Where Mary is tired of walking so much, and Marshall takes a nap.
Start the adventure from the beginning.
“Could you maybe slow down?” Mary called out as she trailed after Marshall.
“We want to get there before the sun goes down,” he responded.
Mary picked up her pace and jogged to catch up. “I thought you said there weren’t any of those scary saurans out here.”
“There aren’t. Look cows. Why?”
“You said you wanted to get to town before the sun goes down.”
“I don’t want to be out here in the dark. Can’t see the cows, or what they leave behind.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” she muttered to herself. “This would go a lot faster if we had one of those big saurans.
“Did I just hear you actually say you wanted a sauran out loud? I can’t believe it,” he laughed.
“Honestly, if we had Kim with us, we could ride in near comfort. We wouldn’t have to hurry because she would offer protection and we could—”
“Are you going to suggest we spend the night out here when there is the possibility of a real bed ahead?”
Mary stopped walking. She gathered a fist full of skirt lifting up the front and then tossed it back into place. “I am. My legs are tired, my feet hurt. I just want to sit for a moment. Besides with all your talk about beds and baths, how are we even to pay for a hotel room?”
She gestured off toward the horizon. “I lost any semblance of a reticule and my travel funds long ago. You’ve managed to lose almost as much as I have. Who even knows where your coat is?”
Marshall stopped walking and looked back at her. “I’m not without resources, and I’m not above doing odd jobs in exchange for a place to stay. I said I’d get you a bed and a bath, and I mean to keep my word. But if you need to take a rest, I guess we could see about finding a place to sit a spell.”
Mary’s skirt billowed like the balloon that had kept them afloat as she dropped to the ground. “This looks like a perfectly good place to me.”
A slow smile crossed Marshall’s face. “If that’s your plan, who am I to say no to what the lady wants.”
He grabbed a handful of long grass as he lowered himself to the ground next to Mary.
“You say no an awful lot to me,” she quipped back at him.
Marshall reached out as he stretched and then lay back in the grass. “Might as well take advantage and get a little shut eye.”
“That’s it? You’re just going to lay down and go to sleep?”
“I am. We both had a rough night. I am as tired as you are, only less vocal about it. If we are stopping to rest, then I am going to rest.” His eyes closed and in no time his breathing was steady and even.
Lulled by the warmth of the sun, Marshall’s steady breathing and the soft distant lowing of the cattle, Mary found herself fading, and slowly sinking, as if she were melting into the grass.
Thunder from the previous night’s storm disturbed Mary’s dreams. Her nostrils filled with the earthy, grassy smell of large animals on the prairie and not the sharp smell of ozone after lightning.
“Mary, get up!” Marshall’s urgent tones roused her.
She was still groggy from the unexpected nap.
“Get up, or you’re going to get trampled. We’re in the middle of a stampede.”
Will Mary and Marshall be trampled under a thousand hooves? Find out next time…
©2026 Lulu M. Sylvian
What do you do when your imaginary friends start pestering you with images of sexy male strippers and hot were-shifters? You write stories about them. Well, that's what I did! Oh, and then I combine them and toss them in a kilt for good measure!
Hi, my name is Lulu and I write sexy hot contemporary and paranormal romance. Welcome to my website.
Making the Para "Normal" and the Supernatural Extraordinary.
There simply is no rest for the weary!