Saturday, March 21, 2026

πŸ€πŸ’š☘️ Saturday's Series Spotlight ☘️πŸ’šπŸ€: Irish Collar by Brina Brady Part 1




BDSM Camp #.5
Summary:
Twenty-two-year-old Brett attends a BDSM camp in Galway to act as a model for Sean in BDSM scenes. Brett hopes to find a Dom, but Sean seems to have other ideas. All Brett wants to do is please Sean, so he’ll collar him as his sub.

At the camp, Brett meets Master Cleary and his two subs, Jack and Kevin (Irish Runaway Series) and they become friends. When Brett makes a dangerous decision, nothing goes as planned, and he needs the help of these new friends as he learns a lesson about real Doms versus imposter ones.

This book is a prequel to the upcoming Irish Collar Series. It bridges the Irish Runaway Series and the Irish Collar Series.













Broken Trust #1

Summary:

Twenty-two-year-old Brett Dalton awakens to find himself dumped in a cheap hotel with a strange man. During his move from Dublin to Galway, his so-called friend Sean abandons him again to fend for himself. Brett doesn't know what to do or where to go without transportation. He needs to find a job immediately.

After making a phone call to Master Cleary, the Dom he met at BDSM Camp, Brett starts hitchhiking to Cleary's Pub for a job. A torrential rainstorm completely washes out the road leading to Galway, but though London born, the luck of the Irish is with Brett and handsome, thirty-year-old Darragh McGregor offers him a ride.

These two don't know it yet, but they desperately need each other. Brett's search for a Dom has left him abused and abandoned, and Darragh is lonely and longing for a sub. They run into some bumps along the road, including the reappearance of a dangerous acquaintance, but there is nothing they can't overcome together.

Keywords: Kind Dom, Wounded sub, Light BDSM, Newfound Family, Uncovered Lies, Hurt & Comfort, New Opportunities, Irish Romance






BDSM Camp #.5
Chapter 1
Without any clothes, Brett stepped out of the shower and into the main space of the campervan to find Sean and some young skinny guy on the bed. Brett grabbed a used towel from the floor and dried off. Sean was a Dom, but not anyone’s at the moment. Brett had had no idea this trip would turn out to be a living hell. The arrangement wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind. Unfortunately, he had hoped Sean would see him as a potential sub, but their agreement was for Sean to use Brett in his demonstrations at the BDSM camp in exchange for a free entrance ticket. Sean had overbooked Brett to the point he hadn’t had much free time to find a Dom for himself, but somehow Sean found guys to mess around with.

“Brett, give us a few hours alone,” Sean ordered using his Dom tone.

“Sure thing.” Brett scanned the young guy, shooting him a death stare as he fumbled zipping up his jeans. He raced to the front of the van, grabbed Sean’s cigarettes and lighter, and slipped them inside the waist of his jeans under his shirt. He let the door bang on his way outside.

The BDSM campground was outside Galway. The woodland consisted of mature trees covered in moss with a beautiful carpet of white flowers scenting the air. There was a feeling of magic. Time seemed to stop when he walked among the trees to the little stream. Sean had sold him on coming here to find a Dom. He’d also mentioned it would be an escape from the hustle and bustle of Dublin.

Brett hiked to the area where a thick log had fallen near the stream and sat. The BDSM demonstrations began after dinner and tomorrow night they had a meet-and-greet for unattached Doms and subs. Right now though, he had a few hours to disappear. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Sean had paid for the campervan and his ticket here, so he couldn’t say anything to him. He hadn’t been stuck like this since he was a child, and he had no intention of giving up his freedom when he returned to Dublin. He was always worried how he looked since he was a boy. Sean made him feel ugly. Brett pulled out a mirror and put his green bandanna around his forehead through his brown hair. His eyes looked bluer than gray today from the color of his shirt. Sean didn’t much notice his eyes changed colors from what he was wearing.

An older man stopped in front of him. He wore a tight navy T-shirt and tight jeans. His chest was impressively muscled.

Please be available. Like me. Collar me.

“I’m Master Cleary.” His blue eyes twinkled as he said his name.

Brett inhaled, then exhaled his smoke away from Master Cleary. “Brett Dalton, sir.”

“You sound like you’re from England.” Master Cleary sat beside him.

“I was born there but moved here.”

“Why are you here alone?”

“I came here with a Dom, and he’s with some twink in the campervan. I had to disappear for a couple of hours.”

Master Cleary frowned. “Is he your Dom?”

“No, sir. He paid for my ticket in exchange for using me as his model during his demonstrations. That was the deal.”

“You look upset.”

“I have nowhere to go while he’s with the twink. This is the third day in a row I’ve had to get lost.”

“What about dinner?”

“I don’t know, sir. I have a feeling he’s going to use my dinner ticket on the new twink.”

“I have an extra dinner ticket and you can meet my two subs.”

“Thank you, sir.” No one had ever cared if he missed a meal or not. This stranger was already one of the kindest men he had met. Right off, Master Cleary helped him when he was doomed to be alone and hungry.

“Come with me to my campervan. You can hang out with us until you’re needed for the demonstrations.”

Master Cleary was the perfect Dom he had read about in gay BDSM romance books, good-looking and kind to others. How did he manage two subs? His van was brand new indicating he was a provider and accomplished. He followed Master Cleary inside.

“Brett, this is Jack and Kevin. Boys, this is Brett. He’s been displaced for a few hours.”

Brett noted how Jack’s cornflower blue eyes contrasted with his ruddy complexion. His nose was sprinkled with freckles, cute. Kevin was slightly taller, with the same brown hair as Jack's and darker blue eyes.

“And I’m Aiden.” Another young man spoke as he came out of the restroom. Brett envied Aiden’s collar-length blond hair. He looked to be around the same age as he was.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Master Cleary said. “All of you stay here, I have to talk to Dr. Murray privately.” Master Cleary kissed Kevin and Jack before he left the van.

“What happened?” Jack asked.

“The Dom I came down here with is with some twink. He told me to leave for a couple of hours. Master Cleary brought me here. If you guys want me gone, I’ll leave.”

“No way. You sound like you’ve been through enough shit,” Kevin said.

“So, does your Dom cheat on you all the time?” Jack asked.

“That’s the thing. He’s not my Dom. We work together at Murphy’s Pub in Dublin. He asked me to be his model for his demonstrations.”

“But do you want him to be your Dom?” Jack asked.

“I did before we got here. I can see now he doesn’t see me that way.”

“Damn. You need to find your own Dom. There are lots of them here looking for subs.”

“I’m going to look at the meet-and-greet.” As it was for unattached subs and Doms, Sean told him he should find a Dom and he’d look for a sub.

“Do you have chaps and leather clothing?”

“At the campervan.” Brett hadn’t thought about his clothes for tonight being at the van. He didn’t much care about walking in on Sean and the twink.

“You look around my size. You can borrow some of mine if he won’t let you back in,” Kevin offered.

“Thanks.”

Brett changed into the chaps and leather vest. Kevin was right, they wore the same size.

Master Cleary returned.

“Let’s go to dinner. Dr. Murray saved an extra seat so Brett can join us.”

“Thank you, Master Cleary.” Brett smiled to cover his anxiety when anyone showed him kindness. For some strange reason it made him teary-eyed and had him feeling like he belonged here with them. Most men barked orders or insulted him in some way. Master Cleary was the kind of Dom he wished he could find for himself.

Once they were outside, they hiked along the path to the Mess Hall for dinner. All sorts of men filled up most of the tables. Some dressed in leather while others dressed casually in jeans. Brett scanned the room for Sean, but he didn’t see him anywhere. Maybe he could spend the rest of the evening with Master Cleary and his boys.

