Fight From The Heart (Heart Collection #4) - L.B. Dunbar Page 0,30

lit only by the fireplace. There isn’t enough light to read, and Jacob doesn’t push me to finish.

“Why did you start writing?” I eventually ask him.

“Because Jacob has always loved reading, his favorite books include the classics such as The Strange Tales of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein, a personal favorite, but who can discredit the master of horror Stephen King and fantasy like J.R.R. Tolkien. Inventing a fantastical world or alternate universe of his own feeds his creative imagination. Jacob Vincent lives in an undisclosed place, perhaps one of his own making.”

I laugh. “Well, that’s very textbook and thank you for reciting what I’ve written about you. But maybe you could be real with me for a moment?”

“Aren’t I always real with you?” he mocks.

“I don’t know. Are you?” We stare at one another from our opposite ends of the couch. Jacob breaks first, rolling his head so he faces the fireplace once more.

“Is this an interview for Blood and Blossom?” he asks with sarcasm.

“This is just for me.”

Jacob sits up, leaning forward to balance his elbows on his knees, and stares into the amber liquid in the glass he dangles between them. “I needed an escape. The mind is an amazing machine, and if I dug deep enough, I could create a safe place with words. Invent a land where I was the hero and killed the bad guys, or shifted into something otherworldly and saved the hurting people.”

He takes a deep breath and scrubs a hand down his face.

“I wrote for me at first, to clear my head and also to fill it with something other than the reality of what I lived. As you know, I lost my way for a while.”

When I’d met Jacob on that second day in the hospital, I told him about my father and how I’d thought he hit my dad. It was more a confession. If only in my head, I’d felt guilty that I accused an innocent man of killing my dad. Stunned at my apology, Jacob told me who he was, and I’d recognized his name. He admitted that day that he had issues he was trying to work through. He’d been writing since he was twenty-two when he got his first publishing deal as a senior in college. He’d lost his creativity and felt tapped out after fifteen novels. He was going too fast. He’d had too much to drink. He asked for my forgiveness, suddenly feeling his own guilt that it could have been him who hit my dad. It wasn’t, but he could have hit someone else in his state. He promised me he’d never drink and drive again, and to this day, he’s kept that promise. Drinking and sitting at home was a different story.

Jacob clears his throat, drawing me back to his living room.

“Anyway, then I met you, my muse, and my inspiration returned.” He smiles without it reaching his eyes, but the compliment is genuine. He’s called me his muse on many occasions.

What I’d really like to know, though, is what would make him give me a genuine smile?

Chapter 11

Fire In More Than One Place

[Jacob]

Two and a half years ago, I was on my way to Mackinaw Island. I’d rented a red Corvette to travel the two-lane highway, passing through small towns on my way north through Michigan when I’d had one too many hits on a joint mixed with too much to drink . . . while driving. It’s hard to admit I could have killed someone. I wasn’t thinking of others, only myself, and I didn’t care about me. It’s a moment I’m not proud to recall. I was stuck on a story and late on a deadline. My creativity felt tapped out. My love-hate relationship with a younger woman was draining.

I don’t even remember how it happened, but when my eyes opened, I saw the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. The night was black behind her, and her effervescence glowed as her blond hair shone like a halo around her head.

I asked her if she was an angel.

The next day, she came to see me all hell-bent, devil at her heels, and ready to rip into me. While she no longer thought I’d killed her father, she was angry that I could have been the one. When she apologized for accusing me of a crime, though, it startled me. No one had ever apologized to me for anything, and she meant hers. She was genuine, and