“I haven’t seen you for a couple days,” I said as I went down the slight hill.

  “Hey, Ava, my pool-shark partner.”

  “Ha. Five turns, Breckenridge. That’s all it took to defeat us. If that’s a shark…”

  He laughed. “Someone had to lose it all, right?”

  “We did it with bells on. So where’ve you been? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you checked out in the middle of the night.”

  “I just bought a house,” he said, his excitement written all over his handsome face. “I heard my offer was accepted less than an hour ago.”

  “Oh! Congratulations!” I sat on the lounger next to his, stretched my legs out, and leaned back. “I want to know all about it.”

  “It’s an older lakefront four-bedroom. Just down the way from Henry’s if you know where that is.”

  “Of course.” Everyone knew where Henry’s was, even people who hadn’t had the pleasure of sleeping with the head chef for the past few nights.

  “The owners were an elderly couple. The man passed away last year and the woman, a Dorothy Sanderson, is moving into assisted living. They never had kids, so she had to sell. I’ve had a real estate agent keeping his eyes open for me for the past month. He called me Sunday night. I saw it yesterday morning, before it was officially on the market, and put a preemptive offer on it immediately.”

  “That’s so awesome! So you’re really not going back to Texas, huh?”

  “There’s nothing there for me anymore. My biggest tech client is in Dallas, but we communicate online mostly now, and I can fly down if I need to. I mean, look at this.” He waved a hand at the lake in front of us. “Why wouldn’t you want to wake up to this every day? Well, unless you could have a TV writing job in LA, of course,” he added with a laugh. “You ready for your big meeting Thursday?”

  I exhaled as I gazed out at the water, sparkling in the early-evening sunshine. A turtle popped its head up beyond the dock, making me smile. I’d always considered it a sign of good luck to catch sight of a turtle right when they popped their head up. “Honestly, I’ve been so consumed by everything here that I’ve hardly had time to think about it. Which is messed up, for sure.”

  “That’s part of why you’re working so hard while you’re here, right? So you can not worry about the inn when you’re back in California?”

  “It is.” It bothered me anyway. The most important meeting of my life was in two days, and I kept forgetting about it because I was so caught up in inn details and resumes and…Cash. “Sort of related, I can’t decide if I should thank you or be mad at you.”

  “Thank me, I’m sure. But what’d I do?”

  “I was supposed to fill out a loan application for the bank and price out some of the major expenses and replacements and pick out paint colors and about a thousand other things last night. Instead, I got carried away reading your manuscript. Knox, it’s really good.”

  “Oh.” He leaned forward and looked pleased but shy. “Thank you. I’d like to tell you I’m sorry but I’d be lying.”

  I laughed because I knew exactly what he meant.

  “I haven’t read a lot of science fiction, but I was pulled in from the first chapter. I fell in love with Aron. He’s fabulously flawed and epically lovable.”

  “Wow. Thank you. That means a lot coming from a seasoned writer.”

  “I mean it, Knox.” I sat up, because his story had legit sucked me in, and I was excited about his writing.

  “I’m still waiting for the editor’s feedback, so you’re the first person who’s read it. That’s scary as hell.”

  “I get that. I remember the first time, in my very first writing class, when we were paired with another student and had to critique each other. It’s terrifying. But your writing style is so easy to read and your description is vivid yet not overdone and Aron…” I let out an exaggerated dreamy sigh.

  “My head’s getting bigger as we sit here,” he said, laughing. “I appreciate the praise, but there had to be things I could do better. I want constructive criticism too.”

  I leaned back and cradled my knees into my chest, thinking about his story. I was the one who’d asked him if I could read it, so not knowing whether he wanted feedback, I hadn’t taken notes. Even if I’d intended to, I’d been so swept away as a reader, I wasn’t sure I’d have noted many things to improve. However… “Have you considered giving Aron a romantic interest?”

  He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Honest answer? No. I was all about the action scenes and the saving-his-people bit.”

  Grinning, I said, “You mean the science fiction?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Do you plan to write more in the same world? A series? Sequel?”

  “I’ve played with some ideas. I guess I’ve been waiting for feedback before I got too carried away. I was thinking I could do more books with different adversaries, link them together with one big, bad power behind it all. I have some ideas in mind, but the book I’m writing now is unrelated.”

  I nodded. “That’s smart. What are you planning to do with the first one after you hear back from the editor?”

  “That depends on what she says,” he said, sounding self-conscious again. “It’s my first book. I’m leaning toward publishing it myself, but I’ve heard it’s wise not to publish your first book.”

  “That’s not bad advice. There are a lot of books out there that shouldn’t be published, in my opinion, but this isn’t one of them.”

  “You’re good for my ego.” He crossed one of his long legs over the other and leaned his head back in thought. “Talk to me about romance.”

  “In stories, I hope you mean.”

  “Well, yeah, although I suspect you’ve got some going on in real life.”

