Behind the Mask

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Jennifer Mueller

BEHIND THE MASK

BY JENNIFER MUELLER

Venus Press LLC

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BEHIND THE MASK

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BEHIND THE MASK Copyright © 2006 by Jennifer Mueller Cover Art © 2006 by Jonathan Fesmire All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without permission, except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. Printed and bound in the United States of America. For information, you can find us on the web at www.VenusPress.com

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Jennifer Mueller

Dedication:

To Craig, who pushed me to get published.

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~*~

August in Florence was sweltering and all the bodies crushed inside for the Medici’s Masquerade Ball were making the heat even worse. Her silk dress, the same shade as her peacock fan, was lined with black fur wherever possible, not to mention the emerald that hung between her breasts was the size of her thumb. It was not the best choice for summer, even if it was the most beautiful dress she had ever owned. Ilaria slipped out the door to the inner courtyard, hoping no one would catch her. She had to get some air. As her eyes adjusted to the faint torchlight, her breath caught in her throat. She should go back in, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away as they caught sight of the couple in the alcove. Poised under the only torch, Ilaria could remain in the shadows while she was given a view of a woman with her dress raised high and deft fingers caressing greedily. Ilaria fanned herself faster. Her legs beneath the layers of her heavy clothing were bare and an unfamiliar wetness flooded between her thighs, adding to the stickiness she felt with the heat. It wasn’t long before the woman panted heavily and buried her mouth in the shoulder of the man. The sound of her cry made Ilaria’s stomach tighten with want. Almost as soon as the woman was done, she returned herself to respectability. Ilaria pressed herself further into the shadows to remain unseen, even as her own breathing was ragged at the thought of what she had witnessed. The man remained on the bench, the torch illuminating the fact that his erection remained unsatisfied in clear detail. The need to feel him inside her grew with every beat of her heart. She could help him relieve his situation nicely. Ilaria didn’t care about the consequences as she stepped out of the shadows. Vaguely she registered a door opening somewhere, but it was the shrill voice that ruined the moment. “Antonio, I do believe the courtyard is occupied. We’ll have to find somewhere else.” Through an open ballroom door, Ilaria could faintly see the woman smile, a wicked smile. “Or perhaps they wish to join us?” the woman asked. Ilaria watched as the man on the bench looked right at her, noticing he had company for the first time. His mask hissed like a dragon. Thank god, it was a 5

Jennifer Mueller

masquerade ball and she was only distinguishable as a peacock. Ilaria fled.

**** Grabbing a glass of wine as the servants passed, Ilaria watched the dancers twirl to the music as she tried to get her heart to come down out of her throat. “Dance, my lady?” Ilaria turned to find a man with a mask fashioned to look like a crane. He dwarfed her in size. His pendulous stomach would make it difficult for her to hold her arms correctly even. He should have gone as a pelican and disguised his belly as the beak. “I would be delighted,” she said, solely for the fact he was the only one asking. Twirling about the room, even if the man was old enough to be her grandfather, Ilaria laughed for the first time in months. Music played, heads were together all over the room. Whispering lovers most likely were using the gathering as an excuse to talk without their parents there to watch. When the dance slowed and she was close to her partner, he leaned near her ear. His breath stank as he leered at her chest. “My lady, with such cleavage showing, you send my heart racing. Shall we go find a room?” Ilaria let go of his hand and stared for a moment. The want that had lingered between her thighs shut off like a tap had been turned. “If I wanted to sleep with a man so old, I would go sleep with my husband,” she snapped, before walking off. She didn’t have to tell him her husband was thirty-two. “Dance, my lady.” A voice said behind her. Ilaria spun around, ready to let her tongue loose, but a smiling dragon looked back. He held out a hand decorated with a large emerald ring as if it was invitation enough. He stood tall and slender, with wide shoulders, and a well-formed mouth and lips she could picture all over her body. Putting her hand in his, she let him lead her out into the center where others were lining up for the next dance. When the music started, he only smiled and danced. Each time the dance forced them together he whispered in her ear. Each time they came together Ilaria came face to face with the large emerald ring on his hand. “Enjoy the show?” “I thought I heard another panting in the darkness.” “Perhaps you want a performance like you witnessed.” As the music stopped, Ilaria felt as if his fingers were beneath her dress. Or was that just longing? Married or not, she let him pull her into the courtyard, for all she could wonder was what it felt like. 6

