from her center out to her fingers and toes in a flush of heat that flared, pulsed, and left a glow behind. Sighing, she lay back and closed her eyes.
She didn’t go back to the computer.
“MA, YOU RUINED MY CAREER.” Ryan clattered through her parents’ back door and into her mother’s kitchen.
Sonia Donnelly turned to smile at her dark-haired, leggy daughter, marveling as always at how she’d grown from the tiny, pink baby she remembered. “Morning, Glory. What brings you here?”
“I’m meeting Becka to go antiquing. She’s up the street at her parents’ house, helping make paper flowers or something for Nellie’s wedding.”
“Nellie’s getting married?” Sonia blinked in shock. “I just bought Girl Scout cookies from her last week. She can’t be more than fourteen.”
“Ma, she just turned twenty-two.” Ryan said gently. “I think you bought the cookies from Colleen’s oldest.”
“Colleen has a daughter old enough to be in Girl Scouts? Good god, where does the time go?” Sonia muttered, bending to pull a pan of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. “Anyway, what’s all this about ruined careers? Are you in trouble at work?”
“I’m repressed, is what I am. I have two sex scenes to finish before the end of the month and nothing’s coming out.”
The wall of newspaper over at the kitchen table rattled. “What are you two talking about over there?” a muffled voice said.
“Nothing, dear.” Sonia flipped the sweet rolls out onto a plate and pulled them apart with forks.
“Hi Dad,” Ryan called.
Her father’s head appeared from behind the Boston Globe sports page. “Oh, hi honey. How’s Cambridge?”
“Fine, but my life as a writer is over.”
“That’s because you do those girlie books. I keep telling you, detective novels are the way to go. You get a nice gory murder, a tough cop, a psycho villain. It’ll sell a million and you can retire.”
“Sure Dad, next book,” she promised, tucking her tongue in her cheek.
“So you’re having problems with your latest?” Sonia asked, setting the platter of cinnamon rolls on the table.
“It’s my name,” Ryan said morosely. “I have a boy’s name. No wonder I can’t feel enough like a woman to get a lover.” She crossed to the cupboard and pulled out coffee mugs. “If I could remember how it felt to have sex, I could write about it,” she said reflectively, carrying the mugs over to the table.
“You know why I had to name you Ryan,” Sonia returned. “Your grandfather was on his deathbed. It was little enough to ask and we were just so sure you were going to be a boy. Anyway, you could have gone by your middle name.”
“Gladys?”
“I couldn’t help it,” her mother said defensively. “I could hardly tell your father’s mother no after giving you a name from my family.”
“Don’t bring me into it, I was just an innocent bystander,” said her father, rattling the sports page.
“You could have gone by a nickname,” Sonia pointed out, carrying over the coffeepot.
Ryan sighed. “By the time I was aware enough to do that the damage had been already done.” She picked at the sweet roll in front of her.
Her mother poured coffee into the mugs and set the pot on a trivet. “Sweetheart, you’re a wonderful writer. Just watch a couple of Mel Gibson movies to get in the mood and imagine the rest.”
“I tried that. Didn’t work.” She sipped the coffee, deciding not to tell her mother what else she’d done to try to get into the mood. Which had put her right smack in the mood for about five minutes. And to sleep for the rest of the night.
“Why don’t you ask someone to set you up with a fellow? Mrs. Seberg across the street has a single grandson.”
“It’s a long way from a blind date to between the sheets, Ma. My deadline’s in two weeks. What I need is a mental vision of a monumental lover.”
“I guess stag movies wouldn’t do it,” Sonia said reflectively, slipping onto a chair.
“Mother!” Scandalized, Ryan stared at her mother, then burst into laughter. “I can’t believe you just encouraged your daughter to go rent a dirty movie.”
Her father peered around his paper with interest. “She never told me to go see one.”
“Oh hush, you. You never needed one.” Sonia stirred her coffee, unflappable. “I’m just trying to help salvage Ryan’s career. Given that I ruined it to begin with.”
“Well, it’s a romance novel, not soft-core porn. I don’t think those movies will do it.” Ryan gulped the last of her coffee and leaned across the table to snag another roll. “Anyway, I have to get going. I just stopped in to lay the blame for my impending ruin at your door.”
“Always happy to help, dear.” Her mother followed her to the kitchen door. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart, you’re such a wonderful writer, it will all be fine.” She pulled her close in a hug. “You’ll find the right fellow, too.”
“When’s that going to happen?” Ryan pulled back and looked at her soberly.
“When you stop running around looking so busy and overtaxed that any man who looks at you figures you have to be running to meet a date. When you make yourself available, you’ll find him.”
“But what if I don’t? I’m tired of looking. It’s easier to just forget about it.” Suddenly all the joking was gone, and in its place, an ache of loneliness so familiar that Ryan had almost stopped noticing it. Almost.
Sonia looked at her levelly. “You don’t really believe that or you wouldn’t be writing romance novels as a second career.”
“If I don’t meet this deadline, my second career is going to go up in a puff of dust and I’ll be forced to teach memo writing for the rest of my life,” Ryan said dolefully.
“You’ll do it, sweetheart, you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”
HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY be fine, Ryan wondered the next day as she sat in her office. She’d avoided thinking about her deadline for months, but now it was inescapable. For more than a decade, she’d dreamed of being a professional writer. Now, on the verge of making it a reality, she was going to blow it.
Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the display before picking up the receiver with resignation. “Hello, Helene.”
“Have they done the deed?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting there.”
“No worries, kid. I’ve got an answer for you.” Helene was absolutely chuckling with good humor. This boded nothing good, Ryan thought.
“No
