Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1) (3 page)

“Smart guy,” Spencer said as they headed upstairs again, down the hall, and into the bedroom.

“He is.” Tasha nodded. She circled the bed to plop the second suitcase at the foot. “He’s an orthopedist.”

“Good for him.”

Tasha stole a look at Spence as she unzipped her suitcase. He was listening to her like the ramblings of a humble teacher were interesting. That made something tender coil in her chest.

“Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaro, the old couple who own the house, then and now, happened to be there that week. They wouldn’t hear of us hunkering down on their porch in a storm that bad, so they asked us inside. Mr. Cavanaro lit a fire and Mrs. Cavanaro fed us all lemonade and cookies.”

She paused and hugged herself with a smile, the memory warming her as quickly as that fire had.

“I had always liked the house, but that afternoon, I fell hardcore in love with it, and with the Cavanaros. I’d never been anywhere so fancy in my life. The Cavanaros had money, and we most certainly did not.”

She glanced up at Spencer, who now leaned against the doorframe with his hands in his shorts pockets, watching her with a smile. Her smile dropped to a blush. He must think she was provincial, talking about bikes and lemonade. She shook her head and flipped up the top of her suitcase to start moving books to the windowsill.

“I swore right then that someday I would spend the entire summer in this house, being fancy,” she finished.

“And here you are,” he said, still smiling.

“Yes, here I am.” She returned his smile with a sheepish look. “Renting a house like this on a teacher’s salary wasn’t easy. I saved for twenty years. You probably think that’s silly.”

“Not at all.” He stood straight and took a step into the room. “It’s admirable. You’re a teacher?”

A flush of self-consciousness heated Tasha’s cheeks. “Second grade.”

“Teachers are great. The world needs teachers.” He nodded as if he was impressed, even though she knew he couldn’t be.

She was a boring, dowdy teacher who couldn’t even keep a guy from cheating on her.

No, that was Brad the dick talking, not her. She was here to get past that kind of thought.

“My students think so.” She forced herself to see the bright side before he caught her hating herself. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of unpacking, and I don’t particularly care to have a movie star looking at my underwear.”

Her heart thumped to her stomach. Had she actually just said that?

Spencer laughed. “Okay, but since you were kind enough to tell me your story, don’t you want to know a little more about me?”

Yes.

No. No, if she pried, he’d think she was one of those crazy fangirls.

“I already know everything about you,” she said, circling the bed. He backed into the hallway. “You’re Spencer Ellis, born April 16
th
, 1980 in Portland, Oregon. You attended school at Washington State where you majored in Theater with a minor in Philosophy, which I thought was cute. You worked in Seattle regional theater for a while before heading to Los Angeles, where you got your first big break in
Catch
in 2007. At least that’s what the websites say.”

“I hate it when people do that, you know,” he said, his smile a little more forced.

“What?” Crap. What had she done now? Couldn’t she go two minutes without making a mess of thing?

“When they recite my CV back to me as if they’re on intimate terms with Google.”

Prickling embarrassment swirled through Tasha’s gut. She couldn’t hold his gaze and dropped her chin. “I’m sorry. You really don’t have to talk to me just to be nice if you don’t want to. I should finish unpacking anyhow.”

Awkward silence blossomed between them. Tasha had the feeling he was studying her, but she was too chicken to find out.

“Well fortunately, we have the whole summer for me to tell you all of the things that the internet doesn’t know.”

She did peek up at him then, only to find him smiling at her. Dammit, was she being rude? Should she leave the unpacking for later and chat with him now? How was she supposed to spend an entire summer with the man when one little smile turned her into Miss Nerdy Loserpants?

“Yeah, okay, that would be cool. I should probably get this done now. Thanks. Talk to you later.”

Without waiting for his reply, she shut the door. As soon as the doorknob clicked, she winced.
Smooth, Tash
, she scolded herself.
Now he’s going to think you’re a goober as well as being weird and boring
.

With a sigh, she slogged around the bed to finish unpacking. Whatever mess she’d gotten herself into, Spencer Ellis was right about one thing—they had the whole summer to figure it out. If she didn’t implode first.

She shut the door on him. Spence stepped back and blinked at the solid surface of the closed door. Tasha the teacher had closed him out.

A smile spread from one ear to the other. He liked her. He hadn’t had a door slammed in his face since…since his days of pounding the pavement running from one audition to another, really. It made him feel like that normal schlub that he hadn’t been for years. Man, he missed that schlub. Granted, she wasn’t being rude. She was unsettled. She had other things on her mind.

