Trailer Trash [Deep Ellum] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)
Deep Ellum
Trailer Trash
The past can set you free. Or possess you forever...
Producing romance book trailers is Nina Graham’s profession. Working with shallow, good-looking actors playing the hero is in her job description, but when she meets sexy Judson Lane she wonders if he’s just another one of “them” or could there be more beneath his handsome surface? She sees more, but her broken past has followed her to Deep Ellum.
So has his...
Judson Lane has relocated from New York City to Dallas’ Deep Ellum to play the hero in a romance book trailer. He finds Nina more than beautiful. She’s intelligent and ambitious, exactly the kind of woman he stays away from. Judson can’t ignore that being with her makes him a better man, but when their pasts collide the joy they have found may not survive the crash.
Can they reconcile their sorrows within the magic of Deep Ellum or will the past continue to possess the future?
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 35,591 words
TRAILER TRASH
Deep Ellum
Catherine Hatten
ROMANCE
www.BookStrand.com
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A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE
IMPRINT: Romance
TRAILER TRASH
Copyright © 2013 by Catherine Hatten
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-997-4
First E-book Publication: May 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For Mama, who raised me to know I was a survivor, and then always believed.
Deepest thanks to my very special friends and family who stood by me during the writing of this book by reading, critiquing, and encouraging, always: Beth Ann, Caytie, Cindy, Connie, Da Juana, Jill, Kathleen, Kendy, Melissa, Patsy, Sandra, Susan, and Terri.
TRAILER TRASH
Deep Ellum
CATHERINE HATTEN
Copyright © 2013
Foreword
Long ago Deep Ellum had a reputation as a major blues and jazz destination in the South. Legends like Robert Johnson, Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, Bessie Smith, and later the New Bohemians and Nirvana answered destiny’s call to the open arms of Deep Ellum.
There was and is no bedtime for the grand old lady. She keeps all hours hosting business and leisure, religion and mysticism, earning and gambling, giving and taking, all at the same time without friction.
To this day Dallas’s Deep Ellum remains no ordinary place, nor can she be labeled just another old, run-down neighborhood trying to come back to life. She never really died. Instead she lay for a time resting her old bones, waiting for the eclectic, creative, daring ones to return to her and her to them, every kind of person with every kind of dream. Masterpieces created, written, painted, sewn, sung, acted, dishes prepared…all of these talents welcomed and nurtured equally. She would see many hopes fulfilled, others sometimes seemingly broken. But even in the breaking comes a firm realization of where to go, of following the more fitting and successful paths Deep Ellum leads the dreamers to.
Here is the place for ideals to rise up through the dust of past generations, moving forward to rich endings delivered through joy and laughter, pain and disappointment…and hard work. The spirit of Deep Ellum is being reborn to greatness bit by bit, step by step giving birth again, dream by dream.
Yes, the great old lady is rising again, to heights never before reached by her or her people, by those reaching far beyond the stars, because in Deep Ellum they can. Love, fortitude, and pursuit of sacred ambitions breathe through her, taking those daring to search to places they’d only hoped existed.
The name Deep Ellum fits well. She is very, very deep…
Chapter One
Nina arrived to the shoot in a horrible mood, and she wasn’t sure why. She loved her work, directing and creating video projects of all kinds, the latest being book trailers for romance novels. This week’s project was the first of a trilogy of books for the same publisher, Love and Romance, or LAR. They’d wrapped another project two weeks ago.
She liked the genre, loved reading the novels. Shooting them was another thing. Her “stars” were always conceited, shallow prima donnas and pretty boys without a brain in their heads. But this work paid the bills very nicely and then some. For that she would put up with a lot. She’d pulled herself up and out of poverty and pain and embarrassment, away from the love affair her parents had with the bottle, and she’d never looked back.
By God, she’d never look back…
* * * *
Nina stepped onto set energized and buzzing with activity. The first scene was to be shot in a modern, deserted, and dusty kitchen she had negotiated for where a cooking show was taped. The place couldn’t have been more perfect for this scene and wasn’t too far from her production studio in Deep Ellum.
The creative energy of a busy set always felt good, like a surge that moved her toward her goal of financial security. And these book trailers reminded her that true love and passion and thoughts of forever were pure fiction, something that made it easier for readers to stand the jerk they’d committed to for the long haul. Nina felt privileged to play her small part in that. It was her contribution to lessening the divorce rate.
Her mood lightened.
