Special Smashwords Edition
Mystery and Romance
Under the Northern Lights
by
The Northern Lights
Writers of Minnesota
Lori Ness
Denise Meinstad
LuAnn Nies
Diane Pearson
Edna Curry
Shirley Olson
Nancy Pirri
Special Smashwords Edition
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Published by
Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
In For A Penny by Lori Ness, Copyright 2011
Hot Shot by Denise Devine, Copyright 2011
Shadow Trail by LuAnn Nies, Copyright 2011
Count the Days by Diane Pearson, Copyright 2011
Love, Fish and Fangs by Edna Curry, Copyright 2011
Heal My Heart by Shirley Olson, Copyright 2011
Candlelight and Silverware by Edna Curry, Copyright 2011
Night Magic by Nancy Pirri, Copyright 2011
Breath of God by Lori Ness, Copyright 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61235-212-1
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Credits
Editors: Lori Ness, LuAnn Nies,
Nancy Schumacher,
Denies Meinstad
Cover Artist: Becca Barnes
Mystery and Romance
Under the Northern Lights
Table of Contents
Count the Days – Diane Pearson
Love, Fish and Fangs – Edna Curry
Candlelight and Silverware – Edna Curry
Mystery and Romance
Under the Northern Lights
In For A Penny – Lori Ness
A couple who believes their marriage is irrevocably broken finds healing, life lessons and hope during a visit to an eccentric relative.
Hot Shot – Denise Devine
When Megan Bristol's fiancé jilts her via a text message, her plans to get even with him lead her right into the arms of another man.
Shadow Trail – LuAnn Nies
A quiet romantic weekend in the north woods of Minnesota turns into a dangerous adventure that Crystal hadn't bargained for.
Count the Days – Diane Pearson
Mary never expected her life in a north woods resort to turn to isolation and include an oppressive marriage. When she gets mail and reconnects to an old friend, the door opens to revenge, murder, and escape. Letters tell the story.
Love, Fish and Fangs – Edna Curry
Detective Bob and his family go on vacation and discover a murder. Paperboy son, David, recognizes a customer at the scene. Is David in danger?
Heal My Heart – Shirley Olson
17 year old Julie, unable to take the abuse of her mom and step-father, escapes her prison and grabs a train. Searching for a new life, while encountering dangers and problems, she finds a real family love and trust when she finds God.
Candlelight and Silverware – Edna Curry
When Bob invites his world traveler boss and his wife to dinner, his Minneapolis suburban housewife, Carol, panics. How will she measure up?
Night Magic – Nancy Pirri
In depression era Minnesota, Helen Swenson inherits her deceased parents’ dream resort—six cabins in need of repair near the Canadian border. Lumberjack Riley Flaherty has recently lost his job. When Helen offers him a job as her ‘handy man’ he gladly accepts, smitten by her beauty. When wild animals in the northern Minnesota woods threaten them into leaving, they don’t give in, but discover true love beneath the northern lights.
Breath of God – Lori Ness
A girl on a Minnesota farm in the early 1900's has been forced into a woman's responsibilities too soon. Betsy's struggle to come to terms with what her mother planned for her and the expected roles for women brings her into conflict with both family and community expectations. Memories of the love between her parents and her mother's love help Betsy make the decisions she needs to face the future.
In For A Penny
Lori Ness
When he first mentioned the weekend visit, Rob talked of going alone. Slipping into his role of a surgeon preparing a patient for the upcoming ordeal, his words flowed. Like a distracted patient, however, Dorothy’s hearing turned selective with only fragmented phrases washing over her: “Back before you know it”…“Only gone two days”…“We’ll both feel better when it’s over…”
“I’m going with you, Rob.” Her firm tone silenced his unspoken protest. After a moment of staring, eyes narrowed, he scowled, turned, and stalked out of the condo. Biting her lip, Dorothy accepted this retreat, although she still struggled every moment with the knowledge that he’d walked out on her emotionally months ago.
So she’d laid down an ultimatum and now they were trapped together in the car, with unspoken awkwardness separating them from their destination.
As the sun glinted without mercy off the windshields of oncoming cars, stabbing through the protection of her sunglasses, Dorothy wondered whether, when Rob said, “we’ll both feel better when it’s over,” he’d been referring to this weekend, their marriage or the birth of the new life stirring within her.
“Tell me about your grandfather,” she said, the words spilling out and sending ripples to disturb the silence.
Rob hesitated. With her intimate knowledge of his thought processes, Dorothy could almost see him marshalling his words into orderly statements as though setting a row of delicate stitches. She waited with outward patience, the sharp edges of her fingernails gouging the palms of her hands.
As her husband swung the wheel in a left turn, Dorothy’s gaze snagged on his left wrist. Tanned, softly curling golden hairs, strong, but marred by the clinical precision of his TAG Heuer wristwatch. Her nails dug deeper—she’d been hoping he would leave it behind. The ever present symbol that time served as the master of their relationship stirred a faint nausea within her. She’d asked, no, begged, Rob to leave it behind on this trip.
“My grandfather isn’t a guy you can peg into a hole. He’s not someone comfortable in society and he’s never had much money.” The sting of the unspoken “unlike your family” echoed in Dorothy’s head.
Another pause as Rob kept his gaze locked on the traffic ahead. “Ham’s over eighty now and a widower.”
The marriage counselor’s admonition, “Pretend you’re on a first date this weekend,” jabbed at Dorothy. But communication between them had become a nightmarish blind date of walking on eggshells, fumbling for words and tense silences. She shared the blame equally but didn’t know how to break the cycle.
Again, the sunlight highlighted her husband’s capable hands as he maneuvered the Mercedes through heavy traffic spewing out of the city and heading north. The weekly exodus to wide-open spaces, one they’d never made. She continued to stare at Rob’s hands. The hands of a healer, yet he refused to mend their marriage.
