“No, thanks. My friends there have all been to plenty of signings. I think my assistant would like to come, though. Every time I talk to her, she wants to know about small-town life.” Obviously Peggy had been watching too much TV, Liz thought grimly. If she knew the reality of Fool’s Gold, she would run in the opposite direction.
Montana’s eyes brightened with interest. “No one of the male variety longing for your return?”
“Sorry, but no.”
Montana sighed. “Damn. I was hoping one of us had a decent love life. Mine sucks.” She sipped her coffee. “I can’t believe you’re not married. You’re successful, beautiful, totally together.”
If Liz had been drinking, she would have choked. “Is that how you see me?”
“Well, yeah. It’s who you are.”
“Not exactly. I’m more the scrambling-to-keep-up kind of person,” Liz told her. Beautiful? Not even with perfect lighting. “The book success is great, but it’s what I do, not who I am. And there are downsides.”
“Crazed fans?”
“I’m sure I have a few. But the bigger problem is more how people think about me. The assumptions.”
Montana leaned toward her. “By people you mean guys.”
Liz laughed. “Did you have to choose this moment to be perceptive?”
“It’s a gift. Who is he?”
Liz hesitated, then decided she didn’t mind telling the story-even if it made her look stupid. “His name is Ryan. He’s a writer, too, which should have been a clue. When we met, he’d published two classic coming-of-age novels. Sort of a poor man’s Nick Hornby, without being even close to that good. But he’d had some modest success. We met at a launch party for another author. He was charming and I was…” She drew in a breath. “I was lonely.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About four years ago. I’d been raising Tyler on my own, I’d managed to get my first book published, and while it had done well, it was a first book. I didn’t know if I had a career or a single lucky break. I was still working as a waitress to support us, writing at night and getting by on about four hours of sleep.”
Liz shrugged. “We talked at the party, exchanged numbers. I didn’t think anything of it. And I didn’t hear from him for about three months. At the time he said it was because he’d been on the road, looking for inspiration for his next book.” She wrinkled her nose. “I figured out later, it was because he was waiting to see how my second book did.”
Montana’s eyes widened. “No way.”
“Uh-huh. I suppose if it hadn’t been successful, I never would have heard from him.”
“What a jerk.”
“A very smooth, good-looking jerk,” Liz told her, remembering how dazzled she’d been on their first date. Ryan couldn’t have been more attentive and interesting. Not to mention funny, charming and kind. He’d been great with Tyler, too. He’d played her and her kid, and she hadn’t known at all.
“He was everything I could have wished for. I was crazy about him. We got engaged.”
“You were married?” Montana’s voice was a squeak.
“No. Somehow the wedding never got planned. Which turned out to be a good thing. He went to New York to meet with his publisher about his new book. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, which was fine. That was his process. While he was gone, I watered his plants.”
Liz rested her forearms on the table. “Okay-let me just admit I was really curious about the book he was writing. He’d been so excited about it and his previous book had bombed. I wanted him to do well.”
Montana’s mouth twitched. “You went snooping.”
“Not my finest moment, but yes. There were some notes on his desk and I read them.”
“It wasn’t very good?” Montana asked sympathetically.
“Worse. It wasn’t his. He’d stolen my idea. Unlike him, I do talk about my stories. I can be tedious and annoying about it. It’s how I work through problems before I start the actual writing. So he knew everything I was going to do. He had taken the entire story, changed the names and written it. Without saying a word.”
Liz still remembered standing in Ryan’s office, hearing nothing but a rushing sound. She’d wondered if there was something wrong with her brain-a stroke or something. Because what she’d been reading hadn’t made sense. It couldn’t. The man she’d said she would love forever, the man she’d promised to marry couldn’t possibly have taken her work for his own. There had to be a mistake.
Montana swore softly. “What did you do?”
“I tried to convince myself I was crazy. Then I got mad. I waited until he was home and I confronted him.”
“Did he deny it?”
“No. Apparently having a good idea isn’t enough. His editor had hated the book and told Ryan they wouldn’t be publishing him anymore. Ryan was furious. He blamed me. He said I’d known what he was doing and had tricked him into writing a story that didn’t work. He said it wasn’t fair. That he had the actual talent. I was nothing but a hack, yet I had all the success.”
She still remembered the fury in his eyes, the loathing.
“He’d never been interested in me beyond what I could do for his career. He’d lied about nearly everything, especially how he felt about me.” Liz managed a smile. “The good news is he moved away after that and my recovery was fairly quick. Apparently I wasn’t as in love with him as I’d thought.”
But it had been one more illustration of the lesson that men shouldn’t be trusted. Not with something as delicate as a woman’s heart.
“How did Tyler take it?” Montana asked.
“It turns out my son had never much liked Ryan but he hadn’t told me because he wanted me to be happy. Which makes me about the luckiest mother ever.”
Montana sniffed. “Now I just want to hug him and never let go.”
“I know how you feel.”
“And kill that Ryan jerk. Want me to give Ethan his name so he can beat him up?”
Liz shook her head. “Probably best if Ethan doesn’t hear the story at all.” She didn’t need him to know how stupid she’d been.
“You’re right. But still. I hope he’s punished in some way.”
“I suspect Ryan will be unhappy for most of his life. That’s punishment enough for me. I’m just happy to have escaped. He gives writers a bad name.”
“You should tell the college to start giving your scholarship to students who want to be writers. That would be very cool.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your scholarship. Okay, it’s not yours, but it’s named after you. Here. At Fool’s Gold Community College.”
If they’d been drinking alcohol, Liz would have thought Montana was drunk. But it was the middle of the day and they’d only had lattes. “I don’t have a scholarship at the college.”
“Sure you do. It was set up a while ago. I don’t know all the details, but it was started with the scholarship you didn’t use.”
Liz stared at her blankly. “The scholarship?” Nothing about this made sense.
“You had a scholarship out of high school. Remember?”
“Sure. But I left.”
“Exactly. Someone had the idea to use that as seed money to fund a scholarship every year. They’re given to women who have faced hardship-financial or personal. I know because I looked into applying. You really don’t know about this?”
“No.”
“You should talk to the college. They can explain the details.”
“I will,” Liz assured, thinking that Montana had to be wrong. Who would have started a scholarship in her name?
An hour later, she had the information package in her hand and was smiling at a very excited clerk in the admissions office.
“We’re all huge fans,” the older woman told her. “I can’t believe you’re really here. We read all your books.”
“Thanks,” Liz said. “Can you tell me about the origin of the scholarship?”
