Page 1 of Wait With Me
Kate Smith. My name is literally Kate Smith. My parents couldn’t even fancy it up and call me Katherine or Katelyn. Or God, if only they’d have named me something exotic like Katarina, my life could have turned out so differently.
Hell, I would have even settled for Katie. She sounds a tiny bit fun. Maybe.
But no…I’m just Kate.
I’m the eldest child in a bustling family of five from Longmont, Colorado. My parents have been married for over forty years and still magically like each other. My two younger brothers went off and married two sisters. The two perfect couples and their precious offspring live within a two-block radius of our childhood home. My parents babysit every Friday night so my brothers can wine and dine their hot wives like the good Christian husbands they are.
And what does boring ole, practically pushing thirty years old Kate do?
She writes porn.
In a tire shop.
In Boulder, Colorado.
“Excuse me, but you look familiar,” a woman in her mid-sixties says to me with a starry-eyed look on her face. She’s got that pleasantly plump look about her that reminds me of a vintage fairy godmother. The one that looks like a grandmother, not the one that looks like a character from Harry Potter.
I lift my hands from my laptop keyboard where they have been furiously typing away and pop out my earbuds. “I’m sorry…what?”
The woman’s eyes blink rapidly. “Do you work at a hospital?”
I offer her a kind smile. “No, I’m afraid not.”
“Do you work at a dental clinic?”
“Nope.”
“A veterinary office? That’s got to be it. You look so familiar. I’m Betty, and my poodle’s name is Misty, the teacup black one?”
I smile again and take pity on the woman. “No. I’m sorry, Betty. I don’t work at a vet clinic. I’m a writer. Maybe you’ve read my books?”
Her eyes light up. “Oh, what’s your name?”
“I write under the pen name, Mercedes Lee Loveletter,” I reply confidently.Don’t judge! I was making up for a lifetime’s worth of hating my boring-ass name.
“Is it Christian romance?” Betty asks, hand to heart with hopeful excitement.
“No,” I reply, chagrin all over my face.
“Oh…is it Amish? How I love those Amish novels.”
I inhale deeply. “Definitely not Amish.” Betty is so not my people. I should have guessed, but you’d be surprised at the number of grannies who like dirty smut.
She frowns and glances down at my computer. “Are you writing now?”
“Yes.” I hug my laptop to my body as she moves to look over my shoulder.
“May I see?” she asks, brushing up against my shoulder, the scent of vanilla all over her.
I close it. “I’m afraid I don’t let anyone see my work in progress…they need an editor’s touch.”And you’d probably have a stroke.
“You were in here yesterday too, right?” she asks curiously.
My spine straightens. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“And the day before?”
I look around nervously. “Okay, what’s the problem? Did management send you in here?”
