Dear Diary …. by Kellianne Sweeney

#TeaserTrain: Desire and Deception by Sharon Buchbinder

Supersonic #TeaserTrain Event, BUY 3 – GET 1 FREE, Thursday, Feb 2nd – Friday, Feb 3rd, 2012

CLICK HERE http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/books/supersonic-teaser-train

Dear Diary,

My last couple of posts have delved into the realm of romance, but I have a special guest today that delivers the Real Deal. I am thrilled to welcome the Fabulous Sharon Buchbinder to my Blog for #TeaserTrain! Sharon has provided me a tame but extremely intriguing excerpt from her novel “Desire and Deception”. If you want more, and I am sure that you will, the link to purchase her novel is below this tantalizing excerpt:

Dan’s forearm corded as he cast his fishing line. Brow furrowed under his lucky Ravens fishing cap, he aimed his baited hook under the waxy leaves.

After all this time, was Dan really hers?
He turned his head, raised his sunglasses, winked at her, and blew her a kiss. Her breath caught in her throat and a host of butterflies flapped around in her stomach.

Of course he was hers. They were on their honeymoon. What could possibly go wrong?
“You better be thinking about something other than your job.”
Sarah laughed. “I am not thinking about work.”
“No, you obsess about it.”
“And you don’t?”
He held the fishing pole with one hand like a jousting lance and cocked his head. “A vascular surgeon has to obsess. The smallest of slip-ups can kill a patient.”
“If I improve one kid’s life with my work, then it makes it all worthwhile.”
“True. But no one dies if you don’t teach a class, go to a committee meeting, or publish a paper.”
“If I don’t make the third year tenure review cut, my career at BMU will die.”
He frowned and flapped his hand at her. “Pffft. Not only is Bobbi your boss, she’s your friend. She put you on her grant. Your tenure and promotion are a slam dunk.”

Easy for him to say.
“If I don’t get a paper published in the Journal of Child Abuse Prevention, I’m out on the curb.” Sarah should have gone to see Bobbi when her boss texted her at end of the Women in Science Conference on Sanibel three days ago. But Bobbi knew they planned to go across the water to Punta Gorda for their honeymoon. Sarah chewed on her lower lip. Typical Bobbi. Waiting until the very last minute of the conference to say she needed to talk in private, away from the other attendees.
Sarah patted her pants pockets. She’d left her cell at home. She closed her eyes. What did Bobbi text?

“Investigating a faculty member. Need your help. Trust no one. Tell no one.” Though the air was hot and humid, Sarah shivered with an unexpected chill and crossed her arms to battle sudden goose bumps. Dan was right. She had to stop obsessing about work.
She blinked and watched as two huge turkey vultures looped in eccentric circles and dove into the dense mangroves.
“Buzzards in paradise?” Sarah asked, not realizing she’d spoken aloud.
“Bet they’re after a wild pig that got stuck in the mangroves and died,” the fishing captain said.
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “How would a pig get in there? Can you walk across the mangrove roots?”
Captain Fred made a perfect cast, removed his cap to scratch his shining scalp, and considered the question. A retired firefighter, only his balding head didn’t boast a Florida fisherman’s permanent tan.
“I tried it once. Didn’t get very far. Banged up my knees pretty good, but pigs don’t know that.”
Dan hooked a mangrove branch and his bait fish dangled over the water.
Sarah teased, “Hey, Bushmaster, you trying to teach the snook to jump?”
“Captain Fred told me they can leap three feet in the air.” A flash of silver popped out of the water. “See?”

