“He’s okay right now, Em. He’s found himself.” He smiled at her. “And thanks to your meddling friend, we all found each other.”
“I’m so glad,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him and hugging the man of her dreams to her heart.
Epilogue
As weddings went, this had to be the nicest one Emma would ever see.
It didn’t matter that she was limping as Mikey and Beaker walked her down the aisle, or that there was a stain on her mother’s dress that she had decided to leave in, or that it was pouring cats and dogs outside. It didn’t even matter that Pitiful had broken one of the windows of the tiny clapboard church, and knocked over a vase of flowers trying to see what the love of his life was up to.
She didn’t even bat an eyelash when the ground rumbled with gentle shivers.
All that mattered was that Ben was waiting for her at the end of the aisle.
But it wasn’t until the vows were said, the rings exchanged, and the kisses given, that Emma noticed the boutonnieres in Mikey’s and Ben’s jackets, and she burst into laughter.
Both men were wearing sprigs of moss.
Letter from LakeWatch
Dear Reader,
I didn’t start out writing my stories for you, but rather for me. A switch, quite literally, flipped on in my brain just shy of my fortieth birthday, and unseen forces sent me scrambling to a computer when the imaginary people plaguing my dreams started insisting—quite loudly—that I get their stories down on paper. I wrote my first books in blissful ignorance, unschooled in such things as style, grammar, pacing, story arc, or plot. My only concern was to shut those people up.
Ironically, considering I was a voracious reader, it never dawned on me that anyone else would be interested in reading my stories. I just wrote them just so that I could read them, and then I shoved them in the closet and started writing another one. But I eventually realized my characters didn’t really exist, because it takes someone else to read them to bring them to life.
A thought is merely a thought until it is shared, and only then does it become a tangible thing. Until someone other than me reads one of my stories, it is only a massive collection of words. That’s what language is, after all: a means for one person to convey their thoughts to another.
How cool is that? It doesn’t matter if you’re in Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia, South or North America, or even on the moon when you read one of my books, as you read, you are giving my characters life. You are seeing them through your own unique perspective based on your life experiences; judging them by your personal ethics, your hopes and dreams and emotional needs.
So for taking these people out of my head and putting them into yours, I thank you.
And I’m quite sure my characters also thank you.
If you connect with them—if you love them or hate them—then I’ve done a good job. If you laugh out loud, get flustered, teary-eyed, disgusted, or downright angry, then I have managed to give you a very real experience.
Only if you are indifferent do I feel that I’ve failed.
I don’t like every person I meet. Do you? I don’t agree with everything everyone says, nor do I like some of the situations I find myself in, either. And I certainly don’t like how life turns out sometimes. So I don’t expect my readers to like everything in my books, and, quite honestly, I hope you don’t.
When I pick up a book to read—be it from a favorite author, or one I haven’t tried before—I am usually searching for an emotional fix, depending on my mood at the time. Personally, I have only one requirement: that I don’t walk away from a story feeling bummed out, desolate, or without hope. I read romance novels because I like happy endings, and for that reason alone I write them.
And I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing that you read romances because you also wish to walk away believing that no matter how dire things seem, there is always hope. This need for a happy ending is sort of a universal theme, isn’t it? Hope is the ultimate human emotion. It is powerful enough to get us out of bed every morning even when that happy ending seems impossible, and it is as vast and timeless as the ocean.
It wasn’t until my first book was published, Charming the Highlander, that I realized I no longer was writing just for myself, but for you, too. A good friend and very wise woman told me—when I first started dealing with editors, book reviewers, and bestseller lists—that no one can be in my studio with me, telling me how to tell my stories. I couldn’t let anyone sit on my shoulder censoring me, directing my creativity or insisting I make a character or situation fit their personal sensibilities.
So I’m still writing foremost to please myself, and until that thought in my head is completed to my satisfaction, nobody reads my story—not my editor and certainly not you. And then the delicate dance begins, and we all come together to engage in a universal conversation of love and hope and happily ever after.
Within days of my first book getting published, I started getting e-mails to my website from women the world over, telling me how something—a scene or character or situation—touched their hearts. I was blown away, as it still hadn’t really dawned on me that my stories might have any sort of impact on others.
Well … try as I might to keep my writing studio free of earthly voices, I can’t stop you—my reader—from sitting on my shoulder. Only instead of censoring or directing me, I feel you cheering me on! So this is my shout-out to you: Thank you for your letters,
