Secrets Collide (Bluegrass Brothers)

I'm going to start filming next. I could use someone with your talents on the set.”
    “I’m sure. These past ten years have been great, but I'm ready to go home.” Cy thought of his family and felt his heart constrict a little. It seemed as if every time they had needed him, he had been on location.
    “Then turn your badge and gun in to the prop man,” Douglas grinned as he adjusted the yellow L.A. Lakers hat over his balding head. He whipped out his bullhorn and faced the crew who were busy cleaning up from the day. “Cy’s retirement party tonight at seven at Molly’s. I’m buying the first round.”
     
    Cy sat back on the wooden bar stool and tapped his fingers on the large bar at Molly’s. Douglas was chatting with the executive producer while the lead actress, Pepper Warner, sashayed her way toward him. Her surgically perfect breasts didn’t bounce, though the black see-through shirt and the red leather pants hugged every inch of her lithe body.
    “You’re much too sexy to retire. That makes you sound like an old fuddy-duddy and you’ve proven you're anything but that.” Pepper winked as she ran a perfectly manicured red nail down his chest.
    “Thanks, Pep. But I have a farm and a bunch of family waiting for me back home. I'm eager to get back and spend some quality time with them. The shooting schedule has kept me so busy, I haven’t been home since Christmas.”
    “I might just have to come and see this farm that holds greater lure than Hollywood,” Pepper teased as she leaned against the bar, showing off her greatest asset, because it sure wasn’t her acting.
    “Anytime.” Cy picked up his glass and shot the last swallow of bourbon as he thought about his brothers letting him try it for the first time in the barn before they went off to join the Army. Cy hadn’t been old enough when his three older brothers—Miles, Marshall, and Cade—had signed up after 9/11, but he had spent the whole night with them talking about the family and what they were about to get into.
    Pepper leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll text you some reasons to come back. You’ll be missing L.A. so much that you’ll be back in six months.”
    Cy smiled, but he knew he was done. But that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy watching Pepper’s perfect posterior making its way out the door. “I’m going to miss you too, Cy. “ The soft voice came from beside him.
    “I’m going to miss you, too, Taylor.” Cy slung his arm over the young actress’s shoulder. “Do you have everything packed?”
    “Yes. Promise you’ll call me? I’ve never done anything like this and I'm actually really nervous.” Taylor Jefferies shoved her hands into the back pockets of her skinny jeans and nibbled on her bottom lip.
    “You’ll be fine. No one knows your actual last name and if you dye your signature blonde hair, no one will recognize you. Just pay attention to your teachers and have fun.” Cy squeezed her shoulder. “College is the best time of your life.”
    Taylor raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Better than the Oscar I won last year?”
    “Better. You know why?” Cy waited for her to shake her head. “Because you get to learn things and discover who you are, not just who a director tells you to be. And you get to make friends—real friends who don’t care if you eat carbs or don’t wear makeup.”
    “I’m going to miss you, Uncle Cy. It seems like just yesterday you taught me how to do my own stunts.”
    Cy smiled. He still remembered the little eight-year-old girl on the movie set standing at the edge of the tree house looking down at the mats with tears in her eyes. Her parents were yelling at her to jump as the director was throwing his clipboard and anything else he could get his hands on. But Taylor was frozen in place. It was her first stunt and Cy calmly walked over to her and introduced himself. He made a joke and she cracked a smile. Climbing up the small rope ladder, he showed her how to jump and promised he’d catch her. She had jumped and started a ten-year career that resulted in many awards.
    She had emancipated herself at sixteen after her parents stole over $3,000,000 from her. Cy had spent every day with her at the lawyer’s office and then in court. Taylor bought a house not far from him. He taught her how to cook, how to clean her house, and then how to drive. Sadly, she had become more like his little sister than Paige, his real little sister. And that was