She poked his arm. “That’s mullet.”
“Bickering so soon?” The captain smiled. “You guys should be making love, not fighting.”
Sarah stifled a giggle, but Dan was less successful at controlling his laughter. Captain Fred blushed up to the tips of his ears.
“We don’t fight. We have discussions.”
“Loud ones.” Sarah laughed. “Followed by great make up–umm–sessions.” She began to reel in her line. Dan leaned over and gave her a salty kiss. Momentarily distracted by the touch of his tongue on her bottom lip, she was startled by a sudden heavy tug. She laughed and called out, “Here fishy, fishy, fishy.” She pulled hard on unyielding weight. “I think I caught a mangrove root.”
“Keep the tip of your pole up,” Captain Fred yelled from the front of the twenty-two foot Ranger.
Twenty minutes later, her shoulders and arms ached, cork and metal rod slipped in her hands, and sun block-soaked sweat stung her eyes. She stopped, wiped her brow, and looked over her shoulder at Dan. “Want to reel for a while?”
“It’s not your fish if you don’t get it to the boat,” the Captain warned.
Right about then not a huge selling point in Sarah’s mind.
Grunting at the effort, she pulled back on the pole as hard as she could. Finally, her catch broke the surface of the water. Eyes still burning, she stepped back to pull it closer to the boat–and saw a bloated corpse in a neon orange bikini.

SUPERSONIC #TEASERTRAIN EVENT, BUY 3 – GET 1 FREE, Thursday, Feb 2nd – Friday, Feb 3rd, 2012

CLICK HERE http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/books/supersonic-teaser-train

AMAZON Link:

http://www.amazon.com/Sharon-Bell-Buchbinder/e/B001IODIE2/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

DESIRE AND DECEPTION is an RT Book Reviews Nominee for Best Erotic Fiction Book of 2011 

http://www.rtbookreviews.com/rt-awards/nominees-and-winners?award_type=book&year=2011

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Kissing 101

Dear Diary,

My previous post was a mish-mash of fantasy and reality about impressions from my first love experience. That post got me thinking even farther back; way, way back to my first kiss when I was at the tender age of five. And this will be blatant reality. I will even use his real name even though I never use real names in my posts. I will use his name because, first of all, I can’t imagine he would ever stumble upon this blog because our encounters were fleeting, so long ago, and he probably doesn’t even remember my name. Yes, you guessed it; this is a case of unrequited love. The second reason I will use his name is because it had such a sing-song quality to me at the time. The mere mention of his name would instantly result in nervously excited stomach churnings. Are you ready? For his name? Here it is: Donny McGee. There. I said it after all of this time. He is not to be confused with Janis Joplin’s Bobby McGee. He was my Donny McGee, or so I wished anyway. He had dirty-blonde hair, lots of freckles and a big shy smile sans front teeth. Positively a Dreamboat.  He lived next door to me when we lived in New Jersey and we spent many hours making mud-pies and playing on his colorful metal swing set. It was usually a group venture, however. I had a brother and sister of similar age, and so did he. His three year old sister actually bit my three year old brother on the nose once while we were playing, but that is another story.

Apparently, I was somehow able to get my shy boy alone and give him a big smoochie.  I say apparently because this actual momentous event has somehow been stricken from my memory. Is that fair? Fie on my memory! It is hand wringing how our memories wrap around useless or undesirable events that we want to forget and turn up blank on other ones that we would like to remember. How do I know that it really happened, you ask? The event that I vividly remember is that my beloved Donny McGee knocked on my door and asked to speak to my parents. While I stood by pining for him he told my parents that his parents said that I had to apologize for kissing him. What?! That’s a Love Speed-bump if I ever heard one. I was properly crushed and diverted from my amorous path. Thus ended my infatuation with Donny McGee and my apparently forgettable first kiss. I will have to add that consecutive kisses to other recipients were much more appreciated. Ah well, it is rare that we do things right the first time. I wish you well and good kisses wherever you may be Donny McGee.

The First Lingers

Dear Diary,

A little story about  how The First can linger:

“I really never expected to see you again. I heard that you have a fine family and that you have done well for yourself in your ventures.” She paused. “And I have my own as well.”

She fingered the seed kernels at the tip of a tall, dry stalk of grass. She studied it unseeingly as she softly crushed the seeds to dust. She didn’t look at him yet, but shifted her gaze to the hills that lay before them and the sky that kissed their crests. The clouds billowed and shifted in the stiff breeze that raced across the endless prairie grass. Somehow the sky seemed larger this afternoon.

