A New Beginning: Free on Kindle today and tomorrow

October 16, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler

I wanted to make sure I told any Kindle readers that my second book A New Beginning is free on Amazon right now (until Saturday, Oct. 17). I am including a small excerpt of the book here and you can read a longer one by clicking HERE.

Five years later I could still vividly remember the moment I broke Hank Hakes’ nose with my foot after he broke mine with his fist. I could still hear the sick crunch of bones under my heel and still clearly see in my mind his glazed eyes before they closed, and his face fell into a pool of blood on the carpet.

I knew if I didn’t remember how Hank had beat me and I had fought back, I might let my walls down, leaving my son and me vulnerable again. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

Maybe that’s why I felt so uncomfortable when my best friend Emmy Lambert said she couldn’t wait for me to meet her cousin J.T. from North Carolina. I didn’t like the idea that she might be trying to set me up.

The truth was, I had met J.T. Wainwright years before when we were both children, and the memory wasn’t one that overwhelmed me with an interest to meet him again. He’d been a scrawny kid with big ears, messy red-brown hair, and freckles all over his dirt-smudged nose. He had also been loud, obnoxious and downright rude. Imagining that in a 27-year-old man wasn’t making the meeting any more appealing for me.

Emmy insisted she wasn’t trying to set me up. “J.T. is moving up to work with daddy in his construction business and I thought it would be good to introduce him to some people up here.”

She’d invited my sister and brother-in-law and my parents. Perfect proof that she wasn’t trying to get me alone with him, she claimed.

I finally agreed to attend the dinner, hoping Emmy would change the subject.

She didn’t. Instead, Emmy tapped her finger against her chin, her eyes focused on the ceiling in a thoughtful expression. “But, if I was setting you up, J.T. would definitely be a good one to set you up with. He’s handsome, well-built, a former football player, and Southern, which is always a plus.”

I knew Emmy had added the Southern reference because she still considered herself Southern, even though her family had moved from North Carolina a little over a decade ago.

“Emmy, you know I’m not interested in dating.”

“I’m just saying. You know. In case you change your mind.”

“I can assure you, Emmy, I won’t.”

Emmy sighed. “Blanche, you have to get back on the dating horse someday.”

I cocked at eyebrow at her. “Do I really? Because Jackson and I are happy the way things are now.”

“But what if a man simply adds to your happiness? Not every man is like Hank, you know.”

It was a blessing not every man was like my first husband, but that didn’t mean I was interested in starting a relationship with another one and take that risk.

After I’d left Emmy at her father’s office, I’d walked back to my sewing shop down the street to meet my older sister Edith.

“Oh, Blanche! I just love the dress!”

Edith twirled in front of me, the dress I’d made for her swirling around her in a blur of dark red.

She slid her hands down the front, resting them on her hips and admired herself in the full-length mirror. “Do you think Jimmy will like it?”

I stuck the pin I had been holding between my lips into the pincushion next to the sewing table and stood, admiring the view of my older sister filling out the dress. I didn’t have to look at how it fit her to know her husband would love the dress she was wearing.

“He likes anything you wear, you know that. You could wear a garbage bag and he’d fall all over himself trying to get to you.”

Edith tipped her head back and laughed, dark curls spilling across her bare shoulders. “You think so? Even with all this extra weight I have on my hips?”

“I know so.”

Edith turned, admired herself in the mirror eyes traveling down below her waist.

“It doesn’t make my – “

“Your bottom is fine,” I said with a laugh. “But I can loosen the fabric a little in that area if you like.”

Edith wrinkled her nose and tipped her head to one side as she studied her reflection. “Nah, I think this is going to work fine for our anniversary dinner. More than fine. You’ve done such a beautiful job, Blanche. Thank you so much.”

Edith, who possessed curves in all the right places, had always been beautiful, but she never seemed to believe it. As a teen and young adult, she’d always needed some sort of reassurance of her beauty and worth. At one time in our lives that reassurance came from the attention of boys – lots of boys.

But six years ago, Edith began to see herself through the eyes of someone more important than the next boy in line – God. When she realized God loved her for who she was – faults and all – her opinion of herself shifted and she began to understand that she was loved – not for what she did or how she looked, but for who she was inside. Even with that realization Edith still had days she worried about her appearance. What was different now was that she worried exclusively about how one specific person saw her – her husband, and one-time high school sweetheart, Jimmy Sickler.

Jimmy ran a car repair business with his father and was someone I’d always wanted to see Edith marry but never thought I would. He was too sweet and polite for her during a phase of her life when only loud and adventurous would do. His looks, with soft brown hair and dark brown eyes, could have been described as more “choir boy” than “bad boy” and for a couple of years bad boys were on the top of Edith’s dating cue.

When Edith finally learned to see herself the way God saw her, she began to realize her worth wasn’t in how many boys loved her. She also realized Jimmy had been the one constant in her life, always there to comfort and support her even when she seemed to reject him.

I unfurled a roll of fabric, spreading it across the cutting table. “Allie Davenport wants a summer dress in this fabric, what do you think?”

Edith snorted, tipped her chin up slightly and looked at herself in the mirror, pulling the top of the dress slightly down to reveal her shoulders.

“I think Allie should worry more about the fact that everyone in town knows she’s running around behind Larry’s back with Jason Taylor than a summer dress.”

“Edith! That’s awful!”

Edith raised her eyebrows and propped a hand on her curvy hip.

“I know it’s awful. Larry proposed to her only a month ago – she’s going to break his heart.”

Edith had changed a lot since we were children, especially after she had started attending church more and even more so when she married Jimmy, but she still possessed a tendency to gossip and judge.

“God’s still working on me,” she liked to remind me.

I knew what she meant. God had been working on me in the last five years, but he still had a lot of work to do. There were many days I looked at myself in the mirror, measuring tape hanging around my neck, a pencil tucked behind my ear, and laughed at the irony of someone who had once hated sewing now working as a dressmaker. As a teenager, I couldn’t thread a needle, let alone create an entire fashionable outfit for the women in town or hem pants for the men. While I had once silently cursed the idea of attending sewing classes with my mom and sister, sewing now supported me and my 6-year old son Jackson.

“So, why do you think Emmy wants you to meet her cousin?” Edith asked, still admiring the dress in the mirror.

“She says she just wants him to know some people in town now that he’s moved up here to work with her dad, but she’s probably like everyone else who thinks Blanche needs a man to fix her.”

Edith frowned and pursed her lips together in a disapproving expression as she turned to face me. “Everyone? I’ve never said you need a man to fix you, so not ‘everyone’ says that.”

I sighed and folded the fabric for Allie’s dress, laying it on a shelf behind me. “Well, Mama and Daddy and Emmy then. Not you. Still, I don’t know why they all don’t understand that I like life the way it is right now. I’m content. Jackson is happy. We’re doing well.”

Edith folded her arms and leaned back against the sewing table, a smile tugging at her lips. “And you don’t have to let anyone in and risk being hurt again. Good plan.”

I playfully tossed a rolled-up piece of tissue paper at her. “Borrowing a saying from Emmy, ‘hush your mouth.’”

Edith laughed. “Well, it’s true and you know it is.”

We turned our heads at the sound of the front door opening and saw our father standing there, briefcase in hand, grinning as he saw Edith trying to reach to unzip the dress from behind.

“Well, you look nice, Edith,” he said. “Special occasion?”

Edith smirked and shook her head, tugging at the zipper. “Daddy…you know it’s Jimmy and my anniversary next week.”

“Oh? Is it? I must have forgotten.”

Edith playfully slapped her hand against Daddy’s shoulder as she walked past him toward the changing room. “Very funny, Daddy.”

Edith had only mentioned her upcoming anniversary several times a day for the last two weeks. We knew Daddy hadn’t forgotten.

Gray speckled Daddy’s sandy brown hair and small wrinkles marked the skin along his eyes. He took his suit coat off and started to loosen his tie.

“You ready to head home, kid?” he asked me. “Mama’s making fried chicken for dinner and I bet she’d love a break from that crazy kid of yours.”

I laughed, knowing my mama never called my son crazy and loved the days she spent with him; playing with him, cooking him lunch, and helping him prepare for Kindergarten, which he would start attending in a few months.

“I’m anxious to see him,” I said, gathering my measuring tape, scissors, and extra thread spools and shoving them in the top drawer of the sewing table. “But I doubt Mama wants a break from him.”

Daddy smiled. “I have to agree. She does love that boy.”

Edith stepped out of the dressing room in a button-up pink shirt and a flared light blue skirt, hooking her long, curly hair into a ponytail. “Speaking of being anxious to see someone, I’ve got a husband to head home to and cook up some dinner for.”

She hugged me quickly and kissed Daddy’s cheek. “Thanks again, Blanche. I’ll swing by next week to pick it up. I don’t want Jimmy to see it until that night.”

***

I’d spent the first year after my divorce floundering, trying to get my footing as a single mom at the age of 20. I stayed home with Mama, helping her cook and clean and care for Jackson, but rarely left home, even for church. Instead, I kept myself emotionally locked up in the solitude of shame. Eventually, I took a part-time job at the library, began attending church again, and visiting the sewing circle meetings with Mama on Wednesday nights. I also started writing a column for the local newspaper.

I’d left the library job when Doris Thompson asked me if I’d be interested in helping her in the sewing shop. I agreed and a year later Doris semi-retired, working three days a week at first and then one day. Six months ago, she’d signed the business over to me and remained on as landlord only, collecting monthly rent from me.

“I have to stop and drop my column off to Stanley before we head out,” I called over my shoulder to Daddy.

Walking down the sidewalk, I slid a folded stack of papers out of my handbag.

Daddy grunted with disgust as he opened the driver’s side door. “I’ll wait for you in the car. I can only feign politeness for so long with that man.”

A faint smile pulled at my mouth as I remembered Daddy’s dinner rant a few months ago about editor Stanley Jasper’s editorial.

“What’s that fool even talking about, saying we should get involved in the Vietnam conflict?” Daddy slapped the folded newspaper onto the table. “There is no way we should be sending our boys over there. Who does that man think he is? Moves in here from the city and then acts like he knows it all. I have half a mind to go into that office and tell that editor what an ignoramus he is.”

And Daddy did go into the newspaper office, but he came out even angrier than when he’d gone in. Stanley had refused to budge and told Daddy if he had a problem with the editorials that ran in the paper, he was welcome to stop buying it.

Stanley’s name was off-limits in our house from then on. Daddy wasn’t thrilled with me submitting a column to the newspaper but said maybe my lifestyle column would help to offset the drivel Stanley wrote on the opinion page each Sunday.

The newspaper office buzzed with the noise of reporters on the phone, typewriter keys clicking, the press in the back running, and sports reporters commenting on the latest home run by Mickey Mantel.

Reporter Jerry Simms looked up from his typewriter, sliding a pencil behind his ear. He jerked his head toward Stanley’s office door on the other side of the office. “You know the drill. Hand it to Stanley so he knows it’s here.”

I found Stanley where I usually did when I came in to drop off my column; behind his desk in the middle of a cloud of cigar smoke, pounding out a story on the typewriter.

Stanley wasn’t originally from Dalton. He’d grown up in Philadelphia, a transplant, referred to by many in the county as a “flatlander,” a term used affectionately when people agreed with him and with a sneer when they disagreed with him.

Leaning back in a large, black leather chair, his feet propped on top of the desk, a sheet of paper in one hand, a cigar in the other, his black hair, streaked with gray, was disheveled as usual. Circles darkened the skin under his eyes, his jawline was unshaven, his clothes wrinkled, his shirt untucked.

He moved the paper to one side as I stepped inside the door and stuffed the cigar in the corner of his mouth.

“Good column last week, Blanche,” he said around the cigar. “I never thought I’d get so caught up in the story of a pregnant cat.” He shrugged and pulled the cigar from his mouth, holding it between his index finger and thumb. “It’s like I’ve told you before, small town people eat that stuff up.”

I was never sure if the comment about small-town people was a compliment, but I always chose to accept it as one since it was as close as Stanley was probably going to get about a column he saw as “soft news.” In journalism lingo, soft news was considered low priority and traditionally thought of as inferior to the harder news.

“Well, this week we have an update on the cat and her kittens,” I said. “I’m sure the small-town folk you speak of will love that too.”

The newspaper’s typesetter, Minnie Wilkes, sashayed her way into the office and snatched the column from the top of Stanley’s desk.

She turned and looked at me with bright green eyes and long, dark eyelashes, made even darker by heavy, black eyeliner and purple-blue eye shadow. “Hey, Blanche. I’m so glad to have your column to typeset. It’s way more interesting than the political stuff Stanley writes.”

Stanley rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Minnie. Your opinion is duly noted, though not asked for.”

Minnie winked at me on her way out of the office.

Stanley stuffed the cigar back in his mouth and moved the paper he was holding back in front of his face.

“Keep up the folksy stuff, Blanche. It sells papers. And that’s what we’re in the business of doing — selling papers.”

Outside the office, standing in the sunlight, I looked out at the town I’d gone to high school in and thought how strange it was to still be in the place I’d thought I’d left behind that day I’d left it as a teenager.

In front of me, the town square was postcard-worthy, a gazebo in the middle of it. Behind the square sat one of the oldest banks in the state, Community State Bank, and next to the bank the Dalton Theatre, built-in 1893 and only renovated twice since then. Down on the other end of the street, Bert’s Pharmacy was wedged between an antique shop and D’s Diner, and a few blocks over was Holden’s Supermarket. Across the street from the supermarket was the post office and two blocks away from the post office was the building where I’d spent many of my days after school, waiting for Daddy to finish at the office and drive us home – The Dalton Public Library.

I’d never felt like I’d fit in at school or in this town and that feeling was even more prominent after I’d returned with a baby and no husband. There were days I was sure the eyes of judgement were upon me when I walked around town, but the feeling was probably something I’d conjured up in my own mind. Since coming home, I had earned a General Education Diploma, started attending church again, began running my own business, writing for the local paper, and slowly working my way back into the community.

I still struggled with feeling out of place. I still kept my eyes downcast most of the time, but more and more I lifted my eyes and met kind expressions and nods of greeting. Eventually, I began to feel less like the outcast I’d always thought I was.

“So, Blanche. . .”

Anytime Daddy started a sentence with “So, Blanche. . .” I knew he was about to suggest something I needed to do or should have done.

I shut the passenger side door behind me, tossed my coat into the backseat and looked at him, bracing myself for whatever conversation we were about to have.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking . . .”

A ‘So, Blanche’ and a ‘I’ve been thinking….’ in less than thirty seconds meant this was going to be an uncomfortable conversation.

“Yes?”

“I think I should teach you how to drive so you can have a little more freedom.”

I let my breath out in a heavy sigh. I wasn’t interested in learning how to drive, perfectly content with Mama or Daddy driving me where I needed to go. I was completely intimidated at the idea of learning how to push in a clutch and shift gears and everything else that went along with driving.

“You’re almost 25, Blanche,” Daddy continued. “You’ve been home five years now. I don’t mind driving you where you need to go, but I think it’s time you start, you know, spreading your wings a little bit, gaining some independence. I love having you and Jackson living with us, you know that, but someday, well, you will – or you could – you might – meet someone and . . .”

“Daddy . . .”

“Well, you might. I mean there are plenty of eligible, good men in this county and it is possible you will, you know . . . Ah. You might want to drive out and meet him somewhere or —”

“Daddy. . .”

