Show Time (Juniper Ridge Romantic Comedies Book 1) Read online

  About Show Time

  A Juniper Ridge romantic comedy

  It’s a wacky concept. Take an abandoned cult compound and cast the cops, teachers, farmers, and nurses needed for a self-contained community. Throw in some cameras and presto! Instant TV hit.

  There’s only one family with the chops to make it work, so the Judsons pack up their LA lives for a fresh start in rural Oregon. Big brother Dean has brokered billions in Hollywood deals. Surely he can produce a tiny town from scratch? He just needs a finance guru to help him prep for showtime while Dean does his best to forget having his heart smashed to withered bits.

  Vanessa Vincent ticks all the boxes, with the bonus of zero interest in the mating game aspect of Juniper Ridge. Just give her some spreadsheets and leave her in peace to turn her own wrecked romances into little more than bad flashbacks.

  But Dean and Vanessa don’t count on their epic chemistry, or a stranger who’ll stop at nothing to keep Juniper Ridge from debut day. Can they build the dream without risking their hearts, or will it fade to black before the first act ends?

  Show Time

  A Juniper Ridge romantic comedy

  Tawna Fenske

  Contents

  Also in the Juniper Ridge romantic comedy series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  20. Your exclusive sneak peek at Show Time

  21. Your exclusive peek at Snowbound Squeeze

  Don’t Miss Out!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Tawna Fenske

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2020 Tawna Fenske

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  www.tawnafenske.com

  Cover design by Craig Zagurski

  Created with Vellum

  Also in the Juniper Ridge romantic comedy series

  Show Time

  Let It Show (coming March 2021!)

  Show Down (coming soon!)

  Just for Show (coming soon!)

  Show and Tell (coming soon!)

  Show of Hands (coming soon!)

  You might also dig my Ponderosa Resort rom-com series. That’s where you’ll get your first glimpse of characters from Juniper Ridge, including Val and Vanessa in Mancandy Crush and Dean and Gabe in Snowbound Squeeze. Check them out here:

  Studmuffin Santa

  Chef Sugarlips

  Sergeant Sexypants

  Hottie Lumberjack

  Stiff Suit

  Mancandy Crush (novella)

  Captain Dreamboat

  Snowbound Squeeze (novella)

  Dr. Hot Stuff (coming December 2020!)

  Chapter 1

  CONFESSIONAL 32.5

  Judson, Dean (CEO: Juniper Ridge)

  What? No, of course I’m not fucking camera shy. Jesus, Lauren. I grew up with the damn things shoved in my face just like you. Production value? [unintelligible muttering] Can’t I just run the business side of—yeah, I know. All in this together, blah blah. I still don’t see why I have to sit here like a trained parrot and—[heavy sigh] Fine. But only for the business. It’s not because you’re doing the sad little sister face. Or because I love you.

  Oh, bite me.

  I glance at the clock in my office, trying to decide if I have enough time to grab coffee. In my old life, I had an assistant who’d set a hot mug in front of me before I even thought the word coffee.

  But my old life was full of dirty money and blinding lights and the constant stench of desperation, so getting my own coffee is a small price to pay.

  Six minutes. That’s how long I have until the candidate for chief financial officer makes her appearance. How long does it take to make coffee, anyway?

  “Here are the notes for the police officers’ screen tests.” My sister, Mari, strides in with a folder in her hands and a pencil speared through her lopsided bun. “Lauren emailed you the video files. I think the psych eval on—”

  “Doesn’t this seem weird to you?” I fold my hands on my desk as Mari stops moving for once and looks at me. “I mean, we’re hiring professionals based on how well they’ll perform on camera.”

  Mari sighs and whacks the folder down in front of me a lot harder than necessary. “We’re making a reality show, not staffing the Oval Office. And we’re hiring them for specific skills they bring to the community.” She gives me the look over the rim of her glasses. “Are we going to keep having this conversation? Because if we are, I’ll ask Lauren to tape my response and you can hit play by yourself.”

  “That sounds about right.” Our brother, Gabe, ambles through the door grinning. “I only caught the end of that, but if we’re suggesting Dean spends his days in here buffing the banana, we should rethink letting him have the big office.”

  “Get out.” I glance over my brother’s shoulder at the clock. “I’ve got five minutes until my next interview gets here.”

  “She’s already here.” Gabe drops into one of my guest chairs, in no hurry to get gone. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. She’s been out in the waiting room for ten minutes.”

  Punctual. That’s a good sign. I make a mental note as Gabe kicks his legs out and folds his hands behind his head. “She’s actually sort of related.”

  A ripple of unease churns my gut. I’m not a fan of nepotism. I saw way too much of that in Hollywood. “Related to whom?”