He touched her elbow hesitantly, momentarily, but the contact seared through her arm and cascaded through the rest of her body leaving every nerve tingling for just a moment before ebbing into an alert state of quiet intensity. She still refused to look at him while she forced the wildly scurrying emotions back into their place. Now she would have to miss him again. Silly, young love feelings. There was no place for them anymore, but time did not erase their potency when they were unexpectedly revived.

“Why did you come back?” She uttered the question evenly.

“I had to see you again.” He spoke the words simply, but every syllable held the full force of long obscured feeling.

She turned to face him then and clasped her hands loosely together in front of her. The waning sunlight laced within her wheat colored hair and caught and displayed the intricacies of her hazel eyes. Her pale brows furrowed slightly as though pointing to the smattering of freckles on her nose. He smiled at those freckles. They were still there after all of the years. He could still see her as a young girl even though the lines of life had worn their way into her features.

“Lucy, I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know,” she interjected quickly. “I have never faulted you for pursuing the opportunities that took you away. It was the right thing for you. My life has been well. But I don’t understand why you are here now.”

“I am here because since the moment I left, your face blows through my mind daily. I had to see you again before I join the war.”

Silence whispered between them as they stood beholding each other and the years that had separated them.

Lucy released her hands and reached up to hold his face gently between them. She looked into his clear eyes and saw the familiar boy inside of the man. She pressed her lips to his grizzled cheek and remembered the smoothness of the past and breathed in his essence one last time. His arms reached around to cradle her and she savored the fleeting moment. Then she pulled out of his embrace and held his hands.

“So take this with you on your path and I will carry it on mine. Godspeed you on your journey.”

She extracted her hands from his and gave him the slightest of smiles and a world of tender words in her eyes before running as a girl down the grassy slope towards her home where her life awaited.

He watched her run through the tall grass as he had so many times before when they were in their teens, and like the so many thousands of times he had seen it replayed in his mind since then. He let it imprint fresh to keep. His smile was bittersweet as he turned to walk his own path.

Pen Scrawls

Dear Diary,

Thanksgiving is approaching and as it should, it brings to mind thoughts of thankfulness.

I am sincerely thankful that I can write to you. I am thankful that what begins in my mind can flow through my pen into a spiral notebook and be transformed into something that touches your mind without uttering any word or displaying any gesture. It is amazing to me that so much meaning can be conveyed by pen scrawls on paper. It is truly a wonder to me that I can express the imaginings in my own head in this way to share them with you.

I am by nature a talkative and expressive person, but the act of writing is deeper and allows for conveying a more complex parade of thoughts. I am driven to express this way. The absence of this ability would render me stifled, and so I am very grateful for it. To imagine being unable to do this is a harrowing thought.

For so many years, I wrote only for myself. It was a quiet and satisfying endeavor that I derived much pleasure from. Recently, I have begun to share my pen scrawls with you in the form of this blog, my novel and other ways. I have two more stories in process and after that I will not stop. The act of sharing my writing with you is an exhilarating extension of this already joyful gift. I am thankful for the gift of writing and I am thankful that you are here reading it.

I wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving.

TeaserTrain – T.M. Souder’s Novel “Waiting On Hope”

Supersonic #TeaserTrain Event, BUY 3 – GET 1 FREE, Thursday, Feb 2nd – Friday, Feb 3rd, 2012

CLICK HERE http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/books/supersonic-teaser-train

I am pleased to welcome T.M. Souders to my blog for another trip on the #TeaserTrain! T.M. is a well established author and is gracing us with an excerpt from her novel “Waiting On Hope”. Her story deals with the struggles of a young woman forced to come to grips with a devastating situation that rocks her foundation. Her journey provides inspiration and the realization that life does go on and continue to bloom even after traumatic events. Please sit back and enjoy this taste of “Waiting On Hope”. The link to purchase this lovely story is at the end of the excerpt.

“What’s going on Lex? You’re not returning any of my calls. And what’s with the horror movie locks?” Sienna asked. Her forehead wrinkled into a dozen lines.

