The blizzard was gone, and so was Josh. I’d cried so much over my lifetime. For clients who should have won their elections. For parents who should have done their job. For the half-sisters who hadn’t even remembered to invite me to their weddings.

But all those tears dried up after Josh disappeared back into the blue he’d come out of the previous day. Only anger and bitterness remained, directed entirely at myself.

How could I have thought, even for a moment, that he’d pick me over a woman like Shelby?

I showered, washing away the scent of him, trying to make him disappear. Then I donned new clothes and yanked open the door, determined to forget Josh Grant ever happened to me.

Enough dreaming. It was time to do what I came here to do. Write my—

I found Mom at the cabin’s desk, click-clacking away on the word processor.

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

“It came to me!” she answered without looking up. “The beginning of the last book finally came to me last night in a dream during that odd blizzard!”

I jutted my chin forward. Her fans would be ecstatic, but… “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve decided to use the cabin you said I could have only two days into my residency?”

Mom stopped typing and peered at me haughtily over her reading glasses. Then she did that irritating thing where she started using the royal we to make her supercilious point.

“We cannot control the muse—believe me, if we could, this last book would have been written years ago. Our guiding genius has finally arrived. Thus, must we honor her and forsake any real-world agreements we might have made in her absence.”

“Mom, you didn’t might have anything,” I reminded her. “You said I could have this cabin until Christmas.”

Mom narrowed her eyes at me. “Dearest Taneisha. Surely, you understand that the unleashing of the finale of our epic cycle, which has been years in the making, supersedes anything you might want to scribble down for that Senator of yours. Also, we fear your time in Texas has rendered your grammar beyond atrocious—”

I get it. I get that she’s a world-renowned writer, and I’m a behind-the-scenes nobody who scribbles speeches for a living.

I’ve understood her writing comes first ever since that initial trip across the river to deliver sandwiches to the “mom” who was supposed to be taking care of me during my visitations.

But suddenly I just can’t with her anymore.