When she heard about Mitch, it was Roberta that talked me into making the pizza. “You have to!” she’d nearly shrieked. She did this because I’d waxed on perhaps a little too enthusiastically about Mitch’s looks, his warm smile and his neigh...
Now it was Arla’s turn for astonishment. The Boy gave Perry a wide smile as he shook his hand. “You know the land you say? Up along the promontory? Good. Well, perhaps we should take you along. Do you have a horse?” “No” Perry replied. “B...
Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. So when ...
Elizabeth smiled warmly. "For you I will allow it, Mr. Trask. How is your wife, sir? Still putting up with you, or has she finally come to her senses and run away?" Trask laughed, slapping his knee. "I see married life has not tamed that wit of yours...
Hey, it's not a problem," she says, still smiling at me. "If you feel bad about it, pay me in cocoa and I'll do it with you all night if you want." Craig bursts out laughing and Maria looks up at him confused. I groan and press my face into my good h...
I've been wanting to do that for a very long time," I growled Victor smiled through the pain and the blood. "Of course you have. I used to think Belikov was the savage one, but it's really you, isn't it? You're the animal with no control, no higher r...
Finally, after a glance at Notre Dame and a brisk trot through the Louvre, we sat down at a cafe on the Place de l'Opera and watched the people. They were amazing -- never had we seen such costumes, such make-up, such wigs; and, strangest of all, the...
Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile her...
She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous, mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables resembling giant metal noodles snaked across the floor and ran up the walls. �...
As my grandfather once famously shouted, in a drunken stupor, “You can’t have fish tacos if you still have the hook in your mouth!” And while I have no idea what he meant, or how it’s relevant, I tell that story to any indigenous Mexican I me...
As I pulled aside the linen curtain to the back room, I heard the front door open again. If it was Christina returning to make a second effort at my leggings, I was going to be forced to get loud, and I didn't like getting loud. But it wasn't Christi...
She wanted to ask about the McCaffreys' children, but the question seemed too personal. Westerners were private sorts, in Evangeline's judgment, with more than their share of secrets. "It scares me a little," she confessed. "The idea of being so alon...
I. At Tea THE kettle descants in a cosy drone, And the young wife looks in her husband's face, And then in her guest's, and shows in her own Her sense that she fills an envied place; And the visiting lady is all abloom, And says there was never so sw...
Love does not involve emotions, then?" he asked her with a smile. "It is not ruled by them," she told him. "Love is liking and companionship and respect and trust. Love does not dominate or try to possess. Love thrives only in a commitment to pure, m...
If you feel like a nearly-drowned rat that’s been dragged through the mud, all twisted up inside your mother’s borrowed, prized quilt, having been tossed about by gale force winds that managed to entangle you in barbed wire one-thousand miles fro...
There are people who are never content, never appeased, forever dissatisfied—who continually look to what escapes them, convincing themselves that if only they could attain that one desire outside of reach they would be happy. It seems almost poi...
" "Oh, man in the moon, send an evening star to wink at my dreary eyes, and I shall make a wish for a peaceful world that spins with no more lies. Oh, man in the moon, send the night's cool breeze to lull my leery heart, and I shall cast my fears to ...
Time and again the sun sets like a bedimming curtain before my eyes, taking with it all illumination, warmth, and color. I am overwhelmed by night and the monsters that lurk in shadows of despair. But alas, stars twinkle from afar, shedding the t...
There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing ...
Current relationship status?” Her voice cut like an arctic chill blowing through the room. “If you mean me, then you’re not my type. If you mean my dad, he’s single, but I don’t think you’re his type either,” I said with a small smile. ...
Ranger is an unusual name," she managed. "Is it a nickname?" It's a street name," Ranger said. "I was a Ranger in the army." I heard about them Rangers on TV," Grandma said. "I heard they get dogs pregnant." My father's mouth dropped open and a piece...
