Monday, September 13, 2021

Hold My Coffee, 2021 Editing and Christmas Anthology Speed Write Reading and Puppy!

 

Hold My Coffee, 2021 Editing and Christmas Anthology Speed Write Reading and Puppy!



Editing for #HoldMyCoffee2021 continues through the #August80K on Book #10- Ghost With Hope and #AmWriting #speedwrite for Editingle's Christmas Anthology. A look at the new puppy and an excerpt of A Christmas Rescue by a Christmas Widow - A 2K short I expanded to 15K in 7 days.
See my farm and meet our new puppy, Kohaku. He's so cute.


A Christmas Rescue by a Christmas Widow

Blurb

James Thibodeaux lived under the controlling manipulations of his family until the day he nearly died in a Colorado blizzard from a foolish mistake. Mail Carrier Maddie Laramie was made a Christmas widow only a month after her marriage. Struggling to raise her son alone, she never expected to rescue someone on the anniversary of the day she had been saved, and she never expected to be able to feel the want to love again. Christmas is bringing these two together but can James free himself to return to her.


Excerpt

“Welcome back, are you hungry or thirsty? Does your leg hurt?”

“Thirsty… Who are you?” James stared at the honey-haired beauty in an oversized sweatshirt. He blinked at her then murmured, “I think I know you.”

“I’m Maddie, I found you on my way back down the mountain. I brought you here because your car blocked the road.” She helped him to raise up and held a cup to his lips. “The blizzard trapped us for the night and maybe longer, but the Sheriff knows you are here and is going to try to bring an ambulance as soon as the road is clear.”

“Uhm, is there anyone else awake? Where’s Frank?”

“He went to sleep.” She looked at him as he squirmed. “Are you okay?”

“I… Uhm… I need Frank. I need his help,” James insisted as he blinked past the malaise of the painkillers.

“He’s asleep, what do you need?”

“Where’s the other guy?”

“Larry is also asleep. What do you need?” Maddie demanded, starting to get irritated.

Crying out in pain as he shifted the walking boot on his leg, he panted for a moment then shouted, “Frank, Larry!”

“Stop it.” Maddie put her hand over his mouth and hissed at him, “What is wrong with you?”

“Just get them,” he demanded. “Hurry.”

“Not until you tell me what you want,” she used the same tone she did on Jaren Junior when he was having a fit.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he admitted with embarrassment.

“There’s a urinal bottle…”

“Not that number. Number two.” His blush crept up his pale cheeks and Maddie couldn’t stop her giggle.

She slapped her hand over her mouth, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh… It’s… It’s just you sounded exactly like my son for a moment… I’ll help you.”

“You can’t lift me,” James objected.

“I dragged you halfway down the mountain and loaded you into Bessie. I can get you a dozen steps to the bathroom and back.” Maddie pulled off the oversized sweatshirt, and tossed it in her chair, then carefully swung his legs off. “Only put your weight on your good leg and let me carry the other side.”

He put his arm over her shoulder. He knew he was about to be more embarrassed than he had been in his whole life, but he couldn’t wait. Surprisingly, the petite woman was as strong as she claimed. She helped him into the bathroom and when he turned around in front of the toilet, she hooked a finger in the elastic of his boxer briefs.

“What are you doing?” James demanded, stopping her.

“I’m trying to get into your pants,” Maddie snickered, then added in a calmer voice, “Seriously, I’m just trying to help you pull them down, so you don’t poop them.”

“I can do it… just wait outside,” James insisted as he held to the sink.

“Okay, but if you fall and wedge yourself between the toilet and the tub, you’re staying there until Elder Grayhawk wakes up.” Maddie stepped out the door but only partly closed it as she flipped on the fan and light. “I’ll be right here.”

Sitting down carefully, James banged his foot in the walking boot and gritted his teeth not to shout profanities. He pushed the door the rest of the way shut. As he sat on the cold toilet seat, he tried not to think about the beautiful woman outside the door. Then he realized that he couldn’t do it and groaned. His mind raced for a solution as he began to feel nauseous.

“Maddie, could you go make me some toast? My stomach is upset.”

“Can’t poop with me by the door, can ya? You are just like my preschooler. Would it help if I promised to make you a smiley face pancake if you poop?” Maddie teased as she giggled until her eyes were watering.

“Please go away,” James answered in such a defeated tone Maddie almost felt sorry for him.

“Fine, I’ll go make breakfast… Do your business and knock on the wall. I’ll be back to get you back to bed.” Shaking her head, Maddie headed to the kitchen.

Unable to decide if fatigue or stress was the thing making her silly, Maddie kept giggling as she quickly pulled out the ingredients to make pancakes. All the Sundays spent cleaning for Elder and Mrs. Grayhawk, meant she didn’t need to search. In less than five minutes, she started pancakes cooking. Looking at the mason jar of chocolate chips, Maddie decided she had to do it, and she poured a handful out. Dropping the chips onto the second pancake in the shape of a smiley face, she wiped her mirth-spawned tears as she laughed. In less than ten minutes, she had a tray made. Looking at the smiley face on the pancake, she felt mischievously happy for the first time in years.

“I really am an evil person.” Maddie snickered to herself as she carried the food down the hall.

Setting the tray down, it was only a few minutes before he flushed the toilet twice before the water ran in the sink, then he knocked tentatively on the wall.

“Are you done?” Maddie asked from the other side of the door.

