Annie and the Movie Star: A Lake Sterling Small Town Sweet Romance (Lake Sterling Sweet Romance Book 3) Read online

  Copyright © 2022 by Amy Sparling

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Annie and the Movie Star

  A LAKE STERLING SWEET ROMANCE

  AMY SPARLING

  Contents

  1. Annie

  2. Trevor

  3. Annie

  4. Trevor

  5. Annie

  6. Trevor

  7. Annie

  8. Trevor

  9. Annie

  10. Trevor

  11. Annie

  12. Trevor

  13. Annie

  14. Trevor

  15. Annie

  16. Trevor

  17. Annie

  18. Trevor

  19. Annie

  20. Trevor

  21. Annie

  22. Annie

  23. Trevor

  24. Annie

  Join Amy’s Newsletter

  Also by Amy Sparling

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Annie

  This has been a terrible day. One day your boss is giving you a coffee mug with a gift card that says you’re a hero for being a nurse, and the next day, that very same boss frowns at you with this fake sadness in his voice as he informs you that you no longer have a job. That they’re closing down the urgent care center you work for, and that your contract has been cancelled, you don’t get severance pay, and good luck finding a new job!

  Tears float in the corners of my eyes. I’ve never cried in public and I don’t intend to, but a few minutes later I lose the battle of keeping them at bay. I’m fully crying now as I walk to my car, my lunch kit dangling from my wrist and a box of my possessions in my hands. It’s not much—just photos and trinkets that sat on my part of the nurse desk. One purple computer mouse I’d brought from home. And a little trophy my best friend Julie gave me that says World’s Best Nurse.

  I’m the world’s nothing now because I’m jobless. Unemployed. Not exactly fired, but let go.

  More tears fall down my cheeks as I pack my stuff into the backseat of my car and then climb inside. I know it isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it sucks. I loved my job. I loved working the night shift, and I especially loved the pay. It’s what enabled me to pay off my student loans in record time, then pay off my parents’ mortgage so they wouldn’t have to struggle anymore. I don’t even have any family here in Dallas, Texas. They’re all up in New Jersey. I was just living here in my too-small garage apartment because the pay was so good. Yet now here I am with no job and no savings because I only just now finished paying off my parents’ house for them. It was my life’s goal, and I’m glad I did it. My parents worked so hard over the years and they gave me everything they could. Paying off their mortgage so they can retire early is the most important thing I’ve ever done. But over the past few years, I wasn’t contributing to my savings because I stupidly thought this job would last forever.

  I gave everything to my job. I even put off dating, choosing to work the night shift that no one else likes because it pays more, even though it means I have no social life. But in the end, it didn’t matter that I gave everything to my job. You can love your job, but your job will never love you back.

  I sulk the entire drive back home. I decide to spend the evening eating ice cream and watching TV and allowing myself to be sad, then first thing tomorrow morning I’ll look for a new job. This heartbreaking change was so unexpected and I deserve to sulk a little bit. But then I’ll wake up early tomorrow and start filling out job applications.

  Only when I get home to my adorable, yet small garage apartment, I find my landlords standing next to a moving truck that’s blocking my parking spot.

  Mr. and Mrs. Newman are an older couple who live in the house on the property. Their garage apartment is a separate building set off to the side of the main house, and they’ve rented it to me for two years. I don’t see them very often since I work the night shift, but I do come home around eight in the morning so sometimes I’ll see Mr. Newman drinking coffee on his porch and we’ll share some friendly small talk. I see Mrs. Newman on the weekends sometimes while we’re both leaving to run errands. They’re nice people.

  I wipe the tears from my eyes and try to look like I haven’t been crying as I get out of my car. “Good morning,” I say, sounding like a cheerful happy woman who didn’t just lose her job. “Who’s moving?”

  “You are, I’m afraid,” Mr. Newman says.

  Confusion makes me laugh at first. Then the look on their faces tells me that something is terribly wrong because they aren’t laughing. They’re staring at me like I’m an inconvenience, not a friend.

  “I’m moving?” I ask. I don’t recall deciding to move.

  Mrs. Newman gives me a sad little smile and she walks over to me, putting a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry honey, but we decided to let our son move back in because he’s fallen on some hard times and he needs a place to stay.”

  I’m all for helping out people who have fallen on hard times, but their son is a piece of work. He’s always coming over just to borrow money from them, and they always complain about it to me. They should stand up to him and stop giving him everything he wants. He’s like forty years old. Plus, we all know he’s not going to pay them rent to stay in the garage apartment. I do.

  “He can’t just move into your house?” I ask. It’s a pretty big house. I’m sure it has way more than one bedroom in it. It’s two stories tall and massive!

  “He’s a grown man,” Mrs. Newman says. “He deserves his own place and some privacy.”