I knew he and Mama were old school and felt Jackson needed both a father and a mother, but I wasn’t willing to marry someone just to fulfill my parents’ wish that I be a married mother instead of a single one.

It was hard for me to believe it had been five years since I had left Hank and returned home with a one-year-old on my hip and a heart full of hurt.

Hank had come looking for me a month later and Daddy was waiting for him with a shotgun.

Hank looked at the dirt a few feet in front of him in shock. “Y-you could have killed me, you crazy old man!”

“I could have, and I still can,” Daddy told him. “Now go before I have to.”

When the taillights faded into the darkness that night, I closed my eyes against the tears and wondered if Hank would try to come back again someday.

He never did.

His mama, Marion, told me one day when I took Jackson for our weekly visit that she’d received a letter from Hank a year after I’d left him, saying he planned to move out west. That was the last she’d heard from him. I knew it broke her heart that her oldest son never contacted her, but I could tell that seeing Jackson helped relieve the pain.

I’d seen Hank once before he left to go out West, but he hadn’t seen me, and I never told my family about it. I didn’t know if I ever would.

“I’ll think about the driving lessons,” I told Daddy.

Now, let’s change the subject, I prayed.

“Well, you know, that’s all I can ask,” Daddy said, clearing his throat, looking at the road in front of him. “I guess.”

I looked out at the road too, watching as the paved road faded to dirt, dust billowing around the car as Daddy turned down the road that would take us home. I closed my eyes, tired from the long day, but also fighting back thoughts and emotions I had tried to bury for five years.

I despised myself for letting Hank Hakes abuse me with his mouth and his hands for the three years I’d been married to him. For five years I had been consumed with an inability to forgive Hank or myself for all that had happened after I’d run away with him at the age of 17. Abusing me seemed to finally give him the power his abusive father had stripped from him during his childhood.

The night I left him, he’d shoved me against a table, dragged me by my hair and tried to stop me from leaving our apartment with our son by grabbing my leg and yanking me to the floor. I could remember it all like it had happened yesterday; how I’d reached behind my head and saw the blood on my hand, how he’d hissed at me: “Why couldn’t you have just done what you were told?” and then swung around and staggered into our room, toward our screaming baby. I remembered how he’d danced around the room in a drunken rage after I’d pushed him away from Jackson, laughing in my face.

“Oh, looky here,” Hank had said, leering at me. “Little ole’ Blanche finally got her voice.”

He laughed again, leaned close to my face and sneered.

“Whatcha’ going to do with it now you got it?”

When I fought back, kicking him in the face, knocking him out, leaving him in a pool of blood, I ran to my friend Miss Mazie’s house and never looked back.

More than fighting to forgive myself for leaving with Hank at 17, I couldn’t seem to find a way to forgive myself for the danger I’d put Jackson in by staying with Hank; how I’d caused Jackson to have a life without a father.

In that first year after I left, life unfolded around me like a movie I was a part of but had no say in. I came home to my parents, a father who had barely spoken to me in three years, and a mother who welcomed me with open arms but somehow blamed herself for my smashed nose and bruised face. I pushed the emotion of those years with Hank deep inside me and the darkness of it all lingered in the furthest caverns of my heart for two years, eventually leaving me in a state of emotional numbness.

Slowly I began to feel again – laugh again, trust again, hope again, at least when it came to my family and my future. I had no interest in a romantic relationship of any kind, though, and still didn’t. I wasn’t about to let anyone break down the walls I had built around my life and heart, walls to protect me, but more importantly Jackson. I had exposed my son to darkness and pain once before. I refused to do it again.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning, Chapter 32

March 20, 2020March 17, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

If you missed it, I posted Chapter 31 of A New Beginning yesterday.

Thoughts on the story so far? Let me know in the comments!

As always, this is a story in progress so there will be typos, missing words and maybe even plot holes. Feel free to let me know about them in the comments. I’ll be editing and fixing them before the final publication later this spring.

A New Beginning is a sequel to A Story to Tell but you don’t need to read A Story to Tell to understand and follow along with A New Beginning. The link to the chapters of A New Beginning, in order, can be found HERE or at the link at the top of the page.

Chapter 32

“How close do you think I was to dying that night with Hank?” I asked Emmy six months after I’d left Hank.

Emmy looked at me with furrowed eyebrows. “Why would you ask that? Did you really think he was going to kill you that night?”

I hugged a pillow to my chest. “I honestly don’t know. It’s how it felt that night, yes. The look on his face . . . Emmy, it was horrible. It was like he wasn’t even human.”

I thought about the conversation and Emmy’s question back to me as I pulled my legs up into my stomach, curled up under my covers, in my own bed, after finally returning home with Edith, Jimmy, Lily and the new baby, who Lily had named Alexander Josiah.

How close had I been to dying that night? Did it make me a horrible person to think Hank really could have been capable of killing me? Was he truly that horrible of a person? I pictured his fist hitting Judson’s face, the anger radiating off of him when he’d watched Judson and I through his truck window as we drove away. He was full of anger, of bitterness, but was he capable of killing?

I wondered if he would be capable of killing if he ended up in Vietnam. I squeezed my eyes tight against the darkness, willing sleep to come. Why was I thinking about all of this now? My body was heavy with exhaustion. I’d worked longer hours at the shop the last two days, trying to catch up on the work I’d been behind on after the extended trip to the city with Edith and Jimmy. I hadn’t even stopped to see Judson, or call to see how he was, but I’d thought of him almost constantly.

I rolled to my back, stared at the ceiling, then rolled to my side and closed my eyes again.

I could have died that night, I thought to myself. Emmy and I both could have died that night in the storm. Life is so short. Life is so fragile. I’ve barely been living all these years. Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I so afraid to take risks?

I threw the covers off me, sat up and swung my legs over the bed, my thoughts racing. I was wasting my life and pushing people away and for what? For nothing. I was doing it all under the guise that I could somehow keep anything bad from happening to me, simply by controlling every situation, every feeling. But feelings weren’t something I could control and right now I was fighting against admitting my feelings for Judson were much more than simple friendship.

I quickly dressed and slid my shoes on, sneaking down the hallway and the stairs, glancing at the clock in the living room on my way through. 11:30 at night. What was I even thinking, taking a walk at this time of night, heading to see the one person who wanted me to enjoy life as much I did? I knew I’d never sleep if I didn’t tell Judson I’d wanted to kiss him that night at the lake and I wished I hadn’t run away.

I felt almost like I was in high school again, sneaking out to see Hank, as I tip-toed past my parent’s room and walked gingerly down the stairs. I wasn’t in high school again, though, and I wasn’t going to see Hank. I didn’t feel guilty about this late-night escape.

The crisp air stinging my nose and eyes as I walked down the dirt road toward Judson’s reminded me that winter was almost here. Above me, the night sky twinkled with stars and a full moon was showing bright just above the treetops. Somewhere across the fields one of Mr. Worley’s cows mooed from either in his pasture or inside the barn.

Movement in the brush as I walked past a barren cornfield on one side and a tangled thicket on the other startled me. My breath and steps quickened. A terrifying thought hit me like a rock between the eyes. What if there was a bear in the bushes?

Oh my gosh. It is a bear. I am going to be eaten by a bear while being a fool and walking out of my house in the middle of the night to tell a man who has probably forgotten me about since I hadn’t even called him in more than a week to check on him that I – that I what?

I stopped walking, breathing hard, my breath floating white in front of me in small quick puffs.

I looked up at the stars, the cloudless, dark sky, and heard the rustling again in the bushes. I swallowed hard and started walking faster. What was I even going to tell Judson? And why hadn’t I taken the car? What had I been thinking? I had a child to take care of. How would my parents tell him I had been eaten by a bear while walking off in the middle of the night to go see some man.

A black, furry blur rushed at me from the bushes and I screamed in terror, holding my arms up to block the attack of the bear.

But the attack never came.

I slowly lowered my arms and opened my eyes, squinting in the moonlight. A plump black cat yowled at me as it sauntered toward me as if to mock me for my fear. It darted past me, back toward our house. I remembered at that moment why I had never been a fan of cats.

I looked back toward our house, then back the other way, down the road, at the bend in it, knowing Mr. Worley’s tenant house where Judson lived was a hundred feet away. If I went home, I could crawl back into bed and forget about this night and my foolishness. If I walked to Judson’s I took the chance he was asleep but then again, what was I going to even say if he was awake?

Standing in the middle of this old dirt road I’d driven and walked on a thousand times I closed my eyes and felt the tears hot behind them. I thought about the fight with Hank, the bruises on Judson’s face, the way his eye had been swollen the next day. Absent-mindedly I walked, kicking at the dirt, pulling my sweater closer around me, wondering why I always seemed to cause everyone pain.

When I reached Judson’s front yard, I stood looking at the light glowing from his front window. Was he inside reading a book? Building a table?

On a date?

My heart lurched at that thought. I drew in a deep breath but couldn’t bring myself to walk onto the front porch.

Blanche Robbins, what are you doing? I thought with a hand pressed against my forehead. Go home and gather your thoughts before you make a fool out of yourself.

I turned to leave and screamed for the second time that night, this time at a figure standing behind me shining a light in my face. I held my hands up against the blinding light.

“Blanche? What are you doing out here?”

I recognized the smooth Southern accent immediately. I squinted in the light.

Judson lowered the flashlight and stepped toward me in the darkness.

“I – I was taking a walk,” I gasped.

“At midnight?”

“Uh…yes?”

“In the pitch dark?”

“Yes?”

“Without a flashlight?”

I cleared my throat and rubbed my hands nervously across my arms.

“Umm . . .yes?”

“Did you scream a few moments ago?”

“Yes, that was me.”

“I thought it was a dying cat, so I came out to see what was going on.”

I giggled. “A dying cat? I sounded like a dying cat?”

Judson laughed loudly. “Well, yeah.”

“So, you were going to come out here and do what with the dying cat?”

“I don’t know!” he said, still laughing. “Maybe put it out of its’ misery.”

He jerked his head toward the house. “It’s cold out here. Do you want to come in?”

I looked at the front porch and shook my head, shivering. “I don’t think – I mean, I don’t know if it would be right to go into the house of a man I’m not married to in — uh, well, the middle of the night.”

I thought he might laugh at me but instead, he nodded in apparent understanding. “Okay, well, then come up on the porch and I’ll get a blanket to put around your shoulders. You shouldn’t be out here alone at this time of night. There could be bears or — some other crazy Pennsylvania creature out here.”

I snorted a small laugh, pretending the idea of bears being along this road was absurd and I’d never thought of such a thing. “Bears. Yeah. Right.”

Up on the porch I sat on the step while Judson went inside and returned with a quilt. He draped it around my shoulders and sat next to me, leaning his back against the porch column, one leg up, one stretched down on the top step. Had I really just suggested I shouldn’t go into his home because it might not look right? First of all, who was going to see us at this time of night on a dark, rural road? The cat? Secondly, as if being in his home the other day in broad daylight couldn’t have been construed by some as inappropriate behavior as well.

Judson propped his forearm arm on his knee. “Blanche. Seriously. What are you doing out here?”

I looked at him in the dim porch light, at the fading bruises under his eye and along his cheek, a choking pain searing through my chest.

Oh please, Lord, don’t let me start crying, I might not stop.

But it was too late. Without warning, I lost the fight to hold in my emotions and began to sob. It was as if a dam broke. I pressed my hands against my face and sobbed, tears soaking my face.

“Blanche, what’s going on?” Judson’s voice was full of shock and concern. He touched my arm gently. “Did something happen? Did Hank come back or —”

I shook my head behind my hands. “No. No. Nothing like that,” I choked out, trying to wipe the tears from my face with my hands.

Judson lifted a corner of the quilt and dabbed my cheeks with it. “What is going on?”

I turned my face away from him, trying to stop the tears.

“You really could have been hurt the other night with Hank and it’s my fault.”

“How was it your fault that Hank was a jerk and I chose to step in? We already talked about this. That was my choice.”

I pulled the quilt tight around me. “It’s like everything I do hurts someone else.”

Judson laughed softly. “Well that’s a little self-centered isn’t it?” he asked.

I sniffed and looked at him through tears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You seem to think you have so much power you are the cause of the pain of others. Can you also use your powers for good?”

I sighed. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant that people get hurt trying to help me because of my stupid —”

“Stepping in with Hank was my choice,” Judson interrupted, his tone sharp. “Protecting you was my choice.”

He turned toward me, pushing my hair back from my face. When he spoke again his tone was tender, husky.

“Loving you is my choice. And your safety is worth whatever pain I’m in right now.”

The serious tone of his voice sent a ripple of exhilaration from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. How could he still love me, after all the ways I’d pushed him away over the last two years?

I swiped my hand across the tears streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t imagine I looked very nice, my face splotchy and red from the crying.

A heavy sensation of anticipation settled in the center of my chest as he spoke. “Why won’t you just let me love you, Blanche? Why can’t you stop thinking so much and just,” he stood impulsively and tossed his arms out to his side in frustration, looking down at me. “I don’t know, feel! Feel something and let that be your guide, not your thoughts or your ‘what if’ worries.”

My excited feeling was being replaced with a growing annoyance and I wasn’t sure I had the emotional fortitude to handle the roller coaster of feelings

How stupid can he be? Doesn’t he know what happens to women when they go through life guided by their feelings? I stood to face him, the quilt sliding off my shoulders, landing in a pile on the porch floor.

“I did ‘just feel’ once upon a time,” I snapped, my voice breaking with anger, as I tossed my arms out to mock his gesture. “With Hank. I didn’t think. I just went with my feelings and took a risk. And where did it get me? Beat up. A pregnant teenager with no clue how to raise a baby. It got me shame. It got me guilt because my son has been growing up without a father — ”

“Blanche, stop it.” Judson’s voice was sharp and loud as he interrupted me. I stepped back, startled. “Stop using Hank Hakes as a measuring stick for every situation in your life, for every man that walks into your life. Hank is a stellar example of what a man shouldn’t be, but not every man is Hank Hakes.”

He walked toward me briskly, cupping my face in his hands. “I am not Hank Hakes, Blanche. I love you and I want you to tell me how you feel about me – not what you fear will happen if you let yourself love me. For God sake, Blanche, if this whole thing with my dad has taught me anything, it’s that life is short, too short to wait to tell people how we feel. I have spent too many nights aching to speak to you, aching to hold you, aching for you to let me in.”

We were only inches apart now. I couldn’t take my eyes off his. My gaze focused on the flecks of green scattered in the blue of his iris. His hands on my skin woke a passion and need in me I knew had always been there but had tried to ignore.

“I know how I feel about you Blanche. I know I can’t stop thinking about you, worrying about you, wondering what you’re doing when we’re not together. I know when we are together I find myself memorizing every little gesture you make, quirk you have, wondering how it’s possible that simply being with you calms me like nothing else, like no one else, does.”

I searched his eyes, saw in them tenderness and searching of his own. I didn’t understand why he seemed to love me so fiercely. I didn’t understand how I deserved someone who wanted healing for me as much as I wanted it for myself.

I knew he was right. Realizing how short and fragile life was had been what had brought me here tonight. I had come here to tell Judson I was afraid to love him, to be loved by him but also that I didn’t want a life ruled by fear and anger. Why couldn’t I just say it?

“Oh, Judson. I’m sorry.”

