Summers' Love, A Cute and Funny Cinderella Love Story (LPC Romantic Comedy Series) (14 page)

She clinked her bottle against his. He took a long sip and savored the bitter taste of the lager in his mouth.

“Before I spill my guts, let me ask
you
a question.”

“Okay,” she said, holding the bottle loosely in her hands, her eyes focused there.

“How much do you know about me?”

She looked at him and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Most of my fans can recite my bio from memory. But I get the impression you’re not a fan.”

A little girl smile spread across her face. “Are we being totally honest here?”

He raised a brow. “Please.”

“Honestly, I didn’t even know who you were until a few minutes before I walked into that bookstore.”

He laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Gee, that’s encouraging.”

“No, what I mean is, I’m not a huge reader of romance.” She screwed her lips around the last word—his chosen genre. The one that had made him famous. Rich. Successful. “The few I’ve tried to read made me gag.”

“Please, keep talking.” He took another swallow of beer. “This is doing wonders for my ego.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that to me the female character always comes across as a highly-educated professional businesswoman who needs some handsome hunk of a guy—and not always a very bright guy—to slowly peel away the emotional layers until she’s vulnerable and exposed. Which, if you think about it, is like disrobing her. You know what I’m talking about. There’s always that one scene where she takes off her glasses and loosens her hair and gives in to his advances.”

“Terrific. You just dissected every book I’ve ever published and you did it without even reading one.” He’d been careful not to use the word
wrote.

“If it makes you feel any better, I
am
enjoying
In Heat
.” She took a sip of beer. “I prefer suspense and thrillers, is all.”

“Then what’s with all the books you bought?”

Even in the fading sunlight, he could see the blush across her face. “Oh, goodness, this is so embarrassing. Promise me you won’t hate me?”

“Hate you? Why?”

“I sell stun guns.”

Well, he hadn’t seen
that
one coming. “You do what?”

“For my second job, I hold stun gun parties. It’s like selling Mary Kay or Tupperware, only more fun because we get to shoot things.”

He turned slightly to face her. “You can really make money doing that?”

She raised her beer to the horizon in a mock salute before taking another sip. “Hey, we can’t all be rich authors. My clients wanted signed copies of
In Heat
. That’s why I came to the store. And if I can ever get you to actually autograph the books, I can
maybe
win a trip to Nassau.”

He shifted a little more and twisted his bottle into the sand, making it stand up. “Wait, wait. Are you telling me you bought fourteen of my books and then drove all the way down here just so you could sell stun guns?”

Looking straight ahead, she replied, “Yep. But don’t forget. If I’m top sales person in my division, I have a shot at winning the trip to Nassau.”

“Boy, do I feel stupid.”

She took another long pull on the beer and continued looking straight ahead. “I’m sure it’s not the first time.”

Stu absently scratched the side of his face, wondering what to think of a woman who would chase him down to get fourteen signed copies of his novel just so she could win a cheap vacation in the islands.

Resting the bottle on her knee, Kate turned toward him. “Your turn. What deep dark secrets are you hiding from me?”

He didn’t know what to say. He had never met anyone bold enough to sell stun guns and chase down a famous author just to win a trip to the Bahamas. In a way it made her seem even more attractive than she was.

He faced forward again and retrieved his beer. “Me? Well let’s see. You know I’m a writer. And I have a yacht and a beach house. What else do you want to know about me?”

“Come on, out with it. What was it you were going to tell me?”

“I donate lots of money to charities. A lot of people don’t know that.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

“No, I’m just dodging the question.”

She shifted quickly. “Oh my gosh! You’re married!”

“What? No,” he said, laughing. “In fact, I’ve never even been in a serious relationship.”

“Don’t, please. I
hate
it when married men lie.”

Stu held up his left hand and pointed to his ring finger. “I swear, I am not married.” He wiggled the finger. “See? No tell-tale line, no band-aid …”

“Okay, but you still haven’t told me.”

“Before I do, let me ask you a question. If I wasn’t a famous author, if I was a normal guy with a regular boring job, would you still be sitting on the sand next to me?”

“Depends. Does this normal guy with his boring job have a sailboat?”

“A small one, yes.”

“And a beach house?”

“Possibly. But not actually on the beach. And not really a house. More like a bungalow
near
the beach.”

“How about a dog?”

“I could see this normal guy owning a dog, sure.”

“What kind of dog? ‘Cause I’m not big on men with Yorkies.”

“Golden lab.”

“I like that. Okay, then. Yes, I’m still sitting here beside you.”

“Good, because I won’t always be rich and famous.”

“Or single.” Kate took another sip of beer. “It’s possible that someday the right person is going to walk into your life.”

Or a bookstore.

He thought about the moment he’d first seen her standing in line and how he’d felt when their eyes met. And then, just as unexpectedly, he realized he did not want to lose her. Not now. Not with so much on the line. But how could he simply come out and explain he was not the person she thought he was? That he really could not write, bought his stories, and had only invited Kate to stay at his cottage in the hopes she would provide enough of a story to keep his editor off his back.

“Let’s play a game,” he said.

“You mean besides the one we’re playing right now?”

“Funny. Let’s pretend for the next few hours that I’m a normal guy, not some famous author.”

“Hmmm …”

“Because the fact is, less than two percent of writers actually earn a living from writing. Most have day jobs to support their writing habit. Did you know that?”

