by Gwyn Cready
“Axel?”
Ellery touched his arm and he swung around, flushing painfully. He extended the display automatically, hoping she would see it as just another of his shots, not the cause of the bottle rocket that was sending reverberations through his gut. She laughed, too busy swinging the girl now in her arms to notice anything.
“I love this place,” she said.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Me too.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Offices of Vanity Place magazine, Present Day
“The way I’d describe it,” Phil Peck said carefully, “is a partnership.”
“A partnership?” Ellery felt her irritation grow. She had already begun to plan her strategy on this piece, and she didn’t need any upstart partner wasting her time. Partnerships were unwieldy. Partnerships were filled with time-wasting arguments. Partnerships were the reason she had left the world of staff writing and worked hard to become the head of literary criticism. Authoritarianism was efficient.
“According to Black, you and the photographer are to treat this like a photo essay.”
“Oh, God,” Kate whispered under her breath and closed her eyes.
“A photo essay!” Ellery cried. “You might as well tell a writer ‘Just use the stuff the last writer did’ or ‘The thing that sells books is the cover.’ So Black needs the head of literary criticism to write captions?”
“First, it’s not just captions. The key phrase was ‘like a photo essay.’ He’s giving this four extra pages, but it’s still an essay. Second, Black doesn’t need the head of literary criticism to do it. He needs the person who trashed his mistress’s memoir to do it. The fact that you’re the head of literary criticism here is irrelevant.”
“No need to sugarcoat it, Phil. Tell me what you really think.”
“In any case, the photographer you’ll be working with is great,” he said. “I’m sure everything will be fine. And it’s going to involve some travel. Black’s okayed ten grand of travel money.”
“Ten grand of travel money and four extra pages?” Kate shook her head. “Jeez, I think the last time that happened here was to cover Lincoln’s funeral.”
Travel, huh? Ellery had to admit she liked the travel part. Paris, she thought. Or maybe St. Kitts. “Who’s the photographer?”
“You may have already worked with him. He’s done great stuff for us and every other mag in town. I know you know his work. Axel Mackenzie?”
Kate whooped, and Ellery dropped her head in her hands.
“Oh, yeah,” Ellery said. “I know his work. Say, what are the chances of us choosing a different—”
“None. Black’s personal choice.”
“Super. When do we start?”
CHAPTER NINE
Axel slouched against the front of the Vanity Place building, chewing a tasteless oat bar and letting the fresh air sharpen his thinking. Corralling Ellery wasn’t easy on the best of days, and this was far from her best. He personally didn’t know a thing about romance novels. The closest he’d gotten was claiming to have read one in high school, and that had been mostly to get his college girlfriend, Flip, into the backseat of his ’91 Subaru and out of her cutoffs. Unlike Ellery, however, he had nothing against romance novels. He’d gotten enough pleasure from writers like Ian Rankin, Dennis Lehane, Larry Niven and Ray Bradbury to have great appreciation for genre fiction.
He had promised Black he would try to get Ellery to write the article just the way Black wanted it. This presented a few obstacles. Obstacle one: handling Ellery. He figured he had only two weapons in his arsenal that might carry any weight in this battle: his natural charm and a driving desire on her part not to be fired. God, he hoped that driving desire was pretty driving.
Obstacle two: content. Ellery was a writer who could make words sing, but only as long as she was passionate about the topic. He remembered one time she’d picked up an extra assignment for a local newspaper as a way to cover the cost of some camp for her little sister. The topic had been straightforward enough—municipal strategic planning—and the municipal manager had been both loquacious and interesting, rare in a municipal anything. In short, a softball had been lobbed her way, and a writer a tenth as good as she was should have been able to knock it out of the entire strategic planning zone, let alone the ballpark. Not Ellery. He’d come in before dawn one night to find her stringy-haired and pale-faced, staring at the laptop screen like some zoned-out Call of Duty refugee. And the little bit of writing she actually had completed—good God! It sounded like a set of instructions for building an IKEA computer desk without the page-turning plot developments.
