by Maggie Ryan
"I'll bet. Come on in the dining room. Annie is putting the food on the table. She made all your favorites. I can't begin to tell you how excited she is that you're back to stay."
When they entered the spacious dining room, his younger sister looked up and smiled. "Hi, big brother, just in time."
"No guests tonight at the B and B?" he asked.
"I fed them earlier. They are all off doing their own thing. Only two couples right now; it's a slow time of the year," she said. "Now, sit down. I know you have to be starving, after eating on the road for two days."
After Gracie and Gregory said a prayer over the food, they began passing bowls and platters around the table. Succulent roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, a broccoli and cheese dish and brown sugar glazed carrots graced the table. Gracie was right, all of his favorites. His sister was an excellent cook; their mother had taught her well.
"Are these rolls homemade?" he asked as he bit into a hot buttered yeast roll.
"What kind of question is that? Of course, they're homemade," Annie answered with a giggle.
"Wait till you see what she made for dessert," Gregory said.
"He's been trying to get into it since school let out for the day," Annie said.
Bart laughed before taking on a more serious tone. "So, Rance, how are you doing?"
He took a sip of iced tea before he answered. "All in all, I think I'm okay. It was a shock and happened so fast, I barely had much time to think about things, until the drive out here."
"I'm so sorry about Ellie. I know you thought that, eventually, you would be the one she married," Annie said sympathetically.
"Looking back, I see many things I did wrong. I procrastinated, telling myself neither of us was ready. Apparently, that wasn't true. But, I don't think we were truly meant to be, either, now that I think about it. It all happened the way it was supposed to happen. I wish nothing but the best for the two of them. Ellie is a great gal; she just isn't the gal for me."
"You'll meet the right one, maybe right here in Bloomdale, who knows?" Bart said.
"So, are you coming to my game next week?" Gregory asked, shifting the conversation.
"You're playing baseball?" Rance asked. "I played a few years in high school, believe it or not."
"Yeah, baseball, got a game on Monday night."
"Sure, I'll be there, count on it, buddy."
Gracie helped herself to more potatoes and said, "My friend, Lisa, says her aunt is moving back home, too. Isn't that funny? She's been in New York for a long time."
"Oh, I guess maybe I'm not the only one starting a new life then, huh?" he said as he grinned at his niece. "Now, don't go trying to fix me up with this aunt, okay, munchkin?"
"Oh, I won't," Gracie said quickly, with a distinct gleam in her eye. "Her name is Lydie, Aunt Lydie."
Rance looked up, startled. Could it be? "What's her last name?" he asked casually. "Do you know?"
"Um… not sure," Gracie said. "She got married but her husband died, so she's moving back."
"I'm so sorry for her," Annie said.
"He was sick for a long time. They don’t have kids, so she decided to come home. Lisa says she's pretty cool."
"Well, I'm sure if Lisa says she's cool, then she is," Bart said with a chuckle. He turned to Rance to explain. "Lisa is at that stage where not many adults are cool. She and Gracie have made that abundantly clear."
"I see. Well, munchkin, when you meet Aunt Lydie, you'll have to let us know how cool she really is," Rance teased.
"Oh, you two, leave her alone. You know it's normal at their age," Annie said in defense of her only daughter. "As long as they are polite, I don't see any harm in letting them voice their opinions in private."
Love Task by Vanessa Brooks
Sophie cannot come to terms with the loss of her dear friend in an accident whilst on a skiing holiday in Colorado. She met Scott on the holiday that claimed her friend’s life. After the disaster she shuts down and refuses to return Scott’s calls. She has devised a way to rid herself of her feelings of guilt but finds that a year after the event, her way is not working.
Scott is determined that she should not push him out of her life and throw away any future they might have together. He decides to use old fashioned methods, convinced that domestic discipline will rid her of her survival guilt but he is up against one stubborn girl! What Sophie doesn’t realise is that Scott is a force to be reckoned with and he is determined to convince his beautiful girl that she deserves a future of happiness with him by her side. It is to be a clash of strong wills.
Chapter One
He watched her as she sashayed across the street wearing her classic 1950s outfit with the ease of a second skin. The full-skirted dress swayed with the unconscious, sensual movement of her hips. The other girls arriving for work at the vintage themed diner appeared awkward and self conscious in their own dated get up, but Sophie looked as though she had stepped directly out of that era. She certainly wouldn’t look out of place on a 1950s film set. Her resemblance to actress Doris Day struck him afresh. The likeness to the star of stage and screen who’d played in so many Hollywood films had been the first thing that Scott had noticed about her in Colorado, she even had the same mesmerizing eyes as the blonde, fresh faced actress. It had been over a year since they had last met on that fateful day in Colorado.
He leaned back into his car seat and closed his eyes. Immediately the images replayed across his eyelids in relentless Technicolor, the same as they always did whenever he thought about those two terrible days. Was he ready for this encounter—was she? He opened his eyes and cast one last longing look over at the diner before starting the car and pulling away, driving in the direction of his newly rented house.
