Calendar Girl: October: Book 10 by Audrey Carlan Read Free Book Online

far reach, sweetheart.”
    I shook my head and backed away, grabbing my purse. “Be good today. I’ll miss you.” Turning, I blew him a kiss.
    “Baby, I’ll miss you more than you know.” He waved, and I stepped out into the brisk sunshine of a California morning.
    The limo was waiting. Normally, I would have preferred to drive Suzi since I hadn’t had much time with her, but Wes insisted. Plus, I was wearing a sexy pencil skirt, making it impossible to ride a motorcycle.
    Once I got settled into the black plush leather interior of the limo, I exhaled the breath I felt like I’d been holding for months. Wes’s parting statement clung to me like a bad scent you walked past at the perfume aisle in the mall.
    “Baby, I’ll miss you more than you know.”
    Part of me wanted to stay home with him, wallow in his essence day and night. Only that wasn’t going to get either of us on the path to healing. As much as Wes was hurting, I had my own issues to deal with. When he had night terrors and took his comfort in my body, and then rolled over and went to sleep, that’s when my worry struck. I’d stay awake, watching him sleep soundly for as long as possible, reveling in the fact that he was home, whole, and mine. Which wasn’t exactly true. Wes was alive and whole physically. His mind was like Swiss cheese.
    After a week together, I knew he needed help, and it was up to me as his life mate to get him what he needed. Later on that evening, I’d research some therapists. Maybe call his sister, Jeananna, and get her opinion. Wes wouldn’t want me telling his mother about the night terrors or the lack of desire to return to work. He was devoid of emotion when conversations veered remotely to his life’s passions, movie-making and screenwriting. Claire would worry too much and turn into a helicopter mom hovering over her five-year-old. Only Wes was thirty and didn’t need that kind of attention right now. What he needed was to find himself in all this, realize what he still had, mourn what he’d lost, and find a way to live his life again.
    I figured, with time, he’d get past the ambivalence for his job and come to terms with losing so many of his team—some killed right in front of him. I couldn’t imagine what that had done to his psyche. Wes needed to take a few months off. He had more money than he knew what to do with, so it wasn’t out of the scope of reality. Perhaps a sabbatical from the field after the trauma he experienced would be wise and good for the soul.
----
    A smartly dressed blonde in her twenties, obviously strung tight as a drum, led me through the halls of Century Productions. “You’ll need to be here every weekday promptly at nine.” She looked down at her watch and cringed.
    Okay, so I was a few minutes late. The man at the gate had told me the wrong studio. So even though I’d left a half hour earlier than I needed, I still ended up a few minutes late.
    “Sure thing. Now that I know where to go, I’ll be here earlier.”
    The woman who proudly introduced herself as Dr. Hoffman’s assistant, Shandi, with an “I” nodded curtly and moved along at a fast clip. Her sky-high heels knocking on the concrete floors matched the hurried cadence of my heart. I hadn’t felt rushed like this in months. I’d forgotten how everything in Hollywood moved at the speed of light. One had to be fast on his feet if he wanted to keep up.
    “Makeup and wardrobe is in there.” Shandi pointed to a room with several chairs sitting in front of large mirrors with the bulbous lights that highlighted every wrinkle and blemish on one’s face. I did not look forward to sitting in that hot seat. When I glanced back, Shandi’s gaze seemed to slide over my skirt and blouse. “You’ll do as you are style-wise, though the hair needs some work. This isn’t wild women of the Amazon. We’ll have it pulled back, put into soft curls, something more elegant and professional.” She tapped her chin with a perfectly