Le sigh. I’ve hit my stride. Found the sweet spot. Wordgasms. Daily, for hours and hours on end. With characters I adore.
When I find the groove, the world ceases to exist. Luckily Firstborn is used to this, the black hole I fall into when it’s pedal to the metal time. She provisions…
Stacks of frozen pizzas in the freezer. Lunchmeat, cheese, rolls. Cans of soup. Coffee. K-cups (don’t lay the environmental impact on me la-la-la-la). Clearly we won’t starve.
I won’t leave the house for days on end, though Firstborn insisted on seeing Avengers 2 (meh). But it was all cool. I got to resolve a plot hole, hitting the laptop as soon as we got home.
There’s no deadline, nothing like that, just a pure unadulterated joy in channeling a story of two men dealt a pretty shoddy hand. They are down, but they’re not out.
Not everybody steps up to the plate when the big bad shows up.
But then, Marcus Colton and Josiah Foxglove aren’t just anybody…
The Eagle and the Fox (A Snowy Range Mystery)
Kit Giniw (Golden Eagle) is running. From poverty, from abuse. Forced to live by his wits, the Ojibwe teen slowly succumbs to living a life of hate and lies.
Josiah Foxglove is given a second chance when he takes over his family’s spread in the shadow of the Snowy Range. A veteran of the Gulf War, he came back broken in body and spirit.
Marcus Colton buried his long-time lover and best friend three years ago. Lonely and still grieving, Marcus finds solace in keeping his business afloat but that doesn’t help him get through the long, dark nights.
Three damaged souls converge as violence wracks the small community of Centurion, WY. The town protects its own so when Kit Giniw shows up, it’s easy to place blame on the stranger. It looks open and shut, but for Josiah and Marcus the facts simply don’t add up.
Something’s rotten in Centurion, something that smacks of a hate crime…
Marcus looked askance at the change in Josh. The rifle slung over one shoulder, the revolver casually stuffed in the waistband of his jeans, the way his posture had straightened, eyes flashing blue fire… When he’d entered the loft, the man had sucked all the air out of the space … and out of Marcus’ lungs.
Someone he knew as friend now scared the crap out of him, but in an unexpected way. He had to turn away, busy himself to seeing that Petilune rested comfortably on the couch, instead of jumping the warrior standing at attention at the door.
God, he looks hot. Capable. Really, really fucking capable…
Whoever, or whatever, had thrown a switch in Josh’s head had activated the combat veteran. The man was ice and granite, an immovable object and a force field. A warrior protecting his own.
The teakettle shrilled. He and Petilune jumped a foot. Josh twitched. It was good to know there was still a vulnerable man under that stern exterior. A man currently armed to the teeth. A man with PTSD and the remnants of a time he’d probably rather forget but never could. Every halting step he took, every time he went for normal but got caught with the short end of the stick, living every moment with the uncertainty of a sound or a smell or a feeling turning into a threat…
How did a man learn to adjust, how did he compensate so he didn’t fall back into the chaos, how did he keep a scrabble hold on sanity? Marcus had no answers for those questions, and he doubted he ever would. That kind of journey was too personal, too private, for the likes of a civilian without a clue, especially when he was still struggling with his own lingering sense of loss.
But there were questions he might entertain. Like… how could a friend help anchor that man until the bad passed. And how could that friend make the bad less, the good more?
Time seemed frozen. Josh rigid, at attention. Petilune snuffling, her eyes bugging out. Marcus glanced at the steam and the steady whistle. He said to Josh, “If you shoot the kettle, there won’t be hot water for oatmeal.”
“And that’s a bad thing how?”