About Sanctuary

by Cat Kane
46 pages / 19000 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-084-9, 1-60370-084-6
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

Jay is on his way to a retreat, leaving LA and his Hollywood job behind to deal with his anger management issues. Popping an A-list star in the nose isn’t great for the career. He thinks he’s found the end of the earth, and Jay just knows he’s going to be bored to tears.

Then he meets Noah, the grandson of the retreat owner, and the slow life suddenly seems a heck of a lot more interesting. Noah may be young and optimistic, but he’s got a much better handle on life than Jay. Can he teach Jay about the things that are really important?

Sample

According to the GPS, the road didn’t even exist. There was no sign, just a turn-off buried in the dense woodland that he’d have missed if he didn’t have the route mapped out on a scrap of paper on the seat next to him. Jay had been skeptical when the proprietor told him on the telephone to pay attention, but the man's warning had proved correct.

“Take my word for it, Mr. Croft; you’ll want to make a note of the directions.”

The road was nothing more than a narrow gap in the endless wilderness that lined the two-lane, as thick and dense as an unscaleable wall. It looked a whole lot like the perimeter of a prison. One that he was attending of his own free will.

It was a long way from L.A., any way you chose to look at it.

He couldn’t even tell where he was anymore. The only daylight filtered in dappled patches from the canopy of leaves overhead, and the highway had gradually inclined upward for several miles. He could have been at the top of the world for all he could see to confirm it. And for every mile he clocked up, he thought a dozen times about turning around and going home.

It wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t going to change anything. But the booking was non-refundable, and he might not have a whole lot of disposable income to throw around anymore. Going home would add insult to injury.

Even if it hadn’t technically been his injury. That damn spoilt brat had it coming anyway…

No, damn it, he wasn’t going to keep replaying that scene in his head. If he continued to dwell on the incident, it would defeat the expensive purpose of coming here. Bad enough he could still picture so clearly the expressions of his colleagues, of the brat’s entourage, the catering staff. Half the damn studio must have witnessed him making the biggest mistake of his life.

There had been a commotion unlike any he’d seen before – and he’d been in this business long enough to see plenty – and he’d still been able to hear the brat’s shrieking halfway across the building as he sat in his boss’s office.

He hadn’t cared much then. The office was calm and silent, just the whirr of a computer and the bubbling of a seven-foot long aquarium to disturb his thoughts.

It hadn’t really occurred to him quite how disturbed his thoughts had been.

“Take a few weeks, yeah?” Perry Knight sighed when he eventually returned, slumping down into his leather desk chair with an expression that spoke in the dollars Jay had just cost him and the studio. “You’ve been working too hard. You need a break.”

One that didn’t involve breaking a top actor’s nose. Perry didn’t say as much, but the implication was clear in the steady gaze trained on Jay’s every move. Probably Perry was worrying what would be next to incur Jay’s anger. The aquarium? The secretary? Himself? There was still a smear of Cole Gray’s blood on Perry’s shirt cuff, and instead of wondering whether the actor’s nose had stopped bleeding by now, Jay had found himself debating how much one could get for that shirt in an online auction.

“I need assholes like Gray to step into line and learn the world doesn’t revolve around them and their goddamned—“

“Jay.” Perry stared at him. “You need a break. There’s this place Chuck Eisner went to last year when his doctor told him he either took a few weeks or bought a casket.” He flipped through a chrome Rolodex, extracting a business card. “Made him a new man, seriously. Takes everything in his stride these days. You could do with a place like that.”

He stared at the card. Sword River Retreat. “I don’t need to be shipped off to somewhere like this—"