Fran Shaff's Blog - Posts Tagged "excerpt"
"Male Fraud," an Excerpt
Just for fun this week--an excerpt from "Male Fraud" my April romantic comedy release. I hope it puts a smile on your face.
BLURB
Terry Fiscus wants to be a trainer for the pro football Chicago Cyclones. Coach Dan Barringer doesn't believe a woman belongs in a men's locker room. Terry really, REALLY wants this job so she disguises herself as a man, and Dan hires her. When Dan meets Terry outside of work and gets to know her as the lovely "Teresa" he falls in love, and so does Terry. As Terry tries to manage her double life things get extremely complicated and side-splittingly funny.
(For more information, excerpts and a video, go to: https://sites.google.com/site/malefra... )
EXCERPT
Setup: Terry is on the job as trainer for the Chicago Cyclones, disguised as a man.
As she policed her area of the locker room Terry realized the first week of training camp had gone by with lightning speed. She’d worked hard to keep her players as healthy as possible, and things had gone well most of the time.
The only thing giving her more trouble than she’d thought it would was getting used to the smells, sights and sounds in the locker room. Especially the sights!
Seeing naked men by the dozens was a completely new adjustment for her. At Nebraska, the players knew she was a woman, and most of them would cover up if she was in the locker room. Now that Terry was one of the guys, she rarely saw a towel wrapped around a waist in modesty.
More than once the old story about the size of a man’s feet and his--
“Fiscus!” She looked at the coach who was standing in the doorway to his office. “When you have a minute, I want to see you.”
“Sure thing, Coach.” She was getting used to using her fake deep voice, though it didn’t sound as gruff anymore since her cold had gone away.
The coach went back into his office, but Terry kept looking his way.
There was one other thing which had been giving her trouble since she started her new job. Coach Barringer.
Not that he’d been hard on her or anything, no harder than she’d expected anyway. The trouble she was having with the coach was entirely her own fault.
She found him terribly attractive. Whether he was a Neanderthal or not, she couldn’t help being practically giddy over him. Consequently, she’d avoided Dan as much as possible.
She’d learned rather quickly that one glance from him could melt her quite completely, and she couldn’t afford to liquefy around him.
At least not until she told him she was a woman.
She finished cleaning up her area and went to face Coach Barringer.
She knocked on his open door.
“Come in.” His voice was stern, commanding.
He was looking at a pad full of x’s and o’s when Terry entered his domain. Considering the crush she had on him, she blushed a little at the symbols for hugs and kisses which Dan was using to diagram offensive and defensive team members in plays he was designing.
This was the first time Terry had been alone with Dan in his office. All her meetings with him before this one had included other trainers, and they’d taken place in the conference room.
Dan looked up and pointed to a chair. “Take a load off, Fiscus. I’ll be with you in a minute.” He looked again at his pad of intricate plays, and made a few changes.
She seated herself in the black tweed armchair the coach had pointed to and waited for him to speak. The longer she waited the more intrigued she became with the handsome coach and his thick dark hair, angular jaw and broad, strong build.
His shoulders looked like they could hold the weight of the Sears Tower.
When minutes passed without him initiating the conversation, she decided to start it herself. “Is there a problem you wanted to discuss with me?” Considering the way she felt about him, being alone with him put her ill at ease. She wanted this meeting over with as soon as possible.
He looked at her with those bone-melting blue eyes of his and leaned back in his black leather, swivel chair. He tapped the pencil in one hand against the index finger of the other.....
---------------------------------
Read more excerpts and watch the "Male Fraud" video at: https://sites.google.com/site/malefra...
Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author
http://sites.google.com/site/fshaff
BLURB
Terry Fiscus wants to be a trainer for the pro football Chicago Cyclones. Coach Dan Barringer doesn't believe a woman belongs in a men's locker room. Terry really, REALLY wants this job so she disguises herself as a man, and Dan hires her. When Dan meets Terry outside of work and gets to know her as the lovely "Teresa" he falls in love, and so does Terry. As Terry tries to manage her double life things get extremely complicated and side-splittingly funny.
