In Other Words, Love

  Table Of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Guacamole Grilled Chicken Club

  About The Author

  You might also enjoy Wrapped Up in Christmas

  In Other Words, Love

  Copyright © 2020 Crown Media Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Print 978-1-947892-77-4

  eBook 978-1-947892-78-1

  www.hallmarkpublishing.com

  One

  Before she even learned how to create the curve of a C and the sticks of an L, Kate Winslow was creating her own world of stories in her head. She’d hold the books she brought home from the library, the musty smell sweet and familiar, and imagine her own name across the cover, her picture on the back. When she got older, she’d write little epilogues of her favorite books, just to keep the characters with her, long after the stories had been tucked back into the library’s shelves.

  She’d dreamed of being an author, but never imagined it would turn out like this.

  In the back corner of her favorite bookstore, the self-satisfied smirk of a race car legend stared back at Kate from the cover of Why I’m a Winner, written by Gerard Phillips. A Clearance: 40% Off sticker covered the last part of the word Winner, and a fine layer of dust sat on the stack of a few dozen marked-down books.

  “Legend” was a bit of a misnomer, considering Gerard, the Indy 500 winner ten years ago, was more of a legend in his own mind. His mustached grin didn’t say that, nor did the inflated story inside that he’d insisted on having Kate craft.

  Ghostwriting his autobiography had been a tedious yearlong project. He had been a nightmare to work with, demanding revision after revision, until Kate had considered quitting. In the end, the fact that the electric company really liked to get paid had won out, and Kate swallowed her frustration and finished the job.

  For a second, she closed her eyes and imagined her name on the cover, her face on the back of the book. Her own book—not one she’d ghostwritten and couldn’t tell a single soul about because of a non-disclosure agreement. She was thirty-eight, and no closer to her dream of publishing her own novel today than when she’d been little.

  Instead, she was living in a second-floor walkup with an overly spoiled rescue cat, writing nauseatingly untrue books for divas. Not exactly the success she’d imagined.

  “Kate Winslow? Is that you?”

  Kate jerked to attention and turned around. Behind her stood Loretta Wildwood: tall, blonde and thin, one of those women who excelled at everything she did. They’d been in the same creative writing classes in college many years ago and had even ended up in a critique group that had met in the student lounge twice a week. Kate remembered Loretta being competitive but talented, which had made Kate both try harder and kind of resent Loretta at the same time. After school, their paths had diverged and Kate, busy keeping her head above water and the bills paid, had lost track of her classmates. Partly due, Kate was sure, to the fact that Trent MacMillan had broken her heart five minutes after she’d gotten her degree. So yeah, there was that.

  “Loretta, so great to see you,” Kate said, because it was the truth. The more Kate worked, the more her world narrowed, and she realized she missed those critique sessions and the energetic exchanges over phrases and plots. “How are you?”

  “Wonderful.” Loretta beamed, then reached into the pale blue Kate Spade tote bag over her shoulder and pulled out a slim piece of paper. “Here, you can get one early and I can even sign it for you, since we know each other.”

  “One what?” Kate asked. Then she glanced at the paper in her hands. Loretta’s face bloomed on the bright card stock bookmark, right below a book cover for a thriller Kate had vaguely noticed in a face-front display at the front of the store. “This is your book?”

  “Of course it is.” Loretta laughed. “Thanks for coming to my book signing. It really is so nice of you to celebrate my success.”

  Kate swallowed hard. “Book signing?”

  Loretta shifted her stance just enough for Kate to see the sign behind her. Kate had been so absorbed in the misery of seeing one of her own books on the clearance shelf that she’d failed to notice the banner, a blown-up replica of the bookmark. Join New York Times bestselling author Loretta Wildwood for the launch of her latest book!

  Bestselling author? Latest book? That implied more than one. Kate’s chest tightened. Loretta had achieved every one of Kate’s dreams, and the evidence of it stood right next to Kate’s failure. “I didn’t know. Uh, congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” Loretta leaned forward and tapped Kate’s arm. She put on a bright, inquisitive look, as if they were best friends. “So tell me, where are your books? I’d love to see what you’ve published since we graduated.”

  Kate moved a step to the right, blocking the cover of Gerard’s flop, which was kind of silly, considering no one knew she had written it. I’m writing books that fulfill other people’s dreams so I can pay for cat food and rent. Meanwhile, my own novel sits in my computer, unread and unloved. “I’ve mostly written nonfiction. I have a few books out.”

  Loretta turned to the left, then right, scanning the headers on the bookshelves. “Really? Tell me a couple of titles. I’ll buy one or two. We authors need to stick together. Am I right or am I right?”

  “My books, uh, don’t have my name on the cover.” Kate swallowed hard and pushed out the truth. “I’m a ghostwriter, and my identity is always kept secret. It’s part of the deal.”

