Charlie has found his father, and rescued him from Wilson's assassins. The strain was too much for his father, who has suffered a heart attack.

Chloe worked quickly, while Charlie stood by feeling helpless. He usually had a solution for most things. His engineers brain analyzed situations and came up with ways around most problems, but medicine was Chloe’s field.

She took his pulse and put an oxygen mask over his face.

“I think he fainted due to blood loss and shock. His heart is weak. I suspect he needs coronary bypass surgery.”

“Can you save him Chloe.”

I found my arm moving under its own steam, and it slipped around his waist to return the hug.

“I am so glad. She looks happy, my friend”

“Caroline, I think she is. She was very unhealthy in the hospital, very sick. The surgeon… I nearly had no daughter, so now I must treasure her, treasure each day. Now, I think, with the cold weather here, she should choose a hat, one with many colours. Please, while I see to my girl”

His arm had stayed over my shoulders, and as he pulled away, his other hand squeezed my own as it sat on his waist, and then he pulled away and started the serious business of hat selection. Priorities, indeed. Once we had sorted her headwear, I led them back to the bus station, pointing out the railway station across the road for their future trips to London.

Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

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When Rich, Heather, and I drove back to the bay area in his car, mine stayed with Jack and Erica after we three had properly 'decorated' it. By then I was feeling a little better about things, but not much. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the boys blissfully unaware, but not Heather. She knew I was upset, and why, without me saying a word.

The Editor
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

It was my fourth Marion Potter book and at the end I found my eyes full of tears. It was unusual for me because while I can be as emotional as the next man, I was editing. I was looking for spelling and grammar and inconsistencies. When you are doing that, it is usually hard to get caught up in the story. It should be just words. But they were words that I did not realize had caught me in their web and were now winding me up in silk.

“Omigod!” Beck shouted from the hallway. “Omigod, omigod, omigod!”

My parents and I interrupted our breakfast of waffles and looked down the hallway as Becca stormed into the kitchen. She made a beeline to the chair across from me, hurriedly shoved it out of the way and pointed her cell phone at me with a picture of Justin with me in a full, lip-locked embrace.

“Caroline?”

“Yes, Nicole?”

“The children have gone for more drinks. How do you feel?”

“Shattered! Er, very tired”

“He is a handsome man, no?”

“Um, I suppose so, yes”

“Please be careful. This meal tonight, it was a generous thing, but do not dream too much. He has the puces, the cards for the pictures. Take time before another meeting, yes?”

Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

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They buried Mary in the plot next to his father Danny there in Pittsburgh the following Saturday. It was just the two of them and Erica's father Frank there to say goodbye. They flew back the next day and Jack went to work on his big plan.

Los Zetas leader’s Mansion, Colombia, South America
Osiel Quintero was asleep in his huge bed with several naked women. One of the women sleeping with him was a blonde-haired woman that looked like she had been beaten and was drooling from the drugs he gave her.

A high-flying divorce lawyer is brought to his knees by a Casino owner and is contracted to become a Vegas Showgirl...

Pablo stared at me for a few seconds, before looking into the main body of the hotel, then turned back to me.

“You cannot do this”

“I can, and I have already paid the man at the desk, and it was less than I would have paid your friend with the taxi. The car taxi, not the twat with the horse”

“Twat?”

He was clearly puzzled, and I found my cheeks burning.

“A rude word in English”

Tammy and Leland were sitting on the sectional in the living room watching a television show. Leland was naked and was just wearing a pair of boxers. Tammy was curled up next to him and was wearing an oversized black t-shirt that had a smiley face on it with a bullet hole above the eyes. She wasn’t wearing any panties or a bra.

“You not on a working day, then?”

I shook my head.

“Nope. Actually flying with your lot, this time”

“Where are you off to, then?”

“Cuba”

“Ooh! Packed your dancing shoes?”

“I don’t dance. Packed my snorkel and flippers, though”

Re-re-re-presented...

Not the same old story.... A Midnight Clear on the Boulevard of Boys by Donna Lamb

Reposted Christmas Eve, 2014

“Arse, bollocks, shit and cack!”

Jen wanted to throw the laptop out of the window at that point. Whichever site she tried, it was the same answer. She had even resorted to the two last resorts of Google Maps and the Good Beer Guide, but they all returned the same answer: no room at the inn.

Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

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I came out of MCRD Paris Island in January of ninety-one, days before the start of Operation Desert Storm. From there I went to Camp Geiger for MCT and Lejeune for MOS. By the time I got my first posting later that year, the war was over and the country had a different attitude toward the military.