Summers' Love, A Cute and Funny Cinderella Love Story (LPC Romantic Comedy Series) (3 page)

Stu felt his smile sag. The “product placement” comment was a dig at his latest money-making idea. Stu remained convinced he could increase his income by selling ads in the ebook versions of his novels. Dalyrimple did not.

“I still think we’re missing a huge revenue stream,” Stu remarked. “Movies do it, television too. Why not my novels?”

“Legal department says it’s too risky. If a reader gets stranded on a cruise ship that catches fire and sinks because we mentioned the vessel by name in your book, we could be hit with a liability suit.”

“Sounds like we need a new legal department,” Stu shot back. “Last week I was in the Atlanta airport scanning the first few pages of a vampire novel and I found several obvious endorsements for a crematorium in Atlanta. Call me stupid, but if a best-selling paranormal series can pimp Robin Graves Funeral Home, I should be able to plug Luna Sea Cruise Lines.” Stu looked up at the woman whose book he had just signed and smiled. “Sorry,” he mouthed. “Editor.”

The customer smiled back, eyes wide, as if she were now a part of his career.

“Can we get back to your manuscript? Readers want edgy, erotic and electrifying. Not the sanguine, inspirational pablum I’m looking at on my desk.”

After the customer stepped away with a “good luck,” an elderly woman with a beehive hairdo and wearing a dark blue dress stepped forward clutching a copy of
In Heat
to her chest.

“Listen, this isn’t a good time,” Stu whispered to Blair. “I’m in the middle of a book signing. Let me call you back when I’m on the road.”

“You better, because this manuscript of yours I’m reading is a colossal disaster.”

Stu killed the call. He scribbled his name across the title page and, flashing his umpteenth warm smile, slid the autographed copy of
In Heat
across the table. “I mean every word of it,” said Stu, patting the woman’s hand.

As the woman waddled away, Stu leaned back in his chair and recalled the beginning of his latest manuscript. Typically recalling
any
lines from
any
of his novels was an impossible task. But in the case of his latest effort, the opening paragraph was, unfortunately, seared into his brain.

Above the desert plains of Roswell, New Mexico, the sun snoozed… as if unable to rouse itself for another cycle around the planet. As if time itself stood still. And perhaps it had, for at that moment, a celestial fleet of buggy-shaped spaceships hovered over sagebrush and mesquite trees. Inside, the first wave of bonnet-wearing zombies stumbled aimlessly toward the landing ramp that would take them to their new home.

Stu had hoped the manuscript’s cleverly concealed indictment of everything that was wrong with the book publishing industry—from the way celebrities glamorized the intimate details of their titillating trysts to fabricated autobiographical stories of presidential candidates—would go unnoticed.

But someone had noticed.

And that someone was his editor.

A baby belched. Stu looked up to find a young mom bouncing a toddler on her hip. For several uncomfortable moments his pen rested on the dedication page while he racked his brain for just the right words of encouragement. None came. Dalyrimple’s call and her threat to pull his book left him with a sick feeling in his gut.

“You saved me.”

Stu studied the young mother.

“I was past hope, at the end of my rope. Just like Rachel in
Puppy Love
. But your words, they pulled me back from the edge.”

Stu was never sure how to react to such comments. He wanted to reply, “I didn’t save you.
You
did the work.
You
believed in your marriage.
You
shaped the storm clouds into a rainbow.” But the few times he had tried to deflect the praise onto his fans he had found it a waste of time. Worst, they felt insulted. His readers wanted to believe Stu’s words were magic, that he possessed an amorous elixir for their jilted hearts.

“I thought I was ugly,” the mother continued. “That I’d never be loved again. But you convinced me I’m precious, worthy, and deserving of a man’s affection.”

Stu felt a spark of inspiration and signed his name. Beneath his signature, he added:
God could not be everywhere, so He made mothers. May God bless you and your home.

He gave the woman the book and asked, “How long have you been married?”

“Me?” The mom dropped the autographed novel into a stained diaper bag. “I’m not. Oh you better believe he
wanted
to marry me.” She adjusted the baby on her hip. For a second, Stu’s eyes shifted to the child—large blue-black eyes blinked slowly as a chubby hand slid over dark red curls. “Begged me to, in fact. But like you wrote in
That Dog Won’t Hunt
, love is a gift from God, a holy, precious, and powerful force. After reading those words, I just couldn’t give my heart to some loser whose life ambition is to get his picture taken on the fifty-yard line of the Alabama-Auburn game. Thanks to you, I know there’s someone out there who will love me for something other than my body.”

Stu, noting the woman’s pear-shape appearance, once more found himself at a loss for words. Taking her hand in his, he said softly, “You have no idea how much this means to me.
You
waiting all this time in line to get my autograph.” He paused and looked deeply into her eyes. “You are the reason I write.”

The young mother’s eyes misted. Stu, with practiced casualness that came from countless book signings, turned his attention to the next woman in line. As he did, he saw a customer lean out of the line and look in his direction. Amber bangs formed a pair of parentheses around the woman’s oval face. High cheeks set off large brown eyes. A scarlet purse hung from one arm, its color matching the belt of her blue skirt. Stu felt his heart catch when her eyes found his.

Or had his found hers?

He was still tracing the contours of her face when a voice said, “It’s for my sister.”

Stu turned his attention to the next customer in line. He couldn’t help but notice the woman’s tortured face, reddened eyes, and cheeks streaked with mascara. Stu leaned forward, giving the woman his undivided attention.

“Marge. That’s my sister’s name. She’s battling cervical cancer. Just like Alia in
Hound Dog Heart
.”

