Her dad always
said A little dirt never hurt anybody. He was wrong.

Andrea’s excitement about her first job engineering a pipeline through the
mountains of West Virginia turns to disaster when she faces grueling work,
harsh weather, and crushing homesickness. If she can’t pull herself together
and keep up, she’ll be sent home.

When she dropped out of grad school to work on the line with Grandpa Buck, her
parents were disappointed, widening a bitter family divide. If she goes home
now, she’ll miss the opportunity to know Buck and lose his respect
as well.

There’s one worker, a foreman, who might offer comfort and support, but when
Andrea finally trusts him, things get even more complicated.

Fans of In Five Years, Reminders of Him, and Regretting You, are devouring
Kirsten Fullmer’s imaginative, gritty, coming-of-age romance.

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to start the uniquely engaging journey today!

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 Nick
and Rooster’s conversation lagged as they both paused to watch Andy and Buck
approach. The afternoon had grown warm, the hottest so far, and the men waved
at dust and bugs that crawled and bit, making them miserable.

            Buck stopped and bobbed a nod at the
two foremen. “Men.”

            “Sir,” both mumbled in reply.

Buck
grunted, then headed on past the men with Andy at his heels. As she hustled
pass Rooster, her eyes met his and she couldn’t help but notice the intensity
there.

She
tripped over a rut and ran several steps ahead to regain her balance. Stopping
to readjust the stake bag on her shoulder, she waved away a sweat bee. “Go
ahead, Andy, trip and fall at his feet,” she muttered under her breath.

Two
steps later she lurched to a halt and dropped the bag to clutch at her underarm
where something, more than likely the sweat bee, stung her with a vengeance.

Shouting
curses, she danced and twisted in a circle, yanking at her safety vest and
shirt and grabbing at her sports bra in an attempt the stop the burning sting.
Finally, she ripped one arm out of her shirt and vest. Shoving her fingers up
under the tight sweaty bra, she scooped out the bee and jumped back as its body
fell to the dirt.

She
stomped on the bee and kinked her neck, trying to examine her armpit area, but
then she remembered where she was. She froze with one hand still up the side of
her bra. Her head came up, only to find every man on the right-of-way,
numbering well over thirty, staring at her in amazement.

“Need
a hand?” Nick called out with a grin.

“It
was a bee—” she started, then with a snort of disgust, she yanked her hand from
her bra. Hefting the heavy bag, she realized her shirt and safety vest were
still bunched up around one side of her neck, leaving her arm and her stomach
half exposed. Three more cuss words escaped as she dropped the bag and fumbled
back into her clothing, with all eyes watching her every move.

The
sting continued to burn as she grabbed the stake bag and stomped past Buck,
with her cheeks red and hot.

“What
was that all about?” the old man asked as she passed.

Ignoring
him, Andy continued up the right-of-way.

***

            Rooster smoothed his fingers down
his beard trying to hide a laugh as he watched Andy and Buck retreat. Nick
hooted by his side, cackling with the other hands as they regaled Andy tearing
off her shirt. Rooster’s hand dropped and he frowned, wondering how bad the
sting was. He’d had a sweat bee trapped in his pants once, and it was a pain he
still remembered.

Love on the Line 2

Women at Work Book 2

Andy could only
stare, wide-eyed, at the keys in her hand. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Only foremen got a company truck.

Andy is pleased to work with Grandpa Buck again, even though the long hours
limit her time with Rooster. But her contentment is cut short when a serious
on-the-job accident tips the scale of leadership, throwing Rooster and Andy
into conflict.

Rooster must prove he is unbiased toward Andy and her work, or lose his
promotion. When her parents show up, Andy has to deal with Rooster, her
mother’s interference, and her own insecurities to keep the job going. If she
can’t cope she’ll lose her job, and worse yet, she’ll let down Buck.

If Andy and Rooster can’t find a way to work together and complete the
pipeline, their relationship is over.

Fans of In Five Years, Reminders of Him, and Regretting You, are devouring
Kirsten Fullmer’s imaginative, gritty, coming-of-age pipeline books.

One-Click Love on the Line
2 to continue Andy’s exceptional journey today!

 

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Rooster forked a pork chop onto his
plate and dug in, cutting off a big bite. He popped it in his mouth and watched
Andy as he chewed.

She tried not to squirm, but he
could see her discomfort. One of his brows quirked up.

Andy dished a helping of salad onto
her plate, careful not to look up at him.

He cut another bite off his chop.
Silence filled the room, tense and palpable, like the room was too small.
Reaching for his glass, he caught her sneaking a peak at him.

After several gulps of water, he
settled his glass back on the table, took his fork in one hand and his knife in
the other, and waited. She was only demure when she knew she was in the wrong.

When she realized he wasn’t eating,
her eyes met his. “What’s wrong?” she asked innocently. “Is the pork okay?”

“Why do you want to go to some gas
station on the only night we don’t have to go to sleep at eight o-clock? You
usually want to…” He intentionally let the sentence drop and waggled his
eyebrows to make her blush. She was so cute when she was timid.

