Earl Staggs Writes . . . Romance?!

Me?  Write Romance?  Maybe.

I write Mystery and Thriller stories, not Romance, but there’s no law saying the kind of stories I write can’t include elements of romance. Would I be capable of blending a love story into a Mystery/Thriller novel?  Well, I was put to the test in my last novel, JUSTIFIED ACTION. 

The novel features Tall Chambers, a man who spent twenty years in Army Special Forces.  After leaving the Army. he is invited by General Cyrus Brock to join a secretive agency which tracks terrorists and puts them out of business before innocent people are killed. During his meeting with the General, Tall sees a photograph of the old man’s daughter, Victoria.  Tall is quite taken by the beautiful young woman in the picture and can’t take his eyes off her.  When he asks his best friend Stephen about her, he is told she is off limits to him.  She is way out of his league.  Even so, he can’t get her out of his mind.

He doesn’t get a chance to see her in person until she is taken hostage by a gang of bad guys and he is called upon to rescue her.  He does, but there’s no opportunity to talk to her.  Once the ordeal is over, they go their separate ways.  Tall resigns himself to the fact that he will  never see her again.

But, as they say, love will find a way.  Here’s what happens next.

* * *

A week later, Tall switched off his TV when his doorbell chimed. When he looked through the peephole, he’d never been so surprised in his life. His hand shook when he opened the door.

Victoria stood there in a yellow dress, looking even more beautiful than he remembered.

With a teasing twinkle in her eyes and a playful grin on her lips, she says. “I came by to thank you for rescuing me.” She brought her hand around from behind her back and extended a bottle toward him. “I thought we might have a glass of wine and then go out to dinner.”

Tall stood in the doorway staring at the woman he fell in love with when he saw her picture on a shelf in her father’s house. He knew he should say something and opened his mouth.

“Uh. . .,” came out.

She grinned and cocked her head to one side. “May I come in?”

“Uh. . .,” he repeated.

She brushed by him and he saw she was holding back a giggle.

“Where do you keep your glasses?” she asked. If we don’t open this bottle of wine soon, it may spoil.”

He followed her into his dining room area where she stopped, turned back to him, and held out the wine. “Or we could drink it right out of the bottle. I don’t mind if you don’t.”

Tall knew he was blushing a bright red. He lowered his head and chuckled. “I’m sorry. I was. . .uh. . . not expecting company.”

She pursed her lips. “Now don’t tell me this is the first time a crazy woman has shown up at your door carrying a bottle of wine.”

Tall laughed. She was not only the most beautiful human being he’d ever seen in his life, but she had a sense of humor, too. Damn.

He took the bottle from her hand and nodded over her shoulder. “Glasses are in the cabinet behind you, second shelf. I’ll open this.”

He went into his kitchen remembering what Stephen said when he asked about her.

Don’t even think about it. You wouldn’t just be shooting yourself in the foot, you’d be shooting your balls off.

Too late. Shots fired.

After a glass of wine, they went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Over their meal, they discussed books. They both liked John Grisham. When they moved on to movies, they both were big fans of Clint Eastwood. Her favorite of his films was Bridges of Madison County while his was Dirty Harry. By the time they’d finished eating, Tall felt he’d known her all his life.

When they were ready to leave the restaurant, he suggested they take the long way back to his apartment where her car was parked. She said it would be a good idea to walk off some of the huge dinner she’d had. His idea was to keep her with him as long as possible.

It was twenty past nine when they stepped outside the restaurant. A full moon in a clear sky added a silver tint to the street and sidewalks. A gentle breeze had cleared the air of exhaust fumes from the day’s traffic along the busy street. The few cars passing by now seemed to be moving in slow motion so as not to disturb the quiet stillness of the evening. A perfect evening, Tall thought. A perfect evening for a perfect date with a perfect girl. A date! How long had it been since he’d been on an actual date? Years. It saddened him to think it would be over soon. He slowed his pace as if that would stretch it out longer.

When they reached the first corner, he reached down for her hand and guided her across the street. He thought her small delicate hand folded neatly in his. A perfect fit.