  He didn’t look directly at me, nor did he phrase it as a question, so I didn’t comment on Cash. “You know I’m a romance reader and writer, so I come from that bias. But think about it. Everyone loves love. The biggest movies might be action films or sci-fi sagas, but there’s almost always a love story at some level. Women eat them up, and men can get into them too as long as they aren’t overly done or too flowery. Look at Star Wars and Top Gun.”

  “You have a good point. I’m listening.”

  “Science fiction skews to male readers more than women, right?”

  He nodded. “Though more women read it than in the past.”

  “True. And science fiction romance is actually trending right now. I think by throwing in a love interest at some point—and I’m not advocating for going back and changing this story necessarily, it just depends on what you decide to do with it—you’ll open up your readership to include more women. We love romance, and we’ll cross genres to get it.”

  He nodded slowly, as if he was seriously considering what I said.

  “I kind of did the opposite with my series. It’s romance. Women will be the biggest audience. But it’s also sports. Baseball. And there’s a lot of baseball in it. I put a bunch of research into it when I wrote it, so the hope is that men might get into the series too.”

  What I didn’t mention was that I knew baseball from when Cash and I had been together in the past. He’d gotten me started as a fan, but he’d also given me insight into the politics and the pressure and the behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t get as much of from just watching a game on TV. That had sparked my interest in the sport all those years ago, and even after we broke up, I followed it closely. Of course, I switched to being a Dodgers fan instead of Cash’s favorite, the Cubs, but I hadn’t wanted to quit the sport altogether.

  “Pretty smart,” he said.

  “I know some things,” I said, grinning.

  “You going to let me read some of your writing?”

  “Sure, if you’re up for romance.”

  “As long as it’s fiction.” He didn’t laugh when he said it, and I wondered if there was a story there or if he was just that focused on the writing discussion.

  “I’ll send you some sports romance. You can focus on the baseball.”

  “Send me your best romance, sports or not,” he said. “I don’t read it or watch it and I’m not confident in my ability to write it, but I get what you’re saying.”

  “And Aron is hot. He needs a woman,” I joked. “Think how meeting his ideal woman could screw him up good the next time he’s fighting to save his people.”

  “You got that right,” he muttered, and I was getting the sense that there was indeed a story in his past that had to do with a relationship gone bad. “Are you in any writing groups you’d recommend?”

  “I used to be in several, but now I’m just dialed into one that’s for screenwriters. What about you?”

  “I’m in some on Facebook, but I mainly lurk and get info. I’m more of a figure-it-out-myselfer in general and learn from books and articles, you know?”

  “I get that. I guess I was more of a go-through-an-entire-degree-programmer, spending thousands upon thousands in the process.” I laughed at myself. “I loved it though. What about you? Did you go to college?”

  “It’s been a good long while,” Knox said. “I studied the ever-general communications. There was writing involved, but it was the dry kind.”

  “The majority of successful fiction writers don’t have degrees in fiction writing, so you’re set.”

  “What I wouldn’t mind is some kind of accountability thing with another writer. Some back-and-forth and some goal setting. Maybe some brainstorming for when I get stuck, which I am right now.”

  “God, could I use that too. I haven’t written a thing since I’ve been here.”

  “That’s not surprising though, is it?” he asked, and I had to concede.

  “No, but it’s making me antsy. Like there’s something missing from my life.”

  “You probably won’t be able to dive back in for a while, will you?”

  I hated that he was right, but he was. “I know people write fiction while having unrelated full-time jobs, but I’m overwhelmed pretty much all the time right now. There’s no brain left for creativity.”

  Knox nodded. “Maybe you should go easy on yourself. When you get back to it, you’ll be more than ready.”

  “I know you’re right. It’s not easy.” An idea occurred to me, and I sat forward and spun my legs to the side he was on. “We could make our own accountability group. I can’t write right now, but I can help you brainstorm and feel like I’m keeping a hand in writing at the same time. Kind of a win-win?”

  “Hell yes. Let’s do it. Send me some of your writing to start with.”

  “And we can brainstorm where you’re stuck.”

  “I’m only two chapters in, entirely different story and world, like I said, but you have me thinking about the romance angle. Maybe you could read the chapters and give me some insight on this love thing.”

  I laughed at the way he drew out love thing, like it was a foreign language.

  “You can so do romance. I’m sure of it,” I said.

  “Speaking of romance… It looked like there was something going on between you and Cash at the bar the other night. Are you two together?”

  I tried to play it cool, but I had a hard time not smiling when I thought about Cash. “Sort of? It’s complicated.”

  “Biggest cliché ever, and I know, as a writer, you don’t want to fall back on a cliché,” he teased.

  Still sitting sideways on the lounger, I entwined my fingers and tried to figure out what to say. Magnolia was the only other person I’d confided in, but I hadn’t told her much. “Cash and I have a history. We were together back when I lived here. We hadn’t seen each other for seventeen years, when he went off to the Navy.”

  “Were you serious back then?”

  “Pretty serious. He bought a ring.” That was something I hadn’t told Magnolia, for whatever reason.

  Knox let out a whistle.

  “He never gave it to me,” I said. “He chickened out and broke up instead.”

  “Ouch.”