Brett sat between Jack and Aiden. Jack and Kevin wore mini-Master Cleary leather outfits. Brett wished he had a Dom who would dress him like his mini version. Master Cleary and Dr. Murray sat across from them at the table. Dr. Murray looked like a rockstar instead of a doctor. He had the same gray eyes as Brett, but his sparkled with mischief. Dr. Murray’s light hair had golden highlights under the lights.

Brett noticed he was the only one without a collar. He often made-up stories about his present circumstances, so, in his mind, he was like others, and pretended he belonged to Master Cleary.

“We’re going to sign up for some of the activities. Which ones are you signed up for?” Kevin asked.

“Sean didn’t mention I had to sign up for them.” He hated the way Sean treated him. He didn’t want him for a sub, but he behaved like he didn’t want Brett to find his own Dom. None of it made sense. He only used Brett for demonstrations.

“You can just go where we go. There are last minute sign-ups,” Jack said.

As Brett cut his steak, Sean and the skinny guy walked past their table without stopping, but Sean’s eyes caught his before they picked up the pace.

“What’s the name of the Dom you’re here with?” Dr. Murray asked.

“Sean Casey, sir.”

“Is he from Dublin?”

“Yes, we both are.” Brett didn’t like the doctor’s questions and the lovely welcome feeling dispersed with them.

“Be very careful who you play with here and always use protection,” Dr. Murray said.

“So far, I haven’t played with anyone.”

While Brett enjoyed his chocolate ice cream topped with whipped cream and a cherry, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to see who it was.





Broken Trust #1
Chapter 1 Brett 
Twenty-two-year-old Brett woke up alone in a dingy hotel room. The pain in his head roared like someone had turned up the radio volume as far as it would go. Bewildering thoughts plagued him, and he could make little sense of his surroundings. His sore back throbbed from sleeping on the rickety, old mattress. He sat up slowly, remembering nasty bits and pieces of the night before. With deep regret, he couldn’t recall what had gone down with Sean. He didn’t remember drinking any alcohol so where did his headache come from? Where was Sean? 

His bladder was about to burst if he lingered in bed any longer. He unraveled himself from the scratchy sheets and wandered towards the bathroom. He stopped at the closed door, placed his hand on the doorknob, and lifted a brow, because when he tried to turn the doorknob, it was locked. He knocked on the door. Sean had never locked the bathroom door. Why would he lock it now? 

“Hey, open up. Got to piss.” Brett tried his best to sound civil and not to shout at Sean since he’d told Brett to never order him around, but this was an emergency. 

The door slowly squeaked open. Brett gasped for a moment at the naked man standing in the bathroom. The stranger had a round red face without facial hair. He was bald as a plucked chicken, but he had the deepest shade of brown eyes. For some reason, Brett couldn’t read anything from them, but he feared the stranger. Leaning into the steamy room, he checked to see if Sean was in there too, but he wasn’t. He froze in place as if a stone wall had temporarily blocked him from running. His stomach twisted into knots from instantaneous panic as they gazed at each other for a long moment. His shock and exhaustion were too deep, not allowing him to move, but he wanted to get away from the naked man who radiated power and control. All at once a sudden jolt passed through his whole being. His vision blurred, and Brett felt wrapped in a blinding white mist. 

“Who are you? Where’s Sean?” Brett leaned against the door to steady himself. 

“Maybe you should check with the bartender at Maggie’s Pub,” the stranger said. 

Brett turned away to run, but the stranger reached out and grabbed him. Who was he? Where was Sean? 

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” the stranger asked. 

“Who are you? Where is Sean?” Brett repeated. 

The man squeezed his wrist causing him to wince from the pain. 

“I’m Mr. Joe, the man who fucked you last night.” 

“No. You’re in the wrong room. I never saw you before. Where’s Sean?” 

“I want to offer you a job. Your friend said you need one.” 

“Let me go now.” Brett tried to free his wrist from the man. “I don’t want to be with you now or ever. And I don’t want your job.” 

“Listen up! You wanted me and begged me to come here with you. Don’t you remember?” 

“Get out of my room and leave me alone or I’ll call the Garda.” 

The man jerked him into the bathroom and locked the door. Brett wildly looked around for a weapon of some sort. When he didn’t see any, he stared at the man. He drew his limbs close to his body. The man was bulky enough to beat him to death. Maybe he’d keep it quiet and choke him. The circular thinking made his body tremble. Brett never took his eyes off the man while he mechanically and deliberately dressed himself in all black, hiding away the scars on Mr. Joe’s back.

“You were a lousy fuck anyway. I should have listened to your friend. He warned me you were a stupid little bitch.” 

Brett didn’t believe a word the man said. “Where is Sean?” 

“He left the pub with a twink. I don’t think he’ll be back for you.” 

Mr. Joe unlocked the bathroom door and left the room, slamming the door. 

Brett raced to the door and locked himself in. He turned to the toilet, took care of business, then took a second look at the condoms. Those condoms were from a fun pack of rainbow colors. Sean bought those rainbow condoms when they had stopped for lunch on their way to Galway. Did Mr. Joe or Sean fuck him? That would explain why he was sore. Unfortunately, the entire trip was sexless until Mr. Joe or Sean had sex with him last night. 

Had Sean left the pub with a twink? Brett thought he could trust Sean to make sure he didn’t end up with a stranger, but then Sean wasn’t his Dom. He clearly, and desperately, needed one. 

The spacey thinking wasn’t something he had ever experienced before, with or without alcohol. Sure, he’d had hangovers from drinking too much, but his memory had stayed intact. He vaguely remembered going to the pub with Sean. Brett promised he’d have only one beer because Sean didn’t like alcohol at all. He must have lost his mind at the pub, and he didn’t know how. Sean wouldn’t allow him to get drunk, so what had happened? He felt like he imagined he’d feel if he’d been drugged, definitely not like himself. 

He left the bathroom again and searched the room to jog his memory. The dead silence in the room reminded him of other times when men had abandoned him after doing BDSM scenes at the clubs in Dublin.

Sean’s suitcase wasn’t on the table anymore. Even his own suitcase was missing. Maybe Sean had packed the car and would return with breakfast, but he had said he would stay here for a week with him to look for a job in Galway. Sean had wanted to make a change since Andy fired him too. 

Brett slipped on a pair of jeans and a shirt he had in his backpack. Then he checked himself out in a mirror. He looked like shit. He opened the door and scanned the parking area for Sean’s car. It was missing as well. He went back inside, pulled out his phone, and called Sean. It went to voicemail so he left a message. “Where are you? What happened last night? I’m sorry if I did something wrong. Please forgive me. Call me.” 

He sat down on the messed-up bed and again looked around the small room for his suitcase. Then he remembered he had left it in the trunk of Sean’s car and only brought his backpack to the room. All he had were the items inside his backpack. He picked up his wallet from the bedside table and opened it to see how much money he had. He gasped. All his money was gone. What the hell happened to his money? It was a good thing he still had a credit card. He quickly checked his backpack for the card. He sighed in relief when he found it and moved it into his wallet. 

Brett didn’t know what to do or where he’d go. He definitely had to find a job immediately. Sean had made sure of that in his own way. Brett was somewhere between the verge of tears and anger at Sean; but none of that mattered. He had to move on without Sean’s help. Sean wasn’t his lover or Dom. He’d worn Sean’s collar for one day and he’d fucked him once. That all ended when Brett didn’t win that competition. Nobody did. The more he thought back on it, the clearer it was Sean had only given him that collar and fucked him so he would do the crazy scene at the BDSM competition. 

