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She shouldn’t have to. She’d paid her dues.
The ceramic goose in her hand should have crumbled from the force of her grip, the way it would have if she’d been in a movie. But no—for that to happen, a prop master had to construct the shaker out of glazed sugar, something a real person could actually break. Movies had to be faked.
This was all too real. She couldn’t crush porcelain. She could throw it, though. Deezee regularly trashed hotel rooms, and she had to admit that it had felt therapeutic for a moment when he’d dared her to throw a vase in a presidential suite. Afterward, though...the broken shards had stayed stuck in the carpet while management tallied up the bill.
She stared for a moment longer at the goose in her hand, its blank stare unchanging as it awaited its fate. “There’s nothing we can do about any of this, is there?”
The kitchen was suddenly too small, too close. Sophia walked quickly into the living room. It was bigger, more modern. Wood floors, nice upholstery, a flat-screen TV. A vase. The ceilings were high, white with dark beams. She felt suddenly small, standing in this great room in a house built to hold a big family. She was one little person dwarfed by thousands of square feet of ranch house.
She heard her sister’s voice. Her mother’s voice. You’ve got nowhere else to go. You cannot live with me.
She couldn’t, could she? Her sister was in love, planning a wedding, giddy about living with her new husband. There was no room for a third wheel that would spin notoriety and paparazzi into their normal lives.
And her mother... Sophia could not move back home to live with her. Never again. Not in this life. Other twenty-nine-year-olds might have their parents as a safety net, but Sophia’s safety net had been cut away on a highway ten years ago.
The ceilings were too high. The nausea was rising to fill the empty space, and it had nothing to do with pregnancy, nothing at all. Sophia squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her clenched fists. The little beak of the salt shaker goose pressed into her forehead, into her hard skull.
The house was too big. She got out, jerking open the front door and escaping onto the wide front porch. In the daylight, the white columns had framed unending stretch of brown and green earth. At night, the blackness was overwhelming, like being on a spaceship, surrounded by nothing but night sky. There were too many stars. No city lights drowned them out. She was too far from Hollywood, the only place she needed to be. All alone, all alone...
This was not what she wanted, not what she’d ever wanted. She’d worked so hard, but it was all coming to nothing. Life as she’d known it would end here, on a porch in the middle of nowhere, a slow, nine-month death. Already, she’d ceased to exist.
She hurled the salt shaker into the night, aiming at the stars, the too-plentiful stars.
The salt shaker disappeared in the dark. Sophia’s gesture of defiance had no effect on the world at all.
I do exist. I’m Sophia Jackson, damn it.
If she didn’t want to be on this ranch, then she didn’t have to be.
You know how to drive, don’t you? Turn the car around, then, instead of blowing that damned horn.
There was a truck, the cowboy had said. A white truck. Keys in the barn. She ran down the steps, but they ended on a gravel path, and her feet were bare. She was forced off the path, forced to slow down as she skirted the house, crossing dirt and grass toward the barn.
I don’t want to slow down. If I get off the roller coaster of Hollywood, I’ll never be able to speed back up again. I refuse to slow down.
She stepped on a rock and hissed at the pain, but she would not be denied. Instead of being more careful, she broke into a sprint—and stepped on an even sharper rock. She gasped, she hopped on one foot, she cursed.
I’m being a drama queen.
She was. Oh, God, she really was a drama queen—and it was going to get her nowhere. The truck would be sitting there whether she got to the barn in five seconds or five minutes. And then what? She’d drive the truck barefoot into Austin and do what, exactly?
I’m so stupid.
No one had witnessed her stupidity, but that hardly eased her sense of embarrassment as she made her way more carefully toward the barn. It was hard to shake that feeling of being watched after years of conditioning. Ten years, to be precise, beginning with her little sister watching her with big eyes once it was only the two of them, alone in their dead parents’ house. But Sophie, do you know how to make Mom’s recipe?
Don’t you worry. It will be a piece of cake.
Sophia knew Grace had been counting on her last remaining family member not to crack under the pressure of becoming a single parent to her younger sister. Later, managers and directors had counted on Sophia, too, judging whether or not she would crack before offering her money for her next role. She’d had them all convinced she was a safe bet, but for the past five months, the paparazzi had been watching her with Deezee, counting on her to crack into a million pieces before their cameras, so they could sell the photos.
The paparazzi had guessed right. She’d finally cracked. The photos were all over the internet. Now no one was counting on her. Grace didn’t need her anymore. Alex had stuck Sophia in this ranch house, supposedly so she’d have a place where no one would watch her. Out of habit, though, she looked over her shoulder as she reached the barn, keeping her chin up and looking unconcerned in the flattering light of the last rays of sunset. There was no one around, only the white pickup parked to the side. The cowboy must have gone to get his dinner.
Well, that made one of them. Sophia realized the nausea had subsided and hunger pangs had taken its place. Maybe inside the barn there would be some pregnant-cow food she could eat. She slid open the barn door and walked inside.
