Page 40 of Will Bark for Pizza (Bluebell Springs #1)

“It’s the only thing virgin about the meeting today,” Dylann tossed in, an eruption of giggles following from several members. It was now that I noticed her #TeamDarius T-shirt. Coincidence, Kira. It’s just a coincidence. Plenty of book heroes were named Darius.

Beckett nodded my way, assuring me he would watch Husker so I didn’t have to worry about him sneaking out the front door after a chipmunk as everyone else filtered in. I focused on attending to the coffee pot, pulling out cups, cream, sugar, and stirring spoons as everyone settled in.

The bells chimed overhead a few times, welcoming the last few members, and Aspen with the rest of the cupcake delivery.

“I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” she said to everyone.

“Pull up a seat, sweetie,” Lotti offered. “Did you read the book?”

“I sure did,” she said.

“What book?—”

“Beckett, are you staying, honey?” Dylann asked, as though they were old friends. Had they met?

“We have extra chairs,” Thelma said, her offer sounding more like a demand that was hard to evade.

I glanced at Beckett, catching his gaze and holding it for a few seconds longer than I should, considering the number of comments from the peanut gallery about the two of us.

Friends . Just friends .

“I should warn you,” I said to Beckett. “This group reads mostly spicy romance.”

“Think I can’t handle it, Red?”

I offered a shrug, pretending I wasn’t affected by the nickname I was coming to like a little too much.

“You’ve been warned.” I turned my attention to the table. “Who wants coffee?”

“We have margaritas too,” Dylann reminded the group.

“You look right at home here,” Beckett said as I poured a couple cups of coffee for Betty and Carlos.

“It was home.” I let out a soft sigh as I scanned the familiar room. “For a long time.”

“Maybe you should?— ”

“Would you two hurry up and join us? I want to talk about that sexy vampire, Darius.”

“You mean Mateo ,” Lotti said.

“You can have that grumpy-ass vampire. I’m Team Darius all the way.”

I froze, my eyes no doubt doubling in size. The air in my lungs froze.

“You know Mateo?” Beckett asked me, his voice low.

It had to be a coincidence. The only person here who knew I was Diana Davenport besides Beckett was Aspen, and she was sworn to secrecy.

But as I slowly scanned the table, I found copy after copy of Forever Forbidden laid out in front of several book club members.

Most of them had colorful tabs sticking out the sides.

They’d not just been well read, they were well annotated.

“Did you?—”

“Me?” Beckett shook his head. “But something tells me your secret was never really a secret.”

“Fucking hell, is she going to pass out?” Thelma said. “Beckett, make sure you hold on to her before she hits the damn floor.”

“I told you we should have warned her,” Dylann said, her tone a mixture of annoyance and apology as she played with the layers of necklaces hanging around her neck.

“Come join us, Diana ,” Lotti cooed, pulling out the empty seat next to her. She was easy to spot in her bright yellow and pink windbreaker suit. I followed the blur of color, feeling as though my feet were floating.

“Guess you have some fans,” Beckett whispered to me.

Was his hand on the small of my back? That would explain the pool of heat gathered there.

Heat that was slowly spreading to other parts of my shaky body.

I felt the swish of Husker’s tail against my leg as he trotted beside me toward the table, and allowed that to ground me.

Because all Beckett’s touch was going to do was take me that much further from reality.

“You should sit down before you hit your damn head on a bookshelf and get a concussion,” Thelma insisted.

“How did—” I looked at Aspen, and she shook her head.

“We’ve known for a long time, dear,” Betty said as I fell into a chair beside Lotti.

I suddenly wished I still drank, because a margarita sounded really nice right about now.

I stared at the paperback copy of my latest book in front of me, in some combined state of shock and awe.

I picked it up and examined the brilliant details my designer crafted into this cover.

I hadn’t ordered physical copies of my own books in almost two years, despite Lila’s insistence that I sell signed copies from my website.

If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t even have a paperback option online.

After I recovered from the epic shock of all this, I owed her a phone call.

“How long? How long have you all known?”

“Your mother never meant to tell us,” Carlos said, adjusting his thick, purple-rimmed glasses.

“My mom?” Of course, I told Mom that I wrote a book. She begged me to do a book signing at her shop, but I swore her to secrecy until I was ready.

She passed the day before I was going to tell her I would .

“It was her turn to pick a book,” Lotti explained. “She didn’t tell us it was yours. Not at first.”

“But dammit, we devoured that book like the fucking delectable dessert it was,” Thelma added.

“Your mom was so proud of you that the truth practically burst right out of her,” Carol Ann added, her smile soothing.

“She was . . . proud of me?” I didn’t consider my first book to be very good at all. It sold well enough, but I figured it was because that first book set up the entire Veltori universe. My first series was . . . rough at best.

“Of course she was proud,” Carol Ann said, her eyes shiny. “We all were.”

“We all are ,” Thelma corrected.

“When’s the next one coming? I’m dying to know!” Lotti gushed.

The swell of love that surrounded me evaporated in a single stuttered heartbeat.

I didn’t know how to tell the group that there would never be another Diana Davenport book.

It seemed like a shitty way to end their final book club meeting at Brenda’s Book Nook.

I wished like hell I could give them another one.

I wished the characters hadn’t gone on an extended vacation, refusing to talk to me.

Or that the words hadn’t dried up, no matter how many days I put my butt in the seat and tried to write anything at all, only to be met with a blank page night after night.

“Stop fucking pestering the girl,” Thelma chided. “The next book will come when it’s ready. Isn’t that right? ”

Beckett’s gaze penetrated from across the table, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet it.

“Right.”

“For now, let’s talk about that sexy vampire, Darius, and his very talented tongue,” Carlos insisted.