Unfortunately, the bottom line was Sean had mattered to him. Certainly, he respected his opinion and friendship, but all that was gone. Brett wanted to strike out at someone—anyone, but there was no one to blame for this situation. He hoped at some point he’d be able to recall all the events leading up to Sean leaving with a twink and finding Mr. Joe in his room. But as he rethought his situation, he knew he would not have done anything to disrupt his friendship with Sean. If Sean would only explain why he wasn’t in their room, but that wasn’t likely since he wouldn’t answer his phone or messages. 

Brett’s heart skipped a beat when someone pounded on the door. First, he checked the peephole to see who was there. When he cracked open the door, the cranky hotel manager, Charlie, stood there. His silver, curly hair hung over a wrinkled face. He had a scar reaching from the bottom of the right cheekbone, running across the nose. Brett wondered how he had gotten it, but he wasn’t pleasant to anyone. He didn’t approve of Sean and him renting a room together. He’d given them one of those looks a priest or nun would. 

“You need to be out of here in fifteen minutes.” He emphasized the word fifteen by saying it louder than the other words. “Why? We paid up for a week,” Brett said. “Sean cancelled the rest of the week. He paid up until today.” 

“When did he check out?” Brett asked. 

“This morning around four.” The smirk on the older man’s face angered Brett. He was delighted to see a gay guy dumped. Everyone had told him the people in Galway were friendly to gay people, but not this old fart. Obviously, it didn’t apply to the surrounding areas of Galway. 

“I’ll be out as soon as I can, sir.” 

“Fifteen minutes or you owe for another day.”

Brett slammed the door in the manager’s face and collected his things. Without any transportation, he’d have to walk to the city. Sean had promised to drive him to Galway so they could both look for a job. Sean dumped him for whatever reason. He must have wanted to be with the new twink first, or he saw Brett with Mr. Joe. He didn’t know which happened first, not that it really mattered. Sean was gone for good. He had lost patience with him and never really gave a damn about him. Not knowing when he would see a shower again, he jumped into the one in the room and cleaned up as fast as he could. Once dressed, he put his arms through the backpack straps. He tightened the straps around his waist, then the shoulder straps. 

When he figured out he was more hurt than angry at Sean, he sat down on the bed and tears filled his eyes over his current dire situation. If he could find a way to become enraged, he’d feel better, but he wasn’t prepared for Sean dumping him in a cheap hotel room. He’d wanted to teach him a lesson. 

Fuck it. And fuck Sean. 

With great reluctance, he left the room, and started walking towards Galway. The dense gray clouds were low and moving fast, but he didn’t think much of it. He held his thumb out, hoping for a ride. Two leather clad men rode their motorcycles alongside him. They stopped and glared at him as if he were prey. Brett lowered his arm to his side and made a swift turn into the wooded area. The two men got off their bikes and ran after him. He outran them, making it to the creek nearby, then crossed over the footbridge to the other side, and followed the path to another spiraling, narrow road. When he looked behind, they weren’t chasing him anymore. He continued to run to a dirt road. He wondered why those two guys were chasing him. He didn’t want any part of them. This was why he needed to travel with someone. Anytime he was alone, he ran into problems. That was one of the reasons he’d wanted out of Dublin. There were people who hated him there. Sean said there was a damn good reason people hated him, but he’d put it all behind him in Galway. 

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much traffic, so he couldn’t hitch a ride. He didn’t mind walking, but he wanted to get there before it turned dark. If he could only find a place to eat, his pounding headache would feel better. He should have eaten before he set out. He was grateful he had water with him. It could have been worse. He would find a place to stay and use his emergency credit card. He was grateful he kept the card for emergencies; Brett always arranged an exit plan in the event he needed one. He didn’t trust anyone. 

After walking for hours on the side of the country dirt road, he still hadn’t seen anything resembling a city. The huge trees swallowed him from the world. Where had he gone wrong? 

He sat down and pulled out his phone. He had remembered a friendly Dom from Galway who’d told him at a BDSM camp that if he ran into trouble to call him, and he’d help him out. Luckily, he’d added Master Cleary’s information into his contacts, so he decided to call him. 

“Cleary’s Pub, Master Cleary speaking.” 

“Hello, this is Brett Dalton. We met at the BDSM camp.” 

“I remember you, Brett. Are you in some kind of trouble?” 

“Yes, sir. Some guy dumped me in a hotel, and I need a place to stay until I can find a job. Do you think you could help me?” 

“Would that guy be Sean?” 

“Yes, sir.” Brett had deliberately avoided telling him it was Sean, but Master Cleary was too important to him to lie when asked directly. 

“I thought he collared you the last day at the camp. What happened?”

“That was only if I won at the competition. I lasted as his sub less than a day.” 

“I see. You can stay at the pub. I have a room behind the bar. You can do some gardening for me until you find a proper job.” 

“Thank you, sir. I’ll be there tomorrow.” 

“Do you need money right now? I can send you some. Where are you?” 

“I was staying at Mulligan’s Hotel, but I have enough money to get there.” Brett found it difficult to seek help but asking for money before working for it was plain wrong. Master Cleary deserved more from him than begging for money he hadn’t earned. 

“Just get your ass here as soon as you can.” 

“I’m on a dirt country road. Will it take me to Galway?” 

“What’s the name of the road?” 

“North Dawson Place.” 

“Keep going and you’ll be able to merge into the main road.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“I’m glad you called me. Stay safe.” Master Cleary ended the call. 

Hearing Master Cleary’s voice gave him some hope. The man had listened to his life story. He could tell something had been bothering him and even though Master Cleary had two subs, he had taken the time to talk to him by the lake.




Saturday Series Spotlight

Sunday Safe Word Shelf





Brina Brady

From the streets of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where I ruled as the eldest of five siblings, my life’s journey has been an adventure. After marrying my partner, we started a family and welcomed three amazing daughters into our lives. In 1973, the waves called, and we answered—moving to the sun-kissed beaches of sunny Huntington Beach, California. It was a dream come true.

Later, I married my loving second husband, and when family called, we packed up and headed to Indiana. Retirement opened a new chapter for me, filled with the laughter of my four adorable grandchildren and the company of two sweet cats. It’s a life full of love and completed goals.

For twenty-seven years, I taught at a Continuation High School in Los Angeles, California, where I shared my passion for learning with my students. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in History, a Secondary Social Science Credential, and a master’s degree in Secondary Reading and Secondary Education from California State University, Long Beach. I also took creative writing classes at UCLA, which helped fuel my love for storytelling.

Speaking of storytelling, I’ve been hooked on it since I was a kid. As a child, I’d spend Saturday afternoons writing novels while sipping on my grandmother’s homemade, comforting chicken soup. Even as a busy stay-at-home mom, I made time to write every day—it was my escape and my joy. Later, while teaching, I kept writing, though the demands of the classroom meant I had less time to devote to it.

Today, I’m a contemporary romance author who loves writing LGBTQ+ stories. My books often explore complex relationships and emotional journeys, with several series diving into BDSM dynamics. I also write MM romance without BDSM themes, focusing on engaging plots, well-developed characters, and plenty of steamy moments.

When I’m not writing, I’m indulging in my other passions. I’m an avid reader, always getting lost in new worlds and characters. I also love graphic design, where I get to blend art and technology to create something beautiful. And when it’s time to relax, I’m hooked on Turkish TV series—their rich stories and cultural depth totally captivate me. Each of my hobbies reflects my love of creativity, storytelling, and exploring new horizons.



