One More Time, Takes Two

By David Howells

What is a home? It is a familiar base that protects you, provides for you, while making great demands on you as time goes on. The servant slowly becomes more of a master. Letting go of the past is a frightening thing, which is as it should be. That keeps us from racing into uncertainty with too much risk. But too much reliance upon a past home prevents a new one from having a chance to form. We push our children out of their nest as part of our parental duties. Who, then, will push us out when we are the only one in the nest?

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Howells
• Release date: May 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301325825

David Howells

Doctor of Chiropractic since 11/1984. Former Chief of Nuclear Medicine, Lutheran Medical Center, St. Louis, MO. Volunteer EMT, Hurley Fire and Rescue Squad, Hurley NY. Folk musician, volunteer soundman for the Hudson Valley Folk Guild. Kiwanis Club of Kingston. Society for Creative Anachronism fighter, archer, and chirurgeon. Greetings and welcome to my website. Thanks for stopping by. I welcome you to download VANESSA with my complements and see if you like the style. I'm told by readers the first two chapters are a slow acceleration (others say 'no problem') and then it takes off from there as a great page turner. Each of the four sequels had good reviews on first released a few years back, so I hope you'll try those as well. Time Snap and Hell Rise were more recent efforts I hope you'll like. The short stories have been a lot of fun to write, and are getting good response levels. Thank you all so very much! Long and merry life, best of health, David L Howells PS: I've done my best to filter out errors in the copy, but if you see one on any of the works, please notify me at twosword at earthlink dot net? I'd appreciate it (just include a three word sequence and which title, and I'll fix it with a search and correct). Happy reading!

Book preview

ONE MORE TIME

Takes Two

Second offering in the One More Time serial

David Lee Howells

Copyright 2013

Smashwords Edition

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A SECOND DATE

It was still Sunday Morning. Elsie Partlow had stolen all the corn muffins made by Sam Carney, who had fooled her into believing that their second date would turn out to be a tractor pull and monster truck exhibition.

It was all for fun; the growingly complicated system of rules and penalties for infractions, making the infractions on purpose to enable the fun of penalties to be applied. More often than not, said rules enabled one or the other to hijack more of a shared goodie plate than would be considered as equitable distribution.

Elsie and Sam were widowers. If Sam were to have put it in his auto sales vernacular, they were both for sale, one previous owner. They were next-door neighbors, which was a mostly good but still mixed blessing. Their close proximity was a daily reminder of the happy marriages both had before, and that each was a best friend with the other’s deceased mate. Add all the components together, and the sum total was ‘awkward’.

Considering their second date while sipping coffee and nibbling corn muffins (Elsie would set one on his rocker chair arm from time to time), both aging friends felt the old comfortable and easy relationship suffer both excitement and discomfort as they sought to redefine their relationship.

Elsie, it’s my choice on what to do today. Yesterday, all the choices were things I thought I’d like, though I never dreamed you’d choose ALL of them. Thanks to you, I put in an extra scoop of grounds for today’s brew. So, what to do? I don’t know. We DID it all yesterday, and more since you helped out that car deal.

Sam, you have a duty, now man up and put some starch in your girdle. Men are visually oriented. Visualize something.

Rocking and taking the occasional sip, Sam thought about it. They were talking about a path to marriage, but how would that work? There were so many things to consider, to overcome, to change. Two houses…which would they live in? One, both, neither? He could still function in his long-held world of used and new cars, but she was constrained from her hair-styling salon career, thanks to a non-competition clause on her formerly-owned salon. That put them on unequal footing, and that was a risk factor of dissatisfaction that could sink things. He couldn’t do anything about that for now…but what COULD he do? Sam had never taken a course in psychology, but he had used it every day in his career. He learned