Chapter 10 #2
Judith Ashford stands beside our table, water glass in hand, wearing a crisp white blazer despite the casual atmosphere. Her smile is precise and manufactured.
“Judith.” I stand because it feels safer to be at eye level than to stay seated, where she can look down on me. “How are you?”
Her eyes sweep over our table.
“I’m surprised to see you here, given the controversy surrounding your... work.” She says ‘work’ like it’s the dirtiest word in her lexicon. “I would have thought you’d want to keep a lower profile after such a turbulent and disgraceful week.”
The table goes quiet.
“Sadie has every right to be here,” Isabel says, her voice sharp.
“Of course she does.” Judith’s practiced smile doesn’t waver. “I’m simply saying that some people might find her presence here, at such an intimate event, inappropriate given the content of her book.”
“What content?” Macy’s eyes are blazing. “A love story? Romance?”
“Romance.” Judith’s laugh is condescending. People from other tables are starting to watch. “Is that what we’re calling it now? I’ve heard it described as rather explicit.”
“Have you read it?” I ask quietly.
She blinks. “I beg your pardon?”
“Wildfire Summer. Have you actually read it?“ I’m shaking, but my voice is steady. “Or are you just repeating what other people have said? Or maybe what you’ve simply heard it contains.”
“I don’t need to read pornography to know it’s inappropriate.”
“It’s not pornography.”
“It has explicit scenes.”
“It’s still just a romance novel. And if you haven’t read it, you really have no business judging it.”
Judith’s eyes narrow. “I have every right to question what gets published about my town. You used Sierra Rose Ridge as the backdrop for pornography, Sadie. You took our history, our landmarks, our stories, and wrapped them in smut for profit.”
“I changed the names. The characters are fictional. The plot is fictional. I wrote a love letter to a place I care about.” My hands are fists at my sides. “That’s not exploitation. And it’s certainly not a whore house.”
Judith pulls a hand to her chest like she’s shocked by my language. Mateo stifles a laugh.
Jess doesn’t.
Judith turns her attention to my best friend. “Who are you?”
“Jess.” She doesn’t stand. Doesn’t offer her hand. Just looks up at Judith with the kind of smile that says I’ve dealt with worse than you. “Sadie’s friend.”
“From out of town, I assume.”
“Portland.”
“How convenient.” Judith’s tone sharpens. She looks back at me. “Flying in reinforcements for moral support?”
“Flying in to support my friend, yes.” Jess leans back in her chair, completely unbothered. “Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. However, I do wonder if Sadie’s told you everything. About the kind of content she’s been writing. Using our town as the setting for explicit sexual material—“
“She wrote a book,” Jess interrupts. “A fictional book. Set in a fictional town. With fictional characters. That’s what authors do, Judith. They write fiction.”
“Fiction based on real places.”
“Fiction inspired by real places,“ Jess corrects. “There’s a difference. And unless Sierra Rose Ridge trademarked its layout, its legends, and its general aesthetic—which I’m guessing it hasn’t—Sadie has every legal and creative right to write whatever she wants.”
Judith’s smile tightens. “Have you actually read your friend’s book?”
“Cover to cover.” Jess doesn’t hesitate. “Twice, actually.”
“And you don’t find the content inappropriate?” I take a sip of wine just as Judith continues to interrogate my friend.
“Inappropriate?” Jess laughs. “I masturbated to it. Chapter fourteen specifically. Multiple times.”
I choke on my wine. Isabel’s and Dean’s mouths drop. Macy’s eyes go wide. Mateo’s fighting a grin.
Jess turns to me. “It’s a great scene.”
Judith’s face turns an alarming shade of red. “That is—this is exactly what I’m talking about. This kind of vulgarity—“
“Is perfectly normal,” Jess says like she’s commenting on the weather.
“Romance novels exist because people enjoy reading about love and sex. Sadie wrote an incredible, sexy love story. And yeah, it has explicit scenes. That’s what romance readers want.
If you have a problem with that, maybe the issue isn’t Sadie’s book.
Maybe the issue is you and your hang-ups about sex. ”
“I do not have—“ Judith sputters. “This is about standards.”
“Whose standards?” Jess leans forward. “Yours? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re the only one making this a problem.
Sadie wrote a book that people love. It hit number three on .
Readers are obsessed with it. The only people complaining are the ones who haven’t actually read it and are just clutching their pearls over the idea that, god forbid, a romance novel might contain romance. ”
“This isn’t about the book’s content,” Judith starts.
“Then what is it about?” Mateo’s voice cuts through, low and steady.
He hasn’t moved from his chair, but there’s something in his posture—coiled, protective—that makes Judith take a step back.
“Because you keep saying it’s about respect and community values, but you showed up at our table uninvited to humiliate Sadie publicly. That doesn’t sound like respect to me.”
