He looked at her, and she looked at him and there was a moment of truce.
CHAPTER 37
“I didn’t believe it, thought you were on freaking tilt, but damn, she’s perfect.” Don Waschoniz crowed from the back seat, his hands hammering the back of Cole’s seat with enthusiasm.
Cole shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, not perfect.”
“Are you kidding me? God fucking squeezed Ida Pinkerton out of a test tube and into that girl’s mother. Or sorry, mama.” He laughed like a hyena and pounded the seat again, Cole’s shoulders lifting from the impact. “Fucking perfect!”
In a town like Quincy, a blind man could have a sense of direction. Cole turned right and then, two miles later, left. Pulled into the empty lot of the airport, pleased with himself, and parked. Before them, the jet sat, fat and expensive, on the tired runway. Beside it, in worn coveralls, a man excitedly waved.
“What’s that guy’s name?” Cole looked at Ben, pointing to the man.
“Wallace. Summer calls him Wally. He actually owns the airport.”
“Good to know,” Cole said dubiously, looking at the man.
“This is actually one of the filming locations. We negotiated two weeks where he’ll close down the strip entirely.”
“Unless we need to use it. For actual flights.” It was a verification, but the blanched look on Ben’s face was worrisome.
“Right. Of course,” the man managed.
“Verify it,” Cole said to Ben, and the car lightened as Don got out. He rolled down the window and shook Don’s hand when it was extended. “See you in two weeks.”
“I’ll get casting and legal on the contracts. Start the PR department on Summer. Tell her to hold on tight, her life is about to change in a big way.”
“I told her we’d pay five hundred thousand.”
Don laughed. “Really? What’d her agent think about?”
Cole scoffed. “Come on, man. We’re lucky she’s not asking for payment in cornhusks. There’s no agent. Tell legal we can be aggressive with the contract.”
“Hey, as long as you’re the one going over it with her.” Don patted the hood of the car and stepped back.
“Fly safe.” Cole waved and watched Don walk toward the plane. He shifted the car into drive and turned to Ben. “Okay. Let’s go get some sleep.”
CHAPTER 38
I sat on the floor, my mouth pressed against the window’s trim, my eyes just above the sill, and watched Ben’s car pull down the drive, its headlights filtered through acres of cotton. It was a child’s pose, and I half expected Mama to flip on the overhead light and catch me. It was funny how that always happened. You behaved for ten years in an empty room, and then, the minute you reached for trouble, someone came in and saw.
I wasn’t doing anything wrong—wasn’t causing trouble—but I didn’t want Mama, or anyone else, in that moment, to see me. I wanted a breath of quiet, to watch the men drive away and have a moment to reflect.
I thought I did well. It was hard to know what they had wanted. I’d read the book; I knew what Ida Pinkerton was like, but America’s impression of a strong Southern woman often differed from reality. And I wasn’t sure which version, truth or fiction, was stamped in the minds of Cole and the director. Cole. Funny how I was already thinking of him as that. For so long, he’d been Cole Masten—the last name part of the first—the entire package one surrounded in my mind by glitter and stars. I hadn’t dropped his last name due to familiarity; he and I were still strangers, despite our few conversations. I dropped his name, when I sat and thought about it, because the glitter was gone, the stars were faded. The image I had of COLE MASTEN was gone. It was, from my spot against the window, disappointing.
Ben’s car turned left, picking up speed, and if it’d been day, I’d have seen the plume of dirt road dust rising up behind it. But in the dark night, all I saw were faint beams of red and white, fading into specks, then into nothing.
I would not be my mother.
I would leave this town. I didn’t know where I’d go, or what I’d do—but it would be somewhere other than this.
I closed my eyes and pulled my knees up to my chest. I looked at the empty plates stacked on the counter, bits of cobbler drying on their surface. I saw an abandoned glass of tea, its condensation leaving a ring on the wood that Mama would flip a biscuit over. I thought about the stack of dirty dishes that I had piled into an empty laundry basket and stuck in my closet. All things I should have stood up, right then, and attended to.
