Tuesday Tales: From the Word SUNNY

Welcome to the first Tuesday Tales of 2025. Our small band of authors come to you each week with a scene written to a specific word prompt. This week’s word is SUNNY. I’m continuing with my romance suspense novel that now has a name And Justice For All. It will be the third book in the Protecting the Innocent series. Enjoy.

Harry nodded. Despite his relaxed dress and longer hair, he was once more the man she recalled from her days when she’d taken a course on Terrorism and Hostage Negotiations at the provincial police academy. She’d just made detective, the youngest woman on the RMPF to do so and had been sent to learn everything she could before coming back and passing her knowledge on to the others. He was once more the take-charge man who’d awed her in the classroom, wowed her in bed, and then broken her heart with the news that his ex was pregnant, and he intended to do the right thing and marry her.

Maggie couldn’t fault him for doing the honorable thing, but damn, it had hurt then and still did. It was the reason she shied away from relationships. She would prefer to be alone for the rest of her life than suffer through that heartache again, and yet, here he was. The fact that the marriage had failed should’ve brought her some comfort, but it didn’t. Misery might like company, but as the daughter of divorced parents, she wouldn’t wish that kind of life on any child.

Harry sat down beside her, his chocolate eyes filled with sympathy. Where was the sunny disposition she recalled? He’d aged, and worry had carved furrows in his brow.

“The last thing I ever expected was to end up in charge of this task force, Maggie, especially when it hits so close to home. I lost my partner three years ago when we stopped to assist a car along the parkway in Ottawa. Brent took a bullet in the head. I was shot in the arm but managed to get behind the door. They just drove away without bothering to finish me off. We found the car torched twenty kilometers down the road.” There was no mistaking the pain and sincerity in his voice. “As soon as I got back to work, I expended all of my energy on trying to figure out what happened and why. It’s what I’ve been doing since then, and what I’ve found isn’t what I expected.”

Maggie’s hands trembled, and she clasped them tightly in her lap. He could be as dead as Cliff. She didn’t want her heart to melt and care, but it did.

Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.