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December 6, 2017 @ 8:10 am | Filed under: Books
L.M. Montgomery’s three Emily books are on sale, 99 cents for the trilogy. I will never, never forget the day I wandered into the children’s section at a different branch of the Aurora Public Library than the one my family usually visited, and I discovered there were more books by the author of my beloved Anne. I was astonished that the world had not yet revealed to me this crucial piece of information. What do they teach them in these schools, indeed.
P.S. The Blue Castle is also a dollar at the moment. You know how I feel about that particular gem.
December 5, 2017 @ 9:52 am | Filed under: Books
Thornyhold by Mary Stewart. Who was it who just mentioned this lovely novel somewhere? Lesley, was it you? It certainly has a Wild Simplicity flavor…Gilly’s lonely childhood and her godmother’s store of nature lore and mystery put me in mind of Wise Child, which is praise of the highest order. I’m only a few chapters in; Gilly (now in her twenties) has just arrived at the old house in the woods that is to be hers. I’ve not even set foot through the door yet.
“A good house, deep in the woods, with a garden all around it and a river flowing past it. Fruit trees, and flowers planted for the bees. A place to grow my herbs. Silence in winter, and in summer nothing but the birds…”
See what I mean? You might expect Juniper to come round the corner of the house at any minute. Also it’s impossible not to hear in that passage an echo of my favorite poem. Geillis’s house might not be of clay and wattles made, but certainly midnight’s all a glimmer there,
…and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
Have to dash off to Salem for the day. One day, peace may come dropping slow into my life, but this is not that day. 😉
Heads up: Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season is $1.99 on Kindle right now. This is the only one of her Crosswicks Journals I haven’t read yet. A Circle of Quiet is one of my ’Portant Books (to adapt a long-ago Beanism).
“Tell me some more about your valley,” she said to Moomintroll.
“It’s the most wonderful valley in the world,” he answered. “There are blue-trees with pears growing on them, and chatterfinches sing from morning till night, and there are plenty of silver poplars, which are wonderful for climbing—I thought of building a house for myself in one of them. Then, at night, the moon is reflected in the river, which tinkles over the rocks with a sound like broken glass, and pappa has built a bridge that is wide enough for a wheelbarrow.”
“Must you be so poetic?” said Sniff. “When we were in the valley you only talked about how wonderful other places were.”
“That was different,” said Moomintroll.
“But it’s true,” said Snufkin. “We’re all like that. You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is.”
—Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland
As often as not, this is what our Poetry Teatime looks like: circus animal cookies on a Dominoes napkin. Yesterday we didn’t even remember to bother with something to drink. Although it doesn’t take much to elevate the event (plates would be a good start) 😉 — there are days when you know you’ll miss your moment if you don’t jump right in. This was one of those days. We had just enough time left in our morning for a no-frills poetry teatime and a short nature walk, or a frillier tea and no walk at all. The vote was to squeeze in both.
Huck certainly doesn’t care, as long as poetry teatime contains the two essentials: cookies + Shel Silverstein. He had us all howling with “The Nap Taker” (“I did not take a nap— / The nap took me”). Beanie picked the Lewis Carroll collection (more howls) and Rilla chose a family favorite: Jack Prelutsky’s Imagine That! Poems of Never-Was. (When she read “The Multikertwigo” I had such déja vu. I will always hear that poem in wee Jane’s four-year-old voice.)
I, of course, read selections from Favorite Poems Old and New. There would be a mutiny if I reached for anything else.
(I sneak more contemporary poems into other parts of our day. These children mustn’t grow up without some Billy Collins in their lives.)
We live a block and a half from Klickitat Street. I know I don’t have to tell you booklovers what a thrill I get every time I see the sign. Four months in, it hasn’t gotten old. It never will, you know? My childhood copy of Beezus and Ramona is right here on the shelf. To this day, harmonicas sound like oh dear, oh dear to me. To this day, the first bite of an apple is the best. Fig Newtons are filled with worms, and the first one to see a white horse gets to make a wish, and when the room is dim you turn on a dawnzer for some lee light. If you need me, I’ll just be sitting here for the present.
September 16, 2017 @ 1:22 pm | Filed under: Books
As I head into the home stretch of radiation (only three treatments to go!!), I’m feeling pretty wiped. I’m like a phone that won’t hold a charge for long anymore. But I know the end is in sight and I’m trying to be good and take it easy. Still working, because I gotta. But the rest of the day is for rest and reading.
Earlier this week I was chatting with Naomi Bulger about our shared love of Helene Hanff. 84 Charing Cross Road is one of my favorite books of all time, and Hanff’s other books are way up there too. Of course the conversation made me want to reread everything, and that’s how I spent yesterday afternoon.
I’ve blogged a lot about why I love Helene Hanff’s books so much. The first one I encountered was her Letter from New York, which I read just before I moved to NYC. I carried it all over the city, seeking out the places Helene described. (Here’s a post all about it: How Radio Helped a Garden Grow.)
She really shaped my understanding and experience of Manhattan, and I was stunned to realize, many years later, that at that very time in the mid-90s, Helene was still living in the 72nd St apartment she moved to during 84 Charing Cross Road—just a block from Scott’s first NYC studio! I could have visited her!
I often wonder what happened to her personal book collection, and to the NY Public Library books she (according to her letters) filled with margin notes. Oh to stumble upon one of those!
“I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to ‘I hate to read new books, and I hollered ‘Comrade!’ to whoever owned it before me.”
—84 Charing Cross Road
“It’s against my principles to buy a book I haven’t read, it’s like buying a dress you haven’t tried on.”
—84 Charing Cross Road
Q (Quiller-Couch) was all by himself my college education. I went down to the public library one day when I was 17 looking for books on the art of writing, and found five books of lectures which Q had delivered to his students of writing at Cambridge.
“Just what I need!” I congratulated myself. I hurried home with the first volume and started reading and got to page 3 and hit a snag:
Q was lecturing to young men educated at Eton and Harrow. He therefore assumed that his students—including me—had read Paradise Lost as a matter of course and would understand his analysis of the “Invocation to Light” in book 9. So I said, “Wait here,” and went down to the library and got Paradise Lost and took it home and started reading it and got to page 3 when I hit a snag:
Milton assumed I’d read the Christian version of Isaiah and the New Testament and had learned all about Lucifer and the War in Heaven, and since I’d been reared in Judaism I hadn’t. So I said, “Wait here,” and borrowed a Christian Bible and read about Lucifer and so forth, and then went back to Milton and read Paradise Lost, and then finally got back to Q, page 3. On page 4 or 5, I discovered that the point of the sentence at the top of the page was in Latin and the long quotation at the bottom of the page was in Greek. So I advertised in the Saturday Review for somebody to teach me Latin and Greek, and went back to Q meanwhile, and discovered he assumed I not only knew all the plays of Shakespeare, and Boswell’s Johnson, but also the Second Book of Esdras, which is not in the Old Testament and is not in the New Testament, it’s in the Apocrypha, which is a set of books nobody had ever thought to tell me existed.
So what with one thing and another and an average of three “Wait here’s” a week, it took me eleven years to get through Q’s five books of lectures.
—The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
“My problem is that while other people are reading fifty books I’m reading one book fifty times. I only stop when at the bottom of page 20, say, I realize I can recite pages 21 and 22 from memory. Then I put the book away for a few years.”
—The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
“I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago I couldn’t write anything or sell anything, I’d passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I’d had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to happen round the corner in late middle age? 84, Charing Cross Road was no best seller, you understand; it didn’t make me rich or famous. It just got me hundreds of letters and phone calls from people I never knew existed; it got me wonderful reviews; it restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I’d lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England. It changed my life.”
—The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
“Somewhere along the way I came upon a mews with a small sign on the entrance gate addressed to the passing world. The sign orders flatly:
COMMIT NO NUISANCE
The more you stare at that, the more territory it covers. From dirtying the streets to housebreaking to invading Viet Nam, that covers all the territory there is.”
—The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Books That Make Me Want to Write Letters (84 Charing Cross Road)
“Wait here.” (The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street)
How Radio Helped a Garden Grow (Letter from New York)
My 2014 booknotes on Underfoot in Show Business:
Am now bereft: it was the last (well, the first for her, but the last for me) of Helene’s memoirs. I wish she’d written five more. The tales in this one: so rich! That first summer she spends at the artist’s colony—sitting down at the desk in her quiet studio and seeing Thornton Wilder’s name written on the plaque listing all the previous occupants of this cabin. He’d stayed there in 1937; she realizes he’d written Our Town in this very spot. For a moment it throws her—I completely understood that wave of comparative despair—until she registers that in the long list of writers under Wilder, there’s no one she ever heard of. This makes her feel better, and then she’s able to work.
And the early story about how she gets to NYC in the first place—winning a fellowship for promising young playwrights. Late 30s, the second year of the award. In the first year, the two winners were given $1500 apiece and sent out to make their way in the world. In Helene’s year, the TheatreGuild decides to bring the three fellowship winners (Helene is the youngest, and the only female) to New York to attend a year-long seminar along with some other hopeful playwrights. The $1500 prize pays her expenses during this year of what sounded very similar to a modern MFA program, minus the university affiliation: classes with big-name producers, directors, and playwrights. Lee Strasberg! An unprecedented opportunity for these twelve young seminar attendees. And the fruit of this careful nurturing? Helene, chronicling the story decades later, rattles off the eventual career paths of the students: there’s a doctor, a short-story writer, a TV critic, a couple of English professors, a handful of screenwriters.
