Free Hope Falls: Hearts Afire (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Julie Prestsater

girlfriend.”
    Katie was thrilled to hear her sister-in-law’s voice. She had just stood up to take a break from writing. She had been going at it all day, and her body ached from sitting at the computer. She had to get up and stretch her legs and get the blood flowing. She also needed to give her eyes a rest.
    “Hey, sissy! What’s up?” Katie told her. She had always wanted a sister. Lizzy was an only child. An adopted one at that, who grew up with woman she likened to Mrs. Hannigan. As soon as Katie met Liz, she loved her like a sister and intended to treat her like one. She didn’t care how it worked out with her brother. Lucky for all of them, Ryan had pulled his head out of his ass and married the woman.
    “I miss you,” she said. “Are you done yet? I need someone to keep me company at the library.”
    Katie shook her head knowingly. “You don’t miss me. You need me.”
    “I miss you. And I need you.”
    Liz was the children’s librarian at the local library back home. She was amazing at her job and often had guest speakers and authors come in to read to the children and do activities with them. Liz had been the first to ask her to do a reading when she got the job at the library. Since then, Katie had made appearances at a few bookstores to do signings and visit with little ones. If Lizzy needed her help, she would bend over backwards to make it happen.
    “What’s going on?” she asked. “And yes to whatever you need.”
    “Ooo, I should ponder this for a minute.” Liz was quiet for a brief moment before she started giggling into the phone. “Your publisher just announced your next release. Moms have already asked if you’ll be doing a reading. You’re great with the kids, and I want to be able to tell them you’ll be here.”
    “Of course. Sign me up.” She loved doing these things. Even before she had written her first story, she had loved volunteering in elementary school classrooms and reading to the kids. Her mom had teased her and told her she should be an actress because she was so animated when she read aloud. She couldn’t help but bring the characters to life with different voices. If there was an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, you bet your ass she was going to read that sentence with some gusto.
    She had forgotten what that feeling was like since she’d been working on her romance. That’s not to say that her love story didn’t bring about gooey feelings inside. She found herself smiling at her pages often. Writing for children and writing for adults was very different, but it no doubt brought her the same excitement and joy.
    “Awesome. I’ll send you an email with some dates and I’ll put a poster up. That should quiet the masses. You’re a hit.”
    “At home I am.” Katie laughed at the absurdity. She only had a few books out, but they had done well. People did know her, but it’s not as if she was signing animated series contracts or anything. “Enough about work, how’s everyone doing? I miss you guys so much.”
    “Everyone is great. The girls ask about you and we can’t wait to read your book. Your brother thinks it’s gross, of course. He can’t imagine his little sister writing naughty things. I mean, how would you know anything about boys and what to do with them?”
    They both laughed. Her brother would rather she join the convent than date. He had been like that since she was in middle school and developed her first crush on a boy—her square dance partner. She fell in love the first time she held his hand. Ryan would rather die than consider his little sister had ever kissed a boy, much less had sex.
    “My brother has such a warped sense of reality,” Katie told her. “Luckily for him, my book is pretty tame. Every time I start to write anything remotely sexy, I start to look over my shoulder. I feel like someone is watching me and I just can’t do it. This is definitely going to be one of those books where the couple closes the door