Amber Leigh Williams - Married One Night

Gerald watched as two pelicans winged lackadaisically overhead, the prehistoric-looking birds in no hurry to be out on the water for their morning catch. They seemed to gaze on the quiet shore and the lone man walking it with jaundiced eyes.

His irritation with the negotiations had been compounded by the fact that he had a book due soon. Very soon, and he’d barely begun writing it. Plus, he’d scrapped most of what he’d written so far. Fears he hadn’t felt since he first began to write were plaguing him. What if it didn’t come as naturally as it had before? What if everything he put on the page was complete shite? He hadn’t been able to connect with Rex. He’d hardly been able to envision where this next saga of Rex Flynn’s story would take him.

That was...until he met Olivia. She’d been dancing so joyfully out there on the parquet floor of that frenzied dance club. Gerald had watched her dance, hardly seeing her friends or the crush of other dancers packed shoulder to shoulder with her on the floor. Scotch forgotten, motivated by a driving force that felt a lot like that exhilarating, creative freefall he’d somehow lost touch with over the past six months, Gerald had made a beeline for the blonde siren.

Though he hadn’t remembered much from that point on the following morning, Gerald’s mind had slowly filled in the blanks after Olivia’s departure. Dancing. Drinking. More dancing. More drinking. Talking. Riding in the limo. Kissing there. Watching the fountain in front of the Bellagio rise into the night. Holding each other there. More talking. More kissing.

From there they went back to the casino. A bit of gambling. A bit more drinking. Another limo ride to the little white chapel, where he had only vague impressions of gold walls, red carpet, an organ and an Elvis Presley to officiate. He’d meant his vows. It didn’t matter to him that his intoxication level had been as high as it had ever been. More than anything else he remembered about that wild Vegas night was looking into the eyes of his bride and speaking promises meant only for her.

More dancing from there. Maybe at the club. Maybe there in the chapel, for all he knew. But from the chapel, they had taken a final limo ride back to the casino, apparently rented the honeymoon penthouse suite for the night and then...well, the marriage consummation, of course, which he was fairly certain had started in the casino elevator.

From the moment he’d woken next to her in the big, plush bed strewn with rose petals and what remained of the clothes they’d in essence torn off each other hours earlier, Gerald had known despite the headache and sore muscles from the eventful evening that he didn’t have any regrets. Speaking to Olivia in the morning had only reaffirmed that conviction. And after the blonde siren left him to find her friends and fly back to her stretch of sandy shore on the coast, he’d hardly finished breakfast before he’d gone back to his business suite to write.

He’d written for hours, until the light from the window began to lower, harden, then dim. All the while, the face of the woman he could now credit as his unexpected muse had stayed at the forefront of his mind. That night, as he’d made arrangements to travel back to his home in New York, he’d known that the first thing on his agenda when he got there would be tracking down the mysterious Olivia.

Gerald hadn’t expected the place she called home to be as spectacular as she was. But when he’d checked into the bay view suite of Hanna’s Inn the night before, he had immediately set up his notebook computer on the room’s antique secretary in anticipation. He had a book due in three weeks. When he wasn’t wooing Olivia or grabbing small snatches of inspiration from the Eastern Shore, he’d go back to the desk and see what the muse had to offer him.

The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. Gerald knew who was calling before he pulled the smartphone out to answer. When he saw it was indeed his editor back in New York, he lifted his thumb and pressed the answer key.

He had avoided this conversation for weeks. Now, though, he had answers. “Dwight,” Gerald greeted, putting the phone to his ear. “It’s good to hear from you, old boy.”

“Then why have you been dodging my calls?”

Gerald reached back to rub his neck as he walked onto the inn’s dock, his footsteps loud on the hollow, wooden planks. He and Dwight had been working together for years on the Rex Flynn series, along with a few spin-off titles. He’d come to know Dwight as a friend as well as a professional. “I wasn’t dodging. Just waiting for the right moment.”

“To tell me what—that the book isn’t finished? Tell me something I don’t know.”

“How do you know the book isn’t already done?” Gerald ventured.

“Because this is the first book in eight years you haven’t turned in two months ahead of schedule,” Dwight told him. “And when the writing’s going well, you’re not afraid to call and chat about it. Usually, I can’t get you to shut up. You haven’t so much as shot me an email in a month’s time in this case, which tells me you’re cowering in a hole somewhere hoping I’ve forgotten about you.”

Gerald pursed his lips and scuffed the bottom of his shoe against a dry patch of earth. “You know I was in Las Vegas dealing with film negotiations.”

“Yeah, and before that you visited your family in Yorkshire. Before that, you were, what, betting on the ponies in Jersey?”

“Are you spying on me now, Dwight?” Gerald asked.

“When you’re a well-known author, people notice when you go places you shouldn’t. Like Belmont.”

“For the record,” Gerald explained, “I was not betting on the ponies. A friend of mine breeds horses. He named one of the Thoroughbreds after Rex. I was simply making an appearance. And that could technically be lumped into the working category, you know...”

“Fine, but then your sister wrote to tell me what a good time you’d had together and thanked me for letting you fly off to England when you had a book due. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I knew nothing about the trip.”

“It was my niece’s birthday,” Gerald reasoned.

“Vegas might be forgivable at least,” Dwight went on. “But let me ask you this, my friend, where are you now?”

Gerald gazed across the water toward Mobile. “I can’t claim to be at the writing desk....”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Gerald—”

“Hear me out, mate,” Gerald said. “I won’t deny I’ve been blocked. I won’t lie to you and say I’ve not struggled with this one. In truth, piecing this story together has been like trying to carve a diamond. But that’s all about to change.”

“Oh, yeah? Enlighten me.”

“I’ve found inspiration,” Gerald said. “The characters are talking to me again, and I’m starting to see the pictures, the easy flow of scenes. I’ve also found a quiet place, one where the rush and bustle of business and city life is far enough away that I’m no longer bound to it. The words will come. And when they do, they’ll come fast and hard. You’ll have the book on schedule, Dwight. You can count on it.”

“You’re giving me your word?” Dwight asked, surprised. He knew as well as anyone that when Gerald pledged something, he meant it wholeheartedly and would rather see his soul shattered than his word broken.

“Consider it a promise,” Gerald said, glancing back toward the tavern and the woman he knew dwelled within. “You won’t be disappointed, my friend.”

“I rarely am.” Dwight sighed. “All right. If you’re so sure...I’ll expect the completed manuscript in three weeks.”

Gerald grinned. “Give it two. Goodbye, Dwight.”