novel in progress

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage Chapter 1

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

I thought it would be fun to share a few chapters, maybe more, of Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage on the blog on Fridays.

This is the second book in my cozy mystery series and it releases on November 21. We might have time to fit in all the chapters before it releases, but we will see.

If you are interested in reading the first book in the series, you can buy it on Amazon HERE and you can also read it in Kindle Unlimited at the same link.

You don’t have to read the first book in the series to understand the second.


Chapter 1

Sitting on a lounge chair on the back patio with a book in one hand, an iced tea in the other, Gladwynn Grant had an excellent view of the lilacs and roses blooming in her grandmother’s garden.

She also had an excellent view of the two cats her grandmother hadn’t wanted but had let Gladwynn adopt anyhow. The black and white one, named Scout, was sprawled on her back on the end of the lounge chair fast asleep. The all black one, which Gladwynn had named Pixel, was sleeping in a tight ball on the wicker rocking chair that her grandmother usually occupied.

It might not have mattered if Lucinda Grant wanted her granddaughter to adopt two cats or not if Gladwynn hadn’t moved in with the woman eight months earlier. She’d made the move after being laid off from her job as a research librarian at a community college in Upstate New York and then deciding not to wait around to see if she was hired back again.

Gladwynn was on the patio enjoying a lovely, quiet Saturday morning. It was one of two days off she had from her job as a reporter at the Brookstone Beacon, the job that had brought her to live with her grandmother. After two hours of reading, sipping iced tea, and scratching the heads and bellies of the cats, the closing of a car door signaled that her alone-time was coming to an end.

Voices inside the house a few moments later let her know that her grandmother had returned, along with their neighbor and Lucinda’s friend Doris.

“We’ll need a list of all the characters.” Her grandmother’s voice carried from the kitchen. “That will give us a better idea of how much fabric we’re going to need for the costumes we have to make. We should be able to pick up some of the dresses from Second Hand Rose and the Salvation Army store.”

“I think we’re going to have to make the dress Matthew buys Anne, though.” Doris’ voice joined Lucinda’s. “Puffed sleeves are not a thing anymore, even for those who wear vintage clothes for fun.”

Gladwynn heard the opening of cupboard doors. “Let’s try that tea Louise gave us.” Then a little louder. “Gladwynn, hon’. You out there?”

“Yep.”

“Come in and try this tea Louise gave us. It’s from India.”

Gladwynn stood from the lounge chair and yawned, stretching her arms above her head. “India? Whose been in India?”

“Louise’s son and daughter-in-law were missionaries there and brought it back with them.”

 Gladwynn’s eyes slowly adjusted from the bright sun to the dimly lit kitchen as she walked inside. For several seconds Doris was simply a small figure sitting at the table. As she came more into focus, though, Gladwynn could see her usually long silver hair had been cut into an attractive bob that brought her hair down to just below her ears.

“Doris! I love your hair! What does Bill think?”

Doris touched a hand to the bottom of her hair, bouncing it against her palm. “Why thank you. He seems to like it. Said it makes me look ten years younger, so I took that as a compliment.”

Doris had a small, round face, and bright brown eyes with a hint of gold in the irises. She was petite, or what Gladwynn would call dainty. When she smiled her entire face lit up, making her look at least a decade younger than she was.

She and Lucinda had been friends for more than 50 years, meeting when Lucinda and her late husband Sydney had moved into the three-story Victorian home built by Gladwynn’s great-great grandfather next to Doris and her husband’s similarly lovely Victorian home. Lucinda and Sydney had moved into the home when Sydney returned from the seminary to become the pastor of Covenant Heart Church. They had lived in the rectory for several years until Sydney’s father passed away and the family home was left to him.

Lucinda set three delicate teacups with red roses on the side on the counter. “At least he put the golf clubs down long enough to notice this time.”

Doris clicked her tongue. “Now, Lucinda. Behave. I told you he’s been better lately.”

Lucinda opened a small box of tea and placed the loose leaves in a small tea ball, which  she sat inside her ceramic teapot, a match to the teacups. Sydney had given her the set for their 50th wedding anniversary.

 “I know. I know. I’m sorry. You know I struggle with a sarcastic tone. You think at my age I’d have that under control.”

Doris’ smile was warm and full of amusement. “If you didn’t have that sarcastic tone, I’d worry you were sick, Lucinda Grant.” With a laugh, she turned her attention to Gladwynn. “I hear you’ll be at our rehearsal tonight to write an article about the show.”

Gladwynn dropped a piece of homemade bread in the toaster. “Yes, ma’am. I care so much about you ladies I am even coming in on my day off.”

Lucinda patted her on the shoulder. “And we appreciate it, honey.”

“Just keep in mind we are only in the planning stages right now,” Doris said. “We still have to figure out costumes and set design and no one even knows their lines yet.”

Gladwynn knew the Willowbrook Retirement Community had chosen to perform Anne of Green Gables for their summer play. What she didn’t know yet was who was playing the parts and who was directing it.

Most of her grandmother’s friends, others than Doris, lived at Willowbrook Retirement Community, which was a collection of approximately 40 mini-condos that all looked the same, inside and out. Willowbrook provided independent living for local seniors, while also giving them a community of neighbors. A recreational center on the condo property provided them with a place for swimming, aerobic classes, as well as musical concerts and dramatic performances put on by the residents.   

Lucinda set the kettle on the stove. “We’ve got plenty of time for all of that. The show isn’t until August.” She glanced over her shoulder and winked. “Plenty of time for us all to have a mental breakdown.”

Lucinda’s long white hair still featured flecks of the golden it had been when she was younger. It was pulled into the usual bun tight on top of her head. Two signature dimples popped up on each of her cheeks.

The toast popped up and Gladwynn began to butter it. The smell of homemade bread filled the air. She and Lucinda had cooked it together a couple of days earlier.

“Who all is in the play? Do either of you ladies have a role in it?” She looked at Lucinda with a mischievous smile. “I could totally see you as Marilla, Grandma.”

Lucinda’s eyes narrowed as she set the teacups on the table. “I’m not sure if that is a compliment or not considering how grumpy and uptight that woman is in the beginning.”

Reaching around Lucinda for the shaker with cinnamon and sugar, Gladwynn kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “But later she becomes a sweet, doting mother-figure for Anne so I think that fits you just perfectly.”

Lucinda pinched Gladwynn’s upper arm. “Nice save, young one, but, no, Louise MacIntosh is going to play Marilla. Doris and I are simply on costume duty this year and I am totally fine with that. Floyd Simson is going to play Matthew, Summer Bloomfield is playing Anne and Ashley Donnely is playing Diana. The part of Rachel Lynde will be played by Beatrice Farley, which is completely fitting for her.”

The chirping birds outside reminded Gladwynn she’d left the cats on the patio where they were probably awake from their naps now, ready to pounce on a Blue Jay or Cardinal feasting at her grandmother’s bird feeder. She opened the patio door to let both cats inside. Scout darted inside while Pixel took her time, rubbing against the doorframe several times, walking in a circle, and then finally returning to walk through the door.

Gladwynn rolled her eyes at the cat and sighed, then reached down and scratched Pixel’s head. “Who is the director of the play?”

Steam rose from the kettle as Lucinda dropped the tea ball into the teapot. “Samantha Mors. She’s the community centers new recreational director. I say new, but she’s been there for about a year and a half. She’s magnificent.” She poured hot water into the teapot and sat it in the center of the table. “She’s brought so much life to Willowbrook.”

Doris placed a cube of sugar in her teacup. “I agree. She’s brought so much to our community at large, not just Willowbrook. We now have craft fairs and talent nights at the retirement community hall, in addition to the activities she’s added for the residents. There are nights for crafts, a book club, art classes, aerobics and Pilates classes, shuffleboard competitions, and once a month there is a dance.”

Gladwynn was impressed with the list of activities. The woman sounded like a true gift to Willowbrook.

“She sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to meet her. For now, though, I’m going to finish this toast and tea and then head out to meet Abbie and the kids for a picnic at the lake.

Lucinda lifted the teapot lid, steam rising up in front of her face as she looked inside. “Oh my. Doesn’t this smell wonderful?” The smell of tea wafted from the teapot. She began to tip tea into each of their cups. “Before you head out, I thought I should let you know that your father called this afternoon.”

Gladwynn’s shoulder muscles tensed. She kept her gaze on the tea leaves swirling in her cup, waiting for Lucinda to continue, but not wanting her to at the same time. It was rarely good news when William Grant called.

Lucinda cleared her throat as she sat at the table and began to tip some cream into her tea. “He asked how you were.”

Good for him, Gladwynn wanted to retort, but didn’t. “Mmm. That’s nice.” Gladwynn blew on the tea. “And what did you tell him?”

“That you were doing well, but that he had your phone number so he could call and ask as well.”

Gladwynn snorted out a laugh. “And what did he say to that?”

Lucinda dropped her voice into a deeper range. “Well – well, mother. I know that, but – well, you see, I just figured it was easier to call you and – you know I’m late for a meeting so I – uh.”

Gladwynn burst into laughter at the impression of her father. “That was way too accurate.”

Lucinda reached for a homemade sugar cookie on a plate she’d sat next to the teapot. She broke the cookie in two. “Teasing aside, I know he’s not the easiest to get along with, but he does love you. He’s just not very good at showing it.”

That was an understatement in Gladwynn’s opinion.

“I also know you won’t want to hear this.” Lucinda dipped half of the cookie in the tea. “But he says he will be visiting in a couple of weeks. He has a law conference in Philadelphia and would like to stop in to visit on his way back.”

Gladwynn wondered what the deal was with everyone she knew from her old life stopping by on their way to conferences. Two months ago, her ex-boyfriend Bennett had done the same thing. That hadn’t ended well but he seemed to have got the message after their talk and hadn’t tried to reach her again since then.

“That’s fine. I hope you two have a nice visit. I’ll probably be at work most of the time.”

Other than reading a lot, she and her father seemed to have very little in common. He was all about work, making connections for work, reading about work, and then going to work as a high-end corporate lawyer in Manhattan during the week.

On the weekends he was home in Upstate New York. When she had still lived across town from him in a rented apartment, which had only been a short six months ago, he’d spoken to her briefly a handful of times. Those times were usually to let her know that he and her mother didn’t feel she was living up to her potential. That speech had intensified when she’d been laid off from her job as a research librarian and the local college, as if the lay off had been her fault.

She drank the last of the tea in the cup. “That was amazing tea. Thank Louise for sending some home with you.” She stood and kissed Lucinda’s cheek. “I’ll see you two tonight at the theater.”

“Have fun and don’t forget your sunscreen,” Lucinda called after her. “And say hello to Luke if you see him there. I heard he was camping out there this weekend.”

Gladwynn paused in the doorway of the kitchen.  What were the chances that she was going to the same place today that her grandmother’s pastor— the man her grandmother had been not so subtly trying to set her up with for the last few months —was camping?

Was it possible that Abbie and her grandmother had combined forces? She briefly glanced over her shoulder at Lucinda, who seemed to be innocently sipping her tea as Doris started to talk about a problem she was having with a flower in her garden.

Shaking her head, she continued toward the stairs, refusing to believe that her friend and grandmother were conspiring against her.

Lake Henrietta was about a half hour drive from Brookstone and took Gladwynn through fields that stretched out to the bottom of tree covered hillsides and then faded into forests of tall Eastern pine trees, maples, oak and dying ash trees. The ash trees had been attacked by the ash boar years ago and the bug had finally succeeded in eating through them all. The ash boar had been brought in by the state to chase away the Japanese Beetles which had been brough in to chase out an infestation of – well, Gladwynn couldn’t remember. All she could remember was that the government always seemed to be offering solutions that made the original problem ten times worse.

Taking a deep breath through her nose she reveled in the smell of pine and blooming wildflowers. A deer stepped out into a meadow between groves of trees, followed by a fawn. She smiled, a sudden rush of gratefulness rushing through her at being able to live in an area where such scenes were commonplace. So many who’d lived here for years took it for granted, while here she was driving to a state park and wondering like an awe-struck child what wildlife she might see today.

Moving to this more rural area from an urban area had been an adjustment for sure, but it was an adjustment she had been enjoying so far, despite the fact there had been two attempted murders within a couple of months of her living here. She’d ended up helping to investigate both cases because of her reporting job. Her book obsession had led her to getting to know the guilty party, Landon Braken, which led to him confessing that he had tried to kill a man who had led a jewelry theft years earlier. Landon had worked at the bookshop she visited at least twice a week.

The theft had left Landon’s father a shell of a man as he dealt with the guilt of having helped rob the jewelry store, which had been owned by his cousin. Landon’s father had been the curator at an art museum and had lent an expensive necklace to Brick and Melody Braken to display in their store. Daryl Stabler had been behind the plot to steal the necklace and years later he’d blackmailed Landon’s father into staying quiet.

That had been a few months ago. Daryl and his wife Gloria and Landon were now awaiting trials. Daryl was awaiting trials for both the jewelry theft and for stealing catalytic convertors around the country to sell them for their expensive metals. His wife was awaiting trial for the attempted murder of the wife of the man who had helped Daryl steal the jewels.

Hopefully life in Marson County would be a little calmer now. Gladwynn was back to covering elementary school field days, mundane municipal meetings, and library fundraising events again and she was fine with that.

Abbie Mendoza stood outside a blue minivan in the parking lot of the beach entrance of the park. The mother of three was wearing a pair of light blue shorts, flip flops, a white tank top with blue stripes and her dirty blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Canvas bags, beach toys, a cooler, and an enormous inflated pink swan sat around her on the ground. A small boy jumped up and down next to her and older child, who was a younger version of Abbie, was leaning against the side of the car, reading a book. Hannah, Abbie’s middle child, was walking along a log laying in the woods near the parking lot, her arms out to her side for balance.

Gladwynn smiled as she pulled into the space next to Abbie, remembering the first time she’d met her and her children.