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EMAIL: brinabrady@gmail.com



BDSM Camp #.5
AUDIBLE  /  BOOKBUB  /  WEBSITE

Broken Trust #1
AUDIBLE  /  BOOKBUB  /  WEBSITE

Irish Collar Series

Irish Runaways Series



Friday, March 20, 2026

πŸ€πŸ’š☘️πŸ“˜πŸŽ₯Friday's Film AdaptationπŸŽ₯πŸ“˜☘️πŸ’šπŸ€: And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison




Summary:

The critically-acclaimed memoir and the basis for the 2007 motion picture, directed by Anand Tucker and starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent

And when did you last see your father? Was it last weekend or last Christmas? Was it before or after he exhaled his last breath? And was it him really, or was it a version of him, shaped by your own expectations and disappointments?

Blake Morrison's subject is universal: the life and death of a parent, a father at once beloved and exasperating, charming and infuriating, domineering and terribly vulnerable. In reading about Dr. Arthur Morrison, we come to ask ourselves the same searching questions that Blake Morrison poses: Can we ever see our parents as themselves, or are they forever defined through a child's eyes? What are the secrets of their lives, and why do they spare us that knowledge? And when they die, what do they take with them that cannot be recovered or inherited?

When Did You Last See Your Father?: A Son's Memoir of Love and Loss has also been published as And When Did You Last See Your Father?







Oulton Park
A HOT SEPTEMBER Saturday in 1959, and we are stationary in Cheshire. Ahead of us, a queue of cars stretches out of sight around the corner. We haven’t moved for ten minutes. Everyone has turned his engine off, and now my father does so too. In the sudden silence we can hear the distant whinge of what must be the first race of the afternoon, a ten-lap event for saloon cars. It is quarter past one. In an hour the drivers will be warming up for the main event, the Gold Cup—Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Roy Salvadori, Stirling Moss and Joakim Bonnier. My father has always loved fast cars, and motor-racing has a strong British following just now, which is why we are stuck here in this country lane with hundreds of other cars.

My father does not like waiting in queues. He is used to patients waiting in queues to see him, but he is not used to waiting in queues himself. A queue, to him, means a man being denied the right to be where he wants to be at a time of his own choosing, which is at the front, now. Ten minutes have passed. What is happening up ahead? What fathead has caused this snarl-up? Why are no cars coming the other way? Has there been an accident? Why are there no police to sort it out? Every two minutes or so my father gets out of the car, crosses to the opposite verge and tries to see if there is movement up ahead. There isn’t. He gets back in and steams some more. The roof of our Alvis is down, the sun beating on to the leather upholstery, the chrome, the picnic basket. The hood is folded and pleated into the mysterious crevice between the boot and the narrow back seat where my sister and I are scrunched together as usual. The roof is nearly always down, whatever the weather: my father loves fresh air, and every car he has owned has been a convertible, so that he can have fresh air. But the air today is not fresh. There is a pall of high-rev exhaust, dust, petrol, boiling-over engines.

In the cars ahead and behind, people are laughing, eating sandwiches, drinking from beer bottles, enjoying the weather, settling into the familiar indignity of waiting-to-get-to-the-front. But my father is not like them. There are only two things on his mind: the invisible head of the queue and, not unrelated, the other half of the country lane, tantalizingly empty.

‘Just relax, Arthur,’ my mother says. ‘You’re in and out of the car like a blue-tailed fly.’

But being told to relax only incenses him. ‘What can it be?’ he demands. ‘Maybe there’s been an accident. Maybe they’re waiting for an ambulance.’ We all know where this last speculation is leading, even before he says it. ‘Maybe they need a doctor.’

‘No, Arthur,’ says my mother, as he opens the door again and stands on the wheel-arch to crane ahead.

‘It must be an accident,’ he announces. ‘I think I should drive up and see.’

‘No, Arthur. It’s just the numbers waiting to get in. And surely there must be doctors on the circuit.’

It is one-thirty and silent now. The saloon race has finished. It is still over an hour until the Gold Cup itself, but there’s another race first, and the cars in the paddock to see, and besides …

‘Well, I’m not going to bloody well wait here any longer,’ he says. ‘We’ll never get in. We might as well turn round and give up.’ He sits there for another twenty seconds, then leans forward, opens the glove compartment and pulls out a stethoscope, which he hooks over the mirror on the windscreen. It hangs there like a skeleton, the membrane at the top, the metal and rubber leads dangling bow-legged, the two ivory earpieces clopping bonily against each other. He starts the engine, releases the handbrake, reverses two feet, then pulls out into the opposite side of the road.

‘No,’ says my mother again, half-heartedly. It could be that he is about to do a three-point turn and go back. No it couldn’t …

My father does not drive particularly quickly past the marooned cars ahead. No more than twenty miles an hour. Even so, it feels fast, and arrogant, and all the occupants turn and stare as they see us coming. Some appear to be angry. Some are shouting. ‘Point to the stethoscope, pet,’ he tells my mother, but she has slid down sideways in her passenger seat, out of sight, her bottom resting on the floor, from where she berates him.

‘God Almighty, Arthur, why do you have to do this? Why can’t you wait like everyone else? What if we meet something coming the other way?’ Now my sister and I do the same, hide ourselves below the seat. Our father is on his own. He is not with us, this bullying, shaming undemocratic cheat. Or rather, we are not with him.

My face pressed to the sweet-smelling upholstery, I imagine what is happening ahead. I can’t tell how far we have gone, how many blind corners we have taken. If we meet something, on this narrow country lane, we will have to reverse past all the cars we have just overtaken. That’s if we can stop in time. I wait for the squeal of brakes, the clash of metal.

After an eternity of—what?—two minutes, my mother sticks her head up and says, ‘Now you’ve had it,’ and my father replies, ‘No, there’s another gate beyond,’ and my sister and I raise ourselves to look. We are up level with the cars at the head of the queue, which are waiting to turn left into the brown ticket holders’ entrance, the plebs’ entrance. A steward steps out of the gateway towards us, but my father, pretending not to see him, doesn’t stop. He drives ahead, on to a clear piece of road where, two hundred yards away, half a dozen cars from the opposite direction are waiting to turn into another gateway. Unlike those we have left behind, these cars appear to be moving. Magnanimous, my father waits until the last of them has turned in, then drives through the stone gateposts and over the bumpy grass to where an armbanded steward in a tweed jacket is waiting by the roped entrance.

‘Good afternoon, sir. Red ticket holder?’ The question does not come as a shock: we have all seen the signs, numerous and clamorous, saying RED TICKET HOLDERS’ ENTRANCE . But my father is undeterred.

‘These, you mean,’ he says, and hands over his brown tickets.

‘No, sir, I’m afraid these are brown tickets.’

‘But there must be some mistake. I applied for red tickets. To be honest, I didn’t even look.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but these are brown tickets, and brown’s the next entrance, two hundred yards along. If you just swing round here, and …’

‘I’m happy to pay the difference.’

‘No, you see the rules say …’

‘I know where the brown entrance is, I’ve just spent the last hour queueing for it by mistake. I drove up here because I thought I was red. I can’t go back there now. The queue stretches for miles. And these children, you know, who’d been looking forward …’

By now half a dozen cars have gathered behind us. One of them parps. The steward is wavering.

‘You say you applied for red.’

‘Not only applied for, paid for. I’m a doctor, you see’—he points at the stethoscope—‘and I like being near the grand-stand.’

This double non-sequitur seems to clinch it.

‘All right, sir, but next time please check the tickets. Ahead and to your right.’


