Chapter 13
Thirteen
The lake was too quiet.
Livvie scanned the water as she paddled, searching for the familiar shape of Nate’s kayak cutting through the morning mist. He was always out by now—six thirty a.m., sometimes earlier, a silhouette against the pink-gold light.
She’d started timing her canoe trips with Aunt Lila to catch glimpses of him, though she’d never admit it.
Today, the lake was empty.
“He’s not out,” Aunt Lila said from the bow, her paddle resting across the gunwales. “That’s unusual.”
“Maybe he’s sleeping in.” Livvie tried to keep her voice light. “He was deep in the manuscript yesterday. Could have been up late.”
“Maybe.”
But her aunt’s tone said what Livvie was already thinking. Over the past week, she’d learned Nate’s rhythms. Kayak at dawn. Coffee on the porch while the dogs ran the yard. Writing by eight. He didn’t sleep in. He barely slept at all.
“I should check on him,” she said.
Lila nodded, already turning the canoe toward shore. “I’ll make breakfast. Come find me after.”
They parted at the dock, Lila heading up the stone steps to her coral-pink cottage, Livvie cutting through the trees toward the green house next door. The grass was wet with dew, soaking through her canvas shoes. Birds sang in the birches. Everything looked peaceful, ordinary, perfectly fine.
Her stomach wouldn’t stop twisting.
She let herself in with her key.
The house was still. Silent. Until she stepped through the door and Huck and Finn came barreling down the hallway, tails wagging frantically, bodies wiggling with the desperate joy of dogs who’d been waiting too long.
“Hey, hey—okay, I’m here.” She crouched down, accepting their enthusiastic greeting, but her eyes were on the kitchen. No coffee made. No dishes in the sink from a late-night snack. The whole downstairs felt suspended, untouched.
She filled their food bowls, refreshed their water, listened to them eat while she stared at the closed office door. A thin line of light glowed underneath.
He was in there. Working, maybe. Or stuck. Or spiraling.
She should knock. She should check on him.
Instead, she clipped leashes to the dogs’ collars and took them out the back door. He needed space. He needed to write. And she needed to stop hovering like a nervous mother hen every time his routine shifted.
The backyard was quiet except for the birds. The blue camping chairs sat empty by the firepit, dew darkening the canvas. The lake glittered through the trees. Huck immediately found something fascinating in the grass, while Finn trotted to the water’s edge, nose working.
Livvie stood on the porch, arms wrapped around herself, and watched the dogs explore.
Three more days until the festival.
Her phone rang.
She pulled it from her pocket without thinking, and the name on the screen sent ice down her spine.
Richard Ames.
She should let it go to voicemail. She should call him back later, when she had news, when she had something concrete to report. She should—
She answered.
“Livvie.” His voice was clipped, cold, the voice he used when he was about to fire someone. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I know, I’m sorry—I’ve been focused on the manuscript, and—”
“Where are we?”
Huck had found a stick and was prancing around the yard with it, ridiculously pleased with himself. She walked off the porch, into the yard.
“Good. We’re good. He’s writing every day now. The word count is up to—”
“I don’t want word counts. I want pages. I want a delivery date.”
“He’s close. Really close. Another week or two and—”
“The board is getting nervous. This manuscript is worth a lot of money, and right now it’s sitting in the hands of a writer who hasn’t delivered anything in three years. Do you understand what that looks like?”
“I understand, but—”
“Starlight’s opening up a lawsuit. It’s the only way to recoup their losses—”
The words hit her like a slap. “What? No—they can’t—it’s almost done!”
A pause, and why, oh why, did she say that?
“Good. But unless you can give me something concrete, something that proves this isn’t a complete waste of time and resources, Starlight is canceling the deal and demanding the advance back.”
The advance. Five hundred thousand dollars he still owed.
“Richard, please.” She heard the desperation in her own voice and hated it. “He is making progress. Real progress. I’ve read it—”
She stopped.
Too late.
“You’ve read it?” Richard’s voice changed. Sharpened. Interested now, predatory. “You’ve read the manuscript?”
“I—yes. Part of it. He let me—”
A sigh. “And?”
“It’s good.” The words came out before she could stop them. “It’s really good, Richard. Better than the others, I think. The prose is stronger, the emotional beats are—”
“Good. Send it to me.”
“What?”
“I want to know what we’ve got.”
“I can’t do that—not without Nate’s permission. And he’ll never let me send it until it’s finished.”
“How long?”