Lexie shrugged. She hadn’t told Sienna what happened yet, and even when she did, she couldn’t tell her the whole truth. The facts for her would be too devastating. Then again, she probably deserved more credit than Lexie gave her…

Nevertheless, letting Sienna in on the events of the last two months was the right thing to do. After all, Lexie’s affinity for lying was weak, and besides, Sienna had an ability to see straight through a person, to cut through the crap.

Sienna stood, arms crossed in front of her chest, her platinum hair pulled back from her face, waiting for a response, for some enlightenment to explain Lexie’s recent behavior.

“Um. They’re just a precaution,” Lexie said.

“Precaution? Lex, you’re scaring me. I’ve been calling you for two months, without so much as a reply. You’ve skipped out on all our Friday girls’ nights. You stood me up at the photography convention on Sunday, the one you begged me to attend with you. And this morning, I called Pittsburgh Magazine, only to find out that you haven’t been at work in over a month, that you’re taking some time off for personal reasons.”

Sienna continued to talk, following Lexie from the foyer to the couch in her living room.

Lexie tried to make herself comfortable, but found it impossible—a notion explicably apparent in her life as of late. She fidgeted on the white sofa, which seemed to signal to her a glaring beacon of purity—suddenly out of place in the room.

Lexie sighed, fanning her hands out in front of her, trying to find the words. “I’m just…I’m going through something right now.”

After a moment’s silence, Sienna said, “And you can’t tell me? Since when do we keep secrets from each other?”

The pain in Sienna’s rich chocolate eyes was palpable, a confirmation of sorts of why her own pain, her own shame, should be kept to herself. How did she find the words? Part of her wanted to say it. She envisioned opening her mouth and letting them flow, forming her lips around the vowels, I was raped. The thought alone, stung like venom on the tip of her tongue.

“I…I….” Lexie tilted her head back. She gazed at the ceiling, the tiny vein-like cracks in the otherwise smooth plaster. Why couldn’t she say it? She willed the words from her mind, but still they would not come.

She looked back at Sienna, the hurt in her eyes latched onto the lacerations of her soul, bringing with them a new burden. Not only did she carry her own shame, but also guilt for the anguish imposed on Sienna by her silence.

Lexie said the only thing she could, a poor substitution for the truth. “Listen, I’m going through something right now that I can’t talk about. I just can’t…” Her voice cracked slightly. She managed to suppress a sob before continuing. “I need a little time. Please.”

“Do you promise me you’re going to be okay? You’re scaring the hell out of me, girl. I mean, blowing me off is one thing, but your job? You haven’t taken so much as a sick day in the ten years since I met you.”

“I swear.”

She couldn’t bring herself to mutter the words, I promise. Promises were for a groom on his wedding day, vowing to be faithful in good times and bad. For mothers who tucked their kids into bed at night, assuring them safety was inexplicably theirs—that no monsters hid beneath the covers. Well, she knew all about monsters—not only did they exist, but they were all around us. She knew all about promises too. By definition, they were impossible to keep. Because among the assurance belies a certainty, which carries with it the measure of impossibility, because a promise is a guarantee. What was the saying her mother always used to say? In life, there are no guarantees.

Supersonic #TeaserTrain Event, BUY 3 – GET 1 FREE, Thursday, Feb 2nd – Friday, Feb 3rd, 2012

CLICK HERE http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/books/supersonic-teaser-train

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/T.M.-Souders/e/B005CVOAXA/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Maneuvers In The Dark

Dear Diary,

This is a story from my past…

The darkness was deep. It was more tangible and dense than she had anticipated, but she was determined. She went over in her mind again the tidbits of information she had gleaned by listening intently to their conversations. But it was bright then. Here it was so dark. Everything needed to be accomplished in the dark. Were they able to see in the dark better than she, or was it that they became so used to the procedures that they did not need to rely so much upon their sight? Perhaps her underdeveloped eyesight was one of the reasons that they had insisted that she wait? She steeled herself at the thought. She would not wait. She would prove that she was ready.