  With a nod, I said, “Years of ouch. I mean, I got over him. I married another guy.”

  Knox’s gaze leapt to my bare ring finger.

  “Divorced him, thank you.”

  “But now you’re picking up where you left off.”

  “No. Just spending time together while I’m here.”

  “He doesn’t like me much,” Knox said.

  “I don’t think he knows you much, does he?”

  He shook his head. “He’s not the friendliest guy. Holden’s the friendly one of the Henrys. Seth was standoffish at first but he’s gotten better. It’s true what they say about being an outsider in a small town. It’s a little rough.”

  “Cash thinks you’re interested in me.”

  Knox’s brows shot up. “You and I hit it off about writing.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “My last relationship ended up going off the rails. I’m not interested in anyone romantically. You can tell him that if it helps.”

  “I already told him there were no vibes from you. I think he’s gotten better about it.” Mostly because he’d spent the past couple of nights in my bed.

  “I hope so.” He said it with a lot more conviction than I’d expect, and I tilted my head at him. “I don’t like having enemies,” he said. “You might be leaving, but he and I will be stuck together in this not-so-big town.”

  I grinned. “I think you’ll be fine. He’s more bark than bite these days. Anyway, I should get to the list of things I was supposed to do last night, before Aron stole my attention. And you need to send me your chapters of the new book so we can brainstorm.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “I might be a little slow, what with my interview that I really need to get my head around.”

  “I’m in no rush at all, Ava. I appreciate that you offered.”

  I stood. “Enjoy your view, and congrats again on the house.”

  After we said our goodbyes, I headed toward the cottage, Cash battling with the inn for space in my mind, and I couldn’t help noticing that, once again, California seemed a long way away. If all else failed, I’d spend tomorrow night at my little LA apartment getting my head back in the game. I had to or I’d be kissing my dream goodbye.

  Chapter 18

  Cash

  My mood was flying high when I got done with work Friday night. I was on my way to see Ava, who’d gotten back in town earlier this evening and was supposed to be waiting for me. But that was only half of it.

  I’d driven to work today, something I rarely did when the weather was nice, all so I could get to her faster once we got Henry’s shut down for the night. If my time with her was limited—and it was severely—I wasn’t going to waste it walking or running all the way out to her place.

  I pulled up next to her aunt’s beast of a truck, and my body heated at the knowledge that she’d driven that truck to the airport, so its presence verified she was back. When I knocked on the door, though, there was no answer. I grabbed my phone from my jeans pocket.

  Where are you, gorgeous?

  Her reply came almost immediately, giving me hope that she’d been waiting for me. We’d made a deal that we wouldn’t communicate while she was in LA. She’d be busy and I’d be busy, and I didn’t know if she felt the same, but I was a little concerned that we’d been getting too close.

  Docks, handsome.

  I headed toward the shore, sticking to the shadows between the inn and the cottage as I took inventory of the activity level. I knew there were more people checked in this week and it was a lot livelier. From the treed area, I could see a handful of people on one of the ground-level patios, sitting, drinking, laughing. Over on the main deck was another large group, and they appeared to be roasting marshmallows over a fire pit, even though the day had been hot and it hadn’t cooled down much when the sun set. As I walked down the grassy slope, I noted a couple on the loungers on the side opposite the docks.

  Thinking there wasn’t much privacy at all, I turned my attention to the docks, scanning the darkness for Ava. I spotted her in nearly the same place she’d been a few days ago when I’d brought donuts, and I coached my pulse to calm the hell down as I went toward her.

  She turned toward me once I stepped onto the dock. I roved my eyes over her in a glance as she stood. She wore short shorts, a light-colored tank that hugged her torso, and slip-on sneakers without socks. Her hair blew in the breeze, and her smile nearly knocked me on my knees.

  “Hey, handsome,” she said.

  “Hi, Ava.” Since there were folks behind us who could see us, I waited for a cue from her as to how cozy she wanted our greeting to be. She closed the last step between us and wrapped her arms around my neck in a hug, so I pulled her body against mine and lifted her. When I let her body slide back down mine, the contact set all my nerves at attention and made my dick go hard. “Fuck, you feel good,” I said into her ear, knowing voices could carry over the water a hell of a lot louder than you ever expected.

  “Mmm,” she said, stretching up to meet my mouth in a too-brief kiss.

  I took her hand. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “Trust me.”

  She glanced up at the people on the deck.

  “Are you working right now?” I asked.

  Ava shook her head. “Magnolia’s here until Deshon comes in.”

  “Then come with me.”

  “Well, let’s go then,” she said in a flirty voice. “What are you waiting for?”

  Grinning, I yanked our entwined hands and led her off the docks. When we hit land, I took a right and headed away from the inn. The shore here was a narrow stretch of sand for maybe one or two hundred yards, then it got rockier and covered with grasses and bushes and trees. At least it had back in the days when we’d been together. I hadn’t had reason to explore this wild section of land since we’d broken up.

  “Are you going where I think you’re going?” Ava asked as she walked slightly behind me so neither of us had to get our shoes wet.