Bette Cox                                             Fiction, Nonfiction, and Inspirational Writing

Bette Cox, Feb 2010


Contents


The Simsville Inheritance

Avery Alderson has inherited an entire town from her Aunt Myrtle. What on earth will she do with it? Here's the next chapter.

Chapter 30 - Will wonders about Avery, vice versa

Will didn't make snap judgments, habitually giving everyone the same amount of healthy doubt on first meeting. He hadn't missed her slight signs of fatigue nor Avery's unusual choice of daytime apparel. Black on black. Hmm.

He was a little surprised by the youthful appearance of this new owner of Simsville, despite the fact that he knew her age. Experience hadn't caused many, if any, wrinkles on that attractive face.

He had been briefed on Avery's background from "the ground up"; childhood through her present employment. Nice resume, impressive skill set. Good references in her file.

Still, someone with more expertise in the field would have been preferable as the next property holder of this unique town, he felt. He wondered how much Jones had explained to Avery, how much detail. Probably not much, if he knew Jones. And he did.

Will's preliminary impressions compartmentalized Avery into "unknown, untested." More thorough thought about her qualifications could wait until later. He turned back to Jones without waiting for a response to his question.

"This latest event needs a different type of response than the girl's kidnapping, Jones. We've got several people checking the roster of town residents with a fine tooth comb. He's here or close by, we're sure of that much. Definitely familiar with the downtown routine."

"Maybe a day worker or some other type of regular visitor. A vendor or salesman, equipment maintenance maybe, just enough computer savvy for a half-way sophisticated hacking job, but not one of us. You understand what I mean."

Jones nodded. He did indeed. If he was he'd have been more careful, more invisible. More damaging.

Continued...

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Bette Cox

Elizabeth G. "Bette" Cox grew up in Florence, in the heart of South Carolina's Pee Dee region. She attended the University of South Carolina at Florence, now Francis Marion University, and in 2006 received a Certificate as Oral Historian from UCLA-Davis. This site is dedicated to her first love, writing.


Bette's Blogs


You Missed a Real Party, Myrtle

(At the Old Graveyard)

Hey, Myrtle, how you doing? Yeah, Spring's sprung looks like. Hey, Myrtle, you missed a real party out at that old graveyard next to Second Baptist Church.

Huh? Cause that's where we had the egg hunt for the church daycare this year. This year we decided to jazz it up a bit so we could get a few more grown-ups interested, what with just me and one other volunteer not being quite up to running around a graveyard with 20 four-year olds.

No, the daycare kiddies are not 24 years old, Myrtle, we had 20 of 'em, all of them were four years old, more or less. Couple of threes, one or two fives. Jazz it up? Make it more fun, Myrtle, more fun!

How? Well, we decided since the Halloween Costume Contest went over so good we'd try our hand at Easter costumes. You know, Roman soldiers, apostles, angels, that kind of thing seeing it was the day after Good Friday. Naturally we had to allow Peter Cottontail and such, too. Even had one little kid in a jump suit stuffed with plastic grass made up like an Easter basket, can you picture it? Okay, I'm getting to it, where's your patience, Myrtle?

Me? A chicken suit left over from the egg jamboree last year, Myrtle. I figured what with baby ducks and Easter bunnies and all I might as well. Yeah, I looked pretty funny, all them feathers were molting pretty bad by now but I looked better'n some of them. Imagine a 200 pound Easter egg with legs? Humpty Dumpty. Yeah, that was the preacher, guess his wife couldn't find anything else to fit him and he wanted to fit in! That was a joke, Myrtle. He did look pretty funny, though.

Well, I had the job of hiding the eggs and the old cemetery hasn't been used in years but it does have Perpetual Care. Perpetual, Myrtle. Forever? Always? Yeah, they mow it regular and call it perpetual care. Anyway, it had been a week or so and there was plenty of easy hiding places, not too hard for the little ones, you know.

Anyway, I had most all of the eggs hid real good, some nestled up right against the wall under a handful of pine straw, some under a clump of weeds, nothing too hard to find. But I wanted a real special place for the prize egg, you know, the plastic one with the dollar bill in it, so I was rooting around a couple of the old markers.

Why? Cause they had tall grass growing up close where the lawn mower can't get. Yes, if they had been mine I would've been more persnickety, Myrtle, but they wasn't and I wasn't.

Continued...

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