She took a deep breath, noting that this set made their job a lot easier because it was specially designed for lighting, audio, camera angles, the whole enchilada. She snorted with a grin. No pun intended, but the set was used for cooking! One of her partners, Sherry Teal, consulted with several people who worked here regularly on the cooking show. They marked the places for the actors and were completely oblivious to Nina’s arrival. Though she’d done the drill the night before, Nina would still have to get the camera in the case she carried set up, as well as the second one in her car. The new audio and grip guy they’d hired hadn’t been on set last night, and she was anxious to meet him. Good help in this business was hard to find because of the low
wages, but Sherry assured her the guy was more than competent. At any rate, she felt sure they could complete this scene quickly.
Come to think of it, the new hire must be here already. It was just a matter of meeting him.
Noticing that Sherry had disappeared to who knew where, Nina looked around for people she didn’t know. A tall, really well-built guy stood to the side of the set looking around with his hands in his pockets and his back to her. He looked like he might be a little older than she’d expected, considering the pay scale. But people did what they had to do to survive these days. Including her. He must be poor because his tight jeans were faded and clearly well worn. The tan shirt he wore looked dirty and had a tear in one long sleeve, and his work boots needed replacing pretty badly.
When he turned toward her, the blue brilliance of his eyes got her attention even at a distance, they were deep-set, bright blue framed by perfect sandy-blond brows to match his thick head of hair. Wow. It seemed grips were pretty good-looking these days. He might even do for in front of the camera if a project called for it. She realized she must look like an idiot to her new employee, standing there holding her briefcase in one hand with a tripod under her arm, a very bulky, heavy backpack over her other shoulder, and the camera case that felt like she would lose it at any moment.
He obviously did notice and made his way over to relieve her of some of her baggage. His strides were long, and he got there quickly.
“Need some help?” The voice was husky, and there was a very slight Southern accent.
Nina stared at first, then caught herself. What was his name? Crap…
Without a word he bent to take the camera case out of her hand and the backpack off her shoulder, then asked, “Where do these go?”
She looked to the right and started that way. “Over here. Follow me. John, right?”
“Judson.”
“Oh, okay, sorry, Judson. Welcome to DEP. Glad to have you onboard.” The words trailed behind her as she moved.
Damn, she was the worst at names, and Sherry had told her his name several times. Twenty-eight was too young for Alzheimer’s, she was sure of it. She reminded herself that her mother’s was hurried along with liquor, and Nina was a teetotaler, so no worries. She was certain, however, that Sherry hadn’t mentioned they’d hired someone who looked like this, which was unusual. Her dear friend never failed to mention a good-looking guy.
“Thanks, glad to be here,” Judson answered as he ambled along behind her.
“Have you done this type of work before?” she asked, a little embarrassed that she hadn’t even bothered to look at his resume.
“This is my first video gig,” he answered and smiled down at her, revealing a perfectly beautiful set of teeth accented by full lips.
Hmm. Not much of a conversationalist and a bit inexperienced for her taste, too. But, hot damn, was he cute!
“Thanks, Judson, just put that down here, and I’ll set the camera up. We never leave equipment overnight at any out of studio sets, so that’s why we didn’t set up last night. We always try to get things set before the day of the shoot,” Nina said and started unpacking. She didn’t try to explain that the ones used for the cooking show would produce footage inconsistent with what their cameras produced. He’d figure things out as they went.
Sherry came back to the set and began creating a dusty look for the kitchen with everything else in perfect order except for the dust.
“Hey, boss! Decided to show up, did ya?” Sherry called across the set as she slammed chalk erasers over the countertops.
“Oh, yeah, I thought it was a good idea. Hey, how’s the fairy dusting going? Did we get enough from all that chalk we scribbled with late into the night?” Nina moved the camera case further away from the dusting as she yelled to Sherry.
“We did, and I like the effect. Don’t you think it’s going to look like real dust?”
“We’ll still need to look at it on camera in this lighting, but it looked good when we tried it at the studio.” Nina worked while she spoke. They’d been asked to wait to the last moment to put their “dust” onto the pristine surfaces of the gourmet kitchen.
“Hi, there.” Sherry stopped in mid-slam of the chalk erasers and spoke to Judson.
“Hello, do you ladies need any more help?”
“Yes. Please go out to the truck and get the other camera and tripod,” Nina said to Judson. Sherry gave her an odd look.
“Sure thing. Which truck is it, and is it unlocked?”