“The Theatre Guild, convinced that fledgling playwrights need training as well as money, exhausted itself training twelve of us—and not one of the twelve ever became a Broadway playwright.
“The two fellowship winners who, the previous year, had been given $1500 and sent wandering off on their own were Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.”
I laughed my head off when I read that.
June 14, 2017 @ 7:32 am | Filed under: Books
Me: Here is this stack of seventeen gorgeous books for us to choose from for our next readaloud
Huck and Rilla: No, we want the next Moomins
Me: Twist my arm why don’t you
The black curagh working slowly through this world of grey, and the soft hissing of the rain gave me one of the moods in which we realise with immense distress the short moment we have left us to experience all the wonder and beauty of the world.
—The Aran Islands, J.M. Synge
This week Beanie and I reached the J. M. Synge episode of The Irish Identity. The quote above found me at the perfect time, as I neared the end of Emily St. John Mandel’s lovely Station Eleven, and on the day the President announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Even after the people of the south island, these men of Inishmaan seemed to be moved by strange archaic sympathies with the world. Their mood accorded itself with wonderful fineness to the suggestions of the day, and their ancient Gaelic seemed so full of divine simplicity that I would have liked to turn the prow to the west and row with them for ever.
June 2, 2017 @ 7:24 am | Filed under: Books
What happens when you read Station Eleven in bed before opening your laptop to Paris Agreement discussion: profound discombobulation. What are these fossil fuels you speak of? Here in Year Fifteen, electricity is a distant memory and the children have never seen a lit screen. Uh, like the one on which I’m reading this book, these posts. I’m addled. Somebody fix me a plate of wild boar.
He stood by the case and found himself moved by every object he saw there, by the human enterprise each object had required. Consider the snow globe. Consider the mind that invented those miniature storms, the factory worker who turned sheets of plastic into white flakes of snow, the hand that drew the plan for the miniature Severn City with its church steeple and city hall, the assembly-line worker who watched the globe glide past on a conveyer belt somewhere in China. Consider the white gloves on the hands of the woman who inserted the snow globes into boxes, to be packed into larger boxes, crates, shipping containers. Consider the card games played belowdecks in the evenings on the ship carrying the containers across the ocean, a hand stubbing out a cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, a haze of blue smoke in dim light, the cadences of a half dozen languages united by common profanities, the sailors’ dreams of land and women, these men for whom the ocean was a gray-line horizon to be traversed in ships the size of overturned skyscrapers. Consider the signature on the shipping manifest when the ship reached port, a signature unlike any other on earth, the coffee cup in the hand of the driver delivering boxes to the distribution center, the secret hopes of the UPS man carrying boxes of snow globes from there to the Severn City Airport. Clark shook the globe and held it up to the light. When he looked through it, the planes were warped and caught in whirling snow.
Related: How the United States Looked Before the EPA

domain: library


Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls provide a flexible networking architecture that includes support for dynamic routing, switching, and VPN connectivity, enabling you to deploy the firewall into nearly any networking environment.
When configuring the Ethernet ports on Palo Alto firewall, you can choose from virtual wire, Layer 2, or Layer 3 interface deployments. In addition, PA capability to configure different types of interfaces on different ports. which allow PA to integrate into a variety of network segments,
I will walk you through the steps for installing, configuring the firewall interfaces, defining zones, and setting up a basic security policy.


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General Liability, Property Coverage, and Workers Comp Insurance
The easiest way to purchase insurance for a mall kiosk is by clicking here and going to www.mallkioskinsurance.com
Do you have a cart at an indoor or outdoor mall? Owners of these popular businesses often finds themselves both wanting to protect their businesses and having to meet the requirements of the malls where they are located. We often find that malls require higher limits of insurance than other landlords, which is why we can help with limits of insurance from as low as $300,000 and up to $10,000,000.
One unique issue to consider is that some mall kiosks have no employees and are operated by the business owner, but the mall still requires that you purchase workers comp insurance. Stratum Insurance Agency can help with these situations.

domain: finance


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Loden, a Dutch producer, blends bright and colorful IDM and hip-hop on his latest releaseÂ The Star-Eyed Condition, which is out now onÂ Circle Into Square. Underground rappers such as Open Mike Eagle, Busdriver, Doseone, and Sole offer forth their wordsmithery for Loden to showcase over his wild beats. Whenever a guest appears on this album, he’ll craft the title around the guest instead of saying “Insert Title (feat. blahblahblah)” which is a bit clever and something I can’t say I’ve seen before. What you’ll get onÂ The Star-Eyed Condition is some euphoric and sometimes house-driven trackwork that will keep your attention and, of course, very entertained. On “About Busdriver with Colors” it even sounds like it has Loden sampling from early Matthew Dear on one of the hook layers but sadly I’m (irritatingly) just drawing a blank on the song name right now. Nevertheless, check out the Bandcamp player below and see what you think of it – especially if you like Blue Sky Black Death’s Noir. Cheers!
12" version of The Star-Eyed Condition, limited to 500 copies!
Includes immediate download of 11-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
Buy Now $15 USD or more
ships out within 3 days
edition of 500
An Evening with Open Mike Eagle 03:19
From the Road We Saw Orange Number Three 03:54
About Busdriver With Colors 03:45
Ceschi is Seeing Straight 03:38
JoĂ«lle's RĂŞve 02:52
Seneca Guns 03:32
Future Confetti With Doseone 03:58
Optimist Never Cries 03:13
A Letter to a Future Kid from Sole 02:42
released 20 August 2013
tags: electronic downtempo folk folktronica hip-hop Portland
- Maybe Buy
- Not My Style
- Too Expensive

domain: entertainment


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Twenty-four Hours. 12 pm
She wanted to disappear, to fold herself over into the pain that she’d been left with. To crawl inside the hole losing Pietro had left in her. They’d told her it wouldn’t go away, but it would get easier, but how did someone pull out of this. Drowning hadn’t felt like an adequate way to describe this torment, but words wouldn’t fit – she couldn’t mould them to her will as she could so many other things in her life.
The hammering in her chest grew with each passing minute that drew closer to the hour she’d felt the torment wash over her like a wave. It had almost been a day, and she was still alive – still breathing. She’d never been older than him.
“You know I’m twelve minutes older, right?”
His last words flit through her mind, circling back, again and again until she lets the frustration and anguish slip from her body in the form of a strangled cry. An echo of her pain into the ether. One that shouldn’t have been heard by them. The very people she’d sought to kill not so long ago.
It had been heard though, through the trees and quiet grounds of the compound.
Natasha, in moments of solitude, often wandered the grounds in an attempt to free herself of the bounds of work or sitting through conversations with the team. While she was happy to be free from the life of an assassin, sometimes – and only some – she missed the solitude of being alone.
So, she slipped away when presented with the chance.
A cry, almost too faint for her to hear breaks from the forest surrounding the compound, and Nat knows who it is she’ll find on the other side of those trees. She settles into a light jog, stops to listen, and then it off again.
She comes to a stop some feet away from Wanda, once she comes into view, assessing the younger woman. A few seconds bleed into almost a minute as she stands there, unknown to the witch, and watches her tuck into herself. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them tightly, only lifting to swipe at the tears silently slipping from her eyes.
She could have left her – no one wanted to have a witness to pain – but something stops her when she hears the quiet sniffles.
“Hey, little witch.” She makes sure to keep her voice quiet, not wanting to startle the girl.
From what she can see of Wanda’s face, it changes in an instant, masking all she’d been letting go only a moment ago.
“Uh,” she shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes again. “What are you doing here?” The question is quiet, not at all accusatory like Natasha had been expecting it to be.
“Heard you cry out, thought something may be wrong.”
Wanda shakes her head, looking at the spy for the first time since she’d announced she was there. Nat’s head tiles to the side, all attention diverted to how bright those eyes shown with the tears in them, and the afternoon sun breaking the canopy of leaves above them.
“I’m fine.” Wanda lies. “Well, I’m not in danger.” Her lip curls up on the last word, her accent thick with pain.
“This pain it – “
“If someone tells me it will pass, one. More. Time.” Wanda cuts her off.
Nat presses on as though the interruption hadn’t happened, “This pain is dangerous and.” She steps forward despite herself. “And if you let it, it’ll consume you.”
Wanda doesn’t respond, and Natasha doesn’t stop her forward approach. Her steps stop when she’s not a foot from the girl, and when there’s still nothing from her Nat turns, slides down the tree and joins her at the base. Shoulder to shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you company.” Is her simple reply.
“And if I don’t want it?” Wanda asks, turning to watch the older woman’s reaction.
“Too bad.” Nat closes her eyes and leans back against the tree. “Maybe you need it.” She can feel Wanda’s eyes on her but doesn’t open her own.
She hears the inhale of breath and the exhale not a second later and knows Wanda has given in.
“Maybe I do.” A few minutes later Nat opens her eyes to look down at the younger woman, who’d surprisingly tucked herself into Nat’s side and places her head on the spy’s shoulder.
An hour passes, or what feels like an hour, Natasha hadn’t bothered to check the time one way or the other, and Wanda suddenly lifts her head from the spy’s shoulder and stands. Nat opens her eyes, watching as she crawls to her feet, and then shifts to face her. She reaches out taking hold of the hand that the little witch had extended to her.
“Thank you, Natasha.”
“I just sat my ass on some tree roots, no big deal.” They both knew that it was more than that, but Wanda doesn’t press, only smiles.
