Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1) (24 page)

“I know,” she said, blinking and wiping her tear-streaked face, then pressing a hand to her heart. “I know I do, but not like this.”

He was the one shaking now. He clenched a fist around the ring, fighting to hold his emotions at bay. “Why? Can’t you see that the world would gladly stop spinning for you? You mean that much.”

“No, Spence.” She shook her head and covered her face with her hands. “This is all wrong.”

“What do you mean, wrong?” He took a step toward her. The string quartet stopped playing, their music replaced by the shuffle of feet and whispers as the musicians retreated to give them privacy

Tasha stepped back. “This. This isn’t right.” She gestured to the pier in all its glory.

“Don’t you like it?” he asked, cursing himself for sounding so feeble.

“Yes, of course I like it. It’s beautiful. Too beautiful. It’s like something out of a movie.”

Her words were sharp and stung more than they should have. He twisted to study all of the hard work people had put in to decorate the pier, the lights and the flowers, trying to see it through her eyes. His heart didn’t want to view it as a shallow set-up, but he could see hints of that lurking. It had all been done from the best of places, but had fallen flat.

“The people of Summerbury helped me put this together,” he told her. “Everyone was willing to pitch in. They wanted to. Like neighbors.”

“And how much money did you spend to do this?” she asked. “How many Hollywood favors did you call in?”

He glanced down at the boards of the pier to collect his thoughts and marshal his frustration.

“Yes, I have money. I have connections. They come with the territory. Every job has its perks, even yours. You can’t fault me for that,” he argued.

She sighed, letting her shoulders drop even as she pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “It’s just so much,” she said. “It’s more than I ever expected and more than I des—”

“You can’t tell me this is more than you deserve, Tasha Pike. You deserve this and much, much more. Please let me give it to you.” He could beg all he wanted to, but he felt as though is chance had already passed.

“I want to,” she answered, her voice strained with tears, “but I just can’t see how it would work.”

“Then let me show you.” He took a step closer to her, and, blessedly, she let him slide his arms around her. “Let me show you how amazing our life can be.”

For one prickling, hopeful moment, she glanced up at him. There was so much longing in her eyes that he held his breath.

Then she pressed her eyes shut, releasing more tears.

“Can’t you see that this is all just a scene from some big-screen movie?” She tugged gently away from him. “The music, the lights and the flowers, the ocean background. They’re all perfect pieces of an award-winning romance. But life is not a movie, Spence. Life is real. It’s imperfect and disappointing. It kicks you when you’re down. And yeah, sometimes it surprises you,” she cut him off when he opened his mouth to speak. “At the end of the day, I need to live in the real world. The things I’m good at, the things I love, are all in the real world. Can’t you see that?”

“I,” he started to answer, but closed his mouth. Whatever he said next was too important to get it wrong. “I see that we both have a lot to learn about the worlds we operate in. And if we commit to learning, I know we can find a way for them to work together. I love you, Tasha, and I know that you love me. That’s as good of a start as any to find a way to bring our worlds together.”

“Is it?” she asked. “Is that something we can really count on?”

“We can if we try,” he answered, knowing in his soul it was true. “We just have to be willing to try.”

“But that’s the thing,” she said, too defeated for his liking. “If we try and fail, we’ll have nothing. We’ll be back where we started. I’ll be back where I was at the beginning of the summer, and I don’t ever want to go there again.”

She started to walk away. He stopped her, reaching out to take her hand before she could escape.

“Just tell me one thing, Tasha. Do you love me?” he asked, needing and fearing the answer.

She hesitated, squeezed her eyes shut, then let out a breath and turned to him.

“Yes, Spence, I do. Very much. You’re all I’ve ever dreamed of in a man. You’re gorgeous and caring and passionate about what you do and who you are.”

“Then marry me,” he pleaded. “Let me show you that we can be perfect together.”

Her eyes met and held his for a moment, then she shook her head and looked away. She slipped her hand out of his.