But I didn’t. I hugged my knees to my chest and enjoyed this one, terrifying moment that might have just changed my life.
THREE DAYS LATER
Cole stood in a living room of chicken hell. Wallpaper with chickens on it. Chicken clock. Chicken pillows. Framed plates with chickens on it. Hands on his hips, Cole did a slow sweep of the living room, his shoulders twisting as he got full exposure of the disaster that was to be his home for the next four months.
“This is a joke,” he finally managed. “Right? This isn’t actually where I’m staying.”
Ben paled, and Summer, damn her to hell, laughed. He glared at her, and she slapped a hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking underneath the straps of a red sundress. A sundress. It was crazy how the knee-length hem was sexier than that of a minidress, crazier still how he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her legs. The woman had no idea what appropriate attire was for… well… whatever this was. He looked toward the kitchen. “Please say it’s just this room.” He took a step toward the open doorway; Ben fretted, Summer’s giggles increased, and Cole scowled at them both—pushing past them and into the kitchen, stopping short in the doorway.
More chickens. Ceramic ones, perched along the top of the cabinets, squatting alongside the coffee pot, a cookie tin made from an especially fat one. A chicken mat in front of the sink, curtains on either side of the window. He stepped closer and peered… yep. “Chicken cabinet pulls,” he said aloud. “Really?”
“They’re roosters.” Summer said, as if that made any difference. “Not chickens. Note the red comb and wattles.”
“They’re creepy,” Cole retorted, turning to her. “It’s like Dahmer’s human organ decor.”
“That’s creepy,” Summer responded, her brow raising. “Who thinks of that when they see roosters?” Her eyes on him… they were distracting. The mischievous glitter in them lit a spark, somewhere inside him. It wasn’t a good spark. Not with this girl.
Cole looked away first. When he finally spoke, it was to the window. “I want this country shit out of here.”
“It’s cute,” Summer interjected. “And homey.”
That it was. Yet another reason to get it all out.
“We can’t touch any of the décor,” Ben spoke up. “That was a very firm stipulation of Cyndi Kirkland’s. You can’t move or change anything.”
“And who agreed to that bullshit?” Cole exploded.
“We did,” Summer said evenly, stepping forward as if she expected a confrontation. “And that bullshit is the only reason you’re staying here as opposed to a hotel. Do you know how hard Ben has been working? Of course you don’t! You’re too busy in California, surrounded by your—”
Suddenly, the spark became a flame and his mouth was on her, her words swallowed as his hands found her waist and pushed, her feet stumbling, her back—that damn dress—hitting the counter. She tasted of sweet fucking rebellion, her tongue softening, accepting. Then both of her hands were on his chest, and her adorable, tiny knee came up hard between his legs.
The words of his defense didn’t make it out. They were swallowed by the pain—his hand reaching out blindly, needing a support system, a shot of morphine, a gun to shoot this crazy bitch in the head, anything. He wheezed out a breath and cupped himself—distracted for a moment by the chub in his pants. What was he—thirteen? He hadn’t gotten turned on by a kiss since high school. Sex after Nadia had proved it. A sexual three-ring circus was now required to get his
cock to pay any attention at all. His eyes found Summer, and she glowered at him, her stiff arms ending in fists at her side, as if she was ready to follow up her knee with a punch. He staggered back. “What’s wrong with you?” he gasped.
“What’s wrong with me?” she hissed. “Are you kidding me? You just—”
“Kissed you. I just kissed you. Big fucking deal. You wouldn’t shut up.”
“You didn’t ask me to shut up.”
“People don’t normally ask someone to shut up. They tell them to.” His joke was accompanied by a smirk, both which came through lingering pain, his attempt to fully straighten painful.
She didn’t appreciate the humor. “Kiss me like that again and I’ll rip your eyes from their sockets.”
He held up his hands with a hard smile. “No worries, princess. I have no desire to repeat that experience.” He leaned forward slightly, enjoying watching her bristle. “And I’m not talking about the cheap shot. I’m talking about the kiss. I’ve had better. Much, much better.”
