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“Ever since they put the tour on cable, my husband’s been addicted. He grew up down in Calhan, so even though we’re in the big city he’s a cowboy at heart. He likes me to watch, too—makes him feel like I get him.”
She leaned closer and squeezed Sara’s arm. “Let me tell you, it’s no chore sitting on the couch watching those gorgeous boys do their thing. Josh Travers was the best of the best. It does my heart good to see him getting around, looking so happy and in love.”
Sara’s mouth dropped farther. “In love? Oh, no. We work together. We’re here with his daughter.”
“Whatever you say,” the saleswoman said with a knowing smile. “You look like a nice girl.”
“Sara, where are you?” Claire’s voice came from the back of the store.
“Let’s see how that young lady did with her choices.” The saleswoman pulled a stunned Sara toward the dressing room. All that worry and someone recognized her as Josh’s girlfriend?
Unbelievable.
The rest of the afternoon was just as surreal. Sara noticed several people staring and a few pointing at her as they meandered up the tree-lined streets. Each time it happened, Josh gave her hand a gentle squeeze, told a bad joke or generally teased her to distraction.
Claire did her best to put a generous dent into Josh’s credit balance, growing happier with each store they entered. Sara felt the same way but for a different reason. Away from the looming tension about the fate of the ranch, she and Josh relaxed into an easy camaraderie that made hope bubble in Sara. She hadn’t felt the sensation in years: the possibility of a normal life.
She floated along on that feeling until they stopped for dinner at a quaint bistro at the edge of the shopping district.
The young man at the host desk informed them that without a reservation, the wait for a table would be over an hour. Claire gave a sigh of disappointment, as the cozy restaurant had been her first choice.
As Sara turned to scan the street for nearby options, a gray-haired woman approached her from the sidewalk. “Are you Serena Wellens? The one who used to be a movie star?”
Sara sucked in a breath, unused to hearing her failure phrased quite that way. She forced a smile. “I guess you could say I used to be Serena Wellens. And yes, I was an actress. I go by Sara now.”
She waited for the criticism to come—as it always did. It was human nature, Sara thought. People loved to sit in judgment of others’ lives. The explosion of the internet and media outlets made it easy to feel like you had insight into someone else’s business, no matter how untrue so much of what was published could be.
Josh’s warm hand pressed against the small of her back, reminding her to take a calming breath. “Is everything okay here?” he asked.
Claire came to stand beside her, grabbing hold of Sara’s hand. “Let’s find another place,” she said, and gave Sara a small tug.
Sara glanced at Claire and leaned against Josh ever so slightly. He and Claire have my back, she thought. They literally have my back. One thing about being in L.A. that she’d hated was the feeling of being alone against the world, as though she had no one but herself to depend on. She’d never been her own best defense. April had been there, but in the past few years had gone through so many of her own troubles, Sara hadn’t wanted to be a burden with her own insignificant worries.
Still she stood transfixed by the stranger in front of her, like a deer in headlights. “We should go,” she whispered.
“Wait.” The woman took a step forward and Josh moved even closer. “I have to thank you first. My daughter, she’s in college now, but when she was younger her father and I got divorced. It was messy and she was caught in the cross fire.”
“I’m sorry,” Sara responded automatically.
“Jessica, that’s my daughter, closed off emotionally. She’d barely even look at me. But she loved your show. So every week we’d watch together. It was the only time she’d let me sit next to her. We’d talk during commercials. I swear Just the Two of Us saved our relationship.” The woman dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sure that sounds stupid to you but it’s the truth.”
Sara reached out and took the woman’s hand. “It doesn’t sound stupid. I’m flattered that you told me.”
“So thank you. We’ve been following Amanda’s career since the show ended. Not hard since she’s everywhere these days.”
“She’s had an amazing career,” Sara agreed woodenly.
“When are you going to make your comeback? You were a much better actress than she was on the show. I’m sure that hasn’t changed.”
“My life has gone in a different direction.”
The woman let out a bark of laughter. “I read the tabloids but I don’t believe half of it. It’ll happen when you’re ready. You have a natural gift. Always have.”
Emotions clogged Sara’s throat. “Thank you again,” she whispered.
The maître d’ from the restaurant peeked around Josh. “Ms. Wellens?” he asked. “The manager has found a table for you.”