Stu struggled to recall Alia. There were so many characters: all strong, independent women with vulnerabilities that appealed to Stu’s target audience. At last he recalled the details of the young Iranian gymnast. Alia—captured by the Mujahedin outside of Tehran. Alia—physically abused by her captors. Alia—rescued by First Lieutenant Rick Reiker of the Navy SEALS.

“I hope your sister didn’t fall in love with a goat herder, too.” Stu’s comment reflected a feeble attempt to add levity to the somber tone of Alia’s story. Of all his heroes, Reiker was his favorite. Tall and brawny, with wolf-gray eyes and thighs as thick as tree trunks, Reiker had posed as a sheepherder outside of Kabal and single-handedly killed twelve Taliban fighters in order to rescue Alia. Later he contracted smallpox in Calcutta and died.

That one had gotten him some hate-mail, but even Superman has his Kryptonite, Stu explained to his readers.

“My sister
wishes
she’d married a guy like Reiker. Her husband is a shade-tree mechanic. Dropped out of high school in the tenth grade. Oh, he’s got dreams, that boy has. Wants to become a tire changer for a NASCAR race team. How my sister got hooked up with such a loser, I’ll never know.” A tissue appeared from the woman’s purse. She dabbed her eyes.

Stu scrawled his name and added a scripture verse from Psalm 23. He watched the woman read the notation.

“This will mean so much to Marge. My sister has all your books. She can’t read any of them, of course. Not anymore. In fact, she can barely lift her head. But I’ll read to her until she no longer has ears to hear this side of heaven.”

Stu removed a small leather journal from his blazer pocket. He opened to a page where other names were listed on the ruled lines. “Marge, is it?” He wrote down the name. “I’ll keep her in my prayers.”

The woman’s lower lip trembled. Before Stu could say more, Marge’s sister whirled and trotted away, sniffling.

Stu pictured the woman’s sister and felt ashamed of himself. Marge—her head bandaged in a scarf and lying on a couch because she was too weak to climb the stairs to her bedroom. Marge—listening to her sister read from
In Heat
while the cancer spread like vines into her bones. Marge—clinging to Stu’s poetic prose that promised forgiveness, redemption and eternal life for those willing to “let go and let God.”

Marge … another victim of Stu’s carefully-crafted deception.

Were Stu
truly
sincere, he would follow through on his promise to pray for Marge. But Stu was too logical for things like prayer and God and miracles. Only now he wondered who the bigger fool was. Marge for believing the words of a fraud, or … Stu for pretending to be something he was not and never would be.

Deep in his soul, something snapped, and he knew in that moment, without question, that his writing career was over.

“You okay?”

Stu looked up. The woman with the large brown eyes stood before him.

“You know, this would go faster if you didn’t spend so much time chit-chatting.” Without waiting for him to respond, Brown Eyes unloaded two bags of books onto the table.

Stu counted the two stacks. “Fourteen books?”

“And I’m in sort of a hurry, so … if you don’t mind?”

“Sorry. One is the limit.” Stu pointed to a small placard on the table.

“What?
You have
got
to be kidding me?” The woman had a set of pipes, that much was for sure.

The store manager, a slender man, twenty-something and still battling acne, sauntered over. “Is there a problem?”

Stu, determined to keep his voice calm, said, “I was just explaining that it’s a limit of one book per customer.”

“Sorry, ma’am, one
signed
copy per customer,” repeated the manager, adjusting his Buddy Holly glasses. “But we certainly appreciate your patronage.”

“Fine.” She leaned over and took Stu’s pen from his hand. “I’ll sign them myself. Stu, is it? With a large and flowing
U
? Because it is all about
you
, right?”

Stu felt his cheeks redden but didn’t respond. Instead he turned to the manager—Rick Dobbins according to his thin, gold-colored nametag—and said, “I think I’m going to get some air.”

“But you just got here.” Stu felt his face turn a deep shade of crimson.

“Actually, I’ve been here for an hour,” Stu corrected him.

“And your book signing does not
end
for another hour,” protested Dobbins.

“Won’t be long,” Stu remarked. He pushed his chair back and stood. “I need to stretch my legs.”

Stu reached for his pen. As he did, his fingers lightly grazed the woman’s smooth knuckles. He felt a momentary spark of excitement, but it faded quickly when, from down the line, someone called out, “You’re not finished are you?”

Stu slipped the pen into the side pocket of his blazer and tried to avoid Brown Eye’s lightning-flash stare.

Dobbins bristled beside him, stretching to see the customer. “No, he’s not leaving. Trust me.”

“I’m only taking a short break,” Stu explained.

“So we’re just supposed to stand here and wait?” asked a customer.

“Look, I know we don’t have the foot traffic of the bigger chain stores,” Dobbins remarked to Stu, “but we’ve invested heavily in your book’s launch. I personally fronted the ad money for the radio spots with a promise to my boss that you’d be worth it.”

“Here, pass these around,” Stu said, handing the next customer in line a stack of colorful bookmarks.

“But I
need
you to sign these books.
Now,
” Brown Eyes chimed in.

“Wish I could but … ” Stu nodded toward the placard with the “one signed copy” rule. “This won’t take but a second.” Stu, noticing a small coffee stain on the store manager’s white button-down shirt, whispered, “I need to make a quick phone call. In private.”

“Can’t it wait until this is over?” Dobbins pulled on a narrow black tie.

Without responding, Stu walked briskly toward the front of the store and into the heat of the Georgetown evening. When he was safely beyond earshot of the customers milling around the front door, Stu spoke a name into his Bluetooth.

An elderly female voice answered on the third ring. “Yes?”

“Hattie, we need to talk.”

“Stu?”

“That manuscript you sent me? It’s a dog.”