Chris Rogers's Blog, page 12

Paradise Cursed – Snippet 4

“Rebuilt seven times from a mixture of old materials and new,” I said, “the Sarah Jane suffers decades of eccentricities. Out at sea, the rigging creaks, the bilge pump moans, and people make up tales.”

Graham chuckled. He leaned forward across the chair back to place his elbows on the white table cloth. “Captain, six months on the Atlantic can make a person stir crazy enough to hear ghosts, but scudding around these islands for a few days doesn’t qualify. Yet the stories persist.”

Gritting my teeth, I cast another glance at Burke, suddenly all round-eyed and perked ears. He apparently had not heard the rumor before now. With seventy percent of every passenger list being female, and happy passengers even better advertising than the Internet, I disliked having to pass on hiring Graham. His clear gray eyes, the sleepy sort that would enchant the ladies, were worth even more to me than his impressive sailing skills.

“Sailors and scuttlebutt are like women and lip rouge,” I said, as pleasantly as I could manage. “Changing color on a whim.”

Graham tapped his folded newspaper. “According to the Cayman Compass last summer, a woman claimed she saw Blackbeard himself raging around the foredeck during a thunderstorm.”

“Hmmm.” I shut down hard on the shiver that ruffled my neck hairs. “So then, Jason, if you’re frightened of a rumor, why are you here?”

A pretentious chuckle. “Did I say I was afraid?”

At times like these, I long for the old days, when I’d toss this chap and his oily grin out solidly on his buttocks, and a dozen better men would line up hungry for the job. Bent on containing my annoyance, however, I swallowed a curse and allowed my gaze to travel lazily around the dining compartment. Once the aft end of the gun deck, it now boasted a wide expanse of glass casements, an assortment of seating arrangements, and a fine rug bartered from an East Indian cargo ship some ninety years past. The Sarah Jane’s original wheel, figurehead and compass, as ancient as the joints in my knees, had been shined up and incorporated into the current décor. Brass pots of frangipani blossoms adorned each table, scenting the air with their intoxicating sweetness.

Except for the recently added upper deck, where our passengers enjoyed sunning and mingling, this was the primary common area. Even when I had to bend my own elbows to the task, we kept it as elegant as any on a commercial ship, yet the East Indian rug, once resplendent with intricate and brightly colored design was faded now in a well trod path near my table.

Cursed or not, the Sarah Jane was my home.

“Exactly what are you saying?” I asked, finally.

“The way I heard it, this cruise should be good for hazard pay.”

“Hazards?” Burke’s voice came out a tremulous squeak. Squaring his clipboard to the table edge, he asked. “What sort of hazards?”

“No crewman on our voyages has ever been seriously injured,” I stated simply, if not with complete disclosure.

On another chuckle, Graham said, “Yet your crew keeps deserting you.”

CHAPTER 2

For Dayna Kohl, the weird stuff didn’t begin on a dark and stormy night. It began on a brilliant sun-washed afternoon. Sunshine glinted fiercely off the turquoise water. It bathed the bleached boards of the pier beneath her feet and glittered from jewelry, from crisp white shorts and from the Crest-whitened teeth of fellow travelers. Sunshine stained a rosy glimmer upon the white hull and wooden masts of the tall ship anchored in Montego Bay. It glinted from the brass trim.

That same Caribbean sun warmed Dayna to the bone even as a southerly breeze cooled her skin. The biggest thrill of her life was anchored right out there in front of her.

She glanced at her nine-years-older sister and potential fun squelcher. Erin was biting her lower lip, a sure sign she was thinking up fresh arguments against sailing. Before she could voice them, Dayna slipped away. She squeezed past the passengers lined up to shuttle out to the Sarah Jane, waited while a pair of tweenies took selfie shots, then eyed the shuttle craft — a stinky motor launch.

Yuk. Dayna wished they could repeat their morning ride: a skinny bamboo raft with room for only two passengers plus the cute Jamaican oarsman who made it glide like mother-of-pearl along the White River. The motor launch, spazz-out boring and less environmentally authentic than a bamboo ferry, packed twelve at each trip. But it was clearly more efficient.

Erin, of course, would prefer the smelly, predictable launch. That’s if she didn’t opt to ditch the cruise altogether.

Shading her eyes with her hands, Dayna squinted at the three-masted schooner silhouetted against the sky. Trim. Ample. Marconi rigged, capable of fifteen knots at full sail—or so the brochure had promised in its flowery descriptions. Experience the thrill of blue-water sailing and soul-thrumming adventure when you take the helm of a magnificent tall ship.

Would Captain Cord McKinsey really allow an almost-seventeen-year-old girl to sail his craft?

“It’s smaller than I expected,” Erin said against the click-click-clicking of her camera.

Dayna hadn’t noticed the passenger line moving, and her sister along with it. Erin’s yellow tote jammed full of photo gear nudged Dayna aside, practically knocking her into the water. She knew it wasn’t intentional, so she nipped the protest that threatened to spill from her lips. The purpose of this trip was to cheer Erin out of her funk.

The prettier and, usually, most level-headed of their parents’ two girls, Erin had gone a little spacey after catching her fiancé with another woman. She doused them with a bottle of chilled champagne she found beside the bed, snatched their clothes and tossed them in a maid’s laundry cart, then keyed her ex-fiancé’s shiny black Jaguar on her way out of the hotel parking lot.

Go, Erin! Dayna had silently cheered, listening to her sister’s teary confession over cocoa and Oreos. As Erin bared her raw emotions, the nine years and completely different interests that separated them melted away, and Dayna felt close to her sister for the first time since they were both kids. She wanted to hold on to that closeness.

Seven days at sea was a perfect chance for them to really get to know each other in the deeply personal way that sisters should. Never mind that Dayna’s passion was to sail every ocean around the world. A thousand times since that Oreos night, she had thanked the Goddess of Aborted Weddings for her chance to take the cheating fiancé’s place on the “honeymoon” cruise. But as soon as they arrived in Jamaica, Erin had started looking for reasons to remain at the resort. The Sarah Jane’s size was only the latest among many.

“Two hundred-twenty feet is not small for a tall ship,” Dayna explained, as tactfully as she could manage. “Thirty-six across her beam, and she’s been sailing far longer than any other historical craft. She was once a pirate ship. Can you imagine sailing under the Jolly Roger?”

“Age isn’t her best selling point. I wonder if we should take another Dramamine tablet.”

“We’re not going to puke. Unless they keep playing that music.” The sounds drifting from the ship were definitely not Katy Perry or Taylor Swift. “What is that crap?”

“Dayna! Please watch your language.”

“Dat is a steel band,” said a woman in line ahead of them, “and da song dey play is ‘Yellow Bird’.”

Tall didn’t come close. Like WNBA Sheryl Swoopes tall, but gorgeous. Dayna couldn’t help staring.

The woman’s dress, colored like exotic bird feathers, molded to her body like paint, and her skin was such an interesting shade of black. Dayna closed her mouth, not wanting to act like a rube her first time outside of Texas. Erin would likely knock her off the pier for real.

“I am Ayanna,” the woman said. “I am taking position as first mate on da Sarah Jane.”

“Not possible,” Dayna blurted. “First mate, a woman who looks like a—ow!”

A jab from Erin’s elbow stopped her from saying, “rainbow lorikeet,” one of the exotic birds on the cruise brochure.

“We’re very happy to meet you, Ayanna,” Erin said. “My rude sister has never been on a cruise and is worried about what we’ll encounter. Otherwise, she would show better manners.”

“I’m not worried, it’s you—”

“A sister is a blessing,” Ayanna said. “You are fortunate to have each other on dis voyage.”

The woman smiled, nodded, then turned to climb down into the launch. Dayna couldn’t help following every undulating movement. In her curve-hugging dress and sandals,

Ayanna was as nimble aboard the flat-bottom boat as if she were wearing workout duds. Even the crummy music sounded better now that Dayna knew the captain’s crew included women as other than kitchen duty.

“What did you think I was going to say?” she asked her sister as the launch drove away and an empty one approached to take its place.

“Prostitute? Hooker?”

“Jeez, Erin! We’re not in Texas anymore.”

“No. We’re too far away from everything we know.”

Erin scowled at the gently swaying launch and at the smiling helmsman reaching to take her hand. When she shook her head and stepped back, Dayna got a crappy feeling the Sarah Jane would sail tomorrow without them.

Buy the book now, because summer’s coming and you’ll want a great read.

A Tribute to Carol Burnett by Troupe Over the Hill

I’m having so much fun working with the Troupe. Never considered myself an actor, but these folks make it easy, and no one is trying to be a “STARRRR”.

We just have fun and enjoy seeing the audience having a great time along with us. Our new show, “A Tribute to Carol Burnett,” features 7 skits that played on this wonderful lady’s television variety show, which aired for 11 seasons from 1967 to 1978.

Our Tribute will play in the Tonka Room at Hilltop Lakes, Texas for 3 performances, the evenings of Friday April 29 and Saturday April 30, with a matinee on Sunday May 1 2016.

Skits include – but are not limited to – “Bonnie and Clod” and “The Howl and the Pussy Cat”. For my part in the skit “As the Stomach Turns,” I plan to morph from weird lady to weird creature. Can’t wait to see how that works.

For tickets, click the “contact” button to email me and I’ll reserve them for you. Meanwhile, stay tuned. More to come as rehearsals continue.

It’s Here! And What a Treat to Be Interviewed by Books N Pearls

Provocative questions evoke the best answers, and they got it right. Fun to do, fun to read.

Release day for Paradise Cursed couldn’t have gone better. It’s available now at Amazon. For your best read of the summer, consider print and ebook, because you won’t want to be without it.

Check out the interview for Paradise Cursed at Books N Pearls

Buy the book now at Amazon.com

Paradise Cursed – Snippet 3

CHAPTER 1

Present Day – Jamaica Harbor

Escaping the ship’s dining quarters and the heavy aroma of roasted beef, I briskly flexed my shoulders to loosen my mood. The ache refused to let go of me, touching off a string of colorful expletives.

