Intrigue E-Book

Angel Rupert

• Herausgeber: Bentockiz
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I was just hoping that you might agree to stay here at the house and help with some packing up and giving away. My brother and his roommate are here and they want to get as much done as possible while they’re available. I know it’s not much of a date, but I would really appreciate it.

Leseprobe

Title Page

Intrigue

Passion and Promises

Angel Rupert

Intrigue / 10th of series: Passion and Promises / By Angel Rupert

Published 2023 by Bentockiz

e-book Imprint: Calkden Norsh

e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden

e-book ISBN: 9789198848793

e-book editing: Athens, Greece

Cover Images created via AI art generators

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Introduction

Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.

It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.

This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.

This may be the start of something amazing!

Chapter One

Mom and I decided to make Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons our “family time”. I ran early in the morning as well as after dark on both of those days, and Felicia met us at church on Sunday mornings, but the rest of that time was ours to be alone together.

Determined to get rid of as much junk as she could, Mom convinced me to help her start on Mark’s room, which was a nightmare. It was hardly fair to call it Mark’s room, since most of the stuff in there had nothing whatsoever to do with Mark, but calling it the storage room didn’t seem right.

Mark had to belong somewhere in the house.

I agreed to help simply because, if Mom had her way, everything would be history and there were some things I wanted to keep. Even though I had always accused my dad of being the family packrat, I had to admit the apple hadn’t fallen very far from the tree.

The next Saturday, immediately after breakfast, we started on the room. Neither of us realized how hard it was going to be emotionally.

The first few boxes weren’t that difficult; they contained some of my old toys. Opening the first box, we found three Barbie dolls and a Ken I had refused to give up. One of the Barbie dolls was minus a head and the Ken was missing both arms. Searching through the box, we weren’t able to find the missing body parts, just clothes and accessories. Mom and I laughed. I had been a strange child, and I hadn’t changed all that much

Some of the other boxes weren’t so easy.

I was in the middle of digging through a box full of old clothes, when I noticed that Mom was no longer talking. She and I had kept up a running commentary on the funny things we found, but she had gone strangely silent.

Glancing over at her, I noticed her shoulders shaking. Alarmed, I jumped up and rushed over to see what was wrong. She was crying. I noticed she was holding what looked like a small scrap of paper in her hand.

“Mom...?” I queried tentatively.

She couldn’t answer me. Gently I took the scrap of paper from her hand. It was a ticket stub for some concert. Handing it back, I sat down on the floor and put my arm around her. I didn’t understand, but I didn’t have to...I just needed to be there for her.

After the storm of weeping passed, and she was able to speak again, she said, “The ticket stub...” she hiccupped before continuing, “I met your dad at that concert.”

The light dawned: The Allison Box.

How well I remembered the day I first learned about The Allison Box. I was in fourth grade, and had written a paper—the teacher called it a paper but in retrospect it couldn’t even be considered a paragraph—an assignment for class about who we admired most in the world. We hadn’t known what admired meant, so she had explained it to us as the one person in the world we most wanted to be like.

That was easy: Mom.

Every time we had a class party, field trip, or any special event, Mom would take a day off from teaching to be there for me. All of the kids in my class were envious that I had the best mom. She was fun, pretty, smart, and a great cook; her chocolate chip cookies were legend. How could I not want to be just like her?

I couldn’t remember exactly what I wrote, but it made Mom cry and I had been horrified. My dad was finally able to get me to see that she was crying in a good way.

Although I still didn’t understand it, I was relieved that he wasn’t angry with me. He hated seeing my mom upset more than anything. He then asked if he could have the paper to put in The Allison Box. He explained to me that he had a box where he kept all of the special things that reminded him how thankful he was to have met Mom, and that she had chosen him.

I was very proud of myself. Something I had written was going into The Allison Box.

I wasn’t sure Mom would be able to handle delving into that box and, apparently, she agreed with me. Putting the ticket stub back, she closed the lid and stood up.

“I think we’ve done enough for today,” she stated firmly.

Picking up the box, she made her way downstairs. I heard her bedroom door shut.

So much for that, I thought to myself sadly.

Not knowing whether Mom would come out of her room for lunch, I decided to fix it myself. I was in the mood for tuna so I boiled some eggs, cut up an apple, and added some relish and mayo. By the time I was done, Mom had returned to the kitchen and seemed to be her normal cheery self. We ate lunch together—sandwiches and chips—then I went upstairs to get ready for my date.

I decided to leave Saturday afternoons free for dating, which left Mom time to go off and do her volunteer work. Mom had chosen to volunteer at the hospital, in the children’s ward.

Her first effort at volunteering had been with hospice, and the night I had confronted her in the kitchen, the woman she had been sitting with every evening that week had just died, which explained why she had gotten home earlier than usual.

Mom had been attempting to act as normally as possible for me, even though she was very upset, according to Mark, but like an idiot, I had made everything even harder for her...no big surprise there.

So, that Saturday afternoon, Felicia dropped by the house to pick me up for our double date as she and I had decided we would meet Allen and Michael, rather than relying on them to get us home safely. We were both gun-shy about dating at all, so we thought that would be an acceptable compromise. They had been surprised, but agreeable.

We met at the AMC Theater right after lunch. I was not about to give up my running schedule for a guy, but I was a little concerned that Allen and Michael might object to afternoon dates. I needn’t have worried. They were more than happy to pay matinee prices rather than shell out the big bucks for an evening movie.

“Hey,” Allen greeted us enthusiastically and I noted with amusement that he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of Felicia.

“Hi,” Michael chimed in, “Glad you could make it.”

“Hey guys” Felicia responded cheerily.

I just smiled. My smile was feeling less like a grimace all the time.

“We thought we would go see the new Agent Jack Knight movie,” Allen offered tentatively, “unless there’s something else you would like to see.”

“No, that’s great,” Felicia reassured him. “I love Agent Jack Knight movies.”

She didn’t add that we had already seen it, that she’d actually seen it multiple times.

“Good deal. Do you want anything to eat or drink before we find a seat?” Michael asked.

“No, we’re good,” Felicia answered for both of us, while I nodded my agreement, having just eaten lunch.

Felicia took the lead, and I was glad.

When Felicia and I first met, we seemed to click right away, and I had no problem talking to her like she was an old friend, but the first few times we were in a group of people she was shocked to discover that I was actually very...reserved...in public. I’d never felt comfortable chatting freely with strangers.

Felicia had no such problem; she’d never met a stranger. That was one of the things I liked best about her...I was even a little envious. She and my mom were very similar in that way...in a lot of ways, actually.

I was extremely thankful for Felicia’s outgoing personality. She and Allen kept up a steady stream of lively conversation the whole time, even through the movie previews until the movie actually started. There were only about twenty-five other people in the theater and we were all spread out so thinly that no one objected.

Other than Michael asking me what time it was about every five minutes, he and I occupied ourselves by listening to their chatter. Michael, it seemed, was about as talkative as I was.

I shuddered to think how the date would have gone if Michael and I had been alone. I could picture it, both of us staring off into space, unsure what to say, each hoping the other would break the awkward silence. It didn’t bear thinking about.

The movie was every bit as fun to watch the second time around. I watched it with new eyes because I had already finished reading the first Agent Jack Knight book and was half way through the second one. The first two movies, the ones Felicia had shown me on my birthday in her new media room, followed the first two books with surprising accuracy and I was looking forward to reading the third book.