Girl 2 Teaser

A sequel is on the way. Quin and Rosa's adventure isn't done just yet. Stay tuned and the free chapters will soon come.

Excerpt from Girl 2 chapter 1:

Home. It is a word with many meanings and one I had been thinking a lot about recently.

Was home the farm I grew up on? The familiar fields and faces of my youth, the embrace of my mother and the mouth-watering aroma of her stew bubbling on the hearth, the well worn rhythms of the days and the seasons, the cantankerous griping and hard wisdom of my grandpa, the lingering spirit of my soldier father inspiring me to honorable manhood, the place I had been born and raised.

Was home this land that I now owned and inhabited? Not earned but inherited from my ne’er-do-well uncle, mine in the eyes of the law but in a land unfamiliar to me, an estate of leisure and opulence worn down by the millstone of time, a plot on a hillside full of lush forest and flood prone riverbank, a place of no practical utility for a common farmer like me, a burden of endless labor and responsibilities, yet a place I could call my own.

Was home even a location? Was home that drive that underpinned all of those myriad emotions I felt while on the road? The excitement and sadness of leaving home, the trepidation as I walked into the mighty Capitol that first time, the dizzying anxiety as I wandered the countless bustling streets, the panic of being alone as I was to choose between my pouch of silver and a stranger’s life, the fortitude of mind and body that took me across half the Italian peninsula on foot, the vulnerability of being with a woman for the first time, the fear of the unknown, the courage found in love, all the while that constant yearning that pushed me on to the next thing down the road.

Was home what waited for me beyond the veil? Since my near encounter with the Harpy I had a deep ineffable sense of my ultimate fate, nebulous like a dream but as certain as the ground beneath my feet, my goddess Ceres awaited me in a golden land of plenty, my soul that had sprouted there among the grain would find its way back again where it might sway in her warm honeyed breeze forever.

Or was home the warm, soft body of the demon-blooded Amazon that now slumbered in our bed? Rosa. My . My lover. My Lady. A former meretrix, a courtesan of learning and class from the exotic streets of Alexandria, she had been on the run after avenging the of her sister. Cruel and kindly Fortuna had lead her to capture and the market of Rome where she caught the eye of a foolish young farm boy. A miraculous woman blessed with the spark of magic but whose true power surpassed the merely arcane. She had made a man out of me even as she nurtured the boy that dwelled within me, she gave me strength even as we explored my fragility, she inspired stern leadership even as I submitted to her gentle dominance, she gave me freedom even as she bound me, she had awakened my sexuality and quieted the voices of shame and doubt, she had taken that lost child that had purchased her for one-hundred and sixty dinarii and from the clay molded the man I was today.

As I deposit another armful of broken pottery onto the growing mountain of sherds beside the front fountain I smile. I knew which answer I liked the best.