The group erupted in chatter about Forever Forbidden .

I, as the author, was instructed to sit quietly and not give a single opinion, or answer any questions, until they were finished with their very lengthy discussion.

I thought Beckett would get a little squirmy with all the free-flowing sex talk, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.

I was enjoying myself. The way they talked about my characters as though they were old friends—or in some cases mortal enemies—warmed a place deep in my soul.

For the first time in over a year, I felt the inkling of a story forming. A whisper from a character I hadn’t yet met. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I discreetly slid a pad of paper toward me anyway, and scribbled a note on it. Mateo needs a woman who challenges him .

I turned the pad over, and when I looked up, Beckett’s gaze was trained on me as though he knew exactly what happened.

I spent over an hour answering questions about the Veltori universe, not just from this book, but from all of them. I’d forgotten about some of the side characters, ones I once intended to write spin-off series for. Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t over yet.

I wanted to believe that so badly.

“You should move home, Kira,” Lotti insisted. “That way, we can help you brainstorm. ”

“She doesn’t want our fucking help,” Thelma chided.

“I don’t want any spoilers,” Betty said. “But I’d love it if you moved back. We all would.”

My gaze kept snagging on Beckett’s, which only confused me more. Because the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be back in Bluebell Springs.

“But what would I do here?” The question slipped out as easily as it did last night, before I could wrangle it back down my throat. But this time, the first suggestion was not to write more books.

“Take over the bookstore,” Carlos said, as though it was the most obvious answer.

“Oh my— yes! ” Lotti all but squealed.

The entire book club went a little nuts.

“That would be so perfect!”

“Your mom would love that.”

“It would be so full circle.”

“Do you want to own a bookstore?” Aspen asked from the opposite end of the table, effectively silencing the group.

“I don’t know anything about running one,” I admitted.

“We do,” Thelma said.

“You do?”

“I used to help your mom with the book buying,” Dylann said. “I’m a little rusty, but I’m not useless.”

“I worked part time just so I could read the advance copies,” Thelma added.

“I worked on the weekends,” Betty added. “And planned the story hours for the kids. I really miss doing that. Margene cut that program a month after Brenda left us.”

“Fucking Margene,” Thelma muttered.

“I still think we need to organize a manhunt,” Dylann said, matter-of-factly. “Frank says he might know a guy.”

“We are not hiring a hitman.”

Dylann shrugged. “Just an idea.”

“My husband can help with the accounting stuff,” Carlos said. “At least to start.”

“I might know a thing or two as well.” I looked over my shoulder to find Grandma Connie standing near the register.

I had no idea when she slipped in, or how.

Had to be the back door. How long had she been standing there?

Was she totally mortified that I wrote vampire smut? My cheeks heated to inferno levels.

“Come take a seat, Connie,” Dylann insisted. “I’ll pour you a margarita.”

“Sorry I’m late,” she said to the group, her gaze landing on me at last as she pulled out a copy of Forever Forbidden from her tote bag. “I—I didn’t know if I?—”

“We understand,” Carol Ann said, her tone filled with compassion. “We know it’s hard.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Grandma Connie said. “Not anymore. I owe you all an apology.”

“For what?” Lotti asked.

“I feel responsible for what’s happening. If I’d stepped up and taken over?—”

“Connie, you do not get to blame yourself. We won’t fucking allow it,” Thelma insisted, folding her arms across her chest. “Margene Miller fooled us all. The only thing you’re guilty of is believing in someone who stabbed you in the damn back with a pickaxe.”

Grandma Connie swiped at her tears as Husker nosed the back of her arm, causing her to laugh. “You know I brought you some asparagus,” she said to him, fishing a baggie of vegetables from her tote as Dylann slid her a margarita across the table.

“Would you really be willing to work here again?” I asked Grandma Connie after she took a hearty sip, trying my best to keep my question as delicate as possible.

When Mom was still here, Grandma Connie was in the bookstore daily.

But, to my knowledge, she hadn’t stepped foot in Brenda’s Book Nook since the day of Mom’s accident.

“Only if it’s what you want, Kira,” she said to me. “Margene left your father in a financial mess. It would be an uphill battle from the get-go. I won’t ask you to sink that kind of money into a store just to preserve your mother’s legacy.”

What did I want?

I knew what I didn’t want.

I didn’t want to live in Omaha anymore.

I didn’t want to be cut off from the people who mattered most to me.

I didn’t want to just exist.

I didn’t want to play it small ever again.

I caught a whiff of Mom’s floral perfume and nearly started to cry.

But this time, the tears were happy. This bookstore may have started out as Mom’s dream, but it was integral in shaping me into the author I’d become.

Whether or not I ever wrote another book, this place was special to me.

Too special to let it go if I could do something to stop it.

And for the first time, I realized I was not alone.

“You all understand that I don’t know what I’m doing here?”

“We’re here to help you figure it out,” Dylann said.

“All of us,” Lotti promised.

“And we’re ready to put our money where our mouths are,” Thelma said, pulling out a checkbook and waving it.

“What?”

“We want to invest, dear,” Lotti said, as though this entire conversation was premeditated. Hell, maybe it was.

I glanced at Beckett. He was wearing one of those sexy half smiles that turned me into an instant puddle of goo.

“You already know you’ll have a pretty great landlord. Just saying.” He shrugged, causing a fit of giggles to erupt from Lotti and Carlos.

“But my dad?—”

Dylann refilled her plastic margarita cup, pushed back her chair, and pointed to the door. “Looks like we’re taking a field trip to the hardware store.” She looked at me. “If you’re in, that is.”

Happy tears trickled down my cheeks.

“I’m in.”