Chapter 4

A Viking, a Wife, and a Nerd

I could feel the friendly atmosphere from down the hall as the smooth tones and gay laughter drifted out with the ease of steam rising from wet pavement after a summer rain. My lips curved despite my nerves. Stand up straight. Pull your shoulders back. Lift your chin. Aspen Wolfe maintains proper posture; she doesn't slouch. I had to remind myself numerous times a day. So, I stretched to my full five-foot-five and strolled in like someone who belonged.

The lighting was dim, and the sweet smell of alcohol teased my nose as I glanced around for a familiar face. The bar appeared to be at three-quarters capacity, most of the revelers being women. Waiters in professional black and white bustled about while patrons sat in parties or wandered from table to table. Like the rest of the Windsor, the lounge was posh, elegant, and immaculate. A tantalizing aroma drew my attention like a magnet to a buffet table overflowing with silver serving trays. They said there would be food, I recalled as my mouth watered, and my stomach reminded me I'd had nothing since that hamburger three hundred miles ago.

My famished fawning was interrupted by the motion of a waving hand. The fifty-something-year-old woman attached to it was unmistakable. Except for the short crop of graying hair, Tammy Fairfield could easily pass for a shieldmaiden from one of her Viking historical romances. Even seated, her tall, solid frame was unmistakable, accentuated by her dragon-etched, black T-shirt that hugged her well-defined muscles and ample bosom. Her delighted expression and exuberant waving made me forget my pretenses long enough to laugh endearingly and scurry in her direction.

Like a gentlemanly butch, she rose to greet me with a warm embrace. "Aspen, it's wonderful to see you again. You look even better than you did in February."

The Read Out had started as a local event sponsored by the gay-friendly Gulfport Library but had grown to garner regional and national attention. Authors from all over attended this winter's event, including Tammy. Since we'd been corresponding for a long time, it had been thrilling to meet my mentor in person, even though her wife hadn't been able to join her then. The twinkle in her kind eyes hadn't changed a bit.

I relished the strength of her arms around me and the way her presence enveloped me in comfort. Being with Tammy made me feel safe. "I'm so glad you came," I gushed. "I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here."

"Well, you know it was just a hop, skip, and a jump from Rosenberg, Texas," she replied as she slid out of the hug. "Besides, I've got a book up for Best Historical this year. Here, let me introduce you to my better half, Elizabeth Fairfield—but everyone calls her Beth."

There were two other women seated at the table. The older one with flowing brown hair, wearing a light cotton sundress, smiled and wiggled her fingers at me.

"So nice to finally meet you," she declared in a lovely British accent tainted with a twang of Texas.

In an instant, it dawned on me that she wasn't seated in a pub barrel-back, but in a wheelchair. Don't stare! I ordered myself. Instead, I kept my attention on her friendly face, stepped over, and shook her hand. "It is such a pleasure to meet you," I returned. Tammy pulled out the chair for me, and I settled in as gracefully as I could manage while trying to process meeting such an important new friend and puzzling over why Tammy never mentioned her wife was disabled. "And thank you for all your help when I was first learning to set up ads and everything. You both just mean the world to me." No truer words. They were like family.

Tammy shuffled behind Beth, stroking her shoulders tenderly and brushing a kiss to her hair. "And this cute, little gal is Winter Bliss, sci-fi writer extraordinaire!" Tammy beamed.

For the first time, I focused my attention on the young stranger who must have been newly out of college, if she'd even been yet. She was tiny compared to Tammy, with a face framed by a brunette bob and consumed by round Harry Potter glasses. Her chin was too pointy, her nose too long, but the blush warming her cheeks and the glow of wonder in her electric blue eyes seemed genuine. The look of admiration and appreciation she aimed at me resembled the one I'd cast at the buffet table moments ago.

"Nice to meet you, Winter. I'm—"

"I know who you are," she answered and pressed her lips together as if trying to hold back a flood of praise. It didn't work, and words tumbled out. "I absolutely love your books, your writing style, your descriptions. Your characters are so bold and larger-than-life, yet the way you tell a story convinces me things like that could really happen. And how do you come up with those love-making scenes? Personal experience? I mean, the one in Only a Touch— "

"No," I broke in. Everyone wanted to know where I learned the delectably tantalizing moves in Chapter Ten of that book. Women had written to thank me with tales of the pleasure they had given their romantic partner and how it revolutionized their love life. But my love life—or lack thereof—was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

I read the reaction on her face and realized my tone had been too sharp. "I mean, a lady never tells," I added with a coy smile and a dash of humor.

