Chapter Eight

When a beautiful woman jumps on a trampoline in white yoga pants and a blue tank top that gives a peek at the smooth skin of her stomach, a man stops and watches. It’s basic human nature. Basic male-female interest. Not Cam-Reese interest.

She continued to jump, arms waving, a giant smile on her face, unaware that he’d entered the area. Her ponytail swished back and forth. Her breasts bounced. His feet were rooted in the grass whether he wanted them to be or not.

Some things were out of a man’s control.

Laptop under his arm, he’d been intent on finding a quiet spot under a tree to get some writing done. Alone. After last night’s flirting—he wasn’t about to shy away from what it was, at least on his end—he figured they needed a break from each other. A day to get their heads on straight. To resume normal Cam-Reese status. He loved that status. Didn’t want to do anything further to jeopardize it.

He also needed to get more words on the page. New words. The words he wanted to write. The more time he spent with Reese, the more he leaned away from the script he’d promised and toward the script that kept getting in the way. The question was, did he have the guts to write it? To strike while he had a studio invested in him. He could write it after the action film. He should write it after. But hell, if that logic meant anything when he was forcing an action film that wasn’t in him. He hoped Nolan, his next door neighbor and a fellow screenwriter, returned his call so Cam could get his advice.

A light, fanciful laugh pulled him out of his ruminations. Reese dropped onto her back, arms spread wide, her chest rising and falling.

Fun. She was at it again and he needed more of it.

He slid off his shoes and socks and put his laptop down on the grass next to Reese’s phone. As he did so, the screen lit up with a text from “Agent A” and he couldn’t help but read the few words before they disappeared. Need an update.

He hadn’t heard Reese refer to Shay as Agent A, but it did rhyme with her name, and as far as letter grades went, Shay had definitely earned an A according to what Reese had mentioned, and what he knew of her at the agency.

She laughed again, drawing his gaze and pulling him closer. He climbed through the opening in the protective mesh netting around the trampoline and joined her. She turned her head as the trampoline dipped from his weight.

“Hey.” He remained on his knees about three feet away.

“Hi,” she said, a little breathy. A lot sexy.

No. Not sexy.

“Thought I’d see what was so funny.” While she’d stopped giggling, those pretty eyes of hers were at half-mast and twinkling with mirth.

“Does something need to be funny to laugh?” she asked sweetly.

“Usually.” He crawled closer and laid down on his back beside her.

She scrunched up her nose and stuck out her tongue. When he didn’t respond right away—because let’s be honest, his mind immediately went to the gutter when he saw her pink tongue—she said, “Come on, that was my funniest face.”

He arched his brows, widened his eyes, and twisted his lips in his best impression of funny.

She gave him a cursory chuckle. “Okay, so neither of us can be very funny-looking,” she said.

“Speak for yourself,” he teased.

“Ha. Ha.” She turned her head and lifted her chin toward the sun hanging in the middle of the blue sky. A slight breeze rustled tree leaves and carried the scent of apples.

“Jumping,” she said to break the pleasant silence.

“Sorry?”

“Jumping is funny. My feet were so high off the trampoline that I started laughing. And that led to me plotzing down on my butt and then falling back. You know how much fun I think this thing is.”

“Plotzing?”

“Yes, plotzing. As a writer, I would think you’d be familiar with the word.” Her jokey tone of voice was insanely attractive. She always sounded like someone friendly and alluring, so its effect on him now, stronger than ever, should have come with the warning label: May make a person think and feel things they shouldn’t.

“Oh, I’m familiar with the word. I just didn’t think anyone under the age of seventy used it,” he teased in return.

“Maybe I’m bringing it back.”

“Well, then everyone will be using it in no time.”

Rolling onto her side to face him, she propped her head up in her hand. “You’re right. Any other words you think I should bring back to younger people?”

He turned onto his side, copying her pose. Their noses were mere inches apart. He zeroed in on the speck of cobalt in her left eye. “Galivant? Britches? Hootenanny?”

She laughed. “I have no idea what that is.”

“Far be it from me to tell you.”

She gave him a playful push on the shoulder. “You’re going to make me look it up?”

“Tell you what. If you can jump higher than me, I’ll tell you.”

“You’re on!” She hurried to stand, wobbling for balance as he stood at the same time on the springy surface.

They jumped, gaining momentum and height with each lift into the air. He hadn’t taken into consideration that she weighed considerably less than him and thus caught that air much better than he did.

“I think I’m winning,” she called out.

“Give me a minute,” he called back, their hands brushing as they bounced near each other. A little stronger push-off with his legs ought to do it. Maybe. He’d forgotten that Reese was a natural. Completely carefree and in the moment, which made her pretty invincible.

She gave him maybe thirty seconds of comfortable quiet, then said, “Get any writing done this morning?”

“We’re going there, are we?” he said, his feet midair.

“Just keeping you on track. I wrote five pages.”

“Really?”

“All dialogue, but it’s something right? I’ll fill in the other stuff later. I put myself in my heroine’s shoes and had a conversation with the hot police detective.”

There was something seriously wrong with him that he felt jealous of a fictional policeman. “What did you talk about?” With his added height, he took over Reese in their contest. She definitely noticed, but kept at it, barely out of breath.