“I’ll let you get on with your evening,” the woman said, and with a last squeeze of Sara’s arm, scuttled down the sidewalk.
Sara met Josh’s questioning gaze. “That was different, even for me,” she said, trying to make her tone casual.
He gave her a knowing nod. “Looks like Serena got us a table.”
“She’s good for something, at least.”
Chapter Ten (#ulink_f2910da9-d811-55fa-86ba-6a8cc68d3368)
Josh rubbed his hand over his face and gave a weary look around yet another store filled with racks of women’s clothes. How many different shops had he been into today? More than in the past ten years if he had to guess. After eating, Claire had led them from one end of the ritzy neighborhood to the other.
She’d promised this would be the last one, and Josh couldn’t be finished soon enough. His knee ached, his head pounded and all he wanted was to get out of the city and up into the mountains again. Sara had gamely kept up with Claire’s boundless energy, but even she’d begun to wilt a little as she’d followed his daughter back to the fitting rooms.
He’d also noticed that in the whole day, Sara hadn’t purchased one thing for herself. All of her attention remained focused on Claire’s needs. He knew Claire had never had that with her own mother, and it made his heart open to Sara all the more.
“I’m not sure that’s your size,” a voice said next to him.
Sara stood just to the side of a rack of dresses, eyeing him with a smile.
He looked down at the soft fabric he clutched to his chest, then held up the dress. “It would look good on you,” he said softly.
Her eyes sparked, whether with humor or temper he couldn’t tell. “Today isn’t about me.”
“You haven’t seen anything you want?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She sighed. “I don’t have the money for new clothes.”
He ignored the way his gut tightened at her comment. “I thought maybe Colorado wasn’t trendy enough for you.”
“What do you know about trendy?”
“More than I ever wanted to after today.” He held the dress out. “Try it on,” he coaxed, suddenly wanting to see her in something other than her chosen uniform of jeans and shapeless T-shirts.
“No point,” she answered, but he thought he saw a sliver of longing in her gaze. Josh knew all about longing these days. Although he found it hard to believe, Sara had almost as many walls built up as he did. Right now, he wanted to crash through each and every one of them.
“You’re right, though,” he told her. “It doesn’t matter what you wear. The bottom line is you’re beautiful.”
She took a step toward him and reached for the dress. “I’m not sure—”
“What do you think?”
He and Sara turned as Claire came from the back of the store. Josh felt his eyes widen. “I think you have thirty seconds to take that off and put on a decent outfit.”
Sara’s mouth dropped open as her gaze traveled up and down Claire. The saleswoman who’d followed Claire from the dressing room quickly backed away as Sara shot her a glare.
His daughter wore a skintight, black lace concoction that revealed more skin than it covered. Suddenly, he saw her not as his little girl but as a woman, one who was quickly going to rival her supermodel mother in the looks department. He had a visceral need to polish a shotgun or move to Tibet. Anything to avoid what the next few years held for him as a father.
“That’s not the dress we’d picked,” Sara said carefully.
Claire did a quick twirl, and he realized the dress was practically backless. He growled low under his breath. “No. Way.”
“Dad,” Claire whined, her bright smile turning to a pout. “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud. I saw Mom wearing something like this in a magazine last month. I want to have something she’ll like when I go to visit her before school starts.”
“You don’t have a trip planned to see your mother,” Josh argued. “And you’re not going anywhere in that dress.”
Claire’s tiny hands came to rest on her hips. “I want to see her. I texted this morning and asked when she’d be back in New York. I could fly out next month if it works for her.”
“What did she answer?”
Claire’s mouth thinned, and she didn’t meet his gaze. “She hasn’t responded yet. But she will. You know how Mom does things last minute. I want to be ready.”
“You aren’t going to ‘fly out’ to be with her. We’re spending the summer in Colorado.”
Claire shook her head. “You can’t stop me.”
“The hell I can’t,” he shot back.
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“I’m your father and you’ll do as I say.”
“She’s my mom. You can’t keep me from her.”
He couldn’t think straight with Claire in that dress, looking so grown-up and out of his control. He had to keep her safe. He’d do anything, say anything to make sure she stayed with him. “I’m not keeping you from her,” he yelled. “She doesn’t want—”
He broke off, knowing the words were a mistake as soon as he said them.