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“What would your friend say?” she protested, not wanting to seem a child and voice what was really on her mind. He licked his lips as he looked her up and down, but unlike before she didn’t feel disgusted. The wetness seemed to multiply between her legs. He was beautiful, even if she couldn’t see his face. “The old man could smell your want. Either we take care of it or else they will all come after you.” “You didn’t answer my question.” “The younger sister of a mistress, the poor girl. After she wed, she found that Lord Rod was more the Lord Needle.” He waggled his little finger with a grin. “She pleaded with me to help her find some relief. He’s far too wealthy for her to want to begat a bastard and have him find out. She pleaded and I’m offering it up to you, you whose husband has left you alone for too long from the way you’re watching my pants.” He whispered in her ear before he trailed kisses down her neck. “If we hadn’t been interrupted, I wanted to help you ease the strain. A situation you obviously haven’t dealt with since its mere mention renews its growth.” “Self-sacrifice on the part of a stranger. Nothing for you out of the offer I see.” Ilaria moaned when he plucked a breast from her dress and teased her nipple with his tongue. Her own husband be damned. He had probably spent the last five months sleeping with any woman he could find. Why shouldn’t she have her share of pleasure, too? Suddenly the dragon sucked hard where before he had only teased. Feeling her knees go weak, she steeled herself. “A bed please, before I fall.” She felt like moaning even louder when he pulled his head away from her nipple. “We don’t need a bed,” he rasped in her ear as he lifted her off the ground. “Put your legs around me.” “If I help you with this, I have a request of my own.” The torture of him so close to entering her was making it hard to form words as he readjusted his own clothing. Ilaria could feel his bare flesh against her legs. “Ask it, my lady.” The words distracted him from his task and Ilaria was unable to hide her disappointment that he wasn’t in her yet. “I want the night from you and you have no worry of keeping me intact.” He gasped for breath, his need overwhelming. “Only a child.” “Then tomorrow, I shall hunt my husband down from wherever it is he has vanished and take him to my bed.” 7

Jennifer Mueller

As answer to her request, he pulled the last layers of his clothing away and plunged into her with little warning. Only the wetness from her arousal made it possible. His mouth on hers, demanding entry there as well, kept her cry from filling the Medici’s palace. With no worry about hurting her, he rammed into her hard again and again. It took only moments before he pulled away from the kiss and Ilaria watched his mouth open in silent cries as he released his seed within her. Still impaled on him and flattened against the wall, Ilaria moved her mouth near his ear. “I got no better from my husband, slaking his own need and leaving mine still intact. Now, shall we find a bed and you can actually show me the pleasure in this?” His hands still grasping her breasts showed her need was still there and even at her words he could feel more of his own want surfacing. The edge was gone, but she was bringing out the beast in him. “Your husband must be blind. The sight of a woman like you is enough to make a man wild and in wildness there is no subtleness, especially for a first time.” The gaze he raked down to her chest was more than enough to show her he wasn’t going to turn her offer down. Ilaria smiled. It had been a long time since anyone had mentioned there was more to her than a hefty dowry. Still, she couldn’t help but have some fun with him. “I’ve heard that tonight from a man old enough to be my grandfather. It takes no great skill to say such things.” “I’m sure he was not much younger than your husband. No wonder you go around getting fucked at all the Masquerade balls.” He took another exquisite nipple in his mouth and grinned at the moan that escaped her lips, keeping her mind from the slight of his words. He thought her a common harlot. “Not so, my lord. Odd thoughts that my mother never told me about filled my head when I saw you straining your clothing. You are the first. With Lord Rod so thick within me, I want to scream like your mistress’ sister as many times as you can make me. You’ve yet to show me that part of it.” “Wanton little harlot.” He could feel Lord Rod hardening again at her words as he pulled her off him with reluctance. “Fix your robes. My own house is not far. That is a wager I’ll take, as many times as I can make you, indeed.”