She raised her chin. “I can honestly say I did not.”

“And even if you’ve had a best-seller, that doesn’t mean you’re set. Last year’s big-name author could be working at Walmart in a few years. In this business there are no guarantees.”

“Or you could be someone like Harper Lee. You know: one book and you’re done?”

“Or Margaret Mitchell,” he countered. “One book and you’re dead.”

She brought the bottle’s lip to hers as though pondering, then dropped it back. “So what are you saying, that you are going to stop writing? Because that’s what the girls at my stun gun party said. That you had, and I quote, ‘Lost that loving feeling,’ end quote.”

“Okay, here’s the honest truth: I never went to college.”

Her brow furrowed. “
That’s
your big secret?”

“Never went to college,” he continued, “and took a job at the paper plant right out of high school. The place where I worked made book-printing paper. After a few months I was lucky enough to land a position on the head box. That’s at the front end of the paper machine. I would watch those rolls of paper spooling off the machines and feel the steamy heat of the dryers and all I could think about was how one day one of those rolls of paper would be shipped to a book printer and become part of my novel. I still smile when I drive past a paper plant and smell sulfur bleaching the pulp.”

“So you are going to stop writing so you can go to college and get a degree? I think that’s admirable.”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s important for you to understand how I got to where I am and why I did what I did. For three years I worked at the paper mill. At night I’d write. I never showed my work to anyone, not even my mom who was letting me live in the room over the garage for free. And then one day I finally got up the nerve to join the American Fiction Writers Association. They put me in a local chapter in the Richmond area. The women in the group—and they were
all
women—ripped my story to shreds, so I quit.”

“I bet now the women in that group wish they’d been nicer to you.”

“Maybe. But the thing is, they were right. My writing was awful. That was four years ago. Fast forward to now. I have had five best-selling novels. Each one has either been made into or optioned to become a movie. What does that tell you?”

“That you figured out how to write?”

“Nope. I learned how to market. Not saying that writing is easy, but if you don’t know how to market, your books don’t sell no matter how good you are.”

“I don’t understand. I started reading
In Heat
and for someone who doesn’t like romances, I think it’s great.”

“Oh, I’m not saying my novels aren’t good. But if I hadn’t spent so much time learning how to sell myself to my readers you would have never walked into that bookstore because the women at your stun gun party would have never even
heard
of Stu Summers.”

“I know a little about marketing, too, and if you have a lousy product, no one will buy it. I think, as a writer, you’re selling yourself short.”

“That’s just it. I’m not a writer. At least, not in the way that you …”

“
Hey! Hey, mister!
” The voice of a man interrupted his confession. “
Is that your dinghy?”

Stu looked just off the beach. Behind the center console of a motorboat, a man pointed up the beach to where they’d dragged the dinghy. Now the tiny boat was several yards offshore, caught in the current of the outgoing tide. Stu shot to his feet and, peeling off his shirt and tossing phone and wallet onto the sand, he went splashing into the water to rescue their dinghy.

Chapter Sixteen

Kate couldn’t help but laugh. Something about the way Stu Summers bolted down the beach reminded her of a Looney Tunes cartoon: the one in which Wile E. Coyote ran so fast he became a locomotive engine. Stu’s insistence that they spend time on the beach watching the sunset, and now his desperate attempt to rescue the dinghy, was both sweet and heroic … and filled her with hope.

Her fantasy dream date had long since stopped requiring a bearskin rug, crackling fire, and two glasses of wine. For her, their moment could happen in an aisle at Walmart. She’d pull him close, spreading fingers behind his head, and pull his face into her neck. Ignoring the stares of kids in carts and old women gasping but secretly remembering, she would wrap her other arm around his waist and hold him tight against her until she was sure something had passed between them—something that would connect their spirits and sustain them over the course of time and miles.

Stu finally caught the dinghy and began swimming back to shore. Kate walked toward the water, applauding her hero and thinking that maybe, even if he were a Walmart checkout clerk instead of a famous author, he’d still be the one.

* * *

Stu rinsed off on the swim platform. He was soaked and saw no reason to track water onto the teak-and-holly cabin floor. Beneath the cockpit deck he heard the pump in the shower kick on. That was his cue. Stepping back into the cockpit he wrapped a beach towel around his waist, stripped to his boxers, and hurried to the forward cabin to change. Moments later he emerged from his cabin wearing fresh shorts and a long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

A short while later Kate emerged from the aft cabin and greeted him with a smile. She had on a yellow blouse, untucked, and cuffed jeans. She walked barefoot toward him. Excitement built inside him. In the last twenty-four hours, Kate Winston, the heroine in his new novel, had become Kate Winston the first mate of
Summers’ Breeze
and his first
real
date in, like, forever. As if sensing his growing attraction to her, she held his gaze for a few seconds, then slid around the salon table and took a seat in the corner of the settee. She tucked her legs under her and rested her arm on the backrest as she lounged on cushions. The open hatch above her head sent the smell of her perfume wafting his direction and that too caused something to stir within him.

To set the mood, Stu selected a pan flute CD by Bill Leslie. Stu had enjoyed the melancholy sounds of the pan flute since the first time he’d seen Treasure Island (the Charlton Heston version). It reminded him of pirates and the far-away allure of the islands.