said the w word. If you’re not prepared to take him it’s best to spell. W-a-l-k.” There was amusement in his eyes. “There’s very little he likes better. Except maybe raw hamburger. But the w is in his top two.”
“Sorry. I won’t make that mistake again.” She headed for the door, wincing at the sounds of doggy protest behind her.
After going outside, the yelping got worse as she hurried down the stairs. Moments later she heard the door open and in seconds the dog was happily dancing at her feet. He ran several yards away then came back, repeating the exercise several more times.
“You’re not subtle, Harley.” She looked at Jack, who’d come up beside her. “Neither are you.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Miss Riley.”
Instead of rising to the bait, she decided to comment on the fact that it wasn’t his usual time to walk and he’d given in to Harley. “You know you’re spoiling that dog.”
He met her gaze and shrugged. He was either avoiding work or didn’t care. “Harley, walk.”
Jack started after the dog, who instantly ran down the path that skirted the lake. She stared at his back, the man’s, admiring his broad shoulders and muscular back that tapered to a trim waist and really nice butt, wrapped with just the perfect amount of snugness in worn denim. How the heck had those two hijacked her walk?
She could go in the opposite direction but since the whole purpose of her being here was to get his book finished, probably talking to him would be a good idea. Even though she was furious.
His long legs had chewed up a fair amount of distance by the time she’d made up her mind and she hurried to catch up. When that happened, she fell into step beside him. Her mind was spinning from his revelation and she needed to organize her thoughts. If she’d been alone that wouldn’t be a challenge, but the manly scent of his skin combined with the smell of pine effectively made thinking difficult.
Apparently Jack didn’t have any thoughts to organize because after a few moments he said, “You’re uncharacteristically quiet.”
“I didn’t think you paid enough attention to me to know what’s characteristic for me.”
“In the army you learn pretty fast that paying attention to your surroundings means survival.”
“And you see me as a threat to that?” She was being petulant. He could just sue her.
“Not my personal safety, no.”
“Then you think your way of life is at risk by my being here? You’re wrong, Jack. I’m only trying to help you.” As they walked she met his gaze and tripped over the uneven ground. Instantly he grabbed her arm to steady her. Being touched by him easily scattered the few thoughts she’d managed to gather. She mumbled under her breath, “Pigheaded...stubborn—”
“Harley—” At his voice, the dog turned and headed back. “I heard that.”
“Ask me if I care.”
“Let me take a wild guess. You’re mad.”
“Give the man a prize.” She refused to look at him and only heard the surprise in his voice. “I am so ticked off. You have wasted so much time. Why in the world didn’t you say something when I first got here? When I tried to have a conversation about what was going on? You had numerous opportunities to come clean, yet you shut me out. Why?”
When Harley sniffed at his boots, Jack squatted down and rubbed his head. He looked up and said, “Because I’m used to being the guy who’s inserted into a hot zone to fix whatever is wrong.”
Holding her breath, Erin waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she figured that was as close as he’d get to admitting he wasn’t used to needing or asking for help. She sensed he almost never did it and the fact that he had took all the irritation out of her. Or maybe she was just a pushover because of her acute attraction to him, but that didn’t change anything. There was a problem and they had to find a way to fix it.
“Okay, we know you can write a successful book. You wrote a bestseller.” She knew she’d hit a nerve when his jaw tensed and a muscle jerked. “There’s no reason you can’t do it again.”
“Says who? Maybe I only had one book in me.” He watched Harley sniff the side of the path then pick up a stick, which he dropped at Jack’s feet. He picked it up and threw it as far as he could.
“Your creativity just needs a jump start.”
He tilted his head and looked at her. “What happened to if you stared at a blank screen long enough you’ll get bored and write something on it?”
“I did say that.” She thought for a moment. “But it helps if you know what you’re going to write.”
He snorted. “Are you going to give me the pantsers-and-plotters speech again?”
“That was a definition, not a speech. But I’ll remind you what I said about talking out the plot. Discussing the hero’s goals. His mind-set since we last saw him.”
“Any thoughts on that?” He all but growled those words, as if his asking-for-assistance muscles were rusty.
“Yes. But feel free to tell me I’m full of it. The point is to toss out ideas and see what feels right in your gut.” She slid her fingertips into the pockets of her jeans. “Mac had no emotional growth in the first book because he went into fight-or-flight mode almost right away.”
“So he’s still aimless.”
“Right. Unless he’s independently wealthy, he has to have been thinking about what he’ll do to support himself since leaving the military.” Her mind was spinning. “Come to think of it, we don’t really know why he left. He was a career soldier and his reasoning could be explored in this book.”
Jack nodded absently. “Yeah.”
That was encouraging, she thought. An affirmative instead of sarcasm. She dipped her toe in a little further. “When we get back, it might help to just talk it through and you could take notes. Or record the conversation if you’d rather. Instead of jumping straight into the writing, you can figure out the inciting incident that sets the story in motion, then some loose turning points as a structure for the story.”
“And tomorrow there will still be a blank screen.”
“Give yourself permission to write badly,” she suggested.
His look was wry. “Yeah, because that’s what I learned in the army. Permission to be a screwup, sir.”
“Maybe it sounds crazy, but you might find it surprisingly freeing.”
“And that’s supposed to be creative?” he asked skeptically.
“Won’t know unless you try.” She thought for a moment. “Some authors start their day by jotting down stream-of-consciousness writing.”
“You mean gibberish?”
“Probably not something you’d publish,” she admitted.
“Then I guess you could say I’ve already done that. The pages you read are unpublishable and probably fall into the stream-of-consciousness category,” he said sarcastically.
“That’s not what I meant. You just write whatever pops into your mind,” she explained.
“Sounds like a waste of time if you ask me.”
“It’s just an exercise.”
Erin glanced up at him and felt a little flutter around her heart, the one that made it hard to take a deep breath. The way his biceps strained against the material of his black T-shirt made her want to touch and find out for herself what they felt like.
It was obvious that Jack was in excellent physical condition, which