Four authors have been chosen as winners in the writing contest. They may choose a free download of the ebook of one of my four novels from smashwords.com. I will print their stories on this blog in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.
The story was to go with the photo below.
Here is the fourth one. Congratulations to Pam Wight.
Returning
Returning was not a choice.
Returning wasn’t a dream or a wish.
Returning was the only way to escape.
She hitchhiked from her cottage overlooking the sandy dunes and indigo waves of the Atlantic Ocean to her old home, to the home she hated with a passion and left with no intention – ever – of returning.
Miranda accepted rides from Cape Cod to Pittsburgh (a blue-haired woman with her shaggy dog on the way to visit grandchildren), from Pittsburgh to Chicago (a gray-haired bearded trucker who kept calling her “dearie”) and then from Chicago to Tripp, South Dakota.
“What a trip!” the long-haired, hippie-like 40-something kept saying to her as they drove in his Beemer. She wanted to ask him who he was, how he could afford such a fine car, but she knew better than to begin a conversation.
A conversation could lead to questions about her own life.
She couldn’t afford to give any hints of who she had been, what she’d become, and why she needed to hide. The less said…the better.
“Where you off to?” the hippie man had asked when he stopped on the side of the busy Chicago street. His light blue eyes were kind, his soft Southern drawl comforting, his rumpled clothes matched her jeans and cotton shirt.
“South Dakota,” she answered, her voice shaking despite her desire to seem confident.
“Exactly where I’m going!” he said as he leaned from the driver’s seat and opened the passenger door. The car smelled clean and new. The car smelled like success and happiness. The car smelled safe.
So Miranda hopped in and deflected questions.
“I’m George,” he began, extending a soft hand and a pause, waiting for her introduction.
“I’m returning,” she offered as she closed her eyes and envisioned her dad’s crumbling old farm, dilapidated and distressed.
Just like her.
*****
Pamela S. Wight is the author of two romantic suspense novels: The Right Wrong Man and Twin Desires (found in Amazon in softback or as e-book). She’s working on her third novel: As Lovely as a Lie. Pamela’s children’s illustrated book, Birds of Paradise, is scheduled for an April 2017 publication. Check out her ‘flashes of life’ weekly blog atwww.roughwighting.net.
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