Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“You remade yourself,” she said.
“Yes. Or…more like, I accepted all parts of myself. I liked the way I felt after a good workout.” I reflected on it a moment longer and then grinned. “And I found it a lot easier to get dates after I started working out.”
“I’ll bet.”
She was definitely checking me out now. Part of me wanted to preen. A movie star liked the way I looked.
But that was exactly the kind of reaction she didn’t want. She was just Sierra, a lovely young woman who was staying with us. Being an actress was just her job. It didn’t affect who she really was.
Or at least, it shouldn’t.
“Do you exercise?” It was the safest thing I could think to say.
“Some. Mostly yoga and Pilates, but sometimes I run on the treadmill.”
She’d worn yoga pants when I first encountered her in her cabin. I hadn’t had a lot of time to appreciate how they hugged her legs then, but my mind filled in the details now. “How much yoga would you have to do to have a beer?”
She grinned. “Tonight doesn’t count. I’ll get it.” She pushed aside the blanket and was on her feet before I said anything else.
A minute later, she returned, handing me an open bottle. We clinked them together before she sat down again, this time with one foot up on the couch and one on the floor as she faced me.
“How come tonight doesn’t count? Do calories not exist on a Thursday?” I frowned. “Wait, is it Thursday?”
Sierra’s laugh was light and musical. “To be honest, I have no idea. That kind of thing doesn’t seem to matter way up here.”
“Agreed.” I took a long swallow of the ice-cold beer. “But seriously, is tonight some kind of time out?”
She looked away, this time toward the door to her room, not the fireplace. But she seemed more lost in thought than looking for an escape. “Not really a time out. But… I don’t know. I didn’t want you all to find out, but now that you have… it’s like I can stop worrying about it. Like the thing I feared most happened—and I lived to tell the tale.”
Maybe it was the two glasses of wine and then the beer, but I couldn’t quite follow that. “Staying with us is the thing you feared most?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, yeah, kind of. Getting stranded with strangers—especially men—was definitely not on my bucket list. But ever since I got here, I hoped you wouldn’t find out about my career. But you did, and… well, so far, it’s not quite as bad as I thought it would be.”
So many questions piled up in my slightly inebriated brain. “But why didn’t you want us to know? And why ‘especially men’?”
Her face was earnest as she looked back at me. “I’m not very good with them. Surely you’ve noticed that?”
I nodded, fighting the urge to give her a hug. She looked so lost and forlorn at the moment. “You flinch so much, I was beginning to think that was your primary form of cardio.”
“I can’t help it.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Seriously, it was wrong to want to hold someone who jumped whenever I got near, but I wanted to anyway. “Doesn’t it affect your acting?”
“No.” She frowned. “Well, not usually.”
“How come?”
“Because it’s acting. Unless I’m playing a character with anxiety, I can be as brave or strong or whatever the role calls for.”
That was the gist of the job, but I still couldn’t quite picture it. “Can you do a role right now?”
Her head tilted, and her ponytail flipped over her shoulder. “What kind?”
“Any kind.” Suddenly, I thought of a video that had popped up after one of the Battery Operated videos the other day. “Pretend you’re like that kid in the video. The one who got a dog for his birthday.”
She nodded and sat up straighter.
“Here, son,” I said, making my voice deeper. “This is from your mother and me. Happy Birthday.” I handed her a throw pillow, since there weren’t any boxes around.
“Thanks, Dad.” Sierra got up on her knees and took the pillow from me. She regarded it with interest, and there was a smile on her face, like a kid would have at a birthday party. She leaned the pillow against her thigh, pretending to unwrap it. Her expression held excitement, but as if she anticipated a modest gift.
She got the imaginary present open and then lifted the lid of the box. Her movements were so realistic, I could visualize each step. She shot me a friendly grin before peering inside the makeshift box.
Sierra froze, both her expression and her body. For a long moment, she stared down into the box. Wordlessly, she looked up at me, shock in her eyes. Her lips parted, but no words came out.