The Writer’s Romance

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Prologue

Mitch watched Katharine dash from the stage but could do nothing to stop her. The hosts had drawn him into a conversation—none of which he could recall after—and he’d missed his chance to speak to her. This was supposed to have been the moment when they shook hands and let bygones be bygones, and yet Mitch was once again left ravaged in the wake of Hurricane Katharine. He said as much to Sam when he pulled up to the station’s front entrance.

“So, how’d it go?” Sam asked as Mitch closed the passenger door.

“That woman—” he began, throwing his cap onto the floor mat at his feet.

“Uh-oh. Here we go.”

Mitch ignored Sam’s lament and launched into a thirty-minute diatribe of Everything Awful About Katharine Evans.

“Uh-huh. All I really hear is, you really, really like this chick.”

Mitch opened his mouth, ready to rebuke the accusation, then sighed and laughed a little. “Yep. I suppose I do. She’s smart, beautiful, in great shape, and turns out she’s philanthropic, too. I mean, who’d have thought that?”

“Yeah, well—”

“But she’s also hot-tempered, rude, and demanding. Don’t you think so?”

“I kind of—”

“I mean, I guess I did provoke her a little bit. But we made up for it with that video. Right?”

Sam said nothing.

“I said, right, Sam? Why aren’t you answering me, Sam?”

“Oh, are you done? Can I speak now?”

Mitch looked contrite. Yes, he’d gone on a tangent. Katharine Evans seemed to have this effect on him quite often. He let Sam speak. Halfway through, his mind wandered back to that confounding woman and what she might be doing right then…

CHAPTER ONE

TALL, DARK, & IRRITATING

Katharine Evans blinked slowly, her eyes wide and unfocused. Everything in her peripheral was fuzzy, but the window sill, where her gaze had transfixed, was sharp and clear. A deep scratch against the dark wood grain. A fine layer of dust. A thumbtack. Why is there a thumbtack on the window sill? The words ‘window sill’ began repeating slowly in her head, drawn out. A distant little voice in her head sang out, ‘you’re stalling.’ Still, she didn’t move. The house was quiet, the world outside her window equally so. It wouldn’t last much longer. As if on cue, a loud clack echoed across the lake, bouncing off the houses in a quick staccato. Katharine jumped, then sat up straighter in her home office chair. Focus, now. Ugh. She looked at the computer screen. Five hundred words, that’s all I’ve written. I can barely sit still for five minutes, let alone the hours it’s going to take to get this done.

Katharine’s editor expected twenty thousand. By tomorrow. The all-too-familiar fluttering of moth wings in her chest began, but Katharine quelled it with sound logic and reason. Relax. You’ve got twelve pages of archived material. Send them some of that, if you must.

At the rate she was going, she might have to do precisely that. The loud noise seemed to have worked as an alarm clock for not only Katharine but for Mother Nature’s creatures as well. The chatty whistles of chickadees, the harsh squawk of a blue jay, and the caw of a crow in the trees had begun in earnest. She’d pushed open the curtains the moment she walked into the room, and now a gentle breeze trembled the edges of the thin, lacy material, carrying the scent of freshly cut grass and adding even more distraction for Katharine. No matter how many times she tore her eyes away, the view of the lake kept calling her attention from the keyboard and the blinking cursor on the screen. Outside the window, down and across her lovingly landscaped, rectangle yard, the early morning sunlight danced on the rippling currents. The blue sky gave the dark water a cobalt hue. Her mind drifted again. Twirling a long strand of caramel-colored hair between her thumb and fingertip, she leaned back against the chair’s backrest and stared forlornly through the mesh screen. Well, when you live year-round in a lakeside house, these are your distractions. Better than the city any day. Slowly, Katharine pulled her gaze away, but a glimpse of cherry red through the row of privacy bushes caught her eye. Her kayak. It was a perfect morning for a paddle around the lake. Hardly anyone would be out there on a weekday. Abruptly, Katharine forced herself to sit up straight and spoke aloud.

“No. Nope, not an option, kid. Katharine Evans, get back to work.”