“I can’t,” she said when the silence had gone on so long he didn’t think he could stand it. “I just can’t take the risk. I’m too fragile.”

“Tasha, you’re one of the strongest people I know.” It was work to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe I’m just as boring and afraid to take risks as everyone has always told me I am.”

“Not everyone,” he insisted. “Brad.”

“Even so.” She spread her hands in a gesture of defeat. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

She turned and walked away.

Spence stood where he was, dumbfounded, listening to the sound of her flip-flops on the boards and the waves, rushing ever on, below and around him. His heart ached to run after her and find some way to make this right, but his body felt like a rock planted where it was. He couldn’t move. He could only watch her leave.

Chapter Nineteen

Before she was halfway down the beach toward Sand Dollar Point, tiny spits of rain started to fall on Tasha. They sizzled against her cheeks, a stark contrast to her hot tears. She charged through the thin layer of surf that licked up against the sand, taking off her flip-flops so she could feel the cold water between her toes.

What was she doing? She was walking away from the most perfect proposal she’d ever seen. Everything about it had her heart in her throat. The pier was beautiful. Spence was breathtaking in the sparkling light. Everything he said was perfect, and the ring he had tried to slip on her finger was charming in its simplicity.

It was too perfect.

What was he thinking? She’d broken up with him. She’d drawn her line in the sand and he’d stepped right over it. He should have known better. He should have known that things would never work, no matter how amazing his words were. He was a fool to get himself into something that would only hurt him.

He was a wonderful, sweet, sexy fool, and she loved him.

A mournful groan escaped from her lungs before she could hold it in. She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence the protest of her soul, squeezing her eyes shut for a few seconds in a vain attempt to block what her heart was screaming at her. The best thing that had ever happened to her had just thrown himself at her feet in an act of incredible romance, and she had run from him.

But she had to. He had to see that this would never work. The waves rushed in over her feet, the sand beneath her shifting and pulling as she walked, just like the certainties of her life supported her one second, then gave way the next.

No, she had to be true to herself. Wasn’t that what everyone always told her? Wasn’t that was Jenny and half of the rest of the world had told her when Brad left? Be true to yourself, Be true to who you are. Find strength in what makes you unique. Do all that and the right man would come along and love you for it.

What if Spence was the right man? What if all this time she’d found what she had always wanted, and now she was denying it?

By the time she made it to the stairs leading up to Sand Dollar Point, the rain was coming down in light sheets. It flattened her hair to her head and soaked through the shoulders of her t-shirt. It was a gloomy, chilly rain, one that would seep straight into her soul if she wasn’t careful. She reached the lawn at the top of the stairs and twisted to glance out over the beach, out to the pier at the other end. A little light still shone, but most of the strands of lights had been put out. They’d probably taken it all down, wrapped it up, and packed it away like a set, along with all the other props and extras.

She sighed and lowered her head as she plodded the rest of the way up the porch steps and under the shelter of the roof. The rain drummed lightly on the overhang, but even under shelter, Tasha still didn’t feel warm or safe.

“It didn’t go well, then?”

Tasha started as Yvonne spoke up from her seat on the wicker sofa.

“Sorry.” Yvonne held up a hand in apology. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me,” Tasha insisted.

She headed for the screen door, but stopped, hesitated, then spun to face Yvonne.

“Did you know he was going to propose?” she demanded, stepping closer to the sofa.

Yvonne narrowed her eyes, studying Tasha. “Yes. I did.”

Tasha shook her head. She wanted to blame the woman sitting in front of her for all of this. She wanted to blame her for setting her up, and she wanted to blame her for manipulating Spence’s life. It was people like her that were the reason celebrities were treated the way they were.

Except that Tasha had been the one to turn Spence down. She had been the one to treat him like he was putting on a show.

She pushed the thought away and crossed her arms.

“Well, I hope you’re happy now. It’s all over. You can take him back to L.A. or New York or wherever you want to take him to film that little TV show of yours.”