She laughed, clearly relieved her favorite author wasn't upset with her. I derived from her accent this was probably her first trip south of the Mason-Dixon line, so I followed up with a safe question. "Where are you from?"

Despite being so completely not my type, she had an adorable way of biting her bottom lip while rolling her fingers around each other as if she craved a fidget spinner. It was just like Tammy to adopt this stray the same way she had me.

"Beaver Dam, Wisconsin." She took a breath before launching into a dissertation. "It's very different from the South where you guys are all from. Yeah, we have cheese and cows and beautiful forests, but we spend five or six months buried in snow, so escapism is like the state pastime. My mom knits, my dad constantly has a sports channel on, and my brother and his buddies take off on these hunting and fishing weekends—which I never understood because it's just freezing, but they wear parkas and thermals, and sometimes they bring home an elk and at least he has a Skidoo. I've driven it out on the pasture and it's fun."

Conjuring an impulse for self-control, Winter clamped her mouth shut, blushed, and met my eyes. "Anyway, winters can be dismal, so I wanted to turn that on its ear by calling myself Winter Bliss—you know, a fun escape through reading fantastic science fiction, only I've yet to win an award or hit best-seller status like you guys."

She lowered her gaze and clamped her busy fingers together as if folded for prayer, while a crimson hue filled her cheeks. Her oversized glasses began a long slide, and she yanked a hand free to push them up before returning it to the fold.

"Hey, don't you dare sell yourself short, young lady," Tammy demanded, waving a finger at her. "You're only on your third book and the first two weren't bad. Kid, you've got the brains; you just need experience."

"You'll learn so much at this conference," Beth added cheerfully. "You'll go home inspired to turn your adventures into gold and with the tools to do it."

Winter nodded and granted the couple an appreciative look. She didn't offer her given name, but neither had I, so we were even on that plain. Tammy and Beth were the Fairfield's real names. The forty-fifth-generation Viking descendant didn't have a disingenuous bone in her body. I loved and admired her for that. What courage, and in Texas even.

"I'm hungry!" Tammy declared and pushed up from the table, shooting a gleaming gaze toward the food. "I'm getting in that line before all the good stuff is gone. Anyone coming?"

It took a great deal of restraint for me not to leap up and race her to the spread, but Aspen Wolfe never rushes. She's always cool and poised. However, my manner of rising to follow her didn't interfere with me doing so. "I could eat," I mentioned, while my stomach growled in affirmation.

"Sure," Winter concurred and hopped up like a cartoon bunny.

"Someone needs to guard our table," Tammy directed with a loving glance at Beth. "Shall I bring you a plate?"

"Thanks, babe. You know what I like."

With Beth there, I left my purse—which I was likely to forget and lose before the night was over—since this form-fitting, neck-plunging dress had no pockets. Perky little Winter had pockets in her black jeans. A whimsical, math-themed blouse splashed with color hung over her petite frame like a parachute Albert Einstein might have designed. I didn't know why I was paying any attention to her when all I wanted to do was devour every delectable morsel in sight.

I piled my plate with shrimp, boudin balls, crab cakes, fried okra, bite-sized stuffed jalapenos, sliced baguette with jambalaya dip, and melon slices. Then I added dessert bites of bourbon balls and king cake truffles. It was all I could do not to drool on the way back to our table.

Despite the urge to retreat in solitude to enjoy orgasms over my food, I tried to engage while savoring the spices, flavors, and textures as languidly as possible.

"And what can I get you ladies to drink this evening?" asked the waiter.

I ordered a white wine, Tammy asked for a beer, and the other two got fruity cocktails. I seldom drank alcohol, and we never had it in the house growing up, but I envisioned sophisticated and desirable Aspen Wolfe nursing a glass of wine through the evening. Giving it a taste, I concluded it wasn't half bad.

Winter jabbered on with Tammy about Dune: Part Two, which made no sense to me coming so many years—decades—after the original. While they oohed and aahed over how exciting and fantastic the new movie was, I closed my eyes to bathe in the sounds of the music. Low vibrations from the string bass pulsed through my body while the close harmonies and rambling runs on the piano struck just the right chord. The clarinet claimed the limelight with a soulful tune, beckoning listeners to drift away into sensuous ecstasy.

