The connection beckons, but the world won’t wait.
Janice, talented, hungry, and poised for more must choose. Stay in the city and figure out how to use her art to sustain her, or run from what her heart desires most. Love has become a bridge too far for her. Most days, survival is a stretch.
Bob pulls Janice from the literal brink, convincing her that jumping off the bridge he’s building isn’t the answer. An unlikely romance roots as two creatives strive to find balance in a city bold with movement.
Two hearts call for one another while their gifts insist otherwise. Can they rescue their love when their passions pull them apart?
Dancing with Silandia Reviews
Dancing with Silandia Excerpt
“What are you waiting for?”
“Courage,” she replied, eyes never leaving the water, hard and grey on the other side of the railing.
“Jumping isn’t the answer.”
“I’m not waiting for the courage to jump, I need it to walk away.” Hazel eyes met hers and she liked the little smile that said, ‘I get it’ without words.
“Bob Winston.”
“Janice Pastore.”
“You want to get a cup of coffee, Janice?”
“I didn’t bring any cash with me. You know, in case.”
“Then I’ll step up and be your caffeine savior.”
The bell jingled, announcing her suicidal reluctance to uninterested patrons. The waitress appeared, inspired in a similar vein, toting the time-killing coffeepot and two limp menus. Janice doctored her coffee, holding off from the inquiry. I should not have accepted. Now I’m on the hook for soul-baring and advice I don’t want. Way to careen into the next dump, Janice. He’ll be ghosting within the hour.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Purple,” her surprise evident. “Yours?”
“Grey, but I can explain. There’s a shade of grey that happens just before the sun lights the sky each dawn and after it fades at sunset. It says, ‘there’s more to come’, and ‘you made it through’, in shades of promise and deliverance.”
“Are you a poet?”
His easy laugh enveloped her. “Only in my mind. I’m an architect. In fact, I’m building the bridge to replace the one you stood on this morning.”
“I don’t want to die.” This surprised her, both in its truth, and that she shared it at all, but his openness appealed to her sense of fragility. Bob felt as solid as his name.
“We’ve all been in the waver, the point of too many doors locked by futility. I’ve been there.”
She leaned forward and laid her hand on his. “What changed? How did you find the answer?”
He turned his hand over, closing hers within it, and smiled, letting her dark eyes and earnestness pull him into her world.
“I picked a door, Janice. Having to choose is freedom. Not choosing was a self-sentence prison. I made a jailbreak.”
Other literary works by Winnie Winkle: To Walk in the World