Page 6 of Merry Mended Hearts

I wondered if it was any good.

This woman and I were what Anne Shirley would call “Kindred Spirits.” The fact that she loved reading made us instant buddies.

“Excuse me?” I said, knowing the atrocity it was to interrupt someone in the middle of the pages.

The receptionist lowered her book. To her credit, she didn’t glower at me, but smiled. Something told me she had sunshine in her DNA.

“Still here?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m still here. I wondered…”

“I’m Juniper Harper,” she said. “My parents own this place, and I go by Junie since the double ‘pers’ in my name sound weird.”

Fair enough. I liked this quirk about her.

“Hi, Junie. I’m—well, I guess you already know my name.”

“Any luck finding somewhere to stay?” Junie asked.

“No. That’s what I wanted to ask. Is there any transportation back down the mountain? Anywhere else you know of? It’s getting dark…super early, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Junie said. “It does that here. Northern Montana. We’re about twenty minutes from the Canadian border.”

“That close?”

“America’s North Pole,” she said.

The perfect destination for a Christmas writing retreat. No interruptions. Just seclusion to inspire me to create the perfect story.

Sigh. Goodbye, perfect story. Goodbye, hopes and dreams.

After my most recent rejection from yet another agent, I wasn’t sure I could take any more. I’d poured my heart and soul into that book. I’d edited, cut words, added more, and tweaked it so much that if my manuscript had been made of fabric, it would have had more random scraps than a patchwork quilt.

Even still, I’d been proud of that book. How could they have turned it down?

I’d been so distraught. One or two rejections had been hard enough, but I’d sent it to over a hundred agents. And every single one of them said no.

It was hard not to take that as a reflection of my own shortcomings. Like even after all that hard work,Iwas the reject.

Junie was still watching me.

“I’m not sure where to go at this point,” I told her. “I’m feeling a little antsy. According to the gift shop in West Hills, there’s no shuttle coming up here again tonight, and I can’t really sleep out in the snow.”

I started feeling more uneasy the longer I spoke, so I stopped.

“Where are you from?” Junie asked.

“Scottsdale, Arizona.”

Her mouth twisted in concern. “That’s far.”

“Yeah. I flew all the way here thinking I’d have a room. Anything you can do would really help me out.”

Junie placed a piece of paper in the fold of her book and set it on the counter. She chewed her lip.

“I don’t know…”

“Please,” I said, fully realizing how desperate I sounded. “Unless you’ll relent and let me sleep on your couch in there until I can book a flight home tomorrow, I havenowhereelse to go.”

---