Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
ROBYN
That evening, Robyn walked Tyler and Emma to their car out front of the bookshop. The sky was streaked with orange and fiery red as the autumn sun sank toward the horizon, the eastern edge turning smoky gray. Venus, the evening star, twinkled in the distance.
“You’ll come over this weekend, won’t you?
” Emma asked, climbing into the backseat.
“Dad says you’re his friend and he cares about you.
So that means you’re my friend too, right?
And friends have playdates.” Her eyes lit up with a new thought.
“Maybe we could carve our pumpkins. Didn’t you say we could do that this weekend, Dad? ”
“We’ll see,” Tyler said to Emma before turning to Robyn with an apologetic expression.
Tyler stepped closer to Robyn on the sidewalk. “No pressure, but you’re more than welcome to join us.”
His hand found her waist, warm and familiar now, and he kissed her cheek. Robyn closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of him and wishing he didn’t have to let go.
But unfortunately, they had an audience, and Emma needed to get home to bed.
“Bye, Emma. See you guys later,” Robyn said with a wave before heading inside.
When she finally went back upstairs, she tried to keep her mind in Maple Falls.
In the safety of streetlights and pumpkins.
In the comfort of Emma’s blunt little certainty.
In the way Tyler had looked at her this morning over French toast and future-tense sentences, like he wasn’t scared of what came next.
She sent a message to the book club chat about the recipe card discovery, thumbs moving quickly as she summarized the circled words and the little pumpkin doodle. Within seconds, replies flooded in.
Zoe: Wood-fired stove????
Kit: I wish the inn had a wood-fire stove…
Cassidy: The Kettle does wood-fired pizza
Mayor Bloomfield: Excellent work, detectives.
Mrs. C.: The Kettle didn’t install that oven until the 1980s. Try again.
Robyn shook her head and smiled, reading the text thread while the book club tried to solve the next clue.
Having only been in town for seven weeks, it felt like an impossible task, but it was the kind of impossible she preferred.
It was a cozy mystery problem, like a scavenger hunt.
A puzzle with a solution that didn’t involve her inbox.
That’s what she was telling herself anyway. Better than starting to spiral. Her personal life gave her plenty to stress about.
She still hadn’t been brave enough to open her Yale email.
She still hadn’t called her parents back.
Because as much as they’d grown over the last two months, they still weren’t going to be okay with their daughter writing steamy small-town romances.
They would be scandalized. And she would have to hear all about it.
And that was just her parents. Robyn was fairly certain that somewhere in Connecticut, her real life was probably unraveling in real time.
Robyn shoved the thought away.
Krista had texted several times, of course, and Robyn had finally managed to reply with a longer message explaining what had happened, including the detail her sister had already suspected: It had been her ex. Krista’s reply came through immediately.
I’m on my way to commit a felony.
Kidding. Mostly.
But if he were here? I’d hunt him down and throw him in the lake.
Call me when you can breathe. I love you.
As absurd as it was, the threat made Robyn smile, that familiar warmth of knowing her sister had her back no matter what. It helped steady the parts of her that still felt exposed.
She heated a mug of hot apple cider, the scent of cinnamon and clove filling the loft, and finally did what she always did when she needed a moment to herself.
She opened her laptop.
Logged in.
Clicked the draft.
The blank document appeared, the cursor blinking at her like it was waiting for her to get to work.
Robyn rested her hands on the keys and waited for the story to unfurl the way it always did, the way it had for years now.
Usually, her characters were loud in her head—insistent, impulsive, demanding.
They flirted and fought and made terrible decisions and then found their way back to each other, and all Robyn had to do was keep up and type fast enough.
But this time… nothing came.
She stared at the blinking cursor.
She tried to reread what she’d written a few days earlier. The last scene had been perfect: hot, tender, exactly the kind of chapter her readers devoured and begged for more of. Her characters were finally together now, happy and satisfied and glowing in their little fictional world.
And Robyn couldn’t think of what came next. What conflict did they still have to face? What fears did they still have to outgrow? What flaw still needed healing?
Her mind offered nothing but empty space.
Robyn swallowed, the realization landing slow and heavy in her chest. This had never happened before. Not like this. She’d had days where the words came more slowly, days where she needed coffee and a walk and a pep talk from herself in the mirror.
But she’d never felt… silence.
She watched the cursor blink. Once. Twice.
Her story had suddenly gone quiet. And for the first time ever, Robyn had no idea how to coax it back to life.