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Too bad about the Bluetooth device stuck in her ear and the grating voice of Myra Castle, her agent, talking too fast and too loud, as usual.
“Dare to Dream,” shouted Myra. “Tell me you’ve had a chance to look over the script.”
“Well, Myra, I just got here two days ago and—”
“You need to decide on it and we need to lock it in. They want you, but they won’t wait forever.”
“Myra, I finally have some time off and I’d really like to enjoy—”
“Exactly. Wasted time. You can’t afford that. You’re not getting any younger. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say to a twenty-seven-year-old woman, but that’s Hollywood. And you pay me to give it to you straight. If you don’t keep making the right choices, you’ll end up last year’s hot commodity. What about Devious Intentions?”
“No. Really. I’m not ready to—”
“Well, then get ready. I’ve discussed this with Rafe.” Rafe Zuma was Madison’s manager. “We agree, Rafe and I. It’s perfect for you, the exact right next step after Heartbeats and To the Top...” There was more. Lots more. Myra was a world-champion talker.
Suppressing a sigh, Madison tuned her out.
The cottage came with a nice pair of field glasses. Snatching them from a pretty cast-iron table as she went by, she strolled toward the back of the wraparound deck, interjecting the occasional “Um,” or “I understand,” whenever Myra paused for a breath or suddenly put a question mark at the end of a sentence. At the back corner, Madison leaned on the railing and traded her sunglasses for the binoculars.
In the past two glorious, peaceful days, she’d had plenty of time to study the occupants of the other house. In residence were her hunky landlord, his wife, a pair of cute kids and an older guy who was most likely the landlord’s dad.
She adjusted the binoculars, bringing the house next door into focus—the rear of the house, to be specific. In the last two days, Madison had been giving the field glasses quite a workout, mostly from her current vantage point.
And no, she wasn’t bird-watching. She was observing the landlord, who had a workshop area back there under his house, a workshop with a wide, roll-up door. Right now, that door was up. On the concrete slab just beyond the open door, the landlord was busy measuring and sawing and hammering.
Did she feel guilty for using his own binoculars to peep at him? Not really. Yeah, okay, it was invasive of his privacy, not to mention pretty juvenile, but what red-blooded, straight woman wouldn’t stare long and often at a guy who looked like that?
He was tall and sinewy and beautiful, with thick brown hair that tended to curl in the moist Oregon air and just the right amount of beard scruff. He was also very handy with a large number of manly tools. He even wore an actual tool belt, wore it low on his hard hips.
Right now, he had his shirt off, displaying a cornucopia of gorgeous, lean muscle, the kind a guy didn’t get at a gym. Lucky for him, he was married, or she just might consider asking hunky Mr. Fixit if he would do her a big favor and help her check off number one on her list of birthday goals.
Madison snorted out a silly laugh just at the thought. As if she’d ever make a move on a stranger, even a single one. She could work a room like nobody’s business and she had no false modesty about her talent as an actress or her pretty face and nice body. In public and on set, she was supremely self-confident.
But when it came to love and romance in Hollywood, who could blame a girl for being wary? Relationships imploded as fast as they began and it really was hard to know if a guy liked you for yourself or for what you could do for him. She didn’t need the potential heartache, so she’d more or less relinquished the field on the sex and romance front—relinquished it right out of the gate. She worked hard and constantly. She became casual friends with her costars. But as for love, well, she didn’t really have time for love, anyway.
Or she hadn’t had time. Until this year.
This year, no matter what, she was making time. Making time to make time.
That brought another snort-laugh from her, which had Myra demanding in her ear, “What is so funny?”
“Nothing, Myra. Absolutely noth...” The word died unfinished as a random gust of wind lifted her wide-brimmed hat right off her head. “Crap.”
She made a grab for it. Too late. The hat sailed over the railing. She set down the binoculars—and knocked her dark glasses off the railing in the process. The sunglasses plopped to the sand below and the hat wheeled off toward the ocean, vanishing from sight.
“Madison,” Myra badgered in her ear. “What is going on there?”