**** Outside the palace, well away from the people, he started to remove the mask. The heat was making it a nuisance. “No, keep it on. I think I should like to say I was ravished by a dragon.” “Handy, too. If we should meet on the street with our spouses, your blush would give you away, I’m sure.” 8

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She didn’t like that he talked to her as if she was a child. “And if the mask covers a face I shouldn’t like, at least this way I can look at a body worth the view.” His snort of laughter echoed through the narrow streets hemmed in by stone houses on either side. “Is that your way of telling me you’re no child? One look at that figure of yours was enough of a clue. Breasts all but spilling out of your dress, a slender waist, but ample hips which I got a good feel of when I had you skewered to the wall.” The talk of it alone made her ache but in her very limited experience Ilaria still couldn’t see why there was all the fuss. “Skewered, but still aching. You had your relief. Where is mine?” His grin was seduction personified. The sight if it alone made the wetness flow from within her anew. “We are here, my lady.”

**** With the door shut to his chamber and only a single candle next to the bed, Ilaria started to undress. Her hair, long and black, had fallen loose of its confines even though the peacock mask still hid her features. The mouth peeking from beneath it was full lipped. Perhaps after showing her what pleasure he could give her, he could teach her a few tricks that she would have to practice on him. He leaned back on the bed watching the show. Her husband was blind indeed to ignore such a woman. “Let me see you touch yourself. I need a bit before I can see to you fully. The view will speed up the process immensely.” “Where?” “Where?” he asked incredulously. “You mean you never pleasured yourself, not even before this husband of yours rescued you from maidenhood?” With that Ilaria snapped, the laces of her dress forgotten as she turned to the man she had just followed to his bedroom with no one to hear her if she changed her mind. “With a nurse in my room at all hours? You think my mother was going to enlighten me with even the smallest hint before I was left alone in a room with a man I’d never met? My dowry was incentive enough. He needn’t care if he favored his wife.” The growl of want slipped from his lips at her show of spirit, not to mention the breast that fell from its confines. “Stupid man,” he hissed as he pulled her to him. With him on the edge of the bed, she landed between his legs nicely. The feel of her back in his arms sent a surge of growth to the member that he claimed needed rest. “I’ll just have to teach you proper then.” His hands were busy at the laces confining her. “If you’re not going to see my face then we might as well have you thinking me a libertine. I’m going to see you naked.” Her full bottom lip jutted into a pout. “Only if you are as well. There were others 9

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to offer their services as you well know. I should like to see a man worth having.” Sitting up, he slipped the shift over her head, dragging his fingers up the length of her. The shiver of pleasure she gave had nothing to do with the sudden lack of clothing in the hot night. “In due time. Now it's time for you to learn. Don’t worry, you’ll scream enough without Lord Rod in the show yet.” With that, he threw her on the bed and his grin grew as he started crawling across the bed to reach her. Inhaling deeply as the scent of Ilaria’s arousal filled the room, he growled as he pushed her thighs apart. “What are you going to do?” Ilaria whispered, her eyes as wide as saucers. “You wanted to know why we see anything in putting Lord Rod in the Black Mound. I’m returning the favor.” Sliding a single finger in her drenched passage, she sighed at the feel, so different from the skewering she had up against a wall. “Oh god, no wonder she pleaded with you.” Ilaria moaned. “You’ll enjoy this far more then.” Rubbing her juices all around with a wicked grin, he opened her wide and slipped his tongue in immediately like a snake in the Garden of Eden. Ilaria squeaked with surprise but as he flicked his tongue, she writhed with pleasure beneath him. Her hands grasped the bedding as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “Give me your hand,” he whispered. “Please, don’t stop.” He reached up, took hold of her fingers, and pulled them to her mound. “Here is where you touch.” His fingers moved hers with all the skill he had and then slipped one inside her. When he pulled it out again, he rubbed the cream that came with it all around. “You practice while I do as you ask and not stop.” She was a quick learner and flattened her hand against her belly as he plunged his head back between her legs. He toyed with the entrance to her canal, plunging his tongue in as deep as he could just to hear her moans. He could have sent her over immediately judging by her reaction but he gave her a proper lesson. Almost to the point of going over and then, like their dance earlier, he would move back, giving her the chance to breathe. She lay in ecstasy on the bed and her hand fell away. He finally started sucking the bud her hand had just left. It didn’t take long. He knew just how to bring it fast and she grabbed hold of his hair so he couldn’t pull away as she rose up to meet him, unable to get enough even as she cried out her first release. He lay next to her as she lay unable to move, his finger gingerly tracing the nipple so readily at hand. It crinkled in his fingers. Unable to keep the smile away that she still 10

