“Seems to me you’re lucky to have each other.” Mia had been coming into Annie’s shop for such a long time, but had only recently started reading Jane’s books. Annie had started detecting some signs of fangirling.

“That we are.”

“I’ve been wondering what it’s like to be married to a lesbian romance author.” Mia didn’t often lose her cool, but it seemed to Annie she was now.

“I’ve never been married to anyone else, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s not much different than being married to any woman you love and admire. Or maybe I’m seeing it differently because she wasn’t a writer yet when we met. She was writing, but she was also newly graduated from university and thinking about moving back to Canberra and taking a job in the civil service—just like her parents. I persuaded her to follow a different path.”

“Ah, so you’re partly responsible for all the books she has written. If you hadn’t convinced her to stay, she might be a high-ranking civil servant by now.”

Annie chuckled. “I don’t mean it like that. Although there were plenty of times I believed in Jane much more than she believed in herself. But the main reason I wanted her to stay was because I’d fallen head over heels in love with her, much to the chagrin of some of my friends. She was only twenty-five and I was thirty-seven. Had I lost my mind and all of that.” A smile curled on Annie’s lips as she remembered. “But I couldn’t care less about what anyone said. All I cared about was whether Jane felt the same about me as I did about her. Turned out she did. And here we are.”

“No offense,” Mia said. “But I’m only thirty-three and even to me twenty-five seems young. When I look back at myself as an unknowing twenty-five-year-old who believed she had it all figured out…”

“This may sound excruciatingly cheesy, but Jane has always been so much wiser than her age. She’s an old soul. A very fragile old soul at that. Lucky for me, her wisdom also translated into attraction to slightly older women.” Annie broke out into a chuckle. “And somehow, we just made a really good couple.”

Mia smiled in response. Maybe she was thinking about her own young love with Lou. Annie remembered what Rita had said to her about not entirely trusting Mia. Annie wanted to probe, but she had promised Rita their conversation would remain between them, so anything she asked Mia would need to be disguised as nothing more than innocent interest.