Late this morning, but at least I’m checking in. Again, things are okay, just stuff still going on. The good news is, I have new words on the Christmas project that I’m going to try REALLY hard to get published before…you know…Christmas! It’s a short novella so if my brain and body will cooperate, it’ll happen. Anyway, the #1lineWed THEME today is **GHOST**. Appropriate for the season, yeah? I checked prevous new stuff but the only “ghost” was in a snippet I’d recently posted. After the storms rolled through last night, I slept fitfully but a scene occurred to me so when I finally got up and around, I got it wrriten down. FYI, the title of the Christmas novella is MISTLETOE AND MOONSHINE. Jack, Justice, and Brooke (from FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE) are spending part of Christmas break in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Brooke has a close encounter with a wolf caught in a trap. This scene takes place some time after that. Hope you enjoy…
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Brooke sat perfectly still. Snowflakes that seemed the size of cotton balls gently accumulated on her shoulders and she had to blink them off her eyelashes. The snow collected on the fallen log where she perched. Transfixed, she watched the wisp of gray smoke float through the trees. Wolf, her brain said. Boy, her heart answered. Like a wraith, the animal drifted into the clearing.

She winced when she realized he still limped on his back foot. It was tricky treating Wolves. They could heal some by shifting and they healed faster than humans but they still bled and felt pain and bones took time to knit together. They were visitors in these parts so there was no doctor to call. The boy remained in his wolf form while Aunt Jussie treated him but he fretted. He wanted free and Brooke wondered about the little girl she’d seen.

Mystery surrounded this boy and she was determined to solve it before they left for home. She’d overheard Uncle Jack talking to the guy who’d bought the cabin they were staying in. He was some sort of special investigator or mercenary or something. She wasn’t sure, but he’d promised to look into things.

Wolves also didn’t involve the authorities in their problems—not if it could be helped. Uncle Jack being the sheriff was a big deal to the Wolves in Texas. She figured he was working his sheriff mojo on the situation too.

She blinked. The wolf was gone. Disappeared. She wanted to slap her forehead. She’d lost focus and she’d missed where he’d gone. When he escaped the cabin, Uncle Jack refused to let her go search for him. If her aunt and uncle found out she was pilfering roasts and steaks from the fridge to put out for him, she’d be grounded for life.

Something snuffled her back and her heart and lungs stopped working. A very cold nose poked the back of her neck and she choked back a squeal. She didn’t contain the shiver that made her feel like the last leaf on a bare tree at the end of autumn, fluttering in the wind. The wolf nosed the bag she’d set beside her. She halfway expected him to grab it and run but he didn’t. Reaching in, she pulled out a five-pound sleeved of hamburger meat and taking out her pocket knife, slit the plastic wrapper. She set it down on the paper bag on the log. The wolf sniffed before taking a very delicate bite.

“Well, aren’t you the polite one,” she teased.

A branch cracked in the distance and she swiveled her head that direction. When there was no further sound and no movement, she turned back to the wolf. He’d disappeared again.

“Ghost,” she muttered. “You’re like a freaking ghost.” And right then, she decided that’s what she’d call him.
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There you have it. Literally hot off the presses written just long enough ago for me to set up this post and copy and paste. Writers, any ghostly words to share? Readers, do you believe in ghosts?