Redwood Bend

days?”
“I want to check on Lang and the company, too. I didn’t think you had anything else you had to do.”
“You have our names spelled exactly right for travel. The birthdates are correct. How did you know I was Katherine Marie Malone?”
“That was dicey—I had to look at your driver’s license. I figured if you caught me in your wallet, I’d get the air horn, or worse. And you keep the birth certificates in the trunk along with Charlie’s medals.”
“Hmm. And this has to do with Conner how?” she asked.
“If Conner and I are going to be friends, I didn’t dare take you out of town without talking to him—he’d have the Feds running me down. Here’s what I have to do,” he said, pulling out another piece of paper, another ticketless reservation. “I have to make a quick trip down to L.A. for a meeting with those movie people I’ve been working with. Jay Romney, the producer who made this offer, is an old friend and when he wants to meet, it’s the least I can do. The man has tried to help me in any way he can. One meeting—and it should be quick. I’ll be gone one night. When I get back, we’ll pack some bags. You won’t need much—the weather is about the same as here. And I can get booster seats and whatever from Lang.”
She got a worried look on her face. “Is your movie deal all put together?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“Do you hope…?” she asked.
He gave her cheek a soft caress and smiled. “What I hope is that you and the boys have fun with me in Montana. I’m kind of proud of it.”
This time Dylan didn’t wear business meeting clothes to see Jay Romney in L.A., although he now had them. He did wear decent jeans with his boots, however. And he had asked specifically to meet in the office, not in a restaurant or at Jay’s lavish Brentwood home. He also asked if it could be just the two of them, sans directors, lawyers, agents or administrative assistants.
When he walked into the office at four in the afternoon, hopefully the last meeting of the day for Jay, he couldn’t help but appreciate the rich decor—the Moroccan leather furniture, the polished rosewood, the original art and the view—Jay sat on top of Hollywood, overlooking the lesser movie gods. It made him smile; there was a time Dylan aspired to something like this.
Jay stood from behind his desk. For someone who worked and lived in this modern opulence, Jay was a pretty simple man. He was the father of grown children, he was bald with a ring of brown hair around his dome and even though he surfed, ran and worked out, he had a bit of a paunch.
What the majority of the glittering city didn’t understand about Jay—he was a genuinely decent guy. That didn’t make him a patsy; he was a fierce negotiator. But he had unshakable ethics and his values ran deep—the only reason Dylan ever talked to him at all.
“Something about this meeting feels wrong,” Jay said.
“Not at all, not at all,” Dylan said, approaching, putting out his hand. “Good to see you.”
“Drink?” Jay asked, moving from behind the desk to the buffet that doubled as a bar.
“I think so, yes,” Dylan said. “What’s the special tonight?”
“A very expensive, aged single malt or a cold beer,” Jay said.
Dylan laughed. “That cold beer sounds pretty good. Do you know how many planes a person has to board to get from Virgin River to L.A.?”
Jay opened two cold bottled beers and handed one to Dylan, without the chilled glass, without the linen napkin. Then he half leaned, half sat on the front edge of his desk, facing Dylan. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Dylan tipped back the beer first. “I want to start by telling you how grateful I am. Not for a potential movie deal, Jay, but to have you for a friend. You’re one of the very few people in the business I’m proud to have call me. It must be hard sometimes, dealing with all the stuff you deal with, when you’re driven by such rigid scruples.”
Jay laughed. “All right, all right. You could’ve just sent flowers. Or a case of that single malt.”
“I came to tell you that I’m not an actor. I’m a pilot and a rancher.”
Jay took a moment to absorb the shock. Then he said, “You might be a pilot and rancher, but you are by God an actor. One of the few naturals I know. I saw you when you were ten—”
“You saw a kid who couldn’t read but could memorize anything, but I wasn’t sure what was going on around me, I just wanted to please