One
Stony Cape Lighthouse
on beautiful Lake Michigan…
A relaxing sanctuary from the rest of the world.
Only four miles from quaint
Wicks Hollow, the
vintage Keeper’s House is a unique
getaway for the guest who enjoys solitude and quiet.
Find Your Paradise at Stony Cape Lighthouse!
_________
My paradise?We’ll see about that.Teddy Mack grimaced as she read the energetic sales pitch.
My paradise is to figure out the bloody ending to my damn book.
She shoved the pamphlet into her large leather tote and grimaced.
“I’ll finish it by the end of July,” she’d promised her agent Harriet—who’d gone on to guarantee to Teddy’s editor that, yes, the next T.J. Mack book would be turned in on time.
Or nearly on time.
Well, six months late wasn’t really on time. But publishing was a slow business at best, and it wasn’t as if Teddy hadn’t turned in her other five manuscripts—all of which went on to be bestselling thrillers—when they were due.
“This book is kicking my ass,” she’d told Harriet two weeks ago. Though she kept her voice calm, inside it was nearly a wail. “I don’t know why.”
“You need to get away. Somewhere where no one will bother you. Where you won’t be tempted to post pictures of your office on Facebook instead of writing, or go out to lunch every day instead of writing, or watch Netflix instead of wri—”
“That’s research. Netflix is,” Teddy said. “I have to stay up on pop culture, or how will I know what to write about? And Facebook is social media, and I have to have a presence there, and on Instagram and Twitter, and—”
“You have to write a good book. That’s what you have to do. Forget Facebook and Twitter, and watching a whole season ofFriday Night Lightsin one week—”
“Five seasons. Kyle Chandler is impossible to resist. Not to mention Taylor Kitsch—”
“Five seasons? In one week?No wonder your book isn’t done!” Harriet’s voice rose, then tapered off into a more modulated tone. “You need to go somewhere without Internet or Wi-Fi. Somewhere where you won’t be distracted.”
And that was how, thanks to her cousin Declan, Teddy had come to be settling in at the smallest, most remote rental property in the vicinity of touristy Wicks Hollow, Michigan.
The Stony Cape Lighthouse might only be four miles from Wicks Hollow, but for all intents and purposes, it was in the middle of nowhere. On a tiny island connected to the mainland by a single-lane bridge, the lighthouse was hardly visible from ground level on the mainland due to the rolling hills and thick forestation of the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan.
And because of this figurative remoteness, the place didn’t have Wi-Fi.
That meant no email, no Facebook, no Wikipedia. No Netflix or Hulu.
Teddy had even left her smartphone in Harriet’s care—all the way back in New York City—so she wouldn’t be tempted to try out the 3G connectivity in Wicks Hollow. She’d even temporarily transferred her number to a cheap “burner” cell phone.
(That part had been rather fun, for although Teddy had often written about people—usually villains—using burner phones, she, of course, had never had reason to use one. Doing so made her feel very edgy and incognito.)
However, she’d nearly gotten motion sickness sitting in the back of the car that had picked her up from the airport as she was driven to Stony Cape—for once they turned off Highway 31 and onto the road leading to the lighthouse’s bridge, it was all bumps, snakelike curves, and jounces. And the driver took the road like he was a Daytona racer—making the ride feel like a mini rollercoaster.
Teddy might write about wild car chases and acrobatic plane maneuvers, but in real life, she avoided thrill rides for a reason.
