One Spring Night

Chapter Two

Momentum—along with an abundance of caffeine—carried her to complete the next two chapters of her book while being holed up at the corner table in the bakery.

Only occasionally did she glance outside the window, vaguely noting the activity in the town square, while continuing to type furiously at eighty words per minute. When she was on a roll, she got a charge looking at the life around her while the story unfolded through her imagination, through her fingers. It was like thinking without thinking.

Thinking without thinking? She caught her thought and considered it. Maybe it was time for more coffee. Her brain was beginning to glaze over.

Kara did a quick backup of her current manuscript to cloud storage—her usual routine—then gathered her belongings and escaped for a bathroom break then a coffee refill.

It was a small town, and she knew, at least peripherally, every person who was seated in the bakery. But being from Boston, leaving valuables at the table, especially ones that stored her latest work, was just asking for trouble. So she schlepped all of her belongings with her, ignoring the twinge that alerted her to fringed thoughts of loneliness.

Being alone meant there was no one at your table to watch your belongings for you while you went to the restroom.

Partnership was something she missed, something she craved without wanting to do anything about it. Letting anyone get close enough meant that it also opened her up to being hurt again. And no one could argue that she hadn't had her fill of hurt over the past couple of years.

But she was done with that—the sympathy, the sadness—and preferred the unfussy simplicity of being alone.

With her computer bag in her clutches, she slipped through the pleasantries that greeted her along the way to the bathroom and back again. She even managed to avoid getting stuck discussing the weather at length—a feat in and of itself.

Being in the presence of other people while getting work done was a risk and she knew it. Interruptions could happen at any moment. But the mix and mingle of voices, conversations, stirred her at the edges, releasing small threads of connection to tangle with other humans, adding flavor to her writing.

"You keep drinking coffee and you're going to float away."

Kara stepped forward to the counter, realizing she'd been lost in her thoughts. "It's your fault it's so good," she told Gennie, the owner of the Rolling Pin. "One last cup."

"You missed lunch but I could still make you a sandwich if you'd like?"

She didn't think her stomach could handle food at the moment. "Just the coffee."

"Coming up. You writing your next bestseller?"

"Fingers crossed," Kara said as she reached for her wallet in the computer bag.

Gennie topped the coffee cup with a lid. "My cousin Patty's kid, Michael, he's traveling through Scotland this semester. Bet he's experiencing weather like this. It's coming down, isn't it?"

"It is, yeah." Thumbing through the cash she had in her wallet, Kara noticed a check that she'd forgotten to deposit. She passed over it then pulled out a few dollar bills. "Scotland sounds nice. I've never been there but I'd like to go one day."

"Michael says it's beautiful. At least that's what he says in his Facebook posts. The kid couldn't be bothered to send personal messages. Anyway..." Gennie handed over the coffee. "He got really excited when I told him Kara Keaton lives in Stonebridge and comes into the Rolling Pin. He's a big fan, especially of the Dark Woods series. And he saw your latest book at a shop at the airport, in Edinburgh I think... Anyway, he took a picture next to your row of books and shared it, telling his friends that the great Kara Keaton is a family friend. Isn't that something? I read your latest book already of course, and gobbled it up. I just loved the hero in that one. So virile and commanding, isn't he?"