Another warm breeze, a stir of palm fronds, as she battled for control. She could spend the night in a hotel or with a church or college friend. But finding a more permanent place in Southern California for the coming weeks and months wouldn’t be so simple.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have to move far. Someplace inland, an hour or so from Santa Barbara, where she could afford to share an apartment while she waited tables or worked at a coffee shop like half the screenwriters on the West Coast.
Voices warred in her head. The dreamy one that told her to keep working on a story, and the stern, practical, typically silent one that insisted it was time for her to give it up. But how was she supposed to stop writing when she saw stories everywhere?
If only she could find a job that wouldn’t endanger anyone when her mind skipped away.
Harper scanned her collection of DVDs and the books from her mom’s small library, most of them written decades ago. She hadn’t read these old stories since her mom died, but she kept them shelved to remember the woman who’d loved her well. Perhaps she could slip between the covers of one of her mom’s old books where things seemed to make sense, at least in the end.
As Harper scanned the spines, she stopped at a Via Belle book. An author who’d lived near her mom’s hometown.
Angeline had read almost everything Via Belle wrote, immersing herself in the love and mystery and suspense, all woven together with spiritual threads. Victims were rescued in Via Belle’s stories. Justice was always served. And the hero and heroine encountered, in some way, theGod of the universe. In fact, after years of difficult choices, her mom renewed her own faith back in 1994, after rereadingSparrow Island.
Tony would have torn Via Belle and her squeaky clean morals into a thousand pieces, but there was no denying the change in her mother or the impact it had on Harper’s life.
In Via Belle’s world, the hero and heroine always made the right choice, at least in the end, and when they did, good things followed. As a girl, Harper often dreamed about the happily ever after, but her real world collided with Via Belle’s imaginative one when a drunk driver crossed the line more than a year ago, injuring both Harper and her mom. Harper checked out of the hospital two weeks later and took over the housework. Another month went by before her mom returned to Evan’s estate. Sadly, her mom never recovered from her injuries.
While her mom clung to her faith in those last months, Harper learned a hard lesson about bad things happening to the best of people, because if right choices in the real world meant a happily-ever-after end, her mom would have lived a solid hundred years.
She pulled one of Via Belle’s books off the shelf and hugged the memories as she settled back on the couch. In her mom’s last months, they’d read several of these books together, and she’d wondered at the author’s prolificness.
What was Via’s secret in creating so many stories that readers loved?
Harper had enjoyedSilver SummerandGrace Haven, butSparrow Islandwas her mother’s favorite. She’d owned an autographed copy of it since she was a girl.
Staring at the title in her hands, Harper openedLavender Ridgeto read the short biography inside. It was Via Belle’s thirty-first novel, and Harper had a momentary twinge of jealousy at the woman’s tremendous success, at what must have been a charmed life to conjure up such happy endings.
Unrealistic, she’d once called a Via Belle story when she was a teenager. No one—she told her mom—really lived that way. But the truthwas—she wanted to believe that goodness still reigned in this world. That even though some endings were sad, happily ever afters still came true.
Either way, her time working on the Cantor estate had come to an end.
She crossed into the bedroom and yanked a duffel bag out of the closet. With a quick brush to dust it off, she tossed the bag on her bed and began stuffing clothes inside. The photo with her mom was next and then a few books.
“Harper?” Kelsey called from the screen door.
She sighed, wanting to hide, but eventually she’d have to face this disaster. “Come in.”
Kelsey rushed across the room to hug her. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Harper said. “I should have prepared a pitch. It’s my dream after all.”
Kelsey sat beside the duffel. “And it’s a good one.”
“Tony saw humor in all the wrong places.”
“It doesn’t matter what he thought. You’re not going to quit.”
Harper glanced out at clouds rolling in over the palm trees. She couldn’t see the ocean from here, but knowing it was there, a short walk away, soothed her. In the days ahead, she’d miss its proximity. “I’ll never stop writing, but I don’t think I can pitch another producer in my life.”
Kelsey stretched out her lean legs and waved something in her hand. Somehow, in spite of the tension and smoke in the big house, her friend managed to maintain her composure. “You took off before Sissie could talk to you.”
“You told me to leave.” Harper dropped another book on the bed and turned. “Wait—why did Sissie want to talk to me?”
Kelsey held out a blue business card. “She wanted to give you this.”
Harper stared at the glossy rectangle, her hands locked at her side. “Why would she give me her card?”
“She knows genius.”
