Connie Chappell's Blog

Hello Friends!

And welcome to the New Year!

I’m looking forward to 2020 because the fourth book in my Wrenn Grayson Mystery Series will be released. Before that happens, you’ll want to read the series’ third book, Lily White Lie. The Kindle edition can be downloaded FREE on January 8, 9 and 10. I hope you take advantage of this offer.

What I enjoyed most about writing Lily White Lie was the creation of new character, Bret Kilmore. He needed to be carefully sculpted. The man is designed to be a flirt and a tease, both crass and charming. To some, Wrenn’s boyfriend included, he is legend. It is also clear from the first time Wrenn sets her eye on him, that he is notorious by all accounts. He’s a man of rough edges, like diamonds, but he can be polished up to cut glass.

By that description, you can see I had my work cut out for me. The man who is first described as possessing a hero complex grows on impatient Wrenn. By the end of the book, Bret is better understood as a complex hero. He stands out as endearing and truly likeable.

On the pages leading up to Chapter One, you’ll find the last two lines of Henry Lawson’s poem, The Wander-Light. They unite Wrenn and Bret, who both find an inner meaning in them. The lines read:

I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not,
And restless and lost on a road that I know.

The following two quotes from reviews posted on Online Book Club tell a little more of the mystery’s story:

“With Lily White Lie’s combination of small-town politics and historical symbolism, it might be seen as a kind of Murder She Wrote meets The Da Vinci Code.”

And:

“This book is flawless.”

Sometimes, it only takes a few words.

All of my novels are standalone books and can be read in any order. They are also available on Kindle Unlimited and through KOLL.

Remember, download Lily White Lie on January 8, 9, or 10.

Happy reading...

Connie Chappell
Lily White Lie
https://conniechappell.com
Sign up on my website for direct delivery of my newsletter and to learn about other free offers.

Hello Friends!

I write two series in two different genres: literary fiction and literary mystery. The second book in the Wild Raspberries series, titled Proper Goodbye, and the second book in the Wrenn Grayson Mystery series, Designs on Ivy’s Locket, are both FREE Kindle downloads on December 19.

When I wrote Wild Raspberries, my character Beebe Walker stepped up and described a part of her life that took me by surprise. Characters can do this to authors. Sometimes, they just take over. Beebe’s revelation into her past caused my skin to prickle. I knew there was another story that needed telling. Suddenly, the series that wasn’t intended to be a series was born. Proper Goodbye contains an amazing storyline that was so strong the story poured out of me in just three months’ time.

On the other hand, the Wrenn Grayson Mystery series was intended to be a series at the outset. I sat down one day to get the wheels in my brain turning for a second plot and it came to me that I wanted a jeweler in the story. As the jeweler came to life, he told me the story of three lockets he designed, each connected to his wife’s three pregnancies. Then Ivy’s locket was stolen. I hadn’t intended the story to build on these three lockets, but it was such interesting background that it became the focus of the mystery. Because of the lockets’ personal significance, the jeweler was heartbroken over Ivy’s loss.

If you’re asking me, you should treat yourself to these two books. Despite the fact that these books are written for their respective series, all the books I write are standalone novels. You can pick these up while they’re free on the 19th and not feel like you’ve been thrust into the middle of another story. That won’t happen.

In 2020, the final book in the Wild Raspberries series will be released. The mystery series is ongoing. Book three in the series, Lily White Lie, is available. Book four, Honeysuckle Blue Revenge, also has a 2020 release date.

Happy holidays, all...

Connie Chappell
Proper Goodbye
Designs on Ivy's Locket
https://conniechappell.com
Sign up on my website for direct delivery of my newsletter and to learn about other free offers.

Hello Friends!

I found myself in a reminiscent frame of mind today. Nearly twelve years ago, I developed the Wrenn Grayson Mystery Series. I love to read mystery series, so I thought, if I’m going to put all my passion into writing, why not head down that road? I connected the mystery series to another passion of mine, my hometown’s history. That would be Springfield, Ohio.

In the first mystery, Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont, we meet Wrenn, a resident of the fictional town of Havens, Ohio, as she's putting out her shingle, Historian for Hire.

Wrenn bravely announces to the world that she is willing to sift through dusty boxes of old records, bend over tattered journals (a back-breaking job), and, despite her dread of cellars, descend those creaky stairs into the dank, cobweb-laced, and windowless recesses under turn-of-the century Victorians to retrieve whatever treasure, memory, or mystery might be hidden there.

Wrenn meets all the challenges laid before her in the first novel, a double-header. She chases a murderer and a thief. Trey Rosemont is found dead in his family home, the mansion at the edge of town. The thief stole priceless Egyptian artifacts from the local university.

I’ve always found the history of the ancient Egyptians, their pyramids, gods, goddesses, and civilization, such a marvel. The research I put into the antiquities later described in the book as the stolen items was the rewarding part of the writing for me.

In honor of Wrenn Grayson, her endurance and intelligence throughout the series, I offer all dedicated mystery readers a chance to download a FREE Kindle version of Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont on December 11, 12, or 13. The series remains ongoing. Book 4 is coming in 2020.

Thanks for walking down memory lane with me. Happy reading...

Connie Chappell
Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
https://conniechappell.com
Sign up on my website for direct delivery of my newsletter and other free offers.

Hello Mystery Fans,

Designs on Ivy’s Locket is the second installment in my Wrenn Grayson Mysteries series. This new mystery will be released in early November, 2017.

