I was walking past a fast food outlet, minding my own business when an explosion behind me first threw me about 20 feet along the sidewalk and then dumped a whole lot of building rubbish on me.
So much for minding my own business.
Dazed, half deaf, and bleeding from several shrapnel wounds, I slowly got to my feet and looked back in the direction of where I thought the explosion happened.
Wrong. It was in the other direction. No surprise with the disorientation.
Not far from me, I could see several others on the ground through the settling cloud of dust, bodies lying on the pathway, not moving. A number of cars that had been driving past had got caught almost directly by the blast and had been severely damaged. Other cars behind had crashed into them.
The storefront I had just passed was now just a pile of rubble, much like photos of houses during the blitz and anyone caught in it would not have survived.
Still slightly disorientated, I could hear sirens in the distance, and then, above that, as my hearing slightly improved, screams from people who had taken the full brunt of the explosion.
I headed towards the nearest of the injured when I was knocked abruptly to the ground by two men running away from the scene. It took a few moments to realize these men must have had something to do with the explosion and were fleeing.
I scrambled to my feet and started running after them. They were some distance in front of me as was an oncoming police car, and I thought they could take up the chase, and stopped.
Instead, it drove straight past the two men and stopped opposite me, and before knew what was happening, I was on the ground with four weapons trained on my head, and three of them yelling that if I moved they would shoot me.
I tried telling them about the two fleeing men I’d been chasing but no one was listening.
I had a knee in my back and a gun to my head. This wasn’t going to end well for someone.
There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?
A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.
But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.
And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.
Susan is exactly the sort of woman that piqued his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.
Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!
A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.
When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.
I’ve had the ubiquitous pleasure of being called one, and that is, a bore.
Probably because I spend so much time telling people about the joys and woes of being a writer.
You can be a tedious bore, cooking could be a bore, and then you could bore someone to death, and then you will bore the responsibility of, yes, doing just that.
Would it be murder or manslaughter?
But, of course, there are other meanings of the word, such as, on my farm I have a bore.
No, we’re not talking about the farmhand, but where artesian water is brought to the surface, in what would otherwise be very arid land.
Or, could be the size of a drill hole, and in a specific instance the measurement of the circular space that piston goes up and down. And if you increase the size of the bore, the more powerful the engine.
Or it could refer to the size of a gun barrel, for all of you who are crime fiction writers.
But, let’s not after all of that, confuse it with another interpretation of the word, boar, which is basically a male pig.
It could also just as easily describe certain men.
Then there is another interpretation, boor, which is an extremely rude person, or a peasant, a country bumpkin or a yokel.
I’ve only seen the latter in old American movies.
There is one more, rather obscure interpretation, and that is boer, which is a Dutch South African, who at the turn of the last century found themselves embroiled in a war with the British.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
…
It didn’t surprise Johannesen there were about twenty prisoners down in the dungeons, though he was surprised to find that the dungeon area was quite large, and in several sections. The fact they smelled of wine told him that once, the cells were used at storage areas for bottles of wine.
Several of the cells that were furthest from the downstairs entrance, and recently boarded over caused several overzealous resistance fighters of Leonardo’s to start smashing walls looking for it.
Johannsen tried not to think about Leonardo. He was the very worst of men, a pig even by German standards.
Martina had been put in a cell not far from Leonardo’s wine cache. There was purpose in that, he could get drunk and then take it out of the woman who had made him look stupid. Come to think of it, he thought, it wouldn’t be too hard for a ten-year-old to do that.
The cell door was locked, but Johannsen had a key. He had meticulously gone through all the keyrings and loose keys that had been found and those that didn’t have an immediate use had been stored in the dungeon guardroom.
Matching keys to locks had been one of his secret tasks, under the disguise of being given the job by Wallace to match keys to locks for them. There were a few short in the end, keys to rooms, and cells that seem to serve no purpose. One had become Johannessen’s hideaway.
