Page 51 of Brian and Cora
Her face lit up with interest. "How fascinating! I'd love to read it when you're finished." She lowered herself into the other wing chair.
"No." The refusal came out sharper than Brian intended. At her hurt expression, he forced himself to explain. "It's not just facts. There are... private thoughts. Feelings." The admission made him want to squirm worse than his aching leg.
“I understand,” she said stiffly.
"I plan to use some of the material for an adventure book,” he rushed out, trying to make amends. “You can read that when it's published."
"Oh." She glanced toward his bookshelf and wrinkled her nose. "Like those dime novels?"
Something in her tone—a subtle disdain that painfully reminded him of his father—made his jaw clench. He inhaled and exhaled, striving for patience. "Exactly like those 'lowly' books that entertain thousands of readers who can't afford or aren’t interested in leather-bound volumes of poetry."
Pink stained her cheeks. "I didn't say they were lowly."
"You didn't have to."
She pressed her lips together, apparently unable to disagree.
He gestured toward the shelf. "I challenge you to read one before you judge the genre. Start with The Robber and the Robber Baron. Or read any of them."
Her chin lifted in that stubborn way he was beginning to recognize. "Fine. I accept your challenge."
"Fine,” he ground out.
They glared at each other, before Cora stood abruptly and marched the few steps to the bookshelf. She pulled out thenearest one of his books and glanced at the cover. With a little gasp, she looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. “You wrote this?”
“And nine others,” he said coldly. “That one’s my best seller.”
She gave him a stilted nod. "I'll be in my room if you need anything."
"I won't."
The stiff-backed march continued into the bedroom. She closed the door behind her with a firm click that wasn't quite a slam.
Brian stared at the closed door, irritation and something that might have been disappointment warring in his chest. He'd hoped she’d be different from the literary snobs who looked down their noses at popular fiction or, at least, his brand of popular fiction. Apparently, he'd been wrong.
With effort, he forced himself to put the annoying woman out of his head. Instead, he opened the lap desk for ink and the pen, and then closed the top, positioning his journal for the most comfortable writing position.
He picked up the pen, thought back to the morning of the Harvest Festival, dipped the pen into the inkwell, and began to write. For the first time in months, the words flowed.
Hours later,Cora turned the final page of The Robber and the Robber Baron. She carefully closed the book, her mind reeling. She'd been wrong. Completely, utterly, embarrassingly wrong.
She'd started reading with the intention of skimming through quickly, just enough to satisfy Brian's challenge. But from the first page, Jack Stone's adventure gripped her, pulling her into the story. The vivid descriptions of the Montanalandscape, the complex villain who wasn't entirely evil, the hero who wasn't entirely good, the relationship between Jack and his horse that brought tears to her eyes when the animal was injured, was nothing like what she'd expected.
Glancing at the window, she was shocked to see the sun low in the sky. She'd been reading almost all day, only emerging to prepare meals and clean up after them. Even then, she'd eaten mechanically, her mind still lost in Jack's world. Back in her room, lying on the bed, the waning sunlight hadn’t been enough to make her stop. She should have lit her bedside lamp. Good way to ruin my vision.
Unexpected tears pricked her eyes, a complex roiling of multiple emotions. How moved she was by the story. So much so, that she hadn’t wanted it to end. How dismissive she’d been to Brian about his novels. How ashamed she felt for criticizing his work and his dream, when she knew all too well how horrible it felt for people to do the same to hers.
On the other side of the door, Cora imagined she could hear the steady scratch of Brian's pen. He'd been writing with the same focused intensity she'd shown while reading, referring frequently to the notebook. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other in the intervening time, preserving a cold silence.
I need to apologize. The thought made her stomach knot. He'd crow over her, no doubt. Make some cutting remark about literary snobs getting their comeuppance. She deserved his censure, but that didn't make the prospect of saying so any more pleasant.
Taking a deep breath, Cora rose from the bed and straightened her skirts. Somewhere, along the way, she’d removed her boots. Looking down at her stocking feet, she debated about donning them again. Ladies didn’t go about in stocking feet, especially around gentlemen who weren’t their relatives. But this lady can’t muster up the energy.
Holding the book to her chest, Cora opened her door and stepped into the main room.
Brian looked up from his writing, his expression guarded.
Sassy Girl rose and ambled over to sniff her skirt.