“We won’t need to stay late,” she
backpedaled, “I was talking to Nick about it and—”

“Oh, here we go,” he interrupted.
“This is about Nick isn’t it?”

She put her fork on the table.
“What’s your problem with Nick?”

He shook his head. “You told him
you’d invite that new coating girl, didn’t you?” He wasn’t asking, it was a
statement.

Andy’s chin came up. “She happens
to be the coating foreman.”

“Whatever,” he snorted, and went
back to cutting his meat.

Andy grinned wickedly. “She could
demand that you all address her as foreperson,
you know.”

Rooster snorted at her dilutional
comment.

Andy pursed her lips, knowing full
well that the pipeline was still in the 1950s when it came to women’s rights.
But she adjusted her train of thought and continued. “Why do you think this has
anything to do with me talking to Nick?”

His chewing stopped and he gave her
an oh please, look.

She cleared her throat and looked
away, poking a bite of salad onto her fork. “Okay, her name may have come up.”

Rooster took another long drink of
water.

“Would it kill us to be social?”
Andy retorted. “We never go anywhere but work.”

 “We work eighty hours a week!”

“That’s beside the point,” she
huffed, sticking the forkful of salad in her mouth.

“Is it?”

She chewed and swallowed. “You just
don’t want to bother,” she said with a flounce.

“This is overcooked,” he muttered,
sawing away at his pork chop. It was dry and chewy, he’d done a poor job of it.

Dinner continued in silence with
both parties casting glances at the other, but neither one spoke. When they
finished eating, they stood and carried their dishes to the sink. Rooster ran
hot, soapy water as Andy scraped their scraps into the trash and returned to
the table for the rest of the dishes.

Silence reigned, leaving only the
sound of plates clinking and water running as Rooster washed and rinsed the
dishes, and Andy dried. When the dishes were washed, he drained the water and
watched as Andy put the last plate in the specially designed drawer. When she
turned back to him, he took up the end of her dishtowel, pulling her to him.
His hands circled her waist. “If you’d like me to take you out Saturday night,
just say so.”

Andy didn’t meet his eye.

But Rooster knew her well, and
still very much enjoyed her attitudes. He tilted her head up with an index
finger under her chin. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Losing all track of thought, Andy
fell under his spell. Her pupils dilated and her lips parted. She didn’t need
to say anything, he knew he had her.

Leaning down, he teased kisses
along her jaw, causing a moan to slip from her lips. Her arms came up to circle
his neck and his kisses wandered to her cheek, then her mouth.

Eagerly, she kissed him back,
deepening both the kiss and his desire. He scooped her up and carried her
toward the bedroom.

Andy leaned into his shoulder,
filled with anticipation. She nibbled at his neck, ran her fingers through his
hair, and a dreamy smile settled over her face.

He
placed her on the bed, certain that somewhere in that woman’s brain of hers,
she was already wondering what she’d wear on their Saturday night date to the
gas station.  

Kirsten is a writer with a love of art and design. She
worked in the engineering field, taught college, and consulted free lance. Due
to health problems, she retired in 2012 to travel with her husband. They live
and work full time in a 40′ travel trailer with their little dog Bingo. Besides
writing romance novels, she enjoys selling art on Etsy and spoiling their four
grandchildren.

As a writer, Kirsten’s goal is to create strong female
characters who face challenging, painful, and sometimes comical situations. She
believes that the best way to deal with struggle, is through friendship and
women helping women. She knows good stories are based on interesting and
relatable characters.

 

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Since childhood, all sorts of
stories and characters have lived in G.K. Brady’s imagination, elbowing one
another for attention, so she’s finally giving them their voice on the written
page.

 An award-winning
writer of contemporary romance, she loves telling tales of the
less-than-perfect hero or heroine who transforms with each turn of a page. She
also writes historical fiction under the pen name Griffin Brady.

 G.K. is a wife and
the proud mom of three grown sons. When she’s not writing, she might be
reading, traveling, drinking wine, listening to music, or gardening—sometimes
all at once! She currently resides in Colorado with her very patient husband.

  

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A Story of Parenting
Across Two Cultures

by Marguerite Welch

Genre: Multicultural Contemporary Fiction, Drama

For fans of Little
Fires Everywhere, a novel that explores the ambiguities of motherhood and
salvation through the anguished relationship between a troubled, undocumented
Mexican teenager and the grieving, upper-middle-class mother who takes her in.

After the drug overdose of her teenage son, Helen, a privileged white woman,
takes in Mia, a troubled and undocumented Mexican teenager.

Although they initially fill each other’s voids, Helen’s lofty expectations of
Mia eventually test that bond and Mia, tortured by guilt and starved for
affection, runs off with Diego, an MS13 gang leader. While Helen, bereft over
losing another child, tries to reconstruct her life, Mia’s life with Diego
spirals into a nightmare: Just after she has his baby, he goes to jail for
multiple murders. As each woman moves forward through her own challenges, Helen
confronts her deep-seated prejudices, while Mia battles her own demons in
search of self-identity and meaning in her life.

A haunting and suspenseful cautionary tale, Borrowed Child is
about what happens when a well-meaning inclination toward “salvation” goes
awry.

[A] detailed and occasionally heartbreaking portrait that
pays special attention to the physical and emotional struggles of a young
undocumented immigrant.” —Kirkus

“With the grace and complexity of The White
Album by Joan Didion, Borrowed Child examines how intention and
action, especially for white people, might misinterpret the complexities of race
and power in the United States. With gorgeous writing, Welch subverts
expectations and gifts us a nuanced view of prejudice.”—Melissa Scholes Young, author of Flood and The Hive

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CHAPTER
1: HELEN

For
more than a week I could not make myself open the door to Mia’s room. When I
finally raised the shades, light illuminated the space like a stage set: the
rumpled bed, the hot pink lipstick on the dresser, the closet door agape,
revealing the outfit I gave her for church. Gray wool slacks dangled awkwardly
from a plastic hanger, the silk blouse discarded in a
dusty corner along with one dirty sock—all clues, remnants of a life lived on
this stage. But was it the beginning of the play or the end?

Mia had just started her senior year in high school. I knew
she was intimidated by all the college visits and apprehensive about submitting
the applications, but I had convinced myself that she was ready to say goodbye
to her old life and start anew. Sure, we’d experienced difficulties and
detours, what family doesn’t? But I believed all was resolved; believed, that
is, until one random Wednesday in late September when she never came home. No
one saw her—not her teachers, the office staff, or her counselor. No one knew
where she was.

At first, I thought Mia had gone off with friends and simply
forgotten to call. She would have called, wouldn’t she? Maybe she had gone back
to her birth mother’s home. But that seemed unlikely. I pulled out my cell
phone every few minutes to see if I had missed a text. By 8:00 p.m. I called
her mother.

“Maybe she go off with drug dealer boyfriend,” Carmen said
in broken English.

What drug dealer boyfriend? I wanted to cry out, but knew it
was pointless. I couldn’t understand her rapid-fire Spanish and our adversarial
relationship over the years had made meaningful communication impossible.
Carmen’s lack of concern for Mia’s welfare had always mystified and infuriated
me.

“You no call the police, okay?” Carmen added. It had been my
experience that people in the Hispanic community often panicked when they saw a
uniform. It wouldn’t do any good to get the police involved and might make it
worse.

“Okay, but please call me if you hear anything,” I
pleaded.She never called.

I cried on my husband’s shoulder. “How could Mia do this?
Something must be very wrong.” Don was upset too, but couldn’t resist giving me
that “I-told-you-so” look, patting my hand with a restrained sense of
obligation rather than genuine concern, or so I read it at the time. Now I
understand how needy and unfair I was. He had always been so loving and
supportive no matter how crazy my schemes and passionate my interests, whether
he understood them or not.

The saying “opposites attract” could not have been truer in
our relationship. He was a man of science. I was a dreamy artistic type. He
read Naval Institute Proceedings. I read poetry. He liked spaghetti. I liked
sushi. He couldn’t tell a petunia from a daisy. I was a gardener. And yet, life
together was better than apart. When our boys came along, he was an involved,
loving father who disciplined with love and loved unrestrainedly. But, at that
moment, if I could have gotten beyond my own conflicted feelings of hurt and
worry, I could have seen by the way his hand shook as he picked up his Maker’s
Mark on the rocks and took a couple of quick gulps that he was genuinely
concerned about Mia’s absence.

It was too hard. Both of us felt the stab of an old, only
partially healed wound, for which Mia had been a temporary anesthetic. Don
banged his drink down on the table, half surprised by the noise, and hugged me
silently, afraid to say a word, one pain masking another. An image swam to the
surface: Sammy’s grin and tousled mop of blond hair. How could we have been so
unaware of the troubled waters beneath that sunny smile? The dark, anxious
place that became his secret home beyond our reach and knowing. Now, clueless
again, we had let another child slip through the cracks and I was left
clutching her abandoned lipstick until my palm bled.

Marguerite Welch is a writer, artist, photographer and
sailor whose essays and reviews on fine art photography have been published in
the NEW ART EXAMINER, WASHINGTON REVIEW OF THE ARTS, AFTERIMAGE and other local
and national art publications. Short personal essays and travel pieces have
appeared in BAY WEEKLY, WANDERLUST and CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE. Her travel
memoir, WATERBORNE: A SLOW TRIP AROUND A SMALL PLANET, published by Seaworthy
Publications in September 2019, documents a 14-year world circumnavigation
undertaken with her husband in their 38-foot sailboat Ithaca. In her spare time
she tends her garden on the banks of the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland
where she and her husband have lived for 40 years.

 

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A citizen of the universe, Yona Katz is a financial director
during the day. But as soon as night falls, numbers and reports are chased away
by the stories that live in the stars. One day, Yona decided that she was brave
enough to share these stories with the world. Yona loves exploring the themes
of diversity and inclusivity. She wants to reach her readers to show them that
love is universal, that even heroes are flawed, and that everyone has the right
to make mistakes. Yona is Canadian but Antigua and Barbuda is her current home.

 

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