Stolen Kiss With The Hollywood Starlet. Lauri Robinson

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       Chapter One

      1927

      Look out, Los Angeles! Shirley Burnette’s rolling into town!

      Shirley giggled at her own thoughts. Could almost hear Pappy saying them.

      He used to say, “Look out, Shirley’s up and at ’em,” every morning without fail.

      Nose glued to the window, she was enthralled, so thrilled her own breath kept fogging up the glass. Swiping the glass clean, she felt her excitement rise higher and higher as she watched the buildings roll by.

      Big ones, little ones and those in between.

      Los Angeles.

      Hollywood.

      The place where dreams came true.

      No more washing dishes. No more shucking corn. No more mucking out stalls. Nebraska was half a nation behind her, and that’s where it was going to stay.

      The train whistle, a screech that could make the hair on your arms stand on end, sounded like bells straight out of heaven to her. She’d waited years to hear that sound.

      Years and years.

      This wasn’t just her dream, it had been her mother’s, and she had to make it come true. No matter what.

      There had been times she’d wondered if that was possible, especially four years ago, when Pappy had died. That’s also when she’d focused on making it come true even harder. She’d tucked away every spare penny she’d made working for Olin Swaggert, and made sure none of the overgrown thugs he called sons didn’t get their grubby hands on it. She made sure they didn’t get their grubby hands on anything else, too.

      Olin kept saying that she was bound to fall in love with one of his boys, get married and live right there on that pig farm forever.

      She’d assured him that would never happen.

      Never.

      Ever.

      A lot of lazy dewdroppers, that’s what the entire clan of Swaggert boys were, and more than once she’d wanted to throw in the towel. The only reason she hadn’t was because Olin had paid her. The Swaggerts were one of the few families who could afford to have a live-in worker.

      Live-in because, thanks to some city slicker lawyer, as soon as Pappy had died, the Swaggerts got the farm. Lock, stock and barrel. The lawyer claimed Pappy had owed Olin money. Lots of it. She’d argued that, but that hadn’t done a wit of good. In the end, she’d been left with no place to live. No place to do much of anything. Olin had offered her a job—out of the goodness of his heart, that’s how he’d put it.

      A heart like his didn’t have any goodness. He’d known how badly it had hurt her to see the house she’d grown up in, lived in her entire life, torn down, but that hadn’t stopped him from tearing it all down and plowing up the land.

      Corn. That was all that was there now. A field of corn.

      That lawyer hadn’t had a heart, either. He’d refused to listen to a word she’d had to say. So had the sheriff, who’d ordered her out of the house. It had been hard to swallow, that there was nothing left of her family. Other than memories and a dream, so with no other options, she’d taken the job with the Swaggerts and turned her focus to saving up the money to get here. To where the only thing she had left was sure to come true.

      Los Angeles. The City of Angels.

      It was fitting. A girl who sang like an angel should live in the City of СКАЧАТЬ