About Tempering
by Sean Michael
ISBN: 0-9748202-7-X
385 pages
/ 160500 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, paperback
Life should be nothing more than lazy Sunday afternoons and lots of hot sex for these two Marines and their favorite Redneck, but life never goes the way it should. Tempering explores what happens when life takes a hard left turn for Alex ''Rigger'' Roberts, Jim ''Rock'' South, and Dick Main, characters who appeared in the previous Sean Michael novel, Three Day Passes.
This story stands on its own, testing the strength of the relationships between these extraordinary men as a single event shatters their world and makes them build it over again, stronger than before. All of the wonderful heat and humor expected from these characters is in Tempering, but so is a core of pure steel that makes them not only likeable, but admirable.
Sample
Ringing woke him.
Dick aimed a fist at the alarm clock, but it kept ringing at regular intervals. It finally occurred to him it was the phone and he struggled up, reaching over Rock to grab it. ''Wha?''
''Rock?'' It was a woman, a crying woman. ''Rock? Are you there?''
Shit. ''Jus' minute.'' He shook Rock. ''Wake up.''
Rock rolled and growled at him, even baring his teeth. ''Some chick asking for you.''
''Chick?''
''She's crying.''
Rock was still half asleep, but Dick was getting more awake by the second, he could still hear the woman crying. He pushed the phone at Rock. Rock grunted into the phone.
He looked around for the clock. Where the fuck was Rigger?
Dick had never seen Rock turn grey before, but he'd seen him bark orders and he'd seen that blank faced focus in the field. ''What happened? How bad? Where? Stop fucking crying, Julie and tell me where.'' Rock threw the phone on the bed and headed for the closet. ''Put some fucking clothes on. We gotta go.''
He was halfway dressed, obeying Rock implicitly, before he even thought to ask. ''What's wrong?''
''Rig's been hurt. He's in the ER on his way to surgery.'' Rock threw on a t-shirt and grabbed his boots. ''Move it, corporal! I'm not waiting for you.''
''Shit!'' He grabbed a t-shirt for himself and slid his feet into his tennies, grabbed his wallet and ran after Rock.
He must have opened his mouth a hundred times on the trip to the hospital, wanting to know what happened, wanting Rock to tell him everything was going to be okay, but then he'd get a look at Rock's tight, closed face and he'd look back at the road. The trip to the hospital took a half hour on a good day. They made it in just under fifteen minutes. He didn't even want to think about how fast Rock had been going.
Julie and Alison were pacing outside the emergency room door, smoking and crying. Dick stopped short as they walked up to the girls. Their jeans were covered in blood and both girls were wearing hospital scrubtops. The Julie looked up, blond hair flying everywhere. ''Rock! Oh, fuck! I'm so sorry!''
''Where is he?'' growled Rock, looking like he was going to pound someone into the cement.
Dick bit his lip, wishing to hell that he'd asked Rock what had happened.
Alison grabbed Rock's arm. ''He went into surgery ten minutes ago. He... he lost consciousness in the ambulance and was still out when he went in. They said it'd be a couple hours.''
''What the fuck happened?'' Dick's voice wavered but he didn't care. He was scared now. All that blood and talk of surgery and unconsciousness and he was fucking scared.
''We were at the Tejano, having a couple, you know?'' Alison shook her head. ''Julie and I were giving Rig shit, playing around. He went off to the bathroom and didn't come back. The bartender went in and found him.''
''You're nurses -- give us the straight shit.'' Rock was still growling, still looking like he wanted to hit someone and not looking too picky about who it was gonna be.
''So far? His left femur is broken in three places. His right wrist's cracked. His stomach and kidneys have been beaten and his testicles took a blow or two.'' Julie took a deep breath. ''They're patching up his lung. He took two hits with a knife and lost a lot of blood.''
Julie looked like she was about to start crying again. Dick thought he was going to be sick and Rock was looking grey again.
''Who?'' Rock asked. He grabbed Julie by the front of her scrubs and picked her up, shaking her. ''Who did this to him?''