ONE 

Travis Stone jerked the steering wheel of his battered and beat up pickup truck skimmer around the one pothole at the end of his driveway that refused to stay filled.  He swore the hole ate dirt as fast as he could shovel it into the crater.  One more week and the hole was history if his luck held out.

Travis reached down and clicked on the radio.  Country western music filled the cab.  He rolled down the windows and turned up the volume.  Taking the back roads into town afforded him the leisure of singing off key as loud as he wanted.  He smiled at the image his thoughts formed.  His high school choir director frowned and shook her finger at him every time he deliberately soured a note or two.  Mrs. Baxter was probably spinning in her grave.   Travis didn’t care.  He sang for fun, not for anyone’s pleasure but his own.

He glanced at the dashboard clock.  He had forty-five minutes until he reached the edge of town and civilization.  Tabasco Flats, New Texas preferred to keep the decorum of vintage country and southwestern lifestyle alive to the public eye.  Since the Revolution divided New America into five new countries, trade agreements and laws were under negotiation in many regions as new states and governments formed.    That was ten light years ago and another planet.  Even earth’s distance memories paled in comparison to the news.  The docking station master would need help as the mail order mates disembarked from their ship.  Travis’s smile grew as he pushed the skimmer’s motor into hyper-drive.    His bride and co-husband awaited him. 

Aleisha Jones swallowed hard as her lottery mate Daniel Zane braided her hair.  Washing and combing the long strands was bothersome and one thing she wished she didn’t have to deal with.  Her contract said her purchaser liked long hair and wanted his bride to wear it braided.  Maybe she could sweet talk him into letting her cut her waist length hair off at her shoulders. 

Daniel knew how many times he had to criss-cross the strands of hair he held in each hand until Aleisha’s braid finished short of her hips.  He’d come to love her in a way he hadn’t expected to feel again after his wife’s death.  Time healed wounds.  Light years made no dent in his ache and lingering sorrow.  Both of them agreed that a life worth living came from understanding that joy and grief balanced each other out.  Daniel still wasn’t sure when his heart thawed towards her or vice versa.  Now he had to share her with someone they barely knew from short communications and two grainy photos.  Things were about to get more challenging.

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Happy Weekend Gang!

Well the serial started.  A bit of scifi and menage tossed together.  Let’s see what this brings about.  I’m feeling good as the weather pings around.  Hope you are staying well and sharing a good book or two with your loves and spice.  I’m writing away on a novel entitled Tina’s Treasure and its turning out to be one hot menage! 

Until next week, stay cool and dry, happy, healthy, and safe. 

Smiles,

SOLARA