Luke watched Hayley get into her car at the feed store. He knew she hadn’t seen him, and he could have easily caught her before she drove away, but he held back. He didn’t know why; well, he did know actually, he just found it difficult to admit it to himself. She scared the hell out of him. Not her exactly, more the things she brought out in him. This whole Jane and Edward scenario had rattled him more than he cared to admit.
He’d lived with his gran long enough to have worked out how to switch off from all her talk, and while they were mostly a family of sceptics, even he couldn’t deny that Gran did have an uncanny record of predicting things. She’d come to accept her family was pretty much unappreciative of her particular skill set and rarely offered to read their cards anymore, but other people had no such qualms and at one time she’d had quite a successful sideline business.
But there were still times when, try as he might not to, he remembered being a kid and sitting on his gran’s lap, listening to her tell him stories of people from another age who had seemed so familiar and alive to him. His arms prickled and he gave a small shiver. He worried that, with Hayley talking about some kind of connection to Edward and Jane, he was starting to lose his tight grip on his inner sceptic.
He didn’t want to be a crazy person, and he sure as hell didn’t want the woman he loved being one either. For a moment it didn’t register what he’d just admitted. Until it did. He stared out the front windscreen without actually seeing anything. The woman he loved? He barely knew her. And yet he felt as though they’d known each other forever. They had a chemistry, and when he was with her he knew he could just be himself. She wasn’t judging him or wanting him to be someone different. Hayley didn’t care about impressing people or fitting into a social clique. And she’d actually chosen to move to the country. A memory of the shower incident made him give a low snort. What a freakin’ circus that had been. He shook his head, but couldn’t help but grin at the memory. She was funny and independent and she had a good heart—the woman was damn near perfect. Except for this whole vision thing she had going on. He sighed and tipped his head back against the headrest. He needed time to work his feelings out. Work out how to put all the freaky shit back into its box and bury it.
He saw Hayley drive away and took the keys out of the ignition before pushing his door open. Then maybe he’d be able to deal with starting a new relationship.
‘Morning.’
Hayley was sitting at the table under the tree, her head dropped on top of her folded arms, trying to decide if she wanted to cry or scream.
She lifted her head and watched as Jason came to a stop beside her.
‘Wow, you look like crap. Rough night?’ he asked.
‘Gee, thanks,’ Hayley said, running her hand through her hair. In her defence, she hadn’t been expecting visitors, so she hadn’t bothered putting on makeup or brushing her hair.
‘What’s going on?’ Jason asked. Obviously he wasn’t going to apologise for turning up unannounced.
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing is going on,’ Hayley said, reaching over and closing the lid of her laptop and giving it a hard glare.
‘Writing still not going well then?’
‘Not going well would imply that it had at some point been actually going. I don’t get it—I can write a whole book in less than a month when I’m not supposed to, but try to write a book I need to…’ she threw up her hands. ‘It’s beyond ridiculous.’
‘I take it this has never happened before.’
‘Never. I write every day—religiously. I’ve never had writer’s block stop me like this before.’
‘Maybe it’s not writer’s block,’ he shrugged.
Hayley glanced across at him. ‘Then what is it?’
‘Wouldn’t have a clue, but it seems to be all in your head—so maybe its psychological.’
‘Like I’m going crazy?’ she said dryly.
He gave a small twitch of his lips. ‘Like maybe you’ve got a lot on your mind.’
Well, that was true, she supposed. But then again it wasn’t the first time she’d had stuff on her mind. ‘I’ve got a deadline and I’m seriously beginning to think I’m not going to make it.’
‘What’s this book you wrote that you weren’t supposed to?’
Hayley groaned. ‘It’s nothing. It’s just some weird historical thing set in early colonial days…’
‘Can’t you send them that?’
‘I don’t think my publisher would look at a historical. I write crime and butt-kicking type stuff.’
‘Butt-kicking and crime type stuff can’t happen in historicals?’
‘No, see, my main character is an ex-detective and…’ Hayley stopped. What if she wrote Jane and Edward’s story into the background of that new book? It certainly had crime, well, a murder at least…Maybe she could write a parallel story set in the past that could work alongside Chance’s contemporary storyline of a murder committed by an abused woman…that was certainly up Chase’s alley. Discovering a long-forgotten murder by a wrongly accused convict woman…fighting for an underdog. The more she thought about it, the more ideas began to unfold in her mind. She could then link the real story to a blog on her webpage so anyone interested could read more about the lives of Jane and Edward. The true story behind the fictional one. It was as though someone had cut a tight length of twine that had been wrapped around her inspiration and suddenly it all sprang free.
‘You’re a genius, Jason Weaver,’ she said, feeling a grin stretch across her face as she reached for the computer. ‘I’ve just got to jot down some ideas before I forget them. I won’t be a sec,’ she said, and her hands began flying across the keyboard at lightning speed.
‘I don’t know how I helped, but, okay, knock yourself out. I’m just here to get a few more measurements so I can make up the quote for the new accommodation.’
‘Sure, fine, go for it,’ Hayley said without looking up. She didn’t hear him leave and she didn’t see him return until he called out on his way past.
‘I’ll drop by later with the quote,’ he said.
Hayley lifted her hand to wave in his general direction, but she dared not stop in case this flood of creativity dried up again.
When at last her hands began to cramp and her back started to ache, Hayley stretched in her seat and stared at the screen before her. She’d gone back and begun filling in between Jane’s story with Chance’s new storyline. It was after lunch, which would explain her cramped fingers. She was impressed with how much she’d achieved. It never ceased to amaze her how ideas went from a vague notion in her mind to something tangible on paper. It was a complicated process to get to the final product, but the hardest part of it all was cultivating the seed of an idea to start with. After that, everything usually flowed.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed something to eat, then continued working long into the early hours of the morning.