Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
My mom peered down lovingly at Mo. “Well, he is my fur grandbaby and he knows how much I love him. But since Josh and Thomas are nowhere near to giving me grandbabies, I wouldn’t mind grandbabies from you and Ian.”
“MOM!” I all but screeched and Ian laughed.
My mom leaned down and gave Mo a kiss on the top of his head. “Thanks for your help today, Mo. We’ll do it again soon.”
Mo barked as if agreeing though it was muffled by the bone in his mouth.
“Toodles,” my mom said. “I’m off to get more flyers printed, thanks to Mo.”
“I love your mum,” Ian said with a grin as he opened the back door of his SUV to let Mo enter.
We barely pulled away from the diner when my cell rang. I answered when I saw it was my agent. “Hi, Sylvia.”
“I got a call from Willard Hughes.”
I wondered why Ian’s agent would call Sylvia, though he did work for a division of Sylvia’s vast agency empire, but I didn’t bother to ask since when Sylvia talked no one could get a word in. And as usual, she went right on talking.
“The modeling contract with Understated Intimate Apparel has presented Willard with a cross-promotion option. They would like you to pose with Ian in their new line of winter undergarments. They realized how popular you are with the prepper and survivalist crowd and figured it would be a good way to promote their winter line to a section of the population that they don’t normally reach, and you could reach readers who probably wouldn’t be familiar with you. I told Willard I’d run it by you, though naturally I would expect you to be paid for it like any other model which I made clear to him. We’re working out the details. Knowing you, I told Willard you would need to test the garments yourself before you would enter into such a promotion. That you do not promote anything you do not test yourself. He took that back to the company and there’s a shipment on the way to Ian of the garments that you and he would wear in the photos.”
How was it that Sylvia knew me so well?
“This is an excellent opportunity. You could reach a whole new area of readers so don’t even think of turning it down. Discuss it with Ian. How is the hunk doing? You’re not messing it up, are you?”
“Ian is right here with me,” I said, realizing too late that was a mistake.
“Put me on speaker,” Sylvia demanded.
I didn’t want to but somehow with Sylvia I was compelled to obey.
“Ian, how are you doing, it’s Sylvia Rubin,” she said.
“Doing well, Sylvia, and you?”
“I am doing fabulous, and you and Pepper will be doing even more fabulous when you hear the offer I just presented to her.”
Sylvia repeated what she had told me and didn’t give him a chance to respond when she finished.
“Let me know right away how much you like the winter undergarments on their way to you,” Sylvia said. “Talk soon.”
“She’s a whirlwind,” Ian said, shaking his head when she hung up.
“She’s a tornado,” I corrected as he turned into my long driveway, “sweeping everything up in her path. I’m not a model.”
“We can talk about it,” Ian said, pulling to a stop.
“I’m not a model and I’m not posing in undergarments with you,” I insisted.
“Sylvia is right. It is good cross promotion.”
“Not happening,” I said, getting out and letting Mo out, the bone still firm in his mouth. “Put the bone on the porch, Mo, and go see to your duty.”
Safe at home in his territory, Mo did as I ordered and dropped the bone on the porch and headed off to see to his needs.
Roxie was perched on the top of the couch glaring at me when I entered.
“Heaven forbid that her majesty didn’t get her treats on time,” I said, and she meowed loudly as if scolding me for being late.
I saw to appeasing Roxie while Ian put the kettle on and I placed a towel on the rug where I was sure Mo would settle with his bone, after he was done outside, and he did. Ian also got a fire going in the fireplace.
We settled on the couch together enjoying vanilla almond tea.
I was glad Ian didn’t pursue discussing the modeling thing. It was difficult enough having a photo taken for my book jacket, though Ian’s photographer had done a great job on that, to even think of modeling with him—in underwear no less—and see it posted all over the place. No way. No how.
“It amazes me how people can hide things from those they love,” Ian said. “Families so often find out too late that someone has a problem or is suffering in silence and wind up blaming themselves when they do find out for not realizing it sooner. Is it that we refuse to see or are we that blind?”