The words rushed out of me as if an emotional dam had burst, tears flowing before I could even try to fight them back.

“I’m so sorry I keep acting like you’re even remotely like Hank. You’re not. You’re so wonderful and beautiful and sweet and I want to know all there is to know about you. I want to know what you think about all those books on your bookshelves and how you made all that furniture and what you did in the summer with your brother when you were a little boy and what your favorite food is.”

“I want to know what you think about God and if you’ve ever gone swimming in the ocean. I want to know it all but I’m so afraid to know it all.” I choked out a sob. “I don’t have to let myself love you, Judson. I just do. Even when I don’t want to. And yes, it frightens me because I don’t want Jackson to be hurt again, but I also don’t want to be hurt again. I kissed you at the lake because I wanted to kiss you. I felt an insane physical attraction to you, but it scared me because I needed something more. I didn’t want any decision I made to be based on physical attraction because I took that path before and it didn’t end well.”

I gasped in a breath and tears slipped down my face as Judson kissed my forehead, then my cheek, pulling back to look at me.

“But, I also don’t want to hold my feelings for you in any longer,” I whispered. “I know now that I love you beyond appearance, that I love your heart as much as I love your soft lips and your beautiful eyes.”

Judson grinned. “You think my eyes are beautiful?”

My face flushed warm. “I think all of you is beautiful.”

His grin had widened and I actually thought I saw red flush along his cheekbones as he laughed softly.

“You know, C.S. Lewis once said that to love at all is to be vulnerable.”

“Have you been talking to my Dad?”

“What?”

“My Dad quoted that same thing from C.S. Lewis a few weeks ago.”

Judson laughed again. “Great minds think alike apparently.”

He pressed his forehead against mine. “Blanche, I’m scared too. Loving you is scary because I don’t want to hurt you either and I know I could someday, but I know I could never treat you the way Hank treated you. I know I will do anything in my power to protect you, to protect Jackson, and to protect your heart.”

My body relaxed as he spoke, a peace settling over me at each word. When he tilted his head and gently pressed his mouth against mine, I surrendered to how tender love could be. Unlike that day at the lake, I accepted each second of the kiss, each tender touch. His hands slid from my face, pushed into my hair, and cradled the back of my head. I clutched the front of his shirt, worried he might pull away like I had at the lake.

I didn’t want him to pull away. I didn’t want him to stop kissing me. I didn’t want him to stop showing me how much he truly loved me.

His hands slipped from my hair, moving down my back, resting in the small of it as he gently pulled me against him. When he pulled away and started to speak, I laid a finger against his lips. I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about anything anymore. I wanted to feel all the emotions I hadn’t let myself experience when I’d kissed him before.

His mouth found mine again and pleasure coursed through me as his mouth moved to my neck and then my throat, kissing a trail across my skin. I slid my hands into his hair, clutching it, focused only on the fire each touch of his mouth and hands lit inside me.

I don’t know how long we stood there holding each other, lost in the moment, forgetting all we’d been worried about, but when he finally pulled back to look at me we were both breathing hard and he was laughing.

“That felt —”

I tipped my head back and let my hair fall back across my shoulders.

“Like freedom,” I said, finishing his sentence.

He laughed and I kissed him again, enjoying the softness of his hair between my fingers.

“Blanche,” he whispered hoarsely a few moments later. “I need to drive you home.”

I pulled his head down to mine again to resume our kiss, but he stepped back taking my hands in his, clasping them together and holding them against his chest.

I could feel his heart pounding fast under my hands.

“I need to take you home now,” he said firmly, looking me in the eyes. He spoke quickly. “If I don’t, I’m afraid . . .” He shook his head slowly. “Of what we might do.”

I looked at him in surprise, warmth rushing from my chest into my cheeks. I knew what he was saying and that he was right, though I’d never intended that when I’d started walking to see him earlier. My own heart was pounding as fast as his, my thoughts spinning; the perfect storm for clouded judgment and choices that might be regretted later.

I signaled I understood by a quick nod of my head. He left me standing on the porch and grabbed his truck keys from inside the house. We drove to my parents’ house in silence, and he shut the engine off in the driveway. I was trembling and I knew it wasn’t from the chill in the air.

Stretching his arm across the back of the seat he looked at me and let out a long sigh. “So, we talked and … yeah … that was good.”

“It was.”

“I’m glad we got that talk out of the way and know how we feel now.”

“Me too.”

I gasped and then giggled as he reached out and clutched my hair at the back of my head, tilting my head back gently and pressing his mouth firmly against mine. I giggled. When was the last time I had actually giggled?

“We’ll talk more later today,” he whispered when he pulled his mouth from mine several moments later. “Now get out of here before your daddy chases me off with a shotgun.”

I laughed. “I don’t think that’s going to happen with you. He likes you too much.”

His hand touched my arm gently as I opened the door and I turned to look at him.

“Blanche….”

His expression was tender as he cupped my cheek against his hand. “Is it too soon to say I love you? Because I do.”

The words flowed over me like warm water. I leaned close to him, laid my hand against his cheek, and brushed my lips against his. “I hope it isn’t because I love you too, Judson.”

I watched him drive away, as I pulled my sweater tight around me and then slipped inside the house. Inside my room, under the covers I closed my eyes, struggling to fall asleep, wondering what my future held now that I’d told Judson T. Wainwright I loved him and knew he loved me too.

Fiction Thursday: A New Beginning Chapter 29

March 12, 2020March 10, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

Ya’ll ended up with an extra chapter last week. Don’t expect another extra chapter this week. *wink*

As always, this is a first draft of the story and also as always, you can catch the first part of Blanche’s story, A Story to Tell, on Kindle. You do not need to read A Story to Tell to follow A New Beginning.

Also, this is a work in progress so there are bound to be words missing or other typos. Maybe even plot holes. Feel free to tell me about them in the comments. To follow the story from the beginning, find the link HERE or at the top of the page. This book will be published in full later this spring on Kindle and other sites.

Let me know what you think should happen next and what you think of the story so far in the comments.

Chapter 29

I knocked softly on Judson’s door the next morning and waited nervously on the porch. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked him how his father was recovering from the surgery and if they’d been able to work through any of their issues. It seemed like I would be forever self-focused. I’d had an entire 20-minute car ride the night before to focus on someone other than myself and I hadn’t even bothered.

Daddy had taken Jackson to school that morning on his way to work and I had taken the day off after Edith called late the night before to tell me Lily’s baby had been born. It was a boy and Edith asked me to travel with her and Jimmy to pick him up that afternoon. It was a nice morning for a walk from our house to the Worley’s and I needed it. It had given me time to think about everything that had happened the night before, though my mind was still spinning from it all.

I knocked again but when there was no sound inside, I decided he must have gone to work. As I started back down the steps to walk home, I heard the door open behind me.

A groggy voice greeted me. “Hey.”

I turned to see Judson standing in the doorway in a white undershirt and his jeans from the night before, blood dried near the knee. Part of his cheek was swollen and dark blue, almost purple, the eye barely open. I could see the edge of the cut above his eye on the other side under the bandage Mama had placed there. His hair was disheveled and he was unshaven and for some reason the combination made my stomach feel funny in the middle – funny in a good way. I had the same sudden urge I’d had the night before to kiss away all the pain.

“I’m so sorry to wake you.” I felt my knees tremble as I spoke. Why were my knees trembling? I’d spoke to Judson many times before. Today wasn’t any different. Was it?

“I just realized that I’d forgotten last night to ask you how your dad was,” I continued, hoping I didn’t sound as awkward as I felt.

Judson laughed softly and leaned against the door frame, blinking in the bright sunlight. “It’s okay. You were a little preoccupied.” He jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Come on in and we can talk while I make myself some coffee.”

He looked down at himself and rubbed his hand across his chin as I stepped inside. “And after I wash up and shave. I have to head into the job site later. Uncle James gave me the morning off when he heard what happened.”

You don’t need to shave, I thought to myself. You look fine the way you are. Boy do you look fine.

“Did he hear what happened from you?” I asked out loud as I walked past him inside.

Judson grinned. “Not me. Thomas. You know how newspaper men are. They like to spread the news.” He gestured toward the chair across from the couch. “Sit if you like. Excuse the mess. I fell asleep on the couch last night.”

I moved a book aside and sat in the chair, looking at the tangled mess of blankets on the couch, as Judson disappeared down the hallway toward the bathroom. I looked at the book, laying on the floor where I had placed it, John Steinbeck emblazoned on the front. I picked it up, flipping pages as the sound of running water filtered through the bathroom door down the hallway. I had to do something to distract myself from the thought that Judson was just beyond that door, not wearing a stitch of clothing.

“We have only one story,” I read to myself. “All novels, all poetry, are built on the never ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”

Standing, I carried the book to the bookcases along the wall in the dining room, sitting where other people placed china cabinets. I trailed my fingers along the binding of the books, reading the names of the authors, Orwell, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Golding, Fleming, Lewis — as in C.S. Lewis. Good grief, no wonder Judson got along so well with my father.

I touched the edge of the bookcase in front of me, rubbing my hand down the smooth side, knowing Judson had most likely built it and much of the rest of the furniture in the house. My eyes focused on a picture over the mantle above the fireplace. A woman stood in black and white against a backdrop of ivy, her dark hair and dark eyes captivating against pale skin, her head tipped back in an obvious laugh. I guessed by her clothes that the photo was taken some time in the 1930s.

A couple stared out at me from another photo, the woman looking similar to the woman in the larger photo, but older, the man looking almost exactly like Judson but older, his hair thinning slightly, his arms wrapped tightly around the woman. I wondered if they were Judson’s parents. Two small boys were posed against a tobacco barn in another photo. Both boys were wearing denim overalls, shirtless, the youngest missing his front teeth, his hair standing in several directions on top of his head. Looking closer I realized the oldest was the Judson I remembered from our childhood, freckles spread across his nose. Judson walked out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel across his wet hair, as I studied the photograph with a small smile, remembering how obnoxious he’d been back then.

“That’s me and my brother,” he said, standing behind me. A sweet smell of aftershave and shampoo washed over me. “I’m sure you can see I’m the better looking one.”

I winked and walked over to the couch, starting to fold the blankets. “Uh-huh. I see that.”

“You don’t have to clean up after me, you know,” Judson laughed from the kitchen, pouring water into the coffee pot. “Like Hank said last night, I’m a big boy.”

He sat down on the couch a few moments later and patted the cushion next to him as I laid the folded blanket across the back. “Come sit down while the coffee brews and I’ll tell you about my visit down South.”

I winced as I saw the bruises and cuts up closer. “You look worse today than last night.”

He laughed. “Well, gee thanks and I was just going to say you look much better this morning.” He reached over and pushed a strand of hair that had fallen out of my bun behind my ear like he had the day in the barn. “No problems last night?”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch. “None. Now tell me how your dad is.”

Judson propped his arm across the back of the couch. “He’s recovering but it’s going to take a bit. His heart might be weak for a long time, maybe forever but he’s better than he was.”

“Did you two work anything out?”

“No big make up scene, no, but we were at least able to be civil to each other.”

“Well, that’s a start at least.” I pointed toward the photograph on the wall. “Is that him in that photograph?”

Judson nodded. “Yep. That’s him and my mom a few years ago. And that’s my mom in high school in the other photograph. My dad took the photo. It’s one of my favorites so I asked if I could have a copy of it. Dad had it by his hospital bed after the surgery too, but told Mom it paled in comparison to having her there in person. Dad wasn’t always the best with me, but he is definitely much better at being a husband.”

He stood and walked into the kitchen toward the coffee pot. “Hey,” he said over his shoulder. “What did Thomas mean when he said he hoped things would be less complicated with me now?”

Ugh. Thomas. I had hoped Judson would forget about that.

“Oh, who knows,” I said with a wave of my hand, hoping to change the subject. “It’s Thomas.”

“Yeah. Thomas. The guy you went out with while I was gone.”

I laughed. “Yeah. I wasn’t exactly the person he had on his mind that night. I told you he’s dating Midge Flannery, right?”

“Isn’t her dad the pastor at the Methodist Church?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s dating Thomas? Seriously?”

“Yeah. I know, but Thomas said maybe she’ll help him turn over a new leaf. Let’s just hope it’s not the other way around.”

Judson laughed from the kitchen. I could see him through the doorway, adding creamer and sugar to his coffee. I tried not to stare at him as he moved between the refrigerator and the counter, but I was like a deer caught in headlights, my gaze drifting over his broad shoulders and finely toned arms.

“Did you want a cup of coffee?”

“What?” I looked away as he glanced at me “Oh. No. Um… actually, you know what? I’m not really a coffee fan.”

“Oh. How about a glass of juice instead?”

“I’d much more prefer that. Yes.”

My gaze fell on the bruises on Judson’s cheek as he leaned over to place the juice on the coffee table in front of me a few moments later, my heart aching. He was in pain because of me and I didn’t like it. He sat next to me, sipping the coffee.

“It doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks,” he said, as if reading my mind.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“What are you sorry for?”

“For Hank. For causing you to be in pain, for —”

Judson laughed, interrupting me. “You didn’t cause me any pain. I’m the one who inserted myself into that situation. I could have handled it a lot better than I did. I didn’t have to keep letting him egg me on. All I had to do was take you by the arm and lead you to my truck, but like I said last night – I wanted him to pay.”

He rubbed his chin, wincing slightly. “I’m not proud of myself but I guess I wanted him to feel what it’s like to be on the other end of a beating. The only problem is that verse in the Bible: ‘Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.’ I guess I didn’t trust the Lord to bestow vengeance on Hank in the way I wanted and took it upon myself. I shouldn’t have done that. Of course, it didn’t help that Emmy she filled me in on what else Hank had done to you.”

He looked at me and I saw regret in his eyes. I felt warmth rush into my face. I knew Emmy had told him about Hank cheating on me and I couldn’t decide if it made me angry or not that she had. I had realized long ago that Hank’s choosing another woman over me had made me feel unworthy and incapable of being truly loved by another man. It had made my insides ache with embarrassment.

Telling Emmy and Edith, and then much later Mama and Daddy, had been humiliating, even though they all insisted the issue was his, not mine. Knowing that Judson now knew I hadn’t been — dare I even think it — woman enough for my husband, was like having a deep secret exposed to the light. It was a secret I somehow felt would make Judson look at me like Hank once had, not only as someone who wasn’t pretty enough, but also someone who couldn’t fulfill her husband’s physical or emotional needs.

I lowered my eyes, picking at a thread on the bottom of my shirt.

“She told you that?”

“Yeah, I hope it doesn’t upset you, but it sort of slipped out when she was in one of her ranting modes a couple weeks ago.” He rubbed his hand across his chin and winced. “You know how she gets.”

I laughed softly, my eyes still on my shirt. “Oh, I do.”

Judson took a sip of his coffee. “I called to update her on my dad and she told me Hank had been in town. She said after all he’d done to you, he had better not try to see you. After cheating on you and smacking you around, he was worthless, she said, and she didn’t want him near you or Jackson. I think if she’d had a gun in her hand she would have gone after him like your dad did all those years ago.”

I tipped my head at Judson, narrowing my eyes. “So, you already knew Hank had been in town when you acted indignant last night that I didn’t tell you.”

Judson placed the coffee mug on the corner of the coffee table, laying his arm over the back of the couch and grinned.

“Yeah. Just trying to make you feel like a heel for not telling me.”

