Chapter Twenty
“So,” Jess announced as soon as she arrived and placed her folder on the table between them. “You and Ross, eh?” She was grinning
widely.
“Good grief, news travels fast,” Petra muttered, unable to wipe the smile from her face. Ross had been messaging, promising
her a delicious supper on her return to the cottage after this.
“Fast work, eh?”
Petra laughed. “I met him before I met any of you,” she said in her own defense. “It’s just been nice having a friend . . .
and now . . .”
“It’s luuuurve!” declared Jess. “Fabulous. We need to see more of this beautiful man. Bring him on Friday? Usual time and
location?”
“God, poor Ross,” laughed Petra. “You will be gentle with him, won’t you?”
“I will,” promised Jess, “but you know what Freya’s like. Also—this is great—because it saves me having to find you a ‘plus
one’ for Jules and Roman’s wedding party. I’ve been racking my brains, to be honest.”
“Hang on,” said Petra nervously. “I haven’t actually RSVPed on that yet. I’m assuming Jules and Roman are just being polite . . . They want me to be out of here as soon as they get back, surely? I’m only covering while they’re away. That’s the deal.”
“Of course you’re welcome to come,” said Jess firmly. “And anyway, you can’t rush off, because I need you for the festival, so it’s
going to be at least the beginning of September before you go. Plus”—Jess’s face fell—“well, I thought you’d want to stay. We blow-ins need to stick together.”
“Yeah, well . . . it’s not even June yet. Let’s see how things go,” said Petra, flipping open her laptop and opening up her
festival “to do” list. “So . . . let’s talk about responses to our speaker invitations, because we need to get the final lineup
confirmed asap.”
Closing his laptop with a sigh, and—more important—another thousand words of the novel safely in the bag, Ross was thinking
about Petra coming home, and how they would cook supper together. Maybe they would sit in the tiny garden with a beer while
it cooked, shooting the breeze, exchanging news about their respective days . . . They never ran out of things to talk about.
Just as he went to stand up, his phone pinged, and he reached for it, smiling. Petra’s texts were always so funny. Really,
she should write a book too. Maybe a rom-com . . .
When he saw the notification, his heart clenched like a fist, a rock, heavy in his chest:
Rossie! read the message. It’s been too, too long, lover-boy . . . Call me?
When they were apart, Petra longed to be with Ross.
Had they ever really been “just friends” she wondered now as she walked back up the main street to Ross’s cottage—home—at the end of another satisfying day’s work.
How had she not seen this sooner? It must have been more than simple friendship that caused her spirits to lift so euphorically when she saw him slip in through the bookshop door at the end of the working day.
And on the days when his writing was going well and he hadn’t shown up, she had been so downcast. Ridiculously, she had not recognized the cause of her seesawing mood.
It was as if their love for each other had been hiding in plain sight. Even from themselves. Flo’s predictions about the two
of them had been right all along. She was a wise old bird. Petra smiled; she would give her that. And they were good for each
other too. It wasn’t just the not being able to keep their hands off each other bit—which was fun—it was also the deep shared
interest in all things related to books. Ross was so confident of his abilities again now. His editing was underway with a
sure touch, and Petra’s work for Jules and Roman had become inspired: She had the writing club, the two book clubs, and—best of all—her reading recommendations were becoming so legendary that she was getting strangers coming
into the shop asking for her by name.
Yes, the Beach Reads Book Club, in particular, was thriving, she mused as she walked. And it was even becoming a useful bellwether
for her commercial fiction buying.
Write Club too was flourishing under her tender stewardship, which gave her an idea.
“You should come to Write Club next week,” she said to Ross as they cooked supper together, squeezing past each other in his
tiny kitchen. Not that close proximity was any kind of problem.
“What? I could never be a tutor, if that’s what you mean? I’m a crap teacher.”
“That’s actually not what I was talking about. You’re in another stratosphere to them careerwise, but I meant you should join
in. Actually, you probably wouldn’t want to lower yourself. Forget I said anything.” He was in a weird mood tonight, she told
herself. Negative, which wasn’t like him. Okay, it was like the old Ross—
“That is absolutely not what I meant,” Ross said hastily. “Of course I don’t want to pull rank on other writers.” He sighed. “I feel like I’m not ready to share. Except with you,” he added.
“I wish you had been my editor first time out.”
