The Last Word

duchess? She was falling for the highwayman. He was on his way to collect the ransom from the duke. Laurel had set up an ambush. This is supposed to be the ambush scene!”

Reaching for her computer mouse, she clicked on Laurel’s e-mail. Olivia hadn’t bothered to read her friend’s note. Too interested in seeing what would befall the rakish highwayman, she’d just opened the file and printed out the chapter. Now she carefully read Laurel’s note.

Dear Bayside Book Writers:

I am not sending any more chapters about the duchess. I’m shelving that project for now. I just didn’t feel that it was working. Instead, I’ve attached the first chapter of my new manuscript, which I’m calling Lessons for Ever After.

It is a contemporary romance but won’t feel very romantic at first. The upside is that this story feels much more genuine. I can barely sleep because I want to work on it all the time. The characters are so alive in my head! Sorry to do this without warning, but I hope you understand.

See you Saturday,

LH

Olivia sat back in her chair and took a bite of biscotti. Laurel had written over one hundred pages in her historical romance and now she was just going to stick it in a drawer and begin a new project? The decision took courage, Olivia knew, but she wondered if something else hadn’t prompted the change. Was the passage she’d read an autobiographical account of Laurel’s marriage to Steve? Olivia truly hoped not.

“I can’t read into it like that,” she admonished herself out loud and handed Haviland an organic dog treat from the jar on her desk. “That’s not my job as a critique partner.”

It didn’t take long for Olivia to finish a run-through of the chapter. She was surprised to find that it was much stronger than Laurel’s previous work. She made a note below the last line that she’d never sensed the presence of voice in the historical romance, but that this woman’s voice, whom Laurel refers to only as “The Wife,” was both vibrant and authentic. The duchess was self-serving and often shallow, but Laurel’s new protagonist was an interesting blend of self-doubt and pluck. She was sympathetic and multidimensional, and Laurel’s switch to first- person succeeded in drawing in the reader.

“I can’t wait to see what the rest of the group makes of this new chapter,” Olivia said to Haviland and drained her coffee cup.

Unfortunately, it was two weeks before the Bayside Book Writers were able to meet again. The sellers had officially accepted Harris’s offer, and the closing went through without a hitch. Clearly Millicent Banks had gotten the job done. It had been decided to postpone the next meeting until moving day. They’d all promised to help Harris cart boxes and small pieces of furniture from his old apartment to his new house on Oleander Drive.

Whether Nick Plumley had made any attempt to contact the sellers, Olivia didn’t know, but she’d seen Millicent at the grocery store, showing off her new Chanel purse to a group of admirers gathered around the deli counter.

Despite overcast skies and the fact that the day would be spent hauling things from one residence to another, Harris couldn’t stop smiling. Upon seeing Olivia standing in his living room, he greeted her with an exuberant embrace and then shook Haviland’s paw. The poodle quickly disengaged and jogged off to explore the apartment. With the knickknacks boxed and the furniture piled in the center of each room, there was an array of exposed scents waiting to be investigated.

Harris had secured the aid of two coworkers by bribing them with promises of pizza and beer in exchange for helping him move the bed, sofa, and kitchen table. The congenial software developers made several trips in a commercial-sized pickup, sparing the Bayside Book Writers from having to manhandle the massive leather sectional or the heavy oak coffee table.

However, they were all sore, sweaty, and tired by the time the last box had been carried across the bungalow’s threshold. Olivia sank down on the sofa while Millay perched on the coffee table, surveying the haphazard arrangement of furniture and accessories.

“Where’s Little Administrative Assistant?” she asked Harris. “Isn’t it the girlfriend’s job to help haul her lover boy’s crap when he moves? This is, like, a major Kodak moment. A freaking milestone. How can she miss it?”

Harris blushed and turned away from Millay’s sharp stare. “Estelle volunteers at a senior center on Saturdays. She would have been here if she didn’t have another commitment.”

“How sweet of her!” Laurel quickly exclaimed. “And I’m sorry I arrived so late to the moving party. The twins are going through this biting phase, and I’m afraid Dermot sank his teeth into my father-in-law’s thigh and hung on like a little bulldog.”

Rawlings and Harris hooted with laughter.

Millay nodded her head with approval. “A pint-sized vampire. Way to go, Dermot.”

“The in-laws don’t think he’s so cute at the moment,” Laurel answered with a giggle. “And Steve tried to make it seem like Dermot’s bad behavior was my fault for not being by his side every second of the day. I told them Maddie Jackson is still biting people and she’s old enough to wear a training bra!”

Harris’s house was filled with the sounds of mirth.

Later, over six-packs of cold beer and several large ham and pineapple pies from Pizza Bay, Harris’s friends toasted his new home.

The coworkers took off with the leftover food, but only after pausing at the doorway to haze Harris about spending Saturday night with his book club.

Millay was on her feet in a flash. “It’s not a book club, nerds. We’re a writers’ group. We write books. Book clubs discuss someone else’s published works. You just wait.” She pointed a finger at their chests while slinging her free arm around Harris. “One day, this ubergeek is going to be signing his book for packs of hormone-crazed hotties. And what’ll you clowns be doing? Playing online video games with some twelve-year-old in Albuquerque?”

Instead of being offended, the young men were delighted by Millay’s sauciness. “Now we see the benefits of this group. You’ve got sweet Millay on Saturday and Estelle Sunday through Friday. We didn’t know you were such a player, dude!” They took turns exchanging high-fives with a dumbstruck Harris.

Harris pushed them onto the porch just as Millay lunged forward, her eyes flashing. Amused, Rawlings mollified the lovely bartender by handing her a fresh beer. He raised his own bottle in salute.

“If you ever consider a job in law enforcement, come talk to me. You could scare the good back into half the town’s criminals.”

Millay grinned, her face relaxing as she took a sip of beer. Twirling a strand of her glossy black hair, which was dyed fuchsia at the tips, she walked back to her spot on the coffee table, giving Laurel a squeeze on the arm in passing. “Let’s get down to it. Mama’s got a brand-new bag.”

Harris dug around in a nearby box until he found a file folder from which he pulled out Laurel’s chapter. “Is it okay to ask why you ditched the duchess?”

Laurel had clearly been anticipating this question. “The more I worked on that book, the less sincere it felt. With every paragraph, I was struggling to place myself in her shoes. The scenes felt forced and then, one day, I realized I didn’t even like her.”

“You could have gone back and edited her,” Rawlings pointed out.

“Sure,” Laurel agreed. “But it was too late. She is who she is. I just got to this point where I didn’t care what happened to her and so how could I expect a reader to care?” She pointed at the pages in Harris’s hands. “But this woman! She leapt from my mind like, um, who was the Greek goddess who was born fully matured?”

Millay tapped her forehead. “Athena, goddess of wisdom. She busted right out of Zeus’s head wearing a full suit of armor. Talk about some serious labor pains . . .”

“Imagine if he’d had twins!” Laurel chuckled. “Anyway, that’s how The Wife came about. She literally forced every other character out of my mind and started whispering her story to me. I literally cannot stop writing. It’s like being high on drugs.”