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“Oh, I heard you. I just don’t think I heard youcorrectly. You want to write a 1930s love story, but about twowomen?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“But you don’t even write romance. You just gave me a best-selling historical fiction book.”

“I’d like to stick to the historical part and the fiction part,” she replied and could feel something like a neuron or synapse firing in her brain at the last part of her sentence, which made no sense. “And add romance.” She pressed two fingers to her temples and squinted her eyes shut for a minute before the moment went away.

It wasn’t painful, exactly; more like something her body did just to remind her how little control she had over the whole thing, like it did with all humans occasionally. She figured that stuff like this would happen more and more the older she got, so she might as well get used to it and refocus on her important phone call.

“Have you ever even writtenanyromance before?”

“Not really, no. I mean, there’s that subplot in the draft of my first book.”

“That was the part of the book we had you edit out.” The woman chuckled.

“Because it wasn’t needed in that book, but not because it was bad,” she replied. “Right?”

Abby worried that maybe her editor had been nice to her and just suggested that the subplot, which she felt should have been included in her first book, had been unnecessary to the main plot instead of telling her that she didn’t know how to write romance at all.

“It was fine. We just didn’t think it was needed. Besides, you were already long, so it was an easy cut that didn’t lose anything from the book.”

“Easy? I didn’t seeyouin the manuscript file, chopping out whole sections and reconnecting the dots after I lost an entire subplot,” she joked.

“Abby, what brought this on? You’re supposed to be getting pages ready for the editor. You’ve got a deadline. Are you planning on writing this as the third book and wanted to let me know? Please tell me that’s what this is and that your second, masterful work of prose is in my inbox right now, with your editor CCed.”

“It’s not,” Abby admitted. “I’ve been blocked recently. Today, though, I went on a walk. I took my mother’s advice, for once, and I actually walked into this old antique shop.” She smiled at the memory of Quinn Jordan appearing behind the counter and startling her, not just because she’d come out of nowhere but also because she was so beautiful and familiar and maybe even perfect, which was a weird thing for Abby to be doing, thinking about a woman she’d just met or anyone at all, for that matter. “I found something that sparked a story.”

“Sparked a romance between two women in the 1930s? What did you find in this shop, exactly? The very first lesbian flag?”

Abby laughed at the joke and replied, “No, it was a picture.”

“Of two women?”

“No. It’s on a front porch, and it’s of a bride and a groom.”

“I am so confused…” Her publisher let out an exasperated sigh.

“There’s a woman in this picture, probably her maid of honor or something, and she’s standing off to the side, looking pretty displeased that those two just got married.”

“And you think that’s because she’s in love with the bride? Why not the groom?”

“She’s glaring athim,” Abby explained, staring down at the photo in her hand. “And I didn’t notice it until after I got home, but both women are wearing matching bracelets. They look like yarn or thread or something, nothing expensive. The picture’s too old to tell, but there’s something to that, I think.”

“Yeah, they’re probably sisters.”

“They don’t look anything alike.”

“Close cousins, then. Maybe they just made themselves friendship bracelets or something. You want to write a book about what here, exactly? The two women being together before one gets married? Because that’ll have a sad ending, like most relationships between women back then. Are you going for a sad ending? We barely had the right to vote in the 1930s.”

“I don’t know if it’ll be happyorsad just yet. It has to be realistic to the time period, though. I want something that people will carry with them, you know? That perfect ending with a resolution, but also with things still open a little, at least, so that people can imagine their own endings, too. I haven’t started outlining yet, but I’m going to do that tonight. I feel like pages will just fly out of me with this idea.”

“Will the romance be the main plot?”

“Probably. I still have all my research on the time period from the last book, so it’ll definitely have historical elements in it. That one was based in New York City, but this one will be in a rural community.”

“I knew moving back to that tiny town you came from would impact your writing.”

“It could impact it for the better. And the setting is because of the porch in the picture. It’s hard to tell, but it reminds me of those old farmhouses around here. There’s a screen door behind them, and I can’t see much else because the people are blocking things, but I’m getting a farm vibe. And the dresses and suit they are wearing feel pretty simple to me, not at all like people in the upper crust of Manhattan society would’ve worn in the 30s.”