Abbie was the part time barista at Gladwynn’s favorite coffee and bookshop, Brewed Awakening. The coffee shop featured a used bookstore in the back and had become a frequent place of peaceful respite for Gladwynn. She and Abbie had become fast friends after meeting, even though it seemed in some ways that they didn’t have a lot in common. Gladwynn was single and Abbie was married with three children she homeschooled.

“Need some help?” Gladwynn asked as she stepped out of her car. She reached for the bag Abbie had picked up and hooked it over her shoulder, then held her hand out to Logan, Abbie’s 3-year-old son.

Logan grinned, stuck a finger in his mouth and took her hand.

Gladwynn looked down at him and smiled. “Ready to see the lake?”

He nodded and gigged, bouncing up and down. “Ake! Ake!”

Abbie sighed and rolled her head from side to side as if working out the kinks. “He’s been driving me crazy all morning, running around and chanting “Ake! Ake!” She looked over her shoulder. “Isabella, grab the other bags, honey. We need all the help we can get.”

Isabella didn’t respond, her head still bent over the book.

“Isabella!” Abbie’s voice was sharp. “I’m asking you to help us carry this all down to the beach. I’m glad you’re reading but we could use your help.”

Isabella looked up quickly, her expression a mix of surprise and indifference. “Oh. Sorry.” She shoved the book in the bag over her shoulder and picked up a folded beach chair and cooler. Looking up she managed to give a half smile to Gladwynn, who thought about how she was so glad she wasn’t a teenager anymore. That had been a confusing and awkward time and had to be even worse in the day and age of the internet.

Hannah skipped along behind them as they made their way to the beach, a man-made space covered in sand that had been hauled in from somewhere else but provided a soft space to walk and sit next to the 245-acre lake.

Lake Henrietta stretched out toward a hillside of green pine trees, the blue sky with a few clouds reflecting in its surface. Gladwynn had visited the lake one other time before this with Abbie’s family and planned to visit again soon by herself. She was looking forward to setting herself up under the weeping willow along the far shore, away from the beach, with a book and a tall glass of lemonade.

Today the beach was full of children building sandcastles and running into the water and families picnicking at tables in grassy areas next to the sand.

Abbie and Gladwynn spread a blanket out on the warm sand. They set the bags up around it, then propped a large umbrella up to protect them from the blazing sun.

Abbie slid a small white bottle from a canvas bag and shook it. “Let’s get some sunblock on before you all run away.”

Gladwynn lent a hand and once the kids were slathered to Abbie’s specifications, they took off for the water, Logan doing his best to drag the inflated swan across the sand.

Sitting on the blanket, Gladwynn reached inside her bag for her own bottle of sunblock and began to rub it onto her bare arms, shoulders and legs. She’d chosen a sleeveless shirt that hooked behind her neck with two strings and left the top of her back exposed, a pair of vintage-style blue shorts with white stripes, and brown sandals with blue flowers tacked to the top straps.

“Need any help with your back?”

The deep voice startled her, and she looked up quickly to see the mischievous smile of a very attractive man she’d been doing her best to avoid for the last couple of months.

Sunday Bookends: Some time alone, books about fairies and murder, Summer of Marilyn

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I had about five hours to myself at home, which is a very unusual thing. I said I would update today whether I enjoyed it or cried because I missed my family.

Update: I had a blast.

Sure, I missed my family and if they had been gone much longer than they were I would have been a mess, but for those five hours I had so much fun by myself.

I watched whatever movie I wanted to watch (How To Marry A Millionaire) without being interrupted 18 times.

I made myself grilled chicken on our grill and ate it while it was still hot! I didn’t have to eat mine after I fixed everyone else’s plate, which I don’t always do, but still . . .

I didn’t have to get up and make anyone a snack for anyone or listen to my movie over the sound of a kid’s show on a phone or stop what I was doing to look at anything someone wanted to show me.

It was wonderful! Again, though, I also would absolutely miss those other things if my family wasn’t around, so I was super happy when they came home. I could only enjoy being alone with my thoughts for so long.

I’m doing my best to carry that relaxed feeling into today. The weather is beautiful and I just want to hold on to that feeling.

I realized at the end of the day that one reason I felt so peaceful last night even after my alone time was that I stayed off social media and the news. Today and into this week I plan to do the same thing. I’m not saying I won’t go on social media at all but I will definitely go on much less than I do some weeks.

The words that came to mind this morning on that topic were: I need to protect my peace.

It was what I did around this past Christmas. I locked myself away in a bubble of comfort, in a way, through the month of December and I need to do that more often. Of course, we can’t always keep the bad way, but we can make every effort possible to protect our peace and not go looking for those things that threaten that peace.

Calamity and chaos will always find us but there is no reason we should seek it out through scrolling mindlessly on social media or news sites.
I mentioned in a recent post that I was worried that the frost and freeze we had was going to kill my peonies and roses as it did my lilacs. I am happy to report that I checked my peonies yesterday while everyone was gone and they survived and are starting to bloom.

The white ones come up first and then the dark purple/pink ones and then the light pink ones. They bloom fully every year right in time for my brother’s birthday (June 9th. Gifts can be sent to him at  . . . just kidding.).

If you want to read more about what we did last week, you can pop on over to yesterday’s post.

What I/We’ve been Reading

This week I am reading Death and Daisies by Amanda Flower and I should have it finished later this week. Her books are quite easy reads and fairly light. They are cozy mysteries with a bit of magic mixed in. Or at least this series (the Magical Garden series) is.

I’m also reading The Regal Pink by Jenny Knipfer. This is a fantasy/fairy book which is not usually my thing but I try to read all of Jenny’s books so I am going to try it.

At night Little Miss and I are reading Little House on Plum Creek.

The boy is finishing Fellowship of the Ring.

The Husband is reading. I can’t ask him what because he slept horribly last night and he’s taking a rest upstairs.

What We Watched/are Watching

Yesterday I watched How to Marry A Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall (and William Powell). I started it while everyone was gone and finished it with The Husband when they came home.

I watched it years ago but had forgotten most of it.

While looking for a movie to watch I found a whole stack of blu-rays we own but that I either have not watched at all or haven’t watched in years and remember very little of. Among those movies were a bunch of Marilyn Monroe movies. The Husband pulled out a couple more of her movies when I told him I was considering watching the stack I’d made for the summer and blogging about them – or just watching them without blogging about them.

Seeing that stack of Marilyn movies made me decide I am going to have a Summer of Marilyn through the month of June and July. I’ll create a list of movies I am going to watch for a post later this week. I may be doing this one alone since Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs is super busy in June. I haven’t asked Katja yet if she wants to join but I’ll ask her later this week. I’ll also open the invitation for anyone to watch along who wants to. You do not have to blog about the movies just because I plan to.

Speaking of the Classic Movie Impressions Erin and I have been doing – the last post of our Spring of Cary will be up Thursday of this week.

I watched the movie and wrote the post but then forgot to post it on Saturday, which was the day Erin and I had decided to push it off to. Erin did not have a chance to write her post, however, because she had a very, very, full week with some fun stuff and some not-so-fun stuff.

The Husband and I also watched a Miss Marple movie this weekend (well, we will be finishing it later today) and Little Miss and I watched a ton of Mary Berry clips from YouTube one night this past week.


What I’m Writing

I am working on the second book of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries.

Are you ready to know what it is going to be called?

I think I already mentioned it, but I’ll share again that it is going to be called Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage.

The first book is set to release on July 18th, and you can either sign up for the ARC team (you do not have to promote the book all over – simply read and review it on Amazon and Goodreads) or pre-order it for 99 cents on Amazon.

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been listening to playlists of vintage music as I write this week including this one:

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I have not read a ton of blog posts this week, but I was informed and made necessarily uncomfortable by this post about gender ideology by Abigail Shrier.

Now it’s your turn.

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 4

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

I’m sharing another chapter of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing today, with the disclaimer that I have not fully proofed it yet and it may need some rewrites as well.

The full book will release July 18 on Amazon.

To catch up on the other chapters:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3





Chapter 4

Gladwynn wasn’t thrilled that Liam had assigned her to shadow Laurel Benton, the reporter she’d overheard talking about her with the copy editor the night before. Unfortunately, she was the only one free to show Gladwynn the ropes, so to speak, when it came to covering municipal meetings.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Gladwynn examined her dark brown curls and reapplied her signature bright red lipstick that she’d started wearing her senior year of college. She pulled the hem of the canary yellow sweater she’d had since college down to the top edge of her black slacks and took a deep breath before giving herself a pep talk.

“Come on, Grant. Suck it up. You can do this.”

Laurel was waiting for her in the hallway, arms crossed across her chest. She had tucked her hair under a blue, knitted cap, but one strand – dark brown with light-gray streaks – had fallen loose. She’d already zipped her black winter coat up to under her chin. Small lines crinkled the skin along the corners of her eyes as she offered a tense smile.

“Ready to go? We need to leave now if we want to get a good seat.”

Gladwynn reached for her coat, a hot pink tumbler filled with hot coffee, and a reporter’s notebook that she’d sat on a chair outside the bathroom door. She zipped her coat up to her chin and flipped up the gray-faux fur-lined hood. It was less stylish, but warmer than the one she’d been wearing the day before. She’d decided she needed to be ready for the conditions since she’d be outside more in this job than in her last job, even if the coat clearly clashed with her style.

She gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”

As she walked, she wrapped the bright red scarf her grandmother had handed her earlier that day around her neck and pulled it up across her mouth and nose.

Snow crunched under her winter boots, reminding her how glad she was that she’d stopped by the local shoe store on her way to work to pick out a pair of cute, yet still practical, brown winter boots.

Laurel’s steps weren’t as long as Liam’s, thankfully, and it was much easier to keep up with her. Her blue Honda was parked in a church parking lot across the street from the newspaper office. The car was definitely a lot older than Liam’s BMW. Dents along the passenger side of the car hinted at some sort of collision at some point – possibly with a guide rail or tree limb.

The door groaned as it opened, and the ripped seat definitely wasn’t heated.

Laurel slammed the driver’s side door shut. “Sorry about the car. It’s pretty beat up but gets me where I need to go.” She smirked. “Working for a small-town newspaper isn’t exactly a lucrative gig if you haven’t realized that already.”

A smile tugged at Gladwynn’s mouth. “I’ve started to figure that out, yes.” Her breath turned the air in front of her white and she hoped the car at least had heat.

The engine rolled over with a reluctant growl. Shifting it into reverse resulted in a loud grinding noise. Laurel grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut. “Stupid car.” She shook her head briefly. “Anyhow, Birchwood is about 20 minutes away and in the middle of nowhere so you can help me watch for deer.”

Laurel slowly edged the car out of the parking lot and onto Main Street. The sun hadn’t yet set, and the drive gave Gladwynn a moment to take in the town, as little as there was to take in. Brookstone had probably been a bustling center of activity at some point, but these days many of the buildings were shuttered up or housing businesses that probably wouldn’t survive the year. There were more “used” signs than she’d ever seen in one place. Used clothes, used books, and used video games just to name a few.

The one standout gem of Main Street was the old Cornerstone Theatre, which her grandmother had told her had once been an opera house, built in 1875. She remembered many trips there as a child and teen when she’d spent summers with her grandparents.

Gladwynn watched two churches slide by. One church was a Catholic Church with a light brown stone exterior and a tall bell tower. This must be the bell that rang four times a day, including 6 a.m., waking her up this morning way before she’d wanted to.

“How you settling in?”

Laurel’s question pulled her gaze from the impressive brick façade of the Covenant Heart Church her grandfather had used to pastor and that her grandmother still attended. “Okay, I guess. I mean, do you mean at the office or at my grandmother’s, which is where I’m staying for now?”

Laurel shrugged and smiled briefly. “Both I guess.”

“I would say I’m settling in with Grandma better than I am at the office, honestly.” The business district of town began to fade into a series of lovely homes, many of them Victorian like her grandmothers. That was one thing about Brookstone. Part of it demonstrated that the area had fallen into disrepair and poverty, while the other half showcased the wealth that had once ruled the town and, in some cases, still did.

Gladwynn glanced at Laurel. “By the way, the word is coif not quaff.”

Laurel looked over at her with one eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

“The word you were looking for yesterday was coif. Coif is a hairdo. I was wearing a 40s coif in your opinion. Quaff means to drink heavily, which I don’t do.”

Red crept into Laurel’s cheeks. She frowned briefly. “Sorry about that.”

The town disappeared into a less sparsely populated area with only a few houses, a gas station and a mechanic shop passing by.

Gladwynn sighed. “Maybe it is a silly hairdo.”

“No. Really. It isn’t.” Laurel glanced at her. “We were just being petty. It happens in a small office. Especially among women. Not to run our sex down but we do tend to get caddy when we are in small groups. Maybe it’s because our hormones sync and we’re all having PMS at the same time.”

Glawyn laughed softly. “Yeah, that actually happened at my last job too.” And her house when she was growing up, but she didn’t think she needed to mention that at the moment.

The gears in the car groaned again as Laurel shifted. “If you don’t mind me asking, have you worked in papers before?”

Gladwynn kept her gaze on the road in front of them, groves of trees, interspersed with small farmhouses and farms. “Only at my college newspaper almost six years ago now. I do write. I don’t know if I would call myself a writer, though. I write short stories sometimes.” She slid her gloves off as the heat in the car started to kick in. “I was laid off at my last job. It was at the college library in a town near where I grew up. I loved the job, but enrollment has been down at the college for a couple of years now and they finally started making cuts. I was one of those cuts.”

Laurel winced. “Ouch. Sorry to hear that.”

“I’m actually surprised Liam hired me. Grateful but surprised.”

Laurel snorted a laugh. “Of course, he hired you. Liam is a sucker for cute brunettes. His last three girlfriends were brunettes. He also needed a warm body to fill the seat and get Lee off his back.”

“Lee?”

“The publisher. You’ll meet him eventually. He and his wife spend most of the winter in Florida with his kids and grandkids.”

Gladwynn glanced at her reflection in the passenger side window. Cute? She’d always thought of herself as plain. She’d never really described herself as skinny even when others did. She simply saw herself as boney and awkward, often wishing she could be tall and lanky instead.