Not cows. Horses.
Sophia paused at the end of the long center aisle. One by one, horses hung their heads over their stall doors and stared at her.
“You can quit staring at me,” she said, but the horses took their time checking her out with their big brown eyes, twitching their ears here and there. The palette of their warm colors as they hung their heads over their iron and wood stalls would have made a lovely setting for a rustic movie.
There were no cameras here, no press, no producers. Sophia stopped holding her breath and let herself sag against the stall to her right. Her shoulders slumped under the full weight of her fatigue.
The horse swung its head a little closer to her, and gave her slumped shoulder a nudge.
“Oh, hello.” Sophia had only known one horse in her life, the one that the stunt team had assigned her to sit upon during a few scenes before her pioneer character’s dramatic death. She’d liked that horse, though, and had enjoyed its company more than that of the insulting, unstable director.
“Aren’t you pretty?” Sophia tentatively ran the backs of her knuckles over the horse’s neck, feeling the strength of its awesome muscles under the soft coat. She walked to the next stall, grateful for the cool concrete on the battered soles of her feet.
The next horse didn’t back away from her, either. Sophia petted it carefully, then more confidently when the horse didn’t seem to mind. She smoothed her hand over the massive cheek. “Yes, you’re very pretty. You really are.”
She worked her way down the aisle, petting each one, brown and spotted, black and white. They were all so peaceful, interested in her and yet not excited by her. Except, perhaps, the last one with the dark brown face and jet-black mane. That horse was excited to snuffle her soft nose right into Sophia’s hair, making Sophia smile at the tickle.
“It’s my shampoo. Ridiculously expensive, but Jean Paul gives it to me for free as long as I tell everyone that I use it. So if he asks, do a girl a favor and tell him you heard I use his shampoo.”
How was that going to work, now that she was out of the public eye? She rested her forehead against the horse’s solid neck. “At least, he used to give it to me for free.”
The horse chuffed into her hair.
“I’d share it with you, but I might not get any more, actually. Sorry about that, pretty girl. Before this is all over, I may have to borrow your shampoo. I hear horse shampoo can be great for people’s hair. Would you mind?”
“Did you need something else?”
Sophia whirled around. Mr. Don’t-or-Else stood there, all denim and boots and loose stance, but his brown eyes were narrowed on her like she was some kind of rattlesnake who’d slithered in to his domain.
“I thought you were gone,” she said. She adjusted her posture. She was being watched after all. She should have known better than to drop her guard.
“You are not allowed in the barn without boots on.”
The horse snuffled some more of her hair, clearly approving of her even if her owner didn’t. “What’s this horse’s name?”
“No bare feet in the barn.” The cowboy indicated the door with a jerk of his strong chin—his very strong chin, which fit his square jaw. A lighting director couldn’t ask for better angles to illuminate. The camera would love him.
Travis Chalmers. He’d tipped his hat to her this afternoon as he’d sat on his horse. Her heart had tripped a little then. It tripped a little now.
She’d already brought her ankles together and bent one knee, so very casually, she set one hand on her hip. It made her body look its best. The public always checked out her body, her clothing, her makeup, her hair. God forbid anything failed to meet their movie star expectations. They’d rip her apart on every social media platform.
Travis had already seen her looking her worst, but if he hoped she’d crack into more pieces, he was in for a disappointment.
Sophia shook her hair back, knowing it would shine even in the low light of the barn. “What’s the horse’s name? She and I have the same taste in shampoo.”
“He’s a gelding, not a girl. You can’t come into the barn without boots or shoes. It’s not safe. Is that clear?”
Sophia rolled her eyes in a playful way, as if she were lighthearted tonight. “If it’s a boy horse, then what’s his name? He likes me.”
The cowboy scoffed at that. “You seem to think all of my stock like you.”
“They do. All of them except you.”
Travis’s expression didn’t change, not one bit, even though she’d tossed off her line with the perfect combination of sassy confidence and pretty pout. He simply wasn’t impressed.
It hurt. He was the only person out here, her only possible defense against being swallowed by the loneliness, and yet he was the one person on earth who didn’t seem thrilled to meet a celebrity.
Supposedly. He was still watching her.
The audition wasn’t over. She could still win him over.
The anxiety to do so was familiar. Survival in Hollywood depended on winning people over. She’d had to win over every casting director who’d judged her, who’d watched her as impassively as this cowboy did while she tried to be enchanting. Indifference had to be overcome, or she wouldn’t get the job and she couldn’t pay the bills.
With the anxiety came the adrenaline that had helped her survive. She needed to win over Travis Chalmers, or she’d have no one to talk to at all. Ever.
So she smiled, and she took a step closer.
His eyes narrowed a fraction as his gaze dropped down her bare legs. She felt another little thrill of adrenaline. This would be easy.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
“I’m—” She tilted her head but kept her smile in place. “What?”
But he was impatient, walking past her to glare at the floor behind her. “What did you cut yourself on?”
