Inspired By You: A Small Town Romance (Veterans of Silver Ridge Book 3)

Chapter 1

Jo

Tall, bearded, and beautiful Adam Carter stood in my doorway smiling at me, and he’d just used a name no one else in the world knew was mine.

Josie Wade.

Not a remarkable name by any stretch, but miraculous in that it was my supersecret pen name for a part of my life literally no one but this brain-meltingly handsome man in front of me knew about. I, Josephine “Jo” Malcom, was living a lie.

I mean, not really. I just wasn’t telling anyone about this part of my life, and it was my choice. Adam’s discovery of the truth had been accidental, and he’d promised to keep it a secret. Six months later, he’d kept his word.

In doing so, he’d tucked himself close to me, even though he didn’t mean to. He’d stitched himself a pocket in my life no one else had access to. He couldn’t possibly understand what it meant to me that he knew this secret no one else on earth save my accountant did. It was the difference between eating alone at the lunch table and having one friend to talk to—a small change but with infinite impact on the isolation that had been the reality before.

“Come in,” I said, smothering the crush of giddiness pinging around inside me like someone had dropped a bowl of bouncy balls on tile. He’s here! He’s heeeere!

The immature interior squeal would’ve embarrassed me if it had emerged into reality, but fortunately, my excitement and completely manageable no-big-deal crush didn’t betray me.

Could anyone blame me? He stepped through the doorway, and I failed to shield my eyes from the perfectly fitted olive green polo shirt clinging just enough to a defined chest and clean, worn-in jeans hinting at long, strong legs and lean hips. He had on gray-and-black sneakers, and his beard was trimmed close and matched his light brown hair he’d styled in a careless and yet somehow orderly look, tidily trimmed on the sides and longer up top.

I swallowed hard and forced my eyes away, refusing to indulge in admiring the fit of that shirt around his muscular arms or the way his jeans did great things for his b—body. No. Because one doesn’t check one’s friend out, does one?

No, one definitively does not. Especially when one had banished the crush on one’s friend when said friend very clearly announced he had no interest in relationships or marriage and had done nothing in the almost-year since meeting to indicate a change of heart.

So.

None of this pining after a man who wasn’t an option. No Scarlett begging Ashley Wilkes to notice her charms. No Laurie waiting for Jo to settle down for him.

No more admiring. No more bouncy balls. No more nonsense.

Business.

Friendship.

Books!

See, there it was. I could focus on the book, and my frustrating physical response to him could take a flying leap. Grabbing my computer, I let the cool metallic shell of the laptop ground me into this reality—not the shared secrets, fluttery heartbeat one I’d momentarily lapsed into. This man had come to share his insights on life as a military medic and answer questions I could use about my character, and I shouldn’t keep him waiting.

“So, I thought we’d sit and I can kind of tell you about the character and you can tell me if it’s a bad idea? And then I have a whole list of questions for you if you don’t hate the concept.”

Now having said it, the thought he may in fact find my character laughable made worry tangle in my chest. I’d written much of the book already but needed to add details that would lend credibility to his medical knowledge and give those specifics romantic suspense readers loved. He didn’t need to know the bones of the hero were based on him and I’d pictured him as I sketched out scenes. That info would stay with me.

“I highly doubt I’ll hate the idea,” he said, taking a seat at the small two-person table in what I generously referred to as my breakfast nook.

In reality, it was simply a small table set by the lone window in my living room. My one-bedroom rental above the bookstore was rather minuscule, and it’d never struck me as problematic because I lived alone, and I’d never planned to be here this long. But after staying for closing in on a year, I’d settled in, and I couldn’t seem to summon the will to leave Silverton.

I plunked down across from him in front of my computer and launched in, stoutly ignoring the thrill of even this simple action—sitting close to Adam in my apartment. As small as it was, it felt smaller… intimate, even, with him here. He had broad shoulders and the aforementioned arms and chest and?—

Ahhhh!

But also, Focus, Jo! With a mental slap to my cheeks, I dove in. “So this guy is on the same team as the other characters in the series. He’s their medic.” Adam’s pleased smile left me no choice but to return it. He had lovely teeth and lips and— “Right, so you know something about that.”

“I do indeed,” he said with a nod.

Well, crap. Even his most basic speech was attractive to me. He had that touch of a Southern accent, and paired with his rich, low voice, smoke curled in my belly at the simple phrase.

Slap!Another mental reminder to focus.

Adam had been a medic in the Exceptional Mission Unit, where he’d served with most of the people who worked at Saint Security. Wilder Saint had grown up here and his mother and two brothers still lived here, so that’s what led him and Bruce Camden, his business partner, to Silverton as their retirement destination. Since then, a whole slew of veterans, retired and otherwise, had made their way over to work for this local security firm or other businesses in the area.

Including Adam.

I rattled off more basic information about the character and the gist of the plot. Adam watched, eyebrows slightly pinched as I explained the bad-guy organization that would infiltrate the small town where my heroes lived, and he blessedly refrained from pointing out the flaws in the general concept. We’d already been through the fact that active duty military wouldn’t be living in a small town separate from a base and never deploying. Yes, this concept didn’t hold water in the real world, but it’s how I’d set up the series before I’d met any of the actual veterans here in Silverton.

Adam had graciously consulted on a few small things in my previous book, and even then, he’d chuckled kindly when I admitted I knew the whole series concept wasn’t realistic, but it was too late. He’d been unfazed and still willing to help, bless him.

Ultimately, that’s how we’d ended up here—first, he’d discovered my pen name secret, and then he’d been so generous, so helpful. Since meeting him last summer and learning a little bit about him, I’d created a character lightly modeled after him who was, like he’d been, a combat medic.