She’d been smart to start her own arts paper as early as she did. It was a move that had elevated her quickly in the writing world and kept this glaring inability from being discovered.
Thus, even if she did agree to write the story for Black in the hopes of saving her job, what would she write about? His fingers started itching for a cigarette, even though that, too, had been one of the joys his doctor had insisted he give up.
He wished he could remember the name of that damned romance he’d told Flip he’d read. He could see the cover: a bare-chested Scottish guy with red hair, protecting his sultry heroine with a massively phallic sword. In Canada, it would have been a guy with a mouth guard holding a hockey stick, but Axel got the general idea. Big man plus big tool equals happy woman. Pretty true to life, actually. In fact, his sister used to say—
Axel smacked his forehead. His sister. She’s the one who’d had the book, which is how Axel had known about it in the first place.
He slipped his cell out of his pocket and dialed.
“Annie!” he cried when she answered. “Thank God.”
“How’s my favorite photographer? By the way, we still haven’t gotten the pictures from Christmas and—”
“Hey, do you remember that romance with the redhaired guy on the cover?”
“Interesting segue. You always did have a gift for the fine art of conversation.”
“So, do you? I need to know the title.”
“You’ve taken to reading romances?”
“I’ve taken to recommending them,” he said. “I seem to recall you had a special fondness for that one.”
“‘Special fondness’? You call locking myself in my bedroom for three days and vowing to get the Forster family coat of arms tattooed on my hip a ‘special fondness’? Yes, I remember the book. I’m not likely to forget it, either. No woman who’s ever read it has.”
Axel chuckled. He loved that his psychotherapist older sister, normally so pensive and deliberate, sounded like a headbanger describing a Slipknot concert when talking about romance novels.
“So it’s a good one, eh?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, sighing dreamily. “Jemmie is the most romantic hero ever created: tall, brave, handsome and true. He’s willing to sacrifice everything to uphold the vow he’s made to Cara, and because of it, he’s a man torn—between his clan and his heart. Oh, and that red hair…!”
Axel thought of his own mop of hair that in certain lights shone a coppery-red—a fact that, combined with his perennial summer sunburn as a child, had earned him the appalling childhood nickname his sisters had bestowed upon him.
“Does your husband know you feel this way?” Axel asked.
“Richard understands his place. He’s a great guy and all, but he knows all bets are off if I ever get a crack at Jemmie.”
“Good to hear you have your priorities in order. So what is the name of this book again?”
“Kiltlander. But what exactly is this sudden interest in romance? Ooh, does it involve a woman? I really liked that Flip. Why don’t you date nice girls anymore? You know, you’re a great guy. There should be a lot of nice girls interested in you.”
Ah, the joy of older sisters. “What? You didn’t like the TV reporter?”
“Ugh. Suede boots and shorts? At a Canada Day cook-out?”
“The boots were red.”
“Mayb
e you should’ve dated the boots, then.”
“Always appreciate the helpful input.”
She laughed. “And the reason for the book?”
Axel sighed. “It involves Ellery.”
He could feel the heavy pause and immediately wished he hadn’t said anything. His sisters—Annie, especially—had loved Ellery, and they hadn’t liked what happened to Axel after she left.
“Are you and she—”
“No. It’s an assignment at Vanity Place. It was bound to happen eventually. It’s a small town, especially in the magazine biz.”
“Axel, I just never understood why the two of you broke up. She used to make you laugh so hard, I thought you’d need heart paddles.”
He’d needed heart paddles a lot around Ellery. When she made him laugh, when she outfoxed him in a debate, and when she unhooked the front of her bra and let it slide slowly over her breasts.
“Oh, you know,” he said, pushing away the familiar rush of emotion. “Just your typical Axel behavior.”
There was a longer pause, and he was glad he and Annie weren’t having this conversation in person, where he’d be feeling that appraising gaze on him.