She’d definitely taken after most of the women on Grandma Lucinda’s side of the family in the height department. Her short stature had always been an irritant to her, though she was glad she at least had grown past the 5 foot 3 inches of Lucinda. Only by an inch, but it was an inch she’d prayed hard for over the years.

She took a sip from her tumbler, closing her eyes briefly at the sweet taste of coffee and cream her grandmother had mixed for. “So, what about you? Are you from here originally?”

Laurel gave a quick nod. “Yep. Born and raised.”

“Have you been at the paper long?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Too long. Twelve years next month.”

“Is this what you thought you’d always do? Like, did you go to school for journalism?”

“I did, but always imagined I’d be at a much bigger paper. I came back here after college to help my parents on the farm. They retired and sold it last year and moved down South to live with my grandmother, but here I am, still stuck in good ole’ Marson County.”

Gladwynn thought she heard a twinge of resentment in Laurel’s voice. “Is the job the only thing keeping you here?”

Laurel pressed her mouth into a thin line for a few seconds before answering. “It is now.”

She didn’t elaborate and Gladwynn didn’t ask her to.

“The job’s not that bad of a gig really,” Laurel said after a few seconds of silence. “The hours stink, and I feel like I’m always on, ready to cover something even when I’m supposed to have a day off, but I like the people, the writing, and most of the time I like my co-workers. Except that little upstart who thinks he’s God’s gift to journalism. I’d like to give him a swift kick in the butt.” She snorted a quick laugh. “Maybe when I decide to quit and get out of this county once and for all, that will be my last act.” She turned her car onto a road to her right and the conversation faded for the rest of the drive.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 3

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Guys! Gals! I am excited! I have finished my revisions of the full novel of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing and I’m sending it out to beta readers and then will have ARC copies ready to go by June. Do you want to get in on reading the full book early? You can sign up to read an advanced copy (and hopefully review it if you like it) here:

To celebrate finishing my revisions (but not my corrections because it has to go to the editors still), I thought I’d share chapter 3 of the book.

You can find the previous chapters here and here.

As usual, there could be typos in this chapter since I still have to send it to my editors.

Let me know what you think in the comments if you want to!

Chapter 3

Glawynn woke with a start the next morning, heart pounding.

A horrible grinding noise had jolted her from a dream. It stopped almost as quickly as it started and now she wondered if it had been part of the dream, which she could remember very little of. There’d been a court jester and a young Frank Sinatra. The rest had faded into oblivion.

 The room she was looking at reminded her of something someone might see on the set of a Regency film. She let out a breath, blowing hair out of her face, and struggled to remember where she was.

A solemn woman with her hair high on her head in a tight bun scowled at her from a gold-framed picture on the wall above a full-length mirror opposite her. To the woman’s right, there was a full-bearded man wearing a Quaker-style hat staring at her from out of another framed picture. Both photographs were black and white.

It was all coming back to her now.

Grandma’s house in Brookstone. Her home for the foreseeable future.

She winced as she moved her legs, stinging pain shuddering through the bottom of her feet, reminding her of her stupid decision to wear high-heeled boots to work.

Downstairs the noise that had woken her up had started up again. Some kind of grinding and squealing, like maybe a cat caught in a woodchipper.

What was her grandmother doing?

Or maybe it wasn’t her grandmother. She hadn’t actually seen her grandmother when she’d come home last night. Lucinda’s bedroom door had been closed.  Gladwynn had tiptoed past it and crawled into bed without even changing into her pajamas.

Now fully awake, she tossed the thick quilt off her and reached for the flashlight next to the bed, weighing it in her hand.

Yeah, that would work if there was a chainsaw-wielding maniac downstairs instead of her spunky grandmother.

She inched her way into the hallway then slowly to the top of the stairs, ancestors watching her with stoic stares from ornate and vintage frames along the flower-wallpapered walls.

Making her way down the wooden staircase that dated sometime in the early 1900s, one hand on a banister, she winced as the grinding noise grew louder. It was clear now that the sound was coming from the kitchen.

Amidst the grinding, she could hear Dean Martin crooning away and just as loud, Lucinda’s voice joining in.

Gladwynn set the flashlight on a small table sitting against the wall next to the staircase under a framed image of the Grant coat of arms that a great-uncle twice removed, or something had brought back from a trip to Scotland.

She paused to look through the kitchen doorway, unable to keep from smiling at the sight of Lucinda wearing a silky, bright pink bathrobe, her back to the doorway. Her light gray hair was swept back in a messy bun and her plump hips swayed from side to side as she sang while pouring something bright green from a blender into tall glasses.

Gladwynn stepped up into the doorway. Lucinda looked over her shoulder, smiled, and belted out the end of the song, before flicking off the CD player.

“Hey there, girl! There you are! You were passed right out when I got home. That must have been some crazy second day.”

When she got home? Where had her grandmother been last night at 8 p.m. if not curled up in bed asleep?

Gladwynn flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Yeah. It was a little crazy.”

“Different than library work, huh?”

 “That’s an understatement. It’s like walking from Brigadoon into Saigon.”

Lucinda set a glass of the green concoction in front of Gladwynn and winked. “Glad to hear you referencing a classic movie we used to watch together.”

Gladwynn smirked. “Brigadoon or Platoon?”

“Very funny, kid.” Lucinda winked. “You know we never watched Brigadoon together.” She sat at the table across from her granddaughter, taking a sip from the glass. She smacked her lips. “Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff.”

She sighed and folded her arms on top of the table. “It’s been nice having you here, you know. I’d honestly been considering moving to Willowbrook before you called. This place is too big for one person.”

Gladwynn studied the green substance with suspicion. “You? In a retirement community?”

Lucinda shrugged. “I’m there enough as it is and almost all my friends are there now so it probably wouldn’t be a huge adjustment. Plus, it’s not easy for this old lady to take care of this big house anymore.”

“What were you going to do with the house?”

“Sell it, probably.”

She couldn’t be serious. This house had been in the family for over a hundred years. “Why? Wouldn’t dad or mom or Aunt Margaret or Uncle Doug and Aunt Harriet have wanted it?”

Lucinda shrugged again and took a swig from her glass.

“None of them are interested in keeping up this old place. They’ve all got their own lives and responsibilities. Your siblings and cousins are too wrapped up in their own worlds to care about it either.” She smirked. “Except for Trudy. I overheard her at Christmas last year tell her friend, or whatever he is, that she would love to turn this house into a bed and breakfast one day.”

Yeah, that sounded like Gladwynn’s cousin Trudy. She scoffed. “She would have abandoned that idea as soon as she realized it would require her to actually do work.”

Lucinda revealed a faint smile over the rim of her glass.

Gladwynn twirled the glass slowly in her hands and made a face. “What is this stuff anyhow?”

“It’s a green smoothie. All the rage and very good for you.”

Gladwynn sniffed the glass and set it down again. “Green things aren’t really something I eat. Or drink. Ever. But especially in the morning.”

Lucinda lifted an eyebrow. “Being healthy doesn’t interest you? Well, then, by all means go ahead and pour yourself some cereal that resembles cardboard or throw some heart attack-causing butter on a piece of inflammation-inducing toast and toss a piece of cholesterol-raising pig in the frying pan.”

Gladwynn stood. “Don’t mind if I do. Bacon sounds amazing right now. Also, I think it is the butter that raises cholesterol and the pork that can lead to the heart attack. Not sure about that, though, since I really don’t care.”

She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her as she walked to the fridge, but the woman luckily changed the subject. “So, how did your first couple of days go?”

Gladwynn shrugged. “They were okay. The job is just different than I expected.” She slapped a pack of bacon on the counter. “I caught a couple of the staff gossiping about me yesterday. I don’t think they like me very much.”

Lucinda turned fully in the chair to look at her. “Gladwynn, are you listening to yourself? You’re not in high school. ‘They don’t like me.’ ‘They were talking about me.’ Who cares! You don’t have to be best friends with these people. It’s a job. Work the job and come home. You young people today are too stuck on thinking you have to like your job or the people you work with. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about making money to pay your bills and put food on the table.”

The bacon sizzled in the pan. “I know, Grandma, but it would be nice if my co-workers at least liked me.”

“Did your co-workers at your last job like you?”

“Well, yeah, but we were all similar. A bunch of weirdos spending half of our lives with our noses in a book.”

Lucinda chuckled. “You’re so much like your dad. That boy always had a book in his hands.”

Gladwynn tensed at the comparison. She was nothing like William Alexander Grant or her mother, Penelope Fitzwalter-Grant, which was probably why she was always butting heads with them.

Lucinda picked up Gladwynn’s glass and poured half of the mixture into her own glass. “I’m going to the community center tonight to play Pitch. You want to come along?”

“No, my shift starts at three today. I have to go to a meeting with one of the other reporters.”

“Oh, yeah, which meeting?”

“Some little township about half an hour away. Beachwood or something.”

Lucinda finished the smoothie in her glass. “Oh, Birchwood. Good luck with that. Those people are always arguing.”

“About what?”

“About anything and everything. Sometimes it’s about zoning, and sometimes about the shape of the roads. Sometimes someone looked at someone else funny. Who even knows. Lately, the paper had been writing about some beef going on with the volunteer fire department and the township board or a resident of something. I don’t know. I really don’t have time to read the paper these days.” She put her glass in the sink. “I certainly don’t envy you, young lady. Now, before you go, I’ll need you to help me pick out my outfit for tonight. It’s so wonderful having someone here that can help me choose.”

“What about Doris?”

“I love Doris, honey, but you know she has no taste. No taste in music. No taste in men and definitely no taste in clothes.”

Gladwynn shook her head, placing a couple slices of cooked bacon onto a plate. “Now, Grandma, is that any way to speak about your best friend? And her husband for that matter? Bill is a good guy.”

“Doris isn’t my best friend. She’s just a friend. My best friend was your grandfather and he’s not here anymore.”

Gladwynn flipped a piece of bacon. “So, Doris will have to do.”

Lucinda sighed. “Yes, I guess so. She is a very good friend so she can be my almost best friend. As for Bill – well, that’s another conversation for another day.” She snatched a piece of bacon off the plate. “Now you finish that bit of smoothie I left for you. It’s good for you. I’ve got to get to the post office and then I’m heading up to the Y for a swim. I’m going to swing by Judy’s Market on the way home. Can I get you anything?”

“Grandma, don’t you ever slow down? I want to know how your date went last night. More importantly, I want to know who it was with.”

Lucinda bumped her hip into Gladwynn’s and winked. “There will be plenty of time for that conversation, little lady.” She took another bite of the piece of bacon. “You just get yourself some food and relax until you have to go to work.”

Heading toward the doorway, Lucinda started to hum another Dean Martin tune.

Gladwynn placed a hand to her hip and scowled at Lucinda’s retreating form. “I thought you said bacon wasn’t healthy.”

Lucinda glanced over her shoulder waving the bacon above her head. “It isn’t but it sure does taste good.”

After she finished her breakfast and her grandmother had left to run her errands, Gladwynn made her way to her grandfather’s office, which was also a library with floor-to-ceiling cherrywood bookcases built into the walls.

Little had been changed in the room since Sidney William Grant had passed away six years ago. The top of his mahogany desk had been cleared of papers, but family photos still remained.  Rows of books from a variety of eras filled the bookshelves and oil paintings of scenes from the area along with various photographs from his 50 years as a minister lined the walls.

Gladwynn paused and breathed in deeply. She was amazed the room still smelled so much like her grandfather’s aftershave. It was as if the day he died her grandmother had closed up the room to lock in all the smells and memories of him. It was clear, though, that Lucinda, or someone else, had been in the room since then by the lack of dust on the desk and shelves.

She sat in her grandfather’s chair and rubbed her hands along the black leather of the armrests. An old-style radio she’d been told was her grandfather’s when he was young sat across the room on a small table. It was probably built in the early 1950s, maybe earlier. She remembered sitting on her grandfather’s lap as a child in this office, listening to the oldies radio station.

The songs from the 1940s and 1950s had always been her favorite. She still listened to them when driving in her car or while reading.

Though there was a time that sitting in this office had made her feel sad and acutely aware of her loss, she felt an odd sense of joy and peace sitting here today, grateful for the memories of him.

She stood and looked at the books on the shelves, choosing one her grandfather had read to her when she’d used to visit in the summer.

The Hobbit.

She sat back at the desk with it and opened it, the crack of the spine sending a delightful shiver up her spine. She’d always loved the hand-drawn illustrations inside.

An hour later she looked up at the clock and yawned. She didn’t want to leave the refuge of the room, but she should probably get a shower and start putting her clothes away in the wardrobe in her room, something she hadn’t yet done since moving in last week. She laughed softly, thinking of the first time she’d stayed in that room as a young child and how she’d felt all the way to the back of that wardrobe to see if it felt cold as if it might really be a portal to Narnia, which she had been reading about at the time.

Walking back toward the staircase, she marveled, once again, at the size of the house. To get to the main staircase to go upstairs she walked past two parlors, a living room, a sunroom that included a mini library filled with her grandmother’s classic book collection, a dining room that was bigger than her first apartment, and a full-size bathroom. Inside the living room was a stone fireplace her grandfather had built.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms, a room that used to be a nursery but was now a den, two porch balconies outside two of the rooms, a full bathroom that Lucinda had installed a hot tub in three years ago, and an attic on the third floor.

Outside, massive granite stairs with grapevine mortar sidewalls lead up to a wrap-around porch and porte-cochere that led to a three-car garage at the side of the house, at the end of the drive, that had once been a carriage house.

The home, built in 1894, had originally belonged to her grandfather’s grandfather, a prestigious county lawyer and then judge. The woodwork inside was original and Gladwynn ran her hand along it as she walked to her room at the end of the long hallway, which was lit by lanterns that resembled those from the early 1900s but had actually been installed in the 1960s.

This home had always fit her personality more than the modern two-story house she’d grown up in with her parents, two older sisters, and older brother in upstate New York.  

Unlike her older sisters she’d somehow never felt like a modern girl. Instead, deep down she felt as if she’d been meant for a different decade. She had even set aside modern clothing for more vintage outfits since high school.