Getting inside the window proved to be relatively easy and bolstered her confidence. It had only taken her two tries to be successful. She surveyed her surroundings. A sliver of light stretched across the floor from the hallway through an ajar door. The extra light relieved her, but the intimidating dark mass in front of her that required her attention sent an apprehensive flush through her petite frame. It became apparent to her why they normally worked in pairs until their skills became ingrained. If needed, one of them could distract while the other accomplished the goal. She did not have help because she had not wanted help. When this call had come in after they all had left, she had decided that she would personally take care of it herself. She was not too young.  She would show them. She reminded herself sternly of this purpose, but it did not still the fear that she was now feeling. What if she failed? What if he saw her? Another thought suddenly chilled her: She had forgotten to bring the Replacements! She had departed in such a rush that she left the knapsack at home. What was she to do now? How could she complete the mission without any Replacements? She wrung her slender hands in dismay and agonized over whether she should flee. If she hurried back she might be able to alert one of them to come take care of this before it was too late. But what if none of them had returned yet? Earlier in the evening she would have had time to locate someone, but now the night was waning. There was no question that this needed to be accomplished tonight.

She glanced frantically around the room for something to use as a Replacement. The moon suddenly slid from behind a cloaking cloud and its’ light fell upon a shining object that was peeking out from under a rug. It sparkled brilliantly and entranced her immediately. What was this? She swiftly flitted over to it and decided it was the perfect thing. She lifted the coin with difficulty because it was almost as big as she was. Her tiny wings struggled under the weight of its’ added burden. Perhaps this was another reason why she had been told to wait until she was fully grown. Her wings had not developed into their full span yet.

Laboriously, she carried the coin to the bed that held the large, human boy. She was grateful that he was facing the wall instead of facing her as she approached. She set the shiny Replacement on the bed and pushed it the rest of the way under the pillow. She held her breath and dived further within to locate his tooth. It was close by, just as she had hoped. She wrapped both arms around it and flew back out clutching her prize. She was thrilled! It was the best kind of tooth; a First Tooth.

Just as she cleared the bed, the boy stirred and turned. The fairy whizzed behind a dresser just as the boy’s eyes fluttered open. Upon awakening, his hands immediately searched under his pillow. The moon shone on his excited face as his fingers touched the coin. He set it in his palm for only an instant before he bolted out of his bed and out of the door.

“Mom! The Tooth Fairy brought money!” he shouted as he ran down the hallway to his parents’ room. “Have you ever heard of that? She brought money!  Mom!”

The fairy flew from her hiding place and alighted on the window sill. She adjusted the tooth in her arms before slipping through the magical opening she created in the glass. She smiled with satisfaction as she sped upwards to her home. She would suggest to the others that they should give money as Replacements instead of the usual small toys or treats.

**This post is a spin off of a picture book story I wrote and illustrated when I was a child: “Tinker The Toothfairy”.

Part 2- In The Churning Sea

Dear Diary,

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a depressing little post about a young lady who misguidedly committed suicide. I have received such an outcry from comments and tweets lamenting her death that I have decided to continue the story. Okay, okay! I will save her!  Thank you for your wonderful concern.

To read the first part of the story, go here: https://blogkelliannesweeneydeardiary.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/in-the-churning-sea/

She had carefully planned and executed her death. She had convinced herself that her heart could not go on beating without him. It was very poetic and made sense to her in her state of overwhelming grief. It had seemed that there could not be any purpose in the days ahead without him. It all made sense before she was actually drowning.

She had lived beside and loved the ocean all of her twenty years. She had daily breathed the thick and fragrant seaside air. She had grown with the ever present thin layer of gritty sand on herself and everything around her. Her tongue was accustomed to the slight salty tinge that lingered there. In the night the soothing lullaby of the endless breakers would sing her mind into sleep. She had always respected the sea, especially when it was angry. In the past, she had shied away and waited patiently for its’ tormenting tantrums to pass to be replaced once again by majestic good humor. But now she was engulfed in the sea’s full fury. It wanted to steal her breath and make her its’ own.