Thirty-six Hours. 1 am
Keeping late hours was not something that Natasha did by any will of her own, sometimes the ghosts of her past won, and she let them. Dreams would come in the event she let herself sleep, so on these occasions, she’d favour whiskey and sitting alone in the dark.
Tonight, happened to be one of those nights she realized. Pulling herself from the warmth of her bed she makes for the kitchen, being careful to not make any sound in the event someone else could be roaming about.
Once inside the kitchen she makes a beeline for the cupboards holding the baking goods, opens it and reaches behind a bag of flour and retrieves a bottle of whiskey she’d stashed back there to keep from the boys and to keep Tony from knowing she’d swiped it from his office.
She pours a glass and takes a sip.
“Little late for that?” Wanda says from across the room where she’s sat on the couches.
Nearly spitting it out when a voice speaks out into the darkness Nat turns, noticing Wanda’s silhouette against the large windows.
“Shouldn’t sneak up on an assassin.”
“I was here first.” Wanda counters before adding, “And I was to believe the title is former assassin?”
Nat smiles at that, because yes, it was most definitely former.
“Why’re you up?” Nat asks, approaching the figure in the dark.
Along the way she flips a lamp on, bathing the room and Wanda in a gentle glow. She can see that she’d been crying again, the red-rimmed eyes a tell take sign, but it had been some time ago. Her eyes we free of new tears, but that didn’t mean more were not on their way.
“Silly question,” Wanda answers, not hiding the bite to her words at all.
“Right, it is.” Nat nods before taking a seat beside Wanda, glass in hand, she lets one arm rest on the back of the couch and tucks her feet up off the floor.
“What about you? What has you drinking whiskey in the middle of the night?” Wanda turns the conversation towards the spy, who would very much like to spin it back to Wanda but knows that may not be what she wants. What she needs. And Natasha wanted to give her what she needed.
“Sometimes I have bad dreams, this.” She holds up the glass, “Helps ease the mind.”
“Slightly unhealthy though.” Wanda points out.
“If it was something that happened every night; yes, but it’s not.” Nat counters, not liking having to defend having a drink. “Thank you for the concern though.” She softens her voice this time, knowing the younger woman probably hadn’t meant anything by it.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Wanda asks as she takes the glass from Natasha’s hand, and lifts it to her lips, keeping her eyes on Natasha as she does. The action had been innocent, but the spy still swallows hard against it, forcing herself back the question.
“No, I’d rather not.” She says, taking the glass back and asks a question of her own, “Do you want company?”
Wanda pauses lips pursing in thought before turning to mirror the way Natasha is sitting. “I do.”
“Have you slept at all since… Sokovia?” Nat finds herself asking, knowing the answer would very likely be no.
“I’ve drifted in and out when I get too tired.” Wanda’s eyes move to peer over the couch, out the window into the dark. “But it never lasts you know? I don’t dream, and that’s probably for the best – but it’s like….”
Nat assumes she can’t find the words to what she’d been trying to say, but she gets it. “Like you’re drowning and can’t let yourself be content, not really. So you wake, over and over again, and you’re more exhausted than when you went to bed?”
Wanda turns to face her, and Nat watches the questions pass in her eyes, but she doesn’t voice them – only nods.
“Sleep will come, in one way or another. I could always hit you with a night night gun?”
The utter confusion that stares back at her pulls a laugh from Natasha’s chest. “It’s a field weapon, renders a subject unconscious – kind of handy actually.”
“uh-huh… and no one thought to give it a proper name,” Wanda asked, amused.
“They could have, but what would be the fun in that?”
Wanda’s eyes narrow at the woman beside her. “I think you need to redefine your definition of fun, Romanoff.”
“Well, I do have a limited experience in the matter – trained as an assassin, KGB, Shield Agent – now Avenger.”
Wanda doesn’t need to be told any of this – she’d seen it all in stark detail in the woman’s mind. Nat knew that she wouldn’t have opened that conversation up, had Wanda not already been privy to the sordid past she carried at her back.
“I’d say I can’t imagine…” Wanda starts, placing her hand over Natasha’s where it lays on the back of the couch. “I’m sorry you had to go through that hell.”
Nat shrugs, playing to her usual stoic attitude when it comes to herself, “I came out the other side.”
Wanda nods, looking to their hands as Nat turns hers so they are palm to palm, then squeezes gently. “And you will too.” She pauses on the next words she wants to say but doesn’t let the misfortune of her past keep them silent. “And when you’re not okay, I’ll be here.”
“I’m not your burden to take.” Wanda voices, but Natasha knows that she’d worried about letting someone in. The hand in hers pulls away and Nat watches it go, a sadness at the loss of touch causes curiosity to stir in her.
“I don’t see you as a burden,” Nat says, looking to her then. “I see someone who’s hurting, who needs a friend – and if I get some company out of it too? Win, win.” She smiles, attempting to make this seem like it was something she would do openly.
“Natasha, I’ve been in your head, I know you’re the last one in this building that will open up to someone.” Nat stares at her, features giving nothing away. “which is why I appreciate this.”
Nat downs the remaining whiskey in the glass, an attempt to avoid a reply for a moment.
“You know, for being a stranger, you know more about me than anyone else in this building. I think you’re at an unfair advantage.”
“A lead I plan to hold on to.” Wanda smiles again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes – true happiness may take some time, Nat wouldn’t take offence to that.
“We’ll see about that, little witch.” She smiles back.
“You should go back to bed, try to get some rest.” Wanda tries, giving the woman an out if she should want to take it.
“I’m fine here.”
Wanda shifts, letting her back push into the couch as her legs curl up under her – making her lean into the spy a bit, who doesn’t move away like she was sure the younger woman was probably expecting her to do. She surprises them both by reaching up, gently playing with Wanda’s hair. Wanda had stilled only for a moment before leaning into the touch.
Forty-Hours 5 am
Natasha realizes two things when she wakes up, one being that there was someone yelling, and the other being that she’d fallen asleep on the couch – if her stiff limbs were anything to go by. She looks down, eyes falling to Wanda who’s asleep on her lap. The yelling hadn’t come from her. Blinking a couple of times, she wills her eyes to focus further into the room.
“Tony?” She asks seeing the main having a staring match with the coffee maker in front of him.
“Sorry to disturb your slumber, Romanoff.” He does look apologetic, but it’s washed away back to annoyance as he gestures to the machine. “I'm a genius, I make technology that others can only dream of…”
“And you get bested by a coffee machine?”
“Yes! It’s annoying.”
Nat rolls her eyes at him and looks down again. She needed to move, her muscles were giving her no choice in the matter – but waking Wanda was the last thing she wanted to do.
Unbeknownst to her, Tony watches her from the kitchen, having finally gotten the coffee flowing from the machine.
“Hey, little witch.” She nudges her gently.
It takes a few attempts to wake her without startling her awake, that was no way to wake up, Natasha thought bitterly almost casting Tony a sideways glance at the thought. She doesn’t get the chance though because the woman in her lap stirs, stretching before opening her eyes slowly. Realization flashed in her eyes and Nat doesn’t stop the quiet laugh as Wanda sits up, putting space between them quickly.
“Good morning.” The spy greets. “Well It’s still early, but I was starting to cramp and..”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. What time is it.” Wanda says in a hurry.
“Just past 5,” Tony answers startling her.
Nat throws him a look and he turns back to making his coffee as if he hadn’t seen it.
“I really didn’t want to wake you, since you haven’t slept.”
“No, no that’s okay.” Wanda rushes out. “I should probably go back to my room.” Her eyes flick to Tony – who she’s not at all comfortable being around yet, and Natasha knows not to argue.
“I’ll walk you.”
Once they reach her door Wanda turns to the older woman, hand resting on the handle. “Are you going back to sleep?”
Natasha is a little confused at the question but answers anyway. “For a little while.” She nods.
“This is silly, and I shouldn’t even ask…”
“Do you want some company?” Nat asks, taking the burden out of Wanda’s question.
“I do.” She replies, a sheepish look on her face.
“Alright, little witch.”
For the first time in a long time, they both fall asleep quickly and without effort, with Wanda tucked into Natasha’s chest as if she’d been there a hundred times before, and Nat’s arms wrapped around her tightly – shutting out the world.
Forty-eight Hours 1 pm
Nat had woken before Wanda and took a quiet leave some hours later. It was after eight Am she realized when reaching her own room.
She doesn’t dwell on how easy it is to be around the younger woman, or how she’d wanted to comfort her. It was in her nature to care, but in her training not to show it. She’d mastered burying her compassion in her formative years – it was something entirely harder to learn to let herself show it now.
But not with her.
She had a meeting to attend with Tony that morning, one she needed to get ready for.
As they walk back into the compound Nat doesn’t like the way the room reads. Steve is sat, brow furrowed in thought, Vision mirroring him, and Sam just looks defeated.
“Either something bad has happened, or I’m reading you all very wrong?” she says walking into the kitchen.
“They’re worried about Wanda.” Sam supplies.
Nat’s brows arch. “What happened.”
“Well, it seems that Miss Maximoff is still unaware of her powers – their potential. Which lends hand to destructive tendencies when not left in check. There was an incident in the training room, some repairs will be necessary.” Vision says simply, but without any information at all.
“Gonna need more than that, Vis.”
“We were training, and she took a hit, almost took Sam out with her return fire,” Steve says.
“She didn’t mean to – But it makes me wonder if something should be done about her powers,” Sam adds.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Nat fires at him.
