Their Moment Frozen in Time (Preview)

Chapter One

“Now, make sure you dry off every last bit of that shellac,” Jep warned softly from behind Carly’s shoulder. She knew he was only standing so close out of concern for the glass plate in her hands and not because of the rose oil she’d rubbed into her messy brown ringlets that morning, but she hoped he noticed the sweet smell nonetheless. 

“It’s highly flammable—I know, I know. I do listen when you tell me things,” she teased, pushing away her disappointment as Jep stepped away to prepare the alcohol lamp.

“Safety is always worth the occasional reminder. A studio belonging to an old colleague of mine in New York City burned to the ground a month ago because of a mere slip of the finger, so you can never be too careful. You ready?” he asked.

Carly gave the nod for him to go ahead and lift the red glass cover from the lamp. The glow of the exposed flame brought more light into the room, where the shadows and dark corners were rarely exposed. 

Meticulously and methodically, she ran the plate over the flame, setting the shellac that covered the front. On the other side, the image of a beautiful, happy couple shone through: the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Kortright. 

Even with their stilted poses, Carly could see the love they had for each other in the groom’s confident hand around his new wife’s waist and the sparkle in Mrs. Kortright’s eye. She looked every inch a blushing bride in her white dress, done up in the new style to look exactly like Queen Victoria. 

Most brides they photographed at Jep’s studio made a habit of taking off their veils for the picture, but Mrs. Kortright had kept hers on, framing her face with delicate lace that cascaded down around her impossibly slim waist. 

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Carly murmured, almost to herself. 

“Everyone looks that stunning when they’re in love,” Jep added, assembling the dark background mat and frame for the plate. 

Holding her breath, enjoying the last few moments of being alone with Jep before the door was once more flung open and they’d be in the studio with the patiently waiting the Kortrights, Carly imagined that it was her in the photograph instead and Jep the bashful groom standing to the right. 

Her blue eyes would glitter with promise, hair tamed into a bun under a similar veil, and the freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks would be mercifully gone for the day. Jep would look so handsome in tails, a cane or top hat in the hand that wasn’t resting on her shoulder. His dark hair would be pushed back, revealing his sharp features and the soul-piercing eyes that made her knees go weak daily. 

“Not too bad. You did great work cleaning the plate; not a single speck of dust. I’m sure they’ll be pleased. Shall we? Carly?” Jep asked, pulling her from the daydream. 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure they’ll be very pleased.”

“Here, you give it to them. You did most of the developing yourself. Nicely done.”

With a quick breath, Jep blew out the lamp and the room was momentarily plunged into darkness before they stepped out into the light of the studio. 

“So? How do we look?” Mr. Kortright asked in a thick Belgian accent, jumping to his feet as soon as they emerged. 

“Like the descendants of royalty ready to continue on the dynasty!” Jep announced, waving his hands like a magician ready to present his magic. 

Knowing her place in the charade, Carly displayed the photograph with maximum pomp and circumstance. Together, she and Jep understood how to pull out all the stops and entertain their clients with theatricality and charm. 

“Oh, how perfect we look!” Mrs. Kortright gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in surprise. 

“You know, my wife’s great uncle was fourth in line for the French throne, but, well, you know how that all went,” Mr. Kortright whispered loudly.

“Frank! Stop gossiping about me when I’m right in front of you. Look at us! Who needs a portrait painted when you can get something as lifelike and beautiful as this?” 

“Paintings are for the ugly. That way the artist can fudge the truth and make double chins disappear so their ancestors will never know the hideousness of their predecessors,” Mr. Kortright said glibly. 

His wife hit his arm gently. “You are incorrigible, Frank. What will these fine people think of us? We’re trying to make friends in Missouri, not have everyone think we’re conceited.”

“I’m paying you a compliment! You’re so breathtakingly gorgeous that you need no tricks of the brush to hide behind.”

Mrs. Kortright melted, dissolving into a cacophony of unbridled oohs and sweet nothings that Mr. Kortright returned with full enthusiasm. Carly shot Jep a pointed look and he smirked back at her with a small shake of his head. She loved their little silent conversations and sometimes felt that they could read each other’s minds. 