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wanted more, he leaned his mouth near her ear. “That, my lady, is why we want it so.” “I don’t suppose there’s wine near? I could use a drink before the next lesson.” Ilaria let out a sigh as he rose and went to go find something. The sight of his erection straining against his clothes made her bite her lip. God, she still wanted more. One night and it would all be over. Tomorrow she would go find her husband and take him to bed, but she couldn’t show him any new tricks she had learned. How to let him know she wasn’t against a mortal sin or two if it would bring companionship to her life? “I brought some food as well. I found I’m hungry, must be all the work.” He carried a bottle and two goblets, not to mention the plate of food. But all she saw was the bulge in his clothing. Rolling to her side, Ilaria propped a leg up to keep her balance. The sight brought him to a stop. God, she was a seductress and she didn’t even try to be. “Wine as you asked,” he choked out. “Now if you are going to sit there while I eat, I demand you are nude along with me.” “It’s safer for you if I remain dressed a while longer.” “Or what, my ferocious dragon, you’ll have to sacrifice a maiden? Have you forgotten that’s why I’m here? Take off the clothing or I’ll take it off of you myself.” “If there is to be any subtlety, you will prefer me clothed.” Even before she said a word, he saw the grin. “Would touching myself help? You said it would speed up the process. I want to see you, faint though the light is.” Her free hand ran across her breasts before traveling down her stomach. “No, this time we’ll both have the pleasure.” He growled as her hands reached the curly hair. He had to stop her and grabbed the hand before she could find the spot he had just shown her. That he found her desirable and was willing to take her just as often as possible gave her courage and she lost all inhibitions. “Then take off your clothes. Call me a libertine,” she purred. He washed down his food with a large gulp of wine. “I only have tonight. I dare not have such a liaison again. If you are unable to use subtlety, then I’ll just have to make you try and try again until you get it right.” “You are a wicked woman,” he replied as he pulled his clothes off. The erection that revealed itself was larger than she had imagined. Thick, no wonder it had hurt as he took her in the courtyard. At her gaze, it seemed to bob against his flat stomach. There was no doubt why, if she was going to risk an affair, it would be with him. He was older than she was no doubt, but still lean, and built like a statue in her 11

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father’s garden. “Can I touch like you did?” “Drink your wine, you little harlot. There’s time enough for everything before dawn makes you leave for home.” Ilaria grinned as she sat back against the pillows. The position left her open for him to see. She was being mean and she knew it. His eyes didn’t leave the view she gave him as he drank and ate. His gaze was enough to make the want return and she swore he could see the wetness return between her legs. Throbbing with the need for him to do something with any part of his body, it was torture watching him sit there eating peacefully. Ilaria drank down the last of her glass and her hand tried to sneak down to take care of the longing herself. She was only able to graze it once before his hand fell on hers. “We’re both hungry, I see.” “Must be the sight of you.” Ilaria licked her lips as she’d seen a woman at a ball doing once. Watching the gleam in his eye grow, she knew it worked. “You are a very quick learner for a novice.” With a grin, he discarded the food and pulled Ilaria from her perch on the pillows. His mouth covered hers hungrily and Ilaria tasted the wine on his tongue as it dove between her lips. “That’s it my little peacock. Let me see the passion you’ve been hiding,” he growled when her tongue rose to meet him. Ilaria rolled him to his back and he looked up at her with a grin. “Teach me what to do,” she said quietly as she straddled him. His hands pushed her onto him slowly, using all the finesse he had lacked earlier, until she had taken all of him. Without words, he guided her through the motions like their dance. Hands explored every inch of the woman that had given him the night. “Beautiful.” He murmured as his hands ran over her breasts. “The old man was right. With cleavage like this, bed was the only option to take.” “My dowry was the usual attribute that anyone noticed except for dirty old men.” A husky laugh filled the room. “If it’s as full as your breasts, I don’t blame any of them for snatching you up.” Ilaria bent forward and rubbed her nipples against his chest. She watched his head fall back with pleasure. “I’m sure you’ve seen others as impressive.” He started laughing. “Even my own wife keeps her nightdress on. I wish I knew. Can’t even be sure I saw my mistress in the all together. Trust me, this is a gift you’ve given me tonight.” Ilaria started moving slowly. “Then give me a gift.” He didn’t need to be told twice. “On your knees.” 12

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“But. . .” His grin grew wicked at the look on her face. “Exactly. Good thing to know for when you’re done wanting kids with the old man.” Ilaria lifted off him and moved to her stomach. His hands were caressing her enjoying the feel of a woman completely nude. Part of the food he had brought with him from the kitchen was a bottle of olive oil and she felt his hands touch her backside, warm with the oil. Just caressing still and suddenly a finger pressed at the opening. Her first reaction was to tighten up, but his hands slid around her until his mouth was right next to her ear. “Relax, my little peacock.” His whisper sent chills down her even in the heat as a hand massaged her back. Relaxing was suddenly the last thing possible for her to do when the door opened and the maid walked in. “Oh, Master Fiorenzo, I see you finally came back to give your wife the child your mother wants.” “Get out!” he yelled at the maid and she scurried away. He turned to find Ilaria’s mask was still in place, but the set to her mouth told more than anything. He was screwed and it wasn’t at all like he was just initiating. It was the determined set of a wife displeased at her husband. He’d seen it enough on his mother’s face. “Ilaria?” “Pity isn’t it, that your own maid can recognize your wife in the flesh when you can’t. Now, husband, why didn’t you do that on our wedding night?” Ilaria pulled off the peacock mask covering her. The same face that had stared at him as they wed now didn’t look so young. “You can give the sister of your former mistress a pleasuring now and again out of sentiment, but your own wife... You seem to find me pleasurable enough when you didn’t know who I was.” He finally pulled the mask from his face. If it hadn’t been the week that Graziella had died, he might have taken more notice of the woman he was bound to. She was no child indeed. Full hips, and even fuller breasts, long lean legs. Her dark hair was starting to curl naturally in the humid air, framing a face that was--after what she had just done he couldn’t call it saintly--but it was perfection. She was beautiful and she had been thrown in a room with him probably never being told what he wanted. Her words about being left bleeding under him after he had taken his satisfaction stung. “You knew the whole time and that I didn’t?” “I don’t make a habit of going around and letting men skewer me in the courtyard.” Ilaria settled back with a confidence that wasn’t there earlier. “You still wear my family's ring. It is distinctive enough to notice as we danced. I don’t know how 13

