But it was also because he wanted to see her again. He hoped she would have questions, lots of them, even if they did interrupt his writing time.
How mad was that?
Incredibly mad.
And yet, as Courtney got to her feet to leave, Travis thought it maybe wasn’t so mad after all. How could henotwant to see her again, chat with her again, spend time with her again?
What right-thinking man wouldn’t want to do those things?
No doubt Courtney’s boyfriend or partner or husband—the man who was the father of her unborn child—thought exactly the same thing.
Travis frowned as he followed Courtney to the front door. He’d do well to keep his lunatic thoughts in check. Courtneywas now his freelance contractor, providing a vital service he urgently required, and she was also little more than a stranger to him with a personal life he knew nothing about.
It struck him that the gut-punch reaction he’d felt from the moment he set eyes on her might actually just mean he needed to get out more and interact with people his own age, instead of spending all of his time lost inside a fictional world centred around a late middle-aged sleuth and her rag-tag band of friends and foes.
Travis walked her to the door, and when Courtney stepped outside, she turned and graced him with a smile that made him momentarily forget his own name.
“Thanks again for this opportunity, Travis. I won’t let you down.”
“I never thought you would.”
Her smile widened and her dark blue eyes shone beneath the sunshine as she clutched the laptop in one hand and waved with the other.
“Oh, before I go, I hope you won’t mind if I say something?”
“Sure.”
Nodding to the flower pots beside the doorstep, she gave him a wry look. “These little pansies might need a drink of water. They look parched, the poor things.”
Travis glanced at the pots and the wilting flowers inside them. “I hadn’t even noticed them. Thanks for pointing it out. I’ll grab a watering can and get them sorted.”
He’d promised his sister that he’d look after the garden while he stayed there to save her, and the owner’s other friends, from having to pop round to water the pots as they’d done before he arrived. Travis realised he’d completely forgotten all about it while he’d disappeared into the work of writing his next book.
He appreciated Courtney’s reminder of the promise he’d made. She’d already saved his bacon, and she hadn’t even started working for him properly yet.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said, waving one last time as she stepped through the garden gate.
“Yes, see you soon,” Travis replied, hoping he would, even as his gaze skimmed her baby bump as she walked away and he told himself he must be out of his mind.
With a sigh, he went to fetch the watering can to deal with the flowers he’d neglected, before returning to his manuscript where he at least had the illusion of being in control.
13
Two days later,Courtney was perched on the sofa at Rosie’s house, working her way through the comments and questions on Travis Stone’s latest post on his author social media profiles and feeling amazed that she seemed to know what she was doing in this strange new job she’d somehow landed.
Travis was right when he’d explained that the work wasn’t difficult, but that it did need someone who was organised and sensible and courteous. It hadn’t taken long to get the hang of which comments needed only the usual ‘like’ response and which required a specific reply. The fans on Travis’s profiles were a nice lot, for the most part, enthusiastic about his books and crazy about his main protagonist, Maura Shaw, about whom the readers often exchanged funny remarks and fan theories that sparked small conversations between the more committed and frequent contributors.
Dealing with fan interactions across the main social media platforms Travis was engaged on easily took up all the time he was paying her for, but Courtney knew she still had to get into the swing of the process and find her feet. The daily email load was significant, too, and the reader replies she was responsiblefor sending out were time consuming, even with the helpful guidance document Travis had written.
In just two days, she came to appreciate the speed and skill of Travis’s usual assistant and how deftly she must manage the work in order to complete it within the assigned paid hours. These were skills Courtney didn’t mind learning and honing.
She enjoyed the work, enjoyed interacting with the kind and generous readers, even if it was only virtually. She liked knowing she was being useful—useful to Travis Stone, useful to his unlucky assistant in holding the fort while she recovered from her accident, useful to Travis’s fans who liked knowing they were being acknowledged and appreciated.
And she liked being useful for her own sense of self, too. Staying active and earning some money, even if it wasn’t anywhere close to her old salary, was important after the knocks she’d endured lately.
Although she’d applied for other part-time jobs in the two days since she’d been made redundant, nothing had come up yet. She kept her hopes up and her fingers crossed, but was realistic that, this close to having her baby, she might not find an employer willing to take her on.
Her cousin Rosie was thrilled to know she’d found something to keep her busy for a few hours a week while she was out at work. Knowing she was earning at least a few quid under her own steam also made Courtney feel better when Rosie had insisted they start some baby shopping, using the money Rosie had promised to give her.