  Loretta put a hand over her mouth and let out a little gasp, as if Kate had just announced the end of the world. “Oh, my. I could never do that. All my hard work, hidden behind someone else’s name? That’s…” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”

  She said it like she was at Kate’s funeral. Given the sinking royalties Kate received every quarter, maybe funeral was an apt description. She glanced at Gerard’s clearance book again. Seeing his name as the author—and knowing he hadn’t written a single word—smarted, she wasn’t going to lie. At least to herself.

  “Don’t be sorry. I really love my job,” Kate said with a smile she had to fake. In the last couple of years, her job had become more and more frustrating. Her agent had landed her a couple of decent deals, but the income was dropping every year while the workload stayed the same. “It’s flexible, and I get to meet lots of great people.” Like diva drivers, snooty heiresses, and overconfident businessmen.

  “That’s…wonderful.” Uncertainty wavered in Loretta’s face. “Well, I need to get to my signing. Don’t want to keep my public waiting.” She placed a business card in Kate’s hand. “Let’s have coffee sometime. Call me when
your book comes out and I’ll be first in line to get a copy!” Then she spun on her Michael Kors heels and trotted over to the table and chairs set up beside the mystery section.

  Kate resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at Loretta’s retreating figure. Call me when your book comes out. Her own book? Kate was never going to have that. As she watched her ghostwriting income drop, she’d started sending out her resume to marketing agencies and a few struggling newspapers. Writing her own book was a pipe dream that would probably never happen, not unless she met some rich patron of the arts, assuming those still existed.

  She loved her life; she really did. It was quiet and predictable, and gave her time to fuss with her container gardens and read on rainy Sunday mornings. Her dating life barely existed, which meant she spent more time talking to Charlie the Cat than actual humans, but all in all, it was a good life.

  It was all going to be okay, she told herself. Another ghostwriting job would come along any day now, and she’d be able to help her grandmother with much-needed repairs on her aging house, plus get caught up on her own bills. Gather a little breathing room.

  But as she turned away, she glimpsed Why I’m a Winner, looking sad and lonely in the Aisle of Misfit Books, while Loretta’s shiny book dominated a nearby stand, and wondered if maybe she should start ghostwriting fiction, because she was getting awfully good at lying to herself.

  Trent MacMillan looked out the twentieth-floor glass windows of his offices in Seattle at Get Outdoors Apparel, the eco-friendly outdoor clothing company he’d started right after graduating college. Back then, the business had been about finding a new way to support his passion for hiking, canoeing, cycling—basically anything that kept him in the fresh air and out of the confines of a building.

  Beyond his desk, black-and-white orcas slipped through the deep, dark waters of Elliott Bay. Lazy sailboats wove their way in and out of the bay, their sails gleaming in the bright, crisp early spring sun. People dotted the walkways that meandered along the sound, their bodies snug in thick jackets that kept out the breeze. Trent leaned his whole body toward the view, as if he could hop through the windows and put himself on one of those boats, slip into a wetsuit and swim by the orcas, or camp along one of the wooded ridges that cupped the bay.

  “You got a minute?”

  The voice of his CFO drew Trent’s attention away from the world he loved and back into the canned air of his office. Get Outdoors Apparel owned the entire twentieth floor and had been designed to feel as much like being in Mother Nature as possible. Mossy-green carpet, pale-blue walls, communal work spaces with bright tables, and glass walls between the conference rooms and work spaces all gave the office an air of ease and space. A few skateboards were propped against the wall, flanked by bicycles and even a pair of rollerblades. The people he hired were as passionate about the outdoors as Trent, which was great, because they loved GOA like he did. The trouble was, they got to enjoy it while the boss worked long into the night. Again.

  Trent pivoted back. “Sure. What’s up?”

  Jeremy Richards, a tall, gangly man with bright-red glasses and a passion for road cycling, had been with the company from the start. In the office, he epitomized nerd, but outside of it, he was as competitive on the bike as Peter Sagan.

  He’d grown up with Trent in the same middle-class, small-town neighborhood where everyone knew their names and what time their dads got home for dinner. Hudson Falls couldn’t have been more of a stereotype if it tried. Trent had left that town behind when he went to college and had never looked back. He loved the friendly vibe of Seattle, filled with so many people it kind of seemed like an endless gathering at someone’s house. Not that Trent knew anything like that firsthand, considering how long it’d been since he’d done anything other than work.

  “Just need a second.” Jeremy headed into the office, trailed by Sarah Watkins, the petite, pregnant head of public relations. The two of them sat on the curved burgundy vegan leather sofa that formed the conversational corner in Trent’s office. Trent settled into the lone armchair, a replica of one he’d seen on a hiking trip through Tibet. The original chair still resided in a monastery nestled into the side of a mountain, so Trent had hired a local artisan to handcraft the wooden seat, using dowels to fasten the legs and back. The furniture maker had molded cushions to the back and encased them with thick, white wool sheared off Tibetan sheep. Just sitting here made Trent long for the winding roads and steep climbs he’d experienced there.