“You’re a girl with an old name and an even older soul,” Lucinda had once told her as they sat on the metal bench in the middle of her grandmother’s overflowing flower garden.

Gladwynn heard her cell phone ringing as she reached the end of the hall. She took her time getting to it, knowing who it would be.

She glanced at his name on the lock screen, pushed the call to voicemail, and once again questioned why she hadn’t yet blocked his number, knowing deep down it was because she hated leaving anything unresolved. Someday she’d have to resolve that situation, but for now, she was going to enjoy a long bath before work.



Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 2

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I thought I’d share another chapter today from my cozy mystery Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing which releases on July 18.

I’m posting this very late today because I’ve been running around most of today, cooking dinner, putting away groceries, etc. I’m posting so late today it’s almost not Friday any longer.

You can catch up on Chapter 1 by clicking here.

If you would like to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of the book in exchange for a review and letting your friends and family know about it, please sign up here:

https://forms.gle/sGrW46XBPViAvzRz7

This does not require you to be on a launch team or do anything other than read and review the book.

Chapter 2

Glawynn woke with a start the next morning, heart pounding.

A horrible grinding noise had jolted her from a dream. It stopped almost as quickly as it started and now she wondered if it had been part of the dream, which she could remember very little of. There’d been a court jester and a young Frank Sinatra. The rest had faded into oblivion.

 The room she was looking at reminded her of something someone might see on the set of a regency film. She let out a breath, blowing hair out of her face and struggled to remember where she was.

A solemn woman with her hair high on her head in a tight bun scowled at her from a gold-framed picture on the wall above a full-length mirror opposite her. To the woman’s right there was a full-bearded man wearing a Quaker-style hat staring at her from out of another framed picture. Both photographs were black and white.

It was all coming back to her now.

Grandma’s house in Brookville. Her home for the foreseeable future.

She winced as she moved her legs, stinging pain shuddering through the bottom of her feet, reminding her of her stupid decision to wear high-heeled boots to work.

Downstairs the noise that had woken her up had started up again. Some kind of grinding and squealing, like maybe a cat caught in a wood chipper.

What was her grandmother doing?

Or maybe it wasn’t her grandmother. She hadn’t actually seen her grandmother when she’d come home last night. Lucinda’s bedroom door had been closed.  Gladwynn had tiptoed past it and crawled into bed without even changing into her night clothes.

Now fully awake, she tossed the thick quilt off her and reached for the flashlight next to the bed, weighing it in her hand.

Yeah, that would work if there was a chainsaw wielding maniac downstairs instead of her spunky grandmother.

She inched her way into the hallway, then slowly to the top of the stairs, ancestors watching her with stoic stares from ornate and vintage frames along the flower wallpapered walls.

Making her way down the wooden staircase with one hand on a banister that dated sometime in the early 1900s, she winced as the grinding noise grew louder. It was clear now that the sound was coming from the kitchen.

Amidst the grinding she could hear Dean Martin crooning away and just as loud, Lucinda’s voice joining in.

Gladwynn set the flashlight on a small table against the wall next to the staircase , under a framed image of the Grant coat of arms that a distant relative had brought back from a trip to Scotland.

She paused to look through the kitchen doorway, unable to keep from smiling at the sight.

Lucinda, wearing a silky, bright pink bathrobe, had her back to her. Her light gray hair was swept back in a messy bun and her plump hips swayed from side to side as she sang while pouring something bright green from a blender into tall glasses.

Gladwynn stepped up into the doorway just as her grandmother looked over her shoulder.

Lucinda smiled, belted out the end of the song, and then flicked off the CD player.

“Hey there, girl! There you are! You were passed right out when I got home. That must have been some crazy second day.”

When she got home? Where had her grandmother been last night at 8 p.m. if not curled up in bed asleep?

Gladwynn flopped in a chair at the kitchen table. “Yeah. It was a little crazy.”

“Different than library work, huh?”

 “That’s an understatement. It’s like walking from Brigadoon into Saigon.”

Lucinda sat a glass of the green concoction in front of Gladwynn and winked. “Glad to hear you referencing a classic movie we used to watch together.”

Gladwynn smirked. “Brigadoon or Platoon?”

“Very funny, kid.” Lucinda winked. “You know we never watched Brigadoon together.” She sat at the table across from her granddaughter, taking a sip from the glass. She smacked her lips. “Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff.”

She sighed and folded her arms on top of the table. “It’s been nice having you here, you know. I’d honestly been considering moving to Willowbrook before you called. This place is too big for one person.”

Gladwynn studied the green substance with suspicion. “You? In a retirement community? Can’t really imagine that.”

Lucinda shrugged. “I’m there enough as it is and almost all my friends are there now so it probably wouldn’t be a huge adjustment. Plus, it’s not easy for this old lady to take care of this big house anymore.”

“What were you going to do with the house?”

“Sell it, probably.”

She couldn’t be serious. This house had been in the family for over a hundred years. “Sell it? Why? Wouldn’t dad or mom or Aunt Margaret or Uncle Phil and Aunt Harriet have wanted it?”

Lucinda shrugged again and took a swig from her glass.

“None of them are interested in keeping up this old place. They’ve all got their own lives and responsibilities. Your cousins are too wrapped up in their own worlds to care about it.” She smirked. “Except for Trudy. I overheard her at Christmas last year tell her friend, or whatever he is, that she would love to turn this house into a bed and breakfast one day.”

Yeah, that sounded like Trudy.

Gladwynn scoffed. “She would have abandoned that idea as soon as she realized it would require her to actually do work.”

Lucinda revealed a faint smile over the rim of her glass but quickly let it fade again.

Gladwynn twirled the glass around in her hands and made a face. “What is this stuff anyhow?”

“It’s a green smoothie. All the rage and very good for you. ”

Gladwynn sniffed the glass and set it down again. “Green things aren’t really something I eat. Or drink. Ever. But especially in the morning.”

Lucinda lifted an eyebrow. “Being healthy doesn’t interest you? Well, then, by all means go ahead and pour yourself some cereal that resembles cardboard or throw some heart attack causing butter on a piece of toast and toss a piece of cholesterol raising pig in the frying pan.”

Gladwynn stood. “Don’t mind if I do. Bacon sounds amazing right now. Also, I think it is the butter that raises cholesterol and the pork that can lead to the heart attack. Not sure about that, though, since I really don’t care.”

She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her as she walked to the fridge, but the woman luckily changed the subject. “So, how did your first couple of days go?”

Gladwynn shrugged. “They were okay. The job is just different than I expected.” She slapped a pack of bacon on the counter. “I caught a couple of the staff gossiping about me yesterday. I don’t think they like me very much.”

Lucinda turned in her chair. “Gladwynn are you listening to yourself? You’re not in high school. ‘They don’t like me.’ Who cares! You don’t have to be best friends with these people. It’s a job. Work the job and come home. You young people today are too stuck on thinking you have to like your job or the people you work with. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about making money to pay your bills and put food on the table.”

The bacon sizzled in the pan. “Yeah, I know, but it would be nice if my co-workers at least liked me.”

“Did your co-workers at your last job like you?”

“Well, yeah, but we were all similar. A bunch of weirdos spending half of our lives with our noses in a book.”

Lucinda chuckled. “You’re so much like your dad. That boy always had a book in his hands.”

Gladwynn tensed at the comparison. She was nothing like William Alexander Grant or her mother, Penelope Fitzwalter-Grant, which was probably why she was always butting heads with them.

Lucinda reached for Gladwynn’s glass over and poured half of the mixture into her own glass. “I’m going to the community center tonight to play Pitch. You want to come along?”

“No, my shift starts at three today. I have to go to a meeting with one of the other reporters.”

“Oh, yeah, which meeting?”

“Some little township about a half an hour away. Beachwood or something.”

Lucinda finished the smoothie in her glass. “Oh Birchwood. Good luck with that. Those people are always arguing.”

“About what?”

“About anything and everything. Sometimes it’s about zoning, sometimes about the shape of the roads. Sometimes someone looked at someone else funny. Who even knows. Lately the paper had been writing about some beef going on with the volunteer fire department and the township board or a resident of something. I don’t know. I really don’t have time to read the paper these days.” She put her glass in the sink. “I certainly don’t envy you, young lady. Now, before you go, I’ll need you to help me pick out my outfit for tonight. It’s so wonderful having someone here that can help me choose.”

“What about Doris?”

“I love Doris, honey, but you know she has no taste. No taste in music. No taste in men and definitely no taste in clothes.”

Gladwynn shook her head, placing a couple slices of cooked bacon onto a plate. “Now, Grandma, is that any way to speak about your best friend? And her husband for that matter? Bill is a good guy.”

“Doris isn’t my best friend. She’s just a friend. My best friend was your grandfather and he’s not here anymore.”

Gladwynn flipped a piece of bacon. “So, Doris will have to do.”

Lucinda sighed. “Yes, I guess so. She is a very good friend so I guess she can be my almost best friend. As for Bill – well, that’s another conversation for another day.” She snatched a piece of bacon off the plate. “Now you finish that bit of smoothie I left for you. It’s good for you. I’ve got to get to the post office and then I’m heading up to the Y for a swim. I’m going to swing by Judy’s Market on the way home. Can I get you anything?”

“Grandma, don’t you ever slow down? I want to know how your date went last night. More importantly, I want to know who it was with.”

Lucinda bumped her hip into Gladwynn’s and winked. “There will be plenty of time for that conversation, little lady.” She took another bite of the piece of bacon. “You just get yourself some food and relax until you have to go to work.”

Heading toward the doorway, Lucinda started to hum another Dean Martin tune.

Gladwynn placed a hand to her hip and scowled at Lucinda’s retreating form. “I thought you said bacon wasn’t healthy.”

Lucinda glanced over her shoulder waving the bacon above her head. “It isn’t but it sure does taste good.”

After breakfast was finished and her grandmother had left to run her errands, Gladwynn made her way to her grandfather’s office, which was also a library with floor to ceiling cherrywood bookcases built into the walls.

Little had been changed in the room since Sidney William Grant had passed away six years ago. The top of his mahogany desk had been cleared of papers, but family photos still remained.  Rows of books from a variety of eras filled the bookshelves and oil paintings of scenes from the area along with various photographs from his 50 years as a minister lining the walls.

Gladwynn paused and breathed in deep. She was amazed the room still smelled so much like her grandfather’s aftershave. It was as if the day he died her grandmother had closed up the room to lock in all the smells, feelings and memories. It was clear, though, that Lucinda, or someone else, had been in the room since then by the lack of dust on the desk and shelves.

She sat in her grandfather’s chair and rubbed her hands along the black leather of the armrests. An old-style radio she’d been told was her grandfather’s when he was young sat across the room on a small table. It was probably built in the early 1950s, maybe earlier. She remembered sitting on her grandfather’s lap as a child in this office, listening to the oldies radio station.

The songs from the 1940s and 1950s had always been her favorite. She still listened to them when driving in her car or while reading.

Though there was a time that sitting in this office had made her feel sad and acutely aware of her loss, she felt an odd sense of joy and peace sitting here today, grateful for the memories of him.

She stood and looked at the books on the shelves, choosing one her grandfather had read to her when she’d used to visit in the summer.

The Hobbit.

She sat back at the desk with it and opened it, the crack of the spine sending a delightful shiver up her spine. She’d always loved the hand-drawn illustrations inside.

An hour later she looked up at the clock and yawned. She didn’t want to leave the refuge of the room, but she should probably get a shower and start putting her clothes away in the wardrobe in her room, something she hadn’t yet done since moving in last week. She laughed softly, thinking of the first time she’d stayed in that room and how she’d felt all the way to the back of that wardrobe to see if it felt cold, as if it might really be a portal to Narnia, which she had been reading about at the time.

Walking back toward the staircase, she marveled, once again, at the size of the house. To get to the main staircase to go upstairs she walked past two parlors, a living room, a sunroom that included a mini library filled with her grandmother’s classic book collection, a dining room that was bigger than her first apartment, and a full-size bathroom. Inside the living room was a stone fireplace her grandfather had built.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms, a room that used to be a nursery but was now a den, two porch balconies outside two of the rooms, a full bathroom that Lucinda had installed a hot tub in three years ago and an attic on the third floor.

Outside, massive granite stairs with grapevine mortar sidewalls lead up to a wrap-around porch and porte-cochere that led to a three-car garage at the side of the house, at the end of the drive, that had once been a carriage house.

The home, built in 1894, had originally belonged to her grandfather’s grandfather, a prestigious county lawyer and then judge. The woodwork inside was original and Gladwynn ran her hand along it as she walked to her room at the end of the long hallway, which was lit by lanterns that resembled those from the early 1900s but had actually been installed in the 1960s.

This home had always fit her personality more than the modern two story house she’d grown up in with her parents, two older sisters and older brother in upstate New York.  

Unlike her older sisters she’d somehow never felt like a modern girl. Instead, deep down she felt as if she’d been meant for a different decade – anywhere from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. She loved the music and movies of the 1940s and 50s especially, and had even set aside modern clothing for more vintage outfits since high school.

“You’re a girl with an old name and an even older soul,” Lucinda had once told her as they sat on the metal bench in the middle of her grandmother’s overflowing flower garden.

Gladwynn heard her cellphone ringing as she reached the end of the hall. She took her time getting to it, knowing who it would be.

She glanced at his name on the lock screen, pushed the call to voicemail, and once again questioned why she hadn’t yet blocked his number, knowing deep down it was because she hated leaving anything unresolved. Someday she’d have to resolve that situation, but for now, she was going to enjoy a long bath before work.

***

Gladwynn wasn’t thrilled that Liam had assigned her to shadow Laurel Benton, the reporter she’d heard talking about her with the copy editor the night before, but she was the only one free to show Gladywn the ropes, so to speak, when it came to covering municipal meetings.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Gladwynn examined her dark brown curls and reapplied her signature bright red lipstick. She pulled the hem of the canary yellow sweater she’d had since college down to the top edge of her black slacks and took a deep breath before giving herself a pep talk.

