Friends and lovers and a long summer by Liz Flaherty #WordWranglers

It's June. How did that happen? Possibly the fact that the days of March through May were such a blur of unprecedented events many of us would like to forget. But...yes...it's June. 

The Wranglers decided we'd write about Summer Romance this month. As with other themes and subjects, we will each approach the subject in our own way. This is why we are so fun and interesting, right? 😉

When I was a teenager, a summer romance was something I always coveted. Instead of hanging out at the lake or the Midwestern assortment of small-town festivals and fairs with girlfriends, I wanted to spend those hours with a boyfriend. In retrospect, I think hanging out with the girls was more fun, but not then...oh, not then.

The summer I met my husband, Duane, I was dating someone else, although it was winding down in agonies of angst and heartbreak. So Duane took me to the lake, took me bowling, to the movies. He was my cry-on shoulder more than once. He was the best guy friend I'd ever had. In July, he went to basic training. We both grew up while he was gone, from basic to advanced training to 14 months in Vietnam. When he came home, I proposed because I was afraid he wouldn't, he said yes--49 years later, here we are.

I've written about this a ton of times, especially during this week of the year--our anniversary is May 29.  But I think it's important to add that just as those summer adventures with girlfriends--because I didn't have a boyfriend 😉--were cherished parts of friendship, so is friendship a most cherished part of my long summer romance. 

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Years ago, I had a story in a boxed set called Small Town Summer. It was my first anthology ever and it was a lot of fun. It's not available anymore, although those talented authors are still out there and still writing, but my story, Summer in Stringtown Proper is still "in print," albeit only as an ebook. I loved writing it, loved revisiting the Ridge, the setting for A Soft Place to Fall, and loved writing a novella. If you haven't read it yet, I hope you do. And I hope you enjoy it.

“Tomorrow is always a new day. That’s exactly what it was. And Molly Linden was going to make sure it was a good one.”

Banker Molly Linden never expected to be alone and unemployed at fifty. Buying hunky carpenter Joe Rahilly’s saloon takes care of the employment situation, but she’s still alone. Or is she?