Living the Dream

Welcome to February 2025. I, for one am not sorry to say goodbye to January. This week is filled with bittersweet memories as it marks the one-year anniversary of my mother’s passing. I can take comfort in knowing she’s no longer in pain.

This week, our word prompt is CHILD. I’m continuing with And Justice For All, my Romance Suspense that is the third book in the Protecting the Innocent Series. Enjoy.

“Organised crime is heavily involved in all of it,” Harry continued. “They bring in or take out anything from alcohol to refugees, drugs like fentanyl to guns like AK47s, and they make big money doing it. Is it possible that Cliff got in someone’s way? His mother has family living on the Reserve. He spent a lot of his free time over there. Money talks.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child, Harry. I’ve been on the job ten years. I’ve seen how smuggling has changed.”

“Then you know that drugs, guns, and illegal immigrants coming into Canada from the US are at an all-time high. We can hire more Border Security officers, but there are places where it’s almost impossible to stop the flow. I’m not saying your partner was involved; I’m just saying I need to be sure. He did spend a lot of his time over there.”

“You’re out of your ever-loving mind,” she ground out between clenched teeth, her eyes flashing fire. “Of course, Cliff spent time on the Reserve. His grandparents live there as do a number of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. His family isn’t involved in anything illegal. Just the opposite. He’s got an aunt who’s a police officer with the tribal police, another who’s a nurse, and two uncles who were in the armed forces. His grandfather helped build the World Trade Center, and after it was destroyed, he went back to help construct One World Trade Center often referred to as the Freedom Tower. How dare you besmirch their good name like that. You’re just as bad as the people you claim wanted him dead.” She stood and paced, her hands fisted by her side. “As for the smuggling, that’s not new and probably dates back to prohibition days when rum runners ran booze across the river into New York State. In the eighties, the flow of booze changed directions along with the influx of cheap cigarettes. Isn’t that why the RCMP increased their presence here? Sure, we’ve had issues with sovereignty, and they did move the customs office off the Reserve, but as far as I can tell, Canadian Border Services have everything under control at the primary crossings. That being said, after that family of immigrants coming from the US to Canada died of hypothermia after falling into the river, we’ve all been watching the water traffic more closely.”

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Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. It’s been a weird January, filled with unusual, record breaking weather. Hopefully, Mother Nature doesn’t have any more unpleasant surprises for us. I have my pre-surgery information session this week, so things are moving along as expected.

This week, our word prompt is SILLY. I’m continuing with And Justice For All, my latest Romance Suspense in the Protecting the Innocent series. Enjoy.

Harry nodded. He’d always admired her wit, but this time, facts and logic wouldn’t be enough.

“You’re right, but the fanatics don’t see it that way. They believe it’s a white man’s world and see themselves as the master race, the one God intended to rule, and to hell with anyone who deviates in any way from their beliefs. They misinterpret the Bible to support their cause and bastardize Christianity to prove their point. When it comes to women, well, they blame them for taking their jobs, or in the case of the involuntarily celibate, the incels, for denying them the sexual gratification they feel is their due. And it isn’t only the women they hate, it’s the guys who get the girls as well—the jocks, the actors, the damn letter carrier if he’s in the least bit attractive to women. The fact that many of the incels are just supercilious assholes with an axe to grind doesn’t seem to factor into it. And then, there are those who belong to the LGBTQ+ contingent. We have to consider they may be targets, too.”

Maggie shook her head, her chin thrust out in defiance.

“For God’s sake. People are shallow, I agree, and there is a lot of hate out there, but it can’t possibly have devolved to this level. Most of the silly threats are just bravado. The mouthpieces who spout them are schoolyard bullies. When someone stands up to them, they run away with their tails tucked between their legs. Have you found anything to support your inane theory?”