Madison looked down to see how her favorite sunglasses were faring and found herself staring directly into the wide, wondering eyes of Mr. Fixit’s little girl, who had been playing with her brother between the two houses while Madison peeped at their dad.
The little girl gasped. “Princess Eliza!” she cried and clapped her small hands with glee. “Princess Eliza, it’s you!” Princess Eliza was the central character in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Wild Swans.” Eight years ago, Madison, had played Eliza for Disney.
And that little girl? She was the cutest thing ever, with a riot of curly dark brown hair only partly contained in two braids. She wore denim overalls and a pink T-shirt. A jumbo-sized neon-green Band-Aid took up serious real estate on her left forearm. She beamed up at Madison, who beamed right back, not even caring that she’d just been recognized.
“Madison, you with me?” shouted Myra.
“Myra, sorry. Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” The agent was still talking as Madison ended the call.
“I’m coming to see you!” The little girl waved madly. Madison waved back at her. “I’m coming right now!” And the child took off at a run.
Laughing, Madison pulled the device from her ear and her phone from her pocket. She whirled and headed for the main deck again. Resetting the phone to silent page, she dropped both it and the Bluetooth receiver on the cast-iron table as she passed it.
At the same time, the kid ran around to the steps on the other side of the deck and started up them. “I’m here, Eliza,” she called. “I’m here to see you!”
“Coco, stop!” Her brother followed after her. “That’s not Eliza!” he shouted. “Eliza isn’t real.”
“Oh, you just shut up, Benjamin Killigan.” The little girl paused in midstep and turned on her brother. “You don’t know nothing.”
“Anything,” the boy corrected her. “And you know you’re not supposed to bother the tenant.”
Coco whirled away from him and ran up the remaining steps. “Eliza!” She reached the deck and raced for Madison, arms outstretched, pigtails flying.
Madison held out her arms. The little girl flew at her and landed, smack, against her middle.
“I’m Colleen.” The child gazed up at her through shining blue eyes. “But everybody calls me Coco.”
“Hello, Coco. My name is Madison.”
“See?” crowed the boy as he skidded to a stop a few feet away from them. “She’s not Eliza.” He was a year or two older than Coco, with straight brown hair, serious brown eyes and a T-shirt with Stand back! I’m going to try science! printed on the front.
Coco let go of Madison to turn and deal with her brother. “Is so.”
“No, she’s not.”
“Hold it,” said Madison. The children fell silent. Two sets of eyes turned on her expectantly. “You’re both right. I’m an actress who played the part of Eliza. So no, I’m not really Eliza, but yes, I am the one Coco remembers from The Wild Swans.”
“Told you so,” Coco gloated.
“All right, you two,” Hunky Mr. Fixit said from the top of the steps. He’d taken off his tool belt and put on a T-shirt. Darn it. “What did I tell you about bothering the tenant?”
Benjamin seemed hurt. “Uncle Sten, I tried to stop her!”
Uncle Sten. Interesting. So the hot guy next door might not be married, after all?
Or maybe the kids were cousins and only the little girl was his.
“She waved at me!” cried Coco.
The hunk came toward them, his lace-up work boots eliminating the distance in four long strides. Up close, he had the same amazing blue eyes as Coco. “I’m Sten Larson.” He offered Madison his big, manly hand.
“Madison.” His hand was warm, dusted very lightly with dark hair—and rough in all the right places.
“I know who you are.” He was so good-looking, with all that messy hair and those lips that made a woman think of kisses—kisses that start out slow, but then grow hot and wonderfully deep. “But you don’t have to worry.”
Her brain seemed to have gone off-line at his touch. “Um, worry? Why would I worry?”
He smiled then, a wry and beautiful smile. “I just mean that I’m sworn to secrecy concerning everything about you. I’ve even signed an NDA.”
“Ah,” she replied, the sound absurdly husky. “I can trust you then?” Was she flirting? She needed to cut that out. He could definitely be married.
“I’m not going to say a word to anyone,” he vowed. “And neither are the kids. I’ll make sure of that.”
