For the Love of His Life Read Free Page A

okay? And I’ll call tomorrow. Good-bye for now.”
    “Bye,” Veronica called out before the phone went dead.
    “So?” Marie walked over to stand in front of her pie-assembling granddaughter.
    Veronica shrugged.
    “Hollywood was happy to have him at first. It was rumored he was Oscar-quality, just waiting for the right role. But he’s been in a bunch of crappy action things and some really dreadful rom-coms. He either has a lot of talent but no one has given him the script to show it off, or he’s a pretty face with a gigantic ego and an even bigger drug problem.”
    “We’ll talk over dinner.”
    “How are you leanin’?”
    Marie smiled.
    “Remember when Jared was six and your grandfather taught him to fish? Paul was so proud of him the day he caught the big walleye! Then, when he got into his teenaged years, his folks used to send him up here alone every summer, to de-stress. He was always so jittery when he got here, but he calmed down quicker every year.”
    “Do you think being up here could do the same for a spoiled brat of a movie star?”
    “Who knows? Maybe…”
    “So, you want to do him this favor, don’t you?”
    Marie sighed as she got up to go see who had rung the bell that signaled a customer in the store.
    “We’ll see, Ronnie, we’ll see.”

Chapter Three
    “How’s our newest guest doing?”
    Veronica walked into the kitchen looking for coffee, and found her grandmother hard at work on the soup of the day.
    Marie snorted in answer. “He’s sleeping it off again. Jake had to carry him into the cabin last night. I swear that man is trying to kill himself! I got Jake to sit a spell with me before he drove home.”
    Veronica nodded sympathetically. “Insomnia again?”
    “Yes…too much after-dinner coffee maybe? Anyway, Jake said when he went to the airport to pick up our guest, the airline personnel were solicitously helping him out of the airplane, a stewardess on each side of him because he was too drunk to walk by himself. They insisted on walking him all the way to Jake’s car, and it took all three of them to get him shoved into it and buckled in.”
    Marie chopped carrots into the soup. She waved the knife in the air in disgust. “He passed out before they were even out of the airport and didn’t wake up until Jake shook him to tell him they were here. Then he took one look around and insisted on being driven to the nearest bar. Jake took him all the way back into Grand Marais…” She stabbed a potato with a force that made Veronica wince.. “…and he closed the bar! Then slept until mid-afternoon yesterday. Jake was already here eating a piece of your pie. Mr. Movie Star refused to eat anything, drank some black coffee, then got Jake to drive him back into town again.”
    Marie shook her head. “We need to set down some rules because I don’t want to get busted for allowing someone with drugs to stay in our cabin. They got in after closing time again last night and there’s been no movement from the cabin yet today.”
    Veronica smiled while she began to get her ingredients and utensils out for the day’s pie-baking. “He’s obviously on his own kind of schedule. He sleeps most of the day, parties all night, probably gets laid whenever he can, then he passes out to do the same thing the next day. Every day for him is same shit, different day.”
    Marie smirked. “Well he’s going to have to learn that the rest of the world doesn’t dance to his tune just because he’s rich and famous. I don’t care how much he’s worth—no one brings illegal drugs onto my property. If he thinks I’m kidding…just wait until I have him arrested.”
    They worked in quiet harmony for a while, two kindred souls who loved and respected each other, and had been working together the same way for years.
    Veronica broke the silence once her pies were in the oven. “Since I don’t have any financial duties this afternoon, maybe I’ll bring him some coffee and pie once they’re