by L. L. Muir
One.
Two.
Prepare for disappointment.
Yeah, she’d been disappointed for lots of reasons, not the least of which was never getting that third kiss.
Ash shook her head and the tears went flying. “I didn’t miss the third one. I missed all of them. It was just a story.” She choked back a new flood of grief, and said it again. “Just a story.” And this time, she really did need to let it go.
But not yet.
She kicked the old sliding door, and it slammed shut with a satisfying whack. She reveled in the complete and utter darkness where, if she stayed very quiet, she could weep forever if she wanted.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cindy was already seated, as usual, when Ashlynn arrived at The Kneadery for breakfast. This time it was Cindy who needed to see her story through someone else’s eyes, and her timing couldn’t be better. If she hadn’t called, Ash worried she might end up clocking more hours in her closet.
Luckily, she recognized self-pity for the drug it was, and she jumped on the excuse to leave the house and get away from temptation.
The Kneadery was another kind of addiction. They offered breakfast food the way Grandma used to cook it, no matter who your grandma happened to be. And there was always the option of take-out if you weren’t a fan of eating your steak and eggs with a grizzly staring at you from the corner, a canoe hanging overhead, or various fish and game suspended on the ceiling or on the fireplace wall.
The place might have been offensive to a city-slicker or two, but the locals knew chances were good that all those animals had been used for food and not killed for the prize of their heads. Except for the bear. Vegetarians usually took ample warning from the bears on the sign and the John Deere tractor on the front porch, and went somewhere else.
Cindy gestured at the large crowd waiting just inside the entrance. “I came early to get us a table.”
“Good thing.”
They ordered, then Cindy launched into her story. The plot was solid, but the heroine’s motivation was a little soft. After five minutes of brainstorming and using Ash as a sounding board, Cindy figured out her own fix before their orange juice arrived.
“Fixing story problems makes me hungry,” she said loud enough for the retreating waitress to hear. “Okay. Your turn.”
Ash shrugged. “I’m in a good place, actually. I’ve got book five in the can, so I could pretty much take the rest of the year off if I want to.”
“Did you end up finishing that Regency? I’ve been watching your Amazon page for it, to see how things worked out.”
Ash shrugged. “I didn’t write much more. That missing underwear turned up—”
“What?!”
“Yeah. Went through the wash inside one leg of…her sweats. Next time she put them on, they popped out.”
“Oh, bummer.” Cindy sighed and sat back, her shoulders sagging. When her food arrived, however, she cheered right up, which proved she’d been worried about her food and not Ash’s character missing out on her happily ever after. After a few bites, she was back to prodding. “I liked that hero, though. What was his name?”
Ash shrugged. “I don’t even remember now. That was five books ago.”
Alexander. His name was Alexander.
“Since you have all this time on your hands, maybe you should drag him out from under the bed.”
The visual of pulling Lord Beaufort out from under her bed made her choke on her orange juice. If it had gone out her nose, it would have hurt. But she knew what Cindy meant—when a writer puts a manuscript aside, permanently or otherwise, it’s common to say it’s in a shoebox under the bed.
But still. Wouldn’t he be surprised?
Ash shook her head to respond, but also, to erase the image. “I’m writing cozy mysteries now, Muir Witch Mysteries, so it would just confuse my readers.”
Cindy shook her head, took a drink, and actually put her fork down. “Don’t do it for them. Do it for you. You deserve a little fun, don’t you?”
“Something self-indulgent?”
“Exactly.” Her friend’s eyes flared with an idea. “You know, if you did finish the book, you could take a trip to London and write it off. Call it all research. Right?”
Ashlynn really did need to get away. And the farther away she got from that closet, the better.
Just the same, she shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to take a trip like that alone.”
Cindy laughed. “Well, if you insist.”
Just the possibility of getting away, without having to do it alone, made her heart race. “Do you mean it? Do you want to? Can you?”
“My passport is current. And like you, I can work just about anywhere.” Her eyes glittered. “Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lance King and his father had been good friends of Dewey’s from way back. The sheriff loved Wolfgang, and not only because of the story he liked to tell people of how her uncle rescued the pup and escaped down the mountain.
So any time Ash needed to leave town, she always asked Lance’s sons to puppy-sit. They lived only a quarter mile away, and the dog approved—he actually wagged his tail whenever the boys stopped by. Besides, the sheriff would keep an eye on the place if he knew the dog was there alone.
Two weeks after their breakfast at The Kneadery, Cindy’s sister drove the two of them to the Friedman Airport in Hailey, and Ashlynn Garrity finally left Idaho behind her for an overdue vacation. The plan was to re-fill the well—the well from which she’d been syphoning creativity, the well that would soon run dry if she didn’t start putting something back in.
And it was time to put something in there that couldn’t be found in the western United States.
After landing at Birmingham Airport, they spent the first night in a little B&B in Coventry. Ashlynn missed most of the details. She was too exhausted from someone’s anti-jet-lag advice that promised she’d have no problems as long as she didn’t sleep on the plane and continued to stay awake until it was bedtime in England.
