Page 17 of Love At First Fright

D espite desperately wanting to remain in bed, with Fig curled into the crook of his arm, Ellis dragged himself into the dawn cold.

It was quarter to seven in the morning, and daylight was beginning to filter through the oak and hawthorn trees that lined the edges of Hallowvale manor.

He hated running, loathed it with a passion, but he needed something to get his blood pumping and a brisk walk wouldn’t cut it.

And despite the fact that Fig was not a morning dog, if there could be such a thing, he needed to wear her out a little before handing her over to Eva to mind for the day while he filmed.

The grass crunched under his feet, and the chill of the air in his lungs broke apart any remaining tiredness.

The paths through the woodlands of the estate weren’t well trodden, but hard enough in the morning cold that he wouldn’t slip.

Ellis kept stopping every now and again for Fig to sniff interesting spots, or to collect the largest stick she could carry in her mouth.

He felt himself waking up alongside the wood, his mind slowly clearing from last night.

When he’d heaved open the pantry door, seeing Rosemary in her sinful little pyjama shorts, his brain had gone straight to the gutter.

He’d nearly come clean to her then about Brody’s whole fake-dating scheme, just so that he could…

what? Kiss her? Take her to bed? Somehow neither of those things felt like enough when it came to Rosemary.

If he ever got the chance, which didn’t seem at all likely given that they were only colleagues, he would need an entire weekend with Rosemary to even begin to cover all the ways he would see to her pleasure.

He’d almost considered taking himself in hand, but when he’d walked past the living room on his way to the stairs, he’d been momentarily gripped by an aching sadness.

The feeling came and went in a split second, but it took with it all sense of lust. When his rational brain returned, Ellis realised that he’d been straying too far into unprofessional territory with Rosemary, and needed to wind it back.

He could recognise that something about her called to that part of him that he so often tried to dampen and hide, but that didn’t matter.

There were too many reasons it couldn’t happen.

The first, and probably most important, was that he was at least ten years older than her.

Ellis wasn’t about to become the Hollywood middle-aged-man statistic that he despised in others.

Ellis wove in and out of the trees, Fig keeping pace, as he went over his lines for today’s scenes.

The first day of filming always filled Ellis with mild dread, it didn’t matter that he’d been doing this for years and years.

This wasn’t like his action franchises, where he’d been playing the same character in every movie.

No, here he needed to impress Vincent and the studio and most of all Rosemary.

Ellis heard a crunch, followed by a flapping of wings, and a woman’s voice muttering, “Fuck.”

He stopped in his tracks. It couldn’t be paparazzi, not all the way out here. Surely not. Was there nowhere he was fucking safe from them? He immediately leashed Fig, even though they were in the middle of the woods and there were no cars nearby. He’d never take that chance again.

“Who’s there?” Ellis called out, surveying the fern bushes and glade of oaks before him.

A head popped up from behind a bush. A very ginger head.

“Rosemary?”

“Hi.”

“You’re covered in leaves.”

She looked down at herself, picking a couple of dried leaves off her jumper. He noticed a pair of binoculars hanging around her neck.

“The hazards of hiding in a bush.” She smiled. The morning light made her hair shine like copper, and a mix of desire and guilt flooded his senses.

“Do I want to know why you were hiding in a bush with a pair of binoculars at dawn?”

“I suppose this does look rather nefarious, but I promise it’s nothing weird. I’m an amateur ornithologist,” she said, in that Southern twang of hers.

“That’s adorable,” Ellis said, before he could catch himself. He shouldn’t have said it, but still, he relished the way the blush rose all peachy on her cheeks.

“What kind of bird were you looking for? Sparrowhawk? Pied wagtail? Wren? Dunnock?”

She tilted her head and offered him an amused expression. “Are you listing all the bird species you know?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, as lovely as it would be to see all of those birds, no. I was after a meadow pipit. They’re real pretty little things. At least I think so, I haven’t actually spotted one yet since you came clomping past,” she said, hands on hips.

