Matt Murphy

Matthew Murphy Sample Writing Pack This pack is intended to provide samples of my writing for consideration of future work. Work in this pack is subject to copyright. Custom samples based on prompts are available for $6 per page, limit ten pages. I look forward to writing with you! Western Romance Sample Western Romance Sample Torch Torch Shiela hadn’t been the mail-order schoolmarm for more than two weeks before she’d learned what the men were like in the Broken Arrowhead Township. She’d learned which men were gentlemen (or at least, the closest thing thereto). She’d also learned which men might as well eat out of the pig trough with the rest of their kind. It took her much longer than that to make up her mind about the very small handful of men that seemed to straddle that line, and in the case of at least one man -- Maverick Wheeler -- she hadn’t made her mind up at all. The frontier seemed to be a place where her otherwise Eastern Sunday School values didn’t always provide each and every answer for such a complicated place. In fact, sometimes it seemed like someone drew a map to the wrong territory, when she tried to fit everyone into that set of guides. Didn’t wash. Men like Maverick didn’t make it any easier. He could be capable of such casual brutality when it suited him, but she had to admit that she was often grateful for such interventions. It was the pig-trough men -- who never seemed able to watch their mouths around ladies -- that he’d usually given a sort of civilizing lick or two. He’d definitely shot stonedead more than one murderin’ stranger, and a few horse thieves besides. His fists and his guns seemed to be a shadow-help to the law around here, or else that tool that helped the law keep its promises in some sideways manner. Calling Maverick himself a man of law (or even civilized) would have strained credulity by anyone’s standards. The man was wild, and seemed only to have a home where the temperature ran just a bit hotter, and where the fights ran more frequently, and with higher stakes. He frightened her sometimes, but what frightened her even more about him was her chronic cases of blushed cheeks when he’d get too close. She resented the man for being such a source of confusion. Resented him about as much as she was grateful to him for shootin’ that buffalo hunter who’d cornered her by the smith’s a late evening or so ago. That smelly hunter had torn her skirts in his hand and raised a knife to her throat in the other. Then all the sudden he was down on the ground with Maverick’s boot on his throat, bein’ told to calm himself. Would have done well to listen, as he was stone dead from Maverick’s pistol the second he grabbed that second skinning knife from his belt, pinned down as he was. She was replaying this moment in her mind (as she often did, temperature rising, every time) when the very same man’s voice interrupted her daydreams. “Miss Shiela, you seem offended somethin’ awful everytime I step on your shadow. Have I been rude in some way I hadn’t guessed, or do I smell too much like the trail upwind from you?” He had a faint grin as he said these things, and had the boldness to get close enough to slap as he did. Shiela did raise her hand to slap him, almost instinctively… but he raised his own and gently enfolded hers. She was taken completely off-guard by the gentleness with which he held her. She’d only ever seen those hands do harm to men, mostly very bad men. She hadn’t realized she’d assumed him incapable of such subtle touch. This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. Western Romance Sample Western Romance Sample Torch Torch He then gave the top of her hand a delicate kiss like he was doing his best impression of some slick southern gentleman, or a yankee blue-blood. She wanted to raise her other hand to slap him, but instead it grabbed his forearm in a clenched grip. Her decency felt like a curse, or a crucifixion out in this dusty place. Didn’t match her circumstances in the least. “You’re a hex on me, Maverick. What kind of man does the things you do?” her voice had a fire in it, like she’d never been so goddamned angry, but the fire wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the warmth trickling down below her waist. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean Miss Shiela.” “And you know I’m a widowed woman. Have you no decency?” she asked, suddenly breathing heavily. “I’ve got about as much decency as a man can afford to have out in these unforgiving parts. Served me well so far, that lukewarm supply of Christlike behaviors and such.” “Blasphemy too?” she asked, eyebrows doing everything they could to communicate rage she was no longer sure she felt. “The good Lord don’t mind my behavior, I reckon. And anyway, wherever he lived on this Earth wasn’t nothin’ like this place. Different rules.” This time, she did slap him. He seemed pleased, but in less of a wicked way than a surprisingly gentle and playful way. Something about his almost-smile made her feel that unthreatening disposition from him; this is where worse men would get rough, but he just seemed pleased to be noticed, even by her hand. “Ma’am, I’ll leave you be, if that’s what you want. But I reckon it ain’t. Women ain’t the only ones who can read a look, who can know a body starts movin’ differently around them. And I noticed you movin’ differently around me. Like you’re dancing to a quiet waltz, except you ain’t aimin’ for anyone to notice. Hopin’ they won’t, in fact.” “Damn you, Maverick!” she said, gripping his forearm now with both hands, about as tightly as she’d wished he was in her arms, were it not for her decency. “You’ll damn me or the good Lord will, I’m sure, but I’d square myself with all that for just one kiss.” he said. “Me, kiss a brute like you?” She asked incredulously. With outrage she absolutely did not feel. He continued, as if she hadn’t objected. “See, I noticed you too, but I reckon you ain’t noticed me noticin’. Maybe didn’t want to. But here we are, all the same.” “I notice you botherin’ me, is what I notice!” she said, but her eyes were getting softer. And the slight tears gathering under her eyelids seemed at least partly borne of release. “I don’t know what kind of man your husband was, but you’re here in this world and he ain’t. And I don’t know what kind of husband he would have been if he wished for you to keep your feelin’s buried with him like a bundle of roses what shouldn’t been plucked in the first place.” “He loved another woman…” she began to say, shocked that the words left her mouth “And I... do... not.” he said, eyes suddenly smoldering. And her shock was soon replaced by amazement and joy as he drew her close and began kissing her deeply. She was This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. Western Romance Sample Wedding Poem Torch not amazed, at all, about how deeply she was kissing him back. Her whole body was a torch now. Not just her blushing cheeks. This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. About Us Eulogy This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright. 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