Chapter 15
Fifteen
Why the hell did I agree to this?
Nerves danced a jig in Ivy’s belly at the sight of all the people packed into Parthenon Books. A banner hung at the front proclaiming “First Ever Appearance of Blake Iverson, Author of Best-Selling Sloan Maddox Series.”
Her publisher had agreed to the expanded production timeline, but in exchange they’d wanted to do something to wow the public and rev them up.
With her new protagonist being a woman, Wally had strongly pressed for Ivy to break her streak of no public appearances and let the world know she was a woman.
So she’d agreed to this signing and an extremely limited tour after the book was published.
She was already regretting it.
In the center of the store, rows of folding chairs were set in front of a podium. Every one was filled and the crowd standing at the fringes was three deep. Each person she saw held one of her books in their hands, mostly the latest one, Hollow Point Ridge. The sight made her queasy.
“Can I have your attention please.” At the podium, Peter, the bookstore manager, cleared his throat.
As the crowd quieted, he smiled. “Thank you. Today is a momentous day, not only for Parthenon Books, but for publishing in general. We have with us the notoriously reclusive author of the Sloan Maddox series for her first-ever public appearance.”
At the “her” a murmur ran through the crowd. The mutant butterflies in Ivy’s stomach grew five sizes.
“She is a six-time New York Times best-selling author and the winner of numerous awards, and she’s chosen us do a special reveal of her brand-new series, coming out this fall.
Please give a warm, Nashville welcome to Blake Iverson.
” He led the applause as Ivy stepped from between two aisles of books and took the podium.
She curved her manicured fingers around the edge and looked out over the audience without really seeing them.
I will not faint. I will not faint. Blake Freaking Iverson does not faint.
Ivy sucked in a breath and tried for a smile.
“Good afternoon. So, I imagine I am a bit of a surprise. My publisher has been very careful over the past few years to hide the fact that I’m a woman.
But with the launch of this upcoming series, which features an absolutely kickass female protagonist, we felt it was a good time to come forward.
You can consider yourselves part of the inner circle now.
” A faint wave of laughter rippled through the assembly.
“I’m not much one for public speaking, so how about we just get straight to the reading?”
With a deep breath, she smoothed her hands over the printed pages of the first chapter and began to read.
“To my grumpy lumberjack, thanks for both rescues.” She didn’t know why she’d started with the dedication. She didn’t know why she’d dedicated it to Harrison, except that, regardless of how things had ended, she wouldn’t have finished the book without him.
“This is Enemy of Silence.”
Her voice wobbled at first, but gained strength with every word as she lost herself in Annika’s story. By the end, the store was so silent, she could’ve heard a pin drop. Ivy didn’t dare lift her head.
Oh God. Oh God, they hate it. They hate me. They—
The silence was eclipsed by thunderous applause.
The band around her chest loosened and suddenly she could breathe again. Heat flushed her cheeks as she waited for the noise to die down again. The worst was nearly over.
“We’ll do a little Q and A before I move over to the signing table.” She fixed her gaze on a middle-aged man in glasses. “Yes, you in the second row?”
“What made you decide to write a woman as a protagonist for this follow-up series?”
“I didn’t start out with Annika, actually.
My editor was pushing hard for Michael, but the book just wasn’t gelling.
At least not for him alone. Then someone suggested that he could be made that much more compelling if he was paired with someone who could make him peel back his armor.
I realized that was absolutely true. It was Annika’s story I really wanted to tell.
She was interesting and compelling, and I wanted to know more about her past and how it was going to inform her present.
I wrote the first draft of the book in a week. ”
Her gaze shifted to a thirty-something woman standing at the edge. “Yes?”
“So are you saying this particular book has more of a romance thread than your previous work? Are you planning on branching out into romantic suspense?”
Ivy considered the question. She’d loved that aspect of the story, and Wally wanted to play it up in revisions.
But going back to that, after the disappointment of things in Eden’s Ridge, was more pain than she was ready to cope with.
She couldn’t imagine chasing that on a regular basis.
“As an author, I’ve learned never to say never.
