Had a great New Year's Eve. My love grilled steaks, which were tender and mouth watering. We then sat on the couch and hung out. Later in the evening he made me a peanut butter hot fudge sundae with triple chocolate icecream, which he'd gotten earlier in the day. It was outstanding. It was a perfectly lovely night. This is the PG 13 version of the events, censored for public consumption ;)
Needless to say, it was a freakin' awesome evening.
My New Year's Resolution: Finish A Sudden Frost and The Collectors (the book I began before A Sudden Frost.)
I've had a moment of clarity. Can't elaborate, but I feel like I've been holding my breath, driving a run away train heading for a sharp, jagged cliff. I'm putting on the brakes. Getting back on course. I've been distracted, focusing on things that are going to derail me.
So I'm focusing on the writing and exercise again (haven't been able to because I've been sick with one virus or another for the better part of two months. I'm thinking it might be part of having a toddler who spends his day with a three year old who goes to nursery school twice a week).
Felt like sharing an excerpt of A Sudden Frost. It's still the first draft. Going through the first reading pass now. This bit reveals a little of what Leah struggles with. She's a good person who is afraid of intimacy, though she wants it. She doesn't know what to do with love when she has it. This is only one trait that makes up her sometimes self-destructive, adrenaline junkie personality, but it's the one that bites her on the ass again and again.
But this trait is a two-sided coin, because if she weren't a person drawn to high risk situations, she wouldn't be the strong herione she is, and wouldn't have rescued as many people as she has in the two previous books.
A Sudden Frost Excerpt:
We got the key to the house Alexia shared with her husband, who had been gone for a week. Everything seemed in order. Nothing seemed disturbed. Mrs. Costas had been there earlier in the day and couldn’t think of anything that seemed wrong about the house. Her car was not in the drive-way. Nor was it at the mall. Mrs. Costas and Nicholas had searched the parking lot several times. We checked her email going back several months. Nothing strange. No red flags.
What the hell had happened to her? She was like smoke. There one second, gone the next.
Jack and I had gone to a small hole in the wall place that had the best wings going.
“You’re stalling again.” He looked at me as he bit into a wing.
“I know.” I took a long swig of my beer.
“What’s going on with you? You and Calahan okay?”
“We’re wonderful.” But I didn’t want to go home.
“That’s the problem, huh?” Jack knew me better than I knew myself. Always had. With us, it was like breathing, reading the other without even trying. We had an uncanny connection which had served us well over the years, both in work and in life, which had proved to be dangerous for us both from an early age.
I put my beer down and sighed, placing my elbows on the table and my face in my hands. “Why, Jack? Why do I do this?”
“What, sabotage things with Callahan when they’re going perfectly?”
“Yeah, that.”
He chuckled. “Leah, I’m your friend. Not your shrink. But my best guess is that it’s your absolute terror of intimacy, which makes you the wonderful person you are.”
“He wants to get married, Jack. Married.”
“I know. He told me. Many times.”
“Isn’t it enough that we live together? It took me three years to agree to that.”
He gave an easy shrug. “Apparently not. Some people want to move forward. Want that ultimate commitment.”
“But it’s a sham, Jack. You know as well as I do that most marriages today end up in divorce. I think that piece of paper is the beginning of the end for most people.” I stopped, thinking about it. “Actually, no. Lots of people get married when it was over long before the actual ceremony. Sometimes before the engagement.”
“Or as soon as the engagement takes place? As in your case?”
“No. It’s not over between us. I just feel so. . . trapped. Suffocated. I feel like I can’t breathe.” Just talking about it was making me feel like I couldn’t catch my breath. I took a deep breath and let it out.
Jack lifted hand. “I know. You don’t have to explain it to me, Kicks.”
Jack had called me Kicks for years, ever since he had started teaching me kick-boxing and I’d taken a real liking to it. Had a flair, even.
He looked at me, his green gaze level. “Don’t you think you should tell Callahan all this?”
“Yes and no. This is the conversation of doom. He gets hurt. I feel like crap. Nothing gets resolved.” I sat back, feeling tired but not wanting to move. I’d sit in that booth all night if they’d let me.
Reading my mind again, he said, “You need to go home, Leah. Staying away from him as much as possible isn’t going to help your situation. And here’s a thought, it may even make it worse.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”
“Hey, at least I have some form of wit.”
“Ha. Ha. Okay, we’re getting stupid.” I sat forward, pulling my jacket on and sighing heavily. “This case isn’t going to fill him with joy, either. That’s your fault, my friend.”
“Kicks.”
His tone was serious and made me stop and pay attention. “Yeah.”
“I see the way you look at Lucas. You’re playing a dangerous game there. You know?”
I looked at the table. “I know.”
“If you want to end things with Callahan, do it. But don’t play him for an idiot. Don’t leave him twisting in the wind.”
I nodded, eyes still downward. He was right.
The problem was that I didn’t really want to end it with Callahan. I just couldn’t help feeling attracted to Lucas.
I slapped the table, punctuating the end of discussion. “I know. You’re right. I’ll straighten up and fly right, partner.”
Another promise I wanted to keep. But I knew myself and I felt like a liar.
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