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Boone had imprinted on the underside of my skin. I saw his face every time I closed my eyes. I heard his voice in between sprays of water.
What if I wanted to keep you?
I hugged myself, remembering how entrancing, how safe, being held by him had felt.
He kept himself closed off from people on purpose. A person who’d been so badly burned before would rarely put himself that close to a fire ever again.
That made the fact that he’d opened himself up to me pack that much more punch. It brought the things that had happened between us to unbelievable levels. Kissing by the fire. Hearing about his past, his heartbreak. Discovering the secrets he kept buried so deeply inside.
It’s for the best,I told myself as the memory of him guiding Hazelnut to the barn and then leaving again on her back—no sleigh this time—struck me.
I let the shower’s warmth and humidity enshroud me, and other conversations elbowed into the edges of my brain—conversations between my fictional characters that I’d been trying to tap into for days now.
Showering always loosened ideas and thoughts. It was like the hot water relaxed my muscles from the top of my skull, down my spine, and to the backs of my heels released some kind of inspirations endorphins.
There’d been so many times when I’d gotten stuck in a manuscript, unsure of where to take the story or what to have the characters do next, only to have the solution manifest itself unexpectedly while I was in the middle of a shower.
This was both awesome and frustrating.
It wasn’t like I had pen and paper in here. If there was anything I’d learned since becoming a writer, it was that once an idea dawned, like lightning, it wouldn’t last long.
The chatter in my head didn’t stop. This was a heart wrenching scene between the heroine and her hero—a gripping, emotional conversation where both characters laid out their hearts for the other to see after keeping their feelings to themselves for so long.
It was a pivotal moment in my book, people. I just knew it.
Hurriedly, I washed my hair, clutching the characters’ dialogues rambling in my mind. I turned off the water, barely dried off before knotting the towel around me, and skipped out from the bathroom into my room.
My crocheted bag slumped on the floor by the bed, right where I’d plopped it down when I came back in. I snagged it.
The bag wasn’t as heavy as usual. Ignoring this, I thrust my hand inside, ready for my notebook. But the more I dug for it, the less I found it.
My hand wept one direction, then the other, only to come up with a few empty gum wrappers and one of my pens.
“Oh, no,” I said with a breath.
Memory flooded my brain as I tried to retrace my steps. I’d gotten it out this morning and scribbled inside. Then I’d eaten breakfast and argued with Boone. Then…
Oh, no.
Just being around Boone, all notions of retrieving the notebook had been forgotten. Did I leave my notebook at his cottage? Or did it fall out of the sleigh on our way back?
I didn’t take it out at all during the return trip. Which meant…
My stomach sank.
“No, no, no.” I placed a hand on the knot keeping my towel in place. Panic pushed me to my feet with nowhere to go.
I’d written more than just stories in that notebook. After he’d kissed me, before drifting off to sleep, I’d poured a soap opera episode’s worth of romantic, stupid feelings in there. Things no one else was ever meant to read, least of all the man I’d written them about.
Was he the kind of man who’d peek without permission? Last night, he’d asked if he could read what I was writing. Hopefully, he wouldn’t invade my written privacy, even if I was stupid enough to leave my notebook behind.
“It’ll be fine,” I told myself.
I wasn’t sure how, though. I didn’t have his number. I didn’t have any idea how to get back to his cottage on my own.
But Ididknow where the barn was.
“I’ll just see if he’s out there,” I said only to have a meddling thought stop that one in its tracks.