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you could have missed it, seeing as the necklace that matches it is on my neck even now. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the one you put on my finger. Granted, you did only see it the once.” Fiorenzo sank onto the edge of the bed and rubbed his face roughly. He looked over his shoulder at his wife. “My father chose you the week my long-time mistress died. If you did this because you think I have been sleeping with every woman I find, you are wrong. The last I took to bed was you on our wedding night. I am sorry if it hurt you but I was not in the mood for taking another to bed even if I noticed far more than your dowry. You are a beautiful woman, Ilaria, you need never doubt that. My father didn’t care I had business in Venice the next day or that I had lost the woman I loved.” Watching him was torture. She hadn’t planned on being found out. She would know she hadn’t committed adultery, he would just think she was another affair. Only now he hadn’t been sleeping around, and he did know. Ilaria scooted off the bed and knelt between his knees so they were face to face. “I watched you bring pleasure to a woman, pleasure I never had. Now I’ve had it. I’ll confess a few mortal sins if need be if I have nights like this again. Just don’t shut me up to lay there listening to the servants talk of the night play they’ve had while I have no one to talk to, no one to love, no satisfaction. Just don’t leave me here alone with your mother harping at me about a grandchild when you haven’t touched me.” The image of his mother was enough to bring a snort to his lips. It wasn’t just any reason that he had made sure he was gone from the house often. “You aren’t going to hold that I thought I was...with another woman?” “I was rather insistent and a man once told me I have breasts that can only lead to bed. I’ll give you whatever you need just don’t make me a laughingstock with everyone I know.” Ilaria’s chuckle was that of a woman far older. Far more experienced. Her grin was his undoing. “You keep staring at my lips. Is there something you want me to do with them perhaps?” He only handed over a pillow to put under her knees. Her lips touched him and she grew bolder at the sigh that escaped him. “Tell me what to do.” “Take it in your mouth like you were taking it below in and out. That’s all there is to it.” Apprehensive as she looked at the girth of it, Ilaria slowly slid her mouth around his length. She stopped when it hit the back of her throat but with no other instructions and trying not to choke, she relaxed and as she breathed in through her nose, she felt him slide farther down her throat. A strangled oath from the dragon made her pull back, only to find his hand 14

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tangled in her hair preventing her from moving. “For all that is holy in this world don’t stop. No woman has ever…” The words died as she forced herself to relax again. The groan had returned. Slowly she started to take him in and out, as he had said. As she grew used to the sensation of him in her mouth, her rhythm quickened. Each noise that came from his mouth moved her faster, made her suck harder. Impossibly she felt him growing larger in her mouth when he pulled her off him. “Get on your hands and knees. Now,” Fiorenzo growled. He put her on the bed and, from behind, guided himself inside, smiling at the gasp Ilaria made. He knew he was filling every bit of her in that position. “Maybe I would have married sooner if I knew I would get an insatiable little witch.” He growled in her ear as his hands splayed across her breasts. “Maybe I wouldn’t have gone around calling you old for so long if...” Her words died when his fingers found her black mound and delved into the curls. “You learn with age. It’s time you learned to appreciate your elders.” Gasping short breaths were all the answer he got. She had gotten him so close that the feel of her exploding with another orgasm drove him over the edge. Even after he pulled out, his fingers kept working and Ilaria lay there twitching at each pass of his fingers against the sensitive skin. Each pass sent a sparkle of pleasure through her body more exquisite than she had ever imagined. Then she just lay there. Opening her eyes slowly, she found Fiorenzo staring at her with a faint smile on his lips. Even without the mask, it was a dragon grinning back at her. “So I suppose, wife, you need me to keep going until dawn. That was the wager you made, wasn’t it?” “No, I don’t think I can move.” Even saying that was more of an effort than she felt she could make. “I don’t suppose you have more on your mind than seducing me. I can get sex anywhere. Though my father would never allow me to marry her, my mistress was a woman I could talk to. Affection can grow from these sweaty games if that is there.” “Then talk all you wish, my lord. I will listen. I have seen several things that could use changing in the household if you will listen to me as well.” He kissed her forehead gently. “Tomorrow, my little peacock. We can talk tomorrow. Get some sleep, you earned it.” He started chuckling as her eyes closed slowly. “Seducing your own husband. What will come next in this world?”

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About the Author

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya a few years back I traveled quite a bit and now I just wish I was. A lot of the places I've written about I've been to, a lot of them I haven't. Rafting on the Nile in Uganda, living in a Montana ghost town, African safaris, European youth hostels, the Black Hills of South Dakota all fill my scrapbooks. Now a daughter takes up most of those pages, but I still travel in my head every time I write.

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