He wondered if Sophie would feel uncomfortable with him living in the same small town that she lived and worked in. Hell, she was the only reason he was here at all. He would just have to convince her that they should be together. Scott had not been able to get her out of his mind after they had parted which was why he had finally decided that he had to try one last time to convince her of their joint destiny.
The house that he’d rented was on the edge of the small township of Honeoye in Monroe County, not far from the town of Rochester, New York State. It was a small friendly place that attracted holiday makers to its pretty waterfall. Scott, a dog handler in the K-9 unit, had put in for a transfer to Henrietta, the nearest that he could get to Honeoye. He’d applied some nine months previous and when nothing came up, he’d put it to the back of his mind. Nobody was more surprised than him when the papers for his transfer came through. It seemed that the team in the sheriff’s office wanted a K-9 unit situated in the county. Hell, they had just about everything else, including a scuba unit, which was kinda necessary with all the lakes and waterfalls situated in the Lake Ontario area. Scott was more than happy to leave the precinct in Denver where all he and Diesel, his dog, seemed to do was sniff out narcotics at the Denver airport.
Scott turned into Lake Gardens, a cul-de-sac of a new build mix of smaller family type houses and ranch homes. He pulled up at number ten and switched off the engine just as another car swung into the road and parked in front of his. It was the agent who was due to meet him for the orientation on his new property.
“So that’ll be the breakfast special and stack?” Sophie confirmed as the man leered at her bosom.
“I’ll definitely take the stack!” he quipped.
Sophie grinned at the customer whilst thinking, what a jerk. Just because the diner favored the vintage style, some of the men who ate there turned into chauvinist pigs as soon as they walked through the door and saw all the prettily dressed waitresses in their 1950s get ups.
She moved off to stick the order on the pin ready for the chef to grab and moved to pour coffee ready to take back to her chauvinistic pig at table three. She had been working at the diner part time for six months but that was only because she felt uncomfortable taking money from her father.
Her vintage clothing shop in Brighton, England, was doing really well despite her absence. Her co-owner and best friend Kim was somehow managing to run the shop and the on-line business alone and she appeared to be making a great job of it too if sales were anything to go by. Sophie knew she would have to make a decision about her future very soon as her tasks were completed. She couldn’t remain in the States indefinitely, not with a shared business to run back in the U.K., but it was simply easier to remain here because nothing in the U.S.A. reminded her of Rupert. There were no memories in America, well, apart from the terrible ones in Colorado. Her mind shut down and she turned her thoughts back to her father.
James Jackson was an archivist now working at the brand new Rochester Library. He collated and cared for precious film dating back to the beginning of celluloid. He met Sophie’s mother Sarah whilst on exchange from Stony Brook University in the State of New York, to Brighton University Sussex, England, during in the 1970s. James and Sarah met on campus, fell in love, married and settled for a time in Britain. Sophie and her brother Simon had come along in rapid succession, and for a while, they were the picture of an archetypal family until James was offered a job back in the U.S. and life changed for the family. After the move, things were never the same between Sophie’s parents, which led eventually to James and Sarah becoming divorced.
Sarah returned to England, taking her two children with her. After a time both James and Sarah re-married and both couples appeared to be settled. Sarah had contracted breast cancer, and after losing her battle with the horrible, debilitating disease, she’d died three years ago. Simon lived in Scotland and Sophie was the only member of her family who remained living in Sussex. She continued to visit her father at least once a year but Simon rarely found the time to get away from his corporate position in Edinburgh.
Sophie and her long time boy friend from University, Rupert Templeton, came over to spend New Year with Sophie’s father and stepmother Mae, some eighteen months previous. James had generously agreed to treat them all to a skiing holiday in honor of Sophie’s twenty-first birthday that year. Simon had been invited but had declined. Sophie knew it was because Simon now had a permanent new partner, Carl, and Simon had not yet informed their father that he was gay. So it had been the four of them staying at the hotel set high in the Colorado Mountains.
As usual, whenever her mind strayed to the disastrous ski trip, Sophie erased her line of thought and got busy. As she flew between patrons, refreshing coffee and taking orders, she found herself humming, “busy doing nothing, nothing the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do!” The words of the stupid song churned repetitively around in her head until she was certain she would scream and then to top it all, he walked in.
Sock It to Me by Rayanna Jamison
It all started with a pair of socks- and it looked like it might end that way too.
Joey had fallen for Jake at the tender age of nineteen. He had saved her life, both figuratively, and, as her chemo nurse, literally as well.
After beating the ovarian cancer that had brought them together, Joey grabs life by the horns and doesn't look back, often dragging Jake along for the ride. Jake's always there to drag her back to safety with his tender love and a firm hand.
But when Joey decides to open a business—a sock store of all things—without consulting her husband, their relationship is put to the test. Can Joey chase her dreams without Jake's full support, and remind him what their relationship has always been based on?
Sock It To Me is a love story told through socks and spankings.
Chapter One
“Jolene Marie Ryan.” The words were spoken in a terse growl, and Joey winced when she heard them. He seldom called her Jolene, and when he did, it was always a bad sign. She much preferred Joey, which was what he usually called her. He was, in fact, the one who had given her that nickname.
