Romart/Womart?

"They'd arrest women, take them to jail and then promise them lenient treatment and lighter sentences if they'd slept with some politicians. from the state capitol." - Sentence fragment.

So this is in progress?

"The woman who was my best friend, my business partner and who'd saved my life more than once. Just months ago…after we'd jumped out of the window of that abandoned building after being ambushed by a sniper…she turned around and told me to go back in the damn building and get the evidence needed to clear my name before it was forever destroyed. But I saw pain on her face, heard a hitch in her voice that I recognized…I'd been shot before and then I saw the blood on her clothes…she'd taken a hit to the shoulder and didn't want me to know. She knew I'd rush her to the hospital and sacrifice my own freedom to save her. She'd told me that she'd loved me inside the building and I didn't know what to say to that…it just came out of the blue it seemed and we were both trying to figure out how to get out of there alive after losing Andrea. So I filed it away for later…maybe when things settled a bit I could figure out what to do with it…but when she nearly sacrificed her life for my freedom…to end my nightmare then what she said hit me like a truck." - Perhaps Chris can explain it to Houston with semaphore or a bullhorn. Maybe both for good measure.

Why is C.J. avoiding wine? Did I miss that snippet?

"Some of the dirtiness I felt couldn't be washed clean. I still felt Butz' hands all over me and his mouth…where it had touched mine. Nothing could possibly be so vile.

I didn't think I'd ever feel clean again." - That guy was seriously gross in the episode itself. Ick.

I forgot that she had threatened to resign in that third episode of the third season. Episodes 3, 4, and 5 were way too much trauma for one character.

The misogyny of the bad guys in this chapter is truly alarming.

They’re making out here? What’s the timeline again? How many months is the trial after the Bannon County nonsense?

Harrowing attack scene. – Butz was gross. The main thing that bothered me about this episode is how exploitative it was - especially to exploit the female lead like that. Uncool. It was bad but not as bad as when Hunter wanted Stepfanie Kramer's character to get raped a SECOND time. Raped for ratings...puh lease!

"I knew I had great instincts, been trained by the best in military intelligence." – Yet, cannot see that C.J. loves him – even after she told him a long time ago. Punk.

Slim? LOL - very obscure character

BTW - Are you ever going to tell the reader what "C.J." stands for? I speculated when young but I don't believe it was ever revealed. :)

"Nothing like her had shown up in any places or anything." - - Nothing? You mean No one?

"But I'd nearly driven myself to the nut house for a while there because I knew I could have saved him, if only I'd just known that death waited for my cousin just outside my view. If it hadn't been for C.J…well she'd pulled me out of it…and then kicked me to the curb. Leaving me to decide whether or not I wanted to live myself…told me later it was the toughest thing she ever did…chewing me out, ripping me a new one and I said things back to her…I couldn't ever take back…but when the dust settled I did find my way back and when she pulled me into her arms when I'd cried for the first time in years in front of someone…I felt at home again." – Did this scene happen in the show or did you make it up? Would have loved to see that fight!

You know, we almost never saw any courtroom followup scenes in the show and you’d think that would be a big part of Houston’s life with his private investigations and some illegal activity on his own part. Do you recall if we ever saw C.J. at work in her native environment (working as a lawyer in a courtroom)? I can’t recall. I'm glad you add these scenes.

What’s with steak dinners? Is it supposed to be a Texas-ey thing? It is mentioned frequently in the show too. LOL

Is it Romart or Womart? I’ve seen it spelled both ways.

“But when I saw Bunny, I knew I'd hit pay dirt. She wasn't some stray someone kicked out onto the street. If they did, the guy who messed her up was some rich dude who'd played with her and gotten tired trading her in for another girl. She had quality threads on, a fancy watch and looked like a woman who was going places. How she'd wound up here, I could only guess… a pretty looking thing like her didn't belong in Bannon County.” - - Obviously Butz is not too bright. My first inclination would be to assume that someone would be looking for a classy lady.

You make Butz even darker than I thought he was at the time. Scary stuff.

Houston kind of babies her in this story. I suppose it’s because it’s on the heels of her almost dying on him, correct?

Costanos should be Castanos: I was wondering when you were going to resurrect this guy. Most chilling episode of season 1 with an outstanding villainous performance by Chuck Connors.

""Nothing…this is a fucking setup," she said, "They do this to single woman all the time in these backwoods towns. Prey on them just to exhort our money out of us so we don't stay in jail."" - I’ve heard that this is actually true, and whoa! Language! LOL ; )

“I can't sleep at all and it has nothing with being in a strange bed inside a hotel in another place. I'm a man who travels on business all around the world so I'm used to that. No, this is about wanting to see someone so badly that I ache with it and my mind can't settle down for sleep.” - You’d think a detective would be a little more self-aware. Sigh.

I can only imagine the devastation a real-life C.J. would have felt if a real life Houston had gone to the altar with someone else after all they shared and her confession of love. Houston is an infuriating character at times - in the show and in your writing. I like him better in A Glimmer of Twilight, but he's still a numbskull.

Meant to ask this on the last chapter...

Am I to assume that you have the entire serious on video tape / dvd? I'd have to rewatch the episodes over and over to have the same clarity of the episodes that you do and to keep all those intricate plot lines straight.

?

"Why did all my girlfriends have a problem with my relationship with C.J.? " - Seriously? BECAUSE everyone but you knows that you’re in love with her. Hello.

"I mean the lady knew how to take care of herself and had survived jilted stalkers and gunshot wounds for god's sake." – Yes, but that’s what happens when resentful writers get a hold of your scripts.

"He sighed not liking that answer one bit. Yeah I know they're business partners going way back and best friends back even further but don't tell me that's all there is to it. I know that underneath it all they're hot for each other and when they finally realize that, someone in the office will be a few bucks richer after winning the betting pool." – Indeed! I could barely survive their unrequited love at the time. I think it may be the origin of my hatred of stories like that. ; )

Chris’s inner monologue cracked me up!

"She was really something…vivacious, smart and cut a mean figure in her business suits. I'd wanted to see how she looked more casual so I'd invited her to go sailing this morning in the Santa Monica bay and then afterward, we headed to my place to change." – Shouldn’t he be sidling up to someone else in a business suit? : ( This kind of stuff in the show was so infuriating to a romantic like me. Why was he so blind? I know she wasn't - or else she could have lived a safe lawyer life instead of putting herself in the middle of his dangerous life and business all the time.

Lots of this dialogue sounds very familiar to me but it's been 25 years.

I always felt that the Caged episode was a largely unnecessary one and basically a recycled "Angels in Chains" episode of Charlie's Angels - but then again, Spelling was known for that. I had also read shortly after MH was cancelled that the writers of the show were irritated that Hensley had gotten involved with executive producer E. Duke Vincent and were writing her into overly harrowing or terrible plots, or just not including her in scenes and story lines like the two previous seasons. I think "Caged" was terrible and overly harrowing and melodramatic. Honestly, I think that episode was basically the death knell for the show. However, you have given the episode purpose in the "grand scheme of things" in A Glimmer of Twilight. I look forward to reading this version of the story to see if you can redeem it. BTW - if I had to pick a best episode of Season 3, it would be "Apostle of Death." It too, was overly harrowing for the female protagonist, but it had purpose and highlighted his caring for her in a major, overt way. Of course, the show ended horribly, and they never got together (the reader says resentfully), but I still think Apostle of Death was the gem of that season. (and Richard Lynch was always scary as s**t no matter what he played - very memorable)

Nice writing! Somehow you crawled inside Matt's brain - a good talent to have (being able to read a man's mind, that is)!

Nice details - looking forward to the next chapter.