Page 177 of Secret Shifters Next Door

DETECTIVE WOLF NEXT DOOR

MILES AND CELINA

Help—my new neighbor is dangerously hot and I think he might bite…

My publisher thinks that the small, quiet town of Lily Valley is the perfect place to cure my writer’s block. But even she couldn’t have known about the real-life alpha hero living right across the hall.

Miles is like a character straight from the pages of one of my romance novels. Tall, dark, and mysterious, the private investigator is built to perfection. He’s gruff and obviously the strong, silent type, and I know an innocent virgin like me is way out of his league. It doesn’t stop me from trying to seduce him, though. At first, he seems reluctant to get to know me, but when circumstances throw us together, I learn that he has a protectivestreak. And for reasons I don’t yet understand, he thinks I’m in danger.

I’m beginning to wonder if Miles could be my chance for a real-life happily ever after. Unless he turns out to be someone I don’t expect…

ONE

CELINA

The cursor on the screen flashed over and over again, mocking me, blinking like some sadistic spirit, reveling in my misery. With a glance at my clock, I realized I’d been sitting in front of my laptop for over an hour. One whole hour, and not a single word written. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d never had writer’s block before. Since I started writing as a kid, the words always seemed to flow out of me. In fact, I’d always had a hard time keeping the words in.

Pushing away from my desk, I stood and paced around the room, glancing at my computer every few seconds. I kept trying to come up with an idea, a hook, a twist—a freaking sentence. It had been going on for days, and it was frustrating me to no end. My deadline was looming, and I was worried I wouldn’t finish the book in time. I’d never missed a deadline in my entire career. Usually, I turned in a manuscript weeks before the final date. So, to say that was weird and disappointing was an understatement.

My outline was good, and my mind had only been on this story for the past month. Now, I couldn’t even get a single word onto the page. The manuscript was waiting for me, but my head seemed to be somewhere else. Where that place was, I didn’t know.

Almost as though she could read my mind and sense my disquiet, my agent Tiffany called. Standing there, I stared at my phone on the table as it rang and contemplated not answering. The problem was that Tiffany knew me too well. I was kind of a recluse. Well…I guess I was a recluse. A twenty-eight-year-old spinster cat-lady without any cats. I was almost always home working, and Tiffany knew that. If I didn’t answer, she’d probably think I had a damned stroke or something. She’d call an ambulance, it would be a whole deal, and I’d be mortified. Shit.

I picked the phone up and answered. “This is Celina.”

“Hey, chick. How’s the book coming? I wanted to do my weekly check-in,” Tiffany said, almost too cheerily.

I sighed and glanced out the window at the brown leaves blowing across the yard. November was in full effect. “It’s…well…not great, actually.”

There was a long pause before Tiffany spoke again. “You’ve got writer’s block? You?”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Great, even Tiffany thought it was weird. Even though we were on the phone, my cheeks blazed red. I hated discussing personal things—even with friends. Years of bouncing through foster homes had given me plenty of baggage, and this was just another piece of baggage.

“Yeah. I can’t get past this one section. I even tried moving ahead and writing a later scene, but I couldn’t come up with anything. It’s kinda crazy, actually. I don’t know what’s up,” I explained.

“Listen, I know how it is. Most of my other clients have dealt with it in the past. You are the exception to the rule. It was bound to happen at some point. Don’t get too much in your head about it. Honestly, you’ve been prolific. You’ve written twice as much as any other author. Don’t sweat it.”

“Okay, well, tell me what your other clients did to get over the hump, or through the forest, or whatever cliché works best in this situation.”

Tiffany laughed. “You aren’t gonna like it. Almost all of them have said the same thing.”

My stomach dropped. I took a breath and asked, “What’s their secret?”

“They all got away for a while. Closed their laptop, stepped away from the typewriter as if they were really old school, and took a week or two away. Cleared their head. Cancun, Bahamas, Paris. Mountain retreat, beach vacay, Las Vegas debauchery. Whatever the heart needs to get the head back on track.”

The thought filled me with trepidation. I wasn’t a traveler by nature. The thought of going to any of the places Tiffany mentioned didn’t really appeal to me. Beaches meant people, lots of people. The same for Paris or Vegas. If I did go somewhere, I liked the idea of quiet. Someplace where I could, maybe, get my act together and get back to work.

Tiffany went on. “Listen, Celina, I’ll call the publisher. We’ll get the deadline pushed back a few months. You’ve busted your ass for them for years. They can give you a little leeway on this one. Figure out where you want to go for your getaway and let me know. A month? Maybe even two? You are way past due for a vacation.”

“Vacation?” I laughed. “What’s that?”

“For real? Girl, you need to get out there and live. When’s the last time you had a nice, hot one-night stand?”

My face went red again, and this time my ears burned. I quickly changed the subject. “You’re right. It’s time to get away. I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“Okay, I’ll call the publisher and let them know. Don’t worry about that. I'll punch 'em in the balls if they give me any lip about it.”

Smiling, I ended the call. Then, exactly as Tiffany said, I closed my laptop. The sound of it clicking closed was, surprisingly, cathartic. I sank onto the couch to try and figure out where I wanted to go. The usual vacation spots were out. I really just wanted somewhere I could relax. Somewhere quiet and calm. Twenty minutes of surfing the web on my phone for vacation sites and vacation rentals didn’t help. Finally, I got up and went to the large, detailed map of the United States on my wall. I used it when I was plotting out a new book to make sure which state was where and what city was in what part of the state—stuff like that.

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