“Come on, Grant. Suck it up. You can do this.”

Laurel was waiting for her in the hallway, arms crossed across her chest. She had tucked her hair under a blue, knitted cap, but one strand – light brown with light-gray streaks – had fallen loose. She’d already zipped her black winter coat up to under her chin. Small lines crinkled the skin along the corners of her eyes as she offered a tense smile.

“Ready to go? We need to leave now if we want to get a good seat.”

Gladwynn reached for her coat, a hot pink tumbler filled with hot coffee, and a reporter’s notebook that she’d sat on a chair outside the bathroom door. She zipped her coat up to her chin and flipped up the gray-faux fur lined hood. It was less stylish, but warmer, than the one she’d been wearing the day before. She’d decided she needed to be ready for the conditions since she’d be out in them more than her last job, even if the coat clearly clashed with her style.

She gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”

As she walked, she wrapped the bright red scarf her grandmother had handed her earlier that day around her neck and pulled it up across her mouth and nose.

Snow crunched under her winter boots, reminding her how glad she was that she’d stopped by the local shoe store on her way to work to pick out a pair of cute, yet still practical, winter boots.

Laurel’s steps weren’t as long as Liam’s, thankfully, and it was much easier to keep up with her. Her blue Honda was parked in a church parking lot two blocks from the newspaper office. The car was definitely a lot older than Liam’s BMW. Dents along the passenger side of the car hinted at some sort of collision at some point – possibly with a guiderail or tree limb.

The door groaned as it opened, and the ripped seat definitely wasn’t heated.

Laurel slammed the driver’s side door shut. “Sorry about the car. It’s pretty beat up but gets me where I need to go.” She smirked. “Working for a smalltown newspaper isn’t exactly a lucrative gig, if you haven’t realized that already.”

A smile tugged at Gladwynn’s mouth. “I’ve started to figure that out, yes.” Her breath turned the air in front of her white and she hoped the car at least had heat.

The engine rolled over with a reluctant growl. Shifting it into reverse resulted in a loud grinding noise. Laurel grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut. “Stupid car.” She shook her head briefly. “Anyhow, Birchwood is about 20 minutes away and in the middle of nowhere so you can help me watch for deer.”

Laurel slowly edged the car out of the parking lot and onto Main Street. The sun hadn’t yet set, and the drive gave Gladwynn a moment to take in the town, as little as there was to take in. Brookville had probably been a bustling center of activity at some point, but these days many of the buildings were shuttered up or housing businesses that probably wouldn’t survive the year. There were more “used” signs than she could count. Used clothes, used books, and used video games just to name a few.

The one standout gem of Main Street was the old Cornerstone Theatre, which her grandmother had told her had once been an opera house, built in 1875. She remembered many trips there as a child and teen when she’d spent summers with her grandparents.

Gladwynn watched two churches slide by. One church was a Catholic Church with light brown stone and a tall bell tower. This must be the bell that rang four times a day, including 6 a.m., waking her up this morning way before she’d wanted to.

“How you settling in?”

Laurel’s question pulled her gaze from the impressive brick façade of the Covenant Heart Church her grandfather had used to pastor at and that her grandmother still attended. “Okay, I guess. I mean, do you mean at the office or at my grandmother’s, which is where I’m staying for now?”

Laurel shrugged and smiled briefly. “Both I guess.”

“I would say I’m settling in with Grandma better than I am at the office, honestly.” The business district of town began to fade into a series of lovely homes, many of them Victorian like her grandmothers. That was one thing about Brookville. Part of it demonstrated that the area had fallen into disrepair and poverty, while the other half showcased the wealth that had once ruled the town and, in some cases, still did.

Gladwynn glanced at Laurel. “By the way the word is coif not quaff.”

Laurel looked over at her with one eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

“The word you were looking for yesterday was coif. Coif is a hairdo. I was wearing a 40s coif in your opinion. Quaff means to drink heavily, which I don’t do.”

Red crept into Laurel’s cheeks. She frowned briefly. “Sorry about that.”

The town disappeared into a less sparsely populated area with only a few houses, a gas station and a mechanic shop passing by.

Gladwynn sighed. “Maybe it is a silly hairdo.”

“No. Really. It isn’t.” Laurel glanced at her. “We were just being petty. It happens in a small office. Especially among the women. Not to run our sex down but we do tend to get caddy when we are in small groups. Maybe it’s because our hormones sync and we’re all having PMS at the same time.”

Glawyn laughed softly. “Yeah, that actually happened at the library too.”

The gears in the car groaned again as Laurel shifted. “If you don’t mind me asking – I mean, maybe I shouldn’t ask — but what brought you here? Have you worked in papers before?”

Gladwynn kept her gaze on the road in front of them, groves of trees, interspersed with small farmhouses and farms. “Only at my college newspaper almost six years ago now. I do write. I don’t know if I would call myself a writer, though. I write short stories sometimes.” She slid her gloves off as the heat in the car started to kick in. “I was laid off at my last job. It was at the college library in a town near where I grew up. I loved the job, but enrollment has been down at the college for a couple of years now and they finally started making cuts. I was one of those cuts.”

Laurel winced. “Ouch. Sorry to hear that.”

“I’m actually surprised Liam hired me. Grateful but surprised.”

Laurel snorted a laugh. “Of course, he hired you. Liam is a sucker for cute brunettes. His last three girlfriends were brunettes. He also needed a warm body to fill the seat and get Lee off his back.”

“Lee?”

“The publisher. You’ll meet him eventually. He and his wife spend most of the winter in Florida with his kids and grandkids.”

Gladwynn glanced at her reflection in the passenger side window. Cute? She’d always thought of herself as plain. She’d never really described herself as skinny even when others did. She was just boney and awkward, though she sometimes wished she could be tall and lanky instead.

She’d definitely taken after most of the women on Grandma Lucinda’s side of the family in the height department. Her short stature had always been an irritant to her, though she was glad she at least had grown past the 5 foot 3 inches of Lucinda. Only by an inch, but still. It was an inch she’d prayed hard for over the years.

She took a sip from her tumbler, closing her eyes briefly at the sweet taste of coffee her grandmother had made her earlier. “So, what about you? Are you from here originally?”

Laurel gave a quick nod. “Yep. Born and raised.”

“Have you been at the paper long?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Too long. Twelve years next month.”

“Is this what you thought you’d always do? Like, did you go to school for journalism?”

“I did, but always imagined I’d be at a much bigger paper. I came back here after college to help my parents on the farm. They retired and sold it last year and moved down South to live with my grandmother, but here I am, still stuck in good ole’ Marson County.”

Gladwynn thought she heard a twinge of resentment in Laurel’s voice. “Is the job the only thing keeping you here?”

Laurel pressed her mouth into a thin line for a few seconds before answering. “It is now.”

She didn’t elaborate and Gladwynn didn’t ask her to.

“The job’s not that bad of a gig really,” Laurel said after a few seconds of silence. “The hours stink, and I feel like I’m always on, ready to cover something even when I’m supposed to have a day off, but I like the people, the writing, and most of the time I like my co-workers. Except that little upstart who thinks he’s God’s gift to journalism. I’d like to give him a real swift kick in the butt.” She snorted a quick laugh. “Maybe when I decide to quit and get out of this county once and for all, that will be my last act.”

She turned her car onto a road to her right and the conversation faded for the rest of the drive.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Excerpt

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Okay, guy, seriously, I actually thought I was going to only show paid subscribers to my newsletter chapters of my new book — like I was famous or something.

Please, have a good laugh with me.

What was I thinking?

I’m just a mom writing books mainly for fun and tossing them up on Kindle and Amazon. I am not someone people are going to pay a monthly subscription to read and that is totally okay. I am not there yet and may never be. All good.

It doesn’t bother me. All that being said, though, if you want regular updates on my writing (like twice a month updates), you can sign up for my Substack newsletter and you might want to do it now to enter a giveaway I am running. The giveaway is for a book called Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz.

You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to enter the giveaway. Honestly? I don’t think I’m going to offer paid subscriptions right now. What do I have to offer that someone would pay regularly for? Nothing — yet anyhow. *wink*

You can sign up for my Substack account and find out about the newsletter here:

https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/p/april-newsletter-a-giveaway-book

And now, if you’d like a sneak peek of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, you can find it here today in this post. Without further ado – the first chapter of my next book. Will I share more? I don’t know yet. We shall see. *wink*



Chapter 1

“Hey new girl. Grab a notebook and let’s go. We’ve got a one vehicle MVA on Darby Hill.”

Gladwynn Grant heard the voice but when she looked over her shoulder her new boss had already disappeared back into the hallway.

MVA?

Wait. What did MVA stand for again?

Gladwynn Grant racked her brain, trying to remember the meaning of the acronym.

The M wasn’t murder, was it?

Mayhem?

She fumbled through her top desk drawer for a reporter’s notebook and pen, wincing when the edge of a paper sliced into the skin of her index finger.

“New girl, come on.”

She looked, but, once again, he disappeared.

“Be right there.”

Messy? No. That wasn’t it.

She stood, slammed her knee off the metal drawer of the desk and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Outside the window to her right, snow flurries swirled against a dark gray sky.

It came to her as she reached for her winter coat on the back of her chair.

M was for motor.

MVA. Motor Vehicle Accident. That was it.

“Chop. Chop. This will be good training for you.”

Right. Good training for the job she hadn’t even wanted but needed since she’d been laid off from her last job.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” her mother always said, a line she hated hearing growing up and hated even more as an adult.

Training for her new job in the middle of a snowstorm on a rural highway at dusk wasn’t exactly what she’d expected when she’d accepted the job as a reporter at the Brookville Beacon. She thought she’d be shown the ropes slowly, overtime – maybe handed a few lightweight stories to write first. Instead, it was clear she was to be thrown into the fire right off the bat.

She quickly yanked on her coat, a red vintage-style one she’d found at a thrift shop a couple of years ago, flipped up the hood, and shoved the pen and notebook in the large inside pocket. Snatching a pair of red leather gloves off the top of the bare desk, she rushed to follow editor Liam Finley down the dimly lit hallway toward the back door. A gust of frigid wind smacked her in the face as it opened.

She hoped rushing outside in raging snowstorms wouldn’t be something she’d have to do often.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she stepped out into the cold.

She took two steps at a time to keep up with the long strides of the man in front of her.

He looked over his shoulder as snow whipped around them. “We’ll take my car. Did you grab a camera?”

“Oh. No. I’ll —”

“Go back and grab one. I’ll meet you up front.”

Darting back through the snow she pulled the hood tight in front of her face, icy flakes still managing to bite at her skin. She was out of breath when she rushed back into the office, weaving through the cubicles to retrieve the camera she’d been given the day before. She didn’t make eye contact with her co-workers as she rushed back out the back door.

“Good luck, newbie,” a man’s voice called after her.

She was even more out of breath by the time she reached the parking lot, the camera clutched against her chest. Snow fell in sheets around her. Opening the passenger door of the tan BMW she flopped into the front seat, breathing hard as melting snow dripped from her hair into her eyes. The windshield was a blur of white.

Liam shifted the car into gear and yanked it out onto the empty street. “I hope it’s a fatal. We need a centerpiece.”

Wiping snow from her face she looked at her new boss with wide eyes. His unshaven appearance made him look older than he probably was. Dark hair hung long across his forehead, just above dark brown eyes framed by dark, and remarkably long, eyelashes. Small lines creased the skin next to his eyes.

He glanced at her and lifted a shoulder. “What? We don’t have any art for page one.”

“Art?”

He shifted the car into a lower gear as snow piled up on the road. “A photo or graphic for the centerpiece.”

“Centerpiece?”

He sighed. “The main story on the front page. What are they teaching in colleges these days? I thought you’d have learned this stuff at the college newspaper.”

He seemed to have forgotten she hadn’t worked at a college newspaper for almost seven years at this point.

Liam was driving at what she felt was an unsafe speed considering the conditions and the fact they were on their way to an accident caused by those same conditions. He reached over and tapped a couple buttons on the dashboard. Warmth rushed up under her and she let out a small gasp, then realized the seats were heated. She hadn’t picked that feature when she’d purchased her car two years ago.

“You okay over there?”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Yep. Totally fine.”

Liam flicked the high beams on. Even though the sun hadn’t set yet, the snow was making it seem darker out. “When we get there, you take the photos and I’ll do the talking. Watch what I do so you’ll know what to do next time.”

She nodded.

Next time.

On her own.

That should be interesting.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking taking this job. It was nothing like she’d expected.

She’d applied for it after the college had laid her off from her job at the library. She’d needed the money to pay off her college loans.

Well, that and the cute red Miata she’d bought when she thought the library job was going to be long term. Good thing she hadn’t opted for the heated seats.

The ad on the job site had caught her eye, not really because of the job itself, but because of where it was located.

Brookville, Pennsylvania – where her grandmother lived alone in a massive Victorian house. Two hundred miles away from where she’d grown up with her parents and, more importantly, 200 miles away from Bennett Steele.

“You’re a quiet one, Grant.” Liam’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What’d you do before you came here again?”

Clearly, he had not read her resume at all. She had a feeling all he’d wanted was a warm body to fill the vacancy.

She rubbed her gloved hands together and blew into them. “Library assistant for Brock College. They laid me off a couple months ago.”

“From librarian to a reporter. This must be cultural shock to you.”

She glanced at him then back at the steadily whiter road in front of them. “Yeah, a little. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

She doubted her own words.

In the last week every idea she’d had of what a reporter actually did had been shattered beyond recognition. Sure, she knew she’d be expected to attend municipal meetings and community gatherings and write a story about them, but now she knew she was also expected to take the photographs, proof her co-workers stories, and sometimes answer the phones at the front desk if the receptionist needed to leave for lunch or to pick up her kids from school. Smalltown newspapers were nothing like the larger ones portrayed in movies and books.

She hadn’t interacted much with Liam yet, other than her brief interview and a brief staff meeting the day before, but she’d already pegged him as someone who lived mainly for his job and wasn’t afraid to push the envelope when it came to succeeding at it.

