Okay since I’ve been getting several search hits for WIP Clip, I thought I’d start it back again. For those of you wondering what the heck I’m talking about, please see our explanation here and our tutorial here.
This is the new intro to our hero in Til Death.
Usual disclaimer, copyright moi, don’t beg, borrow, or steal, etc.
A vacation. Sixty days to do as he pleased, go where he pleased, spend time with family, maybe take on some household repairs for Nanna, do some work with his hands. It was going to be great, and all because he’d clocked his lieutenant in the face. He should have done it months ago, a pleasure long denied that had earned him this bit of unpaid vacation time. Ok, so they called it a suspension. Tomato, tomahto. Maybe not the best move for his career, such as it was, but God it had been worth the suspension and the thirty days of anger management class to wipe that condescending smirk off of Frank Sobieski’s face. The only reason he hadn’t been flat out fired was that Sobieski’s superior had agreed—after the fact, of course—that Wyatt had probably been right.
Fucking prick, Wyatt thought. If he hadn’t been swayed by city politics, Robin Swinson wouldn’t have been in the hospital for the last month. But no. When Wyatt had suggested that Adrian Bigley be detained on suspicion of [what charge?], Sobieski wouldn’t hear of it because Bigley was the nephew of one of the most prominent members of the Board of Commissioners. As if that automatically cleared him of being a low-life, sadistic rapist. Well, now they had the evidence they needed to lock Bigley up for a long, long while and even his uncle couldn’t find a way to refute that. And Robin Swinson had emotional scars that would last long past when her body healed from the damage done to it.
Realizing his knuckles were white on the steering wheel, Wyatt consciously loosened his grip.
He had to get himself under control or Nanna would see right through him. She always did. She sure as hell wouldn’t approve of him punching his superior, regardless of the reason, and he really wasn’t up to one of her talking to’s. He wasn’t above admitting that what he really wanted was some good old-fashioned Nanna-style pampering. Chocolate chip cookies. Pot roast and mashed potatoes with gravy. And the homemade sourdough cinnamon rolls that she only made for her favorite grandson. Who else was going to spoil you when you were thirty and single?
Of course the price he’d pay for all that pampering would be the not-so-subtle hints that he should move closer and settle down. Any time he pointed out that there weren’t exactly any candidates for a missus beating down his door, Nanna was more than happy to produce some. He fervently hoped that on such short notice she wouldn’t have had time to drum anybody up. She wasn’t even expecting him until tomorrow, but he hadn’t been able to stay in Atlanta another day. He’d needed out.
Wyatt turned off the main road onto the dirt lane that led to his grandparents’ house and stopped, looking around. Pop had already baled the hay in the front fields. Big golden bales neatly dotted the landscape as far as he could see. Degree by degree he felt the city slip away, and he relaxed. Here were wide open spaces, trees, and the peace and quiet that was so rare and elusive in metro Atlanta. Had things turned out differently, he’d have stayed here. His heart was in the land, just like his grandfather’s, though he had less of a passion for working it.
His gaze strayed to the west, toward the field not visible from his vantage point. The field that had been fallow twenty years before, where a young explorer had found far more than he bargained for on a scorching July day. That still unidentified Jane Doe was the reason he’d become a cop, then a homicide detective. So he put up with the people and the traffic and all the other aspects of the city he hated as a debt to her and others like her.
Throwing off his ill temper, Wyatt shifted the car back into gear and headed for the house, dust boiling up from the tires of his Mustang. Pop’s truck was gone when he pulled up, but Nanna came out of the house as he parked.
“Wyatt! You’re early!”
“Couldn’t wait another day to see the love of my life.” He gave her a smacking kiss and hug. “How’s it goin’, Nanna?”
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