might leave a mark on her creamy skin.
He reached out a hand and adjusted it, his fingers brushing against her collarbone. Even accidental, the touch burned through him like a brush fire, and he yanked back his hand.
How could anyone have such soft skin?
Her hair had been pulled back in a low ponytail this morning but now many of the thick, dark strands had escaped, falling over her shoulders in loose waves. She wore a yellow sundress with a pattern of wildflowers splashed across it.
He’d gotten so used to seeing her in the blue button-down, denim skirt and green apron that was the uniform at the diner. The dress made her look more ethereal, like some kind of elfin forest sprite come to life.
“Forest sprite,” he muttered. “I’m losing it.”
The dog’s tongue laved his ear, and Garrett suppressed a shudder.
“You’ve made friends.”
Lily’s sleep-roughened voice filled the SUV’s interior. Garrett could just imagine what it would be like to wake up next to her and have that voice whisper in his ear.
The dog lumbered to its feet and immediately tried to climb over the console to get to Lily.
“I was a poor substitute for you,” he said, keeping his eyes on the highway in front of them.
“Sorry I haven’t been better company,” she said as she turned to give Chloe a kiss, then pushed the dog into the back seat again. “I might be getting too old to pull an all-nighter.”
He laughed at that. “What are you? All of twenty-three?”
“Twenty-five,” she corrected him. “What about you?”
“Thirty.”
“How long have you lived in California?”
He gave her his best side-eye. “What makes you think I’m not a native?”
She redid her ponytail as she laughed. “You have ‘boy from the heartland’ written all over you.”
“I do not.” He made a show of examining his arms.
“Nebraska? Kansas?”
“Oklahoma.”
She pumped her fist. “I knew it. I also knew you’d like the licorice.” She leaned closer and the scent of vanilla washed over him. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to play the license plate game?”
“Not a chance.”
Her pert nose wrinkled. “So how long in LA and what brought you to the West Coast?”
“My first book got made into a movie.”
“Wow. Anything I would have heard of?”
“A thriller called Point of No Return.”
“Shut the front door!”
Chloe let out a series of sharp barks that made Garrett wince, clearly riled up by her owner’s outburst. Lily took a moment to quiet the animal, then turned to him. “Brad starred in that movie. It was huge. That’s so cool.”
“I thought so, too, but things didn’t quite turn out the way I’d planned.”
“Did you meet Brad Pitt?”
He nodded. “Decent guy.”
“Did you get to know any other famous people?”
“Tons of them,” he said, thinking back to that first heady year when he’d come to Hollywood, certain it was the start of an illustrious career.
“Are you famous?” she asked, inclining her head.
“For a hot second in certain circles.” He didn’t like to talk about that time. It brought back too many dark memories of the mistakes he’d made and the way his ego and pride had led him to a place where his life circled the drain. “I was what you might call a one-hit wonder or a flash in the pan. I went from being the next big thing in the world of Hollywood writers to nothing. Now I’m less than nothing.”
“Don’t say that.” She reached out and placed her hand on his arm. The gentle touch reverberated through him. “The industry doesn’t define you.”
“It does in LA.”
“But you wrote the book before you moved to California?”
She pulled her hand away and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to ask her to keep it there.
“I was a high school English teacher. It feels like that life was a million years ago.”
“I know what you mean.”
“How long have you been chasing the dream?” he asked.
She sighed. “Seven years. Not much chasing recently. Turns out the chase isn’t all that fun when it’s someone else’s dream.”
He raised one brow when she didn’t elaborate.
“My mom wanted to be an actress when she was younger,” she explained. “But she got pregnant with my oldest sister and married my dad. They stayed in Magnolia, but she always talked about what could have been if she hadn’t been trapped in a small town.”
“Ouch,” he murmured.
“She didn’t exactly make my sister or my dad feel special. But she saw something in me.” Lily gave a soft laugh. “I guess it was because I looked like her.