Flashing red and blue lights cut through the fog and snow up ahead. Emergency vehicles were parked in the middle of the road and off to the side near the guardrails.

Liam smoothly pulled his car behind a black truck with a blue flashing light on top. Through a space between a fire truck and an ambulance she could see a bright red car on its roof and behind it a blue SUV dented in the front and part way off the road.

A state trooper turned as they approached the scene, hands at his waist. “You need to stay back.”

His voice was deep and made Gladwynn, who had never considered herself timid, want to say “yes, sir” and dash back to Liam’s car.

Liam, however, didn’t seem bothered. He tipped his head in a curt nod. “Of course. My reporter here just needs some photos. She can stand back here to get them. Can you provide a few details on the accident? I heard entrapment on the scanner. Can you confirm that?”

The trooper merely held up his hand. “You’ll need to step back there, sir. Only emergency responders past this point.”

Liam ignored the trooper and raised his hand to greet one of the firemen walking toward them. “Justin! Hey! How you doing? Bad night out here, huh?”

The firefighter nodded solemnly, and Gladwynn noticed the word chief emblazoned on the yellow helmet on his head. “It is. I can’t talk now but call me later and I can give you some details. One injury so far.”

“And I’m sure I can call the barracks later for a report?” Liam smiled at the trooper as he walked around him toward the ambulance.

The trooper’s eyes narrowed, jaw tightening, but he didn’t move to stop Liam. “Sure.”

Liam raised an imaginary camera to his eye. Glawynn nodded and began taking photographs, glad she’d kept up her photography hobby over the years. When her foot slipped after a few shots, she thought she was going down but a hand under her elbow steadied her. She looked up at a firefighter with bright blue eyes and a broad, friendly smile.

He let go of her elbow and looked at her feet. “Not the best shoes for this weather.”

His accent was thick. Clearly Irish. What was an Irishmen doing in Brookville?

She glanced at her high-heeled boots. Her grandmother had said the same thing. “Yeah, I need to start carrying winter boots with me.”

The firefighter winked as he turned to walk away. “It’d be a good idea.”

Liam stood next to the ambulance talking to another firefighter. Radio chatter and the purr of engines served as background noise to the voices of the responders and eventually a call for a backboard. Gladwynn stepped back, lifting the Cannon to snap a few shots as the firemen kneeled next to the car.

A dark green glove blocked her view. “No photos of victims.”

A different, less friendly, and less attractive, firefighter stood before her with a scowl.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

He turned his back toward her, standing more squarely in front of her as if to get his point across. Lowering the camera, she stepped to her right and looked over his shoulder in time to see Liam walking toward her, hands shoved in his coat pockets.

He nodded his head toward his car and walked past her. She assumed that meant he wanted her to follow her. At this point she’d rather be at home curled up under a blanket with a book and a cup of blueberry tea sweetened with a healthy helping of honey.

“No fatality but still good art with that car on its hood,” he said as she fell in step with him. “Did you get some good shots?”

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Bart tried to stop you, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I —”

“Big buffoon thinks he can tell us how to do our jobs. Those state police don’t help matters either. They cover all the little towns and townships without a police force, which is most of the county these days, and act like they are the gatekeepers of all information at an emergency scene.”

He slid into the driver side and slammed the door closed.

She pulled the passenger side door closed gently and blew into her hands again. The gloves were stylish, but definitely not warm. “Does Brookville still have a police department?”

He nodded. “A small one, yes. A chief and two officers. They handle mainly small crimes like break ins or jaywalking right in town. The staties get called in for everything else.” He leaned over and ran his fingers over the heater buttons again. This time Gladwynn was ready. “First, lesson, Grant. We work for our readers. It’s our job to get the story, even if you have to push a little to do it. If we have to go through a couple arrogant volunteer fire fighters or cops to do our jobs, then so be it.” He looked at her. “Got it?”

She nodded slowly, wishing she felt the confidence he obviously had.

He took the camera from her and flipped through the photos on the screen. “Not bad. We’ve got at least four good shots.”

Handing the camera back, he backed the car up until he could turn it around and head back toward the office. He held his phone to his ear as he drove, but didn’t slow down, despite the fact even more snow had fallen since they’d arrived on scene.

“Ed, hey. We’ve got a centerpiece shot for the front. Horizontal, four columns.”

He slid his finger over the end button and tossed the phone into the center console. “We should be able to craft a story together when we get back. I’ll have you contact the state police in about half an hour and see if they have some information for us. You can send me what you find out and I’ll add it to the story.”

He moved the car into the opposite lane, shifted the car into a higher gear and passed a car moving slowly along the snow-covered highway. Gladwynn gripped the door handle and pressed herself back into the seat.  In that moment, wondering if she’d be the next person being pulled from an upside down vehicle, she desperately missed her previous job where she’d spent most days inside a building, searching the online catalogue for books for college students.

Her legs threatened to give out from under her when she stepped out of the BMW and made her way to the office.

Pulling her gloves off she flopped into the black padded office chair sitting in front of a computer on a gray counter acting as a desk within the restricting confines of a cubicle with light-red walls.

Hushed voices hummed on the other side of cubicle, an occasional laugh filtering through.

“Do you think she wears her hair like that all the time?”

“You mean the 1940s quaff? What year does she think it is anyhow?”

“Quaff? Where did you even get that word?”

“I have no idea. I probably read it in a book somewhere.”

“You read books?”

“Stuff it, Dibble.”

“What? I thought all you had time for was walking the old ball and chain’s dogs.”

“Rick isn’t my ball and chain. He’s –”

“Just a friend. I know. That’s what you say anyhow.”

The ring of a phone interrupted the banter. Gladwynn touched a hand to her hair.

Quaff? First off, that word didn’t mean what that woman thought it meant. The word the woman had been looking for was coif. Second, Gladwynn had been wearing her hair this way for years. She thought it was unique, something that harkened back to the 40s or 50s, two decades she could imagine herself living in. It was a style that was actually coming back in in the college town she’d been living in.

A ding notified her she had a text message and a look at the lock screen made her forget about how she’d been being talked about behind her back.

“Glad, love: Won’t be home for din. Have a date. There’s a casserole in the fridge. Love, Gram.”

A date?

Gladwynn couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

She really shouldn’t be surprised that Lucinda Florence Grant had a date at the age of 70. The woman had always been full of spunk.

While Gladwynn ’s grandfather had been the love of Lucinda’s life, the chance for Lucinda to find new love, of a different kind, was one even he would have welcomed.

Gladwynn looked at the small clock on the wall above her cubicle. Two more hours and her shift would be over. She couldn’t wait. A small pain had started pulsating behind her right eye on the drive back and hadn’t let up yet. Her feet were also begging for a break from her impractical boots.

“Hey, new girl. Where’s the card for your camera? I need that photo.”

A man with dark-rimmed glasses, dark hair and eyes and a round face appeared around the edge her cubicle.

Liam had introduced him the day before as Tom Fitzgerald, the photography expert, layout person and all around tech guy. She jumped slightly at the unexpected sound of his voice.

“Sheesh. You’re a little jumpy aren’t you?”

She opened the compartment for the camera card with shaky hands and handed it to him. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry about that.”

He grinned as he took the card. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the craziness around here pretty quick.”

He disappeared again and she was left in silence, other than the click of fingers on keyboards drifting from the other cubicles in the office.

Above her, a fluorescent light blared white-blue light onto her and made her wish she had a pair of sunglasses. In front of her, a phone that looked like it belonged in a museum made her question if she’d walked into a time warp by moving to this town.

She dialed the number Liam had given her for the state police barracks, summoning up the confidence she’d possessed in her job at the library.

“State Police Brookville, Corporal Baxter speaking.”

The woman’s voice was stern and void of any friendliness.

“Yes, hello. I’m looking for a –” Gladwynn shuffled hurriedly through her notes for the name of the officer at the scene of the accident. “Officer Kinney to ask about an accident on Route 88 tonight.”

“Trooper.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is the state police. Their titles are troopers not officer.” Corporal Baxter put strong emphasis on the words “not” and “officer”.

Gladwynn took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Excuse me. Is Trooper Kinney in?”

“He is not.”

“Will he be in later so I can ask him a few questions about the – “

“His shift ended ten minutes ago. He’ll be back tomorrow around 2.”

“Oh. Okay, well, is there anyone else I could ask about the accident?”

“We’ll send a brief out when the investigation is complete.”

“Oh. Well, th—”

The click was loud in Gladwynn ’s ear and she held the phone back from her head with a wince.

“New girl. What’s the verdict? You have some info from the staties for me?”

Was it normal for everyone in this office to simply appear out of nowhere around the wall of her cubicle? And did any of them know her real name?

She turned in her chair to face Liam. “No. They said the trooper had left for the day and would be back tomorrow.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “Typical.” He handed her a slip of paper. “I figured that would happen so here’s the fire chief’s number. His name is Justin. Give him a call and see what details he can give you, then come in my office and will hammer this out together.”

He disappeared again.

The fire chief wasn’t home, according to a woman who Gladwynn guessed to be his wife. Gladwynn gave the woman the number taped to the ancient telephone and turned her attention to the police briefs Liam had assigned her to work on earlier in the day. Most of them seemed routine – a couple drinking and driving arrests, a few minor car accidents, but then there was one that made her snort a quick laugh.

Subject arrested driving a John Deere lawn mower along Drew Avenue. When pulled over, the officer noticed a strong odor of alcohol emanating from the subject. Subject was asked to step off the lawn mower and subsequently failed a sobriety test. Subject stated his license had been suspended for DUI two months earlier. Subject relayed he was on his way to the Iron Horse for what he called a nightcap.

Time of arrest: 10 a.m.

She’d visited her grandparents in Brookville many times over the years, even spending a couple summers with them. She’d met characters during those visits who very well could have been the individual involved in this particular incident.

Nestled in mountains which were actually hills by the official definition, Brookville was tiny, with a population of maybe 6,000. Scattered around it were small villages of populations of anywhere from 50 to 100 people, spreading out until farmland ran into a bigger town 30 miles away with a population of 10,000. The Brookville Beacon was named after the town, but its coverage area encompassed the entire county.

The town she’d grown up in in New York had been four times the size of Brookville, but still had some small town elements as well. Nothing like Brookville, though, where it wasn’t uncommon to see a farmer driving a tractor down Main Street on his way to a fellow relative’s farm.

Half an hour later the phone rang and the man on the other end introduced himself as Justin Dreward, the Brookville Fire Chief.

“So, you’re the new girl?”

At this point she should just legally change her name to New Girl.

“Gladwynn Grant, yes.”

“Gwendolyn? What a nice name. You related to Granny Grant?”

Gladwynn laughed. “If you mean Lucinda Grant, then, yes, I am. She’s my grandmother. But my name is actually Gladwynn.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Your grandmother was my sixth grade teacher. Everyone thought she was mean, but she was the best teacher I ever had. Helped me with my reading when no one else did. I never held it against her that she put me in the corner that one day. I deserved it.”

“I deserved it when she did it to me too.”

It was Justin’s turn to laugh. “Okay, so details on the accident, right?”

“Yep, if there are any you can give me.”

“I can give you a few, but the main report will come from the state police. They are the main investigators on scene. I can tell you that it happened around 5:30. It was one vehicle going at a high rate of speed in slushy conditions. It went off the road, hit an embankment and flipped onto its roof. One occupant, the driver. She had to be cut out of the car. I don’t have any details on her condition, and I’m not allowed to give out names.”

“That’s fine. That will give me a little to go on at least. More than the state police.”

Justin snorted. “Yeah. That’s true most of the time. They’re pretty hard to get any information from. A lot of good guys but they do live up to that nickname of Gray Gods sometimes.”

“Okay, well thank you Mr. – “

Justin laughed. “Don’t call me mister anything. I’m just Justin. About the accident, though — I don’t know if it was just the weather. Ellory said something as they were loading her into the ambulance about her brakes not working.”

“Ellory?”

“Ellory Banks. She’s the manager of Citizens Bank downtown and on every board and in every organization you can imagine. Hey, wait. Don’t put her name in there unless you get it from the staties.  Identification of victims can’t come from emergency responders. State and federal laws and all that. You know what? You’d better keep that whole brake thing off the record too. She hit her head pretty hard and her brother is a local mechanic. He might take offense to that since he probably does all the work on her car.”

Gladwynn wrote Ellory’s name down, circled it and wrote “off the record” next to it.

She thanked Justin again, hung up, and took her notepad with her to Liam’s office for a crash course on how to write a news story.

Sunday Bookends on Monday: Christmas, books to be read in the new year,

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to. This week I am a day late since Christmas was yesterday and I was too busy to finish the post, which I actually started Christmas Eve.

What’s Been Occurring

I rambled more about what happened last week in my blog post on Saturday. I included some photos of the kids playing in the snow we received and also shared about the arctic temps we received. You can find that post HERE.  

Today I will share that I’ve been in a cocoon of Christmas for the last two weeks and I really am not ready to crawl out of it. It’s been nice watching happy movies and reading fluffy Christmas books.

Yesterday, we visited my parents for Christmas. I only received a couple of gifts this year and that’s the way I wanted it because I was more excited for the children to receive gifts. I was especially excited because my son was receiving a bass guitar, which he’s been wanting to learn for a while now. I wanted to go back to bed after Little Miss woke us up early but I was too excited to see how The Boy would react to the gift, which we had stored at my parents.

I wasn’t sure he’d want me to share the video I recorded here on the blog, so I won’t, but his grin was huge. He was so excited to get home and try it out, but finally went upstairs at my parents’ and tried it, even without the amp. When we arrived home, he went straight upstairs and started practicing.

My dad joked that our neighbors won’t bring us Christmas cookies anymore because we gave The Boy this loud instrument. For now, though, the windows will be closed since it is so cold, so the guitar shouldn’t bother them.

The Husband did buy me the five-DVD set of the original Anne of Green Gables series by Sullivan Entertainment (the Canadian produced one from the 80s) but it hasn’t arrived yet. I am very excited to start watching it when it does since that movie series was part of my childhood.


