Blog
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The Return (Chapter)
The morning came slow, like it didn’t want to wake the world all at once. Ezra sat on the curb outside Jake’s apartment, shoulders rounded forward, hands cupped around a chipped mug of coffee. The sun hadn’t broken fully over the rooftops, but the sky was soft with promise—blue pressed gently into the dark, like
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Stay (Chapter)
The apartment was quiet, like the hush that lingers after something’s been broken. The fan by the window clicked softly with each rotation, pushing warm air in slow circles. Wood creaked under shifting weight. The fridge hummed behind the wall, steady and dull. Ezra sat on the edge of the pullout couch, spine straight, the
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The Room (Edited chapter)
The apartment pulsed with heat and smoke, heavy with the scent of beer, dust, and something harder to name. Tara moved with calm confidence. The others—Mike, Sam, Jake—shared space with her the way they always had, their bodies loud with ease, their rhythm practiced, familiar. There was no shame between them, no questions. Ezra watched
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The Crossing (Chapter)
Ezra hadn’t been to the lot in years. He stood at the edge of it now, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the wind move through a rusted length of chain-link fence. The gate hung crooked, open wide enough to let anything through. The pavement beyond it was broken and faded, split by stubborn weeds
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The Seam Stirs (Chapter)
It started with a hum. Not louder—deeper. Ezra stood in his room just after sunset, the last of the daylight slipping off the window like it had given up. The house was dim, still. No music, no voices, just the sound of his breath and the quiet shifting of the walls. He hadn’t touched the
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The Stillness Before the Split (chapter)
The house breathed like it remembered something no one else did. Ezra moved through the hall in socked feet, the coffee in his mug still too hot to sip. The morning light hadn’t quite reached the kitchen yet, but it pressed against the edges of the blinds—soft and gold, the kind of light that made
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The River Haul
The river was a beast, gorged on three days of rain, chewing the East Tennessee bank with mud and branches. Jake, 34, stood on the volunteer dock, boots sinking into the mire, his fisherman’s hands restless. Riverside Aid’s boat—loaded with food and medicine for a flood-cut hamlet upriver—was snagged on a fallen oak downstream, its
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The Bunkhouse Bet
The bunkhouse was a sauna of sweat, pine, and machine oil, its walls groaning under the Tennessee summer of 1944. Cal, 24, a welder with a grin sharp as a switchblade, sprawled on his cot, tossing a baseball against a rafter with a rhythmic thud. Amos, 22, a chemist with glasses that slid down his
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The Ridge Run
The fog was a living thing, curling through the pines like it had a mind of its own, swallowing the dawn and the trail with it. Tucker, 28, ran hard, sneakers pounding the damp earth, his breath sharp in the East Tennessee chill. He’d signed up for the town’s fitness challenge to outrun the dead-end
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The Junkyard Signal
The junkyard sprawled like a forgotten kingdom, rusted car husks glinting under a half-moon, their shadows pooling around a flickering bonfire. Micah kicked a hubcap, its clang swallowed by the East Tennessee night, a faint pine breeze cutting the tang of oil and metal. Levi crouched by a pile of radios, his flashlight beam dancing
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Not the First (chapter)
The garage was still. Rain tapped the metal roof in soft syncopation, the kind that made you feel like the night itself had settled in to stay. Caleb didn’t bother with the overheads—just the single lamp over the workbench, its glow golden against the steel and concrete. He sat alone, engine parts half-sorted on the
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Where It Settles (chapter)
The trail curved with the land, hugging the ridge like it had always known its shape. The trees stood in quiet assembly, their branches whispering overhead as the dusk pulled long across the lake below. A heron cut slow through the air. The sky was bruised lavender and rust.It looked like a sky that had
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The Storm Doesn’t Knock (chapter)
The rain hit like it didn’t care who heard.Not a drizzle. Not a soft soaking. Just a hard, hammering Tennessee storm that turned streets into rivers and roofs into drums.It was the kind of storm that didn’t ask. Just showed up loud, and stayed. Caleb was already half-awake when the phone buzzed.Not a text. A
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Hollow Places Don’t Echo (chapter)
Caleb wasn’t expecting company. The morning was still gray and unsettled, not foggy but not clear either. A half-eaten biscuit sat on the tailgate beside him, its paper wrapper gone soft with grease. His coffee steamed slow in the cooler air, untouched. He wasn’t in a hurry. Never was this early. He wasn’t hungry. Hadn’t
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The Spoon’s Heart (Chapter)
The Atomic Spoon’s red neon buzzed in Jackson Square, a bloody glow piercing the fog that clung to the windows like a living thing, its tendrils curling inward as if drawn by the warmth inside. The air inside carried the heavy scent of fryer grease and burnt coffee, undercut by a faint chemical tang from
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The Road Ahead (Chapter)
The call came midweek—landline, crackly like always. Joel answered. Jed listened from across the table, one eye on the newspaper, one ear tilted toward the tone in Joel’s voice. When Joel hung up, he said, “Amos needs a hand with hay. Out near his uncle’s pasture.” Jed raised an eyebrow. “He ask for both of
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The Fire’s Bond (chapter)
Jed stood alone behind the barn, hands deep in his coat pockets, the ridgeline fading into shadow. The cedar branch leaned against the shed wall, still damp in spots from where he’d rinsed off the silt. He didn’t know why he’d brought it in, not exactly. Just that it felt right to burn something that
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The Weight of Care (chapter)
Late spring pressed down on the ridge, warm enough to sweat but not yet thick with summer. The land was greening fast—hedgerows filling out, fence posts shading over, weeds growing where the rows hadn’t been turned yet. It was the kind of season that didn’t wait for anyone. Joel ran the farm alone that week.