I don’t presently have aspirations of shifting to romantic suspense, but I do intend to explore the relationship between Annika and Michael over the next several books.
Their history is complex and interesting, and watching them overcome it will make for some pretty compelling fiction. ”
Someone spoke up from the back, “Who’s the lumberjack in the dedication?”
Ivy froze. It couldn’t be. “I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”
The crowd shifted and there he was. Harrison Wilkes, in all his big, badass Ranger glory, dressed up in a sport coat and tie. “Who were you referring to in the dedication?”
Her breath clogged as her heart leapt into her throat. Relief and joy that he’d come, that he’d found her, had her knees going weak. Then reality crashed in. He’d walked away without a word. So what the hell was he doing here now?
Realizing her silence had gone on too long, Ivy swallowed. “He’s someone I thought I knew better than I did.”
The rest of the Q and A passed in a blur.
Once Peter called the questions to a close, Ivy thought she’d be able to sneak away for just a few minutes to say, “Hey, how are you? And oh hey, you wanna tell me why you ran away from me?” but Peter herded her toward the signing table like a border collie with a recalcitrant sheep. She lost sight of Harrison.
Please don’t leave.
Stupid. Leaving was apparently what he did best. The intensity of her bitterness surprised her. She thought she’d put that behind her, but she’d really just shoved it under the sofa cushion. She remembered what she’d said to him at the cabin weeks ago.
“Some hurts can be packed away and forgotten about, and they’ll fade with time. And some become caged animals that do more damage, become more feral, the longer they’re ignored.”
Evidently her issues with Harrison fell into the latter category.
The line of fans snaked through the store, seemingly endless.
The author in her was giddy that so many people had turned out to support her and the new series.
The woman wanted nothing more than for all of them to go away so she could satisfy the curiosity that had nagged her for the past two weeks.
What that would look like, Ivy had no idea.
In an ideal world—or a romance novel—they’d run toward each other in the crowded store, and he’d sweep her into his arms for a passionate kiss that put the ones from last month to shame.
Preferably with a swell of orchestral strings in the background.
She was not in an ideal world. She was in one of the city’s top, independent bookstores for her first public appearance, with what felt like half the city wanting a moment or five of her time.
So she did her job, smiling and chatting with readers, signing their books, thanking them for coming.
Peter kept a fresh bottle of water at her elbow and a bouquet of her favorite pens. And the readers kept coming.
When familiar, rough hands thrust a copy of Hollow Point Ridge in front of her, Ivy almost didn’t want to look up.
“Grumpy lumberjack, huh?” The rumble of his voice sounded above her.
Ivy’s chest constricted with a bitter mix of longing and fury. He’d left her. Why should she still want him? Why should the sound of his voice make her ache with the desire for him to circle the table, haul her out of the chair, and pull her into his arms?
Because she knew without a doubt that if he did, once those strong arms anchored her against his hardness, his warmth, she’d be home.
For all her years moving from place to place, she’d never felt so adrift and dissatisfied as she had since she came back to Nashville.
Nothing made it go away. But he could. If he’d just close that last bit of distance between them, put his arms around her and draw her close, she’d be able to breathe again.
Except she wouldn’t. Because the whole notion that he was home, that they’d actually built something between them had been pure artistic fantasy on her part.
Not something real. Whatever she’d felt happening between them had been entirely on her side.
It had to have been because he’d just walked away without a word.
And after she’d spent the last two weeks struggling to put that behind her, to reclaim some sense of normalcy, he had the damned nerve to show up here and make her feel all this stuff again.
Shoving all that down deep to deal with later, Ivy lifted her gaze to his.
God, he looked good. His dark hair was streaked from the sun and he’d shaved for real this time. No more hiding? Looking into those eyes she’d dreamed of so often, Ivy still felt the spark.
But what the hell did sparks matter? Attraction hadn’t been their problem. He’d still walked away.
“Not so grumpy underneath it all. And not so lumberjack, either. You clean up well, Harrison.”
The sport coat only accentuated his broad shoulders. His shirt collar was unbuttoned, and the tie he’d worn earlier was stuffed into a pocket.
“Less of a place for flannel and a mountain man beard in the real world.”