Today, and for a limited time, I’m offering readers the opportunity to sign up to be a member on my Prime Mystery Readers launch team. In exchange for signing up, you’ll receive a free Wrenn Grayson mini-mystery. The mini-mystery is titled Rose Petal Haunt. In it, you’ll meet Wrenn as a college student.

With launch team membership comes more excellent news! You’ll be notified when the new Wrenn Grayson mystery is officially released. Team members get an opportunity to receive a free copy of the mystery with the promise to provide a review. The review can be long or short. You decide. The theme behind Designs on Ivy’s Locket is: Parents and children…separated by death, by theft, and by design.

Here's the link. Sign up as a team member now and download the mini-mystery within minutes.

Keep in mind, this is a limited-time offer. Hope to see you on the Mystery Prime Readers launch list!

Happy reading,
Connie Chappell
Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Wild Raspberries
Proper Goodbye

Hello, Friends! I hope you’ll sit down with me for an interview with Caleb Wygal. Caleb is a very fine Goodreads author. Together, we’ll enter the world where Caleb creates his wonderful action-filled novels. His most recent release is Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries & Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
http://www.conniechappell.com/
Wild Raspberries
Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont

AN INTERVIEW WITH CALEB WYGAL

How do you get inspired to write?
My inspiration comes from within. Many years ago, I thought to myself, “I know that life is short. How can I leave something that will leave a mark, and possibly be discovered by someone a hundred or a thousand years in the future?” Writing a book was my answer. Now that I’ve completed a third, half of another, and started a fifth, it’s an addiction. I am driven to complete what I started, and I want to do it in the best possible way.

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
I got the idea while I was on vacation in South Carolina. My wife and I watched a show on the History Channel about pirates, and Blackbeard in particular. It struck me that he had been in the same waters three hundred years before. During that same week, I learned about how the first settler to the island we were on had his plantation destroyed in an attack by unknown pirates. I asked the question to myself: What if that was Blackbeard? Thus, the idea for Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure was born.

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?
Practice, practice, practice. Don’t be afraid of what others will think of your writing. Let it come from the heart. Write with the door closed, and don’t open it to others until you have your first draft complete.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?
I love being able to create worlds and craft characters. My two main characters in Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure, Darwin and Lucas, grow as the story goes on, and by the end, they have a different outlook on life. Sometimes, as with my murder mystery A Murder in Concord, I like setting an elaborate scene with a dead body dropped in the middle of it. Lucas found himself as the only suspect and took it upon himself to clear his name. To do that, he had to figure out the puzzle for himself during the book while having to run from another character with, um, bad intentions. For me, the challenge was figuring it out myself on the fly. That was fun.

How do you deal with writer’s block?
Take a shower or go for a drive. I kid you not, most of my best ideas come from those two places.

What is your current book about?
A 300-year old mystery from one of the world’s most notorious pirates leads to the adventure of a lifetime for two friends – an adventure which could lead to fame and fortune, or to their deaths. Deep within the archives at a museum in Raleigh, North Carolina, Darwin Trickett makes the discovery of a lifetime: the diary of Blackbeard’s wife and a folded treasure map tucked in its pages. He asks Lucas Caine for assistance in helping find the location marked on the map which they believe was drawn by Blackbeard. Now, these two friends embark on a journey in search of treasure. They uncover clues leading them to several locations along the Carolina coast while being shadowed by a group of mysterious men. By the time Darwin and Lucas unravel the puzzle, they find themselves fighting for their lives. What happens next will rewrite the history books and change the two men’s lives forever.

What book/movie/etc. is it comparable to?
I use real settings and events from the past to tie together a believable story in much the way Clive Cussler and Dan Brown do.

What are you working on now?
An action/adventure novel about the search for the Fountain of Youth using the same cast of characters from Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure.


Spend a little more time with Caleb through a visit to his website:
http://www.calebwygal.com/
Blackbeard's Lost Treasure

Remember: The future is another story!
Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries & Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
http://www.conniechappell.com/

Hello, Friends! This week’s short story is one of my very favorites. Whisper of Footsteps tells the story of a woman who relives an odd, mystical connection she feels with an old mansion and the rapport that blossomed with an artist she meets there.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Visit my website: http://www.conniechappell.com/

Whisper of Footsteps

I waited a safe distance away. The casual observer might assume I spied an old acquaintance among the trio descending the front porch steps. In truth, my old acquaintance was the manor house itself. Our intimacy felt fresh, familiar, as if a decade had not passed since our last conversation.

This house always speaks to me, I thought, as spears of sunlight warmed my back and I stepped over the curb to a grassy strip.

My hand rested on a cast-iron hitching post in the shape of a horse’s head. I read the oversized FOR SALE sign wired high to bars of iron fencing. An OPEN HOUSE invitation was staked to the ground beneath. Happenstance brought me by on Sunday between the hours of one and three.

The fencing broke for the front walk. The old cement was cracked and pock-marked, darkened by age and weather, stained by wet leaves and countless footsteps, from horsemen’s boots and dainty satin slippers to the many deliverymen’s rubber soles and now my navy flats.

Previous visits never took me farther than the tree inside the front gate. Back then, I was a young, impressionable coed when I stepped off a square of cement and into the shade of a neighboring maple. I found an artist there, sitting on a stool, her canvas before her on an easel.

