The holiday season comes upon the Fanning household and it keeps both aunt and niece busy for a while. But, day by day, Myra steps ever closer to a confronting mystery that she wishes could be avoided.

Chapter 60 – On the Island

Jason woke and heard – nothing. No rain. No wind. No flapping of sails. The deck was steady, without the normal roll of the sea. Captain Keenstone had taken four hours of sleep after they landed in the trees, and the storm had slowly abated during that time. When he came back on deck he sent Jason below to sleep, and in the next six hours the storm had ended, although looking out at the sea, the waves were still high.

Searching
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

It barely rang twice. She was waiting for his call. He was always happy to hear her voice, whatever the circumstances. She asked: “Honey where are you?”

“I’m still in the Quarter,” he said. “I haven’t found him yet, but I have some news. It’s been very … unsettling.”

“Oh,” she said. She sounded very worried, so he felt that he needed to reassure her.

Chapter 5 – Shopping and seeing myself as a girl

What Every Woman Wants (is a decent hairdresser)

The dust had finally settled from the purchase of the Hotel in Devon and the fallout from the fraud that many of the top people had been undertaking at the Hotel Chain. The new owners, Geo-Stay Inc had gone to the high court in an attempt to get the sale nullified but it was pointed out that Geo-Stay had almost two months of access to the fake books and their people nor their business advisors had found the errors in the accounting process. They tried and failed to sue their advisors who pointed out that they had told Geo-Stay in writing that the books looked dodgy and that they should walk away. That failed and left them with another very large legal bill to settle. It seemed that the American Company had forgotten that in the UK, the loser pays the other sides costs by default.

I. Lascia ch'io pianga

SRU: The Two-Fer
By Ellie Dauber
Copyright 2000

This is another of my older stories. A couple of slackers help out the SRU Wizard. Now comes the problem of how to properly thank them.

SRU: The Two-Fer
By Ellie Dauber
Copyright 2000

“This is my mom and dad and grandma and my brother Karsan and my sister Ami,” Devi went on. “Everybody, this is Zindla and her mom Syuna. They run the shop where I first came to this world.”

Chapter 3 – Never lie to Mom!

Annie, Get Your Gun!

By: Renee Elysse

Chapter 1 – An introduction, and into the wayback machine we go!

Most of my friends and family know me as Mike Jacobs. What I now think of as my “male persona” involves being a successful executive, outdoorsman, handyman, and one of the “guys’ guys,” so to speak. I enjoy the company of beautiful women, wine, and song, as well as hunting, guns, cars, watching football, and playing hockey, among other things.

Christmas holiday is quickly approaching. Other than that one day holding hands, nothing really changed between Susan and me over the following weeks. There were times that we spent as much time around each other as we could. We even held hands under the table in the library a few times, but there were also times that she seemed to shy away from me. It left me so confused. And I don't know who to talk to about any of it.