“It’s true. I was just telling Carly that I think you’re likely the most handsome couple we’ve ever photographed here. Wasn’t I saying that?” Jep asked, nodding for her to go along with his white lie.

“He surely was. Gushing, really, as was I. Europe lost their most dazzling jewels when you two left,” Carly assured them. 

“Ah, I see you’ve learned the art of flattery, and mastered it at that! I suppose you have to in this business. Everyone’s getting their own cameras these days. My cousin in New Orleans just got a… what’s it called, Amelia? A Komako?”

“Kosmack,” Mrs. Kortright corrected her husband with utmost confidence.

“I think you mean the Kodak? Yes, photography has entered the realm of the amateur. I have one myself, but I prefer the collodion method over film. That being said, the Kodak makes it much easier to take photographs outside. We’re hardly on the brink of bankruptcy here, however. Those cameras are expensive, and it costs even more to have the film developed by the factory. If folks want their pictures done right, I have confidence that they’ll keep coming to Jep’s Daguerreian Parlor for many a year,” Jep declared assuredly.

Mr. Kortright nodded his head gravely. “Yes, the world is changing quickly these days. Nothing is how it looked in our parents’ days. As long as we keep on our toes and move with shifting tides, we’ll find a way. Won’t we, my dear? I can assure you, Mr. Jep Laxon, that we will recommend your studio to the entirety of Kansas City.”

“We greatly appreciate your business.” 

Carly could tell that Jep was growing weary of entertaining the jubilant Kortrights but was far too polite to make it obvious to anyone but herself. Luckily, the happy couple had plenty of other errands to run, so they were on their way, officially marking the worst part of Carly’s day: the end of it, when she had to go home and leave Jep for at least fourteen lonely hours. 

It wasn’t clear to her when exactly she’d fallen in love with him, but truth be told, it wasn’t long after she’d started working as his assistant three years earlier. At just twenty years old, and with no knowledge of photography or the industry, it wasn’t a job that she would have picked out for herself. Instead, it had picked her. Or rather, Jep had picked her. 

“Do you remember the day we met?” Carly asked, doing her best to extend their time together before making the trek home.

“Of course. You were walking past the shop with three different colored ribbons in your hair, all running down your back.”

“And you stopped me, saying that you simply had to take my photograph, ‘even though the moment could never be properly captured without color,’” she remembered with a smile, looking up at the shot from that very day hanging on the display wall near the front of the shop.

“I was right. It’s still a very nice picture, however, even without color. Somehow, you wormed your way into a job here just ten minutes after I’d taken your likeness. You can bring the photo home if you want. I’ve got newer ones I can put up,” Jep said dismissively, packing up his things for the day.

“No! I mean, it should stay here. I don’t have room for it at home anyway.” It disappointed Carly to think that Jep was prepared to part with her image so easily. 

Looking at it again, she wondered if she ought to take it home, after all. She looked so young in the photo, and she wanted Jep to think of her as a grown woman, not an immature girl. 

“Those Kortrights were quite the characters, weren’t they?” Jep laughed, changing the subject.

“They certainly were. They seem happy, and I can’t hold that against anyone.”

“Carlotta Radcliffe, as I live and breathe! You have a dreamy look in your eye, and you’re resisting the urge to mock others. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore. Has sentimentality overtaken you? Has earnestness wound its roots into your heart?” he teased. 

Carly blushed to hear his irresistible tenor give voice to her full name. She looked away bashfully, pinning her hat into her voluminous hair.

“It may come as a surprise to you, Jep, but I am a woman under all this, and sometimes… sometimes I think about finding… love.” She couldn’t look him in the eye as she spoke, but she was proud of herself for being so honest. 

In a surprising turn of events, Jep did not immediately ridicule her. When she worked up the bravery to look back at him, his gaze was turned toward the portrait wall, lingering on the spot where her picture hung with a far-off look in his bright green eyes. 

Her heart skipped a beat. 

“I can’t say I blame you. I think my own days of bachelorhood may be numbered. At least… I hope they might be.”

“Really?” Carly jumped in too quickly, her voice high with anticipation. 

“Maybe.”

He was silent for another moment that felt like days for Carly. Not wanting to let her chance go by, she swallowed hard, hoping it would keep the trembling out of her voice. 

“Is there anyone in particular… that you have in mind?” she asked. 

