The War Council

Ann Shepphird

Description

Ever wonder what it would be like to be able to hire the team from “Mission: Impossible” to solve your relationship woes? A young communications professor attempts to make that happen in “The War Council.”


After the love of her life leaves her for a job on the other side of the world, Professor Maggie McGrew is devastated. To Maggie, his leaving—and not taking her with him—was just not logical.


Instead of merely mourning the breakup, Maggie pours herself into the study of love. She comes up with the concept of a paramilitary-style relationship counseling service that she calls “The War Council,” because, as they say, all is fair in love and war. Maggie then enlists her friends and colleagues—from fellow professors to a university psychologist and the rugby coach—to serve in a variety of roles on the council.


Maggie’s best friend Kathy (the psychologist) hates everything about the War Council but reluctantly agrees to be a member. Kathy also wants to help Maggie get over the boyfriend that left so she uses some of Maggie’s own concepts to set her up with a new beau. When Maggie discovers the truth about the new man in her life and Kathy’s role in bringing them together and the ex-boyfriend suddenly returns, she learns that love is anything but logical.


In this humorous look at love—the first in the University Chronicles series—each of the main characters tells their version of the events that surround the creation of the War Council and the effect it had on their lives.

Sujets

• Romance
• Romance contemporaine
• Fiction
• Contemporary

Informations

• Publié par: 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781644502570
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table o f Contents
C hapter One
C hapter Two
Cha pter Three
Ch apter Four
Ch apter Five
C hapter Six
Cha pter Seven
Cha pter Eight
Ch apter Nine
C hapter Ten
Chap ter Eleven
Chap ter Twelve
Chapte r Thirteen
Chapte r Fourteen
Chapt er Fifteen
Chapt er Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapte r Eighteen
Chapte r Nineteen
Chap ter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Tw enty-Three
Chapter T wenty-Four
About the Author
Discov er More...





The War Council
University Chronicle s Book 1
Copyright © 2021 Ann Shepphird. All rights re served.


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This book is meant as a reference guide. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All brands, quotes, and cited work respectfully belong to the original rights holders and bear no affiliation to the authors or pu blisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 20 21941364
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-258-7
Audiobook ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-253-2
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-257-0


For the friends and family that make up my own personal wa r council.
Thank you for all your love an d support.


