Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston (18 page)

“So I should settle.”

“You should be realistic!” Tanner exhaled heavily. “This ring is just a symbol but it’s the strongest way I know to say I love you. I love you with every fiber of my being.”

His words rang with sincerity. This was his truth, expressed from the heart.

Leah felt herself softening. “I love you, too.”

“You have to think about the future. Our future, together. Isn’t that what you want? What we both want?”

“What about my career?”

“Four years from now, my term of office will be over. If you still want to go to the Smog State, good enough, I’ll travel with you. You can be a producer and I’ll be a kept man.”

Leah reflected on what he’d said. She thought,
You want to lose this man?

She didn’t. She’d made enough wrong choices in her dating life to know that Tanner was special. As much as anyone she’d ever met, he was the man of her dreams.

She was ready to accept his proposal, when the words froze in her throat. She couldn’t even open her mouth.

Panic fluttered inside her chest.

Mary Ellen had said there was something wrong with me,
she remembered.
Astrid said so, too.

“I was never one for the silent treatment, sweetheart,” Tanner said. “That’s one of Marlene’s little tortures.”

Swallowing, Leah felt a trickle of saliva coat her mouth. Her lips refused to separate.

“Is that the way it’s going to be?”

Don’t get mad,
Leah told him silently
. I’m trying to speak to you. Can’t you tell?

Tanner’s neck flushed in growing anger. “All right, you want the truth?”

Hush
, she pleaded.
Don’t say another word.

Don’t ruin everything.

“I did a little investigation, being as I’m a cop and all. I checked into your school and its film program. Want to know what I found?”

Mutely, Leah had no choice but to allow him to continue.

“Last year, Bellebrook had eighteen graduates. The year before, there were fourteen, and another fourteen the year before that. Being a new school, that’s the entirety of their graduating class. You know how many are making a living off the silver screen as I speak?”

Months before she’d applied to the school, Leah had done her own research. Not that she could tell Tanner at the moment.

“Zero. Not even one,” he said. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet each of those students thought they’d be the lucky one, the one that made it big. It didn’t happen.”

You think this is all a fantasy?
Leah thought.
I put my heart into my schooling. I poured my soul into it.

I can’t believe I was going to marry you.

At the same moment, her lips parted, easily and without effort. Testing her voice, she said, “Tanner.”

“You want to climb the ladder in Hollywood, Leah, you have to know somebody. You need connections. Or you have to be really special.”

His words struck her like a physical blow. “Oh.”

“Not that you aren’t. You’re special to me.” Tanner forced a brittle smile. “I’m trying here, I’m making an effort.”

Leah felt her own anger growing.

“I wanted this to be romantic,” he said.

“Because nothing reminds a woman of roses as much as a Southern Mississippi drunk tank.”

“Be reasonable.”

Curling her hand around the ring on her finger, she yanked it off.

“Don’t be stupid, Leah.”

It was those words she’d remember more than any other:
Don’t be stupid
.

Taking his open hand, she pushed the ring inside of it. “You think that’s all this is about. Me, being stupid.”

In the past, she’d tried to ignore his casual tolerance for her ambitions. He’d never openly scoffed at her dreams. She’d hoped he’d understood them.

“Don’t do this. You go out West, they’ll eat you alive.”

Pushing past him, Leah hurried for the exit.

“You said you loved me,” Tanner called out from the cell. “I love you. What more do you want?”

She stopped. Not wanting to see his face, she directed her gaze at the tiled floor. “I want a man who believes in me.”

Then she was gone.

Chapter Three

Three Years Later

Leah enjoyed what she did but, if forced to make a different career choice, she knew she’d enjoy being a truck driver.

Give me the open road any day
, she thought.
A powerful vehicle, a stretch of highway, and I’m in heaven. You want to make me happy, just send me on a road trip.

Except for the price of gasoline, she loved being on the road. The smell of exhaust, the noise from surrounding vehicles; none of it bothered her, not really. She treasured traveling by ground all the more, she supposed, because she hated airplanes.

She’d been in an airplane only twice in her life. The first time, feeling anxious but not knowing any better, she’d boarded a red eye flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Less than an hour later, staggering onto the tarmac, she was an emotional wreck. The second time, determined to get past her fear, she flew into Vegas and ended up drinking herself into unconsciousness.

Since then, she’d refused to even enter an airport. As far as she was concerned, everyone else on the planet could collect their Frequent Flyer miles while she remained safely on Terra Firma.

On this particular road trip, her Mustang purring along the ribbon of black asphalt that runs from East Coast to West, she stopped at a rest stop in the middle of America. Fumbling with her e-reader’s cover, her gloved fingers lost hold of the device.

The e-reader smacked to her feet, its screen cracking as it struck the ground. All of her reading material vanished in an instant.

“You have to be kidding me.” Leah felt devastated.

Her tablet had gone black that morning, permanently bricked unless her Tech guy could fix it later, and now she’d lost her favorite reading device. She needed the lost manuscripts inside of it. Reading was her joy – she’d once considered becoming a writer – but it was her job, too. Even as a fledgling producer, she knew the first rule about making movies: everything starts with the word.

Luckily, there was a bookstore not far from the rest stop.

