Riding the Hammer Lane

By Cassie Decker

It’s long-haul trucker Eddie’s first Christmas away from home, and he picks up the CB radio in search of friendly voice. He doesn’t expect to reconnect with his old instructor—and brief but passionate fling—Colton.  Eddie realizes the scarf he’s been knitting symbolizes the love and longing he’s been trying to deny. When fate brings them back together on a lonely, snowy stretch of Iowa highway, will they grab hold of their second chance and acknowledge the love woven tightly between them?

A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2019 Advent Calendar "Homemade for the Holidays."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644057742

Cassie Decker

Cassie Decker started writing love stories once she read her first romance novel in high school and instantly fell in love with falling in love. She believes everyone deserves a happily ever after, whether the men in her stories rope cattle in the rodeo, live in a tropical paradise, or are just trying to survive in a postapocalyptic world.  When she’s not writing romance, she’s reading it. And if there’s time between that, you can find Cassie getting her geek on with cosplay costumes, comic-cons, and video game binges. Besides being a total nerd, she likes to knit naughty rainbow keychain charms for her friends, home brew her own beer, and practice her ukulele. Cassie also loves playing in the Colorado wilderness with her husband and her corgi pup, Murphy, when she’s not busy obsessing over the fictional men plotting their steamy love stories in her head, that is. Email: [e-mail] Facebook: www.facebook.com/cassie.decker.9 Twitter: @cabooseomalley Blog: www.lopsided-whiskey-grin.tumblr.com

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By Cassie Decker

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Riding the Hammer Lane

By Cassie Decker

It’s long-haul trucker Eddie’s first Christmas away from home, and he picks up the CB radio in search of friendly voice. He doesn’t expect to reconnect with his old instructor—and brief but passionate fling—Colton. Eddie realizes the scarf he’s been knitting symbolizes the love and longing he’s been trying to deny. When fate brings them back together on a lonely, snowy stretch of Iowa highway, will they grab hold of their second chance and acknowledge the love woven tightly between them?

To Jon, one of my strongest supporters.

BREAKER ONE-NINER. Snow rushed at my windshield as I barreled down I-35, making it look more like I was flying light speed through a starfield in a far-off galaxy and less like I was hauling cargo through a windswept stretch of Iowa backcountry. Anyone out there reading me tonight?

I can’t really say what possessed me to pick up the mic that night. I had hardly touched the CB in the ten months I’d been driving solo, using it only occasionally for traffic and weather tips, yet here I was, putting myself out there, hoping to hear more than just static on the other end. It was Christmas Eve, and I was still three weeks from my scheduled Hometime. I was feeling lonely, I suppose.

I had never missed a Christmas with my sister in all my twenty-two years on this planet. Even though I had always been something of a loner and preferred my own company a majority of the time, hence my choice of an over-the-road trucking career, Devin and I were as close as two siblings could be, and I was a little down on myself for having to spend the holidays alone this year.

I kept one hand on the steering wheel while the other gripped the mic with my finger not depressing the Talk button. The coiled cord connecting it to the radio mounted into the ceiling swayed as my rig went over a dip in the highway, and I waited for a reply. There weren’t many other semis on the road that I could see out there