“Me,” Claire finished on a sob. “You think she doesn’t want me.”
He watched his daughter’s eyes fill with tears and cursed himself for being the biggest idiot on the planet. “Claire, I didn’t mean—”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she said quietly, the pain in her gaze cutting a deep hole in his heart. “I hate you. Mom is going to take me back. I know she will.” She turned and ran for the fitting room, silence filling the small store.
He took a step forward, but Sara put a hand on his arm. “She needs some time.”
“I can’t let her be with Jennifer. Too many bad things could happen.”
Sara shook her head. “Then don’t push her away.”
She was right, but that only fueled his frustration more. “What do you know about protecting the people you love? From what you’ve told me, April is the only friend you have and you lost her entire life savings. If you and your mother hadn’t put thoughts of another world in Claire’s head, we wouldn’t be here today. She’d be on the ranch. She’d be safe.” His hands balled into hard fists. “Only I can keep her safe.”
Sara sucked in a breath as if he’d slapped her. He waited for her to argue, to fight back. His words were untrue, but he’d baited her on purpose. He needed a good fight right now, a way to get rid of the fear crawling through every pore, making him feel weak and defenseless.
Instead, she looked away. “I’m going to get Claire. Pull the truck out front. I think this day is done.”
“Sara,” he called out as she walked away. She shook her head and kept moving, leaving Josh alone. His gaze dropped to the dress he held, a wrinkled, balled-up mess in his hands.
A lot like his life right now.
* * *
Sara followed Claire into the kitchen at the ranch three hours later. Three of the longest hours of her recent life. She was on edge down to her teeth after the tense ride back from Denver.
Claire had spent the entire time with her earbuds shoved in her ears, heaving dramatic sighs from the backseat as she furiously texted on her phone. Josh had turned the music loud, not the lulling country tunes from the morning but a pounding heavy-metal station that had only served to intensify Sara’s headache.
She’d leaned her head against the cool window glass and tried to tune out everything around her. It was a trick she’d learned as a girl on set, the ability to ignore the world and crawl into her own internal life.
But with Josh’s hulking presence next to her, it felt like all her other senses became more attuned to him when she closed her eyes. His clean, male scent. The hot tension curling from him. She could even sense the pattern of his breathing and wasn’t surprised when she opened her eyes to see that his chest rose and fell at the same rate hers did.
Although the words he’d spoken were the truth, he’d hurt her feelings. Still, she wanted to reach out and comfort him. He was a bumbling bull in a china shop when it came to Claire, but at least he cared. That was more than Sara had ever gotten from either of her parents, and she knew how much it mattered.
She also knew, because April continually reminded her, that she was a sucker for lost causes. Maybe it was because her secret dream had always been that someone would care enough to rescue her. She gave the best parts of herself to people who couldn’t return the emotion. Part of her fresh start, her second chance, had been the opportunity to finally take care of herself. To make herself whole and right so she could move forward with her dreams. If she let herself get too involved with Josh and Claire, all her careful plans could slip through her fingers.
She might, once again, be left with nothing.
Regardless, she couldn’t stand to see either of them in this kind of pain.
“He didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said to Claire’s back as the girl grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
April walked in from the family room. “How was the shopping trip? Do I get a fashion show tonight?”
Claire slammed shut the fridge door and whirled. “I’d like to burn every single piece of clothing my jerk of a dad bought today.” She swiped at her cheeks, her desperate gaze swinging between Sara and April. “He’s wrong, you know. My mom loves me. She’s busy, but she loves me.”
“I know, honey,” Sara answered. “He knows it, too. You scared him in that dress.”
“I looked scary?” Claire’s voice rose to a squeak.
Sara pressed her palm to the girl’s face, smoothing away a tear. “You looked gorgeous and grown-up. That’s the scariest thing a father can face. It makes them a little crazy.”
“A crazy jerk,” Claire mumbled.
A door slammed at the front of the house. Claire looked around wildly. “I don’t want to see his friends tonight. I don’t want to see anyone.”
Sara glanced at April. “Are you making dinner?”
“Everyone is going into town. Ryan made reservations.”
“Ryan is entertaining a group of cowboys?”
April nodded. “He stopped by earlier, looking for you. He’s adamant that you be there, too. For moral support.”
