Rider’s Block

1. Chapter One

Chapter one

“Even if It Breaks Your Heart,” Eli Young Band

“ Y ou’ve never been to Colorado, have you?”

The question comes out in a sigh, as if the last thing in the world my editor wants to do is rock my fragile, fragile ego…but it’s just so bad she has to ask. My book has been denied, again.

“I’ve been to the mountains…” I say, trying to justify that I have, in fact, at least been to the state on a handful of occasions and am not completely inept.

“But you haven’t been to the plains.” It’s a statement, not a question. Sarah, my agent, doesn’t hold back punches…usually. That’s why I trust her. But the way she’s treating me like porcelain doesn’t exactly make me feel all that great.

“Come on, Sarah, just spit it out, it got denied again, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get any indication as to why it wasn’t believable?”

“They said it was missing your usual…heart…behind it…now before you say—”

I cut her off before she correctly predicts my reaction. “That’s ridiculous—”

“Right…but Amelia, I know you wanted to switch genres and try something new, but this one isn’t sticking, it’s just…not…”

My tenth book is a flop. It’s a flop! An absolute dud . Should have retired after nine but I just couldn’t stop. The pure irony here being that I felt like I put most of my heart into this one. To hear this feedback is like issuing a challenge to me. I will get this one published.

“Alright, I’ll talk to you in a bit when I’ve sorted this out. Thanks, Sarah,” I say with a little more bite than intended.

Denied. By fourteen publishers.

All before I’ve had my morning smoothie to boot. A pure romantic would require I down a cup of black coffee as an author, but I need my leafy greens first thing in the morning and I’ve come to terms with that shift in my life. I still take my coffee black, but not first thing in the morning if I can help it. For “gut health.”

Although sipping my smoothie overlooking the ocean doesn’t have the artistry to it, it does feel SoCal, and if that’s the one cliché I fit in, then I guess I’ll accept it. But even my smoothie can’t calm my stomach right now.

Denied fourteen times.

It’s a relentless chant working its way through my brain as I throw on my running shoes and hit the pavement. Early spring means there’s a chill in the air that coasts along the sea breeze, so I add on a sweatshirt knowing I’ll likely shed it after only a few minutes.

Each step shortens the chant simply to “denied…denied…denied” and I call it quits only after a mile when I come across a familiar lookout point with steps down to the sand.

The beach is already crowded. I love people-watching—occupational hazard, duh. But not today. Today everyone just seems a little too loud, a little too fidgety, a little too much for me and my newly fragile ego. Over the years I’ve hardened my ego to a fine point; you can’t receive one star for “too much cussing” and not develop a colorful opinion of people and harden yourself accordingly.

How such a cynical person could ever be known for romance novels is beyond me, but when I put my head down to write my first book, I emerged two weeks later with almost a hundred thousand words. Apparently I had a story that needed to be told, and it just sort of fell out of me.

Because my day job was in marketing I knew I couldn’t just throw a book to the wind and hope to the literary gods that it would do well. I made a plan. I started marketing months in advance and by the time I was ready for release I moved up the ranks to a bestseller list. It was an encouraging enough process that I kept repeating it. A year after releasing my fifth book, I’d accomplished all of my financial goals and thought I could keep writing for fun. For fun.

I thought it’d relieve the pressure so I could really write about what I wanted. I thought it’d give me room to really spend time to massage out a book that actually felt like it meant something.

I thought it’d make my creativity open up now that I was as financially secure as I could ever hope for.

I thought it was time for me to add in some suspense. Some action! Some real meat on the bones.

But nope. I’ve been pinned. I could always write under a pen name, but by now the publishers have already seen the manuscript.

Fuck.

Wave after wave works its way up to high tide and before I know it hours have passed and my stomach is grumbling again, mad at me for neglecting it for so long. I got stuck in my head, sifting through possibilities of what I can do to add more heart to the story. And yeah, I sneer thinking about it.

Stopping at my favorite sandwich shop on the walk back to my house doesn’t do anything to ease my mind. Not even my favorite sprouts sandwich can soften the sting today. I walk up to order, and it’s a gangly teenage duo behind the counter. I pause before trying to get their attention. They’re being cute, and the detail collector in me is watching how they subtly try to hide how much they’re flirting. They can’t be more than seventeen, just discovering what to do with developing surges of romantic affection.

He makes a joke, she turns the other way to hide her laugh, but that just eggs him on and he keeps talking. Rambling, actually. It’s adorable, I’m rooting for him myself. Internally, obviously.

By the time they realize I’m standing there, their cheeks flush so red they look sunburned.

“Oh, hi,” the girl awkwardly gets out while the guy skirts back to the kitchen. “Sorry about that, what can I do for you?”