It was part of a plan he had been formulating, one where he could take prisoners and hide them. Of course, it wouldn’t work for the moment because the prisoners had to be moved on as soon as possible, and staying in the castle, even if the others didn’t know where they were, would invite a microscopic search. It would need Atherton’s knowledge of the castle, and whether there was another escape route they could use.
It was another of his works in progress, one that was highly likely to fail.
He stood back from the door and looked at the crumpled heap on the floor that was once the leader of the resistance. Leonardo had interrogated her before bringing her back, half-dead, to the castle, and in doing so had made it impossible for anyone to interrogate her further. Had that been the reason why Leonardo had bashed her senseless?
He saw a hand move by her side, and a low groan.
He spoke quietly, in English, “Are you able to come closer to the door?” He knelt down, trying to get a better look at her injuries. Abrasions, and bruising. Swollen eyes, possible broken nose, blood spatter everywhere on her clothing which remarkably was relatively intact. He had suspected Leonardo of doing a lot worse and may still have.
She lifted her head slightly, “Who are you?”
“I could be a friend.”
She laughed, then coughed, and blood came out of her mouth. Broken ribs possibly, and a punctured lung. She might be too injured to move.
“There are no friends in this place, just Tedeschi.” She lowered her head and closed her eyes. Her breathing was irregular and shallow. Definitely broken ribs, he thought. And not likely to survive another interrogation. Not if Jackerby was going to conduct it.
“I’d like to help you if I can.”
“Everyone in here, we’re beyond help. You know that because you’re one of them.”
“Some of us care what happens to people.”
She pushed hard to move around slightly to face him, laying her head on the side to face him. “Which one are you?”
“Johannsen.”
“Yes, Johannesen. Atherton mentioned you. As untrustworthy as the rest. But for me, I’m all but dead, but I’ll humor you. Get me out of here and away from that bastardo Leonardo, and I might believe you.”
Atherton. This might be an opportunity to find out how he could get in contact with him, knowing of course, she wasn’t going to tell him where Atherton was.
“If you want to get away from here, we need Atherton. He’s the only one who knows this place inside out.”
He could see her shaking her head, as painful as that might be.
“He’s not.”
“Then is there anyone who does?”
“There is.”
“Who?”
Again she laughed and it sounded like the death rattle of her last breath. “You think I’m that far gone that I would tell you anything?”
“If you want to escape, I can only get you so far.”
“There is no escape. Believe me. If there was, I would be gone. Save your trickery and lies for someone who might be gullible enough to believe you. I’m quite prepared to die, the fact I’ve lived this long is what some would call a miracle.”
With that she turned away, coughed, and went silent. She wasn’t dead, but death wasn’t far away.
When Johannesen reluctantly left the cell, he only made it to the turn towards the steps up when he ran into Jackerby.
Had Jackerby been somewhere near and overheard their conversation.
“You have a rather interesting interrogation technique,” Jackerby said.
Johannesen groaned inwardly. He had heard.
“Sometimes it’s better to try and infuse hope in the subject rather than resignation. I was trying to get her to tell me where Atherton is.”
“And did she?”
“What do you think. After what Leonardo did, she’s not likely to tell us anything. I’m sure if we had taken a different approach…”
“Yes, softly softly. Doesn’t work. Just leave the heavy lifting to us, and don’t bother coming down to revisit the prisoners. Otherwise, I might believe you really are trying to help them escape.”
There is more, and it has been forming in my mind overnight after I read, and re-read yesterday’s work.
This operation was led by two ex American army lieutenants who had served in the Vietnam war and afterward searching for lost comrades. The Colonel told me they had spent a few years looking for lost POW’s held in camps just over the border in Cambodia or Laos and had a good track record in the jungle. He trusted them and said I could too.
I thought it odd he felt the need to reassure me.