Dorothy yanked her thoughts off that gloomy track and launched another conversational probe. “What did Ham do for a living?” She winced. Her laugh sounded like a titter in her too critical ears. “I assume he’s retired.”
“Ham’ll never retire, not completely.” Rob snorted as a reluctant grin teased his lips. The car accelerated to move around a slower vehicle. Another moment, then Rob blurted, “He was a cowboy.”
Dorothy hated the paper-thin defensiveness that coated his words, the subtle accusation of snobbishness. Then the import crashed in on her. “A cowboy?!!”
Her husband’s studied attention to his driving left no room for her to maneuver. She blanked out her thoughts, determined not to let him win by getting angry and lashing back.
With one hand, she caressed her midriff. Such turmoil had to be bad for the baby. A baby scheduled to be born into a home so blessed with the material and yet so poor in the emotional. Would this tiny life be raised in a two parent home?
As the miles murmured beneath the tires, cushioned in luxury, Dorothy pondered the mysteries of a failing marriage. When had the first unhealed wound appeared? Rob’s schedule as a top-level trauma surgeon kept them physically apart much of the time, while his exhaustion and nervous tension from bearing life and death responsibilities nearly every day isolated them emotionally.
Dorothy knew she’d helped to create this division between them, that he viewed her requests for a reduced schedule as criticism or her frustration, when rare evenings together were interrupted with intrusive pages, as selfishness. Counseling had enabled her to see his side of the story but since Rob had neither the time, nor the inclination to attend counseling, she stood alone in her self-knowledge. Nothing she’d tried recently seemed to bring them closer together.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d staked on this trip as a salvage mission. Rob might be able to avoid her emotionally but this weekend they were stuck together physically, without the beep of the ever present pager to allow him to escape, for at least 48 hours.
Dorothy blinked and raised her head. She massaged her stiff neck and stifled a groan. Somehow, she’d dozed off and missed a view of some of the lakes and rivers that Minnesota bragged about on license plates and official websites. She’d also wasted precious hours of potential bonding. Her mouth felt dry and a faint headache tingled behind her eyes.
She looked around. Wherever they were at, the road had been damaged by yet another severe winter, and not even the Mercedes’ suspension system could level out all the bumps. Luxury defeated by an overwhelming force. Just like their marriage.
Dorothy had grown up in what Rob had jokingly referred to during their courtship as “the lap of luxury.” Family holiday travel in Minnesota had been to glitzy resorts set on sparkling lakes where every need had been met with a smile. Places with spectacular views, everywhere you looked a vista of beauty.
Her parents had never vacationed in places like this backwater, she reflected, peering through the passenger window. When Rob told her where Ham lived, she’d imagined thick woods smelling of pine needles and “nature”, not scrubby pines alternating with birches and tangled ditches that bloomed with orange, purple and yellow wildflowers. Or weeds, depending upon your viewpoint, Dorothy reflected.
After perhaps fifty or sixty miles, they passed through only the third town since Dorothy had opened her eyes. More small lakes, more ditches, more wildflowers. She found herself wondering whether the names of those plants could possibly be as a colorful as they were themselves, trying to imagine where the people who lived in the small houses set well back from the road could possibly work. No big box stores or fast food restaurants in this “neck of the woods”, as Rob used to say.
Used to. She yanked her thoughts back to the countryside. A bird flew alongside the car and then veered off, vanished. What did birds do after they raised a family? Fly south, find a new mate? No, Rob had once talked about ducks and geese that mated for life. This curiosity directed at something other than herself and Rob felt strange, yet welcoming.
“That’s so strange.”
Rob jerked his head around to stare and Dorothy realized, too late, that she’d said the word out loud. “I meant strange that there’s so little traffic on the road.”
“I told you before that this isn’t a vacation paradise. No one in the Twin Cities has ever heard of—”
“Sibley’s Corners!” Dorothy interrupted him, pointing to a faded sign that announced their destination. “We’re here!”
“Don’t sound so excited.” Rob gave her a wary glance. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, but…” His voice trailed away.
Dingy houses huddled closer and closer together as though wary of open spaces as the Mercedes rolled through the town. For the first time, Dorothy realized that it must have been a dry season up north. Lawns looked patchy and brown, drowsing under the relentless afternoon sun. A too-thin woman in shorts and faded tee shirt watered a circle of petunias, the life giving liquid trickling from a hose that sagged in empathy with her shoulders. She watched the expensive car glide past, her face expressionless.
Two blocks past the woman, Rob swung the wheel and then slowed as he pulled into a narrow graveled drive. Switching off the engine, he dropped his hands into his lap. To Dorothy’s surprise, she heard him draw a sharp, inward breath.
Was he afraid? Her smart, driven husband, who’d put himself through medical school and faced down her family to get her to marry him, looked nervous. He wet his lips, reached for his travel mug for another drink, his stare fixed on the small, shabby house.
Dorothy turned from Rob to study it, also. Peeling layers of various shades of paint gave it the look of a bag lady caught on the nightly news, an elderly woman bundled in layers to ward off the chill of a Minneapolis winter.
So small! The passenger door clicked open, breaking her concentration, and she struggled out, with Rob’s hand to assist her, an impassive, courteous butler. The muscles of her back ached with tension and her temples throbbed.
With a flip-flop of nerves Dorothy realized, I shouldn’t have come. If Rob was trapped this weekend, so was she. No hotels in Sibley Corners, Rob had informed her, his lips white and head held high. “So much the better,” she’d retorted. Yes, so much the better. . .
The sun beat down on her uncovered head; a wave of dizziness washed over her and she grabbed at the sleek, hot side of the car. Rob had disappeared.