Read While You Were Writing: Watkin's Pond, Book 2 for Free Online Page B

lay back and crossed her legs. If he hadn’t always been this dark and alone, if he’d once lived in the sunshine state with a beautiful bride, it suggested the dramatic personal changes were rooted in an event—one great personal apocalypse which changed the core of who he was and what meant acceptable in his world.
    She could sympathize, having gone through a great personal apocalypse herself.
    Sitting up so fast that she made the ancient bed squeak, she again grabbed the tablet and used her thumb and forefinger to make the picture larger. His face, in this picture, looked happy.
    She tried to focus on that happiness and consider the why s of it, tracing the edge of his face with one fingernail. He’d been very handsome, if you liked tall, dark and kleptomaniac.
    Opening the first of the two books, she breathed out a gusty grape-scented breath and wished she hadn’t started to realize she did like exactly that.
    He’d actually gotten a blurb written the night before and hammered out two character sketches for his leads followed by five more for important supporting characters. Once he knew their backstory and conflict and wanted to know what happened to them, he’d knocked out ten thousand words before dozing off in his chair.
    Waking with a crick in his neck, he blinked at the ceiling. He was still tired, eyes blurry with strain and head full of the cotton-like feeling he considered book hangover. Closing the dry, creaking lids again, he decided to go back to sleep, not sure why he’d waked.
    Again in darkness, he heard the strains of music twining through the house like a siren’s call. He brought his computer back to life with a swirl of his mouse to peer at the time. He had to rub his hand across his eyes twice before he could focus on the clock enough to read it.
    Four a.m.
    What in the hell was Sheri doing at this hour? The whiskey-drenched sin of her voice wailed out, “At Last,” and his body stirred to life, adrenaline replacing exhaustion as his hormones responded before his logical brain could.
    It was a sorry state of affairs indeed that her crooning out an old song brought more of a rise out of him than any number of willing and far more logical feminine choices in recent years. Deciding he wasn’t going to get any rest without knowing what she was up to, he planted his feet on the floor and strode to the door.
    Fumbling with the lock, sleep-blurred brain confused as to why he’d locked himself in his office before remembering the exact thing that woke him explained the need for security, he managed to open the door. The sound of her singing echoed through the house with the barrier of the door removed and he paused, leaning on the doorframe, to let the music sweep over him.
    Something about her voice, her tiny curvy body, her sweep of golden hair, reminded him he wasn’t standing with one foot in the grave as he so often felt lately. She made him feel strong, masculine…
    Hungry. She brought back to life the long dormant side of him, the part he’d buried when he realized he wasn’t the kind of man made for relationships. One failed marriage told him all he’d needed to know about his ability to maintain that kind of commitment.
    Shaking off the nonsense of his exhausted brain, still set—obviously—in romance mode from his work, he barreled into his old bedroom to see what she was up to that involved late night racket in his— his!— home.
    And froze the minute he saw her.
    A T-shirt that hit mid-thigh was the only garment he could see she’d bothered to cover her golden body with. From the swing of her breasts as she brushed a broad line of red across the canvas, it might be the only thing on her at all. Her hair floated around her, as free and unrestrained as her breasts under the paint-spattered fabric of the shirt.
    The three-foot tall canvas showed her mastery of her craft—not finished, but already clearly a woman in profile with Spanish moss dangling from trees against a velvet