Well Played (Well Met #2)(89)

I waved an unconcerned hand. “I’ll text if I need you.” I gathered the front of his T-shirt in my fist and pulled him toward me for one more kiss. He smiled against my mouth and nipped my bottom lip with his teeth.

“See you there.” He traced the wings of the dragonfly pendant I wore around my neck with his fingertips, and with one more kiss he was off, striding across the lot with those long legs of his. I leaned against the truck and watched him go, already wishing I’d grabbed one more kiss. Oh well, plenty of time later. I set to work cinching everything up: tightening my bodice, settling the leather belt a little more tightly around my waist, and gathering my overskirt up with the skirt hikes I’d bought a couple Faires ago. Much more period appropriate than the safety pins I’d used in Willow Creek all these years.

One last check of the belt pouch at my waist, and I felt a jolt: my phone. I’d left it on the counter in the RV after talking to Emily. Whoops. But I didn’t feel the panic I used to feel at the prospect of time without my phone.

I’d realized, sometime around November, that I didn’t check my social media all that much anymore. Sure, I did my yearly Pumpkin Spice Latte Count, made more interesting by the multiple Starbucks in multiple cities as we traveled. (This year’s count: seventeen. This was getting ridiculous. But it wasn’t all my fault; PSL season seemed to start earlier and earlier every year.) While my online addiction had reached a fever pitch last year, it had never been about the screens at all. It had been about searching for a life of my own, which I now had. And it had been about the man behind those screens. And I knew exactly where he was.

All cinched in, I picked up Benedick’s carrier and set off in the direction Daniel had gone, toward the Faire and the Kilts’ stage.

Everything I owned these days could fit in two suitcases and a cat carrier. Sometimes I slept in hotels, sometimes in a giant tin can. Sometimes I camped out with my boyfriend, his cousins, and a few dozen rennies. Home was the RV, Daniel’s beat-up, rust-red pickup truck, my tuxedo cat wearing a pair of dragon’s wings, the smile in Daniel’s eyes when he looked at me, and his arms around me when we went to sleep at night.

I couldn’t imagine a better home. Or a better life.





Acknowledgments




Books—at least my books—don’t get written without the help of some of the best people I know.

My agent, my rock, Taylor Haggerty, I legitimately don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you for talking me down off all the ledges I manage to get myself stuck on.

I’m so glad I get to write these stories with the help and guidance of my brilliant editor, Kerry Donovan. Working with you feels like a true collaboration with someone who really gets my characters. Thanks for your keen insights and your willingness to brainstorm tough scenes with me on the weekend!

All the gratitude to my Berkley Romance team! I can’t imagine doing this without the Jessicas—Jessica Mangicaro and Jessica Brock—having my back. Thank you for everything you do to make my life easier! Additional thanks to Colleen Reinhart for a gorgeous cover design—I’m so lucky!

Thank you, thank you to my beloved critique partners Vivien Jackson, Gwynne Jackson, and Annette Christie for cheering me on page by painful first draft page. Thank you for squeeing over the good stuff and saving the real critique until my heart can take it.

Additional, but just as fervent thanks to ReLynn Vaughn, Jenny Howe, Cass Scotka, Trysh Thompson, Ian Barnes, Lindsay Landgraf Hess, and Courtney Kaericher for giving feedback on drafts in various stages of completion, oftentimes more quickly than I had any right to ask for. You all helped make this book better and I can’t thank you enough for it.

Re, as always, you are my gif-spiration.

Like Stacey, I’ve thought about running away and joining the Faire, but also like Stacey, I had no real idea of what that might entail. Thankfully, Nicole Skelly (of The Gwendolyn Show—see her perform at a Faire near you!) was nice enough to give me some insight on the realities of traveling Faire life, and anything I got wrong is on me, not her.

I’m always grateful for the love and support of my Bs: Brighton Walsh, Ellis Leigh, Melissa Marino, Suzanne Baltsar, Anniston Jory, Elizabeth Leis Newman, Helen Hoang, Esher Hogan, and Laura Elizabeth. There’s no group of girls I’d rather get stuck on the ice with during a polar vortex.

Finally, I want to thank all of you. The readers who picked up Well Met at the bookstore or library, and those of you who are just now joining me on my Ren Faire journey. The bloggers and Bookstagrammers who featured my book on their platforms, the bookstores who hosted my visits, and the readers who came out to meet me. Thank you for your emails and private messages. I’ve been touched and humbled by your enthusiasm and support. It’s a weird feeling to talk to other people about characters who until recently lived only in my own head, but it’s been one of the best experiences of my life. Thank you all for going to the Faire with me, and I can’t wait to take you back there again soon. Huzzah!





The card wasn’t addressed to me.

I leaned an elbow on the bar and took a sip of my hard cider. It was happy hour at Jackson’s, but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at all. And this drink wasn’t changing anything. The card still lay there on the bar. It was still addressed to my daughter, Caitlin, and it was still from her father. The man who’d wanted nothing to do with her since the day she was born, or in any of the eighteen years since. It was hard to believe that, after all this time, his handwriting could still strike my heart the way it did. Back in the day, that handwriting had covered pages and pages of love letters. Little notes we’d leave each other on Post-its on the bathroom mirror or near the coffeemaker.