Head Over Heels by Susan Andersen Page A

OOP SO SELDOM USED HIS CELL PHONE THAT HE tended to forget he even had one. So when it rousted him from a deep sleep late Friday morning, he reached over to the nightstand and slapped at the off button on the alarm clock, thinking that was where the sound originated. The phone rang again, and he pushed up onto his elbow. “Oh, for—” He snatched the phone off the nightstand, flipped down the mouthpiece, and punched the talk button. “Yeah!”
    â€œCoop? Steve Parrish here. Did Margery get hold of you?”
    â€œNo, why? Has she been trying?”
    â€œFor two days now. She called me first thing this morning to find out if I knew where you were. Damn, big guy, isn’t the purpose of having a cell phone tomake yourself available anytime, anywhere?”
    â€œThat’s the popular theory, anyhow.” Coop tossed his pillow against the headboard and sat up, resting his back against it. Steve was his literary agent and Margery Kellerman his editor. He’d spent thirteen years seeing every hot spot in the world, courtesy of the U.S. Marines, and had kept journals of his experiences as point man in a reconnaissance squad in C Company of the Second Recon Battalion. Somewhere along the way he’d begun to jot down ideas for a book based on his knowledge, and that had led to scribbling chapters in spiral notebooks, which had eventually led to the purchase of a computer and a completed manuscript. He’d then shopped it around to several agents, and felt like he’d hit the jackpot when Steve, who’d been his number one choice, was interested in representing his work. A few months after signing on with the Parrish Agency, his military-techno-thriller had been put up for auction in a bidding war between publishers, and fourteen months after that, his alter ego, James Lee Cooper, had exploded onto the bestseller lists and quickly became a name to be reckoned with.
    A cold draft whispered across Coop’s bare shoulders and he yanked up the blankets. “What’d Margery want?”
    â€œTo report some good news. Two bits of good news, actually. The Eagle Flies is going back to press for another ten thousand copies, and it’s generating renewed interest in Cause for Alarm, so that’s going back, too, for another seventy-five hundred. Your wholesalers’ book-signing tour obviously paid off. Newsgroup and Levy both put in hefty reorders.”
    â€œNo kidding? That’s great.”
    â€œYeah, I thought you’d like it. Break out a bottle or two of the good beer. It might not be as exciting as the times you’ve hit the New York Times list, but it’s definitely worth celebrating.”
    Coop thought about that after they’d concluded their call. Between his jarhead training, which had taught him to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut, and an admittedly knee-jerk reaction to his mother’s interminable one-is-what-one-does-for-a-living, keeping his own counsel had become such a way of life that he’d carried it over into his new professional existence as well. Although his career was hardly a secret, neither was it something he talked about to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the street. He believed in keeping a low profile.
    But he’d always had Eddie to call at times like these, and until this moment had never fully realized just how much he’d come to rely on that. Eddie was eternally generous in his praise of Coop’s accomplishments, and his obvious pride had made Coop feel ten feet tall. More importantly, his little brother made him feel as if he were still part of a family—and frankly, news like this just wasn’t the same without someone to share it with.
    Coop threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, swearing beneath his breath when his warm feet came into contact with the freezing, uneven oak plank floor. He’d been extremely fortunate: Unlike so many writers who barely eked out enough to keep body and soul