As a rule, Katharine avoided talking aloud to herself, but she needed a jolt to get focused. With a dramatic sigh, she looked around the sunny room, seeking the inspiration her storyboard wasn’t offering. Her office was like another universe compared to the rest of her small bungalow. The other rooms were decorated in rich, warm earth tones, conveying a warm cabin-like atmosphere. This space was bright, with floral prints and lace accents. Shabby chic. That’s what they called it. Whoever ‘they’ were. It wasn’t really her style, but it was her book’s main character’s style. Chelsea Marin, teen ‘it girl.’ Now into book three of a series with no definite end in sight.

Not that Katharine was complaining, of course. Sure, young adult wasn’t the genre she set out to write, but it was the one that brought in the money for her to live the way she liked. Alone. Secluded. Undisturbed. The doorbell rang. Of course, the doorbell would ring right now. Katharine ignored it. Then the knocking began. Incessantly. She stood with a scowl and tip-toed down the stairs and into the living room, so she could peek out the window. These curtains were still drawn against the morning sun, so she pushed them aside enough to peek one eye out. A long-faced young man stood at the door and looked right at her. It was her handyman…whose name she’d forgotten immediately after he introduced himself on his first day working for her. Since he reminded her of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, she’d taken to calling him that. Not to his face, of course. Shaggy smiled brightly with a lopsided grin and waved as if anything about her manner was welcoming. Katharine dropped the curtain back in place and jumped back.

“Hello? Uh, good morning,” his voice cracked on ‘morning.’

So fitting, he sounds like Shaggy, too.

“Go away. No one’s home.”

“Mrs. Evans? You— I know you’re home. You just answered me.”

Katharine swung her front door open so hard it blew back her hair.

“It’s Miss Evans, and there is a sign—see it? Right there,” She rapped a short, unpolished nail on the hotel style door hanger for emphasis.

“I—yes, I know. But you said if—”

“I said, if you had an emergency, you could knock. You’re not bleeding, are you?”

“No, I—”

“No broken bones?”

“No, but—”

“But what? What could be so important, that you have to disturb me after I specifically said not to?”

“Well, uh, there’s a guy here? I mean not here, but next door. He asked me to give you a message?”

Katharine blinked at the man-boy posing statements as questions at her. What the heck was his name again? Think, Katharine. Brad? No. Brennan? No. Brandon! That’s his name. He’d been her handyman for the past six months, longer than anyone else had lasted. She supposed the least she could do was remember his name.

“Brandon. Do you recall what I said to you when I hired you?”

“Uh, yes.” He held up a grass and dirt streaked hand and ticked off each rule as he went. “Do not disturb you unless I’m bleeding, broken, having a heart attack, or being murdered. Payment is in the mailbox. Text any questions or concerns.”

Brandon nodded and smiled like he’d correctly recited the Gettysburg address. Katharine closed her eyes and pinched the thin cartilage at the bridge of her nose. After she’d counted to five in her head, she looked up again at Shaggy—Brandon.

“So, why. Are. You. Here? On my doorstep?”

“Oh, right! Well, the guy— the one next door—he said I should, um, give you a heads up? Or something like that.”

Brandon frowned a little, perhaps trying to recall what ‘the guy’ told him to say. Katharine’s patience, what little there was to begin with, was at its end.

“Okay, listen. First, the only person next door is a crotchety old man—Vincent Genoma. Second, Genoma and I have spoken once in all six years that I’ve lived here. It was to agree on Arborvitae bushes as a divider between properties. His property is a blight, mine is private. We leave each other alone. That’s the deal. There is no ‘heads up’ to give here.”

“Oh, this guy—the one I talked to? He’s not old. I mean, not old like that. He’s older than me. Maybe like your age. Or old—”

“Brandon?”

“Right. Yeah, anyhow. He’s the guy on T.V. You know, the one who fixes up houses for people? Cool, right?”

“The guy who what? I have no idea what you’re talking about, Brandon. Do me a favor. Tell him to do whatever the heck he wants, so long as it doesn’t affect me.”

