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He placed my bike by a small back door and then slipped back into the front of the store, his deep voice upbeat as he talked to the customers perusing his wares. I rubbed my face with sweaty palms, angry as hell that someone had found me. I mean, sure, it wouldn’t be hard to track me down. My bio was public knowledge. It was right there on my website/fan page. All someone had to do was spend thirty seconds on Google. Still, it pissed me off that I’d had exactly four fucking days of peace before some jackass with a Pentax showed up. Wasn’t I allowed some private time? Jesus Christ, just because I was an actor didn’t mean I wasn’t entitled to privacy!
The chit-chat out front died off as the bells over the door rang out. I tipped my head this way and that but heard nothing. Rising slowly from the folding chair, I made my way to the door separating this back area of the store—where perhaps he gave lessons given the number of chairs—and peeked into the showroom. Nothing. No one was here. Some soft classic rock floated around the area from speakers hidden somewhere in the room. Sunshine flowed through the big panes of glass facing the street. Gibson was nowhere to be seen. I did take note that the OPEN sign on the door was now flipped to CLOSED.
The sound of someone coming in the door behind me had me whirling around. I may have squeaked a bit, but that peep of fear would never be spoken of. I did have a reputation as an ultra-masculine swaggering action hero to—oh wait, no, I didn’t. Not anymore. Now I was known as that queer who likes to wear Victoria’s Secret.
“Hey,” Gibson softly said as he swept through the back door and then stepped inside, filling the room with pink cotton and wide shoulders. Dirty blond hair fell into his pale blue eyes, several strands having escaped during his time outside in the wind. “So, I didn’t see anyone close by that fit the description of your ex. But that being said, would you like me to call the Maine State Police barracks over on the mainland? Stalking is a serious situation, and you were obviously really scared.”
“No, no, it’s not an ex, it’s…” I removed my ball cap and sunglasses and waited for him to gasp in shock at having a movie star in his tiny little pottery shop. I waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. No squeal or exclamations of joy. Nothing other than real concern on his ruggedly handsome face. It was a real face. Lived in. Showing signs of life lived, wind and sun, joys and sorrows. Not like the faces that I saw in Hollywood on the daily. Some of those faces were so full of Botox, they resembled mannequins more than people. “You don’t know who I am?”
He shrugged a thick shoulder as he took a few wary steps closer. “Sorry, no. Do you play for one of the Boston sports teams?”
“I…no. I’m Elias Lake.” Crickets. “Star of the high actionDaze of Retributionmovies.” Nada. Huh. “Daze of Justice? Daze of Mayhem? Daze of Avengement?No? None of those ring a bell?”
“I’m sorry, no. I’m more of a book person,” he replied and shoved a big hand through his wind-blown hair, unconsciously freeing the longer mop on top that fell right into his eyes. Okay, that there was sexy as fuck. “So, if you’re not hiding from an ex-lover…”
“Oh, sorry, right. I think it was a reporter.” I padded back to one of the tables and dropped my weary ass into a folding chair, letting out a breath that puffed my cheeks. “He aimed the lens right at me.”
“Ah, well, could he have just been a fan of your films? They sound riveting.”
I tossed the ceramist a look. Was that some subtle sarcasm? “No, well, maybe.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “Maybe. Hell, maybe it was just some mainlander trying to take shots of the shops to send home.”
Suddenly, now that the rush of fear was past, I was feeling incredibly stupid. “Could have been.” He went to one of the shelves, pulled out some tubs of clay, and then used his foot to yank out a chair across the table from me, easing his large frame down and settling those pretty eyes on me. “Or it could have been some reporter trying to get some exclusive photos. Are you here on vacation?”
He slid a tub of green clay over to me. Not knowing why exactly, I took the lid off and scooped some out. I pretended I didn’t care that he had given me clay for kids. Whatever. I rolled it into a ball as I talked.
“No, it’s…well, yeah, in a way.” I liked his face. The way his beard was not just one color but a mix of dark gold, some silver, and some brown. That wild hair was also really attractive. It needed to be cut and trimmed, as did the beard, but that just added to his appeal. He was not coiffed and waxed to the gods like so many in Tinsel Town were. This was a manly man. A real manly man, not a fake manly man. I bet he didn’t have something lacy under his flannel or denim. But I did. I had been wearing all the pretties since that day. Why not? Having lace next to my skin made me feel good inside. “I had some bad press about a week ago and came home to the island to let things die down.”
“Oh, so you’re a native?” I nodded. “I just moved here about five years ago from Illinois.” He wasn’t schooled at hiding his feelings like I was. I picked up on a dark shadow of grief move across his face.
“I am, sorry, yes. My real name is Elias Kesside.” That made his eyes flare. “Yeah, we’re distant relatives of old lusty Phillippe, not that my lineage means much anymore.” I rolled the clay out into a long snake, curling it around on itself. “I left the island when I was eighteen with the acting bug in my blood. Took me a few years in L.A. waiting tables to finally get chosen for commercial work, then a sitcom, also some soap opera work as a young doctor with a large libido and an evil twin.” That made him chuckle. It was a pleasant sound. “Then my agent Elle got me a read for a new action series a small studio was making. They’d wanted someone new, someone handsome, someone bold and macho.”
“And that was you?” he asked, his gaze intent but kind, his fingers pinching his glob of blue clay into a perfect little teacup. How did he make such small things with such big fingers?
“And that was me.” I made another snake. It was really the only thing that I could make while the words flowed from my mouth as we sat there in that stuffy room like someone had turned on a tap. I told him about my career as I rolled out a herd of snakes. No, not a herd. What is a group of snakes called? A clowder? No, that was cats. A nest? Well, whatever, I had eight snakes in front of me by the time I realized I had been jabbering to this good-looking stranger for over forty minutes. “Shit, why didn’t you tell me to go?”
“I was enjoying your conversation,” he replied, placing his tiny teacup in front of me with a warm smile that pulled a soft grin from me. “You can discover more about a person from an hour of play than from a year of conversation.”
“Ah. That’s a good quote. Did you just think of that?” I wiped my hands on my shorts as I rose.
“No, that was Plato. I’m just a humble ex-philosophy professor who likes to toss famous words from great thinkers about to make myself sound erudite.”
I gaped. What thehellwas a professor of philosophy doing selling vases—and they were very pretty vases, make no mistake but still—to tourists on a dinky island off the coast of Maine? This burly bearded man had some secrets.
Don’t we all?
True. “Well, thank you for hiding me in your back room,” I said as he got to his feet and motioned to a sink in the corner. My hands were pretty dirty. “I’ll wash up and let you get back to business. Oh,” I tacked on when I reached the waist-high sink, turning to look at him ambling toward me. “Let me reimburse you for the sales lost while you had the door closed.”
“Nonsense, that was my lunch hour anyway,” he stated, sliding up beside me, his bare arm brushing mine as he reached for a bar of dark green soap sitting in a soap dish.
“You have lunch at three in the afternoon?” I asked and got a small quirky smile that set my tummy to tingling.
“Call it a second lunch,” he replied with a wink.
“You’re far too tall for a Hobbit,” I parried and got a nod. God that wild hair of his really needed someone to fix it for him. Gather it back into that tiny little man bun that so few could wear as well as he did.
“Fan of Tolkien?”
“I am yes.” Gibson handed me the soap. It felt like some sort of grand gesture but how could it be? I mean, it was only soap. Still, he had let me use it first. That was polite. “Not as big as say Stephen Colbert, and no, I’ve not been in any of the films although I auditioned for each one, but I’m a fan of fantasy. Knights and elves, dragons, grand adventures.”
