Dreaming With My Eyes Wide Open (Hollywood Legends #2) Page 4

  Paige sent him another look, this time with a slight smile and sparkling eyes. “On occasion. How about you, Hollywood? Can you laugh at yourself?”

  “On occasion,” Nate shot back. For good measure, he gave her hair a gentle tug. “Blondie.”

  Lottie almost slapped herself on the forehead. So that was it. Paige wasn’t pissed off at Nate. She was attracted to him. And if her instincts were right, Nate was attracted right back.

  Instead of lamenting the loss, Lottie silently rejoiced. It had been a long time since Paige met a man who interested her. Her best friend wasn’t in the middle of a sexual dry spell. It was a certified drought. If she didn’t get laid soon, her vagina would dry up and blow away.

  Nate would have his work cut out for him. Paige wasn’t a push over. If he wanted her, he would have to work for it.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lottie gave his long, muscular body another once over. From the tips of his scuffed work boots to the top of that dark, wavy hair, Nate Landis would make any woman’s mouth water. Paige wouldn’t be immune to that sexy smile and bright blue eyes. Getting her to admit it was another matter.

  Lottie mentally rubbed her hands together in anticipation. She didn’t know who would win the battle of wills. But for Paige’s sake, she rooted for the Hollywood hunk.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CHAMBERLIN RANCH had been in the family for close to a hundred years.

  Paige’s great-great-grandfather came to Montana to work in the copper mines. He didn’t make a fortune by most estimation. However, for an Irish immigrant who came to America with little more than the clothes on his back, having enough money to buy a few acres of land was exactly what he dreamed of.

  Cyrus Chamberlin wasn’t afraid to work hard. He started small. Two head of cattle turned into four. Then ten. Soon, he purchased more land and more cattle. In time, he sold beef to the very mine owners he once worked for.

  The Double C Ranch never became a huge moneymaking enterprise. Some years were better than others. They survived the Depression. Heavily fluctuating cattle prices. More often than not, they were cash poor and land rich.

  When Paige’s father was born, there were already two brothers ahead of him. He loved Montana. He loved his home. It was his dream to run the Double C. Turn its fortunes around. He had ideas that he knew would work.

  However, he understood that as the youngest, he was never going to get the chance to put those ideas to use. So he moved to California where he hoped he could find work. In his mind, Chuck pictured himself working the land. He was an outdoor person. He didn’t want to be trapped all day with four walls surrounding him.

  He fell into the movie business. A friend of a friend set him up with a one-day gig moving scenery. It meant joining a union. Once he had his card, Chuck soon had more work than he could handle. He was reliable, fast, and did the job right the first time. He made a reputation for himself and, as a result, was paid well.

  It wasn’t the glamorous end of the business. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He was a grunt. One who was known by sight by the biggest of the big.

  Chuck had a nice nest egg put aside when he received a call that would change his life. His brothers had been killed when their truck went off the road, flipping several times. Neither wore a seatbelt. Both had been drinking.

  Since his brothers never married, the ranch went to him.

  It was hard to be happy when the fulfillment of his dream came at such a heavy price, with no family left and a heavily mortgaged ranch. After such a long time, Chuck hadn’t known what he would feel when he stepped onto the familiar Double C soil.

  It took only seconds to find out. For the first time in ten years, Chuck Chamberlin was home.

  Everything he had learned in Hollywood came in handy. The main house was a mess. Calling it rundown was being kind. Chuck didn’t mind. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

  Winter would be on him before he knew it. He hadn’t been gone so long that he didn’t remember what it was like when the heavy snow hit. The roof needed repairs before anything else. When that was done, Chuck fixed the sagging back porch, the front entryway. It seemed like there was an endless list.

  Chuck tackled every task with happy gusto. When the first snowflake fell, the outside was ready. With only a few head of cattle to tend, he spent the next few months making the inside of the house shine like it did when he was a small boy.

  There was no time to be lonely. Or so he thought. It was a bitterly cold day in early January when his isolation hit him. The snow piled up. He made a run into Basic once a month to replenish his supplies, but other than that, human contact was non-existent.

  Chuck was almost at his wits’ end when an angel came calling.

  Erin Wakes was the new schoolteacher in Basic. A Southern girl, she wasn’t used to snow of any kind. Her first Montana winter had come as a shock. On weekends, she liked to visit the families of her students. An icy patch of road and a large snow bank proved providential.

  Chuck’s was the nearest house. When the pretty, rosy-cheeked blonde knocked on his door, it was love at first sight. For them both.

  Though she had never hammered a single nail, Erin began spending her weekends helping Chuck fix up the house. She was a fast learner. By spring, her stamp was in every room from the paint color on the walls to the fabric hanging at every window.

  In June, when Chuck carried his new bride over the gleaming threshold, it wasn’t his house. It was theirs.

  Erin was his helpmate in everything he did. He shared his dream to raise horses instead of cattle and soon it was her dream too. Separately, they had always been determined, capable people. Together, nothing could stop them.

  For the next thirty years, that remained true. Chuck and Erin grew their fledgling business slowly but surely. They bought horses at bargain basement prices. They came cheap because they were considered misfits. Too small. Too slow. Untrainable.

