Seanachie Stories - Tuesday Tales And More

Tuesday Tales: Eight Legs of Fate

2012-03-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Welcome to another wonderful Tuesday. It's the day when a group of talented authors join together to create original short fiction writing to the same prompt. This week's prompt was "legs".

I chose to continue with my ongoing Kosovo Stories: Two Hearts, One Love.

So this week's story continues with Nick and Tina.

Eight Legs of Fate

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

On first glance she thought it must be a scrap of leaf, carried in on one of Nick’s boots and when she looked again Tina decided it might be a water stain on the tent. When it moved with speed in her direction she identified it as a spider, a big one and screamed.

Her cry brought Nick inside in a rush, eyes anxious. “What’s the matter?”

Tina pointed. “There’s a spider!”

He slowed and sighed, eyes rolling upward with frustration but without anger. “Dearest, it’s just a wolf spider. It won’t hurt you.”

“It’s big.”

Nick chuckled. “Not really. I’ve seen bigger spiders back in America.”

“They weren’t close to me!” Tina exclaimed. “This one was!”

With all the rocks outside in the barren mountains to hide beneath, the trees to climb, the leaves and dirt to burrow beneath she didn’t understand why the wolf spider decided to invade her space.

“I’ll take it away,” he told her. Tina watched as Nick approached the spider with a scrap of paper. He positioned it so the insect would crawl onto it and then once it did, he scooped it up. With slow, cautious steps, careful not to let it free, Nick ducked through the tent flap and outside. He returned in moments, without even the paper and held out his hands wide to show it was gone.

“No more spider,” he said.

Tina nodded and then, for no reason at all, burst into tears. She sobbed aloud, her fear now larger in the aftermath than in reality. Nick never hesitated. He crossed the few feet of canvas floor and cradled her in his arms tight and close. He crooned to her, soft words of comfort. Most of them were Albanian and she recognized a few. Others were in English and some in other tongues. All yielded the support she wanted, expressed the love she needed and she calmed in his embrace.

His patience, his gentle understanding soothed her soul. Tina couldn’t understand why she grew so emotional over a spider. She always heard pregnancy made you a silly, weeping mess but she never believed it, not until now. This couldn’t be, she thought, she needed to gain control and keep it. The mountains of Kosovo were no place for emotional outbursts and tantrums so she resolved to do better keeping her feelings in check.

“Come sit down with me,” Nick said, after she quieted. They settled down and he looked into her face, his beautiful light brown eyes meeting hers. “Are you all right now?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sorry for acting like that.”

His hand slid to caress her belly. “You have every reason,” he said. “I know why.”

Tina yearned to join with him, to express their love as one so she lifted a hand to his face. “You know so much,” she said, “Tell me what else I need.”

“This,” he said and bent forward to kiss her, his mouth electric against her lips. Quiet as church, fleeting as a whisper his kiss ignited her passion. She wanted to burn but he kept things slow. Nick didn’t ravish her but instead cherished her. The pace wasn’t rapid but Tina relaxed into it, savoring every sweet little nuance. His kiss segued into petting, his hands reaching beneath the garments she wore to stroke her. Once she bared her torso for him, he kissed her breasts after holding each in his hand for a moment. He kissed down to her rounded belly and whispered something in his own tongue, an endearment for a little one.

By the time he reached the cleft between her legs, Tina ached for him to enter, to connect them one body into the other. Nick slid his cock into her with slow, supple motions, graceful as a ballet dancer and filled her. The exquisite pleasure rippled through Tina’s body with the serene power of an ocean tide, as timeless and complete. She gripped him tight, her arms around him as if she could pull him into her body. After they shuddered their way to completion, they lay together sated and sleepy in the nest of sleeping bags and blankets. Nick pulled her against him, her back against his body and they slept, curled like a pair of spoons tucked into a kitchen drawer.

She woke hours later, uncertain of the time and knew he wasn’t beside her. Tina groped but touched nothing but covers. Nick had been gone awhile, she realized, because the spot where he’d lain was cool. She paused and opened her senses. He wasn’t far. She inhaled the rich scent of his cigarettes and his own man smell and looked around.

Nick sat a few feet away, staring into the lantern as if it entertained him. From the square set of his shoulders, the stiffness of his back, he appeared deep in serious thought. Tina gathered her clothing and came up behind him. If he heard her approach he didn’t indicate it and when she put her hand on his shoulder, he turned his head to gaze at her with a smile.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Did I wake you?” Nick said.

Tina nodded. “You were thinking so loud I could hear it.”

His smile broadened; the special warm smile he saved for her and no one else. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t want to wake you. I watched you sleep for a long time before I started thinking.”

“About what?”

His eyes, the rich light brown of good whiskey met hers and Tina knew whatever his thoughts, she wouldn’t like them. His preoccupation made sense now because his thoughts were serious, weighty ones. “Things we must face, my soul, things you won’t like.”

“Tell me.”

“It can wait.”

“No,” Tina said. “I want to know now.”

“I think you know,” Nick said, with tenderness. “You have to go home, to America.”

Her heart stopped as if he stabbed it. “No, Nick, no, I won’t go.”

“You must, my soul,” he said. “I will come, soon.”

“I won’t go without you.”

Tina meant it but he played the trump card, used the one thing to change her mind. “You have to for the baby’s sake, Tina,” he said. “This is no place to give birth. This is a dangerous place in so many ways. If anything goes wrong, you or our child could die. I couldn’t stand it. So I decided you must go home and I will come soon.”

“I don’t want to leave without you.”

“But you must.”

He gave no quarter, brooked no resistance and Tina knew, aware of the tiny child within she would do as he asked.

She said nothing for a long moment and then sat down beside him. Tina leaned against him, her head against his left side and he combed his fingers through her loose hair. “When?”

“A week, maybe less,” Nick said. “We’ll go as soon as its safe. I’ll go with you to the airport and watch you fly away.”

“I’ll hate it and miss you every minute,” she said, unable to believe she accepted it without a fight. Incredible a child within could sway her, she thought, with wonderment.

“I know,” he said.

“But you’ll come?” she asked. “Our son needs his father and mother both.”

Nick chuckled. “It might be a daughter, woman, but yes, I will come. I promise. In maybe a month but as soon as I can, I will.”

“And you’ll stay with us, forever.”

“Yes.”

Tina rested against him, saving up every nuance of his presence for the long days ahead when he would be far from her. After a long time, she said, “It was the spider wasn’t it?”

Like always Nick knew her thoughts and needed no explanation. “Yes,” he said. “I spent a long time in America. I know pregnant ladies should be picking nursery colors and buying baby clothes. They should be craving French Fries or waffles with strawberries and cream. They shouldn’t be afraid of wolf spiders in a tent on a remote mountain in the middle of a war camp surrounded by danger. I knew anyway you would have to go but the spider reminded me.”

“Damn spider,” Tina said without heat. “If you don’t come I will return to find you, Nick.”

He laughed aloud, pleased. “I promise. You and this child, you’re my family. I love my country and when they needed me, I came home but now you need me more, you and our baby. I’ll swear it in blood if you want, woman, but I’ll come.”

Family. Tina repeated the word in her mind, turned it over and held it close. They were together now, she and Nick, in a way she would never be with anyone else but this little person, this embryo within created a new dynamic. Nick and Tina were one, hearts and souls, but the child would make them a family.

He would come, she knew, and so she cuddled against him, living in this moment before she faced the task of preparing to go home, alone.

Tuesday Tales: The Eternal Triumph of Life

2012-03-05T16:50:00.000-08:00

"Life" is the prompt for our weekly efforts to put together Tuesday Tales, short original fiction written by a variety of talented authors to a single prompt. Our journey each week begins and ends at the main Tuesday Tales blog here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

My story continues with my characters, Nick and Tina, in what I've begun calling my Kosovo stories.

The Eternal Triumph of Life

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

The first time it happened Tina said nothing, figured it was nothing more than a momentary indisposition. When she became sick again, she decided it came from the stress of living in a tenuous balance between peace and war. She vowed to stay calmer, to try not to worry and she decided not to burden Nick. He would worry and she didn’t to cause concern. His burdens already were heavy and he didn’t need more.

But one morning, when she thought he’d gone out into the camp or off into the mountains the nausea within exploded and Tina rushed out near the latrines to vomit. Bent double, stomach clenched tight and puking until she heaved up nothing, she failed to realize Nick stood near the tree line, his Russian rifle in one hand. Until he put his hand across the small of her back and said her name, low and with urgency, she didn’t know.

“Nick!” she cried. Her eyes streamed tears from the force of her spew and she saw tiny stars sparkling on the far edges of her vision. Her legs turned to paper and she wobbled when she stood upright. He caught her, his arm gripping hers like a vise, and steadied her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you ill?”

“I don’t think so,” Tina told him. “I just felt sick all of a sudden, that’s all. I feel fine now, just a little tottery.”

His eyes darkened with concern and he studied her, scrutinizing her face. “You look terrible. You’re very pale. Do you have fever?”

Tina shook her head. “No, I’m sure I don’t. Nick, I’m all right. Just something I ate didn’t agree with me, that’s all.”

Nick placed the back of his hand against her cheek, his skin colder than hers, then touched her forehead. “You’re not hot. Come back to our tent and lie down for awhile, my heart.”

He put his arm around her as if she were an aged woman, walked with her as if he thought she might collapse onto the ground. Tina adored the shelter of his arm and the caring he demonstrated but she felt much better. On the way there, she caught a whiff of someone’s bubbling kettle. It smelled delicious and she sighed. “Oh, I think I’m hungry.”

Nick paused and turned to look into her face. “You’re hungry?”

“Yes,” she said. “Isn’t it good I am?

He didn’t answer for a long moment then nodded. “It might be.”

In their tent, he urged her to undress and when she did, he put his hand flat against her rounded belly. He cupped his hands over it and stared down. “You don’t eat much, neither of us does but you’re gaining weight. A month ago, your belly was flat.”

Tina glanced down and felt her face flush. She could see it, the expanded curve of her lower abdomen. She had noticed some of her clothing fit snugger but she never wondered why or thought she might be getting fat. She was, though, and decided she should get out more, not be so lethargic despite the cold. Maybe she could walk inside the perimeter of the camp each morning and evening to exercise. “I guess it was,” she said. “I won’t get fat, I promise. I’ll start walking and watching what I eat.”

Nick’s serious expression faded, replaced by one of his slow grins, a smile which crept over his face the way a sunrise claims the horizon with brightness. “Tina, my love, don’t you realize what it is?”

His joy confused her and she shook her head. “No, should I?”

He laughed, a low chuckle and she smiled in response, still not understanding. “I think you would. It’s a simple enough reason but you can go see Ulla to be sure.”

“Ulla?” Tina repeated the name of another wife, a woman she knew by sight but not well. “She’s a midwife, not a doctor.”

Nick’s grin broadened. “That’s the point, my darling woman.”

She started to protest and then paused. Tina considered each item, one by one. She’d been sick a lot lately with a profound nausea she never experienced before. It didn’t happen just mornings, though, but any time. Her rounded belly when she ate so little added another clue and as realization dawned, she tried to remember when she’d last experienced menstruation. She tried to recall and couldn’t. Tina leaned her head down to peer at her abdomen and placed both her hands on the slight swell with wonder. “You think I might be pregnant?” she asked.

“I do,” Nick said. “I grew up on a farm and with a mother who had a new baby every year for awhile. I really don’t doubt it but Ulla can confirm it. I’d guess you’re probably three months along, Tina, maybe even four.”

“A baby,” she said, wonder touching her voice with soft awe. “Our baby?”

“I would hope so,” Nick said, with dry sarcasm. “Of course, our baby, woman.”

“We’re going to have a child,” Tina said, as the idea sank into her consciousness. Happiness bubbled up within with powerful force. “Oh, Nick, it’s wonderful.”

Tina counted in her head the coming months. If she were three months along, the baby might come in September. It would be autumn then, she thought, or almost depending on where she might be. Her mind filled up with images of cribs and cradles, bottles and bassinets, sleepers and stuffed animals. Boy or girl, she wondered and then realized it would be born here, in this wild place under primitive conditions. In her world, women seldom died in childbirth but here, she might. Fear snuck around the edges of her joy and she looked into Nick’s eyes with trepidation.

“What is it?” he asked, reading her mood without words.

“I’m a little scared,” she admitted.

“Don’t be,” he said. “Be happy.”

“I am,” Tina told him. “Are you?”

“You make me happier than I’ve ever been,” Nick replied, “but this is a new level.”

He replaced her clothing with easy hands treating her with care as if she were fragile now and then he enveloped her into his arms, held her tight. Tina fit into the snug circle of his arms, safe and connected. They made a baby together, a miracle and a wonder, life in all the darkness and death surrounding them.

Their love spawned life and Tina, as she listened to the steady beat of Nick’s heart against her ear, thought she felt the child stir within her, a swirl of movement different than she’d ever known before.

Life triumphs, she realized, no matter where or what or how. It just does.

Tropical Prompt: Aloha

2012-02-29T02:50:00.000-08:00

It's not Tuesday but here's a new tale. Some of the same authors who participate each week in TuesdayTales decided to try a new challenge - a 300 word story written from a picture prompt. The lovely tropical scene at right was our prompt and here's my story.

But first - one more detail - here's the link to take you back to follow the trail to all the others!

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Aloha

A story in 300 words by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Long before they were together he’d worn Hawaiian shirts, those crazy, bright, loud shirts screaming for attention, begging for a tropical vacation. He swore they defined his personality, reflected the man within but Shanna couldn’t see how, not when Ken hailed from the Ozarks, hillbilly not Hawaiian. Until after they met then moved in together, he’d never seen an ocean, hadn’t left footprints in the sand, or splashed in the sea. She didn’t think he’d ever held a seashell to his ear to listen to the soft whoosh everyone said was the ocean waves.

They met on her turf, not his, in the metro sprawl of Kansas City where his Ozark twang came across as cute and quaint. In regional repertory theater, his skill at recreating a thousand accents wowed the would-be Thespians and captured her heart. At first, she thought he’d been in some exotic spot because of the damn shirts but no, he wasn’t. Not unless you wanted to count the hills and hollows exotic.

But Ken dreamed of those places in a way too reminiscent of the Beverly Hillbillies to be amusing. Like them, he aspired to swimming pools, movie stars. He wanted palm trees and surf so they headed for California.

But it wasn’t enough to satisfy so they went onward to Hawaii, to the beaches, the beautiful vistas.

Lauren fit in as herself, no artifice.

Ken in his loud shirts didn’t.

On a picnic in a quiet inlet, their boat beached, she realized the tropical dream had become a nightmare and Ken the monster within it.

Lauren walked the beach, bare feet leaving prints and left him behind, to wait and wonder, beach bag in one hand, passport tucked within, hotel in sight.

Aloha, she thought, hello and good-bye, one word to say it all.

Tuesday Tales: The Dress of Dreams

2012-02-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another Tuesday and a new tale. This week's prompt shared by a variety of talented authors is "dress" and my story continues with more Nick and Tina. Of course I invite and encourage readers to return to the main Tuesday Tales blog for links to all of the many stories written by our group of authors to the same prompt.