Introductions were merely a formality. Penny and I possessed instant rapport. And both, it seemed, on assignment. Where she’d been commissioned by the owners to paint their Italian Renaissance home, I’d been encouraged by my architectural arts professor to write a paper for extra credit. In his opinion, my participation in class lacked enthusiasm, which my final grade would dully reflect.

The extra assignment evoked more disinterest. He expected me to make a cold, dry comparison of the style beyond the fence with the tone a tourist would read in a pamphlet supplied by the chamber of commerce for a walking tour through the town’s historic district. My professor would flunk me for sure if I added a speck of warmth or sentiment.

The historic district was filled with two- and three-story structures, built in the last quarter of the eighteen-hundreds. The dignified mansions sat back a good distance from the street on magnificently tailored lawns. They shared an unblemished view of the world passing by, seeing a century turn, then, incredibly, another.

Every afternoon for a week, I sped off campus and found Penny perched in the same spot, the house bathed in the same light. We talked, and I watched her paint. With her delicate brushstrokes, the premise of my assignment clouded and changed. I became inspired to blend in an artist’s perspective. Penny’s viewpoint would add a human touch.

While I sat cross-legged on the lawn, while discussion of painting techniques turned personal, the house repeatedly made contact.

I mistook the buzzing around my head, appearing like snippets of home movies on brittle celluloid, for a mental reminder of my looming deadline. The imaginings became inextricably mixed with the heartfelt story I heard by week’s end: Penny, a bride of two years, quietly revealed that twelve months earlier, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Surgery followed swiftly. For one grieving heartbeat, the artist’s brush quelled. By the time healing strokes sought canvas again, a tear slipped off my cheek, a mournful track laid for the babies she would never know.

The house competed with the moment. I looked up. A curtain fluttered behind an open, second-story window. One that would be blessed with morning light. Somehow, I understood the house had known sadness and loss. Not like Penny’s. But the birth and death of a child.

Penny touched angular bristles to her palette, breathed a reminiscent sigh, and surprised me by talking of her dream for a family. She omitted great detail, but painted with wide strokes of teasing boys and shy girls. For my benefit, the house overlaid Penny’s dream with particulars. It spun yarns of daily life, of chimney sweeps and spilled milk. The change of seasons ran by, and a smaller version of today’s maple dropped leaves the color of sunbursts into a sharp wind. The house painted a picture of rowdy sons in knickers and daughters with their heads together, sharing secrets, their hairstyles swept up with tiny curls silhouetting innocent faces.

A questioning voice interrupted my reverie. I approached the real estate agent. She moved down the front steps ahead of the middle-aged couple. Behind them, the richly stained mahogany door stood wide. I reciprocated her polite invitation to step inside and look around by insisting she not rush away from the perspective buyers. If truth be told, I preferred time alone with the house since we were such old friends.

I passed slowly into the entry hall and looked from a polished floor up to a railed landing where my imagination played with scurrying sounds tempted to descend the staircase. When they shied away, I moved toward the doorway on my right. It opened to an empty expanse of hardwood floor. I crossed the hall and found its twin also divested of furniture. It was well lit, with draperies tied back.

That’s when I saw it.

Of course, I thought, it would be sold with the house. The new owners would treasure Penny’s painting.

I tiptoed to the landscape. It hung lengthwise over the fireplace, its mantelpiece made of chiseled marble, oak, and brick. I studied the familiar brushstrokes, then tracked the honey-stained frame to the corner signature. Penny’s talented hand layered the acrylics, dabbing soft sunlight across the flowerbeds, hinting at a shadow behind the lamp post, and adding a myriad of finishing touches.

In the end, the paper I presented my professor wended an imagined history with architectural style. My infused enthusiasm made the mark. The paper was neither written with the house’s view of the world, nor an artist’s eye for detail. Even the human touch seemed somewhat abstract. The story became intertwined with the balance of hues from Penny’s palette and memories supplied by the house.

I tried to breathe life into the whisper of little footsteps dancing along the garden path and the echo of a child’s laughter spinning through the eaves. I told a charming tale about the heartthrob of anticipation waiting just beyond the threshold. And I prayed I did justice to the memory of bittersweet tears spilling over the sash of the nursery’s window in the quiet of a September dawn. All that would never be for the artist mending her heart under the towering maple.

I heard a sound behind me and assumed the real estate agent would pounce on my captivation with the painting. Reluctantly, I turned toward the doorway.

My mind’s eye stood Penny there, not looking a day older. Her gaze traveled to the ceiling. She tipped an ear upward as a loving mother might, straining to hear the sleeping breaths of a child.

“Listen,” she said.

The End

I hope you enjoyed Whisper of Footsteps. The ending chokes me up every time I read it. I hope it tugged at your heartstrings too.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Visit my website: http://www.conniechappell.com/

Hello, Friends! This week’s short story, Wait For Me, was published in 2015 in the literary journal, The Write Place At the Write Time. It’s the story of a young widow who makes a heartfelt connection with a Canadian Longneck Goose. The goose has also lost her mate.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Visit my website: http://www.conniechappell.com/

Wait For Me

A ghostly fog hung over the wetland. Two unblinking inky pools looked out of it.

The asphalt road beneath my feet gave way to gravel, but my focus didn’t waver from the goose’s head, shrouded in slender reeds.

In the cool May morning, stillness prevailed.

