Homebound

By Ellen Mint

Four months into their relationship, Tristan and Beth are sequestered at his home beside a lake. Their cozy getaway is punctured when reporters and his fans figure out Tristan might be dating someone new. Past trauma threatens to break apart the best thing in Tristan’s life. If he can’t process it he could lose Beth forever.

This short story is a sequel to Pride & Pancakes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellen Mint
• Release date: Apr 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463278017

Ellen Mint

Ellen Mint adores the adorkable heroes who charm with their shy smiles and heroines that pack a punch. She recently won the Top Ten Handmaid's Challenge on Wattpad where hers was chosen by Margaret Atwood. Her books, Undercover Siren and Fever are available at Amazon as well as a short story in the Lucky Between The Sheets anthology. Married, she lives in Nebraska with her dog named after Granny Weatherwax. Her hobbies include gaming, painting, and halloween prop making. The basement is full of skeletons because they ran out of room in the closets.

Book preview

Homebound

by

Ellen Mint

A Pride & Pancakes Short

Four months into their relationship, Tristan and Beth are sequestered at his home beside a lake. Their cozy getaway is punctured when reporters and his fans figure out Tristan might be dating someone new. Past trauma threatens to break apart the best thing in Tristan’s life. If he can’t process it he could lose Beth forever.

Spoilers for Pride & Pancakes are contained within.

Copyright © 2020 by Ellen Mint

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CHAPTER ONE

HALF OF A forehead and an elongated eyeball remained etched across the screen. Beth stared at it, clenching her fingers over the keys as if that could fix the unexpected internet hiccup. Light streamed through the window across the blond desk she’d completely claimed. For a beat, her eyes darted out across the lake. Soft winds washed the water, lapping it against the shoreline where red-wing tipped blackbirds bobbed on cattails.

…should work, her laptop suddenly screeched, causing her to slam her focus back.

Sounds good, Beth answered, hoping that’d fill in for whatever she missed of the meeting taking place in New York. And LA. And other homes across the country.

Beth, can you get me your edits tomorrow? We need to go live with something lighter.

She wouldn’t exactly call her interview with an epidemiological historian light fare, but it was compared to the other news flooding the docket. For a moment, Beth nodded as if she was back home in the floodlight, wallless meeting room huddled around the oval table with the others. Yes, she shouted into the shitty mike that came with her laptop.

It took a moment before her boss’ face changed to a smile and he said, Got it. Good meeting, everyone.

The screen froze on a view of her editor’s bookcase and a cat trying to wedge its way in between stacks of Hemingway for a nap. Beth slowly closed her laptop and scooted back on the dining room chair. Raising her hands high, she stretched for the ceiling with both palms and tried to shake out the pain cramping along her back. She’d never been great at sitting in one place for eight-plus hours as a kid, and it’d only been getting worse.

Rubbing her shoulder to try and work away the unending knot, she rose to her feet. Crystal clear sunlight washed across Tristan’s mural. When she heard he had a full wall painting hanging in his house, she may have gritted her teeth and prayed it wasn’t of, say, a sexy woman wrapped around a tiger. Or one of Tristan himself taken from an album or photoshoot when he was younger and blown up to unnerving proportions.

To her surprise and delight, while it was done by a man who did the cover art of Tristan’s album, this was beautiful. Abstract, the mural swirled a warm russet color palate in a way that reminded her of both Van Gogh’s Starry Night and autumn sunsets in New York. She loved it.

She loved its owner too.

Smiling deep in her heart, Beth turned so her back was to the painting and took a quick selfie. She posted it online and tagged Madeline. No doubt that pile of kittens was keeping Mads busy. Still, Beth should try and call her later.

Work waited