Having read enough novels to recognize when two people were on the brink of romance, excitement built in her heart. It was plain as day: he was staring at her photograph, trying to find the words to tell her that he loved her. She could so easily imagine him making the admission, it was almost as if it had already happened. 

He’d pulled her out of the crowd three years ago because of her stunning beauty and had been under her spell ever since. Why had he taken so long to come to this conclusion? Because he was unsure of her feelings, and now he couldn’t hold it in any longer! 

Jep took his time with the admission, taking three slow steps toward the portrait wall and lifting his hand to the photograph of Carly, with her long hair and infectious smile, a rarity in the many faces that dotted the display. 

Darting to the left at the last minute, Jep’s elegant and strong fingers, ones Carly had imagined intertwined with hers so many times over as she lay in bed trying to sleep, landed on a different photograph. It was the picture just to the left of hers, featuring a very different kind of woman. 

Carly’s heart sank and she cleared her throat, batting away the presumptive tears of happiness that had accumulated in the corners of her eyes. For possibly the first time ever, she was glad he wasn’t looking at her. 

The picture was in a small oval frame, too big for a locket but, honestly, too small to be hung on a wall. Jep stared at the worldly woman captured within, her wild hair loose and corset overly tightened (as far as Carly was concerned). Jep was obviously smitten by her and seemingly forgot Carly was behind him. She worked up her strength and numbed her spirit, stepping forward to look over his shoulder. 

“Is that the woman you’re going to marry?” she asked. 

Jep laughed coldly and quickly hung the photograph up again, as if it hurt his soul to look at it for too long. 

“Hardly. I should be so lucky. I have no idea where that woman is, truth be told. Somewhere in Colorado, last I heard. Anyway, you should head home. I don’t want your father thinking I’ve kept you so long you’re late for dinner. Come to think of it… there’s some paperwork I should tackle here before I leave.”

“Oh, I can wait!”

“No, no. I wouldn’t hear of it. Go home and get a good rest. The Hendersons are coming in tomorrow for a family portrait. All twelve of them,” Jep warned with a chuckle, dispelling any tension that had been lingering in the air. 

“Right,” Carly answered, giving a generous giggle to cover her hurt. “Have a good night.” She walked out of the shop quickly, the blood rushing in her ears louder than anything Jep might have said on her way out. 

The cool early evening air brought her some relief, though the sting of Jep’s unintended rejection still hurt badly. At least outside of the shop she could sigh loudly and be less ashamed of the tears slipping out of her eyes. 

Kansas City was not the small town it once was, and she could move around with relative anonymity. The closer she got to home, the more Carly could separate from the humiliation, almost to the point where she was laughing at herself. 

How could she ever have been so foolish as to presume that Jep would consider her worthy of marrying? She was his assistant, nothing more. Striking enough to take a photograph of but too odd-looking, too tall, too freckled to fall in love with. 

“Watch it, lady,” a newspaper boy shouted up as their shoulders bumped.

“Sorry,” Carly muttered, pushing past and reminding herself to pay a bit more attention to her surroundings. Around the corner from the apartment she lived in with her father and brother above a butcher’s shop, Carly stopped to get a hold of herself. 

In her mind’s eye, she pictured that she was back in the log cabin she grew up in, a half-day’s ride away, closer to the heart of Missouri. That cabin, humble though it had been, was where she’d spent her happiest days, contentedly setting up a home with her mother while her father traded and sold beaver pelts to the British and French. 

Tragedy after tragedy had dotted her adolescence, ending with the death of the fur trade that had forced them to move into the city to try to start a new life… one that didn’t include her mother. It felt incomplete, but Carly could always go back to those early memories of the cabin, with laundry drying by the fire, bread rising on the table, and her mother’s sweet voice reading out Bible stories while perfect snowflakes floated down outside. 

Once she’d centered herself again, Carly pressed cool fingers against her cheeks to calm their flush. Feeling ready, she turned the corner and forced herself to think about what she was going to make for dinner. 

Her father likely hadn’t eaten anything all day (the same could likely be said for her brother), which he’d surely complain about, despite the fact that he had all the time in the world to feed himself. After moving to Kansas City, he’d hoped to find work in sales or the like, but breaking in had proven more difficult than expected. 

