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CHAPTER ONE He stared at the drop of golden amber liquid on the tip of his finger. It glistened in the neon glow of a beer sign behind the bar, beaded up and hiding his fingerprint underneath. He imagined for a second he could see the twirl and swirl of the unique lines that only he owned in all the world. Fingerprints, the ultimate identifier. “Are you going to bet?” Jake shot a look at Amanda behind the bar. She had one hand behind her back, a bottle of what was on his finger hidden in her grip. “Double or nothing?” he shot her a cocky grin. “You’re on,” she snapped back with a smile. He put the tip of his finger on this tongue, transferring the drop onto his taste bud. He let it roll around a minute, savoring the miniature volcano of heat on just that one section of his tongue. It made the rest of his mouth water in anticipation. “Dewar’s,” he announced. Amanda pulled the hidden bottle from behind her back and showed him the label. “I’m impres...

Ever time travel? Most people don’t think it’s real, but if you’re like me, you believe in it. Still skeptical? Ever hear a song that takes you back to a special place in your life? How about a smell that sparks a memory? Or that shiver you get from déjà vu’? That’s time travelling. If you believe in quantum theory, there are a number of reasons for it. Parallel universe kind of stuff. Or maybe the Sherlock explanation works best. It’s just a simple pleasant memory. For me, I have a lot of fond memories. I don’t think my childhood was easy. I grew up so broke, we were just Po. We couldn’t afford the or to be poor. Single hippie mom. Cigarettes and beer were number one and two on the grocery list with food a distant third after a dime bag for Friday night. I had grandparents though and I’ve talked about Mamaw and Papaw before.   Grew their own food. Hunted their own meat. Built things with their hands. And always always had some...

CHAPTER FIVE This time he went for drinks. It was after noon which meant five o’clock somewhere by his reckoning and besides, it was his house and he could do as much day drinking as he liked. Gretchen trailed down the stairs, belting on her skirt under her untucked silk blouse. She had one of his old robes tossed over a shoulder and handed it to him as he passed her a tumbler with a stingy splash of bourbon in the bottom. He was out of rum. “Ice?” she asked. He pointed toward the kitchen and proceeded to sip his neat, like a gentleman is supposed to do. She came back with her ruined drink and sat in an arm chair opposite him on the couch. The picture window looked out over his front yard and the real estate housing development going in across the pasture. The light coming in gave her red hair a slight glow as she touched the glass to her lips and didn’t drink. Jake didn’t mind. He would just add what she left to his glass later. Waste not, wan...

CHAPTER FOUR They lay on top of the white duvet on his queen size bed under a skylight he had installed himself. The noon sun drilled through at an angle, casting an oblong rectangle of bright yellow on the white wall. It had tracked along the wall as they finished the shower and started time number two in the bed. Number three finished him for the day for good, he thought as he collapsed into a quivering heap next to her, one hand draped across her flat stomach tracing indentations in the smooth expanse of skin. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back one hand and rubbed the small of his back with the other. “Just like I remembered,” she said. “That could go either way,” Jake said. Gretchen rolled over to one side and cocked her head on her hand. “I think you know which way it went.” “You told me,” he nodded and switched to writing circles on her hip with the tip of his finger. “You were a little different.” “I’m a different man...

CHAPTER THREE Jake almost fell when the door opened and Gretchen stepped around the end of the shower. He was sure his mouth dropped because she wore the gold necklace he got her as a gift and nothing else. “Got room for me?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question because Jake wasn’t stupid, and neither was she. He had installed the shower himself. It was the width of the room, partitioned by a single pane of glass with an entry on either side that led to four shower heads. There was a giant picture window on the exterior wall, double paned for energy and tinted so anyone standing in the shower could see the width of what once was his empire and now belonged to a developer he no longer called friend. “Save me some hot water,” Gretchen scooted around the end of the glass partition and turned on a second spray of steamy water. He still thought of it as her end, he mused as his eyes travelled over the rest of her. Same Gretchen, same lines, sam...

CHAPTER TWO The smell of bacon was stronger inside the door and his stomach answered the crackle and sizzle with a roar of it’s own. Gretchen took his cup from his hand as he stepped into the kitchen and steered him toward the bistro table in the breakfast nook. She waited until he was seated and topped off his cup. Jake couldn’t help but put ups his guard. People weren’t nice to him unless they wanted something, and Gretchen being nice was twice as bad. She hadn’t been that nice to begin with. Sure, she was nice to look at, an amazing treat for the eyes from her crafted fashionable hair to the tips of her pedicured toes. Grey green eyes that sparkled in laughter or burned with anger, depending on her mood, and topped off with an attitude and intelligence that came off as half sass and all brass. “Thank you,” he sighed as he took the cup from her and cradled it in her hands. She patted him on the back of the head and let her fingers drift down to the...

SHADOWBOXER - THE FALL The Fall He sat on the edge of the creaky wooden porch, rocking back and forth in the scratched rockers that old lady Walden kept out there for her guests.   He wanted a cigarette, could almost taste it, but he gave up that habit ten years ago.   He wasn't about to start again. "They're late," he said to no one in particular. He was alone out here, except for the crickets, and lightening bugs winking in the thick, humid air.   He had been on the porch for over an hour, forty-five minutes longer than he was scheduled to wait.   He didn't mind. When he was a young man, what felt like a thousand years ago, he had crouched in a hollowed out tree stump barely three feet tall, and half that deep for nine hours.   He was on a mission to shoot a North Vietnamese Army General that intelligence said would pass by with a convoy.   He did, Bog sniped him, and had to be folded out of the stump by a Green Beret patrol.   They c...