Chapter 4
Jackson tried to refuse Andrea’s book tour. He cited all sorts of excuses from stage fright to family obligations to being unable to get away from farm work. Andrea shot down each of them and insisted it was important for JD Emerson to invest in her career by doing this. She threatened to come out and visit JD personally to make sure this happened.
Wouldn’t Andrea be surprised if she met the real JD? Problem was, he had the feeling she’d like Jackson Davis even more and would probably want to promote him. The oddity of a male writing romance novels in a female dominated field would be worth a lot of press.
Press he didn’t want. He liked remaining anonymous. It would be a disaster if word got out about his second stream of income. Jackson wrote an email, flatly refusing to do the tour and television spot. He was about to finish it when he heard his mom talking to her book club guests. He remembered that Katie was supposed to come as well.
Jackson sauntered to the kitchen, pretending to need something to drink just to see what was going on. His mother was spreading out baked goods and tea to the six ladies. He saw the local school librarian Millie, his mother’s friends Annette and Tracey, Jane who owned the quilt shop and tea room, plus Pearl who was one of the town’s oldest residents and still sharp as a tack. There was no sign of Katie yet.
He sipped a coffee, leaning in the door jamb and listened as the group began discussing a book. It took him a moment but he recognized the characters. Sure enough, they were discussing his last release.
His mother caught his look of disbelief and defended their choice. “I know it’s not one of our normal books but every once in a while a woman needs a little fluff and romance in her life. Plus, JD is going to become really popular. There was an article in the entertainment section that she’s scheduled to have a book tour and appear on Ruby’s daytime talk show.”
“I wonder what JD is really like,” Millie said. “It’s obvious she comes from a rural community. The details about country life are really accurate.”
“The details might be accurate,” Annette chimed in. “However, she might work on her romance scenes. I found them to be a little stilted.”
“They are awkward sometimes,” Tracey concurred. “I kind of cringed during the first kiss of this book. It just wasn’t quite right.”
Jackson blinked. No one had told him that before. He knew he always felt a little weird writing those parts of the book and apparently some people picked up on that. He wondered what he could do to make it better.
“Excuse me,” Katie said from behind him and Jackson straightened guiltily. He hadn’t meant to be caught eavesdropping on the group.
“Sorry,” Jackson mumbled as he got out of the way. He felt a little strange around Katie. He wondered what the results of the pregnancy test were but it wasn’t like he could just ask her, they weren’t that close.
Katie handed him the bag of groceries that had gotten mixed up. “Thank you again for getting my keys.”
“Not a problem,” Jackson was glad he could do that little thing for her.
She gave him a small smile and went to sit with the rest of the ladies. Jackson decided to put away the groceries. He would have liked to hear what else the group had to say about his book but it would look odd if he did sit in.
Then again, he could ask his mom later. Jackson absently tossed the plastic bag in the garbage and took the shoe polish to the mud room where it belonged. Maybe what he needed wasn’t to cancel the tour. Maybe what he needed was someone else to be the face of JD Emerson. Why not ask his mom how the feedback was at the book cub? Why not let her in on what he’d been doing to make sure they stayed solvent? Why not make her the face of JD Emerson? There was no one he trusted more. She would be a good fit for the pen name. She was a farm wife from the country. He thought it was the perfect solution. She was always talking about travelling a little more now that Stacey was at school. This would get her a free trip for just a little bit of her time.
Jackson felt pretty pleased with himself and was glad that he hadn’t sent that email. He’d talk to his mom tonight, he decided. The more he thought of the idea, the more he liked it. Whistling, he got dressed for the cold and went to check on the livestock. It wouldn’t take long to take a quick look in the barn.
Two hours later, he came out of the barn with a scraped hand and a dislike for a new heifer that had decided to try to jump a fence and had gotten caught on the gate. It had been a struggle but he’d managed to get the heifer freed without any obvious injury to it and only a minor injury to himself. He trudged to the house as the first snowflakes of the season began to dance from the sky. Most of the cars were gone except for Katie’s which was making a grinding noise as she tried to get the engine to turn over. He knocked on the driver’s side window and watched her jump in surprise before opening the window.
The car was so old it still had window handles to manually roll them down.
“Not starting?” Jackson asked the obvious.
“I don’t know why,” Katie sighed. “I just got it serviced two weeks ago.”
“Pop the hood,” Jackson waited until she did and used his limited knowledge to rule out a few simple ideas. He dropped the hood back down. “Spark plugs are clean. No corrosion on your battery connections. Everything looks good that I can think of. Do you think you may have flooded it?”
“I’m not that bad with cars,” Katie said. She tried it one more time without success. She could see the dollars leaving her meager savings account. “I’ll have to have it towed to the garage when they open tomorrow.”
“Why don’t I give you a ride home?” he offered.
“Thanks,” Katie grabbed her purse and followed him into the house.
“Jackson, you’re not going to believe it!” Donna grinned as she came to the mud room. “Oh Katie, are you still here?”
“My car won’t start,” Katie said.
“I was just going to give her a ride back to town,” Jackson watched his mom curiously. It was obvious that she was excited. “What’s going on?”
“Annette and Tracey are going on a cruise with a group and one of the ladies have cancelled at the last minute,” Donna practically bounced from foot to foot, she was so thrilled. “They offered me the ticket for nothing! It’s a month long and it leaves next Monday.”
