2. Leah Mae
LEAH MAE
T he scenery rushed by in a blur of green and brown. I’d been looking forward to the drive—I hadn’t been out here in so long—but all I could think about was last night’s episode of Roughing It .
“How could they have done that to me?” I asked.
Kelvin had his hands on the steering wheel of our rental car, his phone in a cradle on the dashboard with a map showing the route to Bootleg Springs.
He was wearing a Ralph Lauren dress shirt and gray slacks, a pair of Versace sunglasses perched on his nose.
I was the one with the modeling career, but Kelvin Graham looked like one too.
It was how he’d gotten his start when he was just sixteen.
He had that pretty-boy Abercrombie and Fitch look.
Dark hair and hazel eyes. Toned physique. Perfect bone structure.
But he liked the business side of modeling more than being in front of the camera.
He wasn’t a man who liked people telling him what to do.
He owned his own agency now—managing my career as well as the careers of dozens of other models—and this way he could grow his stubble, or cut his hair, or put on a few extra pounds of lean muscle, and no one could tell him not to.
“Babe, you’re getting excited over nothing,” he said without looking at me. “We both knew they were going to make it look like you and Brock were flirting.”
“But we weren’t,” I said. “And I’m telling you, that fishing pole was rigged to break on me. I know how to fish, and they made me look like an idiot.”
“You looked great,” he said, flashing me a smile.
I looked down at my phone. The gossip columns were all buzzing over whether something was going to happen between Leah Larkin and Brock Winston on Roughing It . Would Leah tempt Brock away from his sweet-as-apple-pie wife, Maisie Miller?
It made me want to gag. Brock had seemed like a nice guy when we were filming, but even if we’d both been single, I wouldn’t have been interested in him.
He was too flat. Too one-dimensional. He had a nice singing voice, but he didn’t write any of his own music.
He wasn’t that creative. Having spent time with him filming the show, I wasn’t sure if he’d ever had an original thought in his head.
And Brock was most definitely not single.
He’d had a very public romance with Maisie Miller when they were both celebrity judges on Talent USA .
The entire country had been enamored with their sweet little glances and whispered flirtations in front of the camera.
When paparazzi had caught them kissing in an out-of-the-way bistro one night, everyone had gone crazy.
People had been rooting for them to fall in love, and when it happened, it was like the happily-ever-after the world had been waiting for.
Now everyone was predicting that I’d be the vixen. The woman to break up the perfect love story.
Well, I hadn’t. Filming had already wrapped on the show, and as far as I knew, Brock was back in L.A.
with Maisie. They’d been quiet on social media, but all the cast members had.
Our contracts stipulated what we could and couldn’t reveal before all the episodes aired, so the easiest thing to do was lay low for a while.
I glanced down at the ring on my left hand.
I wasn’t single, either, although the world didn’t know.
Kelvin had insisted we keep our engagement secret until after the season finale of Roughing It aired.
I’d left my ring at home when I went to film the show, and we had yet to tell anyone, save my mom and stepdad. And they knew to keep it under wraps.
Now we were heading to my hometown to tell my dad.
I’d grown up in Bootleg Springs, West Virginia, and after my parents’ divorce, I’d spent summers there with my dad.
I had so many good memories of Bootleg. Long days spent in the sun sipping lemonade and sweet tea.
Jumping into the lake that was as warm as bathwater.
Traipsing through the woods. Coming home at sunset, hungry, dirty, and tired.
I hadn’t been in Bootleg Springs since I was sixteen. That was the summer Callie Kendall had disappeared. She’d been my age, and spent her summers in Bootleg, too. As soon as my mom had heard about her disappearance, she’d insisted I come home to Jacksonville.
Not long after that, my modeling career had taken off.
There were always auditions and casting calls, photo shoots and fashion shows.
Things had moved fast, and my life had changed almost overnight.
It had been easier to fly my dad out to visit me, wherever I happened to be, rather than make the trip to West Virginia.
But this year, Dad hadn’t been doing well.
Although he’d quit smoking years ago, he had ongoing lung problems. Last winter, he’d been hospitalized with pneumonia and hadn’t bothered to tell me until he’d already gone home.
I was still mad at him for keeping it from me, but he’d insisted he didn’t want me to worry.