(For more information, excerpts and a video, go to: https://sites.google.com/site/malefra... )
EXCERPT
Setup: Terry is on the job as trainer for the Chicago Cyclones, disguised as a man.
As she policed her area of the locker room Terry realized the first week of training camp had gone by with lightning speed. She’d worked hard to keep her players as healthy as possible, and things had gone well most of the time.
The only thing giving her more trouble than she’d thought it would was getting used to the smells, sights and sounds in the locker room. Especially the sights!
Seeing naked men by the dozens was a completely new adjustment for her. At Nebraska, the players knew she was a woman, and most of them would cover up if she was in the locker room. Now that Terry was one of the guys, she rarely saw a towel wrapped around a waist in modesty.
More than once the old story about the size of a man’s feet and his--
“Fiscus!” She looked at the coach who was standing in the doorway to his office. “When you have a minute, I want to see you.”
“Sure thing, Coach.” She was getting used to using her fake deep voice, though it didn’t sound as gruff anymore since her cold had gone away.
The coach went back into his office, but Terry kept looking his way.
There was one other thing which had been giving her trouble since she started her new job. Coach Barringer.
Not that he’d been hard on her or anything, no harder than she’d expected anyway. The trouble she was having with the coach was entirely her own fault.
She found him terribly attractive. Whether he was a Neanderthal or not, she couldn’t help being practically giddy over him. Consequently, she’d avoided Dan as much as possible.
She’d learned rather quickly that one glance from him could melt her quite completely, and she couldn’t afford to liquefy around him.
At least not until she told him she was a woman.
She finished cleaning up her area and went to face Coach Barringer.
She knocked on his open door.
“Come in.” His voice was stern, commanding.
He was looking at a pad full of x’s and o’s when Terry entered his domain. Considering the crush she had on him, she blushed a little at the symbols for hugs and kisses which Dan was using to diagram offensive and defensive team members in plays he was designing.
This was the first time Terry had been alone with Dan in his office. All her meetings with him before this one had included other trainers, and they’d taken place in the conference room.
Dan looked up and pointed to a chair. “Take a load off, Fiscus. I’ll be with you in a minute.” He looked again at his pad of intricate plays, and made a few changes.
She seated herself in the black tweed armchair the coach had pointed to and waited for him to speak. The longer she waited the more intrigued she became with the handsome coach and his thick dark hair, angular jaw and broad, strong build.
His shoulders looked like they could hold the weight of the Sears Tower.
When minutes passed without him initiating the conversation, she decided to start it herself. “Is there a problem you wanted to discuss with me?” Considering the way she felt about him, being alone with him put her ill at ease. She wanted this meeting over with as soon as possible.
He looked at her with those bone-melting blue eyes of his and leaned back in his black leather, swivel chair. He tapped the pencil in one hand against the index finger of the other.....
---------------------------------
Read more excerpts and watch the "Male Fraud" video at: https://sites.google.com/site/malefra...
Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author
http://sites.google.com/site/fshaff
Resurrected--an Excerpt
Dear Readers, thanks for your interest in excerpts from my books. I'll be posting a few of them during the upcoming weeks.
"Resurrected," the first book in my new Historical Romance "Tender Mysteries Series," is featured this week. "Resurrected" is available for FREE as a download at Amazon, B&N, the I-Books store, Sony, Kobo Books and other places on the Internet. This book is also available in paperback.
Excerpt
Deborah couldn’t believe she was sitting at a table in the middle of Hope, Nebraska’s Town Square pretending to be Steven Paxton’s sweetheart. Of all the silly ideas which had ever been concocted by any human being since the time of Adam and Eve, this had to be the silliest.
“You should always wear pale blue and white, Miss Deborah. You look quite fetching in those colors,” Steven said smoothly.
