Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
My assignment is simple: trek to a remote English cottage and convince Nathaniel Foster to let me work with him.
Too bad he’s a complete and utter jerk.
Who slams the door in a poor stranger’s face, leaving them shivering out in the snow?! So much for a warm welcome…
Nathaniel is God’s gift to readers everywhere. My publisher is desperate for his next book, which in turn makes me desperate to help him complete it. So what if he doesn’t want to play nice? I have no choice but to live and work with him in this snow-covered cottage, suffering under his piercing blue stare until it feels like I might combust.
Our heated exchanges by day give way to torturous tension at night. I can’t clock out from his all-consuming presence. I can’t escape my unwanted feelings. When one of our arguments nearly ends in an angry kiss, I worry the writing is on the wall.
But I can do this. I can clench my teeth, ball my fists, and focus on this damn book. If I can just keep the fiction and fantasy between the pages and not between the sheets, I’ll be the hero of the publishing world.
So pick up your pen, Nathaniel—and please, please, stop looking at me like that.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
SUMMER
“This is it,” the British cabbie declares. “We’re here.”
No. That can’t be right.
I lean closer to the window, anxious to get a better view of the dilapidated stone building to my right—home sweet home for the next week or two.
Truthfully, dilapidated is too nice of a word to describe the place. Monstrously hideous? Beyond salvation? Legitimately haunted? A window on the ground floor has two shattered panes as if someone has thrown a rock through them. A chunk of the stone wall on the right has completely crumbled. Also the front door is wide open, swinging ominously.
“Bloody hell. Looks to be abandoned.” The driver turns back to me. “You sure you have the right address?”
I look down at the itinerary I created for myself then back up at the building.
“Yes. This is it. Crown House, says it right there on that sign.” The one hanging sideways off a single hinge, the painted black letters mostly flaked off so that instead of Crown House, it reads Crow Ho s .
We agree I should scope it out first before I bother retrieving my luggage from the trunk. As I walk up the short path to the front door, my boots crunch atop freshly fallen snow.
The sun has nearly set and I’m losing daylight by the second, which is annoying considering my original travel plan would have had me here hours ago. My flight landed in Leeds this afternoon, but I was delayed by a small luggage fiasco. A woman took my suitcase from the carousel, and when I tried to convince her of her mistake, she shouted for airport security. There was no confusion on my end. I’ve had the suitcase for over a decade, and it’s on its last leg. The wheels only turn when they feel like it, and the handle is permanently jammed in place. Still, the woman clung to it like her life depended on it. I had three interviews with customs officials, one ID check, and a few passes through a metal detector before I got into a cab with my suitcase to make the journey north. Now, it’s a little past 6:00 p.m. and Crow Hos is dark inside.
I stop at the front door and poke my head inside. “Hello?”
My voice echoes faintly off the stone walls. The place is empty. There’s nothing inside except a few pieces of furniture cast off by a previous owner, maybe one who lived here in—and this is just a ballpark—the Paleolithic era.
Something suddenly moves to my right, and I jump a mile in the air before I realize it’s just some rustling leaves. I try to laugh off the scare, but I still book it back to the cab like there’s an angry ghost at my heels. I’m not someone to back down from a challenge, but there’s obviously been some mistake. When InkWell coordinated my travel, they must not have realized Crown House is no longer in operation. That’s fine. It’s not like I’m alone in a foreign country with nowhere to go and no one to call as the sun sets. That would be…bad.
I reclaim the back seat and shut my door. “I can’t stay here.”
“Where to then?” he asks with a new layer of impatience in his tone. I’m suddenly not worth the trouble of the flat-rate fare from the train station.
I look at my itinerary, my last saving grace. Beneath my flight times and the Crown House address, I wrote directions to get to Nathaniel Foster’s house from the train station. I was planning to visit him first thing in the morning, during work hours, but I don’t have a choice now.
My phone gets absolutely no service out here. Nathaniel will know what to do. He can suggest a place to stay or maybe even let me crash for a night and help me figure things out in the morning. Sure, there’s the slight chance he won’t be all that enthused when he sees me and realizes who I am…
The driver clears his throat, forcing my hand.
“Here,” I say, passing him the paper. “Could you take me to that address, please?”
After a barely stifled sigh, he pulls out onto the main road. He has no trouble navigating the English countryside in the dark. At least one of us has a sense of direction. I’m all turned around; we left any sign of civilization a long time ago. Now I think we’re in the Yorkshire Dales, a national park with thousands of square miles of moors, valleys, and hills…and as far as I can tell, absolutely zero Holiday Inns.
The snow is really coming down now. Even with the driver’s headlights illuminating the road and his windshield wipers whipping back and forth at full steam, it’s hard to tell when there’s an upcoming curve or bend. I’m getting slung back and forth in the back seat like a pinball, but I don’t complain because I’ve officially overstayed my welcome in this cab. The last thing I need him to do is kick me out prematurely. Fortunately, the turnoff for Nathaniel’s house is only about ten minutes away from Crown House. It makes sense that the publisher would have booked my lodgings near him. I’ll give them credit for that even if they dropped the ball on the place being habitable.