Chapter 11Ethan
Chapter 11
Ethan
It’s early morning and the house is silent. I pull back the curtains in my bedroom—with a massive four-poster bed, its own fireplace, writing desk, and enough space to swing a cat and all her relatives—and blink in the soft morning glow.
This place is incredible. Although we arrived in the dark last night, picnicking by the open doors showed me how amazing the view would be in the light of day, and this morning, I can see down the green grass to the lake, sparkling a deep blue in the sun.
Not that I exactly like the fact this is Dion’s place, and I can't help but wonder what price I'll need to pay.
I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
And really, he's my agent. He should have my best interests at heart.
I take in a deep breath, pushing my concerns to the back of my mind. I can almost feel a weight being lifted from my shoulders, like I’ve been carrying a backpack filled with all my worries around with me and finally, finally , I’ve been able to take it off.
I look out at the blue sparkling lake. This is so different from the way I start my days back home in LA. By this time, I would be on the way to meet my PT at the gym to work hard at staying in the shape required for Rowan Thornheart.
Then, after a shower and a protein shake, I climb into my car and make my way to the studio for filming. And those are long days. Sometimes I don't get home until the small hours, collapsing into bed and catching some Z’s before I do it all over again, like some kind of mouse on a wheel that goes around and around and around.
It feels so dang good to be away from all that.
Assuming Amy must still be asleep, I pad in my bare feet down the grand staircase to the kitchen at the back of the house, where I find everything I need to make coffee, including an expensive looking Italian espresso machine. I learned to use such machines while working as a barista to support myself as a starving actor in LA.
With my cup in hand, I wander outside to drink in the view, coming to a stop part way down the grass toward the lake. My view is framed by a couple of old oak trees, and I watch as a bird lands on one of its high branches, taking my first sip of coffee, thinking over the drama of the last few days—and in particular, my unexpected houseguest.
Amy had been taken for a serious ride by that jerk back at the bar. I knew something was up the moment she mentioned she’d met him online and that he had used another guy’s photo. Guys like that are a dime a dozen, and a pretty woman like Amy should know better than to fall for his tricks. But fall she sure did, and I'm only glad I was on hand to pick up the pieces.
And now she's here with me, at the lake house. For how long? I have no idea. What I do know is that having her here is … nice. She's easy to talk to, even if she's got no clue how to slice bread or wash fresh produce. Liquid soap? What the heck was that about? I mean, I've met plenty of actors in LA who are out of touch with reality, but I bet even they would know you don't need hand soap to clean strawberries.
I figure my hunch was right. She’s from a wealthy, controlling family with expensive taste in luggage.
No wonder she’s a self-professed escapee.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I see it’s Dion calling.
“Good morning,” I say, holding the phone to my ear.
“How’s my hottest client liking his new digs?”
“This place is amazing. Thank you so much for offering it to me.”
“I told you, I'm looking out for you. What are your plans?”
“I'm thinking I might go get a job.”
“Why?” His tone is less than complimentary.
“I guess I want to do something different while I'm here, something that will connect me to the man I was,” I reply honestly.
He harrumphs. “What do you mean? Poor?”
I don’t dignify his question with a response. It was probably rhetorical anyway.
“Who's this house guest you’ve got?”
“Just a girl I met in a costume store.”
“Is she hot?”
I pinch my lips together. My agent is reducing the complicated and interesting Amy into one word. Hot .
“She's a nice person.”
“Nice?” He chortles, sounding a lot like that cartoon dog, Muttley.
I've never really been able to work Dion out. Chelsea was the one who put us in touch, back when I’d first got the role of Rowan Thornheart and needed some representation. He's always struck me as an oddball, but he's an oddball that gets things done, and no one ever said you should be friends with your agent. Or even like them, for that matter.
“Yeah. Nice,” I say.
“Shame she's not hot. For your sake.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to. What kind of job are you looking for?”
“I have no idea.”
“There's a café in town. Name of Francine’s. You could try there.”
He's now suggesting where I can find a job?
“Thanks for the idea.”
“I guess I'll leave you to it. Enjoy my house.”
Something twists uncomfortably in my belly at the fact my refuge is owned by my agent.
“Thanks again,” I reply.
“See you back here in a month,” he says, still chortling as he hangs up.
As I take another sip off my coffee, there's a rustling sound in one of the oak tree branches. Must be another bird.
“Good morning, Maverick.”
“Hey, Amy,” I reply, swiveling around to see her. But she's nowhere. “Amy?”
“Up here,” says her disembodied voice, floating down from above like some kind of woodland spirit.
"Up where?" I look around, thoroughly confused. Where could she possibly be? Up a tree? No. She's not seven, and this isn't an Enid Blyton novel.
“Look up.”
There's a rustle of leaves once more and, incredulous, I look up to see her draped over a branch, wearing a pair of plaid shorts and a T-shirt, a hesitant smile playing across her now goth-makeup-free face. The morning sunlight filters through the leaves around her, creating a dappled effect that makes her look like she's stepped out of a Renaissance painting—if Renaissance painters had been into capturing women in shorts lounging on branches before breakfast.
