Just for Now... by Liz Flaherty

 This was first on the Window in April of 2022. Like April of this year, it was a time of changing, of sorrow and dance, of ...well, April being April. Today would be my mother's birthday--I'm pretty sure she'd like this one. I hope you won't mind reading it again. 

I've always known what the word ephemeral meant, but I've never used it--possibly because I didn't know how to spell it and I'm not completely sure of its pronunciation. It means, in case you aren't sure, "lasting a very short time."

Coming from my position on life's calendar, I think that includes everything except possibly hot flashes, bad movies, and sleepless nights. However, the ephemerality is often in retrospect, isn't it? When my kids were young, I thought the terrible twos went on for about twelve years. When it was my grandkids, it only lasted minutes--days at the most. 

The bluebird's on the clothesline this morning. He's so quick. I wish he'd stay, but he has too much going on to pose outside my office window for long. 

The forsythia bush is like its own little sunbeam in the corner of the yard where it's been the whole time we've lived here. Sunrise this morning was brightly, achingly beautiful. One of my favorite pictures ever is of the rainbow that lit the sky over the neighbors' barn. They last such a short time, don't they, and yet they last forever, too. 

If you don't like who's in the White House, his tenure lasts an agonizingly long time. If you do like him, you relax a little because you feel safer, but no sooner have you put up the footrest of the recliner than it's election year yet again. 

Loss makes you more aware of how fleeting everything is. That's when you realize that the term a good, long life is subjective. Because to the ones left behind, long wasn't nearly long enough. Loss also reminds you to be grateful. Again and again and again. For family, friends, and memories--and for that life that wasn't long enough.

Nothing is more transitory than weather, although I believe the wind and rain are 

Photo by Regine Brindle

here to stay. What we need to do, other than wait it out, is find the beauty in it. Regine Brindle does that better than most. She's one of my gratitudes today, for sharing her pictures. More than just visual, they gift the other senses as well. For the writer in me, she always makes me find words. Lacy, anyone? Fragile? Tenderness? 

My grandson took this picture, which I stole without conscience, at Kilgore Falls in Maryland. I don't know its story, but I do know looking at the photograph builds a story in the mind. 

Photo by Skyler Wilson

The objects of the photographs move instantly from how they look there. The ice blows off the trees. The waterfall continues to roar and move the wood in the picture. Ephemerality at its best. 

And maybe that's what I'll end this with. Because of photographs and memories, we get to keep those moments. Even if we are at a point that we don't actually recall them, I'm not so sure we don't always remember on some plane how they made us feel. I'm not so sure we can't still experience the joy. I hope so. 

Have a good week. Be grateful. Be nice to somebody. 

Make You Mine by Nan Reinhardt

My writing bestie Nan Reinhardt is here today and I'm always so glad to see her. We work together, talk an unconscionable amount, travel together...and there's wine and food involved ALL the time! She's here to talk about Make You Mine, the newest River's Edge book (think Madison, IN) and about where she gets ideas. Make her welcome!

So often I’m asked, where do you get the ideas for your books. I’ve tried to come up with answers that don’t make me sound as if I need to put away someplace or at the very least like I need to spend a few years in intensive therapy. But there isn’t really any better answer than the truth. So I take a deep breath and blurt it out, “I have these people in my head. They appear to me and want me to tell their stories, so I try to.” Problem is that, sometimes, the people talking to me aren’t the characters in my current work in progress.

That is a dilemma. As I’m writing book 4 in the Walkers of River’s Edge series and doing revisions on book 3 of said series, characters from book 1 of the next series are shoving to the front of the line demanding attention. It’s hard to tell them to slow their roll, so I just pull out the notebook for the next series and jot down thoughts and ideas. I’m not at all sure I won’t get characters, events, timelines, etc., mixed up if I try to write more than story at a time. I’m fairly adept at running two or three editing gigs concurrently, but I don’t think it work for writer Nan. So, I’ll continue with writing one book at a time, and let the people in my head clamor in the background. They’ll get their turn…eventually.

Speaking of the people in my head, two of them had their story released last week. Jack Walker and Maddie Ross’s book, Make You Mine is out now and available at all book retailers. Here’s the blurb—hope it intrigues you!

When his family’s company is on the line, business and pleasure definitely don’t mix, but maybe they should…

Madeline Ross left the city and a career glass ceiling behind, hoping to build a new life as the crew supervisor for Walker Construction in River’s Edge. She’s qualified and experienced, but new CEO Jackson Walker hires someone else. Even as she searches for a different job and builds a life in River’s Edge, the sexy memory of Jack teases.

After a rough year, Jackson Walker’s family business is still struggling. He needs a new construction crew supervisor, and Maddie Ross is perfect, except for the first time in his life, player Jack is suddenly smitten with the curvaceous redhead. He wants her in his bed more than on his payroll.

When his second-rate new hire is a disastrous mistake, Jack humbles himself on Maddie’s doorstep with an offer she can’t refuse. Maddie could be the key to saving his company as long as he hides his heart. But does he have to?

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EXCERPT

Setup: Jack has hired someone else and it didn’t work out so now he’s groveling on Maddie’s doorstep…well… groveling as only Jack Walker can do it.

As she struggled up the stairs with a stack of boxes, Maddie scolded herself. Idiot. You should’ve made another trip. She should’ve, but this was the last of the boxes, and she was tired and damp from the rain that was making the wooden steps up to the apartment above Mac Mackenzie’s garage rather slick. She should’ve known it would start raining while she was toting the last load upstairs.

The box on top leaned precariously and just as she moved her hand to catch it, her foot slipped on the wet step. I’m going down, was her first thought, but then footsteps thumped up the stairs behind her. A hand righted the box at the same time a strong arm wrapped around her waist and caught her.

“Careful now.” That deep voice was familiar, but Maddie was in no position to even turn her head at that point.

“T-thanks,” she managed and got her balance back.

The firm hold remained as a blond head peered over the boxes. “Let me take some of those for you.”

Jackson Walker?

One step below her, Jack lifted the top two boxes, leaving her only one, and when she moved her face toward his voice, his lips were mere inches from hers. His blue eyes smoldered dark navy and, for a moment, time stood still.

Maddie closed her eyes. Time does not stand still. Open your eyes, stupid, and get moving. She opened her eyes, but he was there so close, she felt his minty breath mingling with hers. When she opened them, he was gazing at her as if he wanted to . . . but he held back for a second, waiting, giving her time, it seemed, to say no. When she didn’t . . and then he did.

Clutching the boxes in one arm as if they held nothing more than feathers and moving his hand from her waist to grasp the banister behind her, Jack leaned in and very lightly touched his warm, full lips to hers. Her eyes closed again, automatically, and when he tipped his head and deepened the kiss, every nerve ending in her body went on point. The kiss was a crazy contradiction of gentle and passionate, sweet and sensual.

Bless whoever taught this man to kiss because she could’ve stood there in the rain forever in a lip-lock with Jackson Walker.

But finally, he lifted his lips and a wry smile curved his mouth upward. “So . . . that’s not why I’m here.”

She blinked and her voice came out croaky. “Why are you here?”

“Because I need you.” He shook his head as if to clear it. He hadn’t moved his arm yet, and it pressed against her back, sending tingles up her spine. “We . . . we need you.”

“We who?” Maddie knew the answer, but she asked anyway because she wanted to hear him say the words.

“Walker Construction.”

“Why? I thought you already hired someone.” She wanted him to beg. Maybe that was shallow of her, but he’d turned her away before and now here he was, telling her he needed her. He should grovel, just a little bit. Besides, he’d kissed her, something she felt had nothing whatsoever to do with Walker Construction. The man was an enigma.

Jack tossed his head and rain dripped off his wet hair onto her boxes. “Can we continue this conversation in a drier place, please?”

She stared at him, debating the wisdom of letting him into her apartment. Into her life, for that matter. However, she needed a job, and it seemed he was about to offer her one. But there was that kiss, that incredible, unexpected kiss . . . Her belly flipped at the thought. What was she supposed to do about that?

With a short jerk of her chin toward the door above them, she started up the stairs. “Come on, then.”

Nan Reinhardt is a USA Today bestselling author of sweet, small-town romantic fiction for Tule Publishing. Her day job is working as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader, however, writing is Nan’s first and most enduring passion. She can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t writing—she wrote her first romance novel at the age of ten and is still writing, but now from the viewpoint of a wiser, slightly rumpled, woman in her prime. Nan lives in the Midwest with her husband of 50 years, where they split their time between a house in the city and a cottage on a lake. Talk to Nan at: nan@nanreinhardt.com, stop by her website, or follow her on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.