My hero also had gorgeous blue eyes and brown hair and a jaw begging the heroine to run her fingers over it and lips that practically screamed kiss me! But he was completely fictional and any resemblance to real-life people was purely coincidental, obviously.

“He sounds like a compelling guy,” Adam said with a half smile. “Let’s hear your questions.”

Compelling guy. Sigh. Little did he know.

Would it be weird if I told him the character wasn’t just coincidentally similar to him but actually based on the real-life Adam Carter? Yeah. Probably.

Shoving away the thought, I launched in.

It sounds so trite to admit, but the first time I saw him last summer, everything changed.

I’d met his younger brother Ethan and liked him—we’d clicked in a friendly, quick way that made me instantly at ease. We’d even decided to go into business together when I invested in his coffee shop, Joe.

My mind shoved me back into the moment…

“Hey, nice to meet you. I’m Adam.”

He had a small dimple and the slightest touch of a Southern accent, so his I’m sounded more like ahm. His vowels stretched just a bit longer than they would if he were from the western US, and more than Ethan’s, for sure.

“I’m Jo,” I managed through a flurry of wild heartbeats the likes of which I’d read and written in my own books but had never experienced.

Even with Bruce, whom I’d adored since the day I’d met him, I’d never felt like this.

“You’re new to Silverton, too, right?” Adam asked, a small smile on his ridiculously handsome face.

And it was. Ridiculously handsome. The stuff of romance novels, and actually, not unlike a character I’d been thinking about writing?—

“Jo?”

I startled, realizing I’d just spaced out while cataloguing this man’s beautiful features. I knew he’d be handsome, because his brother was certainly good-looking, but wow. And now, said brother—adorable, sweet, more and more important to me, Ethan—was looking at me like I was turning green.

“Right! Yes. I’m new. I mean, my dad moved here a few years back and opened All Booked Up. I was in grad school in Salt Lake City until about three months ago, but I’ve been visiting regularly since my dad moved here.” Were those even normal words? Had I lost the power to converse?

I’d never been particularly smooth in the face of someone like him—just ask anyone who’d seen me try to chat with Bruce before my crush had eased off.

Adam nodded, the small smile and dimple trying to murder me. “That’s a great shop. Good history section.”

“Good romance section, more importantly,” I said, because I couldn’t not, and because if there was one thing I could talk about without cliff diving into the awkwardness of such immediate interest in a man I’d just met, it was books.

Ethan chuckled. “Jo’s a staunch advocate for romance.”

He grinned like this fact about me made him proud or charmed or something. I’d had more than a few moments of feeling Ethan’s or something in the last few months since we’d met, but I’d shied away from it and drawn the lines at friendship because I hadn’t felt anything more than affection for him.

I’d never felt anything like I did right now, a shimmering sense of possibility paired with actual pulse pounding in my veins, simply standing next to his brother.

My romantic little heart ran away with itself. What if he’s here because of me? What if the reason he’s here is for me? And when normally, I would’ve curbed those thoughts, would’ve covered them with logic and reality and all the things that could blow out a spark, I let it glow.

“She’s all in for the love, marriage, babies, lifelong soul-mates deal, right, Jo?” Ethan said, nudging my arm with his elbow like this was a chummy moment.

I grinned a little too big, probably, and admitted, “Guilty as charged.”

But then, it happened.

Adam’s brows dipped, and he winced. “Ah.”

In that fraction of a second, that little spark didn’t ease into something bigger, something with the burn of a flame, but rather, it stuttered, on the brink of blowing out altogether.

Ethan explained then. “Adam’s more of a cynic.”

Throat narrow, I swallowed against the tightness of disappointment and the odd feeling of a premature ending. “Oh?”

Adam nodded once. “Hard-won lesson, though I’m always happy when others find love and prove me wrong. But for me, I’ve made a go of it, and once was enough.”

And there it’d gone. The spark snuffed right out.

I might’ve been struck by his features and his voice, how he had that little accent and his brother didn’t. I liked his manners and his style and how he knew so many of the people at Saint Security I admired, including my own stepbrother, Wilder, but that beat in my chest slowed, and the woman who was ready to fall for someone, to give him all of her heart and make a home with him where we’d love each other endlessly until Heaven took us… that part sobered, stepped back, and offered him a soft smile.

“Good to know. I won’t fault you for learning your lesson if you won’t fault me for never learning mine.”

I meant the romantic in me wouldn’t, but the girl who caught crushes and let them billow into something unwieldy like bone-dry brush in the high desert had caught fire? That girl had learned her lesson. I wasn’t going to hope for anything with this man beyond cordial acquaintance because no one has time for the exhaustion of burying feelings.

Or so I told myself every day, especially after he found out my biggest secret and then offered to help me with it.

Months ago, when he surprised me while I was writing in what I’d thought was an empty store, I’d nearly had a panic attack. But he’d had no idea I was hiding anything. It wasn’t until I’d run into him and splattered the mail from the PO Box where I got my Josie Wade mail forwarded that everything changed.

His soft touch as he’d inspected me, looking for harm. His insistence in making sure I was safe, that he’d do anything to help me.

And then the moment when I’d dragged him to my car, where I knew no one would overhear, and told him the truth in these closed confines that built the bubble between us and stitched the little pocket he’d so easily slid into.

My heart still fluttered in my chest just thinking about it. Every bit of me lit with that same sense of possibility and promise.

So I reminded myself of the little hole I’d dug the first day we met and shoved in all those messy wishes having to do with him, even though it didn’t always feel deep enough. Sometimes, things seeped out, especially when he’d snuck his way into a part of my life no one else shared. But then, I’d heap on more turned-over earth and tamp it down, maybe stick a plywood board over top of it and not let myself long for things I shouldn’t want.

If only my mind and heart could agree about him.