She turned around to see little round, red smears where she’d stopped to greet each horse. “It must have been a rock outside. I stepped on a couple of rocks pretty hard.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
He glanced at her and had the grace to look the tiniest bit embarrassed. “Good that it wasn’t anything sharp in the barn. If it had been a nail or something that had cut you, then it could cut a horse, too.”
“Thanks for your concern.” She said it with a smile and a little shake of her chandelier earrings. “Nice to know the horses are more valuable than I am.”
“Like I said earlier, it’s my job to take care of every beast on this ranch. You’re not a beast. You should know to wear shoes.”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. She couldn’t exactly insist she was a valuable beast that needed taken care of, and she certainly wasn’t going to admit she’d run outside in a panic. Actors who panicked didn’t get hired.
“Come on. I’ll get you something for the bleeding.”
He walked away. Just turned his back on her and walked away. Again.
After a moment, she followed, but she hadn’t taken two steps when he told her to stop. “Don’t keep bleeding on the floor.”
“What do you want me to do?” She put both hands on her hips and faced him squarely. Who cared if it didn’t show off her figure? She’d lost this audition already.
“Can’t you hop on one foot?”
This had to be a test, another trick to see if she was a dumb blonde. But Travis turned into a side room that was the size of another stall, one fitted out with a deep utility sink and kitchen-style cabinets.
He wasn’t watching her to see what she’d do, so maybe it wasn’t a joke. After a moment of indecision, she started hopping on her good foot. The cut one hurt, anyway, and it was only a few hops to reach the sink.
Travis opened one of the cabinets. It looked like a pharmacy inside, stocked with extra-large pill bottles. He got out a box of bandages, the adhesive kind that came in individual paper wrappers. The kind her mother had put on her scrapes and cuts when she was little.
I am not going to cry in front of this man. Not ever again.
He tapped the counter by the sink. “Hop up. Wash your foot off in the sink.”
“Why don’t you come here and give me a little boost?”
He stilled, with good reason. She’d said it with a purr, an unmistakably sexual invitation for him to put his hands on her.
She hadn’t meant to. It had just popped out that way, her way to distance herself from the nostalgia. Maybe a way to gain some control over him. He was giving her commands, but she could get him to obey a sexual command of her own if she really turned on the charm.
Whatever had made her say that, she had to brave it out now. Sultry was better than sad. Anything was better than sad.
She tossed her hair back, her earrings jingling like a belly dancer’s costume. She turned so that she was slightly sideways to him, her bustline a curvy contrast to her flat stomach.
“The counter’s too high for me. Give me a hand...or two.”
Come and touch me. Her invitation sounded welcoming. She realized it was. He was nothing like the sleek actors or the crazy DJs she’d known, but apparently, rugged outdoorsman appealed to her in a big way. You’ve got a big green light here, Mr. Cowboy.
“Too high for you,” he repeated, without a flicker of sexual awareness in his voice. Instead, he sounded impatient as he cut through her helpless-damsel act. “I already watched you hop up on Mrs. MacDowell’s counter tonight.”
Of course the counter height had been a flimsy excuse; it had been an invitation. She refused to blush at having it rejected. Instead, she backed up to the counter and braced her hands behind herself, letting her crop top ride high. With the kind of slow control that would have made her personal yoga instructor beam with approval, she used biceps and triceps and abs, and lifted herself slowly onto the counter with a smooth flex of her toned body. People would pay money to see a certain junior officer do that in a faraway galaxy.
Travis Chalmers made a lousy audience. He only turned on the water and handed her a bar of soap.
She worked the bar into a lather as she pouted. Even Deezee wouldn’t have passed up the chance to touch her. Actually, that was all Deezee had ever wanted to do: touch her. If it wasn’t going to end in sex, he wasn’t into it. She’d texted him ten times more often than he’d texted her between dates. His idea of a date had meant they’d go somewhere to party in the public eye or drink among VIPs for a couple of hours before they went to bed together. There’d been no hanging out for the sake of spending time together.
Sophia held her foot still as the water rinsed off the suds. She’d mistaken sex for friendship, hadn’t she?
“It’s not a deep cut. You should heal pretty quickly.” Travis dabbed the sole of her foot dry with a wad of clean paper towels, which he then handed to her. Before she could ask what she was supposed to do with damp paper towels, he’d torn the paper wrapper off a bandage and placed it over the cut. He pressed the adhesive firmly into her skin with his thumb. There was nothing sexual in his touch, but it wasn’t unkind. It was almost...paternal.
“Do you have kids?” she asked.
For once, he paused at something she’d said. “No.”
You ought to. There was something about his unruffled, unhurried manner...
Dear God, she wasn’t going to start missing her father, too. She couldn’t think about parents and sister any longer. Not tonight.
She snatched her foot away and jumped lightly off the counter, landing on the foot that hadn’t been cut. She held up the wad of damp towels. “Where’s the trash?”