“Excuse me, I do not clomp. I’m a very graceful runner. Some might even say agile.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes.

“I am sorry I made it tricky for you to see the meadow pipip, though.”

“Pipit. It’s alright, it would be pretty rare to spot one here anyway, but I thought I would try my luck, since we won’t have many mornings to enjoy out here with all the night shoots coming.”

A high-pitched trill came through the forest and Rosemary’s head darted to the right, gaze roving over the sun-drenched trees.

“Come here,” she whispered. “Quietly.”

Ellis tried his best not to crunch too many leaves, absurdly grateful that Fig wasn’t a barker.

He ducked under the bulk of the bush, into the miniature opening that Rosemary had made for herself.

It was just large enough to fit two people and one small dog.

Ellis was extra glad he’d brushed his teeth and put on deodorant before coming out on his run.

Rosemary held the binoculars to her face, and he heard her excited intake of breath as she spotted the bird she was after.

“Here,” she said, handing him the binoculars.

She didn’t pull the cord over her head, so Ellis had to stand even closer to her, their arms pressed together.

Their fingers brushed, sending an electric jolt straight through Ellis.

This close, with Rosemary tucked into his side, and the memory of her waist under his hands from that time on the stairs, well…

it was enough to get a man going. Ellis squatted down slightly as he held up the binoculars.

“What am I looking for?” he whispered. Instead of a reply, he felt her fingers on the scruff of his jaw, tilting his head in the direction she wanted him to look. Screw it, he had a full hard-on now.

“Just there, do you see it?” Rosemary whispered, and she was so painfully close, her breath warm on his cheek, that if he turned his head even an inch, he could capture her lips with his.

Just then, Ellis spotted it in the conifer tree.

A tiny bird, with a round stocky build. Almost spherical, really.

Its feathers were mostly a camouflaged greyish brown, but on top of its head, edged in black, was a bright slash of sunny yellow.

He recognised it as a goldcrest, which he only knew because he googled the birds he spotted eating from the feeder in his garden.

But from the reverent way Rosemary had inhaled when she’d seen it, her eyes going all glassy, Ellis decided he would play dumb.

“What is it?”

“A goldcrest. Isn’t it cute! So tubby.”

He passed her the binoculars so she could have a final look. “Very cute.”

Rosemary let go of the binoculars and grinned at Ellis. “I’m going to add that one to my book.”

For a moment, Ellis gave in. He let his gaze rove over Rosemary, taking in the dimples of her cheeks, the pattern of freckles across her nose, and the golden brown of her eyes. He would need to find a new word to describe her, beautiful didn’t cut it.

“You have leaves in your hair,” Ellis said.

Rosemary ran a hand through, picking out one of…many. “Did I get it?”

“Not quite. Turn around, let me take care of it.” Let me take care of you, he thought.

Rosemary pivoted on the spot, and stood still as he ran his hands through her hair, removing all the stray leaves. At one point he almost thought he heard her let out a quiet whimper as his knuckles grazed the back of her neck, but he must have been mistaken.

“Did you spot any others this morning, before I came clomping by?”

“A couple of chubby little robins, they’re my favourite,” she whispered, as if the birds singing above them might take offence if they heard, “and a coal tit. Not to be confused with a long-tailed tit, though they do look very similar.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Ellis laughed. “You must have had to research English birds before you came over then?”

“A little. I used to live in the UK, back when I was in college. Sometimes I dragged my friends Dina and Immy out to Richmond Park to go watching. Last time I was here, it was for Immy’s wedding, and we were at this big old house in the country. I spotted a lot of starlings.”

Ellis listened to the way her voice lit up as she described seeing a starling murmuration, and he was struck again with the feeling that he had never met anyone quite like Rosemary Shaw.

“How did you get into bird-watching?”

“My nana was a big birder when she was alive. Always taking me out around the neighbourhood to see what birds we could find. And I get”—she chewed her lip—“I get a little anxious sometimes. Just about general life things, social events, normal stuff. I guess bird-watching reminds me of a simpler time when all I had to do was walk around the park spotting birds.”