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Dress of Dreams

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

She should never have packed it, the dress, and Tina couldn’t even remember why she did. Until the last possible moment, she thought Nick would leave and she would stay. Hurt, angry, and emotional, she’d tossed everything she thought she’d need into her bag but now, in a camp high in the rugged mountains of Kosovo, she had no idea why she’d included the Grecian chiffon gown, draped and elegant. The light rose color, so faint as to be no more than a blush of color, suited her and so did the dress but she’d never wear it here. When she first found it, Tina almost tossed it out. When Nick suffered his gunshot wound, she came close to shredding the soft chiffon to use as a bandage but she didn’t because an idea struck her, a romantic notion she adored so she kept the impractical, impossibly fancy gown.

As he recovered from his wound and her crude medical attentions, Tina said nothing about the dress or her plans. In the earliest hours after she removed the bullet, she cradled him close against her for reassurance he lived. His steady heartbeat, his slow and even breaths calmed her and her body heat warmed him so his shivers ceased. Near morning when dawn’s milk light crept into the tent, he’d spiked a little fever but he’d been coherent. By evening, he’d sat up and sipped a little soup, his face lined with pain but without complaint. She’d hovered, unable to keep from it and he understood her concern came out of love. One day, then two, and he went out again, his shoulder bandaged tight, wound clean without any sign of infection. Stoic, tough, and strong, she loved him all the more for it but worried.

She waited one week, then another until his wound scabbed over and healed without doubt, the new skin in place and then Tina prepared for her plan. It wasn’t a special anniversary or to mark any event but an evening to celebrate love and life. With bold, brash words she talked to the other men and begged them to give him one night free of any duty. They listened, their dark faces smudged with unshaven whiskers serious and solemn and agreed, understanding glowing in their eyes.

Tina rearranged the tent, moved their gear to the far edges of the space and despite the frigid winter conditions, she washed from head to toe. She brushed out her hair until it shone like fine silk and left it loose, the way Nick preferred. Tina got out the dress, smoothed out as many of the wrinkles as she could, and donned it, the soft chiffon alien against her skin. Once, she’d worn the dress to a wedding, to formal events in far away America, another place which never seemed farther away. She dug through her bags until she found what little cosmetics she still had and the last of her favorite perfume, Opium, the classic by Yves St. Laurent. Tina made herself as beautiful as she could, as glamorous as possible in the rugged, barren mountains.

She borrowed a CD boom box, spent a small fortune of her small store of cash on batteries to operate it and dug out a CD she’d carried all the way from home, Schubert with her favorite composition, Serenade. Tina set it to repeat and waited, gowned and perfumed, her heart beating wild with anticipation.

Nick came home, walked into the tent in his dirty khaki pants and stopped. Until he spoke, his face wore the ravages of extreme fatigue, lined and shadowed but at the sight of her, the sound of the beautiful, haunting evocative piano music, his lips curved upward into a sweet smile. “What is this?” he asked, with interest.

“Dance with me,” Tina said. “Will you?”

“Of course,” Nick said and removed his outer garment. He bowed to her, a courtly gesture and swept her into his arms. He danced with graceful skill despite his leg, his occasional limp and despite the confines of the tent. In his arms, Tina relaxed and gloried in the moment. For now, she became Cinderella at the ball, a royal princess, a movie star, and lived the fantasy. The dreams of distant places and glittering palaces didn’t matter, just the reality of a powerful love shared in an unlikely place. She put her head against his chest, savored the strength of his arms and moved with him, in time to the music until they didn’t dance, just swayed together.

Then he kissed her, his mouth urgent and hungry against her lips. Quicksilver fire leapt from his lips to her, caught and burned. Sensual delight quivered down her spine, a sweet chill sending shudders through her body. Nick caressed her with his mouth, his lips moving with swift tenderness shifting into a powerful passion. Her body tingled and came alive at his touch.

Need mingled with want as his calloused hands stroked her bare arms, her body. Tina’s arms encircled his neck and her fingers strayed upward into his hair. Beneath the light fabric her nipples aroused and between her legs, her cleft readied for his shaft.

Nick stripped away his garments one-handed, holding her tight with the other, his mouth fastened tight on hers. In the soft light of a single lantern his taut body seemed young, strong despite the various scars. Beneath the Grecian style gown Tina wore nothing, no undergarments of any kind and he discovered it, his hands touching the softness of her breasts, the hard nipples, the smooth skin. Since they could stand erect in the center of the tent only, he backed her over to where she’d built a love nest, a pile of bedding with pillows, a cocoon to wrap around their loving.

On her back she yielded to him, knees wide, her body open to Nick. He thrust into her with urgency tempered with tenderness. He filled her full and his shaft evoked a wave of wild delight, interior shudders. Nick rocked her back and forth, each time sending sensations of pleasure through her body. The intensity between them increased until nothing existed but the two of them, their physical bodies and the powerful love between them. In those sweet moments Tina forgot their living situation, ignored the dangers, and pushed aside her homesickness to enjoy, savoring the love they shared.

Afterward, they lay together, hands still stroking and caressing at random, hearts filled beyond speaking. Her dress, the dress of dreams, lay rucked up above her waist, crumpled and soiled but she didn’t care.

Nick, their love, mattered, nothing more.

Tuesday Tales: Cheating Death

2012-02-20T19:36:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday again - time for a new chapter in my continuing Kosovo stories about my Albanian freedom fighter Nick and his American love, Tina.

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Tuesday Tales is a weekly effort put together by Jean Joachim with a group of talented authors writing on the same prompt. This week, it was "cheat". Be sure to use the above link to head back to the main blog so you don't miss any of the other tales this week.

Cheating Death

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Snow blanketed the world in white but the calm failed to last. Some incident Tina might never fully understand, some stray moment of violence caused the ongoing hostility to erupt again, not full scale but ever present. Her stress levels soared higher when Nick went out to walk the camp’s perimeter or make a foray into the frozen wasteland surrounding them. Although he vowed not to instigate violence he would defend himself, the camp, their position and she knew it so whenever he was absent Tina worried.

Solitary hours crawled past. Much of the time she remained inside the tent, a feminine minority in the camp. Hampered by the language barrier, Tina’s confidence without Nick at her side waned and so she waited. Night fell, sudden and harsh. Outside the winds picked up until the roar became a howl. Her nerves twanged tight and the uneasy feeling she’d known all day intensified. Call it premonition or just fear Tina expected something to happen.

Although she tried to read her mind failed to focus on the words. Her fingers fumbled at a little bit of mending she attempted. Her mind refused to quiet enough to sleep and she sat, staring at the tent wall, listening to the roaring wind and waited. After hours, Tina couldn’t stand to be inside so she sat outside by the nearest fire, mind vacant, and twisted her fingers together. Tension thrummed through her like a low grade fever and she barely noticed the cold.

Some ruckus at the edge of the perimeter warned her and she stood up, possessed with the weight of awful knowledge. The trio approached and she knew before they came closer enough to see the center man was Nick, supported by the others. Blood trailed in a steady stream down from his left shoulder but when they reached her, he offered a mangled attempt at a smile.

“You’re hurt,” she said, needlessly.

“I’m shot,” he said. After a burst of exchanges in Albanian, the others took him into the tent where he settled down on a camp stool. Tina followed and removed his layers of clothing to inspect the wound. She staunched the blood with a clean towel but notice the flow slowed anyway. Three, four inches lower, the bullet might’ve struck his heart. “You’ll have to take care of it.”

His companions departed as if she could handle a medical emergency alone and Tina’s gaze followed them with a silent plea for help. She knew she couldn’t do this – she wasn’t a nurse, just an ordinary American woman. Tina could cook a little, sew a bit, she liked soap operas and television and microwave popcorn, things modern, things American. Her knowledge of first aid dated back to her Girl Scout years and she never expected to be dealing with a gunshot wound.

“I don’t know if I can,” she told Nick, panic rising faster than yeast inspired bread dough.

His brown eyes met hers, unafraid and trusting. “You must, my heart,” he said. “There’s no one else. The bullet’s still in me so you’ll need to dig it out.”

Tina quailed at the idea. Her stomach trembled and her hands quivered. She opened her mouth to say ‘no’, to explain she couldn’t do it, not under any circumstances but not here, not in a primitive tent but his eyes locked on hers. His love flowed between them like warm honey, constant and rich. The fullness of it washed over her and she drank its’ strength. She loved Nick in ways beyond anything she knew how to express and he needed her. Tina refused to fail him so she dug deep within, tapped into strengths she didn’t even know she possessed, and said, “All right, I will. I’ll probably hurt you, though.”

“I know.”

Drawing on every faint memory of first aid lessons, anything she’d ever read about bullet wounds, and the smallest scrap of medical knowledge she’d gleaned in her lifetime Tina wiped away the blood. Just a trickle came from the ragged hole now as she steeled herself to pour Sobeiski vodka, raw and pungent into the injured flesh. Before she did, she offered Nick the bottle. He tipped it to his mouth with his good arm and drank deep. So did Tina before she splashed some over his shoulder, then across the tweezers she dug from her luggage.

She dared not look at his face. If pain radiated from his eyes or soured his expression she might not be able to do this thing. Tina probed the wound with a detachment she’d never known, cold and serious, and hit something hard. She maneuvered the tweezers until she pulled out the bullet, smaller than she’d guessed it would be.

“I got it!” she cried, triumphant and chanced a glance at Nick. His eyes rolled backward as he came close to fainting. “Nick, can you hear me? Have another drink.”

She put the bottle against his mouth and he sipped. He swallowed the drink and spat out a few terse words. “Finish it.”

Tina nodded and poured more vodka into the wound. This time she heard his hiss of pain. She blotted away any blood and dug into their first aid kit for gauze. After she bandaged it, she helped him to lie down in a nest of sleeping bags and blankets. He shivered now but more from shock than cold, she thought as she drew covers over him. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked, noting how pale he seemed. Even his lips were white, not pink.

He nodded, with effort and whispered something she leaned closer to hear. “I cheated,” he said.

“Cheated what?” Tina asked, nerves too frazzled to understand.

“I cheated death,” Nick said with both volume and clarity. His eyes focused on her face and locked. He offered her a smile so sweet, so powerful she returned it but when he drifted into a light sleep, Tina released the tears she’d held within. Sobs racked her body and tears rained down her cheeks but she wept from relief, not sadness. He’d be all right, she thought and believed it, Nick possessed a toughness, a strength and a will unlike any she’d known in any one else.

Tina cradled him against her body as if she could protect him from all dangers and save him from all evils and repeated it back to him, “You cheated death, Nick, and I love you.”

Tuesday Tales: In Winter's Grip

2012-02-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday to all - and Happy Valentine's Day as well! It's time for another round of Tuesday Tales from our group of talented authors writing original fiction to the same prompt.Thanks once again to Jean Joachim who began this tradition!

This week, the prompt was "heart" and I've returned to my ongoing story involving Nick, my ethnic Albanian soldier who's returned to Kosovo with his American love, Tina. Since right now, it's bitterly cold in Kosovo, I've used that in my story this week.

Before you begin, let me remind everyone to head back to the main Tuesday Tales blog to hit all the great stories this week - the link is here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

In Winter's Grip
by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Winter griped the mountains in a tight fist and the cold seeped through the thin tent into Tina’s bones. No one ventured outside to tend the fires so each faded into ashes and the blustering wind carried those away. Inside, she huddled against Nick within a cocoon of blankets and sleeping bags but she couldn’t get warm. The soft whisper of more snow against the canvas might’ve lulled her into sleep but the wind rushed out of the west with the powerful force of a mighty eagle to buffet their shelter with disturbing force.

When she dared to peer out once, maybe twice the barren mountains were transformed into a white landscape no less cruel but more beautiful in a wicked, terrible way. Tina shivered as she retreated back into her nest with Nick, knowing they might freeze to death. In all her imagining, she never thought of winter, not one so harsh and bitter.

“Is it always this cold here?” she asked Nick.

Behind her, his arms clasped around her torso, her back against his chest Tina felt the chill reverberating through his body but his voice in her ear maintained his usual calm, strong and secure. “No, my heart, it’s a bad winter,” he said. “As a boy, the old peopled talked of such cold and snow but I’ve never seen it like this.”

“We might freeze to death,” Tina told him, voicing her fear.

Nick never sugar coated anything and answered, “We could but maybe we won’t. All we have is each other. It’s too cold to fight or even have guard duty so we huddle together. It’s better if we eat.”

“I can’t warm anything,” she reminded him, “all the fires are out. We can’t use the stove in here – the fumes would kill us sooner than the cold.”

He chuckled, his voice warm in her ear, his body shaking with amusement. “We eat it cold, Tina. Our bodies need the fuel. Can you reach the MRE’s?”

She could and did. The force he fought with, the liberation Army, passed them out weeks ago as emergency rations and now they needed them. The foil packets she retrieved were of American origin but some were Russian, a few British. “Here,” she said and handed him one. “These are oatmeal and a granola bar.”

“Te lutem,” Nick said, reverting to Albanian, something he’d done more and more often since they arrived in Kosovo. He ripped open his packet of oatmeal and squeezed it into his mouth, judging by the sounds behind her so Tina did the same. The cold gruel went down her throat like sludge and she tasted little of the flavor. She swallowed to push it into her stomach and when she finished, a ball of ice centered there. Tina managed the granola bar and found it more palatable. The food failed to warm her, though, and she shuddered with cold. Her body ached with the chill and she thought they’d probably die soon, maybe within hours. All she could recall about freezing to death was victims felt warmer just before they succumbed to a sleep which segued into death.

“Nick?”

“Yes, dearest?”

“I’m so cold.”

“I know.”

She remembered his bad leg, the one he’d suffered a wound in back in the Kosovo war in the early 1990’s and how winter back in America often made it ache. “Does your leg hurt?”

“Yes,” he said without embellishment or complaint, just the simple answer, enough to tell her it pained him very much. Nick didn’t gripe or bitch but accepted pain and discomfort with stoicism she envied but couldn’t quite achieve.

“Do you want some ibuprofen?” she asked.

“There is none,” he replied, “it’s all used, gone. I’m cold too but I know a way we can get warm.”

“How?”

Nick shifted position and moved her so she lay in his arms, her head supported by his left arm and her legs sticking out to his right side. “Like this,” he said and kissed her. Cold air blasted against her as the blankets fell away and his lips evoked ice, not heat. Her shivers increased so she moved closer to him, seeking any body heat he might radiate. Nick wrapped one of the blankets back around her shoulders and she responded to his kiss, iron to his magnet, moth to his flame. Deep within the first curl of desire unfolded and faint heat emanated from her core. Her lips warmed beneath his and his kisses evoked sensations, sweet and delicious, spreading through her body.

Bundled in several layers of garments, wearing a woolen hat and gloves on both hands, she couldn’t caress him or stroke his cock the way she wanted so Tina put all her passion into the kisses. In the faint glow of the battery powered lamp she saw color stain Nick’s cheeks as his blood heated to his inner need. Within minutes he fumbled his trousers open and managed to unzip the jeans she wore after he pulled down the heavy sweat pants. All he needed was access and once he found it, Nick rolled her onto her back and hovered above. He thrust into her with need, with force, and with unbridled love and Tina gloried in it. Her cavity accepted his member with warmth, with moist welcome and held him there. She stroked him by squeezing her vaginal muscles tighter and he groaned aloud with pleasure.