“It’s not a theory, Maggie. Some things have come to light that are disturbing, and I’ll share all that with you later, but for now, I need to know more about your partner.” He focused on her face. “Is it possible that Cliff stepped on the wrong pair of toes? This is a border community, and the multinational crossing is a busy one. But we also know that many … let’s call them goods … go back and forth across the border over what you might call indirect channels. They don’t call it the mighty St Lawrence for nothing. It’s impossible to monitor the entire river in this area twenty-four hours a day.” He put up his hand to stop her from interrupting him. “That’s always been the case, I get it, but it just isn’t a matter of traditional rights anymore.”

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Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. Each week, we provide a scene from our current manuscripts based on a word prompt. This week, the word is FRUIT. I’m continuing with my romance/suspense And Justice For All.

“This is just the latest face of terrorism, Maggie, and it’s aimed at us. Neo-Nazis and homegrown militias aren’t limited to any particular country anymore. We have our share of nut jobs, and they’re better organized and more powerful than we expected. Thanks to the Internet, it’s easy to find like-minded people. We believe that there’s a place on the dark web where you can take out a hit on a police officer anywhere in the country, although most have been killed in the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa triangle.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “You have to be. There were three teams of detectives on that day as well as half a dozen patrol cars. We weren’t supposed to be anywhere near that alley. There’s no way they knew who would answer the call.”

Lieutenant Morris harrumphed. “All it takes is a police scanner, Sutton, and they’re easy enough to get. Since we don’t know what the motive was, it’s possible any police officer or detective would’ve done. It seems that the officers killed were either women or men from visible minorities. Two of the three involved in the assassinations who survived were white males, like him.” He pointed to Harry. “You’re the third survivor, and my money says that was unintentional. If the guy was racist or misogynist, any female might’ve been as good as another.”

Maggie squared her shoulders and glared at them, two bright spots of red appearing on her wan cheeks. The lieutenant had been much blunter than Harry liked, but the man was right.

“You’re implying Cliff was killed because his mother was Mohawk, and they would’ve killed me just because I’m a woman. That’s ridiculous. How are we supposed to stop something like that? I’ve never considered myself a feminist, but I’m not ready to hide away in the kitchen for the rest of my life cooking, baking, and chopping up fruit to make fruit salad just because some man thinks that’s where I belong. I’m damn sure a large number of women feel the same way. As for the racism, homophobia, and the rest of it, when you peel away the skin, we all have the same bones underneath.”

Harry nodded. He’d always admired her wit, but this time, facts and logic wouldn’t be enough. “You’re right, but the fanatics don’t see it that way.”

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Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. Each week, a small group of dedicated authors share a scen from the work in progress and incorporate a word prompt into the scene. This week, the prompt is COLD. I’m working on the third book in the Protecting the Innocent series called And Justice For All. Enjoy.

Harry watched the color drain from Maggie’s cheeks. She was thinner than she’d been but every bit as beautiful and desirable. He’d tried to forget about her, tried to set aside the horrible mistake he’d made believing Marnie when she’d claimed Liam was his, but once he’d realized the truth … it hadn’t made him love his ‘son’ any less, but it had eliminated any love he’d ever had for the boy’s mother. When Liam got sick, the blood test proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the boy wasn’t his. He’d been shocked but not as badly as Marnie who didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. He’d asked for the divorce, and she’d granted it, with the condition that he keep the unknown father’s kid and give her an insane settlement. It had almost bankrupted him, but he would do anything for Liam. The child might not be his blood, but he loved him all the same.

When he’d heard that Maggie had been shot, he’d gone crazy. He’d been on the tail of these bastards for three years, had trailed them to a site called Swine Eliminators on the dark web, but was no closer to identifying them now than he’d been the day Brent had been killed. For a price, you could get rid of wild swine in your town, district or what have you, and while they’d tried to set up a sting operation, somehow, the operators of Swine Eliminators hadn’t bitten. But, as Morris had said, this wasn’t the time to reminisce.

“Over the years, several police officers have been killed in the line of duty, but the frequency has increased substantially in the last couple of years.”

