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“Apparently, an agent has been trying to get in touch with me. She read some of my work and liked it.”
Ethan’s expression didn’t change. She would have thought he would have shown at least a small degree of surprise. Instead, his masked features didn’t give anything away.
“So, I guess now that the wedding is over, I’ll be heading back to see what this whole thing is about.” Becca almost wanted Ethan to beg her to stay. She wanted him to pull one of those romantic moments she wrote about and tell her he couldn’t live without her.
But those ideas were only meant for storybooks. Ethan wasn’t the hero in her future. He was a sweetheart who needed to find his own love story, as did she.
“It’s pretty amazing, actually,” Becca pushed through. “I don’t think this sort of thing happens a lot. I mean, I’ve submitted queries to agents, but I’ve only gotten rejections. And then out of the blue I get this. I didn’t even submit to her—that’s the amazing part.”
“I’m sure they finally realized what they were missing out on,” Ethan murmured.
“No idea about that, but I’m happy about it.”
They stood there awkwardly for a moment until Becca motioned to the house. “I think I’m going to call it a night. I should also do a dive into my junk folder in my email and see if my roommate’s story checks out.” She took a step away, not sure if she was relieved to have an excuse to leave the party or aching to continue spending time with a guy she had only kissed once.
Ethan didn’t move even though he was blocking her path. She stopped herself short and gazed up at him with veiled expectation. For a brief moment, she thought Ethan might actually do something—say something that could convince her to stay.
But then he stepped to the side. “Goodbye, Becca.”
“Bye, Ethan,” she whispered.
The streetsof Salt Lake City seemed grayer than when she’d left. The skyline was definitely less vibrant. Even the sunrises and sunsets seemed to have dimmed exponentially. This used to be the city that Becca loved to call home. She’d moved from California, and until recently, she’d never regretted it.
Becca sat at her desk in her apartment that overlooked Mountain Park. The city had really done something nice with their landscaping here. In the wintertime, the whole place glowed with Christmas lights. Spring and summer had the park bursting with color from all the flowers they put out.
But right now, it all felt utterly dreary.
She shook out her hands and stared hard at the computer screen. She’d had a face to face meeting with the agent since she’d returned from Montana. She’d signed the contract and she felt immense pride that she was now represented by a literary agent. Everything was moving forward at a snail’s pace, but she’d been warned to expect that.
Her job now was to write up a synopsis for the series that her agent, Anna, would present to the publishers she felt would be the most likely fits. Book One was written and she’d planned to publish it herself, but it made sense to give it to her new agent to push. So she’d start with that and expand the series from there.
But right now she had nothing. The cursor blinked at her on the screen, mocking her. The pressure to perform was massive. Book One was set in a small New England town on thecoast. Forty-something vacationers Beth and Jason met, argued, kissed, ignored each other, fell in love, and then embraced their happily ever after. Book Two would feature a new couple in the same small coastal town but Becca couldn’t wrangle her thoughts. Lately all she could think about were cowboy boots and Stetsons and it had turned into a problem.
She groaned, pushing away from her desk and getting to her feet. Her slippers scuffed against the tile as she headed into her kitchen. She was out of ideas. All her motivation had run dry. There was nothing she could do to get her mojo back.
All the tricks she could think of to make her writer’s block disappear failed. She’d tried reading her favorite books. She’d binged on similar sounding television shows. Heck, she’d even tried changing her writing venue. No coffee shop or swanky café was good enough to jumpstart her motivation.
She’d officially lost her ability to escape into the world of romance.
At this point, she couldn’t completely deny the fact that she might officially be broken.
Becca pulled a mug from the cupboard and filled it with coffee. Even her favorite brew tasted bitter. She was at a loss, and she didn’t know what to do. Maybe it was time to call her newly acquired agent and tell the woman she’d made a big mistake. She wouldn’t be able to write the rest of that series after all.
Except she couldn’t bring herself to do that.
She’d lost her writing mojo. Then she’d lost the first guy she could actually envision a future with. Losing her dream career was out of the question.
Becca took a sip of her coffee and wandered into the living room. She stared down at the people in business suits hurrying this way and that to get to work on time. She’d escaped that daily grind and never looked back.
Perhaps that had been her first mistake.
Either way, she needed to find a way to climb out of the slump she was in or she’d be cemented into this state of misery. And she simply wasn’t prepared to do that.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The soundof the shovel dragging across the ground was almost a nice way to drown out Ethan’s thoughts. Whenever he let things get too slow, he inevitably ended up thinking abouther. Becca’s face, her laugh, the way she smiled had a sneaky way of infiltrating his head when it was least welcome. He couldn’t sleep without dreaming about her. He couldn’t sit still for even five minutes without wondering how she was doing and if she missed him.
There had been no text messages from her since she’d left. No phone calls, either. He’d thought she would have at least had the courtesy to keep in touch and tell him what was going on in her life. But he’d been wrong.
