by Lynn Red
He kissed my neck, and turned me to face him. “No matter what,” he said. “No matter what comes next. All that matters is that it’s you and me, here... now.”
I stared straight into his eyes, intertwining my fingers with his. “Promise?”
“I promise,” he said.
I curled up, with my head on his chest, and closed my eyes, feeling the thump-thump of his heart calm.
“That’s...” I kissed him again, and closed my eyes, safe against my Damon’s chest. “All I needed to hear.”
*
“Who’s that?” Damon slid my phone across the table. “Some number from New York?”
I grabbed the phone. “Hush! My story came out yesterday. I figured Jolie was going to call, but I didn’t think it’d be this quick.” I stood up and moved to the door, looking at Grandpa Joe rooting around with a cactus as I stepped outside.
“Hello?”
“There she is!” Jolie was practically bubbling. “Did you see it?”
I grinned. “Yeah, it looks great,” I just don’t know how people are going to take it. I mean, it is a pretty wild story.”
“Well, Miss Kyle, that’s one thing you don’t need to worry about. Weirdest thing happened.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “It was a pretty normal sales day. But then, the letters started up... emails, tweets, are you sitting down?”
“No,” I said, “should I be?”
“I think you might. And, Lily, if you could put me on speaker or something... is Damon around? He is real, right?”
I snorted a laugh. “Yeah, of course. I’m not inventive enough to make all that up. He’s inside, just a sec. Let me go in there.”
From where he sat, Damon looked up, charming me with those impossibly gorgeous eyes. “What’s up?”
I shrugged, sat down and put the phone on the table, putting it to speaker. “All right, we’re here.”
“Damon?” Jolie said.
“Yes ma’am? Hello?”
“I’ve got some pretty incredible news for you two. I hope you’re ready.”
He shot me a glance and cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, sure, of course. What is it?”
“Go ahead, we’re listening,” I chimed in. I shrugged at Damon, who continued to stare at me with a giant question mark on his face.
“What would you say if I told you that you were going to get two letters in the mail?”
“Uh,” I paused. “Paycheck?”
“I knew I liked you,” she said. “But no, two besides that. One from Atlantic Quarterly, who wants you to expand this thing to ten-thousand words, and one from my friend Greg. He’s an agent and wants to sell this thing as a book.”
My jaw hit the floor. Two thousand words. A nothing story, just me telling the truth. They wanted a book?
“I can tell you are having the reaction I thought you would. Enjoy it you two. Just maybe send me an idea every now and then? I’d love to have you on staff permanently if possible. You could even work from Arizona if you wanted, but we can hash out the details later.”
Standing up, I pushed the chair back across the floor and let out a silent scream. Damon stood up, grinning from ear to ear, and wrapped his arms around me.
“Hello?” Jolie said. “You there?”
“Yes I’m sorry,” I said all at once. “That’s incredible! Thank you so much! So, so, so much!”
“It was nothing. After all, you did all the work. Enjoy it. I’ll talk to you soon?”
I nodded like she could see. “Of... of course, yeah, of course. Talk to you soon.”
The line went dead, and a kiss warmed me from the lips to the tips of my fingers.
“I knew you could do it,” he said. “I’m so proud of you.”
“You're proud of me? It seems like kind of a minor thing, recording a story and sending it off, after what you went through. It was your story.”
He kissed my head along the part of my hair. “I wasn’t alone,” he said softly. “You told our story. And now you’re going to tell more of it.”
“Are you sure?” I looked up into his eyes. “Is it okay for me to write this? Won’t it put you in danger?”
“Lily,” he took a deep breath, smiling. “I thought these were just crazy stories your grandpa told you. Who would ever believe old grandpa stories?”
Relaxing my head on his chest, I breathed him in, letting his scent fill me. “What if I screw it up? What if it... I don’t even know, I’m just rambling.”
“No more fear,” he said. “I’ve got you and you have me. You’re gonna do great.”
“Okay, you’re right,” I smiled up at him. “What then? What do we do after that?”
He pursed his lips and moved his head from side to side. “We’ll figure it out. But right now, I think we should do exactly what your friend said there. Come on.”
Grabbing my hand, Damon led me outside, past Grandpa Joe and to the new motorcycle he finished building about a week before. With a sly grin, he tossed me a helmet. “Hop on,” he said.
“Where are we going? Not many celebration sorts of places in Fort Branch.”
“I know one.”
“Yeah?” I threw my leg over the back of the seat, hugging close behind him.
“One of those absolutely disgusting garlic, corned beef, horseradish and rye sandwiches sound good?”
I laughed maybe harder than I ever had. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Take me to heaven.”
“Funny way to put it.” He kicked the throttle.
As we sped along Fort Branch’s one major thoroughfare, I stared at the beginning of a setting sun through my helmet’s dark shade. There was so much to do, so much to prepare for what Poko called a ‘reunion of the clan’ to anoint the new alpha. And now, I had a book to write, and another article to write, neither of which existed ten minutes before.
But right then, the most important thing was right in front of me.
I hugged Damon tight, glad I found him, glad he found me, again.
For someone who craves routines, it sure didn’t take me long to adjust to this change.
Maybe that’s how you know when something finally goes right.
The End
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About the Author
Lynn loves reading romances -- especially ones with a full moon, alpha werewolves, and a whole bunch of wild action... but only if they have strong, engaging women and heroes that melt her heart.
Read more at Lynn Red’s site.