Spy High (46 page)
Authors: Diane Henders
Tags: #suspense, #mystery, #espionage, #romantic, #series, #humorous, #women sleuths, #speculative, #amateur sleuths, #racy
“Don’t be such a cynic, girl!” Nichele
bounced over to throw her arms around me. “Maybe someday you’ll
find somebody-”
“Don’t start!” I hugged her back.
“Jeez, now you’re going to be matchmaking as well as trying to turn
me into a girl. I don’t know, Nichele, there’d better be some beer
in this for me somewhere.”
“All you can drink,” Dave spoke up
gratefully as Nichele released me to hug Aurora. “Without you, I’d
never have met Nichele.”
She returned to his embrace and he
folded his arms around her, giving me a significant look over her
head. “And you know I’ll do anything to take care of her,” he
added.
I stepped over to throw my arms around
both of them one more time. “I know you will. Now get out of
here.”
A few minutes later I waved at the
receding taillights of the highway tractor before dropping my hand
with a sigh of relief.
“Thank you for what you did for
Nichele,” I said to Aurora. “I didn’t spend enough time with her
while she was here. I’m glad you were able to change her mind.”
“I was happy to,” she replied, and her
voice didn’t bother me a bit. Her eyes shone with innocent joy.
“That’s what we do here. We share the love of the Earth Spirit.
Will you be staying with us? We’d love to have you live here
permanently.”
I sighed at the memory of my
conversation with Stemp an hour earlier. New problems awaited me in
Alberta, but at least they weren’t likely to be life-threatening.
And I’d have a warm dry bed and hot running water while I dealt
with them.
The corners of my mouth tugged
upward.
“Thanks, Aurora, but no…”
My farm beckoned, my heart yearning
toward its peace and solitude. The slow life-affirming transition
of winter to spring. The sweet aroma of moist fertile soil and new
grass. The wide-open country that let my soul spread its wings to
soar on the long prairie winds.
I drew a breath that felt as though my
lungs had been unlocked for the first time in a year.
“No,” I repeated, my smile widening.
“I’m going home.”
Thanks for reading!
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Books in the NEVER SAY SPY series:
Book 11: To be released early 2016
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About Me
By profession, I’m a technical writer,
computer geek, and ex-interior designer. I’m good at two out of
three of these things. I had the sense to quit the one I sucked
at.
To deal with my mid-life crisis, I also
write adventure novels featuring a middle-aged female protagonist.
And I kickbox.
This seemed more productive than
indulging in more typical mid-life crisis activities like getting a
divorce, buying a Harley Crossbones, and cruising across the
country picking up men in sleazy bars. Especially since it’s winter
most of the months of the year here.
It’s much more comfortable to sit at my
computer. And hell, Harleys are expensive. Come to think of it, so
are beer and gasoline.
Oh, and I still love my husband.
There’s that. So I’ll stick with the writing.
Diane Henders
People frequently ask if my
protagonist, Aydan Kelly, is really me.
Yeah, you got me. These novels are an
autobiography of my secret life as a government agent, working with
highly-classified computer technology… Oh, wait, what’s that? You
want the
truth
? Um, you do realize fiction writers get paid
to lie, don’t you?
…well, shit, that’s not nearly as much
fun. It’s also a long story.
I swore I’d never write fiction. “Too
personal,” I said. “People read novels and automatically assume the
author is talking about him/herself.”
Well, apparently I lied about the
fiction-writing part. One day a story sprang into my head and
wouldn’t leave. The only way to get it out was to write it down. So
I did.
But when I wrote that first book, I
never intended to show it to anyone, so I created a character that
looked like me just to thumb my nose at the stereotype. I’ve always
had a defective sense of humour, and this time it turned around and
bit me in the ass.
Because after I’d written the third
novel, I realized I actually wanted other people to read my books.
And when I went back to change my main character to
not
look
like me, my beta readers wouldn’t let me. They rose up against me
and said, “No! Aydan is a tall woman with long red hair and brown
eyes. End of discussion!”
Jeez, no wonder readers get the idea
that authors write about themselves. So no, I’m not Aydan Kelly. I
just look like her.