It was not as easy to lose the desire to breathe as she had thought. Faced with being taken, her will to continue her life reared up dramatically. She suddenly became desperately determined to grasp at every last sweet second of it. This seemed to incense the sea all the more. It thrashed and pulled her down as she struggled to retain living. The sea began to seep inside of her little by little, reducing her valiant attempts to break free into pitiful, ever decreasing splashes within its’ immense body. Her mind began to wander over her life’s events as the flow of breath eased away. She heard him calling her from far away; her Love, gliding closer to her consciousness. Her own name filled her ears as he beckoned, even as she slipped further down.

Then she felt firm hands grasping frantically. The grip was lost with successive swells of the ocean, then regained once again. Her head suddenly broke the surface and she choked and sputtered before gulping the air greedily. Her heart and lungs burned unmercifully with the effort. Her mind was woozy and confused as she became aware that she was being dragged away from the clutching sea. Her name was being caressed by another in her ear, but it was not her Lost Love. It was a voice from childhood; a comforting, strong force in her life. It was her brother. The voice had been there during many minor traumas in her life and it was here now. He was weeping for her as he stumbled and struggled to drag her limp body to safety. He begged her to open her eyes and to breathe. He admonished her for what she had attempted to do and still he wept frustrated tears.

She opened her eyes and squinted in the pelting rain that insisted they close. She held them open and whispered, “I’m here.”

Passing Stars Around

I am thrilled to be Guest Blogging over at Grit City Publications!  I was asked to write about creative processes. Come catch a Star!  http://www.rongavalik.com/Site/GrittyBlog/Entries/2011/11/7_Passing_Stars_Around.html  Come check out this very unique site!

Chocolate Cakeup and Makeup

Dear Diary,

I woke up with what I will affectionately call a Balloon Face. Yes, I am exaggerating, but that was what came to mind. My eyelids were puffy and when I glanced downward, I could see the left side of my face poking out. A look in the mirror confirmed my ghastly appearance. I had diligently scrubbed and rescrubbed my face the night before. My face had been deeply caked with artfully applied makeup the day before to render my face appropriate for a professional looking photograph. Amazing stuff, that makeup. The resulting pictures were quite impressive. I believe that my face trauma was due to the fact that under normal circumstances it is generally naked. I am not a big makeup person. Eyeliner and mascara complete my look. When I was in high school my face was occasionally splattered with stage makeup for plays, and I will admit to experimenting with some more extensive looks, but ultimately my face became used to a minimalistic approach to embellishment. My face was now rebelling and swelling.

This instance took me back in history to the only other time that my face reacted in such a way. The culprit, surprisingly, was chocolate cake; Black Forest chocolate cake. I have no idea why it’s called that, but it does sound rather eerie, doesn’t it? It wasn’t because I ate the cake, it was because the cake was smeared on my face by my friend Carol. We were not children. We were adults with our own children, and we basically had a food fight, or a chocolate cake smear to be more exact. I will admit that I started it. It was a beautiful chocolate cake that had not yet been touched. Carol said something very funny to me that demanded an extremely witty, sarcastic reply. Instead, I completely startled her by gouging the cake and depositing it on her surprised face. I will have to say that her expression was absolutely priceless and it was worth everything that I received as a result of my action. Of course she retaliated. Our other girlfriend and all three husbands watched in disbelief. They were sure that we had lost our giggling, childish minds. When playtime was over, we dutifully cleaned up our mess as all mature adults should do. That’s when my face began to swell. The ballooning of my face only made everything more hilarious to us.

The chocolate cake incident became the cornerstone of future practical jokes that Mandy and I would play on each other throughout the years. It is a fond, distant memory brought suddenly to my mind by my recent makeup induced face expansion. It is odd what can trigger vivid memories. I just hope that whatever was in the makeup that made my face swell is not the same ingredient that we were eating in that cake!