“No.” His hands come up in defeat. “That came out wrong. I just meant that maybe we could have an area that somehow made it so she could train without having to worry about taking someone’s head off.”
“That’s doable,” Tony says, speaking up for the first time since arriving. “But there’s also the option of helping her control it before resuming regular training.”
“I could be of assistance with that. We were just discussing that option as you and Agent Romanoff arrived.”
Nat nods, arms folding over her chest. “Have any of you thought to include her in on this?”
“She was pretty shaken up about it Nat, left as soon as it happened, haven’t seen her since.”
Tony levels him with a look that can only say are-you-kidding-me?
“Don’t give me that look, she’s fine, I had Jarvis check the grounds for her.”
Seventy-two Hours 5 am
Nat wakes to a soft knocking on her door, she knows it’s Wanda – no one else would be looking for her before the sun had even risen. And anyone else would not have been so gentle with the wake-up call. She calls out, telling her the door is open, already sliding over in the bed expecting that the younger woman hadn’t slept well on her own all night.
No words are exchanged as Wanda lays herself down on the bed beside her. Nat is already on her way back to sleep when she wraps a protective arm around her. She misses the small smile that pulls over Wanda’s lips at the action.
It had been 4 days since Sokovia fell from the sky – She’s stopped counting the minutes and hours - four days since Wanda had lost part of her soul, and that was four days more than she thought she could take. Living without him had never occurred to her, and she wasn’t sure that’s exactly what she was doing. No, she wasn’t living. She was existing. Following instruction on when she should train, and how she should do it. It was mind-numbing being in the gym all the time – but a welcome distraction from the constant thought that Pietro should be here with her.
He’d fit in so much easier than she was. He’d have made friends in these people already, welcomed them despite the sides they’d been on before. He’d make this feel like home – where she only saw it as a place to exist where she wasn’t alone.
Except when she’s with you.
Her thoughts drift to Natasha as she pulls on a clean sweatshirt and flips her hair out of it where it had been trapped against the fabric and her back. The only times she wasn’t fully immersed in her own anguish was when Natasha was around. Sometimes they didn’t speak, but she knew that the woman was there to comfort her – to help her through this in a way that didn’t seem like someone wanted her to realize that life got better. She made the pain both lessen and become more tangible as it allowed Wanda to get lost in it for some time. The woman didn’t look at her as if she were broken, or a child, or like she could explode at any minute. She only saw someone who needed help, and Wanda guessed that she was the only one that could possibly understand the type of help that she needed.
Four days had passed, and the room Tony had given her still stood empty, save for a jacket that didn’t belong to her and the clothes she’d had on her back when she arrived, neatly tucked into one of the dresser drawers, while the others held nothing.
She knew that she hadn’t made an attempt to make it her own because this didn’t feel like home. She wasn’t sure anywhere ever would again. Her brother had always been her home. Now she had nothing.
Pepper had offered to take her to get some things – clothes, bedding, decor, anything she needed to make the space her own, but she’d declined. She could see the mothering instinct in the other woman, but there was also an apprehension there. She supposed being with Tony would make someone apprehensive about most things.
Natasha hadn’t seen much of the little witch over the past three days, and she was happy to be back at the compound after a mission had run days longer than it should have. She’d gone in to do some recon but once they realized that people working at this arms business were doing so under duress – threat against their families ensuring their labour – it had become a rescue mission.
“Natasha?” There was clear worry in the way Wanda had spoken her name. Eyes roaming all over the older woman. She was limping, and her face wore more bruises than she usually walked away from a mission with. Truth be told she’d had her ass kicked and had Sam not been there she may have had much worse done to her.
“I’m fine.” She assures. “You should see the other guy.”
Nat had gone straight to the witch, ignoring that voice in the back of her mind that was telling her she was getting too close, that she was allowing herself too much comfort in the younger woman where she was meant to be comforting.
Wanda steps back from the door she’d been holding open. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Unless those magic hands of yours can mend bone and heal contusions, I think I’ll have to wait this out the old-fashioned way.” She jokes walking into the room slowly.
“I could try?”
Nat turns to her, the only tell of surprise in her eyes, “You think you can heal people?”
“I can break their minds; I can control them in much the same way – it wouldn’t be so far off to trick the brain into healing the body would it?”
Natasha sees the logic in it and seeing all that they had over the years she shouldn’t be surprised that it could be possible.
“I’d understand if you don’t want me using my magic on you again.” Wanda makes to turn away from Nat, presumably to hide the shame in her eyes, and Nat reached out, taking hold of her hand.
“I trust you.”
Apprehension greets her admission.
“Okay.” Wanda finally says. “Come sit.”
The spy lets herself be led to the bed, and sits, eyeing Wanda as she stands in front of her. “I don’t know if this will work.” She admits.
“What do I have to lose.” She laughs easing the tension.
Wanda reaches out, placing a hand on the knee Nat had limped in on. Nat focuses on the witch’s face rather than that familiar feeling of Wanda’s magic. The memory had not been a pleasant one. She can’t help but think how adorable the woman in front of her is then, with her face so concentrated on what she was doing.
“Woah!” Her attention flies to her knee as the pain suddenly dissipates. “Wanda! I think it worked.” She stretches the leg out and then back a couple of times. “Holy shit.”
“Guess this is more than destruction.” Wanda plays with the red mist surrounding her hand, eying it in a way that made Natasha think she’d never thought of it as anything more than a weapon.
“So much more.” She affirms.
“Suppose I should fix up the rest of you huh?”
“Only if you want to.” Nat teases.
“You’ve helped me heal; I could do nothing but the same in return.” She says quietly.
“Wanda, look at me.” When their eyes meet, she continues, “You don’t owe me a thing.”
Wanda nods, reaching out to touch a bruise on Nat’s Jaw, then starts speaking again, “I do, and I won’t let you downplay having helped me through those moments I didn’t think I would get through.”
Nat tries to look her in the eye again, but the witch is busy scanning her body for more injuries, when she finishes with all she can see, she pulls the collar of Nat’s suit to the side, revealing a cut. She makes a face at the sight of it, one that causes the spy’s lip to lift in a small smile. She looked adorable when she was concentrating. The thought should have startled her in some way, but It doesn’t. When it came to Wanda Nat didn’t hold her usual reservations that she would with other people.
She moves to inspect the cut, or where the cut had been and grins. “Damn, little witch, where you been all my life huh?”
“Hold up in Hydra facilities.” Wanda jokes, still looking over the other woman.
“Right.” Nat doesn’t share in the joke but is relieved that Wanda has the ability to do so.
“Are there any others?”
“Nothing major.” Her shoulder rises then falls in a shrug.
“Show me,” She gestures to the suit, “C’mon.”
Nat’s brow arches at that but does as she’s told, unzipping the suit enough to pull it down to her waist. She watches Wanda’s eyes roam over her, then stall on her chest. Missions meant a confining sports bra, but apparently, that didn’t stop the little witch from wanting to look.
“Bruising is a little lower,” Nat says quietly, not taking her eyes off Wanda’s face, who shakes her head ever so slightly and looks down.
“Oh, Nat.” Her eyes widen at the colours spanning her entire right side. “That is not minor at all.”
“No, but I’ve had worse.” She sucks in a beath on the last word when Wanda reaches out to touch the injury.
The witch looks up at her, not amused, “That’s not comforting at all.”
Nat had expected her to move away once she’d finished easing her injuries, but Wanda stood still, still looking to the spot the bruising had been.
She pulls up the suit again, sliding her arms into the sleeves then shrugs it on. “What’re you thinking about?”
“That scar on your stomach.”
“Soviet slug, through and through.” She says pulling at the zipper.
“Oh, yeah everyone’s got one of those.” Wanda rolls her eyes, and Nat doesn’t know what to do with the newfound concern for her safety. It wasn’t like Wanda didn’t know what they did, what she’d done before that. She reaches out and takes hold of Wanda’s hand.
“Guess I’ll have less now though – got myself a personal witch doctor.”
Wanda’s eyes roll again but playfully this time. “Lucky you.”
“Mm, lucky me.”
Wanda had been settling in more and more as the days went on but had still been avoiding most of the team, some more than others. It had surprised a few to see her gravitation towards Natasha, who in usual circumstances would have avoided the younger woman given their first meeting. She’d walked in on Tony and Steve discussing that very thing earlier in the evening, and that conversation still hung around her hours later as she padded through the kitchen, on the way back to her room, with a glass of whiskey in her hand.
Approaching the door, she stops because she was certain that she’d closed it when she left minutes ago, stepping slowly she peers into the room, wondering if she’d find Vision there again. They’d been working on his boundaries since getting back from Sokovia, and she’d thought there’d be no worry about finding him there again.
“Wanda?” She questions, seeing the witch sitting on the edge of her bed. She steps into the room, closing the door behind her. “What’s wrong?” She almost reaches for the light, but thinks better of it, leaving the room dark, the only light spilling out from the bathroom door that was cracked.
“I uh.” Her breath hitches in a way that makes Nat’s heartbreak. She takes a few steadying breaths as Nat approaches her. “Bad dreams.”
Nat doesn’t ask anything further, knowing that talking through the tears may cause more breathing issues than she wanted to see. She sits on the bed beside her, abandoning the drink on her nightstand.
“Come here.” She wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into her side. The younger woman buries her face in Natasha’s hair, nose pressed against her neck and breaks down all over again. Resting her chin on the top of Wanda’s head Nat closes her eyes, rubs gently at Wanda’s arms, and tells her to breathe.
