fiction

Setting the Hook [an excerpt]

Setting the Hook [an excerpt]

Rappahannock County was home to hundreds of trout streams. Overnight temperatures in late winter dipped into the minuses and seldom rose above the mid-teens during daylight hours. The trees had dropped their leaves, and the riparian vegetation was mostly dead or dormant. Ice crystals had formed along the dappled edges of the mountain stream we had come to, but most of the water remained accessible, flowing freely down the slopes.

Swing... and Miss

Swing... and Miss

As I reclined against Andre’s chest, his arms encircled me and I felt all my misgivings fade away. I’d forgotten how it felt to be held by him, but memories started flooding back, and I sank into him further and sighed.

“Tell me something that would surprise me,” he challenged, “something that I wouldn’t believe.”

I thought for a moment and then recalled where I was and what I was doing not five months earlier and I began to tell him a story…

Sandalwood [an excerpt]

Sandalwood [an excerpt]

Michael Carbone was my first real love. We had known each other in passing for most of our lives. We had gone to the same Catholic primary school and then the same Catholic high school, although he was four years older than me. Our fathers were friends. Our mothers were friends, too, but not for three days during the annual spring garden festival when they became rivals for the title of ‘Best Garden Over One Acre’.