“I am so, so sorry, Jack. And you win.”
My head jerked back in surprise. “I win?”
“Yes. Your tale of woe is way worse than mine.”
I laughed. “I don’t know about that. Yours is pretty bad, too. Let’s call it a draw. In any case, you seem to have recovered from yours better than I did from mine. You created a successful career for yourself as a journalist.”
“Jack—you’re still successful.” She made a silly, crazy-eyed expression and gestured around us.
“I’m still earning money, yes. But as youmighthave noticed, I haven’t put out anything new for two years. I missed my deadlines on this last Onyx book. Several of them.”
“It’s understandable. You had to start from scratch. And your books are long and complex—they take time to write.”
Don’t remind me.
“If only all my readers were so understanding.” I quipped. “Patience seems to be wearing pretty thin out there in Booklandia. All the pressure didn’t exactly help.”
Bonnie seemed to consider her words carefully before speaking again. “You could just quit, you know?”
“Quit? You mean not write?” She might as well have suggested I stop breathing air and eating food.
Picking up on my affronted tone, she held her hands up. “No, no, no. Not altogether. I mean, even after what happened, something inside me keeps pushing me to record the stories of these imaginary people who insist on invading my mind, and I’m just an unpublished hack, so I’d imagine it has to be the same for you.”
“You’re not a hack,” I started to argue, but Bonnie continued.
“I meant not write for publication—after this book, since it’s done already and about to come out,” she explained, blissfully ignorant of the awful truth.
“I’d be sad of course,” she said. “I’llalwayswant another book from you, like I’m sure all your fans do. Those who love your writing could never get enough. But you’ve already accomplished far more than most people could ever dream of. You could stop now and still be ahead of the game forever, still be known as one of the greatest fantasy writers of all time. You could just write for fun, for the love of it and not to satisfy other people. Because you want to, not because youhaveto.”
I thought about it for a minute. Could she be right? Could I get off the hamster wheel of always striving to top myself, to “succeed”—whatever that meant—to achieve more and more and more and more?
A white-hot lance of fear pierced my chest. Who would I be if I wasn’t striving to please my publishing house and my readers? If I wasn’t achieving greater and greater goals?
I didn’t let on to Bonnie how much terror those questions produced. Keeping my tone light, I said, “I don’t see that happening. Somebody’s got to pay the utility bill for this place.”
Then I changed the subject. “You know… I think you should try again on the publishing front. It sounds like you love it. It would be a shame to give up before you’ve ever really gotten started. You could write a query letter, and I could point you toward some good literary agents.”
Bonnie smiled and gave a playful toss of her head. “Maybe I will.”
She looked out at the horizon then darted her eyes at me. “And I thinkyoushould get back out there on the dating front. Speaking on behalf of the female population of the world, I can assure you we’re notallsoulless monsters.”
I snickered. “Well, maybe you’re right. I’ve been a littletooleery of beautiful women since Claudia—as you may have noticed yesterday when we met.”
She blushed a pretty pink and smiled shyly at my obvious flirtation.
Just then a giant wave crashed against the rocks, arcing over us and soaking us both with a direct hit.
Chapter Thirteen
Rogue Wave
Jack
“Whoa,” I yelled. “That was a big one.”
For a moment, Bonnie just stood there drenched from head-to-toe in cold saltwater, her mouth open and her eyes wide with shock.
Then she started dancing around, whirling in a crazed circle at the edge of the rocks and screaming.