His grin faded into a more serious expression and his voice lowered to a soothing, comforting tone. “Listen, I’m sorry he did that to you. I can’t imagine any man tossing you aside for someone else. You’re worth much more than that.”

I bit my lower lip, tears stinging my eyes. I shook my head to shake them away and push down the emotion. “It’s fine. That was a long time ago.”

I cleared my throat and blinked the tears away, looking up at him. “For what it’s worth, I appreciate what you did for me last night.”

I reached over and laid my hand over his, but immediately felt awkward being so intimate and pulled my hand back, laying it in my lap.

He looked at me and his smile sent my heart pounding hard in my chest. Looking into his blue eyes, I was transported back to that night at the lake, his lips against mine, his arms around me when I’d started to run away.

He reached down and enclosed his hand around mine. He rubbed the top of it with his thumb, then lifted it, his mouth grazing the palm. His voice was barely a whisper. “For what it’s worth, I would do it again.”

The way he was speaking, his gaze never wavering from mine, made me consider jumping away before he moved any closer, but I didn’t need to worry about it. A knock on the front door startled us both and I pulled my hand quickly from his, not sure if I was relieved or disappointed.

“I guess I should get that,” he said with a sigh.

I recognized Marion’s voice as he opened the door. “Oh Judson! You look awful!”

“Well, Mrs. Hakes, thank you,” Judson laughed. “This is the second time today someone has told me that. You, however, look lovely.”

Stepping inside Marion laid her hand against the side of Judson’s face, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry for what Hank did to you. I just stopped at Alan and Janie’s to check on Blanche this morning and they told me what had happened. I’m so sorry for what he did to you. If I had known he was back in town, I would have warned Blanche.”

Judson took Marion’s hands in his and looked her in the eye. “Mrs. Hakes, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“He’s my son . . .”

“He’s not your responsibility anymore, ma’am,” Judson said firmly. “He’s a grown man.”

Marion nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek as Judson hugged her gently. “And besides. I’m fine. I’m sore but I’m in better shape than I could be.”

Marion walked over to me and sat down, taking my hand. “Hank called me this morning and said he’s leaving for bootcamp. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him again anytime soon.”

Edith and Jimmy appeared in the doorway as Marion spoke, concern etched on both their faces. It was like a full-on family reunion at this point and I realized my family had some of the worst timing of anyone I’d ever met.

“Judson!” Edith cried, rushing toward Judson. “Oh, you look just awful! Are you okay? We stopped to pick up Blanche and Mama said she had come to check on you and filled us in.”

“I’m fine,” Judson said again. “Really. All of your concern is certainly appreciated. Although, can you all stop saying how awful I look? I’m starting to get depressed.”

Jimmy stepped inside the door, standing behind Edith. “Please tell me you nailed him good,” he said, then catching Marion’s eye he cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mrs. Hakes. I mean —”

Marion laughed as she wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. “It’s perfectly fine, Jimmy. A good beating is what Hank needed.”

After a few more moments of conversation, Marion said she would leave Judson alone to get ready for work and I followed Edith and Jimmy to their car, hugging Judson quickly before I left. He stood on the porch, leaning against the porch column as he watched us drive away. I looked back at him, knowing we would eventually need to talk about all the tender moments between us, the kisses and the gentle touches that were waking my soul to the possibility of love. And I knew I would eventually have to decide what all those moments meant for the walls I had built around me.

A special ‘Saturday Fiction’: A New Beginning Chapter 28

March 7, 2020March 6, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Am I really doing this? Caving to popular opinion and sharing an extra chapter of A New Beginning this week? Well, of course, I am. Why? Because it’s my blog and I can do what I want to. That’s why! Ha! So, here it is, Chapter 28 of A New Beginning. You can find Chapter 26 and Chapter 27 HEREor by looking back to Thursday and Friday’s posts.

As always, this is a first draft of the story and as always, you can catch the first part of Blanche’s story, A Story to Tell, on Kindle. You do not need to read A Story to Tell to follow A New Beginning.

Also, as always, this is a work in progress so there are bound to be words missing or other typos. To follow the story from the beginning, find the link HERE or at the top of the page. This book will be published in full later this spring on Kindle and other sites.

Let me know what you think should happen next and what you think of the story so far in the comments.

Chapter 28

The wrestling match that followed was nothing like the choreographed fights I’d seen in the movies. I watched the messy, overly masculine display in disbelief. Hank slammed his shoulder into Judson’s chest, shoving Judson off the sidewalk and into the street onto his back with Hank following him. Hank’s fist hit Judson’s face twice before Judson swung up and caught Hank under the chin with his arm, sending Hank’s head back hard. Hank staggered back, off Judson, who he’d been practically sitting on, and stumbled, falling onto his back.

Blood dripped from Judson’s nose as he stood over Hank and then he leaned down, swiftly grabbed Hank by the hair and pulled him to a standing position, bringing his arm back to punch Hank in the face. Hank moved his head quickly and lunged forward, grabbing Judson around the waist, pushing him across the street and slamming him hard against the driver’s side door of Judson’s truck, denting it.

Judson grunted and gasped for breath, then drew his knee up into Hank’s chest, slamming his elbow down into Hank’s back at the same time. His knee caught Hank straight in the face as Hank started to fall to the ground. Hank fell to the ground, a sick groaning sound choking out of him as he lay on his side, trying to catch his breath.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement to my right further down the sidewalk. Thomas stretched and yawned outside the newspaper office door. Our gazes connected as his yawn ended.

“Hey! There you are,” he called. “I was on my way to check on – oh. What’s this all about?”

He swaggered down the sidewalk, grinning and then stood next to me, leaning against the dress shop door and watching as Hank stood up fast, swung at Judson and caught him in the eye.

Thomas winced. “Ouch.”

He leaned toward me, whispering. “Who are we rooting for?”

He didn’t wait for me to answer.

“I’m betting on the big guy,” he said gesturing toward Judson.

Judson staggered back, off-balance, then lunged for Hank again, shoving him hard onto the ground, falling next to him as his fist hit Hank’s face, under the eye.

Hank tried to kick at Judson as Judson yanked Hank to his feet by his shirt and brought his knee up into Hank’s stomach.

The blood pouring from Hank’s nose and mouth reminded me of that night in the apartment. He stayed on the ground this time, on his hands and knees, retching vomit and blood onto the asphalt as Judson towered over him.

Thomas grimaced. “I thought about stepping in, but it looks like Judson’s got it covered,” he said. “I’m guessing that’s the ex on the ground there, puking his guts out.”

I nodded, still watching the surreal scene before me with wide eyes.

Judson was breathing hard, hands at his side, still clenched into fists. He turned his head and spit blood and saliva onto the street

“Finish puking then get up and get out of here,” he snarled at Hank’s back.

Judson’s nose and mouth were bleeding and he dragged the back of his hand across his face, looking at the blood with a small laugh. He looked so different, covered in blood, his hair damp with sweat, breathing hard from the fight, laughing at the sight of his own blood. I wasn’t sure how to look at him now, how to process what had just happened and the anger that had spilled from him in such a violent display. I could practically smell the testosterone radiating off of him — musky, sweaty and metallic.

Judson walked away from Hank, stepped around me and shut the door to the dress shop, nodding at Thomas.

“Thomas. Good evening.”

Thomas nodded. “Hey, Judson. Good job. Want me to call the police to come take care of this guy?”

“Nah. He’ll be fine when he’s done throwing up. Luckily, it’s past deadline so you won’t need to write this up for the paper, will you, Thomas?”

Thomas winked at Judson. “I think we can keep this one out. For now. But, man, it would make a good story to tell and I bet more than a few people in this little town would love to read it.”

“Night, Thomas,” Judson said, a hint of hardness in his voice.

Thomas sighed. “Yeah. Yeah. Night.” He walked back toward the newspaper office, looked over his shoulder and grinned again. “Take care, Blanche!” he called. “I think you picked a good one, for what it’s worth. Maybe things won’t be so complicated now.”

Judson laid his hand gently on my back and jerked his head toward his truck. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m driving you home.”

He slammed the passenger side door closed behind me and walked around to the other side, climbing behind the steering wheel. I watched Hank stagger toward his truck through the windshield. He paused and threw up again before climbing into the driver’s side. Hank looked at us through blood-stained hair as Judson revved the engine and ripped onto the street.

“You okay?” Judson asked as we drove, flexing his swollen hand.

“Am I okay?” I looked at him, at the blood still trickling from a cut on his head and a split lip. “You’re the one bleeding.”

“I’m fine. You okay?”

I nodded, but I wasn’t okay. Tremors of anxiety were rushing through my limbs and I was trying to hold in panicked tears. What would Hank have done if Judson hadn’t stopped him? Maybe nothing. Maybe he only wanted to finish talking to me. Maybe he only wanted to say goodbye because he thought he was going to die in Vietnam and instead I’d stood there and watched Judson beat the crud out of him in the street, though he’d gotten a few good hits on Judson as well.

“I thought you were in North Carolina,” I said. “How did you even know he was there?”

“I got back into town a couple hours ago and ran some invoices into the office for Uncle James. I saw him talking to you through the front window and it didn’t look like a friendly conversation so I realized it must be him.”

“He was here a couple months ago,” I said. “But he didn’t stop to see me then.”

Judson glanced at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrugged. “He left town, as far as I knew, and I didn’t see why I should bother you with it. Marion said he went to visit some friends in the next county and I thought he had left for good. I should have known he’d be back again. He said he came back to tell me he’d signed up to join the Army to avoid jail.”

I studied the cut above Judson’s eye, guilt turning in my stomach.

“Those cuts will need to be cleaned out.”

“Let’s just get you home.”

After a few moments of silence, he laughed, reaching across me and opening the glove compartment. He pulled out a grease-stained rag and wiped it across his face, smearing some of the blood.

“That jerk is going into the Army? Seriously?” He snorted, shaking his head, his eyes on the road. “He’s going to get his butt shot up on day one. That’s my prediction. It will probably be friendly fire too.”

I swallowed hard. Hank had hurt me. He wasn’t any nicer now than he had been seven years ago. Still, I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of him being “shot up” by anyone, friendly or otherwise.

Silence settled over us again as Judson drove.

“Do you think he’ll try to see Jackson?” I asked softly, not sure if I was asking Judson or myself.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him,” Judson mumbled, shifting gears.

I leaned my head against the window, closed my eyes against the tears, wondering if I’d ever be free of the bizarre world I’d walked myself into all those years ago.

I felt Judson’s hand warm on mine and looked over at him. “I’m sorry, Blanche.”

“What for?”

“For what you’re going through. For what he put you through. And I’m sorry I made it worse. My temper got the best of me. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d done to you, how he’d hurt you. How he’d abandoned Jackson and you. I wanted him to pay.”

He laughed slightly and grinned. “I just didn’t expect him to be so wiry and quick. He hit harder than I thought he would too.”

I laughed with him. “I’m not going to lie, you two looked like total idiots out there wrestling like gorillas.”

Judson glanced at me, then back at the road, smiling. “Well, I looked like an idiot for you, you know.”

I squeezed his hand with mine, leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I know. And I appreciate it.”

He glanced at me again, then back at the road and I saw a faint smile flit across his mouth before it set into a thoughtful frown. I wondered what he was thinking about, but a sudden exhaustion swept over me, ending my curiosity. I knew the adrenaline rush from earlier was fading. As I looked out into the darkness through the windshield, I saw Hank’s face again in my mind, leering at me as he reminded me we had made Jackson together. I shuddered, rubbing my chilled arms.

“You okay?” Judson asked again.

“It’s all just starting to hit me, I guess.”

I felt something soft and heavy hit my lap. Looking down I saw Judson’s brown, leather winter coat there.

“Cover up with that and rest. I’ll have you home soon.”

I pulled the coat up over the front of me like a blanket, covering my bare arms and part of my face. The smell of Judson’s cologne swept over me, tripping my heart into a fast-paced clip. I closed my eyes again and this time Hank’s face was replaced with memories of Judson’s hand on the back of my head, up in my hair when he’d deepened that kiss by the lake. I began to wish the coat was his arms wrapped around me, sheltering me from the chill of the night, soothing my anxious soul.

I leaned my head back against the seat, the steady rhythm of the truck tires on the pavement lulling me far away from thoughts of Hank and into peaceful thoughts of my bed at home.

“Come inside,” I said when Judson pulled the truck into our driveway fifteen minutes later. I rubbed my eyes to try to chase away the weak feeling the fading adrenaline had left behind. “Let me take care of those cuts for you.”

“It’s fine. I can —”

“Stop arguing and come in the house,” I said firmly, giving him my best scolding scowl.

Judson watched me with a smile as I climb out of the truck. “Well, yes, ma’am.”

Jackson flung open the front door before we reached it. “Mama! Where have you been? It was getting late and Grandma was getting worried. We did bath time without you and – whoa!” Jackson’s eyes grew wide as Judson stepped into the light. “Judson, what happened to you?” he asked, staring up at Judson.

Judson looked at me and I could tell he was unsure of how to answer the question. “Uh . . . well, you see. . . .”

“Judson was helping Mama get rid of a bad person,” I interrupted quickly. I looked at Judson. “And your mama is very grateful for his help.”

Mama looked at me, her eyebrows raising. “Jackson, honey, why don’t you go up and pick out a book for us to read at bedtime?”

“Aw, Grandma! I wanna hear what happened.”

Daddy laughed and gently swatted Jackson on his bottom with a rolled-up newspaper. “Listen to your grandmother, boy.”

“But when am I gonna find out what happened?” Jackson asked.

“When you’re older,” I said.

Jackson’s shoulders slumped as he walked up the stairs. “I miss out on all the fun,” he grumbled. “And you always say, ‘when you’re older’.”

The door to his room clicked closed and Daddy looked at Judson. “Is the bad guy who I think he is?”

“Yes, sir,” Judson said.

“Does he look worse than you?” Daddy asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Daddy clapped Judson hard on the back. “That’s my boy!”

Judson winced and I knew his back hurt from where Hank had slammed him into the side of the truck.

“Alan!” Mama admonished. “We shouldn’t celebrate violence.”

“Janie,” Daddy said with a tip of his head so he could look over his reading glasses at Mama. “It’s Hank we’re talking about. A good swift kick in the rear is what he needs.”

He looked at Judson with a grin. “Did you kick him in the rear?”

Judson shook his head and laughed softly. “No, sir, but I did nail him in the face and the gut pretty good.”

Daddy leaned back, a broad smile on his face.

Mama scowled at Daddy, her lips pressed tight together. “Come into the bathroom, Judson. I’ll get the first aid kit. You need those cuts cleaned out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Judson tried to look serious even as he and Daddy exchanged proud smiles.

“You okay?” Daddy asked me as Judson followed Mama down the hallway.

I flopped onto the couch on my back, draped my arm across my face, and closed my eyes, sighing in exasperation.

“Yeah, sure, Daddy.” I knew my tone betrayed my annoyance. “My ex-husband was a jerk to me – again – and this guy who I’m . . . I’m … who is . . .”

I stopped talking, realizing I had no idea how to describe Judson’s role in my life. I sat up on the couch, shaking my head as I unhooked my shoes and slid them off my feet.

Daddy sat in his chair and looked at me thoughtfully, his chin in his hand, tapping his finger against his bottom lip.

“Yes?” he said. “Who you’re —? What?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know what? You don’t know if you are okay or you don’t know how to feel about Judson?”