With a quiet chuckle, he turned and headed back out onto the porch, reaching for his cell in his back pocket. The sun was well overhead now, and the north side of the porch was shaded after being bathed in sunlight all morning. He walked to the far end, away from Tasha’s window, before swiping his phone on.

Two missed calls from Yvonne. He’d only felt his phone vibrate for one of them. Tasha must have had his attention for the other. Two voicemails too. He ignored them both and hit return call.

“You know I hate it when you ignore my calls,” Yvonne said by way of greeting.

“And you know I hate it when you pull strings that shouldn’t be pulled for me,” he answered. “We’re even.”

There was a fraction of a pause from the other end before Yvonne said, “I can get rid of her by tomorrow. Give me an hour to find another—”

“No,” Spence cut her off. “She stays.”

“Spence, sweetheart, you don’t need to be all noble and heroic until the cameras are rolling. If you want her gone—”

“I don’t. I like her. Besides, I really did wreck a lifelong ambition of hers. She told me the whole story.”

“I’m sure she did.” Yvonne’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Spence clenched his jaw and ran a hand through his hair. He glanced out over the beach. Low tide. Kids playing in the water, the older ones skittering across waves on skim-boards. Parents and grandparents napping in the sun or under beach umbrellas. He breathed it all in.

“Not everyone makes things up for a living,” he scolded Yvonne. “Some people are what they appear to be.”

“Not in your line of work, sweetheart.”

“Tell me about it,” he muttered. “I’m fine with Tasha staying here for the summer. It’s the least I can do. Everything will be fine. Call off whatever dogs you have waiting in the wings to go after her.”

“Are you sure? It won’t take much.”

“I’m sure. Besides,” he glanced back along the side of the house as Tasha opened her bedroom window, “I like her.” He lowered his voice. Tasha’s pale green curtains swirled out through the window. “I’d like to get to know her better.”

His comment was met by tense silence, then. “Spence. Don’t do anything stupid.”

A spike of anger hit his gut. Who did Yvonne think she was? His mother?

Actually, yes. She did think she was his mother. Had for years. And his actual mother approved. She was good at it.

“I won’t,” he assured her. “It’s just the summer. I’m here to relax, to deprogram, and to figure out which move to make next.”

“You promise?”

“Yes, of course,” he laughed.

“I’m not going to see topless pics of you in the tabloids with that nobody?”

“No, Yvonne,” he sighed. “No topless pics. No tabloids. I promise to be on my best behavior.”

“I’ll start damage control,” she answered.

“Thanks, you do that,” he drawled. “Goodbye.”

“Bye, hun.”

He ended the call and dropped his hand to his side. Tasha’s curtains continued to billow. She’d opened another window too. The whole thing made a pretty sight, wholesome and artless. It was about time he had a little artlessness in his life.

Chapter Three

Making friends and getting people to notice him was something Spence had never had to worry about. For as long as he could remember, people had gravitated to him. It came in handy when you were building a career in possibly the most competitive business in the world. It was the kind of thing you took for granted after a while.

Tasha wanted nothing to do with him. She’d quietly shut him out that first day, and did her utmost to avoid him for several days after. He had the uneasy feeling she was ashamed because she’d broken down when they met. He just wished she’d poke her head up from one of her books long enough for him to prove he didn’t hold it against her. Being in the same house with someone who wouldn’t talk to him, an attractive woman at that, was a unique form of torture. He told himself he would give her space, let her get comfortable and forget what had set her off on her own time. Somehow, that space ended up translating to him spending his every waking moment wondering what she was doing and when she would come around.

When she didn’t show up in the kitchen for lunch on Thursday, Spence decided now was the time to venture into Summerbury. He refused to admit that his decision to grab a bite at one of the local lobster shacks had anything to do with the need to look for Tasha. He was just hungry, not curious and never lonely. He found her sitting at a small table on her own outside of Pete’s Clam Hut with her e-reader in one hand and a lobster roll in the other.

“This seat taken?” he asked, sliding onto the bench ringing the small round table. Its wide umbrella cast enough shade for him to take off his sunglasses.

Tasha glanced up from her book, stopping mid-chew. She swallowed and put her roll down, blushing as dark as if she’d been in the sun all day.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Thought I’d come out for a bite to eat. I’m glad I caught you sitting here. Is this place good?” He should not be sounding like a middle school kid in the lunch room. He was a grown-ass man, more than capable of talking to a woman.

Tasha stared at him, unblinking, for several seconds. Then she took a breath and reached for her soda, avoiding his eyes. “I like it. They’ve got a sign up claiming that they serve the best lobster roll in Summerbury, but then again, every restaurant in town has a sign up saying they’re the best as voted by someone or another.”

