In honor of Father’s Day, I’m celebrating all dads and would like to share the Lessons I Learned From Dad.

You could’ve called my Dad an ordinary man. He didn’t come from royal bloodlines and wasn’t a town leader or famous athlete or a super star.

He was Dad.

Those three little letters, D-A-D, represented the world in a small child’s eyes. My eyes.

An ordinary man committed to providing for and supporting his family. He didn’t have hobbies. Sure, he enjoyed a cold beer and an NFL football game. But his family was his life.

He was a humble man at heart. Unaware of how much goodness and strength he’d instilled in his children. I doubt he realized the life lessons he taught us without meaning to. The life lessons, we caught and understood from his daily actions. How he distinguished right from wrong and the essence of being an honorable, tolerant, forgiving human being. I want to share a few lessons I learned from Dad.

Lesson One

You can do anything just because you are YOU!

Everything you need to succeed is already inside of you. I can remember asking Dad if he thought that I could do something. His reply was always, “Of course, you can. You’re an Armstrong. You can do anything.”

He breathed belief into his kids by making them proud of their last name. Proud of the stock they came from. The words, “Of course, you can,” flowed out of him with enough sincerity and conviction that you knew deep down in your heart that they were true.

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Lesson Two

People can only tear you down, if you let them.

Like every little kid, I went to my dad with my scrapes and bruises. Some of the hardest scrapes and scars to fix are the ones that happen in our heart, or within our mind. I would come to my dad with those too. Sometimes, he told me to toughen up. Mostly, he told me, “Don’t let them beat you. They can only win if you let them.”

He told me things like, “It’s going to be okay. You’re tougher than you think.” And my favorite, “Don’t worry, they can’t eat you. Only the IRS can eat you.”

The underlying message was always the same. You can do it.

Lesson Three

See the possibilities within everyday situations by seeing what is possible when no one else can.

My dad worked in construction for over fifty years. He built amazing things. From  hospitals, to high schools, to hotels, to homes. He could look at a broken building or barren strip of land and see possibilities. I’d watch and think, “You’re not going to fix that.” And the project would take shape and grow into a finished product.

He was the guy they called in when a job had gone horribly wrong or was not going to finish on time. When it was high pressure, and millions of dollars on the line if a hotel didn’t open in time, Dad was your man. He always came through.

He was a make-a-way, find-a-way kind of man. He saw the possibilities and offered solutions when others only saw failure. He passed that skill down to his children. Especially his boys, who have gone on to build great things also.

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Lesson Four

No matter what, your family loves and believes in you.

I’m not sure how I know this. I cannot place my finger on what my parents said to make me hold this as a fact. But I know in my heart, if I had to, I could’ve always gone home if things got bad.

At the same time, there have been times when I have wanted to go home, lick my wounds and stay within the safe comfort of my parents’ home but my dad said no.

He told me to stay, face my situation, stick with it or fight for what was right. Those were some of the hardest times for me. I know it was hard for my dad to tell me no, but those situations were also growing times for me.

One of those times, I was twenty-two, six months pregnant and alone in Germany. My husband was deployed to the Middle East and the Army didn’t give a date for his return.

I wanted to go home. I remember calling my dad and crying to him over the phone. Telling him, “I can’t do it. I can’t handle being alone. I’m scared. I don’t want to have this baby on my own.”

He replied in that slow, easy way of his. His voice full of love but not allowing for doubt. “Dee Ann,” he told me, “You’re going to have this baby. There’s no going back on that.” He chuckled. Not a funny ha-ha chuckle but a good natured, everything will be okay chuckle that I can still hear. His voice turned fatherly-firm and he added, “But you can do this. You need to be there in case your husband comes home.”

I stayed. An ocean away from family. It was hard. It was lonely.

My husband came home. Two weeks before our little girl was born. If I had taken the easy way and gone home to Colorado, my husband and I wouldn’t have been together for the birth of our first child.

I’m thankful for Dad’s advice.

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Lesson Five

Sometimes people do not like you when you make them stretch and grow out of their comfort zone.

Growing up, I thought my dad was wonderful. He was kind and loving. Who wouldn’t like him?

I remember visiting one of my dad’s jobs in Vail, Colorado. He was building a hotel. A big, beautiful hotel located at the base of the mountain. Skiers would be able to ski down the slope right to their hotel room.

In my eyes, it was a big deal and my dad was making it possible. On every job site the only bathroom was a Port-a-potty. Not a big deal. This time, I went into the Port-a-potty and came out with an education.

On the walls inside people wrote what they thought of my dad by using four letter words and vocabulary I shouldn’t have understood. I ran out shouting, “Dad, Dad, you won’t believe what it says about you on the walls of the Port-a-potty. It’s not nice.”

Dad laughed. He walked with me, slowing his gate to match my smaller stride. “Dee Ann,” he told me, “sometimes people don’t want to hear that they have to do it again or do it right. They get upset when I tell them to fix things. Don’t worry about it.”

He brushed his huge hand across my head. Laughed and walked away to an elevator shaft with his voice booming out commands. I watched as my dad—decades older than any man on his crew and a hip that couldn’t bend—climbed into that shaft.

In front of me, stood two workers watching. One told the other that he wouldn’t go in there. Too dangerous.

My heart shifted into overdrive. I held my breath. I watched. I waited to see if my father would be okay.

My father held onto the edge of the of the shaft, leaned into the empty hole and evaluated the situation. Together, the men and my dad figured out how to make the elevator work. He didn’t have to climb in to help. He was the boss. But he did.

As an adult, I realize my dad knew what was written in the Port-a-potty. He used it everyday. He didn’t let it change how he viewed his crew. He worked along side his men and completed the job the right way and on time.

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Lesson Six

Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Even the little jobs, the ones you think don’t matter. Those jobs are the most important because YOU will know if you did it right or not.

All the kids in my family helped on my Dad’s jobs. Some of us were more skilled than others. I was always on clean up crew or in the office. No job was too small to Dad. Every job was important and his kids started with the grunt work and worked their way up.

Grunt work was my specialty when I was younger. My dad handed me a broom or vacuum, a rag and a razor blade and told me to get to work.

I used the razor blade to remove excess caulk or paint from the windows. I cleaned up and made sure the job shined. Dad would inspect behind me, telling me, like he told everyone else, where to fix it and how to do it better.

On one job, the vacuum and I became best buddies. I named the vacuum Freddy. With Freddy in tow, I sucked up dirt and sheetrock dust. I picked up trash, cleaned and washed windows. I learned how to pay attention to details. Everyday, Dad drove me home and I climbed into bed exhausted. I kept at it under my dad’s watchful eye with a typical teenager attitude. Rolling my eyes at how unimportant my job was. Who would really notice if there was a little paint on the windows?

Until the day my dad’s boss walked through the job.

The boss praised me on how clean the job site looked and what a great job did. My dad smiled and said, “That’s my daughter.”

The boss replied, “Of course she is, Dale. I should’ve known.”

That day, I learned how important it was to do your best. That day, I learned how my actions reflected on my family. That day, I felt my dad’s pride wash over me.

How different that memory would be if I didn’t give it may all, if my dad hadn’t inspected what he expected from me.

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Lesson Seven

Be truthful and honest with people. Even when they don’t want to hear it. Even if it will hurt the one you love.

Dad was a great guy. You knew where you stood with dad. If you messed up, he’d tell you. To him, all men and women were created equal.

One time, Dad was called in to meet with the big bosses. He didn’t put on a suit or his best jeans. He’d walk with his distinctive gait into a fancy boardroom wearing his work boots, faded Levis and a work shirt over his Hanes white t-shirt. His hip didn’t bend, so he would sit crooked in his chair, slightly angled back.

The boss asked questions. The heads of the other jobs wanted to please their boss and gave the answers they thought he wanted.

Dad remained quiet.

After everyone had their say, the boss asked, “So, what do you think, Dale?”

My dad never minced words. He said it how he saw it, whether it was what the boss wanted to hear or not. He knew it was what the boss needed to hear to finish the job. Because of Dad’s honesty and straight answers, the Boss realized he could trust him. And that trust turned into a life long friendship.

As an adult, I learned to never call Dad unless you wanted the bare truth. If you wanted things sugar coated he was not the one to ask. In exchange, I valued his opinion. I knew he’d tell it to me straight and then I could make my own decisions with his input.

Lesson Eight

Always have a place to think.

Dad had his garage. The large metal structure was his place to detox, have time to himself or to think. It was his domain and his world. A place where he could contemplate or just be.

As a child, his garage was a quiet place for me to talk to him about my problems. He never criticized. He’d say, “You think so, Dee Ann?” Then he would state how he felt. He didn’t argue his point. He let me come to a conclusion on my own.

As time went on and I grew into an adult, I had adult decisions to make. Then Dad started to say, “I can’t answer that for you. You’ll have to make that decision on your own.” He knew I’d have to live with the consequences of my decisions. I learned to have a place to think.

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Lesson Nine

Never speak badly about your spouse and never allow your children to speak badly about their mother to you.

When my dad spoke the words, “To love, honor and cherish till death do us part” he meant those words. He made a sacred oath to his wife, himself and to God. He showed me that if you love someone, you love all of them, the good and the bad.

Let me clarify. If you’re in an abusive marriage, my dad wouldn’t have told you to stay. He would’ve helped you.

I could come to my dad about anything, except to criticize my mother. I remember coming to my dad once in my teen years full of anger and self-importance. Telling him how wrong my mother was. How she didn’t know anything. He shut me down mid-sentence. He didn’t have time for that kind of talk. He sent me on my way, my ears ringing from the heat in his words.

My dad wasn’t a man of many words until it came to defending his wife. My parents were a united front, a team. I learned that marriage is a team effort with give and take on both sides. My parents celebrated fifty-five years of marriage before my father passed.

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Lesson Ten

The greatest lesson I learned was perseverance.

My dad had Perthes Disease as a child. He was diagnosed in the third grade and missed the last two weeks of school. The bones in his hip dissolved and he had an operation in which the doctors chipped part of the bone out of his right leg and placed that bone and a pin in his left hip.

Once he left the hospital, he spent a year in a body cast. Spent almost all of fourth grade in bed. His mother used to take old irons and hang them off his foot to help straighten his legs. This was in the Forties.

He missed two years of school. His mother home schooled him and a teacher came in to give him tests. He was remembered by Dr. Hall, as the patient who never complained.

When my dad was thirteen, his father wasn’t feeling well and returned from doctor visit. The plan was, his father would change out of his work clothes and return to the hospital for more tests.

