Branded Sample Pack
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.
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
Memorial Poem
Memorial Poem
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
Food Copy
Food Copy
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
Sample Spreads
Sample Spreads
Sample Custom Copy
Sample Childrens Book
Sample Youth Fiction
Sports Writing
Sports Writing
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
Sports Writing
Sports Writing
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
Sports Writing
Wedding Poem
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.
This work is provided as a sample only and subject to copyright.