A few minutes pass as they stay in that position, and Wanda is able to calm her breathing.
Wanda shakes her head no in response and wraps her arms around Natasha, not wanting to move.
“Alright, little witch.” Nat starts to pull herself away and can’t help the gentle laugh that pulls from her chest when the younger woman doesn’t seem ready to let go. “How about we lay down, might be more comfortable.”
Nat stands from the bed, pulling back the blanket further. “You can just stay here tonight.”
Wanda looks at her and the spy doesn’t need to be able to read minds to tell that she’s about to protest, and doesn’t let her, “It’s not a big deal, you can keep me company.”
That seems to work as Wanda moves from her spot to the other side of the bed. Nat realizes then that this is the first time anyone else had been in this bed with her, and it’s not at all unwelcome.
The question pulls Nat out of her thoughts, and she shakes her head, “Nothing, just spaced out for a moment.” She could have told her what she’d been thinking, but she wouldn’t put her attraction on Wanda – she had enough to worry about – and she didn’t want to ruin the comfort she could offer the witch with expectation. Whether she actually expected something or not. She turns to the nightstand, grabbing the glass then downs it. Glad she’d not poured a lot.
She settles into the bed beside her and lifts an arm, letting her resume almost the same position as when they had been sitting.
“This will get easier.”
“With you, it will,” Wanda says without a beat and Nat smiles into the darkness.
“You know most people are meant to enjoy this,” Natasha calls out, feigning annoyance at the situation she had found herself in. Wanda has huddled away behind a door, stating that she looked ridiculous and wouldn’t be coming out.
“I’m not most people.” Nat hears her grumble quietly from behind the door.
“Oh, I’m aware.” She pauses but continues when no response comes. “How about you come out and I’ll tell you if you look ridiculous or not?”
“Scout’s honour,” Nat says through a chuckle.
A moment passes before she hears the lock turn followed by the door creaking open. Wanda steps out fully and Natasha is sure her face is showing every bit of awe that she feels in that moment. She wore a deep scarlet dress with a slit far too high for the spy’s liking in that moment – reaching nearly the full length of her thigh – and a plunging neckline that showed more than she’d been ready for.
She was certain she knew other words, but all escaped in that moment but one, “Wow.”
Wanda looked a little out of her comfort in the dress, but the look on the older woman’s face and the way her eyes tore over her, more times than enough, she grew a little more confident. “It’s not too much?”
If Wanda had learned anything from Natasha it was that she wasn’t one to lie – a conversation they’d had in the first week she’d been there told her that much – so when she speaks now Natasha is hopeful that she’ll believe her. “Oh, it’s entirely too much. You look stunning, Wanda.”
“I still don’t see why Tony’s parties are so formal. I’ve seen that man eat cereal out of a cup in his pyjamas in the middle of the day.”
Nat shrugs, “He’s got layers?”
Wanda laughs, shaking her head. It’s all Natasha can do to focus on her smiling face and not the rest of her, and all that the dress was not covering. Control was becoming less and less of a concern when it came to the witch, and as time went on She was almost certain that the attention wouldn’t be unwelcome.
“Should I take this off?”
Wanda catches her eye and Nat nods. “Uh yeah, please.” Images of taking the dress off Wanda herself creep through her mind.
Wanda doesn’t comment on the distracted tone which Nat is happy about – though had she been more attentive to her tone she would have caught the way Wanda had asked the question.
By the time they leave the shop, heading towards another, with far more comfortable attire, Wanda is smiling. She’d smiled more in the past few hours than she had since arriving, and Nat didn’t want this day to end, which is what brings her to her next words, “Clothes are almost done, I think we should look for other things for your room today too. Maybe some new bedding, art, a nice rug?”
“I didn’t take you for the shopping sort?” Wanda questions the suggestion.
“I’m not – not really – but this day is proving to not be awful. And you’re smiling a lot. Sue me for wanting to continue it?” She chuckles holding the door to their next stop open.
“You’re ridiculous,” Wanda says playfully as she steps past the other woman, into the shop.
“More than you know.” Nat agrees, shaking her head at herself.
The day came to an end with the two of them sharing a meal at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant Wanda had spotted and dragged Nat into, yammering on about the sign out front saying that they had the best pie in town. Despite Natasha’s protests that they all said that to bring people in, the pie had been some of the best she had ever had. A fact that Wanda had no problem pointing out to her, with a smug smile on her face.
“When we get home, I think I’m going to need a long bath,” Wanda says from her spot in the passenger seat. Nat gives her a weird look, followed by a smile that Wanda eyes her curiously for.
“Why are you looking at me like that.”
“You called it home.”
Her head tilts slightly, eyes sliding down to look at nothing in particular. “I did, didn’t I?”
“You did.” Nat didn’t need to answer but finds herself doing so anyways.
“I suppose I have you to thank for that.” Wanda muses, staring out the front window.
Natasha does the only thing she can think to keep the girl grounded and reached out to take her hand, keeping the other on the wheel as they travel down the road towards the compound. The witch allows it, even gives her hand a gentle squeeze.
“Just doing my part,” Nat says, downplaying her role.
“Is that all your doing?” Wanda asks, catching her off guard. There nothing in her tone that indicates she’s anything other than curious. Though the spy didn’t miss the implication in her eyes as she looks from the road to her for a moment.
“Maybe not, but if that’s all you need then hey, what else can I do but spend time with a great girl.”
Wanda rolls her eyes. “How selfless of you.”
“You’re welcome,” Nat says though a gentle laugh, keeping her eyes ahead as she takes the turn into the compound. “Honey, we’re home.”
“You’re ridiculous.” The witch shakes her head.
“You love it.”
“I’m certain you’re trying to kill me.” The sound of her laboured breathing is all that can be heard following the witch’s words. She looks up from where she’d bent herself over, hands on her knees, and catches the smirk on Natasha’s face. “See, that’s not helping to ease my fear of wanting me dead.”
“It’s not my fault that you’re so out of shape.”
Wanda watches the way the older woman pulls out her arms, stretching one and then the other. The muscles under her skin ripple under the strain, and Wanda is powerless to look away. In the hope to not look like a complete fool staring at Natasha, she searches for a reply.
“You also said you would take it easy on me.”
Nat’s lips pull back into a tight smile, and her brows knit together. “Mm, yeah, that was easy.”
The look of disbelief that takes over Wanda’s face makes Natasha laugh out loud. “You’ve got a long way to go, little witch.”
“You know I’m taller than you, right?” Wanda retorts, righting herself now that her breathing has come back under control.
“Yeah, yeah.” Nat rolls her eyes. “Doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass though. C’mon, little witch, let’s go again.”
“Ugh, fine – but if I can’t move later, you’re carrying me around.”
“Sounds like a deal.” Nat had already fallen into a fighting stance, and Wanda matches her, taking in the way the older woman held herself. “Show me what you’ve got.”
This was the first time that they’d trained together, and truth be told she was surprised at how well Wanda was doing, not that she was going to tell her that just yet – the look of concentration on her face when Nat chided her about trying harder was something she’d grown to like seeing in the short time they had been in the training room.
“You keep hitting like that and you may be able to kill a fly.” She says, dodging a punch thrown her way. Another follows her statement; one she pushes away easily.
“Low blow,” Wanda says, stepping into another punch that Nat clocks a mile away.
“You’re making it too easy.”
Wanda tries again and when she’s shut down Nat moves in to throw a hit of her own but it doesn’t hit its mark. Not because the younger woman had blocked her the way that she’d showed her too, but by a force of magic. She’s pushed back and falls to her back, letting out a groan.
Wanda stands over her looking far too pleased with herself. “That’s cheating.”
“You never said I couldn’t use my powers.”
Nat narrows her eyes. “Loophole.” The laugh that pulls from Wanda turns into a surprised yelp as Nat takes her legs out from under her, bringing her down to the mat with her. To her surprise Wanda still fights for dominance, using the fall to take the upper hand and try to pin the spy to the mat.
She flips the easily, “Gloating will get you killed.” Nat says pinning Wanda’s hands above her head. She doesn’t miss the way that the younger woman’s breath stops in her chest, or the way she looks up at her – not at all focused on the sparring match they had just been taking part in.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
Natasha doesn’t answer, what was she supposed to say to that? Something won’t let her pull away.
When she doesn’t break the contact, however, Wanda leans up – the little that she can with her hands pinned to the mat above her – and presses a barely-there kiss to her lips. Nat wasn’t even sure she would call that a kiss, but it was gentle and sweet and when the woman below her opens her eyes to peer up at her with a wide smile Nat can’t think. She can hardly breathe.
Wanda responds quickly when Nat leans down, initiating the kiss this time, and instantly moved her hands to Natasha’s sides when they are released. There was no experimentation here, Nat wasn’t holding back.
“Wow.” A whisper fills the space between them when the kiss breaks, “is there anything you’re not good at?”
Nat laughs, happy there was no tension in the air. “Baking.”
“I’m not good at baking. Never works out.”
Wanda chuckles. “Could you maybe let me up?”
“and here I thought you liked having me on top.”
Wanda reddens and Nat takes mercy on her and lets her up, offering her a hand to pull her to her feet. She tells her they can pick up the training again tomorrow and starts to walk away.
The spy looks over her shoulder waiting for her to continue.
“I think I’d like to have you underneath me more.”
Of all the things that she thought would come out of Wanda’s mouth, that was not it, and the look on her face must have shown her surprise because Wanda looks smug as she walks past her.