I stepped around a clump of wheat-colored grass for a full view of the goose. Her visibly quick heart told me to hold my distance. We stood fifteen feet apart in uncanny communication. The goose remained virtually frozen in one spot while I ran an early-morning errand. Both times I passed, I felt her piercing eyes, silently summoning me.

The wetland served as Wildwood Preserve’s entrance. Within Wildwood’s borders, homes were tethered to a string of preservation covenants.

Twenty-plus years ago, as a young wife, I moved from my father’s house to this home. In all that time, I never knew a goose to wander this close to the road.

Satisfied the Canadian Longneck wasn’t injured, I headed back toward the pond to look for her mate.

“Wait for me,” I said over my shoulder to the feathered sentinel. My words caught me mid-stride, as natural as the habitat surrounding me.

I pushed down the beaten-dirt lane, remembering the day I bounded into my father’s study. He wasn’t its only occupant. The interruption brought both men to their feet. In the sacred moment that passed before Drew Nelson and I were introduced, a bond at a level we could never explain sealed around us.

Daddy sensed it instantly. He slid nervous eyes from me to Drew and back again.

“Anna,” he said, his voice the bearer of reason.

I’d upended their business discussion, so, with a wave of dismissal, Daddy agreed I could show Drew the grounds.

That day, I uttered the same three words to Drew. “Wait for me.”

They were not a plea, not for that place, not for the five steps he gained on me while I stopped to latch the corral fence, but for the future rushing at me so quickly, I feared it would run me down.

Coming back, he let his dark eyes search mine. “I don’t believe I have any other choice,” he said.

I spent the next few weeks persuasively countering Daddy’s arguments. “Yes, Daddy, I know Drew is twenty-four and I won’t be sixteen for two months. Yes, Daddy, you’re his boss, but remember—Mother was eleven years younger than you.”

I was raised in a home filled with abounding love and intelligent conversation, where my parents spoke to their only child as an adult. Maturity came early, and Mother’s sudden death months after my twelfth birthday set that maturity on an accelerated course.

Until I came of age, Daddy would only approve an old-fashioned courtship. His watchful eye assured all was the pentacle of propriety through the two intervening years. Drew and I played tennis on the backyard court. We rode the chestnut mares out, then walked them back along the bridle path.

Every day, I prayed that Drew would wait.

And he did.

The path to the pond ended at a flat boulder. I stepped up to look around a young willow and into the shady cove sheltered by a perimeter of tall pines. Cattails stationed at the hidden inlet’s mouth stood soldier-straight like a platoon of armed guards. I stared hard into the misty gloom. Through that span of seconds, the sun struggled through breaks in the trees.

I knew a Canadian Longneck would stay behind to nurse its mate while the flock moved on, but defused light showed an empty bank, and still water as unyielding as glass.

When I turned to step down from the rock, I saw the scattering of evidence: bloody feathers and animal tracks in the dirt. My chin dropped. Nursing could not prevent the course of nature that led through thick underbrush into the trees. The goose and I, both new widows, shared the same endless days hollowed by the loss of a mate. My Drew was taken, too. In his case, the predator was cancer.

I plodded back. The Canadian Longneck had not strayed. She watched while I eased as close as I dared, then bowed her head. An unbearable longing was all that remained.

Carrying that mournful image, I walked out to the road. There, I spoke my heart’s relentless question. “How long will this hurt?”

The words caught on a breeze and hurried away, along the immeasurable stretch toward home.

The End

I hope you enjoyed Anna’s story. You may have a tear in your eye. That’s to be expected. I firmly believe the connection described can exist between human beings and animals. It’s happened to me more than once. Each time, it’s been a captivating moment.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Visit my website: http://www.conniechappell.com/

Hello, Friends! This week’s posting switches gears. With the honoring of our country’s veterans earlier in the week, I offer this story. A woman recalls a soldier’s life, reconciles his fears and courage, and accepts a sacred trust that death would not take him while he was alone.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Visit my website: http://www.conniechappell.com/


The Soldier

Among my memories lives a painted canvas depicting a time and a place of which I am too young to have personal knowledge. It retains its vividness yet today because the soldier supplied the brushstrokes.

The scene visualizes a group of buddies. They sit in a small room lit by one dim bulb. Their current station is base camp, behind the lines of a jungle war. Conversation has dwindled with the mood. On a table near the door, a record spins on the player. The arm lifts with drill-sergeant precision to play the ballad over and over again.

One of the soldiers occupies a seat at the screened window. He peers out into the night. He’s the farthest from the puddle of lamplight, but I know him because he’s folded himself into a position as recognizable as my own face. His left boot has been drawn up into the chair, his left forearm balanced on the raised knee. There in the dark, where no one can see, the song’s sentiment washes with resounding clarity against the sweet romantic’s heart.

That soldier returned to a pretense of civilian life. Years later, Destiny paired us as tennis partners, so the partnership could ease into a friendship. Our league of twenty-four had finished play for the evening. As tradition demanded, everyone stayed behind on the club’s mezzanine to savor victories and moan over defeats.

I was close when two men dressed in desert camo arrived at the top of the stairs. I followed their gazes to my partner’s. His change in demeanor was conspicuous.

I heard the taller of the newcomers tell him, “The mission’s set for tonight.”

I frowned at the words and at the title he’d used. He’d addressed my partner as colonel. I knew him professionally to be an engineer. On occasion, yes, he’d peddled himself as a super-hero. I’d laughed at his joke. He did have the shoulders for a cape, and a waist and hips, trim for a man at middle age. My reverie snapped when I heard the trio pounding down the stairs. Something spurred me into motion, and I fled down after him.

