New Year, New Man. Natalie Anderson
want help. This isn’t Pretty Woman meets mountain town. I’m not Julia Roberts shopping on Rodeo Drive. You’re not Richard Gere on the fire escape.”
“Why do you do that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do what?”
“Throw out movie plots like they compare to what’s happening. This is real life, Sara.”
“I’m well aware.”
He shook his head. “I thought you were a fighter.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I’m a survivor.” With that, she turned and marched down the street away from him.
Sara didn’t say much on the drive from town, content to let April ramble about her meeting with the man who ran the local farm cooperative. She gazed at the tall pines that bordered the winding highway, continuing to be awed by her surroundings. The vivid colors, woodsy smells—the vast magnitude of every inch of this place.
She thought about Josh’s “real life” comment. Sara knew real life. Real life was struggling to meet her rent every month, praying each time she used her debit card that her bank account wasn’t overdrawn. She had to admit there was something about Crimson that felt—well, authentic. In L.A., life was about who you knew, where you could get a table, which plastic surgeon you frequented. She glanced in the rearview mirror, wondering for a moment about the last time she’d gone anywhere without full makeup. Her war paint, as she’d come to think of it.
Was it possible she could have a brief reprieve from battle in this small mountain community?
As Sara drove down the narrow driveway toward the ranch, she spotted a large black SUV parked in front of the main house.
“If that’s my mother...” she muttered under her breath.
April patted her knee. “You can deal with your mother. You’re a fighter.”
The car almost swerved into the ditch. “Did you talk to Josh?” Sara accused her friend once she was back on the dirt road.
“No,” April answered slowly, her dark eyes studying Sara. “What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing.”
“I can feel the vibes. They aren’t nothing.”
“You’re imagining it.”
“He’s hot.”
“Go for it,” Sara suggested. “Maybe he’d relax if he got a little something.”
April chuckled. “You know that after my divorce I swore off men, at least until I’ve found someone who’s worth the time and effort. So I don’t go for it anymore. Besides, maybe you could relax if...”
“Not going there.”
“We’ll see.”
“You think you know me so well.”
“I’ve known you since you were fourteen.”
The studio had hired April to be Sara’s fitness coach when she’d put on a few pounds during puberty. Sara counted that decision as one of the few blessings from her years as a sitcom star. Without April’s gentle guidance, Sara might have added “eating disorder” to her long list of personal issues.
Nine years older than Sara, April had quickly become Sara’s soul sister and best friend. When April’s stuntman husband left her a few years later during April’s grueling battle with breast cancer, Sara had been more than willing to see her friend through months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments and the nasty divorce that resulted.
Neither woman had been lucky in the relationship department—another fact that, despite their different outlooks on life, bonded them deeply.
“You only think you know me. I’m a mystery wrapped in a puzzle clothed in an enigma,” Sara told her friend with a wry smile.
“Right.”
Sara parked the car next to the SUV. “Are you trying to distract me from the probability of another scene with Mommie Dearest?”
“Is it working?” April asked, reaching for the door handle.
Sara grabbed her arm. “Have I told you today how sorry I am you’re in this predicament with me?”
April shrugged. “Things happen for a reason.”
“Don’t go all Sliding Doors on me. The reason your savings account was wiped out and you lost the yoga studio is because I’m a gullible idiot, a loser and the worst friend in the world. We’re stuck in high-altitude Pleasantville for the summer, thanks to me.”
“Sara...” April began, her tone gentle.
Sara thumped her head against the steering wheel. “Maybe I was wrong to agree to Josh’s plan for the summer. If I sold to Mom’s latest sugar daddy we could be back in California next week.”
“Back to what?”
“Our lives.”
“Neither of our lives was that great to begin with, and you know it. Besides, what about Josh and Claire?”
“Not my problem.”
“I guess that’s true,” April admitted. She pushed open the passenger door. “But we’re not going to get anywhere sitting in this car. If you want to hear your mom out, that’s your decision. You have to take control of this situation.”
“Lucky me,” Sara answered, and started toward the house.
* * *
Sara walked through the front door, waiting for the scent of White Diamonds, the perfume her mother had worn for decades to hit her. She smelled nothing.
She turned the corner from the foyer and stopped so suddenly that April knocked into the back of her. She stood perfectly still for one moment, then launched herself across the family room at the man who stood on the other side of the couch.
“I’m going to kill you,” she yelled, reaching out to wrap her fingers around his neck.
Strong arms pulled her away and she was enveloped in a different scent—one that even in her anger still had an effect on her insides. “Settle down,” Josh whispered in her ear.
“Let me go,” she said on a hiss of breath. She fought, and his arms clamped around her, pressing her against the solid wall of his chest. After a minute she stopped struggling. “Let me go,” she repeated. “I’m not going to hurt him.”
Slowly, Josh loosened his hold on her. For the briefest second, Sara fought the urge to snuggle back into the warmth that radiated off his soft denim shirt, to bury her face into the crook of his neck and simply breathe.
She stepped away, needing to break their invisible connection, and straightened the hem of her long shirt. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here, Ryan. Unless you’ve got my money and April’s, too, you can crawl back under the rock you came from.”
“Hi, Sara.” Ryan Thompson, her onetime business partner and long-ago ex-boyfriend flashed a sheepish smile. “I came to apologize.” He held out his hands, palms up. “To beg your forgiveness. Go ahead, attack me if you want. I deserve it. Whatever it takes to put this behind us.”
Sara felt her temper building but kept her voice steady. “What it will take is you handing me a check for two hundred thousand dollars. The money it will take to repay April for losing the studio.”
Ryan looked past her to April. “Do you, at least, forgive me, April? You understand, right?”
“I understand you, Ryan” came April’s taut response.
His brows