His father sat down on the couch to talk with him. In the middle of their conversation, his father had a massive stroke. A blood clot had worked its way up to his brain. His father passed away before help could arrive.

When I was in the fourth grade, my dad worked on a construction site in Wyoming. He was unloading sheetrock from a truck. The wind caught the sheetrock and slammed it against his head and neck. He was partly paralyzed on the right side.

He had a wife and five children to support. My mom worked but her income wasn’t enough. He subsidized their income by trucking water until he regained control of the movement on his right side. For the rest of his life, on an almost daily basis, he suffered from migraines.

I always found comfort in walking with my dad. His slowed gate, the way his body swayed. My dad walked with a limp and his foot had completely turned inward so that he walked on the outside of his foot instead of the bottom. He had to send his work boots out to be built up to enable him to walk. He didn’t care, he always showed me his ‘spiffy’ new shoes.

Some people might have considered my dad handicapped. Not him or his family.

I never heard my dad complain, he always said, “That’s just the way it was.”

So, I’ve changed my mind. My dad was an extra-ordinary man. An extraordinary man, who kept moving forward no matter what life dealt him. To me he was a king, the leader of our family, an athlete who conquered injuries and a super star on the stage of my life.

Today, I realize how extremely blessed I was to be able to pick up a phone and call him anytime I wanted. When we ended our conversations he would tell me, “I love you.” Three simple words that warmed a heart.

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And the final lesson.

Always tell your children I love you before saying goodbye.

I hope you enjoyed, Lessons I learned from Dad. What lessons did you learn from your dad? Or what lessons are you handing down to your children?

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Deep in Black Oak County, Tennessee, there is a secret place where songwriters go to find success. I’m not supposed to know of this place, but I met a songwriter—let’s call him Johnny—who shared the secret with me at a conference.

You must travel far back into a low-lying valley surrounded by tree-covered Smoky Mountains and rocky cliffs. If you go deep, I’m talking soul-searching deep into that valley, you will find a path across the forest’s floor where decades of songwriter’s feet have beaten down the dirt.

You’ll know you’re getting close when you hear the mockingbirds’ call and the harmonica’s hum. At the end of this path lies the secrets to achieving all the success you’ve ever dreamed of.

Never one to venture far on his own, Johnny convinced a fellow songwriter, Josie, to accompany him. They drove into the Smokies, seeking the path to success. As the sun’s rays painted the morning sky orange, Johnny pulled his jeep onto the shoulder of the highway.

“Is this it?” Josie yawned and stretched in the passenger seat.

“It’s a mile up. Don’t want any lookie-loos following us.” He grabbed his phone and joined her on the passenger side of the road.

Not knowing what to expect, Johnny and Josie had taken precautions. They wore hiking boots, long pants, and long-sleeve shirts made of sturdy but breathable material.

Josie grabbed a backpack stuffed with her favorite fiddle, snacks, and water bottles from the trunk. She covered her blonde hair with a hat and her fair skin with sunscreen. She held the tube of sunscreen out.

“No thanks.” He chuckled. “I don’t burn.” He stuffed a few snacks and a water bottle into the side pocket of his pants. Wrapped a notebook of the songs he’d written in a ziplock bag and slipped it into his other side pocket.

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With a brand new guitar on his back, he led the way down the highway to mile marker seventy-seven. Here, the highway severed a mountain made of limestone in half. Over time, vegetation had taken root within the cracks and covered parts of the rock walls. With a quick look around, he motioned for Josie to hurry and they sprinted towards the hill.

“Are you sure this is the way?” Josie hadn’t completely warmed up to the idea that success lay at the end of a path.

Johnny pulled back vines and exposed a dark hole big enough to crawl through. “This way.”

“No way.” Josie shook her head. “Anything could be in there.”

“Success is in there.” He clicked his phone light on and climbed in, guitar and all.

Josie glanced over her shoulder and followed.

The tunnel went on longer than he’d expected, twisting and turning. He came to a place where part of the tunnel had filled in with dirt.

“What’s the matter?” Josie’s voice shook.

His heart drummed against the wall of his chest, but he wanted, no needed, to write songs that touched people’s hearts. He pushed some dirt forward and pulled some beneath his body until his shoulders could fit through. “It’s nothing.”

They continued. The walls around him lighted and showed cracks that, if he had been aware of, he might have backed out. “I see the end.”

“Thank God.”

He chuckled in agreement and slithered out of the hole, lost hold of his phone and fell onto the rocks a few feet below. His shoulder took the brunt of the fall, but his phone hit hard enough to pop the case off.

He dusted himself off and helped Josie out. Tan dirt covered her from head to toe.

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She giggled. “You’re a mess.”

“Not looking too clean yourself.” He grabbed his phone. The screen was black and cracked. He pressed the side buttons, but nothing. “Great. Looks like I’ll need a new phone.”

“Don’t worry. I have mine.” She looked up at him. Even her lashes were covered with dust. “Is this what success looks like?”

“Hold still. Close your eyes.” He brushed her face and eyes with his fingertips. He could write a whole album about how beautiful she looked covered in dirt. “There. Maybe not success, but prettier than a frog in mud.”

“A frog? In mud?” She blushed and dusted off her clothes. “If that’s an example of your lyrics, we’d better find success fast. Which way?”

Embarrassment washed over him and he wanted to crawl back into the hole and die a thousand deaths.

“Nothing sexier than a frog to a country boy.” He nodded towards the only path through the trees and allowed her to go first. He followed, but the sight of her, with her baseball cap tilted and her long ponytail askew, belittled his words.

They came to a place where the path forked. One path led into rocky terrain thick with Black Oak trees growing so close together that you could barely slither your body through. The other path was lined with a soft, mossy forest floor shaded by Sugar and Red maple trees.

Josie gasped and pointed.

In the middle of the fork, strapped by dark vines to a Black Oak whose branches must’ve reached the clouds, was a man. His head lulled to the side. His Confederate gray uniform had faded to shades of white. The Corporal stripes had peeled off his right arm, leaving a ghostly gray outline. Dirty and blood-dried bandages had been wrapped around his face and covered

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his features except for his right eye. The backs of his hands were gnarly and weathered like the Oak’s bark, and in his hand, he clutched a harmonica.

A chill traveled through Johnny’s lungs and froze the air in his lungs. “C-corporal,”  his voice squeaked to a high G. “Which way to success?”

The man raised his head and stared at Johnny with one brown eye. He pointed towards the rocky path squeezed into a narrow gap by the mighty Black Oaks. “That way.”

Johnny nodded. He grabbed Josie’s hand, keeping his body between her and the soldier, and shuffled towards the break between the trees. Josie’s slender body could slip through. Holding his guitar by the neck, Johnny squeezed through the set of Black Oaks. Not uttering a word, they wove their way through the trees until the path widened. Before them, yard after yard of blackberry bushes lined the path through the forest.

“He couldn’t have been real.” Josie turned and grabbed fists full of his jacket. “You saw him, right?”

“Smelled him, too.”

“Yeah. That was the craziest thing.” Her hands shook against his chest. “I’m not going back there.”

He covered one of her fists with his hand. Their breaths mingled. “Nope, I’m not planning to either.”

  Her soft lips parted into a bright smile. Her smile did crazy things to his heart, making it buck and twist and spin like a rodeo bull.

She held up a crooked pinky, “Pinky swear?”

Even though his older brothers couldn’t see him, he hesitated. Her smile faded, and he could feel her moving away. He grabbed her pinky with his and hung on. “Pinky swear.”

She let out a relieved breath and turned towards the path.

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He swung his guitar over his shoulder and waited for his heart to steady.

Clusters of pink and white flowers remained in patches over the blackberry bushes but most of them had faded into berries in shades of red and deep, dark black. He pulled plump berries from their stems. Offered a handful up to Josie and popped some into his mouth.

In a comfortable silence, they munched on berries and walked down the path. The sun hadn’t quite topped the trees but cast a golden glow over Josie’s head and shoulders.

The bushes on his right shook.

They stopped and stared.

The bushes shook, and a deep growl reached their ears. Johnny pressed a finger to his lips. They tracked the movement by the shake of the bushes. Closer and closer. Close enough that Johnny could distinguish the black, hairy hump of a bear’s back.

“Bear,” screamed Josie, ear piercing loud.

Unable to move, Johnny watched the shaking bushes race towards him, the growls intensifying. A black bear rose up on his hind legs. The ferocity of the bear’s five-hundred-pound body put Johnny’s one-eighty-muscled frame to shame.

“Run,” Josie grabbed his arm and tugged. “Run.”

He was rooted to the spot. But, the bear wasn’t. The beast roared, showing all his fangs and clawed paws.

Josie’s backpack flew through the air and smacked the bear dead center of his snout. The beast growled and dropped to all fours.

She grabbed Johnny’s hand and pulled. Together, they sprinted through the blackberry bushes. The thorns ripped holes in their pants. The bear gained speed through the bushes and closed the distance.

They zigzagged. Josie fell hard on her knees. Johnny scooped her up, they ran for the split

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in the trees, their breathing labored, blood pounding in their ears. She slipped through the opening. He’d forgotten about his guitar and that he couldn’t fit through with it on his back. Half his body in the gap, Johnny struggled to pull the guitar’s strap over his head and break free.

The rancid smell of the bear’s breath filled Johnny’s nostrils. Time slowed, and he turned his head. A thick paw swiped through the air, ripped his guitar off his back, and struck a broken chord of discord.

Johnny slipped through the Black Oaks’ branches and didn’t look back. He followed Josie. She didn’t stop. She ran past the fork in the path and all the way back to the hole in the limestone mountain.

Bent over, their hands on their knees, they panted. He looked back at the path, but they’d lost the bear. “Maybe he ate the soldier.”

“I doubt it,” she straightened and took deep breaths. Scratches marred the smooth skin on her cheeks and chin. Her pants were ripped in three places. “Nothing but moths and insects could stomach that old man.”

“He did smell like mold and mothballs.” Johnny laughed, not a ha-ha laugh but a we-all-most-died-but-lived-to-talk-about-it laugh that shook his body.

She joined. Her laughter stalled in her throat. She locked eyes with him. Her blue eyes were steady and firm, his relieved and ready to tackle life. “I’m not going back.”

“What?” His gaze swiveled from the hole to the path, to Josie. He couldn’t blame her, but something in his gut urged him to try again. “Are you sure?”

“Surer than a frog in mud.”

“That’s pretty sure.” He nodded and gave her the keys to the jeep. Except for his songbook, he emptied his side pockets. Every crumb of food and drop of water, he gave to her.

