“The Super Eight down the block.”
He frowned. “Are you pulling my leg?”
I shook my head. “No, like I said, budget issues.” I felt like a dumbass for making the crack that he’d understand that since he was a writer and all. Clearly, he had no such troubles.
He put the car in reverse and pulled out of the space. Soon, the headlights were leading the way down the street to my motel. Minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot. Wes peered up at the motel and I could see the worry in his eyes.
“This is no place for a young woman to stay by herself,” he said.
“It’s all I can afford.”
Wes drummed his fingers on the top of his steering wheel. “I can help you find a job, you know. Sometimes, a couple connections are all it takes to get your foot in the door somewhere.”
I smiled and took my seatbelt off. “I appreciate that offer, Wes. I really do. But I believe in making my own way. I came out here to prove to myself that I’m capable. I’m going to build a life for myself, not take handouts.”
“You’re stubborn, aren’t you?”
“One of my best qualities.”
Wes nodded as I got out of the car. He leaned over the console to peer up at me. “Am I going to see you again?”
I raked my fingers through my hair. “You know where to find me, Shakespeare.”
Chapter 8
Wes
Fourteen years.
She hadn’t seen him in fourteen years.
The night she’d gotten in the back of that taxi and driven away from him had been the biggest mistake of her life. At the time, she’d thought she was doing the right thing. She was so sure he wasn’t enough for her, so sure that there were bigger and better things out there waiting for her on the horizon.
All that had been waiting for her was discontent and a man who didn’t love her like he had. And that’s who she’d married.
How could she ever forgive herself? How could she go back home after all this time and tell him what a horrible mistake she’d made?
She opened the cupboard and fished the largest pieces of the broken china cup out of the garbage can. She held them in her hands like a bird with broken wings and flipped the pieces over until she found one with a whole flower on it. Briar poured the rest of the broken pieces back into the garbage can but held the flower to her heart and thought of her mother and—
I stared down at the page and Briar’s name written in my handwriting. How had that happened? The woman had been on my mind relentlessly since I sat with her at the bar last night. I’d thought about her as I went to bed and again this morning when I opened my eyes. Now here I was scribbling her name into my story.
“Get it together, Wes,” I grumbled as I crossed her name out and replaced it with the character’s real name, Katelyn. She’d been named after Katie at the El Cartana. Or rather her name had been inspired by Katie. I hoped she knew that when she read this book when it was eventually finished.
I tried to continue with the scene I was writing, but all that spilled from the tip of my pen was a bunch of nonsense that I ended up scribbling out. The distraction was costing too much mental energy. I needed a way to extinguish it.
To satisfy it.
My phone rang.
It sat facedown within reach on the filing cabinet beside my desk in my home office. It vibrated while it rang and inched toward the edge of the cabinet. I considered ignoring it in the name of writing, but seeing as how that wasn’t working well for me, I turned the phone over. Harriet’s name flashed across the screen and I stifled a groan.
She was going to take a bite out of me if she was calling to ask about the book. My agent was a busy woman and the last thing she wanted was to be told I was behind schedule.
But I was no liar.
I answered the call. “Harriet,” I said as cheerfully as I could manage. “How’ve you been?”
Harriet sounded distracted. I heard horns honking and the distant rumble of a motorcycle running. She was in her Range Rover, no doubt. “Wes,” Harriet purred. “So nice to hear your voice, as always. I’m good. Busy as ever. You know how it is. Someone wants this and someone wants that and I’m stuck in the middle making sure everything gets done.”
“A miracle worker really.”
“I think so too. Hold on a second.” Harriet promptly laid on her horn. I winced and held the phone far from my ear as she bellowed at a stranger on the street about some slight they’d caused her. When she returned to the call, it was like nothing had happened. “How was the rest of your retreat? Did you enjoy the tropical weather and the beach?”
“Always.”
“And the food?”
“Of course.”
“And the writing?”
“Well, it wasn’t the best, but—”
“You’re on a deadline here, Wes. You know that, right? Your publisher is breathing down my neck, and the last thing I want to do is call him today and tell him you’re still having writer’s block. You know that’s not a real thing, right? There are studies that prove it.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned back in my chair. “So you’ve said.”
“I don’t make up the facts, sweetheart. I’m just giving them to you. The longer you sit there telling yourself you have a mental block, the longer you keep yourself from cashing in on this book. And me too, I might add. There’s a lot tied up in this publication. There are contracts to re-sign at the end of this. Haven’t you considered that your tardiness might cost you the publishing house? They have plenty of authors who want to work with them, Wes. Authors who would be over the moon to have their work seen and marketed the way yours are. You have to keep your competitive edge.”
“Pressure makes it harder to write.”
“Pressure?” Harriet chuckled into the line. “Honey, you don’t know what pressure is. I’m under pressure. I have a husband who’s never home and three kids to manage. Do you know how many extracurricular activities come along with three overachieving children, Wes?”
“Twelve,” I said. “You’ve told me.”
“I have to bust my ass so those kids can pursue their passions. I can’t sit around just hoping you’ll deliver when I know you need someone to light that fire under your ass. Where would you be without me, Wes? Don’t answer that. It’s rhetorical. You’d still be modeling for cover ads and fashion magazines. That’s what. And you’d be bored as shit and aimlessly trying to find purpose in the most materialistic, self-intrinsic, wealth-driven industry out there.”
“I don’t know if that’s accurate.”
“That’s not the point.”
I frowned. Conversing with Harriet had never been easy. She talked circles around people and made money doing it. Back when we first signed on to work together, I thought it had been the wise choice. She was my golden ticket to success. And theoretically, I’d been right. But the level of success I’d reached came with sacrifices.
Working with Harriet meant I had to cross a lot of personal boundaries, lose sleep, and be beaten over the head with a figurative stick on a near weekly basis.