She looked at Frankie. “Good?”
Frankie nodded. “Short and to the point. Works for me.”
Harper put both their names at the bottom. Then she hit Send.
Chapter Seven
“The writing was…all right today.” Mitch couldn’t pretend otherwise. Being back on the boat had unsettled him. Harper had to be picking up on his mood.
“Why just all right?” Harper asked. “Did something happen? Are you stuck on a plot point? Did you have the characters make a wrong decision somewhere?”
He shook his head. “Nothing like that. I, uh, went to check on the boat today.” He hesitated as those memories returned. He cleared his throat. “It was the first time I’d been on the boat since Jeanie passed.”
“I see,” Harper said softly. “That had to be good and bad.”
He looked up. “It was. Brought back a lot of feelings. Good memories. But it was hard. Jeanie loved that boat. It was her idea to buy it. We took a boating safety class and made sure we knew everything there was to know about it. We’d both had some experience with boats, but with Kyle on board…”
He lost himself in the memories, unaware that silence stretched out between them.
“You wanted to be extra careful,” Harper said.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. Scenes from the past, happier times, continued to play out in his head.
“I understand now why books three and four were so realistic.”
He thought a moment, then laughed as he remembered. “When Charlie was captured by pirates on the journey to Labyrinth Island.”
Harper nodded. “They’re possibly two of my most favorite books in the series. They’re so authentic and when Charlie befriends the pirates and helps them fight off the Queen’s guard, only for them to reward her with that massive emerald and their undying loyalty…it was just fantastic. You didn’t actually face down pirates, did you?”
He snorted. “No. Thankfully. Although Kyle would have probably thought that was cool. And Jeanie would have charmed them into doing her wishes.”
“Jeanie and Charlie have a lot in common, don’t they?”
He stared at Harper, an odd sensation settling over him. “I guess they do.”
“You say that like it’s new information. Don’t tell me Charlie isn’t modeled after Jeanie.”
Astonishment filled him. “You’re not going to believe this, but no, not deliberately. Now that you say it, though, she is very much like Jeanie. How did I not see that before?”
“Your subconscious must have known. Probably part of the reason it was so difficult for you to write after her passing.”
“Maybe.” The idea that his main character, Charlie Nightingale, was based on his late wife gave him a curious sense of happiness. It meant that Jeanie lived on in more than just his memories.
“Is that all right with you? Or don’t you like it?”
“I like it a lot. I can’t believe I never realized it.”
“You’re too close,” Harper said. “It’s like the saying about how you can’t see the forest for the trees. But the more you tell me about Jeanie, the more I see those qualities in Charlie. I’m sure Jeanie wasn’t a half-vampire who went around regularly kicking butt and doing mercenary work, but the way she charms those around her, her ability to remain upbeat even in the face of danger, her loyalty to her friends, her fearlessness…those all sound like Jeanie.”
He nodded, a small lump forming in his throat. “She was…just like that.” But the news still felt like a revelation. “I love that you brought this to my attention. It makes me want to write more than ever.”
Harper held her hands up. “If you’re telling me to leave, I completely respect that. I would never want to stand in the way of you getting work done.”
He let out a snort of air. “No, I’m definitely done writing for the day. But I’m already anticipating my next writing session and that hasn’t happened in a while.” Not since Harper had come into his life.
Now that anticipation was becoming a more standard thing.
“So how was the boat? If today was the first time you’d been on it in a while, what does that mean? Is it still seaworthy?”
