An hour after I arrived at my office Monday morning, two dozen red roses were delivered to me. There was no signature on the card, it wasn’t needed, I knew it was Thomas. I was still on cloud nine from Saturday night and Sunday morning with him. My week was going to be a busy one. My schedule had me traveling to Milwaukee. Time was short but I wanted to acknowledge his thoughtful gesture. I picked up the phone to call him...
The weekend heat was unrelenting. The thermometer read 96 but, in the sun the temperature was well over 110 degrees. I planned to take a ride on my boat to one of the beach islands offshore. The Gulf of Mexico was uncomfortably hot, so that was not appealing. There was no relief from the heat so I stayed home, occasionally jumping in the pool, drying off, and then doing it over again. Shortly after noon, the phone rang. I...
2- Unexpected Twists What happened next was a total surprise. If it had been sexy, little Kelly showing up at my door, it wouldn’t have surprised me much, but when it was Sara, also dressed rather provocatively, I was caught off guard, but the real surprise came when she told me why she was here. Eventually. “So, is Kelly behaving herself,” I asked after normal greetings, hoping she’d say no, and I’d have that perfect bot...
Don’t ask me how I got suckered into it - guess I felt sorry, or maybe it was just the desire to help out an old friend… So what had I let myself in for? Well, cleaning out the old barn, that’s what. If I say it was untidy and filthy, you’ll have to understand that understated it like describing Krakatoa as just a small volcanic explosion. I had started after a breakfast coffee, and it was now getting towards winter dusk...
The airport terminal was crowded and noisy as Ray stood at the conveyor and waited for his bag to come around, jostling with the others that waited impatiently as the baggage carousel churned slowly. He kept his head down as he tried to avoid the cameras and kept an eye out for the security guards posted by the foyer. Concerned that he stood out in his denim jacket and sneakers while everyone around him wore heavy coats o...
Sue and Chris Smith were walking in the village to which they had moved several years ago when Sue noticed a couple on the other side of the road that looked vaguely familiar. "Do they remind you of anyone, her in particular?" Sue said to her husband. "Well she looks a bit like Fiona Metcalf and I suppose that could be Clive," replied Chris. The other couple was looking in a shop window and were not aware that they were b...
Barbara Morris knew that her job did not make her popular, but if people did not park their vehicles illegally, they would not get parking tickets. At the moment, fifty-eight-year-old Barbara was affixing a ticket to the windscreen of an expensive-looking car that had overstayed its welcome on broken yellow lines. She had been doing this job for about two years, since it was decided that the very lax parking situation in...
Chapter 1 Not a Day Goes By. The band has been excellent tonight. Jayjay’s pleased with how the new lead guitarist and back-up vocalist are gelling with the group. They’ve got one more set, and he’s chilling in the corner booth in the front bar of our local pub, away from the din in the back-bar band room. This pub is where we had our first gig in front of paying customers. Most of them were friends and family of the ba...
Robert Sherman had been undecided about attending the school reunion which was for former pupils that had left the school between forty-five and thirty-five years previously.He had left forty years previously and he had left under a bit of a cloud and with a sore backside.Three days before he was to leave the school he and Shirley Watts, they were both aged seventeen at the time, were caught in a very compromising positio...
I had just gotten off work one Friday back in June and I was looking forward to the weekend. I had just bought a new propane grill and was anxious to fire it up for the first time. I went to my usual grocery store to buy the things I needed for tomorrow's dinner–steak, baby red potatoes, corn on the cob. But as I got to shopping, I found that they didn't have what I wanted in steaks. So I went to another grocery store a...
I knew where the night was headed When I first saw you across the crowded bar There was no doubt When the bartender sat the shot glass down And you made your way toward the barstool next to me I knew I was a goner When I looked up at you A soldier thru and thru Right down to your boots I knew it was the beginning of something specialWe left together that night Got tangled up in the sheets We thought we would have...
When David called Diane the following afternoon, she was anxious to hear from him. “Are you still with other people?” she asked. “Yes, baby, I am. I just excused myself, saying I had to make a quick call to my office.” Diane was disappointed. She had hoped they could have a long conversation. However, she was happy that he had wanted to speak with her. “Guess what I did after work yesterday?” “You probably went home that...
As we toasted marshmallows to make s’mores, it was only natural that we told each other ghost stories—some from when we were kids, some we had heard over the years. The random unexpected events in those spooky tales were not unlike what had led us to that campfire. I had met Julia some twenty years earlier when she was sleeping with a friend of mine. By the time they broke up, I had moved to another part of the country, b...
Susan was surprised to see Glenn enter the Eversham train station. She had expected to meet his younger sister Rebecca, who had been her best friend since childhood. In fact, last Susan heard, Glenn was still living in Vancouver where he worked for an accounting firm. Glenn had changed a lot in the years since Susan had last seen him. Once a rather scruffy young man with long, unkempt hair and perpetual five o’clock shado...
Stephanie was done crying. As a matter of fact, she’d progressed well into the pissed-off, what was I thinking stage. There was little better example of that than hanging out with one of her best friends, whom she hadn’t spent any significant time with in more than two years. Steph finished her story and absently pushed a few errant strands of long red hair back over her ear. Jill shook her head and said, “Seriously? ...