This is the way it was with my father. Minor duplicities. Little fiddles. Money-saving, time-saving, privilege-attaining fragments of opportunism. The queue-jump, the backhander, the deal under the table. Parking where you shouldn’t, drinking after hours, accepting the poached pheasant and the goods off the back of a lorry. ‘They’ were killjoys, after all—‘they’ meaning the establishment to which, despite being a middle-class professional, a GP, he didn’t belong; our job, as ordinary folk trying to get the most out of life, was to outwit them. Serious lawbreaking would have scared him, though he envied and often praised to us those who had pulled off ingenious crimes, like the Great Train Robbers or, before them, the men who intercepted a lorry carrying a large number of old banknotes to the incinerator (‘Still in currency, you see, but not new so there was no record of the numbers and they couldn’t be traced. Nobody got hurt, either. Brilliant, quite brilliant’). He was not himself up to being criminal in a big way, but he was lost if he couldn’t cheat in a small way: so much of his pleasure derived from it. I grew up thinking it absolutely normal, that most Englishmen were like this. I still suspect that’s the case.

My childhood was a web of little scams and triumphs. The time we stayed at a hotel situated near the fifth tee of a famous golf-course—Troon, was it?—and discovered that if we started at the fifth hole and finished at the fourth we could avoid the clubhouse and green fees. The private tennis clubs and yacht clubs and drinking clubs we got into (especially on Sundays in dry counties of Wales) by giving someone else’s name: by the time the man on the door had failed to find it, my father would have read the names on the list upside-down—‘There, see, Wilson—no Wilson, I said, not Watson’; if all else failed, you could try slipping the chap a one-pound note. With his innocence, confidence and hail-fellow cheeriness, my father could usually talk his way into anything, and usually, when caught, out of anything.

He failed only once. We were on holiday, skiing, in Aviemore, and he treated us to a drink in one of the posher hotels. On his way back from the lavatories, he noticed a sauna room for residents near a small back entrance. For the rest of the week, we sneaked in to enjoy residents’ saunas. On the last day, though, we were towelling ourselves dry when an angry manager walked in: ‘You’re not residents, are you?’

I waited for some artless reply—‘You mean the saunas aren’t open to the public, like the bars? I thought …’—but for once my father stammered and looked guilty. We ended up paying some exorbitant sum and being banned from the hotel. I was indignant. I discovered he was fallible. I felt conned.


Oulton Park, half an hour later. We have met up with our cousins in the brown car park—they of course got here on time—and brought them back to the entrance to the paddock. My father has assumed that, with the red tickets he’s wangled, we are entitled to enter the paddock for nothing, along with our guests. He is wrong. Tickets to the paddock cost a guinea. There are ten of us. We’re talking serious money.

‘We’ll buy one , anyway,’ my father is saying to the man in the ticket-booth, and he comes back with it, a small brown paper card, like a library ticket, with a piece of string attached to a hole at the top so you can thread it through your lapel. ‘Let me just investigate,’ he says, and disappears through the gate, the steward seeing the lapel-ticket and nodding him through: no stamp on the hand or name-check. In ten minutes or so my father is back. He whispers to my Uncle Ron, hands him the ticket and leads the rest of us to a wooden-slatted fence in a quiet corner of the car park. Soon Uncle Ron appears on the other side of the fence, in an equally quiet corner of the paddock, and passes the ticket through the slats. Cousin Richard takes the ticket this time and repeats the procedure. One by one we all troop round: Kela, Auntie Mary, Edward, Jane, Gillian, my mother, me. In five minutes, all ten of us are inside.

‘Marvellous,’ my father says. ‘Three pounds eleven shillings and we’ve got four red tickets and ten of us in the paddock. That’d be costing anyone else twenty guineas. Not bad.’

We stand round Jack Brabham’s Cooper, its bonnet opened like a body on an operating table, a mass of tubes and wires and gleamy bits of white and silver. I touch the metal behind the cockpit and think of my green Dinky car, no. 8, which I call Jack Brabham in the races I have on the carpet against the red Ferrari no. 1 (Fangio) and the silver Maserati no. 3 (Salvadori) and the yellow Jaguar no. 4 (Stirling Moss). I like Jack Brabham to win, and somehow he always does, though I swear I push the cars equally. It is quiet at home, pretending. Here at Oulton Park it’s not quiet: there’s a headachy mix of petrol and sun and engine roar.

Later, Moss overtakes Brabham on lap six, and stays there for the next sixty-nine laps. A car comes off the circuit between Lodge Corner and Deer Leap, just along from where we’re standing. There is blood, splintered wood and broken glass. My father disappears—‘just to see if I can help.’ He comes back strangely quiet, and whispers to my mother: ‘Nothing I could do.’




The story of a son's conflicting memories of his dying father.

Release Date: October 5, 2007
Release Time: 92 minutes

Director: Anand Tucker

Cast:
Jim Broadbent as Arthur Morrison
Colin Firth as Blake Morrison
Juliet Stevenson as Kim Morrison
Gina McKee as Kathy Morrison
Claire Skinner as Gillian
Sarah Lancashire as Beaty
Matthew Beard as Blake as a teenager
Elaine Cassidy as Sandra
Justin McDonald as Steve
Carey Mulligan as Rachel
Bradley Johnson as Blake as a child
Rhiannon Howden as Sophie Morrison







 


Blake Morrison

Blake Morrison was educated at Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. After working for the Times Literary Supplement, he went on to become literary editor of both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" and "Things My Mother Never Told Me."

Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.


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Thursday, March 19, 2026

πŸ€πŸ’š☘️⏳Throwback Thursday's Time Machine⏳☘️πŸ’šπŸ€: Sack of Gold by Kiki Burrelli




Summary:
Welcome to Morningwood #4
Dusty’s the town clown. Joseph is the uptight Sheriff. Sparks fly when these opposites collide.

Sheriff Joseph has kept a controlled eye on the quiet shifter community of Morningwood. As an alpha lion, he watches his town like he would his pride. Most days are peaceful, and that’s how he likes it. So, when Clydesdale shifter—and budding bad boy—Dusty starts pulling pranks, Joseph is quick to shut down his antics. Except, with each event, it becomes clear to Joseph that Dusty might be something more than just a thorn in his side.

Though they are in college, Dusty’s friends have all begun finding their mates, leaving him bored and lonely. Instead of sowing his wild oats, he’s left alone with his worries. His whole life he’s assumed he was an alpha, had lied to his friends claiming he was, but really, he doesn’t know. And won’t until he can find someone to be his first. Not so easy in a small, secluded town. He knows who he wishes would volunteer—his crush on the sheriff has grown to embarrassing proportions. Sheriff Joseph has all the emotions of a statue, and there is nothing Dusty would love more than to crack that cool facade. If only the Sheriff felt the same way.

When a new shifter comes to town, sniffing around Dusty and offering him a wild, carefree life, Joseph can’t ignore his attraction. He won’t let his fear of the town finding out, or Dusty’s age to dissuade him. He has to claim his mate or lose him forever. But can someone like him be the alpha Dusty needs?

Sack of Gold is the fourth book in the Welcome to Morningwood Omegaverse series and can be read as a standalone. It’s a steamy, fun romp that may or may not include sexy leprechauns. Hint: It definitely does.

Original Review March 2024:
Kiki Burrelli is another new-to-me-author that just so happened to have a holiday-themed series, Welcome to Morningwood, that fit multiple reading recs I asked for.  So once again I jumped into an entry that was in the middle of said series.  As I said before I am a series-read-in-order kind of gal so to do it once is unusual but to do so 3 times in less than a month is almost unheard of for me.

Sometimes desires must be fed . . . 