  What other people saw as a problem, Chuck and Erin saw as a challenge. They were seldom wrong. Chuck knew horseflesh — one of the many things he learned while in California.

  It turned out Erin was the one with the touch. She shied away from terms like horse whisperer. She called it common sense. Yes, she talked to them. However, they didn’t talk back. It was instinct and trust that allowed her to get so much out of the horses no one else wanted.

  Soon, they made a good living selling the animals to the proper owner. Erin insisted on making sure there was a proper fit before they exchanged money. She took pride in what they did. That included her care and love for each and every horse.

  It took five years to pay off the debt Chuck had inherited. The business grew to a comfortable size. They weren’t rich, but they wanted for nothing. A healthy, bundle of energy only added to their happiness. Their beloved daughter had her father’s brown eyes and love of the land. She inherited her mother’s honey-blond hair and her way with horses.

  For thirty years, it was a near perfect life.

  That life changed forever when Erin was diagnosed with an aggressive form of liver cancer. A year later, she was gone.

  Chuck Chamberlin had lost his anchor. His partner. The love of his life. Paige helped. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have gotten out of bed each morning. For those first few months, all he wanted to do was curl up and forget the world existed. For him, without Erin, it didn’t.

  Going through the motions became a habit. He would smile when it was appropriate — even laugh on occasion. He showered. Ate three meals a day. Worked. At the end of the day, he crawled back into the bed he had shared with his wife and tried to pretend she would be there when he woke up in the morning.

  After a while, the pretending became easier. The pain lessened. The hole that Erin’s death left in his heart didn’t go away, but Chuck wasn’t constantly aware of it.

  That should have been a good thing. The passing of the crippling grief should have made life easier. Instead, it sent Chuck into a state of pa
nic.

  If he stopped thinking about Erin every second of every day, that meant she was slipping away from him. He needed something to bring her close again. That was when he hit on the idea of making Erin’s movie.

  Before Erin met Chuck, she wasn’t just a teacher. She was a writer. A closet novelist who never had the time or courage to follow her dream. She shared her secret with Chuck because they shared everything. They were just married. The house and business needed their full attention.

  Erin thought Chuck had forgotten her confession until one day when she was four months pregnant with Paige; he presented his wife with an electric typewriter. Now was the time. It was November. She would soon be too far along to do anything but stay in the house and nest. Why not take the opportunity to finally turn that dream into a reality.

  Later, Erin would refer to that time as her winter of discontent. Writing didn’t come naturally to her. She knew what she wanted to say. The story had simmered in her brain for years. Getting it from her thoughts to her fingers wasn’t as easy as she imagined it would be.

  The idea to make it a screenplay instead of a novel came one evening when Chuck told her stories about his old Hollywood friends. He would often amuse her with outrageous stories. They were over the top. If Chuck hadn’t sworn on his mother’s grave that they were one hundred percent true, Erin would have thought he was the fiction writer in the family.

  On a snowy night, curled up together in front of the fire, Erin realized her story was meant to be a visual experience. She had struggled to express her thoughts on paper without realizing they needed to be seen, not read.

  With Chuck’s full support, Erin switched gears. She read several books about screenplay writing, absorbing the process like an eager sponge. Soon she wrote with abandon. Ideas and words flowed from her like water. Erin had found her medium of expression.

  By March, when Erin was round and ready to pop, her screenplay was finished. And so was she.

  The screenplay was decent. With some time and a lot of polish, she might elevate it to not bad. The problem was she didn’t want to spend any more time on it or any other writing project.

  The process was excruciating. The entire time she typed, all Erin wanted was to get outside. Horses were her passion — not stringing words together. She would always be grateful to her husband, her pregnancy, and a long winter. She found out her dream had changed.

  Erin Chamberlin was not a writer. Finding that out didn’t make her sad. It was a relief. She would never lament what might have been. With no regrets, she put the screenplay into a box and stored it in the attic.

  As far as Chuck knew, Erin never again gave the screenplay more than a passing thought. She had been happy with him, their daughter, and using her magic on the dozens of horses that came and went over the years.

  If life had been kinder, someday one of their descendants would find the screenplay long after he and Erin were gone. A funny piece of nostalgia.

  However, Erin was gone. Taken from him much too soon. That screenplay was a part of her. A part he could hold in his hands.

  When Chuck scoured the attic, searching for the long-forgotten screenplay, he didn’t have a plan beyond reading it again. When he found it in an unmarked box in the back corner, he felt like he had uncovered a priceless treasure.

  It was only as he read the words that Erin had spent hours crafting that the germ of an idea began to form. He could follow through on the dream she put aside. Her words the way she saw them. Up on the screen for the world to see.

  Erin’s name in bold letters. A permanent tribute. A love letter from him to the woman who had changed his life for the better.

  Chuck started the project in secret. He didn’t want to face the inevitable questions or deal with any negativity and doubts. Especially from Paige.