Tina arched hard against him, her gloved hands grasping the lapels of his coat with strength and he hit her, one stroke after another in rapid sequence until they came together, in a burst of wild heat and energy. She cried out, uncaring if the sound carried beyond the tent and above the wind as they molded two bodies into one flesh. His final surge brought her to near delirious delight.

Afterward, without bothering to fasten either of their garments, Nick wrapped them tight into the blankets and other covers. He shifted so she lay upon his chest, her legs trailing down over his, her head against his shoulder. Tina rested, comforted by the steady beat of his heart, audible beneath her, warm for the moment and basked in the body heat they created together.

She wouldn’t freeze now, not tonight, and neither would he.

If you liked my tale, leave me a comment and head on back to Tuesday Tales at http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Tuesday Tales: City Mouse, Country Mouse

2012-02-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday! If you're here, you've probably been following Tuesday Tales, a weekly effort by a group of talented authors to put up original fiction written to the same prompt. This week's was "love" and although I've been weaving an ongoing story, this week I came up with something else, a sweet little love story. Blame my muse - I just go with what it gives me.

Be sure to visit the main Tuesday Tales blog here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

And now - my tale this week:

City Mouse, Country Mouse

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Coffee and a bagel; that was the morning routine as each dawn without fail Mandi made her way through the city streets to the small café. She, who grew up running barefoot through green pastures, now traveled the asphalt jungle as if it were her native habitat.

Most days she bought a paper, usually a Post or the Times because she was a city person now, not a hillbilly, not any of those names they called her when she arrived, suitcase in hand from a Greyhound Bus.

Mandi lost the twang, took classes in enunciation, learned to dress Boho style, and aped the fast-paced walk that the New York women seemed born to make, that twitching, switching, witch walk in high heels over grates and down sidewalks.

Now she looked like them, wearing clothes the back home folks would have thought came out of the Goodwill store, probably. No navy blue starched slacks, no neat Ship And Shore misses blouse for her, no sensible shoes, but open toed sandals even in winter.

Sometimes, maybe when she caught a stray scent of flowers from a blooming window box or heard the twang of some poor new arrival or saw someone with a head scarf or smelled biscuits baking, she felt just homesick enough to buy a paper from her home state, not from any of the Podunk Ozark towns, the wide spots in the road but one of the big cities, KC or maybe St. Louis.

Even though those cities had nothing on New York, couldn’t even begin to imagine life in the Village, they had once been the heart of her dream. Back in high school, silly, stupid, meaningless high school, that American ritual of mating and dating, she thought she would go to Kansas City and maybe draw for Hallmark. That had been a mundane, middle class kind of dream and she got over it, like an illness.

Then she toyed with going to St. Louis, did go with her boyfriend, that shy, tow-headed, blue-eyed darling farm boy who had a team of Clydesdales and was in FFA, Future Farmers of America. His old beat-up Ford truck had a bumper sticker that read “No Farmers, No Food”. So quaint, so provincial, she remembered and he was so gauche.

He didn’t like St. Louis, hated the tall buildings downtown and wouldn’t even go up in the Gateway Arch. He thought they might get mugged when they walked along Laclede’s Landing. After that trip, he went back to the farm, that heritage, Century Farm, in his family a hundred years and she saved her money, and then left for New York.

Now she dated men, not farm boys, men who drove Porsches and didn’t sit out on the porch in the cool of a summer evening.

However, one morning, Mandi opened up the Kansas City Star, read about a farmer in an accident at the American Royal stock show, saw his name Tommy Doyle, that name she loved once, in black and white and everything shifted.

Those narrow streets, those Brownstone buildings were strange and she wanted to go home, back to Missouri, back to him.

She left the paper open to the page, dashing home to get her purse, pack a bag, and go to the bus station.

Going home, paper left behind, city girl no more.

Kansas City seemed small but she took a taxi to St. Luke’s but when she walked through the doors, she felt shy and almost bolted, ran back to the Big Apple.

Mandi didn’t, though. She got his room number from a volunteer wearing a pink smock and took the elevator up. She walked down the long corridor, heart thumping, hands cold, and came to the room; his room, Tommy’s room.

If she took time to think she would never do it so she pushed open the door and walked inside.

He looked up, pale faced, with one arm in a cast, a bandage wrapped around his head. For a very long second, he did nothing and time stopped until he held out his hand to her.

Mandi crossed the room and took it, his flesh warm and solid.

“Hi, Tommy.”

“Mandi,” he said her name like a prayer or like it was something very precious. “I wondered if you might come. Are you home for a visit?”

Tears blinded her vision as she shook her head.

“No, I’m home to stay, for good. I’m back.”

He smiled. “I’m glad. What changed your mind?”

She had to say it and she did,

“I realized how much I love you.”

Tommy’s eyes filled with tears and he squeezed her hand hard.

“It’s about time.” he said, in a husky whisper. “I love you too.”

If you like my fiction check out my new release:

A Patient Heart

Contemporary romance, Valentine’s Day theme, second chance at love

Rebel Ink Press (Feb 2, 2012)

Blurb :

As a little girl, Catherine dreamed she'd marry Connor Donavan one day and as teenagers, that dream seemed within reach. Until Connor ended their relationship, leaving town and breaking Catherine's heart. Ten years later, far from the old hometown, Catherine reports for work as a nurse one snowy January evening and learns that her new patient is none other than her old love, Connor. When he recognizes her, all the old feelings stir but a few sparks fly, too. As Connor recovers from an accident, Catherine realizes she loves him more than ever and he seems to love her as well. But after he leaves the hospital and convalesces at her home, his real life intrudes into their quiet time together. Then Connor leaves Catherine behind and she stays until a message sends her speeding to Kansas City, to Connor's club... On Valentine's Day

Facebook: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Twitter: @leeannwriter

A Page In The Life: http://leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com

Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy http://leeannsontheimermurphy.blogspot.com

Seanachie Stories – Tuesday Tales And More http://seanachiestories-tuesdaytalesandmore.blogspot.com

Book trailer: http://youtu.be/Eo4Ttr_7O8Q

Tuesday Tales: Saving Souls

2012-01-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday (or almost Tuesday depending on what part of the world and when you may read this) and time for another Tuesday Tales. This week's prompt is "save" and I'm continuing with my story of the ethnic Albanian freedom fighter, Nick, and his American born woman, Tina.

Of course I urge you to return from whence you came, back to the main Tuesday Tales blog here:
http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

It's the main blog and home for our weekly efforts from multiple talented authors to write original fiction on the same prompt. You'll find a variety of genres and stories but all written by amazing writers including our founder, Jean Joachim, who makes this weekly event possible.

Here is my story this week, "Saving Souls":

Two days in the rebel encampment, a tent city scattered across a rocky mountaintop, convinced Tina she’d lived pampered until now. Crude conditions meant cooking over open fires and hauling water from a spring not too distant. No latrines of any kind existed and to do any personal business, she retreated into the forest. Nick refused to allow her to go alone so she accomplished her necessary tasks with him standing guard. Efforts to urinate under armed guard, even her beloved Nick, stalled the procedure but he carried a weapon everywhere now.

Among the ethnic Albanians who made up more than two thirds of those camps Tina stood out as the stranger. She lacked the dark hair, the soulful black eyes, and similar features. Her light brown hair with auburn highlights marked her as an outsider but because of Nick, no one said a harsh word or appeared not to trust her. Her presence was accepted but she often felt out of place because she couldn’t understand more than a few words of the language. Most of the tents, basic shelter too flimsy to keep out the extreme cold or the ever present winds, held six or more but somehow, she wasn’t sure why, she and Nick shared a small tent alone.

When he went out on guard patrol or walked through the camp Tina stayed inside the tent. Sometimes when he left with a group, armed heavily, she restrained from asking questions and waited, her heart stuck about halfway up her throat. Any time Nick was away for more than a few minutes, Tina prayed and focused on him. As the days, the long nights sped by she became more familiar and would venture out to cook even when Nick was off fighting.

Accustomed to a nice modern stove or electric appliances Tina struggled at first to make meals over an open fire but one of the other women who stayed with her man taught her first how to build a decent fire, ways to keep it burning without flames leaping too high, and how to prepare food. Tina learned fast and soon her simple stews bubbled over the fire like the rest.

In the United States, she’d first met Nick working at a restaurant. He did everything – served as a grill cook, waited tables, and even washed dishes. Tina gathered the owners were family and before long, Nick managed his own place but he still did everything with a hands-on approach. His employees respected him because he wasn’t afraid to work and Tina fell in love watching him in action. During a busy meal rush, he’d been everywhere, doing anything necessary. His simple self imposed uniform of basic well-washed blue jeans and a standard white men’s T-shirt suited him. She’d watched him and he watched back for a few weeks but one day he came back to ask her drink preference. He laid his hands across her shoulders and before she turned, she’d known who touched her as if by right. From then on, they both knew and there’d been no question they would be together, not for a night or a short span of time but forever.

As she dished Nick a bowl of her simple vegetable stew, made from potatoes, carrots, onions, Tina remembered the menu at the restaurant. She thought of the traditional diner dishes, the few exotic things he’d added, and her mouth watered with hunger.

“Remember the restaurant?” she asked Nick who nodded.

When he didn’t comment further, she sat down beside him on the ground. “Nick?”

He lifted his eyes to gaze into hers, two brown flames of sorrow. “It’s better not to remember, my soul,” he said, “For now, it’s easier to forget.”

Tina began to protest but didn’t. Nick spoke truth. They ate in silence as she glanced around the makeshift camp, the temporary base. Every man’s face carried the same bone deep weariness as Nick’s, their eyes radiated strong emotion, and everyone went unwashed. Tired, in filthy garments, well-armed, they rallied each day to stand for their beliefs, for their vision of a nation, for right.

Until now, no war ever came closer than through the television screen but Tina understood this existence belonged to soldiers since war first began. With or without the modern trappings, the weapons, men – and sometimes women – endured and struggled for something bigger, something better. The faces she watched each day were those of patriots, she thought. The founders of the American Revolution, distant across the centuries, would’ve understood, maybe even approved.

She finished her stew, set the bowl aside and scooted closer to Nick. A sharp wind blasted the camp with cold, strong enough to cause flames on each fire to dance. He put his arm around her and held her tight as he lit a smoke with the other hand. He smoked with quiet contemplation, the tobacco scent pleasant to her nose, almost soothing. Long ago, she sat as a small child on her grandfather’s lap as he smoked and read his evening newspaper. This bridged the gap and connected one love to another.

As Tina watched the firelight play over his haggard features, reflect against his pale skin and burn in his eyes, she’d never loved Nick more. She let him finish his cigarette and then she touched him with her hand. She curled her fingers against his cheek and let them remain. Without words or a need for any Nick pulled her hand to his lips and kissed each finger, light and yet so intimate. He asked with his eyes and she nodded.

They went into the tent together, both aware he reported for guard duty in less than a half hour but neither cared. As soon as the flap shut, hiding them from the others, they dropped to their knees. Nick kissed her, his mouth warmer than his flesh against her lips, hungrier than he’d been for the stew. He kindled her need from smoldering to full fire and she wrapped her arms about him, savoring the solid feel of him. His mouth claimed hers, held her sway and dropped to caress her throat.

There was no time to undress fully, not even to remove the coats both wore but he undid her pants and his own. Despite the conditions, the bulky garments between their bodies, Nick maneuvered her so he could enter. With a slow deliberation he worked his member into her open space, filled her and rocked her into pleasure. Most men might’ve taken her with speed, with harsh force born of extreme necessity but Nick slowed his pace so their connection wasn’t just physical, sex alone but love.

“Save me,” he whispered as he worked her from desire into the explosive force of orgasm one step at a time. “Your love is all I have to save me.”

Tina didn’t understand quite what he meant but she let him pour his devotion, his caring into her and returned it, giving with all her inner self. They rode the wave of pleasure, the starburst moment of sharing and completion with silent glory and afterward, they clung together for a very precious minutes more before he righted his garments and picked up his heavy assault rifle. He slung it across one shoulder and prepared to duck out of the tent.

“Nick, wait,” Tina said as she struggled with her own garments. “What did you mean about saving you?”

His eyes met hers with the look so powerful it turned her bones into simple matchsticks, easy to break and weak. She drank his intensity and waited.

“This is war,” he said, without excuse, with simple truth. “I do things I might not do anywhere else or for any different reason. I wound, I kill because I must but your love saves my soul from damnation. Your heart holds mine and offers me salvation.”

Nick’s words thrust into her consciousness with force and moved her to tears. Tina refused to cry, however, and choked on the unshed sobs as she put her arms around her man and whispered in his own tongue, “Tea dua.”

Beyond ‘I love you’ she could think of nothing else significant to say as she watched him step outside, move through the others, and vanish into the night with the knowledge if she saved his soul, so surely did he save hers.

Be sure to leave me a comment if you enjoyed it and head on back to the main blog home, Tuesday Tales here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

I also invite you to enjoy any of my novels especially my two February 2012 releases, both from Rebel Ink Press, A Patient Heart and In Love's Own Time.

Tuesday Tales: All Part of the Patriot Game

2012-01-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

We've made it to another Tuesday and so here's a new Tuesday Tale. I received so much positive response I decided to continue with my characters from last week's tale, Nick and Tina, and to continue their story. This may turn into a full length work down the road so stay tuned.

And in the meantime be sure to return back to where you began at the main Tuesday Tales blog founded and maintained bvy author Jean Joachim where you can link to original fiction written each week by multiple authors on the same prompt. Our prompt this week was "game".

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

All Part of The Patriot Game

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Stern mountains as rocky and barren as the lunar landscape stretched out before Tina as they traveled a lonely highway through Kosovo. The strangeness of the place smote her and if she hadn’t had Nick at her side, felt his love around her as tight as a fist, warm as a blanket against a frigid winter night, she might have quailed and run away. Since arriving on a long flight she’d felt jet lagged and out of place. Nick embraced the foreign culture, sank into as if he belonged, which of course he did. Here she stood out as the stranger.

Tina didn’t begin to understand the intricate factors of the ongoing struggle for freedom or what some might call ‘the patriot game’ like some Irish poet or singer. Although the poet wrote about a different struggle for nationalism, for independence, she thought maybe he understood far better than she. Maybe being here, beside Nick, she’d come to understand. For now, though, all she really knew is the depth of the danger surrounding them.

She’d always known he came from a war shattered place, known just how and where he earned his scars but until they reached Kosovo, Tina couldn’t imagine. What news footage she recalled seeing before she knew Nick didn’t tell a true story. None showed the stray dogs everywhere, ribs prominent, thin and weak or how the animals fought like wolves for any scrap of food. Watching the dogs put an ache into her heart but the children, the dark haired, dark eyed beautiful children cut to the bone. Some of them begged for MRE’s, others asked for money. Any hearing her accent knew Tina to be American and so they thought she must be rich, wealthy beyond their dreams.

Tina grew up in a blue collar household but she’d never gone hungry or cold. Compared to the wan faces she met on the street, the sick people coughing until she’d swear their lungs might come up in pieces, and the battered housing where families still lived, she had been rich but never realized. As they moved through neighborhoods she’d call ghetto if she entered them in America, Nick moved with ease. He spoke to everyone and they responded. Her command of Albanian was almost nonexistent so Tina could follow little but she caught the admiration flaring whenever someone realized he came back from America. She tagged along behind Nick, afraid to be separated but always glad he brought her.

