Page 18 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage
Bronte snorted.
“What?”
“Everyone likes Sanderson.”
Jonah shrugged. “Be that as it may, I still enjoy his writing. He’s created an epic world that you can escape to, and what is reading but a good escape?” Jonah picked up his phone, scrolling to the eReader shop app. “What did you say the first title in your series is?”
“I didn’t.” Bronte’s eyes sparkled over her mug as she took another drink of tea. Jonah didn’t think she was going to tell him, and he was going to have to search through all the “Bronte” hits the store app gave him when she finally saidColor of the Stars.
Jonah’s mouth dropped open, and he let his phone drop to the table. “You’re B.L. Parker? I’ve read that one, and I saw the movie.”
“Really? And what did you think?”
He paused. “I hated it.”
“Oh.” Bronte’s face fell.
“Sorry, going on, like, an hour of sleep. No filter.”
“It’s fine. No worries.”
“No, it’s not fine.” The way her shoulders drooped, her mouth turned down—he’d insulted her. Maybe even hurt her feelings. The last thing he’d wanted to do. “Don’t get me wrong. The writing was amazing, but the story was just so…” Jonah trailed off, the word not coming to him.
“Long?” Bronte tried.
Her books, at over seven hundred pages each, were long. But that wasn’t it. “No.”
“Stupid?”
“Definitely not.” He’d only known her for a few hours, but he could see the intelligence snapping behind those big gray eyes.
“Unbelievable?”
“No. Just…sad.” It was a simple word, but it was the one that came to him. “I found the story really sad.”
Bronte scoffed. “It’s real life, Jonah, and most of the time, real life is sad.”
What had happened to this woman that she believedthat? “It’s okay for books to not always reflect real life. In fact, I prefer them to be happy.”
“Well, you read rom-com.” Bronte nodded at the book face up on the table. “They say write what you know, so I did.”
Had someone hurt her? A surge of protectiveness washed over him. “Bronte?—”
Bronte’s eyes flashed to him, and he could be mistaken, but there may have been tears in them. A blink later, they cleared. “Enough about me and myboring, sadbooks. What about you? What do you do? Martha called you Major? That’s Army, right?”
“Correct. I’m a surgeon.”
“Wow. I bet that’s exciting. You mentioned being in a different time zone. Where are you stationed?”
“Germany. Have you ever been?”
Bronte’s eyes brightened. “It’s on my bucket list. The closest I’ve ever been to Germany is the Munich airport for a layover. I promised myself I would make it back there one day.”
“You should. It’s a beautiful country.” But even with it being a beautiful country, it didn’t compare to Jonathon Island and the life Jonah wanted to build here.
“So, how long have you been a surgeon?”
“About ten years.” Jonah took a sip of his coffee, gaze drifting to the backyard. “Feels longer though.”
