Truck Back Side Quotes

Huck [Finn] and Tom [Sawyer] represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.

Esperanza leaned around the side of the truck. As they rounded a curve, it appeared as if the mountains pulled away from each other, like a curtain opening on stage, revealing the San Joaquin Valley beyond. Flat and spacious, it spread out like a blanket of patchwork fields. Esperanza could see no end to the plots of yellow, brown, and shades of green. The road finally leveled out on the valley floor, and she gazed back at the mountains from where they'd come. They looked like monstrous lions' paws resting at the edge of ridge.

Let go!” I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideways across the wet sidewalk until we reached the Volvo. Then he finally freed me – I stumbled against the passenger door. “You are so pushy!” I grumbled “It’s open,” was all he responded. He got in the driver’s side. “I am perfectly capable of driving myself home!” I stood by the car, fuming. It was raining harder now, and I’d never put my hood up, so my hair was dripping down my back. He lowered the automatic window and leaned toward me across the seat. “Get in, Bella.” I didn’t answer. I was mentally calculating my chances of reaching the truck before he could catch me. I had to admit it, they weren’t good. “I’ll just drag you back,” he threatened, guessing my plan.

I feel completely embarrassed and remember the lock on the door and think: He knows, he knows, it shows, shows completely. “He’s out back,” Mr. Garret tells me mildly, “unpacking shipments.” Then he returns to the papers. I feel compelled to explain myself. “I just thought I’d come by. Before babysitting. You, know, at your house. Just to say hi. So . . . I’m going to do that now. Jase’s in back, then? I’ll just say hi.” I’m so suave. I can hear the ripping sound of the box cutter before I even open the rear door to find Jase with a huge stack of cardboard boxes. His back’s to me and suddenly I’m as shy with him as I was with his father. This is silly. Brushing through my embarrassment, I walk up, put my hand on his shoulder. He straightens up with a wide grin. “Am I glad to see you!” “Oh, really?” “Really. I thought you were Dad telling me I was messing up again. I’ve been a disaster all day. Kept knocking things over. Paint cans, our garden display. He finally sent me out here when I knocked over a ladder. I think I’m a little preoccupied.” “Maybe you should have gotten more sleep,” I offer. “No way,” he says. Then we just gaze at each other for a long moment. For some reason, I expect him to look different, the way I expected I would myself in the mirror this morning . . . I thought I would come across richer, fuller, as happy outside as I was inside, but the only thing that showed was my lips puffy from kisses. Jase is the same as ever also. “That was the best study session I ever had,” I tell him. “Locked in my memory too,” he says, then glances away as though embarrassed, bending to tear open another box. “Even though thinking about it made me hit my thumb with a hammer putting up a wall display.” “This thumb?” I reach for one of his callused hands, kiss the thumb. “It was the left one.” Jase’s face creases into a smile as I pick up his other hand. “I broke my collarbone once,” he tells me, indicating which side. I kiss that. “Also some ribs during a scrimmage freshman year.” I do not pull his shirt up to where his finger points now. I am not that bold. But I do lean in to kiss him through the soft material of his shirt. “Feeling better?” His eyes twinkle. “In eighth grade, I got into a fight with this kid who was picking on Duff and he gave me a black eye.” My mouth moves to his right eye, then the left. He cups the back of my neck in his warm hands, settling me into the V of his legs, whispering into my ear, “I think there was a split lip involved too.” Then we are just kissing and everything else drops away. Mr. Garret could come out at any moment, a truck full of supplies could drive right on up, a fleet of alien spaceships could darken the sky, I’m not sure I’d notice.

Max: Okay. One day a little boy is sitting on the floor of his living room, playing with some toy trucks. Voom!He shoots one across the carpet, but it goes too far, to the other side of the sofa. And then miraculously, it shoots right back. Surprised, the little boy peers around the sofa to find a girl around his age with a very attractive bowl cut, building a giant Lego castle. She asks him if he wants to play, before popping one of the Legos in her mouth, informing him that if he's hungry, they are made out of chocolate. And the boy had never felt happy in his whole life. They build the most incredible chocolate castle, with dragons and soldiers and moat made of milk. And then they fell asleep side by side. The boy wakes up in his living room, and even though there is no castle or no little girl, he still feels just as happy. And he knows he will see her again. Alice: Was that me? Max: That was you. The first time we met.

Since the dawn of time, several billion human (or humanlike) beings have lived, each contributing a little genetic variability to the total human stock. Out of this vast number, the whole of our understanding of human prehistory is based on the remains, often exceedingly fragmentary, of perhaps five thousand individuals. You could fit it all into the back of a pickup truck if you didn't mind how much you jumbled everything up, Ian Tattersall, the bearded and friendly curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, replied when I asked him the size of the total world archive of hominid and early human bones. The shortage wouldn't be so bad if the bones were distributed evenly through time and space, but of course they are not. They appear randomly, often in the most tantalizing fashion. Homo erectus walked the Earth for well over a million years and inhabited territory from the Atlantic edge of Europe to the Pacific side of China, yet if you brought back to life every Homo erectus individual whose existence we can vouch for, they wouldn't fill a school bus. Homo habilis consists of even less: just two partial skeletons and a number of isolated limb bones. Something as short-lived as our own civilization would almost certainly not be known from the fossil record at all. In Europe, Tattersall offers by way of illustration, you've got hominid skulls in Georgia dated to about 1.7 million years ago, but then you have a gap of almost a million years before the next remains turn up in Spain, right on the other side of the continent, and then you've got another 300,000-year gap before you get a Homo heidelbergensis in Germany and none of them looks terribly much like any of the others. He smiled. It's from these kinds of fragmentary pieces that you're trying to work out the histories of entire species. It's quite a tall order. We really have very little idea of the relationships between many ancient species which led to us and which were evolutionary dead ends. Some probably don't deserve to be regarded as separate species at all.

I had recently read to my dismay that they have started hunting moose again in New England. Goodness knows why anyone would want to shoot an animal as harmless and retiring as the moose, but thousands of people do—so many, in fact, that states now hold lotteries to decide who gets a permit. Maine in 1996 received 82,000 applications for just 1,500 permits. Over 12,000 outof-staters happily parted with a nonrefundable $20 just to be allowed to take part in the draw. Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old. That’s all there is to it. Without doubt, the moose is the most improbable, endearingly hopeless creature ever to live in the wilds. Every bit of it—its spindly legs, its chronically puzzled expression, its comical oven-mitt antlers—looks like some droll evolutionary joke. It is wondrously ungainly: it runs as if its legs have never been introduced to each other. Above all, what distinguishes the moose is its almost boundless lack of intelligence. If you are driving down a highway and a moose steps from the woods ahead of you, he will stare at you for a long minute (moose are notoriously shortsighted), then abruptly try to run away from you, legs flailing in eight directions at once. Never mind that there are several thousand square miles of forest on either side of the highway. The moose does not think of this. Clueless as to what exactly is going on, he runs halfway to New Brunswick before his peculiar gait inadvertently steers him back into the woods, where he immediately stops and takes on a startled expression that says, “Hey—woods. Now how the heck did I get here?” Moose are so monumentally muddle-headed, in fact, that when they hear a car or truck approaching they will often bolt out of the woods and onto the highway in the curious hope that this will bring them to safety. Amazingly, given the moose’s lack of cunning and peculiarly-blunted survival instincts, it is one of the longest-surviving creatures in North America. Mastodons, saber-toothed tigers, wolves, caribou, wild horses, and even camels all once thrived in eastern North America alongside the moose but gradually stumbled into extinction, while the moose just plodded on. It hasn’t always been so. At the turn of this century, it was estimated that there were no more than a dozen moose in New Hampshire and probably none at all in Vermont. Today New Hampshire has an estimated 5,000 moose, Vermont 1,000, and Maine anywhere up to 30,000. It is because of these robust and growing numbers that hunting has been reintroduced as a way of keeping them from getting out of hand. There are, however, two problems with this that I can think of. First, the numbers are really just guesses. Moose clearly don’t line up for censuses. Some naturalists think the population may have been overstated by as much as 20 percent, which means that the moose aren’t being so much culled as slaughtered. No less pertinent is that there is just something deeply and unquestionably wrong about killing an animal that is so sweetly and dopily unassuming as a moose. I could have slain this one with a slingshot, with a rock or stick—with a folded newspaper, I’d almost bet—and all it wanted was a drink of water. You might as well hunt cows.

Gracie leaned out the back, craning her neck as far as she could around the side, trying to catch the wind in her nose and flapping lips. She loved driving, and this car was much faster than the truck which hauled her cage. It was very green here, and the sun flashed and flickered behind the tall trees. There were a million smells along this road, both old and just born. She closed her eyes and huffed, pretending she was flying.

Fabian didn't flinch under Vlad's harsh analysis. "You have no idea what it's like, existing between worlds," he said, floating closer instead of backing away. "We are neither the living or the undead. It takes years to cope with the fact that even though over ninety-nine percent of everyone who dies crosses over to the next place, you are left behind. Years to accept that everything you worked for in your life is gone, and the shell of memory is all that remains. Years to recover from hopelessly trying to communicate with loved ones, only to fail time and again because no one except the crazed, psychics, the undead, or other ghosts can see you. Years to accept---even if you don't understand why---that vampires and ghouls will treat you worse that they do vermin, even though they are no human than you are." Fabian advanced again, until his finger disappeared into Vlad's chest. "I'd dare the strongest of your race or any other to say that they've conquered the same hardships my people have overcome. So think again before you question a ghost's worth, or judge those younger ones who are still in the process of becoming tougher than anyone tied to flesh will ever be." Stunned silence filled the air once Fabian was finished. I wanted to break out in apologies and applause all at the same time, but I was still recovering from my shock at how my mild-mannered, Casperesque friend had just unloaded a truck full of I-dare-yous onto one of the scariest vampires in existence. Damned if I would ever underestimate a ghost's chutzpah again, or question their fortitude. Being noncorporeal clearly didn't equate to lacking a pair of balls.

Nancy and Ned hurried off to tell their friends about the trip. Quarter of an hour later the young people were seated in the back of a green pickup truck bouncing along a narrow road toward Elizabethtown. When they reached the main street of the small town, the driver let them out. “Where is the police station?” Nancy asked. The man chuckled. “We don’t need one. There’s only one policeman—he’s the marshal. But he’s away on vacation. Go up this side street,” he said, pointing to a tree-shaded lane, “to the third house. That’s where Ben Wooster lives. He’s the marshal’s deputy right now.

SELF-HELP FOR FELLOW REFUGEES If your name suggests a country where bells might have been used for entertainment, or to announce the entrances and exits of the seasons and the birthdays of gods and demons, it's probably best to dress in plain clothes when you arrive in the United States. And try not to talk too loud. If you happen to have watched armed men beat and drag your father out the front door of your house and into the back of an idling truck, before your mother jerked you from the threshold and buried your face in her skirt folds, try not to judge your mother too harshly. Don't ask her what she thought she was doing, turning a child's eyes away from history and toward that place all human aching starts. And if you meet someone in your adopted country and think you see in the other's face an open sky, some promise of a new beginning, it probably means you're standing too far. Or if you think you read in the other, as in a book whose first and last pages are missing, the story of your own birthplace, a country twice erased, once by fire, once by forgetfulness, it probably means you're standing too close. In any case, try not to let another carry the burden of your own nostalgia or hope. And if you're one of those whose left side of the face doesn't match the right, it might be a clue looking the other way was a habit your predecessors found useful for survival. Don't lament not being beautiful. Get used to seeing while not seeing. Get busy remembering while forgetting. Dying to live while not wanting to go on. Very likely, your ancestors decorated their bells of every shape and size with elaborate calendars and diagrams of distant star systems, but with no maps for scattered descendants. And I bet you can't say what language your father spoke when he shouted to your mother from the back of the truck, "Let the boy see!" Maybe it wasn't the language you used at home. Maybe it was a forbidden language. Or maybe there was too much screaming and weeping and the noise of guns in the streets. It doesn't matter. What matters is this: The kingdom of heaven is good. But heaven on earth is better. Thinking is good. But living is better. Alone in your favorite chair with a book you enjoy is fine. But spooning is even better.

After we had loaded the last one, I backed the pickup around and drove down the twisting road to the big truck. As we rounded the final curve, we noticed there was a strange pickup parked near the U-Haul. Two men got out of it and looked around furtively, but did not see us. They tiptoed over to the truck, their curiosity piqued by an apparently abandoned U-Haul. They tried the sliding back door gingerly, and found it would open. They gave it a push. The loose bees inside rushed out toward the light and enveloped the two men in a furious buzzing cloud. The men were both heavy, with ample beer bellies, but they ran like jackrabbits to their pickup and drove off at top speed, careening from one side of the road to the other as they tried to brush bees from their heads. I’ll wager that is the last time either of them meddled with an abandoned truck.

I could feel Devon’s gaze on my face, reading my body language despite how hard I had tried to keep the irritation from showing. “They’d like you to move them to a tank they have set up. They’re going to trap them for this week and then let them go.” Of course they did. I managed to keep from rolling my eyes but between Devon’s presence and immediately being swarmed by otters the minute we got near the water, I end up wishing that I had. Otters are fast little mammals in the water; the fur keeps the water off their skin while making them slick and fast while in their preferred environment. The hard lesson I’d learned had been that they could scamper and bound pretty darn quickly on land. Nearly twenty of the brown friendly creatures swarmed up the banks of the tributary and made raucous sounds of greetings at me. Two vets stood nearby with nets and silly grins on their faces and a puny four otters ready to be transported to where ever in two tanks on trucks quietly humming with earth energy. Mags and Evan had backed up when I’d been swarmed but Devon had stuck by my side and seemed highly amused by the otters climbing over and around him to get to me. “They weren’t kidding about you and otters.” I shoot him a ‘no duh’ look and scoop up a pair to hand off to one of the Earth Elementals. We were saturating their habitat with majick, we’d been asked not to use majick on them, and so catching my willing victims by hand was the way I was going to do my task...

Dean and I went back home playing catch from each sidewalk of the street. We tried extra-special catches, diving over bushes and barely missing posts. When a car came by I ran alongside and flipped the ball to Dean just barely behind the vanishing bumper. He darted and caught it and rolled in the grass, and flipped it back for me to catch on the other side of a parked bread truck. I just made it with my meat hand and threw it back so Dean had to whirl and back up and fall on his back across the hedges.

Who calls the Prince of the Mud?' … The snapping turtle snapped. Its head shot out to maximum extension—Eliot wouldn’t have believed anything that big could move that fast. It was like a Mack truck coming straight at them. As it bit it turned its head on one side, to take them both in one movement. Eliot reacted fast. His reaction was to crouch down and cover his face with his arms. From the relative safety of this position he felt the day grow colder around them, and he heard a crackle, which at first he took for the pier splintering in the turtle’s jaws. But the end didn’t come. 'You DARE?' Janet said. Her voice was loud now—it made the boards vibrate sympathetically under his feet. He looked up at her. She’d gone airborne, floating two feet above the pier, and her clothes were rimmed with frost. She radiated cold; mist sheeted off her skin as it would off dry ice. Her arms were spread wide, and she had an axe in each hand. They were those twin staves she wore on her back, each one now topped with an axe-head of clear ice. The turtle was trapped in mid-lunge. She’d stopped it cold; the swamp was frozen solid around it. Janet had called down winter, and the water of the Northern Marsh was solid ice as far as he could see, cracked and buckled up in waves. The turtle was stuck fast in it. It struggled, its head banging back and forth impotently. 'Jesus,' Eliot said. He stood up out of his defensive crouch. 'Nice one.' 'You DARE?' Janet said again, all imperious power. 'Marvel that you live, Prince of Shit!

Two men, I think. A driver and a passenger.” Reacher didn’t want to turn around to look. Didn’t want to show either guy the pale flash of a concerned face in the rear window. So he hunched down a little and moved sideways until he could see the image in Chang’s door mirror. A pick-up truck, about a hundred yards back. A Ford, he thought. A serious machine, big and obvious, keeping pace. It was dull red, like the general store. There were two guys in it, side by side, but far from each other, because of the vehicle’s extravagant width.

