Relaxed Friday 23

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Photo by Leonardo Valente

~ Jessica Marie Holt ~
(sharing a favorite scene from a WIP)
Pa,” Louis said gently. 
“Yes, son?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should never be sorry about telling the truth.”
There was a long silence. Then Louis spoke again. “Pa, I’m taking the position.”
Pa nodded. “As you should.”
“Really? You’re not upset about it?”
Pa puffed on his pipe. “Right is right. It don’t really matter how I feel about it.”
“But Pa–” 
“You just do a good job, son, and never give him a reason to doubt your character.”
“Yes, sir.” Louis exhaled slowly into the evening air. “Pa?”
“Yes?”
“I plan to marry Nellie. She’s already agreed.”
Pa smiled, and his eyes flickered in the lamplight. “Is that a fact?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’.”
“I’d like your blessing.”
Pa sent a few more rings of smoke upward toward the porch roof. “Well, you have it. Nellie’s a good woman. I hope . . .” Pa shifted in his seat and gazed up into the sky. “I hope you have a good long life together.” He put his pipe back in his teeth and said nothing more. The two of them sat until the sky darkened into a gray void pierced with twinkling stars, and the trees turned into looming black shadows in the distance.

~ Scott R. Rezer ~
From my current WIP, The Haberdasher’s Wife… 
The sting of her brother’s rebuke was like a slap across her face. She hadn’t planned to do as he said, but it hurt that he thought she would. They had never been close. They had rarely ever spoken together alone except in the presence of other family members. She knew nothing would ever draw them close. They were just too different. Despite their differences, they both shared their father’s stubborn willfulness.
“I admit we have never been close, Anton, but I would never do something so cruel as to expose your secret for my own gain, no matter what you may think of me,” she said, emboldened by her words. “If anything, I hoped it might make you amenable to the offer I wish to make to you.”
“What kind of offer? An offer of money?” he asked, a dark, thin eyebrow arching, intrigued. A hopeful gleam registered in his calculating eyes.
She stepped closer, arms crossed. Steeling her resolve, she lifted her chin, letting her hands drop to rest protectively on her belly. “As head of our family, I want you to stand as my child’s sponsor at its baptism. And by so doing, taking on the full responsibilities of a godfather in all its conditions. I’m told by old women who claim to know such things that I carry a son. If so, I wish to have him named after Father.”

~ Laurean Brooks ~
(sharing an excerpt from Not What He Ordered)
Josh was trailing Carrie. And she didn’t like it. Did he think she was a thief–that she would steal a fancy dress from Carina’s Style shop? Or that she would pocket an item or two from Woods’s mercantile? The shimmery pink fabric sprinkled with baby blue flowers was the only thing that had caught her eye.
Why didn’t Josh just come out and accuse her? He’d stuck to her like a tick to a dog. When he wasn’t breathing down her neck, he was no more than a holler away.
Carrie decided to give him a dose of his own medicine. “You insisted on following me to the dress shop. I noticed you didn’t buy anything either. You didn’t even look at the merchandise, except when you checked the price tag on that expensive green dress.”
He’d walked the aisles to keep her in sight. Like he was doing now. She squirmed under his dark gaze like a jackrabbit caught in the sights of a rifle. It was as if he could see through to her soul.
“No, I didn’t buy anything.” He clapped a hand to his face, arched his back, and spoke in a falsetto voice, “Sonja didn’t have a single dress that flattered my figure.” Carrie giggled in spite of herself.