“Are they really the best?”

Tasha shrugged as she sipped her drink. She glanced to the line leading up to the tiny shack with its wide service counter. A few people were trying to steal looks at Spence without seeming too obvious. He ignored them.

“I like these guys,” Tasha went on. She snapped away when one of the people in line met her gaze, her shoulders hunching as if she didn’t want to be seen. “We used to come here when we were kids and sit back there where you can see a slice of the river and watch the tide. It hasn’t changed much.”

“Who is we?”

“Me and my brother Dave, Jenny and Brad.”

She was talking. He was getting somewhere. “Who’s Brad again?” he asked.

Her whole face changed from shy to thunderstorm-level wrath. “Brad is exactly what I came here to not think about or talk about.”

Ex-boyfriend.

“Ah,” he said aloud, holding up his hands, then drumming them on the edge of the table. “Well, hold my spot. I’m going to grab lunch.”

She frowned at him briefly as he stood, then went back to her e-reader as though he’d never been there. Well, it was a baby step in the right direction. She’d given him the time of day, at least.

He joined the line leading up to the counter, studying the menu. There was something paradoxically reassuring about a menu put together with small plastic letters and numbers pushed into a plastic board that had yellowed with age and grease. It was quaint and summery.

“What can I get’cha?” the cashier asked in a thick New England accent. He was in his fifties and dressed in a t-shirt with the words “Pete’s Clam Hut” and a picture of a bunch of clams having a good time in a tiny house. Everything about him was as far from the spit and polish of L.A. as could be. Just the way Spence wanted it.

“I’ll have a lobster roll, medium fries, and a medium root beer.” Yvonne would kill him for all the sugar and calories, but he was on vacation, and what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“Twelve-fifty,” the cashier told him. Spence grinned at the tourist price, then reached for his wallet. The man blinked. “Say, you’re not Spencer Ellis, are you?”

Prickles of ice raced down Spence’s back. There it was, the moment his anonymity vanished with the clip of a few words. He felt the people waiting in line behind him perk up. He should have ordered take-out.

“Not out here, I’m not,” he smiled as kindly as he could manage.

A split-second of confusion on the cashier’s face was quickly replaced by understanding and a nod. “Gotcha. You wanna wait right over there and Kendra will have your roll up in a jiffy.”

“Thanks.” Spence nodded in appreciation.

He waited to the side until a cute, wide-eyed teenager, who had to have been the cashier’s daughter, brought him his lunch. Her lips twitched as she stared at him, and Spence could practically hear “Can I have your autograph?” zipping through her head. He smiled at her as if he was just another tourist, took his things, and returned to Tasha’s table.

Tasha continued to read her book, lobster roll finished, as if it were another ordinary day at the Clam Hut.

“Is the guy behind the register Pete?” he asked, taking his lunch off the tray and arranging it in front of him.

Tasha checked over the top of her e-reader. “Yep,” she said after a pause. “He’s actually Pete junior. Pete senior was still running the place when I was a kid.”

“Nice.” He smiled and took a bite of his lobster roll. The tang of mayo and lemon combined with the satisfying crunch of fresh lobster filled his mouth. “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.”

“One of the best parts about Maine.” Tasha smiled. That smile was better than the lobster, and he wanted more.

“What else should I try?” he asked, mouth half full.

Tasha hesitated for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure he was talking to her. Then she put down her e-reader. Spence mentally fist-pumped.

“Have you ever been to Maine before, and do you want to do touristy things or what the locals do?” she asked as if conducting an interview.

“I’ve been to Portland once, but not for long enough to enjoy it, and I suppose I’d like to do a little bit of both.”

“Oh my gosh, is that Spencer Ellis?” a woman murmured to her friend at the next table.

Spence met Tasha’s eyes. She darted a worried glance to the women, then raised an eyebrow at him. He replied with the barest of shrugs, and took another bite of his lobster roll.

“I think it’s just someone who looks like him,” the other women at the next table told her friend. “He is cute, though.”

Tasha leaned across the table and whispered. “Do you get that a lot?”

“Recognized?” he asked. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I want to be recognized.”

She sat back, but kept her voice lowered. “How can you not be recognized if you don’t want to?”

“By not looking famous,” he answered. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning around his straw as he took a gulp of root beer. They were having a conversation. It wasn’t much of a conversation, but it was better than the silence of the last few days and twice as nice as half the conversations he’d had in the last year.

“You can’t just not look famous if you are,” Tasha went on. “You’re obviously you. Everyone knows your face.”

