by Kait Nolan
“What can I do to help?”
“Let me make you some coffee.”
“Pru—”
“No really,” she sniffed, pulling away. “I’m better when I’m doing something.”
Xander didn’t want coffee, but if she needed to keep her hands busy, he’d drink some. “Coffee’d be great.”
She began puttering around the kitchen, pulling beans out of the freezer and scooping them into the grinder. Joan had loved her gourmet beans. It’d been one of the few luxuries she’d always allowed herself. As she went through the motions, Pru seemed to regain her control.
“Maggie’s taking the red eye from LA, and Athena’s flying out as soon as she closes down the restaurant tonight.”
“Do either of them need to be picked up from the airport?”
“They’re meeting in Nashville and driving up together in the morning, so they’ll be here to help me finish planning the service. It’s supposed to be on Thursday.”
Xander didn’t ask about Kennedy. Both because he didn’t want to care whether she showed up, and if she wasn’t coming, he didn’t want to rub it in.
Pru set a steaming mug in front of him, adding the dollop of half and half he liked and giving it a stir. “Kennedy gets in day after tomorrow. There was some kind of issue getting a direct flight, so she’s having to criss-cross Europe before she even makes it Stateside again. She’s coming home, Xander.”
He wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be an announcement or a warning, but it cracked open the scab over a very old wound that had never quite healed.
She laid a hand over his. “Are you okay?”
This woman had just lost her mother, and she was worried about whether he’d be okay with the fact that his high school girlfriend, whom he hadn’t seen in a decade, was coming home.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Pru leveled those deep, dark eyes on his. “I know there are unresolved issues between you.”
God, if only she knew the truth—that he was the reason Kennedy had left—she wouldn’t be so quick to offer sympathy.
“It was a long time ago, Pru. There’s nothing to resolve.” Kennedy had made her position clear without saying a word to him. At the memory, temper stirred, belying his words. There were things he needed to say to her, questions he wanted answered. But whatever her faults, Kennedy had just lost her mother, too, and Xander wasn’t the kind of asshole who’d attack her and demand them while she was reeling from that. Chances were, she’d be gone before he had an opportunity to say a thing. He’d gotten used to living with disappointment on that front.
He laid a hand over Pru’s. “Don’t worry about me. How’s Ari?”
She straightened. “Devastated. Terrified. And…” Pru sighed. “Not speaking.”
“Not speaking?”
“Not since I told her. She’d come so far living here with Mom, and this is an enormous setback. No surprise. Especially having just lost her grandmother last year.” Pru continued to bustle around the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee and coming to sit with him at the table. Her long, capable fingers wrapped around the mug.
“She upstairs?”
“Yeah. I was trying to get her to eat something when you got here.”
“Poor kid. Have you talked to the social worker yet?”
“Briefly. Mae wants to let us get through the funeral and all the stuff after before we all figure out what to do.”
“Who would’ve been named her emergency guardian if the adoption had gone through?” Xander asked.
“The four of us, probably. I know it’s what Mom would’ve wanted. But there are legal ramifications to the situation, and the fact is, I’m the only one still here.” She sighed. “We’ll have to talk about it after. The one thing I know we’ll all be in agreement on is that we want what’s best for Ari.”
“All four of you have been in her shoes, and you turned into amazing women. I know you’ll do the right thing.” Whatever that turned out to be.
Xander polished off the coffee. “I’m on shift, so I need to be getting back. But, please, if you need anything, Pru, don’t hesitate to call. I’m just down the road.”
She rose as he did and laid a hand on his cheek. “You’re a good stand-in brother, Xander. Mom always loved that about you.”
He felt another prick of guilt, knowing his own involvement with this family had been heavily motivated by trying to make up for Kennedy’s absence. “Yeah well, I ran as tame here as the rest of you when we were kids. Especially when Porter was around.” Giving her another squeeze, he asked, “Can I do that for you? Notify the rest of her fosters? I know you’ve covered your sisters, but there were a lot of kids who went through here over the years. I’m sure they’d like to pay their respects.”
Her face relaxed a fraction. “That would be amazing. I’m sure we’ll have a houseful after the funeral, but I need a chance to gird my loins for the influx. Mom kept a list. I’ll get it for you.”
As she disappeared upstairs, he wandered into the living room. Little had changed over the years. The big, cushy sofas had rotated a time or two. And there’d been at least three rugs that he could remember. But photos of Joan and her charges were scattered everywhere. Xander eased along the wall, scanning faces. A lot of them he knew. A lot of them, he didn’t.
A shot at the end caught his attention. The girl’s face was turned away from the camera, looking out over the misty mountains. She was on the cusp of womanhood, her long, tanned legs crossed on the swing that still hung from the porch outside, a book forgotten in her lap. Her golden hair was caught in a loose tail at her nape. Xander’s fingers itched with the memory of the silky strands flowing through his fingers. She’d been sixteen, gorgeous, and the center of his world. The sight of her still gave him a punch in the gut.
“Here it is.”
At the sound of Pru’s voice, Xander turned away from Kennedy’s picture. Over and done.
He strode over and took the pages she’d printed. “I’ll take care of it,” he promised.
“Thank you, Xander. This means a lot.”
“Anytime.” With one last, affectionate tug on her hair, he stepped outside, away from memories and the looming specter of what might have been.
Get your copy of When You Got A Good Thing today!
Sneak Peek Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Rescue My Heart Book #1
A grumpy lumberjack
Former Army Ranger Harrison Wilkes isn’t actually a lumberjack, but he's doing his best impression while hiding out in the mountains of East Tennessee. He needs to rest, recharge, and stay the hell away from people, while he wrestles with ghosts from his past and figures out his future. Neither includes a snowbound rescue of his favorite author.
A runaway writer
Ivy Blake is on a deadline. Her hero is MIA, and she's desperate to find some peace, quiet, and inspiration to get her book—and her life—back on track. She doesn’t plan on driving off a mountain. Or the mysterious stranger who shows up to save her.
Who’s rescuing who?
When Winter Stormageddon traps them together, Ivy finds the inspiration she didn’t know she needed in her real-life hero. As more than the fireplace heats up his one-man cabin, they both find far more than they bargained for. This intuitive author just might have the answers Harrison's looking for, but will their newfound connection survive past the storm?
“Where are your pages, Ivy?”
Ivy Blake winced at the snap of her agent’s voice on the other end of the phone. Marianne was pulling out her stern, mom-of-three tone. That was never good. “They’re coming.”
At some theoretical, future time that was actually true.
“You’ve been saying that for weeks. And you’ve been avoiding me. You only do that when the words aren’t flowing.”
You have no idea.
“The book’s been giving me a smidge of trouble.” Understatement of the century. “But I promise, I’m nearly done.” Flagrant lie. Iv
y wondered if Marianne’s Momdar was sounding an alarm. Ivy’s own mama had an Eyebrow of Doom that could be heard over the phone when engaged.
“You have to give me something to give to Wally. I can’t hold him off much longer.”
Walter Caine—who inexplicably went by Wally, a fact that made it utterly impossible to take him seriously—was currently at the top of Ivy’s avoid-at-all-costs list. Her editor was brilliant but a bit like a banty rooster when he got angry. He had deadlines. Of course, Ivy understood that. Everything about publishing involved deadlines. He’d absolutely blow a gasket if he knew she was still on Chapter One. The thirteenth version.
It was probably a sign.
“Next week.” Was this what it felt like to be in debt to a bookie? Making absurd promises in hopes of avoiding broken kneecaps or cement shoes? Except in this case it was Ivy’s career, not her actual life, in danger.
“Ivy.” Marianne drew her name out to four syllables, which was tantamount to being middle-named by her mama.
Ivy hunched her shoulders. “I swear I’m finishing up the book. In fact, I’m taking a special trip for the express purpose of focusing on nothing but that until it’s done.”
Where the hell had that come from? She had no such plans. Apparently in lieu of offering up reasonable plot, her brain had decided to just spew spontaneous, bald-faced lies.
Her agent sighed. “Fine. How can I reach you?”
In for a penny…
“Oh, well, you can’t. There’s no internet up there, and I was warned that cell service is spotty. The cabin has absolute privacy and no distractions. It’s perfect.”
Actually, something like that did sound perfect. If she went totally off the grid, Marianne and Wally wouldn’t know where to send the hitman when she missed her deadline. The one that had already been pushed back once.
You’ve never missed a final deadline, and you’re not going to start now.
Marianne offered another beleaguered sigh. “Find an internet connection and check in on Monday or I’m hunting you down, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ivy had no doubt she meant it. Despite her trio of children and the stable of other writers she managed, Marianne would absolutely get herself on a plane and show up on Ivy’s doorstep if she thought it would get results.
“I’ll do what I can to hold off Wally. This morning’s starred review at Kirkus for Hollow Point Ridge should appease him for a little while. You know he loves nothing more than seeing you rack up acclaim.”
“Because acclaim means dollar signs for us all,” Ivy recited. As if she could forget that it was more than just her depending on income from her books.
“Damn straight. I forwarded the review to you. Check your email before you go,” Marianne ordered.
She’d already seen the review this morning. Somebody had posted it in her fan group, which had generated a discussion thread that was already twenty pages deep about where she planned to go with the series next. But bringing that up would only prolong this conversation.
“Will do.”
“Happy writing.”
For just a moment, Ivy considered coming clean and telling Marianne the stark, unvarnished truth. Her agent was, ultimately, meant to be her advocate. But right now, she was only more pressure. So Ivy held in her snort of derision as she hung up the phone and tossed it on her desk.
It had been a long damned time since she’d been happy writing. The truth was, she had a raging case of writer’s block, and she was already weeks past her initial deadline. That wasn’t like her at all. She was a machine. Her first three books had poured out of her. The next three were each successively bigger, deeper, harder. And with each had come more success and higher expectations from her publisher, who wanted to capitalize on momentum to maximize sales. That was a business decision on their part. She was a commodity. Ivy understood that. And up to now, she’d been able to work with it.