Gambling, on the other hand, came very naturally to him. 

The butcher’s shop came into sight, bustling as ever with customers on their way home to feed their happy families. On the other side of the queue was the door to her apartment, drab and dearly in need of a paint job. 

To her surprise, there was someone quite unexpected walking out of it. 

Carly stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who it was. Benjamin Palmer. He was a rancher who used to be their closest neighbor back in their homesteading days. He’d never spoken much but tended to stare at Carly. She was pretty sure the only words he’d ever spoken to her were halting compliments about the baking her father forced her to deliver to him in exchange for the occasional side of beef. 

In time, he’d grown his business and moved to the city, which, as far as Carly was concerned, meant he could hardly call himself a rancher anymore. Sure, he dressed like one, but when was the last time he’d actually touched a cow that wasn’t in steak form on a plate? He managed several ranges, and thousands of cattle were branded with his initials, but Carly wasn’t as impressed by Benjamin’s wealth as her father was. 

Seeing Benjamin on her doorstep shrouded her with a serious sense of foreboding. He looked down the street in her direction, and Carly quickly slid herself up against the closest wall, looking away and hoping that he wouldn’t notice her. When she turned back a few seconds later, he was gone and the coast was clear. 

“What did Benjamin Palmer talk you into?” Carly asked as soon as she walked into their home’s makeshift parlor, which also served as their kitchen and general living area. Her father, the once venerable and charming Stuart Radcliffe, had become prone to manipulation in his old age, easily persuadable by other men he deemed successful. 

“Is your brother home?” Stuart called out from the bedroom. “Tell him to go out again and get some wine. Tonight, we celebrate!” 

“Celebrate? What are we celebrating?” her brother Wilbert asked, taking the words out of Carly’s mouth as he ascended the stairs behind her. 

Stuart bounded into the room with more energy than she’d seen him exhibit in years, his eyes sparkling with excitement. The foreboding in her stomach deepened, and she felt a bit like the father character in the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale: disappointed to hear her son had sold all their assets in exchange for a small bag of beans. 

What she had never predicted was that the asset in question would be her.
“Here, Wilbert, take three dollars and buy us the finest cut of… of anything the butcher downstairs has. We’ll have a dinner fit for kings tonight! I knew your beauty would be worth something someday, my dear Carlotta, and that day has finally arrived. Benjamin Palmer has asked for your hand in marriage!” Stuart announced.

Wilbert, though an adult himself, looked confused and caught between his older sister and domineering father. He took the money offered to him with an uncertain smile while both he and Carly noticed the much larger purse it had come from. 

Feeling the blood drain from her face, Carly reached for the wall to steady herself.

“Father. What have you done?” she asked breathlessly. 

“Look at her. She can hardly believe her luck! Well, my dear, I’m not the least bit surprised. You have great beauty and wit, I’ve always told you that. Of course you caught the attention of the wealthiest rancher this side of Texas! A tall and handsome one at that. I’ll wager Mayor Davis thought Mr. Palmer would take a liking to his daughter, but no. Oh no! He’s had his eye on you ever since you were a waifish girl, no matter the fact that your father is an all but ruined man. Take a moment to soak it all in. Our fortunes are about to change forever, thanks to you!” 

Stuart threw his arms around Carly, who stifled back a sob. Over her father’s shoulder, she caught the eye of her brother, who still seemed slightly unclear as to how he ought to react. Wilbert knew as well as Carly did that Benjamin’s affection for her was unsettling at best, wolfish at worst. Still, it was true that the Palmer fortune could change their lives forever, and Carly’s anger was no match for the pity she had for Stuart. 

“Oh, Father. What have you done? How much have you sold me away for?” she cried as Wilbert reached for the purse. Stuart snapped it behind his back, clearly unwilling to admit the full breadth of the deal he’d struck.

“Sold you? I’m granting you a life of luxury few in this land could ever hope for! Think of it. You’ll live in the third biggest house in the city. You’ll never have to clean another pot or swab a floor again,” Stuart insisted, backing away from his children.

“You are sorely mistaken. It will be a life of misery for me. I can allow that he’s handsome, but I need more than that in a husband! Benjamin can hardly hold a conversation for more than two sentences—”

“Because he’s the strong and silent type. You can’t hold that against a man,” her father interrupted defensively. “We can’t all have the gift of the gab like you. Like your mother.” 

Silence fell across the small room at the mention of the late Mrs. Radcliffe. It pained Carly even further to think that she would never have allowed her daughter to be betrothed to such a loathsome man, no matter how empty their pockets were.

“Need I remind you that you married for love, Father? I would ask that you grant me the same opportunity,” Carly begged.

“Yes, I married the daughter of a shoemaker, and look where it got me. In a shoebox apartment with more gambling debt that I can see over,” Stuart shot back, giving a glimpse at the sharp cruelty he could sometimes display. It was a curse and skill that he’d passed on to his daughter as well.

“Your gambling habits have nothing to do with Mama,” she spat through gritted teeth. “Just admit to yourself that her death brought out the worst in you and now you’re no more than a failed middleman who’s addicted to the idea of easy money. It doesn’t exist! I hope you enjoy the taste of compromise and the gout you’ll no doubt contract over too much whiskey and pork fat while I waste away in an ivory corset of despair and misery!”  

Stuart cowered at his daughter’s harsh words, but Wilbert (ever the peacekeeper) interrupted before he could stammer out a response. 

“Alright, let’s all calm down. Papa, you have to admit that Benjamin isn’t exactly the kind of man who would make a pleasant husband. He’s aloof and merciless. We’ve all heard the rumors about how he conducts business: with a cold heart. I can only speak for myself, and maybe I’m just being a protective younger brother, but I’ve never particularly liked the way he looks at Carly,” Wilbert said evenly. 

Carly shot him a silent “thank you,” extremely appreciative of her usually distant brother standing up for her.

“You’re still a boy, Wilbert. There’s so much you don’t understand,” Stuart dismissed. 

“I’m twenty years old, Papa. I haven’t been a boy for a while now, and I’m on the brink of becoming a real architect.”

“You’re a clerk making a clerk’s salary—”

“Which is more than what you’re making. Together, Carly and I are doing our best to keep this house in the black while you do your best to drive us all to debtor’s prison. You can’t swan in here and say that you’ve solved all our problems when really all you’ve done is sentence Carly to a lifetime of suffering. Now, let’s be reasonable. Give me the money from Benjamin. I’ll take it back to him in the morning and clarify that Carly won’t be marrying him,” Wilbert patiently explained. 

While Carly wasn’t usually the type to let others fight her battles for her, she could see that Wilbert was handling the situation with a grace her father might listen to. In her mind, he truly came of age that day. 

“I told you, there’s so much you don’t understand. This is none of your business, Wilbert. I’m the man of the house. If you must know… there’s more where this money came from. Benjamin has kindly offered to pay off all our debts if Carly marries him… and then some,” Stuart whispered as if the neighbors might hear. 

“Our debts? The debts are solely yours and you know it. I can’t believe how selfish you’re being. How long have you been planning to sell me to the highest bidder? Is that all I’ve ever been to you? An object? I’ve heard enough. You can try to talk sense into him, Wilbert, but I doubt he’ll hear a word you say above the jingling of gold in his ears.” 

With that, Carly stomped off to the attic room she was lucky enough to call her own. The sound of Wilbert trying to reason with Stuart faded in the distance and fully disappeared as she slammed the door behind her. 

Without needing to keep up her angry front, she dissolved into tears, sliding down the back of the door until she landed on the ground. In one short day, all her dreams had been dashed and replaced with despair. 

Learning that Jep was in love with someone else, some mysterious woman he barely even knew, was difficult enough. Dreaming of a life with him, imagining a day when he might look at her the way he looked at that photograph, had offered her a way to escape the doldrums of the ordinary. Now, that dream had been stolen from her, ripped from her heart as easily and quickly as if it was made of paper.

Without the comfort of her usual reverie, Carly was beside herself, finding it impossible to stop her own weeping. Of all the people her father could think to marry her off to, did it have to be Benjamin Palmer? There were plenty of young ladies who would throw themselves at his feet, but she retched at the thought of his leering stare. Something about his watery blue eyes seemed to look all the way through her like he wanted to eat her alive from the inside out.  

