Page 28 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage
Bronte froze. “You’re doing what?” The microwave dinged.
“Can you pass me that butter?”
Using the sleeve of her sweatshirt as an oven mitt, Bronte pulled the bowl from the microwave and set it next to Jonah on the counter. “So, if you think the story would be so much better with a happy ending, do tell, how would you finish it?”
“I think for this last book, you need lots of romance. Throw your readers for a loop. They always say real life makes the best stories?—”
Bronte shot Jonah a look. That was what she’d been trying to tell him.
“—but I say the best stories just emulate real life. Always better with a little bit of spice.”
Bronte choked. “Spice? I draw the line at spice. I don’t write those kinds of books.”
“I was talking about the cookies.” Jonah bit back a smile. “Can you grab the cinnamon? Should be in the cabinet next to the stove.”
“Fine.” She handed him the jar of cinnamon and plopped back down on the barstool, watching Jonah work. “And what do you mean by lots of romance? My books have romance.”
“Meh.” Jonah shrugged.
“What? They do!” Bronte insisted.
“Your books have a guy and a girl that kiss, maybe, but they either aren’t together or don’t seem happy in the end. A kiss doesn’t necessarily mean you have romance.” He pointed the whisk in her direction, a glob of cookie batter plopping onto the counter. “You’ve got to think about it likeRogue One. It had all the romance, all the feels, and they didn’t even kiss! You need to put feeling into your scenes.”
“My scenes have feeling,” Bronte muttered as she tore a napkin into strips.
Fifteen minutes later, all talk of “spice” and “happy endings” had ceased as, apparently, Jonah had somehow pulled Bronte into helping him make cookies—enough for an entire army, from the looks of the kitchen.
They’d started with chocolate chip, Jonah’s grandmother’s famous recipe—so famous he wouldn’t even let Bronte read the recipe card. After chocolate chip, they’d moved on to sugar cookies (which Jonah had promised they could decorate), and now they were making thumbprint cookies, which Bronte had decided may be her favorite.
The last batch in the oven, Bronte plopped onto the couch, a plate of fresh cookies in front of her. Jonah joined her, grabbing a cookie off the plate and turning the television on.
“So, my sister has this thing where she watches Christmas movies from Thanksgiving until New Year’s.”
“Shouldn’t she stop at Christmas?”
Jonah gave Bronte a pointed look. “I’ll let you have that conversation with my sister when you meet her.”
Bronte’s heart did a little flutter.Stop it, heart. You don’t flutter.Brad had taken all the flutterings with him when he’d told her she wasn’t enough. Or was too much. He had said both in the mighty speech that he’d declared had taken him days to write and hurt him more than it’d hurt her.
Hardly.
It hadn’t taken him that long to move on either, it would seem. She shook thoughts of Brad from her head, instead focusing on the overwhelming scent of sugar from the plate in front of her. No, she decided, the flutterings must be guilt over not working on her book. Or thinking that she’d be stuck in this house until the rest of Jonah’s family came home.
But would that be so terrible?
Yes! Yes, it would be terrible.She had a book to write. She wasn’t here for fun.
“Hey. Where’d you just go?”
Bronte blinked. “What? I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m right here.” The way Jonah was looking at her made her stomach dip. Bronte wanted to roll her eyes at her reaction, ignoring the fact that Brad had never looked at her like that. Never once in the six years they had been together.
“You’re here, sure, but your eyes did that glazing over thing where you weren’t exactlyhere.”
“I was just thinking that I really need to get that book written.”
“You’ll get it written.” Jonah sounded so sure.
Bronte hated the confidence in his voice. Confidence she didn’t have. Didn’t feel.