Once across the street, they entered a park filled with medium height trees and winding walkways lined with rose and azalea bushes. The path brought them out of the park directly across from Tall’s apartment building. Traffic was light and after they negotiated their way across the street, they sat quietly on the steps for a few minutes.

“So do you like being a lawyer?” Tall asked. During dinner, he’d learned she worked for a large legal firm specializing in international law and finance.

She shrugged. “Mostly, I do research and analysis for the senior partners. It’s not very exciting, but my dad says it’s a good place to begin.”

They were sitting side by side, so close Tall felt her body stiffen the slightest bit.

“Begin what?” he asked.

“There are several opportunities it could lead to.”

Even her voice had changed. She spoke in a clipped monotone, as if repeating something she’d heard. It sounded almost scripted.

“My dad says the experience I get with this firm could lead to something in London, Madrid, maybe even Geneva. Or, he thinks it could lead to a position with an embassy or a political appointment someday.”

He hesitated, then asked, “Is that what you want?”

“What do you mean?” She stared at the park across the street.

“I mean, you told me what your dad said and what he thinks. I was just wondering if politics is something you want for yourself.”

She cleared her throat. “Of course. Who wouldn’t? You have a problem with women in politics, big boy? Don’t you think it’s about time we had a woman in the White House?”

In a serious tone, Tall said, “As I understand it, there were a lot of women in the White House during the Kennedy years. They were slipped in and out through a side door.”

She gave him a poke in the ribs. “That’s not what I meant. Men!”

“Well, when you get elected to the White House, I want a key to that side door.”

She grinned. “We’ll have to see about that.” She stood up and stretched. “I really need to be going, I guess. Long day tomorrow.”

“Me, too,” he lied. He had nothing scheduled for the next day and was sorry she was leaving. He pushed himself to his feet and looked around. “Where’s your car?”

He held her car door open while she settled herself behind the wheel. “I really enjoyed this,” he said. “Maybe we can do it again some time.”

“I’d like that.”

“Good. I’ll call you. Can I get your number?”

She looked up at him with a sly grin. “You already have it.”

“I do? Uh. . .where? How?”

“In your jacket pocket. I slipped my card in there when we were sitting on the steps back there. Goodnight, Tall.”

“Uh. . . .” He fished in his pockets as she drove away, pulled out her card and grinned as he looked at it. Damn. She wouldn’t have given him her card if she weren’t interested in seeing him again. He turned toward his apartment building and thought about what her father would say if he knew they were spending time together. By the time he reached the door, he decided he didn’t care.

He called her two days later. They went to dinner and a movie. Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino.” She cried at the end. He fought not to. The following evening, Wednesday, they went to a play. When he dropped her off at her apartment, she invited him to a home-cooked dinner at her apartment on Friday and suggested he bring a toothbrush. He did, along with a change of clothes, and stayed until Monday morning.

* * *

            And there you have it.  My attempt to incorporate Romance into a Mystery/Thriller story.   As I said, I don’t write Romance.  There’s no huggy-kissy business, but I hope there was enough interactive attraction between them to make it believable that they will eventually marry.  Which they do.

   
         What do you think?  Should I give up any thoughts of writing anything involving Romance and stick to pure Mystery and Thriller stories?

Bio:  Earl Staggs earned a long list of Five Star reviews for his novels MEMORY OF A MURDER and JUSTIFIED ACTION and has twice received a Derringer Award for Best Short Story of the Year.  He served as Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Magazine, as President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars.  
Email: earlstaggs@sbcglobal.net 
Website: http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com

Spring is coming . . . BUT . . . by Earl Staggs

 Earl Staggs spent most of his life in Maryland and working as a salesman. When he and his wife gave up the cold winters of the north and moved south -- first to Florida and now in Fort Worth -- he decided to try something he’d always dreamed of. He’d always dreamed of being a fiction writer. That was in 1995, and the first step was to join a class at the local community college in Gainesville, Florida. The class happened to be about writing short mystery stories, so that’s where he started.

Over the next few years, his stories appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. One of them brought home a Derringer Award as Best Short Mystery of the Year. He joined the Short Mystery Fiction Society and served as its Vice President, then President. He also served as Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine, a role he feels was a great help in developing his own writing abilities.

