Final Maggie This Week

Well, it's been a while since we last heard from Max and Maggie, but the final book in the Maggie series will be available very soon. It's going to be a big book because there's a lot of sordid ground to cover.

It's written and currently being edited. I ain't going to go too much into how I feel right now because that's the kind of thing that you Sherlocks use to speculate and come up with some darn good guesses. I'll just say that I miss them already!

So here's a little bit to get you going on it, get the eagerness back ...

First a screenshot that shows the cover ...

Oh, shoot. You can read part of the prologue in that pic. Hell, maybe I'll just post it right here, anyway ...

Outside the historic seaside church the country’s first president once attended stood a sign with a proclamation that staggered her heart. Though fully prepared for it—it was her wedding day, after all—somehow seeing the white letters of their two names arranged in union on a lined black field meant to affirm to their guests they’d arrived at the correct wedding made it all seem luminously real. In one hour she would no longer be Maggie Becker.

It had been a long journey. A painful one at times, but one always with abounding love, even when moments were at their darkest. Love, yes, but for a long time rarely the truth. And though love could exist for a while without truth, surviving behind the shield of immaturity, it was insupportable. Lies were the ballast that curved love’s trajectory. They were all liars, horrible ones, but they’d been young, and the worst lies were the ones they told themselves.

A group of older men regaled with sudden deep laughter behind her, standing in a loose bespoke clutch on the slope of the lawn. Martin, Westlake, and some other cronies from Oxbow all on the grass, her father leading them, looking good in his tailored tuxedo.They smoked cigars, handed out by Martin while they waited for the ceremony to begin, and congratulated him on the marriage of his only daughter. Beyond them, a crooked wrought iron line ran the perimeter of the old Trinity cemetery, marking off mossy hundreds-year-old tombstones.

There was glad-handing amongst them now, a steward in black pants and a white dress shirt coming and taking away what remained of their expensive cigars, putting them in a black pail of sand he carried in one hand, the group breaking up. The men found their way inside the church to take their seats as her father made his way toward her, adjusting his cuff links and giving smiles and nodding to some who still lingered on the church’s steps, radiating his proud father-of-the-bride smile.

She stepped ahead, following the officiant, her father catching up and putting a hand on the small of her back as they gathered with the wedding party in the nave of the old wooden church. Martin popped a piece of gum in his mouth but she told him: “You still smell like cigar,” reaching to his tie and straightening it.

Though he looked at her sternly, he said, “You look beautiful today, Margaret. Your husband is a lucky man.”

Eyes narrowed, raising her chin to him, she slowly let herself smile. “He is,” she agreed, and now her father smiled as well.

The nervous banter amongst her bridesmaids and groomsmen thinned with quiet tension and she saw the officiant now making eye contact with them all. The room grew quiet. It was time to begin.

In twos, bridesmaids and groomsmen filed out, arm in arm. Maid of Honor next, heading out with a knowing wink and then a wide open but silent joyous scream. The flower girl and ring bearer followed. Martin let her assume her posture, get comfortable, clutching her bouquet low on her belly, over the life only she knew grew inside her.

Somewhere above them on the balcony that faced the altar, the processional began. The very traditional Wagner’s Bridal Chorus; Grace Cho—a girl she remembered from Tanglewood—on the massive pipe organ that bellowed through the church, resonating in all the old wood so she felt its vibrations in the floor and traveling up her legs, its power and volume and majesty making her shake.

Father linked an arm through hers tightly, taller than her even in her heels, but letting her form a diamond between waist and elbow where he could fit his forearm. Shoulders back, smiling now, she let him escort her to the mouth of the aisle.

Spring sunlight glowed off the chandeliers hanging slightly crooked down the center of the high cathedral ceiling, and her whole body tightened with excitement. Every face in the Trinity was turned to her, sequestered in their boxed pews, and she let her smile grow wider. On the beat, she took her first step to her new life walking the red carpet, eyes turned up to the pulpit, staggered diagonal lines of the bridal party leading up the steps to the pastor; Max and Cole there, waiting for her, both of them beaming …