RANCHER BEAR’S BABY(87)

Mr. Scott gave me his signature stinky face and wave me away with a gentle flick of his wrist. “Please, return Monday with a more urgent nature, Miss Brooks.”

I thought about correcting him on my name for the one millionth time, but decided it wasn’t worth it. I just wanted to get out of there.

I hurried home to the tiny apartment that Mr. Scott supplied with the job. Once there, I stripped out of my professional clothes and pulled on a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. I had a date with Mr. James Smith and then, later on, with Star.

For the first weekend in forever, I felt almost normal again.





CHAPTER 12: John




I threw the newest draft across the room and felt a little better when it slammed into a lamp and shattered the glass shade. “It’s shit. Fucking hell. I’ve written better things while drunk off of my ass!”

My agent cut me a look. “That lamp was a Tiffany.”

“Look at me, not giving a shit about your lamp. You’ve read what the critics said about the latest book. It was darker, weirder than the rest of the books. They didn’t like it. Now, I’m trying to write something lighter again, but all I want to do is fucking kill off my main character.”

I walked over to the mess I’d made and snatched the draft off the ground. “This draft I wrote in a week. You want to know why? Because it ends at page one hundred with Thomas getting murdered.”

“Well, change it, John. I don’t know what else to tell you. You’re the damn writer.” Mark Stump shook his head. “You used to be a real pleasure to work with. Now, I can’t even have you over without expecting to have to replace something when you leave.”

I headed towards the door with the draft tucked under my arm. “Yeah, well, I’m darker now. Haven’t you heard?”

Without waiting for him to reply, I stormed out of his office and slammed the door behind me. It wasn’t his fault that I was completely stuck in a rut. It was my own. That wasn’t to say that I didn’t have some help getting myself into such a miserable state. I couldn’t stop thinking about one little hellion in particular.

I got in my rented truck and navigated my way through all the convertibles and electric cars that filled the streets. In Wyoming, I usually liked to ride with my windows down, but traffic was shit here and the air just wasn’t the same in LA.

I didn’t even know why I was in LA. I’d been here more times than I could count since Bunny moved. So, maybe I did actually know why I was in LA. I was slowly going insane and all I could think about was the possibility of something happening to her out here while I was in Landing.

It wasn’t healthy. Nothing that I’d been doing was healthy. I never made the effort to contact her because one rejection from my mate was enough, but I liked to make sure she was okay. It was torture, though. She wasn’t aware of it, but I saw her every time I came to LA. Just once. That was all I allowed myself because it felt as tough my heart was being ripped out each time.

Bunny never looked happy. I knew that she couldn’t be. The mate bond kind of took over after a while. Your body craved your mate for survival. Denying yourself time with your mate made it easy to become depressed and lonely.

I’d already made my one visit to see Bunny, so I knew it was time to go home. I wanted to drive by her job again to catch her leaving, but I wouldn’t do it. I saw her once and that was it.

I headed towards the airport and tried my hardest to direct my thoughts to anything else in the world. Nothing had been able to take my mind off of her so far, but I had to keep trying.

I’d spent the first couple of months after leaving Bunny, completely alone. I’d broken it off with Mandy right away and then she’d informed me that she wasn’t leaving my home. I was over it, so I just agreed to whatever she wanted and stayed gone. When I found out they’d moved on, I went back home.

What I found was painful, though. Everything smelled like Bunny. The whole house had her touch, her scent, everywhere. She’d changed the sheets back to my flannel ones and she’d left a note saying I could throw the new ones out if I wanted. It was like she’d rubbed herself against all of my shit.

I’d nearly gone insane after one night, rolling around in her smell, so the next day I opened all of the doors and windows, hoping to get some relief. So far, no relief.

There I was again, headed home to sit in silence with the smell of wild cherries wreaking havoc on my brain and the piece of shit book that I couldn’t seem to figure out. I didn’t know how much longer I could handle this.





*****Bunny*****

I spent the weekend talking to Star and finishing reading the book. I ended up even reading parts of it aloud to her, to her dismay. She just wanted to talk about her new mate and how she couldn’t imagine not being with him for so long, because just the weekend away from him was killing her. She wasn’t exactly the best audience for a girl like me, who was currently suffering.