Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6

FAIRPLAY

Denver Cereal, Volume Six

Claudia Hall Christian

Cook Street Publishing
Denver, CO

Also by
Claudia Hall Christian

THE DENVER CEREAL SERIAL FICTION:

The Denver Cereal
Celia’s Puppies

Cascade

Cimarron

Black Forest

Fairplay

ALEX THE FEY THRILLER SERIES:

The Fey

Learning to Stand

Who I am

Lean on Me

THE QUEEN OF COOL

Originally published at DenverCereal.com
:
June 2011 – January 2012

copyright © Claudia Hall Christian

Licensed under the Creative Commons
License:

Attribution–NonCommercial–Share Alike 3.0

Smashwords Edition Licensing Notes:

Thank you for purchasing this ebook and
welcome to Denver Cereal! You are welcome to share it with your
friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for
non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete
original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to
Smashwords.com to discover other works by Claudia Hall
Christian.Thank you for your support

ISBN (
13 digits
) :
978-1-938057-03-8

Library of Congress:
2012911931 (print)

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

First edition © July, 2012

Cook Street Publishing
PO Box 18217

Denver, CO 80218

For
Michael Moore,
more formally known as my friend Michael.

A
uthor’s note

How many times have you wondered why life
isn’t fair? When Charlie first brought it up, my editor and I
wondered out loud if there was an answer to the question besides:
“Get over it. Life isn’t fair.”

Like Charlie, I went on a hunt for answers.
I asked people, why isn’t life fair? And found that most people
don’t have great answers to the question.

Why is it that life isn’t fair? What’s your
answer? Drop me an email or shout out on the Denver Cereal Facebook
page and let me know what you think.

Another fabulous cover by Brion Sausser.

In the meantime, enjoy the story. Fairplay
is a book of family strife and rejection, desperate sorrow, and
ultimately choice and love. But then again, Denver Cereal is always
a labor of love – romantic love, child and parent love, friend
love, love of community and work, love for elders and grandparents
and certainly love for you the reader.

Enjoy!

July, 2012

The Denver
Cereal

In the Denver Cereal, we meet Jillian Roper
when she pulls on her thigh high leather boots and crashes her
abusive ex-husband Trevor’s engagement party. At the party, she
meets the man of her dreams, Jacob Marlowe. Together, Jill and
Jacob begin a crash course through grave injury and illness, to
find love. Along the way, we meet Jacob’s movie star sister,
Valerie, and learn of her struggles to have her own dreams and
share a life with her husband Mike. Jill’s best friends, Sandy,
Heather, and Tanesha, begin new courses in their life that take
them to confront their greatest fears and deepest longings.

Celia’s Puppies, Denver
Cereal, Volume 2

Jacob and Valerie’s mother, Celia, had a
habit of helping lost people, called Celia’s Puppies. In this
second Volume of the Denver Cereal, Celia’s puppies come to the
forefront. We meet Jacob’s noble step-sister Honey, we learn more
about Jacob’s ‘cousin’ Blane, and, via Oprah Winfrey, Valerie
learns of Mike’s terrifying time away from her. Trevor and his
fiancé attempt to kidnap Jill’s daughter Katy and her best friend
Paddie at a holiday party. The fiancé all but kills Honey. She is
saved by her childhood sweetheart MJ and they reorient their lives
and love. Jill and Jacob dance around getting married and, in the
very end, they marry in a beautiful ceremony in the Castle
Chapel.

Cascade, Denver Cereal,
Volume 3

Peace comes to Denver Cereal, but demons
from the past refuse to stay in the past. We learn of Sandy’s
horrific childhood and her boyfriend Aden responds with violence.
His violent act ends with Sandy getting shot by her pedophile
father and Aden lands in jail. Jill, her mother, and father tell
the story that was never to be told and her family begins to heal.
With the help of Heather, now his wife, Blane confronts his past
loves and battles Hepatitis C. Beloved Delphie must confront a
demon from her past. When he arrives to kill her and everyone else,
he meets what he could never expect. Delphie’s family battles for
her. In the end, Delphie survives a life threatening stroke.