Raised in a failing foster care system, she had been on her own from the moment she turned eighteen. Tossed out on her ear by the last crappy family in a long line of the same with $1,000 dollars to her name, and a suitcase full of tattered belongings, she had done okay, at first. She had long ago learned how to stretch a dollar, and she had managed quickly to find a good job. One that had required her to submit to a physical. That’s when she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She didn’t get the job, but the nice woman in HR had at least pointed her in the right direction for care and coverage.
She had been alone in the world, and scared out of her mind—one hundred percent certain that she wouldn’t survive simply because she had nothing to live for. Her first day of chemo, she had sobbed hysterically, actually contemplating suicide for the first time in her very traumatic life. Jake had been her chemo nurse, and he had saved her life, both literally and figuratively.
It was a fact she reminded herself of often, anytime he got that look on his face like he was seconds away from flipping her over his knee and spanking the living tar out of her. He had that look right now. Since her remission, on her nineteenth birthday, she had grabbed life by the horns and approached it with a take no prisoners attitude. Her motto was jump first, think later. Okay, so that wasn’t actually her motto, but he swore that it must be.
Her adrenaline-fueled life approach landed her in a pickle more often than not. Jake always came to her rescue, just as he had been doing every day for the past six years. This time, though, she didn’t need his help, and she hadn’t done anything wrong. She had been telling him that for the last fifteen minutes. So far, he didn’t seem to agree.
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” she repeated, raising her voice for good measure.
“So you keep saying,” he deadpanned, unruffled.
Even in the midst of her most epic escapades, he had been her unflappable rock. He’d listen patiently, bail her out of whatever jam she was in without batting an eyelash. Until they got home. Then it was always the same. The crook of the finger as he pointed to the corner. The lecture that made her feel two inches tall while he paced the living room behind her. Then he’d sigh loudly, walk up behind her, and pull her panties down to her knees, give her a few swats for emphasis, and continue the lecture until he was one hundred percent certain that she truly understood the gravity of the situation. Then, and only then, would the spanking begin.
This time was different. They were already at home. And she wasn’t going to give in. There was nothing he could say that would make her sorry for what she had done.
“We’re married, Jolene Marie. Husband and wife. That means everything we do individually potentially affects the other one. I wouldn’t even take an extra shift at work without asking you first. And you bought a business without telling me. You bought a business without even a mention to me that it was so much as a thought in your head. I would never do that to you. Never.”
Except maybe that. When he put it that way, she stopped in her tracks. Her stomach dropped to her knees and she began to wish for the spanking that would undoubtedly happen before the day was done. When he looked at her like that, she finally got it. She had the sudden urge to walk over to him, lower her pants, and drape herself across his lap.
While she loved their relationship, even that part of it, she hated this feeling. Fighting against it, she slammed her hand town on top of the stack of papers that had started this whole mess in the first place. “I did not BUY a business, Jake! I leased a building! There is a freaking difference, you know.”
“Not a big enough one.” His retort was flat and tired sounding. “You leased a building with the intention of opening a business. Without talking to me.”
“It’s my money,” she growled, knowing that it was unfair. Her settlement money was hers, but they had both agreed to save it for a rainy day. The fact that their definition of a rainy day differed should not have come as a surprise to either of them.
“We’re married,” he repeated. This time it did not have the same heart softening affect that it had had before.
“
Don’t remind me!” She hurled the insult without abandon, regretting it only after it was too late.
Jake’s face finally showed a smidge of emotion, contorting in shock and hurt. It passed quickly, and his eyes narrowed to slits. He made a twirling motion in the air with his finger, and she shook her head in denial.
“Jake, no! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
His face showed no change, and the action was repeated. She knew from experience that pleading would only make it worse.
Squinting her eyes shut, she stood, walked slowly around the side of the table to stand in front of him, and turned so that her back was to him.
His hand was hard and unforgiving, but this wasn’t a real spanking. That would come later. This was only, quite simply, what her stubborn husband referred to as an attitude adjustment.
“Watch. Your. Self! No matter what you happen to think of me in the moment, I am your husband, and I’m a damn good one. Show me some respect!”
Only three quick swats, but they were hard, and her bottom tingled as she walked away, tears pooling in her eyes. They weren’t at all from the pain of the spanking—those never made her cry, as she was simply too damn stubborn.
His words on the other hand, that tangible disappointment, the pooling of remorse in her belly? That got her every single time.
He grabbed her hand just before she got out of reach, and pulled her back to him, turning her body so that he saw her face. He didn’t mention the wetness in her eyes, or the fact that she didn’t look nearly as smug as she had two minutes ago. It wasn’t his style.
“Do you have an idea of what you are going to sell at this store?” he asked hesitantly, his expression hopeful.
It was the question she had been waiting for. She knew that the answer would make him smile, and he would see the same potential in the idea as she had. “Socks!” she exclaimed triumphantly, her excitement bubbling over as she waited for that smile she loved so much. The one that had so many years ago, had the instant power over her tears, and had melted her heart every day since.