He said they’d had marginal success, but my own impression was that they were ex CIA, gone rogue, and were part of the burgeoning drug trade that had sprung up during and after the war had ended. For all that, I had also begun to suspect the Colonel had sold out and we were more about protecting the criminals rather than trying to catch them, and for me, that unquestioning obedience he demanded was beginning to slip.
They also had the look of men who had spent their time sampling the product, and as such were treading a fine line between sanity and insanity. Still, at first, they didn’t seem all that different to us.
Thoroughly soaked, we made the camp on schedule, planned the attack, and carried it out. Only there was no one there, it was empty, and had been for some time. I turned to question the two ‘experts’.
Pity then I hadn’t noticed his partner coming up from behind. If I had, my situation may have been very, very, different.
When I woke up, it was not in a nice warm or comfortable bed. It was a dirt floor. I looked up and realized I was in a hut. Daytime, very hot, with sharp, bright shards of light leaking through the cracks in the wall and around the doorway.
My head was hurting, as was just about every other part of me, but a cursory examination showed nothing was broken. Yet.
It took only a moment for clarity to return, and the realization we were prisoners. Survivors from the group, the only survivors.
The other occupant, a soldier whom I only knew by his first name, Barry, stirred, and then rolled over.
“Where are we?” he asked.
‘In a hut.”
“Where?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He groaned, and then tried to sit up, only to slowly sink back down again. Perhaps he had tried harder to escape and paid a heavier price.
“This is not looking good,” he said.
“No.” An understatement, I thought, but to my knowledge, this was the first time I’d heard they took prisoners. Usually, everyone was summarily executed, and the bodies set up as an example to others.
I heard the sound of boots on gravel coming towards the hut, then, in an instant, the harsh light coming in, temporarily blinding me as the door was yanked open.
When my eyes adjusted I saw two bulky men holding machine guns standing behind another, a short Chinese, with a very familiar face.
Where? When?
Then I remembered. A week ago, in Hong Kong, at a hastily arranged meeting between Davenport and the police who were supposed to be helping us with information on a smuggling group known to be operating in the Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos area. He was the Chinese liaison, connected with the Government.
Apparently not.
This was bad. Very, very bad.
“Mr. Chandler. So nice of you to join us. Colonel Davenport and I are so disappointed in you.”
We have been to Paris a number of times over the years.
The last time we visited Paris we brought the two eldest grandchildren. We took the Eurostar train from St Pancras station direct to Disneyland, then took the free bus from the station to the hotel. The train station was directly outside Disneyland.
We stayed at the Dream Castle Hotel, rather than Disneyland itself as it was a cheaper option and we had a family room that was quite large and breakfast was included every morning. Then it was a matter of getting the free bus to Disneyland.
We spent three days, time which seem to pass far too quickly, and we didn’t get to see everything. They did, however, find the time to buy two princess dresses, and then spent the rest of the time playing dress-ups whenever they could.
In Paris, we stayed at the Crown Plaza at Republique Square.
We took the children to the Eiffel Tower where the fries, and the carousel at the bottom of the tower, seemed to be more memorable than the tower itself. The day we visited, the third level was closed. The day was cold and windy so that probably accounted for the less than memorable visit. To give you some idea of conditions, it was the shortest queue to get in I’ve ever seen.
We traveled on the Metro where it was pointed out to me that the trains actually ran on rubber tires, something I had not noticed before. It was a first for both children to travel on a double-decker train.
The same day, we went to the Louvre.
Here, it was cold, wet and windy while we waited, Once inside we took the girls to the Mona Lisa, and after a walk up and down a considerable numkber of stairs, one said, “and we walked all this way to see this small painting”.
It quickly became obvious their idea of paintings were the much larger ones hanging in other galleries.
We also took them to the Arc de Triomphe.
We passed, and for some reason had to go into, the Disney shop, which I’m still wondering why after spending a small fortune at Disneyland itself.
Next on the tour list was the Opera House.
where one of the children thought she saw the ghost and refused to travel in one of the elevators. At least it was quite amazing inside with the marble, staircases, and paintings on the roof.
Sadly, I don’t think they were all that interested in architecture, but at the Opera House, they did actually get to see some ballet stars from the Russian Bolshoi ballet company practicing. As we were leaving the next day we could not go and see a performance.
Last but not least was Notre Dame with its gargoyles and imp[osing architecture.
All in all, traveling with children and experiencing Paris through their eyes made it a more memorable experience.
The first we visited Paris was at the end of a whirlwind bus tour, seven countries in seven days or something like that. It was a relief to get to Paris and stay two nights if only to catch our breath.
I remember three events from that tour, the visit to the Eiffel Tower, the tour of the night lights, not that we were able to take much in from the inside of the bus, and the farewell dinner in one of the tour guides specially selected restaurants. The food and atmosphere were incredible. It was also notable for introducing us to a crepe restaurant in Montmartre, another of the tour guide’s favorite places.
On that trip to Paris, we also spent an afternoon exploring the Palace of Versailles.
The next time we visited Paris we flew in from London. OK, it was a short flight, but it took all day. From the hotel to the airport, the wait at the airport, departure, flying through time zones, arrival at Charles De Gaulle airport, now there’s an experience, and waiting for a transfer that never arrived, but that’s another story.
I can’t remember where we stayed the first time, it was somewhere out in the suburbs, but the second time we stayed at the Hilton near both the Eiffel Tower and the Australian Embassy, notable only because the concierge was dating an Australian girl working in the Embassy. That was our ticket for special treatment, which at times you need to get around in Paris.
It was the year before 2000 and the Eiffel Tower was covered in lights, and every hour or so it looked like a bubbling bottle of champagne. It was the first time we went to Level 3 of the Tower, and it was well worth it. The previous tour only included Level 2. This time we were acquainted with the fries available on the second level, and down below under the tower.
This time we acquainted ourselves with the Metro, the underground railway system, to navigate our way around to the various tourist spots, such as Notre Dame de Paris, The Louvre, Sacre-Coeur Basilica, and Les Invalides, and, of course, the trip to the crepe restaurant.
We also went to the Louvre for the express purpose of seeing the Mona Lisa, and I came away slightly disappointed. I had thought it to be a much larger painting. We then went to see the statue of Venus de Milo and spent some time trying to get a photo of it without stray visitors walking in front of us. Aside from that, we spent the rest of the day looking at the vast number of paintings, and Egyptian artifacts in the Museum.
We also visited the Opera House which was architecturally magnificent.
The third time we visited Paris we took our daughter, who was on her first international holiday. This time we stayed in a quaint Parisian hotel called Hotel Claude Bernard Saint Germain, (43 Rue Des Ecoles, Paris, 75005, France), recommended to us by a relation who’d stayed there the year before. It was small, and the elevator could only fit two people or one person and a suitcase. Our rooms were on the 4th floor, so climbing the stairs with luggage was out of the question.
It included breakfast and wifi, and it was quite reasonable for the four days we stayed there.
It was close to everything you could want, down the hill to the railway station, and a square where on some days there was a market, and for those days when we were hungry after a day’s exploring, a baguette shop where rolls and salad were very inexpensive and very delicious.
To our daughter we appeared to be experienced travelers, going on the Metro, visiting the Louvre, going, yes once again, to the crepe restaurant and the Basilica at Montmartre, Notre Dame, and this time by boat to the Eiffel Tower. We were going to do a boat rode on the Seine the last time but ran out of time.
We have some magnificent photos of the Tower from the boat.
Lunch on one of the days was at a restaurant not far from the Arc de Triomphe, where our daughter had a bucket of mussels. I was not as daring and had a hamburger and fries. Then we went to the center of the Arch and watched the traffic.
Our first time in Paris the bus driver got into the roundabout just to show us the dangers of driving in an unpredictable situation where drivers seem to take huge risks to get out at their exit. Needless to say, we survived that experience, though we did make a number of circuits.
David and Susan are planning and executing rendezvous, a rather odd thing to do since they are married, not illicit lovers, but Susan likes the idea of escaping her security team, something that is at odds with what Prendergast expects.
Of course, his security chief seems to think that Prendergast simply wants him to do a simple job in quid pro quo for a job Prendergast is supposed to do for him: free his daughter from a despotic African terrorist that the man once worked for, and failed.
This is the story being peddled to David by the man who accompanied Susan’s agent to France and is backed up in part by Alisha’s investigative team.
David torments another of his team and then sets himself at odds with the man himself when Susan tries to have a discrete lunch with Prendergast.
That sets off alarm bells for David.
Prendergast is far too involved with Susan for David’s liking.
But, it seems if he is to get rid of the security at Susan’s he is going to have to find the daughter, and she is in Nigeria.
It seems that was one of Prendergast’s objectives, to get David to rescue her, but what happened to the notion that he just ask?
In the meantime, the security team’s England base is found, one of Susan’s newly acquired properties, and David has surveillance installed.
He also has new eyes on the castle, and the renovations, because he suspects something else is going on there.
And then there is Alisha at her most seductive best, injured or not.
Chess pieces being moved by various people across the globe, David sets off for Nigeria, to see a rather doubtful contact, of Prendergast’s recommendations.
Just like the old days, wheels within wheels. All he knows for sure is that he needs three people watching his back.
It has any number of names, from Leave of Absence to Vacation, but it is meant to be a time where you can rest and relax.
And by the time you finally get to go away, preferably somewhere as far from home as possible, you are sure ready for it.
Those long days at the office, the decisions, the deadlines, the endless pressure of having to achieve the impossible all melt away when you walk out the door, and what a feeling it is when you tell everyone, ‘I’m off on holidays, see you when I get back.’
As anyone will tell you, it’s not wise to travel the next day if at all possible, because you need some time to decompress before tackling what sometimes can be an arduous getting to the final destination, especially if it is at a peak holiday period, or on planes where anything and everything can go wrong very quickly.
Been there done that.
We traveled the next day, nothing went wrong, and all is fine.
Except …
As a writer and having spent the last few months finishing off my last novel, I was looking forward to some down time. The editor has the final draft, and I’m happy.
Then, as it always does, the best laid plans of mice and men …
It all comes unstuck.
Inspiration often comes out of left field; something happens, a piece in a newspaper, an item on TV, or just lying down staring at the ceiling, when ‘bang’ it hits you.
The start of a story, a theme that you can run with.
Damn.
I’ve been away for four days now and written seven chapters and the words will not stop.
We as authors always like to see two little words in every review, page turner.
Alas, sometimes they’re not, but usually this applied to non fiction simple because they’re reference books. Then another two words apply: boat anchor.
The good stuff is usually over the page.
Page in this instance refers to a leaf in a book, which generally has many pages.
Then the is a page boy, not what you’d find lurking around these days but were more common in days past, but refers to a boy in training to become a knight, or an errand boy for a nobleman.
These days a page boy opens doors and runs messages in a hotel.
Another variation is being paged over the P.A. system, always a major cause of embarrassment because you and everyone else thinks your in trouble.
Of course, before there were mobile phones, there were pagers, and sometimes in the deathly silence of the classroom, it went off. Definitely not advisable to have one on you if you are trying to sneak up on someone. Same goes for the modern equivalent, the mobile phone.
For the person who uses a word processor, you are familiar with pages, and having the software generate page numbers, of course, not for the title page, and a different numbering for other pages like an index, before the story starts.
Complicated? Sometimes.
And many years ago a boss of mine often used to say I needed to turn over a new page, and it did make much sense to me. That might have been because I was young and stupid. But, later on I realised what he was really saying was that I needed to turn over a new leaf.
Kind of strange, but then a lot saying are.
And did I?
Eventually.
And just to end on a high note, Paige is also the name of a girl, I think, and one I’ve decided to use in a story.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 