She still held his hand. They just looked at each other. The look went on for several seconds. Eventually, it became downright awkward. They let go simultaneously. “Really, it’s no big deal,” she said, trying really hard to control her totally out-there reactions to everything about this guy. “I waved at Coco. She recognized me from a Disney movie I did a few years back and she came running up to meet me.”
“Yes!” crowed Coco with glee. “Princess Eliza is my most favoritest princess. She saved her brothers so they didn’t have to be swans anymore. There were eleven of them, those brothers, and the wicked stepmother turned them all into swans and made them fly far, far away and Eliza had to—”
“Coco, settle down.” A frown lowered the corners of Sten’s distractingly kissable mouth. He seemed super cautious, the way people always did after they had it drilled it into them that Madison wanted privacy and she was not to be disturbed or to have attention drawn to her in any way.
“The beach is deserted,” Madison said, feeling embarrassed at the rules she herself always insisted on. “I don’t see a problem.”
For several more endless seconds, he just looked at her. Really, he could do that forever, just stand there with those gorgeous eyes focused on her. She felt something lovely and magic with him, no doubt about it. It was absolutely delicious, that hot little spark of mutual attraction.
And for once, she was actually imagining acting on it.
At last.
But he just kept frowning. He turned to the kids. “All right you two, go on back to the house and check in with Grandpa.”
Ben took Coco’s hand. The little girl allowed him to lead her to the stairs, but dug in her heels before following him down. Turning, she offered, “Eliza, you can come play with me at my house anytime!”
I’ll be right there, Madison thought but didn’t say. It probably wouldn’t go over so well with Sten, who was watching her like he didn’t quite know what to make of her, the supposedly reclusive movie star who suddenly found his grade school-age niece—or daughter—fascinating. “Thanks.” She gave Coco a big smile.
“Come on.” Ben pulled Coco on down the stairs.
Sten took another step backward. “I’m really sorry about this. I’ll talk to the kids and their mom.” Their mom. So then neither of the children was his? “I’ll make sure they leave you alone and also that they understand not to tell people you’re in town.”
“Coco and Ben can come visit me anytime.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she would say them—and now she had said them, she didn’t want to take them back. The two children were charming and sweet and why shouldn’t she get to know them a little?
As for hunky Mr. Fixit, well, Madison had shared on-screen kisses with some of the best-looking men in the world. But there was something about this one, with his slightly scruffy haircut and those lean muscles he had from doing actual work. He was so...natural, so real.
And definitely wary of her.
And just possibly, married.
She really needed to find out for sure if he was or he wasn’t. “Your kids are just too cute,” she said with a wide smile.
He almost smiled back, one side of his mouth curling up reluctantly. “They’re my sister, Karin’s, kids.”
She kept a straight face, though inside she was happy-dancing. “You all live together, right?”
He nodded. “Bud, Karin’s husband, died in a fishing accident more than three years ago now.”
Her silly glee that this hot guy was almost certainly single vanished. “I’m so sorry.”
He raked his hand back through all that unruly hair. “Yeah. It was rough. Coco was just three at the time. They’re doing all right now, though. She and the kids moved in with Dad and me last summer. They’re all downstairs together—Karin, the kids and my father. I’ve got the second floor to myself. There’s plenty of room and my sister’s a great cook. Dad and I pitch in watching the kids. I’m one of those single guys who likes having family around, so overall, it works out pretty well.”
One of those single guys...
Yes! Inside, she fist-pumped like a crazy woman—seriously, what was she, twelve?
In some ways, yes.
She’d done a nude scene last year. Millions of people had seen her bare butt. But when it came to relationships in real life, Madison Delaney, America’s Darling, suffered from a serious case of arrested development.
It was kind of sad. And not only that she knew nothing about men, IRL. But also, well, just imagining the house next door, with Sten and the kids, Sten’s sister and his dad, too...
She envied them.
To have family. To have a brother or a sister, nieces and nephews, and to have them close. She’d always wanted that—and maybe, when she finally got up the nerve to get in contact with the Bravos, she would have what she’d always wanted.
After she got to know them all. Eventually. Over time...
Sten took a step closer. “What’s wrong? You look so sad, all of a sudden.” He lifted one of those fine, big hands. Her skin burned with the knowledge that he was going to touch her—brush a finger over her cheek, maybe smooth a loose ribbon of hair behind her ear.