This certainly was not the same woman that had arrived almost a month ago. Not that the heartbroken woman that had come home with them was all that Wanda was. As Nat watched her walk away the thought that she would very much like everything there was to know about her.
Wanda looked down to the picture in her hands, the one from the file Agent Hill had on the two of them. It was one of the only pictures she had of the two of them together. “You’ve been gone twenty-five days.” She announces quietly, curling into the couch more. She had been doing better with not letting herself get pulled into the waves of sadness but knew better than to deny herself it – there would be no burying this. Nothing good could come if it.
“Hey, you okay?” She shouldn’t be surprised to hear Nat’s voice come softly through the living room but given the way that the spy had been avoiding her – or time alone with her – since their kiss, she was surprised slightly to see her.
“You came.” She had taken to leaving her door open on nights she couldn’t sleep, or emotions took over, a way for Natasha to know that she should either come in – or find her.
“Duh.” Nat was already crossing the room to her, headed to her usual spot next to the woman. “I always will – even when I may be panicking about kissing a girl I’m meant to be helping.”
“Mm. Well,” Wanda leans over, resting her head on Natasha’s shoulder when she takes her seat. “Kissing you helps.” Nat warms at that and presses a kiss to the top of her head.
“Can’t argue with that logic.”
Wanda grins. “I’m sure you could argue, but you don’t want to.”
“No, I don’t.” Natasha could tell that Wanda wanted to prod further, so steers the conversation away; “You never answered my question, are you okay?”
“No, but it’s bearable,” Wanda answers quietly. “I feel like I can breathe now. Where there was… unblinking nothingness I…” She trails off seemingly searching for the right words. “I feel like my feet are on the ground now.”
“Except of course when you’re floating in the air.” Nat interjects with a joke, hoping to get a smile.”
“Shut up, I’m being serious.” She smiles despite her words, lifts her head and looks to the spy.
“I know. You don’t always have to have your feet on the ground though, there’s occasion for losing yourself. Don’t think that you have to always be okay.” Wanda only stares at her for a moment, so, she continues. “Run from it and it will catch up to you. Doesn’t end well.”
“I don’t know how anyone could run from these feelings?” She seemed genuinely confused at the notion. “How could someone go on as nothing happened?”
“It’s easier I guess, to box it away, think you’re moving on.”
A curious look crosses the younger woman’s face. “Is that what you do?”
Nat’s head bows for a moment, looking for the right words. “At one point. You know what’s in my head – it was easier for some time to compartmentalize.”
“You’re stronger than you know,” Wanda speaks, leaning back from her enough to reach out and touch her cheek.
“Not soon enough, not like you. I made the choice too late to do the right thing – you did so the moment you knew that the path you were on would end in destruction.” Nat affirms.
“Guess we’ve both got some healing to do.” Wanda agrees.
Wanda nods once then resumes her previous position with her head resting on Natasha’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t respond with words opting to take Wanda’s hand in her own instead.
They stay like that for some time neither saying a word, but neither of them wanted to move. Despite her avoidance, Natasha knew that she would be drawn back to her time and time again – even if they were not in such easily accessible living arrangements. When Wanda falls asleep Natasha shifts their weight, laying them down. She’s sure there will be consequences should they be found like this, but she didn’t have the heart to wake her.
When the boys had suggested a day out in the city Wanda hadn’t known what to expect, but strolling through Central Park, and Broadway, and then squashing themselves all-around a table far too small for them all to be sat at, was not what she expected at all.
“What is this we’ll be eating?” She asks looking around the restaurant for some form of hint.
“Shawarma,” Nat speaks from beside her, rising a look to Tony. “It’s become this thing we all do, on occasion – started with the hole in the sky.”
Tony averts his eyes, still unsettled with the events of that day, but holds fast a moment later, flashing that winning smile. “What can I say, I almost died, and I wanted food.”
Wanda laughs shaking her head at the man. She’d grown easier with him in recent days, allowing herself to give in to the fact that he wasn’t a monster – that he was more than the weapons he’d inherited.
“That still doesn’t answer my question though, what is it? Shamra… no Sharwama.” There were many foods she’d been introduced to in the month – or nearly a month – that she’d been with them, but most of the time she had an idea about what it would be beforehand.
“Heavenly. But please continue trying to say it.” Clint grins grinning broadly.
“Helpful, Clint, really.” She rolls her eyes but the smile on her face betrays the annoyance she was playing at.
“Middle eastern dish, you’ll love it,” Nat interjects from beside her, cutting off any further comments from the boys.
As she finished speaking the waitress starts in with their food, setting dish after dish down in front of each of them. Natasha was wondering just how the woman had managed to carry so much all at once. What she couldn’t carry was brought out by another woman. Soon they all had a plate, and half the table was already digging in. Natasha and Steve both rolled their eyes at the same time.
“Go on,” Bruce says before taking the first bite of his own.
Not liking all eyes on her Wanda took a bite, after a moment of contemplation her brows raise, and she smiles around the mouth full of food.
“Told ya,” It’s Nat that smiles at her.
“So,” Tony speaks, eyes trained on Natasha in a way she didn’t like at all. “Is there anything we should know?” His eyes flick between the two women; Nat’s stare hardens, and Wanda’s grow realizing what he could be asking about.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Nat doesn’t back down.
“So, I didn’t happen to find the two of you all snuggled up this morning, for the second time this week – might I add.”
“Doesn’t mean there’s something to tell.”
“Mm, I think you’re lying.” He reproached. “And…
“Tony.” Steve knew it was all in good fun, but the look on Natasha’s face told him she was not finding the humour in it.
“What I want to know!” He looks from Steve to the girls again. “Because if what I think is happening – and it is happening – I’d like to pass along my congratulations.” He pauses “To Nat. Wanda however, I’ll just pass along my condolences, she can’t be easy to deal with.” There were few people in this world that could deliver harsh words as a heart-felt joke like Tony stark could.
“I think I can handle her,” Wanda says surprising the table. Nat most of all.
“Ah-ha!” Tony smirks. “See it is happening! I was right.”
To the credit of the rest of the table – aside from a mumbled statement from clint that only Nat caught – no one else weighed in on the new information.
“How do you people put up with him,” Wanda asks, almost seriously.
“There’s usually drinking involved,” Bruce answered, pushing his plate away, having finished.
“Speaking of drinks, we’ll have to have a celebratory one tonight, at the party.”
Under the table, like some grade school kid, Nat reaches for Wanda’s hand, taking it in her own. The younger woman looks to her with a small smile - one Nat was slowly realizing was reserved for only her. She ran her thumb over the back of Wanda’s hand. It was her way of telling her she wasn’t upset about her basically confirming there was something between them. She didn’t have a name for it, but that didn’t seem to matter.
The rest of the meal was spent without much incident as they were too busy eating the food. By the time they all file out onto the sidewalk everyone is smiling and joking, and Natasha is looking at Wanda like she’s just won. What that could be Wanda wasn’t sure, but if it meant that the older woman would keep looking at her like that, she would smile just like this a thousand times over.
A conversation breaks out between the rest of the group, and Wanda is happy to stand back and listen to them go on about the party tonight. Tony was beaming, clearly loving being able to bring them all together for something good. Clint seemed at ease – though she got the feeling the man could feel at ease just about anywhere. Bruce seemed to be simply taking things in as much as she was. Her eyes move to Nat who’s shaking her head at something Wanda hadn’t caught.
Steve stepped away from the rest of them, coming to a stop just beside Wanda. “You okay?”
She looks to him, wondering why he’d ask such a thing. “Yes?”
“I just assume that things with Nat are new, and maybe you weren’t ready for the whole team to be aware?”
“I’m not even sure what it is. So, no, maybe I wasn’t ready.” Her eyes move from him to the other woman. “But I don’t think that matters. Something tells me this is….”
When she takes a moment longer than need be to find the word Steve smiles. “Special?”
“Yes,” Wanda nods. “Special.”
“In all the time I have known Romanoff, I’ve never known her to open up to someone like she has with you.”
Wanda huffs out a laugh. “Is that what she’d done?”
“Yes. It is.” He affirms like it was something so plain to see you would have to be blind to miss it.
“I feel like you know something I don’t.”
The man only smiles at her. “Guess you’ll have to stick around to find out.”
Wanda knew what he was getting at; he was still worried that she would leave them – that she didn’t feel as though she belonged with them or deserved to be.
“I think I’m right where I need to be.” She believed her words, and by the look on his face, she believed them as well. Had she not agreed to join them, had she attempted to heal on her own, she was sure her grief would have morphed into something dangerous by now. While it was still very much rooted inside her, she’d been able to break through the chaos in recent days.
Later that evening Natasha stood in front of the floor-length mirror in her room, surveying the dress she’d chosen for the evening. It was black, and almost matched the one Wanda had bought for the party. Thinking of that dress, and how it had looked on the younger woman stalls her. She didn’t know how this happened, but she’d fallen for the witch. More than some silly crush, more than a need to have her in ways no one else would. She sought comfort in the younger woman’s touch and wanted nothing more than to offer her the same.
And now everyone knew.
“Tony and his big mouth.” She mumbles to her reflection.
“You’re not still upset with him, are you?” Wanda asks from the doorway, chucking when Nat turns to her surprised. She was honestly overjoyed with the fact that she was able to sneak up on her. All celebratory thoughts left her mind when she got a full look at the spy.
“You look, incredible.”
