Diamonds Are Forever - Brooke St. James

Chapter 1

Galveston Island, Texas

June, 1988

It was one of those days where the weather was perfect. There were just enough clouds in the sky that the sun would occasionally go behind them. But even when the sun was out, the temperature was so wonderful that it felt like the air was made of nothing.

I sat on the end of the dock, letting the gentle wind hit my face. The sun went behind a cloud, and the breeze was so pleasant that I smiled even though no one but God was there to see me.

Mac was with me, but he was lying down with his eyes closed. It was a Saturday afternoon, and we were on an adventure. The nap was a planned part of it. Mac was outgrowing naps, but when he took them, he preferred doing it outside. So, on days when I wasn't working at the hardware store, we tried to plan our excursions around letting him sleep outside for a little while.

It worked out for me because it gave me a few moments of quiet. Mac's naps had gotten significantly shorter during the last year or so, but I still managed to get some thinking and writing done during them.

I was just about to finish another Garden City notebook. It was a collection of stories for kids about a town of woodland creatures that existed in a community garden. Theoretically, there were humans around, but they didn't behave like humans in the real world. The humans in Garden City weren't curious about woodland creatures. The children didn't chase or try to play with them. Everyone just sort of ignored the animals the same as they would a flower or tree. I thought maybe one day I'd write about a little human child who got curious and came into their world. But for now, the two didn't intersect.

As far as the forest creatures went, there were lots of side characters in the stories, but most of the action was centered around a family of hedgehogs. Hank and Barbara were the parents, and the children were Timmy, Tommy, and Tess. Tess was my aunt's name, but I couldn't think of a name I liked better for the character, and Aunt Tess was happy to have a hedgehog named after her.

I had been working on the Garden City series for so long that I had enough material to write twenty children's books. I knew they might not ever get published, but I was definitely going to try for that after I put together a more polished series.

The problem was that I was missing illustrations. I had tried, but I had no talent for drawing. I had thought about making them chapter books just to get around the little obstacle of pictures, but I always imagined the stories with pictures to complement them, so I felt like I'd be settling if I got impatient and tried to reformat them into chapter books. I thought I should wait until I got some illustrations squared away to search for a publisher.

My Aunt Tess was a successful painter, so she had the skills to help me out, but she had teenage kids of her own and a busy life, and I didn't feel right about asking her to sign onto my project, which, as of now, was a hobby. She knew I was writing them, and I told myself that she'd offer if she was interested.

At this point, I was content to write the stories and try to deal with finding a publisher and illustrator later. I was fully aware that, as a single mother with a toddler, I should probably get my head out of the clouds and stop writing about woodland creatures. But my parents had always been extremely supportive, and they didn't seem like they were in a big hurry for us to move out and be fully independent.

Mac and I had our own little place on their property. It was a detached apartment—a little mother-in-law cottage in my parents' backyard. My dad had built it as a shop when I was in middle school. He used it until I got pregnant, at which point, they decided to remodel and turn it into an apartment so that Mac and I could have our own place. One might wonder how a young lady such as myself ended up being a single mother at such a young age.

Let's just say a lot of stuff had gone down during my junior year of high school.

The short