By the time they’d walked all the way around the pond, Kenzie could feel his energy level rising again. He was both walkingandtalking faster, and mostly out loud rather than to her. She loved being a part of stoking that creative fire in him, even though she knew as soon as they reached their vehicles, he’d rush back to his computer.
And, if things went well for him—and she did genuinely wish that—in one week, he’d typeThe Endin his manuscript. And that would spell the end of their time together.
* * *
The sun hadn’t totally risen yet on the last day of the month when Danny hit Send on the email forwarding the manuscript to his agent. There was a good chance Colby would have to send it on to his editor without reading it because of the time crunch, but he didn’t care. It was done.
For now.
Edits would come, and, thanks to the way the book came together, there would probably be extensive notes detailing what needed to be fixed, but he’d worry about that later.
First, sleep.
Actually, first came staring at the ceiling, wishing he could call Kenzie and tell her they’d done it. The restaurant opened at six, and he guessed Frank probably got there first so he could start prepping food. But Kenzie would probably be awake.
Exhaustion overtook him before he could make up his mind, and the next thing he knew, the sun was shining into the room and his phone was buzzing.
To his groggy dismay, it wasn’t Kenzie. Not that he should have expected it to be since she’d never called him. Maybe he’d been dreaming about her, though, because hers was the first name to run through his mind.
But it was his agent, and as much as he’d like to reject the call and go back to sleep, Danny knew he had to start getting back into the swing of regular day-to-day life.
“I knew you could do it,” Colby said as soon as Danny answered. “I didn’t read it before I sent it in, but I have faith in you. I also know you wouldn’t have sent it if you thought it was bad.”
“It’s rough,” he muttered, sitting up and running his hand over his face. “But I feel good about it.”
“I’ll get it read over the next couple of days. And I should warn you not to get too involved in working on the next book because they’re going to turn it around pretty fast.”
Danny snorted.The next book.Right now he could barely manage a coherent thought, never mind pull an entirely new story out of his brain. Of course, he had ideas kicking around in his notebooks. He was always jotting notes for future books, but it was going to be a while before he skimmed through them, looking for a spark.
“I’ll be ready,” he promised his agent, because there wasn’t much else to say.
“Good. And now you can go home and start digging through all the stuff that’s piled up while you were finishing the book.”
Home.
It had been almost a month since he’d been home. He definitely missed his bed. And his comfortable desk chair. But going home also meant not having Kenzie right up the road, and even though he hadn’t spent a lot of time with her this trip, he’d miss her.
“You’ve got some PR stuff to catch up on, too,” Colby said, and Danny thought about hanging up on him.
“Yeah. I’ll get to it. I need to decompress for a couple of days first.”
“Absolutely. I’ll let you know when I get an ETA on editorial notes, and you go decompress.”
When the call ended, Danny dropped the phone on the bed and thought about going back to sleep. But it was already late morning, and if he slept any longer, he was going to end up awake all night. Being tired today but getting his sleep cycle back to normal was the better choice.
Once he’d gotten his first cup of coffee down, he sent a message to the family group chat letting everybody know he’d sent the book in. As expected, there was a flurry of celebratory emojis, a reminder from his grandmother to eat something that didn’t come in individually-wrapped snack sizes, and some jokes from his brothers about taking a shower.
Once that was done, hedidtake a shower, and then he spent an hour cleaning up. He powered down his laptop and put it and its charging cord back in the bag. His notebooks and various pens and notes went in with it. After the work had been stowed away, he gave the kitchen table a thorough washing.
Danny hadn’t really been that messy, but it was part of routine—resetting after finishing a book. At home, he’d give his office a decluttering and deep cleaning, but here he settled for cleaning the already clean kitchen.
He’d just finished descaling the Keurig when Hannah walked into the kitchen. “Congrats on finishing your book! I thought you’d sleep longer, so I was hanging around in the store, but I saw your text message.”
Guilt settled over his shoulders. “I’m sorry I disrupted your lives this month, especially you having to feel like you had to stay out of your own house.”
She chuckled, waving her hand. “Please don’t be sorry. We’re starting the process of getting the store ready for the season, so I would have been in there anyway. And this isyourhouse, too. It belongs to all four of you.”
“But it’s you and Rob who’ve made it home. The rest of us come and go, though Brian does less going during the summer, of course.”