“How many?” her voice trembled.

“Nine that we’re sure of, but there could be others. I’m still looking at a couple of suspicious accidents. I believe the officers killed were specifically targeted. There’s a cold-blooded killer out there hunting police officers for a price, and he has to be stopped.”

She gasped, her beautiful blue eyes going wide.

“You can’t be serious. That’s insane.”

“Maggie, you know as well as I do that misogyny, racism, homophobia, and hatred are on the rise. There are people out there who would love to turn the clock back two or three hundred years, take away women’s rights, put the gays back into the closet, and don’t get me started on religious freedom—hell, they’d probably bring back slavery if they could.”

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Happy New Year. No one knows what 2025 is going to bring, but I’m opting to believe it will be no worse than 2024. The world is a mess on all levels, and I can’t bring myself to believe it’ll get worse. So, I’m choosing to be an optimist about it and looking forward to brighter days.

January 8 question – Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?

It took me a long time to come up with an answer for this question because the truth is that I can’t think of a single person I admired as a child–not even sure I would’ve understood what the word meant. I loved my parents and grandparents and sought to please them, something I did as long as I had them in my life.

As a teenager, I admired my teachers, specifically Miss Columbus, my English teacher. She’d lost her love during the war and never married. She still wore her hair the way she had in the early forties and her clothes were all from that era. She was hunched over, with one hip higher than the other, but never acted as if she were in pain which, thanks to my own body, I know that she must’ve been.

It was as if she put her personal life on hold, and had moved out of it only long enough to impart her love of language on those of us who shared it in the classes she taught. I learned to embrace Shakespeare and poetry, understand that novelists could make profound and somewhat prophetic comments on society with books like Farenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, and Animal Farm, and realize the power of the pen.

Ma’am was the one who made me embrace reading and writing. It was because of her that I went to university and studied English, and it was her faith in me all those years ago that gave me the courage to write my first book. She’s been gone many years, but my admiration for her never changed, and as a teacher, I did my best to emulate her and foster that same love of English in my students.

Looking forward to reading other answers. You can fins them here: https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

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.

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We made it! One more trip around the sun achieved, but it was a bumpy ride to say the least. Did I achieve everything that I’d set out to do? No, but I haven’t given up on anything yet, and I refuse to let the low points of 2024 influence how I’ll head into 2025.

After I read a post from a friend about her choice of a small word for the year 2025, I decided to select one of my own. My word for 2025 will be PERSEVERE. Persevere is defined as the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering : steadfastness. I will persist in my goals, hang in there despite the obstacles, follow through with my intentions, and mostly, I will not surrender to despair, no matter how easy that might seem to be. I will push through the pain, knuckle down to work, and carry on reaching for stars.

I will also accept that there are things happening in this world over which I have no control. The world more closely resembles the mess it did in 1939 than ever. Wars abound, the economy is on the verge of imploding, and misogyny, racism, and all of the ugly faults humanity hid under a thin veneer of civility, those unleased during the pandemic, are alive and well. In the words of a song, “What the world needs now, is love, sweet love,” but it seems that its a commodity that’s sadly lacking all over.

Will it be easy to persevere? Probably not, but I learned a long time ago that nothing worth having comes easy. 2024 had some low points. I lost my mother in February and my arthritis took a huge leap for the worst in March, leaving me with the last nine months of the year pain ridden. I’ve had to make adjustments, including putting in two new bathrooms, and accept that I just can’t do it all. But there is light at the end of the tunnel since I’m scheduled for a right hip replacement in February or March, baring the inevitable delays because of emergencies.

But the year also brought highlights. My grandson started university with the intention of becoming a doctor. He has eight years ahead of him, but he’s smart and determined. My eldest grandaughter will finish her four-year program in pharmacy this spring, and continue with her master’s, while my next oldest grandaughter with start her apprenticeship as a HVAC technician and my youngest granddaughter will go away to school to be an electrical engineering technician. So much hope for the future. I just have to believe there will be one.