It seems unlikely.
“You climbed a tree,” I say as my mind races on two parallel tracks.
Track One tells me that Amy’s an overgrown kid.
Track Two is a little more concerning. How much of my conversation with Dion did she hear, and did I give myself away? I didn't reference Hollywood, but she's surprisingly perceptive for someone who thinks soap is an ingredient in strawberry preparation.
“Well, I didn't fly up here,” she replies, a touch haughty for someone currently draped across a branch. “It's wonderful!”
And there it is again, that infectious enthusiasm for ordinary things. It’s as though she's experiencing life for the first time, cataloging each moment with wide-eyed wonder.
“Remind me. You said you're twenty-four, right?”
“And three quarters.”
“How many people aged twenty-four and three quarters do you know who climb trees?”
“At least one.”
“Not counting yourself.”
“Don't be so negative, Mav,” she chides. “It really is the most thrilling thing. Why don't you join me?”
“Because I'm an adult enjoying my coffee right now.” I hold up my cup as evidence. “And I got tree climbing out of my system years ago.”
Which is mostly true, though I did have to learn to scale a particularly gnarly oak for a scene in Season Two. Three days of harnesses and safety briefings so I could dramatically brood on a branch for approximately forty-five seconds of screen time.
And there was definitely no joy in the climb.
Not like Amy, who seems to be loving every moment.
“You could at least have had the common decency to put on a shirt,” she says.
I glance down at my bare chest and white boxers, suddenly self-conscious in a way I haven't been since my first shirtless scene. Truth be told, I hadn't expected to see Amy this early, let alone to be up a tree. It hadn't occurred to me to throw on a T-shirt for my solitary life contemplation over my first coffee of the day.
“I'm sorry my bare chest offends you,” I quip, though there's something in her expression that suggests offense isn't exactly the emotion she's experiencing.
But that might be more hopeful thinking on my part.
Not that I should be hoping for anything with this woman.
“Well, it does,” she sniffs with a primness that’s comically at odds with her current position straddling a tree branch. She gives a little toss of her head that nearly unbalances her, her hands clutching the branch tightly as she tries to maintain both her physical and moral high ground.
The way the clash between her free-spirited nature and whatever strict upbringing she's trying to escape is playing out before my eyes. It’s endearing.
“Are you stuck?” I ask, the thought occurring to me.
“What goes up, must come down. I got up here, ergo I will get down.”
“Ergo?”
“Yes. Ergo.”
There it is again, that flash of cultivation beneath her surface. Amy is a completely fascinating mixture of contradictions.
She doesn't know how to slice bread, but she casually drops that she speaks Latin into conversation.
She thinks you need to use soap to wash strawberries, but she handled that snooty woman at the restaurant yesterday with confidence.
She climbs trees like she's an excited kid, but then acts all haughty because I'm shirtless.
I take another sip of my coffee and return my attention to the view. “Suit yourself.” When she says nothing more, I begin the walk back to the house
“Mav?”
I know what’s coming. I turn and look back up at her. “Yes, Amy?”
“I don't suppose—? Oh, never mind.”
“Amy, are you stuck ?” She’s like a kitten who's climbed too high and is now desperately meowing for a firefighter.
“Not stuck, exactly. More, I don’t know. Descent impaired?”
“That sounds a little like your Culinary Incompetence Syndrome.”
“It’s entirely different, if you must know,” she quips, her voice all haughty again.
“Look, do you want my help or not?”
“Only if you can. I don't want to put you out.”
“Hold tight. I'll be right there,” I say as I secure my footing on the lowest branch and reach for the next.
“You're good at this,” she says as I climb higher and higher.
“Not my first rodeo.”
“What have horses and bulls and other farm animals got to do with climbing a tree?”
“It's an American saying,” I grunt as I pull myself up to her branch with considerable effort. She did well to climb this high given her size.
“Well, I suppose that makes sense. You do have rodeos in the United States.”
She's keeping her voice slight, but I can tell she's freaked out. She's a grown woman stuck up a tree. I'd be freaked out, too.
“How did you manage to get up this high?” I ask, catching my breath as I edge closer along the branch.
I’m close enough now to catch her scent. It’s something subtle and expensive that definitely isn’t store-brand shampoo—and it’s inappropriate for me to notice such things while we’re twenty feet above solid ground.
I'm now close enough to her to reach for her legs, that are still wrapped around the branch.
“I climbed up here, of course,” she offers, her full lips lifting into a hint of a smile, and I'm struck by how breathtakingly beautiful she is without all that black goop on her face. Her skin is olive and smooth but for her nose, which is sprinkled with a light dusting of freckles. Her large brown eyes are watching me closely, her hands white knuckled as she holds onto the branch for dear life, like a koala.
For all her cheek and pomposity about my current state of semi-dress, she's just a scared girl who's gotten herself into something she doesn't know how to get out of.
