AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That is one of the best songs.”
He darted another glance in my direction, his lips tweaking just enough at the corners.
“Agreed.”
Feeling encouraged by the ease of our conversation, I sat up a little straighter. If Boone was fighting back smiles, that was progress, too.
New scenes began skimming through my mind. The princess, caught in Demon Boone’s tallest tower, gets sick. She needs to be cared for, and he won’t allow anyone else but him near her.
As he brings her soup day by day, he begins to spend longer and longer time at her cell, until one day, the cage he kept around his heart breaks free…
Soon, their conversation shifts. He reveals himself to be more than she thought he was…
Snatching my notebook out of my bag, I jotted a few ideas down and returned it once I finished.
“Okay, then,” I said, brushing away the fantasy and dropping my pen into my slouchy bag. “We both like words and their definitions. We both like Journey.”
“But I can’t get around all that heat in Arizona,” he said.
“Sometimes, I can’t either,” I admitted, inhaling the cool, winter air and staring at the dense trees around us. The horse followed a trail that lined its way through several trunks. “I’ve always wanted to come to a place like this. To see snow like this.”
Fading sunlight played on the ground’s white surface. The clear sky peeked through gaps in the trees, and a contended sigh escaped my lips.
“Is that what brought you here?” he asked.
“Sort of.” I peered at the slouchy bag rested by my feet. Should I tell him?
What would it hurt?
“I’m here on a research trip.”
His brows rose. He glanced at the forest around us. “West Hills, Montana, is in the boonies. What can you possibly have to research around here?”
“The boonies,” I said with a chuckle.
Speaking of which…
The scents, the sights, the sounds of the forest around us—it all crashed into me, begging to be put to words. I reached for my notebook once more, cracked it open, and poised my pen.
The sleigh slid smoothly across the snow, but not smoothly enough for scrawling down ideas as the sun sank lower. Still, I needed to take advantage of what light was left.
I wrote of the magic in the air as if it really existed. And how the elven princess was falling hard and fast for her handsome, devilish captor—who happened to have dark hair, espresso eyes, an insanely muscular physique, and a voice to rival the dark chimes of the forest’s shadowed places.
Boone peered at me. “You’re on a ride like this, and you’re spending it all writing in a notebook?”
“Oh, I’m taking in more than you know.” I laughed as I took in the harsh, grumpy way he scowled at the horse in front of us.
“So…” The bells jangled in the resulting silence until he continued. “What kind of research are you doing?”
“I’m a writer.”
I couldn’t bring myself to call myself an author. That would mean I was successfully published, and that hadn’t happened yet.
The admission made me think of the gushy thoughts I’d written about Boone before we left the inn. It was so stupid. What if someone found them—read them?
Gasp—what ifBoonefound them and read them?
It wouldn’t matter—I was leaving tomorrow. Even so, I was with him now, wasn’t I? Which meant I should scratch out every one of them. Or better yet, tear out that page and leave it to meet a wintery demise.