Every nerve in her body had snapped to quivering alert.
But before his fingertips made contact, the glass door leading into the cottage slid open. Sten glanced over his shoulder as Dirk, her bodyguard, stuck his head out. “Everything okay?”
Sten lowered his hand.
Madison gave Dirk a tight nod with get lost written all over it. “All good.”
Dirk pulled his big head back inside and shut the door, but he didn’t go anywhere. He remained right there on the far side of the glass, legs braced wide, meaty shoulders back, watching. Madison was very fond of Dirk and Sergei and all of her bodyguards, but sometimes having round-the-clock security sucked—times like now, when she was not going to feel Sten Larson’s hand brush her cheek, after all.
“I should get going,” he said. “If you need anything, just let me know.”
She tried to think of something clever and sophisticated to say to make him stay. But she was working without a script and her mind was a witless blank.
Over on the table, her phone started spinning in a circle, the screen lighting up with a picture of Rafe in one of his bespoke suits, his dark face impossibly handsome, supremely confident. Resigned, she went to answer it as Sten headed for the stairs.
* * *
What the hell just happened?
Sten scowled as he ran down the steps. Did he get struck by lightning?
The movie star was freaking gorgeous, with those acres of streaky blond hair, that thousand-watt, dimpled smile. She was also friendly and outgoing and easy to talk to. No wonder they called her America’s Darling.
He might have just come down with a serious crush on the woman. What the hell? Like he was fourteen again, all knees and elbows, overwhelmed and tongue-tied in the presence of Sharlee Stubbleman, a senior and the prettiest girl at Valentine Bay High.
Madison Delaney.
What was the matter with him? Talk about out of his league.
She’d looked so sad, though, there for a minute, hadn’t she? Sad and a little bit lost.
And he’d wanted to pull her close, comfort her, maybe even taste those pillowy lips of hers. He might have done it, too, if not for the bodyguard shoving open the slider just as he was making his move.
She doesn’t want to be disturbed.
He needed to remember that. The woman wanted to be alone and his job was to make sure nobody bothered her or found out that she’d rented his cottage at Sweetheart Cove. Madison Delaney had paid a lot of money for her six-week stay and for the total privacy he’d promised her assistant she would have.
Sten returned to his workshop, put his tools away and shut the roll-up door, smiling to himself as he thought of Coco and her little-girl crush on the star of her favorite Disney movie.
Too bad his niece wouldn’t get to spend any more time with Madison. He would have to have a talk with Karin about how to make Coco understand that she was not allowed to pester the tenant or tell anyone else that a movie star was staying next door.
* * *
That night after she put the kids to bed, Karin joined him out on the deck. They sat in the comfy red cedar chairs he’d made a few years ago and watched the trail of the moon reflected, shimmering, on the ocean. The gulls were feeding, circling and calling and then diving for fish and just about anything else that happened to catch their eye.
There was a chilly wind blowing. Karin smoothed dark hair away from her face and wrapped her bulky sweater more tightly around her. “I’m guessing you’ll want to discuss the movie star next door.”
He grunted. “You noticed that Coco jabbered about her nonstop through dinner, then?”
“I did, yeah. What’s up?” She turned her eyes to him. They were blue, like his eyes and their dad’s and Coco’s, too. In the moonlight, they looked almost black. Black and too somber. Three years since Bud died fishing the Gulf of Alaska. Sometimes Karin still looked way too sad.
“You signed the NDA, too,” he said. “The tenant is not supposed to be disturbed and no one else can know that she’s here.”
“What? The big star got all offended because my little girl’s a fan?”
“Whoa, Mama Grizzly. Take it down a notch. Madison really liked Coco. She said Coco and Ben could come over anytime they wanted to.”
Karin leaned between their chairs and peered at him a little too closely. “Madison? So we’re on a first-name basis with America’s Darling, are we?”
“Stop.”
“You like her.” She slapped the side of his knee with the back of her hand. “Admit it.”
“She seems like a good person.”
“Right. You’re attracted to her goodness.”