They were ready to pile out the door. I spewed words that brought them around to face me. The man who was my tennis partner came back a step. He had just spoken my name when an odd transformation occurred. I watched a colonel, unknown to me, set out an invisible barrier. The start of a smile faded; his eyes dulled. With military starch, he forced a common farewell, then turned to lead his men out into an October night.

The door banged shut. The shiver that ran through me was not triggered by the cold air that had leaked in to swirl around bared arms and legs. No, I trembled with the eerie premonition that it would be a long time before I saw him again.

He stayed on my mind, out on the fringes, but, more often than I would have thought, slipping through to the forefront.

Five days later, I was standing behind my office desk when he appeared in the doorway, shoulders relaxed, hands in his pockets. Five days is not such a long time unless you’ve spent them burning with worry and questions. My knees broke at the sight of him, and I sat down hard. Thank God, the chair was behind me. He wore not a scratch, neither a bump, nor a bruise. His eyes brightened with amused appreciation for my hazy, collapsed state.

He steered me away with an offer for lunch I was not permitted to refuse. How commanding of him, I thought later when I’d regained my senses and the colonel was back, sitting across the table, giving me a look that said he’d provided an explanation and my probing questions had to stop. I was startled that—perhaps to take the sting out—he extended another invitation to dine, but not as startled as when I no longer felt stung and accepted.

What he’d told me was that he led an elitist group of four men. What he didn’t have to tell me was that they were civilians attached to no reservist base I knew of.

Around the occasional olive-drab trips out of town, we grew close, and, despite a difference in years, reached our inevitable destination. Age, it seems, has no influence over affairs of the hearts.

I returned the next May from a business conference, confident I knew the features of that destination well, but my weeklong absence had had its effect on him. It had peeled away a layer of camouflage, leaving new skin so deeply sensitive that it exposed his love as if the emotion had overcome him for the first time.

The man who came to the airport terminal took my face in his hands as he had never done before, gave me a glimpse of lonely eyes, and leaned in with a kiss that claimed me. He perpetuated the tingling moment by whispering a question in my ear, a prayerful one that would become repetitive in my life. Its underlying meaning spoke of his utter vulnerability where I was concerned. My throat tightened as did my embrace.

Spring melded into the hottest part of summer with a decade in between. The course of world events had changed. The Cold War and the four-man team were no more. I stood at the screen door looking out to his place on the patio. In the compressing darkness, I could make out his form. He sat with a foot up in the chair, an arm laid across his knee. I slipped into the chair beside his. The covered patio had protected him from the evening’s monsoon-like downpour. That, in turn, had freed a cascade of memories.

The soldier had drifted to a faraway time when he crept through a jungle, all senses in play. He spoke to me of the slap of rain on the leaves, their drip through the double canopy so very similar to the one surrounding our woodland home, and, when he sniffed the air, the imagined scent of cordite.

He found my hand and laced his fingers through mine. While his thumb softly massaged my skin, a story bled out of him. It spun on one particular ballad—a wartime love song that had a soldier hopelessly pining for a lover. The words and music had worked on the young soldier until his heart held one undeniable certainty and, as I listened, mine with an identical measure of pain. While separated from his lover, this soldier was destined to meet Death alone. In this tenet the man beside me firmly believed. It was sorely engrained in him, like the grooves of an old forty-five rpm.

Numb at the revelation, I struggled to understand the dedicated soldier and the soldier’s fear. One seemed incompatible with the other. The virtue that finally reconciled it was courage. Wanting to speak, I stumbled around in my thoughts for any response profoundly equal to his confession. It was devastating to realize that no words I owned could fight his fear and win. Every phrase of comfort seemed minimal to the task; no promise I could make, an absolute. Vested with this sacred trust, I accepted life’s final mission. If breath still filled my lungs, I vowed to myself, Death would not take him while he was alone.

I rose in the predawn of Veterans Day and wrapped myself inside a robe as if it were impenetrable armor. No force of man or nature could have stopped me from playing the recording that had defined him. I put Unchained Melody in the changer to repeat.

For the first dozen times it played, I attributed the lyrics to the soldier with an inescapable loneliness deployed overseas while I was but a babe-in-arms. Infallible in its planning, Destiny patiently nurtured the young and protected the brave until time and circumstance sifted to its precise blend.

Tears streamed my cheeks, and yet I crooned the bittersweet words. They spoke of a longed-for homecoming, to the detrimental passage of time, and with an inconsolable plea for reassurance that had been whispered in my ear more times than I could count.

As gradient light rose in the eastern sky, I watched him step through scenes in my life—a changeling at the bottom of the stairs, filling my office doorway, late night at an airport gate.

When I could sing no more, when it was I who ached with loneliness, but could feel his presence like a fathom limb, I succumbed to the mighty musician’s melodic sway. The rhythm built to a cymbal-crashing crescendo that buckled my knees. And he was there once more, pulling me near. I leaned on his inner strength as I had when, gently, I held his face in my hands, when he slipped away with a sigh of words on his lips.

Or, had they been on mine?

“Oh, my love, wait for me.”

