Still in denial about the fact that he's really a girl on the inside, young college student Chris keeps searching for the right girl who will straighten him out and put all of his "girlish nonsense" to rest once and for all. And when he meets fellow college student Sarah, he begins to believe she is his salvation. Yet despite his best efforts to hook up with her, bad luck keeps inexplicably plaguing Chris. But when he finally meets the unlikely woman who straightens him out (but not in the way he expected), he finally gets an explanation for the bad luck that's been following him around.
 
 

CHAPTER 15
I was double-crewed with Kev in a car the afternoon and evening of their piss-up, and we were indeed kept well out of the area. The pub wasn’t somewhere Dad ever went, so rather than a repeat of the argument the night Sarah got raped, I simply stayed quiet about it.

The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

Alex Steinert’s strange new life continues to develop as the ‘Empress of Time and Space’ spreads her wings and enlarges the crew of Sand Dollar. She learns firsthand what her newfound ‘gift’ can do even as one crewmember’s developing gift may have tragic results.

Drustina embarks on an armed reconnoitre of the north Cambrian coast. A brief encounter with the Viking blockade force outside Aber Dyfrdwy gives some of her commanders a chance to hone their battle and command skills.

The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

CHAPTER 14
Dad was a rock for the next few weeks. Siân took her parents’ rejection hard, which in one way I found surprising. After all, she had surely expected nothing really different?

“Lainey, Lainey, yes. I know. They said all that years ago. It was just, well, I hoped, I thought… I thought they’d see you, and it was like I thought about Vicky, aye? How could anyone not love you as soon as they met you? I thought that would be the difference, that would make them think!”

Copyright 2014
by Barbie Lee

Edited by Catherine Linda Michel

It’s called synchronicity. It weaves lives and events together even when they don’t know one another. It is stronger when people have met, even if years earlier. We move or travel a hundred, thousands of miles from home and meet or cross paths with people we met before. Synchronicity is what the law uses to catch the bad people. It is interwoven with habit among many other things. People have a human nature to return to a place they have been before. People want to return to the same vacation spot. Fishermen want to go back to the same fishing pond. They want to shop at the same store. And crooks…? They go back to the same neighborhood, the same stores, the same friends.

Even those of us who understand that human nature makes us creatures of habit, do the stupid trick of returning to familiar places. Or else we let the odds of synchronicity find us with our guard down and old enemies show up.

CHAPTER 13
I drove us back, as Siân was having difficulty seeing through the tears.

“Did you know, Lainey? Did you know what they planned?”

Capt. Steinert and her crew continue their first mission, but what does the future hold for the crew of the Sand Dollar as they make their way home to Pearl Harbor?