The only problem was, she wasn’t a college student anymore who could easily skip one night’s sleep.
She vaguely remembered boiled potatoes slightly smaller than golf balls. An elegant little dining room. More potatoes. Gold duvet covers. Big fluffy pillows.
After sleeping like the dead, she woke up to a light rain and a cool freshness to the air that she’d never tasted before. She took a lung-cleansing walk down the damp lane and came back soaking wet.
The waiter in the dining room frowned at her hair.
She shrugged. “It’s raining.”
His huff of breath was almost a whistle thanks to the healthy growth of hair poking from his nostrils. “That, madam, is not rain. It is our humidity.”
Our humidity. Like they grew it themselves, on five-hundred-year-old grapevines.
“My mistake. Have you seen my friend?”
He stepped back and gestured toward the fireplace where Cindy sat at a small table huddling under a shawl, staring at the flames, and ignoring her food. Something was definitely not right.
Ash joined her, leaned toward the fire, and shook the water off her head before she sat down. “I take it the falling drops of humidity—that are definitely not rain—gave you the chills this morning?”
“Not just chills,” Cindy said in a voice much deeper than usual.
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes.” She sent a dirty look in the waiter’s direction. “Mr. Magoo over there tried to get me to order room service. I told him I would have if our room had a fireplace—or a thermostat.”
“So that’s why he’s so cheerful and friendly.” If she was smart, she’d put some distance between herself and Cindy’s cold germs, but she wasn’t going to abandon her friend. If it wasn’t for Cindy, she might be hiding in a closet.
“Listen. I’m going to stay here for a few days. Magoo said he can move me to a warmer room, with a fireplace, if I want to hibernate until I’m feeling bet
ter. Wait. Not hibernate—quarantine. Sooo…I want you to go to London like we planned.” She waved away Ash’s attempt to protest. “I’ll catch up to you as soon as I’m feeling human again.”
“I’m happy to stay here. Except for the waiter, it’s charming and broody. And there’s a Castle Kenilworth not far away. I can go explore—”
“I want you to go, Ashlynn. I will be able to rest better if I’m left alone. And if you stay, you’ll get sick just when I feel better, and I don’t want you slowing me down. You see? I’m a very selfish person. I probably should have confessed that before we left Sun Valley.”
Ash rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I can tell. Wow. So selfish.” She reached for the little tray that held diagonally cut slices of toast upright, like so many files.
Cindy shook her head. “My toast. My germs. Get your own.”
Ash pulled her hand back. “Well, you can’t be too sick if you’re willing to fight for your toast.”
“You obviously haven’t tasted it yet. It’s divine. And it’s mine. And you’re going to get sick if you don’t run.”
“You really want to be abandoned in a foreign country?”
Cindy crossed her heart with a tissue clutched between her fingers. “More than life itself.”
“Fine. I’ll go. But you’d better catch up in a day or two, or I’ll come back.” Ash got up and leaned on the back of the chair. “Can I at least run to the pharmacy for you?”
Cindy shook her head. “Mr. Magoo said it’s just around the corner. I’ll go. The plague has yet to reach my legs.”
~ ~ ~
Ashlynn never expected the British Isles would be so big, and so small, at the same time. London was massive and sprawling. And if you ignored the giant river running through the middle of it, there was plenty of room for more.
When her taxi delivered her to the front steps of her hotel, she was completely overwhelmed by the architecture, the narrowness of the street, and the sense that she was stepping back in time.
It was the second time she’d had that sensation. And, considering how that first experience had gone, it was impossible to tell her heart to calm down and not get its hopes up.
It wasn’t usually a silly heart. It only acted all erratic and juvenile when a phantom named Alexander started creeping around inside its walls again. It was something he’d been doing non-stop since she’d agreed to spend her vacation in a city “said phantom” would have spent a lot of time in—had he been real.
Of course her heart was holding out hope that Fate had something planned for her, and that her episode with Alexander had just been a way to tease her in the right direction. Maybe, it argued, Mr. Perfect For Her actually did exist, and they could only find each other if she came to London.
“Well, I’m here now,” she announced with a whisper. Then she took a deep breath and headed for the door currently held open by a doorman with an expression much more pleasant than Mr. Magoo’s.
She took it as a very good sign, held out her hand, and caught enough rain to make her hand wet. Then she showed it to him. “Please tell me you call this more than just humidity.”
“Oh, yes, miss. It’s bucketing today, it is.”
Bucketing. Not raining. “Well, you let me know when it’s raining, won’t you?”
He nodded and tipped his cap as she passed through the doorway, but the expression on his face said he thought she was crazy.
Considering her ulterior motive in coming to London, he probably wasn’t far off…
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The trip to England was a bust.
For three days, Ashlynn walked and bussed and taxied around the city waiting for inspiration to find her. Waiting for him to find her, hoping to find him. She stayed up late, got up early. Went to pubs, sat outside at restaurants. No one could miss her if they were looking for her in London. No one could miss her if they weren’t.
She wore louder clothes than usual, made more eye contact than was comfortable, and even managed to frighten a few men while really pissing off women who might have been their wives.
