I smoked the last two cigarettes from the pack on the porch as the setting sun backlit the trees ringing the lakeshore in a molten yellow, totally dazzling, though my thoughts were a thousand miles away. I played over our conversation, savoring his words, analyzing how his voice had sounded; it h...
He’d laughed merrily at the parade of gifts the kids had presented him with throughout the day as he worked his shift at the beach, balloons (which flew up into the sky with a little help from Emma), singing, and even a cake with candles that wouldn’t stay lit in the breeze. Erica insisted on a b...
I didn’t mind Bull’s company one bit, even though his presence kept Mathias and me from being alone together. But Bull was entertaining, and told me straight away about his cousin out in Montana, who had a lead on the whole Malcolm Carter mystery. “Harry Carter’s wife, out...
I woke in the very early morning; sunrise was perhaps a half an hour away. I let my senses stretch outside and into the camp, listening for any telltale sounds of stirring. Upon hearing none, I reached for my new shawl, draping it around my shift in the chilly air. Cautiously I made my way out in...
I stretched, not quite fully awake, and my first thought was to go and tell my sisters and Clinty what I had done last night. But they were in Minnesota. And I had work to do today, intent on living up to my growing (and at this point, thoroughly undeserved) reputation as the hero of Jalesville. ...
I told Mom the next morning, as we sat around table three at the café. It was the Fourth of July, so we would close directly after lunch; Mathias didn’t have to work today either and was home packing for our trip, as we were leaving in the morning. I was so excited to go that I could hardly sit s...
Anywhere, I didn’t care, as long as we could spend the rest of our days and nights braided together in our love. He’d come in for coffee with Dodge in the morning and was hardly up the porch steps before I’d banged out the screen door and he’d caught me in his arms for a hug. Dodge, in his son’s ...
Jilly and I made popcorn in her minuscule kitchen, and to my relief she didn’t mention her dream again. Mom, Aunt Ellen and Gran had retired for the evening, and the atmosphere in Jilly’s place was pure carnival. “Hey, Mom! ‘Hitchhiker III’ is on!” Tish yelled over to us, ...
I had awoken curled on my side with the scent of ashes and unwashed flesh strong in my nostrils, having dozed perhaps a half hour, at most. What little rest I claimed was plagued by a jumbled, nauseating sequence of nightmares, of men huddled in groups beneath a reddish sky, moaning in anguish an...