“You don’t need to say things a beau would say,” Deborah said complacently. “Our charade requires only that you act like we’re lovers, not that you speak as though we were.”
“Forgive me. I’m doing my best to play the part. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Offend me? You didn’t offend me, Mr. Paxton. I just wanted to let you know flirtatious flattery isn’t necessary. You aren’t really my beau. You need only to look like you’re my beau by your actions when we’re in public.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, inclining his head in her direction.
Deborah turned her attention to the people and the setting surrounding her. She inhaled the scent of roses from a nearby flower bed and the fragrance of popcorn being roasted in a big kettle a few feet away.
She carefully scanned the crowd, hoping to eye at least one of the people from the list she and her sisters had compiled of the suspected thieves.
“Do you see anyone we’re looking for?” Steven asked.
She shook her head. “Not yet.” Rather than looking at him as she spoke, she continued her perusal of the folks gathered in Town Square.
For several minutes neither she nor Steven spoke. The silence put her at ease. If Steven wasn’t speaking, if he wasn’t delving into her soul with those scrutinizing blue eyes of his, she wouldn’t have to admit to herself just how unsettled her emotions became whenever he was nearby.
“Mr. Paxton, do you think if we--” She stopped speaking when she felt his hand on hers. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at him in shock.
“I’ve taken your hand so I can hold it the way a beau would,” he said, grinning at her.
“It’s unseemly.” The feel of his warmth against her gloved hand flustered her more than his soul-searching eye contact had when he’d come by the house to collect her earlier.
“A beau taking his lady’s hand is perfectly appropriate, Miss Deborah.”
She shook her head. “This just doesn’t seem right.”
“Yet, you’ve not withdrawn your hand, have you?”
She gave her hand a slight tug, and he tightened his grasp.
“Do you want me to let go of your hand?” he asked softly.
His searing eye contact heated her from crown to soles.
“N-no, I suppose not. I did say we should do things a couple would do, but don’t…don’t you dare say things a beau would say.”
“Never again.”
She gave him a steadfast nod. “Good.”
Another attractive grin touched his lips before his gaze left her and settled on the crowd of people around them.
“Isn’t that short, skinny boy with the round face, mussed-up brown hair and glasses standing near the willow tree Albert Anderson?”
Deborah looked to her left at the lad in the blue plaid shirt and black pants. Her broad brimmed white chapeau with the blue ribbon shaded her eyes from the bright afternoon sunshine. “He’s the Anderson boy alright.”
“He looks harmless enough at the moment.”
“Retarded or not, he’s usually well behaved at public events, but, still, we should keep an eye on him. He could be our thief. He’s taken an uncommon interest in several of our things.”
“I don’t suppose he can get into much trouble eating ice cream at a social,” Steven speculated.
“Let’s hope not,” she said, hoping the boy wasn’t the thief. Considering his mental shortcomings, life had to be difficult enough for the boy without getting into trouble with the law.
A flash of red on her periphery caught Deborah’s attention, and she immediately turned to determine the source of the bright color. Seeing Albert had put her senses on alert, and the presence of one suspect reminded her of the purpose of being at the social with Steven.
Marcie Wilhelm, another suspect, dressed in a bright red, form-fitting dress, stood a few yards away gazing at Deborah. She nodded and twirled her red and white parasol when Deborah caught her eye. “It’s Marcie.”
“Where?” Steven said.
“There, near the man with the handlebar mustache, white shirt and black bow tie.”
Steven glanced in the direction Deborah had indicated. “Do you mean that lovely blonde woman dressed in red is the despised Marcie Wilhelm Susan wants to torture?”
Deborah tugged Steven’s hand, and he looked at her. “She only wants to torture her if she’s taken our mother’s cameo.”
“Yes, of course.” Steven glanced at Marcie again. “I hope she’s not the thief. I’d hate to see any harm come to her. She’s a very beautiful woman.”