What I/we’ve been Reading

This past weekend I finished Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon.

It reminded me I really like Jan Karon books but I also get a little annoyed by how she writes them in short bursts of information with tons of section breaks and quite a few points of view changes that sometimes make my head spin. I still enjoy the overall message of them, however, and will continue to read them as comfort reading.

Last week I started The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham and am listening to it on Audible, which we have at a reduced monthly rate as part of a special deal, for four months. I am enjoying it so far. I’m only on Chapter 4 because every time I try to listen to it, I get interrupted or fall asleep (if I try to listen at night).

Quite frankly, I am overwhelmed with book choices right now. I truly feel like I have some form of ADHD because I can’t focus on one book at a time.

I am reading a book called A Mark of Grace by Kimberly Woodhouse right now because it releases next Tuesday (January 3).

I also got back into Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery, but then a Bookstagrammer I follow on Instagram invited readers to join her in reading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery so I may try to tackle that this week instead. We will see how far I get. She actually suggested readers read it in a weekend. A weekend?! I’ve never read a book in a weekend.

I’m such a slow reader. My brain seems to dart away to other things I need to do. For example, I have blog posts to share or write and social media pages to maintain and homeschool lessons to plan and … blah, blah, blah.

This week I plan to listen to the chapters I assigned The Boy in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last week for school. I’ll probably do that as soon as I finish this post.

In the new year, I have a whole list of books I hope to tackle, but I’ll ramble about that another day.

The Boy is not reading anything this week that I know of. He’s simply enjoying talking with friends online, making plans to meet them in person, and practicing on his new guitar.

Little Miss and I are reading Paddington At Large at night still and have taken a break on our book for school but may pick it up again this week.

The Husband is reading Game On by Janet Evanovich.

What We watched/are Watching

I watched quite a few movies last week, a few of them with family.

Two we finished up when we were interrupted watching them the week before. One of those was A Christmas Story Christmas, which was a sequel to a Christmas story. It had a slow start but got much better as it went on and we enjoyed it.

I also watched It Happened on Fifth Avenue, which I stumbled on on HBO Max (via our Roku) and The Husband said he had watched it before when he used to work a night shift as a switchboard operator at the local hospital.

It was very good. If you are interested here is the plot:

On Christmas, The Husband started Miracle on 34th Street at our house and then we finished it later in the day at my parents.

We also watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas at my parents at my dad’s request, even though I had watched it earlier in the week.

On my own, I watched A Walton’s Christmas, which was actually the pilot for the television show. It was a very, very melodramatic and a bit over the top, much like the show could be at times, but still sweet. I don’t know if I’d necessarily watch it again.

I also watched A Little House on the Prairie Christmas special from season eight, which Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs recommended for me and I really enjoyed it. It was very wholesome and heartwarming. Each adult character shared a Christmas memory and Laura’s memory of Mr. Edwards bringing gifts to her family one Christmas when there was a blizzard was my favorite because it is a story that Laura shared in one of her books, which, if you remember, I read a couple of times to Little Miss last year.

On Christmas Eve we watched The Rankin/Bass claymation/animated special Santa Claus is Coming to Town (the one with Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire) and then really got into the Christmas spirit by watching…. Top Gun Maverick.

What I’m Writing

I am writing nothing right now. Is that proper English. No, probably not, but I’ll roll with it.

I’m on a bit of a fiction writing hiatus after finishing up my Christmas novella, Beyond the Season (which incidentally is free on Amazon this week and via the link at the top of the page). Shores of Mercy is with advanced readers and my editor so I’ll be making corrections on that before long.

On the blog this week I shared:



What I’m Listening To

Last week I listened to a ton of Christmas music. I am not currently listening to any specific music this week. I am, however, listening to audio versions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Mistletoe Countess this week.

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I hope to share some of my favorite blog posts on this post each week. I’ve been saving posts to share for months but haven’t actually sat down and put them together in one post so I thought I’d share at least a few here today.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Fiction Friday: Mercy’s Shore Chapter 33

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

As always, this is a continuing/serial story. I share a chapter a week and at the end of the story, after I edit and rewrite it, I self-publish it. To catch up with the story click HERE. To read the rest of the books in this series click HERE.

Let me know in the comments what you think. Or don’t. That’s okay too. *wink*

If you would prefer to read the book when it is all complete, you can pre-order a copy HERE on Amazon. It releases January 31, 2023.

Chapter 33

Ben greeted Leona and Adam inside, offering a quick ‘hello’ to Angie and William as Amelia dragged him into the kitchen to show him the paints and doll. After a brief conversation with Leona about his parents and work, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, want to come out to the barn and see the blueprints for the shop?” Adam grinned. “My brother dropped them off this morning.”

“Sure. That would be great.”

It would also him get out of the house and away from Angie and William who were sitting next to each other on the couch, talking in hushed tones. Probably wedding planning, which made his stomach turn.

Out in the barn, Adam led him to a small office built to one side, toward the back.

Ben rubbed his chin. “Hmmm. This wasn’t here the last time I was here. When did you have this built?”

“Built it myself,” Adam said with a shrug, opening the door. “Didn’t take much.”

“I thought you were supposed to be taking it easy.”

“Ah, no big deal. Few boards and some nails. The boys carried my dad’s old desk and a couple filing cabinets out and we were ready to go.”

“And you’re doing okay?”

“I am. Taking the medicine they gave me, plus taking more breaks has helped the blood pressure and the heartburn. My new cardiologist says my heart is looking good too. I hate that I scared the girls, though.”

Adam unfurled the blueprints and spread them out on the desktop. “This is the preliminary blueprint, but I like it so far. We’re going to have a showroom right up here in the front and in the back a workshop area. We’ll have storage in a separate area over here and hopefully a parking lot right here, if we can get the permits, which shouldn’t be a problem since it’s going to be right next to the Tanner’s Farm Store.”

“Oh wow. That’s a great idea. Their customers could potentially be your customers.”

“That’s what we’re thinking and Rob’s going to sell us the land at a discount. He’s excited to help us out and we’re excited to let him.”

Ben nodded, still looking at the blueprints. “Looks great. What’s the timeline?”

“Probably three months to clear the land and start construction and maybe another six months to complete the construction. Rob’s opening up a pumpkin farm this year and next year we’ll be able to market together to bring in more customers for us both.”

Ben studied the blueprints as Adam gestured. “These look great, Adam. This is really great for you.”

“It’s great for the entire family. We’re certainly excited.” Adam looked up from the prints. “Hey, I didn’t even think to ask you why you stopped by. Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No. Not really. Honestly, I just wanted to see for myself how you were doing.”

Adam sat in the chair behind the desk. “That’s nice of you. As you can see, I’m doing well.” He leaned back in the chair, propping his arm on the desk. “I’m sure getting a glimpse of my daughter was a plus too.”

Ben held up a hand. “Adam, for one, she’s engaged and for two, she hates me.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Ben —”

“Hey boys!” Leona called from outside the barn. “Amelia wants a ride in that fancy car so William is going to give us a lift into town. Angie’s got a headache and staying home. There’s room for one more. One of you want to ride with us?”

Adam jumped up from the chair, stepped around the side of the desk, and teasingly pushed Ben aside. “Me! Me! Shotgun!”

Ben laughed as the man good-naturedly patted him on the chest on the way by.

“Have a nice ride, I’m going to head out actually. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.”

“Listen, though, I think we should talk first,” Adam said as they walked across the yard toward the driveway.

“Hurry, Pop-Pop! The train is leaving the station!”

Ben was surprised at how far Amelia’s little voice carried.

Adam snorted a laugh. “That’s what I always say to her when she’s taking too long to get ready. It’s not as funny when she turns it around on me.”

“Have fun,” Ben said. “I’ll stop by another time for that talk.”

Adam opened his mouth to say something, but Leona spoke instead. “I’ve got your coat, hon’. We better get going before the stand closes for the night.”

“Better head out,” Ben told him. “We’ll talk later.”

William held out a hand before sliding into the driver’s side of what Ben guessed was a very expensive sports car. “Ben, take care.”

“You too,” Ben said, shaking his hand.

He stood and watched the car disappear down the driveway then headed for his own car, feeling like there was a rock in his gut.

“Ben.” He turned his hand on the car door. Angie was standing on the top step of the porch. He allowed himself a quick glance at her tan capris and white v-neck shirt under a beige sweater before focusing on her eyes as she spoke. “You need to know something.”

He turned to face her, sliding his hands in his front jean pockets. “Okay.”

She folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath, her voice calm. “I’m not who I was in high school or college. I’ve changed. I’m not the girl who falls all over the star baseball player anymore or thinks she has to sleep with someone to be worth something. I’ve grown up and I have someone else to think about now.”

He waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t he gave a quick nod. “Okay. Thank you for letting me know. Anything else?”

A breeze caught her hair, pushed strands into her face. She pushed it aside, hooking it behind her ear. “I just wanted you to know where I stand if you’re going to keep showing up here. I don’t mind you coming to see Amelia or her seeing you or your parents, but you need to know that I am not going to fall in love with you again.”

He tipped his head down and kicked at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, then looked back up at her. “Okay. I understand. Thank you for letting me and my parents see Amelia.”

He did wonder, though, how much longer they’d have that chance with Angie eventually marrying William and them all moving back to Lancaster.

She hugged her arms tighter around her. “You’re welcome.”

They stood in awkward silence for a few minutes before he finally said, “If that’s all, I’ll be heading out now.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. I mean are you telling me you’re not going to fall in love with me for my benefit or yours?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, do you want me to know, or are you reminding yourself?”

Her nose wrinkled and she scoffed, waving a hand at him. “Go home, Ben.”

She turned to walk back into the house, and he stepped toward her, hands clenching at his side. “I’m just asking because if you don’t want to fall in love with me again then why even have this discussion? Why put up the disclaimer? Why not just yell at me and tell me to get lost and never come back?”

She turned back to face him, arms out to her sides. “Because Amelia loves you, okay? Because she’s your daughter and she should have some sort of relationship with you even if you are a jerk.”

“Was a jerk. I’ve changed too Angie.” He relaxed his hands, and took a deep breath. “The only thing that hasn’t changed is that I still love you. I have a feeling that maybe, deep down, you still love me.”

Her eyes flashed as her jaw tightened. “Do you really think I could still love someone who has never even apologized for walking away from me and our daughter?”

He snorted a small laugh. “How was I supposed to apologize?”

“Like how any human being apologizes when they screw up. A phone call, a visit, a carrier pigeon. Anything but cutting off all contact.”

“I didn’t cut off all contact. I sent money and gifts —”

“That’s not apologizing, Ben. There were no words exchanged, no —”

“How was I supposed to apologize for what I did, Angie? How?” Tears stung his eyes. “How do I say I’m sorry for walking away from you during one of the scariest times of your life? How do I say I’m sorry for —” His voice broke “God forgive me. For telling you to murder that beautiful baby girl before she was even born?” He looked at her, voice trembling, tears escaping down his cheeks. “I buried myself in work for almost five years, so I didn’t have to think about what a monster I was. So I didn’t have to remember everything I did wrong and how there was no way I could go back and ask you to forgive me.” He shook his head, dragging a hand across his cheek, and looked away from her. “I can’t even ask it now. I have absolutely no right to.”

A silence fell between them that only the breeze playing with the dying leaves above them filled. He stepped back, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand.

“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this anyhow. You’re engaged to William.”

Her gaze drifted across the yard, toward the faded blue hills in the distance. Her voice was barely audible. “I’m not engaged to William.”

“What do you mean? You said that day here at lunch —”

“I know what I said.” She looked at him again. “I’d broken it off with William but didn’t tell anyone and I certainly wasn’t going to tell them in front of you.”

“Then why is he here?”

“He only came up here to check on dad and so we could talk to Amelia about us not being together anymore.” She pulled a strand of hair away from her face again. “I couldn’t marry him. I seem to have lost trust in men along the way. Who knows why. Ha. Ha.”

Ben swallowed hard and raked a hand through his hair. “Listen, I should go. We’re not getting anywhere here. Exchanging insults isn’t going to help anything.”

Angie took a step forward, arms still folded across her chest. “You asked God to forgive you just now. Was that real? And you said you’d pray for my dad. Did you mean that too? Are you really praying to God? If so, which God?”

He let out a quick breath. “The God of Abraham. Elohim. Jireh. The God you and I were raised to believe in but ran away from for so many years.”

“You want me to believe that you suddenly turned over a new leaf and to God?”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “No, not suddenly. Gradually.” He tossed his hands out to his side and then dropped them again. “You don’t have to believe me. I know where my heart is. I know that God has been guiding me to peace in my life. I don’t have to prove that to you, even though I wish I could somehow.” He placed his hands at his waist. “I wish I could show you what God has come to mean to me. I wish I could show you how much I still love you in one big gesture, but I can’t. There will never be a gesture big enough to show you how much I’ve loved you all these years.”

She lifted her chin slightly. “Even when you slept with Bridgett?”

He made a face. “I never slept with Bridgett.”

“Your friend Sam told me you did.”

“That I did what? Stayed over at her house?”

“He said you spent the night with her. I know what that means.”

He laughed softly. “Yeah, that I spent the night with her. Asleep. On her couch. While she slept in her room. I was drunk. I showed up at her place, thinking I could forget you if I slept with someone else. She sent me to the couch, woke me up the next morning and told me to get out and get my act together. She also told me to go find you and apologize for being the worst boyfriend in the world because it was clear I was still in love with you.”

“She thought that?”

“She knew that.” He focused his gaze on her eyes. “I was still in love with you and I still am. How many times do I have to say it?”

“You’ve had a funny way of showing it,” she said, hugging her arms tighter around her.

He walked slowly toward her, closing the gap between them. “You would never have believed me if I’d come to you back then and told you anything that I’m telling you now and I doubt you even believe me now.” Standing a couple of inches from her, he reached up and cupped his hand against her face, taking in a sharp breath at the softness of her skin against his hand, at touching her for the first time in almost five years other than that day in the barn. “Do you believe me, Angie? Do you believe I still love you?”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he took that as a sign that she was comfortable with him standing so close, maybe even with him kissing her. He wanted desperately to kiss her.

