Her heroine desperately wanted love, but she didn’t want to end up like her parents, married and miserable. So she pushed men away. She found fault with each potential suitor. She ended things before they could even begin. She ran away. She sabotaged relationships—including the one she’d had with the hero.
Sadie’s fingers stopped cold on the keyboard. Her gaze flew back to the last paragraph. A shiver lifted the hairs on her arms.
That washer.
Sadie found fault with every man she’d dated.
Sadie ended things before they’d even begun.
Sadie sabotaged relationships.
Her breath felt caught in her chest. How had she not seen this before? She’d been attracted to Sam right away and she’d bonded with him soon after. But she held him at a distance. Even after realizing she loved him at the wedding, she wanted to run away from the feelings. But Amanda’s words had left her shaken. Her admiration for Sam grew by leaps during that conversation. And then she kissed him impulsively.
And what a kiss it was.
Even then she would’ve run from her feelings. It was only this darned book that made her push through in spite of her fear.Her desperation drove her toward a story solution—and a real relationship with Sam.
She could now see all the ways fear had driven her behavior.
She’d withheld from Sam that she was borrowing their real-life story for her book. Sabotage. And when he’d broken up with her, she hardly tried to convince him to give her another chance. Not because they lived in separate states—but because she was so afraid to give her heart away. She’d run away.
Far, far away.
Because what if the relationship turned out like her parents’? What if she had to live with that uncertainty again? Sadie’s heart thumped like a bass drum in her chest. Her heroine wasn’t the only one who’d just had an epiphany.
Rather than stop and sort out her thoughts, she used the momentum to carry her through. She didn’t pause until lunchtime when she finished the happily-ever-after chapter. Only the epilogue to go now, and she needed to get it just right. She gulped down a sandwich and went back to work.
She wrote feverishly through the afternoon, losing track of time as the ending played out on the page. She’d already tied up the loose threads of the subplots, but she included newsy details of life several months out from the previous chapter.
Throughout the afternoon an idea formed in the back of her mind. It grew stronger and stronger, pushing her towardthe end.Rather than envisioning Erin’s opinion of the story, she began to imagine Sam’s. Because, yes, she wanted him to read it. She wanted him to see what she’d only just discovered about herself. She wanted him to know that she loved him.
More than that—she wanted to tell him in person. Before,she’d been too afraid to fight for their relationship. Truth be told, she was still scared to death. Her trembling fingers made that clear enough. But this time she was going to push through the feeling.
Because Sam was worth it.
Forty
Readers will often see your characters’ flaws and mistakes long before your characters do.
—Romance Writing 101
It was after seven when Sam arrived at his parents’ house to hang a mirror for his mom. Dad tended to procrastinate on such endeavors, and his mom wanted it on the wall sometime this decade.
He parked in the drive and entered through the garage door. Looked like Hayley was the only one home. “It’s just me,” he called.
“What are you doing here?” Hayley asked from somewhere upstairs.
“Hanging a mirror for Mom.”
“Have fun with that. I’m going out.” His sister trotted down the stairs, a backpack hanging from one shoulder.
“Where are you headed?”
“I’m staying all night with Tara. We’re going to start filling out college apps.”
He set his toolbox down on the coffee table. “Really? I didn’t know you’d made any decisions. Where are you applying?”
“I’m going to start with Pace University, then I’ll probably apply at U of SC and Coastal Carolina. They’re closer to home and I think I can get a soccer scholarship at CC.”