So let's talk Sack of Gold, the 4th entry in the author's Welcome to Morningwood series.  Sometimes you meet characters(main or secondary) that you just know in your heart they are not going to be on the likeable scale, be it pure evil, a flat-out ass, or just misunderstood, whatever the reason you know you won't be cheering for them. Dusty's friend, Cam is one of those people.  I won't spoil anything else about that just know he won't be winning any BFF of the Year Awards.

As for Dusty and Sheriff Joseph, well they definitely have a few ups and downs and just when you thought a HEA was in the review mirror, the sheriff believes his eyes over his heart, which can be a good thing at times but not here. Dusty on the other hand could have seen this coming, I'm not placing blame on Dusty by any means, I'm just saying the signs were there but he is far too trusting and either didn't see them or ignored them not wanting to think bad of his friend.  I mention these points because there are moments that are a bit darker than often found in a holiday shorts series.  As I started in a middle entry I can't speak to the other entries in Burelli's Morningwood series and their darkness levels but for Sack of Gold there was some minor dark elements.

Overall, Sack of Gold(despite being a #4 in an established series for this read-in-order gal) is a perfect way to introduce myself to Kiki Burrelli's library and look forward to exploring Morningwood and other works, backlist and future releases.

RATING:






Chapter One 
DUSTY 
"Heads up, Dusty!" Cam called out from the shore a moment before launching a can of beer into the lake. I sank down, then rocketed myself up into the air in order to catch the can as it nearly arched over my head. I landed with a loud splash that showed no mercy to the people around me. Soph shrieked while Seamus dodged the splash by ducking underwater. A little pointless if you asked me, but no one ever did. 

Cracking open the can, I let the yeasty, sour liquid pour down my throat. I loved the burn almost as much as I loved the appreciative looks I received when I'd leapt from the water. "Perfect ten out of ten!" I announced to the groans of all those around me. 

"It would've been perfect…" Soph replied, turning onto her back so she could look up at the night sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight and the stars stretched on for miles. On this clear of a night, it was so crowded with stars the sky looked milky in places. "…if you hadn't lost your shorts." 

Sure enough, floating beside me like a turd in the wind were my boxers. I thought I felt a little freer. I scooped them out of the water, hanging them on my index finger. "Well this night just got a lot more exciting," I announced, receiving many whoops and whoos in reply. Cam had gathered a pretty sizable group tonight, promising they could all be part of an epic prank at Morningwood Lake. 

"Those bottoms are mine!" Cam yelled. I flung them toward him, slingshot style, and he caught them as easily as I'd caught the beer. Being a shifter with enhanced speed and agility came in handy pretty often. He draped them over his head like a floppy hat, making everyone around him laugh. 

I found myself laughing with them, caught up with the emotion of the night. These days, moments like this were my only chance to relax and unwind. I found Cam's face and he winked, making me warm and wonder if there wasn't more to his words. But I wasn't a bottom—another word for omega in Morningwood, even though omegas weren't required to bottom all the time—I was an alpha! 

At least, I thought so. 

Still, I thought of the day that Cam came into my life as one of my luckiest days. Right after New Year's, I'd been dying of boredom and all of my friends were finding their mates. All except Soph who was so busy with college and track most of the time that nights like tonight were far too infrequent. My dads had tried to tell me it was because my friends were growing up, becoming the adults they were meant to be and that I should consider joining them. 

I didn't know how to tell them that I didn't know how. 

I tipped my head back, swallowing the rest of the beer along with my troubled thoughts. I had to worry about all of that every other second of the day, I wasn't going to let it ruin right now. Crushing the can in one hand, I threw it back to shore while hollering for someone to toss me another bottle of bubble bath. A fin appeared in the water, slicing through the black surface like a scene from a horror movie as Jake—great white shark shifter—swam to me with a bottle of bubble bath in his jagged teeth. 

Everyone moved out of Jake's way looking like the laziest extras in Jaws. Jake released the bottle as he swam by and I plucked it from the water. Pearlescent pink fluid ran down my hand and wrist, leaking out from the teeth holes in the plastic. 

"Dude!" I popped the top off the bubble bath and squirted it into the water around me, taking extra care to rinse off. 

When Cam had texted saying he had an idea for a bubbles and beer party, I'd been psyched. It seemed like the texts from my other friends—if I even got texts from my other friends—were all about brunches and baby showers. Harris had called the other week to ask if I wanted to go antiquing with him and Dean Boothe—who kept trying to get us to call him Andrew, or Mr. Boothe, but both were just too weird. Needless to say, I'd declined the invite. I had a hunch Harris had only asked because my dads had begged him too anyway. 

I needed more excitement in my life and Cam's plan for the night was simple but perfect: get a few cases of bubbles, a few cases of beer, face the frigid lake waters and see what happened. So far, my skin was so numb I couldn't feel the cold, we were almost through all the cases of bubble bath, and halfway through the beer. 

In the distance, an owl screeched. 

Cam put his hands out, shushing the crowd. "Hold on, that's the sig—" Hiccup. "Signal." 

Every head, including mine, turned his direction. Christine Echo—bat shifter—was the first to curse. The next moment, her clothes fluttered to the ground and she emerged in her bat form, flapping her wings to take her higher into the sky.

My hearing wasn't as good as most of those around me but by the way the more auditorily sensitive shifters around me were fleeing, it was safe to say, our party was about to get crashed. 

And yet, I felt no fear. Only excitement. 

You're sick, Dusty. Or maybe just a glutton for punishment. 

"Dusty, c'mon, it's the Sheriff!" Cam called from the bank. He stretched his hand out toward me, his face devoid of his usual smirk. 

"Soph, babe, you gotta swim," I called back to her. 

All around us teens and those just a bit older, like Soph, Cam and I, were transforming into their animals. Jake simply swam away to the other side of the large lake while the bird shifters, like Seamus, all took to the sky. Lights of red and blue swirled through the trees throwing their own private rave, but the man behind those lights couldn't have been further from a carefree partier. 

Sheriff Joseph. 

My legs tingled, and I tried to convince myself that it was because I was trying to swim so quickly, waking up nerve endings that had fallen asleep. 

I paused to check on Soph's progress. If anything, she was farther behind me. 

"Your mother is going to kill you and then me," I yelled to her. She understood what it was like to have parents that said they wanted to let go and watch you grow, while also never letting go. If Sophie Weaves was delivered to her parent's doorstep tonight in the custody of the Morningwood Sheriff, she'd be locked up for life—likely in some woven cage that her parents made with their own ass strings. It didn't matter that she was nineteen, almost twenty, any more than it mattered that I had just turned twenty and therefore no longer had the word teen attached to any part of me.

I checked back in with Cam at the shore, but when I saw his desperation, I waved him off. "It's okay, go! I'll be right behind with Soph." Everyone else had made it out of the lake, into the lake, or into the sky. It was just the three of us left and as I watched Cam give me one last wink before transforming into his horse and running the opposite direction in the woods, I mentally dropped that number to two. 

I turned around and when I was close enough, grabbed Soph's hand to haul her onto my back. I wasn't in my horse form, but I could still swim faster than her this way. She clutched her legs around my middle while I burst into a forward stroke. 

"I touched your penis!" she shrieked, jerking her foot away so quickly she kneed me in the jaw. "No! I'm sorry! Save yourself!" 

Water filled my lungs when I hissed with pain and I began to cough. "Shift, you idiot," I tried to say between coughs. The lights were brighter now, and I thought I'd heard a door open before closing. 

The moment I hit the shore, Sophie shifted and used all eight of her legs to scurry off into the woods. I lay there, panting in the sand and dirt for a second before lifting my body with my upper arms and jumping to my feet— 

Just in time for the Sheriff to break through the tree line and shine his massively bright light on my completely naked body. 