Brandon looked over his shoulder, then back at Katharine. His disheveled, strawberry blond hair fell over his eyes, and he shook it away. He shifted from one work boot-clad foot to the other and scratched the small, stubble-free circle on his chin. His mouth opened and closed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, but no sound came out. It seemed he had more to say but hadn’t yet worked out what it was.

Katharine had all she could take, so with a terse smile, she stepped back into the safe confines of her home and began to close her door on the lanky man. She ignored Brandon’s attempt to step forward, and the envelope he held up. The second before the door clicked shut, a loud motorized whine ripped through the quiet. Katharine whipped the door open again and sprang through the frame, nearly knocking Brandon over.

“What is that? What the hell is that?”

“That’s what I was trying to warn you,” he yelled over the noise. “He, uh, he’s clearing the overgrowth on Mr. uh, Genoma’s property. They’re gonna fix up his house.”

“Fix his house?”

Brandon shrugged and backed his way off Katharine’s front porch, dropping the envelope as he did. “Sorry, Mrs.—I mean Miss Evans, I don’t know anything more. You’ll have to ask him, I guess.”

Katharine grabbed the dirt-streaked paper from the porch, turned on her heel, and stomped back inside, slamming the door against Brandon’s apologies. She ripped the seal open, muttering to herself the whole time. “T.V. guy. House fixer-upper. Overgrowth. Give me… a break.” Then she quickly unfolded and read—or rather skimmed—the notice inside.

The date in the corner told her it had been hand-delivered several weeks ago and stated the intentions of DGTV to film an episode of one of their reality shows in the neighborhood. Why it was in the hands of her handyman, she had no idea. At the very end of the notice, it stated that—if she had a complaint to file— she had ten days to do so. That would have been two weeks ago. She was out of luck.

We’ll see about that.

She pulled on her garden boots as she grumbled, not caring if she was still in her pajama shorts. Or that her off-the-shoulder t-shirt practically screamed ‘I heart the eighties.’ Then she threw her long hair in a quick, high pony-tail. A fast glance in the hall mirror told her she looked like she was a thirty-four-year-old going on fourteen, but she didn’t care. There was no way she could work with that kind of racket going on.

“It’s not even eight in the morning. This is not happening. Not today, damn it. No way, buddy. No way.” She was out the door and stomping across her lawn in a flash, muttering and swearing the whole way. Brandon had busied himself at the lilac bushes, giving surreptitious side glances at her as she stormed past. He knew better than to say anything more. She was terrifying for such a tiny woman.

Katharine shoved her way through the deer-sized opening between the two yards. Once through to old man Genoma’s side, she began to look for the source of the horrible noise. The front lawn—if that’s what it could be called—halted her. It had at least a full summer’s worth of tall, dry grass. Car skeletons and old tires littered the ground like a forgotten graveyard. A moss-covered birdbath leaned against a rusted metal ladder like two drunks in a bar. There was an ancient looking lawnmower at the edge of the cracked asphalt driveway where it had likely died on the spot. The house itself—once a charming bungalow like hers—was weather worn and sagging. A long strip of rusted aluminum gutter had pulled away from the roof and hung at a jaunty angle. One distressed, barn-red shutter dangled beside a cardboard blocked window. Like everything else, they were faded by sun and neglect.

Katharine shook her head in disbelief. She knew it was run down six years ago—when she and the old man had their one and only run in—but it had gotten much worse since. Like Katharine’s house, Genoma’s home was set way back from their narrow, winding road. Tall evergreens and thick bushes blocked all but the sudden opening of the driveway, which curved in a way that made it near impossible for a passerby to casually see in. To view more than a sliver of property, you would have to pull into the drive and follow the bend. It was precisely why Katharine had fallen in love with her own house the first time she looked at it with the realtor.

“Wow, Genoma. This is bad,” she whispered.

