Her Mistletoe Cowboy. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ she definitely hadn’t set her sights on an article for Western Times Magazine, in her opinion the least sophisticated of the magazines in the array.

      She’d grown more and more stunned as Stan described the article he wanted and the place that he was sending her to.

      “Same thing,” Kim complained. Grasping the armrests, she moved to the edge of the chair she’d taken in his glass-enclosed office. “Look, I know I’m just a lowly freelance writer—”

      “Yes, you are,” Stan agreed all too readily, indicating that she had made her point for him.

      Refusing to be deterred, Kim forged on. “But you’ve got to have some other story than this you want me to write.”

      She stopped just short of pleading, aware that Stan had no use for that sort of tactic. She’d been writing for Stan for a little over a year now, coming in twice a month to see what sort of articles were up for grabs. Each magazine had its own small in-house stable of writers. The slack was taken up by freelance writers who were eager, like her, to prove their worth while earning extra pocket money. Most stitched together a living—if that was their goal rather than just some additional income—by making the rounds to various publishers, as well as haunting blog-oriented websites.

      “No, I don’t,” Stan told her. “It’s either this, or come back in a couple of weeks.”

      She sighed. “I don’t have a couple of weeks. My rent check is due now—not to mention that in a couple of weeks, it’ll be Christmas and last year, there was nothing to be had,” she reminded him.

      There was just a hint of concern on the crusty, bald man’s face as he asked, “Can’t hit up Mom and Dad for the money?”

      Kim knew he was aware of her backstory. At least, as much as she’d told to him. Whether or not he remembered it, given how many writers he dealt with, was another matter.

      Giving him the benefit of the doubt, she pretended he remembered. “And have them look at me with pity in their eyes?” She shook her head emphatically. “I’d rather die first.”

      Stan inclined his head, conceding the point. “Fair enough. How about those two successful sisters of yours? Didn’t you tell me they were surgeons or something like that? They must have money they can lend their little sister.”

      Monica and Maureen would have more than readily given her the money she needed, but they were like her parents, convinced that she should have done something better with her life and if nothing else, should now be running, not walking, to the nearest university to enroll and get herself on track for a real career, not one that was grounded in make-believe.

      That was how her whole family viewed her career path—chasing after make-believe.

      More than anything, ever since she could remember, she had dreamed of being a writer, an important writer who would someday write that one book people would always remember. Not for a week, or a month, but one that would live on through the decades, a book that would make a real difference to people.

      In the meantime, she had resigned herself to the fact that she had bills to pay, so any work she could get as a freelance writer had to make do for now.

      Almost any work, she silently amended. There had to be something else, some other article that didn’t involve sagebrush and horses and brawny, uneducated cowboys.

      “See the above answer,” Kim quipped regarding asking her sisters for help.

      Stan believed in being helpful, but only up to a point. That point did not include fabricating work for his writers, even if he had come to secretly like their spirit, and Kim was nothing if not the embodiment of that old-fashioned term, spunk.

      “Well, unless you have a rich sugar daddy tucked away somewhere, or are planning on selling your soul to the devil by midnight to keep that old wolf from the door, I’d say you’d better get busy, pack up your go-bag and book a flight to Laredo.”

      “Laredo?” she repeated, confused. “I thought you said that I was going to some place in Texas called Farewell.”

      “Forever,” Stan corrected patiently. “And your hearing’s good. You are.”

      She didn’t get it. “If I’m going to Forever, why am I flying to Laredo?”

      “Simple,” he told her. “Forever doesn’t have an airport. You’re going to have to rent a car and drive the rest of the way. Keep your receipts,” he advised. “There’s a little extra in petty cash. I’ll see what I can do about reimbursing you for some of that.”

      This was beginning to sound better and better, she thought, exasperated.

      “Do they have indoor plumbing?” she asked. She was only half kidding.

      Stan never cracked a smile. “So I hear.” He raised his deep-set eyes to hers. “I also hear they’ve built a hotel.”

      Why was he telling her that? “Is there something unusual about it?”

      Thin, bony shoulders rose and fell beneath a light gray shirt that appeared to have been slept in at least a couple of times. “Not that I know.”

      Okay, she still wasn’t enlightened about the point of this conversation.

      “Then why are you...?” And then it hit her. “Wait, you don’t mean that they didn’t have hotels there before this one.”

      This time, he did allow a small smile to edge out. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

      “What kind of a hellhole is this place?” she cried.

      “The kind of hellhole where kids whose parents think there’s no reaching them get turned around and become the decent people they were always meant to be.” The editor paused for a long moment, as if silently debating something with himself. Finally, in the same low-key voice he always used, he said, “My nephew, Jordy, is there.”

      Kim’s dark brown eyes widened. He’d told her it was a sort of reformatory school with horses. That meant his nephew was one of those troubled delinquents he’d mentioned.

      “I’m so sorry.” She assumed that would be the response Stan was expecting.

      But the editor surprised her by saying, “Don’t be. That place is the best thing that could have happened to him.” The most genuine smile she’d ever seen was curving Stan’s lips as he went on to tell her, “My sister Paula said Jordy actually called home last week. Told me he sounded more like himself than he had in the last three years. She was crying those ridiculous happy tears at the time, the ones that you women use to confuse men.

      “A place that can do that for a kid, for a family,” he went on to say, “well, other people deserve to know about it.” He grew very serious now as he looked at her. “You want to do an important story? This is an important story,” he told her with emphasis. “Go do it and do it right.” It was more of an order than an instruction. “You do a good enough job, then we’ll talk about where your career could go with the magazines I edit when you get back.”

      She warned herself not to get excited. There was always a downside to everything. She just hadn’t heard all of it yet. СКАЧАТЬ