Bachelor Untamed - Brenda Jackson [29]
To my beautiful niece,
If you’re reading this letter, it means I am no longer with you. There’s a lot I shared with you and some things I didn’t share. There are some things I could never bring myself to talk to you about. I admit I took the coward’s way out, but after reading this letter I hope you will understand.
A few years ago I did something that I thought I would never do, and that was to fall in love.
Ellie nearly dropped the letter. Aunt Mable? In love? She blinked and reread that passage of the letter again, to make sure she had read it correctly, and when she saw she had, she quickly read on.
He was a widower and we talked about getting married, but I had been alone for so long, all I really needed was companionship, and he provided that for me; and with this being such a small town, and not wanting our relationship to be dictated by traditional ideals, we preferred being discreet and keeping our business to ourselves. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to write, and he encouraged me to do so. I wanted to write a love story, and after much encouragement I sat down and started on it.
Ellie was feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she had a strong suspicion what her aunt was about to tell her.
I’m hoping by the time you read this I’ve gotten published. That is my dream. That is my goal. A publisher out of Texas has purchased my first story. They loved it! They gave me an advance, and understanding that I was a new writer, they were gracious enough to give me a year to complete it. I am attaching my agent’s card to this letter. Her name is Lauren Poole. She’s been a jewel to work with and the book has been a jewel to write. The manuscript is my baby. I’m entrusting it into your care if something were to happen me. I’m writing under the name of Flame Elbam. Note that Elbam is Mable spelled backward. That’s kind of cute, don’t you think? I’m hoping by the time you read this letter, I would have finished plenty of novels.
Always know that I love you and I hope that one day you will share the kind of love that I have shared in the last few years. Don’t wait as long as I did to find love. There is nothing more precious for a woman than sharing the love of a man that she can call hers.
Many kisses and much love,
Aunt Mable
Ellie couldn’t fight back the tears that fell from her eyes. It was hard to believe. Her aunt, who had never married, had become Flame Elbam and had penned a beautiful romance filled with more passion than Ellie could ever imagine.
It was a story she hadn’t finished, and now, with her passing, it would be a story that would never get finished.
Ellie shook her head at the cruelty of it all. She removed the agent’s business card denoting a New York address. Ellie would call her tomorrow, to see if there was something that could be done. Maybe a ghost writer could finish the final chapters. Surely, the publisher could find someone to do that.
And if that option wouldn’t be acceptable to the publisher, Ellie would make sure the company got back every dime of its advance.
She then wondered about the man who had been her aunt’s lover, and when she recalled the artwork hanging on her aunt’s bedroom wall, it all made sense.
To Flame, with all my love. D.
Her aunt never said who her lover was, but Ellie had a strong suspicion that the man who’d given her aunt the risqué painting and the man who had delivered the papers to Ellie this afternoon were one and the same, although she would not have thought so in a hundred years. But that just proved you couldn’t discount what people did in their bedrooms. In order for her aunt to write about such passion, she’d had to experience it at the hands of Daniel Altman.
Ellie stood. She would call Lauren Poole, and whatever it took, she would make sure the manuscript