As I head toward the finish line of Can’t Be Tamed, I’ve come to realize there’s a piece missing from the story.

Lilith Varsela has gone cold, and marriage is now off the table. She loves her unpartnered way of life and she’s not changing that status for anyone. As captain of her own ship, she works at a job she loves and has made a name for herself. She has her own home, and is surrounded by women who support and empower her.

But she didn’t always feel that way. In fact, she was once engaged to be married but that ended in a debacle and a complete alienation from her family. Of course, that’s the underlying reason she’s given up on those kinds of dreams.

Today, her ex is married to her sister, Veronica, and four years later, Lil is still carrying around her resentment, and it’s become a bitter kernel that’s hardened her heart. It’s not that she lost the love of her life. The third time she postponed the wedding, everyone knew it was only a matter time before she called it off completely. That her sister stepped into the void shouldn’t have made her so angry, but for some reason, she can’t seem to move toward forgiveness.

Veronica has appeared a couple of times to this point, but only superficially, and even I’m not sure who she is. There are questions I need to answer before I can move the story forward. Why did Veronica insinuate herself into Hugh’s heart, even though she knew it was wrong? Did she know it would cause the kind of explosive reaction that it did? Was this a first, or did she always try to take what was Lil’s. Which leads me to pose the question, what was their prior relationship like? What roles did they play in the family and how did their parents influence the dynamics?

I need to go back and dig deeper into Lil’s childhood, uncover the sibling rivalries, flesh out the parents who were quick to forgive the betrayer, while allowing the betrayed to stand alone.

I usually have all this down before I begin, but in this case I neglected to do so, so focused on the story between Lil and Niall. But as Niall inches his way into her heart, Lil wants resolution with her family. The only way she can heal that rift, is if she understands Veronica’s vulnerabilities and her motives, and admits to herself that it all worked out for the best. She can’t do that, until I clear the path for her.

It only proves that secondary characters can be as important to develop as primary ones. Where a person comes from, is an important piece to understanding where she’s is, where she’s going, and how she can get there.

It’s my job to get Lil where she’s meant to be.