Carly wasn’t sure how many hours had gone by as she sat on the floor, crying over the ruin of the life she’d imagined for herself. Despite all the difficulties and change she’d endured, she was normally able to cling to an ounce of optimism, but she was discovering a limit to that positivity. There was only so much she could endure. 

Eventually, Wilbert came to knock on her door with a plate of food he’d persuaded the butcher’s wife to put together, doubtlessly with the help of some of Benjamin’s ill-begotten money. Carly opened the door for him but couldn’t bring herself to take the food.

“If that man had any part in paying for that, I can’t eat it.” She sighed, barely possessing the strength to speak.

“Come on. You have to eat something. How are you going to have the strength to argue with Papa anymore unless you do?” Wilbert asked, attempting a sensitive grin.

“I take that to mean you didn’t have any luck getting through to him?” Carly asked, feeling her despair deepen.

“No, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Mama wouldn’t want you to.” 

“That’s not fair. You can’t bring her into this.” 

“She’s in it already because she’s in you,” Wilbert assured her. “She’s looking down from heaven now, screaming at you to get it together and figure something out.” 

Carly had to admit that the image brightened her mood ever so slightly. Their mother, Imogen, had been a soft, docile woman, with hair just as curly as Carly’s but tinged with gold, giving the illusion of having a halo constantly around her head. If they ever came face to face with a coyote, however, it was a different story. Steam would come out of her ears, and she could muster up a growl loud enough to scare away the biggest grizzly bear. 

“She should be screaming at Papa, not me. He’s the one who’s come up with this maddening idea.”

“He’s a broken man. Life has had its way with him, but you still have the strength to resist. Trust me, there’s a way out of this. It just hasn’t… made itself apparent yet. Eat, and pray on it. Something will come up, but you need to be able to see it when it does.”

Shaking her head, Carly looked at her younger brother in wonder.

“When did you get to be so wise? Where did all this perspective come from?”

Wilbert smiled cockily, showing off his dimples, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I wish I could say it came from you, but that’s not true. I’m just making it up as I go along. Eat,” he insisted with a final push of the plate. 

A little more than halfway convinced, Carly took the plate and retreated into her room. She was able to choke down a bit of bread and cheese, and though she hated to admit it, Wilbert was right. It did make her feel a bit improved. The best part about eating was that it came along with post-meal fatigue, and she finally thought she might be able to escape into the bliss of sleep. 

Sure enough, sleepiness took over, and with it the freedom to slip back into her familiar fantasies. All thoughts of Benjamin dissolved, and Jep’s emerald green eyes reappeared, unencumbered by the bitterness of compromise. 

As she disappeared into the safety of sleep, she imagined waking up to another reality where she was Mrs. Jep Laxon, wife to a man who valued her talents, charm, and ability to make him laugh. Wife to a man she loved desperately, and who loved her back ten times over, no matter how much money was in their coffers.

---

“Their Moment Frozen in Time” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Carly Radcliffe has been in love with Jep Laxon since the day she walked past his studio and agreed to let him take her photograph. That very photograph led to her working as his assistant and spending blissful days collaborating with the man of her dreams. The only thing keeping them from riding off into the sunset together… is the fact that Jep has been in love with someone else for years, pining over a singer he saw perform only once, yet can never forget.

It’s hard to imagine her feelings for Jep ever diminishing, but will she be able to win his affections before he marries someone else?

When Jep tells Carly that he’s going to travel all the way to Colorado in the hopes of tracking down his singer, he’s happily surprised to hear that she wants to join him. What starts out as an expedition to track down his dream woman turns into a dangerous journey that has him questioning everything in his heart. Discovering that Carly’s father has betrothed her to a heartless businessman triggers a sense of protectiveness in Jep. Slowly but surely, he begins to question whether or not he sees her as just a friend and colleague… or something much, much more.

Two beautiful souls working to find what was right in front of them the whole time…

Carly goes through the painful process of helping Jep track down the singer he claims to be the love of his life, all while trying to avoid the bounty hunter her father’s sent after her. What will Jep discover when he meets the woman he’s been wanting all this time? Will their meeting break Carly’s heart into a million pieces, or will it perhaps be a revelation that shows them both what’s in their hearts?

“Their Moment Frozen in Time” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Get your copy from Amazon!