“I don’t know how to feel about any of it,” I responded curtly. “Everyone seems to think I need a man to protect me, complete me, fix me. I don’t need a man to fix me, Daddy. And I can handle myself, which should have been proven when I broke Hank’s nose that night.”

Daddy leaned back in his chair, eyebrows furrowed.

“What makes you think that ‘everyone’, as you say, thinks you need a man to be complete or ‘fixed’?”

Before I could even answer he continued. “I’ve never said that. Your mother has never said that. We know you can handle yourself but there’s nothing wrong with letting someone help you. There’s also nothing wrong with having someone to share life with. Your family and friends just want you to be happy.”

“And I can be happy without a man,” I said firmly.

Daddy nodded. “True. You can.” He folded his arms across his chest and smirked. “But none of this answers my questions. One, are you okay, and two, who is Judson to you?”

The mischievous glint in my dad’s eyes both aggravated and amused me. I bit my lower lip and gazed out the front window at the lights from the Worley’s farm. “First, I’m not entirely okay, no. I just had a confrontation with my abusive ex-husband and I’m pretty shook up from it and as for the second question . . .” I stood up. “I don’t have time to answer the second question because I have to go read my son a book.”

Daddy picked up his book. “Okay, kid. Have it your way, but you’re going to have to figure it out for your sake, and Judson’s, at some point.”

I had finished reading Jackson his book, with him asleep before it was finished. I slipped away when I heard Judson and Daddy talking downstairs.

“Thank you, Mrs. Robbins,” Judson was saying as I stepped down the stairs. “I’m going to head home and try to get some sleep before work tomorrow. I’ll swing by and pick you up, Mr. Robbins.”

Daddy nodded. “Thank you, Judson. Appreciate it.”

That’s when I remembered I had left Daddy’s car parked outside the newspaper office.

I walked with Judson to the door, reaching out to touch his arm as he started to turn the doorknob. A shiner was already starting to turn purple on his cheek and under his eye.

“Thank you, Judson,” I said softly. I leaned up and kissed the bruise on his cheek gently. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, leaning close and brushing his mouth against my cheek.

His face lingered close to mine for a few moments and my eyes focused on his mouth, the bottom lip slightly swollen. I felt a sudden urge to kiss it as if it was a booboo that could be healed by a kiss. I stepped back quickly instead and looked at the floor.

“Good night, Judson.”

When I closed the door, I turned to see Mama sitting on the arm of Daddy’s chair and them both watching me. Mama’s expression reminded me of someone who had just laid eyes on a puppy. All that was missing was Mama cooing “aw”. A slight smiled tugged at Daddy’s mouth and I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

“Isn’t there anything on TV tonight you two can watch?” I asked.

“Well, of course, there is, but this was much more interesting,” Mama said, winking at me.

I rolled my eyes, feeling like a teenager again as I flounced up the stairs to go to bed.

Fiction Thursday: A New Beginning Chapter 22

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Here we are at another Fiction Thursday. I can’t believe I’m already at Chapter 22 for A New Beginning. I love to know what you think of the story or what direction you think it should take, so please feel free to share it in the comments.

As always, you can catch the first part of Blanche’s story, A Story to Tell, on Kindle, but you don’t need to read it to understand what is happening in A New Beginning. Also, as always, this is a work in progress so there are bound to be words missing or other typos. To follow the story from the beginning, find the link HERE or at the top of the page.

“Blanche.”

When I heard my name and felt the hand against my arm, I was back in that dimly lit apartment with Hank, adrenaline rushing through me like a lightening bolt, Jackson screaming in my ear. I closed my eyes tight against the terror raging inside me, balled my hand into a fist and without thinking swung at Hank, making solid contact with his face.

Only it wasn’t Hank holding his face when I opened my eyes. It was Thomas. My hand throbbed from the impact and I rubbed the knuckles with my other hand.

“What was that for?!” Thomas shouted, a hand against his cheek, red spreading across the skin.

“Oh, Thomas! I’m so sorry! I thought you were someone else.”

“Is this how you greet people?! By punching them?!”

The door to the hardware store was opening, the bell on the front at the top of the it ringing, but I couldn’t see who was coming out. I grabbed Thomas’ hand, pulling him with me down the sidewalk.

“Please…,” I pleaded. “Don’t be so loud. Just follow me.”

“Don’t be so loud? You just slugged me! I’m going to be loud! What is going on?”

I yanked at his hand and he followed me down the street to my shop, still holding his hand against his cheek and grumbling. Once inside I pulled the shades, turned the open sign to closed and locked the door.

“Blanche… what is going on?”

Thomas was touching his cheek and wincing, moving his jaw side to side. “I don’t think you broke anything at least, but I bet I’ll get a shiner.”

He looked at me with confusion and concern.

“You’re trembling like a leaf. Who are we hiding from? Is someone stalking you?”

I peeked through the blind across the front window. Hank was walking out of the hardware store now, toward D’s Diner. A chill shivered through me and I hugged my arms across my chest. I had no idea why he was in town or if he would even look for me but the thought of him being so close by after all this time left a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Thomas stood behind me and I knew he was watching Hank too.

“Is that . . .?”

“Yes,” I said quickly so he wouldn’t say his name. “It is.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to see him.”

We both stood in silence for a few moments as Hank walked into the diner.

“So… what exactly happened between you two anyhow?” Thomas asked when I turned away from the door and sat in the chair next to my sewing machine.

“Nothing pleasant,” I mumbled, leaning back in the chair, arms folded across my chest.

“Derek said he heard Hank tried to come see you one time and your daddy shot him in the foot.”

I rolled my eyes. “Derek likes to tell stories. I’ve known him since second grade and he was always in trouble for making up whoppers. But, he’s close. Daddy shot at him to warn him off.”

Thomas turned a chair around and straddled it, leaning his arms on the back of it. “Derek said he thought your dad should have shot him. He said you came back to the area with two black eyes, a crooked nose and a baby.”

I patted the bun on top of my head and pushed a stray hair back off my forehead, remembering the day Daddy had driven me into town to sign the divorce papers. I hadn’t wanted to leave the house, to let anyone see the bruises and the scars.

“I won’t allow that boy to have his name,” Daddy had said as I signed my name on the bottom of the divorce intent papers, my hand trembling. I couldn’t focus on what Daddy was saying. I had been thinking about Hank, wondering if he’d even sign the papers and make the divorce quick and easy, worrying about my son growing up without a father. I didn’t care what last name my son had, as long as he was safe from Hank and able to move past the fact his mother had been foolish enough to run away with a man who had become abusive and unrecognizable to the man her mother thought he was.

“I was an idiot,” I said, looking up at Thomas. “I didn’t see the warning signs, or maybe I just didn’t want to see them. When I did it was too late and I was trapped in the never ending circle of thinking I could somehow change a man who didn’t want to be changed. It took him punching me in the face, breaking my nose, a couple ribs and almost my skull for me to wake up and get away from him.”

Thomas’ eyebrows shot up. “He broke your nose and your ribs? What kind of man does something like that?”

“A drunk one.”

Thomas stood and peered through the blinds again. His voice was cold when he spoke. “He better not show his face here today. That son of a -”

“I don’t think he will,” I said quickly, even though I wasn’t sure.

Thomas sat back on the chair, facing me, his arms folded across the top of the chair. He propped his chin on his arm, his blond hair falling across his forehead. “You’ve been through a lot, huh?”

I shrugged, sliding a piece of fabric through the sowing machine to try to distract myself. “Yeah, but a lot of people have.”

“You’re a strong lady, Blanche. No joke about it. Now I understand why you built that wall around you.”

I held the pants up to inspect the hem. “What wall?” I said with a wink, looking around the pants at him. “I’m a perfectly open person.”

Thomas laughed, grinning at me, still leaning his chin on his arm. “Yeah, that’s why it has taken us almost four years to have a real conversation. And why you won’t go out with me.”

I sighed. “Thomas. . .”

“I know. It’s not me, it’s you.” He grinned.

“It’s not that. It’s just . . .”

“You don’t have feelings like that for me.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“It’s that guy with more muscles in his pinky than I have in my whole body isn’t it?”

I laughed. “What?”

“That J.T. who works with Stanton Construction. He’s a beast of a sexy man the ladies in the office say and I’ve seen him talking to you.”

I knew the laughing fit I was having might make Thomas feel worse, but I couldn’t help it. “Beast of a sexy man? Who even talks like that?”

“Minnie for one,” Thomas said.

“Yeah, she would talk like that,” I said through the laughter. “But, Thomas, I’m not in a relationship with Judson, I–”

“You definitely want to be in one with the way you look at him, according to Minnie.”

“Thomas, Minnie is a little dramatic. And listen, you’re a nice guy . . .”

Thomas sighed and shrugged. “But. There is always a ‘but.’ Listen, it’s okay.” He held up his hand, turned his head, and let out a dramatic sigh. “I’ve been pushed into the role of the friend before.”

He grinned and pushed his hair off his forehead. “I’m sure I’ll survive. Somehow.”

The pounding on the door startled us both and we jumped to our feet.

Thomas held his hand up to me, signaling me to wait behind the sewing table. He moved the blinds slightly and his expression relaxed.

“It’s Emmy,” he said, unlocking the door.

Emmy was a wall of sound. “Oh my gosh, Blanche! Hank is at D’s Diner. Did you know he is in town? I couldn’t believe it. He walked right in and sat at the front counter and ordered a black coffee and a full breakfast. I panicked and tried to run out of there, but he saw me and nodded at me. He said ‘Hey, Emmy,’ all calm and confident like and tipped his head in a nod. I didn’t know what to do. I just stared at him and took off, but then I didn’t want him to see where I was going so I shot down the alley by Mary’s Florist and came here the back way, but I hope he didn’t see me and figure out where you are and. . .”

“Emmy! Calm down!” I took my friend’s hands and gently pulled her toward a chair.

“You’re going to pass out,” Thomas laughed as Emmy sat down.

Emmy was breathing hard. “I just couldn’t believe it. I never expected to see him here again. Not after – you know – I just thought he’d stay away forever. Or at least I hoped he would.”

My heart was racing as I thought about Jackson at school. What if Hank was here to try to see Jackson? Did the staff at the school know they couldn’t let Hank see Jackson? I’d never told Jackson about his father and who he really was.

“Jackson . . .” I whispered.

“He’s at school,” Thomas said. “He’s fine. Don’t let your mind even go there.”

Emmy leaned back in the chair and shook her head. “Look at us. Cowering here in the dark over someone who doesn’t even matter anymore. Like he’s some kind of mass murderer or something.”

“He isn’t quite that, no, but I still don’t want to see him,” I said.

“Looks like you won’t have to,” Thomas said peering through the blind again. Looking over his shoulder, we watched Hank climb into his pick-up, slamming the door behind him, revving the engine and driving down the street, away from the shop.

Emmy sighed with relief. “Thank God he’s gone. At least for now.”

She turned to look at us, her eyebrows furrowed.

“What were you two doing in here with all the blinds pulled anyhow?”

Thomas tipped his head toward the floor, but I could see a smirk pulling at his mouth.

“I saw Hank through the window of the hardware store,” I said quickly. “And . . . uh . . . ran into Thomas while I was trying to get here to hide so he came with me.”

“Yeah. She ran into me all right,” Thomas said, touching his hand to the red spot on his cheek.

Emmy’s gaze traveled between us. “Uh-huh. Okay. That all sounds a little fishy, but I’ll just leave it – for now anyhow.” She turned slightly so her back was to Thomas and tipped her head, looking down her nose at me. She lowered her voice. “I’ve got to get back to the office, but we’ll talk more about this later. If you know what I mean.”

She pointed two fingers at her eyes first and then at mine, one eyebrow raised.

“You’d better go,” I said, ushering her toward the door.

I smiled as the door closed behind Emmy and then sat in the chair she’d vacated, my heart still pounding fast and hard in my chest.

“You okay?” Thomas asked.

I nodded, but my limbs felt weak as the adrenaline began to fade.

“I should get back to work,” I said softly. “I have a dress I need to finish for a lady from Spencer and that pair of pants for Pastor Frank.”

Thomas pushed himself off the counter and slid his hands in his jean pockets.

“Okay. Well, I need to get back to the paper anyhow. Of course, I don’t like the idea of leaving now – in case you need me.”

I laughed. “I’ll be fine. Daddy’s not far away if I need someone to rescue me.”

Thomas turned toward me, his hand on the doorknob. “Hey, have you talked to your mother-in-law about how things are going with Uncle Stan?”

Marion. I needed to call her and tell her about Hank.

“A little. I think it’s going well. Have you asked Stan?”

Thomas grimaced. “Ew. No. Why? Men don’t talk about that stuff.” He opened the door and leaned against the door frame. “Let me know if you need anything okay? Will I see you tomorrow?”

I’d forgotten about the weekly editorial meeting scheduled for the next morning. Stanley had asked me a couple of weeks ago to attend the first meeting of the month so he could give me assignments for feature stories. It looked like I’d be taking that job whether I wanted to or not.

“Yep,” I said. “I’ll see you there.”

Thomas rubbed his cheek. “Just make sure you don’t punch me in a greeting when we see each other.”

I stepped through the doorway and watched Thomas walk back toward the newspaper office. I knew most women would consider him attractive — more than attractive — with his blond hair, blue eyes, masculine jawline, a small dimple in his chin and an amazing smile. Even I found him physically attractive, despite his frequent cocky attitude. It was probably that attitude holding me back, but I knew it was also something else – someone else, no matter how much I tried to deny it.

***

When I closed the door to the shop, I reached for the phone to make sure Marion knew about Hank.

“I was getting ready to call you actually,” she said after I told her why I had called. “He came last night but I didn’t want to alarm you. He told me this morning he was going up to New York state to visit some friends, so I hoped he’d leave the area before you saw him. The more I thought about it, the more nervous I got, though, so I’d just picked up the phone to call you when you called.”

“Did he say why he was here?”

“He said he hadn’t seen me for a long time and wanted to check in. He needed a place to crash before he headed up to see his friends. He slept on the couch because his old room has been transformed into my sewing room.”

“Where has he been all this time?”

“He says Ohio. We didn’t talk much. He came late and fell asleep after I fixed him some food. I was so nervous, Blanche. I wanted to call you last night, but I didn’t want him to hear me talking to you and give him ideas. He did see my photo of Jackson, asked how he was. I told him he was a wonderful boy and doing well and that was the end of it. I think he’d been drinking. He was a little glazed over . . .if you know what I mean.”

I certainly did.

“Blanche, have you told your parents he’s here?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Make sure you do, okay? I really don’t think he’ll try to see you, but . . .”

“Thank you, Marion. I know you’re worried, but I’ll be fine. I can handle myself. Hey, I’m going to go and get some projects done before I pick Jackson up at school. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

We said our goodbyes, but I knew Marion was still concerned and she wasn’t the only one. I laid my hand on the phone several times, preparing to call Daddy and let him know what was going on, each time shaking my head and going back to the pants I was hemming for Pastor Frank, determined not to get Daddy into one of his riled states.

I snatched the phone off the receiver and dialed the school.

“No. No one has stopped in asking to see Jackson,” Mrs. Ellery, the school secretary, said, sounding slightly confused when I asked. “Should someone have?”

“No, not at all. Can you just make sure you call if someone does stop in to see him?”