“We don’t stock electronic readers, dear,” Judy, the store owner, told her. “Competition and all.”

“I understand.”

“You needn’t look so stricken. I probably shouldn’t say this but you can use your cell phone. You can download a reading app in seconds.”

“The screen’s so small, I’d never enjoy it.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” Judy said cheerfully. “Our little shop specializes in last century’s technology. Something in paper.”

“Where’s the mystery section?”

“Mysteries and Thrillers, aisle three.”

Following her advice, Leah explored the shelves around her. The end caps featured the usual prospects, Leonard and Robb and Patterson, but the “New This Month” rack held a writer who was unknown to her. Taking the paperback in hand, she examined it.

The book’s title was
To Protect and Service
. Its cover featured a pair of legs in stockings, stiletto heels piercing the circle of a handcuff, and a military pistol pointed in an interesting direction.

Drawn to trashy stories even while viewing them as a personal weakness, she flipped to a random page.

*

From
To Protect and Service
:

“You know anything about huntin’ gator?” Sonsev asked me.

“Not much,” I admitted.

The big man grinned, his weathered face revealing a line of piano key-sized teeth, so white they had to be artificial.

“You barge onto my property, nonetheless,” he said. “No permission asked or granted, no regard for the rights of others. Ready to wade into my swamp’s dark and dangerous waters, carryin’ nothin’ but a Bowie knife. Unarmed, so to speak.”

Put that way, it didn’t sound like the best of plans.

“Don’t bother you, the thought you might fail. Don’t even cross your mind. Nothin’ bother a man like you.”

“Mosquitoes,” I said.

“What?”

“I don’t care for the insects that congregate in this area. The bugs. The mosquitoes are big, huge, and there’s so damned many of them. They bother me something fierce.”

The smile faded. “You bein’ a smart ass, boy?”

Behind Sonsev’s back, his two enforcers frowned at me. They weren’t sure what was happening here but they knew when their boss was unhappy. If he became angry, it would fall to them to rectify the situation.

Two against one, Gregor and Schatz had to like their odds.

As for Derec Sonsev, he’d been King Toad for so long, he’d forgotten how to have a proper conversation with someone who wasn’t on their knees, kissing the hem of his robe.

Guess it was going to be up to me to remind the man of his manners.

*

Raymond Service reminded her of someone. Then she got it:
Tanner. It’s as if the writer met Tanner, put him in this story, and gave him a new name.

She felt a twinge at the thought of her old boyfriend but quickly buried it. Tanner had gone on with his life and it was time she did, too.

Finding a second volume in the Raymond Service series, she carried both of the books to the cash register. Studying the covers, Judy said, “If you’d like to look around, we have everything Lee Child has ever written. I’m told his books are very entertaining.”

“Jack Reacher has already been taken. I’m betting no one has dibs on Raymond Service.”

“Say again?”

On her way back to the Mustang, Leah texted her assistant. Before she’d finished a late supper at her motel room, she heard the answer she wanted:

To Protect and Service
was for sale if the price was right.

“I’ll bet it’s not a very high price, either,” she told herself. Propping her back against the bed’s headboard, she turned to page one.

Chapter Four

Several days later, Leah had a one year option on the character, his current novels, and any future tales.  It was her first solo decision for the team but, as she’d surmised, the contract didn’t cost them much. Offering a sum in the low four figures, they didn’t have any real money at risk unless the cameras rolled.

Gil had placed options on a half-dozen projects. There was no reason to think her pick was the one that might make it to the screen.

Her partner observed her without comment when she selected a writer and he expressed polite admiration for the first draft screenplay when it was complete. He didn’t read the script – as Gil had said in the past, he had people to do those kinds of things – but he was impressed she’d taken the next step.

“A first draft is only a start,” he told her. “No matter how good it is, it isn’t good enough. Tell the writer she has to do a rewrite.”

“Caryn did a great job.”

“I’m sure she did but she’s a woman. She’ll have gone heavy on characterization, light on action. Nobody goes to those kinds of movies.”

“Some people do,” Leah said. “I do.”

“Get a Page One re-do, have her emphasize the guns, sex, and violence. Then we’ll have something to sell.”

Six weeks later, Leah hated the rewrite and wondered if she should pay for a third draft or find a different writer. Sitting in her home office, she frowned at the offending pages in front of her.

Then, from the front room, she heard what sounded like Tanner’s voice. “You are a beauty, Miss.”

The voice was deep and the hint of a Southern accent did nothing to hide the masculinity of the speaker.  Leah was intrigued.

The speaker continued. “I’ll bet the boys are three-deep outside your front door and have been ever since you blossomed.”

“Are you flirting with me?” a female voice asked. The woman sounded cultured and slightly British. “I need a bodyguard, not a boyfriend.”

“What you think you want is a lap dog with a holster,” the man responded. “Someone who will do what you say, when you say it. Well-behaved, appropriate for the society crowd. Housebroken. No good for you when things grow heated but you won’t realize that until it’s too late.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Chris Stark.”

Tossing the screenplay aside, Leah went into the living room. The television set lit up the dark room, providing a comfortable presence in an otherwise-empty house. From inside the flat screen, the actor playing Chris Stark grinned out at the viewing audience. Like so many women before her, Leah sank into a chair to watch him.