The clamor of machinery had momentarily stopped, and male voices volleyed back and forth from the backyard. Katharine followed the sounds, taking cautious steps over and around the debris, thankful she’d worn her boots. There were several fresh, deep tire tracks in the trampled grass alongside the house, leading her into the back. Katharine stopped short at the sight that met her when she rounded the bend. A television crew, excavation machinery and a dozen or so of workboot and helmet-clad men milled about. A few had chainsaws, two had large video cameras, and others had clipboards. They were all taking orders and instruction from a man in an old baseball cap and faded blue jeans. He leaned casually against a large, mustard-yellow piece of equipment, gesturing at various points around the yard.

The moment Katharine’s eyes alighted on the man in the baseball cap, she trudged over to him, determined to put a stop to the ruckus. She ignored the stares and a couple of low whistles aimed in her direction, keeping her eyes on the target. A voice in her head spoke unbidden.

Hello, Mr. Nice Jeans. She shook her head against it. Nope.

By the time she reached him, he’d already climbed back into the cab of the yellow beast and had started it up. It roared to life, setting her teeth on edge.

“Hey!” Katharine’s voice broke as she called out. She didn’t have the kind of voice meant for yelling. It had a rasp to it and was a little on the low side. It embarrassed her growing up with a voice like that. People always laughed a little and made comments like, ‘what’s a dainty thing like you doing with that voice?’ As if she’d had a say in the matter. It was no surprise the man in the baseball cap could neither hear nor see her. She tried again, twice more. Katharine looked around. No one seemed to be paying the slightest bit of attention to her now. Frustrated, Katharine grabbed the first thing her eyes landed on—a filthy, deflated soccer ball—and whipped it at his leg. It whopped him on the side of the head. He threw his hand up in surprise and looked for the source of the projectile. When his eyes met hers, her heart did the cliched somersault. They were cornflower blue and seemed to look right inside her. Cornflower blue? Wow, how lame. Some writer you are. Oh, my God, he’s good looking. Stop staring, you dummy.

Without taking his eyes away from Katharine, he turned off the machine, then turned in his seat to face her. The crew stood mostly silent but for a handful of guffaws and amused calls of, ‘uh-oh, Mitch.’ He shushed them with a wave of his hand. Still, his twinkling eyes stayed locked on Katharine’s green ones.

“Did you just throw—a soccer ball at my head?” Instead of being angry, he looked amused. A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth, causing the dimple in his cheek to deepen. His ridiculously swoon-worthy eyes crinkled at the edges. Katharine was momentarily dumbstruck.

Rugged. That’s the word for Mr. Nice Jeans. Get ahold of yourself. He’s the reason you’re not working on your book right now, remember?

“I—no. Well, yes. I was aiming for your leg, though.”

“Oh. I see. And…why were you aiming for my leg, may I ask?”

A short guy wearing his baseball cap backward and his well-worn Boston Red Sox t-shirt untucked came around from behind Katharine with a large camera perched on his shoulder. He turned his round lens in her face. He grinned and chomped his gum and rolled his hand at her. She stared at him. He yanked his head back, away from the eyepiece and mouthed, ‘keep talking.’

“What? I—get that thing off me, will you?” To the man in the machine, “Can you tell him to get lost please?”

“Sam, buddy, back it up a bit, will ya?” He turned back to Katharine. “Okay, lady. We’re on a time schedule here. What can I do for you, hmm? Do you want an autograph?”

“A—an autograph? What? No, I—”

“Yo, Eddie, get this lovely lady a promo cap,” he called over her head.

“I don’t want an autograph, I want you to stop this racket. Now.”

“Stop? I don’t—” He paused, and gave her a harder look, then he slapped his knee and wagged a finger at her, squinting a little. “Ohhh, you’re the mean neighbor lady, aren’t you?”

“Mean neighbor lady? Me? Mean? I beg your pardon!” Katharine was mortified. And furious. Her, mean? And did she actually say, ‘I beg your pardon’?

“Are you the one next door? With the fortress of Arborvitaes? And No Trespassing signs every three feet?”

Katharine crossed her arms in front of her chest and cut her eyes away. Then she thrust her chin and arched her eyebrow at him. “So, it’s ‘mean’ to appreciate privacy, now? Great. In that case, fine. Yes, I’m the mean neighbor lady, and I am trying to work over at my mean neighbor lady house, so if you could save the noise for, oh, I don’t know… never? That’d be great, thanks.”

