She was far, far past that point, even if she wasn’t aware of it and she wasn’t even done growing yet.
I wasn’t afraid to admit, she was the best gift I’d ever received. After Rett, of course.
As soon as I let her out of the back of my Bronco, she rushed to the front entrance of the bookstore and once again began to dance and bark non-stop to be let inside.
I grimaced when each bark pierced my brain. Before I could reach for the door, it was flung open and Onyx only paused for a fraction of a second at Rett before barreling past him to find Timber.
“Well, hello to you, too,” he called out to her, shaking his head. “Hey, baby,” he greeted me.
Unlike Onyx, when I stepped inside, I paused for more than a split second. I stopped long enough to plant a solid kiss on Rett’s lips. “Hey.”
He closed the door behind me and I followed him over to the front counter.
“Okay, spill. What was so important that you dragged me down here?”
“Don’t act like coming down here’s a chore,” he huffed.
I sweetened my tone. “It’s never a chore to come see you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Look at you, from a grumpy grizzly to a teddy bear in a little over a year.” He patted himself on the back. “I have some skills, don’t I?”
“I’ll agree with that, but I’m sure we’re thinking about two different kinds of skills.”
“Oh, do we want to go upstairs for a quickie?”
That was a question that didn’t need to be asked, but… “I want to find out what’s so important first.”
He headed behind the register, bent down and when he straightened, he placed a large box on the counter with a groan. “These were delivered to the store this morning. Once you sign them, I’ll put them on the shelf.”
After he opened the flaps on the cardboard box, I grabbed a hardcover edition of my latest release. The cover was stunning, especially with the dust jacket. “Only hardbacks?”
“Paperbacks are coming soon, too.”
I nodded. “I’ll get them signed as soon as they come in.”
“A bunch of both are already spoken for.”
That was good news.
“By the way, the word on the street is, this is your best one yet.”
I raised an eyebrow. “The street?”
Rett tipped his head and grinned. “Dolly.”
Of course. The woman had been a fan prior, but now that she knew I was the author, she was obsessed. I swore she did a better job of spreading the word about my book releases than my PR team did. We needed to take her and the mayor out to dinner sometime soon to show our appreciation.
I had fallen in love with Eagle’s Landing, just like I had fallen in love with Rett. While there might’ve been curious looks and plenty of chatter about us during and after the Christmas party last year, not one local had anything bad to say. We had been accepted as a couple—more importantly, as a gay couple—without any issues.
All the townspeople had been nothing but warm and openly accepting. Thankfully, no one looked at us any differently.
It was refreshing, to be sure.
Rett continued with, “I also heard that all the major critics and reviewers are raving about it.”
“Is that what you heard?”
He rolled his eyes again. “Like you don’t know that. I’m sure you’re getting hourly updates from your agent.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “He’s texted me a few times.” While my books paid the bills, they weren’t the most important thing to me anymore. The man standing in front of me was. “Speaking of Randall, have you heard anything from him directly?”
I had been hounding my agent to take Rett on as a client. While Rett preferred to keep publishing his own books so he could keep creative control, he said he’d consider writing a series for a top five publisher if he could land a decent deal.
I had no doubt he could, we just needed to get his talent in front of the right people.
“Yes.”
“And?” I held my breath while waiting for him to answer. I didn’t want him to be disappointed if the proposal he sent Randall was flat-out rejected. Even though Rett’s writing was stellar, it was hard to land a good literary agent and even harder to get a solid contract with a healthy advance.
“And…” He smiled. “He wants us to do a collaboration.”
A collaboration? “He said nothing to me about that.”
“I asked if I could propose it to you instead of him. He would like a spin-off series combining both of ours. He said with both of our names, he’d be able to sell it without a problem. He’s already shopping the idea around to test the waters.”
“He wants me to write a series with you?”
“More like, he wants me to write a series with you. You’re more well-known than I am. My guess is he wants to go that route to get my foot into a door that hardly opens.”