Chapter 6
Who knew you were on the no-fly list?” Jackson shook his head.
“I still don’t understand,” Katie watched as he loaded her luggage into the back of his pickup. “I’ve never flown and I’ve never broken the law.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a case of mistaken identity,” he said. “However, it’s going to take a while to get it fixed.”
“What do we do?” Katie asked. For a moment she briefly wished the tour would be cancelled but she knew that wasn’t a good idea. She needed the money and Jackson needed the publicity. Jackson had seen his mom off with Annette and Tracey just yesterday so they had a month to make the tour happen before she got home. A neighbour was taking care of chores at the farm, thinking that Jackson was going hunting or fishing with friends out of town. Katie had been made redundant at the daycare yesterday so she was pretty free to do as she liked.
It was absolutely fortuitous that this opportunity had landed in her lap.
“You are going to give Andrea a call about this snag in the plans while I drive,” Jackson held her door and gave her his cell phone.
“Me? I’ve never talked to an editor before,” Katie tried to quell the nerves in her abdomen.
“Neither have I. We email,” he started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. Muting the music he instructed her on where to find Andrea’s number.
Katie put it on speaker and waited nervously.
“Andrea Sholtz,” the voice was very business-like.
“Um, good morning Andrea,” Katie said. “This is Kat – um JD Emerson.”
“JD!” Andrea’s tone warmed. “How are things?”
“Well, we’ve hit a bit of a problem,” Katie swallowed and glanced at Jackson. “Apparently I accidently got on the no-fly list.”
“What?” Andrea asked. “What does that mean for the book tour? How soon can you get to the first booking?”
Jackson shook his head.
“We’re going to miss it,” Katie interpreted. “We’re driving now.”
“Miss it? You can’t. You need to get there,” Andrea said forcefully. “Who is we?”
“Um…” Katie swallowed. “My friend is with me for support.”
“I’ll see about rescheduling the first booking for later. Each of these are incredibly important to furthering your career. Are you going to make the second on time?” Andrea got right to the point. “I’ll get a pass for your friend but they’ll have to stay in the background.”
“Of course, he will,” Katie looked at Jackson and he gave a nod. “We can manage to make the second booking if we don’t have any travel issues.”
“Good,” Andrea said. “Keep me updated.”
“I’ll do that,” Katie trailed off as she realized Andrea had hung up. “Is she usually this abrupt?”
“She doesn’t come across that way over email,” Jackson frowned. He didn’t really like the way Andrea had talked to Katie. She might be busy dealing with other authors and the book tour but that didn’t excuse her behavior. “How did you manage over the weekend?”
Katie had borrowed Jackson’s secret stash of his books and had been reading them. She needed to know everything about them for questions that might come up during the tour. She felt a little overwhelmed. Seven years of writing had created a lot of books. “I don’t think I’m going to get all of them finished. I should probably read while you drive.”
“You should read the draft of the latest one. Then you can give hints about it,” Jackson pulled around another vehicle to pass. “My laptop is in the back seat.”
Katie maneuvered to grab the laptop bag. She had to admit, she was a little excited to be the first to see what he had written. Now that she’d been reading all of his books she had a little different perspective about Jackson. It was funny to think that after all these years, he’d managed to keep such a secret from them all.
Jackson gave her the code to unlock the screen and soon she was lost in a new story. It was very good and she half wished she was the heroine of the tale. An hour later she looked at the screen in frustration.
“What happened?” Katie looked at Jackson as he drove.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