The first night they spent in a hotel in Korisha and although small, the place offered every amenity any American could want. Under any other circumstances Tina would’ve reveled in the luxury, enjoyed the experience but having stared into the eyes of children who’d seen more violence in their short years than she had in her lifetime, guilt gnawed at the edges of the experience. Nick poured them both a glass of wine and they drank, Tina staring out into the unfamiliar place.

“Maybe we should have stayed somewhere simpler,” she said.

He arched an eyebrow in question. “Don’t you like it here?”

“It’s lovely,” Tina said and meant it. “But it makes me feel like a decadent American.”

“Aren’t you one?” he replied, without smiling. Hurt pricked her heart but then he smiled. “I’ve been one too. Don’t worry. When we get into the mountains where the fighting is, you’ll suffer with the rest of us. Enjoy while you have the chance.”

Two days later they headed north toward the borders to block two control posts. Their protest against the Serbians turned ugly. Batons came out to bash and injure, water cannons drove their side back, pepper spray and tear gas brought burning tears to Tina’s eyes. Gasping for breath with a stitch in her side, eyes watering, almost blind she staggered off to collapse. Nick followed her and picked her up. Trembling with fear, shaking with rage she wept in his arms and when she finished he put her on the ground.

“Can you handle this?” he asked, his concern real. “This is just the beginning, my soul. It gets truly ugly from here.”

If things became worse, Tina wasn’t sure she could deal but she nodded. “I want to be with you,” she said, the simple truth making the choice.

He gazed down at her with his eyes, the deep brown color she could drown herself within, and touched her with his soul. Then he smiled, the quirky little bemused expression she’d never seen him show anyone else and said, “Then you shall be. Let’s go off, just me and you.”

Tina stared into his face hoping he would read the same truth in her face she saw in his.

“I dashura ime,” she began, the endearment one of the few things she could say in Albanian. “I would go with you anywhere.”

They moved away from the others, climbed a rocky hill and emerged on a plateau distant from the others. Nick knew the country and led her down a narrow path. He fetched them up a small building he called a bunker but Tina thought ‘hut’ was a better name. Inside the small space, no larger than a vestibule, they came together with powerful need and force.

Desperation tempered her love, a fuck death syndrome fueled her desire and Tina wasn’t shy. Nick grasped her tight in his embrace and kissed her, hard and wicked. His mouth ground against her without gentleness and she answered it with her own wild need. He kissed her with a powerful hunger, potent and so heady his passion caught her and carried her. His mouth intoxicated her and when she shed her clothing, tore them from her body as desire consumed her, he did too.

Her hands grasped his buttocks and squeezed, then moved to stroke his manhood. Nick needed little encouragement. He faced her, his cock hard and ready but first he used his hands to caress her, to fondle her body with the same rough, harsh want. Beneath the almost rude motions, however, remained a caring and his eyes shone into hers with a rich love light. Her own body warmed at his touch and her passage opened to him, moist and welcoming. He pounded into her and she gloried in each stroke. He backed her against the rear wall of the bunker and took her there, standing. Each thrust brought strong spirals of delight to rock her body and Tina cried out with glorious joy.

Afterward, they sprawled on some ancient blanket on the bare floor and huddled together. Outside the frigid night surrounded the hut and the oasis they created together, a tiny bastion of love and light. Tomorrow Tina would face new trials but tonight, curled tight in Nick’s arms, she wanted nothing more than this. She’d pay any price as she whispered against his skin,

“Tea dua.”

His voice returned the vow, deep and solemn as a distant church bell and she savored it, kept it to give her strength when tomorrow came and they returned to the patriot game.

Head on back for more tales, each as unique and original as the author here:
http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

We're almost at February - look for my two new Rebel Ink Press releases coming...

"A Patient Heart" Feb 3

and

"In Love's Own Time"

There may be no place like home and nothing like love…..when history teacher Lillian Dorsey inherits a three story Edwardian brick mansion from the grandfather who banished her pregnant mother decades before, it’s a no brainer. She’ll visit the place, see it and sell it. Instead Lillian’s captivated by the beautiful home and intrigued by the ghost of the original owner, Howard Speakman. Soon she’s flirting with the charming, witty gentleman who’s been dead for more than a century and before long, they admit it’s a mutual attraction. Still, when she’s alive and he’s dead, any shot at being together seems impossible.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way….one afternoon while pretending to visit the past the impossible becomes a brief reality. If they visited 1904 before, Lillian knows they can do it again and if so, she can prevent Howard’s untimely death. With a combination of love, powerful hope, and stubborn will, Lillian bends time to her will and returns to the summer of 1904. But Howard’s death looms ahead and if she’s to find a happy ending, she must save him from his original death.

Tuesday Tales: The Break Remains Unbroken

2012-01-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

Tuesday returns and so does Tuesday Tales. I hope you landed here from the main Tuesday Tales blog here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Be sure to head on back to read original fiction this week by multiple authors to the prompt of "broken". For this week I returned to a more conventional romance with more than a little hint of danger and a few echoes from distant Kosovo.

The Break Remains Unbroken

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Wind scudded clouds across the sky with powerful fury and the sun flirted with the earth, peeking out with flirtatious caprice. Tina huddled tighter into her denim jacket, a blue more faded than the glimpses of clear sky as she walked down the narrow lane toward the main road. Ruts worn deep into the frozen mud made her gait unsteady and she stumbled more than once. Each time she righted herself before falling, an act which would shame her even if no one but the crows perched in the hickory tree or the hawk gliding in slow circles above the valley might see.

With a long, slow journey ahead of her if she wanted to reach town while daylight illuminated her way Tina yearned to rush but didn’t dare. Her heart pounded hard in her chest but she didn’t stop, knowing it wasn’t from exertion but from heartbreak. Her heart, not the organ but the spiritual version, remained back at the farmhouse shattered into shards sharper than broken china. No more than a half mile away from the house with miles more to go she could return. He’d allow it, accept it but she couldn’t go back. Tina wouldn’t.

If she did, she’d give approval she lacked. She didn’t want to endorse his plans – she wished he’d just change his mind. If Nick would, then they could return to what they had together, a simple life, a quiet existence far away from the noise, the prying eyes, the danger and the war. But he’d refused, swore at her in his native tongue, one she didn’t speak beyond a few words he’d taught her like ‘I love you’.

“You don’t understand the risk,” he’d said in his soft voice, the one he kept for her. “Tina, if I could, I’d stay but you wouldn’t be safe. That’s what I want more than anything.”

“No one will come here looking for you,” she’d told him. “It’s silly to think so. Who could find this farm in the backwoods?”

“They can,” he told her, his tenor voice patient yet frustrated. “They’re trained to track people even to places like this. You think the mountains of Kosovo are any different? If anything, it’s more remote and far more rugged. I can’t stay, Tina.”

“I want you to, though.”

“But it’s not possible.”

His eyes, a rich brown the color of topaz or thick, sweet syrup and not chocolate, met hers and Tina stared into their depths. He could hold her with his eyes, communicate without words and she drowned in them daily. Nick’s gaze first attracted her and confirmed long before they spoke words or touched how each felt about the other. Tina read his fear, his anxiety, and wanted to weep. She’d known something would come. He’d been restless, hag ridden, and his face taut with the worries he carried. He’d told her not to be anxious and like a fool she’d done as he asked until today when he told her he’d be leaving, maybe just for a short time. But Tina read the truth in his beautiful eyes, somber and sorrowful. Nick would be gone for a long time, maybe even forever.

His concern mingled with love, never doused by his troubles. Tina understood he left because he loved her and wished to protect her. But she’d rather he stay and not go. She’d take her chances, she thought, and she could shoot well. Her daddy taught her but when she told Nick, he shook his head.

“No, I won’t risk your life, Tina. I’m leaving in a few hours so kiss me, take me into your bed, and give this old solider something to remember.”

Trudging down the lane, Tina wished she had before she left but she grabbed her jacket, stuck her billfold into one pocket and dashed outside without thinking everything through. Emotion not logic ruled her decision and now as the wind buffeted her with a harsher gust she stopped. Tina shut her eyes and imagined his lips, warm and full moving across her mouth in the sensual yet sweet way he kissed. Nick’s hands on her body caressed and even when he took his pleasure, a grace remained in his actions, a respect and a caring she’d never experienced with any other man. Their loving simmered between them, spicy and hot like a good stew on a winter’s day and satisfied. Desire quivered down her spine and need filled up her emptiness. Mad or not, hurt feelings aside Tina thought maybe she would go back. She refused to let him go away without her blessing and without love.

Before she could turn about, however, she heard the whine of his motorcycle engine as it fired to life. Within moments Nick raced toward her, astride the bike so she waited, her body yearning for his, hope swelling up the way a balloon fills with air. Maybe he changed his mind, she thought, but at the least, she’d whisper “Tea dua” into his ear, imprint the words in his own tongue on his heart.

Nick brought the bike to a halt with such speed he almost skidded but he controlled it, his expression never shifting and cut the engine so she could hear him over the strong wind.

“I want you,” he said, in his direct way, voice mild yet as strong as marble. His tone indicated he’d have her, too.

“Good,” Tina said, “I want you too, Nick but there’s something I need to say…”

He interrupted her with his mouth, his lips hot and insistent. Tina failed to resist and she softened, melting against him as he took her mouth and made it his. Without speaking she climbed behind him on the motorcycle and rode back to the house. Inside neither needed words as they came together, clothes stripped away and discarded like a snake’s skin into the floor.

Nick teased her body with his lips, his mouth seeking her nipples as if each offered life giving water to a thirsty man. He used his tongue to bring them hard, to make each bud blossom into delight. Tina’s hands caressed his lean body, fondled his old scars, and her nails raked his back with just enough force to tantalize. He maneuvered her to the worn couch and lowered her. Without any additional words of love or touch Nick slid into her, impacting her with the wild fury and force of a warm front meeting a cold front. The resulting storm shuddered through her with ripples of amazing delight, erotic pleasures strong enough she bucked against him begging for more. She grasped his shoulders hard enough to leave the marks of her fingernails but he didn’t complain just rocked harder and made noises he liked it.

Afterward he cradled her, whispering to her in soft Albanian, words she couldn’t understand and didn’t need to hear because she knew the meaning. Her heart supped them each and savored the bittersweet taste of them. They remained together, limbs touching, hands holding for a very long time and then she roused because he moved, shifted position and she knew.

“Are you going?” she asked, grief cutting through her body with the terrible hurt of a sword.

Nick nodded but he looked across the room to where two bags, hers and his sat near the door. Tina read the knowledge in his eyes and asked, “Are you sure, Nick? Do you really want me?”

“I can’t leave you,” he said, “so I must take you along. I can’t bear to break what shouldn’t ever be broken between us so you’ll go too.”

“To Kosovo?” she asked, her breath short and chest tight.

“Where else? It’ll be terrible, conditions horrible, and you won’t be safe,” Nick said with calm, “but you’ll be with me. I’ll probably come to regret it and you may too, though. Living conditions will be rougher than you’ve ever know. I may die; you might too. Still, you’re the one woman I know who could face danger without flinching so will you go?”

Her broken heart healed as she nodded, scrambled for her clothing and changed her life – and his – forever.

If you liked my story, please leave me a comment!
Head on back to Tuesday Tales for more original fiction!

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Stay tuned for next week - our prompt will be "game"!

Tuesday Tales: Marcus And The Ruby Slippers

2012-01-09T17:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tales. I have something very different to offer up today - a first for me but the prompt this week of "lies" inspired me. My story is called "Marcus And The Ruby Slippers" and it's a m/m romance or at least I hope so. This is my first real effort at writing m/m. I haven't been sure if I could capture the emotion or experience in a believable way but the story turned out better than I hoped (or so I think, I could be wrong).

Be sure to head on back to the main Tuesday Tales blog where multiple authors share their stories created from the same prompt.

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

So here's my first m/m piece of fiction....

Marcus And The Ruby Slippers

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Marcus always imagined that he would teach in a large suburban high school, one of those with a sprawling campus and perks like an indoor swimming pool. He had envisioned that perfect classroom so many times that it seemed real in his mind, complete with a bank of energy efficient windows and a Smart Board. Even though he graduated with his teaching degree magna cum laude, he found out that the good jobs, like the one he dreamed about, were scarce. New teachers, he learned, did not get those positions. Instead, veteran educators fought over them, presented resumes with after school activities and additional classes in their field.

New teachers were lucky to get a job in one of the inner city schools, the ones with broken gym windows and crack sales going down in the parking lot. That didn’t appeal to him so he looked for an alternative and found it, he thought, in the small towns of Middle America.

He adored the place he settled, a little city called Osage, a town with Norman Rockwell like streets and a downtown that seemed snatched out of some vintage movie. In Osage, the 1950’s seemed to be ongoing and he bought into the entire fantasy.

Marcus thought the chili suppers held each Friday night in the high school cafeteria before football games were so retro and thus cute. He found potluck suppers adorable, like something out of the past and he delighted in the way people really sat out on their front porches in the evening cool. Everyone waved all the time with big grins and he felt like he came home.

Just one thing bothered him and that was the attitude toward gays. Back home, he’d found not just tolerance but acceptance but in Osage, he found himself hiding back in the closet, something he’d thought he would never do. But Marcus realized that to be himself, to show gay pride, would result in not just ridicule but possibly the end of his career. And since he concealed his orientation, it seemed like everyone he met pimped their younger sister, their unmarried cousin or the girl next door in his direction.

He enjoyed evenings out at the little local movie theater, a relic from the heyday of Hollywood and the meals in the Osage Diner but the dates were not really dates, just a night out with friendly people. At the end of each, he forced himself to offer up a single chaste goodnight kiss and nothing more.

The school year began early, in mid-August, some rural custom that related to the local farming in a way he couldn’t fathom. By mid-year, Marcus still liked the town but he was very unhappy. He hated the way that he lied by not being openly gay and he missed having a lover who got him, who understood.

He knew there must be other gays in the community but he had no idea how he might find them but if he didn’t soon, he would just spiral into a dark, ugly depression. So when the high school principal announced that there would be a masquerade ball, Marcus summoned up what courage he had left and volunteered to chaperone. During his conference hour, between blocks of teaching English grammar and modern Literature, he planned his costume – one he hoped would rip open the closet door and reveal his reality with no more lies. Once outed, if the town hated him, he’d just resign and go back to civilization.

Marcus’ costume came from one of his favorite classic movies, The Wizard of Oz. He toyed with the idea of attending dressed as Glenda the Good Witch of the North but he settled in the end on dressing as Dorothy. His blue and white checked gingham dress with the white apron, ordered online, fit like it had been tailor made. The wig with brown braids fit snug and looked realistic. He even found a wicker basket and a little stuffed dog that resembled Toto. Once he bought the ruby slippers, Marcus knew that this costume would be awesome.

He figured dressing in drag would signal the community his true sexual orientation and everything would be fine. Maybe they would just accept him and everything could go on, he could settle into his new life without hiding and he could find a special person to love.

On the night of the masquerade, held at the local auditorium, a big and old building just off the picturesque town square, however, his hopes faded fast when he realized that dressing up as a woman was apparently acceptable when it was part of such a ball..

The principal, a bald middle aged Baptist, arrived dressed as Marilyn Monroe from The Seven Year Itch complete with the white dress with a billowing skirt. One of the coaches showed up as Hannah Montana, long blonde wig and guitar in place. Even some of the students came in drag and no one thought his costume was anything but cute. No one got that he wore it because he identified with Dorothy or guessed that he was gay.