His complimentary declaration regarding Marcie set Deborah’s stomach on fire. Humph, she thought, I’m fetching, but she’s beautiful?
“I suppose she is, if you like that kind of girl.”
“What man wouldn’t?”
Deborah jerked his hand. “What did you say?”
Ooh, she hadn’t meant to add such an annoying tone to her words. In fact, she hadn’t meant to say the words out loud at all. She sounded and, worse yet, felt like a jealous shrew when she had no reason to be jealous at all. She and Steven were not sweethearts.
“I said Miss Wilhelm is a beautiful woman, the kind most men would find quite attractive--even men who were in love with someone else altogether.” He tilted his head, a gesture she found terribly attractive, and grinned at her. “A fact is a fact, Miss Deborah, and the fact is that Miss Wilhelm is a lovely lady. Surely you can’t argue against evidence anyone can plainly see,” he said, leaning his head in Marcie’s direction.
Deborah glanced at Marcie briefly before settling her gaze on Steven again. “You’re absolutely correct. Marcie Wilhelm is beautiful.”
“That’s all I’m saying,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“But she might just be a black-hearted thief too!”
---------
God bless all of you, Dear Readers, with a wonderful week.
Fran
Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author
Fran's Web Page
"Resurrected," the first book in my new Historical Romance "Tender Mysteries Series," is featured this week. "Resurrected" is available for FREE as a download at Amazon, B&N, the I-Books store, Sony, Kobo Books and other places on the Internet. This book is also available in paperback.
Excerpt
Deborah couldn’t believe she was sitting at a table in the middle of Hope, Nebraska’s Town Square pretending to be Steven Paxton’s sweetheart. Of all the silly ideas which had ever been concocted by any human being since the time of Adam and Eve, this had to be the silliest.
“You should always wear pale blue and white, Miss Deborah. You look quite fetching in those colors,” Steven said smoothly.
“You don’t need to say things a beau would say,” Deborah said complacently. “Our charade requires only that you act like we’re lovers, not that you speak as though we were.”
“Forgive me. I’m doing my best to play the part. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Offend me? You didn’t offend me, Mr. Paxton. I just wanted to let you know flirtatious flattery isn’t necessary. You aren’t really my beau. You need only to look like you’re my beau by your actions when we’re in public.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, inclining his head in her direction.
Deborah turned her attention to the people and the setting surrounding her. She inhaled the scent of roses from a nearby flower bed and the fragrance of popcorn being roasted in a big kettle a few feet away.
She carefully scanned the crowd, hoping to eye at least one of the people from the list she and her sisters had compiled of the suspected thieves.
“Do you see anyone we’re looking for?” Steven asked.
She shook her head. “Not yet.” Rather than looking at him as she spoke, she continued her perusal of the folks gathered in Town Square.
For several minutes neither she nor Steven spoke. The silence put her at ease. If Steven wasn’t speaking, if he wasn’t delving into her soul with those scrutinizing blue eyes of his, she wouldn’t have to admit to herself just how unsettled her emotions became whenever he was nearby.
“Mr. Paxton, do you think if we--” She stopped speaking when she felt his hand on hers. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at him in shock.
“I’ve taken your hand so I can hold it the way a beau would,” he said, grinning at her.
“It’s unseemly.” The feel of his warmth against her gloved hand flustered her more than his soul-searching eye contact had when he’d come by the house to collect her earlier.
“A beau taking his lady’s hand is perfectly appropriate, Miss Deborah.”
She shook her head. “This just doesn’t seem right.”
“Yet, you’ve not withdrawn your hand, have you?”
She gave her hand a slight tug, and he tightened his grasp.
“Do you want me to let go of your hand?” he asked softly.
His searing eye contact heated her from crown to soles.
“N-no, I suppose not. I did say we should do things a couple would do, but don’t…don’t you dare say things a beau would say.”
“Never again.”
