Chapter 2
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I am officially entering hermit mode. Back home on the down low, no one needs to know I’m here. Without interruptions or fuss, I can quietly finish my manuscript … that was due to my editor last week.
Well, technically, a month ago, but then I got an extension. This is the book my publisher is using to decide whether to renew my contract or drop me entirely.
My phone buzzes with another email from Meredith, my editor. I don’t need to read it to know that she needs pages I don’t have.
A decision will soon be made about my future. The decision being to keep the author who missed her deadline, or cut their losses and move on to someone more reliable. Someone who can actually deliver a happily ever after with all the feels.
Pulling my ancient Honda off the highway, I have one stop to make before returning to my hometown of Cobbiton.
“You can do this,” I mutter to myself as I park outside Golden Years Village. The cheery name belongs to a senior living center for residents who can still make their own toast, not that my mother ever did such a thing. She wasn’t the homemaker type.
A wreath with a velvet bow greets me when I knock on the door to apartment 3B. She was more of the “impress the neighbors” type.
“Just smile and don’t mention your impending financial doom.” I’m a writer, of course, I talk to myself. Don’t judge.
Mom greets me with her signature one-armed hug—I was an unexpected, later-in-life child that my parents never quite warmed to.
“You look tired, Bree. Are you eating enough protein? Taking iron supplements? Drinking fluids? I read an article the other day about hydration and body weight.” Says the woman who considers celery a food group.
I follow her into the kitchenette, where she has tea and a tin of store-bought cookies waiting.
My mother learned a new skill since I was last here. She can now boil water!
I note the stack of my novels prominently displayed on her coffee table. At least someone’s proud of my career choice, even if, after my first book was published, that certain someone suggested I get a “real job with benefits” or find a “real man with money.”
I guarantee she hasn’t so much as parted the pages or read a word. What matters are the words above my name, indicating that I’m a bestselling author.
Or was.
For her, having a daughter with that kind of accomplishment is social currency, even if she fundamentally disagrees with my career choice.
The thing to know about Monique Darling is that everything is for show.
“I’m fine, Mom. Just deadline stress.”
She harrumphs and passes me a cup of tea.
“How’s life in the village?” I ask.
“Oh, you know. Bridge on Tuesdays, bingo on Thursdays, and Irene from 8E is definitely having an affair with the maintenance man. If you use that in one of your books, be sure to change the names to protect the innocent.” She sits across from me, her eyes bright with gossip.
I think she means “the guilty,” and my books never contain affairs—the men are upstanding and the women have class, even if they are a little feisty.
“Mildred, who runs the book club, has been reading your new series. She wants to know when will you find yourself a Clay Cassidy of your own?”
This question shouldn’t surprise me, but the specificity does and I nearly choke on my tea.
Clay Cassidy is my most popular hero—a rugged cowboy with a heart of gold and with the kind of magnetic charm that causes readers to refer to him as their book boyfriend.
At least that’s what they leave in reviews and what I’ve read in fan emails and on social media.
“Those men don’t exist in real life, Mom. That’s why they sell so well.”
“Nonsense. Your father was my Clay Cassidy.”
This surprises me. Dad passed when I was seventeen, and Mom rarely talks about him. The man in my memories is kind but ordinary—an engineer who wasn’t equipped to practice soccer with me and despite his focus on meticulous measurements, he made terrible pancakes on Sundays.
“Was he?” I ask softly.
She smiles, lost in a memory. “He brought me coffee in bed every morning for thirty years. Not because I asked, rather because he wanted to see me smile first thing. That’s romance, Bree.”
“Or was it because he knew when you made coffee, grounds somehow always ended up in the pot?” I tease gently. This must be why she sticks to tea. To be honest, it’s a bit watery and tepid.
She chuckles because it’s true. We talk for a while longer—not truly as a mother-daughter pair who became friends after I grew up.
She’s chummier with the ladies in the village community center than she is with me.
It’s fine. I’m used to it. While love comes in many forms, I’ve accepted that it’s not something that’ll come my way—not the familial kind or romantic type either.
Cupid missed when he aimed his arrow at me.
Nonetheless, I leave Mom’s apartment with her words echoing in my head.
That’s romance, Bree.
Is it though?