I edge along the branch, channeling every Bear Grylls outdoor adventure episode I've watched. “You need to let go with one hand.”
“I don’t want to,” she replies in a voice so unlike her usual confident and enthusiastic tone, and something in my chest tightens.
I put it down to the rescuer’s mentality, feeling empathy for my rescue-ee.
I go for my most soothing tone when I reply, “I get it. It feels counterintuitive. But you've gotta trust me.” I move closer until my chest is nearly touching her back, suddenly hyper-aware of how close we are. “I've got you, Amy. Now, very slowly, release your right hand and reach back for mine like a reverse high-five."
“That sounds very American,” she replies, her voice strained.
"Kinda goes with the territory. See it as step one in the Maverick Mitchell Tree Rescue Protocol."
She lets out a shaky laugh. “Is there a step two?”
“Absolutely. It's called 'Don't Look Down.”
Her eyes meet mine, and with the smallest of head nods, I reach out and wrap my arm around her waist, pressing my front against her back.
She's trembling, but I’ll admit, there's something about how perfectly she fits against me that makes my breath catch.
Again. Not helpful.
"I've got you, Amy. Now, very slowly, release your right hand and reach back for mine.”
She lets out a shaky breath and slowly uncurls her fingers from their death grip on the branch. She slips her hand into mine and I begin to help her turn until I have her safely secured against me, her body nestled into mine.
Don't think about how good this feels . That's what I tell myself. But my body is not listening. She fits so perfectly against me, and a part of me wants to stay here on this branch, holding her, keeping her safe.
But that part of me is thinking with something other than my brain, and I override it, quick smart.
I shuffle us along the branch and help her find the trunk of the tree.
“You okay climbing down from here?” I ask, still holding on to her.
“I think so. What goes up, must come down. Remember?”
“Yeah, about that last part? Take it slow.”
I don't let go of her until I can see she has a firm grip on the trunk, her feet growing in confidence as she finds each branch, making her way down back to the ground.
I follow her down, and when we reach the ground she rushes back into my arms, squeezing me hard.
Instinctively I wrap my arms around her once more—only this time she's not a frightened little mouse, seeking reassurance. This time she's a woman, thanking a man for helping her, and she feels so good in my arms.
Too good.
“Thank you, Mav. Thank you,” she breathes against my chest, and I feel a stab of guilt in my side that I haven't been honest enough with her to tell her my real name.
“Anytime,” I reply, trying not to notice how soft she feels against me, how sweet her aroma is.
How all I want to do is kiss her.
Wait. I can't go getting ideas about kissing Amy. I'm here to hide away from the world, to take a break from my world, to consider where I want my life to go. Definitely not catch feelings for some random—but admittedly intriguing—woman.
Fighting the growing urge, I take a step back acutely aware that only seconds ago she was pressed up against me, her face nestled against my bare chest.
That was way too intimate.
“Rescue number one of the day complete,” I say in a light tone that belies the way our close proximity felt.
“We’re making a habit of this, aren’t we?” she replies. “And I’m sorry to throw myself at you like that, what with all your shirtless-ness. I should respect your boundaries better.”
“It's fine,” I lie because feeling the way she did in my arms was anything but fine. “I'll be sure to remember a shirt the next time.”
“There won’t be a next time. You are officially off the hook when it comes to rescuing me. Promise.”
“You sure about that? By my assessment, that makes it twice in two days. Are you sure there won’t be a third time tomorrow?” I flash a smile at her to show her our recent closeness hasn't affected me at all.
Not. At. All.
“Of course there won’t, and you didn't need to rescue me from the tree. I had it all in hand.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Sure you did.”
“All right. Not completely in hand. I’ll try a different way tomorrow.”
I blink at her. “You're going to climb a tree again tomorrow?”
“Why not? I've just broken Rule number 124, and it feels marvelous.”
“You've got a rule that says you can't climb trees? Is that like a family rule or something?”
“Yes. I have awfully strict parents.”
“Why are they so strict?”
She shrugs. “Because they are.”
“You know that's answering a question without answering it, right?”
She pauses for a moment before she says, “My family business means we need to be above reproach.”
“Are they politicians or something?”
“No. We … run a foundation. It has strict moral clauses for all family members.”
“What kind of foundation has so many rules?”
“An educational foundation. We need to be role models for the children. I can't be seen to be breaking any rules because it will reflect poorly on my family and therefore on our foundation.”
“Huh.” I've never heard of such a thing, but then they do say that the wealthy are a breed apart. They don't operate like us regular people.
I decide to leave it. After all, I don't want her digging into my identity. If she's got secrets, then so have I.
She lifts her lips into a bright and beautiful smile. “Is there any more of that coffee going? I would love a cup before we head into the town to look for jobs.”
Discussion over.
“You bet.”
As we make our way back to the house, I can't help but wonder what kind of life Amy leaves that the moment she's away from her strict family with all their rules she feels the urge to climb a tree.
But more than that, as she chats excitedly about finding a job and how wonderful it is to be here, I wonder just how strong the fortress around my heart will hold.