After honing his skills with short stories, Earl wrote a mystery novel, MEMORY OF A MURDER, which received twelve Five Star reviews on Amazon.com and B&N.com.

Spring is coming. . .BUT. . .
by Earl Staggs

Don’t you hate it when a sentence ends with a big BUT? Remember back in the day when your best girlfriend would say, “My boyfriend brought a date for you, BUT. . .? Or your cousin would say, “I brought your red dress back, BUT. . . .” For us guys, it was more like, “I brought your car back, BUT. . . .”

Well, spring is coming in this weekend, BUT it’s arriving here in North Texas with a severe cold front and the possibility of snow. That’s right. Snow. We’ve already had a record snowfall this year, but they’re saying we will probably get a little more right on the heels of the official arrival of spring.

Now, keep in mind this is Texas where snow is rare. My wife and I spent most of our lives in Maryland where we were used to two or three real blizzards every winter with the white stuff measuring from twenty to thirty inches each time. Our big snowfall here this year only amounted to fourteen inches, BUT that is huge for here. It certainly didn’t compare with the thirty inches my brother had in Maryland or the twenty-six inches our daughter had in New Jersey. And if you look at Kaye’s pictures right here on M&M, you’ll see she and Donald had one relentless dump of snow after another all winter.

BUT, you know what? Even if we get a dusting of snow this weekend, it will be gone by the next day and spring will still be here. I love spring and not even freezing temperatures and a smattering of snow will ruin it for me.

Spring is a new beginning. It means we’ve made it through the worst and the best is yet to come. Here in Texas, the countryside will burst into color with the blooming of wildflowers. Breathtaking displays will sprout up in yellow, white, pink and red along with the official state flower, the Bluebonnet.

There’s already new life in the pastures. I’ve spotted new calves and foals cavorting and kicking up their little heels, but not straying too far from their mommas. Plump and furry little prairie critters are sticking their heads up out of their underground condos and saying, “The coast is clear, guys. Come on out.” Over in the brush, the hungry coyotes hunker down, saying, “Steady, boys, they’re coming out.” Ah, the cruel cycle of life.

Trees and shrubs are awakening in yards all over the neighborhood to change the drab browns of winter to the greens of spring. All this means, of course, getting the tools and equipment of the season ready. The mower needs to be cleaned and oiled and blade needs sharpening. There’ll be trips to Home Depot for fertilizer, weed killer and maybe a new hose.

BUT. . .all that’s okay. None of that will dampen my spirits for spring. It’s a new beginning for another year and I’m going to enjoy it. I hope you do, too.

Small Town Girl

Next week I'll have Earl Darlin' Staggs as the Meanderings and Muses Guest Blogger. As many of you may have figured out by now, I do dearly love Mr. Staggs.

I met Earl a few years ago at DorothyL and we've become fast friends. We both grew up in Maryland - Earl in Baltimore, and me in a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland named Cambridge, which is the home of my heart. While Earl and I were getting to know one another, sharing Maryland stories, I was also busy working on building a web page which is mostly a photo album. This was a labor of love that my adored cousin Bill got me started on when he started doing a Wilkinson family genealogy. I had boxes of wonderful old family pictures which I started scanning for him and decided they were such treasures, they needed preserving and to be placed where they could be accessed by the rest of the family. And ta da - a webpage is born. And it has grown from a few cherished old black and white photos to a treasure trove of memories - including vacation photos, friends and family photos, wedding album photos, Women Wearing Tiaras photos, Harley Barley photos, and The Class of '66 pictures from kindergarten right up through our 60th birthday party this past summer.

There's a section of photos of Old Cambridge and another section of Ocean City pictures. Seems Earl and I had some Ocean City ties we weren't aware of. Ocean City, MD is where Marylanders go, and have gone for years and years. Its an old fashioned beach town, old boardwalk included, with all the requisite boardwalk type shops, and carnival type games and rides. And there's a lot about that boardwalk that is exactly the same now as it was when I was a little girl. There are also beautiful white sandy beaches, and great restaurants. I love Ocean City.

