Tom
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ABOUT ME
STORY BY Tom
Damn These Tears That Wouldn't Stop
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The morning my fiancé ended our engagement, I cried so hard I could barely see the road. I was determined not to let anyone witness it. So I slipped into a stranger's funeral, took a seat in the back, and tried to disappear among people who had a better reason to grieve. Instead, I cried louder than anyone in the chapel. The dead man's daughter found me afterward and asked how I knew him. I told her the truth: I didn't. But as she let me into the quiet, unfinished business her father had left behind, I began to wonder whether my tears had brought me to the one place where I could finally stop pretending. What happens when the only person who sees your grief clearly is someone who has no reason to comfort you?
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Gardenias Fell Beneath the Moon
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On the night of my sixth wedding anniversary, my husband announced that the garden I had spent years restoring would be leased to a private events company. The announcement came with a glass of champagne, a smiling family portrait, and my name listed as a trustee who had already approved the deal. I had approved nothing. When I challenged him, Daniel reminded me how much his family stood to lose if I stood in the way. He also reminded me that he had a daughter who still called me home. For six years, I had been praised for my patience and thanked for stepping into the life my dead sister left behind. Now I had to decide whether keeping that life meant surrendering the last thing that belonged to me. And if I finally said no, would the little girl I loved still choose to stay?
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Mara and Elise: Your Fireworks Have Nothing to Do with Me
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At the Bellwether Cove waterfront, my closest friend and my sister-in-law announced their engagement beneath a fireworks sequence I had designed, then thanked each other for making it happen. I had spent eleven months building that show for the town's summer festival, and I'd agreed to let the festival use it—not to turn it into a private celebration or erase my name from the work. When I asked Mara Bell and Elise Ward to stop the launch, the crowd was watching, the safety systems were live, and my company's future depended on the contract they wanted me to sign. I could still protect the work, but only by risking the jobs of the people who trusted me. If I refused to give the couple what they wanted, would either of them choose me over the perfect night they had planned?
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After I Landed in a Blended Family
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My stepson shoved his new housemate into a glass cabinet before I had even unpacked my wedding dress. The boy didn't shove back. He only looked at me, one hand pressed to his bleeding palm, and asked whether this was what the family had agreed to. In the novel I'd woken inside, that question marked the beginning of a revenge story: the quiet housemate would reclaim his place as heir to a powerful coastal family, then make my son and me pay for every cruelty we'd allowed. A strange set of rules in my head insisted that I treat both boys fairly, but fairness wouldn't make them trust me, and it wouldn't undo what had already happened. So I had to choose what kind of mother I would be before either boy decided I was his enemy. What would happen when the one I'd tried to protect finally learned why I'd married into his family?
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Harbor Lights in the Fog
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My best friend's dog nearly pulled me into the road when my ex called to say she had vanished. The timing would have been funny if I hadn't been standing in a wall of coastal fog with a leash wrapped around my wrist and her empty house waiting behind me. By nightfall, everyone in town had settled on the same explanation: Mara had taken off, and anyone who knew her should stop asking questions. I knew the scrape in her voice when she was trying not to cry, and I knew the dog hadn't bolted at random. My ex says he can help me find her. The question is whether trusting him will bring Mara home—or put her back in the hands of the person she fled.
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The Pearl Hairpin Was My Blade
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At twelve, I watched my older sister win a box of South Sea pearls by claiming she could count every hair on her head faster than I could. Our father had called it a game. I had called it impossible, which earned me no pearls and a lesson I carried for years: in the Vale family, a promise mattered most when it favored Claire. Now Claire is asking me to certify that the pearls belong to her, even though they are the centerpiece of the museum our father built. The foundation needs money, the museum is running out of time, and Claire says she is only doing what Dad always intended. I know the one thing she does not want me to examine. If I challenge her, I may save the collection and destroy the last partnership I have with my sister. If I stay silent, what will be left of the family we both claim to protect?
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Bed-Warming Had Its Uses
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When Lord Chancellor Julian Vale fell from his horse during a royal hunt and failed to wake, the court astrologer prescribed a woman born on the winter solstice to warm his bed. I was that woman, though I had trained as a physician's assistant, not a charm against death. I agreed because my mother needed medicine and because the Vale household promised to pay for it. I did not expect to become the only person allowed to speak to Julian without an audience, or to discover that his illness had become useful to the people who wanted him gone. The court called me a remedy. The physicians called me a risk. But if Julian opened his eyes, would he remember the woman who kept vigil beside him, or only the bargain that put me there?
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I Followed the Moon and Found My Match
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When Princess Mara was condemned for treason, the palace ordered her body left beneath the firing wall until the crown decided what to do with it. I had spent my life in the queen's household learning not to attract attention, not to ask questions, and never to risk my place for someone more powerful than I was. Then I saw Mara's blood on the stones and asked to take her home. The choice turned me from a silent court companion into the only witness willing to challenge the official story. But the princess I mourned had kept secrets even from me, and the kingdom had already decided what kind of woman I was. How much of my life could I lose before I learned what Mara had truly trusted me with?
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Christmas Eve, No Pierogi? I Flipped the Table, and My Mother-in-Law Panicked
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On Christmas Eve, I opened the walk-in freezer at the Bellwether Inn and found the shelves where my pierogi should have been bare. I had made 144 by hand for a dinner at Harborlight Hospice, and every box had been labeled with my catering company's name. My mother-in-law, Ruth, said she'd taken them for the Inn's holiday buffet. When I asked how she could serve food she hadn't paid for, she shrugged and called them "a few dumplings." I flipped the family's dinner table before I could talk myself out of it. By morning, I had to choose between protecting the business I'd built and keeping peace with the husband who had handed Ruth the freezer code. If I stopped covering for them, would my marriage survive the truth?
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Mint Married Another Man, and the Brooding Commander Chased Me Until His Eyes Went Red
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At the Harborlight Foundation dinner, Commander Rhys Mercer called me the last person he trusted with a rescue route. He said it in front of the donors who had funded the fleet, while my name still sat beneath his on the wedding invitations. I knew the route he meant. I also knew who had changed the dispatch record after my father died at sea. Before the week was out, I had ended my engagement, walked away from the life Rhys had chosen for me, and begun building one with Jonah Hale, the medic who had never asked me to lie. But Rhys kept coming back, insisting he could make the truth right if I would only come home. When the inquiry finally put all our names on the record, I had to decide whether the man who betrayed me could ever become the man I trusted again.
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