  At the office, things were tense. Soon, they’d have their initial public offering, selling stock to outside investors for the first time. Get Outdoors Apparel had done well in its five years of existence, thanks to the support of a couple of eco-friendly celebrities and a well-targeted social media campaign. Going public with his company baby had Trent pacing the floors at night, worrying about whether he was doing the right thing. It could lead to a big expansion of the business—but then again, if investors were wary, it could mean trouble.

  “About the IPO…” Jeremy began, and the room hung on Jeremy’s pause. Trent braced himself.

  “What about it?”

  Sarah was listening to the conversation but waiting until Jeremy had finished the fiscal conversation. Her baby bump sat like a shelf under her notebook.

  “The numbers for last quarter were a little soft,” Jeremy said. “We expected Christmas to really bump up our sales, but that new line didn’t perform like everyone expected.”

  Trent had designed a brand-new line of winterwear for the holiday season, but with record warm temps in the rest of the country this past winter, they’d had a higher-than-average number of returns and lower spring preorders as retailers tried to make their winter investment back. GOA had launched a fairly aggressive advertising campaign, but the needle hadn’t budged, which meant he’d spent more on marketing than he’d made in profit on that collection. Next year could be record snowfall and he could have a run on parkas, but that didn’t help this year. “How are the spring orders?”

  Jeremy checked his notes and gave a little nod. “After a bit of a slow start, they’re going strong. Those windbreakers you designed are really pumping up sales. People love the pockets and versatility of them.”

  Those were an idea Trent had had on a backpacking trip through Eastern Europe one summer. The weather had been warm but misty, and he’d wished for a flexible but light jacket that could carry his supplies of snacks and water.

  That trip had been a solo one, after Trent and his girlfriend at the time broke up. He and Erin had only dated for a couple of months, and it was probably a good thing he hadn’t ended up traveling around the world with someone he didn’t know that well, but still…

  It would be nice to have a girlfriend who loved the outdoors as much as he did. There had been one woman, once, in college, who he’d thought…

  Didn’t matter. That was over. What he needed was someone like his PR person Sarah, who had gone on annual Appalachian Trail hikes with her husband until she’d gotten pregnant with their first child. Her face beamed with happiness about her future. A little flicker of envy ran through Trent.

  Geez, he really needed to get outside more. This was crazy.

  “Of course,” Jeremy went on, “we don’t have the returns in yet, so we won’t know how that impacts the bottom line for a couple more months, and the IPO is right in the middle of the third quarter of this year. However, to the investors, that bumpy few months doesn’t look good. We’re a startup who came out of the gate and exploded. They get uneasy about that nowadays.”

  “Because you’re only one bad PR day away from a major image crisis,” Sarah piped up, reminding Trent how things could go south very quickly. Sarah was a powerhouse in the marketing department. She’d gotten Trent started on social media, posting his trips and adventures. A celebrity client had liked and shared one of the posts, then told her followers to order from GOA like she had, and t
he company had been on a more-or-less upward trajectory ever since.

  “Well, I can’t get any bad PR, considering I never leave this place.” Trent gave Sarah a nod. She’d been working overtime on his public relations, and keeping up appearances for Trent, at least on Instagram and Facebook. “Thanks, by the way, for making it look as if I get outside once in a while.”

  “It’s all about perception.” Sarah grinned. “On Instagram, you’re not pushing paperwork and discussing public offerings, you’re climbing mountains and discovering trails.”

  When was the last time he’d done either of those things? It seemed like forever ago. Here he was, pushing forty, and stuck inside an office all day. He’d never thought of himself as a big-business kind of guy—more like a rebel with a surfboard. But then he’d had that idea for eco-friendly outdoor gear and apparel, and one thing led to another. Now here he was, talking IPOs and PR campaigns and longing for what used to be. Was this his future? Spent in an office watching the world go by without him?

  He said, “I think I want to live in Instagram.”

  Sarah laughed a little, then leaned forward, her features sobering. “Here’s the thing, Trent. Nothing on social media is real, so you don’t want to live there.”

  True. The life Trent portrayed on the internet was far from his real life. When had that happened? When he’d left Hudson Falls and the garden center business his parents had wanted to pass on to him, he’d vowed to be a free spirit, enjoying life on his own. He had the “on his own” part down, but the rest…

  Trent drew himself back to business. “So, what do you suggest, Jeremy? I really don’t want to delay the IPO. That looks worse than one bad quarter.”

  Jeremy propped his leg on the opposite knee, forming a six-foot-five man triangle. As he did with most things, Jeremy paused before speaking, weighing all sides of his answer. “Well, you could, as Sarah said, change the investors’ perceptions about GOA.”