She gave him a steadfast nod. “Good.”
Another attractive grin touched his lips before his gaze left her and settled on the crowd of people around them.
“Isn’t that short, skinny boy with the round face, mussed-up brown hair and glasses standing near the willow tree Albert Anderson?”
Deborah looked to her left at the lad in the blue plaid shirt and black pants. Her broad brimmed white chapeau with the blue ribbon shaded her eyes from the bright afternoon sunshine. “He’s the Anderson boy alright.”
“He looks harmless enough at the moment.”
“Retarded or not, he’s usually well behaved at public events, but, still, we should keep an eye on him. He could be our thief. He’s taken an uncommon interest in several of our things.”
“I don’t suppose he can get into much trouble eating ice cream at a social,” Steven speculated.
“Let’s hope not,” she said, hoping the boy wasn’t the thief. Considering his mental shortcomings, life had to be difficult enough for the boy without getting into trouble with the law.
A flash of red on her periphery caught Deborah’s attention, and she immediately turned to determine the source of the bright color. Seeing Albert had put her senses on alert, and the presence of one suspect reminded her of the purpose of being at the social with Steven.
Marcie Wilhelm, another suspect, dressed in a bright red, form-fitting dress, stood a few yards away gazing at Deborah. She nodded and twirled her red and white parasol when Deborah caught her eye. “It’s Marcie.”
“Where?” Steven said.
“There, near the man with the handlebar mustache, white shirt and black bow tie.”
Steven glanced in the direction Deborah had indicated. “Do you mean that lovely blonde woman dressed in red is the despised Marcie Wilhelm Susan wants to torture?”
Deborah tugged Steven’s hand, and he looked at her. “She only wants to torture her if she’s taken our mother’s cameo.”
“Yes, of course.” Steven glanced at Marcie again. “I hope she’s not the thief. I’d hate to see any harm come to her. She’s a very beautiful woman.”
His complimentary declaration regarding Marcie set Deborah’s stomach on fire. Humph, she thought, I’m fetching, but she’s beautiful?
“I suppose she is, if you like that kind of girl.”
“What man wouldn’t?”
Deborah jerked his hand. “What did you say?”
Ooh, she hadn’t meant to add such an annoying tone to her words. In fact, she hadn’t meant to say the words out loud at all. She sounded and, worse yet, felt like a jealous shrew when she had no reason to be jealous at all. She and Steven were not sweethearts.
“I said Miss Wilhelm is a beautiful woman, the kind most men would find quite attractive--even men who were in love with someone else altogether.” He tilted his head, a gesture she found terribly attractive, and grinned at her. “A fact is a fact, Miss Deborah, and the fact is that Miss Wilhelm is a lovely lady. Surely you can’t argue against evidence anyone can plainly see,” he said, leaning his head in Marcie’s direction.
Deborah glanced at Marcie briefly before settling her gaze on Steven again. “You’re absolutely correct. Marcie Wilhelm is beautiful.”
“That’s all I’m saying,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“But she might just be a black-hearted thief too!”
---------
God bless all of you, Dear Readers, with a wonderful week.
Fran
Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author
Fran's Web Page
Retribution, an Excerpt
Dear Readers, I thank you for your wonderful feedback on "Resurrected" and "Restitution," the first two books of the new Historical Romance "Tender Mysteries Series."
However, according to you, "Retribution," the third book of the series, is your favorite. (It's my favorite too! -- at least until the next books come out later this year and next.)
"Retribution" is a powerful story with an amazing, totally gripping confrontation that takes place when a gun-wielding Susan faces the man responsible for kidnapping her younger sister Bonnie.
April, 1896: Susan Willet vows to capture and boil in oil the man who’s kidnapped her sister Bonnie.
Sheriff Sam Feist realizes Susan is a passionate woman. Her feisty verve is one of the things he finds most attractive about her. However, when she insists on going after a ruthless kidnapper, he’s got no choice but to tell her to stay out of lawmen’s business.