C hapter One
MAGGIE
O kay. Let’s get one thing straight—it’s not that I feel that I have to justify myself. Because I don’t. I just want you to understand how this all came about. Because, really, it was a logical decision. Ver y logical.
We’re talking about love here. Now many may argue that love is inherently illogical. “Sweet mystery of love” and all that crap. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to be illogical when it comes to our relationships. There are just so many signs out there that people are straining for some sort of logic. They turn to self-help books, therapists, relationship blogs, even Goop, for god’s sake. But, let’s face it—they’re all inherently i mpersonal.
So, we turn to our friends. How many hours have we spent listening to our friends’ relationship woes? How many hours have we spent pouring our hearts out to our friends about our own relationships? Hours. Many many hours. Many many friends. And yet, how good is the advice? I mean, really? How many times have you done something incredibly stupid just because a friend advised it? I have. I will admit it. Sometimes love makes us so crazy that we don’t know how to act—and so we act stupidly. That’s just my point.
But what if there was a way to face love logically? Armed with a plan that had at least a modicum of logic and reason? See, that’s the real problem. When we fall in love, we lose all sense of logic and reason. So where should we turn to receive advice that is logical and reasonable? To other lovesick puppies? Or to a team of experts whose sole purpose it is to be logical and reasonable when you’re not capable of either? To a therapist? Or to a group of specialists who don’t just listen to your problems but become actively involved in them with you? A professional council of experts who are paid to be on your side. I’m talking about a business. A desperately needed service. Are you followin g me here?
This idea, simple as it may seem, did not come about immediately. It evolved. But, once again, it just seemed so right.
Maybe it would help to give you a little background. I suppose my background should come first. Not that I run around talking about myself all the time. I don’t. Really. But it might clarify how I came to this idea. I was 30. There is something about turning 30 that forces a re-examination of one’s life. I mean, it’s the end of an era, right? Not that I really enjoyed my 20s. Most of it was the shits. Constantly growing, constantly changing, constantly figuring out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I’m still not sure I know. Do we ever know? But I had done a lot of examining. And most of my non-career examining had to do with relationships. It started the first time I fel l in love.
I fell in love—real love, real down-to-the-cellular-level love—for the first time somewhat later than most, I suppose. I was 25. Like I said, a little late. Maybe it’s better to go through it in your teens when your hormones make you an idiot anyway. Maybe it’s not. It was nice to be a little formed before the big fall because, let’s face it, love fucks us up majorly. We search for it so desperately, and yet when it hits—wow. I don’t think we ’re ready.
So anyway, I was 25 and swept off my feet. God, I hate that expression. Like I’m some Cinderella obsessive or something. I’m not. Still, the phrase fits. I’m not sure we ever feel the same as we do with that first love. It was amazing. Overwhelming. Liberating, really. I changed—or, at least, I felt like I changed. I began to believe in myself. I felt beautiful, sexy, intelligent—like I could do anything. Everything changed. Those feelings of being beautiful, sexy, and intelligent translated to how I carried myself, and it was like the world responded. I even got off my butt, went back to my graduate program, and go t my Ph.D.
The first year with Bill… Yeah, I know. Bill. Sucks, doesn’t it? But consider the alternatives: William, Willie, Billy—they all suck. Anyway, that first year was fabulous. Well, not always fabulous. Every month or so I would get a speech about how he wasn’t ready for marriage. Like I was? This kind of pissed me off. I was 25 years old—we were both 25—so who said I wanted to marry him? I do think it is rather egotistical—sexist, even—of men to think every woman wants to trap a man into marriage.
That’s why this idea of mine is really NOT gender specific. But we’ll get into t hat later.
Really, though, the first year was great. Mostly because I was really good at giving Bill space when he needed it. It was kind of natural. I’ve always been kind of a space nut myself. So, whenever I got the speech about marriage and space and whatever, I said, “Fine. Take all the space you want,” and he didn’t want the space, and everything was fine.
The problems started when Bill was about to get his degree. He was finishing his master’s in journalism, and I kind of knew he wouldn’t stay in Berkeley after he graduated, but I didn’t want to think about it. Unfortunately, he thought about it a lot. That was another speech I got. He was always saying how special we were together and how much he loved me, but that it couldn’t last because he was going to leave soon. He had big plans for his life, and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like love get in his way. I was okay with it. Sure. And, of course, I will admit that I was warned. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a shock when he actu ally left.
Bill got a job at a wire service in Tokyo, and I was destroyed. The thing is it’s not as if I wouldn’t have dropped everything to go with him. I would have. See, that’s how sick love makes us. I would have left everything I had built to follow him. But he didn’t want me. He said he loved me, but he had to do this on his own. I said I understood but really I didn’t.
I guess I just see things in very simple terms. Or I used to. I just think that if two people love each other, they should be together. Bill didn’t think it was that easy. His parents had divorced when he was young, and he thought that love led to marriage, which led to fights, which led to divorce. He didn’t want anything holding him back in his life, and unfortunately, he saw me as holding him back. More male ego if you ask me. Again, I never said that I wanted to marry him and strap him down with kids and a Volvo. I have never been the white picket-fence type. I just wanted to be with him. Simple. But, not for him. So, we were not to be. This is when I did those really stupid and embarrassing things. But we don’t need to go into them he re, do we?
Like I said, I was destroyed. I didn’t understand how someone could say they loved me more than anything else in the world, that we were special, that we had everything in common—and then leave. I did a lot of growing up. I sure wonder how teenagers get over a first love when I was heartbroken at 28 while finishing my dissertation. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure that I was beautiful, sexy, or intelligent. I thought he made me those things, and without him, I was nothing. I know— dumb, huh?
It was then that I started my analysis of relationships. And the phone calls began. And the emails and texts. My friends became sick of me. So, I moved to new friends. Then a therapist. I had to get things straight in my mind. How could this have happened? What did I do? What could I have done? More phone calls. More emails. More texts. But the answer was always the same. Nothing. I did nothing. I could d o nothing.
It was then I realized how much timing has to do with relationships. Bill didn’t leave because of me. He left because of him. He was selfish. He never even considered my feelings. I had nothing to do with his decision or his life. I then realized I could be beautiful, sexy, and intelligent