As the dance progressed slowly toward midnight, Marcus felt so discouraged that he slipped outside and stared up at the full moon. As it rose over the quaint little town, shimmering everything with silver light he wanted to howl his frustration. Instead, on impulse, he tapped the heels of his ruby slippers together but instead of the mantra that brought Dorothy back to Kansas, he thought There’s nothing wrong with me, I am who I am, over and over again. He prayed for understanding, acceptance, and for someone to love.

Eyes shut, he hoped for a little magic. Maybe he’d go back inside and someone would realize that he was gay. If they could and then just accept that he was the same Mr. Manfred they knew, everything would be fine again. When he opened his eyes, he saw a man standing a few paces away. The bright moonlight cascaded onto him, highlighting his almost white blonde hair, hair that fell to his shoulders and reflecting light from his pale blue eyes. He looked like a Nordic god come to life and since Marcus, dark himself, had always adored blondes, his heart and dick gave a little quiver of excitement.

He blinked, wondering if he had conjured up the image of his dream lover but the man remained, a half-smile teasing his lips as he stared back at Marcus. So Marcus took a step forward, then another, and a third until he stood just a few feet from the stranger.

“Hello,” he said, “I’m Marcus. Are you here for the school dance?”’

“No, no, not at all,” the beautiful creature said in a voice that reminded him of soft instrumental music, “I’m here for you, of course. I’m Lucien.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Lucien,” Marcus said, “How did you come to be here?”

He looked about as if there might be something he missed, a different car, a white steed, a coach made from a pumpkin like Cinderella’s, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Surely someone this exquisite couldn’t have come by any normal means of transportation, Marcus thought and then wondered if one of the students had spiked the punch with hallucinogenic drugs.

“You conjured me,” Lucien said in the same musical voice. “You called to me and I came, sweet Marcus.”

“I conjured you?” he repeated, feeling thick-headed and slow. “I couldn’t have. I’m not a witch or a warlock or a wizard. I don’t have any power to conjure anything at all.”

“It’s the shoes, darling,” Lucien said with a trill of laughter in his voice. “It’s all in the shoes.”

“Do you mean the ruby slippers? They’re just costume shoes. There’s no magic in them.”

“Of course not,” the blonde beauty said. “But I doubt any heterosexual dudes would wear ruby slippers. I’ve watched you for a long time and longed to meet you but I just wasn’t sure if you were gay until I saw the shoes, sweetie. And I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Marcus said with wonder and growing delight. “But I don’t know you.”

“I’m a doctor at the local hospital,” Lucien said with a laugh. “And I’ve been just as shy as you, just as timid to be what I am but I saw you one day and the attraction almost swallowed me up. I almost hoped you’d get sick and come see me but you must be very healthy.”

‘I am,” Marcus replied with wonder.

“So when I heard about this dance I thought you’d come if you were gay and I’d know by your costume. I love the Dorothy motif but the shoes were the kicker. I laughed when I saw the ruby slippers. So, would you like to come home and have a drink with me, Marcus? I want to get acquainted.”

Marcus smiled. “I’d like nothing better.”

They departed together, talking back and forth and Marcus decided no more lies. No matter what happened, if he and Lucien got together or not, he wouldn’t deny himself again.

His ruby slippers sparkled in the moonlight as he committed himself to a future of truth, maybe even of love.

Tuesday Tales: http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Tuesday Tales: Jeton's Kiss

2012-01-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

It's the first Tuesday of 2012 so I'm offering up a brand new Tuesday Tale! This one comes from a WIP (work in progress) of mine simmering on the back burner as I work on some other WIPS. I'm calling the story "Jeton's Kiss" but the novel, should it ever grow to completion, is called Forest Dancer based on an Albanian piece of legend. Forest dancers are angels who once sided with an archangel named Lucifer in the long ago war in heaven and although they were not the fallen angels who followed Lucifer into his new role as Satan and to hell, they were condemned to remain on earth, neither angel nor demon. These immortals were said to live in the dense, rugged forests of the Albanian and Balkan region and when I heard of them from a friend, my muse thought the concept offered possibilities for a story....

And just to share....the moment when Jeton takes the blame, well, it's based on something that happened to me long ago...a noble and romantic moment!

Before you begin my tale, be sure to track back to the main Tuesday Tales blog to follow all the original fiction this week written to the prompt of "kiss" here:
http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com/

And now the story:

Jeton's Kiss

by Lee Ann Sontheimer

Although the July sun baked down over the neighborhood baseball field with intense heat, just enough wind stirred to raise a few dust devils from the bare infield. As she stepped up to bat, Janiya watched them for a moment with curiosity and then she saw him.

He was no teenager like the rest of them gathered to play pickup ball but he wasn’t old either. The sunlight highlighted his light brown hair with golden streaks and when he lifted his face toward her, his eyes sparkled like two brand new bright copper pennies. She sent a smile in his direction, then gripped the bat tight and took her stance behind the plate. As she waited for Shelby to toss the pitch, she noticed that the dust devils danced around his feet but he either didn’t care or failed to notice.

Watching him distracted her just enough that her swing caught the edge of the ball and sent it flying foul instead toward outfield. She watched the ball travel far to the right and out of the ball field where it impacted Mrs. Williams’ dining room bay window. The unmistakable tinkle of breaking glass echoed and most of the teens scattered. Mrs. Williams, a widow since the age of thirty-five, could be a total bitch and had been for things far less than a broken window.

“What the hell?” Mrs. William’s strident voice shouted from somewhere within her house. “Just what in the hell was that?”

“Oh, no,” Janiya wailed as she watched her buddies scatter like a newspaper caught by a strong gust of wind. Mrs. Williams would be out in seconds and her tongue lashing would be bad enough to endure but it wouldn’t end there. The widow would alert her parents and then she would be in serious trouble, the least of which would be paying for the window.

She didn’t notice that he moved until he spoke, “Give me the bat.”

Janiya stared and shook her head.

“Give me the bat,” the stranger she watched a few moments ago said as he took it from her hands and held it.

She found her voice. “Mrs. Williams will kill me for that.”

“She won’t do anything to me,” he said, in a confident tone.

“You can’t take the blame!”

He gazed at her with those amazing eyes, a warm look that combined adoration and expectation into something that made her heart bubble with excitement. “I will.”

Mrs. Williams burst from her back door like a just fired cannonball. She marched toward the ball field with the furious stride of a tank and looked just as formidable. As she approached, the three other teens that hadn’t fled moved closer to where Janiya and the stranger stood. They huddled together as if numbers might make a difference.

“Who did this?” she demanded as she came to a halt about five feet from them. “One of you brats just broke my window.”

“It was me,” Janiya’s rescuer said as he stepped forward, bat in hand. “I did it and I’m very sorry.”

With hands on her ample hips, the woman stared him and barked, “That isn’t going to fix my window, now is it? I should call the cops.”

Janiya’s stomach tensed; if the police brought her home, she might never get out of the house again until she turned twenty-one. Although he never turned to look toward her, her new hero stepped over so that their sleeves touched and that reassured her although she couldn’t explain why.

“Mrs. Williams, you don’t really want to do that,” he said, “I promise that I’ll come back to repair the window and when I’m finished, it will look so good no one could ever tell it was broken. Give me that one chance and if you don’t like what I do, you can call anyone you like or do anything you want.”

“Well,” the widow said as she scuffed at the dirt with the toe of one of her Keds Grasshopper shoes. “I guess that’s fair.”

“Thank you.” He laid the baseball bat on the ground.

“Oh, you’re welcome.” Mrs. Williams stared at him as if mesmerized. Then in a very different voice, she yelled, “But the rest of you need to scram! Get out of here and go home for the day.”

She wheeled around and marched back home, much slower than she arrived.

               “Come on, Jan,” Shelby said, pulling at her arm. “Let’s go.”

               Janiya turned to follow her friends but then she shook her head.

              “Go on without me. I’ll catch up later.”

               Shelby and the other kids who remained exchanged glances and nodded.

              “Whatever, then.”

Within a minute, no one remained but Janiya and her savior. They stared at each other and she felt like he read her in those moments, that his gaze penetrated into her soul and that he knew her. She ached to say something memorable that might express all she felt but she could manage nothing more than,

“Thanks.”

He nodded. “It was nothing.”

“No,” she protested, “That was the most wonderful thing anyone ever did for me.”

“Then I’m glad I could be here to help.”

“Me, too. When will you fix her window?”

“I’ll come back tonight with some friends. We’ll take care of it.”

“I could come and help if you wanted.”

He smiled at her then, his smile so sweet that she wanted to taste it, to savor it and keep it but he shook his head. Without another word, he walked away, across the infield onto the grass and after a second’s pause she ran after him,

“Wait!”

             He stopped and she caught up with him.

            “Janiya,” he said. He even said it right, juh-nigh-a.

            “How do you know my name?” she asked, “Do I know you?”

            “You didn’t before today,” he answered, “I heard the others call you.”

            “They all call me ‘Jan’.”

He didn’t change expression. “I’ve heard you called by your name. And now I must go. I don’t belong here and there could be trouble if I don’t return to my own place.”

“I’d like to talk to you,”

He shook his head and moved forward.

“I don’t even know your name!” Janiya wailed.

He turned around, looked back at her one more time and said, with hesitation, “My name is Jeton.”

“Jeton,” she said, turning it over on her tongue. She liked it the foreign sound of it. “Will I see you again?”

Jeton crossed the space between them with one long stride, stepping around a patch of white clover and stood in front of her no more than six inches from her face. He lifted one trembling hand and caressed the line of her cheek from forehead to chin with something like reverence.

“I don’t think that you will,” Jeton said, sadness weighting his voice, “I wish that you could but I think not.”

Janiya felt tears well up in her eyes and fill her throat. “That makes me sad.”

“I know,” he said, “Remember me.”

Jeton did not blink as he stared at her face, as if he committed it to memory and then, swift and unexpected, he bent forward to kiss her mouth. His lips touched hers and the slight kiss became a real one, warm and full. Although she was sixteen, none of the handful of boys she dated kissed like this. Their brief pecks were borderline gross but this wasn’t. His mouth evoked feelings within that she could not express and sent little electric shocks through her body.

Janiya closed her eyes to experience the moment and when the kiss ended, she opened them to find him gone. She called out his name and looked in every direction but Jeton had vanished.

She said his name aloud one time, to remember how he pronounced it, swallowing the vowels to speak something like “ghuh-tawn.”

She touched her mouth with awe and then, still forlorn, she picked up her gear and trailed home, oblivious to the sunshine, thinking of nothing but Jeton, her mysterious hero
Janiya vowed to remember the kiss forever and better than that, decided she would find him again someday.

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Tuesday Tales: Wish I May, Wish I Might

2011-12-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

Midway between Christmas and New Year's, I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays so far. I hope everything wished for could come true - in my story this week for Tuesday Tales, it can and does for Carin. Our prompt this week was "wish" and remember to return to the main Tuesday Tales blog to read all the original fiction this week:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Wish I May, Wish I Might

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Above the rugged Ozark hills stars, resembling diamonds, sparkled in the night sky and Carin gazed upward with a rapture usually reserved for church. The heavens glistened in the darkness and evoked dreams of other places far away, locations she’d dreamed about as long as she could recall. Her reality – the ancient forest where she lived in a rusty old mobile home no longer moveable, her mundane job in the local poultry processing plant deboning chicken by hand each night, and her lifelong poverty – she loathed. Carin believed she’d been born for something more than a life of payday loans, Wal-mart fashions, and the Friday treat of a Big Mac and fries.

Her mother, a grandmother multiple times by the age of forty, looked sixty, the lines in her face cut harsh and deep. Too many years of drinking put huskiness in her voice but it wasn’t a sexy timbre, just harsh. The life she’d lived – rental homes, a series of deadbeat husbands, controlling and often abusive boyfriends, a factory job, and lack of money – knocked her down until she lacked hope. Carin hated to look into her mother’s once pretty eyes because they were as devoid of life as some alien planet, dead as anything. Everyone told her she resembled her mama and in the old pictures of her mother, Doris, as a teenager, Carin admitted it was true.

But Carin’d never known the laughing girl posing with her boyfriend in front of his GTO, the pretty young woman in a prom dress and corsage, or the smiling Doris fanning out the money from her first real paycheck. The frozen person in the photos wasn’t her mother, just a stranger who looked an awful lot like Carin. Doris boasted the same large blue eyes, framed with dark lashes, the heart-shaped face and narrow lips as her daughter. Back then, in her youth, she’d been thin like Carin too but Carin couldn’t remember a time when her mother’s weight wasn’t an issue. Doris wore gray sweat pants and oversize T-shirts with brash slogans across the front most of the time because she couldn’t fit into jeans without looking like a denim upholstered sofa.

By the time Doris turned twenty one, same age as Carin now, her life included three babies, her sister Danni, the oldest (and named for her daddy who left town when his girlfriend informed him they would be parents), her brother Ashton (whose father married Doris long enough to give Ash his last name before he moved out and filed for divorce), and Carin. Her daddy stayed longest of them all, lingering until he died in a fiery car crash days after her fifth birthday. Carin remembered the funeral and most of all she recalled the pungent yet sweet odor of marijuana permeating her daddy’s skin. She’d read stories where daughters recalled a favorite aftershave or some clean, good scent but not Carin. She wasn’t reminded of her father by Old Spice or Raleigh cigarettes or Irish Spring soap but when she inhaled the reek of pot. She never smoked it, hating it for the association.

Carin finished high school, even graduated with honors but she didn’t go on to college because there wasn’t any money and her family laughed at the idea. Unlike her sister, she didn’t deliver her first child while in her teens or get food stamps to feed the kids because one followed the first within a year’s time. Ash sired two kids, one acknowledged, one he refused to claim by the time he hit legal drinking age but Carin, although she endured a brief, abortive marriage to a guy she should have ignored when he flirted with her in junior English class, had no children and didn’t want any until she turned at least thirty.

Divorced, she lived a mostly celibate life out in her trashy trailer tucked away off a back road in a patch of woods. She deboned chicken, received a paycheck, and spent her time off reading romance novels. Her dreams sprang from the pages of her favorites. Living a faded blue jean life, Carin dreamed of designer clothing. From a rural home outside a small town like ten thousand others, she longed for a New York City or Los Angeles she’d never seen. Inside a trailer house (a combination of words she hated but almost everyone used it) she envisioned a penthouse or beach condo.

On New Year’s Eve, she didn’t go out to the bars or attend any parties. Carin turned down her mother’s offer to come over, drink beer, watch movies until almost midnight when they could watch the ball drop in New York. She didn’t have a date and none of her few friends were free. So she bought a single bottle of cheap champagne, pretended it was quality, and dressed in her jeans, her worn out coat, she took it outside beneath the stars.

In the clearing, she gazed upward at the night sky with awe, swigging champagne and dreaming. At the site of the first star, she’d chanted an old mantra remembered from childhood,

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”

She’d wished the same thing a thousand times, maybe ten thousand but Carin didn’t surrender easily. So far, she’d clawed her way against all odds, struggled against society’s deck stacked against her and hope remained, like a little votive flame burning within her heart. She wished for a man who could take her to another life, a different place, a man unlike any she’d known. He wouldn’t be a blue collar working man, no matter how kind or handsome. His hands wouldn’t be worn and marked with his trade and he’d hate the taste of plebian beer.