From up on his steel perch, he looked at her in disbelief. Then he lifted his cap off his head and raked back his wavy dark hair. She could see it was peppered with grey, more so at the temples. Her favorite look. Distinguished.

Oh, my God, stop focusing on his looks.

“Let me get this straight, sweetheart. You want an entire construction and production company—ones which are not on your property—to stop labor because you’re trying to work? Is that what you’re saying to me?”

He climbed out of the cab and hopped down in two swift moves and strode towards her. The smirky grin hadn’t left his lips, but his eyes took on a steely glint. She put her hands on her hips and widened her stance. Katharine was not going to be intimidated by this six-foot-tall, solid hunk of a man.

Ugh, you just thought of him as a ‘hunk of a man.’ Stop it, Katharine. You write teen romance, not live it.

When he stopped mere inches from her, Katharine had to crane her neck. It was impossible not to notice that he towered over her. He lowered his voice so only she could hear. Well, she and the steadily inching forward cameraman, that is.

“Lady, I don’t know what it is you’re working on, but what I’m working on is keeping a crew of thirty men in business. I’m working on a remodel that’s going to change a young couple’s life for the better. I’m working on making my living, too. So, I do apologize if that conflicts with your plans, but I’m afraid it’s not on my list of priorities today. You had a chance weeks ago to lodge a complaint. No one did. Now, if there’s nothing else I can do for you here, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Unless you’d like a hard hat and a chainsaw, that is?”

Katharine’s hands dropped to her sides and balled into two small, tight fists. She set her full mouth in a hard line and slit her eyes up at him. “Well, if that wasn’t the most backhanded apology I’ve ever heard! You know what? Thanks for nothing.” Katharine began to walk away, then turned and marched back. “No, that’s not true. Thanks for ruining my day and for likely causing me to lose my advance, too.” His insipid expression infuriated her even more, but all she could think to say was, “Keep your stupid chainsaw and your ugly hardhat and have fun on your obnoxious excavator.”

Katharine gave him a mirthless, tight smile. He took a step toward her, but she turned quickly—flicking her ponytail in his face—and stomped away, back towards the front of the house.

“You’re welcome! Oh, and it’s a bulldozer,” he called after her.

She spun around as best she could in her garden boots and glared. “What?”

“It’s a bulldozer. Not an excavator. In case you wanted to know. And my name’s Mitch, by the way.”

The smirk was back on his lips. Katharine threw her hands out and narrowed her eyes at him again, then shook her head.

“I don’t care what it—or you—are called. Goodbye!” Katharine took several steps backward as she spoke. It was a poor choice considering the state of the yard. One moment Katharine was upright, and the next she was staring up at the blue sky from ground level, the wind knocked out of her. She’d stepped back into a deep rut, no doubt caused by the ginormous tires on the stupid machine. There was no way to save face. Now the only thing rivaling Katharine’s outrage was mortification. Mitch strode over to her with an air of forbearance as if she’d fallen on purpose. She warded off the outstretched hand and righted herself with as much dignity as she could muster.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Katharine hissed through gritted teeth. She wasn’t fine, her insides were jangled up and she’d barely gotten her breath back. Knowing full well she was covered in dirt, she held her head high and tramped away, ignoring the sharp pain in her diaphragm as best she could. This time she watched where she was walking. She also suspected that Mitch’s eyes—and at least half the crews’ eyes—were still on her. He confirmed her suspicion when he called out once more to her.

“Bye, now! Have a great day! Oh, hey…” His sharp call didn’t garnish even a pause in her step. She refused to reply.

***

Mitch Ford bent down and retrieved a rectangular object from the rut where Katharine had fallen. He brushed the dirt off a pink phone case, which caused the screen to illuminate. “Katharine Evans, hmm? Okay, Ms. Evans, looks like I’ll be seeing you again, won’t I?”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this sneak peek at The Writer’s Romance. The story is set in the real-life town of East Hampton, Connecticut and features several of the town’s local attractions. Here are some more fun facts about the book: