A Visit Home

By Loyd Gardner

Randall Stiles is a university associate professor who just wants to get his research paper published. Who could know how hard this would be?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Loyd Gardner
• Release date: Dec 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463569481

Loyd Gardner

Loyd Gardner has lived and worked throughout the world and uses that experience to create unusual stories with unusual characters in unusual situations. While he focuses on speculative fiction, his work includes aspects of psycholigical thrillers and the supernatural. The Anomaly Series, which starts with Invisible Threads is a series of four novels which are complete and will be published throughout 2023 and 2024. Loyd has also published a series of ten novella-length Scooby Doo fan fiction stories at www.fanfiction.net as glide10001. These stories approach the Scooby Doo Gang as they are now adults and dealing with real-world financial and relationship issues while still solving mysteries.

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A Visit Home – A Short Story

Copyright 2022 Loyd Gardner

Published by Loyd Gardner at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

A Visit Home

About Loyd Gardner

Other Books by Loyd Gardner

Connect with Loyd Gardner

A Visit Home

Janet Riley was not Randall Stopes’ girlfriend. For lack of a better description, she was his investor.

It had started with her responding to an advertisement for a proof reader/editor for an academic paper he was writing. They met and shook hands. No sparks flew and romance was not in the air. They got to work.

Whether she really needed the job was an internal debate.

Her trust fund had kicked in when she was eighteen which had gotten her out from under her uncle’s roof. While he and his aunt were decent enough sorts, the phrase ‘Our house, our rules’ came up too often for Janet’s taste. So, when she had her own money, she had opted for her own house (or, at least, apartment) and her own rules.

As her mother has requested from her deathbed, Janet went to college. After her sophomore year, she decided that her love of literature might not be quite up to the task of sitting through two more years of classes as an English major. And her adequate but nor great grades were convincing her that she was not on course to be the next Steinbeck… or even Bombeck. She took a sabbatical to figure things out. She was in the second year of the sabbatical when she decided she wanted a job.

Her trust fund was holding out well but she was bored.

And now, she found her financial future tied directly to Randall’s success. And that success required that he have a strong and emotionally-compelling backstory.

She looked up from her notes and pointed her pen at Randall who sat across the combination of concrete blocks and plywood that served as his work table. You mentioned that your mother is ill. How sick is she? Maybe we could use that.

His look was incredulous. Maybe we could what?

Janet frowned, Yeah… not great wording on my part. Kind of soulless. I get that. But how sick is she? Really?

Randall’s mouth stood agape and he stared at her.

Since no words seemed to be coming, she