Judith’s jaw tightens. “I’m trying to protect this town.”
“From what?” Mateo stands, placing a protective hand on my lower back, anchoring me.
“From a book? From a love story? Sadie wrote about a carpenter and a bookshop owner falling in love. She wrote about desert wildflowers, star-crossed legends, and a small town that feels like home. She didn’t turn Sierra Rose Ridge into pornography. She honored the town.”
“You haven’t even read it,” Judith snaps.
“You don’t know that.” His voice is quiet but absolute.
Oh god, has he read it? “But whether I have or haven’t doesn’t actually matter.
I know Sadie. I know how much she loves this place.
She moved here five years ago, looking for a home, and found it.
She wrote about that. About belonging. About love.
If that offends you, that says more about you than it does about her book. ”
For a long moment, Judith just stares at him. Then her gaze sweeps over me, then back to Mateo.
“How quaint,” she says finally. “The town blacksmith defending the smut writer. I’m sure that will make for excellent gossip.”
She turns and walks away, head high. Some of the gawkers watch as she leaves. Others continue to stare at our table.
I’m shaking so hard I have to sit down.
“That bitch,” Macy hisses.
“Forget her,” Isabel says firmly. “She’s just bitter and sad and looking for someone to make feel worse than she does on a daily basis.”
But my hands won’t stop trembling.
Mateo crouches in front of me, his hands covering mine. “You okay, tesoro?”
I nod. Then shake my head. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Then we leave.”
“But—“
“We leave,” he repeats. “You don’t owe anyone your presence. Especially not after that.”
“Let’s go back to the bookshop,” Macy suggests. “We can have our own wine night. Without judgmental assholes.”
Isabel grins. “I like that idea. I’ll grab this bottle. Dean can bring the two he bought.”
Before I can protest, they’re gathering our things, and Mateo’s helping me to my feet.
We leave the winery. The cool night air feels like relief after the suffocating atmosphere of Judith’s confrontation.
“I can’t believe her,” Macy says as we walk to our cars. “Acting like she owns the town. Like she gets to decide who belongs and who doesn’t.”
“She’s been like that for years,” Isabel says. “Power trip. She thinks being head of the historical society makes her queen of Sierra Rose Ridge.”
“Well, fuck her,” Macy declares.
I smile. Mateo walks beside me. Every few steps, our arms brush, and he takes my hand in his.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “For what you said back there.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that.”
“I know.” And for the first time, I actually believe it. “I know you’re going to show up.”
“Someone attacks you, I’m going to say something. That’s non-negotiable.” There’s an edge to his voice. Something raw. “Ride with me.”
I nod.
Macy climbs into her car with Jess. Isabel and Dean take his truck. And I slide into Mateo’s passenger seat, grateful to not be alone.
The engine rumbles to life. He backs out of the space, following the others toward the main road. For a few minutes, we drive in silence. The headlights cut through the darkness, and the tension from the confrontation slowly starts to ease from my shoulders.
“So.” His voice is casual, but there’s amusement in it. “What’s in chapter fourteen?”
I choke on nothing. “What?”
“Chapter fourteen.” He glances at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Jess said she masturbated to it. Multiple times. I’m curious.”
“Mateo—“ My face burns.
“I’m just saying, if it’s that good, maybe I should read it.”
“You are not reading my book.”
“Why not?” He’s grinning now, fully grinning, and it’s doing things to my pulse that can’t calm down. “I like to read. You know that. You’ve sold me plenty of books over the years.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because—“ I flounder. “Because it’s mine. And you’re—you’re you.”
“What does that mean?”
It means I wrote a hero who watches the heroine with steady, dark eyes and makes her feel safe, wanted, and seen. A hero who is patient and protective and impossibly, devastatingly kind.
A hero I might have based a little too much on the man sitting next to me.
“It just does,” I mutter.
He laughs—a real laugh, warm and genuine—and some of the tension that’s been coiled in my chest since we left the winery finally loosens.
“Okay, tesoro. I won’t read it.“ He pauses. “Unless you want me to.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
I am lying. I absolutely am. Part of me wants him to read it just to see if he’d recognize himself. If he’d see what I see when I look at him. And maybe see if we could recreate chapter fourteen.
But the rest of me is terrified of exactly that.
The road stretches out ahead of us, dark except for our headlights and the taillights of Dean’s truck and Macy’s car ahead.
We’re pulling toward the town square with Macy’s car just ahead of us. I can see her gesturing animatedly in the driver’s seat, Jess laughing beside her.
Then her brake lights flare red. Her car stops dead in the middle of the street.
Mateo slows, pulling up behind her.
“No.” The word leaves me before I can stop it.
Mateo’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel.
“Carajo.”