One thing was for sure, he was pretty under the prickles.
I huffed out a laugh to myself when I pictured a porcupine in full defense mode. Maybe I’d add the little animal to my menagerie on my porch bench. I hadn’t drawn one of those yet.
Excited at the idea, I ran up my steps to get my acrylic markers.
The need for a nap fading with each step.
TWO
Dutch
What kindof lunatic walked on the beach at the crack of dawn in a snowstorm?
“Mr. Dutch, where do you want this?”
I turned away from the woman. “It’s just Dutch,” I muttered. Not that the kid would call me anything but sir or Mr. Dutch. He’d been hired by my publisher to deposit my life here on this godforsaken rock in the middle of nowhere New York to work.
“Maybe a change of scenery will be good for you, Dutch.”
I could hear my editor’s voice in my head. Usually, Monte was kicking my ass via email, and occasionally in a strongly worded voice note while reading my pages. But the soft voice she’d used last month was far more terrifying.
Because it meant I was truly fucked.
She only used that one when I was two weeks out from deadline.
“Sir?”
“Just put it in the living room,” I said, snapping out of my head.
Not like it mattered.
My life would be my office. And my laptop.
And chalkboard.
The currently empty chalkboard that should have my whole damn plot on it.
Because it had already been done. And now I had to start over.
From scratch.
I threw one more look over my shoulder at the woman on the beach. She had her face tipped up to the sky, with her arms out.
Peculiar woman.
She did a little twirl, then tromped up the rocky trail toward the house kitty-corner from mine. It was a stark white in the winter gray landscape. Black shutters illustrated with chaotic flowers in a crayon box full of colors. I guess the house fit the woman.
Annoyed for no good reason, I followed the movers into my stone house rental. I had six months to get my head out of my ass and write this fucking book.
With no ideas.
San Francisco was a long way away. Maybe I could leave the writer’s block on that coast.
With the betrayal?
The little voice tickled the back of my brain like the spindly branches above my head. I ignored it and stalked inside.
The house was surprisingly large inside. And the view was killer. Living by the ocean for most of my life, I was used to punishing waves, salty air, and the damp heaviness of perpetual fog. But Providence Lake was placid as glass one moment then churned with splintering ice the next. The roar of it battered the stones below and the power of it kicked something inside of me to life for the first time in a year.