He looked stricken at the mention of his editor, Petra noticed. He really had had a rough time. It was important to make sure
he was happy with his relationships this time around, she thought.
“You say that about not sharing,” she challenged him, “but you’re still not happy with the first three chapters,” Petra pointed
out. “We’ve talked them over a million times. Would it not be helpful to have a fresh pairs of eyes? They’re never mean. You
could be a visitor,” she suggested. “One session only. So if you don’t like it . . .”
Ross didn’t demure, so Petra pressed on. “We all submit some work for review by Sunday evening, and then talk about it together
on Thursday, so you’d still be in time for this week.”
“Could I use a pen name?”
“’Course you could,” encouraged Petra. “Except why? Someone is going to work it out eventually, and then they might feel they’ve
been manipulated. That’s maybe the only issue . . .”
“I worry people won’t be honest if they know,” said Ross, staring sightlessly at the pan he was stirring. “I mean, this novel is so completely and utterly different from the first, I was actually wondering about whether to change my writing name anyhow . . .”
With her literary agent hat on, there would have been no way Petra would allow him to waste the platform he had built with
his first book by doing that. It would be madness. But she wasn’t his agent—so . . .
“Sure. Do that,” she said.
Whatever it took to get this particular horse to the starting gate, she thought. Clearly, whatever had happened to Ross the
first time out had been bad enough that he needed—even more than other writers—the validation of honest criticism. He still
hadn’t really talked with her about what had happened. She smiled ruefully, thinking of her client—ex-client—Isabella May,
in contrast to Ross. That woman was such a raging narcissist, her editor had learned it was better for a manuscript to go
unimproved than for her to suggest changes and deal with the seismic meltdown that invariably resulted.
Petra duly emailed Write Club to ask their permission for a new member. Of course—they were such a lovely crowd—the affirmations
came flooding straight back, so she submitted his opening chapters just in time for discussion at the meeting the following
week.
Petra tried to get into the shop before Flo that Saturday.
It had become a weekly good-natured battle, and Petra rarely won, especially now that she found it hard to leave Ross.
On this particular morning, by the time she and Ross had reluctantly gotten out of bed at the cottage, had breakfast, repeatedly said goodbye to each other (as if, Petra remarked, she was going into a war zone for months rather than Portneath for a single day), Petra was virtually jogging down the street to make up some time.
“Dirty stop out,” Flo remarked with a cheeky smile when Petra arrived to discover the door already unlocked and Flo in position
behind the front desk.
Petra smiled, abashed. She and Ross being an item was still a new enough thing for her to feel awkward, and Flo was clearly
going to extract every ounce of delight from the situation.
“So . . . you and Ross, then?” Flo remarked, in a lull later that morning.
Petra smiled. Here it comes, she thought. “What about me and Ross?”
“Only that I can’t think why the two of you took so long,” Flo told her. “And he’s a good one too. Brave. Kind. Devoted to
you.”
“He speaks highly of you too,” smiled Petra. “You could form a mutual admiration society, the two of you.” Petra paused a
moment. “When did you know?” she asked.
“My dear . . . I had my suspicions—and thoroughly approved too—but the deciding point for me was when you were missing that
night. The look on his face will haunt me,” she remembered. “And when he finally arrived home, carrying you in his arms, so
pale . . . blue, literally,” she told Petra, “he looked as if he would never let you out of his sight ever again. It was beautiful
to see him caring for you,” Flo said, with the utmost sincerity, all teasing gone now. “He loves you, child.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
Flo sighed happily. “How wonderful,” she said with relish. “Another Portneath triumph.”
“Hmm,” said Petra, loath to kill the mood. “It’s not as simple as that unfortunately,” she cautioned, busying herself tidying
the table so she didn’t have to meet Flo’s eye.
“Oh?”
“He asked me to be his literary agent.”
“How perfect! No wonder you both have so much to talk about. I hope you said yes.”
“Actually, I said no,” Petra explained. “Before the hill thing, he wanted us to stop seeing each other because he wanted me
to represent him. He has a strong aversion to combining work and pleasure.”
“Very wise.” Flo shrugged. “So you said no because you didn’t want to stop seeing him?”
“Yes.”
“You said yes?” Flo looked confused.
“No, I said no,” said Petra, starting to get confused herself. “Also, it’s partly because I’m not at all sure I want to be