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Hey, amazing person!

I've been busy this week getting things in order for celebrating my publication anniversary on August 11, which also happens to be the release date for the second edition of Jaywalking!

If you read my email a few months ago asking for your feedback on Facebook groups, you probably already knew that I was thinking of starting one for my readers. Some of you were interested, and others weren't, which I totally understand! I have mixed feelings about Facebook myself. 🙃 But in the end, I decided to launch it, and in conjunction with its grand opening and for publication anniversary celebration purposes, I'm giving away an e-reader to someone who joins the group and follows some of my author friends on BookBub. You can get get all the details and join the group by following this link: Rachel's Party Barn on Facebook.

I'm also going to be giving away some books, bookmarks, and cacti... yes, you read that correctly... over on my Instagram! 🌵

What I'm reading

Thank you to those who shared some of your favorite audiobook narrators with me last week! I have really been on an audio kick and would take any more recommendations anyone has.

I'm finishing up an ARC of What We May Be by Layla Reyne that has been so much fun! It's an MMF romantic suspense story, and I've been intrigued since I first saw the gorgeous cover. I know that reading about triads and heterosexual characters isn't for everyone, but I enjoy them a lot when there's good bisexual representation in the mix. 💜

What I'm writing

I have a couple projects underway that I can't talk about yet, but of the most interest to all of you might be the newsletter serial, Night & Day! I've been posting the rough draft as I write it over on Discord, but you don't have to join me over there to read the story. As promised I'll be cleaning up the chapters and sharing them right here in the newsletter. You can find chapter one at the bottom of this email! I'd love to hear what you think.

Have a great week!

xo,

Rachel

Books by Rachel Ember

Long Winter | Signs of Spring | Burning Season

Jaywalking

***

NIGHT & DAY

CHAPTER ONE

Ty

Ty stood on the sidewalk outside the town house that matched the address he'd saved in his phone, and strongly considered turning around and walking straight back to the bus stop.

The area was one of those trendy mixes of commercial and residential. There was a flower shop on the ground floor of the building next door, and a boutique restaurant above it. The woman sitting at a single table on the restaurant’s tiny balcony crossed her legs, flashing the red soles of her Louis Vuitton heels. A waiter appeared to present her with a bottle of wine, and she wrinkled her nose at the label.

On the wide, concrete-embellished sidewalks, planters the size of plastic kiddie pools spilled over with blooming flowers.

Ty wasn't the only person in sight who was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but the worn spots at his knees hadn't been distressed in a factory in the name of fashion, and he'd replaced two of the eyelets in his ancient Doc Martens himself when they'd pulled through the leather. The results weren't perfect but the cuffs of his jeans mostly hid it.

He should have borrowed something from his sister's boyfriend. Kent had clothes for every occasion. Ty and his sister, Emily, teased him about it all the time. But on the inside, Ty marveled at the way Kent knew exactly what to wear for any given occasion. He'd probably be horrified if he knew that Ty was showing up to an interview in jeans.

But according to Google, you should dress for the job you were applying for. Ty had read that on a website that seemed to have more of a corporate environment in mind; all the people in the stock photos were wearing ties. But if he translated it to a job as an infant nanny working from eight p.m. to eight a.m., jeans and a T-shirt had to be about right.

A young woman who was probably about the age of Ty's middle sister, Danielle, walked around the corner and right up to the townhouse Ty had been staring at. She was probably interviewing for the position, too, he realized as she rang the bell. Scanning her outfit, he was impressed. She wasn't wearing a business suit, but she had a strong, Kindergarten-teacher-chic vibe, with her long flowing skirt and her flowered top, with cute but practical ballet flats.

Damn it, he thought. He totally should have dressed like a Kindergarten teacher. Kent probably had just the right bland combination of nondescript khakis and a polo shirt.

Ty moved down the sidewalk a little so that he wasn't standing in quite so obvious a spot when the door opened and the young woman went inside, smiling at whoever was on the other side. Ty didn't see whoever it was, but he did hear the familiar, sharp squeak of an angry baby, and he smiled to himself.

If he only had to impress the kid, rather than the parent, he wouldn’t be so nervous. He wondered if he would get to hold her. He would, right? How could you hire a nanny without letting them hold the baby? That seemed like it should be at least one of the tests. Ty remembered when his siblings were little and some people would look at them with abject, bewildered fear. Most people had no idea what to do with a baby, and if you handed them one, you found that out in a hurry. 

Ty checked his phone for roughly the tenth time; he had to tilt it a little so the sun's glare didn't refract off the jagged crack down the middle. He still had twenty minutes before his scheduled interview time. He had been there for forty. Always over-budget for travel time, he used to tell the kids. It was one of what his sisters called his "Dad sayings," by which they meant the kind of dad in movies and sitcoms, certainly not their actual dad, who didn't concern himself with societal expectations like attempting to hold a job, signing assisted lunch applications or permission slips, or remembering to file his tax return, much less punctuality.

"Are you casing that house?" a voice asked matter-of-factly from somewhere to Ty's right.

He turned, frowning, to find someone was sitting on the stoop of the building behind him. It was another townhouse, and Ty had been leaning against the railing that boxed in its miniature, rocked yard to either side of the steps that led up to the door.

The speaker wore an oversized navy blue sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and was frowning at Ty assessingly with one of those faces that was heart-shaped with a small mouth and big eyes, making age difficult to guess, though Ty had the strong impression of teenager. Maybe because he couldn't imagine an adult in this neighborhood interrogating a stranger from their stoop. 