She was pacing now, free hand pressed to her forehead. The dogs had stopped playing and were watching her, heads tilted, sensing the tension.
“I don’t—a couple weeks? Maybe less, if he keeps up this pace—”
“You have five days.”
“What?”
“That’s your deadline. Five days. That’s what we agreed on. If he doesn’t have a complete, deliverable manuscript in five days, Starlight’s canceling the contract, demanding the advance back, and you—” A pause, weighted. “You won’t need to bother coming back to the office.”
“Richard—he can’t get it done in five days!”
“Five days, Livvie. Make it happen.”
The line went dead.
She stood there, phone in hand, heart hammering against her ribs. The morning sun was warm on her face. The birds were still singing. The dogs were sniffing at her ankles, confused by her stillness.
Five days.
Nate, no matter how much of a roll he was on, couldn’t write half a book in five days.
“What was that?”
She spun around.
Nate stood on the porch.
He was rumpled from sleep, or from not sleeping—the same Henley he’d worn yesterday, hair a disaster, bare feet on the worn boards. He looked exhausted. Vulnerable. And he was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t read.
“Oh—nothing, just—” The lie died in her throat. His face told her he’d heard. Maybe not everything, but enough. “Nate—”
“Did you just promise them I’d have the manuscript done in five days?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
“Livvie.” He came down the porch steps, moving toward her, and something in his posture had changed. Tension coiling. A storm building. “Did you tell them it was done?”
“I was trying to help—”
“I trusted you with that.” His voice cracked on the word. “I told you—I let you read it because I trusted you. There’s no way I can finish this in five days.”
“I know.”
He stared at her. “They’re going to pull the contract.”
She swallowed.
He drew in a breath, and his voice turned low, almost shaking. “This manuscript is everything I have. Everything Emma and I built together.”
She nodded.
“Five days?” He was pacing now, hands raking through his hair. “Do you have any idea how much I still have to write? Ten chapters. Over two hundred pages. I’m not superhuman.”
“But you’ve been doing so well—”
“Have you lost your mind?”
The dogs whined, pressing against Livvie’s legs. She reached down automatically to comfort them, but her hands were shaking.
“If we just finish it, none of this matters—”
“We?” He stopped pacing. Turned to face her. His eyes were wild, panicked, nothing like the man who’d smiled at her yesterday, who’d wiped paint from her cheek, who’d asked her to dinner. “We aren’t writing this, Livvie. The words are coming from my brain.”
Oh. Right. “I know that.”
He blew out a breath. “Do you know how big my advance was?”
She didn’t want to nod.
“A million dollars. I took the first half up front.”
She raised an eyebrow, as if this might be news to her.
“I don’t have half a million dollars, Livvie. I spent it.” His voice dropped, rough and raw. “On Emma. On her treatments. On experimental drugs that weren’t covered by insurance. On keeping her alive for six more months.”
Yep. But, “Nate—”
“Six more months.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“That’s what five hundred thousand dollars bought us.
Six months of hope and hospital beds and watching her disappear anyway.
And now—” He gestured at the house, the lake, the life he’d built in the wreckage.
“This is all I have left. This house. This manuscript. And you’ve just told them it’s almost done.
Except it’s not. And even if, by some miracle, I finish it, I would still need to edit it and rewrite it…
” He turned away again, his hands in his hair. “They’re going to take everything.”
“I can help. I’ll edit it—”
“You’ve destroyed my career.” The words were quiet now. Worse than yelling.
She sighed. “And probably mine too.”
He turned then, frowned. “What do you mean?”
Her mouth opened. “Just that…you know. I sorta told my boss that I could…” She swallowed. “I could get you to write it.”
He blinked at her. Then, “And you’d get what? A raise? A promotion?” She opened her mouth, but he put his hand up. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“Nate, please—” She stepped toward him, and he stepped back, the distance between them widening. Unbridgeable. “I was trying to protect you. I was trying to buy us more time—”
“Us.” He shook his head. “There is no us. There’s you, and there’s me, and you came out here hoping to use me as leverage—”
“Hey. That’s not—”
“For a second there,” he said, and his voice broke, just slightly, just enough for her to hear the hurt underneath the anger, “I thought you came to help.”
The words hit her, center of the sternum. She wrapped her arms around herself, willing herself not to cry. She probably flinched, however.
He turned.
Walked up the porch steps.
She didn’t run after him.
The screen door creaked open, then slapped shut behind him.
And Livvie stood in the backyard with the dogs pressing against her legs and the birds singing and the sun warming her face, and she had never felt so cold in her entire life.