Having a gun nearby is something I’d got used to during the war, and I couldn’t break the habit. I’d heard from a guy I’d served with who lived in Los Angeles now, that Audie Murphy slept with one und...
I'm one of the two people left on the planet who doesn't own a cell phone and doesn't want one.
I pulled out some folded-over pictures of US Presidents. I knew how to talk to bellboys.
Man was but an echo, thought Wyn with some awe, a small memory of rocks and mountains and rivers and lakes that had always been, and always would be. Man would come and go, but the land was forever.
Hearing the same shows I had listened to with the other girls at the orphanage kept me connected to them in my heart. It was a comfort knowing that back home — my old home — they were listening to the...
But for those women too stubborn to accept their part in the failure, it would always be his fault for being a jerk, not theirs for being attracted to jerks. Anger would eventually turn to bitterness...
Value-wise, Crystal Falls still had theirs. It was American heartland conservative. There were three churches in Crystal Falls, all of them well-maintained and fully attended every Sunday. Of course,...
We were in those dark early days of the war at the time, and the outcome was very much in question. Lake's appearance at the event was a morale booster for civilians and servicemen alike. She was stan...
Suddenly hungry, I waved a goodbye to my new friend and headed for the open road once more. I slid in an old radio cassette and enjoyed a Jack Benny Christmas show. I was among the living again. It wa...
Maybe the pictures are all black and white because things were black and white then, Nick. I knew exactly what she meant. There was a moral center then, and you could feel it still here in Grover's Cr...
Jennifer and Mark were a reminder that they weren’t all a lost cause. It was just a shame they were in such a minority group. Maybe they could start a movement: Decent People’s Lives Matter. It could...
It’s difficult to explain, but Henry and my aunts were cut from the same cloth. In some small way, having this time with Henry, before I became a woman always looking over her shoulder, was almost lik...
But what the mind understands and what the heart believes are not always in sync.
Wyn could never understand why men expected to do the most dangerous work there was, the maintaining of law and order, were paid the least. People expected things to be kept peaceful, but when it came...
What happened on that tiny island off the coast of Cuba called Flowering Cay at times seems like a half-remembered dream, one of those groggy remembrances that you’re never quite certain you didn’t ju...
No one was more curious and excited about other cultures and peoples than Caroline. She sometimes still remembered facts about cultures, ancient secrets and rituals, sites of ruins that excited her wh...
Juanita, in a town full of starlets and wanna-be starlets, stood out. She was prettier than Lupe Velez and could handle a gun or a client with equal ease. But she also had the sweetest nature of any g...
It was raining hard the evening Holly died. One of those summer rains that seem to come from nowhere and catch all but the most compulsively weather-conscious off guard. She was beautiful, Holly, and...
It took a second to register, but even a schmuck like me sees a paper once in a while.
I picked up the photo and studied it while Deanna set about rifling through her brother's chest of drawers. Physically, she looked the same in the picture, perhaps only a couple of years younger. Yet...