He shrugged and reached for a fry. “Lots of people look like other people. And if there’s one thing that celebrity’s taught me, it’s that people will question themselves if they see you out of context.”

“Out of context?”

“Stuffing your face with fries at Pete’s Clam Hut with a cute teacher.” He winked.

She crushed his expectations by shrinking away, face pink, and standing.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be intruding. I’ll leave you to your lunch.”

Just like that, he didn’t exist again. She piled her empty lobster roll container and soda cup onto her tray and walked them to the trash can. What had he done wrong? It wasn’t something he said, was it?

When Tasha returned to the table to gather her things, slipping her e-reader into its case and that into the purse slung over her shoulder, Spence inhaled the rest of his roll. He still had half his fries and his drink in front of him when she finished and started walking off, but sacrifices had to be made. He shoved his trash onto his tray, rushed it over to the receptacle and tossed everything but the drink, then jogged after Tasha.

“Something wrong?” he asked her.

“No. What? Why?” She fiddled with her purse, picking up her pace.

He slipped on his sunglasses as they crossed over the small bridge spanning the river that divided one half of the town from the other. A few of the window-shoppers that they passed along the row of souvenir shops did a double-take as he passed.

“Do I make you nervous? I’m not trying to, I swear. If it bothers you that people recognize me….” If it did, there was nothing he could do about it.

She stopped just shy of the entrance to a shop displaying lobster t-shirts and kitschy postcards, pivoting to face him.

“It’s…it’s not that, not really.” She peeked around and lowered her voice to a whisper, “But you’re movie star and I’m just a teacher. It’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

“Why would it be weird?” They continued walking down the row of shops. “Besides, I’m not a movie star here.”

“No?” she asked. A bare hint of a smile touched her lips.

His heart skipped a beat, and he dodged around an older couple walking in the opposite direction. “Of course not. I’m just a guy from Oregon, on vacation and trying to be friendly. That’s all.”

She didn’t say anything, but her smile grew. As they rounded the corner, she slowed her pace. A few steps later, she stopped entirely and let out a breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just a little edgy about new people right now. Especially guys.”

Another story he wanted to hear but knew better than to press her for.

“Understandable.” He nodded.

An awkward silence fell.

Don’t be a dweeb
, Tasha scolded herself.
He’s only trying to be nice
. True enough, but picking out the nice guys from the not-so nice variety wasn’t exactly easy these days. She’d read enough celebrity gossip to know how thin that sort of ice was, but it dawned on her that she wasn’t being fair. And now Spence was just standing there, waiting for her to say something.

“This is Grant’s Five and Dime,” she said, gesturing with her thumb to the store beside them. “It’s been here longer than any of the big chain drug stores you find popping up all over the place. They sell the same sort of stuff, though. There’s an old fashioned candy counter at the back that we used to drool over as kids.”

Shut up, you moron! What are you, on the Summerbury Chamber of Commerce?

Spence didn’t laugh or sneer, though. He smiled. Damn, he was good at smiling.

“I love places like that,” he said. “I feel better about shopping in those kinds of stores than in the big chains.” Before she could apologize for sounding stupid, he went on with, “Where else did you guys used to hang out when you were kids?”

Tasha blinked. Did he really want to know?

“All over the place,” she answered. “Remember, we used to rent bikes and cover a lot of territory.”

He took a long sip of his soda, then nodded across the street to a small building on the corner. “Bikes. Like that place?”

Tasha turned to follow his nod. A bicycle rental shop had been set up in the building on the corner. She remembered it as being a tackle store, but now a row of identical, old bikes with small numbered tags on the backs of the seats stood out front.

“Yeah,” she answered. “Only we used to get our bikes from the hotel.”

“Wanna go for a ride?”

The grin that spread across his face was downright impish. It was exactly the kind of look her brother used to give them all when he was about to get them into some sort of trouble—trouble that would be worth every bit of punishment. That memory and Spence’s grin tugged at exactly the part of her she’d come to Summerbury to find.
Let go
, she told herself, though she heard it in Jenny’s voice.
Have fun. Just because he’s famous doesn’t mean he bites
.

“Sure, why not?” she answered. She could risk a bike ride with Spencer Ellis, movie star.

“Nice. Let’s go.”

They crossed the side street and popped inside of the rental office. Tasha wasn’t immune to the curious tourists squinting at Spence, trying to figure out if he was who they thought he was. The odd part was that they were giving her the same looks, trying to figure out if she was famous too. It was weird, but she decided to take a page out of Spence’s book and pretend that she was nobody. After all, she
was
nobody. Pathetic, stupid nobody. Life had a way of reminding her of that.