He moved his head slowly toward hers, testing the water. When she didn’t pull away but instead closed her eyes, he lowered his mouth to hers, capturing it gently, seeking her permission with his action. He expected her to pull away, maybe even slap him, but she didn’t. She let him kiss her and when he pulled back slightly, she opened her eyes, looked at him for a few seconds, then leaned forward again and pressed her mouth to his, sliding her arms around his neck.

He moved his hand to the back of her head, buried his fingers in her hair, and slid his arm around her lower back, pulling her against him. The second the kiss deepened, though, she pulled back, dropped her hands to his chest and pushed him gently away from her.

“No. I can’t do this. Not right now. I mean —” She shook her head slowly, looking at the ground, as if trying to wake up from a dream. “I need some time to think.”

He nodded once, sliding his hands into his jeans pockets again. “Do you want me to stay away?”

“No. You can come to see Amelia and my parents. Just — Just give me some time, okay?”

“Yeah. I can do that. I’m sorry — I shouldn’t have —”

She held her hand up, taking a couple steps back. “No. It’s okay. I just need some time to process.”

He watched her walk back into the house, fingertips to her lips, and wondered if the kiss had affected her as much as it had him.

Special Fiction Saturday: Mercy’s Shore Chapter 28

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

As always, this is a continuing/serial story. I share a chapter a week and at the end of the story, after I edit and rewrite it, I self-publish it. To catch up with the story click HERE. To read the rest of the books in this series click HERE.

Let me know in the comments what you think. Or don’t. That’s okay too. *wink*

If you would prefer to read the book when it is all complete, you can pre-order a copy HERE on Amazon. It releases January 31, 2023.

Chapter 28

He’d needed church that morning. He’d needed the music, the sermon, the smiles and greetings of the other members of the congregation.

It had soothed an aching soul.

Now Ben was at his parents’ house, sitting on the back deck with a glass of lemonade and a novel, looking out over the autumn foliage splashing brilliant reds, oranges and yellows across the Pennsylvania hills around him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually sat down and read a book. He only wished he could focus on it better.

Memories of the visit to the Phillipi’s kept playing in his mind. Then there was Judi. Why wasn’t she answering his texts or calls? Maybe she’d fallen off the wagon and was sleeping it off. He hated to see her go down that path again. Plus, he needed her to be alert tomorrow at work.

She’d already been let go from one job. He didn’t want to have to let her go from this one. In fact, he’d like to offer her more hours at some point and maybe even split hours between her and Cindy when, or if, Cindy decided to come back to work.

“Gorgeous view, isn’t it?”

His dad’s voice came from behind him, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Yeah, it definitely is.”

Max sat on the chair next to him with his own glass of lemonade. He sipped from it for a few minutes, gaze focused on the hillside. “So, kid, there’s been a lot of pressure on you lately. You doing okay?”

Ben shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah. I’m hanging in there.”

“I saw Adam the other day. Everyone is back in the area he said. Including Angie and Amelia.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Yes, they are. I’ve talked to Angie about you and mom seeing Amelia actually. She’s thinking about it.” Or she had been. He wasn’t so sure now.

Max looked at him with a smile. “That would be great. I’m fine with leaving it up to Angie, though. I’m sure it’s awkward for her.”

“It shouldn’t be though. You and Mom weren’t the ones who hurt her. I was. You shouldn’t be punished for my mistakes.”

His dad drank some more of the lemonade before talking. “We’re guilty by association, I suppose. Listen, Ben. Really, are you doing okay?”

Ben laughed softly. “I guess you mean do I feel the need to cope with a glass of gin?” He shook his head once. “Nope. Not yet anyhow.” He winked. “I did have an extra dessert for dinner last night, though.”

Max lifted his glass in a mock toast. “Glad to hear it, kid. Not that extra sugar is good for us, but better than too much alcohol.”

Ben laughed. “Agreed.”

“You know I’m here if you ever need to talk, right?”

The smile faded. “Yeah, Dad, I do.”

Max leaned back in his chair and sat his glass on the small table between them. “Ben, maybe this isn’t the best time to bring this up but – did I do something over the years that led you down that path toward — well, toward —”

Ben laughed softly and winked. “Alcoholism, Dad. It’s called alcoholism. It’s okay to say it. It’s what it was. I was an alcoholic and now I’m a recovering one.”

Ben had never seen his dad look so — what was the right word? Uncertain? Hesitant? Clearly lacking confidence?

“What could you have done to push me down that path? You’re the best dad any kid could have. You’re hardworking, accomplished, well-respected in the community, beloved by your family, a good Christian man —”

Maxwell winced, hands in his pockets. “Ouch. All those things sound good but they also make me sound perfect. I’m not perfect.” He turned his head to look at Ben. “You know that, right? I mean,  you don’t actually think that I’m perfect, right? Because I know I’m not. I hope it doesn’t come across that way.”

“You don’t act that way at all dad.” He swallowed hard. How honest should he be with the man? Would it make him feel better or worse? “I’ve tried to live up to your reputation over the years, it’s true. I tried too hard for a long time, focusing only on your career accomplishments. When I couldn’t get there, I’ll admit, I fell apart a little.” He laughed softly and shook his head. “No. A lot. I fell apart a lot. I screwed up my life by trying to drink myself into oblivion and forget the fact I’d never be as accomplished or as good as you. The more I drank, the worse it got too. I got further and further away from who you were, knowing with each passing day I could never measure up to your standards or God’s.”

Max reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “You know now that you don’t have to live up to anything for my love or God’s, right?”

Ben nodded and covered his dad’s hand with his. “Yes. I do.” He may not feel it every day, but he understood it.

The ringing of his cellphone startled him. He’d forgotten he’d even brought it outside with him. The ringing was coming from his jacket. He searched for the phone and lifted it out of the inside pocket, hoping it was Judi letting him know she was okay.

He didn’t recognize the number, but answered it in case it was a client. “Hello, Ben Oliver here.”

There was an intake of a breath and a pause on the other end, then, “Hey, it’s Angie.”

He shifted in the chair, sitting up straighter, muscles tensing as he braced himself for the scolding, the demand that he not visit again.

“Hey, what’s up?”

She cleared her throat. “I need a favor.”

He half expected her favor to be for him to meet her brothers down at the boat launch outside of town so they could beat him up and throw him in the river.

“Yeah, sure.”

“My dad’s at the hospital and mom’s already there with grandma. My brothers are two hours away on a job and I don’t really know anyone else around here anymore. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but can you come sit with Amelia?”

His mouth went dry. “Definitely. Yeah. I mean, I’m at my parents so it will take a bit but —”

“I can bring her there. We’re downtown grabbing her some lunch from the diner.”

“Yeah, you can do that, if you want.”

“See you in fifteen?”

“Absolutely.”

She disconnected and he realized he hadn’t even asked why Adam was at the hospital.

“Everything okay?” His dad’s voice cut into his thoughts.

He shook his head. “No. Adam’s in the hospital. Angie wants to drop Amelia off here while she heads up.”

“You’ve gone pale, kid. You going to be okay?”

“What?” Ben looked at his dad, palms suddenly damp, mouth dry. “No. I’m fine. I’m not pale. Am I?”

Max laughed and stood, patting Ben on the shoulder. “It’s going to be fine, buddy. Your mom and I will be here for back up.”

Ben stood and followed his dad into the house. “I know, but Angie hates me, Dad. I mean, the other day I was pushing Amelia on the swing after I helped Adam and her brothers bring the furniture in and she fell off. Angie acted liked I did it on purpose. And what’s worse is I had no idea how to comfort Amelia or even check her for injuries.” He downed the rest of the lemonade and placed the glass in the sink. “This kid is my flesh and blood and when I’m around her I have no idea what to do. I feel like she’s someone else’s kid. I don’t know anything about her at all, but for some reason she attaches herself every time I come over.”

“It’s because something in her knows you’re dad,” his mom said sweeping into the dining room, setting a vase of flowers in the middle of the table.

She was still wearing her Sunday clothes — a flowered skirt and white, button-up blouse — her hair swept up on her head in a stylish bun, hiding much of the gray streaks in the brown nicely.

Sitting at the dining room table, Ben clasped his hand behind his head and yawned. “She’s four. That’s not possible.”

Sylvia paused in her adjustment of the flowers in the vase and raised an eyebrow. “Kids are smarter than we adults give them credit for, Benjamin. Now, what brought this topic up?”

 “I don’t want you to get flustered, but Angie’s bringing Amelia over for a while. Adam’s in the hospital for some reason and Angie’s going to wait with Leona.”

Sylvia’s hands hovered over the flowers. “Really? She’s bringing our granddaughter here?” Her eyes glistened as she pressed one hand to the base of her throat and the other to her mouth. “Oh my. Oh, that’s —” she sniffed. “That’s just so wonderful.” She spun quickly toward the kitchen. “I wonder if I even have any snacks she’d like. I haven’t had a young child in the house in years. I do have some peanut butter and cheerios and I can pour her a glass of milk. Unless she’s lactose intolerant. You were at that age, you know. Maybe I should find some paper and markers too, so she can color if she wants and —”

Ben laughed. “Mom. It’s okay. She’ll be fine with whatever you have.”

Syliva took a deep breath. “Right. Of course, she will. I just — it’s just — this is the first time I’m going to meet her in person and I —” She looked at Max. “I mean what if we scare her? She doesn’t even know us.”

Ben stood and kissed his mom on the cheek. “It will be fine, Mom. She’s going to love you.” He looked toward the direction of the stairs. “Is Maggie back yet? I know she wanted to meet her.”

“No,” Max said. “She called earlier and said she’s going to be at Jenny’s until this evening.”

Ben walked to the front window, petting Maggie’s longhaired cat Muffins, watching for Angie. The cat nuzzled his hand when he dropped it and he started petting it again absentmindedly , his thoughts racing, wondering what Angie’s demeanor would be when she arrived. He heard the buzz of the gate and Angie’s voice over the intercom in the kitchen.

“Hey, Angie.” Max’s voice was warm, welcoming. “Come on up.”

Her voice held the tension of the almost five-year estrangement. “Thank you, Max.”

As the small maroon Toyota wove its way up the driveway, he realized he didn’t know whether to walk outside or let her walk up to the house herself. As she parked the car and sat still for a few minutes, her hands clutching the steering wheel, he decided it might be better to meet her instead of forcing her to face his parents as well as him.

She looked up as he stepped outside, watching him for a few seconds, then opening the car door and stepping out. A breeze caught her hair, which hung loose down her back, pushing several loose strands into her face. A sudden urge to reach out and push the strands back coursed through him.

He watched her push the strands back herself instead as he walked, the move revealing the curve of her cheek, a face sans its usual make up but beautiful nonetheless.

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, pulling the blue sweater she was wearing closer around her. “Hey, sorry to have to bother you.”

“It’s not a bother, really.”

She turned toward the back door without responding, but when he touched her shoulder, she paused and looked back at him with a questioning raise of her eyebrow.

“Who do I tell her my parents are?”

Angie shrugged her shoulder. “Tell her the truth. They’re your parents.”

“Then who do I tell her I am?”

An amused smile tipped her mouth up. “She already calls you ‘Ben, that fun guy’ she met at the old house. Just go with that.”

“Yeah, okay.” He nodded a couple of times, his mouth dry as he watched Angie opened the back door. “That should work.”

Amelia bounded out of the car as soon as her mom unhooked her seatbelt and ran to Ben, a piece of paper clutched in one hand, her other arm wrapped around a teddy bear. A small, pink backpack was strapped to her back and her bright blue eyes sparkled in the late day sunlight.

“Hi, Ben!” She thrust the piece of paper at him. “I made this picture for you.”

Hearing his name fly out of her mouth with such ease made his stomach flip, even as a twinge of regret twisted in his chest. All she knew him as was a man named Ben, when in reality he was so much more. Technically anyhow.

He looked down at the drawing on the paper — stick figures of a man and a woman standing next to a smaller stick figure and a crudely drawn tree with what he thought might be a swing hanging off a branch.

 “See?” Her little index finger directed his gaze. “That’s you and that’s mommy and that’s me on the swing, but this time I’m not falling off.”

Ben chuckled. “Ha, yeah, not falling off is a good thing.”

“Can you push me on a swing again?”

“Well, we don’t have a swing here, but I’m sure we can find other things to entertain you.”

Angie lifted a mini suitcase from the backseat and handed it to him, her smile from before fading into a slight frown. “She wanted to bring her favorite teddy bear and doll and all their clothes. I told her it was a bit much, but —”

Ben smiled. “I guess she takes after her mom in that way.”

“Ha. Ha.” Angie scowled but the small smile returned, which sent a shiver of warmth through his chest. “Very funny.”

She turned and slid back into the driver’s seat.

Ben felt Amelia’s fingers encircle his and he looked down and smiled at her, even as an anxious buzz sliding across his skin. He’d never been on his own with her before. The weight of responsibility pressed down on him fast. He looked up as Angie closed the door and slid the window down, then took a step toward the car.

“Angie, I am sorry about the swing thing. It was an —”

“I know, Ben. I do.” The faint smile couldn’t hide how tired — and worried — she looked. “I’ll call later with an update.”

“I’ll be praying.”

A puzzled expression furrowed her brow, dipped her mouth into a frown. “Um, yeah. Thank you. That would be nice.”

As she drove away, he thought about how him offering to pray was probably confusing to her, since when they’d dated he’d done his best to stay away from anything having to do with church, or the faith his parents had raised him in.

A soft tug brought his attention back to the present and he looked down at a small round face with big eyes. “Hey, let’s go inside. I have some people I want you to meet.”

She skipped as he walked and he admired her energy.

His phone rang before he reached the front door and he recognized the song as Maggie’s favorite, which was why he’d set as her identifying ringtone.

“Hey, squirt. You’re not going to believe who —” “Benny, I’m at a party and I’m scared. Can you come get me? ”