  “To us,” he says. “Well, me. My wife.” He draws out the word like a guy who has not yet exhausted the novelty of it. To be fair, it’s been three weeks since the wedding, and also his wife is awesome. “Gretchen’s brother, Jon—his dad has this sister—”

  “Jon’s late father,” Mari puts in, always big on establishing the human connection. “Who is no relation to Gretchen because she and Jon had different fathers.”

  I’m already lost in the branches of my brother’s new family tree. “So, we’re not talking immediate family here?”

  Gabe glares. “Will you let me finish, chief tight-ass?”

  I sigh and wave him on, glancing at the clock again. I suppose I’ll live without the coffee.

  “Anyway, Gretchen’s brother’s father’s sister has these twin daughters, and one of them—”

  “Vanessa Vincent,” I interrupt. I like how the name sounds rolling off my tongue, strong and no-nonsense. “Harvard MBA, two years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, expertise in forensic accounting, compliance, and internal audit management.”

  Gabe blinks. “You know all of this?”

  “I know everything.” Not always, but ever since my personal life took a big nosedive, I’ve made it my business to foresee all possible landmines. Fool me once and all that.

  “Anyway,” my brother continues, “she completed our Community Compatibility Questionnaire.” He pauses here and smiles at Mari. “Nice job on that, by the w
ay.”

  My sister nods. “Glad to know the psych doctorate is useful to you,” she says dryly.

  I give them the universal hurry up hand signal, my duty as the eldest brother. “You were saying?”

  Gabe swings his focus back to me. “Vanessa’s answers in the personal information section were really interesting. Under ‘level of interest in finding a spouse or mate,’ she chose negative three.”

  I frown at Mari. “I thought it was a scale of one to ten?”

  “It was,” she says. “Ms. Vincent somehow found a way to alter the online questionnaire to insert a new answer.”

  Noteworthy. Noteworthy and…interesting.

  “The rest of her responses were the same,” Gabe continues. “Under ‘I see myself getting married in the next five years,’ she went with negative six.”

  Mari clears her throat. “There’s also a write-in answer with that one. It reads, and I quote, ‘roughly the same as the odds I will wake tomorrow with an overwhelming urge to drive a flaming fork through my eyeball.’”

  “I see.” I already liked Ms. Vincent’s resumé, but this is giving me a new dimension.

  A dimension I relate to on a primal level. The CFO will be my closest working colleague at Juniper Ridge. While a part of this social experiment hinges on participants pairing up, the opposite is vital for me.

  “Thank you for the information,” I tell them. “I’ll take it into consideration.”

  Gabe glances at his watch and stands up. “Gotta go. Lauren and I are filming B-roll over in the residences.”

  Mari follows, her bun flopping slightly to one side. “Good luck with the interview,” she tells me. “Call us when you’re done. I want to go over my proposal for the psych profiles of culinary community members.”

  “No crazy chefs,” I tell her. “Or bakers. Or—”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Mari rolls her eyes. “Without your input, I’d definitely put psychotic criminals in charge of our food supply.”

  She’s out the door before I can retort, which is just as well. I didn’t have anything clever to say anyway. I glance at my watch and see there’s no time left for coffee.

  Heaving myself out of my chair, I make my way down the hall and into the lobby. For a former cult compound, this place is pretty nice. Case in point, this lodge with its high ceilings and springy cork floors and enough offices for all six Judson offspring. There’s also an on-site film studio, which I’ll be keeping my distance from as much as possible.

  Trudging into the waiting area, I’m struck by its lone occupant. Dark hair with just enough wave to leave it rippling around her shoulders as she taps away on a laptop. Slender curves, which I absolutely shouldn’t be noticing. I can’t see her eyes until she looks up and hits me square in the chest with the full force of liquid brown irises the color of warm cognac.

  She shuts the laptop and shoves it in her bag on the chair beside her, then stands with a bright smile. “Hello.”

  “Ms. Vincent, I presume?” My voice cracks only a little as I extend a hand and do my best to cover the fact that she’s knocked me off balance. “I’m Dean Judson, CEO. Thank you for waiting. Would you like coffee?”

  “Absolutely.” She shakes my hand with a firm grip. “It’s great to finally meet you. My cousin told me so much about you.”

  “That would be—Jonathan.” I met him when I first came to Oregon to rescue my brother from himself. Since Gabe wound up marrying into Jon’s family, I can’t claim much credit for how great my brother’s doing.

  “I’m glad you brought that up, actually,” I tell Vanessa. “The fact that you’re here—it has nothing to do with any family connection. Your credentials were simply impeccable.”

  “Impeccable, huh?” She grins and slings a gigantic purse over her shoulder in a cross-body style. I keep my eyes locked on her face, unaffected by the sight of the strap pressing a soft path between her breasts.

  “Impeccable,” I repeat. “Former accounting manager for America’s second-largest television network. Treasurer and CFO for a Silicon Valley startup.” I take a step back, intent on keeping a professional distance between us. “In your last role, you raised more than $50 million in venture capital for a company devoted to establishing sustainable farming practices in third-world countries.”

