This song had all those things in abundance.
He’d written this song from his heart and that’s what gave it power.
And the reason he’d written it was because of Grace.
Scanning the lyrics scribbled in the new notebook, he strummed his guitar and tried to convince himself that this song was just like any of the many dozens and dozens of others he’d written over the past ten years.
But he couldn’t convince himself of that, because it wasn’t true.
This song came from a much deeper place than anything else he’d ever written. And in writing it, in penning these lyrics that came from so deep inside, he was allowing himself to bevulnerable just through the simple act of committing the words to the page.
The enormity of it hit him straight through the heart. Perhaps his grandmother had been right, after all, when she described the magic that had sparked between Ryan and Grace.
And perhaps she’d been right, too, when she’d warned him not to hold back because he feared the bubble would burst.
Well, he hadn’t held back when he’d written this song. His heart was there on the pages of that notebook for anyone to see. After only a few days spent in Grace’s company, he was already falling for her.
Ryan let out a wry laugh at himself, remembering how he’d told Grace just a few hours ago that she was falling in love with that daft dog, Stanley, and that she’d have no choice but to keep him if no owner turned up to claim him. It amused him to discover now that, while he’d been dispensing this wisdom to her, he hadn’t yet comprehended just how hard he, too, was falling in love.
He thought back to the unlikely chain of events that had led him to this place, where he was penning what might just turn out to be the most brilliant love song of his songwriting career, and doing it in record time, too.
Grace was the inspiration for that love song, and if he was falling in love with her, then it was only thanks to the scruffy little dog that had brought them together in the first place.
A scruffy lost dog who had found his way to Grace at the precise moment when Ryan was walking past her house.
But for that moment of serendipity, they might never have crossed paths, despite living in the same town.
Ryan mulled it over, thinking of Stanley, the lost dog who’d found his way to Grace, in turn causing Ryan to find his way to her… and to start falling for her, too.
He was emotionally intelligent enough to admit that, just like Stanley, he too was lost in many ways, at least when it came to matters of the heart. Despite the heartache of the past, heartache he could barely bring himself to think about, let alone talk about, even after all these years, he didn’t want to be lost any longer.
He wanted to find his way to love and to a place where his heart felt at home.
It all came down to being lost and being found.
Lost and found.
Ryan picked up his pen once more and wrote the words at the top of the page above the song lyrics and music. That was the name of the song, he realised.Lost And Found. Some part of him had known it from the moment he’d begun writing, which was why the theme was threaded through every line of the lyrics, and now that it had crystallised in his mind, a sense of completion settled inside him.
He read the lyrics again, wondering what they’d sound like when sung aloud. As he’d composed the song, he’d only imagined the words sung inside his head while strumming the guitar. Now, though, his mind turned to the question of who might be the best vocal artist for this song, who was best suited for it, and who would do it most justice.
But those were questions for another time. The song needed a little more tinkering, a little more work here and there, before he considered the natural next steps in the process of turning scribbled notes and lyrics into a superstar hit record.
Ryan glanced at the clock and saw it was long past midnight. He’d lost track of time after his initial burst of songwriting, when he’d begun playing around with the words and the chords scrawled in his new notebook. Remembering that his grandmother had requested a day trip to the seaside tomorrow, and an early start to beat the beach crowds, he carried his guitar and notebooks to his work room and decided to call it a night.