“I know.” Nat smirks, making a slow approach towards her “You just going to stand there with your mouth open, or are we going to go party.”
Nat reaches Wanda, but her attempt to move past her, to lead the way is halted by a hand on her arm. She looks up seeing nothing but care staring back at her.
“Nat, how do you want to go about this. The team knowing what’s going on with us is one thing – but an entire party full of people is another story. I’ll understand if you.” His words fell, not wanting to say them.
“If I what?” Nat asks, ducking her head to meet Wanda’s eyes.
“If you don’t want the world to know – I know the view on me is not that..”
Nat leans in, pressing a kiss to her lips. “No, what people think of you is wrong. There is nothing they could say that would make me regret this – besides my past is out there for the world to see. We’re more than the bad choices we made. Don’t ever think I want to hide you away.”
“Are you sure?” There was a worry in her voice that Nat wanted to take her away from – but public fear would never be something she could fix.
“Look, I know it hasn’t been long, I know that you’re still healing. I could chalk this up to your escaping the pain – but I’m not. I know you, I know you’re more than your pain, and each time we’re together I know that this is something real. I spent too much of my life running from the good things in fear I would break them.” She pauses. Trying to convey what she can’t find the words for in her eyes. “We don’t know where this will end up, but we owe it to ourselves to try?”
“Let’s try,” Wanda states, cutting off any word vomit that may follow the swelling feeling in her chest.
By the time they make it down to the party, there are more people there than Nat would have thought – she was used to being one of the first to arrive at these things – keeping the boys from getting drunk before the party even got into full swing. Well, the ones that could get drunk that was.
“Ahh, there you are,” Tony announces, arms out as he approaches the two women.
“Tony.” Nat greets, eyeing his approach suspiciously.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” He gives them both a once-over. “You two look absolutely stunning.”
Wanda blushes and Nat rolls her eyes.
“Come mingle, smile – I know that doesn’t come easily y to you, but try?” He teases, slipping between the two so he can wrap an arm around both of their shoulder.
“What are you doing,” Nat asks, looking to Wanda across Tony’s chest. The younger woman meets her eye, but where she thought she would see discomfort there’s only amusement on Wanda’s face.
“Celebratory drinks, remember?” He supplies.
He leads them to the bar before stepping away and allowing Wanda to move in next to Natasha again. This was technically her first public appearance since Sokovia, and he wanted to make sure that she would be comfortable. Natasha also seemed to be one of the only ones to offer that to her.
“What would you ladies like to drink?”
“Whiskey, please.” Nat answers without much thought.
Wanda stalls, she didn’t really have a preference. “Whatever you suggest.” She says
“Oh no, that’s dangerous.” Nat chuckles.
“What’s that supposed to mean,” Wanda asks, but neither Natasha nor Tony answered.
Once all three have their drinks Natasha can’t help but laugh at the way Wanda is eyeing the drink in her hand. Tony lets it go on for a few moments before smiling warmly.
“Relax kid, I wouldn’t give you something awful. It’s just whiskey.”
“That was mean, Tony.” Nat scolds.
“Yes, but oh so fun.” He raises his glass locking eyes with Wanda. “I’d like to welcome you, officially, to the crazy family that we’ve acquired.” Wanda smiles at him. “And I’d also, with the utmost sincerity, congratulate the two of you – even if this,” He looks between them “Is in its infancy, and built on rocky ground, I know it’s going to be something spectacular.”
“Who knew you were such a softie.”
He makes a face. “Oh god, no. This is all Pepper. She’s rubbed off on me over the years.”
“Thank you, Tony,” Wanda says before moving in to hug him. Nat watches with a warm feeling blooming in her chest as he hugs her back.
“Ah, don’t mention it. Just do us all a favour and keep her in line, yeah?”
The witch laughs before pulling herself back from Tony, who leans on the bar top, making to look like he’s paying attention to the room.
Nat wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her into her side and pressing a kiss to her temple. “You ready for this?”
“If you’re at my side, then yes,” Wanda says as she looks to her. Natasha leans in again, this time pressing a quick kiss to her lips.
“Here I thought you’d be against PDA.”
“Staking my claim. That man over there can’t take his eyes off you, not that I can blame him.”
Wanda rolls her eyes and smacks Nat’s arm lightly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“So you keep telling me.” She grins. “Come on, we should mingle.”
Wanda enters the room first, hours later, and turns to watch Natasha follow her. “That was not as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Mm, it turned out to be a really good night. Everyone loved you.” The spy speaks as she steps closer to Wanda.
“I really want to offer you something more comfortable to wear, but I’m not ready for you to take that dress off.” She grinned. It would be easy to blame her words on the alcohol, but the two drinks she’d had were nowhere near enough.
“What if I let you take it off of me?” Wanda asks quietly, eyes already darkened at the thought.
“I didn’t want to move too…”
“Natasha, shut up and kiss me.” The demand was not expected and also came with an unexpected reaction. She didn’t try to fight it, simply did as she was told.
Taking the final step Nat’s hand hits the back of Wanda’s neck, pulling her into a searing kiss that has the witch moaning into her mouth. The need to touch more of her grows strong at the sound and her other hand falls to Wanda’s waist, pulling her closer.
The need to ask her if this was okay stood in the back of her mind, but she ignored it and clutches at Wanda tighter.
She feels Wanda’s hands pull at the dress, but the way it clung to her means that there was little she could grasp on to, this didn’t stop her and Natasha feels nails digging into her sides, through the fabric. She lets out a quiet moan.
Wanda took the opportunity to nip at the spy’s bottom lip when her lips parted. Natasha fumbled for a moment, taken back by how forceful the younger woman was being.
“Get this dress off me, please.” Wanda whispers, eyes meeting Nat’s when they slide open.
Without saying a word the Russian takes a step around her, putting her front at Wanda’s back, pressing her breasts into her as she sweeps the hair from her shoulder as she reaches up for the zipper. With each inch she pulls lower she presses a kiss up the side of Wanda’s neck. Her teeth graze just below her ear, gaining her another moan from the witch.
“Turn around.” She says into her ear. She watches the skin on Wanda’s shoulders ripple in goosebumps in response to her whispered demand.
Wanda turns in her hands, not bothering to catch the dress as it starts to fall away. The Russian couldn’t take her eyes off the newly displayed skin. Her mouth runs dry, and she’d not sure something so simple had ever effecter her so easily before.
She reaches up with one hand and pulls at the fabric enough, so it falls to the floor on its own. Wanda steps back, out of the pooled fabric, giving the older woman a better view of the matching crimson bra and panties, she’d chosen. Nat swallows, eyes raking over her from bottom to top. She stalls on her chest as Wanda moved forward again.
“My eyes are up here,” Wanda says, amusement clear in her voice.
Nat smirks, looking into those eyes. “Not my fault you’re gorgeous and I have no self-control.”
Wanda only shakes her head, wrapping her arms around Natasha to pull at the zipper on her dress, not bothering to take the time that the spy had, she pushes it off Nat’s shoulders and then guides it down to the floor.
When she comes back up to meet Nat in a kiss Nat yelps as she’s pushed back onto the bed. Wanda is on her in the next moment, straddling her waist and grinning down at her in a way that drove her crazy. How she had learned just how to get under Nat’s skin in under a month, she didn’t know, but then again she didn’t much care.
“Who said you get to be on top?” She asks trailing her hands over the witch’s thigs.
“Like you can’t take control from down there.” There was a challenge in her voice that would not go ignored.
Her fingers make quick work of slipping past Wanda’s underwear, pushing them to the side as she finds her mark, stroking over her already slick clit. She grins feeling the witch stiffen against her before relaxing into the touch. She holds Wanda’s eyes as she continues, smirking all the more when she feels her hips start rocking into her touch.
There was something intimate in the way Wanda stared down at her, brows pinching together as her lips fell apart as she could not hold back a moan.
It did not take long for pleasure to win out and she let her head fall back, getting lost in the carnal need to come undone at the older woman’s touch.
“Oh, fuck.” She calls out, hips spiking forward as Natasha pushed lower, slipping two fingers into her without notice.
She grins already feeling Wanda’s pool around her fingers and her walls close in. “Don’t you dare hold back.” She says, curling her fingers as she speaks the last word. Wanda nods, as she leans back, using her hands to steady herself on Nat’s legs.
Despite her own need, Nat was certain if she could watch this all night. Watch Wanda come undone above her witch muscles rippling ash each of them tensed, and her name falling from the witch’s mouth in that accent that shouldn’t be as attractive as it was.
“Nat, oh god.” She calls out and Nat lets her full weight fall on her back as she mover her other hand to circle Wanda’s clit again, giving her that final push into oblivion. Her name fell off into a loud moan as every muscle in her body tenses, walls clenched around Nat’s fingers, soaking them entirely.
She doesn’t press further, only watches as Wanda comes back to her, opening her eyes to peer down at her with a lazy smile on her face. “Told you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nat whispers, still amazed at the beauty she’d just witnessed.
Wanda shits settling between Natasha’s legs, resting on her knees. She reaches up, hooks her fingers into the band of her underwear and pulls them off. Looking to her prize she arches a brow at the wetness already there. She could have made a joke, made the woman smile, but instead, she leans down and runs a steady tongue the full length of the spy.
Nat’s head falls back at first contact, moaning softly into the room. Then again as Wanda repeats the action, this time she flattens her tongue against her clit and the older woman can’t hold back the louder moan.