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“Come with me.” She held out her hand.

“I can’t.” His heart slid into his stomach. “If I’m not out by nightfall, call the state police or animal control or Ghostbusters.”

She pocketed the supplies. Clicked the light on her phone, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. One of those earth-shattering, going-off-to-war kisses that rocked him back on his heels.

She handed him a water bottle, slipped away, and went through the hole.

All the way back to the fork, Johnny told himself how stupid he was not to follow Josie. He glared at the soldier.

“Where is your friend?” The mocking twang told Johnny that the soldier already knew.

Johnny refused to answer. “Corporal, which way to success?”

Again, he pointed towards the narrow gap between the Black Oaks. “That way.”

“There’s a bear that way.”

The soldier’s cracked lips twisted. “Past the bear.”

“Yep. Of course, it is.” Johnny slipped between the Black Oaks and could’ve sworn he heard the soldier say, “The road to success is a solitary path.”

“Solitary path,” Johnny muttered. At the edge of the trees, he listened for the bear. Keeping low, he stepped over his crushed guitar and made his way down the path. He found a couple of granola bars lying half-eaten on the ground, and at a break in the bushes, he saw the broken strap of Josie’s backpack.

Guttural throat noises and munching sounds came from deep in the blackberry bushes.

Johnny kept low and quiet until he reached the other side of the forest. The path meandered up a ravine and stopped at the rocky face of the mountain. He tipped his head

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back and looked up at thirty feet of sheer rock.

The sun was high in the sky. Water poured over the outcropping of rocks, making them slick and slimy. Over time, the water had created crevices in the rock. A few vines had found homes in the crevices. “This can’t be right,” Johnny assured himself. “It’s too dangerous.”

He could hear the mockingbirds. “I’m so close, but this can’t be right.”

He turned around, snuck past the bear, and confronted the Corporal.

“Corporal, pull the moth cocoons out of your ears and listen to me. The path stops at a rock face that no one could climb.” Frustration crawled up his spine. “Which way to success?”

The soldier grunted. “You have to take what life gives you.” Again, he pointed towards the narrow gap between the Black Oaks. “That way.”

“Past the bear and the rock face?” A part of Johnny wished he was in the jeep with Josie.

“Yup.”

Shoulders bent, Johnny retraced his steps. When he could hear the bear, he took a granola bar from the trail and tossed it into the bushes. He sprinted towards the trees, chin up, arms pumping Forrest Gump style.

Out of breath from running, he reached the ravine. Followed the path to the rock face, searched for a way around, and discovered that the only way to continue was straight up.

With fingertip holds, he made his way up the rock. Cold mountain water poured over his head, soaking him from the top down. First, his teeth chattered. Then, his arms shook. Using any available gap or ledge, he moved up the wall. The toe of his boot slipped and he skidded down the rock, scrambling for a hold. His right hand grabbed a vine and he hung by one arm, twisting against the rock.

The vine slipped.

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He looked up.

Inch by inch, the roots ripped away from the rock. He reached out with his other hand for an outcropping of rocks to grab. Found one. His feet slipped and slid against the wall until one toe, then the other, found purchase. Hand over hand, he climbed the mountain. At the top, he grabbed the roots of a tree and pulled himself over.

Arms and legs heavy from the exertion, he lay on his back and stared up at the clouds until his breathing leveled. The sun’s rays heated his skin. The mockingbirds sang a sweet song. Muscles he’d forgotten about ached.

He rose and followed the water over the flat-topped mountain to a spring in the rocks. He washed his scraped and bloody hands and set off again.

The path snaked down the mountain. Thickening with trees the further he descended. He burst through the trees and stopped. He teetered on the edge of a huge, gaping sinkhole full of green, frothy water.

Tree roots hung from concave dirt walls. The chorus of frogs, nose deep in the guck, reached his ears.

He shuffled left, the ledge crumbled. He moved back and clumps of dirt and grasses fell into the mucky water. “I must’ve missed a turn in the path. This can’t be right.”

He back-tracked and searched for a branch off the path. When he returned to the face’s edge, he noticed that the vines were thicker and twisted on one side. He used the vines and handholds in the rock to work his way down. Still, he hadn’t discovered the missing branch off the path that led to success. Before he realized it, he stood before the Corporal.

Johnny’s legs gave out, and he collapsed on the ground. The skin on his face felt tight and if the scarlet sunburn on the back of his hands was any indication, his face must be fried crispier than his Grandmother’s Sunday chicken.

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“When all seems lost, get up and try again,” the soldier suggested.

“You sound like a fortune cookie.” Johnny sat and rubbed his hands over his head. “Tell me, what did you do to be stuck here forever?”

“I stopped trying. Before I knew it, the Great Oak had become a part of me and me a part of him.”

Adrenaline shot through Johnny’s veins, and he surged to his feet. A huge part of him no longer wanted to hear the answer to his question.

They stood feet apart. Over a century apart in birth but still two men alone in the woods facing their own fears and their own thoughts.

“Do you have a question to ask me?”

Johnny licked his cracked lips. “Corporal, which way to success?” His voice was void of energy, void of faith, void of hope.

Again, the soldier pointed towards the narrow gap between the Black Oaks. “That way.”

Johnny hung his head and slipped through the trees. He didn’t look or listen for the bear. He didn’t care.

He slipped on the way up the rock wall, smacked his forehead, and blood dripped down his face. At the top, he wiped the blood away, but it dripped into his eye, blinding him. Only able to see out of one eye, he carefully picked his way down the mountain. Cleared the trees and stood on the edge of the water-filled sinkhole.

He attempted to move right, but the bank gave way. He must climb down and go through the slimy green water.

Using tree roots, he picked his way down the side of the hole. A spotted salamander came out of a crack in the dirt wall and scurried across the back of his hand. Surprised, he lost his hold and fell the last fifteen feet. He landed flat on his back on the water and sunk.

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Air expelled from his lungs as if he’d hit concrete instead of water. Desperate for oxygen, his lungs burned in his chest. He clawed his way to the surface. The muddy bottom and long grasses sucked him down. Panic bubbling under his skin, he kicked against the grass that tangled his legs. Pushed through leaves and branches and broke the surface.

Gasping and sucking in air, he stared one-eyed into the eyes of a snapping turtle. He jerked his head to the side before the turtle took a bite out of his nose. With his head above water, he swam to the other edge of the sinkhole. Worked his way up the side by holding onto roots.

A jumble of roots gave way. He fell, hit the water and fought his way to the surface. He kept thinking about Josie. Why did he leave Josie? What kind of a fool would leave a girl like Josie?

The frogs’ songs mocked his efforts. Slower this time, he picked his way up and over the side. Soaking wet, covered in muddy water and green algae, he lay on the ground and stared up at the sky. The sun had started to sink behind the treetops. His body ached from the top of his scalp to the tip of his toes.

He rolled over and felt his songbook against his leg and a water bottle against his other. He took the notebook out of his side pocket. Muddy water had found a way into the ziplock bag. His throat felt thick. He removed the notebook and brown water dripped from the edges. Some of the pages had stuck together, and the writing on the pages that parted was smeared and unreadable.

He pounded his fist against his thigh. He was a fool.

He got up and followed the path down the mountain, across a river, over a small grassy hill, and back into a forest. The trees opened up to a forest floor covered with moss. In the distance, the hum of a harmonica and the song of mockingbirds called to him. Blood

12

continued to drip down his face, blocking his vision. The further he went, the more familiar the path felt. Setting sunbeams made the leaves of the Sugar and Red maple trees glow.

Johnny came to a fork in the path and the soulful song of the harmonica stopped.

Once again, he stood before the soldier. Johnny had traveled full circle back to where he started. He’d lost his guitar. He’d lost his music. He’d left Josie for nothing.

The two men stared at each other. Two men had searched for success. One who’d given up hope and lost everything, even his freedom. One who’d struggled and overcome, only to find himself back at the beginning of his journey.

Anger exploded through Johnny, he opened his mouth to yell at the soldier but the words couldn’t escape his dry throat. He broke the seal on his water bottle.

The Corporal licked his cracked lips.

“How long have you stood there, strapped to the oak, needing to quench your thirst but unable?”

The soldier didn’t reply.

“Years? Decades? A century or more?” Johnny couldn’t deny him any longer and handed him the water bottle.

“Thank you.” The Corporal downed the water in one long gulp.

Johnny swallowed hard and tried again to speak. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The soldier handed the water bottle back. “Why didn’t you know that success begins and ends with you?”

Johnny nodded and turned to leave. Every muscle in his body ached and he wanted nothing more than to crawl back through the limestone tunnel and get back to Josie.

“Wait.”

“What now?” Exhaustion and defeat weighed down Johnny’s words.

13

The Corporal held out his hand and in his palm was a harmonica. “In over a hundred years, you’re the only person who gave freely instead of taking. You are already a great man. Giving freely to others is the foundation of true success, loving freely is the path, and success lies in your heart.”

Johnny returned to Josie. That year, they married. They went on to raise four children and twelve grandchildren. He did reach stardom. His greatest hits were accompanied by the haunting hum of a harmonica. He wrote songs about struggles and lost love, golden rings and golden hair, blue sky and blue eyes, black bears and blackberry bushes.

But his most potent song was about a lost soldier and the path home.

~ The End ~

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I hid the knife tight against my leg and entered the bathroom. The stench of human feces socked me in the nose. My gag reflex kicked in and I fought the urge to hurl. Ugh. What did Godzilla-Kong roll in?

The cinder block bathroom was a ten-by-ten sewer hole and hot as hell.

Across from me, a cracked mirror hung above a one-tap sink. The porcelain was crusted with calcium and rusted brown. On my right, there were three urinals. The middle urinal had been ripped from the wall and laid in a busted heap on the cracked cement floor. On my left were two stalls but only one door. Brown sludge seeped from the doorless stall, making a chunky, funky path to a drain in the middle of the floor.

I cupped my free hand over my nose and mouth. The one time I’d welcome The Woman’s lavender stench.

Godzilla-Kong exited the doored stall. Zipped his pants and skipped the sink. Hands on his zipper, he froze and stared at me. The corner of his lip raised. “Wrong bathroom, stupid cow.”

At the sheer size of him, my heart slammed against my ribs like an animal trapped in a cage of bones. I resisted the urge to step back. Clutched my knife with one hand and wiped my other sweaty hand off on my jeans. If I kept him off me, I might have a chance. Distract him, and hopefully, help would arrive in time. “There’s a boy in your truck.”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“He doesn’t belong there.”

“What the hell do you know?” Godzilla-Kong’s eyes were as empty as the make-believe characters I’d named him after.

I’d met those empty eyes before. From a boy on the street who’d sold his body for food. He’d seen things, heard things, done things that had sucked the humanity out of him. “The boy doesn’t belong to you.”

“That’s what you think.”

Godzilla-Kong was huge, hairy and real. The urge to run crawled over my skin. Pain is temporary. Him taking the kid won’t be. “That’s what I know.”

“Get out of my way.” His voice was low and savage and warned me that he wouldn’t tell me twice.

I widened my stance and raised my knife. “Can’t do that.”

“That nose-picker ain’t gonna stop me.” He pulled a switchblade from his back pocket. A Pro-Tech 900CF Godfather. I knew the knife. Four-inch AUTO knife blade. Stainless steel. Smooth open. In the top ten of my gotta-have-it list of weapons.

“No cow’s gonna stop me from leaving with the boy.” With a press of his thumb, the blade slid into place and fear slid through my flesh and liquified my bones.

“It’s not the size of the knife. It’s how you wield it.” My tone jeered and jabbed him with an invisible punch.

He lunged, aimed for my stomach.

I sidestepped and slashed his upper thigh. He was all brawn and bulk, an abuser. I was quick and clever, a survivor. “That’s one for me.”

His gorilla roar was shake-the-trees loud and vibrated against my chest.

His hand swiped over the cut, and blood coated his fingertips. His face turned purple. The veins in his neck swelled as if they were truck suspensions holding up his massive head. “I’m going to make you bleed. Like you’ve never bled before.”

He rushed forward. His knife slashed from low to high in a move to gut me from belly to breastbone.

But I was faster. I slid to the side and sliced his other leg.

Godzilla-Kong couldn’t stop his momentum. He hit the wall, and his knife took a chunk out of the cement block.

Blood seeped down both sides of his jeans. His eyes sent out a death glare and he made an inhuman sound deep in his throat.

I leaned against the sink and pretended not to care. Steadied my breathing but monitored his movements. “Does it hurt your throat to grunt like that? Guys in the gym groan that way when they lift. I’ve always wondered.”

He switched the knife to his other hand and charged.

The Woman appeared. Hands curled into claws, she attacked Godzilla-Kong. Unaware of her presence, he plowed through her transparent form like a hot knife through butter. The power of The Woman’s rage sparked the air and flashed the lights off, on, off.

The room went blacker than the deepest caverns of Hell.

Not sure of his proximity, I leapt to my right. My boots slipped and slid through crap. I was going down. My shoulder slammed into a stall and stopped my fall.

“Cow, I’m going to skin you.” In the dark, his voice closed the gap. The cruelty in his tone dropped my body temp into hypothermia, my spine fused into a frozen line.

The Woman lit up like a super-sized glow stick and the lights flipped back on.

By the time my sight had adjusted, it was too late. Godzilla-Kong stood so close I could feel his breath stirring my hair. I tipped my head back and stared into his dead eyes.

I swallowed a scream. “You can’t have that boy. Not today. Not ever.”

He swung back and struck me in the eye with the back of his fist. Thwack.

The sound of bone colliding against bone didn’t compare to the pain. Hot, sharp, breath-stealing pain zipped straight to my brain. Fireworks exploded behind my eyes. My body swayed.

Through the sparks and colors, I swore The Woman collapsed in a dead faint. But the way my head was spinning, it could’ve been wishful thinking.

My eyesight shifted back and forth between double vision and blurry blobs but one thing was crystal clear, The Woman had abandoned me. Again.

“That’s one for me.” Godzilla-Kong sounded superior.

I didn’t want to admit it, but my eye socket might’ve crunched. I blinked back stupid tears. Forced my blurry gaze to focus.

He stood in front of me, the doorless stall behind me. The disgusting smell emanated from the stall. I straddled the sewage oozing its way to the drain. I’m pinned between him and a bad spot. And I didn’t mean the smell. “That back punch was my move butt-munch.”

“I don’t like cows who talk.”

I inched away from the stall and towards the exit. “You have mommy issues, don’t you?”

“My mom knew when to keep out of my business. Something I’m going to teach you before this is over.” He blocked my path. His knife was close. Too close.

“Yeah, right.” I stepped back towards the stall. “No one tells me what to do.”

“You’re a slow learner but I’ve got time.” His voice mocked me, but a thread of evil ran through each word.

Panic plucked at my nerves, sweat seeped from my skin and a lump of fear, thick and foul, clogged my throat. How much time had passed? Half an hour? More likely minutes. If I keep him talking, maybe the Geezers will save the boy. “Back up your bus. Nobody wants to get their tires stuck in what’s all over the floor.”

“Afraid to play in the sewers?” In the depths of Godzilla-Kong’s empty-eyes, I saw hell. “You shouldn’t have threatened to take the boy.”

My heart beat like a drum of doom. I shifted my weight to my back foot. “What? And miss kicking your ass?”

He jabbed with his knife, chest level.

His arms were long.

My legs were longer.

I kicked his fist and the knife flew from his hand and clattered against the floor.

I held up three fingers. “Three for me.” I lowered two fingers and left my middle finger standing. “One for you.”

He let out a yell, King-Kong-loud, and came at me like a linebacker sacking the quarterback on the final fourth and four.

I struck out blindly with my knife, but the force of his charge knocked it from my grasp.

His shoulder hit me in the chest, and I flew back into the open stall. Landed hard against the toilet bowl, my back taking a direct hit and my butt smacking the floor. My breath escaped in a long, low moan.

“I’ve heard women groan like that too.” His smile was as dark as his soul.

The stench from the toilet made my eyes water and I was covered in crap. I scrambled to my feet. My boot slipped. I slapped my palms on the stall walls and braced myself. I was in deep, deep shit.

My knife had landed on the other side of the room. I’d violated Survival Rule Number Four—never give up your weapon, unless you’re ready to die.

“That’s two. Ready for three?”

I listened. The only sound was our breathing. No sirens. No help. No gray-haired Geezer Calvary.

I raised the only weapons I had left, my fists.

“You’re a cocky little cow, aren’t you?” He came for me.

I kicked him in the kneecap.

It didn’t faze him. He kept coming.

He grabbed me around the waist. Lifted me off my feet.

I grabbed the sides of his head and pressed my thumbs into his eyes.

He slammed me against the stall wall, desperate to knock me off.

My temple hit metal. Stars exploded behind my eyes. Was that sirens? Or the popping of my eardrums?

He flung me against the other wall.

I lost my hold. Struck him in the nose with the heel of my palm and blood gushed over both of us.

Not done, he lifted me up, up, up above his head.

My gut told me this wasn’t just going to hurt—it was going to be the end. I’ve failed. I’ve lost. I’ve lost the kid.

In my mind, I pictured the boy’s puffy eyes and sad face. Will his sister be next? How many other children will Godzilla-Kong take if I don’t stop him?

I grabbed fistfuls of his nuclear-green hair and latched on. I hooked my foot around the back of his neck, swung my other leg up and wrapped both of my legs around his neck. Sitting on his shoulders, I locked my ankles together and squeezed the sides of his throat with my thighs cutting off the blood supply to his brain.

I held on tight for a ten second ride.

He let go of my waist and dug his thick fingers into my thighs. He turned and twisted and struggled to buck me off.

I arched back and squeeeeezed. Five seconds. Four.

A purple hue crept across his skin. We locked eyes. His wide and wild. Mine strong and steady. His mouth stretched wide and he sucked in air. A roadmap of veins popped out on his forehead. His pale skin might as well been a white flag. He had no choice but to surrender.

Three seconds. “Who’s the cow now?”

His eyelids fluttered. Those empty eyes closed. It was good night Godzilla-Kong. He was out.

He swayed and we both went down with a ka-BOOM.

We landed hard. Him—flat on his back. Me—flat on top. Half in the stall, half out. My knees smashed against the concrete and a searing pain ran down my shins.

I crawled out of his reach. My body shook with aftershocks. My lungs and heart competed for space in my chest. One sucked and released breaths at a frantic pace. The other dumped enough blood into my veins to fuel a NASCAR race.

I palmed my knife. Sat on the floor next to the broken urinal, with my back against the wall. Crap was in my hair, on my jacket, all over my pants. The ringing in my ears was joined by the sound of sirens. “Hello, Tokyo—you’re safe.” Adrenaline shot, my voice wobbled. “And so is the boy.”

I pulled my phone out of my boot and called the only person in social services that I’d trust with the boy. The Woman who’d saved me not once but three times as a child. “Miss Dodd, there’s a boy who needs you.”

I gave her the particulars and waited for help.

Officer Rodriguez charged through the door with his gun raised and ready. He coughed and choked. Nudged Godzilla-Kong with his foot. But the monster didn’t budge.

Rodriguez’s gold and black uniform was dry cleaner clean. He held a fist against the base of his nose, “Holy crap, JD. You reek.”

I rested my arms on top of my bent knees. “Don’t you have like eighteen zillion children? Half in diapers? You should be used to this smell.”

He holstered his weapon, rolled Godzilla-Kong onto his side, and cuffed his hands behind his back. “Suspect under control,” Rodriguez spoke into the radio on his shoulder. “How’s your first day as a PI?”

My breathing leveled out. My heartbeat slowed. “Living the dung beetle dream.”

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I slipped the knife back into my boot. Tilted my phone and snapped a picture of the biggest, meanest, ugliest human I’d ever seen. Not a mere man but a beast of a man bigger than Godzilla and stronger than King Kong. A Godzilla-Kong.

My heart beat out a warning signal against my ear drums. I didn’t risk making eye contact and hoped he couldn’t smell my fear. My breath raged in my chest, and I attempted to smooth out the sound and not attract his attention. I willed my fingers to stop shaking but they listened as well as The Woman.

“Hitting the john. Better have it ready when I’m done.” Godzilla-Kong’s voice vibrated the air.

“Yes, Boss.” Creepy Diner Guy rushed back to his spot. Pulled a plastic sack out from under the counter. The sack’s handles stretched to a near breaking point from the weight of what was inside. Drugs? Money? Both?

The Geezers depended on me to find out. Master Chief depended on me to stop him.

With each step of Godzilla-Kong’s neighborhood-smashing feet, I swore the diner shook and fear hollowed out my legs. The bathroom door closed behind him and the ghost disappeared before I could blink.

“Chicken.” I couldn’t see the ghost, but I was sure The Woman could hear.

“Shut your mouth, Red.” Creepy Diner Guy thought I was talking to him and it worked for me. I’d pump him for more intel.

He packed up the burgers and added fries to the bag.

Perfect setup. To the casual observer, Godzilla-Kong was picking up a midnight snack, not money or drugs. “He must eat a crap ton.”

“Shut up,” Diner Guy’s tone was sharp and rude.

I didn’t care. I needed intel. “Is he a regular? Must keep you in business.”

He scraped the metal spatula against the flattop and cleared off the grease. “Look, Red. If you’re smart, you’d leave.”

“I hate it when people call me that.”

“You’re going to find out what hate is if you don’t keep quiet when he comes back.”

An other-world light flickered in the mirror above Creepy Diner Guy and distracted me. A ghostly blue glow shimmered in the truck’s cab.

“What’s she doing?” I walked over to the windows for a better look. The Woman was up to something and that didn’t bode well. Any time The Woman tried to help ended with someone getting hurt and I got the blame.

“Who? Man, are you high or crazy?”

The light went super-nova-white and I shielded my eyes with my hand.

“Did you escape from the looney-bin? It’s pitch black out there.”

The light dimmed. Compacted. And became The Woman.

“Nonya,” I replied. My arm fell to my side. That’s when I spotted the kid sitting beside The Woman. His nose smashed against the passenger seat window. Closer to eight than nine.

Something about The Woman and the boy sent shock waves through my system. Something was wrong. I had to find out what and headed out the diner’s door.

“Smart. For a crazy girl.” Creepy Diner Guy yelled. “Run girl, run. I’d run too . . . if I could.”

The cold night air hit me first, then the noise from the highway. For spring, there was a frost in the air and the temperature had dipped. A northern wind blew through the parking lot. I approached the truck. Stood in the wind blocking gap between my jeep and the kid’s window. Something about the boy bothered me.

Boy, boy, boy.

“Cold as Hades out here.” I ignored the ghost and focused on the kid. Jeans. Short sleeve dinosaur shirt. No flippin’ coat. “Where’s your coat?”

He didn’t acknowledge me. There wasn’t any way that he didn’t see me. Only the thickness of the truck’s door stood between us. I knocked on the window.

The kid stared at me. A normal kid with bangs that needed a trim and ears too big for his face but it was his look.

A shiver shot down my spine that had nothing to do with The Woman and everything to do with a pair of brown eyes, puffy and red-rimmed.

I remembered that look. From the orphanage. The no-way-out look. The monsters-are-real look. The my-life-is-never-going-to-be-the-same look. The look we’d all had when I’m-your-friend Phil roamed at night, counted kids, and selected his special one.

“You’re out late.” I slapped on my I’m-sweet smile. The one I’d used when potential parents had visited the orphanage and shopped for kids. “I’m JD. What’s your name?”

The boy pulled his knees up to his chest and ignored me.

He was barefoot.

No flippin’ shoes either.

My phone buzzed and a mug shot of Godzilla-Kong’s face flashed on the screen, followed up by a call.

“Declan Brown. Got a rap sheet that stretches from California to Connecticut. Drugs, armed robbery, assault, and the doozie of them all, attempted murder. Get out. Get out now.” Milt sounded more like a concerned father than ever before.

“The guy has a kid in his truck. Boy. Eight years. Brown hair and eyes.” My voice didn’t shake. It should’ve. But I was lost in memories and the boy’s eyes.

“That complicates things—Look out!” Milt’s voice spiked. Tires squealed. “Jeez Cliff, watch the red lights. You almost T-boned that van.”

The Woman brushed back the boy’s hair with gray fingers. Hummed a stanza of her lullaby.

A sick feeling coated my limbs, and settled into my stomach. “Feels wrong.”

“Sit and wait for us.” Cliff shouted in his smarty pants tone.

“Shush, drive. I can’t hear.” Milt told his brother. “What do you mean?”

“Something isn’t right.” Fear—the type I’d thought I’d escaped from and left in my childhood—quivered in my voice. “The boy shouldn’t be in the truck. It feels wrong. It is wrong.”

“Cliff, run the red light.” Milt’s words were muffled as if he’d placed his hand over the phone. “JD, let me check into it.” The change in his tone flooded my system and relief soaked into my knees making them sway like liquid beneath me. He didn’t understand why, but he believed in me.

“Roger.” I put the phone back into my boot.

Boy, boy, boy. The Woman’s words rattled in my head like nails in a tin cup.

My heartbeat ticked up. How long would it take Godzilla-Kong to pee? “The Geezers will never make it in time. No matter how many red lights they drive through.”

“I can take you home.” My words came out fast. Urgent. I tugged on the door handle. “Unlock the door.”

He hid his hands under his legs.

“Look.” My pulse raced faster than the seconds slipping by. There wasn’t time to make friends. I needed him to trust me and the fastest path to trust was truth. “You can’t be here when he comes back. He’ll hurt you.”

The truth made the boy cry. Not little kid tears but big fat adult tears. Tears that understood a dark future. Tears rained down his face, dripped onto his jeans and created dark circles of pain.

“Don’t cry. We don’t have time to cry. Open the door.” My tone ratcheted up with the panic climbing up the back of my neck. I glanced over my shoulder for Godzilla-Kong. “I can help you.”

“No one can help me.” His eyes spoke of sadness, despair, and—acceptance. Another tear slipped down his cheek and soaked my heart.

“Please.” I rattled the handle with enough force that the truck shook. “Open the door. Open it now.”

“I can’t.” He sniffled and rubbed snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “If I run . . . he’ll grab my sister.”

His words quaked my body so hard that it felt as if my heart had burst through my chest and landed in the past. In a place I kept locked away in the back of my mind. Where I was surrounded by other kids like me with no choices, no power, no hope.

“You’re protecting someone.” Even though my throat swelled with sorrow, my voice was strong with knowledge. “Someone you love. Someone who can’t protect themselves.”

How many times had I done the same? How many times had I failed because I was too small, too weak, too powerless? How many times had I ended up sacrificing myself for the sake of another?

He didn’t have to nod. I’d lived his truth. Life wasn’t fair. Not for the powerless.

But I was JD Wolfe. Not Diamond. Not some scared little girl with no last name and no one to protect her.

Wasn’t I?

“No.” Like a volcano, anger erupted in my soul and poured through my limbs. “You should be in your room and in bed, not sitting in the cold and the dark. Unlock the door.”

He shook his head and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I’d do anything to convince him to trust me. Even tell him my truth. “I’ve been where you are. I’ve had someone stronger than me take me where I didn’t want to go. I’ve given myself to protect another. But you don’t have to. You don’t have to choose between yourself and someone else. Not even for your sister. I’ll protect you. I promise.”

I held my breath. Hoped a sucker’s hope that I’d said enough for him to unlock the door. Hope backed up into my chest and my lungs burned.

The Woman’s humming stuttered to a stop.

“You can’t.” The boy stared at me with those sad eyes. “No one can.”

Pain popped my lungs like an old bicycle tire and my breath escaped through my lips in hiss. My phone buzzed against my leg. “Yeah?”

“Declan’s not married. Doesn’t have kids. He’s on the sex offenders list.” Milt told me what my gut had already known.

“Police are on the way.” Uncle Cliff added.

“Don’t let him leave with the boy.” Milt’s voice was firm and flat and a direct order.

“Roger that.” I shoved the sorrow and pain and anger down so deep that it couldn’t weaken my resolve. I wouldn’t fail. Couldn’t fail. Not this time.

“This assignment was supposed to be watch and report. Not get dirty and bloody.” Talking to myself more than the boy or the ghost, I traded the phone for my three-inch blade.

The Woman materialized at my side. Wait, wait, wait.

“Wait? Hesitation and emotions help the enemy. Going and doing saves lives.” I tested the weight of the knife in my hand. “I should’ve brought my gun.” I looked at the boy. “I’ll be back.”

I entered the diner and couldn’t hold back a snarky comment on my way past Creepy Diner Guy, “I’ll take what the big guy’s having.”

Behind the counter, he wiped his hands on his shirt. “Crazy and stupid.”

“You know what they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” I kept moving towards the bathroom and my mountain-sized target. “Some idiot must’ve thought that up.”

The Woman blocked the bathroom door, her arms splayed out and her body flickering like an old TV set on the fritz. No. No. No.

I wasn’t surprised that the ghost didn’t want me to confront Godzilla-Kong. She preferred safety over all other actions. She must’ve been a Hall Monitor in a past life. You would’ve thought a ghost could die twice.

“Move.” My glare was white hot. Nuclear.

The Woman should’ve melted or ran back to hell. B,b,b. B,b,ba, bad.

“Really? Do you want me to wait and watch while that monster climbs in his truck and drives away with the boy?” My tone dialed past snippy to snarky. “Go hide in a cell in hell. I’ll handle the living.”

A bolt of blue electricity sparked in The Woman’s eyes but she faded away.

“Crazy girl. Talking to nothing.” His tone tagged me as certifiable. “I saw you at the boss’s truck. That boy’s nonya business. Leave it alone.”

I wasn’t crazy. I knew pain waited beyond the door. Bone-crushing, organ-smashing pain. But pain wasn’t a stranger.

I stared at the only weapon I had. My knife. A knife wouldn’t dent or damage or destroy Godzilla-Kong. He’d happily pound me into diner dust and add my knife to his collection. “Nope. Can’t do that.”

“Why not? Breathing not important to you?” He gave me a stunned look as if I’d sniffed too much bacon grease and fried my brain.

“Why not?” I wasn’t shocked that he didn’t care. My life had been littered with adults that didn’t care. Didn’t care about children or innocence.

A never-forgotten shame soaked through me, tasted foul on my tongue and stained my heart. The loss of innocence buried your soul ten feet deep. No matter how hard you fight or how far you run, you couldn’t dig yourself out.

“Why not?” I repeated and pushed past the shame. “Because that kid—his life, his future, his dreams—are more important than mine.”

After all, I’d been that kid. Not stuck in a truck but locked in a closet.

And, no one had rescued me.

Not even The Woman.

I grabbed the doorknob. My heart revved, electricity raced under my skin. I looked at the boy, one last time. Things were about to get mean—Hiroshima mean.

I jerked open the door. “Hello Tokyo, you’re missing your monster.”

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The first rule on my JD Wolfe Survival List was don’t trust The Woman because this ghost wouldn’t leave anything alone, not when you were awake, not when you were asleep, not when you were haunted, not when the only surprise you received for your eighth birthday—other than the death of your mom in a fire—was for the ghost who tormented her to transfer to you and torment you.

Torment you forever.

Instead of playing patty cake and singing nursery rhymes, I learned how to survive living with a not-so-dearly departed. I didn’t care how she died, only that she stuck to my mom like a nasty rash instead of going to hell.

Most people would call the ghost a spirit or specter, but I preferred The Woman. Or Soul Sucker.

The second rule I learned—never tell anyone about the ghost. Otherwise, they’ll think you’re crazy and lock you up. The third—if you keep everything important safe in your boots, everything important will keep you safe.

During the thirteen years since the fire, I went from homeless to orphan to Private Eye. I reinvented myself. I became stronger. Life did that to you when you didn’t have anyone to protect you. I took my adopted family’s surname and changed my name from Diamond, the girl with no last name, to Justyne Diamond Wolfe, or JD for short. I haven’t forgotten my survival rules; I just added more to the list.

Well past midnight, I sat hunched at the counter and scrolling through my phone in one of those diners you see in the movies, wide windows, cushy booths, long counter, pictures of All-American Little League baseball teams lining the walls. You expected to see couples snuggled in the booths and a clean-cut, milkshake-melt-in-your-mouth kind of guy in a starched button-down shirt.

But, I was alone with Creepy Diner Guy working the counter. His hair slicked back, his shirt a stain-spattered rendering of a Jackson Pollock painting, his buttons playing hopscotch, missing every other hole.

He wiped a dirty rag around a glass jar with a MISSING flier taped to the front. A pretty, fresh-faced, elementary-school-age girl smiled for the camera wearing decades-old clothes and a Hello Kitty backpack. The change and dollar bills stuffed in the jar showed hope was alive.

I wasn’t so sure. From my experience, hope was for suckers.

“Get you another coffee, Red?” His nasty meth-smile was busted and blackened.

“Still struggling with this one.” I swirled the sludge he called coffee in the bottom of my cup. It had created a tar pit inside my gut. I decided to check in with the office before the coffee killed me.

On the stool at my nine, a ball of light appeared, flickered and sparked in shades between blue and violet and eye piercing white. The air snapped. The skin on my arms tingled and puckered like a plucked goose’s butt.

The light shifted from a pixilated pattern into a semi-transparent woman, all monochrome and shades of gray. Stringy hair stuck to her face and hid her features. Only her silver eyes and charcoal lips showed through. A dingy nightgown hung from her shoulders and fluttered in shreds around her bare feet.

Home, home, home, the ghost whispered in my brain, where the thoughts were supposed to be mine, not hers. This was one of many things about The Woman that ticked me off.

Creepy Diner Guy didn’t react to his supernatural guest. He walked past and wiped down tables. I wasn’t shocked. My mom was the only other living person I’d known who could see or hear or smell The Woman.

If The Woman didn’t appear, I knew she watched. Listened. Waited for a way to interfere. It was inevitable.

I lived with the dead.

The stink of lavender swirled around The Woman. I gulped and gagged on the disgusting sweetness. My hand tugged at the collar of my leather jacket and the t-shirt beneath. “Why can’t you give me one day?” I whispered. “One day without your lavender stench coating my lungs, without your annoying voice talking in my head, without your bony butt in my way.”

S, s, sorry, s, s, sorry, sorry. She repeated.

“Yeah, right. If you were sorry, you’d go back to hell.”

La, la, la, la, late. The staccato beat of her words pounded against my temples. What did the ghost care if she didn’t get forty winks?

“I’m on a job. Go away.” I worked in the family’s business, White Wolfe Investigations. Today’s job was more a payback than a paycheck. My adopted father, Milt Wolfe, whom I liked to call Fixer Geezer in my head, owed a lifelong favor to his old Navy buddy, Master Chief Jimmy Palmer. I didn’t know why Master Chief bought a 24-hour diner right off I-95. Maybe he was going senile.

I did know that this kind of debt could never be paid off. How could you put a price on someone saving your life?

I understood my orders from Milt. Sit tight. Observe and report. Master Chief had told him that he thought Creepy Diner Guy was making money on the shady side of life. The side where things slipped from white-lie gray to back-alley black. The side where cops closed your restaurant and carted you off to jail.

My phone buzzed. No doubt it was one of the Geezers. Two brothers I considered my real fathers. And my bosses. “Mommy, I’ll be home as soon.”

“Mommy?” Their voices blended into one. They’d placed me on speaker phone. Great. Two opinionated, life controlling Geezers for the price of one.

I couldn’t bring myself to call Milt dad or daddy or pop. Some things took time and a barge load of counseling. “Is everything okay, MOMMY?”

“Has he passed any packages? Drugs? Money?” Cliff Wolfe, AKA Smarty Pants Geezer and my adopted uncle, was super stinkin’ smart. The type of smart that could send a rocket to the moon but not close the refrigerator door.

“Nope. Only coffee.” I pretended the ghost wasn’t there and monitored Creepy Diner Guy. He’d paused cleaning to pick at a stain on his shirt and popped whatever it was into his mouth.

My stomach revolted.

“Stolen anything?” Street smart and straight to the point, Milt wasn’t one to waste words.

“Nope. Nada. Not cash from the till or a quarter from the floor.”

“Be smart-.” Uncle Cliff’s voice geared up into lecture mode.

I rolled my eyes at his smarty-pants tone. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be smart.”

“Don’t approach anyone. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Get the intel. Get home. You’re more important than a favor.” Milt, the man who fixed everything with what he had on hand, even if it was only his brute strength or a rubber band, sounded as strong and sure as the day he saved me from the orphanage.

“Please.” Unwanted emotions compressed my chest, and I struggled to keep in character. “I know better than to talk to strangers.”

“She’s lived on the streets, she can handle this,” Cliff’s voice rose and vetoed any worry.

Creepy Diner Guy inched closer with each swipe of his rag.

Unsure what he could hear, I kept my words sweet and soft. “Mommy, don’t worry. I’m a big girl now.”

The Woman leaned in.

And I leaned away. I checked the diner’s clock. “It’s past midnight. Do you need me home?”

“A few more hours. Nothing good happens between midnight and three.” Cliff liked to dole out advice as if he was the love child of Dear Abby and Captain Awkward.

“I don’t like her on her own.” Concern lined the deep timber in Milts’s voice. “We’ll meet you there. Follow orders and stay safe.”

My face burned solar-flare hot. He doesn’t trust me. How can I prove myself if he doesn’t give me a chance? “Sheesh. You don’t need to pick me up. I can drive home. I’m not eleven anymore.”

Back ramrod straight and hands clasped in her lap, The Woman disapproved of my tone. You’d think that after decades of death, she’d have pulled the sequoia-sized tree out of her butt.

“It’s been a long time since you and your mom lived on the streets,” he shouted into the speakerphone. Technology wasn’t one of his strengths.

“Mommy, don’t yell.” A sick part of me enjoyed the charade. “I can hear you. It’s a cellphone, not a handheld radio.”

“Milt’s right. It was too soon to send you in alone.” Cliff’s words were decibels higher than his brother’s.

They’d joined forces and were pulling the plug on my mission. I couldn’t let that happen.

“I’m okay. Worrying is only going to make you grayer.” I kept my voice light and confident, with a hint of humor to ease their angst. Controlling my voice to manipulate adults was something I’d mastered by seven. That was how you survived when you were the proxy adult because your mom had surrendered to another drug-enhanced dream.

Bored with our conversation, The Woman hummed a song. Not a pop or a rap or a country song, but that lullaby. I rubbed my temple, and bit my tongue or I would beg her to stop.

“Keep us posted.” Milt barked out the order as if I was a newbie boot on his ship.

I suppressed an aye, aye, Sir, and replied, “Be home soon.” I hung up and glared at The Woman. “Don’t you start.”

The Woman switched to a jazzy tune.

I passed the time identifying the stains on Creepy Diner Guy’s shirt. Red—ketchup. Yellow—mustard. There was a slick of brown across his midriff. Grease? Gravy?

The coffee pit in my belly bubbled. I don’t want to know.

He went into the back and returned with a plate stacked high with raw hamburger patties and a bag of frozen fries. He switched on the grill and tossed on the meat. Dumped the fries into a basket and lowered them into grease, and wiped the grill’s metal front with his rag.

In the mirror above the grills, I kept an eye on the parking lot behind me. Maybe, he’d think I was checking on my jeep that was parked in front of the diner’s gigantic windows.

Through the same mirror, Creepy Diner Guy gave me a hey-baby-I’m-the-answer-to-your-prayers look.

I shot back a don’t-make-me-shove-that-rag-down-your-throat glare. The ghost laughed.

Creepy Diner Guy flipped the hamburgers. Turned and wiped his hands down his shirt. “Waiting for a boyfriend?”

The meat smelled a little off, or maybe it was him. “Expecting a midnight rush?”

“Nonya.”

Was that code for something? “Nonya?”

“None ya business.” His shrill laugh shredded my eardrums. He put his elbows on the counter and leaned in. “Lived in Rubyville long?” His lunch haunted his breath. Hamburger with extra onions.

Home, home, home.

“Kinda.” I replied with my own one-word cryptic answer and snubbed the ghost.

Home, Home, HOME. The Woman didn’t like to be left out or ignored. The longer it went, the more insistent she’d become. At least her humming stopped.

Creepy Diner Guy nodded, turned back to the grill, removed the hamburgers, and lifted the basket of fries from the grease. He came around the counter. Sat on a ripped vinyl stool and sandwiched me between his onion breath and The Woman’s putrid potpourri. He leaned close. “I like green eyes and red hair. You look real good in black.”

As if I cared about what he thought. Ninety percent of my wardrobe was a shade of onyx to ebony. My leather jacket and knee-high boots fell comfortably in the range. Black was easy to accessorize. It went with more black. “Uhuh. Thanks.”

Truck pipes rumbled. I checked the parking lot behind me in the mirror. A baby-blue, nineteen-eighty-two Ford parked out front. I’d love to have a truck like that. All shiny and clean.

HOME, HOME, HOME.

Got movement. I texted the Geezers. Sent the truck’s description and license plate number. In a low voice, I told The Woman to, “Hit the bricks.”

“No need to be like that. I’m not going to hurt you.” Creepy Diner Guy replied, his tone operator smooth. He rubbed a piece of my hair between his fingers. My hair. “Red’s my favorite color.”

My muscles tensed. One swift back punch. That’s all it would take. He could add fresh blood to the stains on his shirt. Bright red would enhance his color palate. Besides, red was his favorite.

