Read Dreaming With My Eyes Wide Open (Hollywood Legends #2) for Free Online Page A

mortgaged ranch.
    After such a long time, Chuck hadn’t known what he would feel when he stepped
    onto the familiar Double C soil.
    It took only seconds to find out. For the first time in ten
    years, Chuck Chamberlin was home.
    Everything he had learned in Hollywood came in handy. The
    main house was a mess. Calling it rundown was being kind. Chuck didn’t mind. He
    rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
    Winter would be on him before he knew it. He hadn’t been
    gone so long that he didn’t remember what it was like when the heavy snow hit.
    The roof needed repairs before anything else. When that was done, Chuck fixed
    the sagging back porch, the front entryway. It seemed like there was an endless
    list.
    Chuck tackled every task with happy gusto. When the first
    snowflake fell, the outside was ready. With only a few head of cattle to tend,
    he spent the next few months making the inside of the house shine like it did
    when he was a small boy.
    There was no time to be lonely. Or so he thought. It was a
    bitterly cold day in early January when his isolation hit him. The snow piled
    up. He made a run into Basic once a month to replenish his supplies, but other
    than that, human contact was non-existent.
    Chuck was almost at his wits’ end when an angel came
    calling.
    Erin Wakes was the new schoolteacher in Basic. A Southern
    girl, she wasn’t used to snow of any kind. Her first Montana winter had come as
    a shock. On weekends, she liked to visit the families of her students. An icy
    patch of road and a large snow bank proved providential.
    Chuck’s was the nearest house. When the pretty, rosy-cheeked
    blonde knocked on his door, it was love at first sight. For them both.
    Though she had never hammered a single nail, Erin began
    spending her weekends helping Chuck fix up the house. She was a fast learner.
    By spring, her stamp was in every room from the paint color on the walls to the
    fabric hanging at every window.
    In June, when Chuck carried his new bride over the gleaming
    threshold, it wasn’t his house. It was theirs.
    Erin was his helpmate in everything he did. He shared his
    dream to raise horses instead of cattle and soon it was her dream too.
    Separately, they had always been determined, capable people. Together, nothing
    could stop them.
    For the next thirty years, that remained true. Chuck and
    Erin grew their fledgling business slowly but surely. They bought horses at
    bargain basement prices. They came cheap because they were considered misfits.
    Too small. Too slow. Untrainable.
    What other people saw as a problem, Chuck and Erin saw as a
    challenge. They were seldom wrong. Chuck knew horseflesh — one of the many
    things he learned while in California.
    It turned out Erin was the one with the touch . She
    shied away from terms like horse whisperer . She called it common sense.
    Yes, she talked to them. However, they didn’t talk back. It was instinct and
    trust that allowed her to get so much out of the horses no one else wanted.
    Soon, they made a good living selling the animals to the
    proper owner. Erin insisted on making sure there was a proper fit before they
    exchanged money. She took pride in what they did. That included her care and
    love for each and every horse.
    It took five years to pay off the debt Chuck had inherited.
    The business grew to a comfortable size. They weren’t rich, but they wanted for
    nothing. A healthy, bundle of energy only added to their happiness. Their
    beloved daughter had her father’s brown eyes and love of the land. She
    inherited her mother’s honey-blond hair and her way with horses.
    For thirty years, it was a near perfect life.
    That life changed forever when Erin was diagnosed with an
    aggressive form of liver cancer. A year later, she was gone.
    Chuck Chamberlin had lost his anchor. His partner. The love
    of his life. Paige helped. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have gotten out
    of bed each morning. For those first few months, all he wanted to do