Before she could say anything more, Sabella swung around at the sound of Noah’s Harley purring to life behind the garage. God. He was dressed in snug jeans and riding chaps. A snug dark T-shirt covered his upper body, conformed to it. And he was riding her way. “Is there anything sexier than a man in riding chaps riding a Harley?” Kira asked behind her. “It makes a woman simply want to melt.” And Sabella was melting. She watched as he pulled around the side of the garage then took the gravel road that led to the back of the house. The sound of the Harley purred closer, throbbing, building the excitement inside her. “I think it’s time for me to leave,” Kira said with a light laugh. “Don’t bother to see me out.” Sabella didn’t. She listened as the Harley drew into the graveled lot behind the house and moved to the back door. She opened it, stepping out on the back deck as he swung his legs over the cycle and strode toward her. That long-legged lean walk. It made her mouth water. Made her heart throb in her throat as hunger began to race through her. “The spa treated you well,” he announced as he paused at the bottom of the steps and stared back at her. “Feel like messing your hair up and going out this evening? We could have dinner in town. Ride around a little bit.” She hadn’t ridden on a motorcycle since she was a teenager. She glanced at the cycle, then back to Noah. “I’d need to change clothes.” His gaze flickered over her short jeans skirt, her T-shirt. “That would be a damned shame too,” he stated. “I have to say, Ms. Malone, you have some beautiful legs there.” No one had ever been as charming as Nathan. She remembered when they were dating, how he would just show up, out of the blue, driving that monster pickup of his and grinning like a rogue when he picked her up. He’d been the epitome of a bad boy, and he had been all hers. He was still all hers. “Bare legs and motorcycles don’t exactly go together,” she pointed out. He nodded soberly, though his eyes had a wicked glint to them. “This is a fact, beautiful. And pretty legs like that, we wouldn’t want to risk.” She leaned against the porch post and stared back at him. “I have a pickup, you know.” She propped one hand on her hip and stared back at him. “Really?” Was that avarice she saw glinting in his eyes, or for just the slightest second, pure, unadulterated joy at the mention of that damned pickup? He looked around. “I haven’t seen a pickup.” “It’s in the garage,” she told him carelessly. “A big black monster with bench seats. Four-by-four gas-guzzling alpha-male steel and chrome.” He grinned. He was so proud of that damned pickup. “Where did something so little come up with a truck that big?” he teased her then. She shrugged. “It belonged to my husband. Now, it belongs to me.” That last statement had his gaze sharpening. “You drive it?” “All the time,” she lied, tormenting him. “I don’t have to worry about pinging it now that my husband is gone. He didn’t like pings.” Did he swallow tighter? “It’s pinged then?” She snorted. “Not hardly. Do you want to drive the monster or question me about it? Or I could change into jeans and we could ride your cycle. Which is it?” Which was it? Noah stared back at her, barely able to contain his shock that she had kept the pickup. He knew for a fact there were times the payments on the house and garage had gone unpaid—his “death” benefits hadn’t been nearly enough—almost risking her loss of both during those first months of his “death.” Knowing she had held on to that damned truck filled him with more pleasure than he could express. Knowing she was going to let someone who wasn’t her husband drive it filled him with horror. The contradictor feelings clashed inside him, and he promised himself he was going to spank her for this.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.

Don’t want people around town thinking we’re just friends or we’re just fooling around. We’re gonna see where this goes.” “We’ve had one kind-of-date, Jess. And I wouldn’t call us friends.” “Because we’re not just friends.” “I’m not dating you. I don’t even like you. Find someone else to keep you company at the café.” “You like me. Can see it in your eyes when you look at me.” “Physically, yes. But personally, you’re a jackass.” He yanked the truck to the side of the road. “What are you--” I started but Jess reached across the cab, grabbed me at the back of the neck and slammed his mouth down on mine.

Luc, however, was not following them. Instead he raced back to the corner where he had left his sister. Reaching the spot, he slammed on the brakes, jumped out—leaving the engine running—and ran over to Monique, who was still weeping and shivering against a brick wall. With no time to be gentle, he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to the truck, and then, opening the passenger-side door, he pushed her inside and slammed the door shut. Back in the driver’s seat, he slammed his own door and hit the gas. “Hold on!” he yelled to the people in the back, then turned to Monique and ordered her to do the same.

Someday I want to go back to San Felipe de Jesus and find the Jesus in that place. Someday I want to trap myself in those washboard towns, Aconchi, Magdalena; I want to meet their saints someday. I would ask them if they have ever been in love. I don't mean the syrup they lay on you in the media. I mean the meat of love, the hardness of it, the ice water that wakes you up into the heat of day. The Mexico of love, with rocks, pickup trucks, fat men and sugary children. Cock-sure, moonlit tequila, sweet lime, metallic bed for secret touching. Did they ever reach that side of life? Those mealy saints with their crosses on their backs, did they have enough stomach for the midnight lunch of love?

The temperature was in the nineties, and on hot nights Chicagoans feel the city body and soul. The stockyards are gone, Chicago is no longer slaughter-city, but the old smells revive in the night heat. Miles of railroad siding along the streets once were filled with red cattle cars, the animals waiting to enter the yards lowing and reeking. The old stink still haunts the place. It returns at times, suspiring from the vacated soil, to remind us all that Chicago had once led the world in butcher-technology and that billions of animals had died here. And that night the windows were open wide and the familiar depressing multilayered stink of meat, tallow, blood-meal, pulverized bones, hides, soap, smoked slabs, and burnt hair came back. Old Chicago breathed again through leaves and screens. I heard fire trucks and the gulp and whoop of ambulances, bowel-deep and hysterical. In the surrounding black slums incendiarism shoots up in summer, an index, some say, of psychopathology. Although the love of flames is also religious. However, Denise was sitting nude on the bed rapidly and strongly brushing her hair. Over the lake, steel mills twinkled. Lamplight showed the soot already fallen on the leaves of the wall ivy. We had an early drought that year. Chicago, this night, was panting, the big urban engines going, tenements blazing in Oakwood with great shawls of flame, the sirens weirdly yelping, the fire engines, ambulances, and police cars – mad-dog, gashing-knife weather, a rape and murder night, thousands of hydrants open, spraying water from both breasts.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old. That’s all there is to it. Without doubt, the moose is the most improbable, endearingly hopeless creature ever to live in the wilds. Every bit of it—its spindly legs, its chronically puzzled expression, its comical oven-mitt antlers—looks like some droll evolutionary joke. It is wondrously ungainly: it runs as if its legs have never been introduced to each other. Above all, what distinguishes the moose is its almost boundless lack of intelligence. If you are driving down a highway and a moose steps from the woods ahead of you, he will stare at you for a long minute (moose are notoriously shortsighted), then abruptly try to run away from you, legs flailing in eight directions at once. Never mind that there are several thousand square miles of forest on either side of the highway. The moose does not think of this. Clueless as to what exactly is going on, he runs halfway to New Brunswick before his peculiar gait inadvertently steers him back into the woods, where he immediately stops and takes on a startled expression that says, “Hey—woods. Now how the heck did I get here?” Moose are so monumentally muddle-headed, in fact, that when they hear a car or truck approaching they will often bolt out of the woods and onto the highway in the curious hope that this will bring them to safety. Amazingly, given the moose’s lack of cunning and peculiarly-blunted survival instincts, it is one of the longest-surviving creatures in North America.

The banks on either side had grown steadily steeper, and now, at their tops, they could see slim, pointed shapes looming against the sky. Roland thought of arrowheads--huge ones, weapons made by a tribe of giants. To his companions, they looked like rockets or guided missiles. Susannah thought of Redstones fired from Cape Canaveral; Eddie thought about SAMs, some built to be fired from the backs of flatbed trucks, stored all over Europe; Jake thought of ICBMs hiding in reinforced concrete silos under the plains of Kansas and the unpopulated mountains of Nevada, programmed to hit back at China or the USSR in the event of nuclear armageddon. All of them felt as if they had passed into a dark and woeful zone of shadow, or into a countryside laboring under some old but still powerful curse.

Tim and Marlboro Man looked toward the fire. “C’mon, Charlie,” Tim said. “Why don’t you drive us around to the north side and we’ll take to it that way.” Charlie, who’d likely been through dozens of fires in his lifetime, jumped in Tim’s driver’s seat, undeterred. Did he realize how close he’d just come to being terribly injured? But Charlie, a tough, leathery cowboy, was completely unfazed. I, on the other hand, was fazed. I was extremely fazed. Adrenaline poured from my eyeballs. “C’mon,” Marlboro Man said, grabbing my hand. But my feet were firmly planted. I wasn’t moving another inch toward that fire. “Go ahead,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll just go wait in your pickup.” “Okay,” he said, giving me a quick glance. “You’ll be fine.” Then he broke into a run and jumped onto the back of the truck with Tim…and I watched as the three brave, psychotic men drove straight back into Hades.

I guess we’ll just have to cross this on foot and go over there to find whatever Captain Goodwin thinks he sees.” “I can get the Humvee through that,” I said. Jerry looked over and down and said, “No, there’s no way.” “Y’all go ahead and walk, I’ll worry about the Humvee,” I said. So they all got out of the vehicle and began to cross through the canal on foot. I assessed the situation and then backed up the vehicle. I threw it into drive and gunned the gas. The engine was so loud that the sound bounced off the trees. RAAARRR. I drove that truck right down the first side of the canal and came barreling up the other side. The nine-thousand-pound vehicle flew out of that canal. Once I roared through the canal, the Humvee behind me followed suit. We pulled up next to Jerry and five other members of our squad like a taxi service. Jerry was so stunned he didn’t even yell at me for acting like a fool. What was be going to say? “Don’t do that again”?

Hel-lo, gorgeous.” Phoebe looked around as she stepped out of Zane’s truck. Standing next to the passenger door was a tall teenager with bright, inquisitive eyes and a welcoming smile. He looked enough like Adam Levine to make it easy for her to guess his identity. “You must be Chase,” she said. “In the flesh. And you’re Phoebe.” He looked her over from head to toe, then sighed. “Maya said a lot of great things about you, but she never mentioned you were a goddess.” The outrageous compliment made Phoebe laugh. “Hardly,” she protested, knowing that with her brown hair, brown eyes and unspectacular features she was little more than average. “My heart is pounding a mile a minute,” Chase said, moving closer. “Want to feel?” The driver’s side door slammed shut. “Don’t you have chores?” Zane growled. Chase took a step back, and his smile cranked down about 50 percent. “All done. Even the extra ones you gave me. I got started early so I could be finished to welcome Phoebe.

Geno told them why I was there, and they all came down off the truck and looked me over — I guess just to make sure that they didn’t have any prior problems with me. Geno was standing on my right side. He said to me, “Now I’m going to start it.” He took two steps out in front of me, spun around quickly, and delivered a punch to my left jaw. My head jerked back from his blow. I remember thinking to myself, at least that wasn’t bad. However, before I could register another thought, the five Truck Boys were on me like white on rice. They threw blows and slaps on me. For the next minute or so, I stood there and took it all in like a good soldier. This was the price I was more than willing to pay to become a member of the Rebellions. After it was all over, they welcome me in with handshakes. Then they started asking me where I lived, and what school I had attended. Just like that I was now in the gang, these were my new best friends, individuals whom I would go all out for, and who would do the same for me.

Your future refuses to behave.” Coo-yôn yanked off the jacket he’d sourced for me. Up was down. Then he stepped back. And released me— I toppled over, falling out of my seat onto the ground. Was the sosie dumping me on the side of the road? ’Cause I was about to die? “Now, let’s just talk . . . ’bout this, coo-yôn.” He caught hold of my good ankle, then dragged me farther away from the truck. He’d hauled me into . . . a bank of snow. Jack and I had marveled at the snow. I spun in circles as flakes fell, dizziness overwhelming me. I’d known this was going to send me spiraling. Gasping for breath, I collapsed, tears streaking down my face. I lay in the snow and lifted my hand to the sky. Flakes landed on my damp face. Each one was a cool kiss good-bye. Lying in that bank of snow, I gazed up at the falling flakes. They drifted over my face. Soft, soft. Like Evie’s lips. With effort, I lifted my scarred hand to the sky. I closed my eyes and pretended my Evangeline was caring for me. J’ai savouré. I savored each cold kiss. . . .

Welcome to Fool’s Gold,” Elaine said with a smile. Instead of her usual suit and high heels, Maya wore jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and boots. Her blond hair was pulled back in a braid. “You look like a local,” Phoebe said. “Speaking of locals,” Maya began, a note of warning in her voice. “Oh, shit,” Zane said before she could continue. Phoebe looked toward the bus and immediately saw why Zane’s face had gone a little ashen. The two crazy old women who had cornered her at his truck in town had just gotten off the bus. Eddie and Gladys, if she remembered right. The skinny one was wearing stiff, dark blue jeans and a plaid Western shirt with pearly snaps along the front. The plump one, who still looked as if she had asked for one of everything at the cosmetic counter, was wearing jeans, too, and leather chaps with fringe along the sides. They both had cowboy hats perched atop their white curls. Besides her Zane muttered under his breath. She caught a handful of words. Something about being old, broken bones and a reference to hanging Chase from the lightning rod in the middle of a storm.

Fernando hops out of the truck bed and offers me his arm. “Come on, Insurgent,” he says with a wink. “What?” I say. I take his arm and slide down the side of the truck. He opens the bag he was sitting with. It is full of blue clothes. He sorts through them, tossing garments to Christina and me. I get a bright blue T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. “Insurgent,” he says. “Noun. A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as a beliligerent.” “Do you need to give everything a name?” says Cara, running her hands over her dull blond hair to tuck the stray pieces back. “We’re just doing something and it happens to be in a group. No need for a new title.” “I happen to enjoy categorization,” Fernando replies, arching a dark eyebrow. I look at Fernando. The last time I broke into a faction’s headquarters, I did it with a gun in my hand, and I left bodies behind me. I want this time to be different. I need this time to be different. “I like it,” I say. “Insurgent. It’s perfect.” “See?” Fernando says to Cara. “I’m not the only one.” “Congratulations,” she says wryly.

Nice gate,Ella." I looked back at Daniel. He waved torward my lap. "Oh." I draw on my eans when I don't have paper.My bus had gotten stuck behind a trash truck, right in front of a seriously old churchyard. "Thanks." I wasn't sure how I felt about Daniel staring at my thigh, even if he had recognized the sketch for what it was. "Here." Suddenly, he had a booted foot on the rung of my chair, legs spread, one pressed against mine. "Draw something." "Oh,please," Frankie muttered from his other side. I shook my head. "I don't have a pen." Sadie promptly disappeared beneath the table.I could hear the clank of Marc acobs chain handles and had a feeling in a second she would be asking, "Blue ink or black?" "Don't you dare,Sadie," Frankie said cheerfully. "Ella does not want to be inscribing my brother's crotch." True, I didn't. Except I had the clearest vision of how a little Italian portal devil would look on the faded denim... "Fair enough," Daniel said, sliding his foot off my chair. But he actually looked disappointed. For a second, anyway. "I assume there's food coming?" "There is," Frankie answered. "I'm sure it will come a hell of a lot faster if you do your vampire boy thing on Chloe again." "Tsk,tsk. Jealousy, Miss Thing." They bared their teeth at each other. It was scarily pretty.

One day the Galloways got a little more excitement than we were prepared for. We moved around a lot and at this point we were living in a trailer park in Auburn, Alabama. Hoss and I were out in the front yard on our regular patrol while my older sister Jennifer and younger sister Sara were playing by themselves. Sara was three years old and I guess she decided she wanted to go for a ride. My dad’s blue truck was out in front of the house and apparently he’d forgotten about the parking brake. The truck was in gear as Sara managed to pull the door open and muscle herself up into the cab. As she climbed in and got situated she kicked the truck out of gear with her tiny sneakered foot. The truck started rolling down the driveway toward a ditch. Jennifer started screaming. Faster than a speeding bullet I leapt into action! I ran toward her, blue cape flying in the wind behind me. I reached the truck. I grabbed on to the door frame of the open passenger side of the truck. I told Sara everything would be okay, and I stuck my heels down in the mud and pulled back with all my might. The mud was spewing from either side of my firmly planted boots as I started to slide along with the truck. I never lost my grip and I am convinced I was able to slow the roll down enough for Mom and Dad to come running out of the house. Dad jumped up into the truck and was able to throw the brake to stop the truck while Mom scooped up Sara. Super Noah saved the day. At least I wanted to believe that.

The Hunter: “Your future refuses to behave.” Coo-yôn yanked off the jacket he’d sourced for me. Up was down. Then he stepped back. And released me— I toppled over, falling out of my seat onto the ground. Was the sosie dumping me on the side of the road? ’Cause I was about to die? “Now, let’s just talk . . . ’bout this, coo-yôn.” He caught hold of my good ankle, then dragged me farther away from the truck. He’d hauled me into . . . a bank of snow. _______________ The Empress: I’d thought the sight of snow—and all the emotions it brought—would make me less likely to be with Aric. Just the opposite; because I could see my future so clearly. If he died before I did, some symbol—like snow—would mark the end of his existence. Later I would experience that waypoint (because everything was connected) and wish to God I’d taken a different path. I decided then that I would map my own journey and mark my own waypoints. The snow would symbolize both the end of one story and the beginning of another. A new slate. But not a blank one. The red ribbon would be a cherished remembrance, but I wouldn’t keep it with me at all times. I lay in the snow and lifted my hand to the sky. Flakes landed on my damp face. Each one was a cool kiss good-bye. _____________ The Hunter Lying in that bank of snow, I gazed up at the falling flakes. They drifted over my face. Soft, soft. Like Evie’s lips. With effort, I lifted my scarred hand to the sky. I closed my eyes and pretended my Evangeline was caring for me. J’ai savouré. I savored each cold kiss. . . .

If you’re so fired up about playing host,” Zane said, his expression both fierce and closed. “I’ll let you take care of her luggage and show her to her room.” He put his hat on his head, nodded once at Phoebe and stalked away. She stared after him for a second. He looked as good from the back as he had from the front. Her hormones yelled out catcalls of appreciation which--fortunately--only she could hear. But however impressed she might be with him, Zane obviously didn’t return her feelings. He practically burned rubber in his haste to get away. Chase brightened the second Zane was gone. “How was the drive?” he asked as he walked around to the other side of the truck and pulled her suitcases out from behind the driver’s seat where Zane had placed them. “Good.” “Did Zane talk?” Phoebe glanced at him, not sure of the question. Chase hoisted her luggage with the same ease Zane had shown and started for the house. “He’s not much of a talker,” he explained as he walked. “I can’t figure out if the act of forming words is physically painful, or if he just doesn’t have anything to say.” She thought about the drive from the airport. “Things started out well,” she admitted. “Then we sort of stalled about twenty minutes into the drive.” Yup--nothing like asking about bull sperm to shut down a conversational exchange. “Twenty minutes, huh?” Chase glanced back at her over his shoulder and grinned. “I’m impressed. Most people get a grunt. He must really like you.” Phoebe laughed again. “Yeah. He was so overpoweringly impressed he couldn’t wait to get away.

Day slammed the door behind Johnson, leaving just him and his partner in the room alone. Day hit the lights. “Setting the mood, Leo?” God grinned at him. “I want to talk to you now.” “You can’t always get what you want, Leonidis,” God rebutted. “I want you,” Day said with no hesitation. The room was deathly silent. After a few long seconds God responded simply, “No you don’t.” “I do. Isn’t it obvious?” Day moved a little closer. “You don’t know what the fuck you want. I’ve watched you for four years, jumping from bed to bed and fucking your way through half of Atlanta. I have one emotional night and all of a sudden you want me…fuck you,” God said in his gruffest voice. Day’s body heated instantly at the sound. He moved even closer to where God was standing on the opposite side of the table. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be saving myself for marriage, and even more so, I didn’t realize you were a goddamn virgin. How many women have I seen you fuck in that pussy-getting truck of yours, huh?” Day lowered his voice as he stood directly in front of God. “Just tell me you didn’t feel what I did last night.” He closed the small gap, not minding God’s height at all, and looked up into electric-green eyes. “Tell me you don’t want me too, and I’ll back the fuck off.” God looked down at him and Day could see the uncertainty all over that ruggedly handsome face. “Shit’s complicated, Leo.” God’s breath ghosted across his forehead. “Make me understand, Cashel,” Day whispered and slowly brought his hands up to rest on God’s waist.

It was at night,” I say. “What was?” “What happened. The car wreck. We were driving along the Storm King Highway.” “Where’s that?” “Oh, it’s one of the most scenic drives in the whole state,” I say, somewhat sarcastically. “Route 218. The road that connects West Point and Cornwall up in the Highlands on the west side of the Hudson River. It’s narrow and curvy and hangs off the cliffs on the side of Storm King Mountain. An extremely twisty two-lane road. With a lookout point and a picturesque stone wall to stop you from tumbling off into the river. Motorcycle guys love Route 218.” We stop moving forward and pause under a streetlamp. “But if you ask me, they shouldn’t let trucks use that road.” Cool Girl looks at me. “Go on, Jamie,” she says gently. And so I do. “Like I said, it was night. And it was raining. We’d gone to West Point to take the tour, have a picnic. It was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky until the tour was over, and then it started pouring. Guess we stayed too late. Me, my mom, my dad.” Now I bite back the tears. “My little sister. Jenny. You would’ve liked Jenny. She was always happy. Always laughing. “We were on a curve. All of a sudden, this truck comes around the side of the cliff. It’s halfway in our lane and fishtailing on account of the slick road. My dad slams on the brakes. Swerves right. We smash into a stone fence and bounce off it like we’re playing wall ball. The hood of our car slides under the truck, right in front of its rear tires—tires that are smoking and screaming and trying to stop spinning.” I see it all again. In slow motion. The detail never goes away. “They all died,” I finally say. “My mother, my father, my little sister. I was the lucky one. I was the only one who survived.

I got back into my car and followed the trucks; at the end of the road, the Polizei unloaded the women and children, who rejoined the men arriving on foot. A number of Jews, as they walked, were singing religious songs; few tried to run away; the ones who did were soon stopped by the cordon or shot down. From the top, you could hear the gun bursts clearly, and the women especially were starting to panic. But there was nothing they could do. The condemned were divided into little groups and a noncom sitting at a table counted them; then our Askaris took them and led them over the brink of the ravine. After each volley, another group left, it went very quickly. I walked around the ravine by the west to join the other officers, who had taken up positions above the north slope. From there, the ravine stretched out in front of me: it must have been some fifty meters wide and maybe thirty meters deep, and went on for several kilometers; the little stream at the bottom ran into the Syrets, which gave its name to the neighborhood. Boards had been placed over this stream so the Jews and their shooters could cross easily; beyond, scattered pretty much everywhere on the bare sides of the ravine, the little white clusters were multiplying. The Ukrainian “packers” dragged their charges to these piles and forced them to lie down over them or next to them; the men from the firing squad then advanced and passed along the rows of people lying down almost naked, shooting each one with a submachine bullet in the neck; there were three firing squads in all. Between the executions some officers inspected the bodies and finished them off with a pistol. To one side, on a hill overlooking the scene, stood groups of officers from the SS and the Wehrmacht. Jeckeln was there with his entourage, flanked by Dr. Rasch; I also recognized some high-ranking officers of the Sixth Army. I saw Thomas, who noticed me but didn’t return my greeting. On the other side, the little groups tumbled down the flank of the ravine and joined the clusters of bodies that stretched farther and farther out. The cold was becoming biting, but some rum was being passed around, and I drank a little. Blobel emerged suddenly from a car on our side of the ravine, he must have driven around it; he was drinking from a little flask and shouting, complaining that things weren’t going fast enough. But the pace of the operations had been stepped up as much as possible. The shooters were relieved every hour, and those who weren’t shooting supplied them with rum and reloaded the clips. The officers weren’t talking much; some were trying to hide their distress. The Ortskommandantur had set up a field kitchen, and a military pastor was preparing some tea to warm up the Orpos and the members of the Sonderkommando. At lunchtime, the superior officers returned to the city, but the subalterns stayed to eat with the men. Since the executions had to continue without pause, the canteen had been set up farther down, in a hollow from which you couldn’t see the ravine. The Group was responsible for the food supplies; when the cases were broken open, the men, seeing rations of blood pudding, started raging and shouting violently. Häfner, who had just spent an hour administering deathshots, was yelling and throwing the open cans onto the ground: “What the hell is this shit?” Behind me, a Waffen-SS was noisily vomiting. I myself was livid, the sight of the pudding made my stomach turn. I went up to Hartl, the Group’s Verwaltungsführer, and asked him how he could have done that. But Hartl, standing there in his ridiculously wide riding breeches, remained indifferent. Then I shouted at him that it was a disgrace: “In this situation, we can do without such food!

One day, W.E. and I parked on the side of the highway and launched our boat in a ditch. Our fishing spot of choice that day was a bubbling culvert right under a fifty-five-mile-per-hour-speed-limit sign. When we started fishing at daylight, there was normal traffic on the road. But as the day went on, water came crashing over low points of the road and traffic stopped when the road was closed. We had set a goal of catching fifty-five largemouth bass under that sign, and we were paying more attention to reaching our goal than the rising floodwaters. As you have probably already realized, determination is a Robertson trait that is an asset most of the time. But this time, not so much! By the time we caught the fifty-five fish and returned to our truck, there was no sign of the road. The current from the water was so strong that our truck was shaking. I quickly realized we had underestimated the speed of the rising water and were now in a dangerous situation. I decided to get in the back of the truck with a life jacket on, while W.E. tried to navigate the submerged road. I had a better vantage point to see the painted lines of the highway, so every time he strayed from the road I banged on the roof of the truck. We traveled about a mile to a bridge on higher ground, where hundreds of people--along with the police--had gathered to watch the spectacle of the flood. I’m positive that we must have looked like Jesus walking on water. Noah might have used a giant ark to escape danger, but we used a truck and some redneck ingenuity! The crowd’s faces were filled with shock and bewilderment as they parted to make way for us. At some point, the people started cheering, and I felt like a politician running for office as I waved to the crowd. Even though we were basking in the glory of the moment and had an ice chest full of fish, we realized we were very fortunate to have survived.

Two starving kids and tree-hugging vegetarians. I’m going to kill Chase.” Phoebe didn’t blame him. Despite her lack of experience in the cattle-drive department, even she could see the potential for trouble. Then a familiar figure standing beside the driver caught her attention, and she waved. Maya grinned and waved back. “It’s Maya,” Phoebe said. Zane turned and followed her gaze. “Just perfect,” he muttered as his ex-stepsister walked toward them. “You’re looking grim, Zane,” Maya said cheerfully when she joined them. “Who died?” She smiled. “Oh, I forgot. You’re just being your usual charming self.” She squeezed his arm. “You’ve missed me, I know.” Zane’s eyes narrowed. “Like foot fungus.” She laughed and turned to Phoebe. “You’re still alive. I see Zane didn’t bore you to death.” “Not even close.” Phoebe hugged her friend. Maya waved forward the bus driver, a pretty woman in her fifties. “Phoebe, this is Elaine Mitchell.” “You’re the one Maya worked for in high school?” Phoebe asked. “I am.” Maya put her arm around Phoebe’s shoulders. “And this is my BFF, Phoebe.” “Welcome to Fool’s Gold,” Elaine said with a smile. Instead of her usual suit and high heels, Maya wore jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and boots. Her blond hair was pulled back in a braid. “You look like a local,” Phoebe said. “Speaking of locals,” Maya began, a note of warning in her voice. “Oh, shit,” Zane said before she could continue. Phoebe looked toward the bus and immediately saw why Zane’s face had gone a little ashen. The two crazy old women who had cornered her at his truck in town had just gotten off the bus. Eddie and Gladys, if she remembered right. The skinny one was wearing stiff, dark blue jeans and a plaid Western shirt with pearly snaps along the front. The plump one, who still looked as if she had asked for one of everything at the cosmetic counter, was wearing jeans, too, and leather chaps with fringe along the sides. They both had cowboy hats perched atop their white curls. Besides her Zane muttered under his breath. She caught a handful of words. Something about being old, broken bones and a reference to hanging Chase from the lightning rod in the middle of a storm.

About four months into it, we were shooting hoops in my dad’s driveway when Chip stopped in his tracks, held me in his arms, looked into my eyes under the starry sky, and said, “I love you.” And I looked at him and said, “Thank you.” “Thank you?” Chip said. I know I should have said, “I love you too,” but this whole thing had been such a whirlwind, and I was just trying to process it all. No guy had ever told me he loved me before, and here Chip was saying it after what seemed like such a short period of time. Chip got angry. He grabbed his basketball from under my arm and went storming off with it like a four-year-old. I really thought, What in the world is with this girl? I just told her I loved her, and that’s all she can say? It’s not like I just went around saying that to people all the time. So saying it was a big deal for me too. But now I was stomping down the driveway going, Okay, that’s it. Am I dating an emotionless cyborg or something? I’m going home. Chip took off in his big, white Chevy truck with the Z71 stickers on the side, even squealing his tires a bit as he drove off, and it really sank in what a big deal that must have been for him. I felt bad--so bad that I actually got up the courage to call him later that night. I explained myself, and he said he understood, and by the end of the phone call we were right back to being ourselves. Two weeks later, when Chip said, “I love you” again, I responded, “I love you too.” There was no hesitation. I knew I loved him, and I knew it was okay to say so. I’m not sure why I ever gave him a second chance when he showed up ninety minutes late for our first date or why I gave him another second chance when he didn’t call me for two months after that. And I’m not sure why he gave me a second chance after I blew that romantic moment in the driveway. But I’m very glad I did, and I’m very glad he did too--because sometimes second chances lead to great things. All of my doubts, all of the things I thought I wanted out of a relationship, and many of the things I thought I wanted out of life itself turned out to be just plain wrong. Instead? That voice from our first date turned out to be the thing that was absolutely right.

She is pissed off all the time,” he mumbled and I remained silent, letting him ramble. “She wants chocolate ice cream, I go in search of chocolate, but the time I get back she’s pissed because she wants strawberry instead. I can’t win.” He looked me straight in the eyes and I swear his expression was one of desperation. “It wasn’t like this before. With Liam she was so sweet. But I swear the damn devil has possessed my wife and she might kill me in my sleep one night.” It was then I laughed. “What the hell is so funny?” he asked. “I sleep with one eye open and one leg hanging off the bed touching the floor at my side. This way if I have to move fast I feel I’m one step closer.” He didn’t smile. There was absolutely no humor in his words. “Weren’t you the one that said you wanted five kids?” I asked. “I changed my mind. After this one, we’re done. I want Trinity back.” Again, complete seriousness. Poor guy looked lost. And it was the best damn thing to witness. Within four months of having Liam, Trinity was pregnant again. And this time she was cranky as hell. Everyone noticed it, but she directed all that aggravation toward the man she said was to blame. And the rest of us loved to witness his hell. “Go home, Chase,” I told him and he looked as if he wanted to argue. “Stop at the store and pick up every flavor of ice cream they got,” I told him. “Tell her she’s beautiful and rub her feet.” “I do that already,” he whined. “I tell her she’s beautiful, and no other woman has ever looked as amazing as her. I tell her I love her and that she is my world, but she is like the exorcist.” “Well it’s your job to take it. Let her growl and complain and just take it,” I told him. “Because at the end of the day you just need to remember one thing.” He looked at me like I was about to give him the best piece of advice. I almost felt bad about the fact that I had nothing reassuring to say. “What?” he asked and I cracked a smile, almost talking myself out of taking the chance at being an asshole. Then I thought about the fact that had the roles been reversed he would have jumped at the chance. “You are to blame for the state she is in.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “And the rest of us guys are loving that it’s you and not us being tortured.” “You’re an asshole,” he mumbled as he turned around and walked off toward his truck. I laughed the entire drive home.

The only thing I knew about pickups was this: growing up, I always inwardly mocked the couples I saw who drove around in them. The girl would be sitting in the middle seat right next to the boy, and the boy’s right arm would be around her shoulders, and his left arm would be on the wheel. I’m not sure why, but there was something about my golf course upbringing that had always caused me to recoil at this sight. Why is she sitting in the middle seat? I’d wonder. Why is it important that they press against each other as they drive down the road? Can’t they wait until they get home? I looked at it as a sign of weakness--something pitiable. They need to get a life may have even crossed my mind once or twice, as if their specific brand of public affection was somehow directly harming me. But that’s what happens to people who, by virtue of the geography of their childhood, are deprived of the opportunity to ride in pickup trucks. They become really, really judgmental about otherwise benign things. Still, every now and then, as Marlboro Man showed me the beauty of the country in his white Ford F250, I couldn’t help but wonder…had he been one of those boys in high school? I knew he’d had a serious girlfriend back in his teenage years. Julie. A beautiful girl and the love of his adolescent life, in the same way Kev had been mine. And I wondered: had Julie scooched over to the middle seat when Marlboro Man picked her up every Friday night? Had he hooked his right arm around her neck, and had she then reached her left hand up and clasped his right hand with hers? Had they then dragged Main in this position? Our hometowns had been only forty miles apart; maybe he’d brought her to my city to see a movie. Was it remotely possible I’d actually seen Marlboro Man and Julie riding around in his pickup, sitting side by side? Was it possible this man, this beautiful, miraculous, perfect man who’d dropped so magically into my life, had actually been one of the innocent recipients of my intolerant, shallow pickup-related condemnation? And if he had done it, was it something he’d merely grown out of? How come I wasn’t riding around in his middle seat? Was I supposed to initiate this? Was this expected of me? Because I probably should know early on. But wouldn’t he have gestured in that direction if he’d wanted me to move over and sit next to him? Maybe, just maybe, he’d liked those girls better than he liked me. Maybe they’d had a closeness that warranted their riding side by side in a pickup, a closeness that he and I just don’t share? Please don’t let that be the reason. I don’t like that reason. I had to ask him. I had to know.

You and Patrick looked awfully cozy,” Ryder says, setting Mama’s note back on the counter. So I was right--he had been watching us. “So?” “So, nothing.” He shrugs. “Just making an observation.” “Yeah, you never just make an observation. Oh, and you and Rosie looked pretty cozy, too. I sure hope you’re not leading her on. You know she likes you.” A muscle in his jaw works furiously as he shoves his cell phone back into his pocket. “That’s the kind of guy you think I am? Seriously, Jem?” I swallow hard, unable to reply. Because the truth is, I don’t know. “I’ll see you later,” he says, his voice cold and clipped. He turns and stalks out. For some unknown reason, I follow him--down the hall, out the front door. “Don’t walk out on me,” I holler as he rounds the Durango and opens the driver’s-side door. “If you have something to say to me, then say it.” He gets in and slams the car door shut, but I throw it open again. “C’mon,” I taunt, motioning with one hand. I’m totally losing it now--white spots dancing before my eyes, tears streaking down my cheeks. I can barely catch my breath, like I’m about to hyperventilate. This isn’t about Ryder, I realize. It’s about Nan. The sudden realization hits me hard. What if I never see her again? My knees buckle, and I start to go down. Somehow, Ryder manages to catch me just before I hit the ground. “Shit, Jemma! What’s the matter with you?” He drags me to my feet and presses me against the side of his truck. “Take a deep breath. Jesus!” I do what he says. By the third, I’ve slowed my heart rate to something nearing normal. Only, my cheeks are burning with mortification now. This is the second time I’ve broken down in front of Ryder. He must think I’ve lost my mind--that I’ve totally gone off the deep end. “Just go,” I say, my voice shaking. He rakes both hands through his hair. “Are you kidding me? I can’t leave you alone like this.” “Go,” I repeat, more forcefully this time. “Just get in your car and leave, okay?” “C’mon, Jemma. You know I can’t.” “I swear I’m okay.” I straighten my spine and lift my chin, trying my best to look calm, collected, and reasonably sane. “Seriously, Ryder. I just need to be alone right now.” “Fine,” he says, shaking his head. “If you say so.” I step away from the car, feeling queasy now as he slips inside and starts the engine. But before he pulls out, he rolls down his window and meets my gaze. His dark eyes look intense, full of conflict. For a split second, I wonder what’s going on inside his head--if he’s judging me. If he has any idea what I’m going through. If he even cares. “She’s going to be okay, Jemma,” he says, then slides his sunglasses on and drives away. I guess he does get it, after all.

I thought we were meeting by the field house,” I call out as I make my way over. He doesn’t even turn around. “Nah, I’m pretty sure I said the parking lot.” “You definitely said the field house,” I argue. Why can’t he ever just admit that he’s wrong? “Geez, field house, parking lot. What difference does it make?” Mason asks. “Give it a rest, why don’t you.” I shoot him a glare. “Oh, hey, Mason. Remember when your hair was long and everyone thought you were a girl?” Ryder chuckles as he releases a perfect spiral in Mason’s direction. “She’s got you there.” “Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?” Mason catches the ball and cradles it against his chest, then launches it toward Ben. I just stand there watching as they continue to toss it back and forth between the three of them. Haven’t they had enough football for one day? I pull out my cell to check the time. “We should probably get going.” “I guess,” Ryder says with an exaggerated sigh, like I’m putting him out or something. Which is particularly annoying since he’s the one who insisted on going with me. Ben jogs up beside me, the football tucked beneath his arm. “Where are you two off to? Whoa, you’re sweaty.” I fold my arms across my damp chest. “Hey, southern girls don’t sweat. We glow.” Ben snorts at that. “Says who?” “Says Ryder’s mom,” I say with a grin. It’s one of Laura Grace’s favorite sayings--one that always makes Ryder wince. “The hardware store,” Ryder answers, snatching the ball back from Ben. “Gotta pick up some things for the storm--sandbags and stuff like that. Y’all want to come?” “Nah, I think I’ll pass.” Mason wrinkles his nose. “Pretty sure I don’t want to be cooped up in the truck with Jemma glowing like she is right now.” “Everybody thought you and Morgan were identical twin girls,” I say with a smirk. “Remember, Mason? Isn’t that just so cute?” “I’ll go,” Ben chimes in. “If you’re getting sandbags, you’ll need some help carrying them out to the truck.” “Thanks, Ben. See, someone’s a gentleman.” “Don’t look now, Ryder, but your one-woman fan club is over there.” Mason tips his head toward the school building in the distance. “I think she’s scented you out. Quick. You better run.” I glance over my shoulder to find Rosie standing on the sidewalk by the building’s double doors, looking around hopefully. “Hey!” Mason calls out, waving both arms above his head. “He’s over here.” Ryder’s cheeks turn beet-red. He just stares at the ground, his jaw working furiously. “C’mon, man,” Ben says, throwing an elbow into Mason’s side. “Don’t be a dick.” He grabs the football and heads toward Ryder’s Durango. “We better get going. The hardware store probably closes at six.” Silently, Ryder and I hurry after him and hop inside the truck--Ben up front, me in the backseat. We don’t look back to see if Rosie’s following.

Miraculously, thirty minutes later I found Marlboro Man’s brother’s house. As I pulled up, I saw Marlboro Man’s familiar white pickup parked next to a very large, imposing semi. He and his brother were sitting inside the cab. Looking up and smiling, Marlboro Man motioned for me to join them. I waved, getting out of my car and obnoxiously taking my purse with me. To add insult to injury, I pressed the button on my keyless entry to lock my doors and turn on my car alarm, not realizing how out of place the dreadful chirp! chirp! must have sounded amidst all the bucolic silence. As I made my way toward the monster truck to meet my new love’s only brother, I reflected that not only had I never in my life been inside the cab of a semi, but also I wasn’t sure I’d ever been within a hundred feet of one. My armpits were suddenly clammy and moist, my body trembling nervously at the prospect of not only meeting Tim but also climbing into a vehicle nine times the size of my Toyota Camry, which, at the time, was the largest car I’d ever owned. I was nervous. What would I do in there? Marlboro Man opened the passenger door, and I grabbed the large handlebar on the side of the cab, hoisting myself up onto the spiked metal steps of the semi. “Come on in,” he said as he ushered me into the cab. Tim was in the driver’s seat. “Ree, this is my brother, Tim.” Tim was handsome. Rugged. Slightly dusty, as if he’d just finished working. I could see a slight resemblance to Marlboro Man, a familiar twinkle in his eye. Tim extended his hand, leaving the other on the steering wheel of what I would learn was a brand-spanking-new cattle truck, just hours old. “So, how do you like this vehicle?” Tim asked, smiling widely. He looked like a kid in a candy shop. “It’s nice,” I replied, looking around the cab. There were lots of gauges. Lots of controls. I wanted to crawl into the back and see what the sleeping quarters were like, and whether there was a TV. Or a Jacuzzi. “Want to take it for a spin?” Tim asked. I wanted to appear capable, strong, prepared for anything. “Sure!” I responded, shrugging my shoulders. I got ready to take the wheel. Marlboro Man chuckled, and Tim remained in his seat, saying, “Oh, maybe you’d better not. You might break a fingernail.” I looked down at my fresh manicure. It was nice of him to notice. “Plus,” he continued, “I don’t think you’d be able to shift gears.” Was he making fun of me? My armpits were drenched. Thank God I’d work black that night. After ten more minutes of slightly uncomfortable small talk, Marlboro Man saved my by announcing, “Well, I think we’ll head out, Slim.” “Okay, Slim,” Tim replied. “Nice meeting you, Ree.” He flashed his nice, familiar smile. He was definitely cute. He was definitely Marlboro Man’s brother. But he was nothing like the real thing.

The captain? Sophia stood staring numbly after him. Had he just said he’d introduce her to the captain? Of someone else was the captain, then who on earth was this man? One thing was clear. Whoever he was, he had her trunks. And he was walking away. Cursing under her breath, Sophia picked up her skirts and trotted after him, dodging boatmen and barrels and coils of tarred rope as she pursued him down the quay. A forest of tall masts loomed overhead, striping the dock with shadow. Breathless, she regained his side just as he neared the dock’s edge. “But…aren’t you Captain Grayson?” “I,” he said, pitching her smaller trunk into a waiting rowboat, “am Mr. Grayson, owner of the Aphrodite and principle investor in her cargo.” The owner. Well, that was some relief. The tavern-keeper must have been confused. The porter deposited her larger truck alongside the first, and Mr. Grayson dismissed him with a word and a coin. He plunked one polished Hessian on the rowboat’s seat and shifted his weight to it, straddling the gap between boat and dock. Hand outstretched, he beckoned her with an impatient twitch of his fingers. “Miss Turner?” Sophia inched closer to the dock’s edge and reached one gloved hand toward his, considering how best to board the bobbing craft without losing her dignity overboard. The moment her fingers grazed his palm, his grin tightened over her hand. He pulled swiftly, wrenching her feet from the dock and a gasp from her throat. A moment of weightlessness-and then she was aboard. Somehow his arm had whipped around her waist, binding her to his solid chest. He released her just as quickly, but a lilt of the rowboat pitched Sophia back into his arms. “Steady there,” he murmured through a small smile. “I have you.” A sudden gust of wind absconded with his hat. He took no notice, but Sophia did. She noticed everything. Never in her life had she felt so acutely aware. Her nerves were draw taut as harp strings, and her senses hummed. The man radiated heat. From exertion, most likely. Or perhaps from a sheer surplus of simmering male vigor. The air around them was cold, but he was hot. And as he held her tight against his chest, Sophia felt that delicious, enticing heat burn through every layer of her clothing-cloak, gown, stays, chemise, petticoat, stockings, drawers-igniting desire in her belly. And sparking a flare of alarm. This was a precarious position indeed. The further her torso melted into his, the more certainly he would detect her secret: the cold, hard bundle of notes and coin lashed beneath her stays. She pushed away from him, dropping onto the seat and crossing her arms over her chest. Behind him, the breeze dropped his hat into a foamy eddy. He still hadn’t noticed its loss. What he noticed was her gesture of modesty, and he gave her a patronizing smile. “Don’t concern yourself, Miss Turner. You’ve nothing in there I haven’t seen before.” Just for that, she would not tell him. Farewell, hat.

What does he have planned?” “He said it was a surprise, but apparently it includes all my favorites things about the city.” “That’s cute. Maybe it’ll be the refresher you guys need. It’s hard being apart for so long, especially when there is a super-hot ex-boyfriend living next to you.” I give her a pointed look. “And speak of the devil. Look whose truck just pulled into the driveway.” Amanda puts her drink on the coffee table and crawls on top of me, her knees digging into my stomach as she tries to catch a view of Aaron. “Will you please get off me?” “I want to see what he looks like. I want to see these muscles you speak of.” Amanda reaches the window, but I yank on her body so she can’t sneak a peek. “Hey, stop that, I can’t see.” “Exactly. He’ll catch you looking, and I don’t want him thinking it’s me.” “Don’t be paranoid. He won’t think that. Now let me catch a glimpse.” Pushing down on my head, trying to climb over me, she reaches for the blinds, but I hold strong and grip her around the waist, using my legs to hold her down as well. “Stop it.” She swats at my head. “Just a little looksy.” “No, he’ll see you.” “He won’t.” “He will.” “He—” Knock, knock. We still, our heads snapping to the front door. “Is someone at the door?” Amanda whispers, one of her hands holding on to my ponytail. “That’s what a knock usually means,” I whisper back. “Is it him?” Oh hell. “I have no idea.” I hold still, trying not to move in case the person on the other side of the door can hear us. “Answer it,” Amanda scolds. “No.” “Why not?” “Because if it’s Aaron, I don’t want you anywhere near him. You’ll embarrass me, I know it.” Amanda scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She pushes off me, her hand palming my face for a brief second. “I’ll answer the door.” When she places one of her feet on the floor, I hold her in place. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not answering that door. Just be still, the person will go away.” Knock, knock. “You’re being rude,” Amanda says as she plows her elbow into my thigh, causing me to buckle over in pain. She frees herself from my grip and rushes to the door. Right before she opens it, she fluffs her hair. You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t even have to ask if it’s Aaron because that’s just my luck. Also, Amanda makes a low whistle sound when she opens the door. “Amanda?” Aaron’s voice floats into my house. “Aaron Walters, look . . . at . . . you.” I sit up just in time to see Amanda give him a very slow once-over. “You were right, Amelia, he has gotten sexier.” What? Jesus! I hop off the couch, limping ever so slightly from the dead leg Amanda gave me. “I didn’t say that.” Amanda waves her hand. “It was in the realm of that. Come in, come in. We need to catch up.” Amanda wraps her hand around Aaron’s arm and pulls him into the house. When she passes me, she winks and squeezes his arm while mouthing, “He’s huge.” I shut the door behind them and bang my head on it a few times before joining them in the living room. I knew Amanda’s visit was going to be interesting

Syn paid the bill and they headed to the door with lust so thick around them, Syn couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else could see it. Furi reached back for Syn’s hand and he gladly offered it. He looked over his shoulder and threw him a seductive wink when Syn crowded in close behind him. As soon as Syn made it out the door, he saw four members of his team walking up the sidewalk. Well fuck me. “Hey, Sarge.” Pendleton, his demolitions expert was the first to speak up. Syn threw down Furi’s hand and quickly put some distance between them. “Yeah, hey fellas.” They’d all stopped and were staring back and forth between him and Furi. Syn couldn’t even look Furious in his eye after what he’d just done. Detective Green cleared his throat and pointed at Furi. “Don’t I know you?” “Hardly,” Furi mumbled. “Um, this is ... uh, uh. He’s my ... uh.” Syn cursed under his breath. Obviously his team already knew who Furious was. They all had detailed lists of Illustra’s entertainers and Furious’ image was not easy to forget. “Sarge, who’s your friend?” Detective Ruxsburg asked, a sly smile playing on his handsome face. “He’s um.” “He’s leaving,” Furi’s deep voice cut in as he eased his way through and walked in the opposite direction of Syn’s truck. “Fuck,” Syn whispered as he watched Furi turn the corner. “You better go after him and be ready to do some serious groveling,” his IT Detective said in his calm, cool voice. Syn didn’t say anything. His guys walked around him and went into the bar, leaving him feeling ashamed. He thought about running after Furi but choose to get in his truck and cut him off at the corner. He sped around the block and pulled into an alley hoping to intercept his angry date. When Syn got out of the truck Furi was turning the corner coming toward him. Oh hell. Furi had his hands crammed into his pockets and if the scowl on his face didn’t indicate how angry Furious was, then his choice of words when he finally reached Syn sure as hell did. “Get the fuck away from me.” “Furious, I know you're upset.” Furi spun around and glared at him with midnight eyes. “Upset! Upset! Look at my face goddamnit! Does this just look upset to you?” Syn put his hands up in a calming gesture. “Alright, you’re angry, and you have every right to be. I reacted badly back there. I was just caught off guard.” Furi was in Syn’s face and people on the street had begun to stop and stare. “Can we please move this off the sidewalk?” Syn tried to usher Furi farther into the alley and away from the nosy fuckers on the street. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!” “I’m not gonna touch you! Damn, calm down. I just want to explain,” Syn argued. It seemed every time he was around Furi he was apologizing for something. “I’m sorry, okay. I should have introduced you properly to my team.” “How would the–” “Please, Furious. Let me finish. I should’ve told them your name and introduced you as my friend at a minimum. I’m sorry. I told you I fuckin’ suck at this dating shit, and if you don’t tell me to go fuck myself and give me another–” “Go fuck yourself,” Furi interrupted. He tried to move around Syn but Syn grabbed him around the wrist and backed him against the side of his truck. “No! I will not go fuck myself. I would rather fuck you.” “Well you pretty much shot that chance all to hell,” Furi yelled right back at him. “Have I?” “What do you think?

Dale forced me the two steps to the truck and pushed me into the drivers’ seat. The moment he started around to the passenger’s side I got out and ran. He caught up with me easily and with the barrel of the gun drew me back to the truck. We did that dance three times before he figured out to push me in through the passenger’s side

Yes, I was so upset and out of control.""That's right Chado; you were cursing and had killing that man in your heart. At that very moment you had two demons with their claws on your back pushing you toward your death." "What do you mean toward my death?" "That land owner was standing in the shadows of his home behind a patch of dead flowers with you in the scope of his rifle. He had just clicked off the safety and was squeezing the trigger when I attacked and killed the two demons that were pushing you. I then stood in front of you with my hands raised to Heaven asking God to stop you from going any further. While my hands were lifted toward Heaven one of the fallen angels struck me several times in the back, and at the same time another demon from out of the darkness reached up with his nasty claws and scarred the left side of my face. At the point when you turned around heading back for your truck, I lowered my hands of praise and defended myself against the dark forces. In only a matter of seconds, they fled back into the shadows.

It’s all my fault,” Ashley sobbed. “What if she’s dead?” The four of them were squeezed tightly into Etienne’s truck. With every shift of the clutch and each turn of the wheel, Etienne’s right arm jabbed sharply into Miranda’s side, and Ashley bounced back and forth between Miranda’s lap and Parker’s. The old Chevy truck, way past its prime, rattled and clanked and groaned at every pothole and puddle, but it hugged the roads like glue. “It’s not your fault,” Parker reassured Ashley for the dozenth time. “You didn’t know what she was planning to do. How could it be your fault?” “The water always gets so deep at the Falls. The bayou always floods. If she’s dead--” “She’s not dead.” He paused, then mumbled, “I couldn’t be that lucky.” “Parker Wilmington, I can’t even believe you said--” “I was kidding, Ash. Okay, sorry, bad timing, but I was kidding, okay? Roo’s fine. And none of this is your fault.” Gulping down a hiccup, Ashley glared at him. “You’re right. It’s your fault.” “My fault?” “You know she caught you drinking in the parking lot!” “Just a little! I swear, I only had one sip--” “You’re heartless and insensitive, and you hate my sister.” “Christ, Ashley, I don’t hate your sister--” “You told her I care more about you than I do about her, and that’s not true!” “I know it’s not--and Roo knows it’s not. It was a joke! I wasn’t serious!” “I’m always defending you, and Roo’s always been smarter than me. Roo would never get involved with somebody like you.” Parker shot Etienne another helpless glance. “Is that good or bad?” “I wouldn’t be doing any more talking right now, if I were you,” Etienne advised him. “Roo looks out for me. Roo has better sense than I do,” Ashley went on miserably. “It’s always been that way, ever since we were little. She’s always had the brains. And I’ve always had…not the brains.” Etienne’s eyes and Parker’s eyes met behind Ashley’s back. “Not going there,” Etienne mumbled.

Hey!” Etienne called sharply. “They’re here--they’re coming!” Even then, Miranda could hardly believe it. Even then, as she and Roo and Ashley jumped to their feet and saw Etienne signal with the flashlight. To her amazement, other lights were signaling back to them--flashing lights from police cars and ambulances, spinning lights from fire trucks--and there were sirens, and shouts, men running, confusion and chaos-- “Parker!” Ashley cried. He grabbed her into his arms and held her, burying his face in her hair. His sides were heaving, his voice was hoarse. He looked completely drained. “I told you I’d come back.” “Yes--yes--you did. And don’t you ever leave me again!” “How’s Gage? Is he--” “He’s alive, but it’s bad, Parker; it’s much worse. He hasn’t woken up, and he’s hardly breathing and--” “It’s okay, Ash, they’ll take care of him now.” Releasing Ashley, Parker turned to Etienne. A look passed between them…a nod…a thousand silent words. As emergency teams swarmed around them, Parker spotted Miranda and caught her in a hug. “God, Parker.” Miranda’s voice broke. “Are we glad to see you.” “Likewise. And you don’t have to call me God. Saint Parker’s good enough.

I drove to the bar Theodosha had called from and parked on the street. The bar was a gray, dismal place, ensconced like a broken matchbox under a dying oak tree, its only indication of gaiety a neon beer sign that flickered in one window. She was at a table in back, the glow of the jukebox lighting her face and the deep blackness of her hair. She tipped a collins glass to her mouth, her eyes locked on mine. “Let me take you home,” I said. “No, thanks,” she replied. “Getting swacked?” “Merchie and I had another fight. He says he can’t take my pretensions anymore. I love the word ‘pretensions.’” “That doesn’t mean you have to get drunk,” I said. “You’re right. I can get drunk for any reason I choose,” she replied, and took another hit from the glass. Then she added incongruously, “You once asked Merchie what he was doing in Afghanistan. The answer is he wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in one of those other God-forsaken Stone Age countries to the north, helping build American airbases to protect American oil interests. Merchie says they’re going to make a fortune. All for the red, white, and blue.” “Who is they?” But her eyes were empty now, her concentration and anger temporarily spent. I glanced at the surroundings, the dour men sitting at the bar, a black woman sleeping with her head on a table, a parolee putting moves on a twenty-year-old junkie and mother of two children who was waiting for her connection. These were the people we cycled in and out of the system for decades, without beneficial influence or purpose of any kind that was detectable. “Let’s clear up one thing. Your old man came looking for trouble at the club today. I didn’t start it,” I said. “Go to a meeting, Dave. You’re a drag,” she said. “Give your guff to Merchie,” I said, and got up to leave. “I would. Except he’s probably banging his newest flop in the hay. And the saddest thing is I can’t blame him.” “I think I’m going to ease on out of this. Take care of yourself, kiddo,” I said. “Fuck that ‘kiddo’ stuff. I loved you and you were too stupid to know it.” I walked back outside into a misting rain and the clean smell of the night. I walked past a house where people were fighting behind the shades. I heard doors slamming, the sound of either a car backfiring or gunshots on another street, a siren wailing in the distance. On the corner I saw an expensive automobile pull to the curb and a black kid emerge from the darkness, wearing a skintight bandanna on his head. The driver of the car, a white man, exchanged money for something in the black kid’s hand. Welcome to the twenty-first century, I thought. I opened my truck door, then noticed the sag on the frame and glanced at the right rear tire. It was totally flat, the steel rim buried deep in the folds of collapsed rubber. I dropped the tailgate, pulled the jack and lug wrench out of the toolbox that was arc-welded to the bed of the truck, and fitted the jack under the frame. Just as I had pumped the flat tire clear of the puddle it rested in, I heard footsteps crunch on the gravel behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short, thick billy club whip through the air. Just before it exploded across the side of my head, my eyes seemed to close like a camera lens on a haystack that smelled of damp-rot and unwashed hair and old shoes. I was sure as I slipped into unconsciousness that I was inside an ephemeral dream from which I would soon awake.

Outside, he leaned into the the wind. The Suburban was still running as it rested against the garage door. If he was careful, he could make it to the truck and get in without alerting the Feds in the garage. He hopped and limped as quick as he could to the open door of the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. Gas looked good, enough to get away. If he was going to go, now was the time. The Feds would be busy with Tommy and wouldn’t have a vehicle. He shifted into reverse and gunned it. There was a shriek of metal as the truck disengaged from the door. “Sorry, Tommy!” Joe yelled as he executed a quick half circle, braked and slammed the transmission into drive. “Ross, somebody’s taking off in the truck.” “Let’s secure the office and then we’ll take care of the truck.” Ross walked towards the door, his back sliding against the cement block wall for protection as he approached. “FBI! Anybody in the office, put your hands above your head!” A voice called back from inside the station office. “Stay back! I have a hostage in here.” “Listen,” Ross said. “Your buddy left you behind. Give yourself up, and let the hostage go.” Stevens quietly headed for the hole torn in the garage door when the truck pulled away. Ross signaled that he’d keep talking and for Stevens to circle around to the other side of the station. “I can’t do that man. I can’t go back to the Crib. I got nothing to lose here now.” “Are you Martinelli or Kelly?

Well, back in ’94, it wasn’t a truck driving, but rather idling on Guinevere, on the back side of Gethsemane Baptist Church, the very day Deanne went missing. And it wasn’t an eighteen-wheeler, but a van with a white guy, midthirties, sitting at the wheel. Same thing last year, a white van, idling on the edges of the neighborhood the day Tina Wells disappeared.

Dane growls, shoving him in the shoulders. Jack’s a big guy, but he’s no match for Dane’s alien-DNA-super-charged brute strength, and he stumbles, falling back against the side of his truck. “Keep your fucking eyes on me. Don’t look at her. Like, ever.

the lane to my left wasn’t as far back as I thought. The very last inch of my back bumper caught the very front corner of the truck’s cab. That was enough. I lost all control of my car, which executed a slow and stately counterclockwise turn, ending with my driver’s side flush into the front of the truck, still speeding down the freeway. It was slow and stately from my perspective, anyway. I felt as if I were trapped in amber, watching helplessly as my car moved of its own

On our return from the bush, we went straight back to work at the zoo. A huge tree behind the Irwin family home had been hit by lightning some years previously, and a tangle of dead limbs was in danger of crashing down on the house. Steve thought it would be best to take the dead tree down. I tried to lend a hand. Steve’s mother could not watch as he scrambled up the tree. He had no harness, just his hat and a chainsaw. The tree was sixty feet tall. Steve looked like a little dot way up in the air, swinging through the tree limbs with an orangutan’s ease, working the chainsaw. Then it was my turn. After he pruned off all the limbs, the last task was to fell the massive trunk. Steve climbed down, secured a rope two-thirds of the way up the tree, and tied the other end to the bull bar of his Ute. My job was to drive the Ute. “You’re going to have to pull it down in just the right direction,” he said, chopping the air with his palm. He studied the angle of the tree and where it might fall. Steve cut the base of the tree. As the chainsaw snarled, Steve yelled, “Now!” I put the truck in reverse, slipped the clutch, and went backward at a forty-five-degree angle as hard as I could. With a groan and a tremendous crash, the tree hit the ground. We celebrated, whooping and hollering. Steve cut the downed timber into lengths and I stacked it. The whole project took us all day. By late in the afternoon, my back ached from stacking tree limbs and logs. As the long shadows crossed the yard, Steve said four words very uncharacteristic of him: “Let’s take a break.” I wondered what was up. We sat under a big fig tree in the yard with a cool drink. We were both covered in little flecks of wood, leaves, and bark. Steve’s hair was unkempt, a couple of his shirt buttons were missing, and his shorts were torn. I thought he was the best-looking man I had ever seen in my life. “I am not even going to walk for the next three days,” I said, laughing. Steve turned to me. He was quiet for a moment. “So, do you want to get married?” Casual, matter-of-fact. I nearly dropped the glass I was holding. I had twigs in my hair an dirt caked on the side of my face. I’d taken off my hat, and I could feel my hair sticking to the sides of my head. My first thought was what a mess I must look. My second, third, and fourth thoughts were lists of every excuse in the world why I couldn’t marry Steve Irwin. I could not possibly leave my job, my house, my wildlife work, my family, my friends, my pets--everything I had worked so hard for back in Oregon. He never looked concerned. He simply held my gaze. As all these things flashed through my mind, a little voice from somewhere above me spoke. “Yes, I’d love to.” With those four words my life changed forever.

Outside, Ambo slogs through snow ankle-deep, making bloody tracks down the graded yard toward the box truck. Scanning the roundabout below, where the dirt utility road spills from the wood into the clearing. No movement. Nothing on approach. Only the snow that contours the turnabout, shaping itself against the trunks of the surrounding glade. Near the split-rail fence at the end of the back yard, Ambo stops and places the cooler at his feet. He lays the shotgun in a wide drift beside the last stile, working it in with his hands, using the snow to scour off the worst of the gore. The slush reddened like a confection. When he finishes, he puts the cooler under his arm, shoulders the weapon and continues the descent. His hands numb. The truck is ahead, blanketed from nose to tail, the drifts reaching halfway into the wheel wells. When Ambo reaches the cargo bay, he glances back over his shoulder. The red house, a cornice of snow gathered on the eaves. The red tracks—his own footprints—leading away. A red imprint roughed out in the shape of a gun on the side of the path.

Emma ripped the sticky note off the bathroom mirror and threw it in the trash. Sean didn’t have to worry about her rubbing the back of his neck again anytime soon. And he certainly didn’t have to worry about her wanting to get naked. Not with him. If they were a real couple, she’d throw his pillow onto the couch and let his feet dangle over the edge for a change. It was pathetic how fast he’d come up with a lame excuse to run away just because he’d kissed her. It was just a kiss. A great kiss, yes, but still just a kiss. She hadn’t asked him to marry her—to really marry her, of course—or told him she wanted to have his baby. A hot, steamy, toe-curling, bone-melting kiss between two single adults was nothing to run from. But now he’d made a big deal out of it and everything was going to be even more awkward than it had been for the past few days. She’d been curled up on the couch, fuming, for almost an hour when she heard Sean’s truck pull in to the driveway. It was another ten minutes before he crept into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Since she was facing the back of the couch, she didn’t have to make much of an effort to ignore him. He was in the shower so long she must have fallen asleep to the drone of running water, because the next thing Emma knew, her alarm was going off and it was time to face another day in the hell she’d created. But first she had to face Sean. She got first crack at the bathroom, and when she came out, he was sitting on the side of the bed, fully clothed. Thank goodness. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “We should talk about last night.” “How’s Kevin?” “He’s good. And I meant before that.” “You should have stayed for the end of the movie. It was good.” “Dammit, Emma, you know that’s not what I’m talking about.” “Oh, you mean the practice kiss?” She clipped her cell phone onto her front pocket. “We’re getting better at it. That was almost convincing.” “Practice kiss?” He stood, probably so he could look down at her, but she was tall enough it didn’t make much of an impact. “Almost convincing?” “Yeah,” she said, though she turned her back on him, heading toward the door to avoid eye contact, because that was no practice kiss and it could have convinced even the CIA’s finest. He was muttering when she left the room, but she shut the door on him and went downstairs. She didn’t want to talk about it. And she didn’t want to think about the fact he wasn’t happy she called it a practice kiss. That meant he considered it a real kiss. And not only a real kiss, but one that had shaken him up. The only reason kissing a woman should bother a man like him was if he was trying to fight being attracted to her. Hopefully, he’d win, she thought as she headed toward the kitchen, because she was waging that battle herself and didn’t appear to be headed for a victory. Maybe he had enough willpower and self-control for both of them.

Joe grinned and slapped the side of the truck. “Come on, cousin. You know we’ve always got your back.” “Yeah, that’s usually where you stick the kick-me sign.” His cousin was still laughing when he backed out of the driveway.

And with that, he spun around and bounced down the curb to wheel off across the street. It was nice to see you too…whatever your name is… Mickey was shocked to see SKM roll up to a black GMC Denali and reach for the driver’s side door. That’s a one-ton truck. That’s an unusually high one-ton truck. She turned and headed back to her office. How in the world is he going to drive that thing? How in the world is he even going to get into it? She resisted the urge to go back and look.

William Engberg sat in his truck and finished his cigarette. He exhaled and then he stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and pulled the key out of the ignition.  He got out of his truck, stuffed his keys in a back pocket and looked at the house before him. The building was small, painted white with dark green trim with the Atlantic behind it.  The ocean was gray and harsh, whitecaps breaking upon dark sands while a cold, northern wind battered at the dunes and seagrass. William smiled at the dark clouds.  Behind them, the sun had begun its slow descent, and soon William would be alone with the ocean and his thoughts.  Closing the truck’s door, he walked around to the side, reached into the bed and pulled out his sea-bag. 

I’m not going to make love with you tonight. I find myself wanting to draw out this anticipation. I have a feeling the wait will be worth it. That you’ll be worth it.” Laine didn’t know what to say, she could only sit there with her mouth open in shock as Wes leaned back and shut the door, sealing her inside his truck. As he walked around to the driver’s side, Laine muttered to herself, “Holy mother of God. I’ve hit the mother lode.

His brother Najib owned an auto-parts store at bustling Shikarpur Gate, the mouth of the narrow road linking their village to the city—an ancient byway that had once led southward through the passes all the way to India. At dusk it is clogged with a riot of vegetable sellers’ handcarts beset by shoppers, Toyota pickup trucks, horse-drawn taxis, and three-wheeled rickshaws clambering around and through the throng like gaudy dung beetles. Nurallah’s brother Najib had gone to Chaman, just across the border in Pakistan, where the streets are lined with cargo containers serving as shops, and used motor oil cements the dust to the ground in a glossy tarmac, and every variety of automotive organ or sinew is laid bare, spread out, and strung up for sale. He had made his purchases and set off back to Kandahar. “He paid his customs dues”—Nurallah emphasized the remarkable point—“because that’s the law. He paid at every checkpoint on the way back, fifty afghanis, a hundred afghanis.” A dollar or two every time an unkempt, underage police boy in green fatigues slouched out of a sandbagged lean-to into the middle of the road—eight times in the sixty-six miles when last I counted. “And then when he reached the entrance to town, the police there wanted five hundred afghanis. Five hundred!” A double arch marks the place where the road that swoops down from Kabul joins the road leading in from Pakistan. The police range from one side to the other, like spear fishermen hunting trout in a narrows. “He refused,” Nurallah continued. “He said he had paid his customs dues—he showed them the receipt. He said he had paid the bribes at every checkpoint all along the way, and he was not paying again.” I waited a beat. “So what happened?” “They reached into his window and smacked him.” “They hit him?” I was shocked. Najib might be a sunny guy, but Kandahar tempers are strung on tripwires. For a second I thought we’d have to go bail him out. “What did he do?” Nurallah’s eyes, beneath his widow’s peak, were banked and smoldering. “What could he do? He paid the money. But then he pulled over to the side of the road and called me. I told him to stay right there. And I called Police Chief Matiullah Qatih, to report the officer who was taking the bribes.” And Matiullah had scoffed at him: Did he die of it? The police buzzards had seen Najib make the call. They had descended on him, snatched the phone out of his hand, and smashed it. “You call that law?” Now Nurallah was ablaze. “They’re the police! They should be showing people what the law is; they should be enforcing the law. And they’re the ones breaking it.” Nurallah was once a police officer himself. He left the force the day his own boss, Kabul police chief Zabit Akrem, was assassinated in that blast in the mosque in 2005.1 Yet so stout was Nurallah’s pride in his former profession that he brought his dark green uniform into work and kept it there, hung neatly on a hook in his locker. “My sacred oath,” he vowed, concluding: “If I see someone planting an IED on a road, and then I see a police truck coming, I will turn away. I will not warn them.” I caught my breath. So maybe he didn’t mean it literally. Maybe Nurallah wouldn’t actually connive with the Taliban. Still, if a former police officer like him was even mouthing such thoughts, then others were acting on them. Afghan government corruption was manufacturing Taliban.