“Um, hello? The dead body in her kitchen.” She bounced closer, making him lose his balance and fall into the mesh netting. He didn’t know if the move was intentional, but it didn’t matter. He wanted her to win, so with the sails taken out of his momentum, he relaxed his jumps.

“Times up!” she announced, her head clearly above his on her final jump before plotzing onto her back with movie star flourish.

He was pretty sure his face had been stuck in happy mode the entire time they’d jumped, and as he fell down next to her he held onto it a few extra seconds before saying, “Hootenanny is an informal gathering with folk music and dancing. But I prefer when it’s used as a placeholder name for something you can’t remember the name of. For example, ‘Give me that hootenanny.’”

“Oh, so like a thingamajig?”

“Exactly.”

“Good to know. Okay, another question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you ever base any of your characters on real people? I mean, I’ve seen your movies, more than once, and don’t recognize anyone, but then I wasn’t looking for it, and now that I’m reading scripts and writing one, it’s got me thinking.” She rolled onto her side again to look at him.

“I think you answered your own question. You just said you put yourself in your heroine’s shoes.”

“So you’ve put yourself in your hero’s?”

“I think it’s impossible to remain completely detached, but no, I don’t consciously do that. Instead, I try to make the characters relatable, yet larger than life.”

“You do a good job with that,” she said sincerely.

“I think so, too.”

“Do your characters come to you first? Before the story?”

“Usually, yes.” He rolled onto his side and propped his head in his hand. He should say goodbye and get back to work, but hell if he could get his body to budge. So much for keeping to his schedule.

“What are they doing that’s holding you up this time?”

“What are they doing…” he repeated. “They aren’t doing much of anything because the other characters in my head are talking louder.”

She sat up, still facing him with her back straight, and crossed her legs. “What do you mean?”

“There’s something else I want to write and there isn’t a single car chase.”

“You can’t combine them somehow, since you’re contracted to write an action film?”

“No. They’re completely unrelated, and I want to keep it that way.”

“It sounds to me like you need to tell those other characters to wait their turn.”

He moved to his knees. If only it were that easy. “That’s a good idea. Come on, let’s go grab lunch.” He didn’t want to talk anymore about it and he always wrote better on a full stomach.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked, like his answer would determine her decision. She wanted him to think she was in it for the food, not him. Such a kidder.

“Thought I’d grab a couple of soft shell crab tacos from 3 Amigos Crab Shack.”

“I’m in! I love that place.”

“I know. Meet me in ten in front of the house and I’ll drive us.” He stood, extending his hand to help her up, and the two of them wobbled to the exit. He held the mesh opening aside for her as she climbed out before him.

Seeing his laptop on the grass, she said, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you deflecting with a lunch invitation. This afternoon, we write.”

“Deal.” Apparently his worry over things feeling weird after last night was for nothing since she wanted to write together.

She slid her feet into bright orange flipflops. “See you in a few.

“Reese?” She turned with an unreadable expression on her face. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Wanting to help me get over my writing slump.”

“Those were the best tacos I have ever eaten,” Reese said, walking beside him down Arbor Street. Puffy white clouds dotted the sky and blocked the sun now, casting them in and out of shadow.

“I’m always impressed that someone your size can eat three of those tacos in one sitting.” 3 Amigos tacos weren’t just tacos, but large, overly filled gourmet must-haves.

“You know I’m a bottomless pit.”

“A skilled eater,” he corrected, the compliment always making her smile.

She flashed him said smile. “And because you love me so much you’re not going to mind a slight detour before we go back to the guesthouse to write.”

He squeezed the back of his neck. “Reese.”

“Trust me, I know you need to write, but it’s a tradition.” Another flash of straight white teeth as she led him across the street toward the town square. “It will only take five minutes.”

Following her was habit. Second nature. Friendly devotion. Today, he knew exactly where they were headed: the wishing tree. He wasn’t sure why it had to be done today, but really there would be no good day with his deadline looming.

A couple sat near the large tiered fountain in the center of the square, and a few people sat on blankets on the grass, reading or on their phones. In the distance, the man-made Rustic Lake glistened.

The wishing tree was a giant, aged oak on the corner of the square that offered a shady place to picnic, nap, read, or do all three. In July and December, anyone with a wish could write it on a colorful slip of paper and hang it by a piece of string on the lower branches. Passersby who wanted to grant a wish chose one at random. When Reese visited in July or December, they always picked a wish together to make come true.

“Do you want to pick it or should I?” she asked.

“I think it’s your turn.”

She reached for a blue piece of paper and tried to take a peek.

He put his hand over hers, the feel of her soft skin sending a ripple over his skin. He immediately pulled his arm back. “No peeking, remember? You have to pick one without knowing what’s inside.”

“Fine.” She untied the wish from the tree and unfolded the paper. After reading the wish she held the slip of paper to her chest.

His gaze dipped down, then slowly tracked back up, over the elegant column of her neck, the lush form of her lips, to charcoal-blue eyes that reminded him of the ocean just before the sun rose. She held his stare with equal interest…and a good amount of confusion. He understood that. Uncertainty about them plagued him, too, but on this warm summer day in his hometown with his lifelong friend, he wanted to pretend their friendship could survive a mistake.

“This is a really nice wish,” she said, blinking away their connection. “There’s just one problem.”

“And that is?”

“We have to do it today.”