At I Heart Lesfic, we believe the world could use a bit more kindness after one of the hardest and longest of years. Many authors have signed up to help IHL spread kindness in the world.

Today, the wonderful McGee Mathews is here to share a story. Also, McGee is giving away 1 ecopy of Delivering Generations. Below the guest post, you’ll find more details about the giveaway.

Take it away, McGee.

Rescued

I am fortunate to have had many acts of kindness over the years, but one occasion rises to the top. There was a time in my past when I needed to leave a volatile domestic situation. I had a storage unit to dump my stuff, all 4 x 10 feet of it. I’d gotten a post office box. I just didn’t have the cash for a down payment for an apartment. I had started a new job, and it would take some time to save up. I had a little terrier mix that I could not, would not, leave with my ex.

A friend at work was willing to have me move in, but her complex did not take dogs. If I could board my dog somewhere, or give her up, I had a place to stay for a couple months.

I contacted some friends; I’ll name them Wilma and Betty. I had known them less than a year. I called and explained the situation, tears rolling down my face, trying to sound like I wasn’t crying. Wilma paused and muffled the phone with her hand. In a few moments, she replied that they had to talk it over. Betty worked with my ex and her job would be at risk.

I said that I understood it was a big ask and hung up. Before I released the receiver into the cradle, the phone rang. Wilma said, “We discussed it. Meet us in an hour for a house key.”

You might consider it paranoid, but I parked my truck in a different parking lot every day at work and borrowed a car as often as I could so my ex wouldn’t see my vehicle in their driveway. On the weekends we moved it behind their garage. A mutual friend gifted me a locking gas cap. I never answered their phone nor answered the door. On the first weekend there, my little terrier started fussing at their huge dog. Then my little darling ate their couch. I spent two full days hand sewing to fix it. We agreed that if my dog kept terrorizing theirs, I’d have to find a new arrangement. As if she understood, the next day the two dogs were playing. The only other issue was that I needed to stop trying to cook dinner before I gave us all food poisoning or something. They had been a couple for a long time, and I’m sure that I annoyed the stuffing out of them but they never complained.

On the day that I moved into my first house, Betty and Wilma gave me a tool box. Inside was the money I paid them for rent.

As for my ex, well, she found me the third day in my new place and parked in front of my house every night for weeks. I waved from the porch, and haven’t seen her since.

Wilma and Betty would continue to meet me for breakfast once a week and they teased me about needing to see the resume of any woman I wanted to date. For the record, they like my wife very much. After my long-distance move, we have rarely seen each other.

During our last visit, pre-covid, I again repeated my thanks for when they rescued me. Wilma nodded. “You needed to be.”

That’s the most we talked about it, and I will be always grateful for their act of kindness, sheltering me at my darkest hour.

GIVEAWAY

DELIVERING GENERATIONS

Ladies of Diamond Lake: Book 3

by McGee Mathews

Available in Kindle Unlimited

The newest officer to join the Diamond Lake police force, Jackie Dupuis is a little eccentric. She finds deciphering people exhausting, which leaves her lonely in this small town. She isn’t quite ready to say that she made a mistake taking this job, but she’s close. If not for the success of her paranormal hobby in this extremely haunted place, she might have already left.

When Angie Stolmeijer arrived, she assumed she wouldn’t be in town for more than a few months. A budding musician and a cosmetologist, she works at the hair salon of Winnie, her Aunt Nancy’s partner. As her aunts try to help her find direction, they watch with knowing eyes as Angie develops an interest in a certain new cop. Even with their support, though, there are some journeys in life that you must walk alone.

Amy Gilbert and Molly Gorman enthusiastically prepare for their baby. Amy’s footloose lifestyle is challenged while attending to a stubborn, usually self-sufficient, and now pregnant partner. To her shock and pleasure, her parents embrace the upcoming grandbaby.

Molly has her eye on the future, yet her family history haunts her. Her parents are opposed to her having a child. Molly’s paternal grandfather was her hero, upholding the law. Small-town gossip has her wondering if it’s true that shady characters are sprinkled on her family tree. When a body is found, the rumors gain traction.

MEET THE AUTHOR

McGee Mathews won the 2019 Lesfic Bard Award for her novel Moving Violations.

Her books Exceeding Expectations and Delivering Generations, part of the Ladies of Diamond Lake series, are self-published, Keeping Secrets is a historical romance published by Sapphire Publishing and Slaying Dragons is with Stone Soup Publishing.

McGee and her wife of over 28 years raised three children on a farm in South Carolina.
 

CONNECT WITH McGEE MATHEWS

Twitter / Website

Thanks so much for stopping by today.