After sitting at a table all morning to interview a paltry number of applicants better suited for swabbing a deck than hoisting a sail, my reward was a caffeine buzz that set my teeth on edge. My muscles needed a good workout, my stomach needed a hot meal plus an afternoon reviver. And before the next over-confident, under-skilled sailor popped up the gangway, I needed to fill my pipe with the sweet flavor of rum tobacco and enjoy a smoke.

Once on the foredeck, I paced leeward and gazed deep into tranquil Jamaican waters. A soothing color, turquoise. In short time the lyrical sway of a calm sea can lighten even the darkest mood. Today, however, the sea’s magic struck a gloomier note.

The sun shone at such an angle that my own reflection stared up at me, and what caught me off guard was the hoard of individuals gathered behind me among the waves, in rows of watery images. Row after row after row, each stretching from prow to stern, every person a friend or compatriot or loved one.

Every one of them dead.

I’d outlived so many, but the memories usually hit me one at a time. The sight of that solemn gathering charged so suddenly at my emotions that my eyes burned with unshed tears. My jaw trembled. My knees buckled. If I hadn’t been leaning on the taffrail, I might have ended in a lump of quivering flesh upon the deck.

Then as suddenly as it came, the vision vanished. I blinked. I sucked fresh air into my lungs and braved a second look. This time I saw nothing in the water except my favorite pipe bobbing over the waves.

Knowing when my mind or body has had enough stress, and acting on that salient knowledge, has prevented me from losing an arm. Or an eye. This curse of immortality I’ve dealt with for nigh on three centuries is most often quiescent, slowly honing my senses the way a weak fruit acid burnishes tooth enamel. Occasionally, my curse demands agility and, at all times, keen awareness. Unlike a gecko that can lose its tail and grow another, I cannot reproduce lost appendages.

Vital organs, however, that’s a different matter entirely. Heart, lungs, liver, each has received a “deadly” setback from bullet or blade only to boomerang into prime health before an hour passes.

Relax now, I chided. Or at least shove your feelings inside where they won’t scare away the few sailors who do have merit. Again I drew the sweet solace of ocean air deep into my lungs and let the sea enfold me in its soothing embrace.

The Caribbean and I have traveled together through a thousand storms. We’ve laughed together, and loved, and killed. She’s as familiar to me as the face in my bathroom mirror, yet she remains fickle. A friend one moment, a raging foe the next, she cannot be trusted. Trust, in fact, is an attitude I rarely experience.

With the vision gone, the sea reflected a cerulean sky as brilliant as any I’d seen in my years of sailing, the most promising sky any sailor could want at the start of a new voyage. The buzz of a motor launch drew my eyes toward the pier at Montego Bay, where a big honking ocean liner blocked my view. The approaching launch would dispatch new crew candidates along with more Stowaways—passengers who sleep over the night before we set sail.

I returned to the dining quarters.

“Without a first mate,” I yelled to no one in particular, “we cannot set sail tomorrow.” The nearest person in hearing range was Cookie, christened Charles Key, the only mate loyal enough to sail with me time and again. Oh, and the new quartermaster. “We also need three more able seamen, a bos’n—”

“And a galley slave, Cap’n.” Sweat beads shone on Cookie’s brilliantly bald head as he laid out a pan of yeast rolls to rise on the polished teak bar-top.

“You cannot be telling me you need help preparing meals for forty-seven passengers,” I called to his retreating back as he returned to his stove. Actually, we’d taken on several young men who’d be of more use in the galley than on deck.

“Er, Captain McKinsey,” piped the quartermaster, “it was forty-nine passengers at last count, plus the crew, sir.”

Regarding the chap, I tried to recall his name. Bart? Burt? Burke. Older than any other crew member except Cookie—and myself, of course—Burke was thin as a pipe-cleaner, blind as a mole without his spectacles, and had never quarter-mastered on a tall ship, or on any ship. The bloke’s only qualification was three years as a U.S. Army clerk. As usual, we were too shorthanded to be picky.

He glanced from his computer screen to the manifest on his clipboard as if willing the sums to magically multiply.

“Don’t fret the number of passengers,” I said. “We broke even at forty-five.”

Burke gave me the look. Of all his annoying qualities, Burke’s I-can’t-believe-you’re-such-a-moron look was most likely to get him tossed overboard.

“Here comes the next one.” Glancing at his watch, he nodded stiffly toward the door and the sound of the launch’s engine idling as it neared the ship.

Minutes later, a preppy-looking fellow about five-foot-ten in sailor whites—fit, neat, perhaps twenty-five years old—strode into the dining hall carrying a folded newspaper.

“Captain McKinsey?” He glanced around, settling his gaze on me, then strode confidently onward.

I checked the clipboard notation Burke had thrust at me. “You’re Jason Graham?”

“Jase.”

A firm enough handshake. Our lady passengers would appreciate his cocky demeanor. If the bloke could handle a ship, he was as good as hired.

When I motioned for him to join me at a linen-covered table, he flipped a chair round and straddled it. Cookie brought a steaming pot of rich black Jamaican coffee, and after talking with Jase Graham for five minutes I was keen to offer him the position as first mate at top scale. He was clearly a more experienced sailor than his youth suggested, and from his manner I judged him bold enough to handle a crew—but then he asked the dreaded question.