The End

I hope you liked this story. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s told from the heart. We have our veterans to thank for the freedoms we enjoy every day. What a blessing it would be though, to know a world without war. Take care.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
Visit my website: http://www.conniechappell.com/

Hello, Friends! Here’s the conclusion of our funny story, Fire and Lace. Jillian Graham is a young woman with a lingerie fetish, who struggles through a particularly hectic day filled with relatives, an apartment fire, and a bossy fireman. If this is your first time joining us, you may want to back up to Part 1.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
http://www.conniechappell.com/

Fire and Lace
Part 3 of 3

Jillian pushed a flustered Evie toward the kitchen’s wall-mounted phone. She took precise steps as she set out, careful not to trip over a broom and dustpan abandoned on the floor. The alarm itself bellowed from a point directly over Jillian’s head. In near rage with the confounded contraption, Jillian grabbed the broom and rammed the handle into the device. The battery compartment fell open, disabling the horn.

“Thank God,” she exclaimed.

The silence was profound until the smell of burning plastic overpowered it. Jillian turned. In the elapsed seconds, the melting jug shifted position. It now hung over the flaming towel.

Reaching out with the wooden broom handle, she held her breath and edged the burning terrycloth away. The broom handle was smoking, but not lit, when she pulled it back. The jug still blocked the burner knob. The broom seemed unwieldy for the angle she needed to dislodge the jug without bouncing it on the floor. She couldn’t pull the pot away because the jug would fall into the gas flame. Before she made a move, she was shouldered painfully aside by a fireman.

Jillian’s already-taut nerves snapped along with her neck. She opened her mouth to object to the rough treatment, but his words filled the space between them.

“Get out of here. Burning plastic gives off toxic fumes. Older people are especially at risk.” The scolding fireman tipped his head Evie’s direction.

The tight flame-retardant hood he wore exposed a tangle of tawny hair. His own breathing mask dangled beneath his chin, apparently yanked off for the express purpose of chewing her out. He appeared heroic, though, holding a babe-in-arms fire extinguisher trained on the flames. Jillian, on the other hand, cradled a witch’s broom while over in the corner, Evie cowered. Jillian viewed the heart-wrenching sight. Her friend turned feeble right before her eyes.

When the fireman shouted, “Go,” she jumped to action, dropping the broom. The order was punctuated by a blast from the extinguisher.

Convincing Evie she needed to escape the poisonous atmosphere spreading through her apartment wasn’t easily accomplished. Evie’s unsteady footsteps and contrary attitude made progress agonizingly slow.

A blue-uniformed paramedic arrived in the doorway just as Evie’s knees started to fold. The female paramedic rushed forward. Between the two of them, they ferried Evie to the couch. Her breathing was labored, her cheeks flushed. Jillian’s eyes began to sting. It soon became apparent nothing short of tying Evie to a gurney would move her out of the building.

In a flash, Jillian made a decision. “Let’s go to my place, Evie. Please.” To the paramedic: “I’m right across the hall.”

She nodded at the plan, then took the lead. Standing back, Jillian watched the metamorphosis. The paramedic placed Evie’s hand gently between both of hers and introduced herself as Roberta. Leaning in, she added, “But the guys call me Bert.” Her eyes sparkled in a way that said Evie was just let in on a delicious secret. Instantly, the paramedic and the reluctant widow became chums.

“I’m locked out of my apartment,” Jillian said to Bert, “but Evie has a key. I’ll be right behind you.”

That drew a second nod. Bert, then, raised a compliant Evie from her seat and turned her toward the door.

Jillian spun toward the desk. Her hand was clasped on the drawer pull when the fireman appeared in her face. His hood was off. He raked fingers through thick, damp hair.

“We need to clear this smoke. Have you got any fans?” The inquiry came with a sharpness that said, since you’re still around mucking up the situation, you might as well be useful in rectifying it.

Behind him, Jillian observed another fireman setting Evie’s big box fan on the kitchen table, directing it toward the opened window. The questioning fireman’s long, soot-stained coat hung open. A snug undershirt clung to his muscled torso. A ray of refracted sunlight winked off one of the coat’s metal closure buckles, the kind that peeled back to release. She decided to work the same magic on his middle finger. It was curled around the desk’s front edge and prevented her from sliding out the lap drawer. A little backwards pressure did the trick. He yanked his hand away and rose to full height.

“I’ve just about got your first assignment under control,” she said curtly. “I suppose I can tackle another.” She plucked the key ring out of the drawer. “Thank God I’m here.”

Turning, she hurried into the parlor. It held all the congestion of rush-hour traffic. Additional emergency personnel were positioning a wind-tunnel-sized fan on the landing. Its low-slung profile would suck the smoky haze through its blades and blast it—and hopefully the odor—down the staircase and out the apartment building’s wide-opened door.

After Jillian unlocked her apartment, Bert led Evie to the couch. She sank heavily into it and argued that Jillian’s door be propped. She wanted to see the activity going on at her place. Jillian didn’t want Evie agitated further, so she wedged the folded newspaper under the opened door.

Out in the parlor, a bulldog of a firemen said, “Hal, when can we get out of here?”

Hal was the man who liked issuing orders. Evidently, he also ran the show.

“What, you think your hotshot chili is going somewhere?” Hal gave his colleague a genuine smile. The brusqueness she knew softened. “You’re out of here in five,” he said, pressing his left palm and long, straight fingers into the air.

Jillian’s single status was so engrained that she immediately took inventory. No wedding ring. Hmm, she thought, beginning to drool. She had to admit Hal was actually a good-looking hunk.