He was my daddy. Of course I was going to worry.
I felt awful for not having come to see him sooner.
But filming Roughing It had gotten in the way, and afterward I’d had a series of photo shoots to get through.
But now my schedule was clear for the foreseeable future while Kelvin and I considered my next career move.
With this rare time off, and our engagement, I’d decided it was time to visit Bootleg Springs again.
Although I hadn’t been here in a dozen years, the road was still familiar. And as we pulled into town, it was like stepping back in time.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Kelvin said, looking around as the first buildings came into view.
“What?” I asked.
He lowered his sunglasses. “Nothing. It’s just… you said it was a small town in West Virginia. I guess I hadn’t realized you meant small-town West Virginia .”
“Come on, Kelvin, don’t be a snob. It’s charming.”
“Not the word I’d use,” he said. “But okay.”
I rolled my eyes and looked out the window.
The route to my dad’s house skirted the outside of town.
I’d have to show Kelvin around later. From what I could see, Bootleg Springs looked much the same as I remembered it.
Dad had told me it had grown as tourists discovered the hot springs.
But so far, it still held the same charm I remembered so well.
My dad lived about five minutes outside town. Kelvin cast me a questioning glance when we turned down the gravel driveway, but he didn’t comment on it. We bounced down the long drive until the house came into view .
Dad’s house was a little more worn that I remembered. The wood slats were weathered and there was a slight sag to the front porch that hadn’t been there before.
A grin stole over my face at the sight of my dad. He sat in his old rocking chair on the front porch, just like he always had. Kelvin brought the car to a stop and I hopped out.
“Hey, Daddy.”
My heart squeezed when I saw how slowly he rose from his chair. Add to that the tube beneath his nose connected to an oxygen tank, and the sight of him almost brought me to tears.
“Leah Mae sunshine,” he said, holding out his arms. His hair was more gray than blond now, and the lines at the corners of his eyes and across his forehead had deepened. He wore a faded hickory shirt and a pair of jeans that had seen better days.
I walked up the creaky steps. “Dad, you didn’t tell me you were on oxygen.”
“Oh, this?” he asked, tugging on the clear rubber tubing. “This is nothing. Just a little extra help. I won’t need it much longer.”
I stepped carefully into his hug and was surprised at how far around him my arms went.
Dad had always been a big man—tall with a barrel chest and arms thick from hard work.
His height hadn’t gone anywhere—I was five foot ten, but at six foot four, he still made me feel a bit like a little girl.
But he felt so much smaller—his thickness was diminishing with either age or his illness.
He was only fifty-four—much too young for this.
“It’s so good to see you,” I said, pulling away. The stairs behind me creaked beneath Kelvin’s feet. “Daddy, this is Kelvin Graham. Kelvin, this is my dad, Clay Larkin.”
The smile left Dad’s face and he straightened. He had a good three inches on Kelvin, and apparently he intended to use them.
“Mr. Larkin,” Kelvin said, his voice smooth as he held out his hand to shake.
Dad hesitated a second before shaking his hand. “Kelvin, huh?”
Kelvin’s eyes flicked to me, as if he wasn’t sure how to respond. “Yes, well, it’s nice to finally meet you. I think the last time you visited Leah, I was away on business.”
“I reckon,” Dad said.
I’d expected my dad to be a little cold to Kelvin at first. That was the Bootleg father way. He’d warm up to him soon.
I hoped.
“Well, Daddy, can we come inside? It was a long drive from the airport.”
Dad’s smile returned. “Of course, sweetheart. Come on in.”
Kelvin stood back with his hands in his pockets, eying the old house while Dad shuffled inside, wheeling his oxygen tank behind him.
The house was clean and cozy, with a wood-burning stove in the corner and a worn couch with a blanket over it. It smelled faintly of pine and cinnamon. A few pictures of me as a little girl hung on the walls in mismatched frames.
Dad went over to his old leather recliner and lowered himself down. It took him a second to get his tubes situated. Kelvin followed me in, but stayed standing while I sat on the couch.
“Place looks nice,” I said. “You’re still getting help from Betsy Stirling, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, Betsy comes by regularly,” he said. “Checks up on me and helps me keep the place in order. ”