“What’s with the rumor about a curse?”

There it was. The damned dastardly tittle-tattle that had ousted the Sarah Jane from previous ports o’ call at Grenada, Saint Martin and Nassau. With a side-glance at Burke, busy with his numbers, I topped up my cup then returned Graham’s grin with my steeliest gaze.

Buy the Book Now, because summer is coming and you’ll want a darn good read.

Houston Workshop – Saturday, April 2 – How to Write Emotion into Every Character

How do we create characters that seem to come alive on the page? Emotion is key, and in this workshop, we will take an in-depth look at how successful writers imbue their characters with emotions that seem moving and real.

As the instructor, I will share an insightful examination of how certain personality types react to the basic instincts of fear and desire, as well as how they experience higher emotions such as sorrow, joy, and pride, and also offer strategies for how to describe these reactions. Participants will learn the essentials of a simple personality template (similar to those by Jung, Myers-Briggs, and others); how to craft “the emotional ladder,” from initial impulse to full expression; and how to apply visceral, visual, and auditory responses to descriptive writing.

If you’ve ever felt uncertain as to how to go about crafting character emotion, this workshop will help replace your uncertainty with knowledge and confidence.

TIME: Saturday, April 2, 1-4 p.m.

LOCATION: Writespace

LEVEL: Beginner and Intermediate

CAP: Limited to 15 Writers

Teaching Philosophy

A storyteller’s job is not merely to spin a yarn on paper but to spin a yarn that connects with the reader, our silent partner. We connect by invoking in the reader an understanding, a personal memory, and most of all emotion—laughter, joy, sorrow, fear, or even the cerebral kick that comes with watching an intriguing puzzle come together.

My job as a writing instructor is to teach the techniques and provide examples that will help you make that connection as you write your own story. These are not formulas but are successful story forms. The logical part of the Write Brain thrives on form and patterns. Like great painters, writers learn from studying and practicing the strokes of masters who came before us.

What you will not learn from me are “rules.” Instead, you’ll discover “writing tools.” Any rule ever written has been broken effectively by a good writer. There are no wrong answers. If a technique works, if it elicits the emotional or intellectual impact intended, then how can it be wrong?

Paradise Cursed – Snippet 2

25 Years Later

Thundering around us like cannon fire, the storm of the century split the churning night sky, releasing a torrent, slicking the deck of the Spanish brigantine, soaking my new wool coat and faltering my step as we battled a crew too bloody stubborn to give it up. Wind and sea threatened to turn the captured ship into flotsam.

Regaining my footing, I dipped my head against the watery onslaught and headed athwartship, where the Spanish captain was giving Stryker a go. Captain Stryker, still as large and mean as a raging bull, was backed against the bulkhead, having a rousing good time. But I wanted an end to it.

I shoved past a skirmish near the mizzen. Feeling the slice of a blade, I jerked erect, and a hard gust knocked off my hat. Furious, I slashed my cutlass across a man’s neck, bashed another in the head with its hilt, felling them both. Raking a fresh glance at the captain, I decided he could hold his own and to the devil with ’m, if not.

“Titam gan éiri ort, Cap’n.” A thousand times since being forced to serve old Stryker, I’d muttered the Irish curse, may you fall without rising. I’d likely mutter it a thousand times more before the lout’s demise.

The vessel’s prize was rumored to be gold as well as provisions, and our stores aboard the Sarah Jane were running pitifully low. But I despised this type of engagement, every sailor and pirate hacking at every other. I much preferred scoping out a ship under false colors, sliding alongside the bow to render useless their side guns, then hoisting the Jolly Roger so the blokes would know who they were dealing with. Leery of being tortured, a smart captain would hand over the booty nice and easy like.

But Stryker loved to fight, the bloodier the better.

I scooped up my hat from the deck with the curve of my cutlass, slammed it back on my head, and sliced the gut of a lubber coming hard at my face with a marlinspike. Then peering about through the curtain of rain and seeing we had near finished off the crew, leaving only a few passengers to deal with, I sought out the cargo hatch and lowered myself to the hold.

A prize indeed. Gold and silver nuggets. Precious gems. The Spanish American mines must be producing nicely. Next I checked out the ship’s stores. Vegetables looked none too fresh, but there was fresh water, coffee, tea, and I was glad especially for the latter items. Water aboard the Sarah Jane had become so rank that the crew was lacing it high with rum to the point of being sodded out of their heads. That was a sure way to the gallows. Just ask Anne Bonny and Calico Jack.

Chewing on a stick of sugarcane, I returned topside.

The storm had worsened. The sea galloped and lightning shattered the night sky in all directions. It was time to end Stryker’s bit of fun, snatch the spoils and take leave. In a flash of lightning I spied his bulky form on the fo’c’s’l and fought my way forward. Between rounds of thunder came the sharp report of a pistol.

I halted.

Not one of our guns. None aboard the Sarah Jane had seen a speck of powder in weeks. Another lightning burst revealed what was happening, yet I doubted my eyes.

Stryker was down.

A woman stood over him brandishing a cutlass straight and true at his face. She looked wild with fear, her wet hair swirling in the raging wind like banshee locks.

“Captain!” I hoped to distract her.

“Get over here,” Stryker yelled back. “Gut this wench!”

No, I took no pleasure from killing women. When I reached Stryker’s side, I spied the flintlock pistol at her feet, the one she’d used to blow a hole in the captain’s shoulder, knocking him down. Next she must’ve grabbed a cutlass from a dead sailor. But now fear froze her from finishing the job.

Stryker’s rapier lay useless near the grasp of his stricken hand.

Keeping a pace away from her, I resorted to my preferred method of settling a problem: reason. “Lady, you may cut out his eyeball, sure enough, but I will hack off your arm before you can run, so—”

“I said kill her!” Stryker growled.

Lightning crackled. In its glow I saw the woman’s terror had gone far beyond reason. Her eyes never leaving the captain’s face, she clutched the cutlass with both hands, working up courage for the killing blow.

Then she shifted her gaze briefly to mine. Looking in those eyes I knew I could gentle this woman if left alone with her.

“Captain, while I settle with this wench, you should take a look in the cargo hold.” I forced a light tone, hoping to diffuse the situation or at least to divide her attention. “Feast your eyes below on the booty we’ll be taking away.”

“ McKinsey, you niddering mouse—!”

Thunder drowned the last of Stryker’s words, and in the lightning that instantly followed, I glimpsed a small boy hiding behind the woman’s skirts.

“Captain! There’s a lad.” Another roll of thunder.

The woman flinched backward, shifting her cutlass toward me.

Fast as a snake, Stryker reached across with his good hand, grabbed his rapier and lurched to a half crouch, ready to lunge.

“No!” I stepped between his out-thrust arm and the quivering mum.

Already into his thrust and crazed with fury, Stryker drove upward.

The rapier’s thin cutting tip vanished—I felt the sting of it. Then the sword’s fiery trail blazed through my belly. Lightning struck the blade, turning it and the ship and the sky around me into a bright-hot, glowing, shattering ball of fluorescence.

Present Day

In languid Jamaican waters, the Sarah Jane awakened from a long slumber. Sunlight warmed her deck, and warmed the blood of men soaked deep into her crevices. Drifting on a swell, she felt the tug of her ancient anchor, its line taut but straining with time. A food-seeking snook, followed by smaller, feistier fish, slid past her hull.

Within her bowels, upright sentient creatures stirred about, including her old friend, cursed these many years and perhaps a better man for it. But the captain’s presence alone would not have awakened her.

Two younger souls bearing the special energy approached and would soon walk her decks, one fresh and untested, the other bold, sinister, a more threatening presence than any of late. Yet masts remained staunchly upright, companionways open. The dark dance had not yet begun.

Buy the Book Now, because this is a great read and summer is approaching.

Paradise Cursed – Snippet 1

The Caribbean Sea

1691

“Cord! Cord McKinsey!” I heard Mum calling my name just before her arms gathered me into her skirts. Then she screamed for my da. “Jonathon!” Clutching my hand, she ran for him, stumbling over quoiles of rigging, dodging the robbers and sailors fighting around us.

My mum was one of those women who never seem to age, as pretty at thirty-two, my da said, as she was at sweet sixteen. “A grhá mo chroi,” Da called her, “love o’ my heart.” On the deck of the H.M.S. Transport, Mum’s beauty bore the sailors a dangerous distraction, which perhaps was why I, before anyone, saw the grappling iron tumble aboard.

The first mate was hailing the Dutch ship, other mates taking up push poles. Exactly nine years old—first day of November being my birthday—I didn’t actually know the name of the four-pronged hook, but I knew sure enough about ships and swords and flags. I knew the schooner flying the Dutch colors was passing rudely near to our starboard prow when the hook came flying onto the Transport’s foredeck, plunking down a hair’s breadth from my left foot.

I also knew about pirates. When gangplanks slid across connecting our two ships, men skittering over like huge scrabbling rats against the dusky orange sky as the Jolly Roger flew up the pole, I knew to be frightened.

The sight of my Da always brought comfort… his warm strong hand, the crackle of his crisp white shirt, odors of tobacco, coffee, and sometimes, but only at night when he tucked me into bed, the sweet fragrance of rum. I spied him on the port side, the sun’s remnants turning his carroty hair crimson.

He was waving a cutlass about.

Da didn’t own a cutlass, did he? A son should know. But there it was, and there also in the blood-red glow of the lowering sun stood a man taller and broader than any I ever had seen. A scraggly beard hung to his chest. His skin was pocked, his nose red-veined and bulbous, but it was the glitter in his eyes that nailed my feet to the deck.

Captain Richard Stryker—I recalled seeing the pirate’s picture tacked up in the London shipping office when we boarded for the trip to Jamaica. Stryker’s glittering black eyes fell on my mum, and a hungry look spread the pirate’s rubbery lips, revealing yellow-black teeth crowded in all directions.

“Leave off there!” He sprang in front of us.

Mum halted, pulling me close. Peering frantically about, I spied Da’s cutlass arcing high as he rushed up behind the pirate.

As quick as he was ugly, Stryker whirled and thrust out with his rapier.

Mum screamed. I stumbled backward, stiff with the sight of my da’s face wrenched in surprise a second before it went dull and lifeless. My eyes smarted. My stomach felt suddenly as liquid and turbulent as the sea that roiled around us.

Stryker raised a booted foot and kicked Da’s body off the end of his sword.

Then he returned his frightful gaze to my mum. A snaky tongue flicked out to lick his rubbery lips.

Still screaming with heartache and fear, Mum backed away, pushing me behind her. Too terrified not to learn what was happening, I craned around her skirts to see.

Stryker sheathed his sword, closing the distance in two strides as his long filthy arm reached for her. When his hand locked on her throat, all the anger in me took over and I charged at him, yelling, shoving and kicking.

Scarcely glancing down, Stryker clubbed me. His meaty fist knocked me across the deck as easy as swatting a beetle.

My ears drained of sound. A gray curtain clouded my spinning brain, and my stomach heaved up everything inside, but I staggered to my feet.

Stryker had twisted a hand through mum’s yellow curls and was drawing her to him, pulling her face toward his ugly maw, mum struggling in his grip like a robin flapping at a dragon. Suddenly, she stopped fighting and smiled. Her clawed hand raked down his face.

The pirate roared. He thrust her away, touching a hand to his wounded cheek. When it came back bloody, his entire body swelled with fury.

A cheer for Mum’s bravery rose in my chest—and froze—as the waning sunlight flashed on Stryker’s rapier.

“No!” I lunged at him. Slamming my entire body into Stryker, I felt no give, as if the pirate’s boots had bonded with the ship’s deck. “No! Bloody no!”

His free hand smacked hard against my ear, knocking me down again. Head ringing, I scrambled to my feet, yet even as I slammed against his bulk, Stryker’s thin blade sliced through Mum’s stomach and ripped upward with an eruption of blood.

His laugh exploded in my ears. Looming in the darkening sunset like a specter, his laughter full of dark slimy crawling things, the pirate turned his glistening black eyes on me.

Yelling every blasphemy I’d ever heard, I kept slamming into him until Stryker’s big hand grasped me by the collar, choking me as he lifted me to eye level.

“I think I’ll keep yer, lubber mite.” Amusement rolled out of him on a breath of rotted fish. “If yer don’t make a decent cabin boy, yer’ll make a fine stew.”

Pre-Order the book Now because this is a great summer read you don’t want to miss.

Paradise Cursed

Captain Cord McKinzey, a pirate cursed in 1716 for doing a good deed, now operates his schooner, the Sarah Jane, as a cruise ship. Doomed to remain virtually ship-bound and within the Caribbean waters, Cord, 34, has reinvented himself and his ship many times over these near 300 years.

Though long despaired of every breaking his curse, he often becomes entwined in solving similar problems for his passengers, problems that require extraordinary solutions. When his new Jamaican first mate, Ayanna, confesses she has been cursed by a Bokor, Cord agrees to help her locate a powerful shaman.

The Bokor’s plan is more heinous and far-reaching than anyone suspects. The lovely Ayanna fails to mention that her mind and body are changing, taking new form as a large reptile. Even with the help of a psychic passenger, Cord may lose the people he cares for, as well as his ship, the only square footage on land or sea where pain is not his constant companion.

Pre-Order Now because this is a great summer read you don’t want to miss.

Slice of Life Snippet 4

Standing in the center betting queue of the Players Lounge, yellow WANTED poster in hand, Dixie cast a wary eye at a skinhead two lines over.

A tingle between Dixie’s shoulder blades suggested this hunch might yet pay off.

“Gin Sip on the nose,” a woman ahead cooed loudly to the man standing beside her. “Sweetie, you said I could pick the winner in this race.” Lime-green bobbles dangled from each ear; lime-green stretch pants clearly defined each ample butt cheek.

The portly man in a flowered shirt shook his head. “Gin Sip’s a maiden, no stats. Everything we’ve won tonight you’re going to lose on a sucker bet?”

“In my premonition, Gin Sip burst from the gate like a rocket, trailing a wake of fire—”

Dixie hit a quick-dial button on her cell phone. The couple’s squabble and the murmur of a hundred simulcast monitors would easily cover her own conversation.

“I may’ve spotted that kid I’m looking for,” she said, when Parker answered.

Eight freighted seconds passed before he spoke. “Dixie, these reservations were damned hard to get.”

“I know. But I really need to check this out.”

Parker’s frustration sighed into her ear. Any other Friday night they’d be eating a gourmet meal from his own kitchen. Brawny, passionate, fairly useless with a hammer or wrench, Parker Dann could make pots and pans dance like a scene from Fantasia. Nevertheless, he’d been excited about dining out this evening at a new inn and restaurant that drew a favorable write-up in Galveston Streets magazine.

“All right,” he agreed finally. “Mud and I’ve already lost twelve games of Solitaire. Should we go for twenty?”

Dixie pictured her Mean Ugly Dog sitting at a card table with Parker. She grinned, wishing she was with them.

“Can you move the reservations up half an hour?” It wouldn’t take long to get a full-face view of that skinhead.

“On grand opening weekend? The place is booked solid.”

“Can’t hurt to ask. If they won’t, then just muse over the menu with a bottle of their best wine—my treat—until I arrive. Okay?”

“I’ll ‘muse’ for exactly fifteen minutes.”

Dixie couldn’t blame him for being pissed. Living eighty miles apart limited their opportunities for spontaneous get-togethers, and every time they booked a date more than a few hours in advance, Dixie’s erratic schedule crimped the plan. But Ryan was counting on her, too.

“I’ll finish up here as fast as I can,” she promised. “And Parker … thanks.”

With an indecipherable mutter, he disconnected. She considered calling back, telling him she’d forget Ryan’s reward quest and leave right now. The skinhead wore camouflage fatigues, a silver skull earring, and steel-cap combat boots—typical neo-Nazi regalia. Maybe that tingle of foresight Dixie felt was nothing more than an itch. Jennae’s mug shot showed a square, pretty face, wide mouth, full lower lip, no jewelry, platinum waves falling to her shoulders.

Yet some oddities in the hairless youth’s appearance suggested female in drag. No Adam’s apple, for one. Despite the August heat, an oversized jacket obscured the kid’s chest. And his gait, as Dixie followed it to the betting queues, swayed too supplely to be all male. On the other hand—

“Pardon me,” a sharp, nasal voice addressed her.

Dixie spun on her boot heel to find a face from her past: Assistant District Attorney Rodney Kincaid, handsome, ambitious, and slippery as wet fish.

He shoved a ten-dollar bill toward her. “I believe you dropped this.”

“Nope, not mine.” Maybe he didn’t remember her. When Kincaid joined the DA’s staff, several months before Dixie left it, she hadn’t liked his slam-dunk attitude toward gaining convictions. She wasn’t at all pleased to see him now.

“Sorry. I was sure it fell—” His eyes did the quick blink of recognition. Too quick. “I know you. You’re a prosecutor—or were. Left a couple of years ago. Flannigan, right?”

“Three years.” After battling Texas’ revolving-door justice for a decade, she’d had enough. Sliding a glance at the skinhead, Dixie offered the obligatory handshake.

“Where are you now, Rodney?”

“Chief in the three-thirty-second. Recent transfer.” He tucked the bill into his jeans pocket.

Nice fit. Fantastic body—for a jerk.

“Did you ever have that judge?” he asked.

Dixie shrugged it away. “Part of another life.”

As the woman at the head of the line completed her betting transaction, Dixie tuned out Kincaid and moved up a step. When he followed, she glanced pointedly at the shorter queues, then cut her gaze back to find him straining to read the WANTED poster in her hand.

“Jennae Thompson,” he read from the bold type.

Dixie folded the photograph out of sight. “A.k.a. Margie Tomlin a.k.a. Genny Tomkins.”

“Wanted in three states, including Texas?”

So the guy was a speed reader. Dixie shoved the poster deep in her pocket.

Kincaid looked around and lowered his voice. “Is she here?”

“In this crowd? Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Thirty-thousand dollars. Better than your average bail-bond contract. That’s what you’re doing these days, isn’t it? Bounty hunting?”

“Yep.” Dixie chose to ignore his snide tone. She saw the skinhead slap a wad of bills on the counter, receive a betting slip and turn to leave. Dixie finally got a straight-on look at his/her face—wide mouth, full lower lip, brown eyes. Jennae had green eyes, but colored contact lenses would handle that. A lightning-shaped tattoo marked the skinhead’s right cheek. No mention on the poster of a tattoo. It might be recent. Or fake.

Dixie sensed Kincaid’s gaze. To follow the skinhead now would certainly draw the prosecutor’s attention.

“Give us a quiniela box, one, three, and six,” the man in the flowered shirt told the betting clerk.

“No, sweetie,” his wife argued. “Gin Sip on the nose.”

“We are not betting all our winnings on your hair-brained fantasy.”

When the couple moved off, Dixie laid a ten on the counter. She wasn’t much of a gambler.

“Gin Sip,” she told the clerk. A woman’s premonition counted a lot higher in her book than eeny-meeny-miney-moe.

“To win?”

Well … “Win, place, or show,” she hedged.

“Across the board.” The clerk punched out her ticket.

For a calculating moment Dixie loitered, as if deciding where to light. Despite her often loudly voiced opinion that politics swung too many sound cases into the shitcan, her relationship with the DA and many of the staff had remained congenial. No point in slamming the door now.

“Give the folks at home my howdy.” She smiled at Kincaid, sketching a wave in passing. Tucking the betting slip into her pocket, she strolled in the same direction as the skull earring and camouflage fatigues.

Each of the Horizon Restaurant’s nine cascading tiers had a single row of tables where viewers could watch the races live or on simulcast. Cash machines and self-serve betting terminals provided added temptation. Spotting the skinhead settling into a chair, Dixie asked to be seated at a table one level up. She could appear to watch the dogs while comparing his/her features with the mug photo of Jennae Thompson.