“Oh, yeah, you’re new. It’s the old, blue Jeep parked near the door.”
Without a word, Judson left to get the requested items.
“What the hell?” Sherry asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean who is this guy?”
“The new grip, Judson. Right? Why are you asking me? You and Thomas hired him. Did you hire him over the phone, or what?” Nina stopped fooling with the camera and looked at Sherry like she’d grown horns.
“No, the new grip is John, and he looks nothing like that. I don’t know who this guy is, but John is picking up some stuff for the shoot. He’ll be in any second.”
Nina straightened from her task, nodding her head. “Yeah, I thought the new guy’s name was John. Cool.”
“Cool? Who is this guy, besides a gorgeous specimen of manhood?” Sherry’s eyes sparkled.
“Um-hmm, he’s cute. Wonder who he is. Hey, can we trust him with our equipment?” Concern shot through Nina, and she started toward the door.
Sherry shook her head. “God!”
“What?” Nina made a sudden stop.
“What do you mean ‘what’?” Sherry stood with her hands on her hips.
“What are you shaking your head at?”
“You.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you act like you’re immune to good-looking men, and I know a heart beats in there somewhere.”
“I have a heart, Sherry. I just want to make money doing these trailers and other videos and can’t afford for some stranger to steal our equipment. We can’t make money if we lose our expensive equipment or if I’m distracted. By the way, has Deannie shown up with her actors yet? I haven’t heard from her since late last night when she got in town. She’s going to be different to work with. Gloria was so up front, with Deannie everything’s shrouded in mystery,” Nina groused.
“Yeah, Gloria was awesome. Haven’t heard a peep out of the mysterious Deannie this morning. But we’re not scheduled to start the shoot for another two hours.”
“Okay, let me go make sure our equipment isn’t being taken down the street.” Nina started toward the door then stopped in her tracks.
“Oh, John, I see you met Judson,” Sherry said as the two men approached, and noticed for the first time that Judson looked like he’d been sleeping under a bridge, tattered clothes, worn work boots…
“Sort of. Hey, Judson, I’m John, the new grip, audio guy, gopher, whatever.” The lanky young man offered his spindly hand to Judson after putting down some of the items he’d helped Judson retrieve from Nina’s Jeep. He was dressed nicely, too, in new jeans, black Birkenstocks, and a gray hoodie floating over his thin torso. A peace sign dangled from his neck. “Hey, man, I appreciate you getting some of this equipment out of the truck.”
Nina cleared her throat. “John, I’m Nina, Sherry and Thomas’s partner. Glad you’re with us.”
“Yeah, me, too,” the young man said. He took Nina’s extended hand, then turned to Judson.
“Could you help me with the catering stuff? We need to get it on the table, and some of it needs to go in the fridge pretty quick before we finish setting up the equipment.”
Judson looked from Nina to Sherry, then back to Nina.
Nina shrugged. “Sure, go ahead if you’d like, but today will be the only gig for the time being. We pay eight dollars an hour.” Strange. He really was way too good-looking a man to be homeless. Maybe he just didn’t care. The blows of life could do
a lot to people. She took an involuntary sniff, then felt bad about it while noting he actually didn’t smell.
A smile played on Judson’s lips. “Why, thank you, Ms. Graham.”
His smile was contagious and matched by Nina’s, much to her surprise. And how did he know her last name?
“You’re so welcome, Mr…?”
“Lane’s the last name.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Lane. Now, let’s get going! We have to be ready for the actors in two hours, and they don’t like to be kept waiting.”
Everyone jumped into action. Judson and John took off and got back with the food, put it in place, and within forty-five minutes the set was ready for the first scene of trailer number one.
When Nina finished getting the cameras in place and felt satisfied with the angles and the lighting, she looked around, asking Sherry and John, “Where’d the other guy disappear to?”
“Said he had another gig to get to and for you not to worry about the little bit of time he worked,” John volunteered.
“He did? Well, that’s nice of him, but what if we’d needed him for the rest of the day?”
“Don’t know, just said he had something else he had to do.”
“Too bad,” Sherry muttered under her breath.
Chapter Two
Deannie Marks made a grand entrance onto the set. Her position with one of the hottest romance book publishers was well known industry-wide. Rumor had it she was always looking for new writing talent, which had bled over into the book trailers. She wouldn’t give the names or backgrounds of her hero and heroine but promised a great surprise and that she’d made quite a coup landing these two.