“He can be harsh sometimes,” Danny admitted. “But it’s his job to be honest with me. But that honesty is part of the reason I try not to let his voice in while I’m still working the story out in my own head.”
“I can give you my thoughts without being a jerk about it.” When the door opened and more customers walked in, she sighed. “Of course, I’ll be giving you my thoughts in fragments, in between customers.”
Considering the dream and the conversation with his brother, Danny knew the smart thing was to accept their conversation would happen in bits and pieces while she worked. Or he could offer to come in at closing time and talk to her while she finished up.
“You close early today,” he said instead. “Any chance you’ve got time for a walk this afternoon?”
Chapter Four
Kenzie wasn’t surprised Danny’s truck was already parked in the clearing she’d given him precise directions to. He was obviously anxious about his manuscript, and it was probably worse now that he’d let somebody else read it.
She parked next to him and turned her car off, but he wasn’t sitting in the truck. After scanning the area, she spotted him in the woods.
Danny was at the edge of the river, with his hands shoved in his pockets, watching the water tumble over the rocks. With a blue Henley shirt hugging his back and worn jeans stretched over his butt, he looked like he belonged here in the woods, being outdoors rather than stuck at his desk.
She was wondering if he’d ever tried writing outdoors, with a pen in a notebook, when he turned. A grin lit up his face when he saw her, and Kenzie’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The man was so attractive he made her knees weak, had a smile that promised all manner of very enjoyable shenanigans, and knew how to punctuate a text message properly.
He should be illegal.
But he was also headed back her way, so Kenzie forced herself to let go of the wheel. Somehow, she had to stop having these potent reactions to making eye contact with him or she’d end up embarrassing herself and having to avoid seeing him at all.
Kenzie shoved her bag under the passenger seat, out of sight, and got out of the car. After locking it, she dropped her keys in the front pocket of her jeans and slid her phone into the back pocket before heading toward him.
“You picked a beautiful spot,” he said when she reached him.
“There’s a walking trail along the bank of the river. It’s probably over a mile, and there are a few places with rocks or roots to navigate, but it makes for a nice walk.”
“Sounds great.” He turned back toward the river, and she fell into step beside him. “It’s places like this that remind me I don’t get outside nearly enough anymore.”
“You bought a campground with your brothers, but you don’t spend a lot of time up here.”
“That’s kind of how it was set up,” he explained. “I put in more toward the financing and they put in more of the sweat equity. It was more of an investment in my brothers than an opportunity to get outdoors more often.”
Kenzie smiled her thanks when he held a protruding branch up so it wouldn’t hit her. “I have what might be a strange question at this point, but I realized I call you Danny because your brothers do and that’s the only thing I’ve heard you called, but would you rather I call you Dan?”
“Definitely not,” he said quickly. “The only place Dan Kowalski exists is on my book covers. And my social media, I guess, which means readers call me that. I’m Danny, though, unless I’m in trouble with my parents, and then I’m Daniel.”
“It doesn’t bother you having a form of your name you don’t use on your books?”
“Not really. It’s kind of like a pen name, I guess.” He chuckled, but there wasn’t any amusement in the sound. “I always intended to use a pseudonym so there wouldn’t be that connection to Uncle Joe, but everybody really urged me to stick with my name. Authenticity and all that, and no, of course you won’t be tied to your uncle because he writes horror, they said. Then, every piece of prelaunch buzz for my first book mentioned my relationship to bestselling horror author Joseph Kowalski.”
“That sucks, but it’s also their job to get as many eyeballs on your book as possible, right?” He nodded reluctantly. “My question would be how many people mentioned your uncle in the buzz for yoursecondbook?”
“That’s a very good point, because not very many.” He walked in silence for a moment and then sighed. “Maybe the marketing for my fifth book should have heralded it as myfinalbook.”
“You’re going to figure it out, Danny.”
“How come when my family says that, I think they’re just trying to make me feel better, but when you say it, I kind of believe you?”
“Because I’mnotyour family, so I don’t have any obligation to make you feel better. I have the option of calling you a whiny baby and not talking to you ever again.”
“Whiny baby?”
“I’m not saying you are. I’m just saying I have the option ofsayingyou are, which gives me more credibility.”
“Also, you not talking to me ever again would make eating at the restaurant more awkward.”
“Not really. You have to tell me your order, but I don’t have to speak. And the total’s written on the bill, so I don’t even have to tell you how much you owe.” She shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to Pete Dooley for six years, but he’s still a regular.”