Susan promptly ignores the handsome sheriff’s advice. No one is going to stop her from going after Bonnie. Neither will anyone hinder her from keeping her pledge to seek retribution for her sister’s kidnapping.
As Susan and Sam separately pursue a dastardly abductor, they cross paths. Tensions soar, and hearts break when dangerous liaisons put lives in peril and lead to a violent confrontation which changes Susan’s life forever.
EXCERPT
Setup: Susan and Sam have crossed paths on their separate pursuits of the kidnapper.
He’d expected she might pull her hand away, but she didn’t. Instead, she squeezed his hand tightly and let him take her safely away from the campsite and onto the road.
When they’d walked west and covered about fifty yards along the road he asked, “Are you feeling better now, Miss Willet?”
“Maybe…I don’t know…” She let go of his hand, stopped walking and looked up at him.
In the dim moonlight, below the twinkling stars and scattered clouds, she was more beautiful than ever. Her lovely auburn hair, which had been wet from a fresh washing when he’d held her earlier, had dried into a mass of soft curls, framing her face in a most elegant way.
“I don’t expect I’ll begin to feel better until Bonnie is safely home.”
He touched her chin. “I wish I could take away your pain. You don’t deserve to suffer another loss, not after all you’ve been through.”
She turned away from him. “Never mind my pain. It’s Bonnie’s sufferings I’m concerned about,” she said, looking at him again. “We’ve got to bring her back! I’ve got to see to it she’s home with us again.” She spun away and folded her arms. “Oh, why didn’t I go to the school to meet her?”
She suddenly bent over and began to retch.
Sam went straight to her and held her hair away from her face until she finished being sick.
“Please, Miss Susan,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulders when she straightened up, “you’ve got to stop second guessing your actions. You did nothing wrong. The man who took Miss Bonnie is evil, and evil does what it desires. You couldn’t have stopped him.”
She pulled a frilly hanky from the pocket of her pretty dark green dress and wiped her mouth. “I suppose you’re right.” She sighed and returned her hanky to its home.
She took him by surprise when she turned inside the embrace of the arm he had around her shoulders and wrapped her arms around him.
Instinctively, he held her close.
“I’m cold,” she said as she laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m cold and tired, so cold and tired. I haven’t felt this spent since Deborah, Molly and I endured the misery of recovering the lifeless bodies of our family members after the flood.”
Sam tightened his hold on her and closed his eyes as a queasy feeling stirred in his belly. Dear heaven, she’d had to participate in recovering the blanched, hard bodies of her family and friends after the flood had destroyed the wagon train? She was still a child back in eighty-eight!
He stroked her hair as he realized he was holding the strongest woman God had ever created.
“If you’re cold, Miss Willet, we’d better return to camp. It’d be best if you put on your wool coat and snuggled into your pallet for the night.”
The last thing Sam wanted to do was let go of her, but she needed a bed and a night’s sleep more than she needed anything else. If she could get some rest she’d feel much better.
He reluctantly eased her out of his arms and took her hand. Without saying another word he led her toward the campsite.
To his surprise, Miss Elizabeth met them about twenty yards from the fire. She was bubbling with excitement.
“She left us a clue!” she exclaimed. “I searched the history book, and I found a clue from Bonnie. I know exactly where she’s been taken!”
-----------------
"Retribution" is now available in e-book at: Amazon, B&N, I-Books, Kobo Books, Sony and other places on the Internet. The paperback edition will be available later this spring.
-----------------
Best wishes for a good week!
Fran
Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author
Fran's Web Page
However, according to you, "Retribution," the third book of the series, is your favorite. (It's my favorite too! -- at least until the next books come out later this year and next.)
"Retribution" is a powerful story with an amazing, totally gripping confrontation that takes place when a gun-wielding Susan faces the man responsible for kidnapping her younger sister Bonnie.
