Excerpt from Follow the Bees Chapter Three

          “She’s your next-door neighbor?” Summer, the Chief’s best friend and ex-wife bit into her sandwich, giggling.

          “She’s only been there for three weeks.”

          “And you didn’t notice?”

          “I’ve been busy.”  He stole a potato chip from her plate.

          “You’ve been depressed,” her words sobered them both.

          “Well,” he gulped from his Zephyrhills water.  “She was right about the mower blade.”

          “Do you think she might be right about the robbers, too?”

          “Robbers, plural.? You believe her?”

          “Yes, I do.  It makes sense.”  Louder, “Jimmy Junior, you’re gonna poke somebody’s eye out with that stick.  Put it down.”  Softer, “God, I sound just like my mother.”

          Roman snorted.  There were some things he didn’t miss about his marriage.  Summer’s mother was one of them. 

          “Do you think your neighbor is connected to them?”

          “No, it doesn’t feel that way.  She sounds more like a professor than a crook.”

          “Professors can be criminals,” she eyed his abandoned onions.  He pushed them toward her.

          “I put Sybil onto checking her basics – tag, driver’s license.”

          “Why don’t you just ask her?”

          Roman scowled.

          “You’re embarrassed.”  And louder, “Don’t you go down that slide face first!”

          “How’s Jimmy Senior?”

          “He’s doing good!  Regional manager paid him a surprise visit and he came out looking great.  He thinks he’ll get a promotion because of it.”

          “Good.”  Jimmy Senior was a solid citizen, sober, Christian, a descent husband.  And there was nothing dangerous about being the manager of an office supply company.

          “How are you doing?” She gave his hand a firm squeeze.

          “The foot stone came in yesterday.  It looks real nice.”

          “I’ll bring Cheyenne by the cemetery after church.  I know she’d like to put flowers on Tudor’s grave.”

          Cheyenne was their daughter:  fifteen, stunningly beautiful in a terrifying way, wild and naïve, hell-bent and heaven bound.

          “I thought she was spending the weekend with me.”

          ”That’s fine.  Just make sure you get her to church.  Sit down on that swing!”

          Cheyenne didn’t take after her mother, thank God.

          “You know, if she’s renting Mr. Sing’s house, you could call him and research her references.  Tell Mr. Sing that you’d like to make sure everything’s alright.”

          “Who?”

          “Your new neighbor.  I’d love to know how she knew those things.  In less than five minutes, she knew all about them.  Do you suppose she’s one of those profilers, like on TV?”

          Roman didn’t raise his voice, but the command carried across the playground, “Drop the pine cones.”

          Jimmy Junior immediately complied.

          “How do you do that?” Summer pouted.

          “What?”

          “Get Jimmy to obey you.  You don’t yell.  You don’t threaten.  You just tell him and he does it.”

          “It’s a gift.”

 

 “This is Chief Zachary Roman with the Coldwater PD in Florida.  I’m trying to reach a Tony Camparella.  Is he available or may I leave a message?”

          “What’s the message?” the accent was New England, maybe Boston, but the phone number Roman had dialed was in Wyoming.

          “I’m calling in reference to a Colette Banister.”

          “Shit.  Fucking Hell.  This is my first vacation in seven fucking years.  How many are dead?”

          “What?”
          “Dead.  Deceased.  Is it a serial killer or just an isolated murder spree?”

          “Mr. Camparella, I seem to be missing something.”

          “Call me Camp, every body does.  You say you’re missing someone?  Boys?  Girls?  Both?”

          “I’m investigating a robbery.”

          Silence, then a grunt.

          “Ms. Banister seems to have noticed some things that no one else did.”

          “A-yup.  That’s Colette for you.”

          “Mister  – Campy, Colette listed you as a reference.  I’m calling to verify your acquaintance with her.”

          Another silence.  Then Camp’s voice deepened, like a guard dog about to lunge. “Last time I looked, Chief Zachary Roman, there wasn’t a section on a police report for references.  You want to cut the crap.  Your number has been logged and this entire phone call has been recorded.  You want to talk to me about Colette; you go through the proper fucking channels.  If the Bureau thinks you’re worth wasting my fucking vacation time on, they’ll patch you through.”

          “Bureau?”

          “The fucking Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Most assholes refer to it as the FB-fucking-I, but if you need me to spell it for you, you can kiss my ass.”

          Chief was holding the phone away from his ear and everyone within the station heard the click if not the actual conversation.

          “Hey, Chief?” Monty was twenty years old and full of himself.

          “What?” Roman sighed as he hung up.

          “How come the only adverb Yankees know is fuck?”

          Roman grunted.

          Sybil, his secretary snapped, “Because they don’t have a chief that’ll snatch a knot in your head if you don’t keep a civil tongue in this office.  Your momma’s gonna hear from me if you ever say that word again.”

          “Yes, ma’am.  Don’t tell my momma.”

          Twenty years old and still afraid of shaming his momma.  Roman smiled.

Excerpt from

Follow the Bees

© Evelyn Rainey

Available for publication.

Excerpt from The Island Remains Chapter Three

April 1944

 

The moonlight lit a thin trail into the trees just beyond the flower gardens but before the vegetable gardens.  It was a cool night, but warm enough for only his jacket.  Karl followed the path, enjoying his solitude.  Night sounds filled his ears and the scent of lavender lingered.

He didn’t see her until she shifted on the garden bench nestled in a cove of trees.  He walked to her hidden refuge and stood before her.  Her hair was braided down her right side.  An aquamarine stole draped her shoulders, although the color was hard to define in the moonlight.  Her legs were covered with a woven skirt and her feet shod in those sheep skin boots she’d worn two days earlier.

“You are out after curfew.”

She released a deep sigh.  “I often am.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“It’s too beautiful a night to be trapped indoors.”

“Trapped – in a warm bed with your husband?” A branch shifted in the light breeze and moonlight caressed her cheeks.  “You’d rather sit on a cold bench in the garden than be in bed with him?”

“I’d rather be up on my parapet, gazing out to sea.”

“De la mair.”

She looked at the ground rather than continue being locked in his gaze.  “Yes.  My husband named me the lady who came from the sea.”

He sat beside her. “So, Stabsrichter Sizemore – I hear you call him Captain Luther – tells me your brother-in-law’s daughter’s child is not the only German bastard born here.”

“What a harsh word – bastard.”

“They are not married.  It is the correct term.”

“They are not legally married because you Germans have forbidden it.  But they are married – one flesh – personified in their baby.”

“How romantic.” He leaned back and stretched his arm along the back of the bench. “It is quite peaceful here.”

“Jacob loved it.  This was his favorite place.”

“Were you lovers?”

She turned to face him.  “No.  No, nothing like that.  He missed his wife every moment.”

“He told me you weren’t his mistress, but sometimes a man will lie to protect a woman he loves.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Lie to protect someone you love.”

He stretched his legs out in front of him and studied her face.  “A man of honor may refrain from telling the truth, but he would rarely lie.”

“And are you a man of honor?”

He started to trace his fingertips around her right shoulder, slowly pulling her closer to him.  When she began to resist, he whispered, “I want you.”

She stiffened.  “No.”

“Yes.  I do.  I think I always have, since time began.”

She blinked and breathed deeply.  The smell of him, the warmth of him, his gentle words filled her with a dangerous yearning.

He cupped her face with his left hand while drawing her closer with his right arm firmly around her shoulders.  “You want me, too.  I see it in your eyes when you look at me.  I feel it on your skin when you are near. You want me to know every inch of you.”

“Stop.” Panicked that she might not be able to resist him, she tried to stand but he wouldn’t let her.  “Let me go.  Karl, let me go!”

She covered her face with her hands; the rope burn scars were brilliant in the moonlight.

He released her.  “I’m sorry.  Delamair, forgive me.  I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She stood and straightened her skirt.  In a cold voice which masked her heat, she assured him, “I told you, nothing frightens me.  Good night.”

#

He was finalizing the morning’s work when he heard men whispering in obvious delight.  He followed the sound and discovered three soldiers hanging out the window, staring at something behind the kitchen.

“Look, there’s another one.”

“I bet it’s silk.  It sways like silk.”

“If I could, I’d buy her a red negligée, just to watch her hang it out.”

“That’s not all I’d want her to do with a red silk –“

The oberst cleared his throat.

Three startled soldiers spun around and saluted.

“The women of this academy are not to be molested in any way.”

They stared ahead, blinking in embarrassment.

“Report to Stabsfeldwebel Danon and tell him you are to have extra duties for a week.  Dismissed.”

They clicked their heels and marched quickly out of the room.

The scent of lavender teased him.  He stuck his head out the window.  Delamair stood below him behind the kitchen, pinning beautiful things to the clothes line.  He grinned and headed down to join her.

She heard him approach but continued with her laundry.  “We were given this spot to hang our personal items, so your men wouldn’t ogle them.”

“I needed to make sure you weren’t hanging out nauchrichten - signal flags.”  He reached out one finger and ran it lightly down the white negligée. “Silk signal flags.”

She glared at him, her cheeks tinged with embarrassment.

He reached for a camisole and fingered the lace.  “I remember this one.  You had it on underneath the olive blouse Sunday.”  He pulled it to his face and sniffed.  “You bent over.  It was quite pretty; your breasts – plump against the silk.”  He released the camisole.  “Your husband never noticed.  He never does.”

Her eyes widened and she swallowed.

“I like that you blush.  So few women do.”  He turned away, unpinned the camisole, and took it with him.

Excerpt from

The Island Remains

© Evelyn Rainey

Whiskey Creek Publishing

ISBN tba June 2014

SQUASH EN CASSEROLE

4 cups diced yellow squash

1 ½ cup diced celery

¾ cups chopped olives (note- the recipe did not specify black or green, so go for it according to your taste)

3 Tbsp diced onion

1 cup spaghetti rings or finely broken spaghetti (note – use gluten-free noodles or try rice noodles)

1 cup tomato soup

2 Tbsp butter/margarine

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 ½ tsp salt

¾ cup water

Combine squash, celery, olives, onion and spaghetti; place in casserole. Combine remaining ingredients; pour over squash mixture. Bake at 275 to 300 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until done. Yield: 6 servings.

(Jodie A. Desler, St. Petersburg, FL© Southern Living 1968)

Gluten-free and Vegetarian/Vegan Recipes

To meet my needs of being “gluten-free”, there are no ingredients that have wheat in them. Since one out of one-hundred people now have problems with the way the United States processes their foods, there are plenty of brands which are marked GF Gluten-free. However, read all the way around the label and determine if there might be traces of wheat or if the product was processed in a plant or on machinery that also handles wheat. (These statements are usually NOT found near the list of ingredients.) If this is the case and you are gluten-sensitive or have a wheat-toxicity, don’t use it!

I also deleted recipes which called for hidden gluten – like shrimp, frozen mangoes and parsnips.

Vegetarian foods allow the use of milk, honey, eggs, and other non-kill animal products; vegans do not. I have endeavored to post only recipes with vegan-appropriate ingredients. If I really liked something, though, that was vegetarian rather than vegan, I will note it.

Whenever possible, use non-GMO products (non-genetically modified).  If you think gmo’s are ok for you, you haven’t read any science fiction books, let alone Charles Darwin.

These recipes are not an attempt to substitute wheat or animal ingredients with something else. These recipes are “naturally” or originally gluten-free and vegetarian/vegan.

Excerpt from Close Your Eyes Chapter Three

          It took them thirty minutes trying to make sense of the lanes and rows in the cemetery.  Finally, they decided to just go right to left, south to north until they found the correct section.  The gravestones were gray marble, with blackened engraving; a large one for Hugh spanning two plots, and a small one with an angel carved into the head of it.  There was a bouquet of faded silk flowers between the two, and a tattered American flag on the military foot marker.

“Where’s Nancy Drew when you need her?”  Beverly stared at the tiny grave marker.

“Who?”

Beverly’s mouth fell open.  She was about to snarl at him when he burst out laughing. 

“You’re a little upset about this age thing, aren’t you.”

          “Not at all.”  Beverly knelt down and held herself steady on the marble stone.  “Nothing wrong with my doctor being an entire decade younger than me.  You’re a lot younger than most of your patients.” 

“You are upset about it.”

“Nonsense.  Once you’ve given me a physical, you can mow my yard and deliver the morning papers on your schwinn bicycle.”

“Ouch!  I’m going to go tell my mommy!”

“Can I help you?”  The sound of the old man’s voice startled them both.  It was the man from the café.

Beverly and Patrick looked up at him, speechless.  The man pointed at the marker, “Did you know the family?”

Beverly recovered quickly, “I’m fascinated by cemeteries.  I know that sounds weird, but each gravestone represents an entire life, lived to the fullest, or snuffed out in infancy.  Like this one.  This little girl was only nine when she died.  I can’t help wonder what she might have become, had she lived.  And I assume this was her father?  The military foot stone lists some very impressive medals.  Do you think he died during Viet Nam?”

Patrick blinked at her and closed his mouth.

“God in His wisdom meets out only a certain number of days to each of us.  The days should be used for His purpose alone.  Little Beverly was perfect, and it only took a few years on Earth for her to redeem her soul and be whisked off to heaven.”

Patrick put his arm around Beverly’s waist, drawing her protectively close to him.

“Now, this one here,” the old man pointed to Hugh’s grave.  “I figure God finally decided that no matter how many years Hugh spent on Earth, he would never come close to being saved, so God let Satan have him.”

“We didn’t mean any disrespect.”  Patrick tugged Beverly off the grave area.  “You obviously knew this family.”

He nodded, “My sister’s husband and child.” 

“Your sister?”  Beverly realized her voice was too high, but she felt she had to say something – anything.  This man was her uncle and she had no idea he existed before today. “Did she ever remarry –I mean, she was widowed very young.” 

“I don’t know.  I went to prison in 1970.  Never heard from her.  By the time I got out in 95, she’d disappeared.  Can’t say I blame her.”  The old man smiled sweetly.  “Going to prison was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I was a carpenter by trade before my arrest.  In prison, I found Jesus and was saved.  I took courses and got my college degree.  I came out of prison a new man; a real carpenter.  I’m Reverend Roman Ross.  Quite a mouthful, I know.”  He smiled again and stuck out his right hand.

“Dr. Patrick Eoghan,” he took the old man’s hand.  “And this is – my friend, Wanda.”

Beverly cringed at the obvious lie, but took the man’s hand, too.  “I was raised to believe that all are able to be saved.  Why do you have such a harsh opinion of your brother-in-law?”

“He was a killer.  He liked to kill.  He was good at it.” Roman looked down at his leather shoes and continued.  “He was the perfect soldier for any army.  He used to think Viet Nam was created solely for his pleasure.  He joined up at eighteen, at the end of the Korean Conflict, and they recognized his potential.  Teddy always thought that having their little girl would domesticate him.  Teddy’s my sister.  But it didn’t.  The day little Beverly died was –“ he shook his head.  “Satan couldn’t have created a worse punishment for Hugh.  That was the end of any hope of salvation for him.”

“I had no idea,” Beverly’s voice shook with repressed tears.  She glanced up at Roman.  “I mean, you look at these head stones, and you wonder about the lives they lived, but you never really know.”

“Just names carved in stone,” he agreed.  “I guess we both know that names are meaningless.”

Beverly stared up at him, but he didn’t drop his eyes.  Patrick stepped between them and stuck out his hand.  “Nice to meet you, Reverend.  We’ll leave you alone now.”

Patrick took Beverly by the hand and turned them away.

“Why were you here?  Really?”

Beverly turned back and blushed.  “We’re rose rustlers.”  She reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of snips.  “I collect tea-roses, which used to be popular in the late 1800’s, but are hard to find now because the hybrids have become so easy to sell.  So I stop at old cemeteries and take cuttings from any rose bushes I might find.  I take them home and I propagate them.”

Roman reached out and took the clippers.  Studying them, he repeated, “Rose rustlers?  Doesn’t sound legal.”

“I’m very careful.  Trimming the bushes is actually good for them.  Most old cemeteries are abandoned now-a-days.  I hate that the old tea-roses are dying off from neglect.”  She held out her hand to retrieve the clippers.  Roman hesitated, but then placed them in her palm.

“You ever feel like visiting a church, I’m the pastor at Beulah Pines Missionary Baptist.  Right down the street, past the post office and next to the fire station.”  His eyes seemed to plead with Beverly.  “Door’s always open.”

She nodded, afraid to try to speak.

Excerpt from

Close Your Eyes

© Evelyn Rainey

Available for publication.

Excerpt from Bedina's War - As Needed Chapter Three

My Childhood

From The Memoirs of Dyshena Tupelo

I suppose the best place to begin my autobiography is with my

birth and continue from there. This chapter shouldn’t take long.

I was born one-hundred-forty years ago. As this is now 60 New

Alliance Era, I hope you can figure out the year of my birth.

I was born into a large clan on GandhiLab; seven brothers, twelve

sisters from multiple parents. My mother had two husbands; each of

my fathers had had previous wives. I was blessed with a contented

childhood. I took the Exam at age six and survived. I never realized

until much later how many of us did not survive the Exam. Their

names expunged from DataLab; their faces forgotten by their friends.

The Exam was a great wrong. I’m glad it has been eradicated.

I grew up in a time of peace. As I developed, I became a voracious

lover of political intrigue. I learned languages and customs as easily as

I learned to free-fall or type.

I loved GandhiLab. Perhaps all men love their homeland as

passionately. There is an emptiness within me where she used to

exist. No matter what I do, nor what I’ve done, I can never again walk

GandhiLab’s corridors, rest in her fall spaces, work in her gardens. I

have never loved anything as deeply as I loved my home. No, not even

my wife; and I was a fool in love for her.

You might ponder how a man could love a place more than he could

a woman. It is a different kind of love, and yet, the loss of GandhiLab

is greater and more terrible than the loss of my wife or the loss of my

one true friend.

But I get ahead of myself.

Birth, the Exam, childhood, adolescence. Yes, here we are. Puberty

 

 

 

 

 

 

hit me late but hard. I grew much taller than anyone else in my clan.

Hard to believe it now, shrunken with age as I’ve become, but by my

twenty-first birthday, I was 1.75 meters, a good head taller than anyone

else I knew.

I remember the first time I met the woman who later became my

wife. “You lying son of a whore, you’re much too tall to be a sp’lab!”

She called me a sp’lab to my face. I think that was the first time

in my life I’d heard that label applied to me personally. As the years

passed, she called me Space Lab National or Spa’Lab to my face, but I

have always believed that nothing I could say or do would ever change

her opinion of my people.

I began training for the Diplomatic Corp at puberty. My first off-

Lab assignments went well.

As I mentioned, I was taller than most Spa’Labs, and I discovered

I could infiltrate where others could only intimidate. Dye my hair, pop

in colored contacts, and I could pass as any Commonwealth Native the

Corp needed me to be.

I learned a lot in my travels, but what baffled me most were the

prejudices that kept us apart. Sayings have grown up as if to excuse the

prejudices:

Sp’lab kept secrets.

Blind as a Coustevean.

Awkward as an Andovean’s handshake.

Harmless as an Erinyes’ Child.

The first seven generations born on Cousteau were blind, due to

too pure a ratio of oxygen in the underwater biospheres.

Andoveans have two sets of palms with four fingers on each

hand.

Erinyes’ Child.

The old man looked away from his keypad and studied his companion’s

face. Ageless, she looked no more than seventeen. Harmless. She looked

meek and mild and naïve and angelic.

He shook his head and turned back to his keypad.

I wonder, as you read this, if you have ever heard of Erinyes. The

first scripture an Erinyes child is taught is To learn how to live, one must

 

 

 

 

 

first learn to die. And like the Exam Space Lab Nationals forced upon

their children, Erinyes natives subject their children to the Death. At

age five, they are placed in suspended animation while centuries of

knowledge are imprinted on their brains. The process takes thirty years,

but their bodies do not age. Only their souls. The next thirty years are

spent in physical training. By the end of the Dance, as the second thirty

years is called, their bodies have seemingly aged only a decade.

“What are you staring at?” Acacia had put down her weaving and

was smiling at her master.

“An angel. I’m smiling at my angel.”

“Save what you have written and come to bed.” She stood up and

stretched.

“You look like your grandfather when you smile. Have I told you

that?” He pressed the proper sequence of keys and the keypad was

camouflaged by the desks’ marble surface.

“Many times.” She stroked his cheek. “But it pleases me to hear it.”

Excerpt from

Bedina’s War

© Evelyn Rainey

Comfort Publishing

ISBN 9781936695881

TOSSED APPLE-SPINACH SALAD

1 pound fresh spinach

1 ½ cups cored diced apples

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

2 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp salad oil

¼ tsp seasoned salt

¼ tsp Worcestershire sauce

 1 tsp sugar

Remove stems and large ribs from spinach,; tear larger leaves. Wash and drain. Place in large covered saucepan and stem 1 to 2 minutes or just until slightly wilted. Use no additional water. Drain off any liquid from spinach. Place in salad bowl with diced unpared apples and onion rings. Combine remaining ingredients pour over salad and toss lightly. Yield: 6 servings

(no one was given the by-line for this recipe from © Southern Living 1968)

·        I don’t get the need to wilt the spinach. I’d do this with fresh raw leaves.

Gluten-free and Vegetarian/Vegan Recipes

To meet my needs of being “gluten-free”, there are no ingredients that have wheat in them. Since one out of one-hundred people now have problems with the way the United States processes their foods, there are plenty of brands which are marked GF Gluten-free. However, read all the way around the label and determine if there might be traces of wheat or if the product was processed in a plant or on machinery that also handles wheat. (These statements are usually NOT found near the list of ingredients.) If this is the case and you are gluten-sensitive or have a wheat-toxicity, don’t use it!

I also deleted recipes which called for hidden gluten – like shrimp, frozen mangoes and parsnips.

Vegetarian foods allow the use of milk, honey, eggs, and other non-kill animal products; vegans do not. I have endeavored to post only recipes with vegan-appropriate ingredients. If I really liked something, though, that was vegetarian rather than vegan, I will note it.

Whenever possible, use non-GMO products (non-genetically modified).  If you think gmo’s are ok for you, you haven’t read any science fiction books, let alone Charles Darwin.

These recipes are not an attempt to substitute wheat or animal ingredients with something else. These recipes are “naturally” or originally gluten-free and vegetarian/vegan.

Perkys Books and Gifts - Book Trailer