids like it when I sing to them.”
“I bet.” He had a lovely baritone voice, rich and warm. She took a deep breath and shook that off. “The New York thing is more likely though. I’m thinking of moving there in the fall.”
“Now that’s the kind of city I picture you in. More your speed than Los Angeles.”
“I hope so. I don’t love cities in general, but that’s where the work is. Have you ever been?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t been anywhere like that. Grew up near Detroit, joined the Army as a medic, did a few years, then met my wife when I was at college. Moved here, had three kids. We drove to Chicago once.”
“I’ve never been to Chicago!” she exclaimed, and he laughed.
“Glad I could balance out the life experiences a bit.” His voice took on this gravelly tone when he went sarcastic, and it made all her girly bits sit up and take notice. “What else haven’t you done?”
“Hmmm. That I want to do, or would never do?”
“Either.” His eyes flicked over her face and he smiled. “Maybe the never would do. What are you scared of?”
“Spiders. And snakes…I went to Australia once. Beautiful country. Deadly fauna.”
“Jesus, you’ve really travelled everywhere, huh?”
“It’s a perk of the job. You never went overseas with the Army?”
He shook his head. “I was in the reg force between conflicts, and have always been exempted from tours since I joined the reserves. I’m one of the grumpy old guys now, yelling at the new privates. I’m a company quartermaster, so that means I run the unit’s supply room.”
“Interesting.”
Huffing a little laugh, he just looked at her.
“What can I say, I find everything about you quite interesting.”
They shared a little smile. Before she could ask him something else, a faint, animalistic scream pierced the air. Holly nearly jumped out of her skin, but Ryan reached out and pressed his hand to her leg. “It’s okay, it’s just a coyote.”
“Holy crap!” She stared into darkness, unsure of the direction the howl had come from.
He squeezed her knee before removing his hand. “There are some farms to the south. Might be there. If you hear a gun shot in a bit, don’t be alarmed. Licensed hunters are allowed to shoot coyotes on sight.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Definitely for livestock. Not for you, not right here, although I wouldn’t want to meet a pack of them. You don’t have coyotes in Los Angeles?”
“I don’t know. Probably in the foothills, but I’ve never heard one before.”
“Well, there you go. Pine Harbour’s given the world traveller a new and unique experience.”
More than one
, she thought as she shifted closer to him.
— —
Friday night she brought chamomile tea with her. Saturday night he made her hot chocolate, and they talked about her running.
“Are you in training for a marathon right now?”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that while I’m working, it takes too many hours out of the week.”
“You do the long runs that go for hours?”
She looked at him in surprise, and he laughed. “I’m not a runner, but a lot of guys in the army are. I listen well.”
He definitely did that. She kept waiting for him to tell her he’d figured out she wasn’t just working on a movie—what did he think she was doing, anyway?—but he never did. It was like he didn’t care about that. He was listening to all the other things she was saying.
The Holly parts.
On Sunday night, she did her hill repeats, and when she was done, he had a foam roller and a protein bar waiting for her along with the bottle of water she’d expected.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, as she balanced on top of it and rolled out her hamstrings.
“But this way, you might stay a bit longer,” he said, kind of gruffly.
If she hadn’t been all sweaty, she’d have hugged him.
Once she’d scarfed the protein bar, she asked him about why he had the roller.
“I pulled my right hip flexor on a military training exercise a few years back. Got that for physiotherapy after. The kids like it.”
She laughed. “I bet.”
The next day, Monday, was another killer start to the filming week. After spending an hour with Ryan the night before, it was like dysfunctional whiplash and it made Holly unbelievably grumpy—especially when they didn’t finish until almost ten.
She thought about not going up to his house. It was late and wake-up would come early.
But as they turned onto Blue Heron Lane, she saw him sitting on the steps, and she knew she couldn’t stay away.
She’d already showered at her trailer on set, so she just grabbed a sweater and slipped out the side door when Emmett was on the phone. It was weird, sneaking around when she was his boss, but she wasn’t ready to deal with his questions yet. And he was a smart, attentive assistant. He’d put two and two together really quickly. She could trust him, though—he’d proven that time and again with her mother.
“I wasn’t sure if you were coming,” he said as she slid onto her spot next to him. His sleeves were rolled up and her forearm pressed against his. Hot skin and soft hair imprinted on her before she could shift away, and when she did, she ached to slide back.