Category: PART OF A SERIES
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ROOM WITH A VIEW, Part I
Mary Helen Hansford was getting closer to turning 40 than she’d ever admit to anyone other than her best friend. Married for more than half of her life, she’d fallen into a rut that was tedious but comfortable. She figured that rut was probably no different than anyone else’s rut who was her age. She’d accepted it. In…
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FORT STOCKTON AFTER DARK, Chapter 4
Gunter didn’t have to wait long. The subject was out the front door of her modern mansion in Morningwood Estates, pressing the button on the Door-O-Matic keypad nestled in the cigarette case at the bottom of her purse, and gracefully gliding into the cabin. She was leaving the house early, just as his intel had predicted. She…
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FORT STOCKTON AFTER DARK, Chapter 3
Thad was up before the sun. He knew because the curtains were still open from the night before. The moonlight cast a shadow on Lucinda’s finest features, making her seem nearly angelic while she slept. Thad knew she was no angel. Angels don’t perform the kind of miracles she’d performed last night. He stumbled into the bathroom and shut…
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FORT STOCKTON AFTER DARK: Chapter 1
Thad Gunter knew exactly what he wanted when he walked into the dealership; the salesman was just there as a formality. The means to an end. A man of Gunter’s impeccable taste didn’t need the input of some two-bit car salesman, or Automotive Consultant, as it said on the card. “Take this down and don’t make me…
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SUMMER ’53, PART VI: The Lady of the Lake
“I thought I might find you out here,” Joel said to no one specifically. He looked at Matt and finished, “She loves the water. Especially on her daddy’s new boat.” Becky just laughed. Matt didn’t know if a fight was about to break out, or what. He figured Joel could probably take him, being in better shape. But Matt was…
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SUMMER ’53, PART V: Partnerships
“Joel and I have known each other since we were kids.” Becky was attempting to give Matt an answer for every question in a way that would make sense to him. “Our entire lives. Our fathers have been partners for longer than we’ve been alive. His mom is like a substitute for the one I lost. You must know what…
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SUMMER ’53, PART IV: Rocket Runabout
Matt waited for the phone to ring, the soft voice on the other end telling him to meet her at the Dairy Twin, or that she was on her way over to pick him up in the Skylark. When not hanging around the kitchen so he could be the first to grab the phone, he wandered…
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SUMMER ’53, PART III, Feels Like Home
Coming from Southern California to Fort Stockton, Texas was like starring in Rebel Without a Cause, and then taking a bit part in High Noon. Nobody inside the Ranch Wagon said anything as they made their way through town, checked into the Naughty Pine Motel and then made their way over to the Dairy Twin for dinner. “It’s…
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SUMMER ’53, PART II: Fort Stockton Just Ahead
Moving day came without celebration a few weeks later. Francis and Don went into Matthew’s room and threw open the drapes like Satan throws open the gates of Hell to welcome a new recruit. The brightness of the sunshine on his face caused Mathew to recoil under the sheets like a snake under a rock. Francis was…
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SUMMER ’53, PART I: Godforsaken Bakersfield
“Godforsaken Bakersfield,” Matthew thought to himself as he lay in his room at the end of the hall. “It there’s a worse place on earth, I’d like to know where it is.” Across the hall, his mother and her husband tried to stifle the sounds of their activities, but his mother was a verbal processor and…