Margaret arrived at the office early with Kiera following close behind. She wanted to try and prepare Kiera, who was feeling extremely nervous, for what to expect before everyone else showed up. Her grandmother had discussed the uniqueness of the office setting, but now that it was time to actually experience it, she wasn't sure if Kiera could handle it. They entered the locker room and Margaret was relieved that they wer...

Running Eagle, naked except for a leather breechcloth, a red headband, and moccasins. Earlier the day he had been following day old tracks of a shod horse. The rider made no attempt to hide it from possible pursuers. The imprints were clearly visible in the red sand and on the rocks amongst the variety of tracings left by other animals. During the tracking, Running Eagle began to know his quarry. The rider, astride a ches...

Tasha opened the door of her camper trailer and took a deep breath of the morning air. Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees to fall on her nude body, and she shivered from a still-crisp breeze. She covered her stiffening nipples for a moment, pushed her long dark locks off her shoulders, and then made her way down the steps to the screen tent. It wouldn’t be long before the mosquitos took note of her presence, and...

Jeremy nearly blew beer out his nose when Brad cracked an unexpected joke. He swallowed and sputtered a few times, but managed to avoid an embarrassing display. His friends were all laughing too hard to notice. It was nice to go to a party and have fun again – something he hadn’t really done since Nancy had dumped him just before graduation the year before. College had been enough of a challenge to keep his mind off thing...

Dara sat near the edge of the lake, looking out between two white birch trees at the flotilla of canoes moving away from the island. The visit with her mother had helped, numbing the pain with touches of anger that had gripped her the day before, but certainly not erasing it. Watching Chase lead his friends across the lake brought some of the sting right back. Thirty years old and I’m acting like a schoolgirl being ignore...

The honking calls of geese sounded from overhead, a prelude to their splashdown on the lake some distance away. In the circular pool, large, dark shapes cruised just below the shimmering surface of the water. Here and there, a fin or tail appeared, giving further hints of the exceptional size of the fish that dwelled in the secluded pool. The sun shown down bright and warm, slowly evaporating the dew that clung to the lea...

Sitting under the awning next to her truck, Vanille looked down the street and decided that the fair was beginning to wind down. She breathed a sigh of relief both because the long day was over, and because she was going to turn a decent profit from working the small town street fair. Considering her name, she might very well have been destined to sell homemade ice cream from the back of a truck, but it certainly hadn’t b...