I pulled off the highway and found a motel. The room stunk of cigarettes and the shower was caked in mildew. I pulled the brown and maroon paisley comforter off, threw it on the floor, and doused my hands in sanitizer. I slept on top of towels I laid across the sheets. In the morning I grabbed a stale doughnut and weak coffee from the free continental breakfast in the lobby and headed out to my truck, where I discovered my bike had been stolen from the back. In my sleep-deprived state the night before, I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of my bike being stolen. I slumped into the driver’s seat and finished my disgusting doughnut. Still in the motel parking lot, I shaved with an electric shaver using the side mirror of the truck. After one half of my face was shaved, the batteries died. There are just certain times in life when every fucking thing we do seems so arbitrary. Why in the world did I shave my face to begin with? I drove to a drugstore and got more batteries and a lot of weird looks from shoppers. At checkout, the gum-popping, teenage female clerk smirked at me. I decided to let humor prevail. “Do you like this look?” I smiled and pointed to my face. “That’s dope.” “Thanks, dawg.” “Peace out,” she said, and I walked out. I didn’t turn around but I held up a peace sign and said, “Word.

Getting It Right" Your ankles make me want to party, want to sit and beg and roll over under a pair of riding boots with your ankles hidden inside, sweating beneath the black tooled leather; they make me wish it was my birthday so I could blow out their candles, have them hung over my shoulders like two bags full of money. Your ankles are two monster-truck engines but smaller and lighter and sexier than a saucer with warm milk licking the outside edge; they make me want to sing, make me want to take them home and feed them pasta, I want to punish them for being bad and then hold them all night long and say I’m sorry, sugar, darling, it will never happen again, not in a million years. Your thighs make me quiet. Make me want to be hurled into the air like a cannonball and pulled down again like someone being pulled into a van. Your thighs are two boats burned out of redwood trees. I want to go sailing. Your thighs, the long breath of them under the blue denim of your high-end jeans, could starve me to death, could make me cry and cry. Your ass is a shopping mall at Christmas, a holy place, a hill I fell in love with once when I was falling in love with hills. Your ass is a string quartet, the northern lights tucked tightly into bed between a high-count-of-cotton sheets. Your back is the back of a river full of fish; I have my tackle and tackle box. You only have to say the word. Your back, a letter I have been writing for fifteen years, a smooth stone, a moan someone makes when his hair is pulled, your back like a warm tongue at rest, a tongue with a tab of acid on top; your spine is an alphabet, a ladder of celestial proportions. I am navigating the North and South of it. Your armpits are beehives, they make me want to spin wool, want to pour a glass of whiskey, your armpits dripping their honey, their heat, their inexhaustible love-making dark. I am bright yellow for them. I am always thinking about them, resting at your side or high in the air when I’m pulling off your shirt. Your arms of blue and ice with the blood running to make them believe in God. Your shoulders make me want to raise an arm and burn down the Capitol. They sing to each other underneath your turquoise slope-neck blouse. Each is a separate bowl of rice steaming and covered in soy sauce. Your neck is a skyscraper of erotic adult videos, a swan and a ballet and a throaty elevator made of light. Your neck is a scrim of wet silk that guides the dead into the hours of Heaven. It makes me want to die, your mouth, which is the mouth of everything worth saying. It’s abalone and coral reef. Your mouth, which opens like the legs of astronauts who disconnect their safety lines and ride their stars into the billion and one voting districts of the Milky Way. Darling, you’re my President; I want to get this right! Matthew Dickman, The New Yorker: Poems | August 29, 2011 Issue

So can I tell her owner that we’ll help Lola?” Charles finally asked his mom. She had not been happy to hear that he and his friends had taken someone’s dog, and she had interrupted his story more than a few times to let him know it. She sighed, but Charles knew what that sigh meant. It meant “yes,” as long as Dad agreed. And Dad always agreed. Charles grinned and told her he’d call her back as soon as he knew more. Then he gave his friends a thumbs-up. “We can take her,” he said. “Not so fast,” said David’s father. He gathered Lola into his arms and stood up. “First we have to go talk to her owner.” Outside, the storm was over but the sky was still filled with low, dark clouds. They piled into David’s parents’ tiny red car. David held Lola in his lap as his dad drove back to the blue house on Maple Street. It didn’t look so empty now: some of the curtains were open, and a white truck was parked in the driveway outside the garage. “ ‘Reliable Rod’s Plumbing and Heating,’ ” Charles read from the side of the truck. “ ‘Twenty-four-hour service.’ ” He knew what “reliable” meant: that this plumber was somebody you could count on. He wasn’t sure that this Rod was so reliable when it came to dogs.

Not unlike the herbicide-spraying campaigns in Asia, Central Europe was also flown over by helicopters spraying chemicals intended to wipe out the deciduous forests, which had gone out of fashion. Beech and oak trees held very little value at that time; low oil prices meant that no one was interested in firewood. The scales were tilted in favour of spruce – sought after by the timber industry and safe from being devoured by the high game populations. Over 5,000 square kilometres of deciduous woodlands was cleared just in my local region of Eifel and Hunsrück, through this merciless method of dropping death from the air. The carrier for the substance, sold under the trade name Tormona, was diesel oil. Elements of this mixture may still lurk in the soil of our forests today; the rusty diesel drums are certainly still lying around in some places. Have things improved now? Not completely, because chemical sprays are still used, even if they’re not directed at the trees themselves. The target of the helicopters and trucks with their atomising nozzles is the insects that feed on the trees and wood. Because the drab spruce and pine monocultures give free rein to bark beetles and butterfly caterpillars, these are then bumped off with contact insecticides. The pesticides, with names like Karate, are so lethal for three months that mere contact spells the end for any unfortunate insects. Parts of a forest that have been sprayed with pesticide are usually marked and fenced off for a while, but wood piles at the side of the track are often not considered dangerous. I would therefore advise against sitting on them when you’re ready for a rest stop and look out for a mossy stump instead, which is guaranteed to be harmless. This is quite apart from the fact that freshly harvested softwood is often very resinous. The stains don’t come out in the normal wash; you need to attack it with a special stain remover. Stacked wood carries another danger: the whole pile is liable to come crashing down. When you know that a single trunk can weigh hundreds of kilograms, you tend to stay away from a precariously stacked pile. It’s not for nothing that the German name for a wood stack is Polter, as in the crashing and banging of a poltergeist. Back to the poison. In areas sprayed by helicopter I wouldn’t pick berries or mushrooms for the rest of the summer. Otherwise, the forest is low in harmful substances compared to industrial agriculture.

train me, nice as could be other than acting like she’s my mom, all honey-this and honey-that and “You think you can remember all that, sweetie?” Just three or four years out of high school herself. But she did have three kids, so probably she’d wiped so many asses she got stuck that way. I didn’t hold it against her. Coach Briggs’s brother stayed upstairs in the office. Heart attack guy was a mystery. First they said he might come back by the end of summer. Then they all stopped talking about him. As far as customers, every kind of person came in. Older guys would want to chew the fat outside in the dock after I loaded their grain bags or headgates or what have you. I handled all the larger items. They complained about the weather or tobacco prices, but oftentimes somebody would recognize me and want to talk football. What was my opinion on our being a passing versus running team, etc. So that was amazing. Being known. It was the voice that hit my ear like a bell, the day he came in. I knew it instantly. And that laugh. It always made you wish that whoever made him laugh like that, it had been you. I was stocking inventory in the home goods aisle, and moved around the end to where I could see across the store. Over by the medications and vaccines that were kept in a refrigerator case, he was standing with his back to me, but that wild head of hair was the giveaway. And the lit-up face of Donnamarie, flirting so hard her bangs were standing on end. She was opening a case for him. Some of the pricier items were kept under lock and key. I debated whether to go over, but heard him say he needed fifty pounds of Hi-Mag mineral and a hundred pounds of pelleted beef feed, so I knew I would see him outside. I signaled to Donnamarie that I’d heard, and threw it all on the dolly to wheel out to the loading dock. He pulled his truck around but didn’t really see me. Just leaned his elbow out the open window and handed me the register ticket. He’d kept the Lariat of course, because who wouldn’t. “You’ve still got the Fastmobile, I see,” I said. He froze in the middle of lighting a smoke, shifted his eyes at me, and shook his head fast, like a splash of cold water had hit him. “I’ll be goddamned. Diamond?” “The one,” I said. “How you been hanging, Fast Man?” “Cannot complain,” he said. But it seemed like he wasn’t a hundred percent on it really being me loading his pickup. He watched me in the side mirror. The truck bounced a little each time I hefted a mineral block or bag into the bed. Awesome leaf springs on that beauty. I came around to give him back his ticket, and he seemed more sure.

THE SUMMER BEFORE COLLEGE Mick drove trucks for the Coke plant, big lumbering GMCs with slide-up side doors from which he pulled down wooden cases of bottles and slung back cases of empties, delivering to corner markets, restaurants and grocery stores in Rockland County. He loved the hard labor and the changing scenes and people, the sun hot on his face through the GMC’s big windshield and on his arm through the open window full of all the scents of summer – spicy fresh-mown alfalfa, sun-warm bark of beeches and birches, black-furrowed soil, the redolent pastures of cattle and sheep, the cool moist air when the road went over a stream. Wherever he sold, people upped their orders. “What I like,” one corner grocer said, “is you never let me down. You always come when you say you will.” Mick shrugged it off but smiled, “Isn’t everybody like that?” “The way you work, you’re gonna make somethin’ of yourself some day.” He drove on, one arm out the window, shoulder warm in the sun, wind cooling his face, in the friendly grease, diesel and sun-hot plastic smell of the truck. Of course you worked hard, everybody should. It made you happy. How could you not work when your family needed it? Tara waiting tables full-time at Primo’s Café on Main Street, Troy running the farm all by himself and delivering papers at four every morning; Dad’s salary at the plastic factory had gone

The light indicating the bathroom is occupied clicks off and the fabulous Gigi Fandone saunters back to stage side. A heavy smell follows her. It's a smell much like the trenches in the zoo, but worse. It's a smell much like Detroit's septic system, but worse. It's a smell much like a diaper disposal truck, but worse.

I jumped out of the truck and went to the bed. I blew up a twin-sized air mattress and covered it with a thick, red, patterned Aztec blanket. I'd brought some heavy blankets and pillows and propped them against the back window so we had something to lean on. I lit a citronella candle for the one or two mosquitoes that might be out this time of year and put it on the roof. Then I plugged in some white Christmas lights to a portable power inverter and ran those along the sides to give us some light to eat by. ... There was homemade goat cheese with sliced pears drizzled in honey, dried fruits, bruschetta sandwiches on his fresh baked crusty bread that he made himself with his own sourdough starter, two thermoses with hot chocolate in them.

My grin tipped up on one side. “I’m sorry. Who asked about the television screens in my truck?” Her lush lips thinned. “And how long did it take you to pick out the watermelon? Thirty minutes?” “Twenty-nine,” I shot back. “And it’s the best fucking watermelon I’ve ever had. Worth every minute.” A single brow quirked. “You want a medal?” I leaned over the counter and she met my stare. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it seemed like the air cracked with electricity, heating my skin, quickening my pulse. This couldn’t be normal. Maybe I was getting sick. I’d overheated in all of the seventy-eight degrees outside. Yeah, that had to be it. “I’d love one.” It was so fast, I almost missed it. Her gaze dipped to my mouth before dropping to the island again. “There isn’t any more room on your shelf for one more medal.” “I’ll just put up another shelf.” “I’m sure you would.

is a lot of evil in the world, and while maybe the devil isn’t exactly the way he’s pictured in old books and B-grade movies, he is active and fighting on the side of evil. “If you are a good person,” she said, “you’re going to get caught up in those battles. You have to fight.” “Maybe I should tell old Satan to back up his Evil Truck, load it up, and get the heck out of here,” I joked. “Tell him,” she said, dead serious. “Live the good. Fight the battle.

HENRY CLIMBED INTO my truck and buckled his seatbelt with the grimmest expression I had ever seen. His hair stood out in every direction, and his hands shook. “You okay, buddy?” I asked, trying to be gentle. “Do you want to go see Robin instead? She’d be glad to cut it, Henry.” Millie had followed him out, tapping her way down the sidewalk with a concerned frown between her dark brows. She now stood holding onto the passenger side door. I could tell she wanted to ride along, but Henry didn’t seem to want her to. “It’s a man date, right Henry? Men go to the barber. Not the salon.” Henry tapped his fingertips together nervously and wouldn’t look right or left. “Kite flying is an official sport in Thailand!” Henry blurted. Amelie bit her lip but stepped back from the passenger door. “Bye, Millie. I’ll bring him back. Don’t worry,” I called. She nodded and tried to smile, and I pulled away from the curb. Henry’s tapping became a cadence. Clack clack. Click click. It sounded like the rhythm Millie made with her stick when she walked. “Henry?” No response. Just clicking, all the way to the barbershop. I pulled up to Leroy’s shop and put my truck in park. I jumped out and came around to Henry’s door. Henry made no move to disembark. “Henry? Do you want to do this?” Henry looked pointedly at my shaggy locks and clicked his fingers. “I need a haircut, Henry. So do you. We’re men. We can do this.” “Ben Askren, Roger Federer, Shaun White, Troy Polamalu, David Beckham, Triple H.” “Triple H?” I started to laugh. Henry was listing athletes with long hair. “You’re getting desperate, Henry.” “Larry Fitzgerald? Tim Lincecum?” “Tim Lincecum, huh? He plays for the Giants, doesn’t he? Your favorite team, right?” Henry didn’t respond. “Ah, shit. What the hell. I didn’t want to cut my hair anyway. I kind of think your sister likes it.” The clicking slowed. “You wanna go buy a kite? I hear it’s an official sport in Thailand,” I said. Henry smiled the smallest ghost of a smile and nodded once.

Jim Biggers looked down at the puppy playing tug-of-war with one of his bootlaces. “Quit it,” he growled, gently shaking it off. The puppy yapped and scampered away, bumping into Truck’s furry side and bouncing off. The big dog didn’t bat an eye, but he raised his head when he heard a car door slam outside. Another puppy tumbled off his back as he got up. Jim rose too, looking out the window. “She’s here,” he announced, throwing down his pencil. In another minute Kenzie and Linc walked in. One of the puppies ran to her and she squatted down to say hi. “Oh my gosh. You are so cute!” “I can’t compete,” Jim grumbled to Linc. The puppy yapped and ran away. Kenzie went around to the other side of the desk to kiss her boss on the cheek. “Sorry.” Jim grinned. “You’re forgiven. How are you doing, Linc?” He’d noticed that the younger man was still limping. There wasn’t any need to mention it specifically. “Better every day, thanks. How did Truck get stuck with babysitting?” “I promised him half a steak,” Jim said. “He fell for it.” An eager puppy chomped down hard on Truck’s ear, then put his head and paws down in play position, wagging his stubby tail. “Poor Truck,” Kenzie said sympathetically. She looked back to Jim. “Why are they here? I mean, they’re cute but way too young to start with us.” “Merry Jenkins is fostering them for me. But she’s gone for the next two days, so I have them. It’s been fun. I’m seeing plenty of potential.” He glanced at the floor, frowning. “And a few puddles.” He unrolled several sheets from the paper towel dispenser on his desk and let them drift to the floor. A puppy pounced on the white stuff and dragged it away. Jim rolled his eyes. He unrolled more paper towels, and this time he put his boot down on them. “I can’t wait to come back full-time,” Kenzie said. “When you’re ready. Not a minute before,” Jim said sternly. “Everything’s under control. No rush.” Linc looked down. “Am I seeing things?” A tiny kitten was clawing its way up his jeans. Jim harrumphed. “That’s a stray. Buddy and Wells started feeding it, and now it won’t go away.” “Aww,” Kenzie exclaimed. “It’s adorable.” Linc detached the kitten from his front pocket and held it up. The warmth of his hands calmed it, but only for a minute. The kitten stared at him, bug-eyed, then batted at his nose. “Doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything.” “Reminds me of Kenzie. I guess I’ll have to keep it. So where are you two headed?” Linc put the kitten down. Tiny tail waving, it sauntered between Truck’s furry legs. The dog didn’t seem to mind.

