Gold Hill

Gold Hill

Denver Cereal, Volume
Seven

Also by
Claudia Hall Christian

THE DENVER CEREAL SERIAL
FICTION:

The Denver Cereal
Celia’s Puppies

Cascade

Cimarron

Black Forest

Fairplay

Gold Hill

ALEX THE FEY THRILLER
SERIES:

The Fey

Learning to
Stand

Who I am

Lean on Me

Gold Hill
(2/2013)

THE QUEEN OF
COOL

The Queen of
Cool

Seth and Ava
Mysteries

Tax Assassin

Gold Hill

Denver Cereal, Volume
Seven

Claudia Hall
Christian

Cook Street
Publishing
Denver, CO

Originally published at
DenverCereal.com :
January 2012 – September, 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
) 978-1-938057-09-0
(digital)

Library of Congress:
2013900613 (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 © January,
2013

Cook Street
Publishing
PO Box 18217

Denver, CO
80218

For
Love
.

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 her dream man, Jacob Marlowe. 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.

Continued on next
page.

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.

Fairplay, Denver Cereal,
Volume 7

Why is life so unfair?
Charlie’s question permeates the Denver Cereal as his mother
rejects her children to embrace her greed; Seth’s greatest love
falls to her death; Jill must fight to protect her own children
while her in-laws attempt to take Katy; Blane’s health
deteriorates; and a true love, broken by betrayal, reignites for
Tanesha. Through their individual losses, the friends and family
embrace the wealth and power available within their circle. In the
end, Charlie’s pursuit of life’s fairness carries the Denver Cereal
back into the grace and bounty of present life.

Confused? Download the
Denver Cereal, Volume 1 from Smashwords, iTunes, Amazon 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
Eighty-Eight
interview

One day later

Monday morning — 7:37 A.M.
MDT

“
We are not having this
conversation,” Sandy slammed the back door of their SUV.

“
But . . . ” Noelle scooted in from the
other side to sit next to Rachel’s car seat.

“
We want to know,” Sissy
moved to sit next to Charlie in the far back. “Why won’t you talk
about dinner?”

“
Because she’s pissed
off,” Nash slammed the door and sat next to Noelle.

“
Don’t say that word,
Nash,” Sandy said.

“
Which one?” Nash asked.
“Because?”

Sandy gave him a dark look
in the rearview mirror.

“
Two dollars in the jar,”
Noelle whispered.

“
Seat belts?” Sandy turned
around to check.

The kids held up their seat
belts to show they were fastened. Nash took the money out of his
pocket and tossed it toward the front seat. Shaking her head at
him, Sandy started the SUV and pulled out of the Castle
driveway.

“
I hate this car,” Sandy
said under her breath.

“
Is that why you’re mad?”
Nash asked.

“
I’m mad
because . . . ” Sandy turned right on
Seventeenth Avenue. Nash had the earliest stop and was their first
drop off at the Park Hill School. “. . . oh never
mind.”

“
She’s mad because Addy’s
dad is an asshole,” Charlie gave Nash two dollar bills and Nash
threw them in the front seat. “He brought up stuff.”

“
Stuff?” Noelle turned
around to look at him.

“
He interrogated me about
my past,” Sandy said. “He said Charlie couldn’t see Addy unless I
answered a few of his questions. He only asked so he could get
his . . . rocks off.”

Stopped at the light at
Josephine, Sandy dug in her purse and added a dollar to growing
pile of money.

“
What did Daddy do?”
Noelle asked.

“
Your
Dad . . . ” Sandy continued through the light.
“Sissy, you sure you don’t want me to drop you here at
East?”

“
No, I want to go with
everyone to drop off,” Sissy said. “I’ve never done it before
and . . . ”

“
Just wanted to check.”
Sandy drove past East High School.

“
Aden completely lost it,”
Charlie said.

“
Really?” Noelle’s eyes
were big. “I’ve only seen him do that at Nuala.”

“
That asshole
started . . . ”

“
Mom!” Noelle
said.

“
You keep track, honey,”
Sandy said.