Written in Ink (Montgomery Ink #4)(32)

“Fine. I’m reading a romance. I love romances. Love watching two—or sometimes three—people find their way through the world, through pain and sacrifice, through everyday things to a happy ending.”

He smiled. “I read romances too, Autumn. They aren’t just a woman’s game.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Say what? You don’t write romances.”

“True. I find it harder to get to the happy ending, and like the thriller suspense act a bit more when it comes to what I write. But I read every genre I can. Just because I don’t write it, doesn’t mean I don’t respect it.”

“But…but you killed off a character’s HEA.”

“Did I?” he asked, genuinely confused. “She wasn’t his happy ending, Autumn. He’s not at the ending yet. Neither of my main characters is.”

“But what if they want to be?”

“Then I’ll know it’s time to end the series. I’m not there yet.” He didn’t know if he’d ever be at this rate. He still had to find the path he needed for his current book, let alone the rest of the books for each of his two main characters in his two series.

She let out a breath. “Can I say something and you not get angry?”

He tilted his head, studying her face. “You can say something, but I can’t gauge my reaction until you say it.”

She smiled a little and bit her lip. Damn that lip, he wanted a bite for himself. “Your characters are always running. Always going from one thing to the next and never standing still for fear of what is coming after them. Do you do that on purpose?”

He froze before forcing himself to relax. “It’s a suspense, they need to run. They aren’t safe if they stand still.”

“I understand that,” she whispered, so low he thought he might have imagined the words themselves.

She intrigued him. She always had, and now her secrets were tugging on his writer’s brain. He wanted to unveil what he could, unwrap her until she was his…at least for the moment.

She cleared her throat. “Are you ever planning to give your characters a romance that works?” Clearly she didn’t want to talk about what she’d just whispered. He’d let it go. For now.

“Maybe. It depends on how things work out for them.”

“But they need something, don’t they? A connection to that reason why they find the bad guys, why they fight. They need a purpose to go on those missions rather than just to save the world. Right?”

He smiled softly. “True. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the purpose will be a romance. Finding themselves is just as important as finding the culprit.” And the basis for his series, even though not all understood that. Though now that he truly thought about it, he knew it was more than that.

Why bother solving the thrills, finding those bad guys as she put it when they came home to nothing.

Why bother writing them when he was alone himself…

Lauren filled his mind once more and he blinked. He hadn’t thought about her in years, and yet he’d thought of her twice in as many weeks.

“What put those shadows in your eyes?” she asked, her voice soft, hesitant.

He cleared his throat. She’d be seeing inside him soon enough when he opened his mind for his book. He may as well tell her.

“I was actually thinking of Lauren.”

She pulled back, a look of pain on her face for a mere moment before she carefully masked it.

Fuck.

“Lauren was my girlfriend in high school. She died of cancer right after graduation. She wanted to be an editor for a big publisher and live the city life. That wasn’t what I wanted, but I figured I could have worked with it. We were young, but hell, my siblings had gotten married and all that at my age.” He met her gaze, folding his hands in front of him as he leaned on his thighs. “The fact that both those marriages are done for now hasn’t escaped me.”

“You loved her.”

“I loved her as much as I could have as a teenager. I don’t know if it’s the same love as an adult. I haven’t been in love as an adult. That could be a reason I don’t write about my characters being in love since I’ve never felt it at their ages. But I also don’t chase down terrorists and defuse bombs on a daily basis, so it’s not the ‘write what you know’ bullshit. I’m getting sidetracked.” He let out a breath. “The cancer came on fast and hard. She was diagnosed before prom and died that summer. I don’t know if we would have made it as adults, but I do know we never had a chance. That’s what I was thinking about. How I don’t have the romance or HEA that you think my characters deserve.”

“You miss her,” she whispered, her eyes set on his. There weren’t tears in them, but he saw the emotion.

“Yeah. She was my friend. Decker was my best friend, still is, even though we’ve grown up and grow into our lives. But Lauren was my friend. My first for a lot of things. And now she’s gone, and it sucks that she didn’t get a chance to experience life.” He scrunched his face. “It sucks she never got to read a book I got published.”

Autumn stood up and walked toward him. He leaned back and stared at her as she stood between his legs, her hands trailing up his arms as it looked as if she were deep in thought.

“I’m sorry for making you remember.”