It was a lie. That kiss, that brief moment before violence…
It might be worth losing sight over.
He held his eyes on her and saw the moment the girl of stone cracked, crumbled, and broke. He saw the quick inhale of breath, the loosening of defiance in her eyes, the tightening of her forehead, in between her eyebrows, her bottom lip curling slightly underneath a tooth. It was a small act, no burst of tears, no wail of drama. Another man might not have even noticed. But Cole saw it all and instantly wanted to take his cruel words back, to stuff them into his hollow shell and see if they’d blot up some of the pain there instead of cutting this innocent thing deep.
He looked away, collected himself, and looked back, but she was gone—the kitchen door flapping against the frame with a loud SMACK.
Ben cleared his throat, and the eye of every chicken stared, accusingly, in his direction.
CHAPTER 39
I hated that man; he was an asshole unlike I’d ever known. Why God deemed to gift men like him with looks like that was beyond me. Or maybe looks like that shaped men into assholes like him.
I stood in the Kirklands’ back yard, on perfectly cut grass, the fingers of which tickled the edges of my feet—a birdbath beside me trickling, a patch of sunflowers swaying before me. Beauty, all around. And behind me, darkening that rooster-infested patch of square footage: The Beast.
I hadn’t kissed someone in three years. The last person was Scott, and look how that turned out. For Cole to just grab me and do that, in front of Ben… I let out a hot breath of anger. And then, his laugh. Scornful and mean. As if it had been nothing. Worse than nothing. Bad.
I hadn’t kissed a lot of men in my life, but for me, it hadn’t been nothing. And it certainly hadn’t been bad. He probably kissed a different girl every day. I’d seen him, onscreen, kissing women so beautiful they’d make your eyes hurt. He’d been married—or technically still was—to Nadia Smith. Why was I not surprised that my kiss didn’t compare? I shouldn’t have felt hurt; I should have felt mad. I had been. Mad enough to push him off and inflict pain while doing so. I was not Cole Masten’s to take. I was certainly not Cole Masten’s to ridicule and push aside with a laugh.
Tears burning the edge of my eyes, I stepped to the picket fence at the edge of the Kirklands’ lawn, undid the latch, and stepped down into the first open lane of cotton. Crossing my hands over my chest, my flip-flops soft in the dirt, I headed home.
CHAPTER 40
Cole rested his hands on the sink and leaned forward, looking out the kitchen’s window, watching Summer’s hair picked up and pulled by the wind. “Where’s she going?”
“Home,” Ben said from behind him. He stepped forward, joining Cole at the sink and pointed, a manicured nail tapping on the glass. “That big house back there is the Holden plantation. Her house is the little one, to the right.”
“That’s her house? Right there?” Cole squinted, surprised. “It’s so close.”
“They’re neighboring estates,” Ben said with some importance.
“How pissed is she?” Cole nodded toward Summer, who was smaller now, her red dress barely visible, her steps quick.
“You should go after her,” Ben said. “She’s pissed… but I also think she’s hurt.”
Hurt. It had been a long time since Cole had cared whether anyone was hurt. He pushed off the sink and turned away, stepping toward the living room. “Show me the rest of this place, Ben,” he called out, moving farther from the window, from her, from weakness. “And if I see a fucking chicken in the bedroom I will rip it apart myself.”
He couldn’t go after her. Even if it was the right thing to do. Even if it would make their relationship smoother, the movie better. Because he knew himself. And right now, if he chased her down that dirt row and pulled her around, apologizing would be the last thing on his mind.
CHAPTER 41
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Brad DeLuca’s voice boomed through the cell phone’s speaker, Cole wincing and pulling it away from his ear. Cole hadn’t had a clear call since he set foot in Quincy, yet DeLuca’s voice was crystal. A crystal hammer.
“What?” Cole sat up in bed and looked for a clock, his eyes landing on a small silver timepiece, quite possibly the only thing in this damn house that didn’t have a rooster on it. “It’s eight in the morning,” he mumbled.
“I’m well aware of that. And my wife has come three times so far this morning, so get your ass out of bed and be productive.”
