Reader comments

I love getting comments from readers. Love, love, love hearing what they think of what I've written.

A few days ago I heard from a reader who'd just read For the Love of Grace which is one of my Wild Rose Press short stories. She enjoyed it, saying that it gave her a view of a place she's always dreamed of visiting.

*I hope you get to see the Pyramids for yourself, Kathy! Thanks so much for your note! :)

An excerpt from For the Love of Grace, available at TWRP:

Settling back against the butter-soft leather
banquette she opened the heavy menu and perused the
selections. A waiter, dressed in traditional Egyptian
costume, left a dry martini on a cocktail napkin in front of
her and departed on slipper-covered feet. It wasn’t until
she heard the discreet throat clearing that she looked up
from the menu.

She didn’t see the waiter when she removed her
reading glasses. What she did see was something that,
somehow, didn’t surprise her.

His head didn’t look as sunburned as she’d
remembered it and without the scent of camel dung or a
layer of red dust clinging to his clothing, he was really an
attractive man. For an older man, that is. Wearing a
tweed blazer with brown leather elbow patches and brown
corduroy trousers, he looked more like a professor than
ever.

“Mr. Phillips,” Grace said warmly. “What a surprise.”

“A pleasant one, I hope,” he answered. “And it’s
Justin, remember? Why, we’re old friends by now. I say,
we did nearly share a kebab, didn’t we?” He winked at
her and her heart flipped alarmingly in her chest.

A twitch, that’s what it is. He’s got a nervous tic—he
couldn’t possibly have winked at me, could he? Goodness, I
don’t think anyone’s winked at me in…well, in a long time,
at least.

“Yes, a pleasant surprise,” she allowed. “It is nice to
see you again.” Grace perched her glasses on her nose and
prepared to reopen the menu.

“Ahem, well…I was wondering, Grace. That is, if you
wouldn’t mind terribly sharing your lovely, private table
with an old Englishman.”

“Share a table?”

“Yes. You see, they’re apparently quite crowded and
the wait is lengthy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“And, well, to be quite brutally honest, I have medication
I need to take on a full stomach—”

“Nothing serious, I hope?” asked Grace, her voice
filled with concern.

“No, no, nothing serious. Just your usual middle-age
health concerns—a bit more concern-provoking now that
I’m well past middle age, I’m afraid,” Justin said, smiling.

“Aside from that, though, if you would consent to share
your accommodations with me, a retired English
barrister, I would be delighted. It would, you see, give me
the opportunity to dine with a very beautiful, intriguing
woman. So, what do you say?”

What could she say?