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With a sigh, I swivel my chair to face the whiteboard in my slit of an office. Scene and beat cards for my stab at the season finale blossom across it like the window boxes full of geraniums on Jack’s house in Sneem. Working on this script is the only thing keeping me from flinging myself into the Atlantic during the soul-stripping nights in my apartment. I ache to the point of pain, longing to wake up with my body pressed against the warm skin of Jack’s chest, stomach, thighs…
My cinematic vision for the last beat of Deidre’s first book is nearly in focus.
“Then sit down and write it, you coward.”
Hell of a time for writer’s block, when I’ve only got a few days left before Bobby’s deadline. Ideas and words swirl within a structure my fingers refuse to build on a keyboard.
“Don’t piss this away.”
I should be able to compartmentalize my life. The stone-cold realist inhabiting my body needs to force the emotional mess into action. Even after a week apart from Jack, I’m too raw to write about the great love between Donal Cam and Nieve when I know my words will be spoken by soft, sumptuous lips that once belonged to me.
A commanding figure wrapped in a white terrycloth robe with a long braid of dandelion-colored hair trailing down his back crosses the writer’s room.
Jack.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him this close since the night in Howth.
He glances toward my office. The writer’s room isn’t empty, so there’s no chance he’ll try to talk to me here. Benj and Benny, bless their souls, are volleying ideas back and forth over the conference table. Jack won’t risk being caught with me when Meg could waltz in any second.
“No donuts today. Maureen’s had a falling out with her chef. We’re all buggered,” moans Benj.
My heart aches for Maureen. I wonder if it’s just a fight or if her engagement is off. I’d reach out, but we haven’t forged that kind of closeness yet. If I want to travel through time and ten books with the writing staff, I should invest some effort to become better acquainted with them instead of indulging in a pity party over Jack.
“The coffee’s a mite better in here as well,” says Jack, stealing one of Danna’s mugs and helping himself.
He must have just escaped makeup and hair since he isn’t in costume yet. It’s painful to have him near and not be able to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his broad chest. I’m not having a pity party. It’s bigger than that. So much bigger. This is mourning for the loss of what might have been, a love that I forfeited.
Benny fakes a bow. “Our coffee is honored to serve you, my liege.”
“Enough of that business,” says Jack. As he heads for the door, he shoots me a look and then glances down at his robe pocket. He lifts his cell, shakes it in my direction, then is gone.
I feel like a class A shit ghosting him. He’s been texting me or trying to call all week. I haven’t listened to the messages or read the texts. I can’t. Nothing he can say changes our situation. I don’t want to know if he’s making promises that, through no fault of his own, he can’t keep.
I suddenly feel faint. Jack O’Leary is not one to take no for an answer. If he pushes too hard, could Jack’s stint as Donal Cam be cut short? The True Time Network might pull aDoctor Whoand reincarnate the chieftain’s son in a completely different body. I can’t believe Bobby would allow that to happen, but if it did, Jack’s career suicide would be my fault. I’d never risk doing that to him.
I let B and B’s chatter morph into white noise as I open my laptop.
“Opening image?” I click my mechanical pencil until a tiny piece of lead falls onto my desk. Closing my eyes, I summon the opening shot of my script. I see fog. Smallish, rolling hills undulate between me and a low mountain in the distance. Hoofbeats are faint at first but get louder and louder until Donal Cam and Streaker burst through the wall of mist, a splash of gold and white against the emerald ground. I’m Nieve. I raise my arms and Donal Cam whisks me off my feet onto the horse. He wraps his body around me, hot breath and kisses climbing up my neck until he yanks my hair just enough to bring his mouth down to mine with a hunger that shuts out the world. Lips, hot breath. Jack.Jack.
My eyes snap open.
“Donal Cam. Nieve. Nieve. Nieve.” Not me.
I stare at my screen.
EXT. MORNING – Mist rises above
Forcing my fingers to the keys, I attempt to break into the scene.
“Gillian,” calls Benj, tapping at the scene cards on the Episode 113 board. “Are you opening the episode at the campsite or castle?”
I roll back from my laptop as if it just stung me. Forcing myself to appear calm and introspective, I stroll into the room. “Outside, definitely. I’m going for the-world-is-ours vibes before I toss Donal Cam and Nieve into the fiery pits of hell.”
We spend the next hour debating which tortures from the end of book one the characters should endure and which are superfluous or redundant. I’m about to convince Benj to drive into Waterville for fish and chips when Beth, one of the production assistants, pokes her head in the door.
“Gillian, Bobby wants you on set.”
“Now?” I’m rattled. Bobby hasn’t called me on set at all this week, thank goodness. He said he’s giving me space to write the finale.