I squinted, closing one eye while blocking the floodlight with my hand. "Sheriff Joseph, what a surprise," I said, trying to sound sure of myself, but this was too much for even me to keep cool and my words came out more breathy than anything else.

I heard his disapproving sigh and immediately forced every disgusting thought I could conjure into my head to keep from growing hard. Sheriff Joseph was a lost cause for me, a crush I needed to kill, and yet… 

"Why do I keep finding you in varying stages of undressed?" the Sheriff replied. He had a rich voice, like whiskey in an old western song. He didn't have a southern twang, but sometimes, when I let myself think about him and all the stuff I wanted to do with him, I would imagine he did. A country accent would suit a staunch, upright guy like him nicely. 

"I didn't want to mention this, since you're obviously a never nude but—" 

"I'm a what?" the Sheriff asked, his tone a mixture between gruff and curious. I had to be making up the curious part though since all the Sheriff ever seemed to be around me was annoyed. 

"Your condition?" I prompted, lowering my voice like I was afraid of someone else hearing us. "The one that keeps you from getting naked?" 

"I get naked," the Sheriff replied. 

I grinned and tried to hide it behind my hand. I had always been self-conscious of my mouth. And, no, not because I never stopped talking, but because it was so big. Sometimes it felt like half of my face was just mouth and when I smiled, it got that much worse. "Truth is in the eye of the beholder." 

The Sheriff sighed again—it was his favorite expression in my presence—and clicked off his flashlight, forcing my eyes to slowly adjust to the partial darkness. The moon still shone brightly overhead, and his cop car lights swirled silently behind him. "That isn't how the saying goes, Mr. Bridle. You don't have to take the whole wrap for this, you know. I've counted at least twenty empty beer cans, and several more unopened." He shone his light on the stack of beers by one of the trees. "You clearly weren't out here by yourself while you all… what were you all doing?" 

"Trying to fill the lake with bubble," I admitted, my bottom lip began to tremble from standing naked and wet in the cold. The next second, Sheriff Joseph handed me one of those wool blankets that you always see people wearing in aftermath pictures. 

"That's ridiculous. You would need thousands of gallons of bubble bath. You have enough here to maybe fill a hot tub." 

"No one said it was a good plan," I mumbled, bringing the blanket tighter around my front. I dipped my face, giving it a low-key sniff. Of course it smelled like the man, like cedar and citrus. Did he spend his time making fresh squeezed orange juice in the woods? I wouldn't doubt it. Though, thinking that Sheriff Joseph did anything for fun was against everything I knew of the man. 

My eyes had almost adjusted to normal so I could see the Sheriff better. It wasn't as if I didn't have his face memorized already. He was handsome in a lame Disney prince sort of way. He had tanned skin, always a shade darker than everyone else no matter the time of year and golden hair—the color matching his lion counterpart almost exactly. His face was square and sturdy with defined cheekbones and a chiseled jaw that made the framework for a prominent chin complete with one of those ridiculous dimples at the end. He was gorgeous but in a wholesome sort of way that I should have rebelled against. 

Hell, I was rebelling against it. Because the sad fact was, ever since volunteering at the jail for penitence after making some truly tragic mistakes—way worse than trying to bring bubble joy and whimsy to this boring town—I'd realized how head over heels I was for the much older man. His age would be one thing, an issue I'd be happy to look past, but I couldn't look past the way he never gave me the time of day. Unless… 

I bent down to pick up one of the empty cans but discovered the can was yet unopened. Cracking the top, I gestured toward the Sheriff. "You don't mind?" 

"You're twenty, I mind." 

"This is Morningwood, not the normie world, officer," I retorted, bringing the can slowly to my lips. 

I felt the heat of his body, stark against my lake-frozen skin. "I mind," he repeated softly as he reached for the can. He was careful not to touch my hand, grabbing it by the top to take it away. After pouring it into the woods—litterer—he turned back to me. "Find your clothes, Bridle. Clean up this mess and then I'm delivering you to your parents." 

I groaned and then wished I hadn't. No wonder the Sheriff wouldn't look at me like the man I was. 

"Unless you know a few names of people who should be here to help you?" he taunted. 

I lifted my chin. "Snitches get stitches." 

Again, he was in my bubble, too close—no such thing—for comfort. "Did someone threaten you?" he asked, his voice dipping several octaves. 

For a split second I wondered what he would do if I said yes. Then, I answered my own question. He would file an official police report and assign you a number. I shook my head. "It's a saying, Sheriff. It means I saw nothing and will say nothing." I crossed my arms over my chest forcing him to take a few steps back or else we would be touching. I may have been stupidly infatuated, but I wasn't about to get pushed around. I was a horse shifter—not just that, a Clydesdale! And I wasn't going to pretend to be timid for anyone.

"It doesn't have to be like this, Dusty," he said then, much more quietly. "In fact, it wasn't this way until about two months ago. You barely got into trouble, and now, I'm catching you every other week. If something has happened, if someone is making you—" 

"No one is making me do anything." It was my turn to use my tough guy voice. "I'll find my clothes and clean up." 

I could tell he wasn't happy, but that was simply too bad. 

He didn't speak while I rummaged around the leftover piles for my clothing. I wasn't sure where my boxers were, but I found my jeans and slipped them on. I never found my shirt, or hoodie, but Cam had left his black leather jacket behind, so I slipped that over my shoulders. I didn't want to return the blanket Joseph had given me but that was just more of a reason why I should, so I took it off and bunched it up. "Thanks for this," I muttered, setting it down on a log while I got busy gathering the empty soap bottles and beer cans. 

"What about this stuff?" I asked, gesturing to the leftover cases. 

"I'll donate it to the firehouse," the Sheriff replied. 

"Poor Cam," I muttered. He'd brought all the beer. 

"Who?" Sheriff Joseph asked keenly. 

"No one," I said louder. "Isn't that illegal? Don't you have to take it in as evidence?" 

"I would, if I were arresting anyone or charging anyone of anything. But, we can't keep doing this, Dusty. You already have more community service hours than you'll be able to feasibly finish before you graduate. And I don't want to put you in another cell, but I will. It's odd, son. You were always such a good kid, but recently, it's like you're making up for lost time. Is it this Cam? Is he influencing you?"

I tied up the last trash bag—courtesy of everyone's favorite Sheriff—and bent down to haul the bags and the cases back to his cruiser. After, I stood next to his car, my chin lifted again to indicate my obstinate silence. 

"Fine," he snapped, jerking the bags out of my grasp and tossing them into the trunk. 

My heart fluttered making me wonder if I really was broken. Why did I like his anger so much? I was a goof to everyone else, I knew that. Dusty was always just the class clown—great now I was thinking of myself in the third person. 

But I didn't always want to be just a goof and I wasn't going to tell on Cam, even if it got me out of trouble. Not only was he a fellow horse shifter, but he was new in town, a recent transfer from another shifter town somewhere on the east coast called Dix Wallow. He claimed that town was as lame as Morningwood, which always stung because I really did like Morningwood—despite the dumb ass name. I just wished I knew where my place was. 

And the main reason why I wasn't going to tell on Cam was because these days, he seemed like the only person who liked having me around. In fact, sometimes, he out-pranked even me. 

"Get in," the Sheriff ordered, slipping into the driver seat. 

Weren't cops supposed to help you into the car? I couldn't even get him to do that. 

"My parents aren't home," I started to say as I slid in the passenger seat. If he wasn't going to put me in the backseat behind the bars, I wasn't going to put myself there. 

I shut the door and strapped on my seatbelt while the Sheriff just sat there. When I finally looked over, he was seething. 

And I loved it. 

