“I know. I reached out to the author to see if she’d come speak to the kids and maybe read her book, but she said she had something even better.”
Around thirty kids are scattered over the multicolored carpet, laughing and cheering as puppets act out a popular children’s book.
“I wonder how one becomes a puppeteer,” Keri muses, and I roll my eyes.
“Don’t even think about it. You have enough irons in the fire.”
Besides being my cousin, Keri is also a real estate agent, a mom, and the mayor of Pine Tree Falls.
“I’m just curious,” she huffs. “I mean, we had a career fair every year in high school, but never once was playing with dolls presented as a career option.”
“That’s true.”
Keri suddenly snaps her fingers and hisses, “Kyle!” Her five-year-old son, who’s sitting near the back, looks over his shoulder with faux innocence, even though his hand is a mere inch from a little girl’s head. “Don’t you dare pull Sarah’s hair,” his mother mouths, and the little stinker flashes Keri a mischievous smile. But he returns his hand to his lap and resumes watching the puppet show.
“You’re such a meanie,” I tease, and my cousin surreptitiously scratches her nose with her middle finger.
A couple minutes later, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone, checking the screen. “Yes,” she says quietly with a fist pump.
“Sold another house?” I ask, and she nods happily.
“That red brick one in your neighborhood. A lady bought it, though her son is the one I dealt with.” She fans her face. “Swear to god, that man is hotter than a firecracker. If I were a single woman, I would have thrown my panties at him. Want me to introduce you?”
“Nope,” I say immediately, “but you can help me hand out these books.” I’m not in the mood for any fixups.
The show ends, and the author is taking the small stage to introduce the puppeteers and then talk about her story. She brought enough books for every kid in attendance to go home with a free one.
Keri and I pass them out, and my heart swells at their excitement. I love seeing kids develop a passion for books and reading. As the author, a middle-aged former teacher named Lilah, talks animatedly to the children, I check my phone and see an email from my beta reader, Eden.
Hey, I know this is out of the blue, but can we have an online chat when you get home from work?
A little thrill works down my spine. Before she became a beta reader, Eden Osbourne was one of my ARC readers since the beginning of my writing career over a decade ago, but I’ve never seen her face. That’s not completely unusual in the online book community though, especially if the person reads spicy romance and doesn't want someone from their real life to recognize them.
I send her back a message, and we arrange for a time. Then I go back to work.
I sit at my computer at home wearing one of Reno’s T-shirts. He’d slipped it over my head before we went to sit out on the porch one night, and I loved how soft and comfy it was, so he let me keep it. He’d been wearing it before we… well, you know… and his strong, masculine scent clung to the fabric.
I dip my chin down to take a whiff and can barely detect him anymore, which makes me sad. That’s when I put my fingers to my keyboard. My writing has been fueled by sadness and grief since I got home from the island. This story is so much different from what I usually write, filled with the pain of true love lost.
At some point, I’m going to have to turn the story around and find my character a happily ever after, but at this point, I simply can’t fathom how to do that. My emotional capacity does not extend to anything other than the ache inside me. So I use it.
By the time my alarm sounds to let me know it’s almost time to meet with Eden, my eyes hurt from crying so much. Going into the bathroom, I splash some cool water on my face and dab a bit of concealer over the dark circles beneath my eyes.
“That’ll have to do,” I sigh at my unsmiling reflection. It’s hard to remember the last time I put on anything but a facade of happiness. I know when it was, but it seems like a decade ago instead of almost a week.
I miss him so much.
Before I can start crying again, I paste on the mask of a smile that barely conceals the torrent of emotions I feel on the inside and return to my computer. Clicking on the link for the online meeting, I take adeep breath.
For some reason, I’m nervous about this. There’s no reason to be, but I can’t stop the fluttering inside my belly.
The screen changes, and a woman appears. She’s pretty, with stylishly short dark hair like Lori Petty inPoint Break.
But her eyes… I know those eyes even though I haven’t seen them in seventeen years. It takes me a long second for the pieces to snap into place.
Oh.
My.