The shaved scalp accentuated the unusual shape of the kid’s ears, a feature most difficult to alter. Upper shell tipped outward, lobe snug against the head. Exactly like Jennae’s.

With that single point of reference, Dixie assessed the eyes, nose, and mouth again: all conformed to the mug shot. The disguise worked because most people shied away from young men who looked like trouble. Only a cop or a bounty hunter would peer past the camouflage and rough tattoo.

Now all Dixie needed was a worthy officer to exercise the warrant. If she handled the arrest and paperwork herself, she’d never make her dinner date with Parker.

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Slice of Life Snippet 3

“Yeah, kid. If a reliable witness saw Jennae Thompson headed into Mexico, I’d go after her. Reluctantly.” It’d be far less hassle, though, to catch the felon before she crossed the border. In Mexico, bounty hunting was illegal. Dixie massaged the persistent driver’s knot at the back of her neck.

“’Cause she’d be better off in jail here, right?”

“Right. We’re the angels to deliver her from evil.”

After they signed off, Dixie studied the WANTED poster while finishing her beer. Marla Jennae Thompson might serve as an example to Ryan of how easily simple misconduct can leap to serious crime, and to a dark and lonely place to spend your life. Or a few years, anyway, if Thompson was lucky. What a waste to be a bad example at twenty.

The young woman certainly didn’t look like an average felon. Dixie’d seen guilt in every guise imaginable—old, young, rich, poor, dumb, brilliant—so nothing really surprised her. But the haunted expression in Jennae’s eyes gave Dixie an uneasy feeling. She’d seen that look on runaways and street kids. On frightened animals.

And long ago in her own mirror.

CHAPTER 2

“This little pig went to Houston.” Chanting to keep the voice out of her head, Marla Jennae Thompson sped along Interstate 59, whipping around slowpokes, easing past sixteen-wheeling roadrunners, sniffing out cops.

“This little pig went home.”

Steady at five miles an hour over the limit, she watched other cars zip past as she counted the mile markers.

“Three-forty-seven. This little pig went to heaven.”

Cops ignored five-mile speeders. So far, anyway.

But every mile tightened an invisible cover over Jennae’s head. She could see, but not breathe. Clear plastic. A cleaning bag. The kind with a printed warning: Keep Away From Children.

“Play,” the voice warned. “Concentrate.”

Her fingers fluttered over the keyboard as her brain flooded with red mist. Then the bag was gone. She gasped, and kept her fingers moving, moving, hitting the notes, hitting the notes.

“See how much better you play when you concentrate?”

All in her mind, of course. All in her mind.

Now, it was all in her mind.

Jennae hiccupped. Hiccups always accompanied the fear.

Shit, who was she kidding? When had the fear ever left her?

Never mind. Show no fear, shed no tear—her new motto. Three days till her birthday.

“Happy-happy-happy birthday … to me!” Three days.

“Three-four-six. Pick up sticks.”

Spotting the city limits sign—

“City without pity…”

—she tensed, tightening her grip on the wheel.

No panic, no panic. Miles to go before she could panic.

“Houston, Pasadena, Clear Lake, Dickinson, La Marque,” she chanted.

A few miles later, she took the 610 Loop headed south.

“Why, shut my mouth, I’m going south …”

And despite her constant chatter—

“Way down south in the land of Cotton-eyed Joe …”

—she heard the hated, blood-chilling voice …

Come home.

CHAPTER 3

Texans with a gambling addiction have several options: dogs, horses, a few privately owned Keeno rooms or poker games, and the lottery. Almost any convenience store sells lottery tickets, but a confirmed gambler needs more action than a two-dollar scratch-off.

Private games were harder to find on the run, and only two parimutuel race tracks exist in the greater Houston area. On a hunch, Dixie had gone out of her way to scout the parking lot at Sam Houston Race Park. Investors in the track had expected horse racing to bring mega millions into the Houston economy, while fear-mongers had warned that increased crime and rack-eteering would follow to destroy the city. Neither prophecy had come to pass, and now Dixie’s quick scan of the parking lot proved equally uneventful.

Jennae Thompson’s Ford Escort was not there. No big surprise. Spurred by her nephew’s high expectations, Dixie’d felt compelled to stop on her way to meet Parker, but hadn’t really expected to strike it lucky.

The surprise came at Gulf Greyhound Park, located in a tiny community between Houston and the newly revitalized Galveston Island. Through a crust of road film Dixie spotted the Arkansas license number and knew she had the right car. Apparently, Thompson preferred pups to ponies.

Dixie glanced at her watch and reached for her cell phone. The local law could take over from here. If they responded promptly … big if … she could still make dinner on time.

Finding the car, however, didn’t guarantee the thief would still be on the premises. The expansive circular parking area, filled with locally-owned vehicles but also with plenty of out-of-state cars and RVs, provided a perfect opportunity to dump the Escort and pick up a new set of wheels. Alerting the locals prematurely would only bring her flak the next time she needed their help. With a feeling of being handcuffed by circumstances, she closed her cell phone and parked near the entrance.

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