“It calms you.”

“Yeah. You have to listen out for their calls and guess their subspecies from their plumage, so it’s pretty hard to think too much about what else is worrying you.”

“Damn, maybe I should get into bird-watching. I suppose my equivalent is taking Fig out for walks, or tending to my vegetable patch. As a gardener, I do have a slight vendetta against pigeons,” he admitted.

“Not pigeons! Everyone is so mean to them, but did you know it’s all our fault? Humans domesticated them and now they don’t know how to return to normal bird life. We turned them into the little scavengers they are now.”

“I never thought of that.”

“See, you can’t hate them anymore now. You garden then?”

“Yeah. A little,” Ellis said, a touch embarrassed. He never really spoke to anyone about his gardening. “I have a vegetable patch and potted herbs in my greenhouse, and I have a little bee garden, too.”

“That’s lovely, Ellis.”

Rosemary turned around to face him, and Ellis dropped his hands to his sides. It was either that, or take Rosemary in his arms.

In unspoken agreement, they began walking back to the Gatehouse together. Ellis let Fig off the lead again, throwing a stick across the field and sending her bounding off after it.

“Have you always had dogs?” Rosemary asked.

The memory of Hank flooded him; that night on the wet, dark pavement. His laboured breathing. The cold, matted fur. Ellis swallowed.

“Yes.” He needed to change the subject. “You said you get anxious?”

Rosemary nodded, no doubt seeing through his attempt to change the subject.

“It’s probably not something you’d be very familiar with, my particular brand of anxiety.”

“Try me.”

“Hmm. Well, since my debut came out and was successful, there’s this need to keep the momentum going.

You need to release a book a year to cement yourself in the industry.

And then when you’ve been in the industry for a while, readers and publishers begin to expect a book a year.

But it’s not as simple as that. You’re not just drafting the book.

You’re also researching the next book, and doing your copyedits on the one you delivered a few months before.

You’re promoting yourself online, attending events and panels, publishing articles, recording podcasts.

It’s hard not to feel like you’re drowning.

I’d been able to manage it but recently, with this last book, I feel like I’m reaching my breaking point.

There are only so many hours in a day, and there are so many people who need things from me.

And when I sit at the blank screen and try and be creative, all I can think is how the next words I write are going to define my salary and self-worth for the next few years. It’s…a lot.”

Ellis blew out a long breath. He didn’t think Rosemary had meant to tell him all of that but that it sort of slipped out of her.

“Do you talk to your friends about it?”

“I…sometimes. But they’re so busy with their own lives, and I know that I’m living the author dream that so many other people want, so I can’t really complain about it. I don’t want to trouble them with my silly problems.”

Ellis stopped walking, and placed his hands on Rosemary’s shoulders, stilling her.

“They’re not silly problems, love. You’re under an enormous amount of stress.”

She sighed. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“No one would blame you if you needed to take more time to deliver the next book.”

“I know that, I do know that, but I…it’s too embarrassing to say.”

“Tell me. Please.”

“I like impressing them. I like getting the praise, the industry approval.”

Although this was absolutely not the time for it, Ellis couldn’t help but imagine all the ways he could praise Rosemary.

“I understand,” he said, squeezing her shoulders lightly under his touch. Her tense muscles seemed to relax a little with his hands on her. “It’s sort of how I feel with each movie. Everything in my career hinges on my most recent bout of acting, and each movie can make or break my career.”

She let out a little snort. “I find it hard to imagine you nervous.”

“Ha, then I must be a better actor than I thought. You know, you could try something that worked for me once. I go in, and I promise myself that the only thing I need to do is turn up. I turn up, and then I’ve achieved what I needed to for that day.

The rest of the job is additional stuff.

Somehow, it takes the pressure off. The goal is achievable, and so the rest of it doesn’t feel as insurmountable. ”

“Just turn up.” Rosemary was nodding to herself. “I promise I’ll try.”