I smile my biggest it’s no big deal smile . “Can I get the turkey club with extra sprouts on wheat bread?”

“Sure thing!” The pep is back in her step in no time. I envy that.

How simple life seems when you set out to do the tangible job in front of you. My work is all stuck in my stupid head, and not being able to escape it sometimes drives me a little nuts.

With my sandwich in hand I head back to my tiny beach cottage. Nothing fancy, nothing huge, but it’s all mine. And I mean that so literally I momentarily let my heart swell with a tiny bit of pride at the thought of it. Paying for this place in cash was the most lucrative part of my career, but I’ve seen too many times what can happen to someone in a heartbeat, so even though the bank could loan me a lot of money, I didn’t want debt stress in my life.

So this house is all mine in every way, with no strings attached—except when the government comes to tax me on it, but there’s no escaping that, sadly.

Walking through the front yard’s overgrown garden I desperately try, but fail, to maintain, I keep eye contact on my sunshine-yellow door in hopes that it will distract me from my to-do list that’s starting to pile up. I make it all of three steps in when my hooligan of a cat trips up my legs and nearly sends me flying.

“Not the time, Chester,” I say, looking into those big black dilated eyes. He looks at me like that when he wants to eat my ankles, and I need him to know I’ll accidentally, lovingly , fling him across the room if I feel those tiny teeth sink into my Achilles again.

But he keeps looking up at me. And dammit, I love this thing.

“Alright, no bites, but want some food?” His affirming meow trails off as he beelines it to the kitchen.

The house is small by American standards, but average in California. I have to navigate around several stacks of books on my way to the kitchen, but those stacks are intentional and decorative, thank you very little.

Chester is sitting by his cabinet like a little angel baby trying to show off his best behavior. “See?” his eyes are saying to me. “No need to bite, just pass over the food, woman.”

I do as he nonverbally commands and he pounces on the can in seconds. As if I never feed him. As if he didn’t just have a can two hours ago. Is he starting to get a little fat? Yeah. Yeah, he is. Really fat. But I love fat cats, and I can afford to feed him accordingly, so fat and happy he’s going to be. But, like, a healthy fat. Fluffy, some might say. Full of nutrients.

As I eat my sandwich on the patio, my mind drifts back to the book…but not before I hear the shrill ringtone of the one person who has a special ringtone in my phone, and I sprint back inside to grab it before I miss it. I catch it with seconds to spare before sliding it open and breathing out, “Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, sweetie! Did I catch you running?”

“Technically, no…but I had to run in to catch your call so I guess…”

“I’ll count it,” she says, justifying my lack of breath. “Have you heard back from Sarah?” My mom reads my split-second hesitation before saying her customary “Oh dear.”

“Yeah, denied again,” I say simply.

“Why do you think that is? I liked this one.”

“Yes, but you’re my mother, you like everything I do.”

“A mother’s prerogative, so I won’t apologize for that. Did they give you any feedback?”

“Sarah insinuated it was pretty obvious I haven’t been to Colorado—”

“Yes, you have!” she interrupts defiantly. I love my mother.

“Yes, but not the plains .”

“There are cowboys in the mountains, too.”

“Apparently it’s not the same.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I feel like at this point I have to… but denied fourteen times, is there any getting back from that?”

“Amelia Greene, you are no quitter,” she says in what I know to be a well-rehearsed pump-up speech. “You are smart, you are creative, you’re gorgeous. I feel like I can’t really say that without complimenting myself, but I’ll say it all the same because you don’t have time to wallow.”

My mom and I are the spitting image of each other, and although she never lets herself compliment my appearance without clarifying it’s not a compliment to her as well, it only furthers my gratitude that I got her genes. Our strawberry-blond hair is wavy, and although mine has natural highlights from spending so much time in the sun, her darker variation is still striking. Our athletic builds come from an active lifestyle and a complete inability to sit still for too long. But the thing that sets us apart the most is our green eyes. Not fake hazel green, but true green that’s almost too much when we stand next to each other.

“Mom I’m okay, I don’t need—” I try to lie.

“I can hear it in your voice, you needed it.”

“Alright, it helped…a little.”

“Do you need to go to Colorado, Amelia?”

“I don’t want to leave…” I’m a homebody through and through. Although I love the occasional vacation, discovery trips usually take at least a month. The last one I’d been on was Italy, and that one was a bit more fun, but going to the Colorado plains? What would I even do? I can’t just go find a cowboy and ask what about his life I could work with to make my book more believable.

“Amelia. Do you need to go to Colorado?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Call me when you decide, but I think we both know what needs to happen. Love you, sweetie.”

“Love you too, Mom.”