I was able to travel a bit. In January, we went on a Caribbean cruise and enjoyed some lovely heat–something I will truly miss this year. In early June, we went to New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island where we met up for a quick visit with old friends, and the Maggies, the Magdelene Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and finished the trip with an overnight stay in Quebec City. In July, I made the move from a cane to a walker. We did get to the Highland Games in Maxville and then spent a few days in Kingston. The walker does make walking easier. A few weeks later, we traveled to Alexandria Bay, NY, and connected with friends we’d met the previous summer when they took us out on their boat. Unfortunately, getting in and out of a boat wasn’t on my can-do list, but I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to do so in the future. In late September, we went toLake Placid, NY, another of our favorite places to visit. The colors were gorgeous, the people friendly, and the food delicious and plentiful. Finally, after Christmas, we took our son home to Kingston again and spent a couple of nights in the newly renovated Marriot near City Hall. Once again, we visited our favorite stops although we had to make alterations, but I did make it. Given the political climate in the US, I’m not sure we’ll be visiting there in the near future, but Canada has lovely places to see.

In terms of my writing, I managed to publish three books this year–Love at the Pickleback, Guarding her Heart, and A Case of Mistaken Identity. I hit a roadblock with Listen to the Stones and will be revising it as I work on And Justice For All, a romance suspense to be released in June. The post-surgery recovery time will take its toll I’m sure, but I’m hoping to be able to do A to Z 2025. I plan to write a book that month and post scenes from it each day, another idea I stole from last year’s participants.

So, long story short. I will persevere. Wishing you all the best for 2025. It won’t be easy, but we’ll get through it.

Happy New Year! Here’s hoping 2025 has more happy surprises than shocks. Welcome to Tuesday Tales, a weekly blog spot where a small group of authors share a scene from their WIP, each one written to a particular word prompt. This week’s word is YEAR. I continue with my as yet unnamed Romance Suspense. Enjoy.

She turned to her superior. No doubt he’d called her in to get him coffee, files, or perform some other menial tasks.

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I won’t mince words. If the RCMP is right, and I pray God they aren’t … In the last three years, nine police officers have been killed in this province, five of them women, the other four were male members of visible minorities. If you hadn’t gotten lucky, you would’ve been statistic number ten. Some were on duty, like you and Cliff, others were killed in accidents which they now believe to have been premeditated murders.”

She gasped. Cliff had been Metis. She’d been certain the reason for the attack would come out sooner or later, some junkie with a beef, a john who’d been ill-used by Cliff who hadn’t always been the politest man, but she hadn’t expected something both as simple and as complicated as hatred.

“Margaret Sutton meet Henry Collins, your new partner, supervisor—I’m not sure what to call him. He’s with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and in collaboration with the Ontario Provincial Police force and every local police force in the province, he’s heading up a new task force aimed specifically at hate crimes. The unit will be based out of Robbinsville.”

An RCMP unit based in a small town only made sense if the small town was involved, but why her? Was she to be the man’s glorified secretary? He turned to face her, and the bottom dropped out of her world.

“Harry?” The word erupted from her mouth before she could stop it.

“Hello, Maggie. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“You two know one another?” The lieutenant’s words cut through the fog surrounding her.

“Yes,” Harry answered. “Maggie and I met at police academy in Aylmer. What was that seven years ago?”

“Eight,” she mumbled, but who was counting? “How … how have you been?” There was no way that she would fall apart in front of Morris or Henry Collins. Their past was just that—dead and buried like her own parents, Cliff, and the children she’d wanted, but would never have. “How is Zoe and the baby?” She stumbled over the last word.

“He’s seven, but she and I divorced six years ago,” he answered curtly.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she lied smoothly, too smoothly, but over the years the pain of his betrayal all those years ago had never stopped hurting.

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May your holiday celebration be the best this year and bring you peace and joy.