“It’s not my show, honey,” Yvonne replied, her voice kind enough to stab Tasha with guilt.

She didn’t want the woman’s pity. She didn’t want to succumb to that mothering tone of voice.

“Spence got down on one knee,” she blasted at Yvonne instead, pacing beside the sofa. “He hired musicians. He had people put up lights and set up flower.”

“I know,” Yvonne said.

“He told me that he loved me and that he would stand up for me and protect me, no matter what people thought of me or what they tried to say.”

Yvonne nodded. “That sounds just like Spence.”

“But how can he do all that when you’ve already got the deck stacked against me?” Something raw and tender broke loose in Tasha’s chest. She stopped pacing. Another wave of tears threatened at the back of her eyes. “How can he possibly love me and want me in his life when everyone around him is going to criticize him for scraping the bottom of the barrel?”

“Is that what you think people will say?” Yvonne turned in her seat to face Tasha more fully.

“Isn’t it, though? Isn’t that what your world is all about? Judging people and finding them ugly or fat or boring?”

“Part of it.” At least the woman wasn’t lying to her.

“So why on earth would a man as noble and kind as Spence want to chain himself to someone who will be a constant source of negative comments? How do you think it will look?” The arguments flew through her head so fast and so strong that she felt them all spinning out of control and unraveling. “How can my life fit with his? If he’s off filming and I’m teaching, how will we ever be together?”

“It might be hard,” Yvonne conceded.

“I love teaching. I love children. I don’t want to give that up for any man.”

“No one’s asking you to, honey.”

“But they will. When they see that I don’t want to live the wild life or go out to after parties or have sex in department store changing rooms, they’ll just dump me for some red-headed floozy and—”

She stopped cold. There it was. The truth buried in all the fear. And it was exactly what Spence had told her it was. Brad. That other woman. Her crushed dreams and shattered hopes. All because she didn’t fit with the life that Brad wanted to have.

Yvonne cleared her throat, scooting to the end of the sofa. “Sit down, sweetie.”

Too stunned to tackle the wild jumble of her thoughts and emotions, Tasha couldn’t do anything but sit. She perched on the very end of the sofa, afraid to move lest she burst into pieces.

“Tasha, I’ve spent my whole life managing people,” Yvonne began. “Bless his heart, my daddy was an alcoholic and my mom was a basket case. I was the oldest, so I was the one who shouldered it all. And it sucked. But who cares. I learned more from the suffering I went through when I was young about human nature—about how to herd people away from the things that are bad for them and toward the things that they need—before I was eighteen than I did in all my years of law school or any of the psychology classes I’ve taken. I charge ten times your yearly salary per client. And they pay it. With a smile on their faces. And do you know why?”

Tasha swallowed and shook her head, too shredded to speak.

“I’ll tell you why. Because I never let the bad things that happened to me hold me back from helping someone else when they needed help.”

Warmth squeezed at Tasha’s chest.

A moment later it snapped.

“How can you say that?” she asked. “How can you pretend to be all noble when you’re whole focus is to push Spence into jobs and to spit-shine his image?”

“What makes you think that’s not helping him?” Yvonne asked right back.

“Because he needed to come out here in the first place.” Tasha scrambled to fit the pieces of what she knew of Spence together. “He was burnt out on Hollywood and all glitz and image. He wanted to get away from people like you.”

“Did he?” One of Yvonne’s thin, penciled brows shot up. “Remember who moved heaven and earth to get this house for him, honey. Who picked over mountains of scripts and offers to find Second Chances for him. And before you snap to judge me, you might want to stop and consider who just convinced the producers of Second Chances to film in Maine.”

Another wave of cold shock washed over Tasha. So many things had flipped in the course of a single evening that she was numb.

“Maine?”

“Yes. At least the location shoots. But half the time, it’s more convenient to find studio space near the locations. Maybe in Portland or Boston? So think about that before you accuse me of trying to take Spence away or thrust him into something he doesn’t want just for the sake of his image. You’re what he wants.”

