laptop was a vase with one red rose.
“Welcome to your new writing retreat,” Reba said. “Aunt Gertie wanted you to have her old desk, and I bought the chair on Amazon. If it doesn’t work or you don’t like the color, we can send it—”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Although it was hard to kiss when he had a huge smile on his face. He drew back and smoothed a wayward curl from her forehead. “Thank you. I love the chair and the desk. But we really can’t spare a room we could rent out. Especially when we don’t know if I’m going to make any money writing middle school ghost stories.”
“You’ll make money. I believe in you. But you’ll never know if you don’t finish your book.” She turned him around and pushed him toward the chair.
“I can’t write now. We have guests.”
“We are always going to have guests, especially now that the boardinghouse is continually filled with ghost hunters. So you can’t use that as an excuse not to write.” She pulled out the chair and spoke in a stern voice very similar to her aunt’s. “Sit.”
He sat. He expected her to leave and rejoin their guests. Instead, she kicked off her shoes, hiked up her wedding dress, and climbed up on the bed. After plumping up the pillows, she relaxed back with a smile that said she would be content lying there watching him for the rest of her life.
As he turned to his laptop and started writing, Marvin Valentine realized there was such a thing as heaven on earth.
The End
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TAMING A TEXAS DEVIL
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“You’ve got exactly two seconds to drop your weapon and reach for the sky, Mister, before I fill you full of more holes than a pair of fishnet stockings.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Dixie Leigh Meriwether lowered the gun and stared in complete and utter annoyance at her reflection in the mirror. “Fishnet stockings? Good Lord, Dixie Leigh, do you think a criminal is going to take you seriously if you start talking about women’s hosiery?”
She narrowed her eyes, lifted the gun, and tried again. “You’ve got two seconds to drop your weapon and reach for the sky before I blow your bee-hind to smithereens.” She rolled her eyes and did a little foot stomping dance of frustration. “Bee-hind? Dirty Harry would not say bee-hind! Come on, now. Concentrate. You got this.”
She shook out her shoulders, adjusted her tan felt cowboy hat at just the right jaunty angle, then took a nice deep breath and slowly released it like she did before she stepped out on a beauty pageant stage. Except now, she wasn’t playing the part of a perfect southern lady vying for a crown. She was playing the part of a steely-eyed deputy hoping not to get shot.
Although getting shot by a criminal in this town was extremely unlikely. Which is why Dixie had chosen to be a deputy here. Simple had one of the lowest crime rates in the state of Texas. Probably the world. Still, her mama had always taught her to expect the best, but prepare for the worst.
She narrowed her eyes at her reflection and was about to deliver her lines once again when she noticed the red bump on her chin. “What in the name of Sweet Baby Moses is that?” She lowered the gun and leaned closer to the mirror. “No . . . just no. A pimple!” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a pimple. Probably at thirteen, right before her mama had started her on a daily skin care regime that Dixie had stuck too religiously ever since.
As her mama always said, “If the Lord was nice enough to bless you with a gift as precious as the human body, then you needed to take good care of it.” And Winona Meriwether believed in taking care of her body. At almost sixty, Dixie’s mama was still mistaken for her big sister. She had great hair, great teeth, great nails, and great skin due to her diligent care—and the diligent care of an experienced team