A couple years ago, Donald and I borrowed a girl friend's condominum in Ocean City. She's an old and dear
friend I grew up with and have known forever. One of those girlfriends that we talked about here awhile back. Time can pass without us seeing one another, and then when we do get together, conversation just picks right up where it left off. This little condo of hers was perfectly situated just at the very end of the boardwalk, and a block back from the ocean with nothing but sand between it and us. We could sit on our balcony and watch the dolphins play. We could watch the surfers. And we could witness gorgeous sunsets, and you already know how I'm a nut for sunsets. And I don't think I've ever felt so at home in a place I've never been inside of before. It was a very weird experience, but I just settled in, enjoyed it and tried not to over-analyze it. But it gets even weirder. This condo is in the exact same spot that Earl Staggs' protagonist, Adam Kingston, lives in MEMORY OF A MURDER. That just set the tone for me for a book I thought I'd enjoy. Little did I know it would become I book I love.





Earl can also take credit for being one of the people most accountable for me being here at Meanderings and Muses, blogging away about anything and everything. He and I taking those walks down Maryland Memory Lane nudged something in me. The love I have for Cambridge and the memories I have of growing up there just started bubbling up; begging to be remembered. And shared.

So.

Here's a fun little Cambridge remembrance. Laws, I hope my dad forgives me for telling this one!

When I was growing up there were a couple of "stag" bars in Cambridge. Did y'all have those? No women. I don't know if they specifically ever said "No Women," or if women just wouldn't be caught dead in them. There was one on Race Street not far from our apartment called the D D Bar. It was owned by a friend of Dad's named Monk Bradley, and it was a wonderful little place. I loved it - it was one of those grown-up "Not Allowed" places I would sneak into; along with the other Race Steet kids. And then be surprised when my mom showed up at the door to get me 'cause someone had called her. The D-D Bar was long and narrow and dark. There were maybe 4 booths in the front, a real long bar with a brass foot rail. There were also pinball tables, a shuffleboard table and a dart board.

If Monk needed him on Saturdays, Daddy thought it was a great (and fun!) way to make some extra money.

We had a local radio station in Cambridge, and on Saturdays, Ed Brigham would make a phone call to give away a free prize to someone if they could answer the question of the day.

On this particular Saturday, Mother and I were home, and the radio was on, of course. We heard Mr. Brigham announce that the question of the day phone call was about to be made. And we, of course, were hoping our phone would ring. Well, it didn't, but we did hear a very familiar voice over the radio say "DD Bar, Al speaking."

How fun - my dad!!!!

Mr. Brigham said "Hey Al, this is Ed Brigham, how ya' doin'?" After a few minutes of small talk
exchanging some "how's the family" kinda stuff, Mr. Brigham told Dad he would win two free tickets to the Arcade Movie Theater if he could answer the question of the day.

You could hear all the local Cambridge bar flies talking and hollering in the background, pinball machines ping pinging and all that bar noise. So Dad yelled for everyone to quiet down 'cause Ed Brigham had a question.

The question was "How long is a decade?"

pfft.

Well, Mother and I laughed and she said she guessed she & Dad would be going downstairs to see a free movie soon. We lived in a wonderful old apartment over the Arcade Movie Theater. (In later posts I want to share some stories from this grand old apartment with you all).

Then we heard dad over the radio yelling to the guys in the bar "Ed wants to know how long is a DUCK EGG!!"

A duck egg.

Mother and I just about fell in the floor screaming we were laughing so hard.

You could hear all these men saying stuff like, "a Duck Egg? Hell, I don't know, Jim Bob - what do you think?" Answers like "2 inches, 3 inches - oh hell no, an inch and a half," and things like "Who the hell cares??" were all loud and clear over the radio. This went on for awhile and finally dad was laughing and said something like "Well, Ed, we think maybe an inch and a half."

Ed Brigham was hysterical and said "Al. Hazel is going to kill you. NOT a Duck Egg! A DECADE!!!!!!!!"

Dead silence on Dad's end. Then he started laughing really hard and started telling the guys in the bar that he'd made a mistake and what the question really was and you could hear those men laughing and laughing to beat the band.


For years anytime we went out to eat, especially in Ray Dayton's restaurant on Race Street, someone would holler "Hey Al! How long's a Duck Egg?!"