Six on Sunday - TUFFY CLAUS, a Fantasy Romance for the Christmas Season

Six on Sunday

Six paragraphs from TUFFY CLAUS, a fantasy romance for the Christmas season.

1. “Yeah.” In fact, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. “Approximately six-five. Heavy-set, but it was hard to tell. He wore a red cloak-type coat with a hood. White fur around the cowl and all around the edges of the coat. Black boots with buckles. Biker boots. Age…” She shook her head. “I can’t begin to guess, but he had a thick white beard tinged in gray. And he wore shades.”

2. “Are you really?” His brother sat up in his chair and leaned toward him. “Are you really, Dom? Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, right after you’ve gone after one of those scumbags. I know what’s going through your mind. I know what you’re feeling, and sometimes it tears me up inside.”

3. Just as he’d suspected, she made all the turns at the intersections that would take her directly to the drug house located just outside the city limits. Once they reached the state highway, he checked the area, waiting for the right moment when it would be safe to interact. When he determined the coast was clear, he pulled up behind the car and pulled Sadie from her holster. Crossing the center stripes, he moved up even with the car’s rear bumper, and with a hard, one-handed swing of the hammer, took out her left taillight.

4. Several seconds passed as they stared at each other in silence. She noticed he had brilliant, almost cobalt blue eyes. He also didn’t appear to be affected by the nearly freezing temperature. His red cloak was open, revealing the dark blue shirt he wore. There wasn’t a paunch anywhere around his middle. Instead, if she wasn’t mistaken, he seemed to be sporting a set of six-pack abs.

            Santa has abs?

5. “What made you target them? Why Bedamaker and Carmichael? You and I both know there’s untold horrors going on out there in the world. Why did you single them out? For that matter, I ran a search through our county law enforcement database, and I came up with hundreds of incidents where ‘motorcycle,’ ‘sledgehammer,’ and ‘Santa’ were simultaneously mentioned in reports. Are you solely responsible for those, too? Or are you a member of some kind of gang who does this sort of thing across the country?” She shook her head. “And why the hell didn’t my body cam catch you on its video? Oh, and one more thing, do you do this all year long? Or only during the Christmas season?” The last question came to her from out of nowhere. But now that she thought about it, she made a mental note to go back and check on the dates of all those reported attacks. For some reason, her intuition told her they all took place during the month of December.

6. The smile dropped from her face and she jerked her hand away. At the same time she bowed her head and dug her fingers into her scalp in a vain attempt to massage away the growing headache. “Help me out here, Tuffy. I don’t know what’s real or fake anymore. I believed in Santa until I was eight years old. Now you’re telling me I’m supposed to believe in him again? And, on top of that, I have to believe he has a twin brother who plays devil’s advocate?”

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