  Her husband nods and says, “Plus, your lease has been up for over a year now. You’ve technically been renting from us on a month-to-month basis now, so it’s within our right to ask you to leave and not renew you for another month.”

  I swallow. I guess that’s true. But a little advance notice would have been nice.

  He continues, “You have three days to move out, but if you can do it faster that would be good because my son has to keep renting this moving truck each day it sits here.”

  Here’s the thing. I’m a nice person. I’m friendly and kind, and I go out of my way to help people. But I just lost my job and my apartment in the same day. With zero advanced notice on either one of them. I have maybe four hundred dollars in the bank. I can’t believe this is happening. But it is happening. And it’s crappy and unfair if you ask me. And even though I’m a nice person, the fact that my landlords moved their son’s stuff over here before even officially telling me I have to move out makes me angry in a way I can’t explain, and that’s why what I say next isn’t very nice at all.

  “You’re both bad people,” I say, putting as much venom in my voice as I can. I’m never mean, so it’s not like I have practice. In fact, I deal with grumpy patients all the time and I never, ever, raise my voice with them. But this is different. I grit my teeth, taking satisfaction in the insulted expression on both of their faces. “Don’t worry, though. You’re bad people but I’m a good person, so I’ll be out of here tomorrow so you can have plenty of time to move in your pathetic, deadbeat son.”

  One SUV of stuff.

  That’s my life. My whole life.

  The garage apartment came fully furnished when
I first rented it, so everything I own can be loaded into my SUV, minus some trinkets and stuff that I loaded up this morning and dropped off at a thrift store. It only took a few hours to pack up, which I did last night because I was so angry and upset that I wasn’t able to sleep much. I start my car and drive away from the place that had been my quiet, clean home for two years. I go straight to a gas station and fill up my tank, and then I sit in the parking lot for a while, wondering what on earth I’m going to do.

  I just want to scream but screaming won’t solve anything.

  I don’t want my parents to worry about me, plus they’re not even in the country right now. They’re in the Philippines spending time with my cousins, which they were able to afford this month because they no longer have a mortgage payment. If I were to call them and tell them what happened, they’d only worry and then tell me to move in with them, but they own a very small condo that’s filled with my dad’s baseball memorabilia and my mom’s quilting supplies. There’s not even enough room for me to sleep on the couch at their place. I love my parents, but I’d go crazy being stuck in their condo. I need to handle this on my own.

  So I call my best friend.

  “Hey Annie!” Julie says when she answers my video chat call. “What’s up?”

  My best friend’s brown hair is pulled into a messy bun—her classic writer hair style—and she’s sipping coffee while on her back patio. Her patio isn’t a usual patio. It faces Lake Sterling, and it’s huge, nearly the size of the entire house. She has beautiful patio furniture, so it’s like an outdoor living room. It’s where she likes to get some writing done, outside facing the lake, the sun warming her skin.

  “I’m sorry to bother you but…” I stop, swallow, and then get the courage to say it. I don’t want to be a burden, but I don’t have much choice right now. “Can I come stay with you for a few days?”

  “Of course,” she says, setting her coffee mug down. “How did you find the time off work to come visit?”

  “I was laid off.”

  Her eyes widen on my phone screen. “Oh Annie! I’m so sorry!”

  And I lost my apartment, I think. But I can’t bring myself to tell her that second bit of bad news right now. I don’t want to put all my problems onto my best friend. I just need a few days with her so I won’t rack up a ton of debt paying for hotel rooms, and also so I have a friendly face to cheer me up. Then I’ll find a new job, and I’ll get a new apartment. I just need a few days.

  We talk a bit longer, mostly about how her new novel is coming along. When our call is over, I set my GPS for her adorable lakefront house in a super tiny Texas town called Sterling that’s about six hours away from Dallas, and I set off on my adventure. Okay, maybe it’s not an adventure. It’s not a new job and it’s not an official place to live, but at least I have something to do. It sure beats sitting here in this gas station parking lot.

  Once I’m only about forty-five minutes away from Sterling, I have to pee. I wish I could push on and wait until I’m at Julie’s house, but when nature calls, you must answer. I exit the interstate and find a gas station that has a diner next to it. Since gas station bathrooms are extremely yuck, I walk over to the diner, needing to pee more urgently with each passing second.

  This little diner has only one unisex bathroom. And it’s currently locked. I can see the light on underneath the door, so I step back and wait. And wait. And wait.

  Maybe you need a key or something to get inside this bathroom? Walking back to the counter, I ask but the waitress tells me there’s no key, so someone must be using the bathroom.

  I walk back and tap lightly on the door. “Hello?”

  “Uh, just a minute,” a male voice says from the other side.

  Then it sounds like a hair dryer turns on. I lift an eyebrow. All kinds of sounds come from the bathroom, but not normal sounds. No toilet flushing sounds like what you would expect. The sink turns on once. Then I hear some clanking and moving. Then the sound of a long zipper, like maybe the zipper on luggage?