If Mr. Perfect For Her was in London, Alexander or otherwise, he hadn’t been alerted.
Three days later, when Cindy arrived at the hotel, Ashlynn was exhausted, lonely, and a little pissed at herself for packing all those expectations in her luggage.
“Cheerio,” Cindy sang, and dropped her own bags on the floor.
“Bite me,” Ash answered, then grimaced-slash-smiled. “Feeling better?”
“I was. Yes.”
“Don’t mind me. I guess I expected to have fallen in love with an eligible duke or something by now. I’m sorry to say I have not.”
“No Hugh Grant? A quaint little shop owner who is worthy of Julia Roberts but will settle for you?”
“Not even that.”
“Well.” She tossed her sunglasses on the night stand and picked up her purse again. “Let’s go see if we can find a couple short-but-charming James McAvoys and make a wild memory or two.”
Ashlynn jumped to her feet, happy that she wasn’t alone anymore and willing to give London another chance to impress her. But a realization made her stop with her hand on the door.
“You know…”
Cindy made it into the hall but turned back. “What?”
“It’s kind of cheating, isn’t it?”
“Cheating? On whom?”
Ash shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like we’re breaking our oath or something.”
“What oath?”
“We’re supposed to write about kick-ass heroines who don’t really need men to rescue them, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So we shouldn’t expect some man to make or break our vacation, should we?”
Cindy laughed and dragged Ash out of the hotel room, then pulled the door closed and prodded her toward the elevator. “Lighten up,” she said. “You’re confusing fiction and real life again. Humans are co-dependent. There’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s nothing wrong with being romantic about it.”
Once they were in the tiny little elevator, Cindy’s face lit up again, like it did when the lightbulb went on in her head.
Her eyebrows bounced up and down. “You know what I think?”
“Do I dare ask?”
“I think maybe that false start you had, when you started that Regency story—”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe your subconscious was trying to tell you something.”
“What?” Maybe, finally, she was going to have some insight. Maybe it wasn’t her own inspiration she was supposed to find. Maybe it was Cindy’s.
“I think that maybe, deep down…you want to write romances.”
Ash couldn’t control her groan of disappointment as she hung her head. “Close,” she said quietly.
“You don’t want to write romances?”
“No. I want to live one.”
~ ~ ~
Even with Cindy-the-brave as Ashlynn’s wingman, finding a romantic hero-type in London proved to be impossible that spring. After a few more days of hunting for them, they decided to leave it to Fate and concentrated on having a good time instead. It was something women in their thirties did all the time.
Stop chasing Fate and let Fate come to you. Only Fate wasn’t any more successful than they’d been.
By the time they boarded the plane for home, they’d had a lot of good laughs and taken some fun pictures with some very fine English citizens who were excellent sports. But there was no need for Ashlynn to change the date of her flight. There was no handsome English lord demanding more of her time before he let her go home again.
Halfway across the Atlantic, Cindy pulled out her overhead bag and accidentally dropped it on Ash’s head. “Oh! Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” She kept an eye on the heavy bag while Cindy sat. “What in the hell have you got in there?”
“All three of those big books. They would have made my luggage too heavy, so I had to fit them in my ca
rry-on.” She unzipped the top and started digging through the offending bag. Finally, she gave up trying to look around them and pulled one of the books out. “Here. Hold this, would you?” She dug some more. “I’ll be so happy when we’re back in the states with sophisticated brands of low quality chocolate on every corner.” She pulled out a piece of gum, offered one to Ash, then held open the zipper and reached for the book.
“Can I read this for a while?”
“Sure.” Cindy shoved the rest under the seat in front of her, then reclined her seat and pulled a mask over her eyes.
Ashlynn turned on the overhead light and stared at the red cloth cover. “Burke’s Peerage.” It was the 107th edition, volume 1 of 3, and just thumbing through it made her sleepy—which she welcomed. A few minutes of browsing, and she’d be able to sleep through some of the flight.
Even though it was dated 2003, the book contained tons of ads—old fashioned, pencil drawn ads from companies that had been in business for a hundred and fifty years or more—aimed at the kind of people listed in the book. Apparently, the nobility of England liked to read about their own genealogy so much that advertisers targeted them between sections.
A Table of Contents, Coats of Arms, Orders of Knighthood, and then… Oh, here’s a distinguished advertisement for Rolls-Royce & Bentley. The phone number had four digits.
Four.
The ad had to have been created in the early 1900’s. Who knew Cindy’s expensive little collection contained comedy?
Ash flipped to the center of the book to look for the meat of the story, and as it turned out, it read a lot like an old-fashioned phone book, only the names had details added. Military ranks, honors, etc. She stared at names starting with G.
That meant the B’s were in this volume…
Don’t do it! Oh my gosh, her weak voice of reason cried. Please, don’t do it!
But what if it was Fate and not Cindy who had dropped that book on her head? What if it was Fate who convinced a Romantic Suspense writer to purchase 4700 pages of British history, not because Cindy Stark wanted to purchase something from the Shakespeare & Company Book Store, but because Ashlynn Garrity needed to see it?