Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
Stella Rivers scoured the dense shrubbery like she'd been doing for the past hour as if the branches might somehow reach out and snatch her van off the mountain road. Ridiculous, but the isolation raked her nerves.
No sign of anyone around, even the person she was supposed to meet. She opened the notes on her phone, confirming for the fifth time that she'd arrived at the correct mile marker.
Easing to a stop, her gaze went to the rearview mirror to check the back. A silly instinct since she'd already left nine-month-old Hannah with her aunt. The empty car seat stoked her anxiety.
She'd told herself it wouldn't have been optimal to bring the baby to this client consult—the cold, the winding roads, the weather unsettled... or maybe that was her overprotectiveness winning out. Babies were resilient, her mentor Kip often insisted. Larger than their size would indicate.
She knew otherwise. The ache spiraled through her again, a gray, misty sadness that pinched the corners of her vision like incoming clouds. Not now.
There was no reason to worry about Hannah. Aunt Zoe was doubtless spoiling her rotten.
The wind rattled the pines that screened the hard Yosemite sunlight. Their pointy tops were not yet snow covered, but they might be in a matter of hours. A bird erupted with a scream from the canopy a millisecond before the ground began to bounce under her tires. The windshield rattled. She clung to the wheel. Another one?
She'd felt the first jolt when she'd stopped to change Hannah's diaper blowout before they'd reached Zoe's.
Abruptly, the shaking died away without a trace. She exhaled. Should she head out? Was it a precursor to a larger seismic event? Weird. Earthquakes were uncommon for this area of the Sierras.
She scanned the trees and jumped.
A man stood on the opposite side of the road, dressed in all black. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Where had he come from? Surely, way too young to be her client. The brim of a baseball cap hid his face, long blond hair touching his shoulders. She fumbled for the gears. His hand snaked into his pocket, long white fingers pulling out a cigarette as he ambled slowly away from her, smoke trailing in his wake.
Her breath came in harsh spurts. Clearly, no threat. A man out for a walk before the storm.
She must be unsettled by the quake, or tense at being separated from Hannah.
Sure, it was an out-of-the-way place to meet a client, but not unusual for her line of work. An arborist had to go where the trees were, and new arborists drove farther afield until they established themselves. Kip, who was now her boss, had forwarded her the number. "Guy saw our website and called asking for you. Job's yours if you want it. Otherwise, I'll farm it out to someone else."
Of course she wanted it. As a newbie, she had to prove to herself, and to him, that she could handle the legwork part of the biz, baby or not. She mentally replayed her phone conversation with the client, Matt Smith.
Want your opinion on a bunch of trees. Maples. They look real sick. If it's bark beetles, they'll have to come out, right?
She'd gently informed him that bark beetles snacked on coniferous trees, not maples. The native beetles had decimated millions of Sierra Nevada pines already stressed from years of drought, bringing Kip dozens of phone calls from anxious locals. "Beetles are my bread and butter," was his mantra. She'd arranged to meet Smith at Old Pine Road, Mile Marker 42.
With a storm system projected to land in the next few days, she'd rather have cuddled up with Hannah in their thimble-size apartment in Fresno, but a single mom with rent due couldn't be too choosy. She'd decided to make a trip of it. A small reward for surviving sleepless nights and long winter days, alone.
Matt had even offered to pay for her gas. What a blessing. She didn't take them for granted anymore. Her pregnancy had revealed how tenuous life could be, and what a divine gift she'd been given. Sweet and bittersweet.
A massive yawn teared her eyes. If she closed them she could almost hear Hannah's happy babbling, picture her strawberry hair, like her father, Von's. Pain pricked her chest.
...