"No," Ty said, instantly put on the defensive. "I'm waiting for an interview." It was none of this stranger's business, but then again, he was a little out of place in this part of town, and he didn't want them to call the cops or anything. He rarely felt self-conscious about his tattoos, but he almost wished he'd worn a shirt with long sleeves, especially when he noticed that behind the thick lenses of their acrylic-framed glasses, the kid on the stoop was giving him a careful once-over.

"What's the job?"

Ty considered spouting off one of his Dad sayings, like Is that really any of your business? Instead he just shrugged and answered. "Nanny."

Behind the glasses, dark brown eyes widened. "You're a nanny?"

"Well," Ty huffed, "not, like, presently, no. But hopefully I will be," he added, "starting in three to seven days." He blushed when he realized he was quoting the timeline for a start date in the job posting he'd answered. 

His interrogator's lips twitched, whether with the urge to scowl or smile, it was impossible to tell. "But do you have any experience?"

Narrowing his eyes, Ty was about to lose his patience and ask why it was any of the kid's business, when he heard a baby crying and, turning, realized that the door had opened again and the Kindergarten-chic woman was already coming out. He frowned, glancing at his phone to confirm that she'd barely been inside for five minutes.

The baby was really working herself up, he thought, unconsciously walking toward the sound of her cries. He'd never been able to stand the sound of a baby crying. He still remembered when his mother had come home from the hospital with Emily. Ty had only been eight, but when Emily started crying and wouldn't stop, he’d gotten out of bed, padded past the firmly closed door to his parents' bedroom, and bent over the big laundry basket where little Emily had been writhing, hands curled into fists and her face bright red. In hindsight he was terrified at the thought of that eight-year-old boy picking up a two-day-old baby, but he'd had good instincts, scooping her up with a careful hand under her bottom and another behind her neck. She'd stopped crying immediately, and he'd nestled her in the crook of his arm, holding her until morning, when his parents woke up and he'd asked one of them to show him how to make her a bottle.

Ty itched with the same urge now, to go and cuddle the crying baby into happy submission, and he was halfway to the bottom of the townhouse’s stairs as Kindergarten-teacher-chic was coming down. Her expression was twisted into a frown and she didn’t make eye contact with Ty as they passed.

He had trotted up the steps and his eyes had latched onto the baby, held cross-body style and not looking very happy about it, before Ty realized that he probably should have waited and knocked at his appointment time, instead of accosting his potential employer in his doorway. But the man holding the baby, who Tyler had hardly taken note of yet, had seen him, so it was too late for Ty to change his mind and retreat. 

"Can I help you?"

Ty looked up at the sound of his voice, a little strained, no doubt because the baby, who looked to be about three months old, was arching her back and waving her clenched fists as her cries got even louder.

Ty's heart, already wrenched by the desire to soothe the baby, flipped over in his chest again. Because this man was gorgeous. Not hot, which was the word Ty used for the smirking, uber-confident guys he preferred to pick up when he occasionally found time to go out and get laid. Not pretty, because even though his dark eyelashes were long enough to curl and his lips were full and slightly pink, there was a sternness to his eyes and a strength to his jaw that was incongruous with such a soft word. He looked like he'd stepped out of the centerfold of a catalogue for luxury products, or an ambitious wet dream.

Ty swallowed, and because he didn't know what else to do, he held out his hands for the baby. "Can I take her?"

The gorgeous man looked torn between very much wanting to hand over the baby, and not being sure that he should give a fragile infant to a stranger just because he’d shown up in his doorway and asked. He took a small backward step into the foyer, and as he cocked his head he turned the movement into an invitation. "You're Tyler Andrews?"

Ty nodded, stepping over the threshold and taking the liberty of closing the door behind him.

The man apparently decided that now that they were indoors, it was acceptable for him to hand off his infant daughter, because he half-extended his arms to hold her out to Ty, like a small, pink-onesie-clad and very unhappy offering.

Ty ignored the way his hands skated across the firm, smooth skin of the gorgeous man's hands as he accepted the baby, adjusting his hold as he gently lifted her up against his shoulder, her little bottom cupped in his palm so that she could draw up her knees and tuck them between her tummy and his chest. That was the way that Emily had liked to be held; he hadn't realized he'd remembered that, but then, some memories lived in your body, not your head.

And apparently, this baby liked to be held this way, too, because she took a deep, whimpering breath, and then fell quiet. Ty grinned automatically at the swift victory, and then looked back at his baffled prospective employer, this time more prepared for the combined effect of the eyelashes and the eyes and the lips and the jaw and, Jesus, those arms.

"This is the way my little sister liked to be held, too," he said, just to say something into what always felt like ringing silence in the wake of a baby crying. "It's funny how you remember those things. She's twenty now."

The man continued staring at Ty, but now his gaze was roaming, like he was pretty sure Ty had worked some kind of magic on the baby and was searching for signs of a wand. Or maybe he was just noticing the worn jeans, battered old Docs, and tattoos, but Ty was hoping for the best.

When his eyes returned to Ty's, the man pressed his lips together, his stern face growing sterner in an expression of resolve, like he'd reached a decision, possibly against his better judgement.

Ty, recalling that the woman to interview before him had been in and out of the townhouse in approximately five minutes, wondered idly if she'd seen the same look on their interviewer's face before he'd shown her out. He gave the baby a preemptive farewell pat on the back, and waited to find out.