“Hm. Well, tell her I said hello. And what’s the story about? Vanity Placedoesn’t seem like a romance novel kind of place.”
“You can say that again, sister. I am so ready to ditch this town.”
“You know I’m all for people chasing their dreams. I just think you need to think about whether you’re running after your dream or running away from something.”
Oh boy.
“Sorry, I don’t have the co-pay to cover this. My new plan kicks in in January. Let’s pick this up then.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I think I’m losing you.” He tapped the phone against the wall and made a grinding noise like an espresso machine.
When he returned the phone to his ear, she was laughing. “Got it,” she said.
“So, Kiltlander. Do you need a copy?”
“Why?” he asked, eyes cutting to the bookstore across the street. “You gonna send me yours?”
“The one I keep in a shrine in my bookcase? The one that taught me it’s possible to have an orgasm with no more than—”
“Ack! I don’t care to know how that sentence ends. No brother should have to hear it.”
She chuckled again, then sighed. “Oh, Axel, there’s so much you need to learn about women. Think you’ll try to start something with her?”
“Who? Ellery?”
“Yes.”
“For heaven’s sake, I’m not going to jump her bones just because it would please you. There are many good reasons to jump her bones, believe me, but pleasing my sister isn’t one of—”
“Axel?”
He nearly dropped the phone. He wheeled around and found Ellery’s younger sister. “Jill,” he cried, throwing his arms around her. “Oh my God. What a surprise!”
He hadn’t seen her in years, and she wasn’t so little anymore. Getting to spend time with Jill had been one of his favorite things about dating Ellery, and he looked in amazement at Jill’s transformation from gangly, braces-wearing young teen who had clashed constantly with her older sister-slash-guardian to a young lady who shared her sister’s astonishing beauty.
“My God,” he said with honest pride. “You’ve grown up.”
She beamed. “I’m twenty.”
“Of course, you are. Jeez.”
“So what’s with jumping Ellery’s bones?”
Axel felt his face burst into spontaneous flames. “I-I-” He could hear Annie’s tinny laughter through the phone’s earpiece. As so often happened with Axel, he’d reached his limit with sisters.
He held up a finger to Jill and put the phone back to his ear. “Appreciate your help. Gotta run.”
“Yeah, have fun with that one, Boner.”
Axel stood in front of the cashier, copies of Kiltlander and Vamp in his hand; the only thing keeping him from Jill’s promised interrogation in the adjoining coffee shop was the prospect of a new graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, which had sent her running to the back of the store. He prayed the book would be so engrossing, she’d forget he was here.
The cashier took Vamp and ran it across the scanner. She was blond, twentyish and wore an “X” of red bobby pins in her hair. Her name tag read Sierra. “You Team Britta or Team Ynez?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“You look like a Team Ynez guy. You know”—she grinned wickedly—“sorta scruffy.”
“Er, thank you. I guess.”
“Personally, I think Ynez is wrong for Harold.”
There was a romance hero named Harold?
“Don’t you just love that he took the name of the Danish kings for the cadet branch of his vampire line? Like, they even had vampires in Denmark.” She laughed.
“Good point.”
“Ynez knows his soul, but Britta knows his heart.”
“So you like Britta?” he said.
“Nah. Way too wet-spaghetti for me. But the bigger question is: Will Harold break the cadet branch oath to marry her?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately,” Sierra said with an audible sigh, “we’ll have to wait till Pyre comes in November to get the answer.”
“Pyre?”
“The sequel. Get it? Vamp-Pyre.”
“Shouldn’t that be Vamp-Ire?”
She giggled. “You’re so funny. Who’d buy a book called Ire?”