“Bert and I can grab the fan on our way out,” Hal informed Bulldog. He noticed Jillian in the doorway. Immediately, his expression soured.

She spun away and focused on Evie. Around an oxygen mask, the older woman’s color improved. “Is she better?” she asked, hopeful.

“Her breathing rate’s down. Pulse is good. I believe she’ll make it,” Bert said, sitting back on her heels.

Evie recognized the teasing tone and smiled up at Jillian, whose nose went into the air.

Smoke was gathering. She thought cross-ventilation might dissipate the pungent odor, and set off to raise the living room window higher. Halfway there, she took a stutter step. “What happened to Phil and Betsy?”

“Oh!” Bert said. “I’m sorry. I promised to tell you. A man was trying to get inside when I arrived. Must have been Phil. A fireman held him back. I told him not to worry. My presence was merely precautionary. No one was reported hurt.”

Jillian threw up the window sash. The scene down on the street was destined to be a Phil and Betsy classic. The station wagon was barricaded all around by emergency vehicles. A second company had arrived, raising the total to two engines and one squad. In true Betsy fashion, she’d commandeered all the excess personnel and put them to work toting and loading, padding and angling. When Jillian saw her sister point from the long dresser to the roof rack, she missed Phil. She craned her neck and looked down the street. There was Phil, hands in his pockets, his pace a slow stroll.

With a shake of her head, she left the window and went to stand over Evie and Bert. The blood-pressure cuff was off and lay folded on the cushion.

Bert’s hand patted Evie’s. “Good job,” she praised. “Another few minutes with the oh-two, and you’ll be good to go.”

With that, Evie’s eyes drifted left of Jillian. Simultaneously, a startling “Hey!” drilled Jillian’s back.

She whipped around to find Hal standing there, arms akimbo.

“Fans?” he said through clenched teeth.

He was stripped down to just the undershirt and a nifty pair of suspendered britches. She gave a second and a half to admiring his well-built, six-foot-tall body, then proceeded to return his steely glare. “There’s a pedestal fan in corner of the dining room. Get it yourself.”

His head came up, but his mouth stayed closed. Dismissively, she turned her back. After her heart pounded two, maybe three beats, she sensed he went to fetch the fan.

That’s when it hit her.

Her eyes flew wide. With all that happened, she completely forgot the lingerie lovelies laid out on the dining room floor. She whirled, pressing her fingers to her lips.

Where the two rooms met, Hal stood stock still. Time stretched. Jillian realized her lifelong fantasy was playing out. Poor Hal had not been exposed to just a garment or two, but injected with a full dose. She watched in awe.

His head tilted. He gave the slightest peek behind him, then slowly rotated. His face was a study in astonishment; his regard for her, a speechless dip beneath the surface. When he came up for air, his chocolate eyes melted. He pulled her over with a flirtatious tip of his head. She made the trip with a slice of sexy in the strut.

Over by the couch, four ears were fully tuned in, so he stepped closer and managed an intimate tone.

“You wear this?”

Her response was not just a nod, not just one word, but the two usually reserved for a church-filled event, one that would require the purchase of a strapless white bra. Batting her eyes adoringly, she said, “I do.”

He caught her meaning and produced a broad grin, one she knew she could never again live without.

From that day forward, all was fire and lace between them.

The End

If you enjoyed Fire and Lace, you’ll enjoy Wild Raspberries, available in soft cover and your favorite electronic form. Fire and Lace , in its entirety, can be found on my website. The link is below.

There'll be another story for you next week.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont
http://www.conniechappell.com/short-stories.html

Hello, Friends!

It’s time to pick up with Jillian Graham, our friend with the lingerie fetish. Fetish aside, she’s got a particularly hectic day ahead of her. Back up to see what happened in Part 1 if necessary.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont

Fire and Lace
Part 2 of 3

Tonight, the parlorettes, as they referred to themselves, would make the transformation. On end, Evie’s round table rolled slickly through the doorway. The chairs followed. Her door would be propped against a heavy cookbook to facilitate easy access to her kitchen. Through Liz’s door came the ambience, thanks to her Bose stereo speakers. Wheeled into place to hold Jillian’s door ajar would be her portable TV on its garage-sale stand; a chick flick, their dinnertime entertainment.

Jillian slipped the spare key into the lock. As soon as she cracked the door, she heard the downstairs buzzer. She crammed her upper body through the opening to finger the nearby intercom panel. “Coming, guys. Just a minute,” she sang out.

She grabbed an empty dresser drawer off the closest stack and wedged it between door and jamb, returned the borrowed key, and gave Evie a peck on her warm, wrinkled cheek.

Jillian felt certain her sister would comment on how she sounded like a herd of oxen on the stairs. Which she had. But when she opened the door, she found Betsy, smiling serenely, hanging on her husband’s arm. She handed out the pouch of lasagna as if her part had been more than just pickup and delivery. Betsy owned charm when she wanted to use it. The problem was, her charm and her moodiness changed positions as rapidly as a swinging door.

In the tiny entrance hall of Jillian’s apartment, she made a move toward the kitchen, announcing her intention to put the lasagna in to reheat.

“No,” Betsy said. “Give it to me.”

“Why?” Jillian wanted to know, but made the exchange.

Betsy cocked her head toward the bedroom. “You two go decide on a plan of attack. After we’re done with the furniture, we’ll sit, talk, and be civilized while the lasagna heats.”