Lazily opening my lids, my gaze drifted around the lounge until I spied another familiar face on the other side—R.B. Taylor. No one knew what the R.B. stood for or if they were her real initials, but her luscious auburn hair spilling over flawless, porcelain skin exposed by the plunging back of her dress couldn't be faked. Now there was a gorgeous woman—slender and chic, her features perfectly symmetrical, wearing style with casual ease as she lifted a glass to ruby lips. She made everything look so effortless.

Still, R.B. Taylor was stiff competition, one of the most recognized names in sapphic romance. Last year, her twenty-second book won Best Contemporary Romance Novel, a collaborative set of short stories she contributed to took Best Anthology, and she was bestowed the coveted Maureen Duffy Award for literary excellence. Yes, the sleek beauty was sapphic fiction royalty, and I yearned to meet her while I was here. Maybe she would give me a few tips. Perhaps we could even become friends. I was still a newcomer, an outsider, yet, at some point, I desired to achieve enough notoriety to be included with the likes of Taylor and Selina Fowlerton. I guess that was the real reason I had become so concerned about my appearance. They were both surrounded by handsome, buff butches or shapely, attractive femmes, and plain old me was neither.

"We must all attend the panel on ‘How to Deal with Book Pirating.'" Beth unfolded an itinerary onto the table once her plate was empty.

The change of subject brought my attention back to my company. None of them fit the molds either, yet I felt extremely comfortable in their presence. I suppose that counted for something too.

Winter's eyes widened, and she pushed up her glasses. "I've heard about that. How terrible!" A hilarious scowl rippled across her face. I imagined a tiny shrew standing with hands on her hips, giving an angry tirade about someone stealing her cheese. "At least I don't have to worry about it since my books aren't top sellers. Who'd want to plagiarize me?"

"Oh, you need to come, learn, and be on the lookout," Tammy commanded in a no-nonsense manner. "This is a raging atrocity, and the pirates aren't just targeting best-sellers. I've already found two of my novels copied word for word except for changing the main character's names and slapping on a new cover."

"It's not happening while the book fair is going on tomorrow, is it?" I wondered aloud, alarmed by Tammy's revelation. I hadn't thought I had to worry about that either, but maybe I did. "I don't have anyone to watch my table."

"No," Beth answered, referring to the schedule. "It's Saturday morning from ten to twelve in Chinoiserie B on the 23 rd floor. Even though it's the bigger room, we need to be early to get a seat."

My masterclass was set for tomorrow afternoon at four in the smaller Chin A, across the reception lobby from Chin B. An advertising and marketing panel discussion was being hosted in the big room that I would have liked to attend. They probably wouldn't have anything new to tell me I hadn't already dug around and discovered, anyway. Still.

"Gosh," Winter exhaled. "What's opposite it?"

"A presentation geared toward readers on how to choose the book you really want to read and avoid the ones you don't," Tammy inserted.

Winter let out a sound of relief. "Maggie Harkness is giving a class on how to create three-dimensional alien and monster characters for your sci-fi and fantasy series, and I must be there for it. I think having flat, boring aliens who mostly appear as mindless monsters out to kill my human space explorers is holding me back. Reviewers are always impressed with my science; it's the fiction part I need to be more creative with."

"That's good," I commented. "We all need to be constantly improving our craft, striving to be better writers. I get so caught up in trying to learn new ways to sell more books, I sometimes forget that, in the big picture, writing a better narrative will lead to more sales."

"Oh, I'm sure you have zounds of sales," Winter replied flippantly and ran skinny fingers through her dark hair.

I laughed. "You really are na?ve, aren't you?"

"I need to use the restroom now," she announced abruptly, excusing herself. She sprung up and dashed away.

A horrid barb pierced my emotions, and I said to Tammy and Beth, "I didn't mean to upset her. I just meant that I barely sell enough books to pay my rent."

"Naw, she'll be fine," Tammy assured me with a wave of her hand. "She's just a little star-struck, I suppose. Because she buys everything you write, she must think every other sane human being would do the same—as they should!" she added with a wink and polished off her bottle.

"I think her Mai Tai has more to do with her bathroom run than your comment," Beth added with a comforting smile.

I laid my hand on my purse, thinking I should go after her and apologize for something, when I felt my phone vibrate. Curious about who would want to talk to me, not present at this table, I took out my cell and checked the notifications. An incoming text message from an unknown number. Probably someone trying to sell me something, but, needing a distraction from feeling guilty, I opened it.

The blood drained from my face. My mouth went dry, and my palms began to sweat. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be!

"Honey, what's wrong?" came Tammy's concerned voice.

The text read simply, I'm here. It was followed by another. I see you, bitch.