A few minutes later, I sat cross-legged on the bed with my laptop, notepad, and phone set out in front of me, determined to climb out of the hole I’d fallen into and come up with a workable story angle.

The character profiles of Pleasant Hollow residents with romance-movie-like careers had been a clever idea that hadn’t panned out the way I’d hoped. Davina would have been perfect, aside from the significant snag of not living in Pleasant Hollow. And Garrett had been great on paper, but not so much in the flesh. My mind conjured up an image of his thick, rock-solid thighs straining against the denim of his overalls. Scratch that. He was a fine specimen in the flesh, but how could I use him as the poster boy for the “real-life” small-town handyman when he’d provided minimal details about his life in Pleasant Hollow? Why had I let him turn our meeting into a Q&A about New York City instead? My chest caved in embarrassment. Garrett was like me in reverse, only taller and with bigger muscles: City girl enamored with small town meets small-town guy obsessed with the big city. That was a story. Too bad I was too mortified to tell it. Moving on.

There had to be something I could utilize, though, either from my at-home research, the historical facts about the town I’d collected since arriving (most provided by Finn, of all people), and/or the multitude of pictures I’d taken, to develop a different story.

From the photos of Main Street, the park, the waterfront, and even the exteriors of Pinkie’s Diner, Brothers Brewery, and the Oven (most of them filtered for optimal effect), Pleasant Hollow could easily pass for a quintessential small town. Unfortunately, it was a façade, like a movie set. The name “Hollow” was apt, given the people who resided there.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. The residents of Pleasant Hollow weren’t bad people. (Not all of them, anyway. My memory latched on to the elderly couple on the street who’d glared at me in response to my friendly smile.) But the real-life innkeeper, waitress, and handyman were nothing like their novel and movie counterparts. Nothing.

There was no sense of community. The townspeople mostly stayed in their own lanes. And come to think of it, I hadn’t seen a single dog since I’d arrived. Cuddly and often charmingly misbehaving dogs made an appearance in the majority of books and films set in cozy small towns. I hadn’t seen any kitties either. Seriously, what did Pleasant Hollow have against domestic animals (and pie)?