James didn’t want her to come back in but the momentary foolishness of putting weight on his broken leg as he pulled up his underwear almost made him faint, and he did not want to do it again. “Yes, thank you.” This was worse than boarding school.

She opened the door and came in, helping him back to bed and carefully lifting his foot. She placed pillows behind him, and he noticed the sparkle of a simple wedding band on a chain around her neck. She set a tray across his lap. He frowned in confusion as he noticed a pattern on the top of the pancake.

“Oops, let me turn that frown upside down.” Grinning, she turned the plate and he realized it was a smiley face.

“Wow, really?”

“Aww, don’t you like smiley pancakes? I promised you I’d make them if you pooped like a big boy,” Maddie reminded in her best patronizing mom-voice, “Mommy’s so proud of you.”

He began cutting the pancakes and trying to ignore her as she sat down.

“So, why the whole…” She waved her hand at the closed bathroom door.

“Don’t you have boundaries?” James asked in annoyance.

“Evidently not. Probably because I spend too much time alone delivering the mail with no one to talk to but Bessie.” Maddie shrugged putting her chin in her palm, with her elbow on the arm of the chair she sat in. “Well, what makes a grown man act like my four-and-a-half-year-old?”

James poked another bite of the fluffiest homemade pancakes he’d ever eaten in his mouth and refused to answer her amused blue eyes. After he swallowed, he gulped some black coffee, then asked, “Does your husband mind you not wearing your wedding ring because you’re so funny?”

Maddie’s spine went rigid as her mirth drowned in a deluge of ice water grief. “Five years and two days ago, I became a Christmas widow.” She stood up and walked out as the cold feeling the kept her company since Jaren’s death returned, chilling her like the blizzard outside.

 It took a moment for James to process what she said, then he groaned and rubbed his forehead, muttering, “Way to charm the ladies, James the jock.”

Finishing the delicious pancakes, he managed to put the tray in the chair, then he took the additional pain pill Mr. Grayhawk put on the bedside table. He wanted to cry after he twisted his broken leg slightly trying to scoot into a more reclined position. Finally settled, he laid there and watched the snow coming down in diagonal lines as the malaise of the medication leeched his consciousness away.

*~*~*

Maddie came in quietly and picked up his lunch tray. James was asleep facing the window. The blizzard had stalled over the mountains and was still trying to bury the world, but the wind was starting to slack. Balancing the tray on one arm, she reached up to tug the curtains closed on the glaring white as the sun tried to push through the waning storm.

“Boarding school.”

“Excuse me?” Maddie turned.

“Don’t close the curtains. I like the view.” James pushed himself up on one elbow. “Grandmére Charliese sent me away to boarding school. I kept running away and going back to Ybor, then I ended up in Tennessee. The other boys grew up in rich families… They weren’t very nice to me, despite my mother’s family name and money, because I wasn’t one of them. They liked to haze me when they caught me in the bathroom.”

“I’ve never heard of Ybor… Why didn’t your family stop her?” Maddie asked as she pushed the curtains wider so he could see the view when the storm finally cleared.

“Ybor is the Cuban district in Tampa… After my parents died, only Grandpapa cared about me before his death, then my Cuban grandmother passed... My cousins all hated me. I wasn’t… I wasn’t one of them.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her sympathy was real, he could feel it and see it in her eyes. “Is that why you said there was no one to call, that they didn’t care?”

“Yes. Boarding School sucked but it got me away from them.” Suddenly, a patch of blue appeared beyond her shoulder, and he realized the winter sky was the same color as her eyes.

“James? Hello, James?” Maddie called his name.

“Uhh, what?” He realized he had been staring at her, the patch of blue sky was gone.

“You zoned out completely. I asked where you went to college.”

“Tulane, I got a Master’s in Business with a minor in Real Estate Development. You?”

“I dropped out of Western State after Jaren Junior was born.” She touched the ring on the chain around her neck then sighed. “Do you need anything else?”

He shook his head, watching her start to leave, he didn’t want her to go. She was the most genuine person he’d met in a long time. “Who’s Bessie?” He blurted out, trying to get her to stay for a moment more.

Maddie grinned. “She’s my trusty old Jeep. I ran her out of gas trying to get you back here, I owe her a full tank and a bottle of fuel additive.” Maddie winked at his dismayed look, “I think she loves you; she usually stalls and refuses to move whenever she drops below an eighth of a tank, but she kept going to the last drop for you. I never suspected she had a thing for foolhardy city slickers. I might have to do an intervention.”

He blinked. “I’m so high on whatever Mr. Grayhawk gave me that I can’t tell if you’re serious or crazy?”

“I prefer crazy over serious, serious is no fun.” Maddie laughed at his confused look as she walked out.

 







~~~~~ Relic of Time and Prophecies on Vella https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B092SV14R1 My Amazon page https://www.amazon.com/M.M.-Ward/e/B07NTYTVP2 Red Velvet and Anemones: Pagosa Cliffs Anemones #1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CF33YGH/ Betrayal always offers the choice: Bitter or Better? After her sister's death, wedding cake artist Milli Velvet Haywood left her busy life in Vegas behind; Hoping for a new beginning in the small town resort community of Pagosa Cliffs, Colorado. But with a new start comes challenges. Can she move forward and be better? Or will the bitterness of her life sour her future chances at happiness and love. My Inkitt page where the rough drafts are free because Kindle is expensive. https://www.inkitt.com/penumbramine If you like my scribbles and would like to gift me with writer fuel (coffee, cocoa, or tea), I appreciate it. https://ko-fi.com/penumbramine

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