You’re a wonder, Kerry McCrae,” he said, dipping his head, kissing each warm cheek, her nose, then her mouth. The first kisses were sweet, the last one utterly carnal. He did that to her. Made her feel cherished one moment and utterly desirable the next. She might have been breathing just a bit unevenly when he lifted his head, a gleam of an entirely different sort in his eyes now. “I’d ask when I could see you again, but I suppose I need to let Fergus have at least a bit of your time. And I don’t want to press.” She barked out a short laugh at that. “You? Press? No,” she said in mock surprise. He chuckled, too, his grin not remotely sheepish, then leaned down to scoop up hamper and cooler, leaving the lighter laundry bundle for her to grab. They stopped at his car first, stowing his load in the trunk. “I’m happy to take the laundry,” he said. “I’m sure I can find somewhere to--” “No, I’ll take care of it,” she said, maybe too quickly, just imagining Delia and Grace’s faces when he asked them where he could find a good Laundromat. The gossip mill would get all this juicy new grist soon enough but no need to willingly feed it. “Well, I’ll be happy to return them to Thomas, spare you the trip.” “The walk of shame, you mean?” she said, then laughed as they paused by the passenger’s side of her truck so she could stow the laundry bundle on the front seat. “Actually, I plan to get them washed and back on the boat before he comes to move it tomorrow.” Cooper considered that, then nodded. “Sound plan.” He smiled. “Need a ride? Maybe a sunrise breakfast?” Smiling, she nudged him as they walked around to the driver’s side. “Look at you, making it a whole five minutes before pressing.” She wiped a pretend tear from the corner of her eye. “I’m so proud.” Chuckling, he snatched her up close to him and kissed her senseless before she knew what was happening, turning her squeal of surprise into a soft moan of need in a matter of seconds. “You forget,” he said moments later, his voice a bit gruff, too, “I know how to handle that saucy lip of yours now.” “I should be so affronted by your smug machismo,” she scolded, then let him pull her in for a nice, tight hug as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. “And yet…” She sighed, smiled, and slid her arms around his waist. “And yet indeed,” he said quietly, rubbing her back. “We’re a pair, we are, Starfish.

I can’t believe you did this,” she said a moment later, and he noted that along with her irritation, she was gripping the steering wheel as if her life depended on it. That shouldn’t have reassured him, but it did. “Which part?” he asked with a chuckle. She gaped at him, then turned her attention back to the road. “All of the parts.” She drove on for another few seconds, making the turn onto the road that led down to the harbor, then suddenly stomped on the brake, causing him to brace a quick hand on the dash. She jerked the truck to the side of the road and came to a full stop before turning to him, her expression urgent. “Did something happen? To your family? Cooper, don’t even think about not--” “What?” he asked, honestly surprised by the sudden barrage, and more so by the clear concern in her eyes. “Your family,” she repeated, as if he was a bit slow. And maybe he was. About a lot of things. “I was just thinking I can’t imagine them being thrilled with you taking off like this, halfway around the world no less, leaving them shorthanded and--then I thought, oh no, something must have happened, because why else would you--” She broke off, shook her head, and seemed to look sightlessly at her hands, still gripping the steering wheel. “Because why else would I what?” She finally looked at him, and along with that goodly dose of agitation and not a little honest confusion, he saw that sliver of vulnerability again. “Because what else would cause a man I knew to be perfectly sane and fully committed to running one of the biggest cattle stations in the Northern Territory alongside his big, loud, boisterous, and very close-knit and beloved family--to up and run halfway around the world chasing after a…after--” “You?” She blinked, closed her mouth, opened it again, then simply shook her head and looked away.

The others climbed into the back of the truck with the pitchforks and the pinestraw, leaving Stacy all alone in the front with the man. She sat as close to the door as she could and held the handle tight in case she had to jump out or something. Suspiciously, she looked at the big paper bag on the seat between them. The man, still frowning, put the truck into gear. With a jolt, they started off. Before they had gone very far he slammed on the brakes, throwing them all forward. He doesn’t even have seatbelts, Stacy thought. But how can you think of dumb things like that when you’re about to die? “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I forgot. I’ve got to make one stop before we go to the dairy barns.” Throwing the truck into reverse, he backed up a few yards to a narrow road that led into the woods. A small sign that read “Private! Closed to the Public” was posted by the side of the road. Oh dear, Stacy thought, we’re doomed now. How many times did Mom ever tell me never to get into a car with a stranger? And now I’ve gone and done that and here we are heading down an off-limits road into the woods. She had a cold chill, and this time it wasn’t from her wet clothes. They bounced down the rutted road. In the mirror outside her window, she could see the kids hanging on to the side of the truck for dear life. The arms of the low pines brushed the roof of the truck with a skeletal scraping down. At least they came to an opening. Before her Stacy could see rows and rows of vines. “Vineyards,” she whispered to herself. Suddenly, the man slammed on his brakes. The truck jarred to a stop. Without a word he threw open the door and climbed out. Now we’re in for it, thought Stacy. I just know he’s coming around this side to get me. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. Over the idling hum of the motor she could hear him walking. Then there was a squeal from the kids in the back of the truck. Oh, my goodness, she thought, squinching her eyes tighter and tighter until they hurt. What is he doing to them? In a moment he slung the door of the truck open. In spite of herself she turned and looked at him. He had a big grin on his face. And his shirt was covered with a big purple stain. Blood! “Your shirt,” she stuttered, pointing a quivery finger toward him. He laughed. “Juice,” he said. “Juice from the grapes.” Stacy sniffed. Sure enough it did smell like grape juice. She got up the nerve to look in the rearview mirror. The kid’s heads bobbed in the back. Slowly she ungripped her hand from the door handle. The man waved an arm towards the vineyards. “We grow grapes for wine here. It’s just another way to use the land like Mr. Vanderbilt thought you should.” Stacy just stared at his shirt again and said, “Oh.

But surely, if Fergus had actually spoken to Cooper, he wouldn’t have kept mum on that little detail. Who are you kidding? The man thrived on meddling, especially where his beloved McCrae girls were concerned. That would also explain why he’d so conveniently disappeared once Cooper had taken the floor. And why he hadn’t come back out carrying the shotgun they kept handy in the back. “Uncle Gus” was all she said. He smiled briefly. “I thought that was a better bet than your chief-of-police brother. I’ve already guessed Fergus didn’t tell you about our little conversation.” She shook her head. “How long ago?” “A week. Not so long as all that.” Long enough, she thought, already mentally rehearsing the conversation she’d be having with her uncle the minute she got back to the pub. “We only had the one chat.” “One was apparently all that was needed. What else did he share with you?” She immediately held up her hand. “On second thought, don’t tell me. I’ll have that little chat with him directly.” “He wants you to be happy,” Cooper said. “And he thought encouraging a man I haven’t seen in over a year, a man who was my former employer and nothing more, to hop on a plane and bop on up this side of the equator to see me was what would make me happy?” Cooper’s smile deepened, and that twinkle sparked to life in his eyes again, making them so fiercely blue it caught at her breath. “He might have mentioned that you’d be less than welcoming of a surprise visit. He also said if I had a prayer of your still being here when I arrived, a surprise visit was pretty much my only shot. And how the frosty reception I was sure to receive was simply your automatic defense system, and how I should just ignore all that and ‘press my suit’ anyway, as I believed he called it.” Kerry closed her eyes, willed her short fuse to wink out before it had the chance to get dangerously lit up. Yep, too late. She turned abruptly and moved to go around Cooper, aiming herself back toward the lot where the truck was parked. Cooper’s hand shot out and took hold of her arm, releasing it the moment she stopped and turned to look at him, her balance intact. “His heart was in the right place, Starfish. He warned me. It was my choice to come here and risk it anyway. Don’t go unloading all the frustration you’re feeling about my unexpected arrival, not to mention the unfortunate public spectacle I made of this whole thing, on your poor uncle.

As we started our long drive back to the zoo, we stopped at what could be called a general store. There was a pub attached to the establishment, and the store itself sold a wide variety of goods, groceries, cooking utensils, swags, clothing, shoes, even toys. As we picked up supplies in the shop, we passed the open doorway to the pub. A few of the patrons recognized Steve from television. We could hear them talking about him. The comments weren’t exactly positive. Steve didn’t look happy. “Let’s just get out of here,” I whispered. “Right-o,” he said. One of the pub patrons was louder than the others. “I’m a crocodile hunter too,” he bragged. “Only I’m the real crocodile hunter. The real one, you hear me, mate?” The braggart made his living at the stuffy trade, he informed his audience. A stuffy is a baby crocodile mounted by a taxidermist to be sold as a souvenir. To preserve their skins, hunters killed stuffys in much the same way that the bear poachers in Oregon stabbed their prey. “We drive screwdrivers right through their eyes,” Mister Stuffy boasted, eyeing Steve through the doorway of the pub. “Right through the bloody eye sockets!” He was feeling his beer. We gathered up our purchases and headed out to the Ute. Okay, I said to myself, we’re going to make it. Just two or three more steps… Steve turned around and headed back toward the pub. I’d never seen him like that before. My husband changed into somebody I didn’t know. His eyes glared, his face flushed, and his lower lip trembled. I followed him to the threshold of the pub. “Why don’t you blokes come outside and tell me all about stuffys in the car park here?” he said. I couldn’t see very well in the darkness of the pub interior, but I knew there were six or eight drinkers with Mister Stuffy. I thought, What is going to happen here? There didn’t seem any possible good outcomes. The pub drinkers stood up and filed out to face Steve. A half dozen against one. Steve chose the biggest one, who Mister Stuffy seemed to be hiding behind. “Bring it on, mate,” Steve said. “Or are you only tough enough to take on baby crocs, you son of a bitch?” Then Steve seemed to grow. I can’t explain it. His fury made him tower over a guy who actually had a few inches of height on him and outweighed him with a whole beer gut’s worth of weight. I couldn’t imagine how he appeared to the pub drinkers, but he was scaring me. They backed down. All six of them. Not one wanted to muck with Steve, who was clearly out of his mind with anger. All the world’s croc farms, all the cruelty and ignorance that made animals suffer the world over, came to a head in the car park of the pub that evening. Steve got into the truck. We drove off, and he didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t understand,” I finally said in the darkness of the front seat, as the bush landscape rolled by us. “What were they talking about? Were they killing crocs in the wild? Or were they croc farmers?” I heard a small exhalation from Steve’s side of the truck. I couldn’t see his face in the gloom. I realized he was crying. I was astounded. This was the man I had just seen turn into a furious monster. Five minutes earlier I’d been convinced I was about to see him take on a half-dozen blokes bare-fisted. Now he wept in the darkness. All at once, he sat up straight. With his jaw set, he wiped the tears from his face and composed himself. “I’ve known bastards like that all my life,” he said. “Some people don’t just do evil. Some people are evil.” He had told me before, but that night in the truck it hit home: Steve lived for wildlife and he would die for wildlife. He came by his convictions sincerely, from the bottom of his heart. He was more than just my husband that night. He was my hero.

We spent twenty days and endured three thousand miles of jolting, pounding, off-road bush driving. But we had a hard-won sense of accomplishment when we pulled up on the stunning cliff-side view of the Great Australian Bight, a huge open bay carved out of the southern coastline. We had made it. Below us, three hundred feet down a sheer rock face, was the Southern Ocean. A pod of southern right whales passed by, their calves following along with them. Steve and I and the crew watched the family dramas of the whales play out below us. A calf felt naughty and went darting away from his mother’s side. Come back, the mother called, come back, come back, you naughty little whale. When she was under the water, we couldn’t hear anything, but as she surfaced we could actually hear the whale song from our perch three hundred feet in the air. Mama scolded the calf, and we saw the young whale come dutifully shooting back over to follow his mother for a while. Sometimes the calf would approach his mama for a drink of milk and nurse for a few minutes. Then he would escape once more, and the whole scenario played itself out all over again. We watched the whales for hours. That night around the campfire, we discussed whaling, how sad and cruel and horrible it was. “If we killed cows the way we killed whales, people wouldn’t stand for it,” Steve said. “Imagine if you drove a truck with a torpedo gun off the back. When you saw a cow you fired at it, and then you either electrocuted it over the course of half an hour or the head of the torpedo blew up inside of it, rendering it unable to walk or move until it finally bled to death.” “We’ve got to get that message out,” I said to Steve. But his idea was to bring the beauty and joy of the whales to people, so that they would naturally fall in love with them and not want to hurt them. He didn’t want to dwell on images that would make people sad and upset. Steve remained thoughtful and silent as the fire died. The ocean sounded against the cliffs below. The games of the whale families played over and over in our minds. In spite of our extensive searching, we never saw a live dingo down the whole line of our journey. It was time to try a different approach. The next morning the helicopter pilot arrived early. Going up with him, Steve actually finally spotted some dingoes from the air. The beautiful, ginger-colored dogs played along the fence, jumping over it or skirting under it with effortless ease.

She’s got some cute under those bruises,” his father murmured. Lifting his brows, he turned back to his father. “Yes, she does.” Garrett rubbed a hand over his lean jaw. “Could be there’s a little more to this job, huh?” Chad shook his head and leaned against the side of the truck. “Nah. She’s not interested in anything like that and I don’t know if I am either.” “Boy, it’d be a hard man that could deny that baby, though.” Grinning, Chad looked after the retreating pair. His father had always loved the little ones. “I know. We just put Taco away. She wasn’t wild about him at first, but this morning she hopped on him and rode like she’s been doing it for years.” Garrett grinned. “No kid I know has been able to deny Taco’s charm.” He

Without a word, I grabbed Rachel’s hand and towed her back outside. She laughed and tugged against me, but I wasn’t letting her win this one. “Kash, what? Did you forget stuff in the truck?” “Nope.” I stopped suddenly, whirled around, and knocked her legs out from under her, catching her and cradling her in my arms before she could hit the ground. She gasped and glared at me, but I kissed her soundly to silence any snide remark she could have made. She wasn’t about to ruin this. “I forgot this.” I met her blue death stare and waited for it to soften before speaking again. “Mrs. Hendricks . . .” Wrong name. Wrong. Name. “Isn’t it tradition to carry your new bride across the threshold?” Her head tilted back and she laughed. “Isn’t it tradition for the bride to be aware that she got married?” I paused with one foot in the villa and one out. “You’re ruining it, woman,” I growled. “Well, husband”—her laugh died down and she ran her hand down the side of my face to my neck—“we should probably continue with tradition and consummate the marriage.” Kissing her lips once, I left my mouth hovering over hers as I took the last step into the villa. “Let’s get to it, wife.” I

Cool. I know an awesome spot called Henry’s. They have the absolute best beer selections and the wings are great. They also have darts and pool.” Furi stopped talking when he noticed Syn looking a little pale. “Hey, what’s up?” “Uh, nothing.” They were in Syn’s old faithful truck and Furi sat silently watching the man next to him. “We going or what?” Furi narrowed his eyes, staring at the side of Syn’s face. His jaw was clenched and his neck was flushed. What the hell? “Yeah. Let’s go.” “Okay.” Syn thought he was going to be sick. It was just his goddamn luck that Furi would suggest the one place where half the department liked to hang out. Hell, even his Lieutenants frequented this place. It would be cruel to subject Furi to Day’s inappropriateness so soon. Syn wasn’t necessarily afraid of being with a man; he just wasn’t the type to make his personal life public. Or am I scared? Fuck. Syn didn’t think Furi would go for keeping them a secret. The man had made that quite clear when they were in the alley. Syn gripped the steering wheel and willed his foot to press the accelerator. Maybe … just maybe, there wouldn’t be anyone familiar there. Syn drove under the speed limit and felt Furious’ probing eyes on the side of his face. He tried to smile and keep his jaw from showing his nervous tick. Despite his efforts, they got there in what felt like record time. Furious got out and waited for Syn to slowly make his way toward the entrance. “Are you sure everything is alright?” Furious asked, annoyed. “I’m good. Really. Good. Perfect,” Syn said, mentally kicking himself for sounding like an idiot. Furi took his hand in his and it took every ounce of Syn's willpower not to pull his hand back. Of course he’d be into PDA. Furious pulled open the door and walked in as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It was almost nine p.m. and the though it wasn’t packed, there were quite a few people there. Syn tried not to look around, keeping his eyes on the back of Furious’ head as he led them to a booth; thankfully located in the back of the bar, where it was a little bit darker. Syn made sure to sit so he was facing the door while Furi sat opposite of him. Furi didn’t speak. He picked up one of the menus and started to look through it. “First time out with a man?” Syn's head snapped his up from hiding behind his menu. “Uh. Yeah, but ya know.” “No, I don’t know,” Furi answered quickly. “If you didn’t want to come out, why didn’t you just say so? You look like you're about to pull a disguise out of your coat. Or do you plan to just stay hidden behind your menu all fucking evening?” “Furious.” “Although that’s going to make eating really difficult. Should I be prepared for you to fake a stomach ache?” “Enough,” Syn barked, Furious’ dark eyes widening at his tone. “Look, cut me some slack alright? I am not new to dating men. I’m new to dating: period. Just about all of my adult life I’ve focused on being a cop, a damn good cop. I had little time for anything else in my life including dates. Dating takes time and patience, two things I didn't have. I was prepared to accept being alone the rest of my life until I saw you. I wanted you, and I was more than willing to take the time and effort to be with you. So forgive me if I don’t do everything exactly right on our first date.” “I’m not expecting you to. I haven’t dated in years myself. But one thing I’m not concerned about is being ashamed.” Furi looked Syn dead in the eye. Syn didn’t have a chance to respond, the waitress came to set a pail of peanuts on the table. Speaking in a cheerful voice: “What can I get you guys to drink?

