Today was the day RWA announced the finalists for the RITA awards which will be presented at the national Romance Writers of America conference in Washington, DC this July. There is a full list posted at the RWA site, but I can’t get the link to work so you can get there easily from here.

So I can’t show them all to you, but I’m happy, thrilled, delighted, over-the-moon, gobsmacked and a variety of other adjectives to tell you that PJ and Ally’s book, Antonides’ Forbidden Wife, is one of the finalists!

Ally has been walking around with a smile on her face ever since we got the phone call this morning. PJ looks somewhere between amused and smug — like he’s caught the wave of the day, and nobody — but nobody — has had a better one.

I’ve told him that that remains to be seen, that there are other finalists. He wishes them well. And then he just grins at me. He’s happy. He’s vindicated.

I’m grinning, too, of course, because PJ was not expected to be a hero.

He was a surfer, for heaven’s sake. When I wrote about him in his brother Elias’s book, The Antonides Marriage Deal, PJ was a thorn in his brother’s side.

He was the theoretically ‘irresponsible’ brother, Peter, who had taken off for Hawaii at age 18 and never really bothered to come back. Not until halfway through Elias’s book at least — and only then, as far as Elias was concerned, to annoy him.

Of course it didn’t turn out that way. Unbeknownst to his family, Peter Antonides had reinvented himself in Hawaii. Or maybe he discovered who he really was beyond just one of those Antonides kids. He’d grown up, found a life, a purpose, even a new variation on his name. He found himself.

And incidentally, he found Ally.

He didn’t tell me that then. He was a fun supporting character. I liked him as soon as he appeared. But I didn’t know a lot about him because Elias’s book, as PJ continually reminded me, was Elias’s book. And Tallie’s. It was their story, and Elias didn’t want him horning in on it.

PJ didn’t mind. He was a patient man. Easy going. Laid back. A mañana sort of guy.

A Presents hero?

Perhaps not your usual suspect. Still, he was my idea of a Presents hero. He was strong and determined. Patient. Honorable. Competent. Patient. Pretty darned gorgeous. And did I mention, patient?

It’s true. PJ bided his time. He waited for his book the way he waited for Ally. Though he did tell me he was glad the book at least hadn’t taken ten years.

Still, he waited through Theo and Martha’s book, through Flynn and Sara’s book, through Spence and Sadie’s book. He was even prepared to take a back seat to Sebastian and Neely’s book.

But then, all of a sudden, Sebastian had issues. I had a deadline. And, guess what? I needed a book. I needed a hero. I needed PJ.

Just like Elias and Tallie had. Just like Ally did.

And there he was, my hero. PJ Antonides stepped in and took over. He eased Sebastian out for the time being and began telling me his story, introducing me to Ally, doing for me what he’d done for everyone else — saving the day.

Is it any wonder I fell in love with him?

So I am incredibly happy that he and Ally have made the RITA finals. And I really wish I could take them to Washington for the conference and the awards ceremony.

But I’m going to be celebrating it from afar this year. I’m going to have grandkids here in summer camp that week and, I hope, a brand-new one to go see in Seattle right after.

PJ says he understands. He says he doesn’t mind. He says he knows we’ll be there in spirit, anyway, and he’s just basking in the joy of his nomination. It’s true, of course.

But lest you think that besides being patient, competent, strong, determined and drop-dead gorgeous, he is also terribly terribly noble, let me tell you the whole truth.

PJ is thrilled that Antonides’ Forbidden Wife is a RITA finalist and we’re not going to Washington, because he still gets all this glory — and he doesn’t have to wear a tie.