Until I Found You by Victoria Bylin

her head, as if she couldn’t believe the news. “I was counting on Maggie to keep the paper going while Leona recovers. She’s doing well, considering it’s only been six weeks since the stroke. The question is where she’ll be six months from now. We just don’t know. . . .” She paused to take a deep breath. “The business is only part of the problem. Leona could stay in her house with a roommate, but what if she has another stroke? She could need assisted living. All I know is that it’s expensive. I’m on leave from my regular job, but that’s complicated, too.”
    Before the stroke Leona had bragged about Kate all the time. Nick knew she worked for Sutton Advertising, had a connection to Eve Landon, and loved her job. “So you’re in limbo.”
    “Yes.”
    So was Nick. Until he heard from his agent, he’d be twisting in the wind. “When do you go back to Los Angeles?”
    “January. What a mess—”
    His ringtone cut her off. He stole a glance, saw his agent’s name, and swallowed hard. “Sorry. I have to take this.”
    “Take your time,” she said. “I’ll be in Leona’s office.”
    As she walked down the hall, Nick retreated to the conference room off the lobby and answered the call from Ted Hawser, a topnotch New York agent. “Hey, Ted,” he said a little too cheerfully. “What’s the good word?”
    “Do you have a few minutes?”
    “Sure.”
    “I read the manuscript last night. It’s not what I expected . . .” A long pause echoed over dead air.
    The dodge could mean only one thing. “You hated it.”
    “I don’t hate anything,” Ted said mildly. “This is business. Sorry, Nick. But I can’t sell the story the way you’re telling it.”
    Disappointment clunked to the pit of his stomach. Ted was a first-class agent with excellent instincts. If he didn’t like the manuscript, it signaled a real problem. With his neck bent and head down, Nick paced the length of the room.
    “I appreciate your honesty. So . . . why can’t you sell it?”
    “This isn’t what your readers expect.”
    “It’s different.” So am I.
    “Yeah.” A chortle came over the phone. “Frankly, Nick, it got me thinking.”
    “That’s good—”
    “No, it’s not. You turned your back on your original audience. This book isn’t just different. It’s in-your-face different. CFRM has a trendy, ribald kind of humor. The pickup lines in Chapter Fifteen are hilarious. Today’s readers relate to that sort of thing. This . . . memoir, or whatever it is . . . is different.”
    “That’s right.”
    “It’s a little too different. I’m not the right agent for this kind of material. You’d be better off with someone who knows the religious market.”
    But Nick didn’t want to focus on the religious market. He wanted to reach frustrated couch potatoes and troubled teens like Colton Smith. Had he failed to tell the story in a compelling way, or was the book just not right for Ted? It was a tough question, one he couldn’t answer.
    “Where do we go from here?”
    “That’s up to you,” Ted replied. “Take a few days to think it over. If you decide to run with the new stuff, I’ll pass your name on to Erica Reynolds.”
    Nick recognized the name of a respected agent. “I’ll let you know.”
    He clicked off the phone, turned to a window facing a vacant field and rested his head against the glass. Rejections were part of the business and he dealt with them, but this book was different. He’d written it in two short months, working day and night because he believed with every fiber in his being that if even one man was helped by his experience, the book was worth the effort.
    With Ted’s rejection, what did Nick do next? Maybe he’d self-publish it. Or maybe not. Maybe the book was a bad idea. Maybe God wanted him to sell everything and be a missionary in China, except Nick understood the risk-taking facet of his personality all too well. He’d be running away from God, not to