Phil and Jillian shrugged at each other. How could they argue with that?

With very little fuss, they maneuvered the long, side-by-side dresser, its mirror detached, to the apartment entrance, then set it down.

“Got your key?” Phil asked.

Jillian patted her jeans pocket. She informed her visitors of the auto-locking device; the key needed only in the event of a misfire. Guided-missile Betsy was pulling duty as door matron. She jammed a rolled-up newspaper under the door to hold it wide.

The threesome maneuvered the dresser down the stairs without mishap. They stood in a loose knot, peering into the old Chevy’s cargo hold while the gutted dresser waited on the sidewalk. An envious Jillian took in the dimensions. They appeared longer and wider than the floor space in her bathroom.

“I say we go get the drawers for this, then load it in on this side. If we unscrew the legs, there ought to be room for the nightstands to go one behind the other over here.” Phil and his precise engineer’s eye discerned the measurements.

“No, let’s get all of it down here first,” Betsy objected. “You’ll have an easier time judging when everything’s in front of you. Otherwise, you’ll have pieces in and out multiple times until you get it right. And who knows how many scratches and dings that will add.”

Betsy’s last word fueled Jillian’s anger. She’d shown this furniture extreme care. Each piece was pristine. Jillian was ready to tell her sister just that when her brother-in-law choked her comment off with an attempt to ground his wife.

“Hon, I’m sure—”

“Phillip, no. Listen to me for once,” Betsy said, adamant. “And besides, that dresser may need to be loaded on top.”

Phil’s laughter burst out. Betsy’s ludicrous suggestion stunned Jillian, who looked from the dresser to the roof rack. Phil began spouting calculations about wind speed and gas consumption due to a complete lack of aerodynamics.

The bickering went on for a moment more. Over the years, Jillian wisely learned to keep her opinions to herself when these two discussed life’s little obstacles. She was much more adept at consoling a wounded Phil when the battle was over, than negotiating a truce.

Forty-five minutes later, the tall narrow chest, bed rails, mirror, nightstands, and headboard joined the long dresser. They looked like an odd grouping of very pale people waiting at a bus stop. The tie-downs and padded blankets lay scattered in the grass.

Jillian hated to admit it, but Betsy was right. It helped to have all the pieces together. And, just eyeballing it, Phil was right. The larger pieces would all fit inside.

Before one stick of furniture left the concrete for loading, a low-scale argument between husband and wife warmed again, so Jillian decided to walk back inside and do the same for the lasagna.

Deep in thought, she trudged up the stairs. During the first year of their marriage, the three of them—and she had been honored to be included—were an acronym for one of her favorite food combinations. P B and J. Phil, Betsy, and Jillian. Peanut butter and jelly. The sticky ingredients meant cohesiveness then. Now, the sticky equaled prickly. Nuts had been added to the peanut butter. Feeling more disappointed than ever over their prolific battles, she wiggled the newspaper free and let the door lock behind her.

Since she didn’t plan on returning to help with the furniture, she dug the keychain out of her pocket. It and the newspaper were laid on the lamp table next to the couch.

She got halfway down the hall to the kitchen when a high-pitched screech stopped her. She backtracked. It took only a few steps toward the open living room window to realize the sound was not blaring up from the street. She rushed the apartment door and pulled it open.

Immediately, squealing decibels assaulted her eardrums. She ran to Evie’s door. The scent of smoke hovered around it. Panicked, she cried Evie’s name and pounded repeatedly on the locked door. When Evie didn’t answer, she tried to shake the door from its hinges. She forced herself to break off the futile effort to call nine-one-one. Get help coming first, then try rescue.

She lunged for her own apartment door. It wouldn’t budge. She slapped at her pants pocket. The key wasn’t there. Her heart fell. She was trapped in the parlor, unable to complete the rescue, unable to phone in the emergency. Swearing, she spun and raced back to revive her pounding. Only seconds passed before a haggard-looking Evie released the lock. Strands of pewter hair escaped her eternally neat bun.

Jillian straight-armed the door as she looked the elderly woman up and down. “Are you all right?” she yelled.

Evie gave a meager nod and pointed toward the back of the apartment. “The soup. I can’t turn off the burner.”

“Have you called the fire department?”

Frustration flashed onto Jillian’s face when Evie shook her head. Jillian, determined to keep hers, found a cookbook in the tiny wooden case just inside the door and used it as a doorstop. Evie’s two claw-like hands grasped Jillian’s arm when she rose and dragged her haltingly into the apartment.

“We’ve got to call nine-one-one,” Jillian said, looking around. “Where’s your phone?”

Evie ignored the question. She tugged Jillian toward the gray haze and that awful screaming.

Behind the smoke was fire. The entire disaster was confined to the gas stovetop, where a dish towel slowly burned. The soup was a lost cause, and probably the hefty pot, a portion of it now charred black. On other occasions, Jillian noticed how Evie used the stove’s narrow, flat ledge above the dials as a shelf. Plastic milk jugs would sit there containing either water, milk, or broth, whatever the recipe demanded. Either heat from the fire or steam off the soup caused today’s jug to lose its shape and balance. The malformed jug was now wedged between the old stove’s angled control panel and the blackened pan, barricading the burner knob, the flaming towel out front.

******

Poor Jillian. What will she do? We'll find out next week with the conclusion to her story. Please stop back.

Connie Chappell
Author of Wild Raspberries
and Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont