And so yeah, the world was supposed to come to an end yesterday but…we’re still here. That meant, I actually HAD to go Christmas shopping.

Damn the Mayans!

🙂

Endings come in all varieties… Permanent. Temporary. Forced. Gradual. One-sided. Relationships. Jobs. School. Friendships. Life. Years. Sometimes an ending is very sad and sometimes it’s worthy of celebration. There are those of us who fight endings, as well…

Then again, there’s the fun kinda ending… Like, for example, a tirade.

Snippet: (from my story, Small Town Famous in the Cowboy Lust anthology)

“What’n the hell were you thinkin’, Bethann?”

“I was thinkin’ that little bitch better keep her hands off of my man.”

Tommy sighed and tried so hard not to smile. He needed to stay stern with her. “You can’t go ‘round town totin’ your shotgun like that. You shoulda known the sheriff would lock you up.”

She scowled. “He only caught me ‘cause it was his precious little princess I was aimin’ at. Well that and someone called him. When I find out who, you better believe I’m gonna to tan their hide. ‘ll be lucky if I don’t fill with it buckshot.”

Tommy shook his head at the woman behind the black iron bars. She sat on the bench on the far side of the cell with her arms crossed over her chest and her right leg crossed over her left, just a swingin’. Bethann was spittin’ mad.

He’d been in love with her all his life and she with him, and never once in all their eighteen years together had she ever acted like this.

He slid his arms through the bars and linked his fingers. “Why are you so jealous all of a sudden?”

“Jealous? You think I’m jealous?” Bethann stood faster than lightning and stomped her way across the concrete floor to stand nose to nose with him. “Jealous ain’t got nothin’ to do with it Tommy Martin.”

“Then what does it have to do with? What’s gotten into you?”

She tilted her chin in defiance, but it was just for show. “You like her, and I’m tired of her sniffin’ around what ain’t hers. Time for her to go back to wherever it is she came from.”

If Tommy hadn’t seen it for himself, he would’ve never believed it. Bethann Pritchard was pouting. “I like ever’ body, baby.” By her deepening scowl, that didn’t even come close to appeasing her.

She kicked out at one of the bars. “But I see how you look at her.”

Tommy reached up and pushed his cowboy hat back on his head. He wanted to make sure he got a real good look at his woman during this conversation. He also wanted to make sure she could look him in the eyes without any hint of shadow or obstruction. “And how do I look at her?”

Bethann dropped her gaze to the floor and dug the toe of her scuffed boot into a divot in the floor. “Like you want her,” she mumbled.

He eyed her skeptically. “Uh huh. Is that all?”

Her head whipped up so quick Tommy nearly had to take a step back. “Is that all? Ain’t that enough?”

“Well, in all honesty here, I was expecting a little more than that. That’s not enough for you to go carryin’ your daddy’s double barrel down Main Street in the middle of the day, scarin’ the nice folks.”

“Every single person in this town knows me, and I didn’t scare anyone. Well, except for her. I don’t like the way you look at her ass in those little cut-off shorts and those tiny shirts. It’s a wonder she wears anything at all. There’d be more left to the imagination if she were naked.”

He contemplated her, his back teeth gnawing on the inside of his cheek, his mind doing everything it could think of to keep him from smiling. “So, is it that you’re jealous because I look at her ass, which is kinda hard to miss when she puts it in my face, or is it because you wish you were still that young?”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Your eyes are a bit more green than usual, babydoll.” From the look on his lover’s face, Tommy was pretty damn glad to have the jail cell bars separating them. Where Bethann’s temper was concerned, he knew a blessing when he saw it, and her not being able to get a hand on him when he made his confession was a definite one.

Before he opened his mouth again, he made sure to take a few steps away from her grasp. “I’m the one who called the sheriff.”

“You what?” Her body went perfectly still and her voice had dropped low, menacing.

He would pay for this when she was released and they got home. The narrowing of her eyes told him that, but he’d already known it the second he placed the call. “I called him and told him he needed to come get you.”

“You? You had him put me in jail?”

Even though her eyes had narrowed and she was still speaking in that low tone that scared the bejesus out of everyone who knew her, he wouldn’t show fear and he wouldn’t back down. “I did.”

“Why?”

“It’s his daughter you’re jealous of and his daughter you brought the shotgun outta hock for. You’re out of control.”

She sneered. “You don’t know the meanin’ of out of control, but you just wait. When I get outta here, I’m gonna—”

God, she was full of piss and vinegar and there wasn’t a woman on the planet who could hold a candle to her. He was so whipped. “No. This will be resolved while you’re in there. I’m done walkin’ on eggshells with you whenever another woman is in the same three feet of space I am. We’re gonna settle this here and now.”

end Snippet

Now, while I get some much needed writing in, you should take some time to visit the following blogs for more Endings…

Rhian Cahill
Myla Jackson
Caris Roane
McKenna Jeffries
Taige Crenshaw
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker
Delilah Devlin
Eliza Gayle
Lauren Dane
Felicity Heaton
TJ Michaels

~lissa