After her wish, she swigged down more champagne, aware of the irony of drinking from the bottle when the wine should be served in flutes from a tray held by a wait person. The bubbly lightened her mood, dark enough to be depressed when she came outside, and a giddy joy soared through her heart. Her skin prickled with possibilities, with the chance of fulfillment even though she realized she spun fantasy.

When she heard the soft crunch of tires on the gravel lane leading to her trailer from the main road, the purr of an expensive motor, Carin figured she’d had too much champagne.

“I must be hearing things,” she muttered aloud. It must be midnight or close to it, the New Year would be here and she’d have a headache come morning. She turned around to head back and stopped short. A silver Rolls Royce, vintage and elegant, sat idling in front of her humble home. Soft moonlight sifted down through the trees to make the car shimmer. The expensive auto didn’t fit the surroundings and a coach and four wouldn’t have appeared any more out of place.

Carin pinched the back of her own hand hard but she wasn’t asleep. A uniformed driver stepped out of the car, his step brisk as he opened the passenger doors. A tall man, handsome with dark hair and a face so fair it could have been carved on a classic statue emerged, dressed in evening clothing. He stared upward with his mouth curved into a smile at the sight of so many stars and then faced her where she stood in the shadows at the edge of the forest.

“Good evening,” he said in a voice pleasant, deep and rich like the finest chocolate, sweeter than the champagne. “I’m afraid we lost our way and I wondered if you might guide us back to the interstate.”

“I’d be happy to help,” Carin replied, moving into the starlight. She admired him, the exact sort of man she’d dreamed about, suave and urbane, sophisticated and wealthy. Even though he’d leave as soon as she provided directions, she savored this moment, closest to her dream as she’d ever know. “All you have to do is go back to the paved road, follow it down to the county road, CC, take it over to Highway 59, go north through Diamond and you’ll come to the interstate about five miles north. You really must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

As she spoke she extended her right arm and hand to point toward the road and the gentleman took her hand in his. He bent over it with a formal bow and kissed her hand, the same one deboning chicken five, sometimes six days a week.

“Enchante,” he said, “I think we must begin again. Let me introduce myself. I am Peter Newkirk Everleigh, heir to the family title of Ravenswood. I’m motoring from New York to Los Angeles to see the United States for myself. I often ask my driver to meander off the major thoroughfares so I can view the real America and this is what happened tonight. May I have your name, dear lady?”

Bashful at break time, often shy in social situations in the small town where everyone knew her as Doris’ daughter, the good kid who’d turn bad someday soon, Carin spoke without any fear at all. She’d rehearsed such an introduction in her dreams for so long, imagined the day when she might experience such an occasion.

“You may,” she said with the dignity of the make believe duchesses she read about in her stories. “I’m Carin Lynn Williams.”

“I’m charmed to meet you,” Peter Newkirk Everleigh said with a smile. “Are you free to join me in celebrating the new year?”

A thrill grew within her like an ocean wave but with the same calm, Carin said, “I am, sir.”

“Then please, come with me. We’ll retire to the nearest city – I believe it would be Joplin? I expect there must be some nice hotels there.”

“There are several,” Carin said, “including a Hilton.”

“Capital!” Peter cried, “Come then.”

“Shall I change into something more suitable?” Carin asked. “I won’t be just a few minutes.”

“You may, my dear,” Peter said, “I will wait for you.”

Inside her crappy, rustic trailer, Carin shucked out of her worn jeans and slipped into the most elegant dress she owned, her one time prom dress. The crimson satin still fit her curves and although she’d received it through a program for poor girls providing gowns to girls under the name Fairy Godmothers R Us, the once expensive gown still resonated with style and class. She managed to zip it, don hose and black killer pumps. She did her face with rapid strokes and emerged, perfect except for the lack of a fur or wrap, clutching her single beaded evening bag to her bosom.

“You’re lovely,” Peter said, his eyes shining with approval and appreciation. “Come, then, dear Carin.”

He gestured for her to climb into the back seat of the beautiful automobile and joined her. Peter gave his driver the go-ahead to leave and as her journey away from her mundane life began, he offered her good champagne in crystal flutes, Godiva chocolates, and a toast.

“To beginnings,” he said, flute raised high.

“To possibilities,” Carin added and then drank deep.

More comfortable than any couch she’d ever sat upon, the Rolls moved through the night with graceful speed. Long before they arrived in Joplin, they held hands, soul mates who’d found one another in the most unexpected way. At her request, Peter opened the sun roof above them so Carin could see the stars, more than she could count. He talked about constellations as she realized she wouldn’t be going home to the trailer, she’d never be reporting back to work at the poultry plant, or return to the small town she knew as home for a long time if ever. Dreams did come true, she decided, and wishes could take a girl places she’d never been.

The possibilities, like the stars, were endless.

For more about me and my novels, stories and more visit me at:

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http://leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com

Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

http://leeannsontheimermurphy.blogspot.com

Website http://leeannwriter.weebly.com

On Twitter @leeannwriter

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Book trailer:

http://youtu.be/mLQBf90xFMM

Tv interview: http://fourstateshomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=239267

Tuesday Tales: The Fires of Christmas

2011-12-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

We're in the hushed and somehow holy week before Christmas. The hustle and bustle is at its peak. We're singing Christmas carols, we're lighting candles, and we're rushing toward the celebration we've anticipated for weeks.

Today is Tuesday and so we begin a new round of Tuesday Tales, our weekly gathering of talented authors and our original fiction. Our prompt this week was Christmas. Check the main blog to visit all our tales here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Now enjoy my special little tale, a romance with a touch of heat, here:

The Home Fires of Christmas

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

He promised he’d be home so she waited up, wrapped in her favorite pine green robe he bought her last Christmas, sipping hot chocolate and listening to Christmas carols on the stereo until she couldn’t push the tears away any longer. The old black rotary phone on the end table mocked her with silence and so Lela surrendered to the sorrow she’d ignored for hours. When the grandfather clock chimed out the midnight hour, she knew. He wasn’t coming home in time for Christmas.

As she trudged upstairs in the huge old house his money bought them, a Victorian beauty restored to the opulence of its youth, the stairs creaked beneath her light tread and she paused at the landing to stare north as she could spot Santa or at least Shane heading her direction. All she could see, though, were the lights of the communications tower and maybe a lonely aircraft. She listened but she couldn’t hear any traffic moving, not near or distant.

Just in case, she’d left the Christmas tree lights plugged in and burning, like a candle in the window but in her heavy heart, Lela didn’t expect him. Her Shane wasn’t hers any longer – she shared him with the world. She married a young man with dreams, a guy with a voice people loved, one offering a potent combination of sweetness and sensuality. He could play a few guitar chords, enough to get by and to look great on stage with a guitar in his hands. Shane’s first gigs were high school dances back when they were barely out of high school themselves. Then during college he played at a few frat parties, then at a bar downtown where some guy from California heard him and liked the sound.

Everything happened fast after that and their lives took off like a rollercoaster at a major theme park. Life out on the road offered fun at first but when it lost the charm of something new, Shane bought the big old house in their hometown, had everything restored, and Lela stayed to supervise. Somehow she never went back on the road and Shane didn’t expect it.

“Keep the home fires burning for me, baby,” he told her every time he left.

At first she didn’t mind. Lela loved decorating the twelve room house, finding antiques and just the right accents to make it into a home, their home stamped with their style and personality. She enjoyed trying out new dishes to cook when Shane got back and baking but when his career took off, with first one hit single and then a chart busting monster hit, he lived on the road and came home when he could, which wasn’t often.

He still loves me, she thought as she curled up in bed, alone, her bare feet cold. She knew he did. Most nights he called her when the show ended and often he called her throughout the day, quick little calls to tell her where he was or what went down around him. The florist’s van made frequent stops at their address, delivering dozens of roses or special daisies or plants. Sometimes they marked an occasion – their first date, her birthday, but most of the time, his cards were signed, “Just because I love you, Shane.”

Until now, he’d never missed Christmas at home. He cleared his concert schedule to be back by mid-December and together they picked out a tree, brought it home, trimmed it, and went shopping, arm in arm. Maybe because they grew up blue collar poor, making ends meet on a lot of beans and meatloaf, they gave generously. Family and friends always received beautiful gifts, things they wanted or needed, often things they’d never dreamed of owning. Shane and Lela also usually shopped for the local children’s home, delivering a truckload of Hot Wheels race track sets, Barbie Doll houses, and board games but this year, she’d done it alone, all of it.

Shane Wynne’s Christmas Concert sold out the day his promoters announced it, in cities across the United States and some dates in Canada. His advance take of six figures wasn’t one Shane wanted to refuse and when she saw how he longed to go, Lela gave her blessing, her lips smiling as her heart hoped he’d refuse. He accepted, though, even though God knows they didn’t need the money and left, waving at her, cell phone to his ear as he talked to his producer, manager or wardrobe people.

He left Thanksgiving night, the aroma of roasted turkey still hanging in the air and the echo of their many guests’ voices remaining in memory. Alone Lela watched old movies and cried, knowing he wouldn’t be back until almost Christmas.

“So you’re coming home?” she asked him last night, on the 23^rd, her voice stretching all the long miles from Missouri to Detroit where the last show of the tour closed.

“I’ll be there on Christmas Eve,” Shane said, in the voice she’d loved longer than all his millions of fans, “I promise, Lela. We’ll drink wine by the fireplace and I’ll make love to you right up until Santa comes down the chimney.”

“That sounds perfect,” she’d told him. “I love you, Shane.”

“Love you, too, babe,” he replied and then, after voices murmured in the background added, “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you then.”

Happiness bubbled in her like fine champagne and carried her through most of the day on Christmas Eve. She braved the last minute shoppers to buy all Shane’s favorites and chilled the Moscato wine. At dusk, she took a long bath and emerged to put on her favorite lingerie, an emerald green complimenting her dark hair. Lela added her favorite perfume and made up her face, simple but elegant just the way Shane liked and then she waited. At seven, she figured he’d arrive any time. By nine, she changed into her old flannel nightgown to keep warm and wrapped up in her comfortable robe. At ten, she watched the news with a ball of ice in her stomach, half expecting a report about an accident involving Shane’s tour bus. When the clock marked eleven, she made hot chocolate and at midnight, she released the tears she’d kept back for hours.

She wept until she slipped into restless slumber, awakening when a sound permeated through her consciousness. At first she couldn’t place it and all she knew was it didn’t fit, wasn’t usual. Lela lay quiet and listened until she realized the sounds coming from downstairs were her favorite Christmas music, the old songs Shane sang to her before he became a star. Somehow it didn’t sound like the CD but she couldn’t be sure. With blended trepidation and anticipation, she reached for her green robe and put it on, thrust her feet into slippers and tiptoed down the front stairs with such stealth she made no sound at all. Halfway down, she peered through the banisters into the front parlor, the room with a beautiful hearth and mahogany mantle piece. Lela forgot about keeping quiet and gasped when she saw the cheerful flames dancing in the fireplace. Dark green holly peppered with red berries decorated the mantle and among the greenery, small white candles flickered. If she’d heard music before, there wasn’t any playing now.

Someone stood before the fire, his back to her but she’d know his stance anywhere and she flew down the stairs, running, her heart pounding to a rock and roll drumbeat. He didn’t turn around or seem to hear her approach and suddenly bashful, she stopped about five feet away from him. Maybe she’d been wrong. It could be what she’d often feared, an intruder who came because of her husband’s fame.

Still, Lela pushed her heart back down her throat to say, voice husky after her earlier tears, “Shane?”

He turned to face her and she laughed aloud with delight. Shane’s eyes sparkled, reflecting back the firelight as he opened his arms to her, wide as the outside world and Lela entered them, basking in their strong comfort, their sanctuary. In those first few moments he just held her, tight and safe, as if she was precious and Lela knew now her doubts were foolish. She trembled in his arms, the after effect of her fear, her worry, and her crying jag.

“Hey, are you all right?” Shane whispered, his voice millions loved speaking now just to her.

“I am now,” Lela told him, “I thought you weren’t coming home.”

His big hand brushed her tangled hair back from her face. “Silly woman, you should know I’d be here for Christmas. You’re my heart, Lela, and I love you. Where else would I be?”

Her concerns seemed frivolous now so she answered, “I don’t know. I worried about you, Shane.”

His chuckle warmed her more than the fire. “I know you – you worried I’d been in an accident and then you worried maybe I found a pretty little fan I liked better than you.”

He knew her, down to her bones and beyond her soul. Lela couldn’t deny it so she smiled up at him, “Something like that.”

“You don’t have to worry about other women, ever,” Shane told her. “There’s snow on the roads almost all the way between here and Detroit. The bus laid up for the night at Memphis but I rented a car and came on home. It took a lot longer than I thought it would but I’m here.”

“I’m glad,” she said and nestled closer against his chest. Then she lifted her face to him and needed his mouth to reassure her. “Kiss me, Shane.”

“Merry Christmas, babe,” he said as he bent low to put his mouth over hers. He tasted of peppermints and a fainter hint of good bourbon, pleasant and familiar. Heat kindled between their lips and fire ignited between them as his mouth teased hers into desire. His kiss pleasured her mouth but sent waves of want through her body, sweet thrills of delight rippling with need. As her body eased into the familiar tension, the yearning just one thing could relieve, Lela curled herself closer against Shane until she felt his hard cock move against her.

He pulled away her robe and stripped her flannel nightgown away. Shane’s large hands roamed over her body, caressing and fondling. He knew just where to touch to evoke her reaction, how to stroke her to increase her desire to a fever pitch. Lela’s hands jerked at his shirt, fumbled the buttons until she could take it off. When she did, Shane unzipped his jeans and stepped out of them, bare as the day he came into the world beneath the denim. She admired his shaft and reached out to take it into her hand. As she began to caress him, Shane pulled his mouth away from hers to latch onto her left nipple where he suckled. Extreme pleasure flowed through her body as she arched her back to get maximum reaction. He switched to her right breast, hand cupping it as he tongued around her sensitive nipple until she whimpered with need.

Shane’s fingers moved to her mound where he stroked until her inner pulsing increased so much Lela thought she’d die if she didn’t get satisfaction soon. Her own fingers tangled in his hair, longer than he’d once worn it and then moved to rake his back with her fingernails like a she-animal. He groaned with pleasure and maneuvered her toward the antique couch. Lela sprawled on it, legs spread open and he entered her, fast and harsh, with the power of a river flowing into her body. From the first connection she spasmed with glad satisfaction as each ripple grew until waves of erotic enchantment bewitched her.

He worked her and she gave back, moving beneath him to offer the release they both sought. At the last they shuddered together in a climax powerful enough they slid from the couch onto the hard wood floors with a crash. Still connected, the final spirals of bliss spinning them through a rush of delight they burst into laughter, a happy sound carrying them the rest of the way. After he caught his breath, he scooped her into his arms and returned her to the couch where they lay intertwined, firelight playing a game of light and shadow over their nude flesh.

Lela rested her head against his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart. She never noticed she’d become cold enough to shiver until he wrapped her in something soft. Against her cheek, the silky warmth tickled and she glanced to see fur. Her fingers stroked its’ surface, too pliable not to have come from a living creature.