"Do you want to try that again, Mr. Bridle?" he asked quietly.

"Try what?" 

He grabbed the steering wheel tightly despite the fact that he hadn't yet started the engine. "Lying to me." 

"I wasn't—" 

"Dusty," he said my name, but it didn't sound like just my name. It sounded like a threat but also like a promise. A promise to do what? Punish me for lying? Would he put me in the back seat? I didn't mind, as long as he wanted to go back there with me. 

And yet, something inside of me longed to bend to his will, to listen and obey. I didn't like that part of me because it was confusing. Alphas weren't supposed to be swayed as easily as I was around Sheriff Joseph. "Fine. They are home, but if you bring me back with the siren blaring it's just going to stress them out. They're already on edge because of the new baby and—" 

"How is he doing?" he asked, sounding authentically curious. 

"Dennis is doing what newborns do, I guess," I replied with a shrug. It was only a little weird to go from being an only child to an older brother at twenty. "I mean… he's a lot of trouble and my dads just started getting him to sleep for some of the night so if you bring me back—" 

"Okay, okay," the Sheriff said, waving my words away. And, was that a smirk I spotted? No. It was gone as quickly as I thought I'd spotted it. "You know, if you stopped getting in trouble, you wouldn't have to worry so much about stressing them out." 

I leaned back, settling into the passenger seat and readjusting the seatbelt over my jacket. "What's the fun in that?" I asked, adding a shrug that I hoped conveyed nonchalance. "And I could if I wanted to. I promise, mister, I can stop anytime." 

That was when the Sheriff laughed. An actual, open mouth, smiley eyes laugh.

I forgot how to breathe. 

"If you managed to stay out of my cuffs for two weeks, I would walk around Morningwood in a leprechaun costume." 

I tried picturing the staunch figure dressed down in green, a top hat and a sack of gold at his side. "Not that I'm complaining, but why a leprechaun?" 

"It's the next holiday," he replied. 

This was as close to goofing around as I'd ever seen the man, so my reply was quick. "Deal." 

Sheriff Joseph sobered as he pulled out onto the road, his brief moment of merriment long forgotten. "I'm serious about naming names, Dusty. We can't have you guys out here causing trouble. I got three calls about your little party tonight." 

"Bunch of rats," I mumbled. 

"No, it was Trent, he's a trout—" 

"Figure of speech." 

"Well, all that I've said still stands. How about we start with the owner of that jacket you're wearing, though I have an idea." 

There was more growl to his words than there had been previously and although I wanted to lean over and make him growl again, I slunk away, burying my face behind the collar of Cam's jacket. It smelled like him, like hay and molasses and a little something extra that might've been Mountain Dew. "You might as well give up. I'm not going to tell you anything. One, as I've said, I am not a snitch and two, I might have something going with this jacket's owner and I don't want to ruin it." 

"Oh?" the Sheriff asked casually, but his hands tightened to white knuckles on the steering wheel.

"Yes," I said, gaining momentum. I didn't know if the Sheriff had picked up on my ill-formed crush, but I wasn't going to seem desperate in front of him. "He's fun and actually seems to like being around me instead of treating it like a chore, or something that's been court appointed," I added so he knew that I counted him firmly in the other category. 

"Is that what these nights are to you? Having fun with your new boyfriend?" His words came out clipped, like he couldn't be bothered to speak them clearly, or even continue with this conversation. 

"It was, till you ruined it," I replied, my anger rising. And why was I angry? I was the one sort of lying after all. Was it because I wasn't getting the reaction that I wanted? "Maybe next time you can show up just a half hour later, so I have time to seal the deal." I sat back and looked out my window watching the trees thin. I spotted a street light up ahead and despite the tone in the car my heart lurched. I had minutes left, if he drove slowly. 

We came to a stop sign that he breezed through. 

I jerked my face in his direction, but he kept his eyes on the road. I noticed his pulse beating in his clenched jaw. That upset to be around me? 

He turned up the street to Barnyard Court, the road I lived on along with all the farming and cattle shifters. We didn't have to be segregated like we were, it just seemed to work best. Every house on Barnyard Court had its own field in the back, perfect for lazy afternoons spent grazing. 

My brain went into overdrive, firing off ideas of how to prolong my time in the car like fireworks exploding during a Fourth of July show. By the time he parked at the end of the cul-de-sac, I still had no idea and my panic to stay was quickly being replaced with anger. I spotted my house at the very end. All the lights were off except the front porch and the nursery light upstairs. That meant at least one of my dads was awake, but likely not in any shape to care if or when I got home.

Sheriff Joseph was so oblivious to me outside of my role as a troublemaker, I wanted to hurt him like how I hurt. I unbuckled my belt and opened the door, causing the dome light to turn on. The Sheriff's normally golden gaze was dark. 

"Yeah, so, thanks. And like I said, try to hold back a little longer at the next party, I'm smooth, but I still need time to work my moves." 

"There won't be another party, Dusty," the Sheriff replied darkly. 

The hair on my nape prickled against his tone but I tried not to let it show. "Of course not. Night." I got out and shut the door. As I walked to my porch, I felt his eyes on my backside. Would it be weird if I tried to saunter? With my luck, I would just end up falling over. 

Still, when I got to my door and the Sheriff was still there, I turned and slowly reached into my jacket pocket, pulling out the full, unopened can of beer I'd felt there when I put it on. I cracked it open, smiled at the cruiser's windshield since I couldn't see inside, and took a sip. I imagined the Sheriff's hands tightening on the steering wheel. 

Did they tighten like that when he grabbed a lover? Did he use that same dark tone in the bedroom, the one that brooked no disobedience but somehow made me want to do the exact opposite? My stomach clenched, but it had nothing to do with the alcohol I'd consumed. 

Deflated, I opened the door, slamming it as loudly as I dared behind me—which ended up being not loud at all. 

Outside, Sheriff Joseph drove away, his tires squealing in his haste to escape from my presence. 

"Dust?" my dad called from the top of the stairs. He bounced on the balls of his feet with Dennis propped against his shoulder as he patted his bottom. 

"I'm here, I'm home," I said softly, hiding the can behind my back.

"Try not to make too much noise, Dennis should go down for a few more hours," he said, never descending the stairs. 

"Yeah, no problem. I'm just gonna grab some food and go to bed." I waited to hear his footsteps retreating, but there was only silence. 

"Dust? Did something happen tonight?" he asked with a tired edge. 

How did I tell him? How did I describe the way it felt to realize the man I wanted would have nothing to do with me? That knowledge felt like it was slowly sinking into my bones, etching into the hard surfaces so that when I died and dried up, the message would be easily readable: 

Sheriff Joseph wants nothing to do with you. 

"Nope, everything is fine. Love you, goodnight." I didn't wait for his reply, I wasn't sure if he even gave one. He hadn't been worried about me, just about the possibility that I'd disgraced them both again by coming home in the back seat of a cruiser again. Loophole, it was the front seat this time. 

I poured the rest of the beer down the sink, buried the can at the bottom of the recycling bin and disappeared into my room. Taking off my jacket, I hung it on my desk chair and then flopped down on my bed, facing the ceiling. 

"Give it up, Dust," I told my ceiling. 

It was about time I forgot my wild fantasies.




Saturday Series Spotlight



Kiki Burrelli
Kiki Burrelli lives in the Pacific Northwest with the bears and raccoons. She dreams of owning a pack of goats that she can cuddle and dress in form-fitting sweaters. Kiki loves writing and reading and is always chasing that next character that will make her insides shiver. Consider getting to know Kiki at her website, on Facebook, or send her an email: kikiburrelli@gmail.com.

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Sack of Gold #4