How had she let herself believe that, for once, Greg wasn’t exaggerating?
Because she’d needed to believe. She’d needed a change, and after he’d cleaned out their joint bank accounts, this had seemed the best choice left her.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Lucy piped up from the back.
So was she, and it appeared they had a grand total of two places to choose from—a diner near the courthouse and a convenience store on the edge of town that sold gas, hunting licenses, hot dogs and sandwiches. She opted for the diner.
Deprived of her DVD player for the walk from their parking space to the diner, Lucy looked around wide-eyed but didn’t comment on the town. Neither did Jayne. She might find it disappointing, but she certainly didn’t want to pass that on to her daughter.
The diner was warm and filled with good smells. Jayne helped Lucy out of her jacket, then slipped off her own before sliding into a booth that fronted the plate-glass window. A twenty-something waitress brought menus and offered a cheery greeting and coffee before leaving again.
“I like Sweetwater,” Lucy announced. “It’s pretty.”
Pretty? Jayne’s gaze darted to the view outside the window. Pretty old. Pretty shabby. It was the sort of place where one of her heroines would end up when everything else in her life had gone to hell and she found herself at rock bottom.
But her life hadn’t gone to hell. It wasn’t as if she had no place else to go. She could have stayed in Chicago. She could have settled anywhere.
But Sweetwater had one advantage over those options—Edna’s house. With no rent or mortgage payments, she’d figured that the savings she’d secreted away would last about eighteen months, barring emergencies, in southeastern Tennessee. That meant no outside job, no trying to work full-time and be a mother full-time and write full-time. She was a fast writer when Greg wasn’t scaring her muse into hiding. In eighteen months she could finish her current book and write two, maybe even three books on a new contract. In eighteen months she could be on her way to getting her career back on track.
That same money wouldn’t carry her through the end of the year in Chicago.
Just that thought gave the town a little brighter gleam.
They ordered hamburgers, and Jayne was all but drooling over the crispy thick-cut fries that came with them when the bell over the door dinged with a new arrival. She looked up to see another young woman, in her early to midtwenties, wearing jeans, a turtleneck under a heavy flannel shirt and boots with thick ridged soles. Despite the lumberjack clothes, there was something amazingly feminine about her, and it had nothing to do with the stylish blond hair or the three pairs of hoops that graced her earlobes.
Sorting through the stack of mail she carried, she called, “I’m back, Carla.”
The waitress appeared in the pass-through window. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s fine.”
“How’s Tyler?”
“Not answering his phone, as usual.”
One of Jayne’s heroines might jump to the conclusion that this lovely woman and Tyler were involved. Truth was, Jayne didn’t care beyond the fact that it would answer her question whether Tyler was antisocial with everyone or just her. Curiosity—that was all it was.
“His new neighbor’s here,” the waitress said with a gesture, and the woman turned to give them a speculative look. After a moment, she started their way.
Jayne dropped her gaze back to her burger. Her sweatshirt was dusty and cobwebby, and she hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning, not when she was still wearing the remnants of yesterday’s application. The last thing she needed was to meet someone who would make her feel dowdy even all dressed up—especially someone who might or might not be romantically involved with her neighbor.
But the woman didn’t detour away. She didn’t stumble and fall flat on her face or disappear into thin air but glided to a stop at the end of their table. “You must be Jayne.”
Jayne smiled politely. “Yes, I am. This is my daughter, Lucy.”
“Hi, Lucy. I’m Rebecca Lewis. I understand you’ve met my brother Tyler.”
That made Jayne feel marginally better. Sisters were less intimidating than girlfriends—no matter that she had zero interest in the man in question.
“What do you think of Sweetwater?”
Jayne glanced out the window, then back at Rebecca. “It’s…different.”
Rebecca showed no offense. “It’s small but boring, which is not always a bad thing. We grew up in Nashville—at least, until Tyler was fourteen and I was nine, when we came here to live with my grandparents. I liked the change.” She pulled a chair from the nearest table and sat down. “I take it you’re…” With a glance at Lucy, she hesitated. “Do you use the D word?”
Lucy seemed preoccupied with driving the ketchup bottle around the table with one hand while eating fries with the other, but she was never really tuned out. She often repeated something overheard during her most oblivious act. For that reason, Jayne had been as honest with her as a five-year-old deserved.
“Yeah. Lucy’s dad and I are divorced.”
“Too bad,” Rebecca said, then shrugged. “Or maybe not. I’ve got a few ex-boyfriends that I was more than happy to see the last of. The rumor mill says you’re a writer.”
“Historical romances.” Jayne was never sure what response that news would bring. There were the inevitable snickers and insults about trashy sex books and bodice rippers—not that one of her characters had ripped a bodice ever in his life—along with polite disinterest. Some people wondered why she didn’t write real books, and some, bless their hearts, were fans of the genre who were tickled to meet a real-life author.
“Really. That’s cool. How many books have you sold?”
“Eight.” Four in the eighteen months before she’d married Greg, and only four more in the following six years. There was a depressing statistic.
“Do you write under your own name?”
“No, I write as…Rochelle Starr.” Jayne hated admitting to her pseudonym. It was so overblown, so fake.
But Rebecca didn’t even blink. Instead she teasingly asked, “So, after selling eight romance novels, do you have any special insight into men?”
She laughed. “Yeah. They’re alien life-forms.”
“Isn’t that truth? So you already know everything you need to get along just fine with my brother.”
Jayne didn’t want to get along with Tyler, other than in a neighborly fashion—and she meant big-city neighborly, where you smiled and waved when you passed, helped each other out in an emergency but otherwise lived separate lives. She wasn’t looking for a man to share her life. She wrote fantasy love stories, and fantasy was one thing she already knew a lot about. She didn’t need living, breathing inspiration.
“Speaking of Tyler, could you save me a trip and give him something for me when you go home?” Rebecca asked.
Jayne’s smile was fixed in place as she gave the only answer she could. “Sure.”
“I’ll get it now.” Rebecca left her seat and disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen.
By the time she returned, Jayne and Lucy were finished with their meals and Jayne had pulled out a twenty to pay the check Carla had delivered. Rebecca brushed it away. “It’s on the house. Consider it our welcome to Sweetwater.”
“Thank you.”
Rebecca set a large brown bag on the table. The top was folded