April, 1896: Susan Willet vows to capture and boil in oil the man who’s kidnapped her sister Bonnie.
Sheriff Sam Feist realizes Susan is a passionate woman. Her feisty verve is one of the things he finds most attractive about her. However, when she insists on going after a ruthless kidnapper, he’s got no choice but to tell her to stay out of lawmen’s business.
Susan promptly ignores the handsome sheriff’s advice. No one is going to stop her from going after Bonnie. Neither will anyone hinder her from keeping her pledge to seek retribution for her sister’s kidnapping.
As Susan and Sam separately pursue a dastardly abductor, they cross paths. Tensions soar, and hearts break when dangerous liaisons put lives in peril and lead to a violent confrontation which changes Susan’s life forever.
EXCERPT
Setup: Susan and Sam have crossed paths on their separate pursuits of the kidnapper.
He’d expected she might pull her hand away, but she didn’t. Instead, she squeezed his hand tightly and let him take her safely away from the campsite and onto the road.
When they’d walked west and covered about fifty yards along the road he asked, “Are you feeling better now, Miss Willet?”
“Maybe…I don’t know…” She let go of his hand, stopped walking and looked up at him.
In the dim moonlight, below the twinkling stars and scattered clouds, she was more beautiful than ever. Her lovely auburn hair, which had been wet from a fresh washing when he’d held her earlier, had dried into a mass of soft curls, framing her face in a most elegant way.
“I don’t expect I’ll begin to feel better until Bonnie is safely home.”
He touched her chin. “I wish I could take away your pain. You don’t deserve to suffer another loss, not after all you’ve been through.”
She turned away from him. “Never mind my pain. It’s Bonnie’s sufferings I’m concerned about,” she said, looking at him again. “We’ve got to bring her back! I’ve got to see to it she’s home with us again.” She spun away and folded her arms. “Oh, why didn’t I go to the school to meet her?”
She suddenly bent over and began to retch.
Sam went straight to her and held her hair away from her face until she finished being sick.
“Please, Miss Susan,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulders when she straightened up, “you’ve got to stop second guessing your actions. You did nothing wrong. The man who took Miss Bonnie is evil, and evil does what it desires. You couldn’t have stopped him.”
She pulled a frilly hanky from the pocket of her pretty dark green dress and wiped her mouth. “I suppose you’re right.” She sighed and returned her hanky to its home.
She took him by surprise when she turned inside the embrace of the arm he had around her shoulders and wrapped her arms around him.
Instinctively, he held her close.
“I’m cold,” she said as she laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m cold and tired, so cold and tired. I haven’t felt this spent since Deborah, Molly and I endured the misery of recovering the lifeless bodies of our family members after the flood.”
Sam tightened his hold on her and closed his eyes as a queasy feeling stirred in his belly. Dear heaven, she’d had to participate in recovering the blanched, hard bodies of her family and friends after the flood had destroyed the wagon train? She was still a child back in eighty-eight!
He stroked her hair as he realized he was holding the strongest woman God had ever created.
“If you’re cold, Miss Willet, we’d better return to camp. It’d be best if you put on your wool coat and snuggled into your pallet for the night.”
The last thing Sam wanted to do was let go of her, but she needed a bed and a night’s sleep more than she needed anything else. If she could get some rest she’d feel much better.
He reluctantly eased her out of his arms and took her hand. Without saying another word he led her toward the campsite.
To his surprise, Miss Elizabeth met them about twenty yards from the fire. She was bubbling with excitement.
“She left us a clue!” she exclaimed. “I searched the history book, and I found a clue from Bonnie. I know exactly where she’s been taken!”
-----------------
"Retribution" is now available in e-book at: Amazon, B&N, I-Books, Kobo Books, Sony and other places on the Internet. The paperback edition will be available later this spring.
-----------------
Best wishes for a good week!
Fran
Fran Shaff, Award-Winning Author
Fran's Web Page
