“No, you told me Gran was better than you at writing romance,” she countered. “You promised you would get it right. I knew it needed a poignant ending, so I agreed that you were the man for the job. I thought you’d come the closest to capturing what she really went through after the war.”
“Holy shit.” This wasn’t Everest, this was the moon, and the whole situation was caused by crossed wires. Our goals had never been the same.
“Noah, don’t you think if I wanted this book to be a romance, I would have told Christopher to find me one of his romance writers?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that in Colorado?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I did!” she snapped defensively. “In my foyer, I told you that the one thing you couldn’t do was give them a happy ending, and you didn’t listen. You just tossed back a cocky ‘watch me’ comment and walked out.”
“Because I thought you were challenging me!”
“Well, I wasn’t!”
“I know that now!” I pinched the bridge of my nose, searching for a way forward when it looked like we were at an impasse. “Do you honestly want your gran’s story to be sad and mournful?”
“She wasn’t sad. And this isn’t a romance!”
“It should be. We can give it the ending she deserves.”
“With what, Noah? You want to end her real-life story with some happy piece of fiction where they’re running toward each other in an empty field with their arms outstretched?”
“Not exactly.” Here we go. This was my chance. “Picture her walking a long, winding dirt road lined with pine trees, calling back to the way they met, and the second he sees her—” I saw it all play out in my head.
“Holy mother of all that’s cliché.”
“Cliché?” I nearly choked on the word. Even being thought of as an asshole was better than cliché. “I know what I’m doing. Just let me do it!”
“Do you know why I keep hanging up on you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“Because nothing I say matters to you, and it keeps us both from wasting our time.”
Click.
“Damn it!” I snapped, carefully setting down my phone so I didn’t throw it.
It did matter what she said. I was just doing a piss-poor job of letting her go first, which, again, was a problem I only seemed to have with this particular woman.
Writing was so much easier than dealing with actual people. Maybe people didn’t finish my books—hung up on me in a literature sense—but I never knew if someone stopped reading before they got the point, because I’d already had the chance to make it. Even if they slammed it shut in disgust, it wasn’t in person.
I raked my hands over my face and let out a hiss of pure irritation. I’d finally met someone with bigger control issues than I had.
“Any advice, Jameson?” I asked the pages of the manuscript and correspondence I’d printed out. “Sure, you somehow managed to keep communicating through a war zone, but you sure as hell didn’t have to knock down Scarlett’s walls over the telephone, did you?”
I gave myself a moment to fall into the story, to really theorize what Georgia was asking of me, but picturing Scarlett learning to let go and move on, fictionally condemning her to what had to have been a half-life felt too heavy, even for me.
Three months. That was all I had to not only convince Georgia that Scarlett and Jameson needed to end this story blissfully together but write the damned thing in another author’s style and voice. Then I glanced at the calendar and realized it was actually less than three months and cursed. Loudly.
I had to change tactics or there was a very real possibility that I was going to blow a deadline for the first time in my career.
Chapter Eight
August 1940
Middle Wallop, England
Heat blasted Jameson’s face as hanger two went up in flames. The explosion tossed them backward like they were nothing more than paper, but he managed to keep his arms around Scarlett. His back took the brunt of the impact, forcing the air from his lungs as Scarlett landed on top of him.
He rolled, trying to shelter her with his body as much as he could as bomb after bomb fell in the span of a few thunderous heartbeats. He’d seen at least two dozen pilots go down in the last few months, their deaths nothing more than another photo pinned on the wall.
Not Scarlett. Not Scarlett.
He cursed. The war had finally done the very thing he’d traveled all the way to Europe to stop—it had come for someone he cared about. He’d never wanted to shoot down an enemy aircraft more in his entire life.
His ears rang as he propped himself up on his elbows and searched the crystal-blue eyes beneath him as what he hoped was the last of the bombs fell in the not-so-far-off distance. “Are you okay?”
There was a good chance they’d try another pass, especially since both hangers one and three still stood.
She blinked and nodded. “You have to go!”
Now he was the one nodding.
“Then go!” she urged.
He could do far more to protect her in the air than acting as her shield on the ground, so he scrambled to his feet, then pulled her to hers. A shape moved off to the left, and relief flooded his system as Howard rose to his knees, then stood.
The man still had his hat on.
“Get to hanger one!” Jameson shouted.
Howard nodded and took off at a run.
Jameson cradled Scarlett’s face in his hands. There was so much to say and no time to say it.
“Be careful, Jameson!” Scarlett demanded, the plea echoing in her eyes.
He pressed his lips to her forehead in a fierce kiss, squeezing his eyes shut. Then he glanced over her head to make sure the car hadn’t been hit and breathed another ounce easier as he saw Constance behind the wheel, Christine at her side.
“You be careful,”