All I’ve seen in my own love life is disappointment wrapped in false promises and missing a bow. It’s much easier to create fictional love stories than to risk my heart on a real one.
My phone buzzes. This time it’s not Meredith—it’s my landlord in Cheyenne telling me they’re keeping the security deposit. When I moved in, the closet door was broken, the tile in the shower was already moldy, and the microwave didn’t work. I promise!
I do the mental math I’ve been avoiding.
Savings account: depleted by living expenses.
Emergency fund: gone after the purchase of four new tires.
The advance from my last book: already spent on student loan payments I can’t defer anymore.
If Meredith doesn’t get this manuscript, there won’t be another advance coming.
I’m not just experiencing an epic case of writer’s block, I’m broke. If I don’t figure out how to write a believable love story in the next few weeks, I’ll be living in my Honda, assuming it doesn’t break down first.
After leaving Omaha, I head into Cobbiton, which feels like driving into a live-action holiday movie. Part of me wants to put on the brakes.
I’m not opposed to Christmas. It’s that I don’t feel the holly jolly merriment the way so many people do. Since my parents didn’t do much to celebrate the holiday, I never had that bursting-at-the-seams anticipation like so many kids did.
I’m certainly not Mrs. Grinch, but the sparks of joy just aren’t there. Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with me. Or perhaps I just haven’t had the right Christmas celebration yet.
The quaint Main Street is dressed in twinkling lights, evergreen garlands, red ribbon, and enough holiday cheer perfumed with baked goods to make the Grinch develop diabetes.
I have to keep my window down, otherwise, the defogger on the windshield won’t work.
I’m just lucky my Civic, circa 1992, made it.
Purchasing a new vehicle is high on my to-do list. First, I have to pay off my college loans, including my master’s.
I would’ve had a college fund. However, because I wanted to study English literature with a minor in journalism, Mom used the money to move into Golden Years Village—the cost of all those daily activities adds up.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, reminding myself why I’m here.
The plan is to spend some time with Mom, hide from the world, and somehow conjure up a story with a happily ever after for my current work in progress, which is a mail-order bride romance set in the Old West, before my editor sends a search party—or worse, I lose my contract.
I haven’t read the fine print, but I’m sure there are dire penalties if I fail to come through.
Hockey Town has transformed itself into Christmas Town, USA. I pass the European-style market with vendors selling everything from hand-knitted scarves to gourmet hot chocolate. Families and couples wander among the stalls, their laughter carrying on the cold December air.
When I finally turn onto Cornsilk Drive, my childhood home comes into view, and my heart sinks.
The once-charming Victorian is now a neglected shadow of itself. Peeling paint, a sagging porch, and—is that a tarp on the roof? Mom mentioned a leak, but this looks bad.
It hasn’t snowed yet, but when I let myself inside, I can vaguely see the night sky when I look up.
As I walk from room to room, I see so much neglect—and evidence of mice—that I don’t have time to clean with my looming word count requirements.
The cobwebs don’t bother me, but with a shiver, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to stay here.
Turning in a circle, I bite my lip, wondering what to do.
I pull out my phone and check for nearby hotels.
The affordable ones are booked, likely due to the Christmas Market vendors and tourists, never mind the hockey madness since the state team adopted Cobbiton as their own.
The only rooms available make my credit card wither up and die when I see the booking prices.
So I call a friend. I didn’t tell her I’d be in town. Guilt chills me like the draft in this house. However, I will make it up to her with chocolate—once I can afford the fancy, imported stuff.
One of my oldest and dearest friends answers on the third ring with a resoundingly cheerful hello.
“Nina? It’s Bree.”
“I know. Please tell me you’re home for Christmas.”
“Home is a loose, vague, non-applicable term, but yes.”
She squeals into the phone.
“Remember how you said I could always crash at your place if I ever needed to?”
She breaks into a flurry of concern mixed with excitement. “Are you on the run from a rogue cowboy? Did you make off with booty? Wait. That’s pirate-ese. Um, did you rob a bank?”
I chuckle. “Thankfully, nothing illegal.” I tell her about the status of the house on Cornsilk Drive.
“The house you grew up in was so charming. That’s sad to know it fell into disrepair.”
“So, um, I kind of need a place to stay. Like tonight.”