But along with the professional pressures had come the rabid excitement of her fans. They loved the world she created, the characters she’d given them, and not a day went by when she didn’t get emails and messages on social media demanding to know when the next book was coming because OMG they needed it yesterday! They had no idea the months, sometimes years of work that went into each book. What ate up her entire life occupied theirs for mere hours or days. And their insatiable enthusiasm was just one more stone piling on and crushing her with stress.
This book wasn’t like the other six in her best-selling series, and she just hadn’t found the right hook yet.
She would. Of course, she would. She just needed some more time and less pressure.
“Why don’t you ask for world peace, while you’re at it?”
Dropping into her office chair, Ivy shoved back from the desk and rolled across her office to the massive whiteboard occupying one wall. At this stage, the whole surface should’ve been covered with color-coded sticky notes detailing the assorted character arcs and how they drove and were driven by the action of the external plot. But it was empty other than the scrawl of “Michael” at the top in red marker. Below it a bright yellow note read, You are a stubborn, taciturn asshole, who won’t talk to me. In a fit of pique and stress cleaning earlier in the week, she’d stripped away version number twelve of her plot. Now she couldn’t face the blank space.
Page fright was so much a real thing.
Maybe she should get away. Find one of those out-of-the-way cabins to rent, with no phone, no internet, no way to be crushed under the weight of other people’s expectations. Maybe then she could hear herself think.
Rolling back to her computer, she opened a browser, compulsively clicking on the little envelope that told her she had seventy-nine unread messages.
She’d cleared her inbox this morning.
“Why do I do this to myself?”
She started to close it out when a subject line caught her attention.
Come visit the brand new spa at The Misfit Inn!
She’d forgotten about The Misfit Inn. Last summer, she and several girlfriends had taken a weekend trip up there in spontaneous celebration of Deanna’s divorce. The owners had mentioned they were considering adding a spa. Ivy had signed up for the mailing list and promptly forgotten about it. She opened the email, feeling the first hints of excitement as she read it. Okay, maybe that was desperation. But really? A spa? One set right in the gorgeous Smoky Mountains, just four short hours away? She desperately needed to relax. It had to be a sign from the Universe.
Someone answered on the second ring. “Thank you for calling The Misfit Inn. This is Pru. How can I help you?”
Ivy remembered Pru, the kind-hearted woman who’d done everything possible to make the inn feel like home.
“This is Ivy Blake. I don’t know if you remember me, but a bunch of girlfriends and I stayed with y’all last summer for a Thank God I’m Divorced party weekend—”
“Deanna’s group! Yes, certainly we remember y’all.”
“Well, I got the email about the opening of the spa, and it did say call to ask about booking specials that covered the inn and spa, so here I am.”
“Wonderful!” The genuine warmth in Pru’s voice had some of the knots relaxing. “How many?”
“Just me.”
“In need of some pampering?”
“You have no idea.”
“Okay then. When were you wanting to come?”
The sooner the better. “Um…today?”
“Today! Good gracious. Y’all are all about the spontaneity aren’t you?”
Sure, let’s call it that. “I know it’s last-minute, but I was hoping to book two weeks.”
“We can certainly accommodate that. But you should know before you make the drive that we’re supposed to be having some really serious winter weather. Full-on snow and ice. The drive is liable to be pretty nasty and there’s a really good chance you could get snowed in.”
Snowed in at an inn and spa for two weeks, far away from everyone who kne
w her? “That sounds absolutely perfect. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Grief smelled of onions, cheese, and cream of something soup. Multiple tables groaned under the weight of death casseroles along one wall of the church fellowship hall. The scent of it wafted over as Harrison Wilkes walked in, simultaneously curdling his stomach and making it growl. A quick scan of the room told him the widow hadn’t made it over from the cemetery yet, but he spotted the man he’d come to support hovering near the dessert table. Careful not to make eye contact with the other mourners, Harrison wove his way through the crowd.
If possible, Ty looked worse than he had during the service. But then, he was here against medical advice and had served as a pall bearer. Sweat beaded along his brow. His shoulder had to be hurting like a son of a bitch from over-exertion.
“Sit your ass down before you fall down, Brooks.”
Ty lifted bloodshot eyes to Harrison’s. “You’re not my CO.”
“I’m still your friend.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “You did your duty to Garrett. Don’t you go blowing all the work you’ve done in PT by pushing yourself too far.”
Ty’s pale face turned mulish, but before he could pop off, another familiar voice interrupted.
“Step aside, y’all. I’ve got food to add to the table.”
Sebastian Donnelly muscled his way past, a casserole dish in hand. Its contents smelled both familiar and noxious.
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Harrison said.
Sebastian plunked the dish down on the table and took off the foil. “My famous barbeque beef casserole.”
“More like infamous,” Ty said. “Only you would try to make a casserole out of MREs.”
“I tried to talk him out of it.” Porter Ingram joined the group. “We all know how much Garrett hated that shit.”