  Vanessa gives a low whistle. “You did your homework. Some of that wasn’t even on my resumé.”

  “I believe in being thorough.” There’s an understatement. “Come on. Coffeemaker’s this way.”

  I lead her into the breakroom, hoping like hell one of my siblings was kind enough to brew some.

  No dice. Lana didn’t even wash her mug that says, “I’m actually not funny. I’m just mean and people think I’m joking.”

  I rinse it and set it in the drying rack before rummaging in the back of a lower cupboard for my favorite mug. I’ve had it twelve years and keep it tucked away so it doesn’t end up lost or broken or nabbed by one of my five siblings. Turning to face the coffeemaker, I assess the task at hand. Christ, this thing has more buttons than my HP 12C Platinum accounting calculator.

  But if I can mastermind a decade of Hollywood’s biggest real estate deals and filmmaker financing, I can make a simple cup of coffee. I punch a few levers and yank at something that spurts a sharp hiss of steam. Finally locating the part that holds coffee grounds, I dump the soggy ones in the trash and hunt for a new filter.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” I ask.

  “Not at all.” Vanessa leans back against the counter to watch me work. “The directions you sent were spot on. This is definitely in the middle of nowhere.”

  “That’s by design, I suppose.”

  “No joke,” she says. “The BONK founders wanted their privacy.”

  One of the few things to admire about the former members of the Benevolent Order of the New Kingdom, the former cult that built this place.

  I stare into the vessel where the coffee grounds go. How much do I put in here? I could check the filter I just tossed, but it seems in poor taste to paw through the trash with a prospective job candidate watching. And she is watching; I can feel her eyes on me.

  “Need help?” she asks cheerfully. “I’ve got some pour-over coffee packs in my purse. Sugar and creamer, too.”

  “Nope, I’ve got it.” Noteworthy about the coffee, though. Well-prepared accountants are a plus.

  Dragging a flowered tin from the back of the cupboard, I pry off the lid. Coffee grounds. I settle for eyeballing it, dumping in a hefty pile into the fresh filter before slamming the trap door shut. Now where does the water go?

  Glancing at Vanessa, I decide to get the interview started. “I assume you’ve been briefed on the concept of Fresh Start at Juniper Ridge.”

  I cross my fingers she hasn’t caught on that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Not with the coffee, anyway. I’ve got a handle on the rest.

  “Of course,” she says. “Reality television show centered around a thoughtfully planned, self-contained community.” She’s reciting straight from our website, and I admire that. I admire it a lot. “You’re bringing in a diverse group of individuals representing a variety of professions, backgrounds, and lifestyles, and setting the stage for them to create a completely sustainable microcosm of society.”

  “Correct.” Seriously, where does the water go? I yank at a lever and end up unplugging the machine. “It’s part social experiment, part entertainment, part a chance to resurrect a piece of property with some questionable history.”

  “BONK was certainly one of the more—colorful cults.”

  I appreciate that she’s being tactful, but it’s not necessary. “You mean the part where they believed their leader was the progeny of an extraterrestrial prophet and Charlie Sheen, or the part where they touted mass orgies as a means of growing the roster?”

  She laughs. “All of it. I take it you won’t be shying away from that history?”

  “Might as well let viewers learn from other
s’ missteps so they’re not doomed to repeat them.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see her stiffen. When I look up, she’s dropped her shoulders again. Or maybe I imagined the whole thing.

  Turning back to the coffeemaker, I pry off a piece that turns out to be the water chamber. Now we’re getting somewhere.

  “The BONK founders created one hell of an impressive town, so we’re just giving it new legs.” Belatedly, I realize I’ve just cursed at a job candidate. But if cursing offends her, she’s unlikely to fit the Juniper Ridge family. Maybe it’s a job test.

  Or maybe she’s the one testing me, waiting to see how badly I’ll screw up the coffee thing before I ask for help. I can’t tell from her face if she’s judging. Her expression’s impassive, patient, even serene.

  Damn, she’s beautiful.

  If I weren’t dead inside, I might notice things like that.

  “It’s a clever concept,” Vanessa says, jarring me back to the fact that we’re in job interview mode, even though we haven’t made it to my office. “And financially speaking, there’s high potential for revenue. The files you sent on advertisers who’ve committed—I took the liberty of setting up some spreadsheets, which I’d be happy to show you.”

  “That—that would be great.” I glance at her, braced for the coquettish smile I’ve gotten from dozens of social climbing show biz types. The ‘show me your private office,’ or ‘Let me prove how much I want this job.’

  But Vanessa’s slipping a pair of glasses out of her purse and setting up her laptop on the breakroom table. As the coffee starts to perk, she opens up Excel and dives right into the numbers.