“I’m on California time,” Cole mumbled, his eyes closing. Anything to break the view. If he saw one more rooster, he would go insane.
“I was very clear in my instructions to you. You were to go to Quincy and behave. Not run around grabbing the first single woman you find. And then you made her your costar?” The man growled out the last word, and Cole sat up.
“How do you know that? Deadline? Who reported it?” He kicked at the covers to get his legs free. It was probably Perez. That prick had informants coming out of his freshly bleached ass.
“It hasn’t hit any press. But it will. And Nadia’s attorneys will crucify you with it. You can’t put your new girlfriend in the movie that we’re—”
“She’s not my new girlfriend,” he interrupted.
“Sorry. Your new fuck—”
“No,” Cole stopped him. “She’s nothing. I didn’t cast her because I’m fucking her or dating her. I cast her because she is Ida Pinkerton. She’s perfect for the movie; she was born for this role. And she’s cheap. It’s a good decision all around.”
“Perfect for the movie or your cock?”
Cole closed his eyes. “The movie. I listened to you. I’m behaving and focusing on the movie. I haven’t even thought about Nadia since I got here. Everything has been about the movie.”
“Then why, with all of that said, did you kiss her?” DeLuca’s voice was softer, a cushion ready for a confession, soothing undertones hiding the blades he held beneath.
“What?” Cole stood. “Who told you that?”
“That scout told me. We hired him.” Of course they did. Nice to know he had a babysitter.
“The kiss was nothing.” The lie fell easily, so authentic that he believed it himself.
There was enough silence, before DeLuca’s response, that Cole almost doubted his performance. Then the man sighed. “Okay. Good. Keep it that way.”
“Can I go back to bed now?”
The man chuckled. “Sure, pretty boy. At least when you’re sleeping I don’t have to worry about you. But check your email when you wake up. I sent over the response we filed against Nadia. It’s brutal; I’m just going to warn you. We aren’t a cupcake firm… we rip the throats out of our opponents and eat them for breakfast.”
“I don’t want to punish her, I just—”
“We’re only being aggressive about The Fortune Bottle. The response rolls over on the other items, though I think you’re being a fucking saint about it.”
 
; “No, that’s good.” Cole closed his eyes. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Welcome to Team DeLuca.”
Cole smiled. “Talk to you later.”
The call ended, and he dropped the phone against the pillow. The man was the right fit, even if he was a freaking bulldozer. And he was right, Cole shouldn’t have kissed Summer. But he didn’t need DeLuca to tell him that. He’d jacked off three times since yesterday. Couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mouth, no matter how many times he brushed his teeth. Couldn’t get the feel of her waist, the cotton of her dress, off his hands. Last night he had wrapped a T-shirt around his cock and jerked off around it, his mind on the hug of the red fabric to her breasts, the float of the hem when she spun around. If he’d have run his hands up her thighs, it would have lifted up and shown him what she wore beneath.
He closed his eyes. He had to get her out of his mind. He had to stay away from her. At least until filming started and their union was forced. He rolled over on the sheets and vowed to avoid Summer Jenkins at all costs.
Tap.
He lifted a hand and dragged a pillow closer, hugged it to his chest.
Tap.
His eyes opened at the thin, metallic sound.
Tap.
He sat up and looked toward the window, his eyes squinting against the morning sun. The sound repeated, and he confirmed the source, his feet finding the floor and stepping to the window. He pulled aside the curtain and held up a hand against the glare. Another pebble hit the glass, and he fumbled with the latch.
She was throwing rocks at his window. What a cliché thing to do. He realized, in the split second before he opened the pane, that he was smiling, so he schooled his features into a scowl. Pulling the window open, he ducked out, his hands gripping the white sill, his eyes finding the one person he didn’t want to see, standing on the green expanse of lawn, in a green top and white shorts, a wrapped towel held against her shirt. “What?” he called down, his voice coming out irritated and scratchy. Good. Let her know that she’d woken him up. Let her know that she had no positive effect on his mood or demeanor.