But I was on a job. A job that I couldn’t mess up by spilling his blood. “Don’t you have more burgers to flip? Potatoes to peel?”

“You wanna peel my potato?”

The coffee tar backed up into my throat. I palmed the knife from my boot. Showed him the blade. “I can peel more than that. Wanna play?”

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, The Woman chanted. The lights in the diner flashed.

I slid the blade of my knife against his jaw, giving him a free shave. “You’re not really bad, are you?”

The door to the diner opened. I shifted and kept my back between the door and the knife. I wouldn’t want to frighten a customer or warn off the pick-up guy.

Creepy Diner Guy’s face went morgue gray. Scared stiff worked for him. He scrambled backward, helter-skelter, and side-slipped from the stool.

“That’s what I thought.”

Like a buck caught in the crosshairs, he froze. But, he wasn’t locked-stared at me or my blade. He gazed over my head, and a tsunami of fear flowed over his face. And it wasn’t The Woman he saw.

Someone scarier than a knife to his throat stood behind me.

Dread dripped down my backbone like bacon grease from a hot pan. Set my nerve endings on fire. I tucked my chin and snuck a peek over my shoulder.

Scary didn’t do him justice. He was a mashup of Godzilla and King Kong—butt ugly and horribly wrong. Massive neck, a monster mama would be proud of, steel studded earlobes, his hair spiky and nuclear-green. This was his cement jungle, and he was a self-declared king.

And I. I was the bug in his way. But I wasn’t Diamond anymore. I was JD Wolfe, Private Eye.

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It’s February—the month of love. As a Romance and Suspense Writer, this is an incredible month for my muse. It’s a short month but a busy month. Like all of you, I have a lot going on.

Have you ever thought, if I only had one extra day in my month, then I could . . . you fill in the blank.

Would you make it a catch-up day? And spend your day cleaning the clutter out of that space. Or spend your day FaceTiming with old friends? Or spend your day with your kids and catching up on their lives?

Would you make it a low-key day? And spend your day reading? Or spend your day planning out your garden? Or spend your day walking in the woods listening to nature?

Would you make it a creative day? And spend your day painting a picture? Or spend your day writing a short story. Or spend your day snapping pictures of your children and creating memory books?

Would you make it an adventure? And spend your day taking a riding lesson? Or spend your day flying across the sky in a hot air balloon? Or spend your day learning the mechanics of skydiving and tandem jumping from a plane?

Take a beat and decide what you would do with an extra twenty-four hours in your month.

Let me toss another thought out to you. My dad used to say, “Don’t let it get the best of you.”

Usually, he told me this because I was complaining about my siblings.

 He was trying to make the point that if I let someone’s actions bother me or derail me from my purpose or goals, then I’ve given them power over me and allowed them to take my best from me.

The best of me, because I’ve allowed them to control my thoughts or my actions.

Last week, after a night of my hubby and I staying up late and binge-watching television, I remembered my Dad’s phrase. 

Past midnight, we’d clicked off the TV. I’d mindlessly consumed extra calories. Dumped the popcorn bowl in the sink and soaked dinner dishes instead of washing them. 

The next morning, I slept past my alarm. I snoozed through my early morning writing time, missed my exercise time, and woke to a messy kitchen.

I’m supposed to be an adult. As an adult, I know that if I go to bed late, then I won’t be able to get up early and start my day off right with writing and exercising. I know that my evening activities are really set up for success for the next day.

But, the excitement of the show and the cliffhangers sucked me into saying, “Just one more.” And an hour later, “Just one more.” And an hour later, “Just one more.” Until I’d allowed the show to get the best of me not only that night but also the best of me for the following day.

I gave my best away to a silly show.

A silly show?

Do you give your best to your girlfriends and come home too tired to share with your husband? Do you give your best to the driver who cut you off and allow the rest of your day to be tainted by a bad mood? Do you give your best at work and come home empty?

Look, I understand you’ve got to work to feed the babies. But can you come home with a little to spare?

Like your family. Like yourself. It’s okay to say yourself. Giving your best to yourself often flows over to those you love. If you are not taking care of yourself, you won’t be around to care for your loved ones.

I get it. We are all tired. We all zoom in different directions, trying to be all we can be to everyone and every situation. To work, to the kids, to our friends, to church, to the housework, to the school, to the kid’s activities, maybe to the gym, to our pets, to our community, to that piece of cake in the fridge.

But if you had one extra day this month, who would you give your best?

I have great news for you. This February, we have an extra day. This year, there are twenty-nine, not twenty-eight, days in February.

What will you do with that extra day? Did your decision change from when the thought of an extra day went from wishing to reality? If so, why?

Why can’t you take one day this month? It doesn’t have to be the last day of the month, it can be any day, and do what you want. What you need to fill your cup.

Who will you give your best to on this extra day?

Thank you for spending time with me. Until next month, you’ll find me writing on the porch.

Sending you a great big HUG!

❤️ Dee

DEE ARMSTRONG

Romance & Suspense Author

Leaving a fingerprint on your heart

___________________________________________

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I love January. Everything is crisp and clean. There’s a touch of hope in the air and anything feels possible.

January is a renewal month for you and me. A renewal of a new you in the new year. It doesn’t matter if you set your goals on a sticky note or spreadsheet. January is a time when you can dream as big as you want to and have a whole year to make that dream come true.

You’re a swaggering, dashing, daring daredevil. Full of heroism and, dare I say, romance.

You’re the captain of your own sailboat. You’re in the middle of the ocean. You stand at the helm. The boat rocks beneath your feet, and no matter which direction you turn, you are surrounded by water.

On the horizon, everything you want is waiting for you.

Until you decide your course, you will continue to rock in the waves and drift with the current. Your direction or course are your new year goals. Only after you set your goals/direction will you be able to set off on your journey.

Just like there are seven seas to travel, there are seven goals to set. Faith, Family, Self, Financial, Social, Career, and Creativity.

For example, Faith could include filling your spiritual well with daily “Touchstone Time” with God, prayers and inspirational books, attending church and/or small groups, and giving back or blessing others.

Family isn’t limited to your spouse and children. How is your relationship with your parents, your siblings, and your in-laws? Keeping a connection takes purposeful scheduling. A simple call, texting a picture, or an in-person visit puts a positive emotional deposit into a loved one’s heart. The more positive deposits you make, the closer you will hopefully become.

Going deep with Self could include physical and mental health goals, getting enough sleep, and learning new things. I call these goals my “All about me” goals. If I’m not taking care of myself, how long will I be able to continue to care for my family? If I’m not growing spiritually or intellectually, then my family isn’t either.

Social could be everything from making new friends to connecting with old friends, mentoring others, and expanding your work contacts to having weekly tea time with friends.

Financial goals include setting a budget, saving for the future, a kid’s college, or a summer vacation. Check out Dave Ramsey at www.ramseysolutions.com. He is the master of money management.

Career. What do you want out of your career? Do you love what you are doing? If not, what do you love to do, and how can you make money at it? Do you need to reinvent your career path? Do you need to sharpen your skills to move up? Is your current job a stepping stone to a better job? How can you positively influence your work environment?

Creativity. We are born of the Creator and have an instinctive need to create or be creative. Some people fulfill this need by cooking or painting or inventing or gardening or writing. Your creative skill could be what gives you peace, an outlet to express yourself, a way to give back, or your future, forever career.

Now that you’ve sketched out your treasure map. Every ship has a flag, a way to communicate with other sailors. Your flag is your attitude towards life.  You run up your flag to the top of the crow’s nest. Sometimes, our flags are a little tattered or torn. Sometimes, our flags wave in full glory. Sometimes, our flags say that we’re down and keep clear or we’re at risk of going aground.

Ask yourself what your flag says about you. Does your flag say that you’re a goal-getter or a sitter? Does it say that you bring a positive attitude to everything you do? Check your flag. You can always bring it down, take a think, sip some tea, and raise it again.

Since the beginning of time, sailors have used the North Star to navigate. My North Star is God. He is who I look to for guidance and inspiration, to heal my wounds and find peace. I hope He is your North Star, too.

Every sailor has a compass. For goals, your compass is affected by the magnetic fields of your emotions. Positive emotions and negative emotions. You want to head due south to your goal of, fill in the blank, but you are angry or sad or mad. The energy sucked out of your efforts by negative emotions throws you off course or shifts your course into the direction of Davy Jones’s locker.

If you’re excited and energized about a goal, that energy creates a positive magnetic field that leads you toward your goal. Plus, the positive energy that you send forth touches other people and energizes other people’s positive energy, and their energy adds to your energy, creating a magnetic field of positive power. Magic happens. Connections are made and goals are achieved. Check your compass often.

What’s in your sailboat? Do you have past failures taking up precious space? Have you stocked up with the negative phrases others have said instead of tossing their words into the sea?

Stock your cargo hold with good food, great friends and powerful positive thinking. Anything and everything you need to make your voyage a success.

The sea is filled with Nay Sayers. Creatures that circle your boat waiting for you to fail. Or they cling to your hull, hoping to drag you down to the ocean floor. Or they appear like mermaids, beautiful and seductive, singing sweet melodies in your ear of other dreams and distractions to pull you off course.

As Captain of your ship, you must remain steady with your purpose, solid in your intent, and courageous with your actions.

You plot your course, raise your flag, check your compass, and hoist your sails. But wait. Nothing happens. Your sails fall flat. You wait some more.

Your goals are on the horizon. Still, nothing happens. Your sailboat doesn’t move.

The wind your sailboat needs to move is generated by your actions. Your journey and success are powered by you.

When you decide to take action and continue to act, you will sail across the seven seas and your seven goals. You might hit rough seas, but keep looking to your North Star and keep your compass handy and your flag flying high.

Fair winds and following seas,

– Dee

DEE ARMSTRONG

Romance & Suspense Author

Leaving a fingerprint on your heart

___________________________________________

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Welcome to my December Author News and my writing world. I’m ramping up for 2024. I have some really special book-related surprises coming your way. For example, I’ve added writing a Christmas novella to next year’s schedule.

I’m sprinkling Christmas cheer all month long. You can find quips from Mrs. Clause on my Facebook Page, Dee’s Book-Loving Friends Facebook Group, X (Twitter), and Instagram. Here are examples of the first three posts.

I’m hoping for a month of peace.

Peace and quiet in my home and heart.

I’m making a promise to myself to set aside a few minutes each day to fill my cup with peace. I’m talking about the kind of peace that is filled with silence. Where you snuggle into your favorite spot, close your eyes, let your mind quiet, take a deep, chest-raising breath—hold the air inside—release it ever so slowly and allow one muscle in your body to melt into another.

