Between Heaven and Rock (The Swallow Barn Cottage Series, Book 3)

A Hard Day' s Night

This is part 1 of today's double update, so don't miss the next chapter ;) And let me know what you think ;) Dun-dun-duuuuuuuhn!

Love,

K. xx

***

Ulla took a quick shower, while her bra and knickers had a quick wash as well. He'd withdrawn in the lounge, but let's face it, running around a man while her backside was having a bit of fresh air wasn't anything new to her. Then, they worked for four more hours: she continued struggling with his creation in the kitchen, and he supposedly edited in the lounge. While she was drudging through lifeless emprises of his decaf protagonist, a small part of her mind was panicking and screaming in internal anguish. 

What was she supposed to do when she reached the end of chapter thirty two? If it were a different situation, she'd tell him the book was unpublishable and unreadable. She would have done it on chapter two, to be honest. As low as her position at work was, even she was never saddled with such rubbish. She'd been mostly dealing with romance, and even all those 'she married him to save her family's ostrich farm' or 'he's a bad boy racer, and she agrees to spend a night with him to protect her father's reputation as a fizz drink mogul' made more sense than Oliver Holyoake's phantasma. Obviously, that was yet another word borrowed from his book. A week ago she'd been told by her supervisor that there was a promotion waiting for her at the end of the month, and she would no longer be in charge of sieving away the 'hopeless cases,' and could expect to work on a long term project. These three weeks with Oliver Holyoake were supposed to be a 'half-vacation,' where she got to do a favour to the boss while lounging in a cosy cottage, expressing her opinions and giving her suggestions. Except, if asked directly, she'd say her suggestion would be for Oliver Holyoake to never attempt to write again.

There were plenty of 'buts' here. Firstly, how would John Holyoake react to her hacking down his little brother's love's labour? It wasn't a straightforward assignment, after all. Was she sort of expected to salvage the book even though it was shudderingly horrible? Secondly, maybe the quality of his writing didn't matter as much as she assumed. Maybe, there was some sort of a niche for speculative fictional hagiographies, where neither the plot, nor the characterisation mattered. No, let's face it. Niche or not, no one would read this! It was just that bad!

And finally, she just didn't want to be the one to tell him he sucked! Here, she said it! He was just so... decent! There was surely something she was missing about him - but she'd known too many wretched, perverted, weak, cruel, abusive men to see that he was neither. He had his 'spidey sense,' Ulla had her own superpower. She always knew if there was danger around. It took a few years to develop, but it had saved her arse more than once. Not her skin, but at least she'd gotten out alive. Oliver Holyoake was the first man who raised zero red flags in her ever so vigilant noggin.

She leaned back, set her feet on the second chair, and closed her eyes.

Look at you, Ulla. What's happened to you? Since when do you take someone else's writing personally? Don't you have your own unpublished novel to worry about?

Just brush up his Frankenstein's monster, make it palatable, and his big bro will buy him a smart cover and promote him in every book shop of the country - and voilà! Oliver Holyoake is the new Robert Jordan. Some readers will pretend they liked his book, others will convince themselves they did.

She groaned and rubbed her face with her hands.

"Tired?" he asked softly above her.

She squealed, flailed her hands, and grabbed the edge of the table.