Page 6 of A Cornish Winter’s Kiss

Jude stared at the screen for a moment, before highlighting the text again and pressing the delete button even harder this time.

He was never going to pull this off, and it could finish his career if he didn’t; Marty had hinted as much.

Sloshing another double measure of whisky into his glass, Jude sighed.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Gripping the glass and desperately hoping for some kind of flash of inspiration, he suddenly caught sight of the copy of Sophia Wainwright’s novel that Marty had given him.

‘For God’s sake.’ Even the thought of reading it made irritation prickle his scalp, and he took a long slug of his drink, which burned his throat.

Forcing himself to reach out, he picked up the book, the cartoon-like cover of two figures intertwined with one another on a deserted beach irritating him even further.

Flipping open the front cover, he flicked past the dedication to a letter from Sophia that he could only bear to read the first few lines of:

To my dear readers, thank you from the bottom of my heart for choosing another Goodwill Cove novel. It feels like home to me now and I know it does to so many of you too. I can’t wait for you to discover Abigail and Saul’s story. It really is the perfect romance!

‘Eurgh.’ Jude slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead and took another slug of whisky, flicking forward to the first chapter. He got halfway down the second page before he threw the book across the room, just as his phone started to ring.

‘Jude, I was just calling to see how the meeting with Marty went.’ Adele had been in charge of marketing his books from the very first one he’d written, and he knew her well enough to pick up on the tension in her voice, despite the singsong tone.

Jude had neither the time nor the patience for beating around the bush.

‘I think you know exactly how it went. He wants me to give McGuigan a romance.’ The word felt so unnatural when he said it.

‘He doesn’t want a romance, he wants a relationship.’

‘Same shit different semantics.’ Jude sighed.

‘So you’re not willing to give it a go?’ There was a note of caution in Adele’s voice now, which spelled out how stupid he’d be to come to that decision without her having to say it out loud.

‘I’ve been trying.’

‘Really?’ She sounded doubtful, and Jude tightened his grip on the phone.

‘Yeah, you might not believe me, but I have. I’ve been working on a chapter to build the relationship between McGuigan and his pathologist, but it feels so forced.’

‘Did Marty have any advice? I could suggest some good examples of?—’

Jude cut her off before she could continue. ‘He gave me a copy of Sophia Wainwright’s latest novel.’ He tried to keep his tone even, but the muscles in his jaw had tightened and Adele had clearly picked up on his distaste, despite the fact she couldn’t see him.

‘I know it’s not your thing, but she’s at the top of her game, and no one writes relationships better than she does.’

‘Really?’ Jude switched the phone to speaker mode, setting it down on his desk, before grabbing the book, flicking it open to a random page and starting to read.

‘“Saul stood on the shoreline, scanning the horizon. No one had heard from Abigail for six long hours, not since she’d launched her boat from the jetty to the west of the harbour at Goodwill Cove. The argument they’d had the night before had felt like the final nail in the coffin for their relationship, but now he knew how wrong he’d been.

All he wanted was to hold her and tell her how much he loved her, but he was terrified he might have left it too late. ”’

Jude shook his head, dropping the book back down onto the desk.

‘Is that really a book you’d want to read?

’ It wasn’t the writing itself, it was the fact that anyone could get invested in stories where the happy ever after was guaranteed, when real life almost never worked out that way.

He couldn’t believe Adele was one of those people.

‘It would help if you didn’t read it with so much sarcasm.

Of course it sounds ridiculous if you say “how much he lurved her” like that .

’ Adele mimicked the tone Jude had employed and he had to admit she had it spot on, but he couldn’t have read the words with a serious tone if his life had depended on it. The trouble was, his career just might.

‘That’s the way it sounds in my head.’

‘Why don’t you listen to the audio book instead? Maybe if you hear Sophia’s words the way they were intended to be read, you might actually take something from it.’

‘Do you really think that’s going to make any difference?

’ Jude could imagine it already. Listening to the sickly-sweet narration of an already saccharine story would almost certainly make it worse rather than better.

His stories might be works of fiction too, but he did a lot of research to make them as realistic as possible, spending time interviewing police officers and other professionals involved in murder cases.

Although realism probably wasn’t what Sophia’s readers were after; her novels were pure fantasy in Jude’s opinion.

Either way, they were never going to be his sort of thing and he couldn’t imagine listening to an audio book would do anything to change that.

‘Just give it a go. What have you got to lose?’ There was that intonation in Adele’s words again, the none-too-subtle hint that he stood to lose a hell of a lot more if he didn’t give it a go.

‘Okay, but I think we should get a meeting in the diary to discuss a Plan B if I can’t make it work.’

‘You need to find a way to make it work, Jude, because we both know a Plan B is always going to be inferior to a Plan A.’ Her tone left no room for argument, and it was crystal clear she wasn’t prepared to listen to one.

‘I want the best for your career just as much as you do, and I’d hate to see you throw away any opportunities you have to get things back on track.

I think Marty is planning a group video call for the three of us sometime next week. ’

‘Right.’ Jude nodded, despite the fact she couldn’t see him. ‘I’ll speak to you then.’

‘I look forward to it.’

‘That makes one of us.’ Jude’s parting shot made him feel better for all of about five seconds after he ended the call, but none of this was Adele’s fault, or even Marty’s.

They were just asking him to produce what the market demanded, and they couldn’t help it if Jude’s past experiences made it so hard for him to write about love in any kind of believable way.

Adele and Marty were on his side and they just wanted him to succeed, so lashing out at them was stupid.

His anger should have been directed somewhere totally different, but raking up old hurt like that wouldn’t do him any good either.

It wasn’t like it could rewind time to when he was a child and set up the kind of life where being loved felt like a certainty.

It was better just to bury those feelings, the way he always had done.

When Jude glanced at the laptop, his heart sank.

He still wasn’t sure he could pull this off, but he’d never been a quitter, otherwise he wouldn’t have got this far.

He was going to give it his best shot and if Adele really thought that listening to Sophia Wainwright’s novel had a cat in hell’s chance of helping, he was prepared to give it a go.

Clicking on the Audible app on his phone, Jude typed in the title of the latest Goodwill Cove book, desperately trying to keep an open mind as he waited for the book to load.

He didn’t even get to the end of the first chapter before he realised Adele had been right.

It still wasn’t the sort of book he’d ever want to read, but the woman narrating the story had a beautiful voice that somehow captured emotions in a way he could make a connection with.

He’d found himself having to swallow hard against a lump that had threatened to form in his throat during part of it, and he knew he’d never have felt that way if he’d been reading it himself; his inner dialogue would have been reminding him just how far-fetched it all was, but somehow he forgot about that when he was listening to her.

The story sounded completely different when it was being read by someone who clearly had a genuine love for it.

If there was a chance, even a small one, that he could find a way of harnessing that kind of connection with the emotion, it might just help him write a believable relationship for DCI McGuigan.

Suddenly, he had a whole new determination to try.