“Of course, Blanche.” There was a moment of silence and then, “We’d never let him go with anyone but you. Don’t you worry, okay?”

I hung up, guessing Mrs. Ellery had started to put two and two together. We lived in a small county and I knew there were more than a few people who knew my history with Hank and why Jackson never had two parents at parent-teacher conferences or school shows.

I started walking to the school a half an hour before dismissal, looking over my shoulder as I walked, wishing I had told Daddy about Hank being in town, and praying Hank didn’t show up to try to see Jackson.

“Hi, Mama!”

Jackson flung his arms around my middle and pushed his face against me as he ran from the school.

“Hey, buddy! Did you have a good day?”

“Yes! Kenny Frasier said he had a bullfrog at home and says I can come see it one day. Can I?”

“Sure, you can. We’ll find time to go over sometime soon.”

“Did you know bullfrogs eat flies?”

“I did.”

“Do you think flies taste good?”

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t try one to see.”

“Me either.”

Jackson skipped as he walked, talking away, stopping to look at bugs every few skips.

A block from the office I looked up from the bug we had stopped to watch crawl across the sidewalk and saw Daddy walking briskly toward me, his face flushed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he puffed at me before he even reached me.

“Well, I…wait, what are we talking about?” I asked as Jackson and I started walking again.

Daddy fell in step with me and whispered, “You know what I’m talking about. That he was in town.”

“I was going to tell you on the way home. He didn’t come to see me and I didn’t want to upset you. Marion said he’s on his way to see friends in New York. How did you even find out? Did Emmy tell you?”

“Emmy knew? No, she didn’t tell me. Sam Baker came to the office a few moments ago and told me he’d seen him at D’s this morning. He thought I knew and asked if I had my shotgun ready. How does everyone know about that shotgun story anyhow?”

I laughed. “I have no idea. I didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

Daddy cleared his throat as we slowed down to wait for Jackson to study another bug. “Well, maybe one or two people. At the diner. A couple months afterwards.”

I shook my head and laughed. “Daddy. . .”

“Well, he deserved it and everyone knew it,” he said, looking at the ground sheepishly, rubbing his hand through his hair. “You came home with a baby and a black eye and people put two and two together and I wanted to make sure they knew I didn’t let him get away with it.”

I stopped and hugged Daddy. “Thank you for standing up for me, Daddy.”

Daddy hugged me back and then we continued to walk toward the shop. “I think we should leave early today,” he said as Jackson skipped into the shop. “You know . . . just in case.”

“I’m not about to change my routine for him, Daddy. Go on back to work and I will see you at five. I’ll call you if I need you.”

My hand trembled as I closed the door, watching Daddy walk back to his office, listening to Jackson play with his trucks behind me, hoping Marion had been right and Hank had actually left town.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning, Chapter 21

February 14, 2020February 13, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

If you didn’t catch yesterday’s chapter, and you’ve been following along, you might want to read that before you read this chapter so you won’t be too confused and so you can find out what “big moment” Blanche had on her step to pulling herself out of her Hank funk.

As always, you can find the other chapters at the link at the top of the page, or HERE and you can find the first part of Blanche’s story in A Story to Tell o n Kindle or Kindle Unlimited. The Kindle edition is on sale for $1.99 until February 19th (which is about all the marketing I have done for this book.)

Chapter 21

Folding the dress I’d altered for Fannie Jones, I decided I’d deliver it to her at the library on my way to lunch with Emmy at the diner. The weather had cooled some, the sun was bright, and I knew a walk would do me good and might help slow my racing thoughts.

Stepping onto the sidewalk, I noticed the temperature had grown milder since two weeks earlier when we’d been at the lake. As I walked, barely noticing the cars passing by or the owner of the shoe shop setting up an outside display, I wondered if it had been the heat that had led me to be so reckless with Judson that night. Maybe I could blame the kiss on heatstroke if he tried to talk to me about it in the future.

So far, though, he hadn’t tried to talk to me about it. I’d seen him briefly at church, making sure to sit in a pew far from him. He’d stopped at our house once to talk to Daddy about how to remove a hornets’ nest from a bush behind his house, but I’d kept myself busy hanging clothes on the line and then rushing back inside to start dinner, making sure not to look up as he talked to Daddy and then left in his truck. I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever, though, and that eventually, he’d want to talk about it. I had no idea what I’d say to him, but I knew the kiss had been a mistake I didn’t intend to repeat.

Glancing into the flower shop as I neared the library, I recognized Stanley standing near the front, pondering two arrangements on the counter. His head turned slightly and looking at me, he raised his hand and waved me inside.

“Blanche! Just the person who can help me.”

“Oh? How can I do that?”

He placed his hand gently on my back and ushered me toward the counter where Millie Baker stood with an amused smile.

“Which one of these two arrangements speaks to you?”

“Um… .speaks to me?”

“Yes. Which one says something to you?”

“Well, what should it be saying?” I asked.

“Well, it should . . . uh . . . say …,” I’d never seen Stanley’s cheeks flush red before. He looked at the floor, hands on his hips, wearing his signature red suspenders, wrinkled khakis, and button-up dress shirt, without a suit coat. He coughed nervously.

“I guess it should say, I’ve enjoyed your,” he cleared his throat, rocking back on his heels and still looking at the floor. “company.”

I grinned and winked at Millie, who was stifling a giggle behind her hand. I looked at the flower arrangements, one with bright yellow and pink carnations interspersed with baby’s breath and lavender lilies, the other full of deep red roses and surrounded by baby’s breath.

“Let’s see,” I tapped my fingers on the top of the counter, studying the arrangements. “I would go with this one,” I touched the vase with the carnations. “Because if you go with this one,” I moved my hand to the one full of roses. “It could imply you’ll be getting down on one knee soon.”

Millie failed to hold the laughter in when Stanley looked at me with wide eyes. He snatched the one with the pink and yellow carnations and laid two bills on the counter. “I’ll take this one,” he said stiffly. “Keep the change.”

He turned abruptly and walked quickly out of the shop.

“Blanche, you’re awful,” Millie giggled. “He looked like a deer in the headlights when you suggested this one should go with a proposal.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten him,” I laughed. “I was just being honest.”

Millie straightened some tulips in a vase. “You know, he’s been in here before, but he could just never decide what kind of flowers to buy for her. It’s so cute really. How nervous he gets. It’s totally changed my mind about him. He’s much different than those editorials he writes. He is a lot more. . .,” she tapped her chin with her finger and looked thoughtful. “complex than I thought.”

“It just goes to show we can’t always judge a book by its cover, I guess,” I said. “Anyhow, I have to get this dress over to Fannie at the library.”

Millie waved at me, looking through the tulips. “Have a good day and good luck getting away from her when she starts chatting.”

Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about getting away from Fannie’s chatting since she was cornered at the front desk with a woman asking where she could find books about crocheting. I slid the package with the dress on the desk and waved at Fannie instead.

“I’ll be down after work to drop off payment, Blanche,” Fannie said, looking up from the card catalog. “Thank you so much!”

I rushed outside, glad not to have to deflect Fanny’s stories about her bunions or her husband’s indigestion. I didn’t mind her stories or chatting with her, but I had a stack of projects back at the shop I needed to finish.

Opening the door to the library, a smiling Lillian Steele greeted me. “Oh! Blanche! Long time no see, honey!”

I hugged the pastor’s wife as I stepped into the sunlight and stepping back I saw her hand tightly holding the hand of a little girl. Wide brown eyes stared back at me under a pale yellow sunhat.

“Well, hello, Annabelle,” I said, leaning down closer to Lillian’s daughter. “How are you this morning?”

Annabelle pulled her Mama’s hand across her face and peered around it, a shy smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I’m okay, Miss Robbins.”

Annabelle was Lillian’s middle child. She’d been pregnant with her oldest, Benjamin, the day Hank and his friends had lit a cross on the pastor’s front lawn. I knew Benjamin was at school. I guessed the baby, born only three months ago, must be home with Pastor Frank.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Lillian. “Getting your energy back yet?”

“Much faster than I thought I would,” Lillian said, flipping a long strand of black hair over her shoulder. “Hey, we’re starting a new Bible study next month at the church. I’d love to have you there if you have time.”

I’d attended Bible studies with the ladies of the church many times since I’d been a teenager, but I still felt a twinge of guilt thinking back to that first time I’d lied to my parents, using a Bible study as an excuse to leave with Hank one night. I’d told my parents I was attending a Bible study at Lillian’s home when I’d really sneaked out to meet Hank. He’d taken me to a bar that night and I’d had my first taste of beer. Granted, I’d never grown accustomed to the taste of alcohol and hadn’t had any since that night, but the fact I’d lied to my parents and used Lillian to get away with it weighed heavy on my mind long after I’d left Hank and returned home.

“I’d love to, Lillian. I should be able to, but I’ll check with Mama and Daddy and see if it will work with their schedule.”

Lillian leaned in for another hug. “So glad to hear it. I’ll get you the exact date and time at church on Sunday.”

I held the door open for Lillian and Annabelle and as I closed it behind them I smiled, happy to know the local chapter of the KKK wasn’t as active as it once was and that Pastor Frank and Lillian hadn’t been afraid to stay in the community even after hate had tried to drive them away.

My stomach growled, reminding me it was lunchtime. I glanced at the clock in the town square. I had agreed to meet Emmy at the diner in ten minutes.

Passing the hardware store on the way to the diner, I glanced at the front window and caught my reflection. I paused, turned toward the window, and looked at the hair tight in a bun on my head and the plain, blue skirt, and blue striped knit top I was wearing. I may have been curvier than I had been as a teenager, but I was, in so many ways, still plain, boring Blanche.

I sighed, pushing a strand of hair back into the bun. I leaned closer to the glass, touched my fingers along the skin under my eyes and wondered if it was the reflection or if there really were bags appearing there. I squinted at the skin under my eyes, and slowly my reflection faded as I looked through the window, my eyes focusing on a man standing at the front counter, handing the cashier money.

I leaned closer to the window, trying to get a better look at the man between the reflections of the cars and people passing by on Main Street. Suddenly I felt dizzy with disbelief. My heart lurched in my chest.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

My ex-husband was standing on the other side of the glass, less than five feet away from me.

The sounds of the town bustling through life that afternoon faded under the sound of my heart pounding hard in my ears.

It was definitely him.

Hank Hakes was standing at the front counter of the hardware store, slightly turned from me and I knew he hadn’t seen me yet. I stood in place as if struck with a tranquilizer dart, starring at the familiar crooked smile, the brown hair pushed back off the forehead, the clean-shaven jaw and the long fingers on the hand that had once touched me gently and then later formed the fist that broke my nose.

I looked away quickly, my breath stuck in my chest, my thoughts suddenly racing. I started walking, head down, hoping I could get to the shop and lock the door before Hank saw me.

Fiction Thursday: ‘A New Beginning’ Chapter 16

January 30, 2020January 30, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

I don’t know about you, but the news has been depressing lately me (what? You couldn’t tell by my post yesterday? Ha!). I’m doing my best to avoid it, but sometimes it can’t be helped and it filters in. To try to offset the depressing news, I thought I’d offer a distraction by sharing an extra chapter this week, although this chapter may start a little depressing, it will end on a happy note. Chapter 17 will be on the blog tomorrow for Fiction Friday.

You will find a link to the previous chapters I have posted HERE or at the link at the top of the page.

You can find the first part of Blanche’s story on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Chapter 16

Sam’s left eye was swollen shut and bruises spread out from under the bandages around his middle. An IV stretched from a bag of fluid to his arm and an oxygen cannula was pressed under his nose, the hose hooked over his ears.

Sitting on a chair across from his bed I watched him sleep and thought about the first time Emmy had told me about meeting him. She’d called me when I was still with Hank, gushing about the boy with the brown hair and dark eyes, the strong jawline and determination to become a police officer. She’d met him at the small community college an hour from home and at first, he’d only asked if she’d like to study history with him. From that point on I heard stories about his hand accidentally touching hers and how it had made her feel, long looks into each other’s eyes and, finally, Sam asking her if she’d have coffee with him.

The afternoon of their wedding the rain fell hard and heavy on the roof of the church, almost drowning out their voices as they said their vows, but unable to mask the smiles on their faces or the look of adoration in Emmy’s eyes at each word Sam uttered. Emmy had always been worried about Sam’s job and the danger it put him in and now here she was with those fears being realized.

Dark circles streaked the skin under his eyes, his face almost as pale as the sheets on the hospital bed. I ached to hear his laughter and see his eyes light up when he shared one of his latest work-related escapades.

“Oh, Sam . . .”

Emmy’s voice was soft behind me and I stood to take the wheelchair from the nurse. The nurse nodded sympathetically and patted my arm as she turned to leave.

“I think he looks worse today than yesterday,” Emmy said, tears rimming her eyes.

“You know bruises always look worse the second day,” I told her, helping her into the chair next to the bed.

Emmy slid her hand into Sam’s, watching him closely as he slept. His fingers were limp against her palm as she lifted his hand and kissed the back of it.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” she asked. “Having a baby and watching your husband recover from being shot all the span of a few days? It seems like a wonderful dream and a horrible nightmare rolled into one.”

I touched the top of Emmy’s head, leaned over and kissed it, then hugged her close. We’d been friends since seventh grade when she had moved here from North Carolina; as close as sisters, spending nights together giggling about our favorite actors, sometimes our favorite book characters. Looking at her now it was hard to imagine her as the innocent preteen, laying on her back on her bed, her dark hair spread out over the pink bedspread, wondering if she’d ever get married or have children.

She was more like Edith and most other girls. I was always the odd one out, rarely considering a future of marriage or children. None of that interested me. A domesticated life with a good man seemed so foreign and unattainable to me. Not to mention I wasn’t really fond of young children as a preteen or teen. The only future I pondered was full of exploring, learning and reading, maybe even travel. I daydreamed about big adventures far from home while Emmy and Edith filled scrapbooks with wedding ideas and window shopped for wedding dresses.

“It’s going to be okay, Emmy,” I told her as she cried against me.

She nodded, unable to speak between the sobs. I wasn’t sure why I had told her it was going to be okay when I really wasn’t sure it was going to be okay.

“What has the doctor said?”

Emmy leaned back in the wheelchair and reached for a tissue next to the bed. She wiped her eyes and face with it.

“He said there’s still a chance there has been spinal cord damage. The bullet was so close to that area. It could be weeks before we know for sure if he will be able to walk again.” Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. “Or we could know within days. Whenever he wakes up.”

I helped Emmy back to her room before I left the hospital, passing her mother and Sam’s parents on my way out. After quick hugs and updates, I sat in Daddy’s car with my hands on the steering wheel, feeling selfish as I pondered if I would ever have a connection with someone the way Emmy did with Sam. I’d never really had that connection with Hank. Our connection was more physical than emotional and though I longed for the physical connection with a man again, I ached almost more for an emotional one.

I pushed the thoughts aside, closing my eyes and saying a prayer for Sam before I pulled back onto the road to head toward home.

***

“The mother was a junkie,” Edith said slowly as she picked at the edge of the tablecloth in our parent’s dining room. “The agency said she has been in rehab and picked us to adopt her baby. They want us to go down to meet her.”

Mama took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, okay… how do you two feel about this?”

Jimmy reached over and gently held Edith’s hand. They smiled at each other, tears rimming Edith’s eyes.

“We’ve been praying and we think it’s what we should do,” Edith said softly.