“What’s this?” she asked, curious and pleased.

“It’s your new mink,” Shane said, “Merry Christmas.”

She squealed with delight. “It’s my present? I love it.”

“That and about a dozen other things,” he said, “I went crazy buying stuff for you.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I miss you when I’m out on the road,” he said, nuzzling his chin against her shoulder. “I get lonely. I wish you’d come with me, baby.”

Lela stilled. She waited, processed his words, and then said, tentative and almost shy, “I thought you wanted me here, Shane.”

She sensed his surprise before he said, “I always thought you wanted to stay home, Lela. Don’t you?”

“I love the house,” she said, her throat closing around a growing knot of unshed tears. “But I’d rather be with you, even if it means sleeping on the damn tour bus, putting up with your band, eating cheap food, and keeping insane hours. You always tell me to keep the home fires burning so I thought you wanted me here.”

“I want you with me,” he said, with such simplicity she knew he spoke truth. “When I’m here, when I’m gone, anywhere, everywhere, I want you beside me.”

Her tears earlier sprang out of anxiety and sadness but the ones burning her eyes, choking her were birthed with joy. As much as she liked the mink, something she’d yearned to own for a very long time, no matter what else Shane’d brought her, his words were the real gift of the season, the one mattering most.

“Then I will be,” she said, voice softer than the mink, quieter than the fire whispering through the flames. “I love you, Shane. Merry Christmas, honey.”

Lela turned her head to see his reaction and he smiled. “If you’re coming with me,” he said, “It’s going to be a happy new year, too.”

Naked, swathed in mink, in her husband’s arms, Lela, watching the light and shadows play of the leaping flames, knew within her heart it would be and that the old saying, home is where the heart is, it would be true.

You can also find me here:

A Page In The Life

http://leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com

Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

http://leeannsontheimermurphy.blogspot.com

Website http://leeannwriter.weebly.com

On Twitter @leeannwriter

On Facebook Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Book trailer:

http://youtu.be/mLQBf90xFMM

Check out my Christmas release Sing We Now of Christmas

Tuesday Tales: Holidays of The Heart

2011-12-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

Each Tuesday a group of talented authors gather together to present their original fiction, writing from the same prompt. My story this week is short - because of time constraints and the holidays but I think it's message will resonate with many. I'm dealing with many of the issues Ruthie faces in this humble little story.

Be sure to visit the main blog to follow all Tuesday Tales this week:
http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

Holidays Of The Heart

When most people talked about their family home, the ancestral manse, they referred to something grand, a mansion maybe or at least a fine old house with both style and character. For Ruthie and the rest of her large and now scattered clan, their grandparents’ home came closest to being an old home place or family home any of them could claim. Despite the sentimental clutter surrounding any thought of the place and the love drenched memories, she admitted the house was nothing more than an old frame house in a poor neighborhood, one never aspiring to any pretension beyond blue collar. The roof sagged, the walls leaned, and the sole fine thing to come out of it had been love.

Situated in what once was a working class neighborhood, the house sat on the corner of 15^th and Grand Avenue, a wide street with nothing grand at all about it. Ruthie, one of the oldest, could remember all too well when her grandparents moved into the place, taking over after Opa’s mother Frieda died. Even then, the wraparound porch, now long gone, sagged and one of their favorite games involved jumping up and down to hear the aged boards crack. Her grandmother poured her wages from the local hat factory into the house, doing her best to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. They put on white siding, they tore away the rotted porch, removed the stone wall filled with insects and put up a chain link fence. When the neighbors moved from an equally old and unkempt house, they bought it too and extended the yard. Opa built a two car garage, paved a driveway and tacked a new little modern porch onto the side of the house.

Now after multiple generations hung their hats or shawls within and called the place home, it was time for change. Opa died first, then Oma, and then Ruthie’s Tante who lived here until her death. Now Tante’s oldest granddaughter, Rachel, planned to make the place home so all the old needed to go to make room for the new.

As the cousins sorted trash from treasure the old house changed from a comfortable home, a haven into an empty building. Some things, like the old china cabinet remained for Rachel who already moved what furniture would stay into new patterns, her own. Ruthie marveled over little things, forgotten and now remembered, a discarded and faded spring hat, the little silver cake plate she loved as a child, her big tricycle, already old when she received it as a hand-me-down from her dad’s family, the other side.

As they shared and handed out trinkets and keepsakes, Ruthie took her great-grandmother’s wedding dress, 1912 vintage, made on an old treadle machine from summer muslin and trimmed with handmade lace, the ancient old menorah, heavy brass, and the china matching lady and gentleman. Her sister Leah took the heavy china platter, the one which held the turkey each Thanksgiving.

Holidays happened here, Ruthie mused, as she looked around the vacant rooms. She remembered them filled with laughing people, family balancing plates of food on their laps and tables set up in odd places for the overflow. The kitchen table groaned with goodness and never on any holiday did a single cross word exit any mouth. They might on an ordinary day but holidays were kept special.

Ruthie wondered what holidays would be kept here now or if they would.

Heart as full as the rooms loomed large and empty, she realized as long as she had holiday memories, they would never die but live forever.

The brightness of candles in the December darkness celebrated light, a triumph over night and life over death.

They would go on with or without the house, she realized, to the end of time and beyond.

Holidays live in the heart, not in a house, Ruthie thought and she raised her voice in song as she cleared more clutter, facing forward and not into the past.
--- Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

TUESDAY TALES: FIRE

2011-12-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Last week we wrote about ice. This week our prompt is fire. With the lines of Robert Frost's immortal poem Fire And Ice in mind, I decided to continue my little tale from last week. Shelby reached the shelter and safety of her boyfriend's farmhouse through the ice ravaged forest and now she's discovering fire is another force of nature.

But first, let's remember to return from whence you came - the main Tuesday Tales blog founded by Jean Joachim has a record number of authors participating this week so finish where you started to reach my blog:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

And now to balance ice - here's my story "Fire" -

Hours later, she woke to the tall flickering shadows of oil lamps and the wonderful warmth. Mike smiled down at her and without a word she shucked away the blanket to jump into his open arms.

“Better?” he asked and she nodded, her head tucked against his shoulder.

“Oh, yeah,” Shelby said. A different kind of heat enveloped her and she struggled to remember the lines of a Robert Frost poem, Fire And Ice without success. “I’m warm now.”

Mike cradled her in his arms as he settled into his big man’s recliner, a chair larger than the average one with plenty of space for two.

Her fingertips traced his lips and as if prompted, Mike kissed her, his mouth warm and sweet over hers until she forgot the ice for the moment, drowning in a wild, wonderful fire searing her veins. As chilled as she’d been on arrival she wasn’t cold now. Cuddled against his wide chest, Shelby savored his body heat. The physical contact provided better warmth than the fire although she loved the crackling flames and the steady dry heat emanating from the hearth. Nearly freezing to death seemed worth it for this romantic interlude.

One kiss wasn’t enough. She craved more so when he stopped, Shelby let one hand trail up around his neck, fingers sliding into his curly hair and when he grinned, she said, “Kiss me again like you mean it.”

With such a challenge, he responded with another kiss, his mouth this time anything but tender as he melted her lips with his ardor. Her mouth returned the fire he offered, her hunger matching his own. She tasted the beer he must have drank while she slept, the malt flavor pleasant on her tongue and inhaled the faint lingering scent of his Irish Spring soap mingled with a pure male musk she liked. Each of her senses seemed heightened by the current conditions, the frigid weather, being isolated and ice bound so she enjoyed each flavor, aroma, and touch. The sensation of his lips, smooth against her own sent small electric thrills through her body. His stubble brushed her cheek, rough and scratchy but she gloried in it because it was just so masculine.

His proximity kindled her desires and his kiss heightened the first flicker of desire into open flame. Her fingers undid the buttons of his flannel shirt to reveal his long underwear beneath but by then he’d caught the same fever sparking through her body like an explosive. Mike stripped away the long johns, the thermal undershirt and with great finesse he managed to work his hands beneath the shirt she wore. His big hands cradled her breasts and caressed them, easy as if he handled something fragile. To Shelby’s surprise he bent his mouth down to suckle one nipple and her breath caught as he used his teeth to pleasure her. The combination of his mouth sweet on her sensitive flesh with the hint of pain titillated her until she arched her back against him.

Until now, their intimacies had been proper affairs, well-planned in his comfortable bed or hers. They’d played out the traditional rituals, the glass or two of a good wine, music on the stereo, maybe a candle or two burning in the darkness but this wild, unexpected boon surged stronger than anything they’d shared before.

Mike undid the knot she’d tied in his borrowed lounge pants and slid them down her legs. Shelby never felt the chill of the house between their flesh heat and the fire in the hearth. Away in the far corners, it might be cool, even cold but here in his recliner it felt as warm as June.

Whispering endearments, the sweet little names he kept for such moments, Mike maneuvered her so she sat in the chair and he covered her with his half-clad body. Erect and ready, he plowed into her with the jubilation of spring, with a wonderment and exuberant joy. As he filled her emptiness, Shelby strained against him until they were locked into one flesh, seeking and then finding the pleasure center to release them both into ecstasy.

His arms offered surcease and shelter as his mouth fed her inner need, and his body worked within her to sate a hunger that went far beyond the physical.

Warmer now than she could have imagined in her long, chilly trek through the ice coated woods Shelby sank against him, sated and sweetened. Her body stretched on his with somnolent grace and fulfillment. His fire combined with her inner flame burned away the last of the frozen cold in her veins and brought her back with a living power, a force she couldn’t deny. Half-clothed, basking in his arms and in the soft shadows of the flickering fireplace, Shelby whispered the words she’d never said before with the same meaning,

“Mike, I love you.”

She didn’t need to wait for an answer because he’d given it before she asked, offered it to her with complete sacrifice, sharing body with a little piece of his soul. As they curled together Shelby listened to the crackle of the flames, to the wind blustering outside with a frigid sound, and to the beat of his heart, steady and constant. As the breeze gusted through the ice coated trees, she heard some branches crack, the sound of the ice brittle and harsh. None of the other common sounds, the growl of traffic on the distant highway, the whine of steel-belted radial tires on pavement, the sound of a pickup truck climbing the country roads with the many hills or the echo of jet airplanes high above the forest.

No light shone within the old farmhouse and Shelby knew outside total darkness reigned. No light arced skyward from town, visible miles away as an ambient glow but the light kindled within her heart burned strong.

Fire and ice, she mused as she lay drowsy in Mike’s arm, both a powerful force of nature but neither, she realized could match the strength of love.

Tuesday Tales: ICE

2011-11-29T01:20:00.000-08:00

Good Tuesday morning all. Our prompt this week is "ice" and my story begins this week with ice and will finish next week with "fire".

Be sure to check out the main Tuesday Tales blog for all the wonderful original stories from talented authors each week - here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

My thanks as always to Jean Joachim who started this weekly tradition!

And don't forget while we're thinking cold weather my first Christmas release, Sing We Now of Christmas from Rebel Ink Press will be out this week....

Ice (part one - next week we continue with "Fire")

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Despite the weather bureau’s dire predictions Shelby didn’t expect ice. Maybe a bit of sleet or a little freezing rain but she never imagined what an ice storm could do. She’d seen a few times when enough freezing rain coated roads and power lines to make driving slick and power questionable but when the first sharp pellets of ice pummeled her home, she began to wonder just what would happen. When she looked outside, what fell from the heavy gray skies wasn’t sleet but a rain of ice, rain which stuck and froze on every surface. It came down fast and hard, so much so when she extended her palm the falling ice stung her skin. Visible in the illumination from the porch light Shelby saw the ice coat the electric lines, the tree branches, and cover the car. If she left right this minute, she’d still have to scrape away ice then deal with slick roads so she withdrew into the house, hoping the electricity would hold.

It didn’t.

Less than an hour later, the lights flickered and failed. The television screen faded to black and the sounds of her favorite program vanished into the extreme darkness. Inside, silence echoed inside her head but the ice striking the roof and windows trumped it. For the first time since moving into her cozy little cottage at the end of a narrow country lane surrounded by Ozark forest, Shelby wondered if it was a good idea for a single woman after all. She picked up her cordless telephone to call someone, a friend or maybe a relative but there wasn’t a dial tone and she recalled it required electricity to power it. Everyone’d told her to get an old fashioned corded phone but she never did. She tried her cell but it failed too and she realized probably the towers were encased in solid ice as well. Weather marooned her here as much as if she’d washed up from a shipwreck on a deserted island. She couldn’t call anyone and worse ice rendered her car unusable and turned the roads into skating rinks.

Within minutes the house grew colder as the electric blower on electric furnace failed to run without power so Shelby went to bed, curling under the covers in her heaviest flannel nightgown, an extra pair of socks, and tried to sleep. Even with the blankets piled over her head she heard the falling ice and she worried, still awake through most of the night. In the morning she longed for coffee but in an all electric home, she couldn’t make any. She wondered if anyone worried about her – maybe her mom far away in Oklahoma City might think about her and with any luck, Mike, her boyfriend might be anxious.

Thinking about Mike who lived through the woods and down at the bottom of the big hollow (“holler” as they called it here in this corner of the Ozarks) made her yearn for his huge, rambling 1900’s vintage farmhouse and Shelby reached for the phone to call him before she remembered it wouldn’t work. She laid under the blankets, shivering, and imagined his fireplace, a huge old hearth in the living room with a warm, crackling fire. Unlike her, Mike prepared for such weather events. He owned kerosene lamps and useful candles, not just scented candle jars and pretty tapers.

Shelby should have gone to the store to stock up on water, on food, on everything but she didn’t. Without electricity, her well pump wouldn’t work either so no water, no bathroom facilities, nothing. Mike, however, left the old hand pump working in the kitchen for both nostalgia and practical reasons too. He’d be able to pump water, stay warm, and he kept a full pantry.

If the power trucks don’t get here soon, Shelby thought, I’ll get dressed and go through the woods down to Mike’s. She never doubted, however, the rural electric cooperative would get the lights back on soon because they always had before.

Cold rousted her from the comfort of bed by noon. She dressed in layers, wore a winter tam on her head to keep the warmth from leaving her body, and still shivered. No matter what she did, she couldn’t warm up and no power crews came. When she rubbed away a place on a front window to peer outside, she saw the power lines hung low, some snapped with the weight of the ice. All of the trees bowed low to the ground and already she heard branches creak, crack and crash to the ground. Shelby managed to dig out an old battery powered radio and tune in some news. She learned the ice storm wreaked havoc for a huge chuck of the area and heard thousands of people were without electricity. If she’d had enough energy, she’d have cried but she didn’t.

Hunger gnawed inside her stomach like a starving animal and she decided if she didn’t do something, she’d probably freeze to death so she made up her mind. She pulled on heavy boots over thick socks, put on her biggest, thick winter coat, wrapped woolen scarves around her throat and head, and topped it all with a blanket around her torso Native American style. Feeling ridiculous she set off, her purse dangling from one arm and plunged into the woods with the fervor of Columbus setting sail for the New World.