Tasha crumpled, more and more energy leaving her. “He’s going to be shooting that show nearby?” He had mentioned something before, but it hadn’t hit home until now.

“Yes.”

That was all Yvonne said. Tasha sat there and let it sink in. She closed out her eyes to block everything but the faint, pulsing beat of her heart. Spence wasn’t about to run off and leave her, he had worked to arrange things to be near her. Worked hard.

“Why didn’t he explain what this means?” she whispered, then opened her eyes.

“Because nothing was written in stone until today,” Yvonne answered with a shrug. “I just got off the phone with the producers about half an hour ago, while you kids were up at the pier, proposing and being proposed to.”

The knot in Tasha’s gut squeezed tighter as the rain grew in intensity. She wanted to grab hold of the arms of the sofa to keep the world from tilting too fast. The beautiful, horrible thought struck her that Spence had meant every word he said to her as he proposed. He really would take care of her and stop people from gossiping about her, as much as he could, at least. He would defend her instead of leaving her, because he thought she was a good person, worth defending, worth being with.

“So does the truth help or hurt?” Yvonne intruded in her thoughts.

Tasha clenched her jaw, then let it go and turned to her. “Why are you suddenly so interested in whether I love Spence and say yes to his proposal or not? I thought I was bad for his image, that you didn’t like me and wanted to get rid of me.”

A wry smile spread across Yvonne’s lips. “Honey, when did I ever say that I didn’t like you?”

“You….” Tasha couldn’t remember the words ever being spoken.

“All right.” Yvonne held up her hands. “I’ll admit, I think there are more marketable women out there who Spence could date that would earn him far more media attention. And I can’t say I’m crazy about the idea of trying to sell a celebrity of his status with a nobo— with a non-celebrity relationship,” she corrected herself. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”

Tasha forced her back straight. “So you do like me?” she asked, highly doubtful.

“Of course, I like you.” Yvonne smiled. “Well, I
could
like you. I’ve seen how much spunk you have. I’ve seen your energy and your determination. That’s why I don’t understand a thing that you’re doing right now.”

Tasha shook her head, twisting to face her. “What do you mean?”

Yvonne let out a laugh. “Honey, you fought for twenty years to get this place. You scrimped and saved and worked for twenty years—in the middle of launching a career, while dating a dud of a man, while making legions of children and parents fall in love with you, I’m sure. You fought to have this place for the summer, fought for your dreams. Even when life kicked you in the teeth.”

“So?” Tasha asked, back itching, unsure whether to take it as a compliment or to wait for the inevitable insult.

“So, you’re a fighter,” Yvonne explained. “I love a good fighter. Only, sweetheart, you’re not fighting now, and I don’t know why. You’re not fighting for a man who loves you so much that he talks back to me about you. You’re not busting those odds and flying in the face of convention to save a relationship that could turn out to be the best thing that could ever happen to either of you. Yes, yes, I’ll admit it.” She gestured in defeat. “The two of you were made for each other. So why aren’t you fighting?”

Tasha blinked and stared at her hands in her lap. Why
wasn’t
she fighting? Why was she letting whatever voice had taken over her head tell her it wouldn’t work? People had told her that she would never spend the summer at Sand Dollar Point, and yet there she was, sitting on a porch learning life lessons from a big-shot Hollywood agent, after having just turned down a proposal of marriage from one of the—no,
the
most generous, kind-hearted man she had ever met.

But what if you fail?
that voice whispered above all of her positive thoughts.

But what if you don’t?
she answered herself.

The slam of a car door around the corner sent a spike of fearful expectation down Tasha’s spine. That had to be Spence coming home. It had to be. The rain beat down in steady sheets now. Across the beach, the lights had all gone off on the pier. The landscape was dark, uncertain. But she knew what was there. She could hear the steadiness of the waves—waves that would always be there on a beach that had weathered countless storms.