In some ways Karin was still the bratty little sister he’d grown up with. Mostly, he hoped she would never change. Times like now, though? Not so much. “There really is a point to this conversation and the point is that we need to keep the kids out of her hair and make sure they don’t tell anyone she’s staying here.”
“All right. I’ll handle it.”
“How?”
“Well, Ben’s no problem. He was born responsible and reasonable. He already knows the cottage is off-limits when a tenant is living there and that the tenants have a right to their privacy. Coco is a bit of a challenge. She’s such a free spirit. But we’ve been talking about privacy and respect lately. I’ll start with that. Ben will back me. Coco will fall in line, for her beloved ‘Eliza’s’ sake, if nothing else.”
He stared at his sister, thinking that beyond loving her, he really liked her. A lot. He was just about to tell her that when she sent him a slow, knowing smile. He knew that smile. It was her give-Sten-some-grief smile.
“You like the movie star,” she said. “And not just because she’s so good.”
“Oh, come on.” He tried to look really bored. “What guy with a pulse wouldn’t like her?”
“Stennie. There’s nothing wrong with liking the girl next door.” Stennie. He used to chase her around the house with a squirt gun when she called him that. But now he was a grown-ass man and knew better than to let his sister’s teasing get to him. Much. She leaned close again and pitched her voice low. “It’s been more than a year since Ella went back to that loser in Seattle. Good riddance. Time to move on.”
“Ella? Who’s Ella?”
“Har-har. I know you don’t like to talk about her. I don’t want to talk about her, either. I never liked her.”
“You didn’t say so at the time.”
“Because I’m a good sister who minds her own business and has sense enough not to give her big brother advice on his love life.”
“Right. Like you’re not doing now?”
“This isn’t advice. It’s a nudge. Sometimes you need a nudge.”
“She wants to be alone. I signed the NDA.”
“You’re repeating yourself. And you like her. And you really ought to just go ahead and follow up on that.”
* * *
That night and the next day, Madison started to wonder what she was even doing in Valentine Bay. She’d yet to work up the courage to reach out to Percy Valentine and the family she’d been born into.
And what was the point of getting away from LA when all she did was field calls from her agent and her manager? Myra and Rafe just never quit. They tagged-teamed her, pressuring her to sign on for this and think about that, to come back to LA for some high-priority meetings, to read a pile of scripts yesterday because time was flying by and she couldn’t afford to lose momentum.
Madison could not have cared less about momentum. She needed a life—a real life, a life like most people took for granted. A life containing a family, a special guy and some friends she got together with outside of the movie business. Too bad she seemed stuck on hold lately, unable to take the necessary steps to make her goals happen.
Coco and Benjamin waved at her when they played outside, but when she tried to signal them up, they just waved again and ran off. She was pretty sure they’d been told to keep away.
And as for Sten? More than once, she faintly heard machines whirring down in his workshop. But his roll-up door stayed shut.
On the night of her fourth day in Valentine Bay, she’d had enough. She lay in bed in the dark and stared blankly at the shadows near the ceiling thinking that something had to give. She couldn’t go on like this.
Bright and early the next morning, she called her manager and her agent and informed them in no uncertain terms that she was taking time off, having an actual vacation. And when a person took a vacation, she didn’t want to constantly be forced to think about work.
They were not to contact her. If some emergency came up and they just had to reach out to her, they were to get in touch with Rudy, who would pass the word to her.
Next, she called Rudy and told him that while she was in Valentine Bay, he would be dealing with Rafe and Myra. She also instructed him to call her security firm and inform them that she was sending Dirk back to LA.
“That’s not going to go well,” said her PA in his usual dry, unflappable tone.
“Do it. I’m serious. Dirk’s the best. Make it very clear it’s nothing against him. I just need to be on my own right now.”
Ten minutes later, Rudy called her back to pass on the dire warnings from her security people. The team had not approved when she took only one bodyguard to Oregon, and they were even more concerned when they learned that she’d been using Dirk as a driver, too; security should stay focused on the main job.
And now she was suddenly ditching Dirk, as well? Her security team predicted that big trouble would follow.