  He knew she worried about him. Paige was a loving, caring daughter. Strong. Independent. She grew up running free on the ranch. Her mother had called her a beautiful soul. He called her stubborn and opinionated. She was used to doing things her own way.

  A perfect example was when Erin was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Paige was in Illinois attending Northwestern University on a full scholarship. Three months to go and she would have her Bachelor’s degree in business.

  Their girl had her mother’s way with horses. Where she got her head for finance, neither of her parents knew. Paige saw a bright future ahead. They would branch out. Expand.

  College wasn’t necessary for that. Paige was smart enough to learn everything she needed to know without traveling halfway across the country. Furthering her education wasn’t about expanding her brain. It was about seeing something outside of Montana.

  Basic was home. She loved it there. However, Paige had always had a wandering heart. She didn’t have to tell her parents. They knew she was restless. Like Paige, they saw college as a way for her to decide if she wanted to settle down on the Double C.

  Chuck and Erin wanted their only child to be happy. Going away to college was the perfect way to explore a different way of life. Many different ways of life. If Paige decided Montana was what she wanted, they would welcome her back with open arms. If her future was someplace else, so be it. They wouldn’t lose their girl simply because she was no longer down the hall.

  Dreams were funny things. Chuck’s had always been on the ranch. Hollywood was a detour. When he came back, he appreciated his home that much more. Erin’s dreams shifted over the years. Writer. Teacher. Horsewoman. She happily left the first two behind, adding wife and mother along the way.

  Paige had always been a wildcard. She spoke of spending her life on the Double C, but her yearning to see the world warred with the rural life she would have if she chose Montana.

  Erin’s cancer put a halt to everyone’s dreams. Their world became rooted in a tragic reality no one could ignore.

  Paige insisted on leaving school to help take care of her mother. Erin didn’t want her to leave school when she was so close to finishing. When it came to a battle of wills, it was no contest. Paige was on the first flight home.

  Erin could have put up more of an argument except for one thing. She and Paige knew her time was limited. They wanted to spend it together. It was a beautifully tragic and bittersweet year. They spent it as a loving family.

  When Erin couldn’t fight any longer and the time came for her to let go, Paige and Chuck were by her side, holding her hand.

  Chuck broke. Paige became stronger. Not that she didn’t miss her mother. She did. Every day. But unlike Chuck, Paige looked at life with a new sense of urgency. Her mother’s death taught her that tomorrow wasn’t a given. There were no guarantees, no matter your age.

  Paige didn’t return to school. Over the next year, between working hard on the Double C and researching the best way to build up the business, she completed her degree online.

  Chuck was glad Paige kept busy — that she had a vision for the future. It wasn’t until the haze of grief lifted that he began to wonder if she was working for the right reason. Was she entrenching herself on the ranch for him and for her mother’s memory? If Erin were still with them, would Paige’s choice have been Montana?

  All these worries and questions spurred Chuck on. He would make Erin’s movie. Once he had all the details smoothed out, it would be something he and Paige could work on together. They could reconnect.

  A few months into the project, he finally shared what he was doing with Paige. To say that she was surprised was putting it mildly.

  “You’ve been doing what?”

  “Putting together the funding to make a movie,” Chuck said.

  It was such a matter of fact statement. Like saying it looks like rain. Paige stared at her father for a moment trying to decide if she heard him correctly or if he was going out of his mind.

  They were having breakfast, as they did most mornings, before heading out to do the chores. Chuck had his usual coffee and cold cereal. A habit no amount of tempting from his wife and daughter coul
d break. The only exceptions were Christmas morning and his birthday. On those occasions, he sat with the family for a feast of Erin’s choosing.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “A month.” Chuck shrugged. “Or two. I found that old script your mother wrote. It’s good, Paige. Better than she ever let herself believe.”

  Trying to wrap her mind around her father’s words, Paige sipped her hot chocolate. Two months. That was about the time she had noticed a change in her father. Livelier. The word that popped into her head. After almost two years of going through the motions, she had been relieved to see glimpses of the man he was before her mother’s death.

  Now Paige found out the change wasn’t a simple progression past his grief, it was caused by a crazy scheme. Finance a movie? What the hell?

  Paige didn’t say that to her father. She tempered her words. It appeared he was in the early stages of his plan. Not too late to scrap it altogether.

  “Mom’s script.” Paige vaguely remembered hearing about it. “Have you found investors?”

  “It’s been slow going,” Chuck admitted. “I tried some of my old Hollywood connections.”

  “And.” Paige mentally crossed her fingers that her father’s connections turned him down flat.

  “There wasn’t a lot of interest.”

  “That’s to be expected. You’ve been away from the industry for a long time. And even then…”

  “Even then I wasn’t anything but a glorified gopher.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I’m not embarrassed, Paige. I served an important function.” Chuck smiled when he thought back. “Those bigwigs had no idea how important. Without people like me, a movie would grind to a halt in no time. They had the money and the ideas. However, the little things make it all run. The toilet paper alone. There were times when every actor wanted a different kind. Can you imagine? If the leading lady didn’t have the made-in-Europe, triple-ply, double-quilted to wipe her pampered backside, good luck getting her on set for her love scene.”