Her fingers find purchase in Wanda’s hair as she lays herself down on the bed, hooking her arms around Nat’s thigs to hold her in place. She doesn’t start slow, instead opting to drive the woman below her to call out her name in seconds.
Nat lets go, allowing her hips to arch up into Wanda’s face, again and again until Wanda pulls her back the bed with one hand, and uses the other to slide her fingers inside. She doesn’t allow any time of adjustment as she starts a fast rhythm, wanting to draw every beautiful sound out of this woman that she can. It was like she didn’t have any control, despite being the one with all the power in that moment.
She looks up, over the expanse of toned abbs, and full breasts to meet Natasha’s eye as she flicks her clit again and again with the tip of her tongue. She gets to watch as everything mounts on Natasha’s face. Gets to watch her come undone as she calls out Wanda’s name.
Nat, despite wanting to look her in the eye as she came, loses control and her head falls back to the bed as her orgasm builds. With a final flick of her tongue and thrust of her fingers, Wanda brings her over the edge into a muscle-quaking, vision-blurring orgasm.
“Fucking hell.” Nat breaths out as lungs pull in air quickly, over and over again.
Wanda slides up her body, pepping it with kisses along the way. “And we’re just getting started.
The older woman laughs, pulling her into a quick kiss. “You have no idea.”

domain: literature


Could a net and a harpoon be the answer to the space junk problem? RemoveDEBRIS launched on April 2
An Active Debris Removal (ADR) mission designed to demonstrate technologies to remove space junk launched on Monday 2 April from the Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station.
The RemoveDEBRIS mission, which has been designed and manufactured by a consortium of leading space companies led by the University of Surrey and funded by the European Commission, is one of the world’s first concrete steps to clean up the estimated 40,000 pieces of space junk currently orbiting Earth.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will propel and deliver the RemoveDEBRIS satellite to the International Space Station, where it will be deployed, via the NanoRacks Kaber system, to conduct a series of experiments that will demonstrate cost effective technologies that can be used to observe and capture space debris.
Once in orbit the ADR experiments on board the spacecraft will be performed. In the first of two capture experiments, a net will be discharged at one of the deployed target cubesats to demonstrate net capture in space. The second capture experiment will see a harpoon launched at a deployable target plate, made of representative satellite panel materials – the first harpoon capture in orbit. The third experiment involves vision-based navigation by deploying the second cubesat and demonstrating rendezvous navigation using cameras and a LiDaR. Finally, the RemoveDEBRIS spacecraft will deploy a large dragsail to speed de-orbit, where it will burn up as it enters Earth’s atmosphere.
The US Space Surveillance Network tracks 40,000 objects and it is estimated that there are more than 7,600 tonnes of space junk in and around Earth’s orbit - with some moving faster than a speeding bullet, approaching speeds of 30,000 miles per hour.
Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, Director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said: “It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened. Therefore, to maintain the safety of current and future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of the space debris has to be addressed.
“We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem - answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future.”
Aurélien Pisseloup, Space Engineer at Airbus, said: "Airbus has been investing in new technologies for space debris removal in co-operation with space agencies and institutes. Contributing to this exciting mission with our expertise and concretely with our harpoon, net experiments and vision based navigation (VBN) moves the international space community one big step forward in tackling space debris."
Science Minister, Sam Gyimah, said: “Space debris is a growing concern so it’s great to see a British university and our innovative space sector leading the way in the search for solutions. It is also a fantastic example of the unique expertise found in the UK’s growing space sector and the value that it adds to international projects.
“The UK Space Agency continues to work closely with industry to develop new technologies and infrastructure to grow our share of the global space market as part of our modern Industrial Strategy.”
RemoveDebris is a low-cost mission funded jointly by the European Commission (EU) and 10 partners. Surrey Space Centre (University of Surrey) leads the consortium. The consortium consists of: Airbus, the world’s second largest space company; Ariane Group (France); Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, the world leader in small satellites (UK); Innovative Solutions In Space (Netherlands); CSEM (Switzerland); Inria (France); Stellenbosch University (South Africa).
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n°607099.


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LAKE CHARLES - Nicholls State sits in tenth place after 36 holes of the Moe O'Brien Collegiate Invitational hosted by McNeese State University and held at the par-72, Lake Charles Country Club.
The Colonels 36-hole total of 605 has them two strokes clear of SLC rival Stephen F. Austin and a single stroke behind New Orleans and Texas-Pan American. NSU is currently two strokes out of fifth place.
Leading the way for the Colonels was junior Kevin Axford, who followed up his morning 75 with a 72 to shoot 147 for the day and stand in a tie for 15th.
Junior Billy Rase finished the day in a tie for 21st with rounds of 71 and 78. Juniors Jacob Lipari (75-77) and Chris Ohrn (77-82) and senior Rod Lemoine (75-84) round out the Nicholls State top five. The team will complete play in the event today with 18 holes.
BRAVES IMPROVE TO 5-1
The H.L. Bourgeois boys' golf team defeated Morgan City, 171-184, on Monday at Colonial Acres in Houma.
The Braves (5-1) were led by Eddie Doirion's round of 39.
Jake Heigl and Dustin Landry each fired rounds of 43 for HLB. Teammates Marcus Petersen and Dustin Dennis each notched rounds of 46.
Morgan City's top scorer was Micah Triche, who shot a 42.
H.L. Bourgeois returns to action on Thursday when it takes on Berwick on the road at 3 p.m.
VANDEBILT TOPS E.D. WHITE
Despite shooting a season-best 154, the E.D. White boys golf team came up short Monday afternoon.
The Cardinals fell to 4-2 on the season after falling to the Vandebilt Terriers 147-154 at Bayou Country Club in Thibodaux.
EDW's Justin Ougel was the match's top medalist with an even par, 34. Other top scores for the Cardinals were Toby Zeringue (39), Rhett Myhand (40) and Drew Biondo (41).
Vandebilt's top golfer was Chad Whitney with a score of 36. Justin Getzinger, Kevin Killian and Brandon Henry each fired rounds of 27. Dustin Mire shot 40 for the Terriers.
VCHS will take on Assumption on Thursday at Ellendale Country Club in Houma at 3 p.m.
The Cardinals will return to action Wednesday against Lutcher at Riverland Country Club in LaPlace.

domain: news


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Thieves who broke into two houses at Irvattur late night on Saturday have decamped with cash and gold worth several lakhs of rupees.
Police Martyrs Day was observed in the city on October 21, Sunday. Speaking on the occasion, Principal District and Sessions Judge Kadlur Satyanarayanacharya
The procession of the 96th year of Mangaluru Sharada, the oldest among Sharada Mahothsavas, began from Shri Venkataramana Temple Acharya Mutt in Car Street on Saturday night.
Rain in frequent spells have brought for farmers a fear that the showers will destroy all their efforts to reap a good paddy harvest this year too.
A baby girl was born in a 108 ambulance here on October 20, Saturday, morning.
In a shocking incident, a local Congress leader and a social activist John Suresh attacked near Bajal Lions Club on October 19 Friday at night.....
State Bank of India, nation’s largest bank launched its Wealth Business Services by opening ‘Wealth Hub’ at Mangaluru today.
The Organised Crime wing of the Central Crime Branch has slapped a notice on gangster turned social worker N Muttappa Rai for posting a video
Manjeshwar MLA P B Abdul Razak (63) passed away at a private hospital here on October 20, Saturday. he was ailing since some time.
Three cases of drowning were reported from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts on October 19, Friday.
K. Raghupati Bhat, MLA, said on Friday that the district administration was not interested in solving the problem of sand removal from Coastal Regulation Zone
The Gaurakshanatha Team Mangaladevi won first prize at the ‘Pili Nalike 2018’ organised by the District Youth Congress President Mithun Rai and Namma TV..
Ten day celebrations of Mangaluru Dasara came to end with the idols to Goddesses Sharada, Navadurga and others being carried in grand procession, accompanied
The timely effort of alert life guards today resulted in the rescue of 18 year old Vishwajith Sahu who was on the verge of drowning at Panambur Beach.
Thousands of devotees are lining up at the Acharya Mutt of Shree Venkatramana Temple at Carstreet to catch a glimpse of the idol of Goddess Sharada


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Gone to Ground by Brandilyn Collins is a suspense-filled mystery that truly keeps you guessing until the very end! The story goes through the lives of three very different women who set out to solve an ongoing murder mystery in their own, small, southern, town. Each women believes they know who the killer is...someone they are each very close too. A brother, a husband, the mayor...who done it?
Ms. Collins does such a remarkable job of taking us through each and every emotion in the lives of these women as they go through each day sorting out the details they know, trying to prove their own case. And through the heartache and pain, friendships are born, trust is restored and justice is served!
I am usually not a huge fan of mysteries, but reading this book may have changed all that for me. I was happy to read that this is actually Ms. Collins 23rd novel, which means I have 22 other options to look into for some great mystery reading this summer! I am sure I will not be disappointed!
This is truly a page-turner, cannot-put-it-down, type of book. Perfect for summer reading!
**GIVEAWAY CLOSED!! The winners were #2, Heather and #4, Ruby! Thanks to all who entered!!**Does this sound like a book you would enjoy reading this summer? Well then, how would you like to win a copy? BH Publishing Group has offered up two copies for me to giveaway! All you need to do is leave me a comment, stating you would like to win, beofre midnight EST Tuesday, June 5. Easy peasy, right?!
Thank you to BH Publishing Group and PR by the Book for supplying me with a copy to read. All opinions expressed are my own!
Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. ~ Psalm 105:4