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Weight Carried Quiet (chapter)
The air had turned warm again, the kind that coaxed sweat out slow and steady. By midmorning, the sky sat wide and open, cloudless, a little too bright. Jed was on the roof, hammering shingles where the storm had peeled a strip back near the ridge line. His shirt clung to his back, and the
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Storm Front (chapter)
Late spring clung wet to the ridge, the kind of heavy that settled in your boots and worked its way up your spine. The storm had passed sometime after midnight—wind roaring down the holler like a freight train, tearing shingles from the barn, snapping fence rails like kindling. Morning came slow, bruised and gray, the
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Forgiveness in the Dust
Some things don’t mend loud. They just start holdin’ again, slow and steady. The morning was cooler than it had been in weeks. Sky still pale, light slipping over the ridge slow, like it wasn’t in a hurry to see what the day would hold. They’d been fixing fence since dawn—nothing urgent, just one of
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More Than Regret
Some mornings don’t begin. They just unfold, slow and unspoken. The sun was barely up when Jed swung the barn door open. Dew clung thick on the grass, softening the crunch of his boots. He didn’t slam the gate shut, didn’t whistle like he sometimes did when the air was light. Just moved—methodical, muted. The
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The Ache Beneath the Quiet (chapter)
Some silences settle soft. Others land sharp, like a nail in the heel of your boot. The rain let up by Friday, but the gray stuck around, low and sullen over the hills. Joel was already out in the shed when Jed stepped off the porch, coffee in hand and the dogs trailing behind. He
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Time, Silence, and Bonds (chapter)
Years Later. Older, quieter. But never alone. The cabin hadn’t changed much. But they had.The trail was a little more overgrown. The porch leaned in the same stubborn way. The firepit still held their stories. So did the trees. They’d been back to the cabin since that first trip. A few times. But this one
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A New Kind of Fire (chapter)
The fire was already going when Tyler showed up—low and steady, crackling in the pit behind Ted’s place. It was dusk, the sky dimming slow, bruised purple at the edges. The air smelled like pine smoke and damp leaves, like the woods were remembering something. Clyde was sitting on one of the big split logs
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Late-Night Drive (chapter)
The road out past the county line was empty at this hour—just gravel hum and headlights stretching out into darkness. Clyde gripped the wheel loosely, arms tired but restless. The windows were down enough to let in the cool night air, and Tyler’s elbow rested on the sill, fingers drumming absently to a tune that
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The Storm and the Shelter (chapter)
The thunder came low and steady at first—more a warning growl than a threat. By the time Clyde swung the church’s side door shut behind them, the sky had split full open. Sheets of rain hammered the tin roof like it had something to prove. The power had flickered twice during the evening men’s gathering,
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Spring Thaw (chapter)
The thaw came slow that year. Winter hadn’t bowed out so much as lingered, leaving behind half-frozen puddles and sullen banks of gray snow. But the sun was out today, and the breeze, while cool, no longer bit. It was the kind of day that hinted—just hinted—that spring wasn’t far off. It had been a
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Bonds in the Wild
The hounds bayed sharp and wild, their voices bouncing off the oak-studded hills of eastern Tennessee. Jace loped ahead, his lanky frame cutting through the underbrush, a coon’s trail hot under his boots. Behind him, Tuck trudged steady, stocky and sure, the old 12-gauge slung over his shoulder. The night was thick with cricket hum
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The Lantern’s Keeper
The lighthouse leaned into the wind, its white paint flaking like old skin. Sam climbed the spiral stairs, a jug of oil sloshing in his grip, the echo of his boots sharp against the damp walls. Lucas trailed behind, a kerosene lamp swinging from his hand, its light dancing across the rust-streaked iron. The air
CovenantRoad 