  What on earth is going on in there?

  I knock again. “Other people need to use this restroom,” I call out.

  “Just a minute!” the voice says again.

  I grit my teeth and try not to do a classic I have to pee dance right here in the back of a small diner.

  I knock again.

  “Almost done.”

  The zipper sound happens again. I am seriously considering abandoning all hope and running to the gross gas station bathroom next door, but then the door opens. A stupidly gorgeous man steps out, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a blue and black button-up flannel shirt on top, the buttons undone. He wears a blue beanie on his head, but dark hair pokes out the bottom.

  He’s also wearing sunglasses, even though he’s indoors. The way he turns to look at me, and that stupid grin he gives me tells me he probably doesn’t have a vision disability. So he’s one of those people—people who wear sunglasses inside because they think it makes them look cool. News flash: it does not.

  My eyesight must be playing tricks on me, however, because he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. And surely, the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen wouldn’t be this much of a selfish jerk.

  “Finally,” I snap, refusing to let my expression reveal that I think he’s hot.

  “I wasn’t in there very long,” he says, looking away. He reaches back into the bathroom and carries out two suitcases. That explains the zipper noises, I guess.

  “This is a bathroom, not a changing room, you know. You’re not special. You’re supposed to pee and get out, just like everyone else.”

  “Sorry you had to wait,” he says, not looking at me. In fact, it’s almost like he’s deliberately not looking at me by focusing on the floor instead. Why? Does he think he’s better than me? Does he think that his suitcases and stupid sunglasses are more important than having basic human courtesy and letting other people use the restroom? Ugh.

  “The world doesn’t revolve around you,” I snap, stepping out of his way so he can haul his dumb suitcases down the small hallway.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender. “It’s all yours now.”

  He still isn’t looking at me, and I don’t know why. Plus I don’t have time to analyze it. All I know is that he’s rude. And I hate him.

  And he’s super hot, but whatever. It’s not like his hotness matters.

  “I would love to keep telling you how rude you’re being,” I say to his back. “But I have to pee!”

  CHAPTER 2

  Trevor

  After being (rightfully) confronted by someone for hogging the bathroom too long, I quickly rush out of the diner and back to my car, a nondescript blue sedan that I got at the car rental place. In LA, I’ll happily cruise around in my sports car—a brand new shiny black Camaro that I paid cash for after my first feature film—but here in the middle-of-nowhere, I learned very quickly that I need to blend in with average people so I’m not recognized.

  Living and acting in Los Angeles for the last two years has made me forget what it’s like to be out and about in the rest of the country. Or maybe things are just different now. I’ve acted in a few TV shows and have had three feature films to my name now, and people are starting to recognize me. Entertainment magazines have dubbed me America’s Sweetheart, for being a nice guy who plays the romantic lead in wholesome family-friendly movies. I have a reputation now, and just a few years ago, I was a nobody. It’s still weird to me because I feel like the same guy I’ve always been. But then I go out in public and I’m swarmed by fans who want to touch me and grab me and take pictures with me. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the fans, but sometimes I just want to be treated like a regular guy.

  I’m about to start filming my fourth film with the same production company—yet another wholesome romance called Oakbrook Lake. The film crew chose a small Texas town for filming, and I’m due to arrive at the hotel today. I chose to drive to Texas rather than fly
because I thought I’d be fun. I was getting tired of living the actor’s life in LA and I wanted some time alone to myself on the wide open road, and a road trip sounded like a lot of fun. The only downside to the road trip is that wide open roads for thirteen hundred miles means you have to make lots of pit stops for fuel and food.

  Lots of pit stops mean encountering lots of people. Many of those people recognize me as Trevor Owens, America’s Sweetheart movie star. After one stop for lunch, I had two women follow me in their car, honking their horn and trying to get my attention near the New Mexico border. I had to exit somewhere random and drive around for half an hour before I finally lost them. Every other stop I’ve made has been a nightmare of women recognizing me and throwing themselves at me. When I was thirteen, I would have loved all the attention.

  But now at 29, I can’t stand it.

  It’s one thing to meet fans during a press event, but I don’t like being hounded when I’m just trying to stop somewhere for a quick meal. This whole road trip has been stressful, not relaxing like I’d wanted it to be. I should have just taken a plane, flown first class, and arrived with only minimal “famous people” problems in the airport. Sometimes I seriously question why I’m doing this career in the first place.

  Then I remember my mom. The absolute saint of a woman who is battling breast cancer after losing everything and going broke when my dad died and they were drowning in debt but she didn’t know it. Mom didn’t have any insurance when she was diagnosed a few years ago, and her medical bills bankrupted her even more than the debt had. I’d been fresh out of college, working an entry-level job that didn’t pay very much when it all went down. I quickly left my apartment and moved in with my mom to help her out with the bills, but it wasn’t enough.