TeaserTrain- Carrie Green’s Novella “Violets Are Blue”

Supersonic #TeaserTrain Event, BUY 3 – GET 1 FREE, Thursday, Feb 2nd – Friday, Feb 3rd, 2012

CLICK HERE http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/books/supersonic-teaser-train

I am happy to welcome Carrie Green to my Blog as my first TeaserTrain participant. TeaserTrain is a new vehicle to give Teasers a larger reach. She is posting a Teaser from my novel “The One That Got Away” while I am posting a Teaser from her novella “Violets Are Blue”. Contact me if you are interested in participating in TeaserTrain.

Jump into Carrie’s excerpt which is a perfect set up for something scary to happen. I am not a horror writer, but Carrie excels at this creepy art. Please enjoy this taste of her writing. If you are desiring more, the link is available at the end of the post. I personally want to know what happens after this…

Newly-wed Sarah was delighted to move in with her mother-in-law, Martha, a widower who had raised her son, by herself, on an isolated Midwest farm. It never occurred to Sarah that Martha may see her as completion, to be eliminated.

Sarah stood on the dirt road, staring at the six foot high stalks, at the long, rippled leaves that concealed, in seconds, the bold red of Todd’s t-shirt. The corn had swallowed him up. She hadn’t expected him to take off.

Seriously, he wanted to play tag in a corn field? Then, she thought, why not? It was as crazy as anything else that they had done together. She remembered the time that they had walked through a snow storm, licking ice cream cones. People drove by, laughing at them, but a cone in winter had the advantage of not melting. It was the perfect weather for ice cream.

“Todd, where are you?” She tried to sound pissed, after all, he was forcing her to play tag. She waited to hear his voice, so that she could follow him. “Todd?”

“Come and get me!” he shouted, but she heard him moving again as she ran into the field, the noise of him running was fainter than the crashing of her own elbows and legs through the corn stalks. In the corner of her eye she saw the ears of corn which were both uglier and smaller than those in the supermarkets back home. The cobs, half eaten by the birds, had empty black sockets that resembled gap-toothed smiles. Tassels draped over the cobs like a bad comb-over.

The leaves sliced her skin. She was forced to run through random swarming circles of flies. Her hands were held out straight in front of her, in a futile effort to protect her face. Sarah could hear Todd, up-ahead. He sounded closer.

She stumbled. Her feet kept getting caught in the rope-like webbing of the corn roots. The ground was rock hard and dry. Only her momentum kept her from actually falling. A glimpse, finally, of Todd’s shirt; she was gaining on him.

His dark blue baseball cap flew up above the corn. Her eyes followed its descent. Sarah almost went to pick it up, but she didn’t want to lose Todd now. It was his problem, if they couldn’t find the hat later…

Grinning, she gasped for more air, she was getting closer. Todd was too smug in his country boy superiority, condescending about her fear of chickens. They were big birds, peaking at her knees, chasing her around the pen. They had flapped their useless wings in what she figured was their attack pose and made their warning cries, high and screechy. Fried chicken. Roasted chicken. Sweet and sour chicken. Her revenge would be tasty.

Todd was no longer a blur, but begun to take shape, again. She could see, in clear detail, the dark wave of hair at the top of his neck, formed by his constant habit of wearing baseball caps.

She was getting closer. Growing up in Chicago didn’t mean that she couldn’t run. There had been plenty of things to run from in Chicago. She liked to think that four years in college hadn’t slowed her down.

She could see Todd turn his head to check on her progress. He started quarterback dodging, going left and then right, around the rows of corn. Sarah followed, replicating his sudden turns. She steadied herself by reaching out at the corn, ripping off leaves, knocking down stalks. She was beginning to enjoy herself, exhilarated by the pounding of her heart and the heat of the sun on her head.

Supersonic #TeaserTrain Event, BUY 3 – GET 1 FREE, Thursday, Feb 2nd – Friday, Feb 3rd, 2012

CLICK HERE http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/books/supersonic-teaser-train

To read more and to purchase Violets Are Blue, or Carrie’s other two books, go to:  http://www.amazon.com/Carrie-Green/e/B005L3U1SW/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0