Page 19 of Will Bark for Pizza (Bluebell Springs #1)

“You might have blown up on BookTok again. I’ll send you the video.”

I pulled up my sales dashboard and nearly screamed. “Holy shit. I could buy another Jeep,” I joked.

“Keep this up, and you could buy your own fleet of Jeeps.”

Her words were a sucker punch to my excitement.

There wouldn’t be a next time.

There wouldn’t be another book, or another series.

I tried for months to write after my Dark Ages ended, and the few hundred words I managed to force from my fingers were garbage. I hadn’t attempted to write something new in almost four months. My characters wouldn’t talk to me, and the ones who did were too bitter to redeem.

I closed my laptop, suddenly choking back tears.

I should tell Lila.

I would tell Lila.

But this conversation deserved in-person care. “When I get back to Omaha, we’ll have to do a dessert date,” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Kira,” she said sternly.

“I’m just overwhelmed.” It wasn’t a lie, but it definitely wasn’t the full truth.

“You sure you don’t want me to come to Colorado?”

“No. I still have to finish my apology tour.”

“How’s that going, by the way?”

“You know? Better than I expected.” I told Lila about my long conversation with Grandma Connie out in the garden yesterday.

There’d been fewer tears than I expected, and a whole lot more understanding.

“Connor doesn’t even seem fazed,” I added, remembering my very brief and easy chat with him.

“I can’t tell if Luke’s forgiven me yet. I feel like I’m on probation with him.”

“What about your dad?”

My chest tightened, and tears threatened all over again. I swallowed them back, and replaced the sadness with anger.

The conversation with him last night was emotional, to say the least. But it had nothing to do with the terrible things I said last summer. He cut right to the topic of the bookstore, before I even set down the six-pack on his kitchen counter .

I’d never seen him cry, aside from Mom’s funeral. But he teared up last night when he told me he had no choice but to sell it after the financial ruin that was Margene Miller.

That woman better pray I never found her.

Dad and I spent most of the evening talking about the state of the bookstore, and why he had to sell not only the business, but the building too.

Connor was right. He had his hands tied.

He’d dipped into his retirement fund to avoid affecting the hardware store’s bottom line.

He couldn’t even afford to pay anyone to staff the bookstore, which was why, despite the going-out-of-business-sale sign in the window, it wasn’t even open.

We were both too worn out after all that to clear the air about my last visit.

“That’s a work in progress,” I admitted.

Tomorrow morning, I’d meet him and an appraiser there.

He agreed to let me be a part of the selling process, but I had no inclinations that the role was anything more than a way to appease me.

An olive branch. I couldn’t change his mind.

I couldn’t change what had happened in my absence.

And Dad warned me it was highly unlikely anyone would want anything more than the building.

The bookstore as we knew it would cease to exist.

“They’ll forgive you, Kira.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“You have a family who actually gives a shit about each other. Don’t take that for granted.”

I wanted to tell her about the bookstore, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it yet. Instead, I deflected. “Travis texted me.”

“He what?”

“Changed his number again.”

“Kira, this has to stop.”

“You know I can’t respond. It’ll only make it worse.”

“But you could get a restraining order.”

“I blocked the number. Deleted it from my phone.”

“That’s not going to stop him. And you know you can retrieve deleted texts from the last thirty days.”

We’d argued about this a few times. Lila was less than thrilled that I was deleting the text messages, but the idea of them existing on my phone at all gave me the worst kind of anxiety.

The only thing they would prove was that he’d been inundating me with messages I never answered.

Travis’ most important priority was self-preservation.

He was careful not to say anything that could be construed as threatening.

I’d never be granted a protective order.

“Hey, I forgot to send you that picture of Husker in his doggie life jacket,” I said, hoping like hell to change the subject. “I actually got one while he was on the board.”

“You did?” Lila was kind enough to drop the restraining order talk—for now. “Send it! I have to see this.”

I attached the picture, and hit send. “It should be there any minute.”

“Um, who is that?”

Shit .

“Kira Jane!”

Relieved to be off the hook about Travis, my fingers had moved too quickly. I meant to send her the first one I took of only Husker. But instead, I sent her the second one. The one with Beckett smiling in the background, shirtless, and covered in tattoos.

“I repeat, who is that?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, biting my bottom lip. My stomach was growling, and I desperately needed a shower. “My grandma’s waiting for me downstairs.”

“Is he your next book inspiration? Oh my God, he’d make such a sexy vampire. Is that your inspiration for Mateo?”

“He’s a friend of the family.”

“A very delicious-looking friend. Look at all those tattoos,” she cooed. “Are you sure you’ve sworn off men?”

“I have to go.”

“You’re calling me back later with details.”

“There are no details.”

“You’re such a liar.”

“Am not.”

“Babe, who’s taking the picture?”

Damn Lila and her uncanny ability to notice details with detective-like accuracy.

“I’ll call you this weekend.”

“If you don’t, I’m coming there myself to meet this friend of the family .”

“Bye, Lila.” It was a good thing I avoided FaceTime. I could feel the blush heating my cheeks and neck. It was just a harmless little crush. One that would lead to nothing. One no one needed to know about—Lila included.

“Or you,” I said to Husker. Though, I suspected my dog had a bigger crush on him than I did.