“But we’re still nervous,” Jimmy admitted. “The birth mother could change her mind at any point before the adoption is finalized. And with this being an open adoption — well, we aren’t sure what involvement the mother will have, but at this point, the agent we are working with said she isn’t interested in any involvement. She’s simply too young to be a mother.”

I knew Mama well enough to know her furrowed eyebrows and downcast eyes were caused by worry that Edith and Jimmy might have to face the unimaginable pain of having the child taken from them if the mother changed her mind.

Still, I also knew our parents would support my sister and Jimmy in whatever decision they made.

“We will be praying,” Daddy said, reaching across the table to take Edith’s hands in his. “We all know you two are going to be amazing parents.”

Edith let out a shaky breath. “I hope so, Daddy.”

“We know so,” Mama said brightly. “Now, no more of that worrying and wondering. I’m excited to be a grandma again so let’s just cast down all imaginations and bring all thoughts captive to Christ like our favorite verse says.”

Mama smiled and pushed a piece of pie across the table at Edith. “Now, eat some more pie and let’s make this a celebration!”

Laughter broke out around the table as I stood to answer a knock at the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” Marion said standing in the doorway.

Her smile was broad, her skin appearing younger than I’d ever seen it. She walked inside and I helped her take her coat off. “Stanley and I went for some coffee after church and I lost track of time.”

“Stanley, huh?” Mama called from the dining room. “Come on in here, Marion and fill us in on how things are going!”

Marion’s cheeks were flushed and she sheepishly smiled as we walked into the dining room.

“Grandma!” Jackson rushed toward her and tossed his arms around her waist.

Marion kissed the top of his head. “Hey, sweet boy. What are you up to today?”

Jackson looked up at her with bright green eyes and grinned. “Grandma, Aunt Edith says you have a new boyfriend. Am I going to have another grandpa soon?”

While my face burned with embarrassment, Marion tipped her head back and laughed heartily, hugging Jackson to her.

“Oh, my boy,” she giggled like a young woman. “You are so funny and smart. But let’s not rush anything. Stanley is a good friend and that’s all for now, okay?”

Jackson sighed. “Okay, Grandma, but I don’t like you over at that house being all lonely. I think you need a man to keep you company.”

My family snickered at my son’s words while I stood in bewilderment wondering who had indoctrinated my child to believe a woman needed a man to survive, but also finding it sweet he was concerned about his grandmother’s potential loneliness.

“Jackson, I think it’s time to go sit have some of Grandma’s pie and let the adults talk now,” I told him, kissing his cheek.

He sighed again. “Okay, Mama, but I swear, you just never let me have any fun.”

Mama’s face was red with laughter when we sat back at the table. “Oh, Blanche, this child’s sass is total payback for the attitude you gave your daddy and me when you were growing up.”

Daddy grinned. “And it’s so sweet to watch.”

“Why don’t you two just eat your pie and interrogate Marion about Stanley and leave me out of it?” I laughed.

After dessert, I walked Marion to her car, sliding leftovers Mama had packed for her onto the passenger side seat.

“So, you’re enjoying your time with Stanley?” I asked.

Marion leaned back against the closed driver side door of the car and looked out at the sun setting, the orange glow pouring across her face almost like a spotlight. Her smile was peaceful, wistful even.

“He’s much different than I ever expected, Blanche. Much different that you probably expected too. He’s gentle and thoughtful, calls during the day to check on me. Sure, he’s a little rough around the edges about some things, after all these years in newspapers but it hasn’t jaded him the way I thought it would have. He lost his wife you know.”

“Yes, Thomas told me.”

“He really loved her and at first he was afraid to talk about her, but I let him know it was okay. I wish I could have met her.” Marion laughed and shook her head. “Although I guess that would be awkward now that I’m dating her husband. I hope she would have liked me – if she had met me.”

“You just used the word dating,” I teased.

Even in the fading glow of the sunset, I could see the red flushed across her cheeks. She pressed her hand to her mouth and giggled like a young girl.

“Oh, I did, didn’t I?”

I felt awkward asking my ex-mother-in-law about her dating life but, at the same time, I couldn’t seem to stop my curiosity.

“So… has he kissed you?”

Marion laughed and looked away for a moment then back at me with a broad smile.

“Yes, and it was wonderful.”

I hugged her and we laughed together, the warmth of the sun still on us.

“Oh, Blanche,” she leaned back to look at me. “There can be love again after heartache and hurt. I want you to know that. I want you to know there will be love again one day. Pure, gentle love. Not every man is hard and hurtful. There are good men out there. Don’t be afraid to love again someday, okay?”

I laid my hand against the face of the woman Hank’s father had bruised with his fists many times and saw in her eyes genuine joy, joy I hoped I could have within myself someday. I nodded to let her know I understood her message to me, hugged her again and opened the car door for her.

Standing in the driveway long after she left, I watched the sun slip behind the hill, an orange and pink glow spreading along the horizon’s edge. I basked in the happiness I had felt radiating off her when I finally walked back to the house, letting it carry me through the rest of the evening.

Fiction Friday: “A New Beginning” Chapter 15

January 24, 2020January 24, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all those who have been following A New Beginning, whether you comment or not. I know I tease those who comment sometimes (like joking with those who “complained” about there being cliffhangers) but I hope it’s never misunderstood how much I appreciate your likes, comments and even views. Writing is an escape for me. Much like photography and blogging, it has been a lifeline for me during my most depressed or stressful times in life. The fact that others are enjoying what I’m writing means more to me than many of you will ever know. The fact that others tell me they actually care about what I’m writing is an added bonus.

You can find more about the first book about Blanche at the link at the top of the page, along with an excerpt. It is available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

If you have read it there and liked it, I’d love if you leave me a review or share it with others on your blog or social media. For those who read the story when it was on the blog, I did add to it, change a few things and tighten a few others. I even changed the first paragraph to allow for an immediate jump into the action.

Chapter 15

The sound of the phone ringing downstairs woke me from a sound sleep. I stared at the clock, groggy and disoriented.

2 p.m. I’d slept through half the day.

“Blanche! Are you awake honey?” Mama called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Am I downstairs?” I mumbled to myself. “Then I’m not awake.”

“Yes!” I called, trying to sound cheerful. “Just now.”

“Thomas from the paper is on the phone.”

I stumbled down the stairs, completely uninterested in talking to anyone, let alone Thomas Fairchild, after the day and night I’d had the day before.

“Hey, Robbins. I hear you had an exciting day yesterday.”

“Yes. How did you hear?”

“I’m a journalist. I know all.” Thomas laughed. “Seriously, I overheard Emmy’s mom at the post office this morning. I wanted to know if you’d let me interview you for a story I’m working on it. It’s going to tie in with our coverage of Sam being shot.”

Interview me? Why me?

“Uh…. I don’t think so. I’m not really….”

“You’re the happy part of the story, Blanche,” Thomas interrupted. “The inspirational, heart-wrenching part. The part that breaks up the depressing news in the paper. The part that sells papers, as Stanley would say.”

“Listen, Thomas, I just woke up, I was up all night and I haven’t even checked in to see how Sam or Emmy are yet . . .”

“I called the hospital this morning,” Thomas said. “Emmy and the baby are great and Sam is in stable condition after the surgery. So how about you meet me at the Twilight Rose Café down the street from the hospital and then go check on them? We’ll discuss the story and see if you want to be a part of it or not.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Apparently, nothing I said was going to deter Thomas from pursuing an interview with me. Stanley hadn’t changed from calling him his “cub reporter” to his “bulldog reporter” for nothing.

“I’ll meet you at 3:30 at the café,” I said with a yawn.

When I reached the café, Thomas was sitting at a table in the back corner of the café, wearing a polo shirt and a pair of khaki pants, scribbling away in a notebook and sipping coffee from a paper cup. He looked like a stereotypical newspaper reporter: handsome, well-dressed and preoccupied with the story he was after. His blond hair was cut slightly shorter than the first time I had met him but still left enough bangs so he still had to flip his head back to move them out of his eyes.

“Hey, there, hero,” he said as I approached his table, motioning to the chair across from him. “You look pretty good for someone who was up all night.”

I yawned as I sat down and looked at him through bleary eyes. “I’m barely functioning,” I said.

“So, listen, I know you don’t want to let me interview you, but people love these heartfelt stories. It’s a nice break from the hard, sad news and politics. And besides, you owe me. I got you that job writing feature stories for us.”

I laughed. “I haven’t even decided if I’m going to take that job.”

Thomas waved to the woman behind the counter. “Hey, Annie, a cup of coffee for my friend here and a couple of raspberry scones.”

“I don’t really drink coffee.”

“Yeah, but you need some,” Thomas said. “And you’re going to take that job. The world – or at least our little area of it – needs Blanche Robbins writing stories for them. They may not know it yet, but they do.”

The waitress placed two scones and a mug of coffee in front of me. She wore her dark hair in a tight ponytail and her full lips were highlighted with bright red lipstick. A blue sweater and short black skirt fit nicely on her slender form.

“Thanks, Annie,” Thomas said with a wink.

I glanced at the waitress and suddenly realized I knew her. It was Annie Tanner, a mother of three who had gotten pregnant in high school and married Billy Tanner, much to the disapproval of the ladies in my sewing circle.

I watched Thomas’ eyes follow Annie as she walked away. He grinned at me. “She’s nice to look at at the end of a workday. Or the beginning. Or even in the middle.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s the mother of three and married you know.”

Thomas shrugged and poured creamer in his coffee as he smirked at me. “Doesn’t mean I can’t admire what I can not have.”

He broke a piece of his scone off. “You know I enjoy watching you when you leave too.”

I felt my face grow warm and looked at the top of the table. “Thomas, I am much too tired for your teasing today.”

“I’m not teasing,” Thomas said. “And, hey, maybe we can count this as that date I asked you out on a couple years ago.”

“Uh, no we can’t.”

Thomas sighed. “You’re no fun, Blanche. Fine, no date. But at least make this trip worth my while and agree to let me interview you and tell the community a heart-lifting story that could have been a tragedy.”

I relented to the interview, anything that would let me return home to my family and my bed quicker.

“Just don’t make me sound like some hero, Thomas. I just did what I had to do,” I said as he pulled out his notepad and pen.

Thomas grinned. “I’m pretty sure that’s what all heroes say. ‘I just did what I had to do.’

I rolled my eyes and tossed a napkin at him playfully.

When the interview was done, I asked Thomas if the paper had been told anything about the man who shot Sam.

“Yeah, some guy in a junkyard up in the corner of the county close to the New York state border. Sam was trying to bring him in for burglary. Coward shot Sam from behind and took off. The cops are looking for him today. I’ll be heading up to the barracks later today to see what else I can find out. Derrick is working on the story too.”

He leaned back and draped his arm over the back of the chair. “So, what’s your story, Blanche? Is reporting something you’ve always wanted to do?”

I sipped the coffee and winced. I hated coffee. Why did I keep letting men tell me I needed it?

“No. I don’t really want to be a reporter. I just like to write.”

“Well, you’ll have to do a little researching and reporting for any writing you do, so this job will be good training for that.” Thomas grinned again. His grin was getting on my nerves and I wasn’t sure if it was my lack of sleep or just him.

I looked at the coffee, stirring in creamer and sugar, wishing I was at home and asleep in bed.

“My main job is being a mom, Thomas. Not writing. You do know I’m a mom right?”

Thomas was still grinning as he sipped his coffee. “I’ve read your columns, Blanche. I know you’re a mother.

“So, tell me, Thomas, how did you even get into reporting? Is it something you always wanted to do?”

Thomas broke off another piece of the scone, tipped his head back and dropped it in his mouth. “Yeah. I mean, I haven’t always wanted to do it. When I was five I wanted to be a firefighter, but I guess you could say it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I always imagined myself somewhere with a lot higher circulation, though. Maybe national. I started in Philadelphia, interned at the city paper there, but didn’t get offered a job. Uncle Stanley offered me a job here for some experience, so here I am.”

“Stanley’s your uncle?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t like to tell a lot of people, so it doesn’t look like he’s playing favorites,” Thomas said.

I picked up the scone, realizing how hungry I actually was.

“So, your uncle,” I said, realizing this might be my chance to learn a little more about the man who wanted to date Marion. “Was he ever married before?”

Thomas leaned forward slightly, letting out a breath leaning his elbows on the table. For once his gestures lacked the cocky swagger. His expression was hard to read as he looked up at me.

“Yeah,” he said softly, tapping the eraser end of the pencil on the tabletop, his expression somewhat distant. “He was. To my Aunt Margaret. She was my dad’s sister.” He cleared his throat. “She died when I was about 12. Cancer. I was very close to her. It was hard on the whole family, of course, but . . . yeah..well, anyhow, Stanley was shattered. A year or so after she passed he was looking for a way out of town, saw this job advertised in the papers back home and grabbed the chance to try to run away from the memories.”

He swallowed hard and coughed softly.

It was the first time since I’d met Thomas that I’d seen him look serious about anything.

“Anyhow,” he said, twirling the pencil on the table. “It’s been nice knowing someone in the business who can help me learn the ropes and it’s been nice to be around Uncle Stanley again too.”

He shrugged. “Plus, I’ve grown to like this tiny county and the people in it.”

He smiled and winked, the cocky attitude I was familiar with returning for a supporting role to his more serious tone. “Including you. Even if you won’t go out with me.”

I leaned back, studying Thomas for a moment as he ate the rest of the scone and sipped his coffee. I wondered if I had misjudged him the last couple of years I’d known him. Maybe he wasn’t the one-dimensional, arrogant, flirting playboy I’d thought he was.

“Hey,” he said, looking over my shoulder. “Speak of the devil. Someone else must have had the same idea about meeting here today.”

I turned to see Stanley and Marion sitting down at a table near the entrance. Marion looked nervous, her hair pulled back and pinned up on top of her head. The blue dress she wore fit modestly on her slender form and matched nicely with the stylish black heels. I smiled as I saw she’d taken my advice on the outfit and the hairstyle.

“Good for Uncle Stanley,” Thomas said, softly chuckling. “It’s about time he got back on the dating scene.”

I turned back around and took another bite of my scone.

“Do you know the woman?” he asked. “I’ve seen her around but not sure I’ve ever met her.”

“She’s my former mother-in-law.”

“Really?”

“Yep. My ex’s long-suffering mother and I’m very happy to see her out enjoying life again. Her husband died a few years ago. My ex doesn’t have any contact with her and her other son rarely stops in to see her even though he lives a couple counties away.”

I decided not to mention my initial misgivings about her going on a date with Stanley.

“I hope they find some joy together,” Thomas said, watching them. “Even if it’s just in getting back out into the world again.”

I looked over Thomas’ shoulder. “Is that a back door? Maybe we can sneak out before they see us. I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said following my gaze. “I think it is and that’s a good idea. Come on, I’ll pay and we’ll sneak out. Let the old folks have a little privacy.”

I squinted against the sunlight outside, my eyes heavy, from never fully waking up. I wasn’t as familiar with the town of Sawyer as I was with Dalton and I looked down the street at picturesque shops and a row of old fashion gas street lamps lining Main Street, feeling as if I had stepped back in time in some ways.

“Want to take a walk before you head over to check on Emmy and Sam?” Thomas asked. “There’s a spot by the river I think you’d like.”

We buttoned our coats, pulled on our hats and started to walk.