Don’t dwell on things you need to do but let go. Allow your mind to rest and your body to relax for a few heartbeats. Then a few more. Allow the air around you to seep into your pores. Allow the quiet to fill your cup for the day.

When my kids were little, the bathroom was my quiet spot. I’d sit on the toilet seat or the floor. I’d quiet myself, block out noise and listen to my breathing. I’d imagine myself in a field filled with sunflowers. The bees buzzing from one petal to another. The wind blowing across my face and lifting the wayward hair around my forehead. The sun’s rays warming my cheeks. Peace filled my soul and allowed me to handle another day with my husband deployed and raising the kids on my own.

When my kids were teenagers, I’d escape the craziness of the house to the car. I’d park behind a local strip of stores located high above I-95. If I parked at the right angle, sky and trees filled my windshield. I’d roll my windows down. I’d turn off the car and turn off my worries. I’d breathe, allowing the wind and the sun and the smell of the trees to flow over me. Sometimes, I’d get a whole five minutes before my phone would ring, but I’d start my car and travel home feeling renewed.

Today, my favorite quiet spot is my front porch at sunrise. The perfect spot. A breeze always finds my porch. The geese fly overhead. The tips of the trees meet clouds and sky. In the winter, a view of the lake sparkles through bare branches. I soak everything in and allow nature’s peace to flow through me.

Some days, I follow up my quiet time with a cup of tea. On good days, I begin my day with writing. Every day, I look forward to a call from my children.

Taking a moment for yourself is important, even if the moment is a couple of minutes sitting on the bathroom floor with your back against the door. In the spirit of Christmas, I’m giving you a special gift—permission to take a few minutes each day for you.

Please take my gift and find a moment for yourself. Find a quiet space to breathe and fill your cup with peace.

​

Wishing you a peaceful December and a happy holiday season,

Hugs!

❤️ Dee

Dee Armstrong, Romance and Suspense Author

Leaving a fingerprint on your heart.

Subscribers to Dee’s Newsletter received this post directly to their email inbox. Plus, they received Dee’s Pick for Book of the Month, Sharpen Your Pen Book of the Month for Writers, and Last Minute Book-Loving Friends Gift Ideas.

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Welcome to my November Author News and my writing world. This month, I have some big, BIG, BIG family news to share with you. I will SPILL on some of our most cherished and fabulously fun holiday traditions that make this time of year unique.

I will share with you one of my yummiest Thanksgiving week meal ideas that will please not only the kids but make your hubby wish he’d worn pants with an elastic waistband. Plus, I’ll share some cute and fun Thanksgiving activities to bring your family together.

But first, let’s talk about writing and books. November is a crazy time for everyone. Writers are no exception. Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? Someone, somewhere, decided to make November National Novel Writing Month. Where you write a book, or 50,000 words in thirty short days.

Last year, I rocked NaNoWriMo. This year, I’m focusing on finishing the edits of my new book, JD & the Broken Promise. My editor expects it in her mailbox in April, and I want it in your hands in June.

School is never out for the pro. I’ve finished my online training with International Thriller Writers. Every Tuesday afternoon for ten weeks, I learned from some of the best and most recognized thriller writers worldwide, from JD Barker to Gabino Iglesias to Lisa Unger. They shared their tips and tricks for writing page-turning mysteries and thrillers.

Tell me, what are you currently reading? What stories have captured your heart recently? Do you shift your reading preferences to cozy mysteries or romances during the holidays? I do. Share your thoughts and comments; I’d love to hear from you.

Ryan deployed and will hopefully return before the baby comes in May. No worries, I have a laptop and will travel. Ready or not, Lindsey, here I come to keep you company.

Lindsey and Ryan’s first child will put our Little’s (Our grandchildren) count up to eight: Lilly, Laurence III, Gideon, Abbi, Tommy, Ellie, Atlas, and soon-to-be-named. If you have any baby name suggestions, send them my way, I’ll pass them along.

Here’s a pic of two of my Littles. You might recognize Tommy from old newsletters.

My signature addition is a swirl of Reddi Whip and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Try it. You will never drink regular tea again. Then, we settle in to sip and enjoy the changing of the leaves under electric blankets with dogs and a cat or two snuggled beside us.

I plan other silly things, like “Hey” rides where Pop drives the Littles around the block on his motorcycle to say hey to everyone they meet.

I cut apples for the Littles to give to the “Neigh”bors. (The horses that live around the corner from us.) This year, my son, Larry, is teaching everyone about welding. After Thanksgiving, I plan a Turkey Waddle, where we enjoy a leisurely walk and burn off some calories.

On the front of my leaf, I give thanks to God for my family and friends. I give thanks for allowing my heart to keep on ticking and allowing me to see my family grow and expand. I always give thanks for future generations: my children and my littles. Nothing is more important than our children. Within their eyes, I see past generations. I see hope for the future.

On the back of my leaf, I add my wishes and dreams. I wish that I might finally lose and keep off the pounds that snuck up and latched on to me. I dream for words on the page and lots of new books. I wish for important things like the health, safety, and prosperity of my family and yours. I dream for our country and world to unite and live in peace. That’s a lot to be thankful for and ask for on one little leaf.

Friday morning, the Littles wake up to Christmas magic. Fall decorations have come down and the elves have redecorated the kitchen and living room in the Christmas spirit.

We start with cookie baking. Later in the day, the leaves are gathered off the tree and saved for next year. My children drag out the ornament box and place their childhood ornaments on the tree. More memories are passed with each ornament hung.

When it gets dark, we sit on the deck with hot cocoa or a hot toddy and count down for the Tree Lighting Ceremony. The Littles ooh and aah over the lighting of our thirty-foot Christmas tree. (Putting a shout-out to my daughter, Katrina, who put the lights on this year.)

We sit on the deck for Star Gazing and Spot Reindeer Training, where we gaze towards the stars and try to catch a glimpse of Santa training his reindeer for the big night. When it gets cold or the Littles start falling asleep, whichever comes first, we call it a night.

We gather around the fire pit in lawn chairs or sit on logs. We fill 8 x 12 sheets of heavy aluminum foil with our favorite meats (chicken, steak, hamburger), cut-up vegetables, cubed potatoes, a tab of butter, or three tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, or your favorite seasonings. Wrap them up and throw them on the fire to cook for about 20 – 25 minutes. Don’t forget to flip them halfway through. Originally, this was something my son and hubby would do camping, but I’ve found it to be a fun food that I only have to prep the fixin’s, and everyone cooks their own.

The day everyone leaves starts with food, as it should. (Now, you understand how those pounds have snuck up on me.) I cook a country breakfast of biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage and hash browns. My mother made the BEST biscuits and gravy. Someday, my gravy will match the memories of my mother’s. After breakfast, we say our goodbyes.

Our traditions might sound goofy to some, but my Littles love Thanksgiving at Lolli and Pop’s house, and I love seeing excitement glow in their eyes and on their chubby cheeks. I see these activities as creating lasting memories for my Littles and making positive deposits into their hearts.

What traditions do you celebrate in November? Please take a moment to share your traditions with me in the comments below. I love learning and hearing from you.

This November and always, let me emphatically say that I’m thankful for you!

Why?

Because you are a kindred spirit. Someone with whom I can share my love of reading. Someone who understands that books are more than paper and ink or a screen with words; books are vessels that take us on new adventures and allow us to experience different people and places, lives and dreams.

Without you turning the pages and reading onward, hearts would not mend, lovers would not reunite, and heroes would not win. Without you, books will never truly live. They’d die unopened and forgotten.

Because of you, books take on new meanings, new worlds open, and new book chats begin. Because of you, anything is possible, and adventure knows no bounds. These are a few of the reasons why I’m thankful for you—my book-loving friend.

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with an abundance of fun, food and family.

Until we talk again, happy reading.

Hugs!

❤️ Dee

Dee Armstrong, Romance and Suspense Author

Leaving a fingerprint on your heart.

Books, Website, Fan Club, About Dee

Hello Book Loving Friend,

My theme for the month of May is—Sow seeds of faith, family, friendship and bloom in the garden of your life.

I believe that everyday we sow seeds. Seeds in the forms of relationships with our family and friends. Or seeds in the forms of goals and dreams.

Sometimes, we sow these seeds deep in the ground. Sometimes, we scatter them on top of the soil. Sometimes, we drop a seed without realizing it and leave it for someone else to find and benefit.

Whatever seed or dream we’ve planted, we wait for it to bloom. Bloom into beautiful flowers or blessings for ourselves and others.

Some flowers bloom in the fall, some spring, others the summer. Some even in the freezing cold of winter or the driest desert. All depends on the type of flower, when we sowed the seeds and how we cared for them.

Sometimes, we over love our seeds and drown them with attention. Or we forget about our seeds and allow them to wither and die.

Sometimes, we dig up our seeds, replant or transplant and expect them to bloom on our timeline anyway.

Sometimes, we’re impatient. We keep digging up the seedlings, checking their progress, tucking them back into the dirt only to dig them up again and again and again. Every time, we shout with disappointment that the roots weren’t that deep. We wonder why, not realizing that we didn’t give them time to grow, become and blossom.

Sometimes, we keep our seeds in the dark. Not wanting anyone else to know about them. Or hide them behind another, more beautiful flower. Not realizing that they deserve their own sunshine to reach their greatest heights.

I want you all to know that I’ve been there, done that and have the dirt under my nails to prove it.

I’ve been told that talking about faith is taboo as an author. It will turn off readers, destroy your brand, alienate you from other authors. Here comes the buuuuuutttt.

Faith for me is a golden string that runs through me. Pulls me up, gives me hope, allows me to dream. A string on which one end is my heart and soul the other is my God and Maker.

Did you ever play the game with two paper cups and a string between them? You talk into one cup and the other person can hear you with the other cup. Or can they? Who knows, that’s why it’s called faith. I can pick up that string and connect in. Whenever, I choose. However, I choose.

It takes faith to sow seeds in your life. To give up control and realize that sometimes, not everything is up to you. Sometimes you have sow your seeds and believe.

Some flowers will bloom. Some won’t. Some—the mighty ones—will bloom greater than you ever expected.

Wishing you a beautiful garden filled with hopes and dreams, friends and family.

Happy reading.

Hugs—❤️Dee

Dee Armstrong—Romance and Suspense author. 

Dee’s a writer, a mom, a tea-aholic, a gardening ninja and her grandma name is Lolli. ?

Pick up one of her books and she’ll leave a fingerprint on your heart.