Just take me home,” Furi mumbled and moved to the passenger side of the truck. The drive home was deathly quiet. Syn wasn’t sure if Furi was going to forgive him or not, he was certainly hoping he would. Syn really did like Furi. He was the type of man he’d want to spend hours talking to because the deep sexiness of his voice did funny things to Syn’s groin, listening to him laugh was like the sweetest music to his ears. He wanted to see Furi's gorgeous face when he came home from working a shitty case, knowing he would make it better. He wanted to get into bed with him after a hot shower and bury his face in Furi’s soft hair and just lose himself in the erotic scent that lingered in those gorgeous locks. Syn fought the urge to apologize again; he’d done it at least five times now. He looked over at Furi, wishing he would turn and look at him. “Are you going to say anything?” Furi did look at him then, but what he said wasn’t exactly what Syn wanted to hear, “Your truck needs a tune-up.” Then he turned his head back toward the window. Syn pulled up to the curb opposite Furi’s apartment and shut off the engine. Furi didn’t say anything; he just opened the door, got out of the truck and walked across the street. Syn jumped out calling to him, “Furi, please wait.” Furi stopped in the middle of the street and turned to face him, looking completely exasperated. “What?” Syn was just making his way around the truck when he heard tires screeching and bright headlights headed directly at Furi. “Furious!” Syn yelled, but he saw there was no time. He ran at full speed, leaping and slamming his body into Furi's, the car’s front end just missing them. Syn rolled with Furi, a messy tangle of long limbs, hitting the curb hard. Syn kept one arm around Furi while craning his neck to try to see where the car was. All he could see was the make of the dark vehicle and two letters of the license plate. Syn pulled his S&W from behind his back just in case they circled back around. Syn jumped up and pulled Furi up with him. “Inside, now.” Furi moved quickly, Syn right behind him. As soon as they got inside the apartment, Syn turned Furi to face him. He looked him over and determined that he was okay for the most part. Furi looked like he was in shock, and rightfully so, someone had just tried to kill him. Syn put both his hands on Furi’s flushed cheeks. “Furious look at me.” Syn waited for those now haunted eyes to look at his. When Furi finally focused on his face, he had to slip into cop mode and ask his questions while the details were fresh in his mind.

The trembly fellow sighed and said, “I’m all out of whack. I’m going uptown and see my doctor.” Mr. Flood snorted again. “Oh, shut up,” he said. “Damn your doctor! I tell you what you do. You get right out of here and go over to Libby’s oyster house and tell the man you want to eat some of his big oysters. Don’t sit down. Stand up at that fine marble bar they got over there, where you can watch the man knife them open. And tell him you intend to drink the oyster liquor; he’ll knife them on the cup shell, so the liquor won’t spill. And be sure you get the big ones. Get them so big you’ll have to rear back to swallow, the size that most restaurants use for fries and stews; God forgive them, they don’t know any better. Ask for Robbins Islands, Mattitucks, Cape Cods, or Saddle Rocks. And don’t put any of that red sauce on them, that cocktail sauce, that mess, that gurry. Ask the man for half a lemon, poke it a time or two to free the juice, and squeeze it over the oysters. And the first one he knifes, pick it up and smell it, the way you’d smell a rose, or a shot of brandy. That briny, seaweedy fragrance will clear your head; it’ll make your blood run faster. And don’t just eat six; take your time and eat a dozen, eat two dozen, eat three dozen, eat four dozen. And then leave the man a generous tip and go buy yourself a fifty-cent cigar and put your hat on the side of your head and take a walk down to Bowling Green. Look at the sky! Isn’t it blue? And look at the girls a-tap-tap-tapping past on their pretty little feet! Aren’t they just the finest girls you ever saw, the bounciest, the rumpiest, the laughingest? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for even thinking about spending good money on a damned doctor? And along about here, you better be careful. You’re apt to feel so bucked-up you’ll slap strangers on the back, or kick a window in, or fight a cop, or jump on the tailboard of a truck and steal a ride.

A weathered black and silver Dodge pickup towing a small motorboat pulled up behind us, and Alex circled back to greet the driver. I couldn’t see who sat behind the crusted and dirty windshield, but Alex stood at the driver’s window and pointed down the block where the boulevard disappeared into floodwater. The truck pulled ahead, maneuvered a deft U-turn, and backed toward the water. Alex motioned for me to follow. By the time I lurched my way to the truck, he and the pickup driver were sliding the boat down the trailer ramp. Sweat trickled down my neck, and if I hadn’t been afraid of being poisoned by toxic sludge, I’d have made like a pig and wallowed in the mud to cool off. I kicked at a fire hydrant, trying to jolt some of the heaviest sludge off my boots, and heard a soft laugh behind me. With a final kick that sent a spray of brown gunk flying, I turned to see what was so funny. I needed a laugh. A man leaned against the side of the pickup with his arms crossed. He was a few inches shorter than Alex, maybe just shy of six feet, with sun-streaked blond hair that reached his collar and a sleeveless blue T-shirt and khaki shorts. His tanned legs between the bottom of the shorts and the top of sturdy black shrimp boots were scored with scars, bad ones, as if whatever made them meant to do serious damage. He’d been grinning when I turned around, flashing a heart-stopping set of dimples, but when he saw my eyes linger on his legs, the grin eased into something more wary.

After about half an hour, Mr. Sorenson turns onto a narrow unpaved road. Dirt rises around us as we drive, coating the windshield and side windows. We pass more fields and then a copse of birch tree skeletons, cross through a dilapidated covered bridge over a murky stream still sheeted with ice, turn down a bumpy dirt road bordered by pine trees. Mr. Sorenson is holding a card with what looks like directions on it. He slows the truck, pulls to a stop, looks back toward the bridge. Then he peers out the grimy windshield at the trees ahead. “No goldarn signs,” he mutters. He puts his foot on the pedal and inches forward. Out

The next thing that happened was a shock to everyone. Rose attacked the younger of the two. She full-on attacked him. Her teeth ripped into his neck, her nails clawed into his skin, and she took him to the ground. The momentary chaos gave Cage a chance to hit the other guy, holding the gun, in the face with his elbow. We all scrambled to get back to the truck at that point. Cage picked up the gun and pointed it at the others standing on the side of the road. We had to walk past Rose’s victim. She was proudly standing with her foot on his chest, knowing that she had brought him down. Cage yelled at the girl from the gas station, who was frozen in fear, and she, finally, snapped to attention and ran towards the truck. “That could have been really bad.” Trent took the driver’s seat this time and took off towards the camp again. Cage hung his head out the window as we drove off. “You just got infected, buddy, have a nice day!

We did not know, as yet, which was the better side, right or left, which road led to prison and which to the crematoria. Still, I was happy, I was near my father. Our procession continued slowly to move forward. Another inmate came over to us: “Satisfied?” “Yes,” someone answered. “Poor devils, you are heading for the crematorium.” He seemed to be telling the truth. Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes…children thrown into the flames. (Is it any wonder that ever since then, sleep tends to elude me?) So that was where we were going. A little farther on, there was another, larger pit for adults. I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? No. All this could not be real. A night- mare perhaps…Soon I would wake up with a start, my heart pounding, and find that I was back in the room of my childhood, with my books… My father's voice tore me from my daydreams: “What a shame, a shame that you did not go with your mother…I saw many children your age go with their mothers…” His voice was terribly sad. I understood that he did not wish to see what they would do to me. He did not wish to see his only son go up in flames.

Lulu is not a big woman. This Atlanta grandmother is just over five feet tall. But she is a fighter, and she can shoot -- as several black carjackers discovered. In April 2012 Lulu took her grandson back to her daughter’s house. When she got in her car to leave she was approached by armed men. They mistakenly identified her as easy prey: “(The suspect) shouted, ‘Give me the (blanking) money and open the (blanking) door!’” Campbell told The Telegraph, describing her ordeal. “I said, ‘Oh my God, somebody is going to rob me.’ I said, ‘Baby, you’re going to kill me anyway, so I don’t have to open it!’” Campbell says the man fired at her, missing. The 57-year-old fired back, striking him in the chest. Her truck sustained eight bullet holes in the hood, one in the grill. Both front side windows were destroyed. The second man fled after she shot at him. “I carry a gun all the time,” she said.3

I’m not spending the whole weekend with you two sniping at each other,” Tommy said. “Erin, we’re going to solve this the way we settle things at the stable when your grandmother isn’t looking.” He nodded at Hunter. “Hit him.” “Don’t make her do that,” Hunter told Tommy. “She’ll break her hand.” “Ha! You think awfully well of your chiseled chin,” I said, but Tommy drowned me out, yelling, “Let her hit you or I will hit you myself.” “This is excellent parenting.” Hunter emphasized his words with an okay sign of his thick fingers. His Rolex flashed in the sunlight before he put his hand down. “Here, Erin.” He closed his eyes and lifted his chin. I edged toward him, balling my fist, feeling better already. “Open your eyes,” I said. “I want you to see it coming.” “If I open my eyes, I’ll dodge you,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he was used to settling his differences this way with the other stable hands. He closed his eyes again. I struck while I had the opportunity. Didn’t pause to think about technique or the proper position for my fist, thumb in or thumb out, just hauled back and hit him. But in the split second before my hand connected with his face, I saw a flash of one of my family’s apartments in Los Angeles, an early one, because I glimpsed the ocean through the window across the room, and as the years went on we’d had less and less money and we’d move farther and farther from the sea. I saw my dad hitting my mom. I redirected my fist, only grazing Hunter’s chin, and stumbled into the side of the truck. A strong arm hooked in mine and kept me from falling. Hunter drew me to him, chuckling. “Are you okay?” I shoved him away from me, slid back into the truck, and slammed the door. He wasn’t even sorry and I couldn’t even get revenge. There was no good in this. With a final sniffle I opened my history book, wishing I hadn’t come.

And if you let me drive home, I’ll give you a massage later.” Back to sex, which was a pretty solid way of reminding him exactly where their non-relationship stood. He could live with sex. Shaking off the mushy-feelings stuff, he smiled and hooked his fingers in her front pockets. “How about I drive and I give you a massage later?” “You’re not going to let me drive, are you?” “I have the magic penis, so I get the keys, remember?” She laughed and tried to shove him away. “You’re a penis, all right. A big walking, talking penis.” He kissed her again, this time until she surrendered and wrapped her arms around his neck. There were only a few more days of kissing her in his future, so he intended to make it a priority. “Okay,” she whispered when he was done. “You can drive. But I get to pick exactly what part of me you’re massaging.” “I can live with that.” He slapped her on the butt when she climbed into the truck, and then laughed as he walked around to the driver’s side and caught her flipping him off through the window. He’d make her pay for that later.

The town , wrapped in red and green, greeted him, welcome him home as he drove down familiar streets. Driving his old truck filled Hunter with pleasure. He didn't have to look for IEDs on the side of the road. He grinned all the way to the apartment, enjoying the ride, the peace of the nigh, the old brick buildings on Main Street, the holiday finery, the palpable presence of town spirit. He parked his truck in front of the apartment building that Ethan owned as a side business, and suddenly couldn't wait another second. He hurried up the front stairs, down the inside styaircase, then just about ran down the hallway to his basement-level unit. He had his key in his hand, but the doorknob turned easily as he put his hand on it. Cindy had left the door open for him. He grinned like a fool as he walked in. The loose floorboard in the middle of the living room creaked a familiar welcome as he passed his army duffel bag on the floor where he'd dumped it earlier. Cindy's little pink purse sat on his brown leather couch like a cupcake on a tray. "Cindy?" He strode toward the bedroom in the back, his smile spreading as he anticipated a private party. If she was waiting for him naked in bed, the proposal would have to wait a litt. "Honey?" But she wasn't waiting for him naked. She was waiting for him dead.

After having ice cream, Alexander and Tatiana were walking along the Neva embankment heading west into the sunset and across from the green-and-white splendor of the Winter Palace when on the opposite side of the street Tatiana spotted a man who made her stop suddenly. A tall, thin, middle-aged man with a long, gray Jovian beard stood outside the Hermitage Museum with an expression of absolute shattered regret. Tatiana instantly reacted to his face. What could make a man look this way? He was standing next to the back of a military truck, watching young men carry wooden crates down the ramp from the Winter Palace. It was these crates the man looked at with such profound heartbreak, as if they were his vanishing first love. “Who is that man?” she asked, tremendously affected by his expression. “The curator of the Hermitage.” “Why is he looking at the crates that way?” Alexander said, “They are his life’s sole passion. He doesn’t know if he is ever going to see them again.” Tatiana stared at the man. She almost wanted to go and comfort him. “He’s got to have more faith, don’t you think?” “I agree, Tania.” Alexander smiled. “He’s got to have a little more faith. After the war is over, he will see his crates again.” “The way he is looking at them, after the war is over he is going to bring them back single-handedly,” declared Tatiana.

Still, he pulled firmly at the door, knowing how it swelled and stuck in wet weather. He might have wished to see their faces once more. The face that met him was under a fireman’s helmet, lit by a flashlight held low and expertly angled. The light caught the silver needles of rain, in the air, off the rim of the black hat. It showed him a mouth and a chin and the broad shoulders under the wet rain gear without blinding him or turning the man himself into a grotesque. “I only wanted to warn you,” the man said. He moved the flashlight across his body, to the shrubs beside the steps and then to the grass and then to the weeping willow at the edge of the yard, beside the house. The streetlights were out. Following the moving beam of white light, John Keane saw the grass of his small lawn stir like a rising wave and the roots of the tree—thin as an arm, bent here and there like an elbow—breaking through. The fireman moved the light until it caught the base of the tree where a wider swath of dirt was opening like a mouth, an unhinged jaw filled with broken roots and dirt, and then it closed up again, as if with a breath. “We were driving by and saw it,” the fireman said. “That tree’s gonna fall. It’ll probably fall straight back, but you might want to get your family downstairs. Keep them to this side of the house.” He felt the wind and the rain on his bare ankles, against the hems of his thin pajama pants. He looked beyond the young fireman. In the street, there was no sign of the fire truck or car that had brought him. No coach, either. “Yes,” he said, thinking himself foolish, in his thin pajamas. “Thank you.” “There are trees down all over,” the man added. He raised his chin and in the darkness his eyes seemed as black and wet as his coat. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or thirty. “Take care of your family,” he said, and turned, using his flashlight to get himself down the three steps that led to the door. Squinting against the rain, John Keane watched him cross the path to the sidewalk, the circle of white light leading him, first to the right and then across the street where he might have disappeared altogether, leaving only the pale beam of his flashlight and a flashing reflection of two streaks of silver on his back, and then, as he apparently rounded the opposite corner, not even that.

She was every bit of everything he remembered about her, all at once and all at the same time. That was Kerry McCrae in a nutshell, he thought. All at once, full on, 100 percent real. No bullshit. She froze on seeing him, and while the wariness in her beautiful green eyes wasn’t a surprise, the vulnerability sure was. “Starfish--” “Don’t call me that,” she said, then immediately, and less stridently, added, “Not here.” She ducked around him before he could react and was down the set of wooden steps leading off the narrow cement loading dock that ran along the back of the pub, heading across the gravel lot. He started after her. He might not have handled any of this even close to how he’d planned, but he wasn’t flying all the way back home without at least a conversation. A private conversation. You might have wanted to lead with that, you yobbo. “Kerry, wait.” “Not here,” she repeated, then opened the driver’s side door to a beat-up old navy blue truck that looked like it was more rust than actual metal. “Get in.” “I’ve got a rental. I’ll be happy to--” She swung her laser green gaze to his. “Get in.” She slammed the door without waiting for a reply, then slammed it a second time to get the handle to catch. He climbed in the passenger side, not all that surprised to find the inside of the cab surprisingly clean and as well maintained as possible, given the thing had one tire, if not two, in the grave. Kerry McCrae had never fussed about how she looked or what she wore, but when it came to property or equipment, whether it be her own or simply entrusted to her care, no matter how old or worn out, she had a dab hand at keeping it clean and neat, all systems go. Her concern was never about appearance, just functionality and getting the job done. It was sexy as hell then, and it was sexy as hell now.