Sierra took the other romance from him, and Axel looked around. Were two books going to be enough? Ellery would need at least a sense of the whole landscape, and Scotland and vampires didn’t exactly add up to a survey course in romance. There was a display next to the checkout line, to tempt shoppers into last-minute purchases. He scanned the titles, bypassing the usual thrillers, Oprah authors, and mysteries to concentrate on the love-story end of the rack. A shirtless cowboy was on one, a lake house on the next, and a woman in a long pink gown on the third. He grabbed the last and added it to the others on the counter, then handed the woman his credit card.
“Oh, you like that too?” Sierra raised an amused brow.
Before he could ask what “that” was, another clerk interrupted, on the hunt for a copy of the latest Stephen King novel being held behind the counter. By the time that was sorted out, Sierra had slid his credit card back to him and was putting his purchases in a bag.
He pointed to Kiltlander. “Any thoughts on that one?”
She put a hand on his chest and closed her eyes dreamily. “It’s a classic. It’s the first romance I ever read.”
“And, em, Jamie… how does he stack up to Harold?”
“Jemmie,” she corrected. “Well, it’s hard to compare a Highland warrior to a vampire, and Jemmie’s pretty old-school.”
“‘Old-school’?”
She flushed. “You know.”
He didn’t, but nodded.
“Jemmie’s the man you wish every man was like,” she said. “He’s a slow burn. Harold’s a case of Roman candles viewed on your back from the flatbed of a pickup truck.”
He couldn’t quite tell her preference. Both seemed to delight her. “So… Jemmie, then?”
“Oh, believe me, there’s a place for the Harolds of this world.” She handed him the bag and he noticed a piece of paper stapled to the side. Jill was in the coffee shop, waving him over. Only she wasn’t alone: Ellery was seated at the table beside her, arms crossed, staring at him.
“Have a great day,” Sierra said.
“Not likely.”
CHAPTER TEN
“So nice to see you, ladies,” Axel said quickly, trying to finesse the conversation in a friendly direction. “I ran into Jill outside, and, may I add, what a shock. You’re in college, of course, at…?”
“Penn.”
“Oh, yes, I do think I’d heard that.” He hadn’t dared ask Ellery, but Kate, who apparently enjoyed some sort of aunt-like status
, had had a picture of Jill wearing a Penn sweatshirt pinned over her desk a year or so ago.
“Did you hear?” Ellery looked like a baby seal about to be clubbed.
Axel blew out a quiet whistle of relief. Someone else had broken the news. That had saved him an hour’s worth of torture at least. “Yes. We can make it work. Don’t worry.” He wondered if baby seal fur could compare to that dark, gleaming mass of hair.
She dropped her forehead in her hands. “I know why Black picked me,” she moaned into her latte, “but why, oh, why did he pick you?”
Jill bit her lip to keep from smiling
“You may recall I’m actually pretty good at what I do,” he said politely.
Ellery groaned.
“Relax, Pittsburgh. I have—” He was about to say “a plan,” but caught himself. Ellery liked her own plans. “Em, some ideas.”
Her head snapped up.
“But I’d love to hear yours first.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Well, I’ve pulled some articles on romance in popular culture. There’s a sociologist in Edinburgh I definitely want to talk to. The head of the Jane Austen Society teaches at London College, and there’s a historian at the University of Reading with some interesting things to say about Fielding.
Axel did his best to keep his eyes from glazing over as she went on. The story she was describing had none of the joy Black was looking for. More important, it had none of the joy he’d heard in the voices of his sister and the cashier when they talked about Vamp and Kiltlander. If he had any shot at all at rerouting this locomotive, he needed to infuse Ellery with some divine inspiration.
“… and then I thought a visit to Hardy’s Wessex, perhaps to the hanging site of Tess—”
“My goodness, that does sound like a lark.” He rubbed his palms together. “Is anyone as hungry as I am? I hear they make great Greek salads here.” He had no idea whether the Greek salads were good, bad or indifferent, but given the look brewing on Ellery’s face, an exit strategy was in order. Besides he knew from his time with the Sharpe girls, feta had magical calming powers.