Five minutes later Shelby hoped his enthusiasm lasted longer than hers did. Footing on the icy ground presented dangers and she’d fallen twice, landing on her bottom hard enough there would be a bruise or two. Maneuvering around fallen, broken branches wasn’t easy and she learned to duck when she heard a branch begin to crack. Some fell, narrowly missing her. Going downhill over slick ground proved more difficult than she ever imagined it could be and she ended up grasping tree trunks, then lunging from one to the other to make her descent. When she reached the bottom of the hollow, her blanket and outer garments were decorated with burrs and stick tights, the seat of her jeans seemed wet, and her body ached from the extreme cold. Each breath she took seared her lungs with a freezing blast and she staggered through the weeds, the heavy undergrowth as she moved toward Mike’s with slow steps.

If she sat down to rest, she’d die and maybe he’d find her in the spring. Fear of dying motivated her to keep moving although she stumbled and fell often. The hike through the woods took twenty minutes in good weather but on the wintery day, icy conditions Shelby labored for two hours before she caught her first glimpse of Mike’s home through the bare tree branches.

A few tears slipped out of her eyes but froze on her cheeks so she sucked up her emotion and moved forward. By the time she reached his house, Shelby all but crawled up the steps to the porch and crashed against the door with desperation.

“Mike!” she called, several times until the door opened. Heat rushed out from inside in a wave and her boyfriend stared at her until she said, “Let me inside or I’ll freeze to death.”

Mike put an arm around her and steered her into the huge living room. He parked her in front of the fireplace which boasted the roaring fire she’d imagined earlier. “What are you doing out in this mess?”

His question amused her but she didn’t speak for a few minutes, hands stretched toward the flames to feel the warmth. When she did, she still wore everything but the blanket. “I don’t have any heat, lights, water, or phone so I decided to come here. I was afraid I’d freeze at home.”

Mike stripped off her gloves and chafed her hands. “You might’ve. I tried to call you a bunch of times and I worried but I never thought about trying to make it through the woods. Are you all right?”

“I think so,” she said as she trembled with cold. “I hope so.”

“I hope so, too,” he answered, looking concerned. “If you’re not, I’ll have to take care of you here because we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Let’s get some warm, dry clothes on you and I’ll make some coffee or soup.”

“Soup sounds good,” she croaked.

Upstairs with his bedroom illuminated by an oil lamp, Shelby managed to remove her clothing with numb fingers and put on some of his. His flannel lounge pants were much too large but she cinched up the drawstring until they almost fit and put on one of his flannel shirts over a T-shirt. The plaids didn’t match but she didn’t care. Her frozen feet began to warm inside two pairs of his thick hunting socks and a pair of moccasins.

Downstairs, she sat down near the fire and sipped the canned soup he heated. Mike dragged a recliner over close to the hearth and she settled down into it, warm and drowsy. He tossed a blanket over her and she clung to it. At home and out in the woods, she’d been terrified to fall asleep in case it might be the first symptom of freezing to death but in his house, feeling secure, she slept.

Hours later, she woke to the tall flickering shadows of oil lamps and the wonderful warmth. Mike smiled down at her and without a word she shucked away the blanket to jump into his open arms.

“Better?” he asked and she nodded, her head tucked against his shoulder.

“Oh, yeah,” Shelby said. A different kind of heat enveloped her and she struggled to remember the lines of a Robert Frost poem, Fire And Ice without success. “I’m warm now.”

Her fingertips traced his lips and as if prompted, Mike kissed her, his mouth warm and sweet over hers until she forgot the ice for the moment, drowning in a wild, wonderful fire searing her veins.

Tuesday Tales: Thanksgiving Week Edition

2011-11-22T00:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tales, the weekly blog hop with original fiction offered up by multiple authors each week. Remember the central story location begins here:

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

This week - Thanksgiving week- our prompt was giving thanks or thanks or gratitude.

My little tale was inspired by an actual event many decades ago in my family - or so the story goes - but what happens in the story isn't quite how the real deal went down.

With wishes to all readers and blog followers for a happy Thanksgiving filled with abundance and plenty, I present this week's tale:

Bill’s Thanksgiving Goose

As November waned with gray skies, moving toward December with the decrepit speed of an old man, Anna wondered what she might cook for Thanksgiving. Turkey prices soared beyond her meager budget and she hoped they might gather up enough money to buy a fat hen. She could make dumplings with it, she thought, a fine meal and far better than their usual fare of beans or potatoes. President Roosevelt might say Americans had nothing to fear but fear itself but then he wasn’t trying to feed five little hungry mouths or keep a roof over their heads the way she and Bill did. He didn’t worry about it being cold there in the big old rooms of the White House, a place looking a lot like a mansion in the pictures she’d seen or how to pay the electric bill. President Roosevelt, who Anna did like as much as she did any rich man, had a job and a good one. He wasn’t out there pounding the pavement looking for work or spending long hard hours at work in a factory, coming home almost too tired to lift a spoon of thin potato soup to his mouth.

A hen would do, she thought, and ransacked her cabinets searching for sage. She had flour, enough to make dumplings and make a pie. As she scribbled down her small grocery list with a broken pencil one of the boys left home, Anna dreamed about fat turkeys or a fine goose or an extravagant roast beef. Pork, she thought would taste so wonderful, a nice pork loin or even chops, cut thick but it wouldn’t happen. If she managed to buy the hen, it’d be a wonder and she considered choosing hamburger instead. She could make Hamburg steaks or a meatloaf, she thought and spend less.

Last year her sister bought a turkey leg, just one and did it up nice in the oven with a big pan of homemade bread dressing but no one got more than a bite of the meat. Her house smelled so wonderful, like she really had a turkey dinner with all the trimmings but the tough, dark meat pulled from the leg didn’t satisfy anyone. Anna’d thought it was just about enough to make a person so hungry they’d go out robbing banks the way Charley Floyd or that Bonnie and Clyde did. No wonder, she mused, no wonder they do it. Maybe they just want a decent meal for once or a warm house or something they didn’t have to scrimp for and do without another thing to have.

After supper, late enough the kids were in bed Anna wiped down the scarred, worn table one last time and sat down across from Bill. His eyes drooped, tired, and she’d swear he was falling asleep over the day old newspaper he brought home, found in a gutter on the way home.

“Do you think we could get a hen for Thanksgiving?” she asked, almost afraid to say anything. He took it hard, her Bill, the doing without and being so poor.

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing up from the paper. “Rent’s due on Saturday. If we could, I’d love to have something more than just an old stringy hen.”

“Wouldn’t it be grand?” Anna said, her mouth watering as they dreamed. “Turkey with dressing or a fat goose would be so good.”

Bill nodded, sober as a sky full of rain clouds and said nothing. After a few minutes, just when Anna opened her mouth to say she was going to bed too, he grinned. His face shifted until he looked younger the way he should and some of his old debonair charm returned. “I think I know where I can get a goose,” he said, “In fact, count on it.”

Excitement fluttered in her chest like a bird beating against a window. “Are you sure?”

“Honey, I’m positive,” Bill said. “You spend your pennies on onions and other stuff. I’ll bring home a goose.”

On the night before Thanksgiving he came home from work a little early. Anna didn’t hear him, busy in the kitchen making pumpkin pies but when she glanced up and saw him, a goose dangling from one hand, she shrieked with delight.

“You did it,” she said, “You really got a goose.”

“I told you I would.”

Curiosity combined with delight so she asked, “But where?”

Bill grinned. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

“Bill…”

“Don’t ask,” he said, “We got one, that’s all that matters.”

She thought it over for about thirty seconds and nodded. “You’re right.”

Anna didn’t care it still had feathers or a head but she liked it must weight a good eighteen pounds or more. She got a pot of water boiling so they could pluck and dress it. Before she retired for the night, the goose sat in the middle of her big roaster, seasoned and surrounded with both onions and potatoes. She peeked at it in the ice box with a smile, eager to put it into the oven and smell it cooking but it would wait till morning.

Still she rose early to cook the goose and by dinnertime, they all almost swooned with hunger incited by the delicious smell. Goose tended to catch fire but it only did twice and she put it out without damage to the bird and as Anna pulled it from the oven, she admired the crisp brown skin.

Her family gathered around the table to share a real Thanksgiving feast, her sister and her brood joined them and they all ate until their bellies stretched full. Through all of it Anna wondered where Bill got the bird but didn’t ask. After all the dishes were washed, dried, and put back into the cupboards she put the few leftovers on the table. Half a pumpkin pie, one lone wing from the goose on a saucer, and a few slices of homemade bread remained.

Just about the time they settled down to relax, listening to the radio, still stuffed to the gills, someone pounded on the door and with a sigh Anna answered it. She opened the door to find her neighbor, Mister Hayes standing on the porch, face twisted with anger.

“Hello, Mister Hayes,” she said, “What can I do for you?”

“I want my goose back,” he said, his cheeks flushing crimson. “I know you people must’ve taken her and I’d like her back. I been down to Kansas City since Wednesday and just got home to find my goose gone.”

Her stomach, filled with the delicious meal, tightened and afraid to look at Bill, Anna said, “What?”

“My goose,” Mister Hayes demanded, “I’d like my goose back.”

He pushed past Anna to enter the house and glared around the front room as if he thought his goose might be tucked behind a chair and then stalked onward into the kitchen. Anna trailed behind him and Bill rose from his seat to join her.

Hayes halted in the kitchen, sniffing the air as if he suspected something. Before he could say a word or make an accusation, Bill shoved the saucer with the single wing toward him.

“There’s your damn goose,” he said, “Take it and get out of here.”

Anna cringed as the dish scraped the table with an unpleasant sound and waited for the explosion. Ted Hayes made a low noise, something like a growl and barked, “You mean you bunch of low life trash ate my goose?”

Bill moved closer to her as if he thought Hayes might lose control and strike someone. He opened his lips to say something but before he could Anna took the matter in hand.

“We’re not trash, Mister Hayes,” she said in a quiet voice, “We’re just poor due to circumstance and we’re hungry. Bill brought the goose home. If he knew it belonged to you, I didn’t.”

“Ignorance don’t make it right,” he growled but she thought his tone held less heat. “She was my goose and if anybody ate her, should’ve been me.”

Mister Hayes glared at Anna and then at Bill. He stomped back to look into the front room where the others sat, stunned and silent. He looked at first one and then another as if he tried to figure out who knew, who didn’t and if anyone of them cared.

After a five minute silence, uncomfortable and heavy as a bellyache, he shook his head.

“Oh, damn it to hell,” he said, “You ate it so it’s yours. Just don’t take nothing of mine no more, you hear me? If you do, I’ll call the police.”

With those words as parting salvo, he exited through the back door, slamming it hard enough it rattled on the hinges. As soon as it shut behind him, Bill said, his voice low and serious, “Call the police and be damned then, Hayes.”

Ann stared at her husband and for a moment she feared the joy of Thanksgiving Day might fade away. She waited to see if the desperation crept back into Bill’s eyes, if his shoulders slumped or if his expression became defeated. He met her gaze, unafraid, and she saw none of what she feared in him. Instead she saw her Bill, whole as he hadn’t been in a long time, a man again with bravado and courage, bullshit and compassion. He offered her a single nod of his head and opened his arms. Anna walked into his embrace and he kissed her, with the fire lacking in recent days.

She’d never be able to name the catalyst but she didn’t care. Something restored Bill’s pride, returned his inner fight, gave back his pluck and strengthened him. Maybe it was putting meat on the table even if it was stolen or perhaps just having a decent meal to share. Anna didn’t know but she didn’t care but as he kissed her, she knew what she felt most thankful for, this Thanksgiving and always.

Bill.

If you like my words, visit my other blogs:

A Page In The Life

http://leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com

Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

http://leeannsontheimermurphy.blogspot.com

Lee Ann's Weekend Dirty Dozen

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Tuesday Tales: The Knife And The Eagle by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

2011-11-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Tuesday Tales on my blog. Of course I encourage you to return to the main blog to read all the wonderful and original tales by talented authors.

http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com

This week my tale is a snippet from an upcoming work in progress....I'm calling my little story this week:

The Knife and The Eagle
(for Serzh)

He left without word or warning beyond the troubled face he’d worn for weeks. She’d known something was wrong. Impossible to share a bed with someone and not know when he didn’t sleep or when he stared at the ceiling through the night and if he thought she missed the signs, she hadn’t. When he did sleep he made noises, small groans, whimpers, the kind of sounds he’d never make awake and sometimes she’d noticed he rubbed his leg, the one never the same after the war. Jeton began smoking again, an old habit and a soldier’s one, something he’d not done in years but she, once addicted to tobacco as he, smoked with him. It became their one shared solace in those last weeks, or the sole one beside their bodies connected in love never denied. They never needed words, Audrey and Jeton. One glance from his soulful brown eyes spoke without sound and she understood. They did talk, often but it wasn’t necessary and some of the most profound things were unspoken.

The last Sunday morning, unshaven, weary to the bone, she knew he had no idea he’d be away long. Despite his fatigue, his lips curled in such a sweet, merry smile for her she’d been touched, deep down. Most of the time, Jeton kept a serious face but he’d let down his guard for her, just as he’d let her into his inner life, into places few others trailed.

What he didn’t share, he kept back to protect her and she understood that. Somehow the first day they met, his intense stare and attention on her Audrey pegged him as a man of danger, a man who’d seen bloodshed and shed his enemies’ blood as well. He wasn’t a simple man but complex and as deadly when necessary as a wolf or the double sided eagle from the flag.

In those last weeks, maybe the final month before he vanished like a wisp of smoke, a vapor up a chimney, he’d worn a shoulder holster beneath his shirt. No one noticed, not at the business or elsewhere but Audrey knew. It wasn’t just because she felt it when she embraced him or saw the faint outline, invisible to any but a knowing eye but she read the caution, the danger in his eyes.

“I’ll be away, Monday, maybe Tuesday,” he’d said to her in his voice, his accent both familiar and foreign. He stroked her hair out of her face, the long hair he adored cascading to her waist and caressed her cheek. “You’ll be all right?”

“I will,” Audrey vowed. “But I’ll miss you.”

“And I will miss you,” he said, his voice softening as he spoke and used endearments in his tongue, not hers. “Keep this for me.”

Jeton put the knife into her hand, sheathed, the old knife once belonging to his father and grandfather, handmade and precious. He kept the blade sharp as death and he valued it like no other possession. The weight of it in her hand meant something powerful, a token of his love as great as if he’d put a wedding band upon her finger. The gift, the keeping of the knife evoked emotions she longed to share but she lacked the words so she let her eyes speak, her blues ones connecting with his liquid dark eyes, windows of his soul.

“I will. Be careful,” she said, and he grinned, the slow, heated smile guaranteed to turn her insides into liquid. He kissed her, his mouth urgent and possessive against her lips. His kisses always claimed her by right and then pleasured, first one, then the other. If he wished, he could have taken her there and she wouldn’t have made a protest but he didn’t. Audrey clung to him for a few extra moments, savoring the solid feel of his strong body under her hands, inhaling the essence belonging to him alone. Then she let him go, watched him walk out to his sleek Nissan sedan and drive away as always with too much speed. He handled the car with the same skill he used on her, she’d thought.

Tuesday came, then Wednesday but no Jeton but she knew before the end of the week where he was and why. Audrey kept the knife close, on her person or near at all times but the pin he sent to her, she wore daily and with pride no matter what the risk might be. The dual headed eagle, black against a red background told her where and so each night she kissed it before she slept, his knife nearby should she need the protection as she whispered, “Tea dua,” hoping her words of love might reach him on some stray wind, far away, in Kosovo.

Someday he would return but until then, she’d wait and whisper.