Cimarron, Denver Cereal,
Volume 4

In Cimarron, the characters of Denver Cereal
grapple with the consequences of their actions to restart their
lives. Aden heals and continues his jail sentence. Delphie has to
come to terms with almost dying to start her life again. Valerie
launches herself as a movie actress while Mike’s painting career
flourishes. Jill and Jacob face their first true relationship
challenge. Sandy holds everything together only to become gravely
ill herself. Her child, Rachel, is born 2 months early. They fight
their way through the problems to come together as a family. And
just in time! Six pairs of human remains under the Castle Chapel
draw everyone into a dark murder mystery.

Black Forest, Denver
Cereal, Volume 5

The Denver Cereal takes off into the wild,
action packed pursuit of the child killer, Saint Jude. Danger lurks
and evil’s host threatens to destroy the lives of those we live.
Friends are murdered and even with Jacob and Delphie’s abilities,
Saint Jude continues to rampage against the children of the city
and even tries to steal Rachel. When all hope is lost, the bond
between the women and children triumph over the serial killer and
the evil that drives him.

Confused? Download the Denver Cereal, Volume
1 from Smashwords or from our store at: CookStreetStore.com. You’ll
find all Denver Cereal books in every electronic format and
paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and your local
independent bookseller.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED and
FIFTY-SEVEN
Frappe

Saturday morning – 8:15 A.M.
Tucson, Arizona

“
Will you stop that?”
Charlie growled at Sissy.

Sissy’s foot touched her opposite ankle and
then tapped the floor in front in a ballet frappé. Her foot was a
blur as she repeated the movement over and over again. Nervous,
she’d been doing this for almost an hour. They were sitting in the
middle of the suite waiting for their mother to call. Noelle, Teddy
and Nash were already at the pool.

“
Sissy!” Charlie
yelled.

“
Fine,” Sissy said. She
began moving her foot from her ankle to side in the same rapid
motion.

“
Stop it,” Charlie grabbed
her leg.

“
Ow! Let me go!” Sissy
squealed. “You’re hurting me.”

She resumed the motion the moment he let go
of her leg.

“
Sissy!” Charlie
yelled.

“
Charlie!”

“
Hey! Hey!” Sandy came
into the sitting area. “What’s going on?”

“
She won’t stop doing
that!” Charlie yelled. “She’s driving me crazy!”

“
I have to practice!”
Sissy said. “I’m supposed do at least a hundred a day in every
direction and…”

“
You’re driving me crazy!”
Charlie yelled.

“
That’s a short trip,”
Sissy yelled.

For the first time since they’d come to live
with Sandy, the siblings were face to face screaming at each
other.

“
ENOUGH!” Aden
yelled.

Surprised, Sissy and Charlie looked at
Aden.

“
We’re all nervous today,”
Aden said. “We can’t take it out on each other.”

“
He started it!” Sissy
said.

“
Come on, Sissy, you know
those Frappés drive people crazy,” Sandy said.

“
Right!” Charlie sneered
at Sissy.

“
You’re not off the hook,
Charlie,” Sandy said. “You have your reading exam as soon as we get
back. Your high school placement depends on it.”

“
I would be studying but
she’s making me crazy!” Charlie yelled.

“
You were already crazy,
Mr. Short Bus,” Sissy yelled.

And they were off. Charlie hurled an insult
at Sissy. Sissy returned the favor. Like all siblings, they knew
each other’s vulnerable territory and launched laser targeted
verbal bombs. Rachel started crying at the top of her lungs in the
other room. Aden pointed toward the bedroom and Sandy nodded. He
left to take care of Rachel.

Sandy put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and
another on Sissy’s. Not speaking very loud, she said:

“
Please stop.”

Charlie clamped his mouth shut and Sissy
followed suit. They turned to look at their sister.

“
This is what she does,”
Sandy said. “She rejects us. It’s so wretchedly painful that we
take our pain out on each other.”

“
Oh Sandy,” Sissy threw
her arms around her sister. Charlie put his arms around the two of
them. The three siblings held each other for a few moments before
Sandy shifted back a bit.