The walkway along the river paralleled Main Street and took us down under the large bridge that crossed the Susquehanna River and brought visitors to Sawyer from the main highway to the main part of town. Flowers, trees, and well-kept hedges had been planted along the walkway and even with the flowers not in bloom the landscaping was eye-catching.

“I don’t think I’ve ever walked this way,” I said. “I didn’t even know this view was here.”

Thomas winked, sipping the coffee he’d carried with him from the shop. “That’s why I’m here – to help you explore the beauty that is around you.” He gestured his arms out over the view of the river. “Look upon the beauty that is our lovely county, nestled here in the rolling green hills of Pennsylvania or as some call those hills – ‘the Endless Mountains’.”

“I know what these mountains are called, Thomas,” I said. “I’ve lived here all my life you know.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, sitting on a wooden bench and leaning back. “Are you sure that’s something you want to announce to the world? That you’ve always lived in one place and never explored life outside your tiny bubble?”

He patted the bench next to him and I sat on the end of the bench and watched a hawk fly over the water toward the opposite shore.

“I haven’t always lived here,” I said. “I was gone for a few years at least.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I lived in New York state for a while with my ex.”

“I heard before that you had an ex,” Thomas said. “So, tell me about this ex. What kind of man left you to raise your little boy by yourself? I know I seem like a huge flirt who shuns responsibility but even I know that’s a garbage move.”

I shook my head, knowing I didn’t want to talk about Hank, that I was tired of talking and thinking about Hank.

“We were just too young.”

I could feel Thomas’ eyes on me. “He really hurt you, didn’t he?”

I leaned back on the bench and nodded. “Yeah. In more ways than one.”

Thomas sighed and sipped from the coffee cup.

“I moved up here after I caught my girlfriend cheating on me,” he said bluntly.

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “Man, she did a number on me. We shared everything, dated since 10^th grade. She was sweet, beautiful, and smart. I never thought . . . well, anyhow. We were young too. Maybe I was just too cocky, ignored her too much during college. I don’t know. I never expected her to run off with my best friend but when she did it woke me up pretty good.”

He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Maybe you’ve figured out by now my cocky attitude is a cover up in some ways.”

I smirked. “What, like underneath it all you’re a sweet, hurt little boy?”

I immediately regretted the comment, knowing the lack of sleep was only heightening my tendency to be snarky.

Thomas winced. “Ouch. You’re savage today, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. I – you just joke a lot and I was just – sorry.”

Thomas grinned and blew a kiss at me. “No worries. I like a savage woman.”

“Thomas. . .”

He tipped his head back and laughed, his nose crinkling.

“I love flirting with you. You resist it so strongly. It’s fun to watch you squirm. Seriously, though, most of this really is a cover. I’m not as smarmy as I seem and I don’t really pursue women the way I pretend. I’m good with being single right now. Maybe someday – but for now? I’m focusing on my career, on writing a book, and on getting to know nice people in this county like you.”

I watched him warily but didn’t see the normal swagger in his body language, the playful grin normally there. His expression was serious, his mannerisms relaxed and friendly.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but do you find it hard to let people in?” Thomas asked. He leaned back against the bench again, stretching his arm across the back of it.

“Because honestly,” he said, before I could answer the question. “I do. I don’t like the idea of opening myself up, only to be hurt. I’d have to imagine that’s even harder for you and what you’ve probably been through.”

I watched the hawk land on the spindly branch of a tree and wondered how vulnerable I truly wanted to be with a man I’d only ever known to be flippant and flirty before today. I cleared my throat.

“Yes,” I said finally. “It is hard. And it’s scary but it’s even harder for me because I have Jackson to protect.”

“Ah, yeah,” Thomas said with a quick nod. “That would be a challenge. Keeping a wall around yourself is one thing but you and your child? That’s an entirely different ball game. Like, you can keep yourself all locked up inside, but the danger of causing your son to be afraid to love too? I wouldn’t want that responsibility at all.”

I scowled at Thomas. “Well, thanks. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.”

Thomas laughed softly, cleared his throat and stood. “So, anyhooo…maybe we should head back up to our cars and you should go see Emmy and Sam before I stick my foot in my mouth again.”

Thomas opened the door to Daddy’s Olds for me when we reached the street. “Think about that job, okay, Blanche?” he said. “I think you’d be good at it. Truly.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, sliding behind the steering wheel.

He closed the door and peered through the window. “Good. And thank you for the walk.” My muscles tensed as he leaned through the window and kissed my cheek.

He leaned back slightly and looked me in the eye. “Don’t be afraid to live again, Blanche. Don’t let that jerk take that away from you. From what I’ve heard and what you said today, he doesn’t deserve to have that power over you.”

Driving down the street toward the hospital, I knew Thomas was right. Hank Hakes was still living in my head, still controlling me from the inside. I had to find a way to take that control back, live life without the fear of being hurt the same way I’d been hurt by Hank.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 10

January 3, 2020January 6, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler

Welcome to Fiction Friday, where I share a fiction story I’m working on or a novel in progress. If you share serial fictions on your blog as well please feel free to share a link to your latest installment, or the first part, in the comment section.

Right now I’m sharing from a novel in progress, A New Beginning, which is the sequel to A Story to Tell, now available on Kindle. As always, there may be typos, left out words or even awkward sentence structures I didn’t yet catch. This is a first draft so there will be changes before I publish it as an ebook in the Spring of 2020.

Are you caught up with Blanche’s story or do you have some reading to do? This week we continue with some take-it-easy character building, but there will be some excitement next week. Do you want to know what?

Well, I’m not telling you. You can read it next week. So there!

As always, you can find the links to the other parts of the story here and if you have any comments on how the story is going so far, or any ideas for future chapters, let me know in the comments!

Chapter 10

“Here we go. Chicken salad sandwich and fries for Blanche and a small salad for Edith.”

Betty Bundle’s hot pink, looped earrings bounced as she placed our plates in front of us. She stood for a moment, one on her hip, the other hovering out to her side, smacking gum like a cow with its cud as she looked down at Edith.

“Is that really all you’re going to eat, hon’?”

Edith glanced up at Betty without lifting her head. “Yes, Betty,” she said with a sigh. “That’s all I’m going to eat today.”

“Eatin’ a salad is like eatin’ air, you know,” Betty said. “You need something more substantial than air to get you through the day.”

Edith sighed, stabbing a piece of lettuce with her fork. “Thank you, Betty. I appreciate your input, but I’m eating light today. My stomach isn’t feeling the best.”

Betty pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows, folding her arms across her chest. “Well, I guess but you make sure you get something later. It’s not healthy eating so little and if you’re trying to lose weight, well, you don’t need to. You understand me?”

“You’re starting to sound like my mom, Betty,” Edith laughed. “Don’t you have another table to wait on?”

Betty sighed and flounced across the diner toward another table, tablet in hand as she reached for the pen she’d propped behind her ear.

“So . . .” I sipped my iced tea and cleared my throat. “Is your stomach feeling off for any reason?”

Edith sipped her water. “I think it’s nerves. The adoption agency called this morning. Jimmy and I have been approved for adoption. Now we just wait for the phone call that says someone has chosen us to adopt their child”

“Oh, that’s great!” I cried.

My sister’s hand trembled as she stabbed at a tomato. “It’s getting real now, Blanche,” she said. “We’re really doing this and I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified.”

I reached across the table and took her hand. “It’s going to be okay, Edith. You and Jimmy are going to be amazing parents, you know that.”

“It’s not just the parenting that scares me. It’s the idea that we might fall in love with this baby, or child and then the mother changes her mind. I can’t imagine that heartbreak. Blanche, I think I know why you put up walls around yourself now. I’m afraid to be hurt again. I’m afraid to . . .”

She shook her head and I could see she was trying to hold back the tears. “I’m afraid,” she said a few moments later, her voice cracking. “To love this child in case we lose him or her the same way we lost Molly. Jimmy and I made a space in our hearts for our baby girl and then I came home from the hospital with empty arms.”

Edith wiped her eyes with her napkin. “I couldn’t bare to hold a child and fall in love with that child, only to have that child taken from me.”

“You’re acting like me, Edith,” I said. “You’re thinking of all the worse case scenarios and letting them guide your decisions in life, when you don’t even know if they’ll ever come to pass. That’s no way to live.”

Edith blew her nose and laughed softly. “Physician heal thyself,” she said with a smirk.

I bit into a fry and leaned my head on my hand, sighing.

“This isn’t about me, it’s about you,” I told her. “We are psychoanalyzing you today. My session can be tomorrow.”

Edith wiped her eyes again and smiled. “Well, at least you know I can empathize with you now and I understand the fear of letting anyone else into your life. I think this is something you and I will have to work on together. We will have to do what Lillian said during Bible study a couple of weeks ago: feel the fear and do it anyhow.”

The ding of the bell on the front door announced the arrival of Emmy, Judson and a few more of the workers from the construction business. Judson and the other men took up two booths on the other side of the diner while Emmy slid in the booth next to me, her belly almost touching the table.

“I said I was coming to lunch and the whole lot of them spilled out after me like a gaggle of schoolchildren,” she said picking up the menu. “The stench behind me was all-encompassing. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking agreeing to be Daddy’s secretary and having to put up with this group of dirty, sweaty gorillas every day.”

I sipped my iced tea and laughed at the drama in my best friend’s voice. “You love it and you know it,” I said. “All those men fawning all over you, especially now that you’re expecting. ‘Yes, Miss Emmy.’ ‘ Can I hold the door for you, Miss Emmy?’ ‘Let me get you a glass of water, Miss Emmy.’”

Emmy looked at me in mock shock. “Blanche Robbins, that is not true.” She looked back at the menu. “They get me lemonade, not water. Plain water is evil.”

Betty returned to take Emmy’s order.

“You know, Blanche,” she said smacking away at her gum. “There’s a lot of good lookin’ men over there. At least one of them has got to be single. Maybe you should—-”

“Good grief, Betty! Not you too!”

“What? I’m just sayin’ — You’re still a young girl, you know. You don’t have to act like such an old woman. Go out on some dates, have some fun already.”

Another person trying to fix me with a man.

“Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…” I sang at Betty. I slipped into my regular voice as I shook my finger at her teasingly. “Don’t you join the Fix Blanche Cause being headed by the rest of my friend’s and family, Betty. I don’t need a man to make my life better.”

Betty blew a bubble of gum at me, standing with a hand on her hip. “Well, I didn’t say anything about it being better but it might be a bit more interesting.”

I mimed a person writing in an order notebook, moving my hand across the top of the table. “Why don’t you just take Emmy’s order and go play matchmaker somewhere else, Betty.”

Betty shrugged and took Emmy’s order as I’d suggested.

“Don’t blame me if you end up old and alone,” she said with her dry wit as walked back toward the kitchen. “I tried to help but you jus’ wouldn’t listen.”

As she walked from the table I sighed and ignored the giggles from Emmy and Edith, wondering who else would be next to remind me I needed a man to have a better life.

***

“Now, Blanche, you tell me, is this dress just too fancy for an old lady like me?”

86-year old Jessie Reynolds was modeling the dress I’d made for her in front of the mirror, holding herself steady with her cane and lightly touching the bun her long, white hair was twisted up in.

“No, ma’am. I think it’s just perfect.”

“Not too risqué?”

I snorted a laugh. “No, ma’am.”

She looked over her shoulder and winked at me. “Hmmm..maybe you better start over and add a little flare to it then.”

“Now, Jessie. . .”

The elderly woman laughed and sat back in the chair across from me. “I still have a little spunk left in me, you know. Maybe I can snag myself a new man before I walk across that rainbow bridge.”

“Oh my goodness,” I laughed again and shook my head. I poured some tea into a teacup and set it on the plate next to Jessie. “And which man do you have your eye on?”

“Well, that Bill Sprowles just lost his wife a year or so ago. He might be a bit lonely.”

Jessie and I laughed together. “Ah, well, you know I’m just teasing you. A woman doesn’t need to have a man to be happy, does she?”

“No, ma’am. She doesn’t.”

“But it certainly is nicer when she does. Now, tell me, Blanche, have you thought about dating again?”

I shook my head and laughed. “I should have known that was coming. Jessie, you’re a troublemaker.”

“Have to keep myself busy somehow at my age.”

“Honestly, I haven’t really been worried about it. I’ve had Jackson to take care of and this shop to run. I’m happy where I’m at, Jessie.”

Jessie sipped her tea. “I do know what you mean. Sometimes it’s easier to stay where we are and not allow change. But maybe in the future you’ll be ready to let someone else into your world and I hope you won’t be afraid to do so when the time comes.”

Although I didn’t enjoy discussing my love life, even with Jessie, I knew she meant well, and her blunt humor made the conversation less painful than it would have been with others. “Thank you, Jessie. I’ll keep that in mind if that time ever comes.”

“Oh no. Not ‘if’, Blanche, honey. When.” She winked at me over the edge of the teacup and giggled. “Plus, I need you to hurry up. I’m not a spring chicken and you need to have a nice big wedding with a nice, handsome man before I die.”

“Okay, Jessie,” I said. “Let’s get you out of that dress so I can get to work on making the alterations and have it ready for you by tomorrow.”

To myself I added: “And so I can rush you out of this shop before you start suggesting men for me to marry.”

As Jessie left the shop, Marjorie stepped in, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Blanche, do you know anything about Stanley Jasper?”

“Just that he’s the editor of the paper,” I said, choosing not to add that he’d asked me about his intention to ask her out to dinner.

“Well, the strangest thing just happened with him at the diner. He asked me if I’d like to have dinner with him some night.”

I feigned innocence as I looped some thread around a spool and slid it into a drawer. “Oh? Well, what did you say?”

Marjorie picked at a piece of lent on her coat. “I didn’t know what to say so I asked him if I could think about it.” She shrugged. “He said that was fine, but, I don’t know . . . I’m not ready to — I mean I’ve never thought about dating again. I’ve just . . . well, I’ve just never really thought about it. I don’t even know what to say. I guess I figured I was too old for such things.”

“Marjorie, you’re never too old for companionship but I understand,” I said. “It was nice of him to ask but you’re not sure you’re ready to open yourself up again.”

She nodded, sitting on the hard metal chair across from me. “I know you can relate to that, to putting up walls and being afraid to pull them down again; afraid to be hurt again.”

She sighed and tipped her head slightly, staring at the sewing machine with a far off look. Sitting with the front window as a backdrop, sunlight behind her, making the light grey streaks in her hair appear blond, she looked more like a young girl than a 55-year old woman

“I just don’t know what to do,” she said softly, wistfully almost, caught up in her thoughts.

“Well, it’s entirely up to you,” I said. “I think you did the right thing telling him you needed some time to think about it.”

A small smile tugged at her mouth. “It was nice being asked – having someone actually seem . . . interested in me, I guess you’d say.”

I smiled as I leaned back against the sewing table, happy to hear a hint of joy and excitement in her voice and curious to know if she’d eventually accept Stanley’s invitation.

Boondock Ramblings

A little bit about a lot of things

A New Beginning

A New Beginning: Free on Kindle today and tomorrow

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning, Chapter 32

Fiction Thursday: A New Beginning Chapter 29

A special ‘Saturday Fiction’: A New Beginning Chapter 28

Fiction Thursday: A New Beginning Chapter 22

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning, Chapter 21

Fiction Thursday: ‘A New Beginning’ Chapter 16

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 10

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